But surely it's not hidden in a mattress anywhere. It's out in the economy, making the economy work. The money *is* changing hands. Sure, it's making Rich Bastard wealthier, but it's making us wealthier, too. Maybe it's in a treasury bill, giving our government a loan and working capital to buy things and pay salaries. Or in a stock, which gives a company working capital to buy things and pay salaries.
The same can be said of any feudal system.
Sure, the king lives in luxury while the serf toils all day in the fields and dies at a relatively young age... but if the king didn't rule over him, his life COULD be even worse.
Here's an easy example that most people here can understand... the **AA and how they sue grandmothers and students for "copyright infringement". Sure, the **AA are putting their money "out in the economy" as you state, and they're hiring people who are producing work that is valuable.
So if a couple people have to be sued to ensure that the MPAA/RIAA has more money, that's... okay?
After all, the lawyers that are being employed to sue those people are being paid, right?
Here, I'll shorten it a bit. If the money is in the economy, it doesn't matter if 90% of it is held by 10% of the people or by 90% of the people. It will still be spent and people will still have jobs to earn it.
The difference will be what it is spent on. The rich can afford yachts and such. The rest spend it on food / shelter / clothing / education.
Which is why cutting taxes for the 98% of the people causes the money to circulate faster than cutting it for the top 2% who will "invest" it in off-shore tax dodges in order to accumulate more millions. And from most economic points of view, you want the money circulating in the economy.
It is trivial to test for specific cases and force "incompatibility" in all others.
And no, if you're implementing Microsoft's standards on a different platform, Microsoft still controls those standards and can keep changing them whenever they want to.
That doesn't even bring up any patents that Microsoft has on their formats.
Again, the focus should be on implementing Open/Free standards, not proprietary ones.
The problem with that is it would just take 1 "high priority" "security update" to break the compatibility. And then all those OpenOffice.org installations are "broken" for their customers. Just stick with MS Office, it's less likely to "break".
Microsoft would be happy to maintain control of the de facto "standard" in file formats. That way they can keep everyone chasing after their last update.
Instead, Novell should be looking at making it easier to migrate FROM Microsoft's standards.
There's enough source code available for enough viruses/trojans/worms that anyone who is interested could write a variation with their own payload.
And instead of creating a zombie army to spew spam, they'd just change a few random numbers in any spreadsheet that was accessible.
There, instant financial problems for most of corporate America. And the damage could take years to uncover.
With a little bit of thought, the virus/trojan/worm would spread quietly. It shouldn't be that difficult if your aim is NOT to draw attention to yourself or control the machine. Altering data would be simple and almost undetectable.
Since they cannot accomplish even that minor task, they don't have the skills to accomplish a major attack.
So, some joker on some website posts a piece about how people should release viruses to attack the stock exchange... and our government issues an alert?
What happens when the same joker posts a call for nano-viruses to be released into our water supply to create a generation of flesh eating mutants from our own children?!?
Seriously, you deal with terrorism by NOT being afraid.
You do NOT deal with it by hyping every single fantasy that they can post.
I dunno, the company that wants to sandbox their production environment and make sure that the latest windows virus that exploits a hole microsoft already fixed but no one is updating because it borkes allot of other items. Or maybe it is the company that wants to run get away form Microsoft but is held on by one killer app and cannot. Why would anyone want to virtualize anything?
Well, the reason use virtualization is to get the most usage out of our existing hardware by running multiple low-usage instances of servers so badly behaving apps can all run "together" without actually impacting each other.
Virtualization does nothing if your machine is already vulnerable to an exploit. I've used virtualized workstations to dig into spam trojans and such.
What you are thinking of is more commonly referred to as a "firewall".
As for a company wanting "to run get away form Microsoft", you may have missed the part of the article that said Novell was losing the deals to Microsoft. People were running away from SuSE and toward Microsoft. Not from Microsoft.
He claimed to lose four deals with microsoft for being unduly influenced with IP problems starting about 18 months ago.
Yep. People did not want to deploy SuSE but were happy to deploy Microsoft. So I'm not seeing your point about companies wanting to "get away" from Microsoft and move to SuSE.
