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SCO is not the only one spreading FUD against the legality of the linux source code. Richard Stallman (the man behind GNU) did that, too, last year. He said:

The Linux sources themselves have an even more serious problem with non-free software: they actually contain some. Quite a few device drivers contain series of numbers that represent firmware programs to be installed in the device. These programs are not free software. A few numbers to be deposited into device registers are one thing; a substantial program in binary is another.

The presence of these binary-only programs in "source" files of Linux creates a secondary problem: it calls into question whether Linux binaries can legally be redistributed at all. The GPL requires "complete corresponding source code," and a sequence of integers is not the source code. By the same token, adding such a binary to the Linux sources violates the GPL.

I don't know if this make sense. Probably not. I feel like both the one-year-old article I quoted and the sco case are all crap. *BSD has a hard time proving it can be legally distributed under its license. Now it's Linux' turn. In the *BSD case, open source won. Let's hope this is the begginning of a trend.

Source: http://www.linuxworld.com/2003/0627.petreley.html

GNOME/GTK calories

• Adopting the latest user interface design philosophy for GNOME/GTK: 100 calories
• Switching to the latest user interface design philosophy for GNOME/GTK from a previous one: 500 calories
• Keeping up to date with the latest design philosophy for GNOME/GTK: 7,300 calories
• Keeping up to date with the latest default window manager for GNOME/GTK: 11,800 calories
• Programming a simple utility for GTK/GNOME: 700 calories
• Figuring out which APIs to use for the GTK/GNOME program: 3,100 calories
• Figuring out which versions of the myriad of GTK/GNOME dependent libraries you have installed: 7,500 calories
• Keeping the libraries up to date without introducing incompatibilities and instability: 15,900 calories

KDE/Qt calories

• Enjoying the features of Konqueror: 3 calories
• Waiting for Konqueror to offer features found in Mozilla and other browsers like easily managed tabs, password management: 72,300 calories
• Installing and using Karamba: 300 calories
• Keeping up with the changes in Karamba: 7,300 calories
• Following the license arguments of anti-Qt or anti-Troll Tech people: 1,700 calories
• Caring about the license arguments of anti-Qt or anti-Troll Tech people: 12,200 calories

SCO calories

• Reading yet another SCO vs. Linux story: 70 calories
• Writing yet another SCO vs. Linux story: 500 calories
• Looking for substance in McBride or Sontag quotes: 1,500 calories
• Reading yet another SCO story without laughing or screaming: 3,000 calories
• Giving up looking for substance: 0.00001 calorie
• Counting the number of targets SCO has in sight: 2,300 calories
• Predicting who SCO will sue next: 0.003 calories (virtually any guess is likely to be true)
• Number of calories likely to be spent formatting hard drives to remove AIX: 0

Gentoo Linux calories

• Installing Gentoo for the first time: 3,700 calories
• Installing Gentoo for the second time: 200 calories
• Compiling and installing most software on Gentoo Linux: 30 calories
• Updating most installed software on Gentoo Linux: 6 calories
• Tapping fingers waiting for GNOME or KDE to compile on Gentoo Linux: 1,200 calories
• Tapping fingers waiting for an rsync server to become available: 4,700 calories
• Tapping fingers waiting for OpenOffice to compile properly on Gentoo: 2,300 calories
• Smacking head against wall after you find out there's a binary version available: 6,200 calories

Debian GNU/Linux calories

• Installing Debian GNU/Linux for the first time: 300 calories
• Installing Debian GNU/Linux for the second time: 300 calories
• Getting used to apt-get: 200 calories
• Enjoying apt-get: 0.0004 calories
• Getting used to using 3-year-old versions of software: 1,100 calories
• Upgrading to the unstable branch of Debian in order to get newer software: 40 calories
• Listening to people tell you every problem you have is your own fault because you're using the unstable branch: 7,200 calories
• Resolving conflicts between official Debian packages and unofficial Debian packages: 700 calories
• Reading the Debian maintainer messages i

Many IT products (e.g., PCs, databases, web servers, CRM systems, etc.) are now commodity items. Any company can purchase these such products. For this reason such software no longer provides any strategic advantage. In fact not having such software, even momentarily (your web farm goes down) is a risk that must be well managed.

