This sound like the corporate hiring mindset, where the objective is to look for a person with specific "training" and "experience" which perfectly matches the anticipated job description.
Absent is importance placed on "capable of learning", "able to take on new responsibilities", or even just general intelligence.
It's amazingly short sighted. Technology changes, and within almost any company, there's regular change. Hiring overall good people who can adapt and learn new systems ought to be the mindset, but usually it isn't.
A few years ago, I got a similar attitude from a clerk at Fry's, who could only imagine I was going to use those 300 CDRs to copy music.
I wasn't in a good mood. I was going to be up all night, copying my company's (them employer's) new cdrom-based catalogue onto every single one of those discs, all because some lame CD duplication company dropped the ball and didn't deliver in time for the salemen to go to some trade show.
Just as the Fry's clerk, you never thought of that, did you?
Admittedly, I only got about 100 copied before getting tried and going to sleep (the disc was only about 50 megs, but the closing took time on my then-slow burner). But it was enough. This was back in the late 90s, when mp3s were becoming popular, but a lot of companies still didn't have internet access for most employees.
Even today, when most people have reasonable internet access, cdroms are still very popular for distributing software and documentation that's included with a product. For high volume, obviously you're going to use pressed CDs. But for niche products (if you ever buy any such things), take a look at the CD. It's usually a CDR. For small companies with niche products, CDR is a great alternative when relatively few discs need to be made, or the material needs to be updated frequently.
FWIW, a good number of people also use CDR/CDRW for backups and for delivering large files.
I used to backup onto CDR. Nowadays I use removable hard drives, but CDRW is really good for consumers who usually have under 600 megs of irreplacable data and are on a budget that doesn't allow specific backup hardware.
Most people have crappy email service that can't reliably deliver a file over a few megabytes (and sometimes much less). When someone creates some silly powerpoint presentation that includes a couple hi-res images they "dragged" off their multimegapixel camera, how are they going to get it from their desktop machine over to a laptop or some machine connected to a presentation screen? Yeah, reducing the picture resolution ain't gonna happen, especially when the "problem" is discovered at the last minute! Burning a CDR is the obvious way. It's really the only consistently reliably way for the overwhelming majority of computer users to deliver a large file from one machine to another.
There are probably several other common, legitimate uses. But there are three I've personally encountered.
There was a very sexually explicit game, which my girlfriend's sister bought and played for a while. I believe it was called something like "singles". At the time she had a geforce3 card, and she bought a newer one (maybe radeon 9600?), and I helped her install it. Saw the game for about 5-10 minutes. Yep, pretty much like The Sims, but sexually charged (and not at much storyline and add-ons as the sims).
Hmm... lets see if I can find you a link. Ah, here you go. Looks like they made a 2nd one. Here's a link to the original version.+
As I recall, it was only sold on-line, since virtually no retailers would carry any game with the AO rating.
As for the game itself, she said it was fun for about a week, then not really very interesting since you'd already "done" everything.
2GB files don't seem so rare today, but remember that until now, openserver was based on SVR3.2.... which was somewhere
between 1986 and 1988 (the openserver name was apparantly applied in 1992).
Back in the SVR3.2 days, 2GB must have seemed like an unimaginably large file. Afterall, hard disk drives topped out at about 80 megs back in those days.
Now, admittedly, openserver 5.0.7 was released somewhere in 2002... providing much needed drivers for modern hardware, and of course bundling lots of open-source software.
Now they've finally gone and provided large file capability, loadable kernel modules, and other "new" stuff.
Hey, at least they're not Microsoft, who'd call them "innovations".
Ok, they're making progress. But did anyone notice what's "innovative"?
but innovative stuff like the anti-phishing work and low-rights IE.
Using any other browser would be running all that browser code without admin privs. Yeah, they're making a "broker" that handles all the system interface. Pretty much the architecture most unix-based server programs have been using for years. Except at the client/browser level it's unnecessary... unless you're building on previous poor design decisions.