You might want to check the article. the CEO said for the first time, about 18 months ago, he lost an account because of fud!.
So, we agree that Novell is losing deployments and Microsoft is gaining them.
And novels market share hasn't been dropping at any stagering rate. You not going to get nose bleeds from the ride.
Ummmmmm, yes, it has.
Microsoft got lucky on a few deals because of fud being spread around!
Check your email server logs. Look at how many different companies run Exchange.
Then see how many run GroupWise.
And next year there will be even fewer instances of GroupWise out there. That is what "declining marketshare" means. Novell is dying.
And focusing on "virtualization" so you can offer the chance for companies to run the most common OS on top of your dying platform is just..... delusional. You can argue all you want about how companies could want this... but I'll predict now that Novell's marketshare will be lower next year than it is today. There is no benefit for any company to run Windows on top of SuSE, today or in the future when this "deal" bears fruit.
Windows on top of Windows would be easier for Microsoft to produce and support with no finger pointing.
People who want a stable subtrate operating system on which they can deploy their Windows services? Think about it. A stable underlying OS allows you to stop worrying about the actual servers and focus on the VMs. This means you can do things like hot VM fail-over, for higher availability. Seems like a big win to me.
WMWare already offers something like that.
And Linux, when administered by someone who does NOT know what he's doing is no more stable than Windows. But Windows can be as stable as Linux when you have a competent administrator. In your scenario, the company would be paying for Linux experts AND Windows experts. Why? Why not just spend the money and get competent Windows administraters?
Not to mention developers who might want a Linux box as their core OS while they do Windows development. Or those doing cross-platform work.
www.vmware.com
It's even free (as in beer) now. And you don't have to tweak the guest OS. It runs clean. We use it all the time.
Running Microsoft on Linux is only a fraction as bad as running Linux and no Microsoft.
And what company is going to deploy Linux just so it can virtualize Windows? Why wouldn't they save the time and expertise (and finger pointing) and just deploy Windows as the host and Windows as the guest?
So were a company would have gone the direction away from Microsoft all together, it still lets Microsoft in the door to cause them to think otherwise. or at least for parts of their operations.
But it was Novell's CEO who said that he lost deals to Microsoft, again and again and again. I don't often see Microsoft complaining about losing deals to Linux.
It isn't that Microsoft is winning the deals, they got lucky on a few. Microsoft knows this.
You might want to check your email server logs. It seems that 95%+ of the businesses we deal with are running Exchange.
And Novell's marketshare has been in decline for years.
Somehow that doesn't add up to "got lucky on a few".
As a company, they should be doing everything they can to port their profitable apps to the major platforms out there.
Right now, GroupWise is a maojor bitch to install on Debian/Ubuntu. It's easier to install it on Windows. A lot easier. You just run the executables that Novell provides.
Novell needs to learn that migrations are a step-by-step process. And once you start helping your customers make those steps to a competitor, you aren't getting them back.
Debian may be a competitor (or not) to their basic server platform. But putting GroupWise on Debian means that you have moved them closer to your company.
Putting GroupWise on Windows means you've moved them closer to Microsoft.
The same with eDirectory, ZENworks and just about every other Novell product available.
The balance of payments are by far in Novell's favor from what I've seen. I don't remember the exact numbers but Microsoft is paying far more than Novell is paying them for the patent agreement.
Yes, that is correct.
Microsoft is paying hundreds of millions of dollars for SuSE support licenses. Far more than Novell is paying Microsoft.
Now, when was the last time anyone tried to buy SuSE from Microsoft? Has anyone here tried to? No?
Okay, when was the last time anyone called Microsoft's tech support about a SuSE issue? Has anyone here tried that? No?
Well, it seems that Microsoft paid a LOT of money for licenses that it will probably never use and didn't seem to need in the past. You might want to look up the history of the SCO lawsuit and see how Microsoft also paid for SCO licenses that Microsoft will probably never use and didn't seem to need prior to that.
