What would stop Intel from designing a riser card like the SunPC (right?) with a Pentium chip on it? For those that need fast x86 as well as fast IA-64, this could work.
What is stopping them now? Seriously, such a thing would make an Itanium system much more attractive to potential early adopters. Of course, they'd still have to deal with the fact that the Itanium offers no real price/performance advantage over competing architectures, but it would at least remove one black mark against them.
Really, though, I'd say the boards are already done. It seems like it would be a fairly minor matter to have an x86 slave processor in an NLX (or similar backplane style) based system. IANAEE, though.
If Itanium fails, well then we've learned something about the processor marketplace. If, on the other hand, it languishes for a while, comes out in a new form (faster, better, stronger) and (after two or so more years) builds up enough inertia to be bought fairly heavily then it will be about as smooth of a transition as was made from vinyl to CD's.
The thing is, the lesson has already been learned with the Alpha. The Alpha was always faster/stronger/better and everybody knew it. It even had an NT port, but it didn't run people's apps so it did a slow death spiral until finally being bought up by Intel last year.
The Itanium occupies the same market niche that the Alpha did, but doesn't have the relative strength in design that the Alpha enjoyed, and that kept it alive for so long. Everybody drooled when Alpha was mentioned, but I don't see anybody drooling over Itanium.
The point is that people have a lot invested in legacy software, and they don't like being told they can't use it with their new machine. This is what Itanium sales reflect.
When someone buys an Itanium they pretty much have to buy all new software as well (if they can even find what they need ported to Itanium). If we are to continue with the (admitedly weak) DVD/VHS analogy already established in this thread, it is equivalent to preventing buyers of DVD players from watching their VHS tapes.
"But I can have a DVD player and a VHS player at the same time, and there's no magical interference field or anything" you say. That's true, but most people aren't willing to suffer the inconvenience of having 2 computers that they must switch between in order to perform certain tasks. Therefore, when someone is buying a new computer that is incompatable with some psoftware which they prefer to use, say "this doesn't support that" is equivalent to saying "you can't do that if you buy this system".
In other words; if you want people to buy your system, it needs to do what they want it to do, and in the computing world, and especially the business computing world, that means running the software they have already invested in. There are a lot of companies running old Unix database systems that the users have to telnet into just becase that's what they've used for 10 years, it works, and switching to a new system would cost more than maintaining the old one despite the inconvenience. It doesn't matter if the new system is technically superior, if people can't run their old software they won't buy it, as is proven by the lackluster Itanium sales.
I hope that clears up my position a bit.
Re:Another reason to go with AMD.
on
AMD's 64-Bit Chip
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Hmm, but you don't expect your DVD player to play your VHS videocassettes?
Actually, I do, and so do a lot of other people, apparently, which is why I can go to K-Mart or wherever and pick up a player that does DVD and VHS for under $200.
Most people don't buy these because they already have VCRs, and there's little problem using both. However, most people would be really pissed off if you told them that if they bought a DVD player they would no longer be able to watch their VHS tapes.
Itanium sales reflect that fact. Regardless of technical merit, lack of backwards compatability will kill Itanium.
I appologize for comparing real estate agents to lawyers.
Why?
They're equally slimey. I guess it could be considered an insult to Lawyers since they actually had to get an education.
Before somebody flames me for insulting real estate agents, I do in fact know what I'm talking about. My Grandmother was a real estate agent for a long time, as were 2 of her husbands, and my Dad tried it out for a couple of years when he decided he was getting to old for construction. He went back to construction because he couldn't handle the rampant dishonesty in the real estate business.
Oh yeah, and my mother-in-law was an escrow officer, and she has plenty to say about real eastate agents as well.
That is an excellent article. I've been looking for something convincing to send to my Senators, who seem to be held in the thrall of Disney, and I think this is it.
You might want to look into the history of copyright in British common law as well, since US law is pretty heavily based on it. One interestig fact is that copyright was origionally created for the purpose of censorship (in 1662 I think, but I'm too lazy to look it up right now).
The fact that this is not happening leads me to believe that your assessment of the "readiness" of Linux isn't quite where you think it is.
What is lacking is for the A+-and-maybe-an-MCSE high school drop-outs that work at most of the White Box shops to realize that there are distros out there, like SuSE for instance, that are actually easier to install, manage, and support than Windows.
I have to agree here. If you're serious about making a truely user-friendly Linux, take SuSE 8.0, add an Internet setup wizard on the default desktop, and have it preinstalled. Not even the iMac is easier than that.
Hell, even if it isn't preinstalled, the SuSE 8.0 install is the easiest I've ever done.
