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I think IBM used SuSE instead of Redhat because IBM Global Services and SuSE have been partners for almost two years.

Maybe you should stop hmmmmm'ing about these great mysteries and start googling.

You raise a good question. Here's a link that might explain a little better than I can.

Your assumption is flawed, though. You seem to be assuming that only one process in the queue is runnable. We can't make that assumption that at any given time there's only one runnable process.

I believe you have a point about the worst case of the algorithm. That's not really relevant here, though. Consider the Quicksort algorithm. It has a nasty worst case - data that's already been sorted. As a matter of fact, the worst case is an O(n^2) and approaches the slowness that is the bubble sort. Despite this well-documented worst case, we say that quicksort is an O(n*log n) algorithm, which is a more typical case.

I believe the worst case of the Ingo scheduler is O(n). If only one process can be run, it indeed has to check n/2 processes on average, and therefore is O(n).

You raise a good question, and figuring out what order an algorithm is, is something I'm not particularly good at. Generally the average case is what matters, but I don't know how you determine what the average case is for the state of processes.

Anyone care to try to explain this? ;-)

"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."

Tolkien is dead. I'd like to think that his undead corpse would be polite enough not to care about legions of patent-violating halflings.

FYI, He is being tried under Norwegian law, nothing to do with the US DMCA. Look at This link. I know it is being appealed but this is the status now.

Naive? I'm naive? I haven't seen recent numbers from Microsoft in regards to the XBox but as of February of this year Microsoft was losing over 300 million on the XBox. And if you had actually read my comment, I made the point that MS didn't take these losses "just because" they could but rather because they had simply been unable to get the market penetration they had expected. Read an interview or two with someone from the XBox division and they'll talk about how they didn't expect to win this generation of consoles - which I find suspect. Honestly, who's naive?

First lets start with quotes. "There is a light at the end of the desktop tunnel,", Michael Tiemann, chief technology officer of Red Hat, "We have clearly seen a limited amount (of demand for desktop Linux) to date in the U.S.," Randy Groves, vice president at Dell "I would say that for the consumer market place, Windows probably continues to be the right product line," CEO Redhat. All this year they said it was ready and now a few deals happen and its not ready? Now suddenly IBM and Redhat volunteer to offer their opinions which we didnt ask for by the way. No one asked "Hey Redhat CEO, hey IBM, whats your opinions of Linux on the desktop?" And even if we did ask, do we need to be told its not ready? Linux isnt ready for the super computer so why isnt Redhat and IBM volunteering to admit "Linux just isnt ready for the super computer" Redhat and IBM are hypocrites, earlier this year they said Linux was ready. proof1 proof2 And now Redhat has changed their mind, they want to focus on the super computer now?

Oracle's PeopleSoft bid could mean trouble for users
IDG News Service 6/6/03

If Oracle Corp. succeeds in its bid to acquire PeopleSoft Inc., users are in for a rough transition, industry analysts said Friday. [...]

"Why has no-one been charged with a crime at all?"

They have. The RIAA and the Secret Service have teamed up on raids. Additionally, the government's "Operation Buccanneer" program went after music pirates, and got one.

"Is it that violations of copyright are not actually criminal acts but rather are civil matters to be disputed between the copyright holder and the unauthorized publisher?"

Not hardly. You're spreading incorrect information. Here's what the law says.

"Do not allow the RIAA to spread the idea that all P2P downloads are illegal."

Who told you that the RIAA is trying to spread the idea that all P2P downloads are illegal? Do you have a citation?

Please -- there are enough credible arguments for straightening out copyright laws; no need to resort to spreading FUD or just making shit up.

So what usually happens if a company keeps using licensed material after the license has been revoked? They get sued, are found guilty of using intellectual property without a proper license and punished.

And of course licenses are revokable (unlike some people here seem to believe). Even if the license is fully paid, it can still be revoked if you are found in breach of the contract. Hell, IBM is using a similar argument against SCO's Linux.

Some relevant quotes from Sun on Linux, wrt SCO's case

"Also, let me really clear about our Linux strategy. We don't have one. We don't at all. We do not believe that Linux plays a role on the server. Period."

"If you use Linux on the server, even if we sold the distribution to you, you are on your own."

"While they [IBM] have done a superb job of telling the world that Linux is the future, but sadly it may be true for them because they don't own an OS. We, on the other hand, have a safe, compelling and affordable product called Solaris that runs on Intel, Opteron and SPARC."