So, it looks like Microsoft paid for Novell's signature on that "patent agreement". Novell couldn't say "no" to that big of an instant payoff.
Now, go back and read about Microsoft's other "partners" and how Microsoft treated them. There isn't any reason to believe that Microsoft is suddenly going to play nice and fair with Linux (or Novell). Microsoft's who business model is based upon their monopolistic control of the desktop.
#1. They hack them out the way Team Samba does (yay Team Samba!!!)
#2. They read the specs that are published
#3. They "clean room" the specs.
#4. They read the specs that they've just purchased the rights to.
Anyone have any other ways?
Now, which way are the Novell coders going to use to get specs... that does NOT involve a potential software patent issue with Microsoft?
If you're thinking "Novell just partnered with Microsoft and Microsoft can share their specs with Novell now"... that's the easiest way for Microsoft to get their software patents into Linux.
And anyone who thinks that Microsoft wants to play nice with Linux has NOT been reading the history here.
Nov 27 11:20:23 Novell claims to have not acknowledged any patent infringements Nov 27 11:20:23 by Linux. But Novell is now paying a tax to Microsoft on the Nov 27 11:20:23 Linux distributions it ships. What, exactly, is Novell paying Nov 27 11:20:23 for?
Nov 27 11:21:05 We're paying for the promise that Microsoft made to our customers not to sue them
Nov 27 11:21:43 Not to sue them for *what*? For problems you don't acknowledge exist?
Nov 27 11:21:57 Well, we put together an agreement with MS to make Linux and Windows work better together Nov 27 11:22:05 Now, as everyone knows, MS has spent the last 10 years saying negative things about Linux Nov 27 11:22:11 including implying that there are IP issues in Linux Nov 27 11:22:30 It didn't make sense for us to do a partnersihp with MS on interoperability issues and still have this patent cloud hanging around for our customers Nov 27 11:22:39 and so MS asked us to put together a patent agreement as well. Nov 27 11:23:00 And so, we promise MS's customers that we won't sue them and they promise the same thing to our customres Nov 27 11:23:08 They pay us for our promise and we pay them for their promise Nov 27 11:23:24 It doesn't matter if the allegations from MSFT are true or not
Microsoft asked Novell to "put together a patent agreement" so Novell could market that protection to their customers... at a cost of $40 million from Novell.
Does Novell often pay millions of dollars for "protection" for its customers when it does not believe that the threat has any substance?
Microsoft is the one making the threats. Novell is paying Microsoft to NOT follow through on threats that Microsoft has yet to substantiate. Not to mention the patent battle that could erupt should Microsoft ever file a patent claim against anyone using Linux.
He had ordered a new PC via mail order. When it was delivered, the cards were loose. So loose that his dog picked up the motherboard in its mouth and walked around the house.
Anyone who has actually assembled a computer will see the flaws in his stories. Or anyone who has owned a dog.
Between December 2000 and November 2006, external researchers discovered 233 vulnerabilities in Oracle's products compared with 59 in Microsoft's SQL Server technology, according to NGSS. The study looked at vulnerabilities that were reported and fixed in SQL Server 7, 2000 and 2005 and Oracle's database Versions 8, 9 and 10g.
Let's see that again.
The study looked at vulnerabilities that were reported and fixed...
So, if it wasn't fixed, was it counted?
The results show that Microsoft's software development life-cycle processes appear to be working, he said.
Huh? Security is not about "software development life-cycle".
That's why you have almost daily updates of anti-virus software for Microsoft products.
In an e-mailed comment, an Oracle spokeswoman said the number of reported vulnerabilities in a product alone is not a measure of the overall security of that software.
Big time. One remote root vulnerability is worth 10,000 local app crash vulnerabilities.
"Measuring security is a very complex process, and customers must take a number of factors into consideration -- including use-case scenarios, default configurations as well as vulnerability remediation and disclosure policies and practices."
Yep. Because Ubuntu has, by default, no open ports. So it is, by default, 100% resistant to worms.
Remember, you can never count on a user applying a patch. Your system has to be as secure as possible in the default, unpatched, configuration.