It's plainly obvious they're playing catch-up on many fronts. That alone isn't a reason to bash them, as least as far as I'm concerned. But calling "innovative" the features that have been implemented for over a year or more in other browsers or as third party add-ons is pretty cheap.
Or did I miss some new features, anything really, that's truely innovative in IE7, rather than just implementing features already available from competitors and third parties?
Last month's log file for PJRC.COM (another little tech-oriented site) has 21401 lines with "Opera", out of a total of 854854 lines for August. Two of those 21401 appear to be some machintosh browser that includes about every possible browser string (noticed someone mentioned this above, so I checked for it).
So by raw number of lines in the log file, opera's at 2.5%.
Doing some more quick command line tricks (eg "grep -i opera access_log_detailed.1 | awk '{print $1}' | sort -u | wc
" vs "cat access_log_detailed.1 | awk '{print $1}' | sort -u | wc" shows 1103 unique IP numbers for opera, out of 39078 total IP numbers all month.
So by unique IP numbers, opera's at 2.8%
Actually, I was expecting to see the sub-1% everyone seems to claim opera is at... but it looks like Opera really does have some market share. Well, at least among folks interested in .
I also tried MSIE, which is at 69.5% by raw number of lines, and 72.3% by unique IPs.
Either mac osx and linux are viable desktop os's or they aren't
They ARE viable desktop platforms for SOME people, but not others.
but you can't pretend they are half the time and then pretend ms has no competition the rest of the time.
Who's pretending?
SOME of us use linux as our primary desktop platforms. MANY OTHERS do not. It's as simple as that, right here, right now. All three platforms are changing with time (mostly improvements). The ratios of "market share" may change going forward, but for the forseeable future, it's quite likely SOME people will use linux, some will using macos, some will use microsoft windows, and even a few others may using other systems.
Instead, consider that perhaps YOU may ask if you're trying to pretend that for an operating system to be "desktop viable" it needs to work for ALL people.
I can and IS the case that linux is a viable desktop for some people, but not others.
In fact, it could easily be said that microsoft windows is a viable desktop platform for some people, but many others can't use it (often they can't manage to utilize any current platforms and prefer to simply avoid using computers).
Maybe I'll go into the soda business. I'll name my product "Cocu Colu", and maybe even use a fancy font where the lowercase "u" has a nice stylish curve on the top. I'll make my cans bright red with white/silver lettering. And the forumula will taste just like another leading brand.
Of course, the capitalist/free-market solution will be for the Coca Cola Company to make a financial bid for the business, and to leave the courts out of it. If they value the ownership of this startup competitor, then they would be more than willing to pay me a fair price for my little business operation.
SCO Group, The True Owners of all Unix Intellectual Property, announced today that they were pleased with Judge Kimball's ruling. CEO Darl McBride apeared upbeat, commenting "This new ruling will allow us to focus on IBM's illegal misconduct and hasten the resolution of our intellectual property claims".
Company spokesperson Blake Stonewell took a more conservative posture. "Of course we would have prefered to present recently discovered new evidence of IBM's further misappropriation of our intellectual property to the Power architecture". Stonewell further added "this ruling is actually a major victory for us. IBM has consistently resisted any depositions of upper management, who orchestrated the wholesale theft of our code and trade secrets for inclusion in the derivitive linux kernel".
Bert Young, Chief Financial Officer of the SCO Group said "we are pleased by the now definitive revised schedule", and added "because legal fees have been capped for the duration of this trail and any appeals, we believe now concentrating on this already well establish course of action will best serve SCO's shareholders. We look forward to the final resolution of this suit, and the opportunity to expand our SCOsource licensing revenue."
About SCO
The SCO Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOX) helps millions of customers to grow their businesses everyday. Headquartered in Lindon, Utah, SCO has a worldwide network of thousands of resellers and developers. SCO Global Services provides reliable localized support and services to partners and customers. For more information on SCO products and services, visit www.sco.com.