Specialized software for a given industry segment is available to any company in that industry segment because the vendor seeks to maximize his sales. So even specialized software within an industry confers no strategic advantage.

specialized software developed in-house provides little or no strategic advantage because:

• companies that create innovative software pay unduly for it's development. They get an early version with many bugs. An old saying: "You can always tell the pioneers, they're the ones with arrows in their backs." In your example, the cost of developing, patenting and defending innovative software and any interfaces are just the sort of "arrows" that a pioneer might suffer.
  
• companies that wait and adopt innovative software at a later date buy it at reduced cost and with fewer bugs. Costs are lower and adoption is easier.
  

In Why IT Doesn't Matter AnymoreCarr states that

"The smartest users of technology--here again, Dell and Wal-Mart stand out--stay well back from the cutting edge, waiting to make purchases until standards and best practices solidify. They let their impatient competitors shoulder the high costs of experimentation, and then they sweep past them, spending less and getting more."

Although I do not like what Carr says, I believe he is correct, that he has his hand on the pulse of IT, and that his articles will further strengthen what is already a trend in IT. For example see Does an organization have anything to gain from .Net? (published prior to Carr's work) wherein Carmine Mangione analyzes the strategic advantages and risks of moving to Microsoft's .NET platform. This and many other articles about IT's shift to a focus on risk-managment seems to indicate that Carr is correct.

there is installer .. even with gui for installing debian via knoppix
everything you got to do is partitioning with gui and enter hostname and passwords and of course clicking next
debian installer

Because that "flyer" is nothing but crap. SCO has what Paul Murphy describes as a slam dunk victory lined up. This is really going to sting linux- I sure am glad that I switched to BSD. It wasn't really hard- once I figured out how to make the boot disks it went pretty smoothly. You could probably make the switch in a few days like me.

No replies? Come on, someone has to have used both of these?

Oh, well, here's a quote attributed to Romans Chapter 1, verse 27:

Likewise also the users, leaving the natural use of the computer, burned in their lust for Windows, even Windows on Linux, committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was hangs, blue screens, and crashes.

Oh great- some more Open Source, socialist RMS diarrea. Clean up on aisle 3! Clean up on aisle 3!

As to your claims:

There lawsuit has no legal merit whatsoever, as demonstrated repeatedly by their reticence in backing up any of their wild and absurd claims with a single shred of evidence.

You mean like this? In fact, Paul Murphy thinks that SCO has a slam dunk case. Your zealotry is blinding you of the possibility that SCO might just be right after all. And if they are right, and their code was stolen and added to the Linux kernel, don't they have a right to be pissed off?

there is nothing to prevent them from doing the same the FreeBSD, or any other project (free or proprietary).

SCO's claims about Linux are not unsubstantiated, and if they do find evidence that FreeBSD contains stolen code as well, they have every right to pursue that matter as well.

Here is some free advice: the "evil corporations" are not conspiring to take away your rights, and RMS is just a stinky whacko with bad teeth. You would do yourself much better if you climbed out of your mom's basement every once in a while to get some sun and try to talk with some girls. Hanging out with the other pasty-white, pear shaped losers is really distorting your sense of reality.

• @stake
• BindView
• Caldera International (The SCO Group)
• Foundstone
• Guardent
• ISS
• Microsoft
• NAI
• Oracle
• SGI
• Symantec

Now Joe, would your friend Susan mind to share her great photograph (see this screenshot) with the rest of us? I'd love to have it on my desktop too :)

Joe Barr reads the future of GNU/Linux and the SCO lawsuit is explained in easy to undsertand pictures. WARNING this link contains a link to Photo's from the Dukes of Hazard

Um, SCO actually has a pretty strong case. In fact, Paul Murphy thinks its a slam dunk win for SCO.

Last night, I saw "Boies' Take" on Forbes, in which litigator-to-the-stars David Boies (who is SCO's "hired gun", as the article puts it, in this non-case) tries to make himself and SCO out to be innocent, bewildered, almost childlike in their incomprehension as to why everyone hates him. For what it's worth, I don't think Boies nor SCO expected this backlash.

