..... instead of acknowledging the cold, hard reality that MS Windows and Office are and will be the de facto standards in business worldwide for the decades to come.
Dunno about that. It is the de facto standard now, but I'm not going to bet my life either way on it staying that way over the next 20 years.
....However, most kids will not end up as system administrators but office workers who will only do word processing and spreadsheets.
For those people, OpenOffice will give them enough familiarity to handle themselves with MS office. Not many people actually do the deep and wierd stuff where the differences between the MS and Open office suites become glaring, and those are....
In contrast, those kids who end up as professional IT workers will always have the curiosity and skill to learn the more esoteric things like altenrative operating systems and other by themselves.
If a solution handles it for the mediocore kids, and still provides a platform for the future-IT types to do some real work at school, then why not go that path? Especially if you can do it for less (leftover money for other initiatives). Besides being the launch base for an office suite, Linux also provides a bunch of programming languages and development environments for free that would probably cost a few thousand dollars for the Microsoft equivalent.
I think that it's also important to realize that teaching kids how to program doesn't just train them to be IT workers. It also teaches them ways of thinking. Programming is a relatively unforgiving process. A program either works, or it doesn't. There's not a whole lot of room for hand-waving. At the same time, it encourages free thinking. There are many ways of doing even the most simple of tasks and once people realize that, they really do start themselves thinking about other ways of doing the things that they're used to.
In my world, open thinking is a good thingâ. trade copy
Most schools have already got full networks with windows. They won't be interested in replacing them.
.....
Schools are kept in a constant upgrade cycle to meet new pupil/computer ratios all the time (yes, even Infant / Junior schools). That means they are spending £10,000 a year or so by just keeping their networks up-to-date enough to run the latest kids software, putting enough machines it. There is certainly a need for a thin-client structure here, especially with all the old donated machines etc.
Well, if we could manage to get the whole new system installed for less than the $10K it costs to keep the old system up to date, this might be an indication that they could save even more money over the long run with the new setup.
I know that Windows puts people into a panic about just installing new software (far too likely to break everything else). That's part of my complaint about Windows (and would be the complaint of windows users if they really knew that there was an alternative).
Once people get use to the fact that (unlike Windows), non-MS software can be both usable and stable, I'm guessing that they're never going back.
Maybe long term, but today? Not really.
You have to retrain/fire-and-hire the IT staff.
You have to get new text books.
No big deal there. Consider a classroom with 30 computers. At a conservative $500/box for software and licenses, that's $15K to pay for retraining the network person and new schoolbooks.
If $5000 in courses isn't enough to train someone how to install and support Linux, then they probably should replaced. That leaves $10K for textbooks and other training materials. Even at $100/book (a little high, I'd think) that's still enough for 100 students Chances are, that you'd end up with money left over to do other things.
Well, there might no point in "enforcing" several operating systems early in life...... Unless (and sometimes even if...) you're working in the IT or do scientific research, chances are that you'll never have to deal with linux...... I don't see myself anytime soon praising the benefits of early "latex editing in emacs" learning.
Similarly, there's even less point in 'enforcing' a Windows-only universe on people. Most people will have Windows at home. Letting them see another OS in school allows them to compare the to and honestly decide which will work better for them.
Linux does not imply Latex, either. I'd expect people to be using things like OpenOffice. Fact of the matter is that not that many people actually work with Windows directly either. They tend to use applications. Windows (or Linux) is really just the base used to start those applications. As long as people have access to the functionality that they need/want, the OS is almost irrelevant.
that is really the area that gives us incredible rights, because it includes the control rights on the derivative works that branch off from that trunk.
I think that SCO is on crack, not sharing and confused.
They're confusing the viral nature of the GPL with derivative works law. Had UNIX been shared under the terms of the GPL, IBM (nee Sequent) would have been required to GPL the code to things like RCU and JFS. It's not because they're derivative code however. In fact, the requirement to relicense is because they're not derivative code. The GPL requires you to GPL that code because it's distributed with GPL'ed code. If you didn't distribute the GPLed code then you wouldn't need to GPL the additional code.
SCO is basically grasping at straws here. They've gone through the history of Linux and suddenly realized that IBM really was pretty hard-nosed about not letting their UNIX tainted people put any SCO code into Linus, so now they're trying the back door, hoping it's not locked.
I think that they're going to find a pretty solid wall.