SCO, and the associated SCO logo, are trademarks or registered trademarks of The SCO Group, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group. All other brand or product names are or may be trademarks of, and are used to identify products or services of, their respective owners.
This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances. Actual results may vary materially from the expectations contained herein. The forward-looking statements contained herein include statements about the consummation of the transaction with SCO and benefits of the pending transaction with SCO. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described herein include the inability to obtain regulatory approvals and the inability to successfully integrate the SCO business. GNAA is under no obligation to (and expressly disclaims any such obligation to) update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
No, copyright is not based on the same principle. Copyright is absolutely not about protecting ideas. The law clearly states that only expressions (in tangible form) are the subject of copyright. You can not copyright ideas.
Seriously. You're just as intitled to the $200 for your 2 drives as anyone else,
Seriously, no, you're not. Only class members are entitled. You must meet several conditions to join the class.
why not just get help from someone in the US to get your cash or,
Because you won't be able to meet the requirements. That's why.
if you're more ethical than that, send the serials to someone who isn't?:)
Even if your accomplice is unethical enough to create a fraudlent invoice showing the drive was purchased directly from an authorized reseller during the required period, they'd still have to use their time machine to go back before February 15th to file a report of the drive's failure.
I'm pretty sure a person with such a time machine and flexible ethical practices could do much better than simply defrauding IBM of $200.
But if you want 50 blank CDRs plus jewel cases rather than $200, then go right ahead.
If you read the form, or the
http://www.ibmdeskstar75gxplitigation.com/faqs.asp">FAQ, you'll see that only drives that were officially reported by last February as having failed are elligable for the $100 payment. It's too late to report a dead drive (which sucks for those of us who have them but didn't bother to report them earlier). Otherwise, all you get is 25 CDRs or a 15% coupon for future IBM purchases.
Not only does the drive have to be in the database of previously reported failed drives, but you must also provide an invoice, sales receipt, credit card statement, or some other proof that you are the original purchaser of the drive from an authorized reseller. Note the "authorized reseller" part. Buying it used from a private doesn't count.
On top of those two, your purchase needs to have been made between March 15, 2000 and March 4, 2005. So even if you could meet the two conditions above, it's simply too late to buy an IBM drive, hoping to cash it in for $100.
Anyone who pays $50 just for a serial number on ebay or craigslist is going to be pretty disappointed when they actually read/fill-out the claim form and ultimately have it rejected.
Well, that is if SPF can be considered "redefining email", rather than a simple extra DNS-based check (that doesn't alter SMTP). Hardly what I'd call "redefining", but then I generally don't call myself an "idiot" either.
Yes, it would be nice if ISPs would all act in the interest of common good of everyone (rather then self-interested profit, laziness or incompetence). That certainly sounds like a "better" solution, much like communism seemed better social system than capitalism. Saddly, depending on all ISPs to cooperate is doomed to failure, for much the same reasons communism doesn't really work.
RFC-wise, it is RFC 2476 which is intended to address this problem. If you read only the abstract, you will see it clearly explains that SMTP was intended to be used for transfer, not submission, as people are doing today. You'll likely insist using RFC2467 message submission is not a hard requirement... but there is certainly an RFC which addresses the perfered way to submit email.
I would in turn challenge you to quote any current RFC which specifically suggests a SMTP client should spoof the sender envelope. Or for that matter to actually complain about the extreme difficulty or cost of complying with RFC2467 message submission.
But what really matters, in practice, is the willingness of other SMTP servers to accept your spoofed messages. Many spam filters now take into consideration blocklists of IP ranges knows to be residential IP ranges. Because you have not noticed any sign of that (yet) does not means it doesn't exist. To prove the point, here are a couple links:
You can easily find many, many more using google. It is true that some servers are blocking or filtering messages that originate from dynamic or residential IP numbers, and evidence of this is easy to find on-line, as people who can't communicate seek help.