So, this brings us back to Microsoft's donation (umm, I mean, license, yeah) to SCO. Turn it on its head for a moment. What if Microsoft realized all along Boies (who was up against them in the antitrust case) was going to be tied to these SCO shenanigans, and they figured this would be a great two-for-one hit -- serve that pesky Linux a smackdown, but also give Boies some bad press as revenge?

Mmm... conspiracy.

Just pondering.

the story I submitted earlier to Ask Slashdot, but didn't make it to press -

Whoah Nelly! looks like SCO has a new indirect backer in the form of Billy and the Gang. According to News.com.com.com, Microsoft has licensed proprietary UNIX code for an undisclosed sum, which prompts this humble reader to question whether this is just another cheap method to clear off some healthy competition.. SCO is gunning for IBM, needs money badly, and Gates foots the bill. Coincidence?

They went on to create Gentoo Linux. Many if not most of the FreeBSD old timers have already switched to Gentoo. It is the "next big thing" as they say. Give it try. There are plenty of former FreeBSD guys like myself to help you get started.

If you just cast a magical spell "gpl mpl bsd apache" on google.com, you get:

My experience actually has been completely opposite. I was a regular user of Xine, but often Xine would completely screw up the Audio-Video sync, do imperfect rendering, refuse to play all codecs etc.

I had avoided Mplayer because the reviews I read were not flattering. But finally out of sheer desperation, I switched to Mplayer. Mplayer, to put it mildly, blew the socks off every other media player I had seen. I loved the audio-video sync it did and a variety of other things.

Recently I started using mencoder and found it to be much better than the encoders I was using. It might take a little time to get used to the myriad options in Mplayer/Mencoder, but once you do, I am willing to bet that you wont be going back to any other Media Player.

Oh yes, almost forgot to add. Both Xine and Mplayer are light years ahead of Windows Media Player. ;-)

Cheers,
Dhar

You started off with a valid point but then troll it up yourself with statements like "XP is better for the average desktop than Linux. Period." and "MS has whooped Linux's butt on the desktop.".

Reality is that if MS was whopping Linux's butt on the desktop, Linux market share on the desktop would be shrinking, not growing. MS is losing market share to Linux on the desktop, albeit slowly, and if that trend continues, it will not "always be so". Also, in case you haven't noticed, MS *does* scrutinize the open source community, what do you think a report comparing W2003 to Linux/Samba is???

Joe Barr wrote my favorite article about software audit costs being a frequently overlooked part of TCO.

Nicholas Petreley writes:

The following numbers are hypothetical and do not represent the true tradeoff, but they should serve well enough to make the point. If libthingy is 5K, and your application launches a maximum of 10 instances, all of which are statically linked with libthingy, you would only save about 45K by linking to libthingy dynamically. In normal environments, that is hardly worth the risk of having your application break because some other build or package overwrites the shared version of libthingy.

Linking libthingy statically into application foo does not preclude the sharing. Each of the instances of application foo will still share all the code of that executable. So if libthingy takes up 5K, and you launch 10 instances, that does not mean the other 9 will take up separate memory. Even statically linked, as long as the executable is in a shared linking format like ELF, which generally will be the case, each process VM will be mapped from the same file. So we're still looking at around 5K of real memory occupancy for even 1000 instances of application foo. The exact details will depend on how many pages get hit by the run-time linker when it has to make some address relocations. With static linking there is less of that, anyway. Of course if libthingy has its own static buffers space it modified (bad programming practice in the best case, a disaster waiting to happen in multithreading) then the affected pages will be copied-on-write and no longer be shared (so don't do that when developing any library code).

Where a shared library gives an advantage is when there are many different applications all using the same library. So the "shared" part of "shared library" means sharing between completely different executable files. Sharing between multiple instances of the same executable file is already done by the virtual memory system (less any CoW).

