I see a lot of posts saying that these 280+ patents are invalid or ridiculous. Are we burying our heads in the sand? It only takes one well placed patent lawsuit to disrupt Linux development. Look at the SCO case, they used the scatter shot method and it has distracted Linux development and adoption. Not severely, but enough for the FUD machines to have companies and persons re-evaluate their Linux adoption. The enemies of Linux and Open Source will use patenets against us. Have we all forgotten what happened to the companies that stood in Microsoft's way? Once they do find a weakness, they won't hesitate to exploit it.
What can we do to counter act software patents? Can we create some sort of "prior art" / "idea" database online that holds instances of prior art or ideas for software programs that the community could build up and use as a weapon in defense of the open source software development? If we create a resource for prior art then it may be easier for the USPTO to deny some software patent applications...
What does this mean for mozilla advocates? I've been trying to convince the head of information security to use mozilla instead of internet explorer, but then this and the previous mozilla exploit were released. It is disappointing, but then I hear that this vulnerability has been around for five years and the previous vulnerability was known for about two years. Features for mozilla are great, but shouldn't the developers be spending sometime solving these potential vulnerabilities? It would be easier for mozilla advocates if we could say that "mozilla is rock solid and secure" and have faith when we say it. Mozilla is way ahead of internet explorer on following W3C web standards and features that make surfing easier. It is time to look at all of those bugs in bugzilla and check them for potenial vulnerabilities.
BTW, as an after thought...
Dear Mozilla developers,
You did a great job on the browser and I love using it. I enjoy advocating its usage to others.
this kind of reminds me of the photograph analyzer in blade runner. i wonder if the scene in the movie would be considered prior art if a similiar machine or process were developed today.
Could this be their reason for delaying Longhorn and 64 bit Windows XP?
Does this prove that Microsoft is no longer a software development company, but a monopolistic corporation that cares nothing about security, quality, release dates and focuses entirely on how to harvest the smallest penny of profit from their cash cow?
South Korea had a few other things going for it to make it possible for broadband to florish there. The population density of Korea's major cities contributed to the ease in which broadband was made available. The rate in which new apartment buildings (with high speed internet access) are being built. I think somebody else mentioned it, but the high rate of competition and the customer service levels associated with it. The extreme popularity of network based games, message boards, chatting among the youth of Korea (and even for people in their 20s, 30s and 40s). It is definitely used as a primary communication medium.
South Korea has very well defined cellular phone networks and I'm somewhat surprised that there are not more WiFi networks in Korea (but that may have changed, or be changing).
Won't this cause Linux Kernel forking? Each distribution will be adding "stabilization" patches to the kernel, which may or may not be compatible with other distributions' "stabilization" patches. These "stabilization" patches may or may not be accepted back into the Torvalds/Morten kernel.
They probably thought of all of this at the Kernel summit. The KernelTrap article only mentions:
"Andrew's vision, as expressed at the summit, is that the mainline kernel will be the fastest and most feature-rich kernel around, but not, necessarily, the most stable. Final stabilization is to be done by distributors (as happens now, really), but the distributors are expected to merge their patches quickly."
I thought child porn was an underground type of activity consisting of chat room trades of files, file drops at certain temporary websites, etc. I didn't think that people actually posted these images to websites that were public enough that British Telecom would have a list of them.
If British Telecom has a list of these sites, then why aren't they cooperating with law enforcement agencies to have the owners arrested? (Though cooperating with foreign law enforcement agencies may be difficult.)
I would think the first step would be is to remove these sites from their DNS server. (Though the surfer could then use another DNS server.) The second would be to block packets from these sites. (Though I'm sure this raises all types of legal, technological, privacy etc. issues.)
Don't dismiss this. The more I read this email, the more that I realized that something like this could win Mozilla the browser war...
Read it two or three times and then think about some of the stupid email forwards that you've received. If everybody on slashdot.org replied to all of the senders of a stupid email forward with this email, then this email would be proprogated. We would then see a shift in browser usage...