But you can deny it all you like. You can claim spoofing is fully RFC compliant despite RFC2467's recommendation to use message submission. You can call SPF and similar systems "redefining email". You can even call anyone who disagrees an "idiot" if you like. But eventually, enough of your spoofed messages will go undelivered that you'll have to upgrade to proper message submission or some other way that is ultimately accepted by your intended receipients.
This is the changing reality of email in the face of spammers and malware. Deny it all you like.
So, how does this work for companies with large numbers of home-workers who are happily sending main aout throught their home ISP's with "spoofed" headers claiming, quite correctly, that their email comes from the company?
They should already be feeling the inadaquecy of this old style setup, since many mail servers automatically filter any message that appears to originate from a residential IP number. Many others are already doing reverse DNS checks and filtering if the IP number doesn't match (much more stringent that SPF).
Sending email this way is already unreliable. Hotmail and MSN are only going to be one more nail in the coffin.
They can scream "oh no, upgrading to properly transmitted email is too difficult, too expensive, too hard". Well, cry me a river. Sending email in this manner already does not get delivered to many sites. That trend will only continue to get worse. Anyone who sees this is a long term viable email stragegy is foolish.
Maybe they're still running on windows 3.1 or 95 also? Sooner or later, the cost of not upgrading to a modern system is going to outweigh the costs and pain of staying with an old, antequated system. Spoofing email already isn't reliable, and it's going to continue getting worse and worse.
can someone tell me a real,legal use for bittorrent?
Suppose you want to download Ubuntu linux and try installing it. It's rapidly becoming one of the most popular linux distributions, and you want to see what it's all about.
So, you visit that page. Hmm... you can download the single CD installer OR a single live CS. They also have a single DVD installer, which functions as both, and also includes all the packages which aren't on either CD.
How do you download that DVD image? Bittorrent. Don't just take my word for it. Go ahead, click on that link and see for yourself. Bittorrent is the ONLY way to obtain the larger DVD version.
Personally, I've resisted trying out bitottent until now. But a friend of mine, who's going back to school (and only has dialup), is taking a linux class and wants to try out some of the major distros. The DVD is looking like a much better option than the single CD, where he'll have to apt-get stuff using very slow dialup (and they live in a rural area with low quality lines, so disconnections are common).
So there you have it. Not only a bonafide legal use of bittorrent, but bittorrent is the ONLY WAY to obtain that DVD image for my friend.
How can you say "the GPL.. crikey - which one ? which version ? There's too many of them"? Perhas you simply don't like the GPL philosophy, and this is an easy (if false) way to say the BSD license is better? Or maybe there was some other point? Whatever the reason, the notion is simply false.
Currently, there is only one licence commonly called "the GPL". Version 2.0. Soon we may have version 3.0, but presently it's still vapor. There is a "lessor" or "library" version of the GPL, but it is almost always called "LGPL", not "GPL. Today, there really is only one "GPL".
There are at least two licenses generally called "BSD". The original BSD license contained restrictions on advertising and promotion. Many people objected to these restrictions, and a second BSD license came into widespread use, primarily to eliminate that section commonly called "the advertising clause".
There are many, many software packages which use licenses with small variations on these three licenses. These are typically called "GPL with exception", "modified BSD", "GPL like", "BSD style", and so on. They're not considered to be additional versions of the GPL or BSD license, but modifications of them.
There are also a large number of entirely different licenses, but with similar provisions. The MIT license is similar to BSD. The Mozilla license has similar terms to the GPL for everyone but the founders, who get BSD like privs to use the code. The list is long. But again, these aren't considered to the the GPL or either of the BSD licenses.
So today, saying "GPL" really does specify one set of terms and conditions. Version 2.0. Saying "BSD" means one of two sets of terms and conditions, differentiated primarily by the advertising clause. Perhaps soon with the arrival of version 3, saying "GPL" could means two different set of terms... much the same way today saying "BSD" may or may not mean the advertision clause is present.
If this doesn't fit your BSD-is-best paradigm, well, sorry, but that's the way things are today. Having two versions with the same 3 letter acronym really isn't a big deal as far as I'm concerned. But it is, BSD has managed to go on pretty well for several years since the advertising clause was removed. Time will tell if GPLv3 does as well?
