I built an LED nightlight for my daughter a while back. I used single a "white" LED (slightly blue) I grabbed from a board we were scrapping at work, put it in parallel with a 45 Ohm resistor, and powered it with 4 NiMH AAs (in series). It worked great! A little to good, in fact, it was so bright that just the reflected light off her (white) ceiling kept her awake.
In fact, I could actually read comfortably by that indirect light. Of course, I grew up off grid with really crappy 12V incandescent lighting, and by crappy I mean that if I wanted to read (wh ch was most of the time) I had to use one of those glass chimneyed kerosene lanterns. This light I built for my daughter beats the hell out of a kerosene lantern, and that's not even considering those nasty kerosene fumes!
The wording certainly seems to suggest that their intention is for everyone at IBM, including Ms. Jane Q. Secretary, to be using Linux on the desktop by next year. It's worded as a request, though, not a command, so you may be right.
In my experience, though, there is absolutely no reason why the average secretary shouldn't be the first moved to Linux. I've found all the FUD about retraining non-technical personel to be just that: FUD. Hell, even my wife was able to start using Linux with almost no help at all, and if she can do it, anyone can! Engineers are probably going to be some of the last to get switched over, unless they're already using apps that have been ported. Engineering apps, especially 3D CADD, is one of Linux's weakest points right now.
Not reading the article is something I've come to expect, but not reading the/. blurb? That's just frekin' irritating!
Had you bothered to read it before spouting off this nonsense, you might have noticed that the entire thing is about IBM using Linux INTERNALLY on their employees desktops. It has absolutely nothing to do with the products they're selling to customers.
Actually, I'm in the middle of an article (now several months old, I'm a bit behind) in Discover about a guy who has come up with a compelling theory based on the idea that c may, in fact, not be constant.
The theory doesn't argue that c isn't constant now, but rather that it may not have been constant during some breif period in the Big Bang. As I understand it the theory suggests that light may have energy states similar to matter, with the current state being "solid", like ice, and thus c being constant.
Obviously, though, the theory deals with whether c is a mathematical constant. I don't know what the hell Derrida was trying to say.
I'm not. If someone told you that the Nazis rounded up Jews in concentration camps and killed them in various ways, would you demand references for that, too? That's basicly what you're doing here. But hey, if you really need some references, pick up just about any history book that covers the last century and educate yourself about how totalitarian regimes traditionally gain power.
Sorry, but you're wrong. Legally a license is just a contract. You can call it special all you want, but it just isn't true. Any of the things you say make licenses special can be put, with minor variations, into any contract.
You clearly suffer from some deep-seated misconceptions about the nature of contracts, and it is clear that there is no way I'm going to convince you otherwise, so I see no reson to further waste my time trying.
I found this with a simple search of Suse's support database. I just skimmed it, but it seems to lay out the whole procedure. I'm sure your distro of choice has a similar page. While I haven't tried this myself, I know people have been doing it with Red Hat and Mandrake for years.
3. We have minimum wage laws, we can impose a maximum wage law. I like the idea of 1 and 2, but 3 I don't care for. While it is bad for our republic to have such wealth and power in the hands of so few and the concomitantly huge gap between the rich and the poor, it just seems wrong to say nobody can get paid $x million a year.
Tie it to the minimum wage, like:
max = min * 100000
Maybe then we wouldn't hear so much of the "we'll go out of business if we have to pay our employees enough that they can survive" whining every time somebody in congress realizes that the minimum wage is, in fact, not enough to live on.
I would expect to see SATA optical drives some time after I see motherboards with "native" SATA (meaning SATA which is built into the chipset, not an extra "on-board RAID" chip).
Are you sure of this? I don't know the original license, but it seems to me the revocation clause(s) would be critical.
A revokation clause isn't critical, as any contract can be declared null and void if one party doesn't fulfill their end. Many contracts include specific revokation clauses because having them reduces the difficulty and expense of nullifying the contract, but they are by no means necessary.
However, that isn't what I meant. The contract already has a revokation clause, so that wouldn't be added. However, once a contract is signed, it cannot be modified without the agreement of both parties. That includes adding a clause that says "we can revoke your Unix license if you run Linux without first proving that Linux improperly includes some of our Unix code" (which is, as I understand, what we are discussing here.
