It would be nice if they would make the software license clear. Even if just to say that "this is government sponsored and so available for copying with no restrictions". Also at the bottom of the page they say '"Windows" is a registered trademark of the Microsoft Corporation.' but forget to mention that Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
Sorry if I wasn't clear, but the 'insidious secret plot' was to handwave around GPLv2 and derived works (see anything GNU has ever said about "linking").
Sort of fair enough. Though I think it was more down to insularity (these things are more clear in US law and they have turned out to be right during any actual court cases) and the understanding that since the GPL was a US agreement it would be interpreted in the context of US definitions. Remember lots of what was argued about on Usenet wasn't always stuff that mattered in real life (at least judging from alt.flame:-) )
If OSI's lawyers just discovered this issue, which people argued about on Usenet back in the 80s, they're not doing a very good job.
More likely they now have a better answer than they had before, so it's a good time for them to bring up an issue they were less comfortable with previously.
Yes. They do. Apart from the fact that they come with degrees in telecommunications or CS and years of experience in actual system testing. T-mobile certainly used to have such people. So should you. The only possible way this could happen is that someone ignored specific advice from below or deliberately blocked that advice getting through.
Except the derived works "loophole" in TFA wasn't just discovered, people have been arguing about this for decades.
In fact people have even been suing about these issues, so there's already case law. However the very fact that people argue about something is bad. If something can be made clearer then that's better.
This seems to be about changing the messaging point in the FOSS community - the new "party line" is apparently to stop handwaving around GPL2 issues and instead accept them and push people to GPL3.
Correct. That's why it's called the GPLv3 rather than having a completely new name. Just as you aren't recommended to install Linux 1.2 any more but rather 2.6.x. If you want you can still use the old version if you want to for some special reason. What's wrong with that? You make it sound like some insidious secret plot rather than a clearly documented upgrade strategy.
It's kind of like having a reference customer. It's all very well showing that they are incompetent in theory. It's good to be able to set up the production servers and run load tests. Here we have a real life demo that MS can really damage loads of customer's data. There are always cynics who say "yes, but they won't be able to do it in production". Now nobody will be able to claim that MS can't do an up to date full scale cloud screw up.
Sorry and I should have said; not testing breaks the fundamental principle of KISS. If you have to think about whether your backup is correct, then your system is too complex. You should know it's correct because you know it works.
There are astounding stories of whole databases where it turned out that database had never been written from memory to disk. There are many people who make the mistake of believing that their MySQL files on disk are consistent (you are supposed to dump the database). Even applications like office can have corrupt files on disk if a document is open. I know of situations where it turned out that the heads in the backup system were misaligned and so the tape only read back on the system they were backing up on (and where they tested the backup tape). I'm not really interested in how fast you do the restore. I'm interested in the fact that you have tested that it really _does_ restore on a blank default unrelated server. Even just that you do it once a month for one random system out of five hundred will put you so far ahead of the rest of the people out there that you will be happy.
but I just don't think they could have prevented it.
You are responsible for who you choose as a supplier. Perhaps T-mobile had never heard of Microsoft's reputation, but they should have audited it. They are 100% responsible. Specifically the person who did the service acquisition should be fired. They obviously never verified that the backup strategy was tested and they never agreed a plan for disaster handling. You can tell that from the bad information in the press releases. SuiteSisterMary's post was probably wrong about who should be "shot" but right about the releases.
From stories circulating it looks as if they are doing this by recovering the structure of the database, not restore from backup. Note that they say that most customers should have all data restored. Not just "data up to last week" or something similar. Of course this could all just be misplaced speculation and misunderstandings.
Worth repeating every time. Nobody cares if you back up your data. Take a blank server; take whatever it is that you store offsite. If you can turn the blank server into your production system then you are fine. If you can't then your strategy is failing. If you never try it then you are an amateur.
This incompetence is something far beyond serious for MS. T-mobile is a much bigger customer than almost anyone short of vodafone can ever hope to be. MS have been moving strategically into hosting servers such as exchange for many customers. If you're a CEO you should be calling your CIO in and asking him when he plans to be free of MS services. If you are a CIO you want to be able to answer "there's nothing business critical relying on MS services" by the time that meeting comes.