Also, as SCO has virtually no chance of winning, settling doesn't make financial sense. Naturally, THAT'S why SCO increased the suit to $3B - it lets IBM think that settling makes sense now at a lower SCO success rate. If the break-even point for a settlement was a 50% chance of SCO victory, now it makes sense at a 17% chance. For example, obviously, as both numbers are too high.;)
the 17% solution only makes sense if SCO has a minimal chance of winning the suit and gettint a reasonable percentage of what they're claiming. Right now, they're suing IBM for GPL'ing a piece of code that (as far as I can tell) was created by a sequent -> IBM employee (and, I presume, assigned to Sequent then transferred to IBM).
This is my quick summary of the SCO conversation:
SCO: Stop selling UNIX or we'll sue you to stop you.
IBM: Why? We have a license!
SCO: Because you've done something wrong, and you won't fix it.
IBM: What have we done wrong?
SCO: We Can't tell you (na na na na naaaa!)
IBM: You have to tell us what we did wrong if we're going to be able to fix it.
SCO: We could let one of your engineers see the code we think you stole, but then you'd have to shoot him
IBM: Can we subpoena your therapist in the counter suit?
SCO: OK: It's the RCU code. By the way, we're tripling our damages.
IBM: But we wrote that!
SCO: And your point is????
IBM:I don't think we'll be needing your therapist.
I don't think that Jobs was that much of a PITA. He had some very blunt comments, but they had some thought behind them. He took the time to look at the thing, and made the comments he did because he cared enough about the product to invest both his time and money into it. Given that he was only able/willing to schedule about 2 hours for the meeting, waiting around for the end of a bunch of 10 minute presentations and then pussy-footing around his ideas would have just wasted time, and gotten less work done in the time that he had scheduled.
Yes jobs was blunt.. but it seems that the people who know him well enough to get him into a meeting like that understand it... Remember that comment:
Doug Field and Scott Waters would have felt the wound; they admired Apple's design sense. Dean's intuition not to bring Doug had been right.
In this case, it seems that Dean had set himself up as a buffer between Jobs and Doug. He could take Jobs' comments and translate them into something that wouldn't hurt Doug -- but still pump jobs for data and thoughts in an extremely tight timeline.
Jobs said what he did because he cared. He simply presumed (self - fullfilling prophesy) that the people around him wouldn't take the comments too personally.
Given that the infringement was (on most peoples' part) unknowing and inadvertent, I rather doubt that there would be a terribly high price to pay -- especially if a replacement is relatively fast in coming.
My thought is that the person most at risk would be the person who posted the 'dirty' code to begin with. They are also likely to be the person with the knowledge of where the code came from (and any defences associated with that).
I don't think that this is a big deal -- especialy if I'm alowed to post a URL pointing to the response (hosted by the person responding).
I would have a bit of a problem if the 'response' turned out to just a generic advertisement. In that case, I might actually ask for a text-only response up to about the same size as the original (although I'd allow links). That way, people would know that I wasn't wilfully pointing them at commercial advertisements.
Having said that, I think that there may be other possibilities -- like creating a page with my own warning that their 'response' seems a lot like an add to me, and then including the link.
Perhaps I should have said 'battle ship'. I meant it in the more generic term (neither knowing, nor seriously caring, about the exact class of the ship that got blue-screened).
Since Linux and Unix kernels aren't meant to be compatible, this exception would be a non-starter for IBM. If IBM did in fact copy and paste code (including comments) into Linux, I would guess that this would easily pass the "substantially similar" test.
I'm not talking about the code that IBM has in there right now. I'm talking about replacing the code that SCO is accusing IBN/The Linux Community of having purloined. I get a sense that it would be difficult to find someone both capable of and willing to replace non-trivial chunks of code who could prove that (s)he had never had access to the Linux source tree.
As a result, I'm thinking that the Linux community would have to depend on the new code lacking 'substantial similarity'. Not quite as easy as doing a clean room rebuid, but still quite doable.
While the 114 MPH might have increased the sentence (particularly since it shows the defendant lying about how fast he was going),
I'm not even close to feeling sorry for this guy... Doing over 100MPH in a residential zone? Even on the highway, it might be considered cause for a vehicular hommicide charge.
The one thing that gets me is that -- given the evidence they had -- they didn't charge him with perjury as well. It's pretty hard to not know the difference between 60MPH and over 100. I'm pretty clear that he knew and he explicitly tried to lie about it.
Newsflash: lots of useful things give misleading or even downright incorrect info -- for example: all media:).
Having been on the inside of a number of reasonably high-profile news stories, I'd wipe that smiley off of that post if I were you.
I woouldn't say that all media is misleading/wrong all the time, but I would definitely not stake my life on the accuracy of a media report without independent verification.
Isn't the Windows NT kernel supposed to be a microkernel?