At first, I thought you were being sarcastic, but the more times I read your email, the more I believe that this is what is needed to get people to switch from IE to Mozilla! This is one email that I would forward. I think you should repost it to the main thread.
The reason why I'm sitting by myself at family gatherings is because I'm updating their computer with the latest Window patches or removing viruses / spyware.
Mechanic says, "You've got bad brake lines that will cause you to lose control of your car. You must repair them."
Customer says, "Sounds expensive and like a lot of work. Can I get a second opinion?"
Mechanic replies, "Yes, but I'm warning you of imminent danger. You may lose control of your car as soon as you pull out of the parking lot. I'll tell you what, I'll give you a set of brake lines and won't even charge you labor. Please just replace your brake lines."
Customer replies, "That is too much trouble. The brake lines work and haven't given me any trouble. I'll take the car home and think about it." Customer gets in car, pulls out of lot, loses control of car and gets into accident.
Mechanic thinks, "What could I have done differently to convince this customer replace their brake lines?"
I've advocated using Mozilla as opposed to IE for a very long time. This is about the tenth email that I've sent to them regarding IE security holes. I've installed Mozilla on my parents' computer and update it regularly. I have not gone so far as to force migrate them to Mozilla, nor should I have to. They must make the conscious decision to seek a more secure environment.
Why don't people give their Social Security Card number out as much as we once used to? Because we know it can be used for ID theft. Why shouldn't we use IE to browse the web? Because we know it can be used to wreak havoc on our computer systems.
I'm not sending my family any more emails on IE security holes. Does that mean that I love them less or will not help them out? No. I'm telling them that IE has too many security holes. The DHS recommends that they not use IE. If that is not enough of an argument, than I can not convince them to change browsers.
They need to change browsers now or they may run into something the next time they surf the web...
Here is an email that I sent to my family members, I suggest that you do something similar.
This will be the last email that you will receive from me about security holes in Internet Explorer. Microsoft is not able to release patches quickly enough to secure Internet Explorer. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security now recommends that if users are unable to patch the security holes in Internet Explorer that they use another browser. Please switch to the latest version of Mozilla web browser. You can find this web browser at http://www.mozilla.org/.
Our main webserver bought it and I had to recover from a backup tar.gz file. The only other box I could expand it on was another production web server. I 'cd' into a temp directory and expanded the tar in that directory. At least that is what I meant to do. Tar expanded it from the absolute path in the tar file which was '/'. Well, a few seconds later, I had another dead production box.
What the audience doesn' know, that moments before, I told the other administrator to expand the same tar file on the database server that supported our now dead websites. About a minute later, I get a call to the server room phone line. It was the administrator and she reported that we had some type of 'problem.' Naturally, I knew what that was.
I'm not sure if the server room was sound proof, but anybody who was still at work that day (on all ten floors) probably heard the next few words that came out of my mouth...
Ahhh, the dot com days... Unfortunately, I didn't work at a dot com. I worked at a major publishing company.
I don't fit your description exactly, but the following two lines of your submission are similiar to my own experiences:
"I'm incredibly intense and concentrated, yet I often become bored of specific projects in a few months."
"Lots of people I meet think I should have a 4.0 easy, but I'm pretty far from it."
I have one piece of advice for you: "Finish what you start." Think about it for a while. At first, you may not know what I am talking about or you may not think it applies to you, but try to relate it to your life. If you do know what I mean, then try to a method to get yourself to "Finish what you start." If you still don't know what I mean, then sorry to have wasted your time.
Would maintenance be harder for jet engine as opposed to turbo prop engines that see a lot of action in smoke and heat filled environments?
Anybody see those old 747 test films where they purposely puncture the fuel tanks of taxiing 747s to see the ensuing explosions? I would not want to see a 747 get its fuel tank punctured by trees or debris while fighting a fire. It may just compound the problem...
Would the reduced oxygen from smoke filled air have a detrimental effect on the efficiency of the air intake / mixing in the jet engine? If the 747 would swoop down low to deliver its payload through a very thick wall of smoke, the jet engine intakes would undoubtedly have a very reduced amount of oxygen to mix with fuel to combust... This would put the heavily loaded 747 at risk, especially if it were fully loaded.