This is not quite like mathematics. A legal document may hold for a long time until someone finds a loophole. At the stage that they do find a loophole then very quickly more and more people will start taking advantage of it. Think of tax breaks, where you save tax by having a company or something. To begin with there is no problem until someone realises that you can cheat by registering a company even if you aren't really working like a company. Soon everybody is doing this and the law is no longer working the way it was intended. This is more like crypto. When you start hearing of weaknesses (as with MD5) and someone has already developed a stronger algorithm (here I won't guess which is the right one; RIPEMD? SHA256?) then that is the time to start changing and developing better alternatives (SHA-3).
In the case of the GPL-v2 the weaknesses are already showing; hosted/cloud/web applications provide mechanisms for providing people software access without triggering the protections of the GPL-v3. The weak patent protections included are being worked around by Microsoft. "attacks always get better, they never get worse". The time has come to walk, not run away from the GPL-v2. Each of those problems is already addressed in the GPL-v3.
Now I'm not sure that "number of inventions" is a measure of the worth of a country or even number per person per year. Probably having the most ancient still living art tradition is a greater contribution to humanity. However, it's pretty clear that other countries make their state inventions available for all (especially the USA). Australia should not feel it is being hard done by with everybody stealing it's IP when in fact it benefits from sharing much more than it loses.
After privatisation the UK has achieved a particularly bad system. It seems to be due to the structure of the privatisation which separated the track from the trains so investment by companies can't be coordinated and isn't wanted. This is nothing to do with private vs. state ownership as such. You can get both great private and state trains in Switzerland. It's just a particular stupidity of the way Margaret Thatcher did privatisation.
Apart from the lower vulnerability of trains already mentioned by other posters, the key thing about planes is that they can be used as guided missiles which makes them dangerous to targets other than themselves. A hijacked train is limited by it's tracks and in most cases has a simple counter measure (switch off the power supply) to stop it once you find out it is misbehaving.
That is actually very cute. It's worth looking at the patent where any layman can actually get the gist of what the invention is and does by just looking at the pictures let alone reading the text. The contrast with most software patents where you don't have a clue what the invention is even after reading in detail and even if you are an expert in a nearby area couldn't be stronger.
So as an Australian taxpayer I have to subsidise foreign wifi users?
Wake up.
Right; It's totally unfair. After so many things were invented by Australians which everyone else benefits from. The motor car; the transistor; the windmill; money; even the wheel. It's time the Australian tax payer got their fair pay back for being the main driver of invention in the world.
- but those high rollers can also win and the house has to cover it.
AAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHGH. You're trolling me. Right? I'm throwing goats over the bridge; aren't I. Please; I'll give you a whole cow if you just admit it. Please.. please? Oh.
The high rollers do not win. The house <blink>always</blink> wins. Every time you hear about someone winning big, that is because the casino bosses want you to hear about it so you think there is a "chance" to win. In the technical, mathematical sense, of course there is. Otherwise it a) wouldn't be legal and b) they wouldn't get their publicity. But in real life; forget it.
the scary thing is that slashdot is meant to be for "nerds"; you should be the statistcally literate people in the population. You should be able to understand this. If you can't; then we're doomed.
Do you honestly believe that more than 50% of all germans felt it was right and proper to cart off a couple of million Jews to to concentration camps?
Might I suggest that you learn a little bit of history. Start with "Ordinary Men" by Christopher R Browning and then maybe "The SS, Alibi of a nation 1922-1945". After that read up how Hitler managed to come to power and exactly what he told people before he did. Then, ignorant little fuck that you are, maybe you'll deserve the "darwin award" you asked for. As it you're lucky to escape with a proper Godwinning (note clause II.5) and a realisation that you're really lucky to escape with just unanswerable insults. You little toe cheese.
Perhaps you know what I'm doing better than I do, as you assert. Personally, I think you are simply wrong on this point.
No; I don't know what you are doing. You may well be doing what you state you are doing in which case you are not contributing to the income of the guy who posted the original article. I also; lets be clear about this; have enjoyed games of poker for money. However that money has always been small and stayed between friends. Bridge wouldn't be the same without it. What's stupid is letting the house get a bigger cut than would be justified by an evening out at a similarly nice restaurant where you could also (in all civilised countries) play poker.
