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I wonder why there is no ferrari-like niche in the laptop world -- ultimate performance that makes a lot of sacrifices that most people wouldn't make. How hard would it be to slap this dual processor motherboard onto a 20" LCD screen, and add a few SCSI 2.5" drives in a raid? There are people who'd go for it, even though it would weigh 20 pounds.

(related link tadpole sparcbook)

Also today, Seagate launched a family of server-class 2.5" drives sporting 10k rpm and an Ultra320 SCSI or Fibre Channel interface. No details on Seagate's web site yet, though.

"The facility, named AMD Fab 36, will produce chips on 300 millimeter wafers and is expected to employ 1,000 people. Full volume production is scheduled for 2006, the Sunnyvale, California, company said."

Any serious SQL based piece of software...

You might feel it's not serious software, but SAP runs on MySQL, for example.

I'm not so sure about your stored procedure statement, either. If you're trying to develop batabase agnostic software, a reasonable approach is to avoid stored procedures. At least, until there's a widely implemented cross-database stored procedure language, that's a reasonable approach.

At the same time, though, it's often easier to just say "Sure, let's use MS SQL," go with the flow, and collect your check. It beats working on open software with pride while collecting unemployment. Part of some people's resistance to switching databases may have to do with their perceived investment in having people trained in a particular product (like MS Sql Server) and having relationships and support infrastructure in place.

It is a very interresting read. And a good one to pass on to the not-so-technically inclined. The reviewer had some problems with the new kernel but after posting to the LKML Linus and some other maintainers fixed the problems. (like to see Bill do this). Some of the performance improvements boggles the mind!

The AMD Opteron kicked same serious butt in these benchmarks.

It's not hip anymore, unless you work for a company that is still in the pre-dot-com-hype-cycle, but there used to be a time when putting an @ (at) sign in a name or a brand would create this e-internet feeling. corry even started the //dont abuse the at sign compaign somewhere in 2000.

During the rise of this @buse (atbuse?), a Dutch TV show for kids called z@ppelin started out. It's primary a TV show, but like any multi-channel-format thingy, they ought to have a website as well.

When they first aired their commercials with the URL in it, i felt sorry for all the kids. They url was z@ppelin.nl and I know most RFC's by heart so I //knew at-signs are not allowed in hostnames or domainnames. So typing in this URL would lead the kid towards a friendly IE page cannot be found. And even dad -who works as an IT consultant- couldnt solve it because they never teached him anything about open standards during his elite MCSE training of 4 days.

Or so I thought...

And then the commercial aired again. And again. And I started wondering, they are not that stupid at our national broadcast organisation. And then it hit me, the use the user:password@fullyqualifieddomainname trick; where the user is z, the password is empty which leads to user z @ host ppelin.nl.

So all usering logged in are the user Z and the domainname is ppelin.nl! Neat I thought, cool trick! (See for your self by going to //ppelin.nl)

Years passed... And then... Microsoft f*cked up again, a huge //hole -big enough to drive a truck through- showed up in Internet Exploiter. One can misuse the user:password@fqdn in a bad way. Microso~1 promissed there won't be any hotfixes during the month December 2003. So they ignored this bug. And they ignored... up to the point that banks took down their online service because of the risk of URL spoofing

So micoshaft //wrote an entry in their kbase, asking endusers ... to stop clicking on the blue underline things (we like to call them links) in the browser and type the full URL -including javascript!- in the browser. Well, that didnt do the trick Redmond!

Once their usability is a mousepointer department heared about this -days later- they decided there must be another way. Stop support of putting userid, password in a URL;

Microsoft will soon release a software update for IE that will end that browser's ability to accept Web URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) that hide the address of the Web page being displayed using the @ symbol. The update will remove a feature that is being exploited in scams that use spoof Web sites to harvest personal information from unsuspecting Internet users, Microsoft said in a note posted on its Web page Tuesday.

