Microsoft has made the patents in question known to corporate Linux users and distributors, [Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's VP for intellectual property and licensing] said
From another infoweek article, it seems that Microsoft has released this information to some people, at least, if you believe Microsoft. Those of us that are interested in putting this one to bed should try to locate a copy of this information and distribute it more widely so that the open-source community can do it's work and either disprove each of the points or reroute around the damage, as Linus said.
As part of the plan, SanDisk will phase out its U3 technology, which adds some smart features to USB devices.
The idea of carrying your "desktop" on a USB key is a solid one, and as the size of flash drives goes up and cost goes down it starts to make practical sense. If the U3 technology is any indication however, the idea still has a long way to go. U3 is clunky and invasive, and Microsoft and Sandisk will have to do a lot better than Sandisk has been able to do thus far to see the product become viable. Microsoft's forays into this area have been unimpressive as well. Briefcase anyone?
As technology improves, it will be interesting to see if someone one-ups this idea and provides the entire operating system in something closer to an Ubuntu Live CD.
I think patents, trademarks and copyrights are simply fantastic [...] and frankly, without them, most open-source projects would rapidly wither away: without an intellectual property behemoth like Microsoft to fight, what would be the point?
The point would remain, as it always has been, to create software that is useful to us. The idea has never been to "fight" Microsoft. The utility of software that is open to inspection and customization is simply higher than similar software that cannot be examined for security vulnerabilities, and is only as customizable as the original author thought to make it. Free is also a benefit. In the workplace, it is much easier to take a piece of software that is free in all respects and begin to use it than it is to fill out requisition forms, attend budget meetings, and finally have your request for that small proprietary tool approved. The only reason any open source software project continues is that the people involved find the software useful enough to contribute to.
I don't currently need a machine, but this announcement has me checking my bank account to see if I can swing a new laptop. I've always wanted a laptop with Linux distro on it, but I've been leery of trying to get it going myself due to the reputation laptops have for hardware conflicts. Even the guys I really consider to be masters of Linux sometimes have had some trouble. The fact that Dell is going to be shipping laptops with Ubuntu 7 is fantastic. They can verify that there aren't any hardware conflicts, whip together ten thousand identical machines, and load them all with the same image. Economies of scale in the best way. Now if only Dell can refrain from adding a free AOL subscription offer to my Ubuntu desktop, life will be perfect.
When I played X-Com I would play it on superhuman and try to beat the game without loading when I lost a mission. O_o
Isn't cheating in a single-player video game a little like cheating in Solitaire?
However, since this is a thread about bugs, I like the bug in X-Com in which you can inexplicably pull a rifle clip out of a dead Chrysalid. Nothing like offing a Chrysalid with the clip you just pulled out of his dead comrade.:)
when my own fully functional version of "echo" is 4116 bytes stripped, how come GNU's is 13880?
Why would you use binary size as a metric here? Does it matter? Is the billionth part of a modern hard drive so important to you? Far more important is maintainability of the code base, robustness, and a thousand other things. Unless you are running this on an Atari 2600 you shouldn't need to worry about the size of your echo program. I mean, it's echo for the love of Mike.
The issue with the computer systems did not create the decline, and the drop it reported was accurate, but by delaying notification of the size of the downturn and then updating it all at once, it made it look like there was suddenly a dramatic increase in the momentum of the decline. As we know, the market is driven by confidence in the market. This sudden drop scared some into selling a few more shares. This was just a very small part of the overall decline however.
Also, consider the definitions of "free". MSSQL may be available for limited use without monetary compensation required, but it isn't "free". Microsoft controls it. It may be free as in beer (3oz sample cups only), but not free as in freedom.
I think that the key word there was "workstation". Computers sold to the business side of the market have far less of a problem with this sort of thing. Take note when buying your next computer.
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The idea of carrying your "desktop" on a USB key is a solid one, and as the size of flash drives goes up and cost goes down it starts to make practical sense. If the U3 technology is any indication however, the idea still has a long way to go. U3 is clunky and invasive, and Microsoft and Sandisk will have to do a lot better than Sandisk has been able to do thus far to see the product become viable. Microsoft's forays into this area have been unimpressive as well. Briefcase anyone?
As technology improves, it will be interesting to see if someone one-ups this idea and provides the entire operating system in something closer to an Ubuntu Live CD.
I don't currently need a machine, but this announcement has me checking my bank account to see if I can swing a new laptop. I've always wanted a laptop with Linux distro on it, but I've been leery of trying to get it going myself due to the reputation laptops have for hardware conflicts. Even the guys I really consider to be masters of Linux sometimes have had some trouble. The fact that Dell is going to be shipping laptops with Ubuntu 7 is fantastic. They can verify that there aren't any hardware conflicts, whip together ten thousand identical machines, and load them all with the same image. Economies of scale in the best way. Now if only Dell can refrain from adding a free AOL subscription offer to my Ubuntu desktop, life will be perfect.
When I played X-Com I would play it on superhuman and try to beat the game without loading when I lost a mission. O_o :)
Isn't cheating in a single-player video game a little like cheating in Solitaire?
However, since this is a thread about bugs, I like the bug in X-Com in which you can inexplicably pull a rifle clip out of a dead Chrysalid. Nothing like offing a Chrysalid with the clip you just pulled out of his dead comrade.
The issue with the computer systems did not create the decline, and the drop it reported was accurate, but by delaying notification of the size of the downturn and then updating it all at once, it made it look like there was suddenly a dramatic increase in the momentum of the decline. As we know, the market is driven by confidence in the market. This sudden drop scared some into selling a few more shares. This was just a very small part of the overall decline however.
Also, consider the definitions of "free". MSSQL may be available for limited use without monetary compensation required, but it isn't "free". Microsoft controls it. It may be free as in beer (3oz sample cups only), but not free as in freedom.
I think that the key word there was "workstation". Computers sold to the business side of the market have far less of a problem with this sort of thing. Take note when buying your next computer.
You can get geographic information from IP addresses, so it isn't entirely unreasonable.