"To the best of my knowledge" is a pretty big loophole, and exploiting it is a time-honored tradition in positions of power.
How do you prove that they knew? That can be pretty hard. I say, make them responsible even if they didn't know. After all, they are running the company. It's their job to know. You can bet that if that were the case, the top level executives would find out and do something about the situation before it even got to the poit of needing a hearing.
Obviously, those tax and accounting laws are ineffective, and a large reason for that is that the corporate executives that make these decisions are largely immune to prosecution (that's a large part of the reason for incorporation in the first place).
It is a change of that body of law that I am argueing needs to be changed in order to bring some semlance of personal responsibility back to the corporate world. Laws get changed by passing new laws which modify the old ones.
If kidnappingand killing little girls was commonly "punished" by having to show up at a hearing and answer some questions, maybe followed by a "don't do that again" and a barely noticable fine, I would be calling for new laws in that area as well.
I only know that if I try and and take someone else's work, be it a book or a video game or a movie, and make copies to resell, that it is against the law. And it doesn't seem to have any time limit to it
You are correct. Let me explain:
According to the Constitution, copyright is for a limited time only, and then the work passes into the public domain. The Constitution does not define the limited time, but leaves that to Congress to define through law.
IIRC, the origional copyright term was 14 years, and could be renewed once for an additional 14 years. Over the last century the content industry has repeatedly and successfully lobbied Congress to extend those terms, resulting in the current law which is something like Authors Life plus 75 years or 95 years for a Work for Hire (ie, one that is owned by a corporation). Everytime copyright terms are about to expire, the content industry lobbies to get them extended again. Generally, the copyright of Mickey Mouse is the driving force behind this, hence all the Disney references in copyright discussion.
There is some concern, that the DMCA makes copyright effectively indefinate for digital works incorporating some sort of access control. I believe this is true, and that's one of several reasons why the DMCA should be struck down. (It's also totally unnecessary, since copyright infringement is already covered by an existing body of law, and contrary to popular belief, the internet does not make things magically "diferent")
This state of affairs is ridiculous, and goes far beyond the constitutionally stated purpose of "promoting science and the useful arts". Letting my great-great-grandchildren collect royalties on my works does nothing to promote progress. In fact, I can see no way in which it does anything but discourage progress, as nothing is created in a vacuum, and Intellectual Property laws effectively create dead ends in areas of investigation.
Sorry for the rant at the end there. I hope that explains a little bit why people are so up in arms about the current state of copyright.
Serial ATA is software compatable with paralell ATA, so I hardly see a need to "add" support for it.
If you mean Serial ATA add-on cards, well, people would have to have them and write drivers for them, or the manufacturers would have to write drivers. It's hardly reasonable to expect drivers that don't exist to be included in the kernel.
Obviously, one can't write a driver for a cipset if one doesn't have the chipset. Either the manufacturers will provide Linux drivers, or we will have to wait until someone skilled gets a card and writes drivers for it themselves.
To give an example, you have EVERY right to do whatever you wish to the copy of linux you download. Even (or especially) under the terms of such licenses as the GPL. This freedom, of course, disappears when you try to distribute the changes.
No, it doesn't. It carries with it the burden that you must give the same rights to whoever you distribute it to.
You simply don't have a right to profit. Where are people given a right to profit from their labors?
What does profit have to do with it? The GPL doesn't limit your right to profit in any way. You can charge as much as you want. You can charge a trillion dollars for your modified Linux kernel, and until someone buys it from you, you are under no obligation to provide the source for that modification to anyone.
The right to profit from ones labors is essential to the inalienable rights to the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness, and that has nothing to do with the GPL. But of course, you mean profit in the capitalist definition of getting more than you give...
If I actually buy a copy of Linux I can tear it apart and modify it, but I don't have the rights to simply resell my new creation.
Yes you do, you just have to ensure that whoever you sell it to has the same rights you had.
When you bought a copy of Linux you were provided with a copy of the source code so that you would be able to excercise your rights as the owner of what you purchased. That you are required to provide source to whoever you sell your modification to so that they, too, can excercise their rights as the new owner of what they have purchased in no way prevents you from selling it to them.
I have to essentially provide a free copy of my changes in raw form to Big Brother and everyone else in order to do that.
No, you have to provide the source to whoever you sell it to. That source is part of the product you are selling, just as heating coils are part of a toaster.
I think you've been drinking a little heavily from the MS GPL FUD.
Re:Pretty good articles, but some info problems...
on
Forbes on Linux
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· Score: 2
Not really. Linux grew that way and that "other" OS was not MS DOS or Windows, it was UNiX.