Basing a product's security just on the number of vulnerabilities discovered and fixed may not be the best approach, said Pete Lindstrom, an analyst at Midvale, Utah-based Burton Group.
Not only is it not "the best approach", it is a fucking idiotic approach only used by morons who have no understanding of what "security" is.
It's not the number of bugs. It's what access can be gained by that bug and how easily it is to invoke that bug in the various "standard" configurations.
Microsoft cannot defeat FOSS through their traditional means.
Microsoft has to, somehow, put a cage around it. It can be a big cage. It can be a HUGE cage. But Microsoft needs to put a cage around it.
Microsoft is trying that with this "patent agreement". It (with Novell's support) splits FOSS into two groups: "Microsoft supported" and "lawyers may sue you".
That gives Microsoft another chance to move the people from the "lawyers may sue you" group into the "Microsoft supported" group. And once they're there, they're in the cage and Microsoft can alter the rules how ever they want, whenever they want.
Which is why I have a problem with Novell's "patent agreement" with Microsoft. Particularly with how Novell is marketing it in Europe where they are pushing the "patent protection" as an important "feature" of SuSE.
As for trying to poach developers, you don't think the like of Novell and RedHat aren't doing that all the time?
To me, it does not matter what someone else did/does. It doesn't make it right if it was wrong to begin with.
But I don't see any problem in letting people who MAY be unhappy with the current situation know what your views on the subject are and that they may find employment with you if they believe that your views more closely match their's.
Hell, we've had this discussion before. What if Microsoft managed a hostile take-over of Red Hat? Would you expect the coders to just accept that or would you expect them to take their knowledge and skills and move to a different distribution?
And would anyone be upset then that Mark was offering employment to them? I would not.
When the company you work with signs deals that you are opposed to (for whatever reason), then there is nothing wrong with someone else offering you a job.
A little bit of a problem there: the microsecond the boss lifts his hand to actually perform any technical task, the rest of the management team classifies him with the toilet-cleaner and never listens to him seriously again.
The manager should be sufficiently aware of the organization's culture to know that ahead of time.
It isn't necessary for him to do any of the actual coding. But he needs to be able to explain to the other managers why, with the current people / money / time / equipment / deadlines / other projects, the IT team will not be able to hit the deadline of the new project.
Then it gets into negotiating with the other managers for more people / money / equipment... or pushing out other deadlines... or dropping requirements (for the new project or existing projects)... or re-prioritizing the projects...
The manager's job is to understand the business and the technology sufficiently well that he is able to communicate the business's IT requirements to the coders and provide them with the resources necessary to achieve those requirements in the time allocated.
It's a simple definition, but it's been useful for me. It also allows you to see where the "bad" managers have problems.
#1. They don't understand the business and the team gets stress for delivering tech that isn't appropriate.
#2. They don't understand the tech and over-promise what can be delivered.
#3. They don't understand the business or the tech.
#4. They don't communicate the requirements to the coders.
#5. They don't provide the resources the coders need.
etc.
It's difficult to fail if your manager is competent at each of those steps. But not impossible. There can still be personal issues that cause conflicts/problems.
But the chance of failure goes up dramatically with each step that the manager fails.
Some say that good managers should not be technical at all.
Who says that? Some people say that if you shove your fingers up your nose and blow, you'll increase your IQ. Some people say...
Can we just stop with the "some people say..." crap?
If you're a tech manager and you lack the technical knowledge, how will you be able to determine which approach is viable or even realistic?
And don't tell me that you'd rely upon your staff. How do you know if your staff is any more technically proficient than you are? What happens when two people on your staff have contradicting approaches to a situation? Do you just flip a coin? Or do you go with the one that's been kissing your ass the best in the past week?
If you're a manager, it means that you have the responsibility to understand BOTH aspects. The technology and the business. That's why you're paid more. That's why you were hired.
If you can't handle both, then turn the job over to someone who can and find yourself a job more appropriate to your skill set.
Do we really need another article on this when Dilbert cartoons have been around for so long?