(source: //infoworld)

This will not only break the //HTTP standard (now that would be a primer) but also the hearts of thousends of young childeren trying to access http://www.z@ppelin.nl. And not seeing a cute site but a friendly IE page cannot be found error on a saterday morning. I can feel the pain..

The chart on the first page says that 2.6 supports read and write for NTFS. Is this really the case? Does anyone trust NTFS writing if it's in the kernel?

Binary file compatibility may not have been introduced until Mac Office 98, but Office 98 introduced features that were not present in Office 97. Office 2001 introduced features that were not present in Office 2000 and v.X introduced features not present in Office XP. Office 2004 is set to introduce features not present Office 2003. Typically features are available first on the mac version and then rolled into the next PC version.

Though one notable exception is the lack XMLcompatibility between to the 2 latest versions.

Last I saw this division (home entertainment) was hemorraging significant cash. Odds are they've lowered their losses, but the launch of Xbox 2 will undoubtably pick up the burnrate again. Maybe they won't throw away as much money on the roll-out and let word-of mouth do the work it should.

ASAIK the XBox is supposed to pave the way for homes to get all manner of services from Microsoft and partners, but I don't see much evidence of that. Game machines have been and continue to be boxes you play with until you get bored or the next best thing comes out and you relegate it to the garage, attic or eBay. If you're a typical obsessive gamer you sure aren't thinking about how wonderful this innovation can make your life by handling TV, email, web surfing, etc. for you. You'd rather be kicking ass.

Given that a windows desktop server can cost several thousands of dollars to buy software for, before you pay someone to actually install and configure it, are they saying it cost them several thousanddollars to get the linux server working?

Takes me less than a day to get a working, configured server linux server... (two if I download all the software).

Ongoing costs? Yes, they did have to read the manual for the linux software... But i'd have to read the manual for the Windows software if I wanted a non-default config.

As for the "case studies" I wonder how much it cost M$ to send someone out to walk them through the changeover? Might not have cost that customer, but It sure didn't come out of Bill's pocket!

Interesting Facts: Giga Research is a wholly owned subsidiary of Forrester Research, who changed their policy on paid-for product comparisons as a result of at least a similar study, if not the one touted in the advert.

In their defence (or perhaps not), Forrester did find that MP3s are good for the music industry...

Meta Group will say anything: (not that I don't like the idea, but wouldn't you try to "correct" a firm saying this about you?)
By 2006 or 2007 Linux will be running on 45% of new server
again on eeek (I notice that has a HP ad on it) er, eWeek - but I like the typo better :-)

IDC - well.... IDC: Microsoft breakup would benefit the industry and a quote from here
"IDC has also published research in the past that shows some companies replacing Unix systems with Linux can save twice as much as those that move from Unix to Windows".

not entirely true...

Based on this article even the latest M$Office on the Mac can't read all files from its WinDOS sibling.
Bottom line is, if you want to avoid a lock-in a.k.a. pay to view your own documents if you decide to stop using M$ Software, don't start using the 'new' M$Office in the first place.

my 2 cents

Maybe in your experience. But, my experience with installations of HP/UX, AIX, SunOS/Solaris in the largest entertainment companies based in SoCal and at least one of the largest Japanese electronic companies with offices in SoCal use GNU utils. In addition, others appear to disagree with you: "Most Unix systems today include many tools from the GNU project simply by default, even though they are not necessarily GNU systems!"

At least the GNU utilities made a uniformly bad implementation available across all platforms...

Bad enough to be used in the Open Source BSD distributions.

First, they did anything but lock it away. As I pointed out, Sun opened up Unix

Really?: " Proprietary versions of Unix were becoming popular in the corporate arena, and quite often these versions lacked source code (making them nearly unusable). Sun even distributed versions without C compilers! The personal computer was taking off, championed by proprietary software vendors Microsoft and IBM. If not for GNU, some argue, this disturbing trend of proprietary operating systems might have become the standard."