If the origional license didn't include such a clause, they can't just add it in whenever they want. That's basic contract law. Additionally, if they do manage to add it in and the licensee agrees to it, it still is on very shaky legal ground if there isn't some quid pro quo; in otherwords, they have to give something to the licensee in exchange for the rights they're taking away. Having read the letter I can definately say that isn't the case here.
(Remember a licence is a special form of contract that allows you to do something you're normally not allowed to do, so it's much easier to revoke licences than it is to break up contracts.)
You seem to be under some misconceptions about the nature of licenses. Let me explain:
1) No, licenses are not special. A contract is a contract is a contract, and they are all governed by the same laws.
2) Most licenses do NOT allow you to do something you're normally not allowed to do. Quite the opposite, in fact. Most licenses PREVENT you from doing things you normally WOULD be able to do. It's all explained here.
3) The only thing that makes most licenses easier to revoke/nullify is that they contain specific clauses describing the conditions under which that would happen. However, as I've stated above, any contract can have such a clause, and most well-written ones do.
Actualy it is the Democratic party that typicaly pursues Larger Gov't and Higher taxes.
It's true! The Democrats have this strange idea that we should actually pay for the stuff we do. The Republicans persue Larger Gov't and MASSIVE DEBT!!!
Apart from the fact that there is no one with blue HAIR
As you apparantly don't know, white hair tends to turn yellow, similar to the yellowing of the walls in a smoker's house. Historically people with white hair used graphite to counteract this. If they use too much it turns their hair blue, or even purple if they really overdo it. Hence the term "blue hairs", which is a dorogatory term for "old person".
You should be more careful when calling others stupid.
Brilliant. The terrorists need to pay me so I can conduct a suicide attack or two. Al qaeda has millions, right? Just think what I could do with that cash.
Oh wait, that doesn't work-- because I'd be fucking dead. Maybe they'll have trouble finding someone to provide such services.
You wouldn't have to get on the plane, just get through the security checkpoint. After that, maybe you suddenly have an emergency and have to go home, and maybe in your rush you "forget" one of your bags...
Just because you lack the intelligence to figure out how such a plan might work doesn't make it a straw man.
Yeah, but it also says "specifically identified in the attached notification letter"; so there is a notification attached which specifies what versions you're not allowed to run. If you sign this, you agree to not running those versions.
No, you aren't. That may be their intention, but until they prove that there is, in fact, code which they control the copyrights to which was improperly contributed to Linux, they cannot enforce such a clause. The origional license does not give them that right, and they can't just add it in whenever they want, even if such a clause were legally enforcable (which it isn't, check previous discussions on non-compete clauses in employment contracts for a clue as to why).
I'd like to see them try and revoke licenses based on this. They'll be sued by every customer whose license they try to revoke, and it's the customers that will have the legal advantage unless and until SCO proves their allegations, at which point it will be irrelevant anyway since, as has been pointed out by so many others, the offending code will be immediately removed from the Linux codebase and SCO will lose any right they may have had to say who can and cannot use it.
I don't see how they can be in problems by saying "we are complying with the terms of our licenses to the best of our knowledge" and end there without any mention of Linux.
I think a better response would be something like "None of our Linux installations contain code which has been proven to be the property of SCO." That puts the onus squarely on SCO to prove their allegations before they can terminate any licenses on that basis, while still answering the certification request.
1) SCO does not own the rights to UNIX (in any sense such rights could exist the open group owns them). This is another one of there false claims.
This is debatable, depending on what rights you mean. The Open Group owns the trademark rights, not the copyrights. SCO has registered copyrights related to the code in question, but the legitimacy of those claims has yet to be tested.
They own the right to use AT&T code in their UNIX product, and they own the right to call Unixware a Unix which is the same rights as IBM, Sun, SGI, etc... have.
IIRC, SCO does not have a product which is certified as a Unix by The Open Group, so their right to call it a Unix is also debatable. I suspect the only reason The Open Group has not contested their right to do so is the potential repercussions of the ancestral Unix code being declared Not Unix.