And if I may expand a little bit upon your example... it's even BETTER than it seems on the surface.
That's because a LOT of the patched software can be "backported" to your existing systems. So there's no reason to spend money maintaining your own "fork" of the entire system that you started with.
Example: If 'ls' is patched, some testing should show whether the patched version is compatible with your current system. So you can upgrade some of the parts while still maintaining the old functionality that you depend upon.
Kernel 2.6.x is current Kernel 2.4.x is still supported Kernel 2.2.x is still supported Is that far enough back?
Meanwhile, those same coders can be working with the other Linux coders to smooth out any upgrade issues there are. It's not so much about never upgrading as it is about upgrading when you are ready to. When the features work for you. When the bugs that you find are fixed.
Not when the vendor feels the need for an increase in their profits for the quarter/year.
Yep, the boring stuff doesn't get done unless there's incentive to do.
A leader without the ability to fire someone or give them a pay raise isn't going to be able to provide much incentive.
But with FOSS, I (the end user) can email the coder and offer to pay him/her to finish a feature I'd like or do some other boring job. And that is one of the great things about FOSS. Once I pay for it, everyone benefits from it (including me).
Try doing that with closed source products. You can't even find out the names of the coders working on it, much less contract them directly.
If you choose the "wrong" health plan, you may not be covered for a critical operation. Too bad. You die.
If you choose the wrong investment you may be broke when you retire. Too bad. You eat dog food and live in a box.
If you make the wrong choice (and the more choices there are, the more likely that you'll choose one that is not the "best").
If you choose the wrong pair of jeans, you take them back and get a different pair.
If you choose the wrong pizza place, you complain and get your money back and go to a different pizza place.
But none of that is applicable to TFA which just discusses the many ways you can tell your computer that you no longer need its services for the time being. Should it "sleep" or "hibernate" or "shutdown" or "lock"? Who cares as long as it is ready to operate when I come back?
Slashdot Mirror
The same can be said of any feudal system.
Sure, the king lives in luxury while the serf toils all day in the fields and dies at a relatively young age
Here's an easy example that most people here can understand
So if a couple people have to be sued to ensure that the MPAA/RIAA has more money, that's
After all, the lawyers that are being employed to sue those people are being paid, right?
Here, I'll shorten it a bit. If the money is in the economy, it doesn't matter if 90% of it is held by 10% of the people or by 90% of the people. It will still be spent and people will still have jobs to earn it.
The difference will be what it is spent on. The rich can afford yachts and such. The rest spend it on food / shelter / clothing / education.
Which is why cutting taxes for the 98% of the people causes the money to circulate faster than cutting it for the top 2% who will "invest" it in off-shore tax dodges in order to accumulate more millions. And from most economic points of view, you want the money circulating in the economy.
Read up on the DR-DOS and Windows 3.0 beta issue.
It is trivial to test for specific cases and force "incompatibility" in all others.
And no, if you're implementing Microsoft's standards on a different platform, Microsoft still controls those standards and can keep changing them whenever they want to.
That doesn't even bring up any patents that Microsoft has on their formats.
Again, the focus should be on implementing Open/Free standards, not proprietary ones.
The problem with that is it would just take 1 "high priority" "security update" to break the compatibility. And then all those OpenOffice.org installations are "broken" for their customers. Just stick with MS Office, it's less likely to "break".
Microsoft would be happy to maintain control of the de facto "standard" in file formats. That way they can keep everyone chasing after their last update.
Instead, Novell should be looking at making it easier to migrate FROM Microsoft's standards.
There's enough source code available for enough viruses/trojans/worms that anyone who is interested could write a variation with their own payload.
And instead of creating a zombie army to spew spam, they'd just change a few random numbers in any spreadsheet that was accessible.
There, instant financial problems for most of corporate America. And the damage could take years to uncover.
With a little bit of thought, the virus/trojan/worm would spread quietly. It shouldn't be that difficult if your aim is NOT to draw attention to yourself or control the machine. Altering data would be simple and almost undetectable.
Since they cannot accomplish even that minor task, they don't have the skills to accomplish a major attack.