And NFS was an open spec from day one, and always available for licensing even to competitors on commercailly attractive terms

Affordable by developers like myself? Ha! Really, the wonder of it all. It's easy to be flippant about the "attractive terms" a license would be on a corporate budget, but we're talking about how individuals changed the Unix world by creating their own Open Source tools rather than something an individual couldn't afford. And, even if an individual Open Source developer could afford it, he'd be in the minority amongst his peers.

Sun opened up Unix, and was single handedly reponsible for proving that it was a viable alternative to the IBM and VAX machines that ruled in those days.

Sun was part of the Unix Wars, and didn't single-handedly do anything but make its own version of BSD proprietary. Yes, they did add functionality into their proprietary version which made it a top contender in the Unix Wars. As for NFS, Sun just doesn't know what to do in order to ingratiate themselves with Open Source developers and still maintain strict control over how people use their "Open" spec. But, clearly the market is dragging their asses out of the closet.

Sure, there are lots of Linux fan-boys who claim this, but it's simply not true.

At least one Unix vendor disagrees with you: "as most Linux kernel testing efforts have only been conducted over short periods of time, this series of tests provides us first-hand data and results of longer runs. The series of tests also provides data for heavy-stress workloads on Linux kernel components, as well as TCP, NFS, and other test components. The tests demonstrate that the Linux system is reliable and stable over long durations and can provide a robust, enterprise-level environment." And, other researchers disagree with you as well:"FreeBSD has by far the best performance of the BSDs and it comes close to Linux 2.6". Naturally, you can continue to believe that it's not true by disregarding the facts, but then you're simply operating on faith, not reason.

BSD's advantages

Maybe in your experience. But, my experience with installations of HP/UX, AIX, SunOS/Solaris in the largest entertainment companies based in SoCal and at least one of the largest Japanese electronic companies with offices in SoCal use GNU utils. In addition, others appear to disagree with you: "Most Unix systems today include many tools from the GNU project simply by default, even though they are not necessarily GNU systems!"

At least the GNU utilities made a uniformly bad implementation available across all platforms...

Bad enough to be used in the Open Source BSD distributions.

First, they did anything but lock it away. As I pointed out, Sun opened up Unix

Really?: " Proprietary versions of Unix were becoming popular in the corporate arena, and quite often these versions lacked source code (making them nearly unusable). Sun even distributed versions without C compilers! The personal computer was taking off, championed by proprietary software vendors Microsoft and IBM. If not for GNU, some argue, this disturbing trend of proprietary operating systems might have become the standard."

And NFS was an open spec from day one, and always available for licensing even to competitors on commercailly attractive terms

Affordable by developers like myself? Ha! Really, the wonder of it all. It's easy to be flippant about the "attractive terms" a license would be on a corporate budget, but we're talking about how individuals changed the Unix world by creating their own Open Source tools rather than something an individual couldn't afford. And, even if an individual Open Source developer could afford it, he'd be in the minority amongst his peers.

Sun opened up Unix, and was single handedly reponsible for proving that it was a viable alternative to the IBM and VAX machines that ruled in those days.

Sun was part of the Unix Wars, and didn't single-handedly do anything but make its own version of BSD proprietary. Yes, they did add functionality into their proprietary version which made it a top contender in the Unix Wars. As for NFS, Sun just doesn't know what to do in order to ingratiate themselves with Open Source developers and still maintain strict control over how people use their "Open" spec. But, clearly the market is dragging their asses out of the closet.

Sure, there are lots of Linux fan-boys who claim this, but it's simply not true.

At least one Unix vendor disagrees with you: "as most Linux kernel testing efforts have only been conducted over short periods of time, this series of tests provides us first-hand data and results of longer runs. The series of tests also provides data for heavy-stress workloads on Linux kernel components, as well as TCP, NFS, and other test components. The tests demonstrate that the Linux system is reliable and stable over long durations and can provide a robust, enterprise-level environment." And, other researchers disagree with you as well:"FreeBSD has by far the best performance of the BSDs and it comes close to Linux 2.6". Naturally, you can continue to believe that it's not true by disregarding the facts, but then you're simply operating on faith, not reason.

