Slashdot Mirror

<grouse>

Amen.

Every ./ user should be using bugmenot by now. And every person who whines about subscription required should be using and promoting bugmenot! I don't think there's anything wrong with the NYTimes asking for registration. I think it's wrong that you slackers are complaining about it, rather than showing them the futility of trying to gather information this way.

It's similar to people who protests against copyright laws, but aren't actively distributing copyrighted material. The only way to beat the system is to BREAK it. If you aren't being civily disobediant, you are supporting the law.

</grouse>

Finally, as regards the article itself:

But the politics surrounding open-source software do not always fit neatly into party categories. The people who work on software like the Linux operating system, the Apache Web server and others are an eclectic bunch of technologists. "You'll find gun nuts along with total lefties," Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, said in an e-mail message.

So the real point here is that support of open source has nothing to do with political ideology?

"It may be that the populist-versus-establishment dynamic plays out as Democrat versus Republican in this election," Mr. Weitzner said. "But the open-source movement is a populist phenomenon, enabled by the Internet, and not a partisan force in any traditional sense of politics."

So, the article says CLEARLY that open source is not a stricly republican or democrat favorite.

Eric Raymond, a leading open-source advocate, writing in his online "Jargon File," described the politics of the archetypal open-source programmer, whom he calls J. Random Hacker, as "vaguely liberal-moderate, except for the strong libertarian contingent, which rejects conventional left-right politics entirely."

And of course Libertarians are further right on the political line graph than republicans, and they are big supporters of OSS. So OSS views actually have NOTHING to do with your political party?

This story is pure and simple propoganda. The headline and opening paragraphs make it seem like republicans are against open source. It would be like saying Democrats are against gay marriage just because John Kerry is The reality is that politics, like OSS decisions are all about choice. In this case, one person chose their platform of choice. For example, This Repbulican introduced legislation in Texas which seeks to ensure that free/open-source software is given a level playing field when competing with proprietary products in state agencies There was a /. article about it a year ago, but damned if I can find it now.

That doesn't mean all republicans are pro OSS either. It just means that

OSS is prefered by everyone who gets to know it

the NYTimes is pro-Kerry

if you must read the Times, read the whole article.

Sometimes (pun intended) the reporting is good, but the headlines are rarely written by the reporters who know the story. Editors write headlines, and they write the headline that will get the most people to buy the paper. They slant them as per their personal choice and perception as to wh

Pat Volkerding doesn't usually move to the 'latest and greatest' kernel until it has proven that it is stable and usable. Think back to the troubles with the (then newly released) Linux kernels 2.4.1 through 2.4.15 (aka the "kernel of pain")

Need I say more?

...you can hear Francois too if you like :)

It's a good interview

Agreed, but how much of that "high-end Solaris" is under SCO license restrictions?

Great question. Probably some substantial part of it is covered, if Sun thought it was worth paying $100M for it over the years.

So here's a good question for people looking at Solaris: do you really want to be using a technology licenced from litigious bastards who might try to change the licencing terms, or sue end users at any point, and who believe that "contracts are something you use against partners"? Or would you rather have a nice Unix that's been extensively and expensively proved to be absolutely free of SCO code? The second looks much less risky to me.

Considering he didn't make Linux - just stole it from Santa and the Tooth Fairy?

Darl's going to turn around and claim that this is proof that the Linux Business models don't work.

Too late, he already did that

For those of you just tuning into this soap opera, here is a brief summary of the plot so far. Ken Brown, president of a Washington think tank called the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution has written a book claiming open source using GPL is a bad idea and that Linus Torvalds stole Linux from MINIX, which I wrote. Linus, the alleged stealer, responded. As the alleged stealee I also felt the need to respond. Now Ken Brown has reacted to my responses. I very much doubt that when he came to visit me, he was expecting me to (1) defend Linus in our interview and then (2) do it fairly publicly later.

I was planning to spend my Sunday afternoon doing something useful, but since Brown has directly challenged me in his posting cited above, I feel I should respond. I will do this in the form of commenting on his posting. His comments are set off typographically like this:

"Samizdat is a series of excerpts from an upcoming book on open source and operating systems that will be published later this year. AdTI did not publish Samizdat with the expectation that rabidly pro-Linux developers would embrace it."

I have to give credit where credit is due. Brown got that one completely right.

"The United States is the home of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, an internationally respected agency which contributes to the worldwide effort to protect and govern intellectual property."

***EVERY*** country has a patent office. The United States is not unique in this respect. Furthermore, many people think that patenting software is a terrible idea. The subject of software patents is a very controversial issue in Europe right now.