Personally, I have released code under both licenses. I think I have some basic understand of both (but I'm not an attorney). I just can never quite understand people who are so passionate that one license is so much better for all circumstances and the other is so useless.
Maybe you feel that way, maybe you don't. If you want to trash the GPL, there are drawbacks. But having to choose from many different licenses all called "GPL" simply isn't true, since there's only 1. Soon there will be two, much the same as BSD.
In the US there is no basis for suing someone who insults your race or religion.
But there IS a basis for funding of all scientific research based on peer review.
When you think about it, this really does make sense. Who else could possibly be qualified to assess the merit of funding any particular study? Scientists spend much of their time writing grant proposals, and reviewing proposals of other scientists.
I know. I used to work for a group of scientists, designing custom instrumentation and support systems. The system seems really inefficient, say compared to a commercial environment where an insightful CEO or upper managers make strategic decisions and the responsibility filters down a heirarchy of management.
But in science, there really isn't much alternative. Only other scientists are the ones with the knowledge and credible opinions to evaluate whether which research proposals are worthy of funding and which aren't.
Unfortunatelly, this system also leads to a tight-nit community where a scientist who offends all his peers isn't as likely to get funding. I could go on about all sorts of stuff about these people...
We all know (or should know by now) that Dvorak hates linux, and given any chance, he'll attempt to spread uncertainty and doubt about the future of linux and open-source and free software.
First, he spends about 2/3rds of the article trash-talking open source applications. They're not intuitive, he claims, and thus haven't been accepted much. Somehow macos is going to kill them (even though he claims they aren't accepted?)
But in the last third (last 4 paragraphs) is where he actually makes some arguements, instead of just trashing open source applications.
First, he makes two claims obviously false claims. First, source apps haven't targeted macos, but suddenly will. Simply wrong. Lots of open source apps have been ported to os-x. But even more rediculous is the notion that macos on intel support will be to the exclusion of linux support. Utterly stupid. There's a very strong established trend for multi-platform support on almost all major open source apps. Suddenly everyone's going to abandon gnu autoconfig, automake and libtool? Yeah, right!
Then in the 3rd to last paragraph, he talks about the GPL's "rigid license requirements". Ok, compared to BSD or public domain, maybe? But compared to Apple's macos? Or any other proprietary software. The GPL's source code release requirements are only "rigid" to one group of people... the proprietary software vendors, who would really, really like to appropriate all that free code, if only they themselves wouldn't have to play by the same rules.
But Dvorak claims everyone who's believed the GPL was a good idea in the past is suddenly going to see profit opportunity and abandon the GPL. Doesn't seem too likely. This is an old, well worn fear/unknown argument that seemed believable years ago when Red Hat, Caldera and others companies started selling, going public, etc. Hackers worldwide weren't suddenly overcome by greed then, seems unlikely now.
But the fear is really laid on thick in the last two paragraphs. Apple's going to benefit (probably), so somebody is necessarily going to suffer. Suddenly linux is going to have a new "enemy", and together Apple and Microsoft are going to destroy linux.
Yeah, like Microsoft hasn't already been trying as hard as they can? And Apple hasn't already been trying to draw people to macs as agressively as they know how? All of a sudden, because Apple's switching chips, BOTH Apple and Microsoft are going to try to attract new customers where they weren't before.
It's all so silly. If these are the best argument Dvorak can dream up for the impending doom of linux, open source and free software... well, I think those of us who use and depend on linux on a daily basis can sleep well tonight, without nightmares of fear, uncertainty and doubt whether the rest of the linux world suddenly shun linux in favor of macos when we awake in the morning.
Just look at Jon Johansen's story, it would've been a completely different thing if he didn't share the source code of DeCSS
If you look back at the history of DeCSS, I believe you'll find that he did NOT actually share his source code. He refused to let anyone see it. But it leaked out due to an error on his part... don't recall if he was hacked or it was just unintentionally available by ftp on his site for a while.
