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To the idiot who modded my original post that it means Borland is dying as a troll, you obviously didn't read the fucking article

It's been dying for a year and a half.

Paul Allen is the second largest shareholder of Microsoft. He own roughly 9% of the company. Additionally he still sits on the board of Microsoft. But he doesn't have anything to do with MS as he stopped working there. He stopped working there because he doesn't have to work. That frigging ship of his is right out of a fucking Bond movie.

Somewhat of off-topic, but did anyone else catch a mention of OpenBSD in a late issue of Forbes magazine? (Url is hnya).,
in the context of a young enterpreuner selling wifi access point / firewall combos, hoping to compete with Cisco? Granted OpenBSD was mentioned once [as opposed to a whole centerfold and a cover story they had on Linux several years ago], but it's still not bad for a mainstream publication.

Do you even have any idea of what I am talking about?

Look here Forbes to see the article.

They took stock which is not taxed as income thus avoiding paying income tax. And yes, stock is taxed but only when sold rather then when earned.

Power consumption increases proportionally with clock frequency and by the square of the voltage. Now, power is going through the roof as Intel achieves runaway clock rate gains.

Considering how hot my 2 gigahertz pentium gets, I am scared to think of how pretty soon, each household with a personal computer is going to need a nuclear-powerplant-style cooling tower in the backyard.

Just because you are wrong, it doesn't mean you are stupid.

It's good to see how the taste of their own medicine in cases such as the SCO litigation finally seems to lead IBM back to their initial stance of speaking out against software patents - from one of the world's largest patent holders, the obligation to "use or lose IP" as in trademark law is quite a remarkable one.

Ad hominem arguments are the mark of a feeble mind. Attack his arguments, or don't waste my time. And take note, this was discussed in many other media including Forbes and the the Chicago Tribune.

-ccm

many of the posts on this thread seem to stating this, in a nutshell: "yes this is a good thing but hey they are just trying to make more money through positive PR". really? if you choose to live in any degree of capitalist society you accept this. this is the best you can hope for.

as much as the /. crowd can't stand it, bill gates is extremelely philanthropic ...

"Forbes calculates that Gates has given 37% of his wealth--more than $28 billion--to charitable causes, largely via the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. (By contrast, add up the donations made by billionaires Warren Buffett, Paul Allen, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison and Steve Ballmer and you get about $2.55 billion--not even the equivalent of a decent tip on a $28-billion tab.)

(source: http://forbes.com/philanthropy/2004/10/04/cz_ec_10 04gates.html)

sure, he gets tax breaks, he gets PR .. but that does not dimish the good things that happen as a result of the cash.

If you put a quarter in the cup at mcdonalds each time you get a big Mac, chances are you're donating a larger fraction of your income to charity than Bill Gates does. Sure, it's better to donate something than nothing, but as the old saying goes, it's not what you give, it's what you sacrifice. The point of the comment was that Bill Gates can't make up for all the wrong he's done by giving away what is, to him, a pittance.

Not that I don't like a good rant, but let's run some numbers.
Assuming you eat 3 times a day at McDonalds, you end up giving 75 c a day, or less than $275 a year. Assuming you reached 49 years (as old as Bill Gates) despite your terrible dietary habits, and you started working at 20, you ended up donating less than $8000. Even if you're at poverty level, that is you make $9827/year, your total income over this period would be close to 285000 dollars; so you're giving about 2% of your total income. Bill Gates donated close to $27 billion, and has a net worth of about 47 billion, so that's about 36% of his net worth. Looks like Gates got you beat here too.

Just like they wanted their share of itunes on cells phones or file transfers, they probably wanted to charge every messages sent via "toothing".

Silly. Who do you think currently funding the US Gov't?

http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2005/03/11/ap1 878397.html

If China does crashes, guess who it will be taking with it? It will be worse than the 1997 Asian Crisis.

It is immensly more funny and interesting that Forbes.com fell for an April Fools joke from The Mac Observer :D

Also, is the best part of waking up really Folgers in your cup? Provide either a comprehensive proof of the above, or a definitive counter-example.

Here's Brookings saying that the first year cost of Worldcom and Enron was $35 billion dollars. And that doesn't include the billions that Enron screwed out of California and other states:

http://www.brookings.edu/comm/policybriefs/pb106.h tm

Forbes reports that Enron owed $67 billion dollars (Worldcom owed TWICE as much), and the creditors were going to get less than 20 cents on the dollar. Turns out that they only had $12 billion to pay them.

http://www.forbes.com/business/2003/07/11/cx_da_07 11topnews.html

Also, you seem to forget that many people lost their entire retirements. All of it. Lots of funds also had money invested in Enron. Wikipedia has a big list of them.