The author's next point about sharing between other applications is where the size of libthingy becomes relevant. His point being that if libthingy is only 5K, you're only saving 45K by making it a shared (between different executables) library. So that's 45K more disk space used up and 45K more RAM used up when loading those 10 different applications in memory. The idea is the hassle savings trumps the disk and memory savings. The situation favors the author's position to use static linking for smaller less universal libraries even more than he realized (or at least wrote about).

For a desktop computer, you're going to see more applications, and fewer instances of each, loaded. So here, the issue really is sharing between applications. But the point remains valid regarding small specialty libraries that get used by only a few (such as 10) applications. However, on a server computer, there may well be hundreds of instances of the same application, and perhaps very few applications. It might be a mail server running 1000 instances of the SMTP daemon trying to sift through a spam attack. Even if the SMTP code is built statically, those 1000 instances still share unmodified memory mapped from the executable file.

I'll second Knoppix. It autoconfigures better than anything else I've seen and, though it's designed to be run off of a CD, can easily be installed. And it's Debian, so updating it is easy. Now if I could only get sound working.

Seriously, Knoppix seems to have everything but a ``push me to repartition the hard drive and install automagically'' button.

Wait, yes it does...

You can use knoppix as an gui installer.

Find out how HERE

I'm using a system setup this way right now.
In < 15 minutes I had a fully working debian system - and I mean *fully* working. All my hardware worked etc.

I made one final tweak that you might find interesting -- or maybe not, if you are a hard-core gamester. The beta default is full-screen mode. I wanted a window. Serious players like to shut down X completely, then run xinit and start the game. That way, no cycles are wasted on other GUI apps. This technique seems to speed up the number of frames per second, while windowing the game slows it down, at least at higher resolutions. I saw between 24 and 31 fps running NWN from xinit at 800 x 600 resolution. In a window under Red Hat 8.0's Bluetooth GNOME with a resolution of 1024 x 768, the fps ranged from 14 and 20, which I found a little slow. Staying with the window but running at 800 by 600, the fps was steady at 24, which is fast enough for me to play a game of this type.

I dont know about you, but I generally like to see frame rates that are consistenly OVER 30 fps, not just on the high end of the average.

You may want to bitch at the person writing the article. I only know what I read: Im not one of those pathetic people trying to be a "Linux Gamer" or a "Mac Gamer", and I dont pound in nails with a flat rock, either.

"...and assist you in reclaiming disk space by, say, reformating your drive."

Well, that takes care of the wicked-long step 1 in uninstalling windows and installing linux!

That is, of course, if this vulnerability affects the version I'm running - Windows Herpes Edition.

She never tried. Her machines would run Windows XP fine. Read the article. She had 36 gigs of storage and 128-256 MBs of RAM on each machine. See the system requirements and compare them with her specs. If she wants a fair comparison, she should do it reputably.

Read the article. She had 36 gigs of storage and 128-256 MBs of RAM on each machine. Each would have run WinXP just fine. See the system requirements and compare them with her specs.

Note: Requirements 2 and 3 eliminate WindowsXP as an upgrade route I would need to buy a new computer, probably new peripherals, and replace some eXPensive software to get the dubious benefits of product-activation codes and embedded functions I don't want and can't delete.

The expectation that Linux will fulfill the hardware driver installation off the distribution CD, when you admit that you may have to replace the entire hardware for XP, is inherently unfair and beyond what can be reasonably expected in any operating system. XP is not without it's major problems when it comes to older hardware ( especially scanners ) support and driver conflict problems.

The lack of any relative comparison in your article to the Microsoft alternative, paints Linux in a far worse light than is the reality. Compare your article to the recent articles by Joe Barr, comparing Linux installation with XP and Windows 2000.

Also, given the rapid improvement of Linux distributions, 18 months is in my opinion, too long ago to represent the current state of Linux on the desktop. See Michael C. Barnes updates look at leading desktop operating system options on the market.As with Joe Barr's article, it benchmarks Linux against Microsoft's offerings.

There is nothing inherently wrong with pointing out faults, in fact any *constructive* criticism over current releases of Linux is both welcome and necessary to the Kazan like rapid improvement of Linux. However, just repeating war-stories without acknowledging either that the issue has been fixed in the lastest release of that distribution, or similar problem also exists with Win2k and XP, does nothing but provide fodder for Microsoft's trolls. I am surprised that this article in it's current form, made it past the editors at Linuxworld.

