I forget, is it odd days or even days that software patents are worse than Microsoft on Slashdot?
Patents are always worse. I don't like Microsoft products nor their business ethics (or lack thereof) but software patents are plain evil. Nobody, not even Microsoft, should have to defend themselves against software patent lawsuits.
That said, Microsoft is playing silly buggers here. 35 weeks of email missing which just happens to coincide with the period of negotiations between Burst.com and Microsoft? The judge should slap them stupid for that.
In all seriousness, I think that poor name choices hurt the adoption of free software. Think about "Photoshop" vs. "The GIMP," or "Internet Explorer" vs. "Mozilla." Rather than something simple, descriptive, and catchy, we usually opt for indecipherable codenames, stupid recursive acronyms, or lame in-jokes that few people but the developers themselves will get.
Oh? So Excel just says "spreadsheet" to you? How about Quark Express? Or Oracle? Or Solaris? These names are only "obvious" because you have heard them before. There is nothing descriptive about them.
I understand that Linux is the new darling of the tech industry, but why do reviews like this completely ignore operating systems likee FreeBSD (which out performs Linux in several serving tasks, and is in general more mature)?
Numbers. Simply numbers. It's the same reason that nobody reports on any of the 100s of fringe OSs with user bases measured in the thousands. Linux has more users and therefore gets the most attention. FreeBSD had its chance to have the biggest user base but it lost to Linux. This was despite a significant headstart in the form of 386BSD. There are at least six reasons I can fathom as to why this happened.
First, the AT&T lawsuit against Berkeley (1992) scared a number of developers away from 386BSD at a very critical time in its evolution. Why invest time into developing 386BSD if AT&T was just going to steal your hard work? And "steal" is the right word here; it really would have been theft if AT&T had won because the 386BSD developers would have lost ownership of code they'd written themselves. Developers were scared away from 386BSD and towards Linux, which was seen as being "litigation-free". The parallels with the claims made by SCO today are frightening.
Second, the Jolitzes. They were custodians of 386BSD and Bill was notorious for being slow to accept patches (1 year of unapplied patches). The formation of FreeBSD was essentially the "Gang of Three" getting frustrated with the slow pace of 386BSD development. They combined 386BSD plus the existing "patch kit" and sold the result as a CD-ROM. This was unfortunately too little, too late. Linux had a 2 year headstart on FreeBSD by this stage. Also the splintering pissed off a number of developers who stopped contributing to both 386BSD and FreeBSD. Instead they started contributing to Linux.
Third, the license. FreeBSD advocates say that the BSD license is "more free" than the GPL but to some people (myself included) the BSD license is offensive. Nothing stops a commercial company leeching off your hard work if you use the BSD license. BSD advocates say this isn't a problem: "you wanted it to be free and now it is". The problem is I don't really want companies getting rich off my code. I want them to contribute back with more code. The GPL enforces this. The BSD license does not. In 1991, when Linux was still very much in its infancy, it managed to get more attention from more programmers than 386BSD ever managed. This was despite Linux being technically inferior to 386BSD. The license simply appeals to certain people. If Linus had used a BSD license then I don't think Linux could have ever wrested the #1 spot away from 386BSD.
Fourth, the Internet. Linux development began at a time when Internet access was appearing in homes. The early adopters of home-Internet access were (of course) technology enthusiasts. The percentage of potential Linux developers in this group was relatively high. This meant from the start Linux had a huge base of developers to draw upon. And isn't it more fun to contribute to a brand new project than an existing project? Linux attracted the developers simply because it wasn't finished.
