Slashback: Hatred, Glass, Identification

Slashback brings you another source for the Unix Haters' Handbook, along with more news on the Caldera v. IBM lawsuit and other updates on topics from XPde to creating a stained-glass computer. Read on below for the details.

Why Yes, you can sell the Free books. ProteusQ writes "Project Gutenberg has released a 'Best Of' CD, April 2003 Edition. The CD compilation is copyrighted and licensed under a Creative Commons license that allows unlimited non-commercial duplication and distribution. You can even sell it, provided that you share 20% of the gross profits with Project Gutenberg. It contains almost 500 books, and the 'Best Of' project itself based on the Open Source model. All of the work was performed by volunteers (mostly by me, in this case), with the goal of building a volunteer base to create about three editions per year."

Welcome to the American legal system, mind your footing. An anonymous reader submits: "In an e-mail discussion that took place 24 and 25 April, SCO-Caldera Senior Vice President Chris Sontag told MozillaQuest Magazine that there is SCO-owned code in Red Hat and SuSE Linux distributions. He also told MozillaQuest Magazine that the tainted code is not in the Linux kernel that Linus [Torvalds] and others have helped develop. We're talking about what's on the periphery of the Linux kernel."

On this topic, Random BedHead Ed writes "IBM has released its denial of SCO Group's charges that it borrowed proprietary UNIX code in its development of the GNU/Linux system. Story at News.com.com.com.etc. The battle continues.

Also, check out PCLinuxOnline.com for a good summary of the events thus far. They also have a Boycott SCO page if you're interested."

The height of practicality. Jerami Campbell writes "I just saw your article in Slashdot 'Building a stained glass computer case?' I have made several stained glass computer cases, I thought you might be interested in checking them out. You can see all of my cases at lucentrigs.com. I will have a new one finished in a couple of days. It is black glass with a red lava lamp mounted in the front."

Gun buffs have well-adjusted sights. In regards to the MP3-player-in-a-rifle-magazine posted the other day, Mat S. writes "I would be reaaaaally surprised if this fit a standard AK-47, as it is an SVD (Russian infantry rifle, as opposed to the AK, which is in fact a carbine, although called an assault rifle) mag. It accommodates much more powerful ammo, and the cartridges are about 50% longer than the AK's. Thank you for your attention. I still WANT this player. Might be a bit on the heavy side, though. this case is stamped steel, about 3 mm thick :)"

Fair and balanced, naturally. An anonymous reader writes "For those of you who were unable to obtain the Microsoft propaganda about Unix, it's up at MIT."

Note for the humorless: the UHH is not "Microsoft propaganda."

The best Congress money can buy. If you thought Hilary Rosen writing Iraq's copyright law was an isolated incident, don't worry, she's not alone. theodp writes "The RIAA paid $18,000 for the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to travel to Taiwan and Thailand to make it clear to government officials that the pressure to enforce U.S. laws against pirating of music and movies 'is a unified message coming from all levels of the U.S. government.' Watchdog groups say the trip may have violated House ethics rules, and one is calling for a House Ethics Committee investigation. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said he could have used committee funds to pay for the trip but, 'I thought I would save the taxpayers some money on this.'"

Thanks a bundle.

A considerate way to fool your friends and family. We've mentioned the blink-twice Trompe L'Oeil Windows-looking desktop XPde a few times before; now xexen writes "On April 26th 2003, I received an email. The XPde Team released XPde 0.3.5, a major upgrade to the XPde desktop environment and window manager. Check out the announcement, view the screenshots, or read the detailed ChangeLog."

Build up your frequent flyer miles. A few weeks ago we mentioned that the proceedings of the most recent linux.conf.au (a Linux gathering Down Under) were available as an ISO; hemos, who was on hand at the conference, passes on word that the CDs have been sent out, and points to some more info on the next LCA.

Comments

MP3 Rifles?

[Santos L. Halper]

All my rifles play ogg.

Yes

[The Bungi]

Fair and balanced, naturally.

Like coverage of Linux. Naturally.

Re:Yes

[SuperCal]

Fair and balanced.... like Fox News?

Re:Yes

[The Bungi]

Didja mean Faux News? =)

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

You report. Moderators decide.

Re:Yes

[SN74S181]

Maybe he meant Forged News.

Re:count me out!

[SUB7IME]

Hint: Learn how to format lines of code before insulting... well... anything.

they have a CD?

[SHEENmaster]

So I didn't have to "wget -r" their entire FTP server from the local college's multiple T3 lines? Sorry guys.

(Just a joke, no need for you to do the same to my server.)

Re:they have a CD?

[evilviper]

Personally, I made a copy of PG a while back. I made it from my (at the time) 256kbps connection. I would rather have downloaded the files compressed, but since they don't provide that option, the PG guys must not care about bandwidth.

I took all the files and compressed them (bzip2 -9) so they would all fit on a CD, along with programs that could uncompress them on a few platforms. I contacted PG, basically asking if they would like me to make my ISO available, so people wanting to do the same wouldn't waste their bandwidth, I got a very polite 'whatever, go away' message in reply.

So, I don't think there is much point in feeling sorry for them. They are obviously happy with the status quo. Anyone want a CD-R of PG? Couple bucks for the copy+postage, and you can do whatever you want to do with it.

Re:they have a CD?

[Darth Hubris]

See, you pay them a bit of money, then they like, do it some more! Yeah! Groovy! Digit?

lava lamps

[shird]

As cool as it might look, I cant imagine having a lava lamp on the front of your case is too practical - those things get verrry hot. If your anything like me, youd prefer to have it as bare bones as possible, concentrating more on temperature, in order to get the fan speeds down ( = less noise).

Re:lava lamps

[larry bagina]

Maybe you could use the lava lamp to cool your P4.

Re:lava lamps

[Anonymous Coward]

That is an excellent idea, and I have taken the liberty of patenting it.

Sincerely,
Jeff Bezos
CEO, Amazon.com

Re:lava lamps

[ePhil_One]

Maybe you could use the lava lamp to cool your P4.

Actually, I think you have this backwards. Use the P4 to heat the lamp, and just use a nice cool LED or other cool light tech (I think flourecent would give bad EMF karma). Its the heat/cooling cycle that generates the groovy rising falling globules. Is the temperature stable enough? Whats the temperature range the rise/fall process is stable over. Just what is that goo made off?

Re:lava lamps

[Ulalume]

The way I designed the case the lava lamp has two fans mounted above it, venting hot air out. and once it is heated to the "flowing" temp. I can turn off two of the lights and it flows without generating any heat to the case. Nothing actually touches the glass the lava is in. it is completely surrounded by air. so their isn't much for the heat to transfer too, and air flow is excelent.

Re:lava lamps

[Exedore]

Its the heat/cooling cycle that generates the groovy rising falling globules.

I think the word you're looking for is convection.

Just what is that goo made off?

It's basically just wax, formulated to achieve a certain level of viscosity.

I think we may be on to something here, though. It would be neat as all hell to have your processor's heat power a lava lamp. I guess it would have to be some kind of desktop or pizza box type case where the processor is mounted horizontally near the top of the case. You could then mount the lava lamp atop the processor through a hole in the top of the case.

I imagine the heat from the processor would be more than enough to melt the wax and set the whole thing in motion. Since most of the lava lamp is outside the case, it could passively shed excess heat into the surrounding air. I have no idea whether this would keep the processor cool enough or not... I guess it would depend upon several factors, not the least of which would be the processor itself. Maybe you would have to underclock the chip or go with one of the cooler running Via chips instead... I dunno.

I know some of the overclocking enthusiast sites use a cpu die simulator of some kind to test heatsinks and whatnot. Shouldn't be too hard to test the lava lamp rig without sacrificing a cpu.

I can't believe that this is a totally original idea. Has anyone out there in /. land tried anything similar to this?

Re:lava lamps

[billtom]

Huh? This guy is building *stained glass* computer cases and you're pointing out that he's not being very practical by including a lava lamp?

Re:lava lamps

[ePhil_One]

Just what is that goo made off?

It's basically just wax, formulated to achieve a certain level of viscosity.

Looked that way, but I didn't know we could control the density of wax that well. Its got to be pretty spot on, slightly under the density of water so that when it heats/expands, it drops below that of the fluid its in (or do we dope the fluid density?). Boiling point is important to, can't have the fluid boil and explode the conatainer, and since the whole thing is sealed, there's got to be a decent amount of air that can compress as the fluids expand with T. DAmned lot of science in the fool things, never thought about it before.

I think we may be on to something here, though. It would be neat as all hell to have your processor's heat power a lava lamp. I guess it would have to be some kind of desktop or pizza box type case where the processor is mounted horizontally near the top of the case. You could then mount the lava lamp atop the processor through a hole in the top of the case.