BSD's advantages

Linux : going from competing desktops to competing desktop initiatives...

USPS delivers a digital, signature-certified mail system

It is no where to be found in usps.gov anymore.

InfoWorld has a report that has some interesting info in it:

1) 'SCO hopes to make the license available in countries such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China by February 1, but is not yet certain which countries will be added, the spokesman said. "We're still doing a review of the legal rules of being able to offer this license in other countries," he said.'

2) 'Germany, however, will not be on the list because of a court order that prohibits SCO from "even talking about" its license, the spokesman said.'

3) 'One industry analyst firm is advising companies against purchasing SCO's license until the company settles lawsuits with IBM Corp. and Red Hat Inc. that related to its IP claims. "We don't feel that companies would be advised to pay any license fees until the actual decision of whether there is an infringement is settled in a court," said George Weiss, a vice president and research director in Gartner Inc.'s server group.'

According to InfoWorld, SCO is now claiming that in it's response to IBM interogatories, they have submitted no examples of copyright infrigement.

Blake Stowell is quoted as saying, "We've not introduced copyright infringement as part of our case with IBM. We've tried to make it clear that it's a contract issue."

Seems quite odd when a SCO press release from yesterday says exactly the opposite. Old Darl said this, "SCO is willing to enforce our copyright claims down to the end user level and in the coming days and weeks, we will make this evident in our actions."

What freakin planet are these guys from? I'm sorry, but I despise them like I despise neo-nazi, racists, thugs.

I'm sorry that I ever bought a Caldera product...

SCO also gave IBM some of the purported evidence the judge required them to divulge. Story today at InfoWorld.

EXAMPLE
EXAMPLE
EXAMPLE

Take a look at the money being paid to Carly, then tell me again why any American should even consider buying HP ever again when she makes comments like that. An American company is paying her vast ammounts of American dollars, but when the economy's in the shitter, she ships jobs overseas. Good job. And no, I'm not American.

The IBM Power 5 will have SMT (along with CMP)

with some very welcome additions, like the ability for thread proritization.
So a low priority thread won't (in the long run) have the same number of CPU resources as a high priority one.

And the ability to switch between SMT and single threaded execution on the fly

I always complain when I am on a tech support call with someone whose primary language is not American English. I may be an asshole for doing it but a number of customer complaints is what caused Dell to move jobs back from India.

Unless and until India starts playing by the same rules the US plays by, anything is fair in this battle.

Quote from Phil Schiller, VP worldwide product marketing Apple

A second part of this is we fundamentally think that an attempt to create an unbreakable system is foolish.

News in the mother tongue appears to be spreading!

Here are some links. See esp. the REST Wiki:
Adam Bosworth's Weblog: Learning to REST
Bitworking - The Well-Formed Web - REST
Debate foams over SOAP 1.2 - REST versus SOAP
How To Convert Rpc To Rest
http://www.xfront.com/ - REST Tutorial, XML et al - Roger Costello's site
ITworld.com - XML IN PRACTICE - XML, Web Services, and the REST Architecture
Mark Baker, Tech Curmudgeon - REST - Transport, transfer and coordination in HTTP
O'Reilly Network: REST vs. SOAP at Amazon [June 24, 2003]
Paul Prescod's REST Resources
Reliable delivery in HTTP - REST
REST A Web-Centric Approach to State Transition - Paul Prescod
REST could burst SOAP's bubble - Hoobler
REST Faq - Alternative to SOAP XML
REST SlideShow: Representational State Transfer: An Architectural Style for Distributed Hypermedia Interaction
REST wiki - Representational State Transfer - alternative to SOAP XML
rest-discuss Message 2330 - ROP vs RPC vs OOP pt 1
Roots of REST - SOAP Debate - Paul Prescod Yahoo! Groups : rest-discuss Messages :Message 1314 of 1646
Roy T. Fielding - REST Architect
Sean McGrath BLOG - REST proponent
W3C mailing-list search service on REST
Why you should not use RPC for GET
xml-dev - Re: [xml-dev] SOAP-RPC and REST and security
XML.com: In a Lather About Security - SOAP security vs REST security
Yahoo! Groups : rest-discuss Messages : 2371-2428 of 2428