On Sun's relationship to SCO:

"Meanwhile, Sun hopes to capitalize on its strong contract relationship with SCO for the Solaris operating system to cherry pick IBM AIX customers worried by the revocation."

Also, it is interesting to note that Sun didn't pay SCO for rights to Unix, they paid for access to the source of some unnamed device drivers:

"They made a buy versus build decision (for Solaris x86 Platform Edition) to get access to a bunch of drivers for contemporary versions of Intel (Corp.) hardware,"

[sarcasm]Because, you know, SCO's Unix is just so well supported by hardware vendors![/sarcasm]

If access fees don't cover the cost of the backbone, then what does?

A significant percentage of the revenue comes from hosting fees. People pay for bandwidth to access content, and content providers pay for bandwidth to provide content. ISPs are getting money from both ends of the connection and still flirt with bankruptcy

When I spoke of access fees, I meant fees paid to connect to the Internet to retrieve content. I tend to think of bandwidth to servers as hosting fees. The destinction is important because while many people will pay to access content, few if any will pay to provide it without a means of recouping the expense; thus, the need for commercialization.

You could have an Internet where hosting content is free, but the cost of access will be astonomical by comparison to today's shared model.

Microsoft has adopted an extremely powerful public relations method, but it is a self-destructive one: Microsoft has declared that its software dies, regardless of how many users it has.

Linux, in contrast, offers software that lives forever, if an organization wants to support it. This makes a big difference to large organizations. There are many, many situations where a 350 MHz Pentium I computer running some data entry system is just fine, especially when it has been completely debugged and is giving no trouble.

When Microsoft enforces software death, those organizations must disturb something that is working well. As you can imagine, they are extremely reluctant to do so. The issue is often not money. The issue is often management capability. There is plenty of work to do without disturbing something that is working well.

From the IT World article:

"The cost of licensing Microsoft products and the lack of support for some of them, such as the NT operating system, which is still used widely in many city administrations, are among the chief reasons for the nine German cities to mull a switch from the U.S. software giant to providers of open-source products, he said." [My emphasis, of course.]

Not only do Microsoft's products regularly die, but Microsoft has a schedule of assisted suicide: Windows Desktop Product Life Cycle Support and Availability Policies for Businesses. Bill Gates has become the Dr. Jack Kevorkian of software. Mr. Gates has, for example, decreed the death of Windows 98, which is used by at least 50,000,000 people throughout the world.

P.S. Nice try on the sig. Those are for APPLICATIONS not Linux you dolt. Here is my new sig

31 Unpatched IE security holes
Server attacks stump Microsoft
Credit card theft feared in Windows flaw
Microsoft issues patch for "serious" XP hole
Windows flaw threatens PC services
Microsoft's Source Code Actions Speak Louder Than Words
Why I hate Microsoft
bsod_videowall
bsod_airport
License to plunder
Microsoft Media Player logs users' DVD picks
MS wanted to 'extend, embrace and extinguish' competition
Microsoft Palladium
Control with fine print
Microsoft WinXP Update spies on other PC software
Microsoft Windows: Insecure by Design
Microsoft software "riddled with vulnerabilities", trade body claims
Microsoft Issues Five New Security Warnings
Why Open Source Software / Free Software

#1 The NEO-SOCIALIST plan to take your freedom
Can you be a bit more specific? By providing Healthcare for everyone?

#2 Homeland Security obstructionist liberals
Worse, in the future it might obstruct you as well, imagine if all of the sudden the liberals get into power and use the same laws?

#3 US Goes to Iraq, liberates nation
Yes, I am sure people are happy that they are now at the brink of a three tiered civil and relgious war.

#4 Howard Deans plan to pacify terrorists
Got any more details? Sounds interresting.

#5 The effort to pay off Unions and cripple business
Because companies are always very concious about their employees the environment and possess and abundance of ethics. We don't need to stinking unions.

#6 Using information technology for propaganda
While the current Administration as well as the Republican party decided to go back to the good old days where typewriter ruled the world, as well as AM Radios.

#7 Treaty signing by the United States
Pretty much telling the world to go and pay more for the Oil they need because "We're the US".

#8 Human Shields knowingly commit treason
Surviving Human Shields going to be detained in Guantanmo Bay as "illegal combatants". "This is for our nations security" President Bush said in a brief press appearance before he went to his Ranch in Texas to relax for the weekend.

#9 Afghanistan success
Women are free again to wear the Burkha, no need to buy the latest fashion from the west. "Women are now truly liberated," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said during a press briefing, "they can now choose the colour of their garment freely.".