2) They can't terminate the licenses, even if someone answered yes to these questions. The very paragraph they quote gives them the right to ask about the CPUs deploying Unixware not every CPU in the company (bolding mine)
They are claiming that Linux includes Unixware code. If that's true, then CPUs running Linux could be considered to be running Unixware for this purpose. Additionally, it is debatable whether they would have the right to inquire about other CPUs. It does not seem unreasonable that they would be able to demand that you prove that all your other CPUs are not running Unixware, and how would you do that except by telling them what those CPUs are running?
Linux may be more popular and prevalent on the desktop, but I do not think it is more popular in the data centers. I use Linux on my workstation, but my servers are all Solaris and AIX. We have no intention of migrating any of them to Linux any time soon. (Linux on a Dell) != ((Solaris on a UltraSparciii) || (AIX on a Power4)). It's an apples to oranges comparison.
You would be well justified in choosing Solaris or AIX over Linux, but that isn't the question here. Remember that these letters are being sent to SCO licensees, so the question is: if you had to choose between Linux and Unixware, which would you choose?
I don't have any experience with Unixware myself, but every single person I've talked to who does would choose Linux in a heartbeat.
I remember the Sinclair 1000. My dad got one when I was young enough that I don't remember now how young I was. That was one suck-ass computer! It couldn't even run that stupid condor game at a speed that even remotely approached playability, and mind you, that was compared to machines which it was supposedly competing against.
It's sort of a fond memory, in the same sense that might "fondly" remember the first time you got sick from drinking to much...
Thanks for making my point for me. You might want to look up the definition of the word "integrity".
The people commiting the fraud might not be accountants by title, but they are certainly practicing accounting. If the real accountants aren't willing to stand up for themselves and their profession, thus allowing it to sink to the level it has, then it is most certainly their lack of integrity that is preventing it from being the science it should be.
My recomendation would be to always question the numbers used to justify out-sourcing. An example from my own life:
Jobs from my department (Customer Service Repair Center) keep getting out-sourced. The out-sourcing company charges $125/hour. This was made to look attractive by using a burden rate for "me" of $185/hour. But wait! We charge the customer $185/hour for my time, so how is it that the Customer Service Department is considered profitable when we don't charge for phone support? The answer is that my burden rate is actually 82.50/hour, as calculated by those same guys who claimed it was $185/hour when they decided they wanted to start out-sourcing (But then, that was when they were doing their quarterly statements, so who knows what the real number is).
There are many other reasons why out-sourcing is a completely stupid idea in my case, and I won't get into them here. My point is that because "reducing head-count" supposedly makes the company look better to shareholders,and in many cases increasing shareholder value is directly related to bonuses/options/etc, people will outright lie to justify it. Be skeptical.
Each kind of product had quite a few fuzzy parameters like "overhead", "scrap percentage", and other strange acronyms I didn't understand... I don't think it was even possible to determine a single correct value for these numbers, so my choices were as good as any.
This is exactly the problem: the people running the business don't understand what the business does or how it does it.
If you were to go down to the manufacturing floor and ask them what the "scrap percentage" was, I'll bet 90% of them could at least tell you how to figure it out; they'd point to a bin full of bad parts and say "count those, and then divide by the total number produced". "Overhead" is a bit more tricky, but it still isn't some magic unfigurable "fudge factor". the only thing that makes it difficult to calculate is the fact that everyone is lying about their numbers to make their department look better. (Notice that I said "lying", not "manipulating". I don't believe in double-speak.)
The only thing keeping accounting from being a science is the lack of integrity in the people practicing it.
Obviously, you have not been a smoker, a drinker, or soda drinker.
All three actually, though the only one I could actually say I've been addicted to, in the sense that I had a hard time giving it up, is caffeine. While I have no doubt that it could take up to a week to get through the withdrawls, drinking lots of water can shorten that period significantly.
Obviously I'm only talking about the chemical dependency, aka physical addiction, here. The mental aspect is a whole different story. Replacment of habits works well for this, I replaced coffee and soda drinking with water drinking.
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I built an LED nightlight for my daughter a while back. I used single a "white" LED (slightly blue) I grabbed from a board we were scrapping at work, put it in parallel with a 45 Ohm resistor, and powered it with 4 NiMH AAs (in series). It worked great! A little to good, in fact, it was so bright that just the reflected light off her (white) ceiling kept her awake.