And you also forget that Andersen also went down because of Enron.

Some of the losses were because results were fraudulently overstated, making the stocks look better than they were. Investors lost their money when Worldcom overstated results by 11 billion dollars. These amounts don't show up in bankruptcy, because investors are not the same as creditors.

http://www.forbes.com/management/2005/03/15/cx_da_ 0315ebbersguilty.html

I don't think there's really any serious doubt in anyone's mind that the recent corporate scandals cost more than the world trade center attacks. With the articles above I've shown that Enron and Worldcom alone were over $100 billion dollars lost. People and companies screwed out of their money. When you say "shifting money around" you make it seem like it was just put in the wrong bucket. Not even close.

BTW, the $35 billion I referred to was not about the scandals, it was the damage to the World trade center and economic loss from the terrorist attacks.

Here's Brookings saying that the first year cost of Worldcom and Enron was $35 billion dollars. And that doesn't include the billions that Enron screwed out of California and other states:

http://www.brookings.edu/comm/policybriefs/pb106.h tm

Forbes reports that Enron owed $67 billion dollars (Worldcom owed TWICE as much), and the creditors were going to get less than 20 cents on the dollar. Turns out that they only had $12 billion to pay them.

http://www.forbes.com/business/2003/07/11/cx_da_07 11topnews.html

Also, you seem to forget that many people lost their entire retirements. All of it. Lots of funds also had money invested in Enron. Wikipedia has a big list of them.

And you also forget that Andersen also went down because of Enron.

Some of the losses were because results were fraudulently overstated, making the stocks look better than they were. Investors lost their money when Worldcom overstated results by 11 billion dollars. These amounts don't show up in bankruptcy, because investors are not the same as creditors.

http://www.forbes.com/management/2005/03/15/cx_da_ 0315ebbersguilty.html

I don't think there's really any serious doubt in anyone's mind that the recent corporate scandals cost more than the world trade center attacks. With the articles above I've shown that Enron and Worldcom alone were over $100 billion dollars lost. People and companies screwed out of their money. When you say "shifting money around" you make it seem like it was just put in the wrong bucket. Not even close.

BTW, the $35 billion I referred to was not about the scandals, it was the damage to the World trade center and economic loss from the terrorist attacks.

They don't. Some are for 5, some are for 8, and a couple (like Samsung) gurantee no dead pixels what so ever.

to the machines taking over...

http://www.forbes.com/technology/personaltech/2005 /03/24/cz_qh_0324numenta.html

After reading TFA I read the actual patent (well, what I could get from the legalese). And, from my (admittedly limited) understanding of IPv6, I couldn't see the issue. So I went to check the fine links in the FA.

Surprise, the name of the guy that came up with the original complaint sounded familiar.

So I did a Google on it, and found the article I remembered (he's mentioned somewhere close to the end).

Looks to me like a lot of FUD.

lucas is pushing it

Forgot to add the following infomrative link from a Forbes article to the parent post:

http://www.forbes.com/2002/03/18/0318digitaldist ri bution.html

A relevant quote from the article:

Film distribution is a huge and largely unseen component of the movie business. Currently, copies of movies are distributed in huge film cans by companies like Technicolor, a unit of Thomson Multimedia (nyse: TMS - news - people), or shipped around the country by studios using FedEx (nyse: FDX - news - people) or UPS (nyse: UPS - news - people). Technicolor processes about 3 billion feet of film each year and also oversees the process of shipping hundreds, if not thousands, of copies of a feature.

Producing, distributing and managing the huge inventory of print costs for an average feature film cost $3.7 million last year, according to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), accounting for about 12% of film marketing costs. With 482 films released last year, managing film prints was a $1.8 billion industry in the U.S. alone.

By converting to digital, the MPAA estimates it can cut that figure by 25%, or about $600,000 per feature, which for a big studio releasing 20 features a year could add up to $12 million in savings per year on U.S. releases



--
A smarter way to sell your home: LeapHomes.

I believe I read somewhere that the Supreme Court ruled it is ok to use a trademark as long as it is not associated with financial gain. Can't find the link right now but it had to do with how sites similar to the corporate hate sites got away with it.

blind mice.

Open Question for EDS:
How many of the top 500 supercomputers in the world run Windows?
How many of the top 5 supercomputers in the world run Linux?
Who can't scale?
http://www.forbes.com/home/enterprisetech/2005/03/ 15/cz_dl_0315linux.html
paraphrase: Approximately 60% of the top 500 Supercomputers run Linux.

