Slashdot Mirror
Darl Goes to Harvard
colinmc151 writes "Both Groklaw and Internet News are reporting on the visit made to Harvard University by Darl McBride, SCO president and CEO, and Chris Sontag SCO senior vice president. Darl and Chris made a presentation titled 'Defending Intellectual Property Rights in a Digital Age'. One protester gave out copies of Linux to all that attended. Bottom line SCO plans to carry on with the lawsuits. Best line was one student who when Darl asked if he was impacted by MyDoom.A e-mail virus answered 'No, I use Linux'." One MIT student has a write-up of the event as well...
Seems like the MIT students did a nice job putting him on the spot, but it's obvious that ol' Darl is pretty adept at deflecting any criticism or challenging questions and changing the subject when he finds the current one uncomfortable.
What will it take to get him to address all the contradictory statements and lies that he and his cohorts seem to spout at every opportunity?
Perhaps it's time to try to get that court date pushed up
...who will see his tuition go up by $699 next year. ;)
libertarianswag.com
Go to Harvard, spread FUD, gain support from future investors/business people and hope they support SCO in the future, if SCO is still around.
Law or CS students? Either way, he should've been laughed off stage.
Maybe he was speaking to fashion merchandising students (it is a nice suit, after all).
Daryl doesn't seem to be aware that his public comments may impact the trial. It's like the guy genuinely doesn't care about th eendgame as many here have observed.
It must be pretty frustrating for Linux contributors to be attacked by a guy who is using the fruits of their labors on his own Linux system.
Darl Goes to Harvard
:)
Did anybody else shudder at the thought!
Free XBox, PS2
Hey, the poster forgot the subtitle for the presentation: "Defending Intellectual Property Rights in a Digital Age, or How to Make Money Without Really Trying"
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
We should organize more protests involving the giving away of free software.
Now if they threw pig blood at them it would've made mainstream news. But something good and worthwhile to humanity? that's not news
*DrugCheese rants*
Lowest stock price for SCOX since August 2003.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=SCOX
At $13.54 at time of this posting, and has even gone down so low as $13.18 for the day range.
-Joshua
I thought that the whole point of open source is so nobody can take the software, change it, and then sell it as their own. I thought any changes made became the property of the project, for everyone to use.
For example, in the GPL it states:
You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
'Defending Intellectual Property Rights in a Digital Age'
"Rather than go out and just say, 'Let's go sue everybody now,' we're coming out with a well-thought-out program." - excerpted from WLTSIM
Do you like German cars?
I'm sure most people were expecting "Darl Goes to Clown College".
Six of one, half dozen of the other.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Article has been up 10 minutes and we've /.ed Groklaw.
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
Darl then shouted "HEATHEN!!!" while diving off the stage with his arms out stretched trying to wring the neck of the little thief who was using Linux without permission from SCO.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Linux Stole SCO Cod
When it was called Ernest goes to Jail.
This is akin to reading the details of a year long train wreck. I somehow feel dirty every time I read the next SCO news.
"Mr. McBride, that will be $699 per credit hour"
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
What I want to know is what do Erica and Clare look like? Pics, dammit!
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
It's great to see anecdotes like this making it into the media.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Dude,
Re-read the quote. It is the student who said he is using Linux not Darl.
Suggested Linux kernel addition:
if (UserName=="DarylMcB")
{
DeleteAllPartitions();
int x=x/0;
}
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
to one of those Ernest movies with the late Jim Varney.
SCO got compensation for the work they submitted to the Linux kernel.
Their compensation was a licence to use and distribute all the other code.
Darl Goes to Harvard - My First Quick Impressions
Monday, February 02 2004 @ 08:48 PM EST
I watched the webcast and while I lost the stream once or twice, I heard the bulk of it. No doubt others will fill in the blanks, and I took some pictures off the screen which will at least give you a flavor when I get them up. Soon.
The big news is that they say they will start to sue copyright end users by February 18. The other news is that he asked the audience if they had gotten infected by MyDoom, and he pointed to one guy who beautifully answered, "No, I use Linux, so I wasn't affected," and the room laughed. Darl wasn't happy about that and it was clear he didn't like the questions about the ABI files. He said that Linus claimed only two, and there were the rest they can sue over, though they still plan to contest Linus' claims in court.
Someone mentioned an article that had lessened his credibility on the other ABI files, that it had said it looked like they had distributed them under the GPL. And it was like he turned dark and stormy and paced and tried not to show his anger. But it showed. Then he said that the BSDi settlement was about those same header files, and they know what is in that sealed settlement and we don't, but there were three kinds of files addressed in that settlement: files that had to be removed, files that had to have copyright notices put on them, and files that were ok. They claim that the files they will be suing over lack the copyright notices, plus some files that were supposed to be removed, IIRC. And the DMCA says it's a violation to strip off copyright information, so I gather they intend to go after end users for "stripping off" copyright information on those header files. Ridiculous and cynical as that may sound, that is their strained plan. No doubt they figure the DMCA gives them muscles that AT&T didn't have back when the original case was before the courts. But those are the files. Sontag hinted that they might add copyright claims to the IBM case over those same header files at some point.
My overall impression was that they were very uncomfortable. It began with calls for civility, which turned out not to be necessary. Everyone was polite. But clearly Harvard had gotten a lot of complaints, judging from their remarks. They have invited Chris Stone of Novell to speak there in three weeks on February 23. Details will be on their website.
They continued to repeat the same untrue "facts" about the GPL, that it forces you to give your software away free, blah blah. I hardly think explaining it one more time will help them, since it's clearly volitional. They've got their story and they're sticking to it. Darl said when you go to court, the rubber hits the road. I assume he means by that you have to get it actually sorted out with facts. He was asked how he can sue without having established copyrights, but he danced around without answering that directly. No doubt that rubber will hit the road when he sues the first end user.
Clearly they have something in that settlement agreement, which Noorda was a party to, and the rest of us were not, and they plan on springing it on a startled and totally innocent end user soon, who will be befuddled as to how he is responsible for complying with a sealed agreement he isn't a party to and doesn't have a clue what it says. Of course, they don't tell you what it says. They would rather surprise you. Well, good luck, cowboys. We'll see how it plays in a court of law.