Fifth, the installers. Back in 1992 (1991?) I was using Interactive UNIX at home. The software was showing its age so I was looking to get into one of the "Free UNIX" that was floating around the Internet. I'd already used (and dismissed) Minix because it was incredibly limited. I had a choice between 386BSD and Linux. The 386BSD installer required a 40MB download, a SCSI hard drive, and required me to destroy my existing Interactive installation. The Linux distribution came on 2x 5.25" floppies, supported IDE hard disks, and could coexist with existing operating systems. It was a no-brainer. Linux won because it cared about the newbie, even back then when I admittedly needed all my UNIX experience to get the damn thing installed. The FreeBSD distro didn't come until late-1993 but by then it was too late; I'd already deleted my Intera
If you're an out of work geek, consider looking into the "old smoke-stack" industries for places where you could apply your software skills in helping companies improve margins through better automation and more efficient processes.
What you've just described is called systems engineering. Typical qualifications are 4 years tertiary level education, 2 years work experience, and an accreditation exam. Under-graduates are expected to be in the top-end of the intellectual curve; entrance scores for engineering are in the same league as medicine. With all due respect, a Visual Basic programmer isn't even remotely qualified to "improve" a manufacturing process.
I mean it. Never say "no". Just tell them how long it will take, how many hours of your time it will take, what resources you will need, how much it will cost, and then let them decide whether it's worth proceeding.
Here are some hints:
Keep a job sheet. Prioritise your jobs. Put hourly estimates next to each job. Amend the sheet as each job progresses. When adding any job to your sheet, give the user an estimate of when you'll start and how long it will take. Keep users well informed of any progress on the job: a 20-second phone call will consume very little of your time but makes the user VERY happy. Give monthly job reports to your boss showing total time incurred on each type of job, etc.
Now you've got the job sheet, everything becomes easy. If users complain about delays in starting, point to the sheet. If they argue that's far too long to wait, point to the sheet. If they demand that they be given higher priority, tell them to get permission from the boss to reprioritise. If the boss asks why you're taking so long to get around to fixing Mary's computer, point to the sheet. If the boss wants to know where all the money's going, point to the sheet. The sheet is wonderful.
If you want to be super-nerdy, put the job sheet on the intranet. A simple spreadsheet is all you need. Don't get fancy. Rotate the sheet once per week, carrying unfinished jobs forward. Now users can easily see what you're working on and who is wasting all your time. Office politics will soon put pressure on the problem users (and you will always have at least one problem user) to leave you alone, and you don't have to do a thing.
I'm in between classes so I don't have long to respond,
And I think that says it all; he's a kid himself yet he's an expert on raising children, even to the point of blaming parents for the woes of the world.
I hope that you're just being a troll and that you don't actually have kids yourself. We have people like you to blame for Columbine.. Not to mention half the vandalizing, teen pregnancies, drug deaths, and the fact that my neighbor's 17 year old kid drives wildy down the road drunk every friday and saturday night..
I pray to God that you're not really as stupid as you sound. People "like me" are to blame for Columbine? That kind of idiotic finger-pointing really makes my blood boil. In the wake of Columbine we had various extremist groups blaming everything from television to movies to computer games to gun ownership for what happened. And of course we had the self-righteous moral brigade led by people LIKE YOU who blamed the parents.
What I never saw out of the entire media circus was anybody blaming the two kids who actually pulled the triggers.
I'm sick to death of the American idea that it's "somebody elses fault". Nobody dares to take responsibility for their own actions. Much easier to blame somebody else. Fall over in the street? Government's fault for not fixing the sidewalk. Lose your job? Immigrants stole all our jobs. Two kids go on a murderous rampage? Parents are to blame for... well, what for? Not taking them to church often enough? Not locking them in a padded room, sanitised from reality?
People like you make me absolutely sick. And what truly scares me is that it seems the majority of Slashdot moderators (and by inference, a large number of Americans) share your point of view.
What's even worse is your hope that I don't have kids. That's a vile thing to say and I despise you for saying it. I can only hope that you one day wake up from your self-important righteousness and realise what an ass you are.
Before this mentality took over in the 1950's, things were made to last forever and had a really sturdy, well-crafted feel to them. A lot of stuff from this period still works perfectly today.
I disagree. I think that any stuff that still survives from the 50s was simply at the leading edge of the bell curve. The 95% of stuff that was of average or below-average quality has already been junked. You're seeing the top 5% of stuff and assuming that 100% of product from that era was of similar quality.