#10 Nelson Mandela is a liberal
The Whitehosue regretted to have met with Mr. Mandela several times over the past couple of years and calls it all a "big misunderstanding".

#11 Taliban implicated in U.S. massacre (9/11)
Unfortunatly the court documents had to be sealed for the countries protection, as Mrs. Rice pointed out during a brief Interview: "The details are just too shocking, we, as a responsible government, cannot allow people to be scared by the horrid truth that we have uncovered. Please, think of the children."

#12 Liberal censorship and shoutdowns
Brave Texas Rangers are trying to regain control of the Information Infrastructure and spread the truth to the masses. Dan Rather was seen briefly on Televison promising his full support to the Bush Administration to do "whatever it takes".

#13 US Military defends country for over 200 years
Mainly off shore, as we all know a war at home leaves a mess that not even Tide can get out.

#14 Illegal Aliens
Where spotted today cleaning up the washroom in a restaurant downtown NY on Broadway, news at 11.

#15 South Korea: Lucky to be free
"We wouldn't know what we would do without the US help. It is expensive to build a death zone between two countries and maintain all those mines." says Yoon Young-kwan, south Koreas Foreign Minister on a visit to Washington D.C. while eating at a Burger King near 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

#16 France: evil
Germany more evil, tries to dominate the world (again), US prepares to free the world once more.

#17 NPR's liberal slant
FoxNews is "fair and balanced". (We know because they say so).

#18 Forestry now banned profession
Ford Announces new SUV, twice the size of a Hummer, three times the horse power and a gas tank holding 200 Gallons. No MPG available at this time, but pre-order now, they will sell like hot-cakes.

#19 US cannot manufacture goods with all the regulations
But companies found out tha

I read in this article at IT World that SCO is now claiming that the XFS filesystem was improperly contributed to Linux. Does anyone else know about this? Did I miss their announcement targeting SGI? Are they next?

Bluetooth is like .NET, only it's the consumers who don't quite grasp the concept of this technology. Personally, I think BT will be an eventual failure because of slow adaptation rates in the market.

Here's an article covering some interesting points, even going as far as comparting BT to IrDA.

"For those users, SCO is offering an additional incentive. A single processor server license will jump to $1,399 after Oct. 15, Stowell said."

http://www.itworld.com/Man/2685/030805scolicensing /

A single processor server license will jump to $1,399 after Oct. 15, Stowell said. Pure humor. WTF is going on here? I mean, it's just PR to pump stock we all get that, but doesn't requesting outlandish sums of money put SCO at risk with regards to "extortion"?

They are. See for example this and this

I can see the reaction of some bean counters now:

"Freakin' Communist hippies! Yoga? Zen? I'll give you yoga and zen! I'm gonna send your jobs to India and China! You'll Yoga and Zen all you want!"

Corel is being buried alive, and at breakneck speed, by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and a former MS executive who, incidentally, also worked for the McKinsey consultancy firm which validated the post-MS investment strategic U-turn. Under the deal all Corel products would be privatized for a measly $30M. Corel shareholders - who've also pushed for Linux support long and hard - hope to canvass enough NO VOTES to scrap the deal but the raiders are tilting the rules in their favour.

It all went horribly wrong after the Linux powerhouse merger agreement between Corel and Inprise/Borland was derailed three years ago. We understand that Borland (in which MS had a shareholding stake) had valid reasons for pulling out under the agreed terms, but the combination would still have made perfect sense. Corel founder and CEO Mike Cowpland was soon ousted and CTO Derek Burney was named interim CEO. Conveniently soon afterwards Burney's half-acquintance, Microserf Tom Button, gave him a call and invited Burney for a visit at the MS campus and before we knew it, he had signed a $135M investment deal with MS, accompanied by an incredibly one-sided Alliance deal in which Corel had all the commitments and Microsoft basically none. In his debt of gratitude, Burney even promised not to sue MS over any anti-competitive tactics that MS "may" have used in their MS-Office offensives. Next Burney drew up a new strategy based on those commitments - again incidentally killing all Linux efforts and reducing emphasis on anything competing with Microsoft - and submitted his ideas for "validation" by McKinsey & Company, a consulting firm with strong culture of alumni networking.

