Slashdot Mirror

• Tim Berners-Lee : "Father of the World Wide Web" and expectant father of the Semantic Web
• Joshua Bloch : Formerly at Sun, where he helped architect Java's core platform; now at Google
• Grady Booch : One of the original developers of the Unified Modeling Language
• Adam Bosworth : Famous for Quattro Pro, Microsoft Access, and IE4; then BEA, now Google
• Don Box : Coauthor of SOAP
• Stewart Brand : Cofounder in 1984 of the WELL bulletin board
• Tim Bray : One of the prime movers of XML, now with Sun
• Dan Bricklin : Cocreator of VisiCalc, the first PC spreadsheet
• Larry Brilliant : Cofounder in 1984 of the WELL bulletin board
• Sergey Brin : Son-of-college-math-professor turned cofounder of Google, Inc.
• Dave Cutler : The brains behind VMS; hired away by Microsoft for Windows NT
• Don Ferguson : Inventor of the J2EE application server at IBM
• Roy T. Fielding : Primary architect of HTTP 1.1 and a founder of the Apache Web server
• Bob Frankston : Cocreator of VisiCalc, the first PC spreadsheet
• Jon Gay : The "Father of Flash"
• James Gosling : "Father of Java" (though not its sole parent)
• Anders Hejlsberg : Genius behind the Turbo Pascal compiler, subsequently "Father of C#"
• Daniel W. Hillis : VP of R&D at the Walt Disney Company; cofounder, Thinking Machines
• Miguel de Icaza : Now with Novell, cofounder of Ximian
• Martin Fowler : Famous for work on refactoring, XP, and UML
• Bill Joy : Cofounder and former chief scientist of Sun; main author of Berkeley Unix
• Mitch Kapor : Designer of Lotus 1-2-3, founder of Lotus Development Corporation
• Brian Kernighan : One of the creators of the AWK and AMPL languages
• Mitchell Kertzman : Former programmer, founder, and CEO of Powersoft (later Sybase)
• Klaus Knopper

• Tim Berners-Lee : "Father of the World Wide Web" and expectant father of the Semantic Web
• Joshua Bloch : Formerly at Sun, where he helped architect Java's core platform; now at Google
• Grady Booch : One of the original developers of the Unified Modeling Language
• Adam Bosworth : Famous for Quattro Pro, Microsoft Access, and IE4; then BEA, now Google
• Don Box : Coauthor of SOAP
• Stewart Brand : Cofounder in 1984 of the WELL bulletin board
• Tim Bray : One of the prime movers of XML, now with Sun
• Dan Bricklin : Cocreator of VisiCalc, the first PC spreadsheet
• Larry Brilliant : Cofounder in 1984 of the WELL bulletin board
• Sergey Brin : Son-of-college-math-professor turned cofounder of Google, Inc.
• Dave Cutler : The brains behind VMS; hired away by Microsoft for Windows NT
• Don Ferguson : Inventor of the J2EE application server at IBM
• Roy T. Fielding : Primary architect of HTTP 1.1 and a founder of the Apache Web server
• Bob Frankston : Cocreator of VisiCalc, the first PC spreadsheet
• Jon Gay : The "Father of Flash"
• James Gosling : "Father of Java" (though not its sole parent)
• Anders Hejlsberg : Genius behind the Turbo Pascal compiler, subsequently "Father of C#"
• Daniel W. Hillis : VP of R&D at the Walt Disney Company; cofounder, Thinking Machines
• Miguel de Icaza : Now with Novell, cofounder of Ximian
• Martin Fowler : Famous for work on refactoring, XP, and UML
• Bill Joy : Cofounder and former chief scientist of Sun; main author of Berkeley Unix
• Mitch Kapor : Designer of Lotus 1-2-3, founder of Lotus Development Corporation
• Brian Kernighan : One of the creators of the AWK and AMPL languages
• Mitchell Kertzman : Former programmer, founder, and CEO of Powersoft (later Sybase)
• Klaus Knopper

