Call it Linux. Call it GNU/Linux. Call it RedHat. Call it Debian. Call it whatever you want. The fact remains, it's a kick-ass kernel with very useful utilities, a great windowing system, and lots of freely available support for it.
People in the media who don't have the savvy to know what this all means will continue to choose the simplest name... Linux. Yes, it means a lot of different things, but it's similar to using the generic term "Windows" to mean one of Microsoft's operating environments (which one? 3.0, 3.11, WfWG, '95, '98, NT 3.51, NT 4.0, 2000?).
Requiring the use of GNU/Linux, or "Linux, courtesy of the massive effort of a lot of people, including Linus, RMS, Alan Cox, and others too numerous to mention" (to point out how ridiculous this is getting) is just silly.
Ahhh... I'm preaching to the converted.
Can we have a day on Slashdot where this silliness isn't re-hashed yet again? --
To find "prior art" (in order to invalidate the patent(s)), one need only find out when the alt.binaries.sounds.* and alt.binaries.multimedia.* USENET groups were formed. Many gigabytes (terabytes?) of files have been transmitted over the years, using FTP as well as USENET news.
It is a shame that somebody is going to have to spend the time and money to take SIGHTSOUNDS to court to fight this thing, which appears to be frivolous as best, and pure extortion at worst. The cost of such legal action will most likely result in the raising of fees to offset those costs. Nobody wins, unless the distributors back down and give in to SIGHTSOUNDS, which is probably what SIGHTSOUNDS is hoping.
I guess that's the cost of doing ANY kind of business nowadays.
Slashdot Mirror
Call it Linux. Call it GNU/Linux. Call it RedHat. Call it Debian. Call it whatever you want. The fact remains, it's a kick-ass kernel with very useful utilities, a great windowing system, and lots of freely available support for it.
People in the media who don't have the savvy to know what this all means will continue to choose the simplest name... Linux. Yes, it means a lot of different things, but it's similar to using the generic term "Windows" to mean one of Microsoft's operating environments (which one? 3.0, 3.11, WfWG, '95, '98, NT 3.51, NT 4.0, 2000?).
Requiring the use of GNU/Linux, or "Linux, courtesy of the massive effort of a lot of people, including Linus, RMS, Alan Cox, and others too numerous to mention" (to point out how ridiculous this is getting) is just silly.
Ahhh... I'm preaching to the converted.
Can we have a day on Slashdot where this silliness isn't re-hashed yet again?
--
slashdotium?
--
To find "prior art" (in order to invalidate the patent(s)), one need only find out when the alt.binaries.sounds.* and alt.binaries.multimedia.* USENET groups were formed. Many gigabytes (terabytes?) of files have been transmitted over the years, using FTP as well as USENET news.
It is a shame that somebody is going to have to spend the time and money to take SIGHTSOUNDS to court to fight this thing, which appears to be frivolous as best, and pure extortion at worst. The cost of such legal action will most likely result in the raising of fees to offset those costs. Nobody wins, unless the distributors back down and give in to SIGHTSOUNDS, which is probably what SIGHTSOUNDS is hoping.
I guess that's the cost of doing ANY kind of business nowadays.
(void) lar3ry();
--