So, some joker on some website posts a piece about how people should release viruses to attack the stock exchange ... and our government issues an alert?
What happens when the same joker posts a call for nano-viruses to be released into our water supply to create a generation of flesh eating mutants from our own children?!?
Seriously, you deal with terrorism by NOT being afraid.
You do NOT deal with it by hyping every single fantasy that they can post.
I say that "pretexting" should be ILLEGAL. They can work through the legal system to "protect" their "property".
If your car was stolen, the cops would take a very unfavourable view of you impersonating a cop in order to retrieve it.
Well, the reason use virtualization is to get the most usage out of our existing hardware by running multiple low-usage instances of servers so badly behaving apps can all run "together" without actually impacting each other.
Virtualization does nothing if your machine is already vulnerable to an exploit. I've used virtualized workstations to dig into spam trojans and such.
What you are thinking of is more commonly referred to as a "firewall".
As for a company wanting "to run get away form Microsoft", you may have missed the part of the article that said Novell was losing the deals to Microsoft. People were running away from SuSE and toward Microsoft. Not from Microsoft.
Yep. People did not want to deploy SuSE but were happy to deploy Microsoft. So I'm not seeing your point about companies wanting to "get away" from Microsoft and move to SuSE.
So, we agree that Novell is losing deployments and Microsoft is gaining them.
Ummmmmm, yes, it has.
Check your email server logs. Look at how many different companies run Exchange.
Then see how many run GroupWise.
And next year there will be even fewer instances of GroupWise out there. That is what "declining marketshare" means. Novell is dying.
And focusing on "virtualization" so you can offer the chance for companies to run the most common OS on top of your dying platform is just
Windows on top of Windows would be easier for Microsoft to produce and support with no finger pointing.
WMWare already offers something like that.
And Linux, when administered by someone who does NOT know what he's doing is no more stable than Windows. But Windows can be as stable as Linux when you have a competent administrator. In your scenario, the company would be paying for Linux experts AND Windows experts. Why? Why not just spend the money and get competent Windows administraters?
www.vmware.com
It's even free (as in beer) now. And you don't have to tweak the guest OS. It runs clean. We use it all the time.
And what company is going to deploy Linux just so it can virtualize Windows? Why wouldn't they save the time and expertise (and finger pointing) and just deploy Windows as the host and Windows as the guest?
But it was Novell's CEO who said that he lost deals to Microsoft, again and again and again. I don't often see Microsoft complaining about losing deals to Linux.
You might want to check your email server logs. It seems that 95%+ of the businesses we deal with are running Exchange.
And Novell's marketshare has been in decline for years.
Somehow that doesn't add up to "got lucky on a few".
So, Novell's lost 4 deployments to Microsoft ..... and now Microsoft wants to help Novell get a chance at future deployments?
Is this something that makes sense in CEO-land?
Because it sure doesn't make sense from where I'm at.
As a company, they should be doing everything they can to port their profitable apps to the major platforms out there.
Right now, GroupWise is a maojor bitch to install on Debian/Ubuntu. It's easier to install it on Windows. A lot easier. You just run the executables that Novell provides.
Novell needs to learn that migrations are a step-by-step process. And once you start helping your customers make those steps to a competitor, you aren't getting them back.
Debian may be a competitor (or not) to their basic server platform. But putting GroupWise on Debian means that you have moved them closer to your company.
Putting GroupWise on Windows means you've moved them closer to Microsoft.
The same with eDirectory, ZENworks and just about every other Novell product available.
There's always some "threat" that requires that we give up some Freedoms ... just until the threat is over ... so the government can "protect" us.
Freedom is not safe.
Our forefathers felt that it was better to die Free than to live under tyranny.
I'll take their opinions over Newt's any day.
Yes, that is correct.
Microsoft is paying hundreds of millions of dollars for SuSE support licenses. Far more than Novell is paying Microsoft.
Now, when was the last time anyone tried to buy SuSE from Microsoft? Has anyone here tried to? No?
Okay, when was the last time anyone called Microsoft's tech support about a SuSE issue? Has anyone here tried that? No?