Hm, I was thinking of using a watercooling rig to transport the heat, meatal tube for better heat conduction in the base, a clear tube looped around the outside in the upper visible area (or off to a separate radiator to deal with the excess heat). A direct system might be more efficient/quieter, but we need to redesign the bottle. Glass doesn't conduct heat well, so we'll need to invert the usual design and have a wide copper cap to interface the CPU. (Maybe some fins inside the bottle as well, wax is a decent insulator)

I imagine the heat from the processor would be more than enough to melt the wax and set the whole thing in motion. Since most of the lava lamp is outside the case, it could passively shed excess heat into the surrounding air. I have no idea whether this would keep the processor cool enough or not... I guess it would depend upon several factors, not the least of which would be the processor itself. Maybe you would have to underclock the chip or go with one of the cooler running Via chips instead... I dunno.

Checked the local Lava lamp, its got a 25 watt bulb. So to handle a 80 watt P4 we'll need a bottle with about 3x the surface area. Its a smallish lamp though. The trick I expect will be designing something other than a round bottle to maximize surface area; though I wonder if we could reduce this by utilizing a second radiator at the top (a decorative aluminum cap?) Ought to help a lot, glass is normally a good heat insulator, isn't it?

Re:lava lamps

[Exedore]

Yeah, there's definitely a lot to think about here. So much so that it's probably easier to do what the guy in the article did... just slap some lamps in there to power the lava lamp and use it solely for decoration rather than have your system depend on it.

Glass is indeed more of a thermal insulator than a conductor though. I guess what we really need is transparent aluminum. Screw the whales, Scotty, we need this stuff to build a lava lamp heatsink, so fire up that Apple and let's get cracking.

um

[GigsVT]

"The RIAA paid $18,000 for the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to travel to Taiwan and Thailand

Why is this buried in a Slashback? Come on! This is huge news.

Re:um

[philovivero]

Yeah, this is huge news. A U.S. congressman spent $18,000 to go to Taiwan and Thailand? I know for a fact that at the most expensive hotels and with the most expensive food, you can only spend about $8,000 on a trip to those countries. So the other $10,000 went to prostitutes, drugs, and... what? Into his pocket?

Re:um

[maxume]

perhaps his staff?

Re:um

[Otter]

Why is this buried in a Slashback? Come on! This is huge news.

No it's not. "Fact-finding"junkets like this are perfectly routine. You may find that reassuring or you may find it cause for even more concern. (In any case, the story of a British MP taking hundreds of thousands of pounds from an Iraqi intelligence agency has gone almost unnoticed in the US.)

Meanwhile, I had a story rejected today that seems like it would be of interest: Boycott Hollywood had their domain revoked after legal threats from the William Morris Agency. They posted contact information for anti-war celebrities and their agents, incurring the wrath of a powerful firm.

Keep that in mind the next time you hear Susan Sarandon and Martin Sheen whining about being silenced.

Re:um

[abe ferlman]

It's not huge news because the junket was paid for - It's huge news because Sensenbrenner, the Chairman of the *House Judiciary Committee*, was actually *criticized* for it - and Rupert Murdoch's news empire took notice. It even ran on the front page of foxnews.com for a while.

Unfortunately, THAT is not at all routine, and should be front page news here.

Re:um

[Geekboy(Wizard)]

Already mentioned the prostitutes.

Re:um

[Anonymous Coward]

If their domain was revoked why can I visit it?

Re:um

[Anonymous Coward]

From the great white hype:

Come on man whats it going to take for this to hapen...Money, Sex, Drugs,...Power...

Yah, Power, Thats Right power...

Hee hee hee, your fired.

ok, ok....money sex and drugs...shsh

Re:um

[Guppy06]

"So the other $10,000 went to prostitutes, drugs, and... what? Into his pocket?"

Hong Kong knock-offs of Britney Spears albums. Oh, wait...

Re:um

[elodan]

(In any case, the story of a British MP taking hundreds of thousands of pounds from an Iraqi intelligence agency has gone almost unnoticed in the US.)

Allegedly! The MP in question is George Galloway, who's made several trips to Iraq, met Saddam, and very publicly denounced the war for oil... whoops sorry, war for freedom.

However, there are strong indications that the "incriminating documents" supposedly found in Iraq are forgeries, and Galloway insists that he's the victim of a smear campaign by the Government. Unfortunately, this isn't entirely implausible - we've done it before, after all.

Re:um

[u38cg]

I think the reason the story about George Galloway has gone unnoticed is that no-one believes a word of it.

The story, for those that missed it, is that Galloway was a big anti-war, anti-sanctions guy. He went out to Iraq several times and appeared more than once in public cosily chatting to Saddam-may-he-rest-in-peace. Then, last week, the Daily Telegraph (very right-wing, whereas George Galloway is kinda not), produced documents apparently showing Galloway had taken piles of money for it.

It's interesting to note that on four consecutive days, the same reporter had four different scoops in two different papers, all down to miraculously unburnt secret documents. Private Eye this week has a fairly withering commentary on the whole thing.

Re:um

[Noel]

George Bush is attacking Iraq to gain control of oil.

Sorry. Spelling mistake, I think. Should be:

George Bush is attacking Iraq to gain control of all.

Re:um

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how he's going to explain testing HIV-positive in six months.

Just in case MIT gets slashdotted...

[baximus]

PlanetMirror has the UHH here.

Enjoy (yeah, second time i've posted this - the last time got deleted - thanks guys)

Re:Just in case MIT gets slashdotted...

[Doom Ihl' Varia]

MIT? Get Slashdotted? Pardon me while I die of laughter.
These guys have more bandwith than Jesus. Of course Jesus never owned a computer but if he did you could betcha he would have some pretty heavy fiber.

Re:Just in case MIT gets slashdotted...

[alouts]

Well, I'm not sure how much bandwidth they have, but as an aside, I do remember they have an insane amount of IP space.

In fact when I was there in the early 90's, the student paper kept making jokes about how even the lightsockets in the hallways had their own IP addresses. the entire 18.x.x.x space is (or at least *was* at the time) MIT, giving them over 16 million IP addresses to assign to students.

Re:Just in case MIT gets slashdotted...

[arlow]

yeah, their web servers probably have oodles of bandwidth, but us poor students in Next House (a dorm) have really shitty bandwidth :(

Re:Just in case MIT gets slashdotted...

[evilviper]

That's pretty cool!
whois 18.0.0.0

OrgName: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
OrgID: MIT-2
Address: Laboratory for Computer Science
Address: 545 Main Street
City: Cambridge
StateProv: MA
PostalCode: 02139
Country: US

NetRange: 18.0.0.0 - 18.255.255.255
CIDR: 18.0.0.0/8
NetName: MIT
NetHandle: NET-18-0-0-0-1
Parent:
NetType: Direct Assignment
NameServer: STRAWB.MIT.EDU
NameServer: W20NS.MIT.EDU
NameServer: BITSY.MIT.EDU
Comment:
RegDate:
Updated: 1998-09-26

TechHandle: JIS-ARIN
TechName: Schiller, Jeffrey
TechPhone: +1-617-253-8400
TechEmail: jis@mit.edu


When do I get my own class A subnet?

Re:Just in case MIT gets slashdotted...

[suwain_2]

When do I get my own class A subnet?

When you're one of the first people on the web. :) "Back in the day," no one imagined the Internet would be what it is today, and they gave out huge chunks of IP space without thinking twice.

BTW, I wrote a script to do whois lookups on all the Class A's (although I don't know where the output went... I though I saved it somewhere). There have to be at least 25 Class A's that the US Government owns.

Re:Just in case MIT gets slashdotted...

[suwain_2]

Getting pretty offtopic, but how do you like MIT? Not sure I'll get accepted, but it's one of the colleges I'm thinking of applying to. It obviously has a good academic ranking, but how do you like it? Even things like lack of bandwidth are good to know. :)

Microsoft propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

Note for the humorless: the UHH is not "Microsoft propaganda."

I note that since the original story was posted, a disclaimer has been put up at the site (no doubt in response to the humorless):

Due to being announced on Slashdot.org, the book has gotten a lot of fresh attention. I've added this page so that those downloading the book can be aware of some history before starting their read.

• This book is ten years old . I started work on it in 1992 (maybe even 1991) while I was a professor at Stanford. My co-editors took over after I started work at Microsoft. (So no, it's not a Microsoft conspiracy.) A lot has happened in the intervening decade.
• This book's target audience was people who themselves have noticed certain weaknesses in Unix at that time and could relate to our stories. Our goal was humor. Many readers have told us we succeeded in this. Even Eric Raymond liked it (his name is in the acknowledgements).
• The book is not meant to be balanced, it is a screed, pure and simple. Is it over the top? Yes.
• We wrote the contract with our publisher to have the copyright revert to us once the book went out of print. So yes, we have the right to publish it online. Feel free to mirror it where ever you want, print it out, and bind it.
• Do I have any regrets? Yes, that the funniest item in the book probably isn't anything we wrote, but is Dennis Ritchie's anti-forword. (We had asked Dennis to write a forword, thinking that since he was doing Plan 9 at that time, it would give him an opportunity to talk about how he had moved on from Unix and fixed its flaws in his next OS. (We were young and had a lot chutzpah then.) He read the Preface, and then sent back his essay. We thought it was great and tremendously funny, so we added it in (with permission). To this day, I don't know if he expected us to publish it.)
• If you enjoyed reading this book and felt it was worth the price of a least a movie and popcorn, send a $10 check to your favorite charity.