"Meuer reckons Linux powers 301 of the 500 top machines, compared to 189 on Unix, two on FreeBSD, a Unix variant, and one on ... Windows"

As far as secure: Please give the dead horse a break.

Nope, no scalibility here. Actually, the scientist running the top500 projects has claimed (with some caveats) that by his count, 301 machines of the current top 500 run linux. Linux Rules Supercomputers

"Even so, Linux clearly is by far the top choice for high-performance computing. Meuer reckons Linux powers 301 of the 500 top machines, compared to 189 on Unix, two on FreeBSD, a Unix variant, and one on Microsoft's Windows."

Hot of the press, argue that bitch.
http://www.forbes.com/home/enterprisetech/2005/03/ 15/cz_dl_0315linux.html

is full of horsesh!t,

this is exactly what makes Linux so great, you can install & run Linux on anything from imbedded devices as small as wristwatchs & PDAs to IBMs Big Blue, Linux can scale just fine if Big Blue can run it..

http://www.forbes.com/home/enterprisetech/2005/03/ 15/cz_dl_0315linux.html

http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?News ID=3295

and secureing Linux is not a problem...

Forbes Supercomputing article

You really have to wonder about organisations like Agility Alliance when they claim that large enterprises should not use Linux...

Now, how much of the budget goes to the (albeit stupid) programs you mentioned?
(speaking of faith based initiatives, abstinence only education, and "my granpappy-ain't-no-monkey" stickers for textbooks from the grand parent post)

Bush has said that last year the government distributed$2 billion in grants to faith based organizations for social welfare purposes. His budget for the upcoming year includes $206 million for abstinence education, an increase of $39 million over last year! And the monkey stickers, that's a state issue; but you can be sure that some states have spent quite a lot of money on stickers that suggest creationism and evolution stand on the same level of scientific footing.

The point is that while its true that the government spends most of its money on Medicare and Social Security, Bush is also blowing ALOT of money on socially conservative programs. The $39 million increase in abstinence education this year would have been more than enough to keep these clearly worthwhile science programs going at NASA had it received those dollars instead. But no, we're going to spend it on programs that have a clear history of producing and disseminating false, misleading, and distorted information about reproductive health. There's your Bush science right there, people.

So, your 'hypothetical' $40K a year employee in the U.S. would be losing about 30% of his income to federal and state taxes, plus sales taxes on the remainder (going with your method of calculation here), bringing the total tax burden to a par with the British system. Except the American has to pay for his own health insurance, from a private company, who will provide much shittier service, almost guaranteed.

Oh, and the American doesn't get public transit, either.

Is it anything like this: http://www.forbes.com/2002/01/03/0103tentech.html.

I think the key phrase is "Apple said in an article shortly after the iTMS launch." Lots of Internet ventures take a while to recoup launch costs and hit the point where they start making money.

More to the point, Piper Jaffray has said that they expect the iTMS operating margin to hit 5% - 10% in 2006.

If 5% - 10% doesn't seem very high, keep in mind that Vivendi Universal ended last year with an operating margin of about negative three percent, and a common meme on Slashdot is that record companies have "obscene profit margins."

It's Wednesday, so you can answer honestly :-)

We had a similar problem last year with a guy claiming 283 "possible patent violations" in the linux kernel.

So when someone comes along and starts saying "It's a given that there are patent violations in linux -- I'm a lawyer (for the *cough* scientologists *cough*) so you should believe me -- I'm in Mensa so I should know", I think "3 strikes against him".

The thin-skinned Mensa defenders are more worried about me deflating their egos than what I originally posted on, which again shows both their priorities and their stupidity.

Kind of reminds me of how there are two types of women that I've dated - those who don't ask me if I think they're intelligent, and those who do.

Those who don't ask are okay with themselves. Those that do, I lie and say "Yes, you're intelligent" (it's a lie, because if they have to ask, they're self-selecting into the "not all that smart" group).

Mensa members are as insecure as the people buying into this guys FUD. To paraphrase Torvalds "There may be patent violations in the kernel. There may also be Mensa members who are not insecure about their "mental capabilities". The likelyhood is low enough that I'm not going to loose any sleep over either case."

BTW: Notice how most of the "Mensa defenders" are too chicken to post under a user name, never mind their real names ... another sign of insecurity ... they're afraid people will go - "You - Mensa? What a joke!"

Since it's not posted directly under you, you've probably missed where I said this:

This lawyer with very limited experience makes a statement that there are patent issues with the linux kernel, and doesn't back it up. You'd think he'd know that such a statement, w/o backing, might be actionable, if only because he's slandering everyone on the kernel development team. He's also contributing to the general level of FUD. If this statement were made by someone who wasn't posing as a "friend" of open source, we'd be all over his ass like a pair of cheap underwear on a $5 hooker.