Not all linux distributions are targeted for the non-technical deployer. For example: Lycoris, Xandros and ELX are more likely to have SMB functionality preconfigured on install.

However, does not someone also re-configure windows for your colleagues? When they log in, is the SMB shares,printers and defaults always pre-installed for them? If not, who ever provides techsuppport for you is not doing their job properly.

Deployment, day to day management and just using a computer, require a different level of technical knowledge, no matter what operating system you are using.

Although many non-technical people to install and with windows often reinstall the operating system, that does not mean that they do a good job of it. I have been too often called in to repair a screwed up home based 98 to XP systems to personally attest to that.

That some Linux distributions, for example RedHat 8, do require a lot more knowleadge to deploy, once properly deployed and configured, they are a hell of a lot easier to remotely manage on a day to day basis, even using GUIs. ( hint - ssh -X root@TARGET-IP ). The quality of the technical knowledge from Linux user groups and distributions forums, especially in comparison to phone support from Microsoft, can more than make up for the difference in relative difficulty. That Tsu Dho Nimh set up a a pre-requisite that no external support was aceptable, is unrealistic even for windows XP.

Dispite the absolute terror of the Microsoft advocates, Linux is NOW a more than adequate as a desktop for the enterprise, a replacement for XP and an upgrade from window98 and NT4.

At work , we have upgraded 80% of our ghosted win98se desktop from Microsoft Office 98 to StarOffice6 and Mozilla

Note: Requirements 2 and 3 eliminate WindowsXP as an upgrade route I would need to buy a new computer, probably new peripherals, and replace some eXPensive software to get the dubious benefits of product-activation codes and embedded functions I don't want and can't delete.

The expectation that Linux will fulfill the hardware driver installation off the distribution CD, when you admit that you may have to replace the entire hardware for XP, is inherently unfair and beyond what can be reasonably expected in any operating system. XP is not without it's major problems when it comes to older hardware ( especially scanners ) support and driver conflict problems.

The lack of any relative comparison in your article to the Microsoft alternative, paints Linux in a far worse light than is the reality. Compare your article to the recent articles by Joe Barr, comparing Linux installation with XP and Windows 2000.

Also, given the rapid improvement of Linux distributions, 18 months is in my opinion, too long ago to represent the current state of Linux on the desktop. See Michael C. Barnes updates look at leading desktop operating system options on the market.As with Joe Barr's article, it benchmarks Linux against Microsoft's offerings.

There is nothing inherently wrong with pointing out faults, in fact any *constructive* criticism over current releases of Linux is both welcome and necessary to the Kazan like rapid improvement of Linux. However, just repeating war-stories without acknowledging either that the issue has been fixed in the lastest release of that distribution, or similar problem also exists with Win2k and XP, does nothing but provide fodder for Microsoft's trolls. I am surprised that this article in it's current form, made it past the editors at Linuxworld.

Not all linux distributions are targeted for the non-technical deployer. For example: Lycoris, Xandros and ELX are more likely to have SMB functionality preconfigured on install.

However, does not someone also re-configure windows for your colleagues? When they log in, is the SMB shares,printers and defaults always pre-installed for them? If not, who ever provides techsuppport for you is not doing their job properly.

Deployment, day to day management and just using a computer, require a different level of technical knowledge, no matter what operating system you are using.

Although many non-technical people to install and with windows often reinstall the operating system, that does not mean that they do a good job of it. I have been too often called in to repair a screwed up home based 98 to XP systems to personally attest to that.

That some Linux distributions, for example RedHat 8, do require a lot more knowleadge to deploy, once properly deployed and configured, they are a hell of a lot easier to remotely manage on a day to day basis, even using GUIs. ( hint - ssh -X root@TARGET-IP ). The quality of the technical knowledge from Linux user groups and distributions forums, especially in comparison to phone support from Microsoft, can more than make up for the difference in relative difficulty. That Tsu Dho Nimh set up a a pre-requisite that no external support was aceptable, is unrealistic even for windows XP.