• Tim Berners-Lee : "Father of the World Wide Web" and expectant father of the Semantic Web
• Joshua Bloch : Formerly at Sun, where he helped architect Java's core platform; now at Google
• Grady Booch : One of the original developers of the Unified Modeling Language
• Adam Bosworth : Famous for Quattro Pro, Microsoft Access, and IE4; then BEA, now Google
• Don Box : Coauthor of SOAP
• Stewart Brand : Cofounder in 1984 of the WELL bulletin board
• Tim Bray : One of the prime movers of XML, now with Sun
• Dan Bricklin : Cocreator of VisiCalc, the first PC spreadsheet
• Larry Brilliant : Cofounder in 1984 of the WELL bulletin board
• Sergey Brin : Son-of-college-math-professor turned cofounder of Google, Inc.
• Dave Cutler : The brains behind VMS; hired away by Microsoft for Windows NT
• Don Ferguson : Inventor of the J2EE application server at IBM
• Roy T. Fielding : Primary architect of HTTP 1.1 and a founder of the Apache Web server
• Bob Frankston : Cocreator of VisiCalc, the first PC spreadsheet
• Jon Gay : The "Father of Flash"
• James Gosling : "Father of Java" (though not its sole parent)
• Anders Hejlsberg : Genius behind the Turbo Pascal compiler, subsequently "Father of C#"
• Daniel W. Hillis : VP of R&D at the Walt Disney Company; cofounder, Thinking Machines
• Miguel de Icaza : Now with Novell, cofounder of Ximian
• Martin Fowler : Famous for work on refactoring, XP, and UML
• Bill Joy : Cofounder and former chief scientist of Sun; main author of Berkeley Unix
• Mitch Kapor : Designer of Lotus 1-2-3, founder of Lotus Development Corporation
• Brian Kernighan : One of the creators of the AWK and AMPL languages
• Mitchell Kertzman : Former programmer, founder, and CEO of Powersoft (later Sybase)
• Klaus Knopper

• Tim Berners-Lee : "Father of the World Wide Web" and expectant father of the Semantic Web
• Joshua Bloch : Formerly at Sun, where he helped architect Java's core platform; now at Google
• Grady Booch : One of the original developers of the Unified Modeling Language
• Adam Bosworth : Famous for Quattro Pro, Microsoft Access, and IE4; then BEA, now Google
• Don Box : Coauthor of SOAP
• Stewart Brand : Cofounder in 1984 of the WELL bulletin board
• Tim Bray : One of the prime movers of XML, now with Sun
• Dan Bricklin : Cocreator of VisiCalc, the first PC spreadsheet
• Larry Brilliant : Cofounder in 1984 of the WELL bulletin board
• Sergey Brin : Son-of-college-math-professor turned cofounder of Google, Inc.
• Dave Cutler : The brains behind VMS; hired away by Microsoft for Windows NT
• Don Ferguson : Inventor of the J2EE application server at IBM
• Roy T. Fielding : Primary architect of HTTP 1.1 and a founder of the Apache Web server
• Bob Frankston : Cocreator of VisiCalc, the first PC spreadsheet
• Jon Gay : The "Father of Flash"
• James Gosling : "Father of Java" (though not its sole parent)
• Anders Hejlsberg : Genius behind the Turbo Pascal compiler, subsequently "Father of C#"
• Daniel W. Hillis : VP of R&D at the Walt Disney Company; cofounder, Thinking Machines
• Miguel de Icaza : Now with Novell, cofounder of Ximian
• Martin Fowler : Famous for work on refactoring, XP, and UML
• Bill Joy : Cofounder and former chief scientist of Sun; main author of Berkeley Unix
• Mitch Kapor : Designer of Lotus 1-2-3, founder of Lotus Development Corporation
• Brian Kernighan : One of the creators of the AWK and AMPL languages
• Mitchell Kertzman : Former programmer, founder, and CEO of Powersoft (later Sybase)
• Klaus Knopper

• Tim Berners-Lee : "Father of the World Wide Web" and expectant father of the Semantic Web
• Joshua Bloch : Formerly at Sun, where he helped architect Java's core platform; now at Google
• Grady Booch : One of the original developers of the Unified Modeling Language
• Adam Bosworth : Famous for Quattro Pro, Microsoft Access, and IE4; then BEA, now Google
• Don Box : Coauthor of SOAP
• Stewart Brand : Cofounder in 1984 of the WELL bulletin board
• Tim Bray : One of the prime movers of XML, now with Sun
• Dan Bricklin : Cocreator of VisiCalc, the first PC spreadsheet
• Larry Brilliant : Cofounder in 1984 of the WELL bulletin board
• Sergey Brin : Son-of-college-math-professor turned cofounder of Google, Inc.
• Dave Cutler : The brains behind VMS; hired away by Microsoft for Windows NT
• Don Ferguson : Inventor of the J2EE application server at IBM
• Roy T. Fielding : Primary architect of HTTP 1.1 and a founder of the Apache Web server
• Bob Frankston : Cocreator of VisiCalc, the first PC spreadsheet
• Jon Gay : The "Father of Flash"
• James Gosling : "Father of Java" (though not its sole parent)
• Anders Hejlsberg : Genius behind the Turbo Pascal compiler, subsequently "Father of C#"
• Daniel W. Hillis : VP of R&D at the Walt Disney Company; cofounder, Thinking Machines
• Miguel de Icaza : Now with Novell, cofounder of Ximian
• Martin Fowler : Famous for work on refactoring, XP, and UML
• Bill Joy : Cofounder and former chief scientist of Sun; main author of Berkeley Unix
• Mitch Kapor : Designer of Lotus 1-2-3, founder of Lotus Development Corporation
• Brian Kernighan : One of the creators of the AWK and AMPL languages
• Mitchell Kertzman : Former programmer, founder, and CEO of Powersoft (later Sybase)
• Klaus Knopper