In fact, I could actually read comfortably by that indirect light. Of course, I grew up off grid with really crappy 12V incandescent lighting, and by crappy I mean that if I wanted to read (wh ch was most of the time) I had to use one of those glass chimneyed kerosene lanterns. This light I built for my daughter beats the hell out of a kerosene lantern, and that's not even considering those nasty kerosene fumes!
The wording certainly seems to suggest that their intention is for everyone at IBM, including Ms. Jane Q. Secretary, to be using Linux on the desktop by next year. It's worded as a request, though, not a command, so you may be right.
In my experience, though, there is absolutely no reason why the average secretary shouldn't be the first moved to Linux. I've found all the FUD about retraining non-technical personel to be just that: FUD. Hell, even my wife was able to start using Linux with almost no help at all, and if she can do it, anyone can! Engineers are probably going to be some of the last to get switched over, unless they're already using apps that have been ported. Engineering apps, especially 3D CADD, is one of Linux's weakest points right now.
Not reading the article is something I've come to expect, but not reading the /. blurb? That's just frekin' irritating!
Had you bothered to read it before spouting off this nonsense, you might have noticed that the entire thing is about IBM using Linux INTERNALLY on their employees desktops. It has absolutely nothing to do with the products they're selling to customers.
Actually, I'm in the middle of an article (now several months old, I'm a bit behind) in Discover about a guy who has come up with a compelling theory based on the idea that c may, in fact, not be constant.
The theory doesn't argue that c isn't constant now, but rather that it may not have been constant during some breif period in the Big Bang. As I understand it the theory suggests that light may have energy states similar to matter, with the current state being "solid", like ice, and thus c being constant.
Obviously, though, the theory deals with whether c is a mathematical constant. I don't know what the hell Derrida was trying to say.
I'm not. If someone told you that the Nazis rounded up Jews in concentration camps and killed them in various ways, would you demand references for that, too? That's basicly what you're doing here. But hey, if you really need some references, pick up just about any history book that covers the last century and educate yourself about how totalitarian regimes traditionally gain power.
Sorry, but you're wrong. Legally a license is just a contract. You can call it special all you want, but it just isn't true. Any of the things you say make licenses special can be put, with minor variations, into any contract.
You clearly suffer from some deep-seated misconceptions about the nature of contracts, and it is clear that there is no way I'm going to convince you otherwise, so I see no reson to further waste my time trying.
I found this with a simple search of Suse's support database. I just skimmed it, but it seems to lay out the whole procedure. I'm sure your distro of choice has a similar page. While I haven't tried this myself, I know people have been doing it with Red Hat and Mandrake for years.
3. We have minimum wage laws, we can impose a maximum wage law. I like the idea of 1 and 2, but 3 I don't care for. While it is bad for our republic to have such wealth and power in the hands of so few and the concomitantly huge gap between the rich and the poor, it just seems wrong to say nobody can get paid $x million a year.
Tie it to the minimum wage, like:
max = min * 100000
Maybe then we wouldn't hear so much of the "we'll go out of business if we have to pay our employees enough that they can survive" whining every time somebody in congress realizes that the minimum wage is, in fact, not enough to live on.
I would expect to see SATA optical drives some time after I see motherboards with "native" SATA (meaning SATA which is built into the chipset, not an extra "on-board RAID" chip).
Are you sure of this? I don't know the original license, but it seems to me the revocation clause(s) would be critical.
A revokation clause isn't critical, as any contract can be declared null and void if one party doesn't fulfill their end. Many contracts include specific revokation clauses because having them reduces the difficulty and expense of nullifying the contract, but they are by no means necessary.
However, that isn't what I meant. The contract already has a revokation clause, so that wouldn't be added. However, once a contract is signed, it cannot be modified without the agreement of both parties. That includes adding a clause that says "we can revoke your Unix license if you run Linux without first proving that Linux improperly includes some of our Unix code" (which is, as I understand, what we are discussing here.