"The Samizdat report recommends that the U.S. government should invest $5 billion in research and development efforts that produce true open source products, such as BSD and MIT license-based open source. Government investment in open source development will accelerate innovation."

I can live with this. Professors are always on the lookout for new sources of research funding.

"The disturbing reality is that the hybrid source model depends heavily upon sponging talent from U.S. corporations and/or U.S. proprietary software. Much of this questionable borrowing is a) not in the best interest U.S. corporations ..."

Excuse me? A Finnish student writes some software (in Finland) that a lot of people like and he is accused on sponging off U.S. corporations? And last time I checked, quite a few U.S. Corporations, such as IBM, seemed quite happy with Linux. And a very large number of U.S. corporations seem to be using the (open source) Apache web server. And even if open source weren't in the best interest of U.S. corporations, where is it written that all activities everywhere in the world must be done with the interests of U.S. corporations as their primary goal?

"Linux is a leprosy; ..."

This statement is not grammatically, politically, or factually correct. Does he mean "Linus has Hansen's disease"? I hope not. But if he does, fortunately, it is highly treatable these days. If he means Linux is wasting away, the facts speak otherwise. If he means "Linux is very contagious" this is true, but a better wording could have been chosen.

"... and is having a deleterious effect on the U.S. IT industry because it is steadily depreciating the value of the software industry sector. Software is also embedded in hardware, chips, printers and even consumer electronics

...MSFT did themselves a favor looking at SAP and not Computer Associates!

Now LinuxWorld has an IBM add for their xServer! This is an intel-inside box! (There's even an official intelInside logo on the ad!) Clearly LinuxWorld is biased by accepting advertising from the original cause of the whole Wintel phenomenon - IBM! After all, you can't have PC-compatible without PC!

esr says:

``Anyone who believes a vendor is going to give away hardware under a contract that allows the customer to immediately strip off the software and repurpose it probably still hasn't faced the truth about the Tooth Fairy.''

You mean that he does exist and wrote Linux, together with Santa Claus?

As other posters have pointed out, the dual boot problem is not specific to Fedora, but for some mysterious reason everyone is insistent on picking on Fedora.

Much of it is factually wrong:
He doesn't even check his own system before claiming that Quanta and Abiword are not present. His evolution troll is so bad that the editor felt the need to add a note -- Correction: The author didn't look closely enough. Evolution has handled cryptographic signatures and message encryption correctly for a long while now.

Notice how almost all his "Fedora sucks" items are acually cribs about the component software! Like OO.o, gnome, evolution, and Gimp. If this idiot doesn't like these software how the f*** is it fedora's fault?!

His gnome troll is the worst of all. This is one piece of Free Software that dares to innovate on the desktop, and every release gets flamed to death by fools who have never used it at all. I won't bother with a point by point rebuttal, that's already been done in Open Letter to Nicholas Petreley - Crack Pipes for Everyone!.

The author is just trolling for publicity, just like our friend Ken Brown of the AdTI. What I don't understand is why /. falls for it.

Clearing Up Some Misconceptions

I would like to close by clearing up a few misconceptions and also correcting a couple of errors. First, I REALLY am not angry with Linus. HONEST. He's not angry with me either. I am not some kind of "sore loser" who feels he has been eclipsed by Linus. MINIX was only a kind of fun hobby for me. I am a professor. I teach and do research and write books and go to conferences and do things professors do. I like my job and my students and my university. If you want to get a masters there, see my home page for information. I wrote MINIX because I wanted my students to have hands-on experience playing with an operating system.

After AT&T forbade teaching from John Lions book, I decided to write a UNIX-like system for my students to play with. Since I had already written two books at this point, one on computer architecture and one on computer networks, it seemed reasonable to describe the system in a new book on operating systems, which is what I did. I was not trying to replace GNU/HURD or Berkeley UNIX. Heaven knows, I have said this enough times. I just wanted to show my students and other students how you could write a UNIX-like system using modern technology.

A lot of other people wanted a free production UNIX with lots of bells and whistles and wanted to convert MINIX into that. I was dragged along in the maelstrom for a while, but when Linux came along, I was actually relieved that I could go back to professoring. I never really applied for the position of King of the Hackers and didn't want the job when it was offered. Linus seems to be doing excellent work and I wish him much success in the future.