The G5 spanks the Opteron in many of the non-gaming tests, except for the Photoshop tests.

Isn't photoshop the reason for buying a mac?

And what about all those announcements?

Microsoft asks Mac users, "How can we get your business?'

Merrill Lynch, whose technology group recently began coverage of Red Hat, noted in a research note last week that "open source and Mac adoption is still in infancy in the enterprise market." However, "we should see explosive growth in the years to come as corporations look to achieve cost savings within their IT departments."

Using IDC's own estimate for G5/OSX server shipments through 2007, as well as its internal data on OSX operating system attach rates and server pricing, Merrill reckons that the enterprise G5 market could be worth $529 million by 2007. "This represents a [compound annual growth rate] of 61 percent over the 5-year period from 2002-2007," the note said.

Japanese telco to aid Mac phone development

Mac, G5 systems move out enterprise's mainframe

New G5 chips, but no 64-bit OS X for at least two years (too late).

"We're saying that OSX/G5s will eat Unix," Gantz said.

Is Computer Associates contemplating dumping Windows?

If you have been following Microsoft attempts to hold onto counties, cities, states, governmental bodies, governments, corporations and people, you know the headlines have gone from talk to action.

The governments that are starting to move over tend to be mostly poorer countries, or ones with large, largely computer-free populaces. Brazil and China are good examples of this trend. In those places, OSX/G5 adoption has been picking up steam to the point that if a second world country told MS to take a hike, it would hardly rate a Slashdot story on a slow day. .

THE NATIONAL HEALTH Service is considering using the OSX operating system & G5s in a 2.3 billion deal that could affect as many as 800,000 PCs if a pilot is successful.

Nine German cities poised to adopt OSX/G5

Official: China to invest in OSX/G5-based software industry

The US Army has abandoned Windows and chosen OSX for a key component of its "Land Warrior" programme, according to a report in National Defense Magazine. The move, initially covering a personal computing and communications device termed the Commander's Digital Assistant (CDA), follows the failure of the previous attempt at such a device in trials in February of this year, and is part of a move to make the device simpler and less breakable.

According to program manager Lt Col Dave Gallop this is part of a broader move towards OSX/G5 by the US Army: "Evidence shows that OSX is more stable. We are moving in general to where the Army is going, to OSX/G5-based OS."

Sun Microsystems is the odd man out. It has an impressive array of powerful enemies: IBM, Microsoft, Intel, HP, Red Hat, Apple, Novell, and more. It has only a weakened Oracle as a friend, and Oracle too has made a "bet the company" move to OSX/G5. OSX/G5 threatens many of Sun's traditional products as sharply a

Hopefully the upcoming year will be as promising in the processor sector as 2003 was

Talking about the becoming year, what technologies that are still in study (or on test phase) you're expecting to become concrete on 2004 (not 2005, 2010 or "Stardate 45494" ;)

In the beginning of 2003 i heard about SiGe (ibm) and (150GHz transistors) but didn't see the impact of that technology already (besides some 20% improve on intel processors because of SiGe, that seens low for me).

It is quite interesting what they are doing with MySQL-Max with seems to be their enterprise solution. They teamed up with SAP DB, an open source database technology that SAP bought from Software AG to tease Oracle a bit. It is based on Adabas D a commercial database that has a "oracle compatibly mode" via ODBC.