• Tim Berners-Lee : "Father of the World Wide Web" and expectant father of the Semantic Web
• Joshua Bloch : Formerly at Sun, where he helped architect Java's core platform; now at Google
• Grady Booch : One of the original developers of the Unified Modeling Language
• Adam Bosworth : Famous for Quattro Pro, Microsoft Access, and IE4; then BEA, now Google
• Don Box : Coauthor of SOAP
• Stewart Brand : Cofounder in 1984 of the WELL bulletin board
• Tim Bray : One of the prime movers of XML, now with Sun
• Dan Bricklin : Cocreator of VisiCalc, the first PC spreadsheet
• Larry Brilliant : Cofounder in 1984 of the WELL bulletin board
• Sergey Brin : Son-of-college-math-professor turned cofounder of Google, Inc.
• Dave Cutler : The brains behind VMS; hired away by Microsoft for Windows NT
• Don Ferguson : Inventor of the J2EE application server at IBM
• Roy T. Fielding : Primary architect of HTTP 1.1 and a founder of the Apache Web server
• Bob Frankston : Cocreator of VisiCalc, the first PC spreadsheet
• Jon Gay : The "Father of Flash"
• James Gosling : "Father of Java" (though not its sole parent)
• Anders Hejlsberg : Genius behind the Turbo Pascal compiler, subsequently "Father of C#"
• Daniel W. Hillis : VP of R&D at the Walt Disney Company; cofounder, Thinking Machines
• Miguel de Icaza : Now with Novell, cofounder of Ximian
• Martin Fowler : Famous for work on refactoring, XP, and UML
• Bill Joy : Cofounder and former chief scientist of Sun; main author of Berkeley Unix
• Mitch Kapor : Designer of Lotus 1-2-3, founder of Lotus Development Corporation
• Brian Kernighan : One of the creators of the AWK and AMPL languages
• Mitchell Kertzman : Former programmer, founder, and CEO of Powersoft (later Sybase)
• Klaus Knopper

• Tim Berners-Lee : "Father of the World Wide Web" and expectant father of the Semantic Web
• Joshua Bloch : Formerly at Sun, where he helped architect Java's core platform; now at Google
• Grady Booch : One of the original developers of the Unified Modeling Language
• Adam Bosworth : Famous for Quattro Pro, Microsoft Access, and IE4; then BEA, now Google
• Don Box : Coauthor of SOAP
• Stewart Brand : Cofounder in 1984 of the WELL bulletin board
• Tim Bray : One of the prime movers of XML, now with Sun
• Dan Bricklin : Cocreator of VisiCalc, the first PC spreadsheet
• Larry Brilliant : Cofounder in 1984 of the WELL bulletin board
• Sergey Brin : Son-of-college-math-professor turned cofounder of Google, Inc.
• Dave Cutler : The brains behind VMS; hired away by Microsoft for Windows NT
• Don Ferguson : Inventor of the J2EE application server at IBM
• Roy T. Fielding : Primary architect of HTTP 1.1 and a founder of the Apache Web server
• Bob Frankston : Cocreator of VisiCalc, the first PC spreadsheet
• Jon Gay : The "Father of Flash"
• James Gosling : "Father of Java" (though not its sole parent)
• Anders Hejlsberg : Genius behind the Turbo Pascal compiler, subsequently "Father of C#"
• Daniel W. Hillis : VP of R&D at the Walt Disney Company; cofounder, Thinking Machines
• Miguel de Icaza : Now with Novell, cofounder of Ximian
• Martin Fowler : Famous for work on refactoring, XP, and UML
• Bill Joy : Cofounder and former chief scientist of Sun; main author of Berkeley Unix
• Mitch Kapor : Designer of Lotus 1-2-3, founder of Lotus Development Corporation
• Brian Kernighan : One of the creators of the AWK and AMPL languages
• Mitchell Kertzman : Former programmer, founder, and CEO of Powersoft (later Sybase)
• Klaus Knopper