He tried to answer Eben Moglen's illustration about going to Barnes and Noble and buying a book and having SCO leap into your living room and say, I'm suing you for reading that book. He said it's more like you get the book without paying for it and then you make copies and give them to 500 friends. He said that is how it is with Linux. Companies get one copy and make tons more. The part he misses is that the writers of the code have no problem with that,
Whoops, as has been pointed out, the quote is actually in the article description (!) All I can say in my defence is that I saw a link to groklaw and had to click it quick before Slashdot completely destroyed PJ's server yet again ...
:-)
Oh well, next time
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
"After the superbowl another sighting, a couple of boobies were spotted hanging out at Harvard."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Civil disobedience is knowingly breaking a law because it is unjust.
It is not performing a legal act despite very vague accusations that it may violate some law or contract.
Another example of how going to colledge ends in brainwashing. Any respectable school, much less an Ivy League Law school should be able to see through this desperate attemp of sco's to make an easy dollar. They expected the underfunded linux orginazations to roll over at their demands and payup. Guess it didnt work did it Darl? Now to cover your own ass you have to go through with the lawsuits and get beaten.
Everyday You see me is the worst day of my life -Office Space
I thought that the whole point of open source is so nobody can take the software, change it, and then sell it as their own.
This applies fully only to GPL and closely related licenses. BSD-like licenses enable people to do exactly this while IMO still being open source licenses. Open source != Open Source.
Yup, I see that now, you're right. Still applies though, this guy loves talking and it's all grist for the mill.
Did anybody else shudder at the thought! :)
Why, didn't you expect him to actually learn anything?
Didn't Bill Gates attend Harvard for a couple years? Seems like some sort of trend, people of a sort gravitating towards Harvard. You might shudder about that...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Darl goes to Harvard. Gates went to Harvard. When you are at MIT, you come to realize that evil lives up the river. Like they built over a fucking Indian graveyard or something. Kissinger? Hearst? Updike? Kaczynski? Love Story? Hello?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
It's like the guy genuinely doesn't care about th eendgame as many here have observed.
;-)
No, its just that his endgame is when he sells his final share of inflated stock and runs off.
I really hope that when someone picks up the scraps of SCO when all this is said and done, that they can find something in the corporate documents that will incriminate Darl in this pump and dump scheme. It will of course have to be a document they forgot to shred
Darl is going to Yale after the trial is over. Yust wait und see.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
-
Magistrate Notice of Hearing
...
To be held before Judge Wells.
SCO has already been ordered by the judge to comply. That happened back in December. The order is below. Notice item 4. Tomorrow, the judge rules on whether they did comply.Motion hearing set for 10:00 2/6/04 for all pending motions:
The SCO Group is hereby ORDERED:
In that one line of boldface above, the judge captured the key issue. No amount of PR spin control will help SCO in court tomorrow.
Funny, I use Linux too, and nevertheless mydoom affects me substantially. for example, my ISP's mail servers are slow as hell because of this crap. So slow, that I couldn't even get to my mail for much of today.
Larry Summers got an economics S.B. from M.I.T., then moved down the street to Harvard for grad school and joined the faculty, along with various stints in the federal government. :-)
Harvard has some sense then
"..claims that a member of the linux community claimed that a high-level linux hacker was responsible for at least one of the attacks (I'd love to see that citation). "
- 08 -25-010-26-NW-CY-LL&tbovrmode=3
This was Eric Raymond acting as self appointed champion and bull in a china shop during an earlier attack.
http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2003
Personally I think Eric Raymond is a darned fool for saying 'we' etc as if this was a community effort. Eric saying he's ashamed for us all plays right into SCO's hands. This was not the community, it was one lone criminal acting for themselves. Presenting it as something else is both inaccurate and damaging.
Free as in Maaah!
Or, My Chat with Darl McBride
see, "Free as in Speech" vs "Free as in beer" are different types of freedom. The Cheat goes "Maaah!"
2 February 2004
Those of you who know me know I don't miss lab on a whim. But when Erica zephyred me saying that Darl McBride (head of SCO) was speaking at Harvard, I knew we had to do something. Our first thought was, in proud MIT tradition, a hack. May be water balloons, maybe paper airplanes. But hacks are hard to do without causing some sort of damage, and these people have proven that they are willing to sue everyone in sight.
Our obvious choice, then, was to provide anti-FUD. Based on help from people on my zephyr class, we assembled a nice set of flyers full of pro-Linux and pro-GPL information. We figured that, as this was a talk put on by the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, the audience would mostly be lawyers. Maybe they've never heard of the GPL? Maybe they think Linux is some sort of furry pet?
So we made up these flyers. They were all done in Adobe Illustrator under Windows (Oh, the irony!) but looked really professional. Above all, we wanted to go and present the non-RMS, non-crazy-anti-IP side of linux. We even dressed up.
* What Is Linux
* SCO vs Open Source : A timeline
* Quotations between SCO, Linus, and the FSF
Oh, and in each packet of information (in a nice little folder, might I add) we included a burned copy of Knoppix 3.3 (which Erica and I stayed up late last night mass-producing in an Athena cluster). Knoppix is great because 1. it's only a single CD and 2. it'll let non-linux-users try linux without any potential risk.
The Handout
We decided to leave Fourth East at around 5:00 or so. Some people would be late, but in the end we had myself, Erica, Dave W, Vimal, Javier, Clare, and Ike there. We took up a whole row in the room (which, by the way, was beautiful -- Harvard has some nice buildings!)
At around 6:05 (the talk was scheduled to begin at 6:30) we decided to get started. Our 60 handouts, complete with Knoppix CDs, were ready. Erica and I went out in front of the auditorium, and Clare et. al. stayed behind, to hand them out to people already inside. Upon meeting some people from the Journal, they admitted that they knew Darl would be a contentious speaker, and simply asked that we tell people that we were in no way affiliated with the journal or Harvard.
Our speech went something like "Hi, we're not affiliated with this talk in any way, we're just a group of concerned MIT students who have some information about Linux, the GPL, and SCO that we'd like to provide to perhaps counter some of the claims that will be made by the speaker tonight." Only one person said no to a handout. Several said that we were "preaching to the choir", others admitted to having run linux for many years.
The Talk
Once the talk begin, Darl introduced himself and rambled a bit about the superbowl. At this point he announced that he had several coworkers with him, two of whom looked, I kid you not, like Agents (were Agent Smith et. al. collecting social security). These guys never smiled, all night.
