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This trademark stuff will go on and on as long
LINUX isnt protected internationally.
So it would IMHO a strong move into the new
millenium (coming next year :) to protect the
LINUX trade mark world wide.

OT side note:
One nice thing about Linux and friends: if a
company tries to get the monopoly for a Linux
distribution by covering the rights to import a
dedicated commercial Linux distribution (say
SuSE for Uruguay) and tries to sell at high price
levels without offering some reward (support...),
other distributions with better performance/price
ratios can take over.

So Charles Darwin is our friend :)

And we should therefore take care of our beloved
Debianistas. It's always nice to have a backup ace
sitting in your sleeve.

BTW: Who takes care to protect the DEBIAN
trade mark world wide?

--gfish666

(Please note that I'm well aware that the US is a republic, not a democracy. I'm using the term 'democratic' in a more generic sense, to mean a government in which the common man has some say, even if not direct.)

Actually that's technically backwards, we *were* a repulic upto 1913 when we *became* a democracy. I discount any possibility of the electoral collage being slaved to other that their declared vote. We function as a democracy therefore we are a democracy. US Constitution esp:

• ARTICLE XVI: Income Taxes Authorized.
• ARTICLE XVII: United States Senators to Be Elected by Direct Popular Vote.

Remember it's the people (house) which must originate the budget. The people ask, the senate prunes, the people ask again...

NOW the people ask, the senate adds pork, the people add more pork and try again. Gee, why are we going backrupt? For exactly the same reason *every* democracy goes backrupt. The people think they've found the golden calf and keep voting themselves money.

Salvage
The Formula: Star Wars space hype + Andy Griffith + Sanford and Son
The Skinny: Imagine Matlock building a spaceship out of junk, flying it to the moon, salvaging space junk and using an ordinary fire extinguisher as a handy thruster for space walks. And yes, no episode was complete without some big-shot NASA official scoffing at Andy's home-spun spacecraft built with home-spun wisdom, only to get showed up at the end. One imagines a young Linus Torvalds watching this show, not conscious of how it will inspire him.

Yogi's Space Race
The Formula: Star Wars space hype + Yogi Bear + Wacky Races/Laff-a-lympics + Disco fever of the same era
The Skinny: It had four segments, the two Star Wars-inspired ones being Space Race, which had the stable of Hanna-Barbera characters racing in space vehicles and Galaxy Goof-Ups, with Yogi and friends as some kind of space police who spent their off-hours goofing off at the local space disco. A cartoony attempt to swipe as much Star Wars momentum as possible -- I distinctly remember one episode where the bad guy was a Darth Vader rip-off assisted by an R2-D2 rip-off. One imagines George Lucas watching Yogi's space adventures and being inspired to create the Ewoks.

Galaxina
The Formula: Star Wars space hype + Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten + The guy from those '70's Doritos commericals
The Skinny: The Infinity is a ship captained by the Doritos guy and maintained by the ultra-vixen android Galaxina, a robot with feelings. The Infinity crew is a randy bunch of sailors (There's a brothel scene in which the crew sing a song called "Porno Patrol" to the tune of "Bridge Over the River Kwai") and eventually Galaxina and a crewmember fall in love. I actually remember a line in which the guy says "Too bad you don't have a you-know-what," to which Galaxina responds "We can order one in the catalog." Kind of like Arthur C. Clarke's "predictions," except for cyberdildonics. One imagines Rick Berman (writer for the post-Shatner Star Trek series, whose hedonistic appetites are legendary among sci-fi fandom) watching this.

Quark
The Formula: Star Wars space hype + Richard Benjamin + Mr. Spock + Mindy's Dad (from Mork and Mindy) + Buck Henry + Sanitation engineering
The Skinny: A sci-fi spoof created by Buck Henry. TV's first "Quark" is not the bar owner from Deep Space Nine, but Richard Benjamin as a garbage scow captain with a nitwit crew. In a tip of the dumpster to Star Trek, the science officer is an emotionless half-human/half-plant being (I remember him saying his species does not kiss, but rather pollenates. I am not making this up). There were a few Star Wars references too, including "The Source," which gave Quark power only if he believed in it, as well as a character named Obeemud, a wookie-like creature who was Quark's boss' side-kick, and a bumbling C3P0-ish android named Andy. If I recall, it never got past a half-dozen shows. This is probably one of Buck Henry's few bombs, but perhaps he was saving his creative energies for other things, such as Saturday Night's Live's "Lord and Lady Douchebag" skit (around the same era, if drug-and-age-addled memory serves). Commentary on science fiction and present-day stuff through a sci-fi lens with unintentionally hilarious results. One imagines a young John Katz watching every episode...twice.