Well, it seems that Microsoft paid a LOT of money for licenses that it will probably never use and didn't seem to need in the past. You might want to look up the history of the SCO lawsuit and see how Microsoft also paid for SCO licenses that Microsoft will probably never use and didn't seem to need prior to that.
So, it looks like Microsoft paid for Novell's signature on that "patent agreement". Novell couldn't say "no" to that big of an instant payoff.
Now, go back and read about Microsoft's other "partners" and how Microsoft treated them. There isn't any reason to believe that Microsoft is suddenly going to play nice and fair with Linux (or Novell). Microsoft's who business model is based upon their monopolistic control of the desktop.
How does a coder know what the specs are?
... that does NOT involve a potential software patent issue with Microsoft?
... that's the easiest way for Microsoft to get their software patents into Linux.
#1. They hack them out the way Team Samba does (yay Team Samba!!!)
#2. They read the specs that are published
#3. They "clean room" the specs.
#4. They read the specs that they've just purchased the rights to.
Anyone have any other ways?
Now, which way are the Novell coders going to use to get specs
If you're thinking "Novell just partnered with Microsoft and Microsoft can share their specs with Novell now"
And anyone who thinks that Microsoft wants to play nice with Linux has NOT been reading the history here.
Microsoft asked Novell to "put together a patent agreement" so Novell could market that protection to their customers
Does Novell often pay millions of dollars for "protection" for its customers when it does not believe that the threat has any substance?
Microsoft is the one making the threats.
Novell is paying Microsoft to NOT follow through on threats that Microsoft has yet to substantiate.
Not to mention the patent battle that could erupt should Microsoft ever file a patent claim against anyone using Linux.
WTF?
He had ordered a new PC via mail order. When it was delivered, the cards were loose. So loose that his dog picked up the motherboard in its mouth and walked around the house.
Anyone who has actually assembled a computer will see the flaws in his stories. Or anyone who has owned a dog.
Let's see that again.
The study looked at vulnerabilities that were reported and fixed...
So, if it wasn't fixed, was it counted?
Huh? Security is not about "software development life-cycle".
That's why you have almost daily updates of anti-virus software for Microsoft products.
Big time. One remote root vulnerability is worth 10,000 local app crash vulnerabilities.
Yep. Because Ubuntu has, by default, no open ports. So it is, by default, 100% resistant to worms.
Remember, you can never count on a user applying a patch. Your system has to be as secure as possible in the default, unpatched, configuration.
Not only is it not "the best approach", it is a fucking idiotic approach only used by morons who have no understanding of what "security" is.
It's not the number of bugs. It's what access can be gained by that bug and how easily it is to invoke that bug in the various "standard" configurations.
Microsoft cannot defeat FOSS through their traditional means.
Microsoft has to, somehow, put a cage around it. It can be a big cage. It can be a HUGE cage. But Microsoft needs to put a cage around it.
Microsoft is trying that with this "patent agreement". It (with Novell's support) splits FOSS into two groups: "Microsoft supported" and "lawyers may sue you".
That gives Microsoft another chance to move the people from the "lawyers may sue you" group into the "Microsoft supported" group. And once they're there, they're in the cage and Microsoft can alter the rules how ever they want, whenever they want.
Which is why I have a problem with Novell's "patent agreement" with Microsoft. Particularly with how Novell is marketing it in Europe where they are pushing the "patent protection" as an important "feature" of SuSE.
To me, it does not matter what someone else did/does. It doesn't make it right if it was wrong to begin with.
But I don't see any problem in letting people who MAY be unhappy with the current situation know what your views on the subject are and that they may find employment with you if they believe that your views more closely match their's.
Hell, we've had this discussion before. What if Microsoft managed a hostile take-over of Red Hat? Would you expect the coders to just accept that or would you expect them to take their knowledge and skills and move to a different distribution?
And would anyone be upset then that Mark was offering employment to them? I would not.
When the company you work with signs deals that you are opposed to (for whatever reason), then there is nothing wrong with someone else offering you a job.