Re:Microsoft propaganda

[Blaine Hilton]

A care-ware license? Good choice

Re:Microsoft propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck you biyyaaaatch ! UNIX & BSD rock !!!!!!!!!!

you take that in good humor now

Re:Microsoft propaganda

[Zeinfeld]

Do I have any regrets? Yes, that the funniest item in the book probably isn't anything we wrote, but is Dennis Ritchie's anti-forword. (We had asked Dennis to write a forword, thinking that since he was doing Plan 9 at that time, it would give him an opportunity to talk about how he had moved on from Unix and fixed its flaws in his next OS.

Well first off, Plan 9 did not attempt to address a single one of the problems identified in the haters handbook. So it should not be a surprise that Ritchie did not read the book as a fix it

One of the curious things about the UNIx crowd is that they are the only people who had that degree of success that when asked what they would have done different seem to always answer 'nothing'. Ask Tim or me or any of the Web crowd what we did wrong and you get a laundry list, like top of mine is that we did not put a lightweight compressed encoding into the default libraries from the start. That would have saved a mass of bandwidth and speeded up dialup links two to threefold.

Second, I think Dennis tried to give the MIT guys the exact opposite of the answer they wanted because he knew that it would be funnier than the other content.

Re:Microsoft propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

"One of the curious things about the UNIx crowd is that they are the only people who had that degree of success that when asked what they would have done different seem to always answer 'nothing'."

I don't know if that's true or not but I suspect it has more to do with ego and attitude then it does about an honest assessment of one's work. Any one who thinks they haven't made any mistakes are either lying or just plain wrong.

Re:Microsoft propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh... So yoooooooou're the guy.

Just heard about the UHH. I started reading it a couple of days ago. I literally had tears in my eyes. I think I woke up my neighbor (upstairs) because I was listening to music, and didn't realize I was laughing so loudly!

If I were you, I wouldn't have any regrets. I don't know if the book turned out how you intended, but it is an entertaining read even for some pro-Unix individual like myself.

Re:Microsoft propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

"I don't know if that's true or not but I suspect it has more to do with ego and attitude then it does about an honest assessment of one's work. Any one who thinks they haven't made any mistakes are either lying or just plain wrong."

I don't know what that is even supposed to mean.

It certainly doesn't mean that the creators of UNIX thought it was ever perfect--otherwise, they wouldn't have kept changing it until recently.

What it may mean is that they made all their design decisions and tradeoffs after lots of thought and based only on technical criteria. It may also mean that they were satisfied with the basic design, which they had every reason to: the UNIX design and APIs have stood the test of time.

Note that few people outside Bell Labs actually ever have run what the UNIX creators built; they have mostly gotten BSD-derivatives or SysV-derivatives, both of which deviated greatly from the traditional UNIX design. Most of the junk and poor coding in UNIX was introduced by Berkeley students and companies like Sun.

Re:Microsoft propaganda

[jeremyp]

Since the first article (well both of them) I have had a chance to download and read the book. I was expecting to be outraged at the authors' lack of knowledge about my favourite operating system but in fact found myself squirming with embarrassment because many of their criticisms seemed to be perfectly valid.

The lack of a proper undelete support and/or versioning, the utter abortion that is/was ufs and its derivatives, the total lack of consistency in commands and their switches, the other abortion that was NFS, the lack of type information for files, the case sensitive file names (actually they didn't mention that one), the other other abortion that was the mail subsystem, the stoneage development environment.

The thing is, in the mid 80s to early 90s when the book was written, I had the opportunity to work on a variety of commercial operating systems and - except in the area of security - they all seemed just as bad or worse.

One particular example that brings tears to my eyes was the OS called MCP that came with Unisys A-series hardware (a stack based machine for which Algol was effectively its assembler language in the same way as C is PDP 11 assembler). The file system didn't corrupt files but there was no undelete facility and if you didn't defrag the disks every other day, the machine ground to a halt because it wasn't clever enough to split files across multiple blocks of free space. If you did defrag the disk the machine ground to a halt because defrag was taking all the IO bandwidth. Its idea of crash diagnostics was also to dump core but it did it to the line printer (in a readable format) not the file system.

Then there was VMS. I remember it being a total pig (but then I was used to Unix - it was probably unfamiliarity). One of the really annoying things was that when you changed something it kept the all the old versions lying around. Eventually, after a heavy debugging session the disk was full.

There were problems with every operating system I ever used which made Unix nice to come back to. It was probably the simplicity of the beast that appealed to me - we examined it in our operating systems course at University and it was easily the most agricultural architecture we looked at (apart from CP/M). I would definitely not have considered it for large scale commercial apps back then. But it was adequate for most small scale things where most other OSs could suck really badly in some areas.

I definitely recommend anybody who is considering developing and distributing apps on any OS to read this book. If you insist on using cryptic error messages, impose stupid restrictions or illogical behaviour, fail to document properly etc etc this is what people will be saying about you.

Re:Microsoft propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

"I don't know what that is even supposed to mean."

You have to read the post I was responding to if you want to understand what I said. The implication of that post was that Unix was perfectly designed, hence, the designers wouldn't change anything if they knew then what they know now.

Even if they used good technical criteria and did a fine job, nothing can erase the fact that the 1970's are not the same as 2000's. Despite all the bravado, Unix would not be the same if it were invented today.

We can't fault them for creating a state-of-the-art OS for their time, but it's silly to believe that all their design decisions are still optimal for today's environment.

That doesn't mean that some other current OS is necessarily better, but it does mean that a better OS is certainly possible.

Uh huh.

[Pres. Ronald Reagan]

The RIAA paid $18,000 for the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to travel to Taiwan and Thailand to make it clear to government officials that the pressure to enforce U.S. laws against pirating of music and movies 'is a unified message coming from all levels of the U.S. government.

I see. So the US is trying to cut down on piracy in other countries and some whiny "watchdog" groups have a problem with this. I suppose they would rather rampant Far Eastern software theft continue?

Re:Uh huh.

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this guy's post a troll? It seems pretty valid to me...

Looks like some mods are going to get hammered in Metamod.

Affirmative action for a right

[Ozan]

I don't exactly know what the u.s. equivalent is, but in Germany there is something called negative Feststellungsklage which means that Suse could apply for a court order declaring that SCOs claims are false and prohibits them to repeat their allegations.

If SCO seeks to achieve a precedent by sueing Suse this might be the appropriate backfire.

Just a thought.

Re:Affirmative action for a right

[Cyberdyne]

I don't exactly know what the u.s. equivalent is, but in Germany there is something called negative Feststellungsklage which means that Suse could apply for a court order declaring that SCOs claims are false and prohibits them to repeat their allegations. If SCO seeks to achieve a precedent by sueing Suse this might be the appropriate backfire.

There's a similar mechanism in the US (nothing to do with "affirmative action", at least in the US sense): you can petition the court for a "Declaratory Judgement". Effectively, winning such a judgement in your favor would mean SCO had already lost the first court case - they'd have to start off by appealing an existing ruling in your favor, instead of starting a new case against you. Definition here.

Re:Affirmative action for a right

[MidnightBrewer]

That's because German law is reasonable and fair. I have a friend in Leipzig who is studying to be a lawyer, and she specialized in studying American law. She was sometimes astonished, to say the least. She wonders how our legal system continues to function.

She was also amazed that we don't respect lawyers in America, unlike in Germany, where it's still a respected profession. Of course, Germans also pay school teachers, both in money and respect. Go figure.

Re:Affirmative action for a right

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the definition, I looked up feststellungsklage in the only dictionary I knew it was listed in and had the strong feeling that it impossibly could be "affirmative action" but I had nothing else to put into the subject.

Oz

Re:Affirmative action for a right

[MidnightBrewer]

I'm sorry, were we referring to a different government over 60 years ago under a completely different set of laws and a different constitution?

Let me check my calendar. I thought we were in a different century already.

Replace "software" with "IP."

[Pres. Ronald Reagan]

Whoops.

Another mirror for everyone

[mrt300]

I grabbed the UHH from the MIT guy and threw it on a Purdue server. Download away.

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~anthontj/random/ugh.pdf

Saved all but one of four tax payers...

[yeoua]

So which of the 4 poor saps sued by the RIAA (and then settled) paid for the congressman's trip?

The XPde FAQ thought about everything...

[MoThugz]

including this personal favourite of mine:

I'm a avid reader of Slashdot, I'm a Linux guru, I'm a BOFH, I'm a geek, Why the hell would I want this f#@#ng software?

Sorry, but I think this is not the project for you. (well, at least geeks like any kind of tech, so if you want to look at the source code.. ;-)

Re:The XPde FAQ thought about everything...