Naturally, McKinsey also happens to have a long-standing and very intimate business relationship with Microsoft as consultants to their strategic planning. It should therefore be noted that Robert Uhlaner, the McKinsey executive partner who had been working as a consultant to Microsoft and who had "led the West Coast Corporate Finance & Strategy practice, supporting the firm's technology clients on strategy, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), alliances, and premerger planning", was given a top executive position at Microsoft in February 2003, in which his aim is to "increase strategic alignment between the Microsoft's finance and business groups". That pretty well sums up what happened to Corel between the Microsoft investment and disinvestment, in just 2½ years! Questions arise as to what involvement Mr. Uhlaner had, officially or unofficially, with the Microsoft-supportive strategic advice given to Corel in late 2000 and early 2001, or with Vector's friendly and private purchasing of the Corel shares Microsoft held, which happened almost immediately after his arrival to Microsoft.

From 2001 onwards Corel milked the increasingly-abandoned WordPerfect Office for revenue while toiling away on its dotNET descendant. Staff was getting laid off as a three-year turnaround plan was revealed to be centered on a dotNET-based enterprise system for massaging corporate data and delivering it in realtime to any type of devices through extensive use of XML and SVG graphics. Corel even bought SoftQuad and Micrografx t

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

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

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

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

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

no no no....it's a notebook ONLY available in Japan (since I don't think it was ever released here in the US or Europe).

Anyways, it has a small tiny tiny tiny tiny pump that moves the coolant (water + additives) thru VERY small tubing and dissipanting the heat energy from the back of the LCD screen. I thought it was Slashdotted. I know it was on Toms and [H]ardOCP

Lemme look for it....here: On [H]ardOCP and here: On IT World

Thank you. That is exactly what has happened at my company. My linux servers (which were soon going into production) are being formated with W2K as we speak.

Your boss is a dumbshit and you should have argued harder because:

• Never heard of Timeline vs. Microsoft ? This is a proven, decided case - where MS SQL developers have infringed by using software the received from Microsoft - not the unfounded assertions SCO is making.
• IBM, Oracle, Dell, CELF, and others are all going full speed ahead because they know it's nonsense.
• SCO's suit agains IBM is a contract dispute with IBM. Even if they win, it's a, (probably impossibly) long way to get from there to collecting the first penny from a Linux user. Since, as Novell states, SCO doesn't own the patents on UNIX, any offending code (IF there is any) can be written around.
• I was looking at the windows kernel and saw binary sequences identical to those in some of my programs. I'm suing Microsoft! They owe me a trillion dollars!. I'm going after all users of Microsoft products! They owe me 2 trillion dollars! What's your idiot boss going to do now? "Omigod, someones suing Microsoft".

Alphonse Bertillon advanced a system which would provide "unique" identification by taking measurements of various bones throughout the body. In 1903, two prisoners at the same facility were found to have almost identical Bertillion measurements, and the system was more or less scrapped. Modern facial recognition systems work in a matter similar to the Bertillion one, by comparing the ratio/measurement between various components of the face, like eyes, ears, nose, et cetera.

Sir Francis Galton's work regarding fingerprints superceded the Bertillion system, and even that has shown some weaknesses. Overall, biometrics do not appear to be as secure as one would expect to me.

Corel shareholders fight suspicious takeover deal

Corel is being buried alive, and at breakneck speed, by Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen and a former MS executive who, incidentally, also worked for the McKinsey consultancy firm which validated the post-MS investment strategic U-turn. Under the deal all Corel products would be privatized for a measly $30M. Corel shareholders - who've also pushed for Linux support long and hard - hope to canvass enough NO VOTES to scrap the deal but the raiders are tilting the rules in their favour.

It all went horribly wrong after the Linux powerhouse merger agreement between Corel and Inprise/Borland was derailed three years ago. We understand that Borland (in which MS had a shareholding stake) had valid reasons for pulling out under the agreed terms, but the combination would still have made perfect sense. Corel founder and CEO Mike Cowpland was soon ousted and CTO Derek Burney was named interim CEO. Conveniently soon afterwards Burney's half-acquintance, Microserf Tom Button, gave him a call and invited Burney for a visit at the MS campus and before we knew it, he had signed a $135M investment deal with MS, accompanied by an incredibly one-sided Alliance deal in which Corel had all the commitments and Microsoft basically none. In his debt of gratitude, Burney even promised not to sue MS over any anti-competitive tactics that MS "may" have used in their MS-Office offensives. Next Burney drew up a new strategy based on those commitments - again incidentally killing all Linux efforts and reducing emphasis on anything competing with Microsoft - and submitted his ideas for "validation" by McKinsey & Company, a consulting firm with strong culture of alumni networking.