It is quite interesting to see a mixture of SAP DB and MySQL united in MySQL-MAX. (Infoworld article)

No, the verdict was expected TODAY at 1 p.m. This was stated by chief judge Wenche Skjaeggestad (for some reason Slashdot seems to insist on replacing the correct letter with "ae") on the very last day of the trial. She also stated that she was somewhat surprised to have read in the papers that the verdict was expected in mid-January. Why the Norwegian press has stuck to this erroneous report I have no idea.

Foreign press seems to have gotten it right.

Some examples:

DVD Jon appeal ends: verdict before Xmas [11 Dec 2003]
Verdict in 'DVD Jon' appeal expected Dec. 22 [12 Dec 2003]

Down the road you will have people getting sued over "Hello, world!" applications. Let's face it, when a few lines of java-script to annoy people with pop-under advertisements can get a patent, and companies like like SBC are patenting an obvious use for image mapping and frames, what chance does an open source programmer have when some jerk out there will try to patent the use of a ; at the end of a line of code?

Sorry, I'm just too damned cynical today...

So, it does not necessarily forfeit their chance at a stable government, but it does risk forfeiting the open access and open communication needed to maintain a democracy or constitutional federal republic. Lastly, any DRM would create problems of sovereignity if internal government documents were freely available via backdoors and other tricks or where even the very file formats lived and died the marketing whim of a single supplier.

However, it would very much forfeit their chance at an independent IT sector.

Indeed. In fact, it sounds like they're not studying the technology, they're studying the management practices.

"They have been studying Linux extensively. Part of their study has been on how Linux has been able to maintain a high level of consistency in the kernel while groups around it maintain maximum flexibility," Enderle said.

It's doublefunny that "The newly formed division... will report to Senior Vice President Brian Valentine, the Redmond, Washington, company said."

That's Brian Valentine, of "Linux is the long-term threat against our core business. Never forget that!" and Our products just aren't engineered for security."

Best of luck with that.

Yeah! For real! I can't believe anyone would infringe on Microsoft's infringement

Sun is the "mystery licencee" who recently gave SCO a huge pile of cash last July. SCO is therefore leaving Sun alone.

what a tool! of course something as complex as an operating system is going to have some flaws - DUH!

to try and rub the collective nose of mac users in this flaw is just a show of pettiness but it's probably all he has time for between running windows patches and trying to figure out why windows patches are running themselves.

Wasn't it just this summer that SCO was on a world tour boasting about how PAM support was coming to OpenServer & Unixware? We should be aware already that they're not exactly the pinnacle of technology.

There were probably just Intel employees testing their new chipset. ;)

Well, well. Can you say Microsoft wants to have its cake and eat it too? A few weeks ago, it was the W3C no less that was coming to the rescue of Microsoft, yet today they apply for a patent that sounds just as ridiculous. It's time for this whole software patent mess to stop.

It seems that each and every day there is another movement to make copyright violation (a long-beat-to-death civil matter) a criminal offense.

I see you're upholding the long Slashdot tradition of presuming to lecture about something you don't understand yourself.

Google first! Or just watch the first 20 seconds of any DVD...

In both the US and EU, copyright infringement is criminal!

There is an exception which could get let SCO worm its way past the GPL. If IBM is found to have taken SCO owned material (remotely possible), and included it in Linux where SCO did not know that this material was included in Linux (doubtful in the extreme) and SCO took adequate remedial measures (laughable effort so far) then they could claim some kind of damages as long as they were not shipping Linux in any form (highly unconvincing effort). If Linux users continued to use the infringing code (extremely unlikely) then SCO could charge them. So if you add it up

(remotely possible + doubtful in the extreme + laughable effort so far+ highly unconvincing effort + extremely unlikely)

you are left with the amount of risk Linux users face based on the law. I am thinking SCO has about the same odds as being struck by an asteroid *based on the law*. However, they were last represented in court by Darl McBride's brother and, US senator for Utah, Orinn Hatches son, Brent Hatch of Hatch James and Dodge... the fix could be in...hmmmmmmmmmm.