If the origional license didn't include such a clause, they can't just add it in whenever they want. That's basic contract law. Additionally, if they do manage to add it in and the licensee agrees to it, it still is on very shaky legal ground if there isn't some quid pro quo; in otherwords, they have to give something to the licensee in exchange for the rights they're taking away. Having read the letter I can definately say that isn't the case here.
(Remember a licence is a special form of contract that allows you to do something you're normally not allowed to do, so it's much easier to revoke licences than it is to break up contracts.)
You seem to be under some misconceptions about the nature of licenses. Let me explain:
1) No, licenses are not special. A contract is a contract is a contract, and they are all governed by the same laws.
2) Most licenses do NOT allow you to do something you're normally not allowed to do. Quite the opposite, in fact. Most licenses PREVENT you from doing things you normally WOULD be able to do. It's all explained here.
3) The only thing that makes most licenses easier to revoke/nullify is that they contain specific clauses describing the conditions under which that would happen. However, as I've stated above, any contract can have such a clause, and most well-written ones do.
Actualy it is the Democratic party that typicaly pursues Larger Gov't and Higher taxes.
It's true! The Democrats have this strange idea that we should actually pay for the stuff we do. The Republicans persue Larger Gov't and MASSIVE DEBT!!!
If you need references to back up those statements, the scope of your ignorance is truely staggering.
Apart from the fact that there is no one with blue HAIR
As you apparantly don't know, white hair tends to turn yellow, similar to the yellowing of the walls in a smoker's house. Historically people with white hair used graphite to counteract this. If they use too much it turns their hair blue, or even purple if they really overdo it. Hence the term "blue hairs", which is a dorogatory term for "old person".
You should be more careful when calling others stupid.
Brilliant. The terrorists need to pay me so I can conduct a suicide attack or two. Al qaeda has millions, right? Just think what I could do with that cash.
Oh wait, that doesn't work-- because I'd be fucking dead. Maybe they'll have trouble finding someone to provide such services.
You wouldn't have to get on the plane, just get through the security checkpoint. After that, maybe you suddenly have an emergency and have to go home, and maybe in your rush you "forget" one of your bags...
Just because you lack the intelligence to figure out how such a plan might work doesn't make it a straw man.
Yeah, but it also says "specifically identified in the attached notification letter"; so there is a notification attached which specifies what versions you're not allowed to run. If you sign this, you agree to not running those versions.
No, you aren't. That may be their intention, but until they prove that there is, in fact, code which they control the copyrights to which was improperly contributed to Linux, they cannot enforce such a clause. The origional license does not give them that right, and they can't just add it in whenever they want, even if such a clause were legally enforcable (which it isn't, check previous discussions on non-compete clauses in employment contracts for a clue as to why).
I'd like to see them try and revoke licenses based on this. They'll be sued by every customer whose license they try to revoke, and it's the customers that will have the legal advantage unless and until SCO proves their allegations, at which point it will be irrelevant anyway since, as has been pointed out by so many others, the offending code will be immediately removed from the Linux codebase and SCO will lose any right they may have had to say who can and cannot use it.
Did they actually go harrass threaten and lie to take money from people?
Aside from the entire state of California?
I don't see how they can be in problems by saying "we are complying with the terms of our licenses to the best of our knowledge" and end there without any mention of Linux.
I think a better response would be something like "None of our Linux installations contain code which has been proven to be the property of SCO." That puts the onus squarely on SCO to prove their allegations before they can terminate any licenses on that basis, while still answering the certification request.
Of course, IANAL.
1) SCO does not own the rights to UNIX (in any sense such rights could exist the open group owns them). This is another one of there false claims.
This is debatable, depending on what rights you mean. The Open Group owns the trademark rights, not the copyrights. SCO has registered copyrights related to the code in question, but the legitimacy of those claims has yet to be tested.
They own the right to use AT&T code in their UNIX product, and they own the right to call Unixware a Unix which is the same rights as IBM, Sun, SGI, etc... have.
IIRC, SCO does not have a product which is certified as a Unix by The Open Group, so their right to call it a Unix is also debatable. I suspect the only reason The Open Group has not contested their right to do so is the potential repercussions of the ancestral Unix code being declared Not Unix.