When I was about to board a plane for a trip to China and Korea, I had a strange feeling. I didn't know what it was, but it prompted me to call up my friend and tell him the login for my linux box. I told him that in the event of my demise he should save certain files and give them to my parents (short stories, poems and long stories that I had written) and to destroy the pr0n.
I have a porcelain cap and it blends in with the rest of my teeth very well. Why not use stem cell technology to regenerate spinal disks? I just read a Newsweek article that 65 million Americans have disk related back pain. I am among them and have not been in a good mood for the past year. If you ever injure your back and have pain in your sciatic nerve, then you'll know what I mean...
If you don't think spinal disks are important enough either, then you are probably correct, but are growing teeth from stem cells as important as the other things we can be doing will stem cells?
Does forecasting that Linux will overtake Windows in 3 years buy the Linux / Open Source movement anything? Will this forecast only bring negative sentiment from the I.T. industry if it is untrue (after 3 years) or if too many of these forecasts are made?
I'm personally getting tired of all these forecasts that say Linux will overtake Windows. Not because I do not believe that they will come true, but because people have been making these types of forecasts for quite a while and at least half of the time they do not come true. I am positive that Linux will overtake Windows someday in the future. I do not know when, but either way I will be happy when it happens.
After two years of active advocacy, my company has decided to start a Linux Pilot Program. Yes, the tide is coming in.
"entry level software engineer" is not the right title. try "entry level programmer". at the entry level, i doubt you would do any engineering of software. you will most likely be on a team of programmers with specific requirements for the programming project.
Slashdot Mirror
I see a lot of posts saying that these 280+ patents are invalid or ridiculous. Are we burying our heads in the sand? It only takes one well placed patent lawsuit to disrupt Linux development. Look at the SCO case, they used the scatter shot method and it has distracted Linux development and adoption. Not severely, but enough for the FUD machines to have companies and persons re-evaluate their Linux adoption. The enemies of Linux and Open Source will use patenets against us. Have we all forgotten what happened to the companies that stood in Microsoft's way? Once they do find a weakness, they won't hesitate to exploit it.
What can we do to counter act software patents? Can we create some sort of "prior art" / "idea" database online that holds instances of prior art or ideas for software programs that the community could build up and use as a weapon in defense of the open source software development? If we create a resource for prior art then it may be easier for the USPTO to deny some software patent applications...
Just my two cents...
What does this mean for mozilla advocates? I've been trying to convince the head of information security to use mozilla instead of internet explorer, but then this and the previous mozilla exploit were released. It is disappointing, but then I hear that this vulnerability has been around for five years and the previous vulnerability was known for about two years. Features for mozilla are great, but shouldn't the developers be spending sometime solving these potential vulnerabilities? It would be easier for mozilla advocates if we could say that "mozilla is rock solid and secure" and have faith when we say it. Mozilla is way ahead of internet explorer on following W3C web standards and features that make surfing easier. It is time to look at all of those bugs in bugzilla and check them for potenial vulnerabilities.
BTW, as an after thought...
Dear Mozilla developers,
You did a great job on the browser and I love using it. I enjoy advocating its usage to others.
Andrew
this kind of reminds me of the photograph analyzer in blade runner. i wonder if the scene in the movie would be considered prior art if a similiar machine or process were developed today.
Could this be their reason for delaying Longhorn and 64 bit Windows XP?
Does this prove that Microsoft is no longer a software development company, but a monopolistic corporation that cares nothing about security, quality, release dates and focuses entirely on how to harvest the smallest penny of profit from their cash cow?
Andrew
South Korea had a few other things going for it to make it possible for broadband to florish there. The population density of Korea's major cities contributed to the ease in which broadband was made available. The rate in which new apartment buildings (with high speed internet access) are being built. I think somebody else mentioned it, but the high rate of competition and the customer service levels associated with it. The extreme popularity of network based games, message boards, chatting among the youth of Korea (and even for people in their 20s, 30s and 40s). It is definitely used as a primary communication medium.