While writing MINIX was fun, I don't really regard it as the most important thing I have ever done. It was more of a distraction than anything else. The most important thing I have done is produce a number of incredibly good students, especially Ph.D. students. See my home page for the list. They have done great things. I am as proud as a mother hen. To the extent that Linus can be counted as my student, I'm proud of him, too. Professors like it when their students go on to greater glory. I have also written over 100 published research papers and 14 books which have been translated into about 20 languages. As a result I have become a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the ACM, and won numerous other awards. For me, these are the things that really count. If MINIX had become a big 'commercial' success I wouldn't have had the time to do all this academic stuff that I am actually more interested in.

Andy Tanenbaum is a hero.

Don't get it? Look here.

Linux Kernel Submission Process Revised and Tightened

slashdot has a cool new feature that can solve all of your problems in one simple step! Using a soon-to-be-patented technology called "Article Summaries", all of the information that would have helped you is easily available at your finger tips!

You may saying to yourself, "WOW! I would pay ten bucks for that!" Well, it turns out you can have this information for FREE! All you need to do is look directly below the headline of any story, and you will find this useful summary! Here is a free sample:

comforteagle writes "JBoss [link to the website for the company mentioned] head honcho Marc Fleury has laid down the law about Astroturfing in the aftermath of being accused of the practice without actually admitting it was done. 'Our visibility and success puts our customers and partners in a situation where you expect and demand that employees of JBoss Inc. hold themselves to that higher standard. Let's put the professional back in professional open source. "Astroturfing" is hereby banned at JBoss, starting with me.'" jg21 writes "After the Slashdotting of the whole issue, the wider community took up the theme. LinuxWorld's editor in chief took to task those who sought to "pollute the knowledge space," and then Richard Öberg and Cameron Purdy took up the theme with a call to raise the cyber-bar when it coms to integrity. Now JBoss's CEO has recanted: there will be no more fake posts from JBoss staffers, he says. Hmm, time will tell."

I can only hope this feature will avoid further confusion!

slashdot has a cool new feature that can solve all of your problems in one simple step! Using a soon-to-be-patented technology called "Article Summaries", all of the information that would have helped you is easily available at your finger tips!

You may saying to yourself, "WOW! I would pay ten bucks for that!" Well, it turns out you can have this information for FREE! All you need to do is look directly below the headline of any story, and you will find this useful summary! Here is a free sample:

comforteagle writes "JBoss [link to the website for the company mentioned] head honcho Marc Fleury has laid down the law about Astroturfing in the aftermath of being accused of the practice without actually admitting it was done. 'Our visibility and success puts our customers and partners in a situation where you expect and demand that employees of JBoss Inc. hold themselves to that higher standard. Let's put the professional back in professional open source. "Astroturfing" is hereby banned at JBoss, starting with me.'" jg21 writes "After the Slashdotting of the whole issue, the wider community took up the theme. LinuxWorld's editor in chief took to task those who sought to "pollute the knowledge space," and then Richard Öberg and Cameron Purdy took up the theme with a call to raise the cyber-bar when it coms to integrity. Now JBoss's CEO has recanted: there will be no more fake posts from JBoss staffers, he says. Hmm, time will tell."

I can only hope this feature will avoid further confusion!

it's here in full

... because Microsoft doesn't compete with the tooth fairy and Santa Claus

I covered this story some time ago.

This is Linux FUD week it seems

cheers...ank

To see Torvald's startling true confession, the missing link is here.

I can't begin to do it justice (Groklaw is already linking to it). Enjoy!! (I will reveal in advance only that Torvalds "comes clean" about a lifetime of deception...)

Call me crazy or mod me down, but I'm positive that this has something to do with CICSO's previous tussle with the GPL .

I can only assume one of two things:

1. CICSO's use of code that's open to just anyone allowed a "hacker" to access vulnerabilities in its systems.
2. Due to its earlier minor and well-intentioned misstep, some GNUlatic decided to take revenge on CICSO.

In either case, this sends a loud and clear message to all businesses out there: messing with GPL code will get you burned, and burned badly. DANGER WILL ROBINSON!!!.

Stay away while you still have your security intact. GNUlatics only want to hurt you.

LinuxWorld already joined the congratulatory celebrations on Saturday

I Wasn't Brought In to Have Warm Fuzzies with Slashdot, . I was brought in to increase [SCO's] shareholder value" Says McBride- 17Feb04

KDE is delivering a better version of what GNOME's goal has apparently morphed into: becoming a great component framework that you can write to in multiple languages. Nicholas Petreley rebuffs the common GNOME battle slogans and explains why the window-manager's name needs reworking.

SCO has since dropped their claims that the GPL is unconstitutional.