2) They can't terminate the licenses, even if someone answered yes to these questions. The very paragraph they quote gives them the right to ask about the CPUs deploying Unixware not every CPU in the company (bolding mine)
They are claiming that Linux includes Unixware code. If that's true, then CPUs running Linux could be considered to be running Unixware for this purpose. Additionally, it is debatable whether they would have the right to inquire about other CPUs. It does not seem unreasonable that they would be able to demand that you prove that all your other CPUs are not running Unixware, and how would you do that except by telling them what those CPUs are running?
Linux may be more popular and prevalent on the desktop, but I do not think it is more popular in the data centers. I use Linux on my workstation, but my servers are all Solaris and AIX. We have no intention of migrating any of them to Linux any time soon. (Linux on a Dell) != ((Solaris on a UltraSparciii) || (AIX on a Power4)). It's an apples to oranges comparison.
You would be well justified in choosing Solaris or AIX over Linux, but that isn't the question here. Remember that these letters are being sent to SCO licensees, so the question is: if you had to choose between Linux and Unixware, which would you choose?
I don't have any experience with Unixware myself, but every single person I've talked to who does would choose Linux in a heartbeat.
I remember the Sinclair 1000. My dad got one when I was young enough that I don't remember now how young I was. That was one suck-ass computer! It couldn't even run that stupid condor game at a speed that even remotely approached playability, and mind you, that was compared to machines which it was supposedly competing against.
It's sort of a fond memory, in the same sense that might "fondly" remember the first time you got sick from drinking to much...
Thanks for making my point for me. You might want to look up the definition of the word "integrity".
The people commiting the fraud might not be accountants by title, but they are certainly practicing accounting. If the real accountants aren't willing to stand up for themselves and their profession, thus allowing it to sink to the level it has, then it is most certainly their lack of integrity that is preventing it from being the science it should be.
My recomendation would be to always question the numbers used to justify out-sourcing. An example from my own life:
Jobs from my department (Customer Service Repair Center) keep getting out-sourced. The out-sourcing company charges $125/hour. This was made to look attractive by using a burden rate for "me" of $185/hour. But wait! We charge the customer $185/hour for my time, so how is it that the Customer Service Department is considered profitable when we don't charge for phone support? The answer is that my burden rate is actually 82.50/hour, as calculated by those same guys who claimed it was $185/hour when they decided they wanted to start out-sourcing (But then, that was when they were doing their quarterly statements, so who knows what the real number is).
There are many other reasons why out-sourcing is a completely stupid idea in my case, and I won't get into them here. My point is that because "reducing head-count" supposedly makes the company look better to shareholders,and in many cases increasing shareholder value is directly related to bonuses/options/etc, people will outright lie to justify it. Be skeptical.
If you are doing this, chances are they are too. Once again, asset becomes commodity because everyone is doing it.
So you're saying that management is irrelevant to the bottom line? After all, every company has managers...
Sorry, but your arguement just doesn't hold up.
Each kind of product had quite a few fuzzy parameters like "overhead", "scrap percentage", and other strange acronyms I didn't understand... I don't think it was even possible to determine a single correct value for these numbers, so my choices were as good as any.
This is exactly the problem: the people running the business don't understand what the business does or how it does it.
If you were to go down to the manufacturing floor and ask them what the "scrap percentage" was, I'll bet 90% of them could at least tell you how to figure it out; they'd point to a bin full of bad parts and say "count those, and then divide by the total number produced". "Overhead" is a bit more tricky, but it still isn't some magic unfigurable "fudge factor". the only thing that makes it difficult to calculate is the fact that everyone is lying about their numbers to make their department look better. (Notice that I said "lying", not "manipulating". I don't believe in double-speak.)
The only thing keeping accounting from being a science is the lack of integrity in the people practicing it.
Obviously, you have not been a smoker, a drinker, or soda drinker.
All three actually, though the only one I could actually say I've been addicted to, in the sense that I had a hard time giving it up, is caffeine. While I have no doubt that it could take up to a week to get through the withdrawls, drinking lots of water can shorten that period significantly.
Obviously I'm only talking about the chemical dependency, aka physical addiction, here. The mental aspect is a whole different story. Replacment of habits works well for this, I replaced coffee and soda drinking with water drinking.