[BigBlockMopar]

I'm a avid reader of Slashdot, I'm a Linux guru, I'm a BOFH, I'm a geek, Why the hell would I want this f#@#ng software?

Heh... Yeah, I liked that, too.

Actually, I think XPde goes a long way toward getting Linux ready for mass adoption on the desktops of the corporate world.

Microsoft has spent millions of dollars on focus groups to have ordinary Joes and Janes sit down and play with Windows, telling them what's good and bad, from a user's perspective.

The open source desktop metaphors don't have that resource - but Windows XP - ugly and inefficient as it may be to most Slashdot readers - does represent a lot of UI design experience.

XPde goes the right way to adopting and trying to learn from the expertise of Microsoft and Apple.

Having a Linux distro ship KDE with fluorescent pink menus and background wallpaper that looks like it was designed by a 14-year-old Run Lola Run fan from East Berlin does very little to encourage IT buyers that they can take the risk and leave Microsoft's comfortable if expensive and unreliable embrace.

XPde also works to try to migrate casual users who don't have very specific or great requirements. There's one in every office: the 66-year-old executive to whom Outlook *is* e-mail, and who gets confused when you present another program with exactly the same features and operations but different icons. Just as there's no way to explain to this user that the Send button still sends e-mail and have him confidently understand it, there's also no reason for that person to run Windows with its vulnerabilities to mailbox Klez and Nimbda attacks.

I can think of a few desktops which I'm going to migrate from XP to XPde.

And I won't tell them they're running Linux until they've been using it for a couple of weeks.

Re:The XPde FAQ thought about everything...

[dcmeserve]

BOFH,

I haven't seen this one yet. What's is stand for? I have some guesses, but they don't seem right:

Big Old Fat Hedonist Bondage-Overdosed Foreign Homosexual Boring Old-Fart Human Boeing-Originated Faith Healer Born Only For Hunting

Re:The XPde FAQ thought about everything...

[decaying]

Bastard operator from hell

Re:The XPde FAQ thought about everything...

[ColaMan]

Bastard Operator From Hell.

See The Register for more info.

Re:The XPde FAQ thought about everything...

[netsharc]

Gee, typing "g bofh" in Opera's address bar got me the correct answer straight off.

Re:The XPde FAQ thought about everything...

[X-Nc]

Microsoft has spent millions of dollars on focus groups to have ordinary Joes and Janes sit down and play with Windows, telling them what's good and bad, from a user's perspective.

Yeah, then they did the opposite of everything the focus groups recommended...

Boycott SCO?

[Omega Hacker]

Wow, that'll affect all of SCO's 3 customers...?

IP Patents

[minion]

I just filled a patent for printf("Hello World\n"):!

Soon every elementary C Book will be violating my IP, and thus be required to pay me royalites.

PS: Thanks SCO for giving me such a great idea on how to make money fast, easy, and sleasy

Re:IP Patents

[chill]

Ummm.... I'm not a C genius, but wouldn't

printf("Hello, World\n");

be more of a problem for them? The comma is optional, but I though those things terminated with ; and not :. :-)

Re:IP Patents

[Mononoke]

Ummm.... I'm not a C genius, but wouldn't

printf("Hello, World\n");

be more of a problem for them? The comma is optional, but I though those things terminated with ; and not :. :-)

That's what makes it a learning experience.

Re:IP Patents

[mitcharoni]

Um, I have prior art dude.

No soup for you!

Re:IP Patents

[UserGoogol]

Dennis Ritchie and that other guy probably have some rights to printf("Hello, World\n"); But noone yet has the rights to printf("Hello World\n"): Now all he has to do is argue that those guys clearly were copying printf...: when they wrote the C Programming Language.

from the FAQ of XPde

[vivek7006]

Can this project be sued by Microsoft?

We don't know, we are not lawyers. But in any case, we are ready for that. We don't use any of Microsoft's registered trademarks, graphics, logos, or anything. This means someone could create a complete theme that mimics the Windows XP environment - where the dialogs are the same, the controls are positioned in the same places and with the same text.

Maybe that would be illegal, but *we* don't include *copyrighted* material. In the case Microsoft have ownership over (for example) a-dialog-that-shows-running-processes (i.e. TaskManager) and our dialog has the controls in the same positions as the Windows one, we are right now creating the translation system. This translation system will also allow "anyone" to position the controls of any dialog in any place. We can create a version with completely different dialogs (the same controls in different places) and *someone* could create a theme which modifies these controls to the Windows XP places.

But this is not our problem. Could Microsoft have copyrighted an environment like the taskbar concept? Could Microsoft have copyrighted the start menu concept? Could Microsoft have copyrighted the tray icon concept? Could Microsoft have copyrighted the desktop concept? In that case every desktop has a problem ;-)

The solution here is that we are not going to ship a complete Windows XP interface clone out-of-the-box, but it will be so easy to configure that *someone* could make it look *exactly* like the Windows XP interface. We won't provide this configuration.

Re:from the FAQ of XPde

[antis0c]

Just like Napster never forced anyone to download and distribute copyrighted MP3s, yeah this defense works well :)

Re:from the FAQ of XPde

[SN74S181]

Microsoft spent many, many thousands of dollars in the look-and-feel lawsuit against Apple Computer establishing the right of the XPde project to do exactly what they have done.

If Apple Computer had won the lawsuit, Microsoft would be free to shut down this project. However, Microsoft doesn't do things like that. They have a long history of not doing things like that merely over 'look-and-feel' issues. That's really more of an Apple Computer kind of thing.

Re:from the FAQ of XPde

[Anonymous Coward]

I would say that you're right, but .... Bill Gates isn't running the company any more. The salesmen and the lawyers may see things differently.

The upshot of the Apple case was that "Look'n'Feel" does not wash legally, but "Trade Dress" certainly does -- and Apple has successfully shut down many exact clones of it's interface. If MS willed it, this thing would be gone in an instant.

Re:from the FAQ of XPde

[gimpboy]

and Apple has successfully shut down many exact clones of it's interface.

did apple actually take these people to court, or did they just threaten them into submission?

Anyone found the filing?

[Goonie]

IBM's court filing would seem to be public information. Has anyone managed to locate a copy of it on the web somewhere?

Unix Haters' Handbook?

[bobbozzo]

Slashback brings you another source for the Unix Haters' Handbook

Huh? I don't see any further mention of this, and yes, I did look at the Project Gutenberg listing for the CD.

Re:Unix Haters' Handbook?

[bobbozzo]

OK. I found it.

Fair and balanced, naturally. An anonymous reader writes "For those of you who were unable to obtain the Microsoft propaganda about Unix, it's up at MIT."

It wasn't written as Microsoft propaganda though.

This is made clear by reading comments such as: MS Windows is not a real operating system (page 50 of the pdf file).

Re:Unix Haters' Handbook?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the comment made two lines below the one you read, in the article summary.

Re:Unix Haters' Handbook?

[bobbozzo]

That wasn't there when I posted.

Hey, the story doesn't say that

[Anonymous Coward]

Random BedHead Ed writes "IBM has released its denial of SCO Group's charges that it borrowed proprietary UNIX code in its development of the GNU/Linux system."

When I clicked the link, the story I found was about Linux, not GNU/Linux. Heck, there wasn't even a mention of GNU!

Is it just me, or does anyone else think the GNU/Linux zealots need to give it a rest?

Re:Hey, the story doesn't say that

[Anonymous Coward]

It's everyone but the GNU/Linux zealots, that's for sure.

Re:Hey, the story doesn't say that

[Random BedHead Ed]

You're right. But the problem with using the term Linux for the OS is, for me, not related to a movement, and nothing against Linus, and not because I am a zealot. It's for clarity. SCO has said that none of the "tainted" code is in the kernel itself. So the legal battle between IBM and SCO promises to be very confusing when both sides argue about code in "Linux" and each side is speaking about a different thing.

oh

[labratuk]

At first I read that line

...RIAA paid $18,000 for the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to travel to Taiwan and Thailand...

as

...RIAA paid $18,000 for the chairman of the House Ludicracy Committee to travel to Taiwan and Thailand...

Telling thing is, it made perfect sense to me the first time I scanned it.

Re:oh

[evilviper]

At first I read that line as:
Telling thing is, it made perfect sense to me the first time I scammed it.

Telling thing is, it made perfect sense.

Mod me up to +5 now.

carbine? assault rifle?

[EugeneK]

can someone tell me what these terms mean? thanks.

Re:carbine? assault rifle?

[bucephalis]

yes.

Re:carbine? assault rifle?

[bobbozzo]

A carbine is a short rifle (barrel length under 20").

"assault rifle" is a general term some anti-gun activists and politicians and media have created.
In the People's Republic of California, it is (defined by law as) a semiautomatic centerfire rifle with any of the following characterics:
a pistol grip
a flash suppressor
magazines holding more than 10 rounds
folding or collapsible butt stock ...
See here or here for more exact PRC legal info.

Re:carbine? assault rifle?