We're talking technical design, here.. not marketing speak. NT is a microkernel like an Austin Mini is an
SUV. (4 wheels and windows, but the similarity pretty much ends there).
From my understanding, if there was SCO code in there that somebody replaced, they would have had to do it without ANY access to the SCO code at all, in the same way companies like AMD did "clean room" reverse engineering jobs on Intel's chips once upon a time.
'clean room' tactics are not the only way to produce code that is not a copyright violation. It is however a good (and proven by precedent) way to prove that your code is taint-free. SCO would still have to prove that your code is derived from theirs and you'd have an opportunity to disprove. A clean room production simply makes SCO's job almost impossible.
1) It isn't the operating system controlling the grinding of lenses or correcting the tilt of the TGV. It is a function of the hardware to do these things. That they report back to some software (which could frankly be run on any embedded OS) which then tells them what to do next is almost irrelevant.
Only partly true.
The operating system provides the framework within which the software works. For things like a desktop where things like the occasional 1/2 second ~ 3second delay isn't fatal, and blue-screening a couple of times a week (or day, as the case may be) is mostly just an annoyance, then yes -- the two are pretty much equal.
For things like nuclear reactor control, precision robotics and medical instruments, where a 1 miliseond (much less 1 second) hickup can result in death and destruction. they are most definitely not equal. The hard realtime in Windows is, well, not that hard. It's pretty easy to get Windows to lock up for the better part of a second. Linus is only slightly better -- but only when you install the realtime patches.
As far as reliability, Microsoft is still proud of being able to (sometimes) run for 3 months at a shot without rebooting. Linux has a much better history, but it's still far from bulletproof. As far as I know, neither one is certified to run things like nuclear reactors and medical equipment.
The Navy's decicision to use Windows to run their battleships has been the source of some amusement -- having managed to bluescreen one ship and leaving it 'dead in the water'. As to whether this could happen during a battle, converting 'dead in the water' to 'dead and in the water' is a matter of conjecture. All I can say with certainty is that I'm glad I'm not a US sailor.
In a surprise announcement, today, SCO head Darl McBride, announced that
his company had hired former Iraqi front man Tariq Aziz to handle media
inquiries about SCO's legal battle with IBM.
SCO's president and chief executive officer
seemed very upbeat at the announcement, stating that Mr. had oodles of
related experience.
Specious evidence, extravagant claims, hidden proofs, enormous odds..
Mr. Aziz has seen (or used) it all. He understands how it works,
and he's shown himself able to handle even the most hostile media
attention. We believe that he'll provide an excellent source of
of knowledge and leadership.
When asked about the questionable morals of Mr. Aziz's former employer,
Mr McBride blustered.
"This is about business -- not morals." said McBride. "Our job is to make
as much money for our stockholders as possible within the bounds of the law.
Mr. Aziz obeyed the decr... laws of his former country and we expect him to
do the same here."
Questions about Mr. Aziz's immigration and legal status were brushed off
as "a telecommuting issue". When asked about the former Iraqi functionary's
whereabouts, Mr McBride only mumbled something about being "one with the
source code".
To not keep choices as free as possible to choose whatever is the best solution - be it proprietary or open - defeats the entire purpose of the choice open source provides.
It's not being made absolutely mandatory: they're simply making it the default. 20% non-Linux is far from a paultry and lip-service head count. It leaves lots of room to use Windos/Mac/*BSD etc. -- especially in situations where they are the better choice.
Part of the thing is that -- unless you set meaningful benchmarks, people are just going to follow the inertial system (we have Wintendos, so we'll just buy more of the same). This forces the various departments to make a reasonablely strong move in the direction of learning and implementing Linux without tying their hands on systems that are unreasonable (or even just hard) to move across.
Now my guess is that -- once these departments get a real taste of Linux -- they're more likely to end up with 90-98% Linux in the long run. This based on the fact that there are now very few situations where Microsoft provides a noticably better choice than Linux beyond familiarity and force of numbers. Once that's reversed, I don't think that people are going to pine after the BSOD.
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Dunno about that. It is the de facto standard now, but I'm not going to bet my life either way on it staying that way over the next 20 years.
For those people, OpenOffice will give them enough familiarity to handle themselves with MS office. Not many people actually do the deep and wierd stuff where the differences between the MS and Open office suites become glaring, and those are ....
In contrast, those kids who end up as professional IT workers will always have the curiosity and skill to learn the more esoteric things like altenrative operating systems and other by themselves.
If a solution handles it for the mediocore kids, and still provides a platform for the future-IT types to do some real work at school, then why not go that path? Especially if you can do it for less (leftover money for other initiatives). Besides being the launch base for an office suite, Linux also provides a bunch of programming languages and development environments for free that would probably cost a few thousand dollars for the Microsoft equivalent.