Dispite the absolute terror of the Microsoft advocates, Linux is NOW a more than adequate as a desktop for the enterprise, a replacement for XP and an upgrade from window98 and NT4.

At work , we have upgraded 80% of our ghosted win98se desktop from Microsoft Office 98 to StarOffice6 and Mozilla

No they didn't.

It is (was) a little known fact that OO can connect to mysql using ODBC. It is just a little hard getting it to work, but you can find info here and here. You can have an access lookalike with OO, ODBC and mysql.

No they didn't.

It is (was) a little known fact that OO can connect to mysql using ODBC. It is just a little hard getting it to work, but you can find info here and here. You can have an access lookalike with OO, ODBC and mysql.

Joe Barr wrote a good piece about this; I'm still burning my Knoppix 3.2, but I can testify that what he wrote here is a good guide for the previous versions and I'm guessing will be applicable to the new one.

(Upshot: there's a script called something like "knxhdinstall" which leads you through formatting hard drive etc, then transfers the Knoppix base OS and included apps. Previous Linux experience strongly recommended, but it's certainly easier than going in with zero experience with, say, regular Debian :))

I have used Knoppix as an installer for several machines; that's one reason I keep extra desktops around, for playing with different distros as we asymptotically approach The (mythical) Perfect OS.

It works well, but there are some glitches: with some versions of Knoppix, the hard-drive install method seems to jump between English version and German version, doesn't matter that I had the EN iso, doesn't matter that the system seemed otherwise localized to English ... However, I am optimistic that this is no longer a problem with the new one :) (And my German is good enough that I could get through the German screens, so it *did work* it was just ... worrisome :)). And that was a glitch -- I forget which ISO had the German jumping, but I downloaded another one afterward (the next rev) and it worked fine.

As a perpetual fumbler, this is the only way I have gotten Debian working well, and it was quick n' easy. Knopper deserves the computing version of the Nobel for this :)

timothy

It seems many people are a bit confused about what exactly all this means. I suggest you read this and then have a read through this page and it should become a lot clearer...

Just like to remind evreybody that this is from LinuxWorld. Not exactally a bastion of unbiased reporting when it comes to operating systems.

As much as I'd like for Nicholas Peterely to be right, I find that linuxworld in general to be a slightly less than reliable source of information.

These are the same guys that hired Joe Barr to write for them. This guy is about as un-professional as they come.
Take a look at this article on UT2003 for linux. The article itself was pretty bad, but look at the name calling tirade he goes on when people give negative feedback in the comments section.

Nevertheless, I predict that GNOME/GTK will eventually usurp the lion's share of open-source desktops. It all comes down to money. In this case, the money depends upon software licensing.

What I'm really betting on is the Trolltech (www.trolltech.com) GUI programming toolkit, Qt, upon which KDE is based. (Gnome is based upon GTK, aka the Gimp Toolkit).

News as a source of reliable trade information has gone to hell. Once focused on objective reporting of the facts, much of the media is now convinced that what you really want is news analysis. Unfortunately, news analysis is turning out to be nothing more than a reporter's opinion.

While I certainly agree with complaints about the gnome file picker, I have to admire the fact that it doesn't *TAKE UP MY WHOLE GODDAMNED SCREEN* 927x613px !?

Thank you.

Well, no, because then you have to pay the OS X tax, which is in some ways worse because at least you can send back Windows for a refund. (And make a statement doing so.)

Information on how to do it (and how painful it is) here: http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-1999-01/lw -01-refund.html.

I asked in the Apple forums if I could return my OS X license after buying a Ti Powerboox (because I love them, but would want to run Linux) and they just laughed. So, I just kept my old NEC - bad luck Apple.

Here was an example of what happened to Virginia Beach... they have to do a search in 3600 computers and buy the licenses that they not found (not because they had not buyed it, just because they can't find them in that moment). All that funny stuff costs to the city US$80.000. Extrapolating to every city and company of USA you maybe could reach close to the "billons" number.