[Zirnike]

Just to be clear, until about 1990 or so, any dictionary and encyclopedia (as people have been missing the obvious lately, I feel the need to say 'that I was able to get my hands on to look at') defined assault rifle with the additional charactaristic 'Must be capable of burst fire and fully automatic fire'.

Re:carbine? assault rifle?

[JimmytheGeek]

the term was in use circa WWII to denote automatic weapons firing cartridges more powerful than pistol ammunition (used in submachine guns), but less powerful than a typical rifle bullet. The rationale is that most infantry combat took place at shorter range than what made a regular rifle necessary, and it's difficult to fire an automatic rifle using the more powerful cartridges.

Germany had a couple in WWII, the Russians had one too, I think. The U.S. went with the M14 (looks a lot like the M1, but has a detachable magazine and automatic fire) for a while, which was an automatic rifle by this definition. Then the M16.

Re:carbine? assault rifle?

[EugeneK]

Ok, so if I understand correctly, a carbine is a rifle whose barrel is shorter than usual.

An assault rifle is a rifle that shoots faster than usual.

You can have an assault rifle that is a carbine (AK-47) or an assault rifle that is not a carbine (
SVD).

Re:carbine? assault rifle?

[gl4ss]

http://club.guns.ru/manual/svd/ some information about the svd dragunov.

most notably why it isn't an 'assault rifle' like ak is the lack of full automatic fire(though, some versions with it were tested).

it's a _sniper_ rifle to be exact, russians first to be designed from scratch for sniping(and quite good at that, supposedly 'good enough' accuracy up to 1100-1300m), and can't see why it wouldnt have been cloned quite widely like ak47.

Re:carbine? assault rifle?

[mitcharoni]

Carbines also typically (nowadays) fire catridges designed for pistols (9mm, .45, etc.) though thats not always the case. Those types of ammunition work well for barrels less than 20". That's just becoming the trend.

Re:carbine? assault rifle?

[Otter]

Basically, the guns that have been singled out for special restrictions have been:

• "Saturday Night Specials" (cheap handguns)
• "Military-style handguns" (expensive handguns)
• "Assault rifles" (cheap rifles)

And then last summer, they started in on "sniper rifles", or expensive rifles. If I didn't know better, I'd think they were trying to eliminate guns entirely!

Re:carbine? assault rifle?

[wganz]

An assault rifle is a rifle that shoots faster than usual.

Do you mean faster in bullets per minute or bullets that have a higher muzzle velocity? In either case, that is not the correct definition.

The term 'assault rifle' has two meanings. The first to the people who know/understand fire arms is that it is a selective fire weapon with a carbine barrel length that utilizes what is considered intermediate powered cartridges. Cartridges that sportsmen would consider marginal for hunting deer sized animals. The cartridge that the AK-47 is the functional equivalent to the 30-30 Winchester. The second is the political term by the lunatic left to include most any semi-automatic weapon that they choose at the moment to try to ban due to their world view.

Re:carbine? assault rifle?

[Anonymous Coward]

eliminate guns entirely?

That would never do, would it. Why America's murder rate might even drop back in line with that of the rest of the western world if everyone couldn't have their own little old peacemaker !!

Re:carbine? assault rifle?

[jmorris42]

No! They would never do that, it would violate the 2nd Amendment. But who can be against common sense regulations to protect the children from another Columbine Massacre?

After all, we have an X-Stop here in my library's network stack to block anything that somebody thinks might be harmful to a minor from reaching any patron, regardless of their age. And yup, it was done to 'protect the children' and therefore Congress assures us it doesn't violate the 1st Amendment. Would our leaders lie to us? What kind of unpatriotic terrorist would even dare to question our leaders?

Re:carbine? assault rifle?

[Catnapster]

I know you're being sarcastic, but I couldn't resist...

Would our leaders lie to us?

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

Re:carbine? assault rifle?

[EugeneK]

Yeah, I meant the first (bullets per minute).
Given what you said, maybe the best definition of an assault rifle is :

a rifle intended to kill large numbers of people efficiently (as opposed to animals).

Re:carbine? assault rifle?

[jmorris42]

Weren't you listening, Citizen? When your President says he didn't have sex with Ms. Lewinsky you should have believed him. Had everyone been good patrotic Americans who trusted our Leaders, unlike yourself, the country would not have been dragged through that horrid scandal, which as we all know was just a Right Wing Conspiracy by unamerican traitors like you to discredit our previous Great Leader.

Oral sex isn't really 'Sex' you see. Now if he had fucked her he would have had Sex, but even Ken Starr agrees he only had Oral Sex. Oh and that odd thing with the cigar, but that wasn't sex either and the only reason it made the press was to discredit our Leader.

p.s. It is all too easy to write just like the New York Times editorial page isn't it. :)

Re:carbine? assault rifle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or like George Bush's "Iraqi weapons of mass destruction", eh? Fleets of mobile factories, underground factories, hundreds of tons of chemical and biological agents.

Of course politicians lie. Most of them do. Left, right, whatever. Some of their lies result in dry-cleaning bills, some of their lies result in thousands of dead people.

Re:carbine? assault rifle?

[jmorris42]

Damn! This must be prime time in France or something. But I'll school ya.

Of course there are WMDs in Iraq! Our leaders wouldn't lie. We have to put our unwavering blind faith in our Great Leader. You wouldn't want people to think you are one of those candy assed Saddam loving liberals, now would you? And remember, only by becoming a Police State can we defend the liberties that America stands for. Back in the good old days we could all sit around and shoot the bull about policy, but in these more serious post 9/11 times dissent only helps the terrorists. You wouldn't want to help the terrorists, right?

Re:carbine? assault rifle?

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

a rifle intended to kill large numbers of people efficiently (as opposed to animals).

Well, that would also match a main battle rifle, i.e. the likes of the H&K G3, the FN FAL etc. These fire a larger caliber cartridge, 7.62 NATO in this particular case. And I don't know about the 'large', the infantry man in the first line of assault isn't projected to 'remain effective' (euphemism alert) that long in any serious engagement.

The 'assault' is there for a reason. I.e. it's a rifle/carbine that is meant to be used in the assault, as opposed to the defence. As such it is lighter, easier to handle. One of the original design requirements of the AK-47 was that it was to be possible to fire it effectively from the hip, on the move. Which incidentally made it more difficult to shoot well from the shoulder.

Compare if you will the difference between the offensive and defensive handgrenade. Where the offensive is ligther and produces less shrappnel, while the opposite is true of the defensive grenade.

P.S. And while we're at it. What is commonly refered to as the AK-47 (Avtomat Kalashnikova accepted in 1947), hasn't been produced in a long time. A redesign in the fifties, exchanging the milled reciever for a stamped one among other things, produced the AKM which has been the dominating version at least up till the introduction of the AK-74 (which is chambered for a different cartridge).

Re:carbine? assault rifle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not cloned? - simple - Siper rifle was heavier, used more material (more expensive to make), must be made more precisely (more expensive to make.)

Re:carbine? assault rifle?

[alexo]

P.S. And while we're at it. What is commonly refered to as the AK-47 (Avtomat Kalashnikova accepted in 1947), hasn't been produced in a long time. A redesign in the fifties, exchanging the milled reciever for a stamped one among other things, produced the AKM which has been the dominating version at least up till the introduction of the AK-74 (which is chambered for a different cartridge).

See here.

Re:carbine? assault rifle?

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

See here [world.guns.ru].

Good link!

SCO/Caldera have destroyed any claim vs. RedHat

[whoever57]

IANOAL, But, the article states that SCO/Caldera will eventually make a copyright claim against RedHat and other GNU/Linux distributors.

Yet, since SCO/Caldera have released the same code under the GPL, they have given away their rights to make copyright claims while RedHat and others only re-distribute according to their rights under the GPL.

$18000 eh ?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

The RIAA paid $18,000 for the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to travel to Taiwan and Thailand

Now you know what they needed those students' money for.

BitTorrent of the Gutenberg CD?

[Phantasmo]

I know that ibiblio exists to serve up stuff like this, but is there someone out there with a compressed copy of April's CD that could post a .torrent?
Slashdotters have been good lately about using BitTorrent to shoulder some of the bandwidth load (for example, when the Matrix Reloaded trailer was released.)

I wondered how long it would take

[cranos]

For SCO to start attacking the Distros. Now they're claiming that Linus is lying when he says that Linux was a project independant of any Unix code. SCO is getting more and more desperate as time goes on.

Re:I wondered how long it would take

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone else can die quietly... why can't you?

more unix hatin' badness

[linefeed0]

There's another set of archives of stuff from the unix-haters list at this website. It's a bunch of stuff that didn't make the handbook, and is not as interesting in general (more repetitive), etc. However, if you're at an academic environment and there's crufty old stuff (say, like the zephyr IM system) sitting around, or you've been in the unix admin business for a while..., you're bound to find some mention of numerous design and implementation bogosities in your (least) favorite packages.