No, at Bell labs they were using an OS they licensed from MIT, IIRC (I don't recall the name exactly, might have been MULTICS). The licensing fees were metered, meaning they had to pay for every minute they ran it, and a large part of the impetus for Bell Labs to develope UNIX was to escape these expensive metered licensing fees.
That is the commonly accepted history of the origins of UNIX. That history repeated itself shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
Power plugs aren't standardized at all. If you don't believe me, walk into the closest Radio Shack and ask for a power plug. Be sure to refuse to give any specification beyond that.
If this weren't so public the President, Senate, and Justice Department would all be real busy ignoring the issue right now, just as they have been for years. If they cared they would have done something already. If they were really ticked they would be proposing measures that had some actual teeth to them. As it is, they're just trying to look like they are doing something because they know that if they don't they will be crucified in coming elections.
At that point it will become a Civil Rights issue. Someone will fight it, and they will have the support of the EFF and probably the ACLU to take it all the way to the Supreme Court. IANAL, but I don't see how a DRM law would be able to stand up against the Constitution.
This is because when it matters, Microsoft's security is tough as nails.
I worked in construction for over 10 years, and I can tell you without hesitation that nails are not tough.
Hardened lag bolts are tough.
Glue-lams are tough.
Reinforced concrete is tough.
Nails are not tough.
Nails bend and break with surprisingly little effort, especially when pitted against things that are actually tough.
Similarly, Microsoft has been hacked a few times, and I don't mean their misconfigured products in the field -- unless that includes Windows Update and their source control servers (which were in fact hacked not too long ago and were open for some time).
Re:Pretty good articles, but some info problems...
on
Forbes on Linux
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· Score: 2
a set of excellent utilities, a revolutionary form of public licensing, a religion, etc.
Sounds like Unix to me.
One could argue the licensing part, I suppose, but according to popular wisdom Unix grew out of a desire to be free from the expensive licensing of another OS.
One thing that particularly struck me is Forbes' recommendation that "Linux not be depended on for mission-critical applications."
Where did you see that? I didn't see that in any of the articles I read. The closest was the Boscov article, where the guy said he tested Linux on the least critical systems first, but is now moving more critical operations over. I didn't read any of the older articles though, just the 7/02 ones.
Slashdot Mirror
What would stop Intel from designing a riser card like the SunPC (right?) with a Pentium chip on it? For those that need fast x86 as well as fast IA-64, this could work.
What is stopping them now? Seriously, such a thing would make an Itanium system much more attractive to potential early adopters. Of course, they'd still have to deal with the fact that the Itanium offers no real price/performance advantage over competing architectures, but it would at least remove one black mark against them.
Really, though, I'd say the boards are already done. It seems like it would be a fairly minor matter to have an x86 slave processor in an NLX (or similar backplane style) based system. IANAEE, though.
If Itanium fails, well then we've learned something about the processor marketplace. If, on the other hand, it languishes for a while, comes out in a new form (faster, better, stronger) and (after two or so more years) builds up enough inertia to be bought fairly heavily then it will be about as smooth of a transition as was made from vinyl to CD's.
The thing is, the lesson has already been learned with the Alpha. The Alpha was always faster/stronger/better and everybody knew it. It even had an NT port, but it didn't run people's apps so it did a slow death spiral until finally being bought up by Intel last year.
The Itanium occupies the same market niche that the Alpha did, but doesn't have the relative strength in design that the Alpha enjoyed, and that kept it alive for so long. Everybody drooled when Alpha was mentioned, but I don't see anybody drooling over Itanium.
The point is that people have a lot invested in legacy software, and they don't like being told they can't use it with their new machine. This is what Itanium sales reflect.
When someone buys an Itanium they pretty much have to buy all new software as well (if they can even find what they need ported to Itanium). If we are to continue with the (admitedly weak) DVD/VHS analogy already established in this thread, it is equivalent to preventing buyers of DVD players from watching their VHS tapes.
"But I can have a DVD player and a VHS player at the same time, and there's no magical interference field or anything" you say. That's true, but most people aren't willing to suffer the inconvenience of having 2 computers that they must switch between in order to perform certain tasks. Therefore, when someone is buying a new computer that is incompatable with some psoftware which they prefer to use, say "this doesn't support that" is equivalent to saying "you can't do that if you buy this system".
In other words; if you want people to buy your system, it needs to do what they want it to do, and in the computing world, and especially the business computing world, that means running the software they have already invested in. There are a lot of companies running old Unix database systems that the users have to telnet into just becase that's what they've used for 10 years, it works, and switching to a new system would cost more than maintaining the old one despite the inconvenience. It doesn't matter if the new system is technically superior, if people can't run their old software they won't buy it, as is proven by the lackluster Itanium sales.