• Tim Berners-Lee : "Father of the World Wide Web" and expectant father of the Semantic Web
• Joshua Bloch : Formerly at Sun, where he helped architect Java's core platform; now at Google
• Grady Booch : One of the original developers of the Unified Modeling Language
• Adam Bosworth : Famous for Quattro Pro, Microsoft Access, and IE4; then BEA, now Google
• Don Box : Coauthor of SOAP
• Stewart Brand : Cofounder in 1984 of the WELL bulletin board
• Tim Bray : One of the prime movers of XML, now with Sun
• Dan Bricklin : Cocreator of VisiCalc, the first PC spreadsheet
• Larry Brilliant : Cofounder in 1984 of the WELL bulletin board
• Sergey Brin : Son-of-college-math-professor turned cofounder of Google, Inc.
• Dave Cutler : The brains behind VMS; hired away by Microsoft for Windows NT
• Don Ferguson : Inventor of the J2EE application server at IBM
• Roy T. Fielding : Primary architect of HTTP 1.1 and a founder of the Apache Web server
• Bob Frankston : Cocreator of VisiCalc, the first PC spreadsheet
• Jon Gay : The "Father of Flash"
• James Gosling : "Father of Java" (though not its sole parent)
• Anders Hejlsberg : Genius behind the Turbo Pascal compiler, subsequently "Father of C#"
• Daniel W. Hillis : VP of R&D at the Walt Disney Company; cofounder, Thinking Machines
• Miguel de Icaza : Now with Novell, cofounder of Ximian
• Martin Fowler : Famous for work on refactoring, XP, and UML
• Bill Joy : Cofounder and former chief scientist of Sun; main author of Berkeley Unix
• Mitch Kapor : Designer of Lotus 1-2-3, founder of Lotus Development Corporation
• Brian Kernighan : One of the creators of the AWK and AMPL languages
• Mitchell Kertzman : Former programmer, founder, and CEO of Powersoft (later Sybase)
• Klaus Knopper

puke

Man, she's ugly too.

Linuxgram part of G2News and claims to "broken most of the key stories in Linux since it was started several years ago." Her version of "news" includes stuff like this tidbit where she breathlessly reports that some guy -- shown two pieces of code with no background or research (and under a non-disclosure agreement no reputable journalist would sign) -- declares them to be the same. That and numerous similar examples show that her "inside information" is obvious; she's sucking up to SCO by spinning the story their way. In return, they give her "inside information" -- which amounts to trivia like this; who they hired for a lawyer or how much they plan to charge for SCOSource -- so she can claim an exclusive story. This isn't journalism, it's pandering.

Kind of reminds me of the old Daily Show slogan, "When news breaks, we fix it."
Except for O'Gara it's more like, "When no news breaks, we invent some."

Yes, United Linux was supposed to be the Windows killer, after all...

It's a very interesting question. Where are the people who can manage technical companies?

Apparently they are very rare. When an open source programmer named his KDE program "Killustrator", the CEO of Adobe made a fool of himself, and cost Adobe a lot in bad publicity. It was an illustration progam, and the tradition is to begin KDE programs with the letter K.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is widely considered unstable. For example, see the September 8, 2003 CNET article Can Oracle survive Larry Ellison?

CEOs of technical companies need a thorough understanding of technical issues. HP's Carly Fiorina has little technical knowledge and it shows. For example, HP printer drivers are often amazingly buggy. An August 13, 2004 article asks "Is Carly Toast Yet?". The article says, "HP's stock price is down 62% since she arrived at the company."

Technical companies are extraordinarily abusive. For example, look at what Ed Foster has to say about warranty fulfillment: At the Manufacturer's Discretion. One reason for the abusiveness seems to be that most managers of technical companies have little or no technical knowledge. The only way they know to increase the (short-term) profit of a company is to abuse the customer.

The manager of a technically-oriented company needs excellent communication and social skills and a thorough understanding of the business of the company. Few people have the necessary range and depth of skills.

It seems a lot of people have already contacted the LinuxWeek editors; they've posted a link on the front page to the story with the tagline

Fed up with crap articles like this?

Let the management know: lwmeditors@sys-con.com

Way to get mileage out of tis bizarre mistake...