Quoting the first random report on the subject I found on google (for Australia as it happens) "The Productivity Commission concluded that problem gamblers accounted for around one third of all total expenditure on gambling.". The thing is that these are a small number of gamblers (the existence of a problem is clear if you read the report, but the exact definition of a "problem gambler" is difficult) but they generate a huge proportion of the income. More importantly, they generate a small propoportion of the costs of the gambling industry (it costs the same to keep them in the casino as you, but they give a much bigger pay back).
I have nothing against you gambling. I have lots against the people who base their income on profit from gambling. Because you likely generate little profit, these two things have no relation.
It's amazing how; if we just cut out a few bits from your post
No, most people who gamble know the odd are in the house favor. [..]
because there is a chance you can win it back or come out ahead.
we suddenly realise that there's a very virulent gambling addict stream of thought on Slashdot. I really hadn't realised. I find this quite deeply funny.
The only thing wrong with your post is that the title is completely opposite to the content. Exactly these people are stupid, the level of their stupidity is equivalent to their belief in the uncertainty. The outcome is known, long in advance. The house always wins.
For example, you can gamble at a slot machine for many hours on only $20-$50.
I'm fine with your examples. A good way to get good cheap food is to dress up in a proper tux and go to pretend to gamble. There are lots more examples; but mostly those aren't the people who are making money for the gabling industry. That's basically two groups. The first is "high rollers" who are losing money at a rediculous speed but are sometimes able to afford it. The second is the "idiots" as you called them. The slow gambling people are tolerated, even encouraged, mostly because they give a good atmosphere for getting the money out of the other two groups.
Seriously, as a hiring manager I care if you can do the job I am hiring you for.
Generally the amount of damage a new hire can do is much more than the amount of good. In most companies an intelligent employee can find ways to steal millions from the company or at least cause that much damage. You probably do this automatically, but if you think someone is lying or cheating in their interview process that should definitely rule them out, even if they are technically able to "do the job"
Depends on the "porn", but lots of people see porn as a legitimate thing between consenting adults who know what they are doing. Gambling, pretty much by definition, has to work with people who don't know what they are doing. That makes it, if not always worse, at least more clearly bad.
Slashdot Mirror
It would be nice if they would make the software license clear. Even if just to say that "this is government sponsored and so available for copying with no restrictions". Also at the bottom of the page they say '"Windows" is a registered trademark of the Microsoft Corporation.' but forget to mention that Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
Sorry if I wasn't clear, but the 'insidious secret plot' was to handwave around GPLv2 and derived works (see anything GNU has ever said about "linking").
Sort of fair enough. Though I think it was more down to insularity (these things are more clear in US law and they have turned out to be right during any actual court cases) and the understanding that since the GPL was a US agreement it would be interpreted in the context of US definitions. Remember lots of what was argued about on Usenet wasn't always stuff that mattered in real life (at least judging from alt.flame :-) )
If OSI's lawyers just discovered this issue, which people argued about on Usenet back in the 80s, they're not doing a very good job.
More likely they now have a better answer than they had before, so it's a good time for them to bring up an issue they were less comfortable with previously.
Yes. They do. Apart from the fact that they come with degrees in telecommunications or CS and years of experience in actual system testing. T-mobile certainly used to have such people. So should you. The only possible way this could happen is that someone ignored specific advice from below or deliberately blocked that advice getting through.
Except the derived works "loophole" in TFA wasn't just discovered, people have been arguing about this for decades.
In fact people have even been suing about these issues, so there's already case law. However the very fact that people argue about something is bad. If something can be made clearer then that's better.
This seems to be about changing the messaging point in the FOSS community - the new "party line" is apparently to stop handwaving around GPL2 issues and instead accept them and push people to GPL3.
Correct. That's why it's called the GPLv3 rather than having a completely new name. Just as you aren't recommended to install Linux 1.2 any more but rather 2.6.x. If you want you can still use the old version if you want to for some special reason. What's wrong with that? You make it sound like some insidious secret plot rather than a clearly documented upgrade strategy.
It's kind of like having a reference customer. It's all very well showing that they are incompetent in theory. It's good to be able to set up the production servers and run load tests. Here we have a real life demo that MS can really damage loads of customer's data. There are always cynics who say "yes, but they won't be able to do it in production". Now nobody will be able to claim that MS can't do an up to date full scale cloud screw up.
Sorry and I should have said; not testing breaks the fundamental principle of KISS. If you have to think about whether your backup is correct, then your system is too complex. You should know it's correct because you know it works.