I hope that clears up my position a bit.
Hmm, but you don't expect your DVD player to play your VHS videocassettes?
Actually, I do, and so do a lot of other people, apparently, which is why I can go to K-Mart or wherever and pick up a player that does DVD and VHS for under $200.
Most people don't buy these because they already have VCRs, and there's little problem using both. However, most people would be really pissed off if you told them that if they bought a DVD player they would no longer be able to watch their VHS tapes.
Itanium sales reflect that fact. Regardless of technical merit, lack of backwards compatability will kill Itanium.
I appologize for comparing real estate agents to lawyers.
Why?
They're equally slimey. I guess it could be considered an insult to Lawyers since they actually had to get an education.
Before somebody flames me for insulting real estate agents, I do in fact know what I'm talking about. My Grandmother was a real estate agent for a long time, as were 2 of her husbands, and my Dad tried it out for a couple of years when he decided he was getting to old for construction. He went back to construction because he couldn't handle the rampant dishonesty in the real estate business.
Oh yeah, and my mother-in-law was an escrow officer, and she has plenty to say about real eastate agents as well.
That is an excellent article. I've been looking for something convincing to send to my Senators, who seem to be held in the thrall of Disney, and I think this is it.
Thanks.
You might want to look into the history of copyright in British common law as well, since US law is pretty heavily based on it. One interestig fact is that copyright was origionally created for the purpose of censorship (in 1662 I think, but I'm too lazy to look it up right now).
:-)
Anyway, welcome to the dark side
The fact that this is not happening leads me to believe that your assessment of the "readiness" of Linux isn't quite where you think it is.
What is lacking is for the A+-and-maybe-an-MCSE high school drop-outs that work at most of the White Box shops to realize that there are distros out there, like SuSE for instance, that are actually easier to install, manage, and support than Windows.
SuSE
If you haven't yet, check out SuSE 8.0. YaST is the app to beat. Who cares about rpm v. apt-get? With YOU it's totally transparent.
I have to agree here. If you're serious about making a truely user-friendly Linux, take SuSE 8.0, add an Internet setup wizard on the default desktop, and have it preinstalled. Not even the iMac is easier than that.
Hell, even if it isn't preinstalled, the SuSE 8.0 install is the easiest I've ever done.
"To the best of my knowledge" is a pretty big loophole, and exploiting it is a time-honored tradition in positions of power.
How do you prove that they knew? That can be pretty hard. I say, make them responsible even if they didn't know. After all, they are running the company. It's their job to know. You can bet that if that were the case, the top level executives would find out and do something about the situation before it even got to the poit of needing a hearing.
Obviously, those tax and accounting laws are ineffective, and a large reason for that is that the corporate executives that make these decisions are largely immune to prosecution (that's a large part of the reason for incorporation in the first place).
It is a change of that body of law that I am argueing needs to be changed in order to bring some semlance of personal responsibility back to the corporate world. Laws get changed by passing new laws which modify the old ones.
If kidnappingand killing little girls was commonly "punished" by having to show up at a hearing and answer some questions, maybe followed by a "don't do that again" and a barely noticable fine, I would be calling for new laws in that area as well.
I only know that if I try and and take someone else's work, be it a book or a video game or a movie, and make copies to resell, that it is against the law. And it doesn't seem to have any time limit to it
You are correct. Let me explain:
According to the Constitution, copyright is for a limited time only, and then the work passes into the public domain. The Constitution does not define the limited time, but leaves that to Congress to define through law.
IIRC, the origional copyright term was 14 years, and could be renewed once for an additional 14 years. Over the last century the content industry has repeatedly and successfully lobbied Congress to extend those terms, resulting in the current law which is something like Authors Life plus 75 years or 95 years for a Work for Hire (ie, one that is owned by a corporation). Everytime copyright terms are about to expire, the content industry lobbies to get them extended again. Generally, the copyright of Mickey Mouse is the driving force behind this, hence all the Disney references in copyright discussion.
There is some concern, that the DMCA makes copyright effectively indefinate for digital works incorporating some sort of access control. I believe this is true, and that's one of several reasons why the DMCA should be struck down. (It's also totally unnecessary, since copyright infringement is already covered by an existing body of law, and contrary to popular belief, the internet does not make things magically "diferent")
This state of affairs is ridiculous, and goes far beyond the constitutionally stated purpose of "promoting science and the useful arts". Letting my great-great-grandchildren collect royalties on my works does nothing to promote progress. In fact, I can see no way in which it does anything but discourage progress, as nothing is created in a vacuum, and Intellectual Property laws effectively create dead ends in areas of investigation.