McBride starts off by talking about the role of intellectual property in the digital age. He talks briefly about copyright law in the digital age, and asks about Napster, and then talks about linux being free, and seems to be suggesting that "free things on the internet require violation of copyright". He traces through the ownership of UNIX IP, and then argues that the change between 2.2 and 2.6 was largely due to corporate help.
He also repeatedly argues that, per recent supreme court decisions, copyright exists to benefit the public by creating profit incentive. He keeps painting the IP debate as a pendulum swinging between public and private ownership, but continually stresses "Do we want a world where all IP is free?" which of course, no one is arguing for. He mentions that the GPL hasn't been tested in court (an allegation nic
K
Maybe Darl wasn't just blowing smoke when he said he had hired some security guards...
``I thought that the whole point of open source is so nobody can take the software, change it, and then sell it as their own.''
You're confusing things. Open source means that you _can_ modifiy the software, and sell it. (See the open source definition.)
Depending on the license, you can even redistribute software without the source code. The MIT license and BSD license, for example, allow you to do pretty much anything you want with the code, as long as you retain the copyright license.
Copyleft is the requirement that software is free, and remains free. This is what is expressed in the GPL. This is also known as the GPL's "viral nature", because it requires derived works to be released under GPL if they are redistributed.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Tell me more of this universe in which the 3rd of February is followed immediately by the 6th.
You're confusing Open Source with Free Software. Free Software licenses protects the code from being "stolen" and used in a non-Free product. Open Source licenses merely let users who have the source do what they will with it (with varying restrictions).
AweMUD (my main projects) for example is Open Source to the core, and I fully support anyone wishing to use it in a non-Open/non-Free project. If AweMUD were Free Software, then that wouldn't be possible. (Without getting the code under a second license from me and all the AweMUD contributors.)
Here's a link to ESR's original post where he forgot his meds and acts like he's on an episode of The Lone Gunmem. So this is what Daryl is talking about in his Harvard presentation.
I'm not sure what I'm more impressed by - the fact that an email virus can talk, or that it's speaking at Harvard on behalf of Darl.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
"I'll thank you not to refer to Princeton that way."
--Silent Bob. The Simpsons
THE GOOD HUMOR MAN CAN ONLY BE PUSHED SO FAR
Bart Simpson on chalkboard in episode 2F18
I think we've finally found a good use for all those metal AOL CD cases. Free software right? 1045 hours worth.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
As I said, this may be off-topic, but I need some help and am willing to burn the karma to get the information I need.
I am a law student looking to write a paper on M$'s licensing of SCO's "code." I am looking for information about M$'s licensing agreement - particularly any credible sources that suggest it was unnecessary for them to do so. In other words, are there any credible sources out there that state there was no other purpose for M$ to license the code other than to help fund SCO's litigation?
I'm not asking anyone to do the research for me - I was just wonder whether anyone had such information bookmarked or easily available. I'd really appreciate any help, as the point of my paper is to attack both SCO and M$ in the same breath.
Thanks.
They are very strange, with wierdly excessive days. Also remember, the Gregorian calendar is full of surprises and tricks and completely Pope controlled. Nobody asked questions when Gregory XIII said that the day after October 4, 1582 would be October 15, 1582. Nobody that survived to see October 16, that is. In this Patriot days we live you'd better stop asking funny questions.
He discusses MyDoom, and also evidently someone on slashdot who posted his home address and phone number, resulting in a DDOS of his house during the superbowl
:-)
Darl reads slashdot??!!
and can you imagine your house in denial of service? and distributed? all rooms are denying you sevice... even toilet... oh horror
Above all, we wanted to go and present the non-RMS, non-crazy-anti-IP side of linux.
[..]We're having the law forced on us, and if we're not careful, one day we're going to wake up in a world where IP restrictions will take all the fun out of engineering.
Maybe you should go back and listen to "crazy" RMS when he talks about these legal issues. Which he's talked about since day one. And people laughed at him.
When the FSF insists on paperwork for all major contributions, there's a good reason. When they insist that all copyrights be centralized with the FSF, there's a good reason.
Linus may be popular to us geeks because of his easygoing nature, but easygoing gets you eaten alive out in the real world.
Obligatory Simpsons quote: BOB: "Oh come, now. You wanted to be Krusty's sidekick since you were five! What about the buffoon lessons? The four years at clown college?" CECIL: "I'll thank you not to refer to Princeton that way."
Daryl doesn't seem to be aware that his public comments may impact the trial
;)
He does so! Daryl is perfectly aware of the situation and is acting like any litigiously-aware, sane, comprehending human with a clue should.
Darl, on the other hand...
$0.02 (CDN)
I got this off of the SCOX yahoo board:
'Electronic terror' in Linux's shadow
You'll find this about 2/3 of the way through the article:
And they call the Linux community fanatical! :)
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
Can we just settle for GNU/SCO/Linux :)
I think I would prefer,
"Darl Gets Schooled"
- MaineCoon
Hunt your preferred prey at Aliens vs Predator MUD. Join the war at avpmud.com port 4000
6) If SCO does not have sufficient information in its possession, custody, or control to specifically answer any of IBM's requests that are the subject of this order, SCO shall provide an affidavit setting forth the full nature of its efforts, by whom they were taken, what further efforts it intends to utilize in order to comply, and the expected date of compliance. SCO is required to provide such answers and documents within thirty days from the date of this order. All other discovery, including SCO's Motion to Compel is hereby STAYED until this Court determines that SCO has fully complied with this Order.
... if they don't comply, they have to state why, and how they tried, and only have thirty days from back in December to do it, and they still can't get to their own discovery until IBM's discovery is complete. All SCO would do is make their own case weaker and weaker.
Notice
Infuriate left and right
That was Silent Bob's brother, Cyril, ass.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
That would make the paraphrase a derivative work of the quotation. There's trouble.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
I appreciate that you're trying to distinguish between the two movements, as this is apparently very necessary (even for Slashdot readers). But what you're saying just isn't true.
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) has approved of the GNU General Public License (GPL). That is to say, the definition of "open source" was written sufficiently broadly as to allow the GPL to qualify. Of course, the GPL was written by the Free Software Foundatiy on well before the OSI began. The Free Software Foundation wrote the GPL for their own benefit and reading only the preface makes it clear which movement's philosophy are being described (hint: not the open source movement's philosophy). Thus, the distinction you're making is not accurate.