Sun's COs claim that they need to maintain tight control over the Java library source code and standards to insure Java cross vendor "write-once" portability. This was the main point for Sun's lawsuit against Microsoft. In fact, in the DOJ case the federal appeal court did find that Microsoft had deceived Java developers, which the court decided was in breach of the Sherman Antitust act.

For Sun to call their settlement anything but a sellout, Sun could at least persuaded Microsoft to create or adopt a modern release of Java to replace the 1997 eon MSJava JVM. Instead Microsoft gained the right to extends life of its Java Virtual Machine to December 31, 2007. Microsoft have stated that it will not be improving ( or updating ) the old JVM and Microsoft's J# "upgrade path" still uses non-standard interfaces for GUI's and .NET libraries. This leaves Microsoft free to play the old "standard" embrace, extend and enclose anti-competitive tactics.

Sun' s James Gosling claims, in response to this article and some "slashdot flamage" from the same author that though the new settlement, Sun has gained the right to selectively access Microsoft's Communications Protocol Program. This ablity to selectively pick and choose and other "flexabilities" was a detail left out of Sun's press release, and more interestingly, the recent joint status report on Microsoft's complicance with the US DOJ final antitrust judgement.

From the article: "We will rise to this challenge, and we will compete in a fair and responsible manner that puts our customers first. We will show that our approach offers better value, better security and better opportunity."

Link at the bottom of the page: BREAKING NEWS: Microsoft *Was* Matchmaker Between BayStar & SCO

//apache.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/29/1520 209&mode=thread&tid=108&tid=126&tid=148&tid=156&ti d=185
Posted by michael in The Mysterious Future!
from the enforcers-sent-after-linus dept.
jg21 writes "So Linux made it onto Steve Ballmer's radar screen at last? No mention last year, in his annual strategy memo, but this year there's sentence after sentence - summarized at LinuxWorld this morning - which means, I guess, that 50,000-plus more folks around the world now will be aware of open source...he sent it to everyone in the company! Interestingly, in his public-facing CEO memo, distributed the same day as the internal one, Ballmer in contrast mentions Linux just once. What is it that conjurers call this, ah yes - distraction strategy?"
This was automatically brought to you by Subscriber Ruiner 1.01

I also learned that Friedman and de Icaza met at Microsoft. Friedman told me that they met while de Icaza was interviewing for the Internet Explorer team in Redmond. Friedman was -- hold on to your hats -- a Microsoft employee at the time, working on the IIS (Microsoft's Web server) project.

There's a piece at LinuxWorld on Daniel's resignation, quoting how Nicholas Petreley made Gentoo his favorite distro a year ago...

Google points that they haven't deployed yet:

Munich Migration Hits Speed Bump
Munich Linux migration hits serious snags, Users finding Linux learning curve steep, city council calls for investigation
Munich Open Source Plows Ahead

Perhaps someone from Germany could track down the infamous Computerwoche article?

This has been already discused in the past, in fact, Richard Stallman published an article where he states that the Linux kernel is in violation with the GPL because of the firmware included without source code, see the article at here

"Thank god it is or you'd be living in scam land."

Look man I already gave you an example where two companies that have same name and the same product clashed in court and the smaller company won. You seem to think that if the names rhyme then it violates trademark. This is simply not the case.

"He can't throw the trademark out. What he can do is say "Let's let a jury decide." Frankly, I doubt it'd go even that far. Microsoft's position with their trademark is considerably stronger than it has been made out to believe on Slashdot. Putting it to a jury makes it even easier for them to sell. It's not going anywhere, sorry."

It's usually best not to open your mouth when you are so ignorant. Here are a couple of links you should read before you go around saying such things in the future.

From law.com"

Linuxworld
eweek

The windows trademark is clearly at risk.

"Doesn't matter. It looks like Windows, it acts like Windows, but it isn't Windows. Far too easy for somebody to end up with that without realizing what they really got."

Yes it does matter. No it does not look or act like windows. No it's not easy for somebody to end up with it because it's not available via retail and you have to go to a special area of the walmart web site to get it.

Maybe it's easy for you to get confused but a reasonable would not get confused and end up with the wrong product.

"Microsoft risks very little other than money and a slim chance that they lose the (R) next to their name. Thing is, they still own that mark even if the judge throws it out. Nobody's going to forget what Windows is. Frankly, it wouldn't be hard for Microsoft to cook up a new trademark to stand behind."

If microsoft loses the windows trademark it would be devestating to them. They will not risk it and if looks like they will (and it's looking like that) they will pay big bucks to get this case settled.