South Korea has very well defined cellular phone networks and I'm somewhat surprised that there are not more WiFi networks in Korea (but that may have changed, or be changing).
Just a quick two cents worth...
Andrew
Won't this cause Linux Kernel forking? Each distribution will be adding "stabilization" patches to the kernel, which may or may not be compatible with other distributions' "stabilization" patches. These "stabilization" patches may or may not be accepted back into the Torvalds/Morten kernel.
They probably thought of all of this at the Kernel summit. The KernelTrap article only mentions:
"Andrew's vision, as expressed at the summit, is that the mainline kernel will be the fastest and most feature-rich kernel around, but not, necessarily, the most stable. Final stabilization is to be done by distributors (as happens now, really), but the distributors are expected to merge their patches quickly."
I thought child porn was an underground type of activity consisting of chat room trades of files, file drops at certain temporary websites, etc. I didn't think that people actually posted these images to websites that were public enough that British Telecom would have a list of them.
If British Telecom has a list of these sites, then why aren't they cooperating with law enforcement agencies to have the owners arrested? (Though cooperating with foreign law enforcement agencies may be difficult.)
I would think the first step would be is to remove these sites from their DNS server. (Though the surfer could then use another DNS server.) The second would be to block packets from these sites. (Though I'm sure this raises all types of legal, technological, privacy etc. issues.)
Andrew
Don't dismiss this. The more I read this email, the more that I realized that something like this could win Mozilla the browser war...
Read it two or three times and then think about some of the stupid email forwards that you've received. If everybody on slashdot.org replied to all of the senders of a stupid email forward with this email, then this email would be proprogated. We would then see a shift in browser usage...
Andrew
At first, I thought you were being sarcastic, but the more times I read your email, the more I believe that this is what is needed to get people to switch from IE to Mozilla! This is one email that I would forward. I think you should repost it to the main thread.
The reason why I'm sitting by myself at family gatherings is because I'm updating their computer with the latest Window patches or removing viruses / spyware.
Mechanic says, "You've got bad brake lines that will cause you to lose control of your car. You must repair them."
Customer says, "Sounds expensive and like a lot of work. Can I get a second opinion?"
Mechanic replies, "Yes, but I'm warning you of imminent danger. You may lose control of your car as soon as you pull out of the parking lot. I'll tell you what, I'll give you a set of brake lines and won't even charge you labor. Please just replace your brake lines."
Customer replies, "That is too much trouble. The brake lines work and haven't given me any trouble. I'll take the car home and think about it." Customer gets in car, pulls out of lot, loses control of car and gets into accident.
Mechanic thinks, "What could I have done differently to convince this customer replace their brake lines?"
I've advocated using Mozilla as opposed to IE for a very long time. This is about the tenth email that I've sent to them regarding IE security holes. I've installed Mozilla on my parents' computer and update it regularly. I have not gone so far as to force migrate them to Mozilla, nor should I have to. They must make the conscious decision to seek a more secure environment.
Why don't people give their Social Security Card number out as much as we once used to? Because we know it can be used for ID theft. Why shouldn't we use IE to browse the web? Because we know it can be used to wreak havoc on our computer systems.
I'm not sending my family any more emails on IE security holes. Does that mean that I love them less or will not help them out? No. I'm telling them that IE has too many security holes. The DHS recommends that they not use IE. If that is not enough of an argument, than I can not convince them to change browsers.
They need to change browsers now or they may run into something the next time they surf the web...
Andrew
Here is an email that I sent to my family members, I suggest that you do something similar.
.
This will be the last email that you will receive from me about security holes in Internet Explorer. Microsoft is not able to release patches quickly enough to secure Internet Explorer. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security now recommends that if users are unable to patch the security holes in Internet Explorer that they use another browser. Please switch to the latest version of Mozilla web browser. You can find this web browser at http://www.mozilla.org/
http://secunia.com/advisories/12048/
Andrew
Our main webserver bought it and I had to recover from a backup tar.gz file. The only other box I could expand it on was another production web server. I 'cd' into a temp directory and expanded the tar in that directory. At least that is what I meant to do. Tar expanded it from the absolute path in the tar file which was '/'. Well, a few seconds later, I had another dead production box.
