While I respect Joe, he unfortunately missed the fact that on the other two days that he _wasn't_ at the conference, there were all-day desktop Linux meetings.
The focus was split pretty evenly between the desktop and the server - although journalists were only invited to the first day and that session was, admittedly, weighted towards the server. However, the two all-day desktop meetings and many of the other sessions (Printing in Linux, virtualization, energy efficiency) involved significant Desktop content. I'm not sure that his claim can be substantiated.
POWER6 has actually be shipping with this for a while - if an instruction fails (cosmic ray or not, although in terms of random bit-flipping events they account for a large percentage), it gets automatically retried, transparently to the rest of the system. Without this sort of thing you generally take a hard fault - so this type of protection is great to see. Same thing on a SPARC64, incidentally (but not UltraSPARC - ie Niagara or children).
What sets the POWER6 apart from both SPARC64 and this patent is if that instruction fails repeatedly Possibly indicating a chip fault), in many cases it can actually back the instruction out of the failing core and slap it onto another core, also transparently and avoiding a hard crash.
Someone noted that this has been done on mainframes for years - yup, also true. This is another case of UNIX-class technology making inroads up the platform stack.
This does bring up a point. You can open source anything (and probably pick up some decent press off of it these days). But in a case like this, what does it really mean? It gets you points from those who either 1) don't understand you need a fab to do anything with this, 2) don't understand why you would open source a project, or 3) don't read the article.
So really, if nobody's going to contribute changes, make a derivative work, or build one of these things from scratch, does this really mean anything at all?
I'm inclined to say no.
That in their press release, they say "SCO owns the core UNIX operating system..." ?
Maybe they missed what happened in August?
Link to the article on Groklaw
Slashdot Mirror
Looks pretty neutral and factual to me, honestly. Although if I read it in a nasty voice it could sound sarcastic, I suppose.
But in all seriousness, it doesn't seem that bad...?
The focus was split pretty evenly between the desktop and the server - although journalists were only invited to the first day and that session was, admittedly, weighted towards the server. However, the two all-day desktop meetings and many of the other sessions (Printing in Linux, virtualization, energy efficiency) involved significant Desktop content. I'm not sure that his claim can be substantiated.
From the conference agenda:
Wednesday, 9-5: Desktop Linux Architects Meeting
- State of the Linux Desktop - Linux Distros
- OEM vendor round table: what they need to have a successful Linux desktop
- Building a Desktop Environment Ecosystem - Gnome / KDE
- Linux Desktop Implementation Case Studies
Thursday, 9-4:30: Desktop Linux Architects MeetingPOWER6 has actually be shipping with this for a while - if an instruction fails (cosmic ray or not, although in terms of random bit-flipping events they account for a large percentage), it gets automatically retried, transparently to the rest of the system. Without this sort of thing you generally take a hard fault - so this type of protection is great to see. Same thing on a SPARC64, incidentally (but not UltraSPARC - ie Niagara or children). What sets the POWER6 apart from both SPARC64 and this patent is if that instruction fails repeatedly Possibly indicating a chip fault), in many cases it can actually back the instruction out of the failing core and slap it onto another core, also transparently and avoiding a hard crash. Someone noted that this has been done on mainframes for years - yup, also true. This is another case of UNIX-class technology making inroads up the platform stack.
This does bring up a point. You can open source anything (and probably pick up some decent press off of it these days). But in a case like this, what does it really mean? It gets you points from those who either 1) don't understand you need a fab to do anything with this, 2) don't understand why you would open source a project, or 3) don't read the article. So really, if nobody's going to contribute changes, make a derivative work, or build one of these things from scratch, does this really mean anything at all? I'm inclined to say no.
...have a usage report that shows you running VMware with an image called "Ubuntu" 100% of the time!
That in their press release, they say "SCO owns the core UNIX operating system..." ? Maybe they missed what happened in August? Link to the article on Groklaw