"Yeah maybe. What MS is doing to them is excessive. Then again, they opened themselves wide open to it. Are you really sure this was a brilliant move by Lindows? Sounds like you're telling me that MS's wrath is killing them. At least that's what I read in the various articles on this topic."

I don't think you know how to read. It's not going to kill them, it not going to devestate them. They have changed the name of their product (temporaririly) but their corporate name is still lindows. That's because in the US they can still use lindows as a name. In europe they have (temporarily) lost the right to use lindows as a product name. The whole lawsuit is probably going to cost them less then a million dollars and the potential rewards are in the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars because MS would pay anything to hold on to that trademark.

But this is getting us nowhere. You have this odd idea that companies own common words and all words that rhyme with them. You haven't read up on the case, you don't really know what you are talking about. You just keep repeating the same old mantra that an average person would would somehow be confused into buying a lindows PC thinking it's windows. That's just an idiotic statement to make and I guess there is no way to convince you otherwise.

Sun's signing into Microsoft's Communications Protocol Program locks Sun and Sun customers into interoperating with any Microsoft system on Microsoft's strict terms, conditions and royalty rates. It also denies the possibility that the code using those Microsoft protocols will ever be open sourced.

This raises serous questions. For example, how much longer will Sun be free to distribute and integrate SAMBA with the Java Desktop? Will Sun's signing of the MCPP have a network affect on vendors who have access to Sun's source code -- will they also be forced to sign up to the MCPP?

I understand Sun's attempt to spin "Peace in our time" into "This Was Their Finest Hour"however, if you look where the quote originated from...

What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, on June 18, 1940, at the House of Commons

Bzzzt. Wrong. YOU are a troll. The most cursory of Google searches shows the article appears verbatim as above here.

They are getting ready to layoff 30% of their staff, not 9%
After the election, HP and IBM will be doing some as well, but it it unknown how much.

According to Linux Business Week yesterday, Sun is going to cut not 9% of its staff (3,300) but 30% - all in the next 12 months. So Redmond basically just has to wait a year and...pouf!

LinuxWorld reports one of the better suggestions:

"[Robertson] doesn't reveal whether he'll be adopting the suggestion to change it to "Lindos" and make his new slogan "Because it's the W that's causing all the problems" - as suggested by one Lindows supporter."

In addition to a broader market rebound at the time, I wonder whether SCO Group's stock buy-back program was exercised in order to artificially boost the recent gains?

With some careful timing, a little buy back can go a long way in shifting a day's trading momentum.

First both Sun and Microsoft invest in SCO, after it *trys* to get freaky with linux.

This is getting tedious. Tell me, when you buy gas, are you "investing" in Shell Oil? When you buy a PC from HP are you "investing" in HP? Not in any normal sense of the word. Sun didn't "invest" in SCO, they licensed driver technology. That isn't hard to understand. As is common in multimillion dollar deals Sun did get warrants to allow them to buy stock, but a warrant isn't stock, it is a right to invest if they choose to do so.

As to getting "freaky" with Linux, maybe you didn't notice but Sun is the leading Linux desktop vendor. Just one deal they have is giving them sales of 500,000-1,000,000 Linux desktops a year. Not bad for what many people claim to be "not a Linux company."

Sun charged for some types of updates before, just like HP, IBM, Red Hat, Suse and many other *nix companies. Nothing much to see here.

In a hard-hitting analysis of the Sun-Microsoft settlement, David Mohring argues that - aside from the monetary payoff - the gains for Sun from the terms and conditions "do not make any sense for Sun in the long term."

This Gmail story promises to be one of the most widely discussed initiatives since the creation of the WWW itself. You can expect the Internet to be awash with it for a good time yet.Especially as there may be some copyrighting problems ahead for Google. Just look here:

Gmail is an experimental SQL-based vfolder email system, using MySQL as its back-end database, which allows for large volumes of mail, without risk of data loss. The vfolders (virtual folders) are implemented as SQL queries. A cache system keeps gmail fast.

Or does the parent mean UserLinux instead of UnitedLinux?

There are two separate issues here. Linux Business Week already reported last week that HP was going to crank up its desktop support, so MSFT won't have been ambushed by today's extension by them of that policy. It already knew HP was going to start reselling Turbolinux on its Compaq business desktop PCs in China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. This was already known last week.

There are two separate issues here. Linux Business Week already reported last week that HP was going to crank up its desktop support, so MSFT won't have been ambushed by today's extension by them of that policy. It already knew HP was going to start reselling Turbolinux on its Compaq business desktop PCs in China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. This was already known last week.