What you're probably trying to describe is --how well are the freedoms of free software defended for the work and derivative works? The GPL has a strong copyleft, the new BSD license is a non-copyleft license; these two licenses are amongst the most widely used licenses that define the ends of the freedom-preserving spectrum. They are both free software licenses because they allow sharing and modification, but they don't preserve the right to share and modify to the same degree. Therefore they are not both copyleft licenses.
Digital Citizen
in the games section?
Quack, quack.
(from Ars Technica)
The Nigerian SCO Connection
DEAR SIR/MADAM:
I AM MR. DARL MCBRIDE CURRENTLY SERVING AS THE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF THE SCO GROUP, FORMERLY KNOWN AS CALDERA SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, IN LINDON, UTAH, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. I KNOW THIS LETTER MIGHT SURPRISE YOUR BECAUSE WE HAVE HAD NO PREVIOUS COMMUNICATIONS OR BUSINESS DEALINGS BEFORE NOW.
MY ASSOCIATES HAVE RECENTLY MADE CLAIM TO COMPUTER SOFTWARES WORTH AN ESTIMATED $1 BILLION U.S. DOLLARS. I AM WRITING TO YOU IN CONFIDENCE BECAUSE WE URGENTLY REQUIRE YOUR ASSISTANCE TO OBTAIN THESE FUNDS.
IN THE EARLY 1970S THE AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH CORPORATION DEVELOPED AT GREAT EXPENSE THE COMPUTER OPERATING SYSTEM SOFTWARE KNOWN AS UNIX. UNFORTUNATELY THE LAWS OF MY COUNTRY PROHIBITED THEM FROM SELLING THESE SOFTWARES AND SO THEIR VALUABLE SOURCE CODES REMAINED PRIVATELY HELD. UNDER A SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT SOME PROGRAMMERS FROM THE CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY OF BERKELEY DID ADD MORE CODES TO THIS OPERATING SYSTEM, INCREASING ITS VALUE, BUT NOT IN ANY WAY TO DILUTE OR DISPARAGE OUR FULL AND RIGHTFUL OWNERSHIP OF THESE CODES, DESPITE ANY AGREEMENT BETWEEN AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH AND THE CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY OF BERKELEY, WHICH AGREEMENT WE DENY AND DISAVOW.
IN THE YEAR 1984 A CHANGE OF REGIME IN MY COUNTRY ALLOWED THE AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH CORPORATION TO MAKE PROFITS FROM THESE SOFTWARES. IN THE YEAR 1990 OWNERSHIP OF THESE SOFTWARES WAS TRANSFERRED TO THE CORPORATION UNIX SYSTEM LABORATORIES. IN THE YEAR 1993 THIS CORPORATION WAS SOLD TO THE CORPORATION NOVELL. IN THE YEAR 1994 SOME EMPLOYEES OF NOVELL FORMED THE CORPORATION CALDERA SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, WHICH BEGAN TO DISTRIBUTE AN UPSTART OPERATING SYSTEM KNOWN AS LINUX. IN THE YEAR 1995 NOVELL SOLD THE UNIX SOFTWARE CODES TO SCO. IN THE YEAR 2001 OCCURRED A SEPARATION OF SCO, AND THE SCO BRAND NAME AND UNIX CODES WERE ACQUIRED BY THE CALDERA SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, AND IN THE FOLLOWING YEAR THE CALDERA SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL WAS RENAMED SCO GROUP, OF WHICH I CURRENTLY SERVE AS CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER.
MY ASSOCIATES AND I OF THE SCO GROUP ARE THEREFORE THE FULL AND RIGHTFUL OWNERS OF THE OPERATING SYSTEM SOFTWARES KNOWN AS UNIX. OUR ENGINEERS HAVE DISCOVERED THAT NO FEWER THAN SEVENTY (70) LINES OF OUR VALUABLE AND PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODES HAVE APPEARED IN THE UPSTART OPERATING SYSTEM LINUX. AS YOU CAN PLAINLY SEE, THIS GIVES US A CLAIM ON THE MILLIONS OF LINES OF VALUABLE SOFTWARE CODES WHICH COMPRISE THIS LINUX AND WHICH HAS BEEN SOLD AT GREAT PROFIT TO VERY MANY BUSINESS ENTERPRISES. OUR LEGAL EXPERTS HAVE ADVISED US THAT OUR CONTRIBUTION TO THESE CODES IS WORTH AN ESTIMATED ONE (1) BILLION U.S. DOLLARS.
UNFORTUNATELY WE ARE HAVING DIFFICULTY EXTRACTING OUR FUNDS FROM THESE COMPUTER SOFTWARES. TO THIS EFFECT I HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE MANDATE BY MY COLLEAGUES TO CONTACT YOU AND ASK FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE. WE ARE PREPARED TO SELL YOU A SHARE IN THIS ENTERPRISE, WHICH WILL SOON BE VERY PROFITABLE, THAT WILL GRANT YOU THE RIGHTS TO USE THESE VALUABLE SOFTWARES IN YOUR BUSINESS ENTERPRISE. UNFORTUNATELY WE ARE NOT ABLE AT THIS TIME TO SET A PRICE ON THESE RIGHTS. THEREFORE IT IS OUR RESPECTFUL SUGGESTION, THAT YOU MAY BE IMMEDIATELY A PARTY TO THIS ENTERPRISE, BEFORE OTHERS ACCEPT THESE LUCRATIVE TERMS, THAT YOU SEND US THE NUMBER OF A BANKING ACCOUNT WHERE WE CAN WITHDRAW FUNDS OF A SUITABLE AMOUNT TO GUARANTEE YOUR PARTICIPATION IN THIS ENTERPRISE. AS AN ALTERNATIVE YOU MAY SEND US THE NUMBER AND EXPIRATION DATE OF YOUR MAJOR CREDIT CARD, OR YOU MAY SEND TO US A SIGNED CHECK FROM YOUR BANKING ACCOUNT PAYABLE TO "SCO GROUP" AND WITH THE AMOUNT LEFT BLANK FOR US TO CONVENIENTLY SUPPLY.
KINDLY TREAT THIS REQUEST AS VERY IMPORTANT AND STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. I HONESTLY ASSURE YOU THAT THIS TRANSACTION IS 100% LEGAL AND RISK-FREE.