O'Gara's fondness for anonymous sources and unattributed quotes diminishes the corroborative value of the story.

be the judge ...
http://photos.sys-con.com/2390/maureen90_new.jpg

Who is behind LinuxWorld? Why the ridiculous pro-SCO equivocation and anti-IBM attacks? Regardless of how you feel about IBM, how can anybody else associated with the software industry support a company that has made IP-lawsuits its first and only business priority?

Who is behind LinuxWorld? Why the ridiculous pro-SCO equivocation and anti-IBM attacks? Regardless of how you feel about IBM, how can anybody else associated with the software industry support a company that has made IP-lawsuits its first and only business priority?

In an interview given just last night, the spec lead for 5.0 is asked what in his view the coolest new feature of the language is. Calvin Austin replies: If I just restrict myself to the language it would be metadata (JSR 175). We've only scratched the surface of its potential. For the platform, it's a bytecode insertion for profiling (JSR 163).

In nearly every statement made the author assumes that SCO has only it's best interest at heart and assumes IBM with only malicious motivations.

I often wonder at some web sites with linux in their names publishing anti linux things like this. Who really owns them. What was the motivation behind publishing such a pro SCO piece as this?

The author of the article clearly has a pro SCO bias that was noticed many months ago Here

I found this statement "Maureen O'Gara is editor-in-chief of Maureen O'Gara's LinuxGram(TM) - published weekly by G2 Computer Intelligence Inc. and distributed by Linux Business Week." at this location.

Which makes it appear as though linux business week is a seperate entity from either sys con or linuxworld. Unfortunately when you type "linuxbusinessweek.com" into the url bar it takes you back to linuxworld.com... stranger and stranger. And linuxworld.com says that that it is a Sys Con Media publication.

But there is no clear connection yet between sys-con media and either Linuxgram Magazine or G2 Computer Intelligence Inc. As far as anyone can tell they look like one company is just saying that someone else working for a different company said something.

Until I found the link on sys cons very own web site.

It says "MONTVALE, NJ--(INTERNET WIRE)--Aug. 12, 2002 -- SYS-CON Media (www.sys-con.com), headquartered in Montvale, New Jersey, today launched "Maureen O'Gara's LinuxGram" (www.linuxbusinessweek.com), a new online weekly newsletter."

Further down the page it also says "O'Gara's resume is impressive prior to founding Sea Cliff, Long Island-based, G2 Computer Intelligence, but it's more impressive since. She was the founding editor on CMP's Computer Systems News and blazed the CMP trail to the West Coast, where she was bureau chief; then on to Europe, where she was Computer Systems News's first European correspondent. "

So there is the connection to both G2 Computer Intelligence and Linuxgram.

There is also another connection noted on that page in a picture showing the CMP Media top executives very chummy with the SYS-CON Media top executitves. CMP Media is who Maureen worked for just before coming over to Sys Con Media.

Funny how this connection between LinuxGram and Linuxtoday is never noted when Linuxtoday runs a news story from Linuxgram. Most reputable media companies would include a disclaimer saying that the "expert" they were quoting is on their own staff.

Sad but true.

In nearly every statement made the author assumes that SCO has only it's best interest at heart and assumes IBM with only malicious motivations.

I often wonder at some web sites with linux in their names publishing anti linux things like this. Who really owns them. What was the motivation behind publishing such a pro SCO piece as this?

The author of the article clearly has a pro SCO bias that was noticed many months ago Here

I found this statement "Maureen O'Gara is editor-in-chief of Maureen O'Gara's LinuxGram(TM) - published weekly by G2 Computer Intelligence Inc. and distributed by Linux Business Week." at this location.

Which makes it appear as though linux business week is a seperate entity from either sys con or linuxworld. Unfortunately when you type "linuxbusinessweek.com" into the url bar it takes you back to linuxworld.com... stranger and stranger. And linuxworld.com says that that it is a Sys Con Media publication.

But there is no clear connection yet between sys-con media and either Linuxgram Magazine or G2 Computer Intelligence Inc. As far as anyone can tell they look like one company is just saying that someone else working for a different company said something.

Until I found the link on sys cons very own web site.

It says "MONTVALE, NJ--(INTERNET WIRE)--Aug. 12, 2002 -- SYS-CON Media (www.sys-con.com), headquartered in Montvale, New Jersey, today launched "Maureen O'Gara's LinuxGram" (www.linuxbusinessweek.com), a new online weekly newsletter."

