Microsoft can now spread more FUD about their IP being in Linux, and they can point to this agreement with a major Linux vendor as proof. After all, if these claims were untrue, why would company as knowledgeable as Novell about Linux pay money for indemnification against them?
That may well turn off some large companies from using Linux. And Novell allows Microsoft to do this, they even agreed to help spreading this FUD themselves too, and all of it without Microsoft having to provide any specifics at all about what exactly Linux is supposed to infringe on.
No, Red Hat isn't going to stop supporting, but some big customers may shy away.
Well, duh. They should have taken a programming course. Studying CS to learn programming is like studying Economics when you want to go into business - economics and business are both about money, after all.
The problem is that stupid companies think programmers with a degree are better, even though there are no university level programming degrees.
(spoken as a programmer with a CS degree, but I got it because I love math and theory)
Re:Maximizing Composability and Relax NG Trivia
on
Tim Bray Says RELAX
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· Score: 1
Impressive! I don't think I've ever seen a Slashdot comment that long that was still informative.
It's funny, first you say that using tables for layout is justified, then the rest of the post is the argument that the HTML should reflect the nature of the content, which can then be styled by CSS. Which is of course exactly the argument against using tables, since after all your entire page is not tabular data.
I've been having more fun with HTML since I really "got" seperating content and style; you find out about new tags you never knew about, like <address>, and I didn't even know about <dl> tags until recently. The <div> tag should be used as a last resort, when no other HTML tag fits the bill; that's usually the case for blocks that are just layout units.
All that said, the three column layout is used so often, is so simple with tables and so complex to do well with divs (especially when you want them to be equal height automatically), I think using them there is justified. But that's about the only exception.
Still, that deadline was about three and a half years into the case, it's not exactly been fast. And they're the plaintiffs, not the defendants - aren't they supposed to know what their actual claims are _before_ sueing somebody?
Eventually there has to be a deadline. SCO decides to sneak in some extra, really vague claims after that in hopes that IBM didn't have time to organize a proper defence, but well, they've had far too many deadline extensions already. Final means final.
Well, they've just about decided what evidence there is; now they're going to decide which issues can be decided immediately (because there's no disputes on factual matters on them), and which issues need to go to court. That's for the next few months. It's likely that all of SCO's claims will be thrown out before then, but there will be IBM counter claims that probably will go to trial.
However, there's also a case Novell-SCO, and since in it Novell claims that it still holds the copyright over some things (like, say, SysV Unix) that SCO claims copyright of in the IBM case, that case will go first.
That trial is at the moment expected to start about September 2007-ish.
Dutch road signs are white, exactly like that one. Also, there's a little square white sign below it, probably with a truck sign, meaning the max speed limit is for trucks only. We have those in the Netherlands, I don't know about France.
The license plate seems a bit long, but what's on it does seem to follow the XX-XX-XX pattern. I'm undecided.
About those three speed limit stickers, that's not Dutch as far as I know, might well be French. Also, there's a hill on the side of the road, and most of the Netherlands is really flat. The concrete in the middle of the road also looks more French to me.
Last week, in More IBM Filings and a Nice Memento for Us to Share, PJ was also proud to note that the Letter to SCO that Groklaw wrote back in 2003 was actually submitted as evidence by IBM now, to show that "SCO rebuffed requests by the open source community for evidence of the alleged infringement, which would have permitted a potential work-around."
And rightfully proud, of course. More power to PJ!
Well, the important part is that the tax should be sufficient to cover the costs of neutralizing the CO2. How people decide to act, given the new prices of things, is their problem.
I am a firm believer in capitalism. The market will come up with a good solution.
But the market can only function if all costs involved are part of the price. One way to do this is to have a CO2 tax, provided it is based on the actual CO2 cost of the product, and the money is used to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Then the market can decide what to do.
Well, I have a Flash player installed, so it's not entirely free. And doesn't mplayer include proprietary libraries? And depending on how your definitions are, is any mp3 player free? I think not. Also, nVidia drivers on one box, ATI drivers on another... Sigh.
I think many people using a free OS on the desktop have at least things like that on there, possibly without being aware of it.