You can get yellow-shaded flouros. I use globes that look as good as incandescents.
Halogen lights are one of the most inefficient lighting sources. You're better off with plain incandescent.
Re: cost. It's not just a monetary cost. Every incandescent light in your house produces masses of dirty waste products at the power plant. You are being a responsible person if you reduce your energy usage.
Flamebait? Are the moderators on crack... moreso than usual? And what's this nonsense about me being responsible for Columbine, drugs, sex, and World War 2? Are you Americans really that stupid that you think the way to stop disobedient behaviour is to treat everybody like potential criminals?
My grandmother hasn't updated anything on her computer- she's 81 and more concerned with knitting and talking to her grandchildren. I just walked her thru an update.
Can you imagine if I had to tell her how to do that on linux ?? (without a subscription mind you) - Yeah grandma, type wget -?...
Wget? What you talking about, Willis? Walking your grandmother through an update on RedHat is as simple as: "see the flashy red icon on the desktop... click that... now just wait... when the icon turns blue it's all done".
Now, reading the replies on this article, I find it remarkable no-one has noted this. No offence, but even when code is licensed under the BSD license, that license has to be obeyed. You can't remove copyright claims because you think that's necessary.
If you stepped off your high-horse you'd notice that SGI removed the BSD copyright notice. Blaming the Linux developers and/or users is silly.
The fact that Dennis Ritchie wrote the code (the malloc implementation) doesn't undermine SCO's statements at all.
Sure it does. One of Darl's statements was that this had "nothing to do with old UNIX" and clearly this example was from a very old UNIX. I'd say that particular statement is 100% undermined.
Actually, the majority of people are quite stupid. Only the top 5% achieve tertiary level education and there's nothing special about university degrees. The average IQ is 100 - not that IQ necessarily means anything, but play along with me here - and people with that low an IQ are rather dimwitted. Just look at the Darwin awards, the daily news, the newspaper, and you'll see all manner of examples of people being their stupid selves.
Though I agree with you that not knowing how computers work isn't a sign of stupidity.
I got news for you. It's your responsibility to keep track of your software licenses. There are inexpensive tools, hell, even just a standard policy on what to do with machines would go a long way.
That's not news. I think everybody, including Mr Ball, knows that licenses are a responsibility.
However something that you apparently don't know is that people make mistakes. Licenses sometimes fall out of whack. You fix such things in good faith. You try and be a good citizen and you expect similar treatment in return.
This particular company had 8% non-compliance (a half-dozen desktops) and would certainly have remedied the situation given the opportunity. Instead the BSA came in with all guns blazing and stiffed him for $100k.
I can appreciate how Mr Ball felt. He's not a bad person. He didn't intend to have 6 desktops without licenses. He certainly didn't deserve to be treated like he was. He most definitely does not deserve some twit like you spouting off how "lazy" and "ignorant" he was. You pompous little git.
To say the GPL is invalid is to say all software EULA's are invalid.
The GPL isn't an EULA because the end-user doesn't need to accept the GPL in order to use the software. The EULA is something that you're forced to accept after you've already purchased the software. The GPL is a DMLA (distribution and modification license agreement).
I'm not just arguing semantics. You can reasonably argue that EULAs are illegal because the end-user is forced to accept them at the "11th hour" once they've already purchased the software. Companies like Microsoft are lobbying hard for EULAs to be legalised; I suspect because they know EULAs are on shaky legal ground. The GPL requires no new laws and no lobbying; it is a straight-forward license agreement and there is very little chance of it failing in court.
export b=0; find/usr/src/linux-2.4.21 -name "*.c" -o -name "*.h" | while read a; do wc -l "$a"; done | while read c d ; do let b+=c; echo $b $c $d; done
That's a very difficult way of doing it. Try this instead:
For example, 110,000 lines of Unix System V code for read copy update, 55,000 lines of NUMA code and more than 750,000 lines of symmetric multi-processing code from Unix System V has made its way into Linux, attorneys and SCO executives claimed.