From 2001 onwards Corel milked the increasingly-abandoned WordPerfect Office for revenue while toiling away on its dotNET descendant. Staff was getting laid off as a three-year turnaround plan was revealed to be centered on a dotNET-based enterprise system for massaging corporate data and delivering it in realtime to any type of devices through extensive use of XML and SVG graphics. Corel even bought SoftQuad and Micrografx to merge their technologies into the project codenamed Deepwhite. Great idea but with somewhat misguided execution.

In 2002 Corel managed to strike a few high-profile albeit limited OEM preload deals with the likes of Dell, HP and Sony. While Corel received little in terms of revenue from those deals, even that limited success must have come as a shock for Microsoft. "How dare those ingrate nobodies invade our holy turf!" could have been the likely reaction at Redmond. With the anti-trust spotlight under a friendly operator it was time for the final strike, and how better add insult to injury than by not just taking Corel out but actually keeping the corpse within the family!

In December 2002 the Paul Allen financed Vector Group, managed by a fo

it DID happen with AT&T

Microsoft illegally distributed code from TimeLine Inc in SQL Server.

I should have studied magnetics instead of IC processing.

dont worry you will have your day, there are alarming indications that the magnetic media is coming to an end as a concept, for one IBM sold its hard disk unit bet you that they have something big coming, and things like this (read the last paragraph).

personally I think that in the future you will buy a daily snapshot of the internet stored on a 1"x1"x1" cube instead of surfing, and you will only need a connection only for email and live events.

That doesn't mean that they necessarily have built in the ability to tap into arbitrary calls from their central offices.

The fact that the US government is funding carriers to implement the required changes to their networks to ALLOW wiretapping, makes it pretty clear that it can be difficult for cell phone companies to eavesdrop on calls if they didn't build it in in the first place.

Check out this for one article discussing this...

Quote:

Despite the somewhat torturous path CALEA has taken toward final implementation, it isn't supposed to be an unfunded mandate on carriers -- the U.S. Department of Justice is supposed to pay for some of the required upgrades out of a US$500 million fund.

Closed-source is a nasty can of worms. You have only the vendor's word as to what is in it. If they are incompetent or crooked you can get smacked from behind at any moment.

Bingo! Consider this - do you think if the judgement survives all the apeals, Microsoft will help the MS SQL licensees? And unlike SCO's empty claims, this has gone through the courts already...

The crew of that Tornado GR.4 belonging to 9 Squadron RAF Marham were known for their concientious attitude towards their work along with their great experience on Tornados.

Neither officer was reknowned for 'goofing-off' as they knew like any-other RAF crew that such behaviour leads to a court-martial in jig-time.

It is know that they were in the right place at the right time and it might also be worth pointing out that it is highly unlikely that they would deactivate the IFF when they knew that Rapier systems were deployed (You don't even know they are there till they fire).

The current status of this 'friendly-fire' incident according to both the US and UK is that it is under investigation. you may like to read this article on possible bugs in the Patriot system software.

One Opteron based supercomputer is being built by Cray. It will use up to 10,000 Opterons.

SGI is building Itanium supercomputers.

Both companies know a bit about such boxes. ;-)

While the parent that you responded to is a bit rude, he is (at least partly) correct. I have a Win2K Pro setup at home with two 4.2 GB drives. One of them is mounted as my C: and P: drives (the partition holding the P: drive is my page file), and the other is mounted as a directory under "Program Files" called "Games". It has no drive letter.

I don't know if this was possible in NT, but here is an article on how it's done in 2000 or XP.

To answer the question "is the DMCA a viable tool to ensure security?"

Here's an article from the BBC.

and here's a good presentation from toorcon.

and lastly, this is a good article from ITWorld.

The software DRM will soon be followed by a hardware implementation. With both the hardware and software DRM in place, non-military control of the Germans is possible if needed. If worse comes to worse, the White House can order Microsoft to use WPA to pull the plug on German computers. That will not be needed often because it will be possible to monitor general activities, and even the contents of specific documents, to effect smoother diplomatic solutions. In a tight spot, the desktop set's microphone activated to pick up conversations.

Audits by the Business Software Alliance can be used as a milder intermediate measure than pulling the plug and as a supliment to monitoring.

If it is true that Adobe is going to support the PC over the Mac in the future, does anyone else wonder if this is in relation to piracy issues that Adobe has had in past (they've had a lot of trouble with China)? Specifically, I wonder if they would be supporting the PC/Windows market because of the promised "increased security" of Palladium. However, I'm not sure if there is a larger amount of software piracy done with Mac software compared to PC/Windows software. My intstincts tell me that there is more piracy done with respect to PC/Windows.