Sorry for the rant at the end there. I hope that explains a little bit why people are so up in arms about the current state of copyright.
Serial ATA is software compatable with paralell ATA, so I hardly see a need to "add" support for it.
If you mean Serial ATA add-on cards, well, people would have to have them and write drivers for them, or the manufacturers would have to write drivers. It's hardly reasonable to expect drivers that don't exist to be included in the kernel.
Obviously, one can't write a driver for a cipset if one doesn't have the chipset. Either the manufacturers will provide Linux drivers, or we will have to wait until someone skilled gets a card and writes drivers for it themselves.
That's the inherent problem with add-on cards.
I certainly hope you wrote that with tongue planted firmly in cheek and don't actually believe that copyright is for an unlimited time.
To give an example, you have EVERY right to do whatever you wish to the copy of linux you download. Even (or especially) under the terms of such licenses as the GPL. This freedom, of course, disappears when you try to distribute the changes.
No, it doesn't. It carries with it the burden that you must give the same rights to whoever you distribute it to.
You simply don't have a right to profit. Where are people given a right to profit from their labors?
What does profit have to do with it? The GPL doesn't limit your right to profit in any way. You can charge as much as you want. You can charge a trillion dollars for your modified Linux kernel, and until someone buys it from you, you are under no obligation to provide the source for that modification to anyone.
The right to profit from ones labors is essential to the inalienable rights to the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness, and that has nothing to do with the GPL. But of course, you mean profit in the capitalist definition of getting more than you give...
If I actually buy a copy of Linux I can tear it apart and modify it, but I don't have the rights to simply resell my new creation.
Yes you do, you just have to ensure that whoever you sell it to has the same rights you had.
When you bought a copy of Linux you were provided with a copy of the source code so that you would be able to excercise your rights as the owner of what you purchased. That you are required to provide source to whoever you sell your modification to so that they, too, can excercise their rights as the new owner of what they have purchased in no way prevents you from selling it to them.
I have to essentially provide a free copy of my changes in raw form to Big Brother and everyone else in order to do that.
No, you have to provide the source to whoever you sell it to. That source is part of the product you are selling, just as heating coils are part of a toaster.
I think you've been drinking a little heavily from the MS GPL FUD.
Not really. Linux grew that way and that "other" OS was not MS DOS or Windows, it was UNiX.
No, at Bell labs they were using an OS they licensed from MIT, IIRC (I don't recall the name exactly, might have been MULTICS). The licensing fees were metered, meaning they had to pay for every minute they ran it, and a large part of the impetus for Bell Labs to develope UNIX was to escape these expensive metered licensing fees.
That is the commonly accepted history of the origins of UNIX. That history repeated itself shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
Are you mad?
Power plugs aren't standardized at all. If you don't believe me, walk into the closest Radio Shack and ask for a power plug. Be sure to refuse to give any specification beyond that.
Bullshit.
If this weren't so public the President, Senate, and Justice Department would all be real busy ignoring the issue right now, just as they have been for years. If they cared they would have done something already. If they were really ticked they would be proposing measures that had some actual teeth to them. As it is, they're just trying to look like they are doing something because they know that if they don't they will be crucified in coming elections.
At that point it will become a Civil Rights issue. Someone will fight it, and they will have the support of the EFF and probably the ACLU to take it all the way to the Supreme Court. IANAL, but I don't see how a DRM law would be able to stand up against the Constitution.
This is because when it matters, Microsoft's security is tough as nails.
I worked in construction for over 10 years, and I can tell you without hesitation that nails are not tough.
Hardened lag bolts are tough.
Glue-lams are tough.
Reinforced concrete is tough.
Nails are not tough.
Nails bend and break with surprisingly little effort, especially when pitted against things that are actually tough.
Similarly, Microsoft has been hacked a few times, and I don't mean their misconfigured products in the field -- unless that includes Windows Update and their source control servers (which were in fact hacked not too long ago and were open for some time).
a set of excellent utilities, a revolutionary form of public licensing, a religion, etc.
Sounds like Unix to me.
One could argue the licensing part, I suppose, but according to popular wisdom Unix grew out of a desire to be free from the expensive licensing of another OS.
One thing that particularly struck me is Forbes' recommendation that "Linux not be depended on for mission-critical applications."
Where did you see that? I didn't see that in any of the articles I read. The closest was the Boscov article, where the guy said he tested Linux on the least critical systems first, but is now moving more critical operations over. I didn't read any of the older articles though, just the 7/02 ones.