Further down the page it also says "O'Gara's resume is impressive prior to founding Sea Cliff, Long Island-based, G2 Computer Intelligence, but it's more impressive since. She was the founding editor on CMP's Computer Systems News and blazed the CMP trail to the West Coast, where she was bureau chief; then on to Europe, where she was Computer Systems News's first European correspondent. "

So there is the connection to both G2 Computer Intelligence and Linuxgram.

There is also another connection noted on that page in a picture showing the CMP Media top executives very chummy with the SYS-CON Media top executitves. CMP Media is who Maureen worked for just before coming over to Sys Con Media.

Funny how this connection between LinuxGram and Linuxtoday is never noted when Linuxtoday runs a news story from Linuxgram. Most reputable media companies would include a disclaimer saying that the "expert" they were quoting is on their own staff.

Sad but true.

Some recent benchmarks show it is as fast as C++ (not C).

As for the startup time, you are right. However, I think you underestimate the amount of programming done for servers, and the ubiquity of server-based programs. Counting the websites and web applications you use every day, I would suspect that you use many more Java programs than you think.

and eBay runs on Java

Every comment posted on this thread appears in the article discussion forum at http://www.sys-con.com/story/feedback.cfm?storyid= 45966

Who is copying who?

Your message seems to be lacking a point. It suggests being critical of sources in a vague and general way, but has no specifics about the current story.

Are you suggesting that we dismiss this merely because it appears on the web? That's not "sophistication", that's just falling prey to the same fallacy, only in reverse! The reality is that the "web" status is a null factor.

Paul Graham's qualifications are freely available online. While you of course can't therefore accept everything he says uncritically, he isn't even a good example of "some guy with a blog saying things". He's been around for decades, doing real work, writing books on complicated subjects, and while I can't know for sure, if I had to lay money, the odds favor him being much more experienced than you. (Which is to say, his comments can have the type of value you seem to desire, not that they must. I personally largely agree with him but there are plenty of people with equal or more experience I do not agree with, some of them very highly respected; as a concrete "for instance" I don't agree with anybody who believes that only static type checking by the compiler can produce quality software. That's a lot of very big names.)

Similarly, this author's qualifications are freely available online. While I'm not sure I'd trust him to evaluate why Java is doing well, or to evaluate it from a technical standpoint, he seems to me to be in a very good position to evaluate how the industry interest in Java is faring, certainly much better than my position. (On the other hand, the incompetent use of a "Google-fight" is disconcerting; again, I'm not advocating blind acceptance or rejection.)

You don't directly say "This can be dismissed because it is on the web", but you sure seem to strongly imply it. Did you not finish your post before you hit "Submit", or are you really advocating falling into the exact same fallacy you think you are warning against?

This is much more interesting:
Run .NET-Based Applications "On Any Java Platform"

Check out Java programming for kids, parents and grandparents e-book. Review and sample chapter here.

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!

But not zero. And the commercial support is two-fold:

• development of the Apache code base,
• installation, customization and maintenance for users.

Sure, customers love high performing, reliable, more secure software such as Apache. And, if they have someone with some expertise with a few hours to spare once in a while, then they can maintain their own web sites cost effectively without ever cutting a check to anyone outside the company. And the effort required to support Apache may be lower than the competition in many situations. But it's still not zero. While the company can download and run Apache without ever contributing any code tot he project, code still had to be written and still needs to be maintained.

The Apache Foundation includes members of several commercial concerns. That commercial support of the open source project has probably helped immeasureably in making Apache better.

Also, for businesses and other users that would like to contract out Apache support there are vendors (eg, Covalent, IBM, HP, Red Hat, Novell/SuSE, ...) that will provide it.

Mohring writes that 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."

He continues:

"Sun's agreement to Microsoft Communications Protocol Program represents a real sellout by Sun. Until now, the only major vendors to sign up to the protocol agreement have been Cisco and guess who, The SCO Group ( only after the "investment" by Microsoft ). Even the U.S. Justice Department expressed concern that Microsoft has not completely lived up to its agreement. Just as with the SCO Group, it appears Microsoft has effectively paid off Sun to accept this agreement. "

Reuters was confirming it, says LinuxWorld, as early as April 1 itself

writing at JDJ's online site, McNealy said he was pressured to try glasnost by his customers, who have mixed environments and wanted the companies to "stop the noise" and "get it together." Ballmer said there was "nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing" in the agreement, which was barely sketched, that "would not delight" both sets of customers.

Messman also makes the argument that CIOs find the idea that the community owns the code "pretty daunting", epecially as different pieces of the software stack are owned by different vendors.