Instead of pulling factoids out of thin air, let him SHOW that there's a single proven patent infringement in the kernel. He can't, any more than anyone else has been able to - that makes me question his honesty, his intelligence, and his motives.

It's not like the kernel source has been hidden away.

Back to your comment about patent violations in the kernel - the patent office admits that 1/3 of their patents are bad patents. Eventually, either some enterprising lawyer is going to find a way to collect damages from companies with deep pockets that knowingly file bogus patents, or software patents will be found to be a legal non-entity, and we'll see this sort of stupidity stop (shit - maybe I should patent that as a business method! :-)

Remember this? Another lawyer who claimed possible patent problems in linux:

"lead patent counsel" Daniel Ravicher, a 29-year-old lawyer in private practice who last year started a foundation that claims half of the patents in the United States are illegitimate.

Ravicher, who performed the patent analysis that turned up Linux's 283 possible patent violations, claims on his Web site that he has "extensive experience litigating, licensing, prosecuting and otherwise counseling clients with respect to patents." In fact, he has three years of experience as an associate at two law firms in New York and has never acted as lead counsel on any patent litigation.

Ravicher's online bio also claims that he "practiced law" at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, one of the country's most prestigious law firms. Actually, he spent eight weeks at Skadden as a summer intern while he was still attending law school.

As of 2004, he had pledged 37 % of his wealth. I don't think your math works out.

Forbes

Bill has not given, or pledged to give 100% of his wealth.

I doubt that the executives of OSS companies are very generous either. I don't see what this has to do with free versus proprietary software though. It is a question of whether it is generous or not to keep billions of dollars for yourself.

Don't believe everything you read - porn is an industry where they exaggerate the size of everything. Forbes has an old but good article about this.

Guess that money will have to come from somewhere...

Lexmark will be dead soon even if they had won this lawsuit.

According to Forbes, in 2003 Lexmark was 2nd in U.S. market share with 17.4%, and 4th (almost 3rd) globally with 13%.

Not quite "dead soon" unless their 2004 numbers really tank...

How about if you integrate over all tax burdens?

Yes, that's including all taxes. The total U.S. tax burdern as a percent of GDP ranks near the bottom of OECD nations.

is my idea not my property?

Banning software patents cuts both ways. It erases any built up patents large companies have amassed but it also strips any independent or small developer from the protection he needs when he implements his idea or algorithm.

The small company protecting its assets with a patent from a large company generally simply doesn't work in practice. Suppose you do have the funds for a court case, even then the other side (e.g. IBM) will probably have ten times as many patents your programs infringe on, so they'll countersue you if you don't want to settle.

Have a look at how they treated Sun this way in the eighties...

I just saw on the lunch news report that Steve Jobs was in fact announcing that itunes would be available in some Motorola cell phones.

In Malone's article, he only refers to his successful predictions. Thing is, he ran a a weekly column for a number of years, in which he made enough predictions that some of them were bound to be accurate. Here is a gem from May 1999: "But beware of the week after Labor Day. That's when Americans will come back to work and realize that, my God, Y2K is ninety days away. That's when the hoarding will begin. The ATMs will be drained and the loonies will head for the hills...Expensive millennial celebrations will be cancelled as one half of the country goes crazy and the other half hunkers down and holds its breath." True, he does predict the end of the internet bubble, but this is an obvious one, and he predicts its end several months early.

But Malone usually is not so explicit in his predictions. In a column entitled "Apple R.I.P." written shortly after a stock depression in 2000, found here, he says things like "Steve Jobs has put Apple again in a precarious position", but never outright says that Apple will fail. Of course, if it did fail, he would have taken credit for that prediction, but since it did not, no one can claim that he was wrong.

In recent years, most of Malone's predictions about technology are negative. In fact, he has revealed himself to be an anti-technologist. Earlier I mentioned his fear of technology causing widespread hysteria with regard to Y2K. In a column about his late 96 year old neighbor: "To Charlotte and the lost world she represented. May we someday find our way back." In a column about how microprocessors were inspired by war-produced technology: "We need to remember these facts because they remind us that technology is a two-edged sword; that even the chips in our kids' Gameboys bear the bloodstains of their birth." That's about as accurate as saying that the modern VW Beetle promotes the genocide of Jews.

So please take what this man says with a grain of salt.