10Gbps Ethernet already exists.

The problem is that the fastest hard drives on the market today are Ultra320 SCSI, which have a throughput of 320MB per sec... or about 2.5Gbps. Even that's theoretical, of course. And few people have an all Ultra320 datacenter.

Just pointing out that the cabling is hardly the bottleneck when you reach that kind of speed, even at the LAN level. I've seen so many people upgrade their switches to gigabit ethernet then scratch their heads wondering why the network is still slow... when the server in the closet hasn't been upgraded in 5 years. Storage will continue to be the bottleneck on the LAN for a long time to come.

• There are lots of documents on the Free Software Foundation site. Don't be put off if some of the documents are not terribly new; the ideas are still valid.
  
• This explanation of the (first version of) the Open Source Definition compares some licences.
  
• This is quite a nice, simple read.
  

Redhat provides a stable foundation for ISV to build upon. It sounds like BS I know, but when other distros offer something as consistant, then the ISV's will port to them too.

Funny that you should mention Oracle and other Linux distros because they just announced they would support UnitedLinux. Vendors DO support other stable and consistant linux distros, and Redhat has not "brainwashed" them. Don't talk smack about a company that does do good for the community.

Technology is useless in the hands of those that do not use it. The printing press would have been rather silly if it only ever produced letterhead.

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

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

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

... the trick is to just not open attachments from people I don't know.

This may not even be enough. From yesterday: Lovgate.C worm spreading across Internet. In case you're too lazy to click thru... the worm propogates by sending itself to the people in your address book, making the attached virus look innocent.

A high ranking executive at a Dell partner has said, on condition of anonymity, that Dell will likely ship an Opteron-based server manufactured by Newisys Inc. Both Newisys and Dell are based in Austin, Texas.

ExtremeMhz.com has released an article on how they designed and built a PC containing dual systems. One system is a supercooled Intel and the other is a water chilled AMD.

For years, you've been able to mix a PC and a SPARC in one case, and you can mix AS/400 and PC too. There are many advantages to this kind of configuration. But why would you want to mix a PC and a PC?

The dispute goes back to about 1999, when Microsoft asked the Washington court to affirm that under the terms of its licensing agreement with Timeline, Microsoft's customers and partners are entitled to sublicense Timeline's patented technology at no charge to develop their own applications.

Timeline offered the court a different interpretation of the license. It argued at the time that the agreement "clearly distinguishes between users of Microsoft products who may employ Timeline technology, and certain third party software developers to whom Microsoft may not sublicense."

The technology in question relates to the design and use of data marts and data warehouses and is protected by three U.S. patents, according to Timeline.

Last week's judgement confirms that Microsoft's right to sublicense Timeline's technology is "substantially limited," and means that some SQL Server users may be liable to pay Timeline for use of its technology, according to Timeline's Osenbaugh. The company didn't offer a clear estimate of how many users may be affected, saying only that it believes that "some" are.

Yeah, like the US Patent Office is really choosy about what they'll accept in the way of patents.

That's your personal preference and many windows users won't agree with you. However, I agree with you as I like Mac's multimedia myself.

Also, I would say that GIMP on Linux is a hell of a lot better than Microsoft's paint software. So if you are doing low-end graphic editing, Windows is not the best tool for the job. Oh, and that goes for high-end graphic editing, too. Photoshop is best done on a Mac.

To keep the topic, you should compare GIMP on Linux with Photoshop on Windows. Which is no different than Photoshop on Mac, BTW :)

Database work? Hmm... I could use Access, which sucks and doesn't scale well, or I could use MS-SQL, which costs a fortune, or I could use PostgreSQL or MySQL on a Linux box (or Mac) and not pay one cent. MySQL is faster and PostgreSQL is more robust. Once again, Windows is not the best tool for the job.

Neither MS Access nor MySQL are not RDBMS b/c of lacking of SQL standard and lacking of transactional support. Read it here more about RDBMS.

PostgreSQL works fine on both Linux and Windows (Cygwin). MacOS is not supported by PostgreSQL, at least officially.

Oh, are you talking about simple stuff, like web browsing, word processing, e-mail, etc.? Well, any platform would work fine for that kind of stuff, I guess, so Windows is at least a tool that can do the job, if not the tool.

Well, in average, a user have the least chance of any plugin/player or document format problem on Windows, next Mac, next Linux/x86, next othe Linuxen and Unixen.

Personally, I love Linux/PPC, next MacOSX, next Linux/86, next other Unixen, next Windows. But we talk about an average end-user, right?