Re:more unix hatin' badness

[Anonymous Coward]

Having been a zephyr "hey" user up until I was recently forcibly "upgraded" to the latest excretion from Lotus, I can say that zephyr/hey kicks ass.

That twenty-year-old software can outperform, has more useful features, and is more stable than the latest cutesy, trend-riding clone is an indictment of the crap that comes out of the shell of Lotus.

IM is an ancient solved problem.

we all know....

[Anonymous Coward]

....why middle aged guys go to thailand. (nudge, nudge, wink, wink.) I smell a scandal coming up. :)

Re:we all know....

[GnarlyNome]

To visit Clinton Plaza. Look it up

Unix Lover...

[philovivero]

I know Unix like I know the back of my hand. I love Unix like I love the palm of my hand.

XPDE

[zzxc]

I noticed that the XPDE screenshots use mozilla/netscape with the classic skin. There is an Internet Explorer skin at mozdev.org they could be using. (if they want to copy windows explorer, this would be a must)

PG favourite book

[r00zky]

Best PG book ever:
Square Root of 4 To A Million Places, The
A must read...

Re:PG favourite book

[Timesprout]

Can you give us a brief review, storyline, writing style, chararacter development?

Re:PG favourite book

[zcat_NZ]

Square root of FOUR?!!

Yeah.. ok.

--SPOILER WARNING--

The answer is 2. Append a decimal place and as many zeros as you wish for a more precise approximation.

Re:PG favourite book

[sean23007]

I don't want to give away the ending, but...

The butler did it.

MP3 Player Ammo-mag sounds silly

[WalletBoy]

I'm sorry, I'm sure this has been brought up before, but to me the whole idea of an MP3 player in ammo-mag sounds really silly to me. If you have your MP3 ammo-magazine plugged into your gun, you can't shoot it. In essence you no longer have a gun and instead you just have a bulky gun-shaped iPod. Wouldn't it make more sense to have something like an MP3 playing laser scope that you attach to your gun? That way you can shoot your gun and listen to MP3s at the same time?

Re:MP3 Player Ammo-mag sounds silly

[azzy]

Better yet, an mp3player shaped gun.... so you can kill people as you pretend to listen to music.

Dance.. i said dance!! You can't hear the music?
BANG.. BANG.. BANG..
Can ya hear the music yet? DANCE I tell you!!

Re:MP3 Player Ammo-mag sounds silly

[cranos]

Well swords into plows, why not AK-47's into IPODs

Re:MP3 Player Ammo-mag sounds silly

[roseblood]

It might not be a MP3 player, but it is a Cell Phone Gun.

Case not hot enough?

[LurkerXXX]

Did you see that lava lamp computer case? Like most computer geeks computers aren't hot enough already. Add 2 40-watt and one 30-watt light bulb to it.... I think overclocking is pretty much out of the question with that puppy ;)

Re:Case not hot enough?

[Ulalume]

I'm actually overclocking a 1.2ghz t-bird to 1.4 in it right now. The lava has no effect on the computer once it gets up two speed. The two 40-watt bulbs are only used to heat it in a hurry. otherwise it take several hours to heat it up. It's been running for a week solid now and I havn't had any stability issues. I am changing the system in it back to the xp 2200+ for a LAN party later this month. I'm playing with it now to get a feel for how things will work with it. cooling isn't a problem though.

Re:Case not hot enough?

[panda]

Not to mention that you could always build a firewall, a real one like in your car, between the lava lamp and the delicate electronic components.

'Course the firewall adds weight.

Interesting thing about the Unix haters people

[hayden]

The book was published before Windows NT was released. They then went quiet after Windows NT was released.

Given a choice between Unix and Windows ...

Re:Interesting thing about the Unix haters people

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, well fuck you too.

Rusted case

[Dyolf Knip]

That rusted case is so cool! Redefines 'old and busted'.

Re:Rusted case

[ginbot462]

When I saw that case, I thought .. I need this for Fallout. I NEED this.

Task Manager!

[haystor]

XPde might have a task manager that could actually kill a process.

What is the signame for the Unix equivalent of Window's:
kill -HALTORIGNORETHISREQUEST

Re:Task Manager!

[cfallin]

XPde might have a task manager that could actually kill a process.

Amen to that! I can't count the number of times a locked-up IE or Word window has refused to close on my WinXP workstation. At least under Win98 a repeated Ctrl-Alt-Del / Enter sequence was easy enough to do repeatedly and would eventually kill the process.

Re:Task Manager!

[42forty-two42]

SIGTERM is a request to quit (roughly equivalnt to windows' default behavior, but dosen't require the message loop to be running). SIGKILL will force it to terminate.

Re:Happy Mayday

[Anonymous Coward]

As a homosexual marxist, i'd like to say "thanks!".

$10 for a movie?

[dangermurphy]

Where do you live? A movie and a popcorn will cost at least $15, double that if you have a date. (Dates probably only apply to 15% of /. posters)

Re:$10 for a movie?

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck you biatch !

Re:$10 for a movie?

[Anonymous Coward]

double that if you have a date.