... Microsoft is not retiring Win98 SE, only versions of Win98 prior to SE. See this.

Kevin Mack's Top 10 Linus SCO quotes (in reverse order):

[thanks to Dee-Ann LeBlanc for the link.]

10. Not About IP"None of the SCO accusations have anything to do with IP rights; they're all about contracts between IBM and SCO. All the IP rights blathering by SCO was just that -- blathering"

9. Custody Battle"SCO is claiming parenthood of that child and now wants to make money off the earnings of that child. Even though SCO has refused to undergo the technical equivalent of DNA testing, and even though my (and other people's) DNA is probably all over Linux."

8. Lottery

"we have to sadly decline taking business model advice from a company that seems to have squandered all its money (that it made off a Linux IPO, I might add, since there's a nice bit of irony there), and now seems to play the US legal system as a lottery."

7. Copyright Law"So . . . when he attacks the GPL as being somehow against 'financial gain', that notion that the GPL has of 'exchange of receipt of copyrighted works' is actually EXPLICITLY ENCODED in the US copyright law. It's not just a crazy idea that some lefty commie hippie dreamed up in a drug-induced stupor."

6. Raelians

"SCO is playing it like the Raelians [the organization backed by Clonaid's founder, known as Rael], saying, 'We'll show you proof in a few weeks, through an expert panel that we trust.' Let's see if there is any baby or not."

5. Jerry Springer"Quite frankly, I found it mostly interesting in a Jerry Springer kind of way. White trash battling it out in public, throwing chairs at each other. SCO crying about IBM's other women. ... Fairly entertaining"

4. Stealing Cars In Bright Daylight

"Do you steal a car in the bright daylight with a lot of people around? Or do you steal a car, go for a joyride at 4 am in the morning when there aren't a lot of people around. With open source, there is a lot of daylight. A lot of people looking at the code. You don't really go around and steal things."

3. Constitution and Marriage"If Darl McBride was in charge, he'd probably make marriage unconstitutional too, since clearly it de-emphasizes the commercial nature of normal human interaction, and probably is a major impediment to the commercial growth of prostitution"

2. Smoking"They are smoking crack."

And number one, according to Mack...

1. Please Grow Up"we find your references to a negotiating table somewhat confusing, since there doesn't seem to be anything to negotiate about. SCO has yet to show any infringing IP in the Open Source domain, but we wait with bated breath for when you will actually care to inform us about what you are blathering about."

What do you think? Join the Feedback to this item.

Kevin Mack's Top 10 Linus SCO quotes (in reverse order):

[thanks to Dee-Ann LeBlanc for the link.]

10. Not About IP"None of the SCO accusations have anything to do with IP rights; they're all about contracts between IBM and SCO. All the IP rights blathering by SCO was just that -- blathering"

9. Custody Battle"SCO is claiming parenthood of that child and now wants to make money off the earnings of that child. Even though SCO has refused to undergo the technical equivalent of DNA testing, and even though my (and other people's) DNA is probably all over Linux."

8. Lottery

"we have to sadly decline taking business model advice from a company that seems to have squandered all its money (that it made off a Linux IPO, I might add, since there's a nice bit of irony there), and now seems to play the US legal system as a lottery."

7. Copyright Law"So . . . when he attacks the GPL as being somehow against 'financial gain', that notion that the GPL has of 'exchange of receipt of copyrighted works' is actually EXPLICITLY ENCODED in the US copyright law. It's not just a crazy idea that some lefty commie hippie dreamed up in a drug-induced stupor."

6. Raelians

"SCO is playing it like the Raelians [the organization backed by Clonaid's founder, known as Rael], saying, 'We'll show you proof in a few weeks, through an expert panel that we trust.' Let's see if there is any baby or not."