There are astounding stories of whole databases where it turned out that database had never been written from memory to disk. There are many people who make the mistake of believing that their MySQL files on disk are consistent (you are supposed to dump the database). Even applications like office can have corrupt files on disk if a document is open. I know of situations where it turned out that the heads in the backup system were misaligned and so the tape only read back on the system they were backing up on (and where they tested the backup tape). I'm not really interested in how fast you do the restore. I'm interested in the fact that you have tested that it really _does_ restore on a blank default unrelated server. Even just that you do it once a month for one random system out of five hundred will put you so far ahead of the rest of the people out there that you will be happy.
but I just don't think they could have prevented it.
You are responsible for who you choose as a supplier. Perhaps T-mobile had never heard of Microsoft's reputation, but they should have audited it. They are 100% responsible. Specifically the person who did the service acquisition should be fired. They obviously never verified that the backup strategy was tested and they never agreed a plan for disaster handling. You can tell that from the bad information in the press releases. SuiteSisterMary's post was probably wrong about who should be "shot" but right about the releases.
From stories circulating it looks as if they are doing this by recovering the structure of the database, not restore from backup. Note that they say that most customers should have all data restored. Not just "data up to last week" or something similar. Of course this could all just be misplaced speculation and misunderstandings.
Worth repeating every time. Nobody cares if you back up your data. Take a blank server; take whatever it is that you store offsite. If you can turn the blank server into your production system then you are fine. If you can't then your strategy is failing. If you never try it then you are an amateur.
This incompetence is something far beyond serious for MS. T-mobile is a much bigger customer than almost anyone short of vodafone can ever hope to be. MS have been moving strategically into hosting servers such as exchange for many customers. If you're a CEO you should be calling your CIO in and asking him when he plans to be free of MS services. If you are a CIO you want to be able to answer "there's nothing business critical relying on MS services" by the time that meeting comes.
This is not quite like mathematics. A legal document may hold for a long time until someone finds a loophole. At the stage that they do find a loophole then very quickly more and more people will start taking advantage of it. Think of tax breaks, where you save tax by having a company or something. To begin with there is no problem until someone realises that you can cheat by registering a company even if you aren't really working like a company. Soon everybody is doing this and the law is no longer working the way it was intended. This is more like crypto. When you start hearing of weaknesses (as with MD5) and someone has already developed a stronger algorithm (here I won't guess which is the right one; RIPEMD? SHA256?) then that is the time to start changing and developing better alternatives (SHA-3). In the case of the GPL-v2 the weaknesses are already showing; hosted/cloud/web applications provide mechanisms for providing people software access without triggering the protections of the GPL-v3. The weak patent protections included are being worked around by Microsoft. "attacks always get better, they never get worse". The time has come to walk, not run away from the GPL-v2. Each of those problems is already addressed in the GPL-v3.
You should try to compare with the Chinese (note they even keep their "discoveries" on a separate page) USA (likewise) or, to pick another random country in the list, Indian inventions lists. Hell, even the tiny country of Scotland (5M people) has more inventions that Oz (22M people).
Now I'm not sure that "number of inventions" is a measure of the worth of a country or even number per person per year. Probably having the most ancient still living art tradition is a greater contribution to humanity. However, it's pretty clear that other countries make their state inventions available for all (especially the USA). Australia should not feel it is being hard done by with everybody stealing it's IP when in fact it benefits from sharing much more than it loses.
After privatisation the UK has achieved a particularly bad system. It seems to be due to the structure of the privatisation which separated the track from the trains so investment by companies can't be coordinated and isn't wanted. This is nothing to do with private vs. state ownership as such. You can get both great private and state trains in Switzerland. It's just a particular stupidity of the way Margaret Thatcher did privatisation.
Apart from the lower vulnerability of trains already mentioned by other posters, the key thing about planes is that they can be used as guided missiles which makes them dangerous to targets other than themselves. A hijacked train is limited by it's tracks and in most cases has a simple counter measure (switch off the power supply) to stop it once you find out it is misbehaving.
That is actually very cute. It's worth looking at the patent where any layman can actually get the gist of what the invention is and does by just looking at the pictures let alone reading the text. The contrast with most software patents where you don't have a clue what the invention is even after reading in detail and even if you are an expert in a nearby area couldn't be stronger.