Hrm, those figures are suspicious. Look at this:
aaf22607:linux-2.6.0-test2# grep -irlE '_smp|smp_' . | xargs -n 10000 -s 100000 wc -l | grep total
1130736 total
aaf22607:linux-2.6.0-test2# grep -irlE '_rcu|rcu_' . | xargs wc -l | grep total
88110 total
aaf22607:linux-2.6.0-test2# grep -irlE '_numa|numa_' . | xargs wc -l | grep total
41671 total
Those numbers are within the same ballpark as SCO's claims. I think SCO is counting every line in every file that touches the 3 technologies.
The SMP example is noteworthy because many matching files are simply including an SMP header (smp_lock.h) so they can use spin_lock and spin_unlock. That's necessary for the code to be SMP-safe. SCO must intend to argue that anything linked against the SMP core constitutes a "derivative work". So because SCO claims to own the SMP core they also claim ownership of all code linked against it. That would explain the 750kLOC figure they've been throwing around.
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Patents are always worse. I don't like Microsoft products nor their business ethics (or lack thereof) but software patents are plain evil. Nobody, not even Microsoft, should have to defend themselves against software patent lawsuits.
That said, Microsoft is playing silly buggers here. 35 weeks of email missing which just happens to coincide with the period of negotiations between Burst.com and Microsoft? The judge should slap them stupid for that.
Yes, I know my Greek history just fine, as does everybody else who did 8th grade high school. How's things, Josh? Haven't seen you in ages.
Oh? So Excel just says "spreadsheet" to you? How about Quark Express? Or Oracle? Or Solaris? These names are only "obvious" because you have heard them before. There is nothing descriptive about them.
Numbers. Simply numbers. It's the same reason that nobody reports on any of the 100s of fringe OSs with user bases measured in the thousands. Linux has more users and therefore gets the most attention. FreeBSD had its chance to have the biggest user base but it lost to Linux. This was despite a significant headstart in the form of 386BSD. There are at least six reasons I can fathom as to why this happened.
First, the AT&T lawsuit against Berkeley (1992) scared a number of developers away from 386BSD at a very critical time in its evolution. Why invest time into developing 386BSD if AT&T was just going to steal your hard work? And "steal" is the right word here; it really would have been theft if AT&T had won because the 386BSD developers would have lost ownership of code they'd written themselves. Developers were scared away from 386BSD and towards Linux, which was seen as being "litigation-free". The parallels with the claims made by SCO today are frightening.
Second, the Jolitzes. They were custodians of 386BSD and Bill was notorious for being slow to accept patches (1 year of unapplied patches). The formation of FreeBSD was essentially the "Gang of Three" getting frustrated with the slow pace of 386BSD development. They combined 386BSD plus the existing "patch kit" and sold the result as a CD-ROM. This was unfortunately too little, too late. Linux had a 2 year headstart on FreeBSD by this stage. Also the splintering pissed off a number of developers who stopped contributing to both 386BSD and FreeBSD. Instead they started contributing to Linux.
Third, the license. FreeBSD advocates say that the BSD license is "more free" than the GPL but to some people (myself included) the BSD license is offensive. Nothing stops a commercial company leeching off your hard work if you use the BSD license. BSD advocates say this isn't a problem: "you wanted it to be free and now it is". The problem is I don't really want companies getting rich off my code. I want them to contribute back with more code. The GPL enforces this. The BSD license does not. In 1991, when Linux was still very much in its infancy, it managed to get more attention from more programmers than 386BSD ever managed. This was despite Linux being technically inferior to 386BSD. The license simply appeals to certain people. If Linus had used a BSD license then I don't think Linux could have ever wrested the #1 spot away from 386BSD.
Fourth, the Internet. Linux development began at a time when Internet access was appearing in homes. The early adopters of home-Internet access were (of course) technology enthusiasts. The percentage of potential Linux developers in this group was relatively high. This meant from the start Linux had a huge base of developers to draw upon. And isn't it more fun to contribute to a brand new project than an existing project? Linux attracted the developers simply because it wasn't finished.