As a bit of comfort, I'm the anti-you in technology preferences, and I have trouble finding a nice mp3 player that supports the Ogg files that make up almost my entire music collection...
A large oil company spends $1 Billion developing software that takes existing geological maps and analyzes it in a novel way.
Great! They deserve protection, of all that work - that's what copyright is for.
As for patents, they're for the idea. Some people have an idea, and use a few weeks to draft a good patent application. Then, they can sue one of the companies who had the same idea and that actually did all the work of building it for a billion and making it profitable.
The thing is, in software, ideas are cheap. Everybody has them, all the time. They're not special. Almost all of them are incremental, or applying an old idea "on the Internet". They don't deserve protection.
What does deserve protection is one specific implementation, since actually implementing an idea can be a huge investment. But specific implementations are already protected by copyright, so you don't need software patents for that.
For those of you asking how to get the documents: they're not available free of charge. Microsoft has handed over documents for checking, and has explained how it wants to license them.
The EU is going to decide three things: whether the documents satisfy their requirements, whether the price is reasonable (based on Microsoft's original contribution instead of their monopoly position), and whether the proposed license is reasonable.
If they decide this will do, then Microsoft has to make the documentation available for people wanting to buy it under those license terms for that price; if they decide against, then Microsoft still hasn't complied and will get more fines.
It never was about documentation available without strings attached, that would be too unreasonable.
See the Washington Post: The Commission's decision, it recalled, required Microsoft to "disclose and license complete and accurate interface documentation [...] and Microsoft could face further fines if the Commission finds that the price was based on Microsoft's exercise of monopoly power, rather than on the originality of its product.
This isn't evolutionary adaptation - it's much more simple than that. If you start killing all of the lizards with long legs, the ones with short legs are going to mate and have offspring with short legs.
Isn't that exactly what the theory of evolution is?
Slashdot Mirror
Presumably then, they can only detect them at the very end of the 10^50 seconds.
Microsoft can now spread more FUD about their IP being in Linux, and they can point to this agreement with a major Linux vendor as proof. After all, if these claims were untrue, why would company as knowledgeable as Novell about Linux pay money for indemnification against them?
That may well turn off some large companies from using Linux. And Novell allows Microsoft to do this, they even agreed to help spreading this FUD themselves too, and all of it without Microsoft having to provide any specifics at all about what exactly Linux is supposed to infringe on.
No, Red Hat isn't going to stop supporting, but some big customers may shy away.
Well, duh. They should have taken a programming course. Studying CS to learn programming is like studying Economics when you want to go into business - economics and business are both about money, after all.
The problem is that stupid companies think programmers with a degree are better, even though there are no university level programming degrees.
(spoken as a programmer with a CS degree, but I got it because I love math and theory)
Impressive! I don't think I've ever seen a Slashdot comment that long that was still informative.
Long answer: Noooooooooooooooooooo!
It's funny, first you say that using tables for layout is justified, then the rest of the post is the argument that the HTML should reflect the nature of the content, which can then be styled by CSS. Which is of course exactly the argument against using tables, since after all your entire page is not tabular data.
I've been having more fun with HTML since I really "got" seperating content and style; you find out about new tags you never knew about, like <address>, and I didn't even know about <dl> tags until recently. The <div> tag should be used as a last resort, when no other HTML tag fits the bill; that's usually the case for blocks that are just layout units.
All that said, the three column layout is used so often, is so simple with tables and so complex to do well with divs (especially when you want them to be equal height automatically), I think using them there is justified. But that's about the only exception.
Still, that deadline was about three and a half years into the case, it's not exactly been fast. And they're the plaintiffs, not the defendants - aren't they supposed to know what their actual claims are _before_ sueing somebody?
Eventually there has to be a deadline. SCO decides to sneak in some extra, really vague claims after that in hopes that IBM didn't have time to organize a proper defence, but well, they've had far too many deadline extensions already. Final means final.
Well, they've just about decided what evidence there is; now they're going to decide which issues can be decided immediately (because there's no disputes on factual matters on them), and which issues need to go to court. That's for the next few months. It's likely that all of SCO's claims will be thrown out before then, but there will be IBM counter claims that probably will go to trial.