I think that it's also important to realize that teaching kids how to program doesn't just train them to be IT workers. It also teaches them ways of thinking. Programming is a relatively unforgiving process. A program either works, or it doesn't. There's not a whole lot of room for hand-waving. At the same time, it encourages free thinking. There are many ways of doing even the most simple of tasks and once people realize that, they really do start themselves thinking about other ways of doing the things that they're used to.
In my world, open thinking is a good thingâ. trade copy
Schools are kept in a constant upgrade cycle to meet new pupil/computer ratios all the time (yes, even Infant / Junior schools). That means they are spending £10,000 a year or so by just keeping their networks up-to-date enough to run the latest kids software, putting enough machines it. There is certainly a need for a thin-client structure here, especially with all the old donated machines etc.
Well, if we could manage to get the whole new system installed for less than the $10K it costs to keep the old system up to date, this might be an indication that they could save even more money over the long run with the new setup.
I know that Windows puts people into a panic about just installing new software (far too likely to break everything else). That's part of my complaint about Windows (and would be the complaint of windows users if they really knew that there was an alternative).
Once people get use to the fact that (unlike Windows), non-MS software can be both usable and stable, I'm guessing that they're never going back.
You have to retrain/fire-and-hire the IT staff. You have to get new text books.
No big deal there. Consider a classroom with 30 computers. At a conservative $500/box for software and licenses, that's $15K to pay for retraining the network person and new schoolbooks.
If $5000 in courses isn't enough to train someone how to install and support Linux, then they probably should replaced. That leaves $10K for textbooks and other training materials. Even at $100/book (a little high, I'd think) that's still enough for 100 students Chances are, that you'd end up with money left over to do other things.
Similarly, there's even less point in 'enforcing' a Windows-only universe on people. Most people will have Windows at home. Letting them see another OS in school allows them to compare the to and honestly decide which will work better for them.
Linux does not imply Latex, either. I'd expect people to be using things like OpenOffice. Fact of the matter is that not that many people actually work with Windows directly either. They tend to use applications. Windows (or Linux) is really just the base used to start those applications. As long as people have access to the functionality that they need/want, the OS is almost irrelevant.
I think that SCO is on crack, not sharing and confused.
They're confusing the viral nature of the GPL with derivative works law. Had UNIX been shared under the terms of the GPL, IBM (nee Sequent) would have been required to GPL the code to things like RCU and JFS. It's not because they're derivative code however. In fact, the requirement to relicense is because they're not derivative code. The GPL requires you to GPL that code because it's distributed with GPL'ed code. If you didn't distribute the GPLed code then you wouldn't need to GPL the additional code.
SCO is basically grasping at straws here. They've gone through the history of Linux and suddenly realized that IBM really was pretty hard-nosed about not letting their UNIX tainted people put any SCO code into Linus, so now they're trying the back door, hoping it's not locked.
I think that they're going to find a pretty solid wall.
the 17% solution only makes sense if SCO has a minimal chance of winning the suit and gettint a reasonable percentage of what they're claiming. Right now, they're suing IBM for GPL'ing a piece of code that (as far as I can tell) was created by a sequent -> IBM employee (and, I presume, assigned to Sequent then transferred to IBM).
This is my quick summary of the SCO conversation:
Yes jobs was blunt.. but it seems that the people who know him well enough to get him into a meeting like that understand it... Remember that comment:
In this case, it seems that Dean had set himself up as a buffer between Jobs and Doug. He could take Jobs' comments and translate them into something that wouldn't hurt Doug -- but still pump jobs for data and thoughts in an extremely tight timeline.Jobs said what he did because he cared. He simply presumed (self - fullfilling prophesy) that the people around him wouldn't take the comments too personally.
I forgot to feed the computer!
My thought is that the person most at risk would be the person who posted the 'dirty' code to begin with.
They are also likely to be the person with the knowledge of where the code came from (and any defences associated with that).
I would have a bit of a problem if the 'response' turned out to just a generic advertisement. In that case, I might actually ask for a text-only response up to about the same size as the original (although I'd allow links). That way, people would know that I wasn't wilfully pointing them at commercial advertisements.
Having said that, I think that there may be other possibilities -- like creating a page with my own warning that their 'response' seems a lot like an add to me, and then including the link.
Perhaps I should have said 'battle ship'. I meant it in the more generic term (neither knowing, nor seriously caring, about the exact class of the ship that got blue-screened).