I doubt that's a worry for most people here.

~~~

Microsoft should sue IBM too

[geekee]

By contributing to Linux IBM is trying to increase their hardware sales by essentially selling software at a loss (they pay programmers to develop code that they give away). Microsoft will lose business as a result and should be able to sue IBM for antitrust violations since this is illegal.

Re:Microsoft should sue IBM too

[dcmeserve]

By contributing to Linux IBM is trying to increase their hardware sales by essentially selling software at a loss (they pay programmers to develop code that they give away). Microsoft will lose business as a result and should be able to sue IBM for antitrust violations since this is illegal.

Naaa, to be violating antitrust, you first need to have the monopoly. IBM hardly has one (these days).

Re:Microsoft should sue IBM too

[Anonymous Coward]

Loss leaders are not illegal in any way. Your grocery store does it all the time. Businesses are only restricted from doing something like this if they are found to have monopoly power in the industry in question.

Re:Microsoft should sue IBM too

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because Microsoft never paid people to develop software so they could just give it away, like say Internet Explorer?

Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away?

Re:Microsoft should sue IBM too

[geekee]

Nope. For instance, if I own 2 stores in 2 neighborhoods, and price stuff lower than cost in the 2nd store to put competition out of business, while using revenue from the 1st store (that happens to have less competition) to prop up the 2nd store, that's illegal. What IBM is doing isn't much different. Similar cases were made against MS. Antitrust laws are so vaugue they should be repealed. It's hard for a business to even know whether or not they're in violation until charges are brought against them.

Re:Microsoft should sue IBM too

[geekee]

Exactly my point. Why should MS be restricted by the govt., but IBM not?

SUSE & SCO

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

Anybody know anything about SUSE and SCOs' relationship now? The last I heard they "were re-evaluating their position" or something like that. I am very interested in what Redhat and SUSE has to say...

oh, the subtlety...

[Anonymous Coward]

The height of practicality. Jerami Campbell writes "I just saw your article in Slashdot 'Building a stained glass computer case?' I have made several stained glass computer cases, I thought you might be interested in checking them out. You can see all of my cases at lucentrigs.com. I will have a new one finished in a couple of days. It is black glass with a red lava lamp mounted in the front."

Gee, do you think you plugged your site enough?

Best Title Ever

[KnightStalker]

Seriously, I've never seen a more perfectly descriptive title.

SCO IP in Linux Kernel

[Anonymous Coward]

Though the article linked above states that there is not SCO code in the linux kernel, this article contains the following quote:"We're finding...cases where there is line-by-line code in the Linux kernel that is matching up to our UnixWare code,"...So which is it?

rewriting history

[Anonymous Coward]

Our goal was humor.

That's a lame attempt at rewriting history. The book was sarcasm, not humor. And it was driven by a genuine conviction on the part of its authors that the UNIX approach was "the wrong way" (of course, their "right ways" of doing things have proven dismal failures over the last decade).

In addition to just lots of newbie mistakes on the part of the contributors, there was valid criticism of a lot of packages running on UNIX, but most of those were third party, several of them from MIT itself (X11, Kerberos). If MIT graduate students didn't like the way some MIT software worked, they should have blamed themselves, rolled up their sleeves, and fixed it.

I can tell you, a lot of the UNIX creators and hackers hated what MIT and Berkeley had done to UNIX, too.

My recommendation to the authors would be: be glad the book out of print and pretend you never had anything to do with it. As for making it available on a Microsoft site, people who sit in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

To an American that would mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, to translate this into American terms (since most other countries, apart from those such as Iraq and Syria, are for some inexplicable reason less than wildly enthusiastic about Joe Average and his badly behaved kids having uncontrolled access to an arsenal of lethal and military weapons):

• Assault rifle - useful for hosing down a car full of rival drug dealers coming towards you
  
• Submachine gun - useful for hosing down a group of rival crack dealers standing on the street
  

From News.com

[The Cydonian]

This is not about 10 lines of code, it's about 20 years of extremely valuable intellectual property we're trying to protect...Am I supposed to lie down and not say anything about it?" McBride asked. "There's a certain point here where you stand up for what's right and let the chips fall where they will."

Geesh.

Re:From News.com

[dcmeserve]

This is not about 10 lines of code, it's about 20 years of extremely valuable intellectual property we're trying to protect...

You know, if you're a homeowner, and you let your neigbor use a piece of your land for a long enough period of time (e.g. for a part of his driveway), he can go to the city and claim ownership of that piece.

Why is this any different? I mean, this is open-source stuff, right? They theoretically should have been able to see the patent "violation" for many years now; if they haven't acted upon it until very recently, shouldn't it be considered public domain? How can they even have a case?

So what?

[LPetrazickis]

All of my rifles play an open-source audio compression format that developed myself. They also can be hooked up to a computer with a coax cable so that source can be read at all times.:)

Re:So what?

[MadAhab]

This is my rifle, this is my song. One is for playing, the other's my thong.

No,wait.

This is my rifle, this is my cock. One is for lawsuits, the other's in hock.

No,wait.

This is my flamethrower, this is my OGG. Fuck you Hilary, and fuck you Bob. (Who is Bob?)

No, fuck *you*.

Tsank you. I be here all zhe veek.

Compression Ratio

[No Panic]

The document's zip-file achieved over 100:1 compression !

UHH

[Craig Ringer]

Yeah....

I for one, do rather like the book. I vaguely remember hearing about it once before but had never even seen it 'till recently when you folk released it.

I admin a SCO OpenServer 5.0.5 box running Microsoft Xenix binaries in binary compatability mode. Need I say more?

Of course, I'm also running a RH9 terminal server, and only about 1/2 to 1/3 of the criticisms apply to it (no sendmail! yay!). Grumble ... rm ... grumble.

I happen to volunteer for my faviourite charity already, so I'm sure I can spare ten bucks :-)

Mozilla quest

[Error27]

I've been impressed with the Mozilla quest SCO series. Obviously, it's not hard to tell which way the author is biased, but the interviews were good and the answers were recorded verbatim.

Fascinating stuff.

Stained Glass

[dcmeserve]

Man, those are pretty cool.

[shatner]

My...god...it's.....

....... beautiful!

[/shatner]

Interesting:

I titled this case "HEMOPHILIA" due to the red of the glass, my many wounds from working on this case, and the fact that I have hemophilia (a rare genetic blood disorder that hinders my blood from clotting.)

My god, the man's willing to risk death for his art!

More clarification

[FFtrDale]

A carbine is called that because carbines were originally used by cavalry, and they had a D-ring or snap-link (just like a mountain climber's carabiner) for attaching it to the saddle by means of a lanyard. If dropped while a trooper was on horseback, the rifle could be retrieved rather than being lost entirely. It was short so it wasn't too awkward to fire while mounted, and so it would fit in a scabbard attached to the saddle. Before long, many armies found that short, handy rifles were useful for many kinds of troops (artillery and mortar crews, tank crews, infantry officers who wanted more than just a pistol), and the historical term "carbine" remained after the lanyard ring was gone.

As has been said, the original (and for me, the "true") definition of an assault rifle is that it can fire like a machine gun, and is typically smaller than a "main battle rifle" like the M1 of World War II. Legislators in the U.S. have used the term for semiautomatic (= "self-loading") rifles; these fire 1 shot each time you pull the trigger. Legislators in various places use the term for any "scary-looking" rifle, especially those with a pistol grip, a flash hider, a metal lug for attaching a bayonet, a removeable magazine that holds a lot of cartridges, & on, & on...

Imagine that you're a WWII German soldier assaulting a position outside Stalingrad. You're a lot happier when you get issued something that fires like a machine gun. Also, its cartridges are less powerful than standard rifle cartridges of the era, and that makes these weapons more controllable in fully-automatic fire than if they'd used the usual rifle ammunition. The ammunition is lighter, as well, so you can carry more ammunition than before with an equivalent amount of fatigue. The Allies had enough M1s, Enfields, Mosin-Nagants, guys, tanks, ships, aircraft, etc., etc., etc., that a nifty infantry weapon wasn't enough to help the Wehrmacht much. Still, the concept has been adopted all over the world. The AK-47 and M16 (especially in its current M4 (yes - carbine!) variant) both act like assault rifles, though I think the US military calls the M16 a main battle rifle. Maybe somewhat redundant, but HTH.

More trivia

[FFtrDale]

Also, IIRC, some cavalry carbines had a snap link that attached directly to the saddle. No scabbard, no lanyard. Just a way to carry it.

But again, a short, handy rifle.

Of course, if you want to more drama...

[solarrhino]

...make it -2 and a million zeros after the decimal. Or better, use 1 followed by a million nines after the decimal. One followed by an infinite number of nines after the decimal is exactly equal to 2.

No, it's not a good idea.

[twitter]

Can this project be sued by Microsoft?

We don't know, we are not lawyers.

I'm not a lawyer either, but I'm told the bad idea police will break down your door for implementing such an awful interface on top of reasonable software.

they all did.

[twitter]

So which of the 4 poor saps sued by the RIAA (and then settled) paid for the congressman's trip?

$18,000 only bought the congressman and does not cover promotion of the tour. There's money for the officials he will meet, money for the "advisors" to follow them all, a couple of fancy suits, stage hands and all that. When it's all said and done, the congressman, the advisors, Tiwan, Korea, Eastasia, Eurasia and Airstrip One will all owe the RIAA for this trip. You can never have too much promotion if you don't want to be a starving artist..

I am still laughing at "Unix Haters"...

[Anonymous Coward]

No seriously. I haven't read a more complete load of elephant dung in the past 10 years. (well, it probably ties with "I smoked it, but never inhaled", and "We never had sexual relations" from certain presidents of the US).

My favorite quote section is the "Sytems Administration" section. Now I actually do this as a living. We have a very large base of unix systems as well as a very large base of Windows systems. We have upwards of 100 unix servers, and about 600 clients that my group administers. Which comes to a ratio of about 70-80 systems per admin. That is a hell of a lot more then the "20" the article is saying. We also have something like 1/8 the amount of problems reported then the Windows Admins get reported, and that can't be chalked up to the user base as we have the same user base. It also can't be accounted for in the percentage of usage (i.e. people spending more time on PC's and not on UNIX) as roughly all the work being done is engineering work using the unix systems, with people having a PC for mainly having access to Visio and powerpoint, the majority of work is done on the unix boxes and software. So how it that our systems have been running longer, with less problems, and shorter downtimes, and less admin staff then the Windows boxes? And how is it that someone can honestly believe a single word written in that book?

Re:I am still laughing at "Unix Haters"...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it was written fifteen years ago, when UNIX actually did suck that much.

Don't worry.

[twitter]