However, there's also a case Novell-SCO, and since in it Novell claims that it still holds the copyright over some things (like, say, SysV Unix) that SCO claims copyright of in the IBM case, that case will go first.
That trial is at the moment expected to start about September 2007-ish.
If the description of the problem steers you directly towards the solution, isn't that a sign of being utterly obvious in itself?
Dutch road signs are white, exactly like that one. Also, there's a little square white sign below it, probably with a truck sign, meaning the max speed limit is for trucks only. We have those in the Netherlands, I don't know about France.
The license plate seems a bit long, but what's on it does seem to follow the XX-XX-XX pattern. I'm undecided.
About those three speed limit stickers, that's not Dutch as far as I know, might well be French. Also, there's a hill on the side of the road, and most of the Netherlands is really flat. The concrete in the middle of the road also looks more French to me.
Probably France.
Last week, in More IBM Filings and a Nice Memento for Us to Share, PJ was also proud to note that the Letter to SCO that Groklaw wrote back in 2003 was actually submitted as evidence by IBM now, to show that "SCO rebuffed requests by the open source community for evidence of the alleged infringement, which would have permitted a potential work-around."
And rightfully proud, of course. More power to PJ!
Oh, I think there will be remaining claims, from reading Groklaw a lot. It's just that they'll all be counter-claims.
With other games, you may feel guilty when you play too much; with online games, you feel guilty when you aren't playing with your guild members. Eek.
Or 180. Not lying down, but simply standing. Standing desks have existed for a long time.
Which is exactly why you add a CO2 tax into the price, so that the market can work in its usual way (with people looking for the lowest price).
Well, the important part is that the tax should be sufficient to cover the costs of neutralizing the CO2. How people decide to act, given the new prices of things, is their problem.
I am a firm believer in capitalism. The market will come up with a good solution.
But the market can only function if all costs involved are part of the price. One way to do this is to have a CO2 tax, provided it is based on the actual CO2 cost of the product, and the money is used to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Then the market can decide what to do.
Nintendo? It's 117 years old, and able to release a much hyped console.
Well, I have a Flash player installed, so it's not entirely free. And doesn't mplayer include proprietary libraries? And depending on how your definitions are, is any mp3 player free? I think not. Also, nVidia drivers on one box, ATI drivers on another... Sigh.
I think many people using a free OS on the desktop have at least things like that on there, possibly without being aware of it.
As a bit of comfort, I'm the anti-you in technology preferences, and I have trouble finding a nice mp3 player that supports the Ogg files that make up almost my entire music collection...
Return the money? Why? They're required to pay the fine and make available this documentation.
A large oil company spends $1 Billion developing software that takes existing geological maps and analyzes it in a novel way.
Great! They deserve protection, of all that work - that's what copyright is for.
As for patents, they're for the idea. Some people have an idea, and use a few weeks to draft a good patent application. Then, they can sue one of the companies who had the same idea and that actually did all the work of building it for a billion and making it profitable.
The thing is, in software, ideas are cheap. Everybody has them, all the time. They're not special. Almost all of them are incremental, or applying an old idea "on the Internet". They don't deserve protection.
What does deserve protection is one specific implementation, since actually implementing an idea can be a huge investment. But specific implementations are already protected by copyright, so you don't need software patents for that.
For those of you asking how to get the documents: they're not available free of charge. Microsoft has handed over documents for checking, and has explained how it wants to license them.
The EU is going to decide three things: whether the documents satisfy their requirements, whether the price is reasonable (based on Microsoft's original contribution instead of their monopoly position), and whether the proposed license is reasonable.
If they decide this will do, then Microsoft has to make the documentation available for people wanting to buy it under those license terms for that price; if they decide against, then Microsoft still hasn't complied and will get more fines.
It never was about documentation available without strings attached, that would be too unreasonable.
See the Washington Post: The Commission's decision, it recalled, required Microsoft to "disclose and license complete and accurate interface documentation [...] and Microsoft could face further fines if the Commission finds that the price was based on Microsoft's exercise of monopoly power, rather than on the originality of its product.
This isn't evolutionary adaptation - it's much more simple than that. If you start killing all of the lizards with long legs, the ones with short legs are going to mate and have offspring with short legs.
Isn't that exactly what the theory of evolution is?