I'm not talking about the code that IBM has in there right now. I'm talking about replacing the code that SCO is accusing IBN/The Linux Community of having purloined. I get a sense that it would be difficult to find someone both capable of and willing to replace non-trivial chunks of code who could prove that (s)he had never had access to the Linux source tree.
As a result, I'm thinking that the Linux community would have to depend on the new code lacking 'substantial similarity'. Not quite as easy as doing a clean room rebuid, but still quite doable.
I'm not even close to feeling sorry for this guy... Doing over 100MPH in a residential zone? Even on the highway, it might be considered cause for a vehicular hommicide charge.
The one thing that gets me is that -- given the evidence they had -- they didn't charge him with perjury as well. It's pretty hard to not know the difference between 60MPH and over 100. I'm pretty clear that he knew and he explicitly tried to lie about it.
Having been on the inside of a number of reasonably high-profile news stories, I'd wipe that smiley off of that post if I were you.
I woouldn't say that all media is misleading/wrong all the time, but I would definitely not stake my life on the accuracy of a media report without independent verification.
In that vein, though, did you ever watch "Pulp Fiction"?
We're talking technical design, here.. not marketing speak. NT is a microkernel like an Austin Mini is an SUV. (4 wheels and windows, but the similarity pretty much ends there).
'clean room' tactics are not the only way to produce code that is not a copyright violation. It is however a good (and proven by precedent) way to prove that your code is taint-free. SCO would still have to prove that your code is derived from theirs and you'd have an opportunity to disprove. A clean room production simply makes SCO's job almost impossible.
Only partly true.
The operating system provides the framework within which the software works. For things like a desktop where things like the occasional 1/2 second ~ 3second delay isn't fatal, and blue-screening a couple of times a week (or day, as the case may be) is mostly just an annoyance, then yes -- the two are pretty much equal.
For things like nuclear reactor control, precision robotics and medical instruments, where a 1 miliseond (much less 1 second) hickup can result in death and destruction. they are most definitely not equal. The hard realtime in Windows is, well, not that hard. It's pretty easy to get Windows to lock up for the better part of a second. Linus is only slightly better -- but only when you install the realtime patches.
As far as reliability, Microsoft is still proud of being able to (sometimes) run for 3 months at a shot without rebooting. Linux has a much better history, but it's still far from bulletproof. As far as I know, neither one is certified to run things like nuclear reactors and medical equipment.
The Navy's decicision to use Windows to run their battleships has been the source of some amusement -- having managed to bluescreen one ship and leaving it 'dead in the water'. As to whether this could happen during a battle, converting 'dead in the water' to 'dead and in the water' is a matter of conjecture. All I can say with certainty is that I'm glad I'm not a US sailor.
In this case, that would come to 6 days and an 8 hour shift.
I can't actually be sure I'm insane.
In a surprise announcement, today, SCO head Darl McBride, announced that his company had hired former Iraqi front man Tariq Aziz to handle media inquiries about SCO's legal battle with IBM. SCO's president and chief executive officer seemed very upbeat at the announcement, stating that Mr. had oodles of related experience.
Specious evidence, extravagant claims, hidden proofs, enormous odds.. Mr. Aziz has seen (or used) it all. He understands how it works, and he's shown himself able to handle even the most hostile media attention. We believe that he'll provide an excellent source of of knowledge and leadership.
When asked about the questionable morals of Mr. Aziz's former employer, Mr McBride blustered.
"This is about business -- not morals." said McBride. "Our job is to make as much money for our stockholders as possible within the bounds of the law. Mr. Aziz obeyed the decr... laws of his former country and we expect him to do the same here."
Questions about Mr. Aziz's immigration and legal status were brushed off as "a telecommuting issue". When asked about the former Iraqi functionary's whereabouts, Mr McBride only mumbled something about being "one with the source code".
I mean, you're not expecting them to declasify the really juicy bits are you???
It's not being made absolutely mandatory: they're simply making it the default. 20% non-Linux is far from a paultry and lip-service head count. It leaves lots of room to use Windos/Mac/*BSD etc. -- especially in situations where they are the better choice.
Part of the thing is that -- unless you set meaningful benchmarks, people are just going to follow the inertial system (we have Wintendos, so we'll just buy more of the same). This forces the various departments to make a reasonablely strong move in the direction of learning and implementing Linux without tying their hands on systems that are unreasonable (or even just hard) to move across.
Now my guess is that -- once these departments get a real taste of Linux -- they're more likely to end up with 90-98% Linux in the long run. This based on the fact that there are now very few situations where Microsoft provides a noticably better choice than Linux beyond familiarity and force of numbers. Once that's reversed, I don't think that people are going to pine after the BSOD.
Now I know who my spam's coming from!