Only folks like Microsoft complain about a Slashdotting. It has something to do with eating thier own dog food, hating Unix and hating Slashdot. Oh wow, look, they took down that silly remark about Slashdoting. Slashbacking must be something they can deal with.

Re:Don't worry.

[ncc74656]

Only folks like Microsoft complain about a Slashdotting. It has something to do with eating thier own dog food, hating Unix and hating Slashdot.

Wow...with the way you manage to make everything you write an anti-Microsoft screed, I bet you're a ton of fun to be around.

Get a life.

Flamebait

[FFtrDale]

Gee, like in Great Britain? Australia? Sorry, too many of my friends have been raped. One didn't get raped a third time (the first time, the guy tied her up and it lasted four hours) when she pulled a revolver she'd recently purchased and been trained with. She didn't need to fire it; he ran. Have a nice whatever...

Re:Flamebait

[10Ghz]

Gee, like in Great Britain? Australia? Sorry, too many of my friends have been raped

Guns are not the end all be all solution to crime. I mean, according to you, your friends have been raped, even though carrying guns is legal (as your comments later showed). If guns are so effective at stopping crime, why do the criminals take the risk and rape, when their victims can be armed?

OTOH, guns are not carried around in Finland (although there are lots of guns here, mainly shotguns, rifles etc.), and rapes are not as common here. Of course they do take place, but they aren't as serious menace as it seems to be in your case. How can that be, even though the potential victims are not even armed here?

If guns are a good solution to crime, then countries where guns can be owned, carried and used more easily (like the USA) should be relatively crime-free, whereas Europe (for example), where gun-ownership and rights to use are more limited, should be filled with crime when compared to USA. But reality shows that it's exactly the opposite. why?

Re:Flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

Comparing the US stats here and the UK stats here for 2001, it would appear that the rape/sexual offence rates are about the same at 0.6/1000 people, the robbery rate is 1.16/1000 in the UK and 2.8/1000 in the US, and the rates of all violent crime are 9.98/1000 in the UK and 24.7/1000 in the US.

"Lies, damned lies and statistics" applies, of course (I haven't bothered to check or enumerate the differences in metrics between the two sets of statistics), but draw your own conclusions.

--

Re:Flamebait

[FFtrDale]

Guns are not the end all be all solution to crime.

I Agree!!!

If guns are a good solution to crime, then countries where guns can be owned, carried and used more easily (like the USA) should be relatively crime-free, (* etc.*)

I think that if all else were equal, then that would follow. However, I really believe that differences in history in different countries, differences in the variability of the philosophies held by regular people in different cultures, and the particular lifestyles of the folks you're assessing overwhelm the ability to draw straightforward arms-versus-personal-safety comparisons. I have encountered no effective way to measure the effects of those factors so that they can be taken into account for statistically-valid comparisons. Better to compare the crime statistics in a particular place before and after the passage of laws that make it easier to carry guns for their own protection, for those regular, non-criminal folks who wish to do so. And in those places, the numbers fit the possibility that a greater number of criminals are taking into account the possibility that their potential victims may be armed, just as you've said. When states here have passed more liberal "concealed-carry" permit-issuance laws, violent crimes have decreased.

That said, here's a further example. I've lived in Tokyo and visited Washington, D.C. I believe that in neither place would you ever want to be found carrying a pistol. It's strictly prohibited except to a very few groups of people in those places. I never met anybody in Tokyo who felt they were at the slightest risk walking down a dark street in the middle of the night there. I'm not going to try that in D.C. (and I apologize to the people in that beautiful city who might be offended by my bringing it up).

By contrast, most of us in a lot of places in the rural United States are heavily armed. We hunt (and fish, but not with guns), history enthusiasts collect old weapons, some shoot competitively and there are a lot of other reasons people have them. I feel safer among the gun owners I know than around almost anybody else. They've all made choices to become competent and moral enough to handle dangerous weapons safely. They tend to be relaxed, polite and conscientious. Hey, I'm no saint. I yell at other drivers on the road when I'm alone in my car with the windows rolled up and they can't see me, but I never act like that if I am around weapons. I'd feel scared if I were a pheasant or a wild turkey (during hunting season). I'd never try a home-invasion robbery around here, though; it's been done, and that isn't safe.

Here's my fundamental premise: one does not have to justify a fundamental human right. To protect one's own life is a fundamental human right. Governments violate human rights or they don't, but those rights are still essential to a person's ability to live as a human being.

I've heard that there's lovely hunting in Finland; Enjoy!

Re:Flamebait

[zbuffered]

yours is the best pro-gun argument I've seen. Very well done. I'm sorry you weren't modded up--I guess technically it was off topic, but whatever.

Stained Glass?

[bardencj]

Nah, it's pretty but impractical. I already have enough trouble with my machines crashing...

I love sig spamming...

[Call Me Black Cloud]

Fantasy Stocks [xmoo.com] = "http://xmoo.com/vse/index.html?referral=lpetrazic kis"

So what do you get for the referral? Oh, fakey money. How fun.

IBM and Linux Shall Pay!

[Stormie]

I found the code that matches up exactly, the top five matches are ( drum roll )

5) for ( int x=0;x<10;x++)
4) while ( x<10 ) {
3) #include stdio.h
2) #include math.h
1) int main( String args[] )

Number 1) shows up in every .cpp file! Linux developers will pay for this blatant violation of SCO's IP rights!

Re:IBM and Linux Shall Pay!

[Dionysus]

Why would 1) show up in every .cpp file? It's not valid C++ (or C for that matter).

At last, an easy boycott

[ader]

Boycotting Amazon or music companies is hard work and a great personal loss, but boycotting SCO? Sure, can do!! Done it my whole life and honestly, it hasn't degraded my quality of living at all!

...Uh wait, I use Red Hat though. Darn.

Ade_
/

yeah

[SHEENmaster]

I read the gutenburg versions of Frankenstein, 1984(best book ever), and a few others on my TI 89.

When do I get my own class A subnet?

[epeus]

You're about 10 years too late for that. Guess who has 17.*.*.*

017/8 Jul 92 Apple Computer Inc.
018/8 Jan 94 MIT

Plenty of other interesting class A owners there too:

034/8 Mar 93 Halliburton Company
044/8 Jul 92 Amateur Radio Digital Communications
051/8 Aug 94 Deparment of Social Security of UK

SVD

[varjag]

I would be reaaaaally surprised if this fit a standard AK-47, as it is an SVD (Russian infantry rifle, as opposed to the AK, which is in fact a carbine, although called an assault rifle) mag.

SVD is an acronym from "Snaiperskaya Vintovka Dragunova" (Dragunov sniper rifle). It is clearly not a carabine.

Also, the term 'assault rifle' is absent from the official Russian military lexicon. I have no idea who would call SVD an assault rifle.

You are correct though that it was not an AK mag depicted.

Re:SVD

[Mathiasss]

I would really appreciate if you read through my babbling again. I called the SVD an "infantry rifle" and the AK a "carbine". If i may be allowed to continue this totally off-topic conversation, I'd like to point out that although the SVD has "sniper" in its name, it is not really a sniper weapon. It was designed to extend the range of fire of an infantry platoon, which is usually armed with AK's. AK's have a PRACTICAL range of fire of about 300m (by design) and the SVD is good for another 300. The terminology "rifle/carbine" I used may not be correct in the USA, where, to all my knowledge, the difference is all in the length of the weapon. In Polish terms, a rifle is whatever shoots rifle ammo, and carbine is whatever shoots carbine ammo (less powerful). And may I never speak of these things here.
BTW: is being a "buff" good or bad? :)
Mat S - crap, this nick was already in use!

Re:SVD

[varjag]

I'd like to point out that although the SVD has "sniper" in its name, it is not really a sniper weapon.

It is really a sniper weapon. It always comes equipped with long-range optical sniper sight, and is normally loaded with more precise sniper ammo (that one has different kind of powder and bullet). Its holder's military designation in Soviet/Russian army is 'sniper', and they go through a different line of training than other infantrymen.

In Polish terms, a rifle is whatever shoots rifle ammo, and carbine is whatever shoots carbine ammo (less powerful).

Carabine is a well-known term for lighter rifles with shorter barrels, and it goes back to early 1800s, when it became a common cavalry weapon. Maybe it is different in Poland though.

Re:SVD

[Mathiasss]

Heh, I've shot the SVD without the scope, but this was required by IPSC rules. I know the gun is practically a sniper weapon, but it was meant to allow the infantry soldier to "reach further" than one armed with an AK. I've also played with a Sako TRG-21, which is a true sniper weapon, and I can tell you some about the differences in build quality that make a sniper weapon. It's not all in the name, believe me. It's not that the SVD is semi-auto, there are some sniper rifles that work this way. Oh, BTW: If I had any chance to get a permission for an SVD, I think I'd sleep with it. I like it so much.

Re:SVD

[varjag]

I know the gun is practically a sniper weapon, but it was meant to allow the infantry soldier to "reach further" than one armed with an AK.

This is just an organisational issue. In 60s it was decided that each Soviet army platoon should have an attached sniper, who's primary targets are frontline command ranks of an enemy. In a way, of course, it increases effective range of small caliber fire of infantry.

But besides that there are separate sniper units in Russian military. SVD is still their primary weapon.

I can tell you some about the differences in build quality that make a sniper weapon.

I never claimed that SVD is the best sniper tool around. However, you can get only so far when you have to design cheap enough rifle for field use by drafted soldiers in multi-millon army. Finer devices would degrade pretty quick in hands of an IQ 80 owner crawling in mud.

Re:SVD

[Mathiasss]

This is just an organisational issue.

Exactly.

you can get only so far when you have to design cheap enough rifle

Again, couldn't agree more. For what it does, and the way it does the task, the SVD is the best there is. A no-brainer, fast rate of fire (semi-auto - no fumbling with the bolt - no unnecessary moves to reveal the position of the shooter - just point and squeeze), relatively accurate long range rifle. It could be a bit shorter, though :). But then again, I don't like the looks of SVD-S as much as the SVD.

Caldera != SCO

[erat]

Caldera is not SCO, SCO is not Caldera. I've worked for both (now I work for neither). SCO is a different company with a different direction, different management, different employees, different products, different everything.

Saying SCO is Caldera is like saying Red Hat is the ACC Bookstore, or whatever it was called before the name was changed to Red Hat, Inc.

The Lava Lamp Case

[JWhitlock]

The height of practicality. Jerami Campbell writes "I just saw your article in Slashdot 'Building a stained glass computer case?' I have made several stained glass computer cases, I thought you might be interested in checking them out. You can see all of my cases at lucentrigs.com. I will have a new one finished in a couple of days. It is black glass with a red lava lamp mounted in the front."

Anyone else disappointed that the Lava Lamp case uses 40-Watt lamps? I was kinda hoping there was a overclocked AMD processor at the bottom of that thing...

Good quote from Unix Hater's Guide

[pmz]

"Unix survives only because everyone else has done so badly." - Donald A. Norman

As true today as when it was written...

Unix Haters

[zanderredux]

awwwwright. if windows isn't an OS and Unix is as bad a OS as herpes is to health, then what would be the alternative? That funky mainframe OS (which runs ROSCOE, I do not know the name of it)?????

If so, where do I get an ISO to burn a CD?