Novell's USP appears to be to give CIOs "one throat to choke" - a phrase that's also been used in connection with the $10 million injection into JBoss by Matrix Partners. (Not so U after all, hehe!)

Here.

Javalobby's Rick Ross doesn't agree with ESR, but he doesn't agree with Sun either, saying that "No Sun Is An Island" and urging Sun to take much more initiative in helping create what Ross calls "a cooperative industry alliance for Java platform marketing." Well worth reading.

"The Emulator software does not include ROM images. It is like a computer without an operating system. Also note that the emulator emulates 68K devices and thus runs ROM images through OS 4.x. For testing on OS 5 based devices see the Palm OS 5 Simulator page."

For OS5 development purely in Linux, I have to synch my code into my own Zire71 and pray every time... thank heavens for programs like backupbuddyVFS

Mostly, I keep another box on my local network running win2k so I can load my code straight into the OS5 simulator. That situation really bugs me... and I hope that the OS6 simulator gets released in a Linux version.

It would probably pay me to get into java on the Palm as that would widen my market to include other devices that support the IBM J2Micro Environment.

There a great interview with The father of C# here too,

What does that mean? Is he going to spin a small Italian car around and see what it points to? I've never heard the term "by fiat".

BTW I guess since he lost his job at HP, he's had to clean himself up a bit. I guess he gave up on the Dr. Who lookalike style.

Article seems to be slashdotted:

Text from similar article

On 26 December, if all goes well and if a single workstation running Linux proves itself up to the task of running a space probe, the world will learn that "the Beagle has landed."

The workstation in question is installed at the Lander Operations Control Centre, part of Britain's new National Space Center in Leicester, England. It uses something called SCOS (Spacecraft Control Operating System) which sits on top of Linux, and there are two more Linux-based systems as back-up.

The "Beagle 2 Mars Lander," according to a report this morning at whatpc.co.uk, is scheduled to separate from the European Space Agency's Mars Express rocket on Friday, December 19, and is reckoned to have only a 50:50 chance of success. No fault of Linux - the actual landing site is one imponderable factor that could affect comms detrimentally if the Beagle 2 is unlucky. If all goes well, the landfall will take place at 08:51 EST on Christmas Day, December 25.

Seems Henry Roswell in the second of those articles - from Java developer's Journal is none too pleased at Sun. In answer to his rhetorical question 'Can anyone tell me what "Java standards" or "Java based" actually means any more?' he answers, apparently not a happy camper: 'From where I'm looking,' he grumbles, 'it seems to be synonymous with "created by Sun."'

Here: Java Desktop to Maybe Help Brits Stay Healthier, Cheaper?" and here "What does 'Java-based' actually mean any more?"

Here: Java Desktop to Maybe Help Brits Stay Healthier, Cheaper?" and here "What does 'Java-based' actually mean any more?"

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

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

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

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

8. Lottery

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

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

6. Raelians

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

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

4. Stealing Cars In Bright Daylight

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

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

2. Smoking"They are smoking crack."

And number one, according to Mack...

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

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

James Turner leads off on the "too many itches" syndrome and other problems - Steve Suehring offers his Counterpoint

December 1, 2003, http://www.linuxworld.com/story/38073.htm

Summary
Just as, in the Java world, there are many competing MVC frameworks for JSP development, so many Open Source developers - says LinuxWorld senior editor James Turner - "scratch the same itch." In this week's installment of our "Point-Counterpoint" series, LinuxWorld editors James Turner and Steve Suehring slug it out over that most contentious of issues: does the Open Source community on occasion shoot itself in the foot? James says it does, constantly; Steve disagrees.

By James Turner Steve Suehring

Advertisement
James Turner: 5 problems with the Open Source community

There's no question that the Open Source community has a lot going for it. Besides a staggering amount of developer power that can be turned against important problems, the Open Source movement also has a passion and commitment to its work that the commercial software world often envies. But sometimes, the Open Source community can be its own worst enemy. Here are a few reasons why.

1. Too many developers "scratch the same itch."

We hear that Open Source developers come up with new ideas because they "had an itch to scratch." In other words, there was some need they had for a new application, and they "scratched" it by coming up with a tool. The problem is, it's not uncommon to end up with two or three (or more!) different packages doing the same thing. For a specific example, look at what's happened with the Linux sound systems, where there are now several competing packages that have to be supported by each distribution. Or in the Java world, look at how many competing MVC frameworks there are now for JSP development.