But nonetheless, he never intended it to be shared at all, much less open source. But once the genie was out the bottle, there was little he could do.
Microsoft and Netscape introducing lots and lots of non-standard features was indeed a "problem". But to say "the whole damn problem", thus assigning 100% of the blame on browser developers, just isn't right.
For starters, the standardization process for html was moving slowly. Or at least not nearly as rapidly as the market for improved browsers was developing, and thus exerting pressure on the browser developers to add certain features widely desired by most web developers.
But at the height of the browser wars, the failed html 3.0 standard took far too long, attempted to achieve far too much, and largely strayed away from the then-pressing demands of wed developers.
For example, one of the highly desired features was the ability to specify font faces and text colors. Web developers wanted this very badly. When Microsoft introduced the very shortsighted font tag, it was very well received by web developers and very widely used. Netscape resisted briefly, but ultimtely was forced to implement it because it was becoming so very widely deployed by web developers.
Now you can try to lay all the blame on Microsoft, and perhaps netscape for following suit. Or maybe you can blame web developers for wanting this feature so very badly and immediately putting it to such widespread use in it's first available (shortsightedly designed) form.
But I would argue that the html standards process failed to deliver what the market wanted, when the market needed it. It was no secret that virtually every web developer wanted this capability. But rather than forus on the real needs of the marketplace (web developers and users), the people involved in the standards process took a dim view of these requests. Afterall, it went against the ideals of multi-platform display. CSS was in the planning stages and that would ultimately deliver, somehow, someday, on all these desires to accurately control presentation.
What were browser developers supposed to do. Wait years for the standards process to provide what their customers were begging for ASAP! What would you do, if you were running a for-profit company, in a tight race for a developing market against a worth competitor, customers calling up constantly begging and pleading for the same specific features.
Yes, Microsoft was shortsighted. You can certainly call them that. They have over a decade of shortsighted history, coming late to markets and leveraging their monopoly position to take over. But to say:
This was not a benevolent gesture from Microsoft- it was nothing but a power-grab.
You cerainly might say that of some things they've done (especially later after Netscape went down). But back in the days of the browser wars, most of the non-standard stuff from Microsoft and Netscape was largely driven by nagging from web developers, who were in turn responding to their clients interests to provide nice looking, highly polished websites, which was in turn driven by end users.
There's plenty of blame to go around. Microsoft has done plenty of underhanded things. In this case, made plenty of shortsighted design decisions and lots of shoddy implementation. But to put 100% of the blame on them is to utterly neglect the slowness of the html standards process and it's former disdain for the pressing needs of the marketplace during the browser wars. Microsoft and Netscape certainly did care deeply about marketplace needs.
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Absent is importance placed on "capable of learning", "able to take on new responsibilities", or even just general intelligence.
It's amazingly short sighted. Technology changes, and within almost any company, there's regular change. Hiring overall good people who can adapt and learn new systems ought to be the mindset, but usually it isn't.
That one movie attracted lots and lots of christians who normally never go to movies.
Maybe some hollywood execs know this and we'll see more christian or special-interest films?
I wasn't in a good mood. I was going to be up all night, copying my company's (them employer's) new cdrom-based catalogue onto every single one of those discs, all because some lame CD duplication company dropped the ball and didn't deliver in time for the salemen to go to some trade show.
Just as the Fry's clerk, you never thought of that, did you?
Admittedly, I only got about 100 copied before getting tried and going to sleep (the disc was only about 50 megs, but the closing took time on my then-slow burner). But it was enough. This was back in the late 90s, when mp3s were becoming popular, but a lot of companies still didn't have internet access for most employees.
Even today, when most people have reasonable internet access, cdroms are still very popular for distributing software and documentation that's included with a product. For high volume, obviously you're going to use pressed CDs. But for niche products (if you ever buy any such things), take a look at the CD. It's usually a CDR. For small companies with niche products, CDR is a great alternative when relatively few discs need to be made, or the material needs to be updated frequently.