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
The Formula: Star Wars space hype + Gil Gerard + Mel Blanc + Skin tight disco outfits
The Skinny: Would you leave your job to play opposite Seven of Nine? Gil Gerard left his job at a chemical engineering firm to play Buck Rogers, Earth's super special agent who often came to the aid of women in skin-tight outfits (this is the future, you know). Upped the cheese factor by getting Gary Coleman to play a child prodigy (a concept that Universal also used in Galactica 1980 with "Doctor Zee"). In later seasons, it tried to be more true to "real" SF with many Asimov references, most notably the character of (gasp) Admiral Asimov. It's the only TV show I recall in which Asimov's Laws of Robotics get metioned. The original formula was so good that Universal Studios recycled it as Knight Rider a few years later -- one imagines a young David Hasselhoff getting his jollies watching this show.

A very painful Carol Burnett show
(for the Tim Conway fan from an earlier posting)
The Formula: Star Wars space hype + Tim Conway + Mark Hammill + Christmas
The Skinny: This is the only one for which I have no proof, but only a vague memory (any help would be appreciated). Santa Claus' sled gets abducted by an evil starship and Tim Conway (playing a Luke Skywalker parody), a "Walkie" and a garbage can-shaped droid (the R2D2 parody) attempt to stop the evil. The lame Star Wars jokes continue until Mark Hammill walks on set, bringing the Force -- the Los Angeles Police Force -- who arrest the actors in the skit for copyright infringement. One imagines a young ESR and RMS watching this, shocked at how Carol Burnett's attempt to modify the Star Wars story was crushed under the bootheel of a proprietary screenplay.

Well, writing this has cured my insomnia. Thank you and good night.

Kudos to the Xenubat web site author for fighting back.

Microsoft's flight sim was acquired from SubLogic, wasn't it?

Also, on the "bigger is better" theme: Yes, Microsoft and every other US retailer seems to benefit from that psychology. Pontiac sold me a nice, supercharged Grand Prix with nifty blinkenlights to tell me how much boost I'm getting. So what? I don't see how that's relevant to Linux vs. Microsoft here. There are Linux distributions that are every bit as bloated as Microsoft's Windows (for instance, RedHat, which I run at home).

(That reminds me, I really must give Debian a whirl. That is, as long as I remember my waders before I start traipsing through the thick field GPL religious dogma that surrounds it. I respect the GPL and I'm even distributing my own code under it, but I think it's possible to take an ideology too far. I view Free Software as a means to encourage Good Engineering, not as Theology and Religion.)

Feh. I just submitted this on the main form when Roblimo's post shows up on the page.

The LA Times has a nice summary article titled Red Hat's IPO Battles Timing, Microsoft detailing the positives, flaws, and hurt feelings of the Red Hat, Inc. IPO. Perhaps the most interesting line reads, 'Analysts worry that this could destroy the cooperative mood that has been a feature of the Linux community and a key reason for its success.'

Any comments on this?

--

Here is a site promissing the same this for free!

I don't know if it's legit tho...

The about page says Roblimo is Robin Miller. But a quick search on Google came up with this page - according to the e-mail address, this page must be made by the same guy...

This case is a strong precedent that one can not use copyright to protect one's privacy and reputation, the only real damages that the people who wrote these flame emails can claim to collect.

- Sam

KDevelop has made enormous progress during the last months, and it offers a very promising strategy: Offering templates and wizards for RAD. The advantage over a mere GUI builder (which will probably included as well) is that you have more abstraction, allowing e.g. for both Gnome and KDE versions of a programme (Shaman is offering that)

For the moment, i'd suggest you take a look at Qt and QtArchitect ot try PerlQt. With a little bit of knowledge of object oriented concepts (which you should have anyway) it is possible to write little programs *really* fast!
And, you won't be locked into a crappy design if you want to enlarge them.