Today also I saw this article on how BSA/Microsoft is checking companies, and just to check that you are ok you could have to spend money (and more if you can't find every single piece of license you buyed in your history).

The college i go to done even have an dual boot linux machines and when asking the question about it all i get is "nope can't do that?" www.wit.ie is the IT in general -- Source of quote.

If that is indeed a native-English speaker (implied because it's an English-speaking school in an English-speaking nation) then I pity the professors and TA's that correct or grade their essays.

If I were a member of the school, I'd find out who wrote it and put the poor soul into remedial English.

frob.

Plan 9 is supposed to correct what's wrong with the development Unix after Unix was "embrace and extended" by the Unix commercial vendors.

I used Plan 9 for about 9 months back in 1996. Here are some of the ideas behind it.

Everything in the system are files: This was a simple notion but powerful abstraction. Everything in the system is access through the file system API and all objects in the system have a representation in the file systems including low level network and graphics.

A per process private file name system: Plan 9 has the notion of a private file name space for each process. That means that I can create file system namespace on a individual process level.

A file system base network protocol call 9P All network services for Plan 9 are export as files to another machine.

A single sign on authentication system This has been featured a while ago. Check it out here

With these simple abstraction, you can do really cool things:

• Recursive windowing system: the framebuffer of the systme is mounted at /dev/graph (or similar name. It was a while ago). Since one can build private name space for each process, just open up a new windows, mount its graphic context at the /dev/graph and launch another copy of the windowing system in the process. The new windowing system will think the windows as the whole screen. Comes pretty handy hacking windowing system.
• Build firewall through remote file system. Say you have a machine that's on the edge with two ethernet cards and no routing enable between the two interfaces. Bascially a firewall. You can gain remote access by login into the machine, mount its /dev/eth0 to your current process's /dev/eth0 and launch browser in the process. Now, you are browsing using the firewall's external interface. This is done securely because of the private name space and single sign on. You are the only one open to the outside. The configuration of this firewall is "local" to you.

Build upon this and taking the Unix Small is Beautiful approach to problem solving. Plan 9 allows each program to perform small tasks well and provide the way to unified them together through private file name space.

Plan 9's design has a lot of impact on Linux, probably more then Linus would admit. /proc file system, process as thread, and others. These abstract can be traced back to Plan 9. Seeing those implementation on Linux (a traditional Unix clone), it become evidenced why original Unix folks like Dennis Richite wanted to start a new project to correct the mistakes of Unix. ;)

Plan 9 From Bell Labs is the Plan 9 manifesto. Good overview into the system and the rest of the documents.

There was the case of the city of Virginia Beach which had to pay M$ $129,000.

"...the only act of piracy in Virginia Beach was Microsoft's forcing innocent customers to pay twice for the same item."

Quote from an interview with Bruce Perens by Joe Barr:

"What is happening is that through various legal "gotcha's" that are incorporated in the EULA, or in things that are deceptively sent to companies, [the BSA] are getting a company to waive a legal right: the right to privacy.

"They send you a postcard and ask you if you want to know about licensing. If anyone in your company signs it and returns it, it actually gives them authority to come in and audit your company. I don't have direct experience with it, and if you go look into the press on BSA you will find out about this one. They target low-level employees in your company, and it sounds on the postcard like it's a seminar on software licensing. But if someone checks "Yes, I'm interested", then somewhere in the fine print it's actually an invitation to come and audit the software licensing for the company."

http://www.linuxworld.com/2003/0117.barr.html

For Gods sake, why would someone choose BSD over linux????

Mr. Kirkpatrick's article draws significant business conclusions - Dell will prosper, Sun will fail- from his analysis of the relative positions of the players today. I believe that most of what he cites as fact is wrong:

1. on little things such as the chips in playstations;
2. on historical issues such as the history of the Power4;
3. on industry structure such as seeing Dell as a manufacturor; and,
4. on interpretations such as his comments on the value of 64bit-edness;

but I'm not sure his conclusions are wrong.

More precisely, you can't draw his conclusions from either his "facts" or his arguments, but that doesn't invalidate the conclusions.