Fifth, the installers. Back in 1992 (1991?) I was using Interactive UNIX at home. The software was showing its age so I was looking to get into one of the "Free UNIX" that was floating around the Internet. I'd already used (and dismissed) Minix because it was incredibly limited. I had a choice between 386BSD and Linux. The 386BSD installer required a 40MB download, a SCSI hard drive, and required me to destroy my existing Interactive installation. The Linux distribution came on 2x 5.25" floppies, supported IDE hard disks, and could coexist with existing operating systems. It was a no-brainer. Linux won because it cared about the newbie, even back then when I admittedly needed all my UNIX experience to get the damn thing installed. The FreeBSD distro didn't come until late-1993 but by then it was too late; I'd already deleted my Intera
What you've just described is called systems engineering. Typical qualifications are 4 years tertiary level education, 2 years work experience, and an accreditation exam. Under-graduates are expected to be in the top-end of the intellectual curve; entrance scores for engineering are in the same league as medicine. With all due respect, a Visual Basic programmer isn't even remotely qualified to "improve" a manufacturing process.
I mean it. Never say "no". Just tell them how long it will take, how many hours of your time it will take, what resources you will need, how much it will cost, and then let them decide whether it's worth proceeding.
Here are some hints:
Keep a job sheet. Prioritise your jobs. Put hourly estimates next to each job. Amend the sheet as each job progresses. When adding any job to your sheet, give the user an estimate of when you'll start and how long it will take. Keep users well informed of any progress on the job: a 20-second phone call will consume very little of your time but makes the user VERY happy. Give monthly job reports to your boss showing total time incurred on each type of job, etc.
Now you've got the job sheet, everything becomes easy. If users complain about delays in starting, point to the sheet. If they argue that's far too long to wait, point to the sheet. If they demand that they be given higher priority, tell them to get permission from the boss to reprioritise. If the boss asks why you're taking so long to get around to fixing Mary's computer, point to the sheet. If the boss wants to know where all the money's going, point to the sheet. The sheet is wonderful.
If you want to be super-nerdy, put the job sheet on the intranet. A simple spreadsheet is all you need. Don't get fancy. Rotate the sheet once per week, carrying unfinished jobs forward. Now users can easily see what you're working on and who is wasting all your time. Office politics will soon put pressure on the problem users (and you will always have at least one problem user) to leave you alone, and you don't have to do a thing.
Whatever you do, never say "no".
And I think that says it all; he's a kid himself yet he's an expert on raising children, even to the point of blaming parents for the woes of the world.
Pompous ass.
I pray to God that you're not really as stupid as you sound. People "like me" are to blame for Columbine? That kind of idiotic finger-pointing really makes my blood boil. In the wake of Columbine we had various extremist groups blaming everything from television to movies to computer games to gun ownership for what happened. And of course we had the self-righteous moral brigade led by people LIKE YOU who blamed the parents.
What I never saw out of the entire media circus was anybody blaming the two kids who actually pulled the triggers.
I'm sick to death of the American idea that it's "somebody elses fault". Nobody dares to take responsibility for their own actions. Much easier to blame somebody else. Fall over in the street? Government's fault for not fixing the sidewalk. Lose your job? Immigrants stole all our jobs. Two kids go on a murderous rampage? Parents are to blame for ... well, what for? Not taking them to church often enough? Not locking them in a padded room, sanitised from reality?
People like you make me absolutely sick. And what truly scares me is that it seems the majority of Slashdot moderators (and by inference, a large number of Americans) share your point of view.
What's even worse is your hope that I don't have kids. That's a vile thing to say and I despise you for saying it. I can only hope that you one day wake up from your self-important righteousness and realise what an ass you are.
I disagree. I think that any stuff that still survives from the 50s was simply at the leading edge of the bell curve. The 95% of stuff that was of average or below-average quality has already been junked. You're seeing the top 5% of stuff and assuming that 100% of product from that era was of similar quality.