What the audience doesn' know, that moments before, I told the other administrator to expand the same tar file on the database server that supported our now dead websites. About a minute later, I get a call to the server room phone line. It was the administrator and she reported that we had some type of 'problem.' Naturally, I knew what that was.
I'm not sure if the server room was sound proof, but anybody who was still at work that day (on all ten floors) probably heard the next few words that came out of my mouth...
Ahhh, the dot com days... Unfortunately, I didn't work at a dot com. I worked at a major publishing company.
a patent for tabbed browsing in internet explorer. hey, wait a minute...
I don't fit your description exactly, but the following two lines of your submission are similiar to my own experiences:
"I'm incredibly intense and concentrated, yet I often become bored of specific projects in a few months."
"Lots of people I meet think I should have a 4.0 easy, but I'm pretty far from it."
I have one piece of advice for you: "Finish what you start." Think about it for a while. At first, you may not know what I am talking about or you may not think it applies to you, but try to relate it to your life. If you do know what I mean, then try to a method to get yourself to "Finish what you start." If you still don't know what I mean, then sorry to have wasted your time.
Just my two cents...
Good point.
Would maintenance be harder for jet engine as opposed to turbo prop engines that see a lot of action in smoke and heat filled environments?
Anybody see those old 747 test films where they purposely puncture the fuel tanks of taxiing 747s to see the ensuing explosions? I would not want to see a 747 get its fuel tank punctured by trees or debris while fighting a fire. It may just compound the problem...
Would the reduced oxygen from smoke filled air have a detrimental effect on the efficiency of the air intake / mixing in the jet engine? If the 747 would swoop down low to deliver its payload through a very thick wall of smoke, the jet engine intakes would undoubtedly have a very reduced amount of oxygen to mix with fuel to combust... This would put the heavily loaded 747 at risk, especially if it were fully loaded.
Just my two cents...
MS: Together we can rule the software industry.
Firefox: Never.
MS: I am your father.
Firefox: Noooooooooooooo...........
care to share your scripts? sounds like a good idea...
andrew
When I was about to board a plane for a trip to China and Korea, I had a strange feeling. I didn't know what it was, but it prompted me to call up my friend and tell him the login for my linux box. I told him that in the event of my demise he should save certain files and give them to my parents (short stories, poems and long stories that I had written) and to destroy the pr0n.
Luckily I didn't die and my pr0n was saved...
Saw that you went to CMU. Did you play rugby there also? I played at Pitt between 93 and 96.
Andrew
I have a porcelain cap and it blends in with the rest of my teeth very well. Why not use stem cell technology to regenerate spinal disks? I just read a Newsweek article that 65 million Americans have disk related back pain. I am among them and have not been in a good mood for the past year. If you ever injure your back and have pain in your sciatic nerve, then you'll know what I mean...
If you don't think spinal disks are important enough either, then you are probably correct, but are growing teeth from stem cells as important as the other things we can be doing will stem cells?
"China, North Korea, Brazil have all decided Linux is the way to go."
North Korea != South Korea. I believe you meant South Korea.
Andrew
Does forecasting that Linux will overtake Windows in 3 years buy the Linux / Open Source movement anything? Will this forecast only bring negative sentiment from the I.T. industry if it is untrue (after 3 years) or if too many of these forecasts are made?
I'm personally getting tired of all these forecasts that say Linux will overtake Windows. Not because I do not believe that they will come true, but because people have been making these types of forecasts for quite a while and at least half of the time they do not come true. I am positive that Linux will overtake Windows someday in the future. I do not know when, but either way I will be happy when it happens.
After two years of active advocacy, my company has decided to start a Linux Pilot Program. Yes, the tide is coming in.
Andrew
"entry level software engineer" is not the right title. try "entry level programmer". at the entry level, i doubt you would do any engineering of software. you will most likely be on a team of programmers with specific requirements for the programming project.