For one thing articles like this become self-fulling prophecies and their prevalence in management oriented publications like Fortune help explain how Sun can be both a strong company and very weak share.

He may well be right on the specific issue of Itanium's future. Technically it's a pretty good chip and the fact that it's late and under-powered won't be important in the long run -the PA-RISC, which became a significant success, was also late and under-powered.

So will the Itantic sink? In my opinion Mr. kirkpatrick's article missed most of the significant elements in today's market picture that will affect this.

For example, the right parallel could turn out to be Intel's original Pentium Pro. As Intel's first completely 32 bit chip it was, briefly, a world leader in performance but only on 32bit applications. Since most Microsoft software used the older 16bit instruction sets, its performance on the Pentium Pro was terrible. As a result AMD was able to seize significant market share with its K-586 and Intel was quickly forced to re-introduce 16bit compatiblity in the Pentium line.

Years later the Pentium Pro came back - as the xeon - and that could easily be Itanic's fate too, if management at companies like Sun and AMD get their act together and make it happen. (see my article for my comments on how this could be done).

I was just reading Petreley's latest article at Linux World where he rambles on about client side Java and how JEdit is the proof that client side Java has arrived. I don't know if I agree although I do think JEdit is a nice editor.

I was just reading Petreley's latest article at Linux World where he rambles on about client side Java and how JEdit is the proof that client side Java has arrived. I don't know if I agree although I do think JEdit is a nice editor.

I'm really suprised none of the linux zealots have mentioned this yet, but one of the best uses a school could have for an old PC is to rip out the hard drive, hook that sucker up to a network, and use it as an X terminal thin client with its display managed by a bigger backroom server.

This is much more reliable and effective than you might imagine. Over 10baseT, X is plenty fast. An old pentium is more than enough power for an X server (even a 486 works very nicely, with a decent vid card). Eight or 16 megs of ram is enough. For the server, to run basic office and net apps you need much less power than you think, because most of the time the processor is sitting idle (what you really need is ram). Plus, you get all the additional benefits of thin-clients in their easier administration and much lower TCO. No more running around to Windows (or even Linux) PCs all over the school--you can forget they exist.

This is already quite a popular way of doing things in cash-strapped schools, and it's growing.

Be evangelized.

The biggest deployment of this kind I know of is in Largo, Florida, with 400 terminals. See also here, and here, aw heck just Google.

LTSP is a very popular package for serving mini X server distros to storage-less PSs over a network.

• 
  "According to TDCJ spokesman Larry Todd, the story began last year when Microsoft presented a proposal to move the state agency to its enterprise-licensing scheme. Todd says the IT staff looked at the contract and its multimillion-dollar price tag and gave Microsoft a flat "no" in response. Todd explained that kind of money was not in the TDCJ budget. That rejection has now led to the $1.5 million dollar claim by Microsoft.
  
  "TDCJ has more than 11,000 personal computers. Todd said more than 6,000 of those PCs are more than five years old, making the point that the agency does not spend lavishly on PC hardware or software. While Microsoft claims there are more than 2,000 instances of missing proof of purchase to justify its $1.5 million dollar figure, the TDCJ says there is only half that number. The TDCJ offered Microsoft $280,000 to bring its licensing up to date, and promised more vigilance in tracking licenses in the future. So far, Microsoft has not responded to the counteroffer."

Mandrake will merge with another firm looking for a way to stay alive. Users can help keep the company afloat for only so long. Maybe it will cut expenses by joining United Linux. Maybe it will get together with its Latin language sister firm Connectiva. Or maybe Microsoft will step forward with a smile to offer the struggling distribution much needed cash in order to get in the game.

I don't see how his inline comments add anything to the memo that we wouldn't have gotten from it if he hasn't simply quoted it sans-editorial. In fact, his comments look less like clarification and commentary than simple whining. He should read "Eric Raymond's tips for effective open source advocacy" some time. ;-)

I also am surprised that he acts almost insulted by the memo. What did he expect, Microsoft would support OSS? The phrase "free software" gets the same reaction from Microsoft as the phrase "free cars" would get from Ford. Don't fault the rattlesnake for biting.