You can get yellow-shaded flouros. I use globes that look as good as incandescents.
Halogen lights are one of the most inefficient lighting sources. You're better off with plain incandescent.
Re: cost. It's not just a monetary cost. Every incandescent light in your house produces masses of dirty waste products at the power plant. You are being a responsible person if you reduce your energy usage.
Flamebait? Are the moderators on crack... moreso than usual? And what's this nonsense about me being responsible for Columbine, drugs, sex, and World War 2? Are you Americans really that stupid that you think the way to stop disobedient behaviour is to treat everybody like potential criminals?
Need anybody answer that rhetorical question?
Wget? What you talking about, Willis? Walking your grandmother through an update on RedHat is as simple as: "see the flashy red icon on the desktop... click that... now just wait... when the icon turns blue it's all done".
Who said "we" (whomever that nebulous "we" might be) are trying to copy Windows? I think everybody is trying to copy the masters.
Spoken like somebody who doesn't have kids.
Sigh, feeling old all of a sudden...
If you stepped off your high-horse you'd notice that SGI removed the BSD copyright notice. Blaming the Linux developers and/or users is silly.
Sure it does. One of Darl's statements was that this had "nothing to do with old UNIX" and clearly this example was from a very old UNIX. I'd say that particular statement is 100% undermined.
[] e) You install a Sony CD player and then declare this proves your ownership of the Ford Motor Company.
Actually, the majority of people are quite stupid. Only the top 5% achieve tertiary level education and there's nothing special about university degrees. The average IQ is 100 - not that IQ necessarily means anything, but play along with me here - and people with that low an IQ are rather dimwitted. Just look at the Darwin awards, the daily news, the newspaper, and you'll see all manner of examples of people being their stupid selves.
Though I agree with you that not knowing how computers work isn't a sign of stupidity.
That's not news. I think everybody, including Mr Ball, knows that licenses are a responsibility.
However something that you apparently don't know is that people make mistakes. Licenses sometimes fall out of whack. You fix such things in good faith. You try and be a good citizen and you expect similar treatment in return.
This particular company had 8% non-compliance (a half-dozen desktops) and would certainly have remedied the situation given the opportunity. Instead the BSA came in with all guns blazing and stiffed him for $100k.
I can appreciate how Mr Ball felt. He's not a bad person. He didn't intend to have 6 desktops without licenses. He certainly didn't deserve to be treated like he was. He most definitely does not deserve some twit like you spouting off how "lazy" and "ignorant" he was. You pompous little git.
The GPL isn't an EULA because the end-user doesn't need to accept the GPL in order to use the software. The EULA is something that you're forced to accept after you've already purchased the software. The GPL is a DMLA (distribution and modification license agreement).
I'm not just arguing semantics. You can reasonably argue that EULAs are illegal because the end-user is forced to accept them at the "11th hour" once they've already purchased the software. Companies like Microsoft are lobbying hard for EULAs to be legalised; I suspect because they know EULAs are on shaky legal ground. The GPL requires no new laws and no lobbying; it is a straight-forward license agreement and there is very little chance of it failing in court.
SCO has removed the V7 source from their website but the wayback machine has the original release. SCO's case is well and truly baseless.
Yay! Linux wins. World domination is one step closer today.
That's a very difficult way of doing it. Try this instead:
Hrm, those figures are suspicious. Look at this:
Those numbers are within the same ballpark as SCO's claims. I think SCO is counting every line in every file that touches the 3 technologies.
The SMP example is noteworthy because many matching files are simply including an SMP header (smp_lock.h) so they can use spin_lock and spin_unlock. That's necessary for the code to be SMP-safe. SCO must intend to argue that anything linked against the SMP core constitutes a "derivative work". So because SCO claims to own the SMP core they also claim ownership of all code linked against it. That would explain the 750kLOC figure they've been throwing around.
Linux is not and never was an experimental branch of Minix.