In Malone's article, he only refers to his successful predictions. Thing is, he ran a a weekly column for a number of years, in which he made enough predictions that some of them were bound to be accurate. Here is a gem from May 1999: "But beware of the week after Labor Day. That's when Americans will come back to work and realize that, my God, Y2K is ninety days away. That's when the hoarding will begin. The ATMs will be drained and the loonies will head for the hills...Expensive millennial celebrations will be cancelled as one half of the country goes crazy and the other half hunkers down and holds its breath." True, he does predict the end of the internet bubble, but this is an obvious one, and he predicts its end several months early.

But Malone usually is not so explicit in his predictions. In a column entitled "Apple R.I.P." written shortly after a stock depression in 2000, found here, he says things like "Steve Jobs has put Apple again in a precarious position", but never outright says that Apple will fail. Of course, if it did fail, he would have taken credit for that prediction, but since it did not, no one can claim that he was wrong.

In recent years, most of Malone's predictions about technology are negative. In fact, he has revealed himself to be an anti-technologist. Earlier I mentioned his fear of technology causing widespread hysteria with regard to Y2K. In a column about his late 96 year old neighbor: "To Charlotte and the lost world she represented. May we someday find our way back." In a column about how microprocessors were inspired by war-produced technology: "We need to remember these facts because they remind us that technology is a two-edged sword; that even the chips in our kids' Gameboys bear the bloodstains of their birth." That's about as accurate as saying that the modern VW Beetle promotes the genocide of Jews.

So please take what this man says with a grain of salt.

On October 5, 2000, Mr. Malone predicted the end of Apple and the PC.

But with falling profits and plummeting stock, and having hastened the end of the desktop PC era, Steve Jobs has put Apple again in a precarious position.
http://www.forbes.com/columnists/2000/10/09/1005ma lone.html/

Microsoft may have a few years left too.

As the AC says:They arent interested in doing you any favors.

Thats not to say they arent bothered about you at all! Long term control of Middle east oil has been on the US/UK/WEurope Govet agenda for the past several decades. This manipulation is what keeps developed countries' economies running.( Your high paying job is because of this economy.) And thats what pulls Saudi per capita income from 25K$ in 1980 to 5K$ in 2000... and all the while Saudi princes buy bigger jets and build bigger palaces.

Countries who toe the Western Line like Saudi, Kuwait can get away with tyranny.Just for starters, Saudi women cant drive, vote, get decent jobs.. thats half the total population.For all its oil, Saudi has intense poverty.. with great discrimination between Shias/Sunnis. How bout giving them some Freedom fries ?
Bush kept bitching about how Saddam did not disarm for 15 years after Gulf war 1, yet Kuwait took no stpes to get closer to democracy in that time. Dosent THAT matter at all?

Please stop bitching about high oil prices. You're still a LONG way from not affording it. Think about the fact that people in Developing countries ,who earn 100$ a month(for example) pay SIMILAR prices in $ as the US/others for oil . For them, even the slightest increase means great difficulty. Difficulties brought upon by Western meddling in the Middle east.

ummm... according to this she has a BA in Medieval studies, but also a Masters from MIT's Sloan school and a Masters in Business from U of Maryland.

I think the more advanced degrees are the ones pertinent to her career at HP, AT&T and Lucent.

Given the recent tales of editorial misconduct do /. editors have anything to declare?

honda makes airplanes now too, business jets, and has plans for a very cheap (compared to the competition) personal jet. link

I would say one day we'll see a variety of privately manufactured space travelling vehicles,at least intra solar system/near space variety, and probably sooner than most folks think, if they can keep production of fuels up at a reasonable cost over the next several decades, along with just general manufacturing, seeing as how that is so closely tied to oil as well. That is going to be the largest technological challenge that we all face really, peak oil and what to do about it. Well, that's my opinion, put it that way. I think that there already exists enough tech right now to make a Model A generic rocket good enough for some limited space travel, just not a lot of call for it, but it's getting closer. You get dudes like branson combined with rutan and mass production and Q and A out of asia and combine all that sort of interest and you'll see private space travel, at least to limited short term orbital flights, probably within a couple of decades, maybe even sooner. That nut has been cracked, just needs oil to stabilise and more research on alternative fuels and on replacing oil "stuff" here on the ground with other forms of alternative enerrgy so that oil can be used for the more energy dense and expensive applications such as "flight" in general speaking terms.

i know its a joke but who knows ?, by the time Apple Corps has finished with them, while the iPod might not be deemed as a flop with the consumers , it could be deemed a very expensive mistake to the shareholders

Kawasaki has a column for Forbes called Art of the Start where he does Q&A about VC stuff. He seems to be mostly concentrated on his VC company, now.

He needs to talk to Bombardier about their Embrio project - a supercool motorcycle-like unicicle.