The manager should be sufficiently aware of the organization's culture to know that ahead of time.
It isn't necessary for him to do any of the actual coding. But he needs to be able to explain to the other managers why, with the current people / money / time / equipment / deadlines / other projects, the IT team will not be able to hit the deadline of the new project.
Then it gets into negotiating with the other managers for more people / money / equipment
The manager's job is to understand the business and the technology sufficiently well that he is able to communicate the business's IT requirements to the coders and provide them with the resources necessary to achieve those requirements in the time allocated.
It's a simple definition, but it's been useful for me. It also allows you to see where the "bad" managers have problems.
#1. They don't understand the business and the team gets stress for delivering tech that isn't appropriate.
#2. They don't understand the tech and over-promise what can be delivered.
#3. They don't understand the business or the tech.
#4. They don't communicate the requirements to the coders.
#5. They don't provide the resources the coders need.
etc.
It's difficult to fail if your manager is competent at each of those steps. But not impossible. There can still be personal issues that cause conflicts/problems.
But the chance of failure goes up dramatically with each step that the manager fails.
Who says that? Some people say that if you shove your fingers up your nose and blow, you'll increase your IQ. Some people say
Can we just stop with the "some people say
If you're a tech manager and you lack the technical knowledge, how will you be able to determine which approach is viable or even realistic?
And don't tell me that you'd rely upon your staff. How do you know if your staff is any more technically proficient than you are? What happens when two people on your staff have contradicting approaches to a situation? Do you just flip a coin? Or do you go with the one that's been kissing your ass the best in the past week?
If you're a manager, it means that you have the responsibility to understand BOTH aspects. The technology and the business. That's why you're paid more. That's why you were hired.
If you can't handle both, then turn the job over to someone who can and find yourself a job more appropriate to your skill set.
Do we really need another article on this when Dilbert cartoons have been around for so long?
And I am in complete agreement.
... it's even BETTER than it seems on the surface.
And if I may expand a little bit upon your example
That's because a LOT of the patched software can be "backported" to your existing systems. So there's no reason to spend money maintaining your own "fork" of the entire system that you started with.
Example: If 'ls' is patched, some testing should show whether the patched version is compatible with your current system. So you can upgrade some of the parts while still maintaining the old functionality that you depend upon.
Kernel 2.6.x is current
Kernel 2.4.x is still supported
Kernel 2.2.x is still supported
Is that far enough back?
Meanwhile, those same coders can be working with the other Linux coders to smooth out any upgrade issues there are. It's not so much about never upgrading as it is about upgrading when you are ready to. When the features work for you. When the bugs that you find are fixed.
Not when the vendor feels the need for an increase in their profits for the quarter/year.
FOSS puts you in charge of your systems.
Yep, the boring stuff doesn't get done unless there's incentive to do.
A leader without the ability to fire someone or give them a pay raise isn't going to be able to provide much incentive.
But with FOSS, I (the end user) can email the coder and offer to pay him/her to finish a feature I'd like or do some other boring job. And that is one of the great things about FOSS. Once I pay for it, everyone benefits from it (including me).
Try doing that with closed source products. You can't even find out the names of the coders working on it, much less contract them directly.
In 1994 Microsoft signed a "consent decree" because of their "per processor" agreements with the OEM's.
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So it would seem that Microsoft already owned the desktop market prior to 1995.
http://www.wired.com/news/antitrust/0,1551,35212,
If you choose the "wrong" health plan, you may not be covered for a critical operation. Too bad. You die.
If you choose the wrong investment you may be broke when you retire. Too bad. You eat dog food and live in a box.
If you make the wrong choice (and the more choices there are, the more likely that you'll choose one that is not the "best").
If you choose the wrong pair of jeans, you take them back and get a different pair.
If you choose the wrong pizza place, you complain and get your money back and go to a different pizza place.
But none of that is applicable to TFA which just discusses the many ways you can tell your computer that you no longer need its services for the time being. Should it "sleep" or "hibernate" or "shutdown" or "lock"? Who cares as long as it is ready to operate when I come back?