At this point we've strayed so far from his original copyright infringement claims that I believe the audience is a bit lost, recognizes this as FUD, and appears to be leafing through our handouts.
ROTFL
All your base are belong to us!
It's nice to see someone whose priorities haven't been affected by these trying times and who can remind us all that people-- especially family-- are more important than machines. Thank you. ;)
I do not have a signature
While reading some news I stumbled on this article:
The best part is: "...of The SCO Group, a small Utah software company."
God made the natural numbers; all else is the work of man - Kronecker
No, this is valid code. It will even work since most compilers will find all instances of identical strings and equate their locations:
//do something everytime!
char *UserName = "DarylMcB";
if (UserName=="DarylMcB")
It works because UserName is set to the address of the static char array "DarylMcB".
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
Link to the whole directory and see more.
For some truely geeky stuff try this, or you can substitute your own terms for some interesting results.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Actually it appears that it's Furious George.
Six sick
One would think this would at least call into question their own ability to divine the provenance of their own damned source code. If they can't tell what Linus wrote and what they wrote, surely the judge will question why they're pestering IBM.
I can't wait until Feb 18. ;)
inflated stock
It's looking a little less inflated right now.
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
Darl Goes to Clown College
Don't you mean Darl Goes to Con-College?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Over my dead body. thanks. [not in my senior year]
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
"Sideshow" Bob Terwilliger. Assshirt.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Above all, we wanted to go and present the non-RMS, non-crazy-anti-IP side of linux.
"We need a fourth law of Robotics: Stop Fingering My Wife"
Maybe in the last few days...
But this SCREAMS inflated to me;
Past year
A 22x increase in less than a year.
No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
Hardly. If you look at the year graph, it's still outstanding. It took a similar dip in August before climbing to dizzying new heights. I don't think SCO has much of a leg to stand on from a legal perspective, but the fact that remains anyone who bought at the last dip and was smart enough to sell a month doubled their money. Not a bad ROI for 30 days.
there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
SCO doesn't want to make public what part of Linux infringes on their IP because they WANT their code to remain in Linux and make money off it. Yes? No?
Since I created the magical CString class, which exists only in my mind.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
every think I might still be in Highschool? Crazy isnt it...
Everyday You see me is the worst day of my life -Office Space
Best line was one student who when Darl asked if he was impacted by MyDoom.A e-mail virus answered 'No, I use Linux'."
At this point Darl wrung his hands gleefully and said "Sic 'im boys!". Two heavyset men set upon the freeloading nerd and, after a brief struggle, relieved him of his wallet. "Anyone else use Linux?", Darl jeered, as he pocketed 2 dollars, fifty five cents, and an expired bus pass.
I mean, having SCO speak on how to defend intellectual property rights is like Bill Gates giving a speech on business ethics.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
All,
It's difficult to believe that these attacks (DDoS) and threats on SCO might be from GNU/Linux users.
Despite the timing of the attacks, all of the evidence is highly circumstantial.
We, as a community, however, must distance ourselves from extremists or extremist activities such as this by whatever means possible.
We cannot compromise our core values which are embodied by the work done on Open Source and Free Software, but we also cannot allow corporations to usurp our hard work.
We must, *above all else*, allow this to play out in court as this is the *only* way to make certain something like this doesn't happen again.
This is my message and, while I can't speak for the community, I believe these statments to be undeniable. I, personally, don't think a Linux user is behind the attacks, but if it is, then it's one person or a small group of people who are acting foolishly and should not reflect on the community as a whole.
Thanks, GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
Goddamit! Is our currency still falling?
for anyone thats this stupid. Darl doesn't stand a chance and most can see this.
It makes you wonder,
if brains were dynamite, could Darl generate enough force to blow his nose?
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Stanford? The place where anyone can drop a class for any reason on the last day of the semester? All GPA's were made meaningless by this school!
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Let's all invest our money in SCO stock! With the luck we're all having with corporate abuse and the IT industry in general, the stock is bound to plummet after we invest in it.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Ok, I really wish I was there when this drivel was puked forth:
[QUOTE]
"The minute (IBM) puts its 10,000 patents into the public domain, I will follow you with my product," he said.
[/QUOTE]
I mean look, people. Seriously.. We ARE NOT contesting the viability of proprietary software. FOSS and Proprietary CAN co-exist, and noone is contending that it can't..
Ok, next time he decides to have another little face-to-face, we need to get someone in there with a little better debating skills.
I can't beleive (it is aparent) that he was able to wriggle his way out of there and still get the last word. (as far as I could tell...)
Ok, I'm done for now...
....move along....nothing to see here....
I really wish that when Darl stated that the GPL hadn't been tested in court, someone had pointed out that neither had SCO's assertions.
At least one argument they're using against the GPL can be used against the claim that anyone should pay them $699 per CPU.
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
The idiot who wrote that "thing" you linked is of course my favorite Rob Enderle. He didn't have a clue before, and he has even less of it now.
Move on, nothing to see there...
afaik, both are served by linux. difference is, microsoft's site is served by a really huge world wide cluster (by akamai, only front servers are linux).
Help me out here. Is it pronounced letter by letter or as an acronym? I'm told it's 'Skoh', but that just sounds about as stupid as it looks.
Why is anything anything?
vaudeville Students that knows when the Gig is up.
Help fight continental drift.
I don't think so. The comparison is between two pointers, one of which has been created on the fly. This would work, but it wouldn't be very much use:
// etc
char * user_name = "DarlMcB";
char * current_user;
current_user = user_name;
if(user_name == current_user)
Darl knows that he will never win against IBM et al in court, even if his claims had some merit, which they don't, IBM has enough cash, credit, and lawyers to squash a relatively small company like SCO. The indemnifications that IBM and others are offering to their clients are the legal equivalent of "an attack against one is an attack against all" treaties such as the one governing NATO. IBM, RedHat, and others will close ranks and take a "we don't negotiate with terrorists" scorched earth approach to this whole thing and when they are finished there will be nothing left of SCO but a smoking crater in the ground.
From the flyer that they were handing out:
Humans can read and understand source code; only a computer can understand and run the binary program.