5. Jerry Springer"Quite frankly, I found it mostly interesting in a Jerry Springer kind of way. White trash battling it out in public, throwing chairs at each other. SCO crying about IBM's other women. ... Fairly entertaining"

4. Stealing Cars In Bright Daylight

"Do you steal a car in the bright daylight with a lot of people around? Or do you steal a car, go for a joyride at 4 am in the morning when there aren't a lot of people around. With open source, there is a lot of daylight. A lot of people looking at the code. You don't really go around and steal things."

3. Constitution and Marriage"If Darl McBride was in charge, he'd probably make marriage unconstitutional too, since clearly it de-emphasizes the commercial nature of normal human interaction, and probably is a major impediment to the commercial growth of prostitution"

2. Smoking"They are smoking crack."

And number one, according to Mack...

1. Please Grow Up"we find your references to a negotiating table somewhat confusing, since there doesn't seem to be anything to negotiate about. SCO has yet to show any infringing IP in the Open Source domain, but we wait with bated breath for when you will actually care to inform us about what you are blathering about."

What do you think? Join the Feedback to this item.

"If Darl McBride was in charge, he'd probably make marriage unconstitutional too, since clearly it de-emphasizes the commercial nature of normal human interaction, and probably is a major impediment to the commercial growth of prostitution."

"I'm a big believer in copyrights," Torvalds wrote in an e-mail interview. "Of all the intellectual property (laws), copyright ... is the only one that is expressly designed so that individual people can (and do) get them without having scads of lawyers on their side."

"If Darl McBride was in charge, he'd probably make marriage unconstitutional too, since clearly it de-emphasizes the commercial nature of normal human interaction, and probably is a major impediment to the commercial growth of prostitution," he wrote.

From this article is one the best quotes from Linus yet:

I'm a big believer in copyrights," Torvalds wrote in an e-mail interview. "Of all the intellectual property (laws), copyright ... is the only one that is expressly designed so that individual people can (and do) get them without having scads of lawyers on their side."

"If Darl McBride was in charge, he'd probably make marriage unconstitutional too, since clearly it de-emphasizes the commercial nature of normal human interaction, and probably is a major impediment to the commercial growth of prostitution," he wrote.

Me too!

I'll support someone using Win95 or Win98, as long as they aren't connected to the net. After that the EULAs get too hairy for me, and I won't deal with them.

I would not recomend anything for a client that I would not do myself. If a cliend does not mind monthly wipe and reloads, they can have M$ connected to the internet. I hate building M$ boxes and don't do it for myslef. All the stupid "I agree" buttons, reboots and EULAs that give M$ Complete control of what's installed on your computer along with inspection rights, aka total spyware, and force DRM really are as bad as it gets.

What spyware in XP, are you talking about automated error reporting? Or perhaps automatic windows updates.

Actually, Microsoft itself is spyware, if you take your EULA at face value. Microsoft's Automatic Updater does not ask you, but demands that you take whatever is pushed and that your entire system is open to spying. They have used the media player to push this EULA and DRM in general to all versions of their software. DRM, which subjects every file copy to inspection of the file's "owner" is spyware by definition as all files must be checked before copy. Little things, like CPU unique identifiers and Media Player keeping lists of every song and movie you play are trivial parts of Microsoft's Next Generation. Other companies do the same thing as M$ does because DLL hell does not and can not prevent it. Microsoft has made huge holes to screw their users and everyone else has jumped right into the party. None really cares about the user's performance, stability or bandwith so all suffer in the gang bang that is your average Windoze computer on the internet.

What are the options for video teleconferencing between Windows and Linux? I use Linux at home, but my parents two states away are Windows users. We've been trying to use Gnomemeeting/Netmeeting for several months now with mixed sucess. It seems that most of the problems seem to be on the Netmeeting end, but with Microsoft retiring Netmeeting there's little hope to get this resolved and Netmeeting doesn't appear to be a viable choice for the future. Are there any other options out there?