So as an Australian taxpayer I have to subsidise foreign wifi users? Wake up.
Right; It's totally unfair. After so many things were invented by Australians which everyone else benefits from. The motor car; the transistor; the windmill; money; even the wheel. It's time the Australian tax payer got their fair pay back for being the main driver of invention in the world.
- but those high rollers can also win and the house has to cover it.
AAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHGH. You're trolling me. Right? I'm throwing goats over the bridge; aren't I. Please; I'll give you a whole cow if you just admit it. Please .. please? Oh.
The high rollers do not win. The house <blink>always</blink> wins. Every time you hear about someone winning big, that is because the casino bosses want you to hear about it so you think there is a "chance" to win. In the technical, mathematical sense, of course there is. Otherwise it a) wouldn't be legal and b) they wouldn't get their publicity. But in real life; forget it.
the scary thing is that slashdot is meant to be for "nerds"; you should be the statistcally literate people in the population. You should be able to understand this. If you can't; then we're doomed.
Do you honestly believe that more than 50% of all germans felt it was right and proper to cart off a couple of million Jews to to concentration camps?
Might I suggest that you learn a little bit of history. Start with "Ordinary Men" by Christopher R Browning and then maybe "The SS, Alibi of a nation 1922-1945". After that read up how Hitler managed to come to power and exactly what he told people before he did. Then, ignorant little fuck that you are, maybe you'll deserve the "darwin award" you asked for. As it you're lucky to escape with a proper Godwinning (note clause II.5) and a realisation that you're really lucky to escape with just unanswerable insults. You little toe cheese.
Perhaps you know what I'm doing better than I do, as you assert. Personally, I think you are simply wrong on this point.
No; I don't know what you are doing. You may well be doing what you state you are doing in which case you are not contributing to the income of the guy who posted the original article. I also; lets be clear about this; have enjoyed games of poker for money. However that money has always been small and stayed between friends. Bridge wouldn't be the same without it. What's stupid is letting the house get a bigger cut than would be justified by an evening out at a similarly nice restaurant where you could also (in all civilised countries) play poker.
Quoting the first random report on the subject I found on google (for Australia as it happens) "The Productivity Commission concluded that problem gamblers accounted for around one third of all total expenditure on gambling.". The thing is that these are a small number of gamblers (the existence of a problem is clear if you read the report, but the exact definition of a "problem gambler" is difficult) but they generate a huge proportion of the income. More importantly, they generate a small propoportion of the costs of the gambling industry (it costs the same to keep them in the casino as you, but they give a much bigger pay back).
I have nothing against you gambling. I have lots against the people who base their income on profit from gambling. Because you likely generate little profit, these two things have no relation.
It's amazing how; if we just cut out a few bits from your post
No, most people who gamble know the odd are in the house favor. [..] because there is a chance you can win it back or come out ahead.
we suddenly realise that there's a very virulent gambling addict stream of thought on Slashdot. I really hadn't realised. I find this quite deeply funny.
The only thing wrong with your post is that the title is completely opposite to the content. Exactly these people are stupid, the level of their stupidity is equivalent to their belief in the uncertainty. The outcome is known, long in advance. The house always wins.
For example, you can gamble at a slot machine for many hours on only $20-$50.
I'm fine with your examples. A good way to get good cheap food is to dress up in a proper tux and go to pretend to gamble. There are lots more examples; but mostly those aren't the people who are making money for the gabling industry. That's basically two groups. The first is "high rollers" who are losing money at a rediculous speed but are sometimes able to afford it. The second is the "idiots" as you called them. The slow gambling people are tolerated, even encouraged, mostly because they give a good atmosphere for getting the money out of the other two groups.
So how's this different than working for, say Microsoft?
At least if you work for the gambling industry, your customers have an infinitesimal chance.
Seriously, as a hiring manager I care if you can do the job I am hiring you for.
Generally the amount of damage a new hire can do is much more than the amount of good. In most companies an intelligent employee can find ways to steal millions from the company or at least cause that much damage. You probably do this automatically, but if you think someone is lying or cheating in their interview process that should definitely rule them out, even if they are technically able to "do the job"
Depends on the "porn", but lots of people see porn as a legitimate thing between consenting adults who know what they are doing. Gambling, pretty much by definition, has to work with people who don't know what they are doing. That makes it, if not always worse, at least more clearly bad.