Now I realize that they had to dumb the flyer down a bit beacuse it was going to law students. (Zing!) But really, after seeing how cool and actually intelligent some of them were (Normally I'd not even consider saying something like that but hey, these are MIT students so they get the benifit of my doubt.) do they really need to be misinformed about something so basic?
While it is very hard these days to read asm vs the early, oh say 8 bit, days it's still not impossable as that line seems to suggest. It is, however, true that only computers can run binary. Although I suppose if someone really wanted to, ie was as crazy as Darl, they could sit down with a piece of paper and a pen (No calculators now; thats a computer!) and write out how something would run. But even that would not work out well if it was a GUI.
Anyway, it is just a minor thing but of my key things when countering FUD is the facts and I feel that everyone should keep that in mind.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Particularly funny is what happens when you Email SCO asking why you need a license if you aren't using any of the modules involved in the IBM case. Maybe they've come up with an answer by now, but the response I got was 'direct any further questions to the sales department'.
The comparison is between two pointers, one of which has been created on the fly. This would work, but it wouldn't be very much use:
Which is what I said. Memory address comparison.
But it depends on the compiler. Some will optimize memory use by providing a single address to all identical strings (char arrays).
You can have a statement such as
#define MY_NAME "RetroGeek"
Then use this everywhere. The pre-processor will replace all MY_NAME with "RetroGeek", which could be in many places.
Which can be bad if your code alters the string on the fly.
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
It originally comes from a "Dilbert" cartoon. The boss hires a new user interface designer, whose previous career was being an international terrorist. The boss says, "It isn't a perfect fit, but he went to Yale." Dilbert comments to Sven, the new guy, about him (Sven) going to Yale, and Sven says, "I yust got out last week."
He'll be in the paper all week...
Just FYI - SCO's new web site runs Linux.
Anyone renember St. Thomas, where when the king forced everyone to change to his religion, he disagreed strongly, but tried to declare that he was in full compliance of the law - because the law gave him the right to be silent.
In a way, this is what's happening today. I am confident that the GPL here is not in violation of the law, but I am also confident that copyright monopolies do not belong in the information age and must go. And the GPL is the license most true to that spirit.
PS: St Thomas was executed, inspite of his attempt to stay within the law by being silent. There's a lesson to be learned from this.
haha. oops. ok. funny. ;)
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
No, it relied on Outlook bugs that hid the extension of the file and made it look like a .txt file.
.zip. This would indicate a bug in the unzip code as it executed the file rather than just put it on the disk. Or possible they just disguised the .exe as a .zip and thus relied on the Outlook bug. I don't know about this one.
However there are lots of indications that people are stupid enough that they clicked on it in other mail readers that did not have this bug and clearly indicated the file was executable. So you could claim that it did not rely on Outlook bugs, but somebody certainly wrote some code to use the Outlook bug if it could.
Also if I understand it right, it sometimes sent the file as a
"there is no such thing as bad press"
LOTS of people know the SCO name now. That is a marketable and, therefore, valuable quality (however whacked that seems).
Kissinger? Hearst? Updike? Kaczynski? Love Story?
.... ....
but
but
NATALIE PORTMAN !!!!
Slashdot conflict! Good or evil?
Well...it works, which could possibly mean it is legitimate, however you cannot use your hack to compare
/*an array*/ /* a pointer */
... //This works ... //This works too ... //and so does this
... //This however should not work. ... //and neither should this.
char amessage[] = "now is the time";
char *pmessage = "now is the time";
Since amessage is an array just big enough to hold the sequence of characters and '/0' that initializes it, while pmessage is a pointer initialized to point to a string constant. Individual characters may be changed in the former, whereas the result is undefined if you try to change the contents of the latter. Here, try this code and tell me if there exists an equality operator defined over strings:
char *UserName = "DarylMcB";
char *Loser = "DarylMcB";
char Name[] = "DarylMcB";
char *Lusername;
Lusername=UserName;
printf("UserName == %s\n",UserName);
printf("Name == %s\n",Name);
if (UserName=="DarylMcB")
if (Lusername=="DarylMcB")
if (UserName == Loser)
if (UserName == Name)
if (Name == "DarylMcB")
...small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri...
is the next best thing.
Every time I've accidentally done something like this, the compiler has barfed. Doesn't matter if it's gcc, one of the Sun compilers, the one that comes with AIX, ...
So sure I should know better by now, but when you also write code in languages which do support this type of string comparison, it's easy to forget it 'til compile time.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
It turns out I was the one who said that, although I'm not a student.
#define is a macro. It's processed before the compiler sees it.
I know of no compiler that would store two strings in the same location just because their contents are identical, except possibly for an Intercal compiler. Is that the one you mean?
superbowl - playing feild analogy
.5 trillion, exports, jobs, sales. ip assets are becoming more inportant in 20 years, ip is becoming significant, see nifty chart
us vs ibm
combatants
david-goliath
ibm=10000lb, sco=200lbs
importance of ip
sco owns unix - my view
defend ip
side-show - mydoom - largest virus, largest ddos
i was working with oss leader, listened to his speech, i'm not a student
he said - copyrights in us are outdated, out of sync with digital age
lobby congress to overturn current copyright laws and DMCA
dmca is a disaster, get it out
i have importants copyrights
he attacked copyrights
he said: we sell linux, it's free, we go out and displace SCO and Sun
i took that personally
stuff happened between us and ibm, hence lawsuit
take a hard look at the importance of copyrights
dilbert cartoon - i created kazza, wouldn't society collapes? yeah, but it's cool
statistics about ip - copyrighted works drive industry,
eldred vs. ashcroft - copyright extension act.
congress promotes progress with exclusive rights - initial investment is based on roi. ability to license, ensure value for you and customers. we see in digital age, question "how do you deal with easily available digital works." how do you deal with free dl'd copyrighted works over internet.
who uses napster? ok. 40 million napster dl's. it was exciting. like shoplifting (it's great!) seems not a good thing. now itunes, legit napster, not for free. video industry says it can't compete with a free model - film piracy, (don't send messages) drug industry, patents.
how do free models work in protectable industries? congress said, fair compensation, incentive, let's move on. stevens said, rewarding author is secondary to progress of science. he was minority, majority said "economic philosophy - encourage individual effort by personal gain to help public" You will shape this argument - which side will win? (19min) 7 justices ruled in favor that copyrighted works are extendable, protectable, progress is best favoring individual artists. minority (that's you) progress of science is key determiner of how this plays on. battle ongoing, despite decision.