A little competition can be a good thing. After all, Linux is all about offering a competing vision for the operating system domain. But when too many competing visions exist, and aren't winnowed down to a small number of options over a short period of time, you end up with a mish-mash of conflicting standards, and a user community that ends up having to download and install a plethora of different packages that all do the same thing.

A perfect example of the "too many itches" syndrome is the absurd number of Linux distributions that exist out there. There's absolutely no reason for there to be more than two or three distributions. And because each one does things slightly differently, we've ended up with the problem that applications and drivers are rarely made available in binary form, because there are too many versions of too many releases of Linux to support.

As an application developer, you would have to provide 5 - 10 different binary installs, one for each distribution. Now multiply that times the five or more active releases of a distribution that may be in active circulation, and you see why so few packages are available as anything but source (especially the most recent releases of packages that have not been compiled and included into Linux distributions yet.)

The next question to consider is, why don't we see more consolidation of technology? The answer: because...

2. Open Source developers love a good feud.

BSD vs Linux. Gnome vs KDE. Debian vs Red Hat. For every interesting Open Source technology, there are two bitterly feuding camps that spend as much time taking potshots at each other as in improving their own products.

It's hard to imagine how much better a lot of Open Source software would be if these groups cooperated and consolidated their efforts, rather than act like the Hatfields and McCoys. Unfortunately, the downside of personal

For the record, I did object during the JCP process, and even offered a modification to the architecture, but was dismissed.

I wrote a more extensive criticism of this API in the Java Developer's Journal back in March of 2002. An on-line version (with some of the preamble truncated) is available here.

One little problem with your one little issue: Sun paid SCO after SCO publicly announced they hired David Boies.

SCO hired David Boies on or before, January 10, 2003.

SCO Threatens to Press IP Claims on Linux

On January 22, 2003, SCO made their public announcement.

Has SCO Fired Shot to Start Linux War?

Sun closed their deal, paid their money, and received their stock warrant on or after February 1, 2003.

SCO 10-Q

I think Sun knew what SCO was planning to do with Boies, especially since SCO and IBM had already held talks by then, and Sun negotiated an equity stake in SCO as part of Sun's deal with SCO.

We'll find out more when SCO files their next 10-Q.

"SCO's lawsuit is not just funny, but 'ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha' funny"

These very issues are discussed in LinuxWorld Magazine by a self-proclaimed "Windows refugee" - its Desktop Technologies editor, Mark Hinkle. The article was previewed here. Hinkle really knows his stuff, he's a founding board member of the Linux Desktop Consortium and this is the most thoro article i've seen in a long while.

"As a result, Novell is supposedly trying to figure out how to lob another discrediting hand grenade at SCO and claim that the code SCO is basing its $3 billion contentions on is actually in the public domain," LinuxGram says.

Changed my mind? I have been entirely consistant in what I've said. A license for the Unix source code does not merely cover the Unix kernel. It includes core utilities and libraries. Microsoft licensed this code to port to Windows. I've made no claims to the contarary, and have provided evidence (which you convenently chose to completely ignore in your reply) to back that up. For the record a previous slashdot story linked to this Linux Business Week article. You should read it. Since you probably won't, I'll include this quote from the article: "...if we didn't have any actual use for the license, it absolutely would not have happened. The fact that the license would make it easier to enhance future versions of Services for Unix was a deciding factor."

Oh sure. The line "valid reason why Microsoft would have bought a license for the Unix source code" thus trying to indicate that SCO owns "the Unix source code" is FUD in a pure form. SCO owns parts of a very outdated source (over 10 years old) which is mostly (in the form of BSD) in the public domain anyway.

First of all, the BSD code is not in the public domain. Second of all, I never claimed to support SCO's claim to own the Unix source. Whether they do or not is debatable, apparently, and I hope Novell turns out to be right. What is not in question, though, is that SCO definitely does have the sole rights to license the source to SystemV. Third, your claim that SystemV code and BSD code are (mostly) the same is complete nonsense. BSD was forced to remove all the SystemV code as a result of the USL lawsuit. There is no SystemV code in BSD. (That's not to say that there's no BSD code in SystemV, although the terms of the settlement of the USL lawsuit specifically stated that no more BSD code would be incorporated into SysV than was already there at the time of the settlement.)

Microsoft is not funding SCOs attack against Linux. A Unix source license would pay for SCO's lawyers for what, an hour two worth of work? It takes a fairly large team of high priced lawyers to attack IBM, and this does not come cheap. A single Unix source license is not particularly significant here.

noah