SCO Owns The UNIX OS. Two OS's - windows (bill gates, billions, desktop -> server); UNIX, not desktop, really for businesses. servers behind businesses are geared around unix. started at atnt -> novell -> sco. center is ip / contract rights. we paid 100M for these rights. at the center of attention.
People have many opionions. Winding road is one question, second question is what do we have? in simple terms (not details), basics. first things is SysV, commercialized unix, atnt gave to us. We own the source code. (object, binary, source...etc) (crown jewels). SCO owns agreement to all unix vendors. MS is monolithic. They own it lock stock barrel, singularaly as one company. Unix was partnered and licensed 1000's of times by atnt. how common is it to license source this broadly? not very. we also own SysV copyrights. APA says, 8 pages of copyrights are ours. Ammendment reinforces we own them. Novell has claimed ownership. We got it from them, and in last 6 months Novell said we didn't sell you them. We disagree violently, so we filed a lawsuit. why? we went to copyright office, registered. audience:"you provide them with a copy, fill out forms, pay a fee. We received additional legal protection." it's cool, you get it, and "wow". "
key part - copyright office granted us certain legal protections. sontag was responsible for that. it was like, "cool". We got word that Novell had filed for regisrations on the same works. And guess what? CO granted them a
What if C A T really spelled........Dog
Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds
JOLT's presentation of the event was very odd. They made a few comments at the start that made it sound like they were only grudgingly admitting non-Harvard Law students, which is a shame, because the MIT people really came to play. Their questions were good, and the kept it all professional and on-message. (JOLT does and always has, as far as I know, made their events open off-campus; the editor's comments just made it sound like he wasn't all that happy to have a room packed with non-HLS kids.)
Darl was also impressive, to be honest. He was more than a little bit evasive in his answers, but he was very good about going back to the MIT students for questions, even though there were some obviously more sympathetic law students with their hands up. He also stayed around for a bit after the presentation to talk to a small knot of students, presumably including the author of the linked piece.
While he didn't convince me that SCO has a case, he did a fairly good job of convincing me that he *believes* they have a case, and that it's not a scam. He did, after the speech in the small discussion, address the "pump and dump" allegations; he denies selling any significant stock, and claimed any internal sell-offs have been minor and insignificant. I was just on the periphery of that conversation though, so take my report with a grain of salt.
A couple of people have commented on McBride's bodyguard. He did, in fact, have a bodyguard there; I was told it was because he's received death threats. The other guy (the one who actually looks like a bodyguard) was a Harvard police officer; university policy forbids guest speakers from bringing bodyguards on campus without a peace officer in attendance, apparently.
I was blown away when someone asked him (paraphrased): If you believe the GPL license is unconstitutional, what right then do you have to distribute SAMBA in your products.
At this they said (again paraphrasing): Samba is good, we dont believe that Samba is tainted in any way.
They did not answer in any way what right they have to distribute Samba if they believe that the GPL is invalid. If the GPL is proven invalid (unlikely), it does not mean that the work suddenly becomes public domain. They cant seem to admit to the fact that they are basically screwed either way.
I would highly doubt that SCO could come up with a clean room implementation of the SMB protocol in any reasonable span of time that they could incorporate into their products. And imagine the reduced value of an SCO OS platform if it did not have open source tools like samba embedded.
I would cherish the day that Darl & Co goes up to the Samba developers to negotiate a seperate license and those developers tell them to go to hell. They will never do this even if it is shown that they have no right to distribute Samba because their core business is no longer software development, but litigation.
The Ro Factor - Jeep/Linux Weblog
From the article:
He really said a mouthful here. This is the problem: Why do we have to be bothered by the law on a daily basis?This especially applies to copyright, a law that most people should not even know exists. It used to be a law for people who published books. Now it is a form of censorship and an export restriction for the common citizen.
Engineers and programmers should not be waisting their time with copyright law. They should be engineering and programming. The fact that they are waisting their time with copyright law means that progress is being hindered by the misappropriation of their intelligence to the solution of a problem that should not exist.
Therefore, yet again, copyright, rather than promoting progress, is in fact hindering it by misappropriating mental resources from more important tasks. What would Jefferson think?
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
Right you are.
But anyone holding SCO stock and expecting it to still be worth much after Friday is delusional.
For rational, informed speculation about what might happen at the hearing on the 6th, go read Groklaw.
Anything further I might add would just be noise.
-- What do you need?
-- Gnus. Lots of Gnus.
Their idiocy has not reached such heights yet.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I know that #define is a macro. That is why I said pre-processor.
I started with C many years ago. Probably the modern compilers no longer do this. There used to be a concern with the amount of RAM and disk space apps required.
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
ROTFLMAO!
/. would a jest encompassing a few lines of "code" turn into a unending string of improvements to that code and a discussion about wether it would actually work or not.
Only on
Talk about Geeks 'R Us
On a more serious note, don't threads like that actually prove that code == speech ?
The Boston Globe has an article by Hiawatha Bray about the event entitled "Mr. Unpopular".
I think you should have continued to learn C.
Why is this modded as "Insightful"?? Having open debate with all views represented is a great way to get an education (read: you learn to think for yourself). If students only get one side of the story (or the party line), then they don't learn to think for themselves and are nothing more than parrots. How do I know that Darl's wrong if I don't actually hear what he has to say? If I don't hear him, than I'm really only parrotting other peoples' opinions, because I don't have enough evidence to properly form my own.
This clearly asn't about anybody making a dollar, this was about Harvard's Law journal bringing in a speaker for educational purposes. It got people thinking. It allowed people to better understand Darl's position. Sounds like it was a good educational experience. It doesn't sound to me (from the descriptions here and elsewhere) like there was much of anybody who bought into what Darl says, but it's great that they were allowed to form their own opinions.
I never said it was good practise! C lets you shoot yourself. This is both good AND bad.
The original point was that:
if ( somepointer == "A string" )
IS valid code.
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
char amessage[] = "now is the time"; /*an array*/
/* a pointer */
This tells the C compiler that you want to set up an address space to hold 16 char spaces. The C compiler does this, then assigns a memory space named amessage which holds the start address of the 16 char spaces.
char *pmessage = "now is the time";
This tells the C compiler that you want to set up an address space to hold 16 char spaces. The C compiler does this, then assigns a memory space named pmessage which holds the start address of the 16 char spaces.
Both statements are equivalent, and both Xmessage variables can be used in interchangable ways:
*amessage is the same as amessage[0]
*pmessage is the same as pmessage[0]
and given that a char is 1 byte in size:
*(amessage + 1) is the same as amessage[1]
*(pmessage + 1) is the same as pmessage[1]
There are NO arrays as such in C. An array in C is the start of a contiguous memory space. When you use an indice in the "array" such as amessage[2], then the C compiler examines the sizeof() of the variable type, then moves the pointer sizeof * indice bytes. In the case of a char (1 byte) amessage[2] wil point to amessage + 2 bytes.
If amessage was a struct with a sizeof 30 bytes, then amessage[2] would be amessage + (30 * 2).
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
It might compile, but it wouldn't do what you want it to. You're comparing the pointer, not the contents; this will always return false. It has nothing to do with the vintage of the compiler; C just doesn't work the way you think it does.
Perhaps you're thinking of Java?
It might compile, but it wouldn't do what you want it to.
No argument there, in most cases. It still depends on the compiler.
If the compiler DOES reuse address space for identical strings, then it WOULD work. If the compiler creates a new address space for every string, then yes, it would always return false.
And in Java, this would not work as it would be comparing objects. It would compile, but would always be false.
In Java you would use:
if ( someTex.equals("some value") )
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
If the compiler DOES reuse address space for identical strings, then it WOULD work. If the compiler creates a new address space for every string, then yes, it would always return false.
C always does the latter. Perhaps it was in a nightmare that you encountered a compiler that works the other way?
And in Java, this would not work as it would be comparing objects. It would compile, but would always be false.
Actually in Java,
String s1 = "hello";
String s2 = "hello";
(s1 == s2) would return true. But if one of the strings was generated like this:
String s2 = "he";
s2 += "llo";
(s1 == s2) would return false, which is why using the equals function is more predictable. I don't know why Java works that way.
I don't know why Java works that way.
Because in Java a String is immutable, so the compiler only creates one instance of the "hello", then s1 and s2 are references to that one instance.
But the s2 += "llo"; creates a new instance.
When you do s1 == s2 you are comparing references.
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
>...There are NO arrays as such in C. ...
Wrong! I suggest you read the book "The C Programming language: 2nd Ed." by Kernighan and Ritchie. You'll notice I pretty much quoted word-from-word section 5.5, pg. 104.
>Both statements are equivalent, and both Xmessage variables can be used in interchangable ways
NO! Again, reread my reply and run the code. They are NOT the same since you can change the contents of amessage but not necessarily the string pointed to by pmessage. Furthermore, you're little hack will not determine equality between amessage and the string pointed to by pmessage, yet they are strings. I hate to see people giving bogus programming tips, and your's was bogus.
...small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri...
NO!
YES!
From K&R (first edition) section 5.3 pointers and arrays, page 93 "In C, there is a strong relationship between pointers and arrays, strong enough that pointers and arrays really should be treated simultaneously. Any operation which can be achieved by array subscripting can also be done with pointers."
And then on page 94 "Rather more surprising, at least at first sight, is the fact that a reference to a[i] can also be written as *(a+i)."
The ONLY limitation between the two methods is that the pointer can be moved around, that is p++, whereas the array variable cannot.
They are NOT the same since you can change the contents of amessage but not necessarily the string pointed to by pmessage.
Yes you can change both. Nothing in the C language definition prevents you from doing that.
Furthermore, you're little hack will not determine equality between amessage and the string pointed to by pmessage, yet they are strings.
First of all, it is not my little hack. Go back and re-read this thread.
Secondly, there are NO strings in C. There ARE arrays of characters, and those arrays must have a 0x0 somewhere in them to indicate the termination of the useful portion of the array. If they do not, then all functions which manipulate or examine these arrays will continue on past the apperant end of the array until they DO encounter a 0x0.
I hate to see people giving bogus programming tips
Yes I agree. But my original reply was that the code WOULD COMPILE, contrary to the parent comment. Not that it was good programming form.
I would modify my original statement "It will even work since most compilers will find all instances of identical strings and equate their locations:" to "It might even work since some compilers will find all instances of identical strings and equate their locations:"
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
>>>Both statements are equivalent, and both Xmessage variables can be used in interchangable ways
:)
...or did you think I was being condescending? Well, I was. :)
>>NO!
>YES!
NO!
What part of "On the other hand, pmessage is a pointer, initialized to point to a string constant; the pointer may subsequently be modified to point elsewhere, but the result is undefined if you try to modify the string contents" do you not understand? (pg. 104).
>>They are NOT the same since you can change the contents of amessage but not necessarily the string pointed to by pmessage.
>Yes you can change both. Nothing in the C language definition prevents you from doing that.
Yes, and nothing stops us from coding segfaulty code either, so what part of "not necessarily" did you not understand?
>First of all, it is not my little hack.
It doesn't hold water if you try to determine equality with "if (amessage == pmessage)". Therefore its a hack, as that was the intent of your post, no? And since its less than 1k, then that makes it a little hack, but why are you so concerned with size? Fine, it was a HUGE hack. Happy?
>Secondly, there are NO strings in C. There ARE arrays of characters...
hmm...could of sworn I said something about quoting K&R on page 104, which is probably the context from which I am using the term "string".
> But my original reply was that the code WOULD COMPILE, contrary to the parent comment. Not that it was good programming form.
Look, I dont care for a fight on semantics, or the intent of your original post. In fact, I thought your code was pretty clever, but your message ended short of informing neophyte programmers that this isn't proper code. Rather, someone listening in might get ideas of: "if code compiles, then code is good," which brings us to the topics of security and memory leaks...so let's move on.
...small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri...
The kernel has no concept of usernames. It only knows the UID. the login program looks up the username in /etc/passwd, and sets the UID accordingly. whoami looks up the UID in /etc/passwd and displays the first username with that UID.
"We have got to make Stan understand the importance of voting, because he'll definitely vote for our guy." - South Park
There's this thing called a "joke". Perhaps you've heard of it.
Please remove Part A ("stick") from Part B ("ass"), and then proceed to Step 7.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
What is Step 7?
"We have got to make Stan understand the importance of voting, because he'll definitely vote for our guy." - South Park