FWIW, a good number of people also use CDR/CDRW for backups and for delivering large files.
I used to backup onto CDR. Nowadays I use removable hard drives, but CDRW is really good for consumers who usually have under 600 megs of irreplacable data and are on a budget that doesn't allow specific backup hardware.
Most people have crappy email service that can't reliably deliver a file over a few megabytes (and sometimes much less). When someone creates some silly powerpoint presentation that includes a couple hi-res images they "dragged" off their multimegapixel camera, how are they going to get it from their desktop machine over to a laptop or some machine connected to a presentation screen? Yeah, reducing the picture resolution ain't gonna happen, especially when the "problem" is discovered at the last minute! Burning a CDR is the obvious way. It's really the only consistently reliably way for the overwhelming majority of computer users to deliver a large file from one machine to another.
There are probably several other common, legitimate uses. But there are three I've personally encountered.
Hmm... lets see if I can find you a link. Ah, here you go. Looks like they made a 2nd one. Here's a link to the original version.+
As I recall, it was only sold on-line, since virtually no retailers would carry any game with the AO rating.
As for the game itself, she said it was fun for about a week, then not really very interesting since you'd already "done" everything.
Back in the SVR3.2 days, 2GB must have seemed like an unimaginably large file. Afterall, hard disk drives topped out at about 80 megs back in those days.
Now, admittedly, openserver 5.0.7 was released somewhere in 2002... providing much needed drivers for modern hardware, and of course bundling lots of open-source software.
Now they've finally gone and provided large file capability, loadable kernel modules, and other "new" stuff.
Hey, at least they're not Microsoft, who'd call them "innovations".
Using any other browser would be running all that browser code without admin privs. Yeah, they're making a "broker" that handles all the system interface. Pretty much the architecture most unix-based server programs have been using for years. Except at the client/browser level it's unnecessary... unless you're building on previous poor design decisions.
The anti-phishing... yet another thing others have already been doing quite well for quite a while.
It's plainly obvious they're playing catch-up on many fronts. That alone isn't a reason to bash them, as least as far as I'm concerned. But calling "innovative" the features that have been implemented for over a year or more in other browsers or as third party add-ons is pretty cheap.
Or did I miss some new features, anything really, that's truely innovative in IE7, rather than just implementing features already available from competitors and third parties?
Last month's log file for PJRC.COM (another little tech-oriented site) has 21401 lines with "Opera", out of a total of 854854 lines for August. Two of those 21401 appear to be some machintosh browser that includes about every possible browser string (noticed someone mentioned this above, so I checked for it). So by raw number of lines in the log file, opera's at 2.5%. Doing some more quick command line tricks (eg "grep -i opera access_log_detailed.1 | awk '{print $1}' | sort -u | wc " vs "cat access_log_detailed.1 | awk '{print $1}' | sort -u | wc" shows 1103 unique IP numbers for opera, out of 39078 total IP numbers all month. So by unique IP numbers, opera's at 2.8% Actually, I was expecting to see the sub-1% everyone seems to claim opera is at... but it looks like Opera really does have some market share. Well, at least among folks interested in . I also tried MSIE, which is at 69.5% by raw number of lines, and 72.3% by unique IPs.
They ARE viable desktop platforms for SOME people, but not others.
but you can't pretend they are half the time and then pretend ms has no competition the rest of the time.
Who's pretending?
SOME of us use linux as our primary desktop platforms. MANY OTHERS do not. It's as simple as that, right here, right now. All three platforms are changing with time (mostly improvements). The ratios of "market share" may change going forward, but for the forseeable future, it's quite likely SOME people will use linux, some will using macos, some will use microsoft windows, and even a few others may using other systems.
Instead, consider that perhaps YOU may ask if you're trying to pretend that for an operating system to be "desktop viable" it needs to work for ALL people.
I can and IS the case that linux is a viable desktop for some people, but not others.
In fact, it could easily be said that microsoft windows is a viable desktop platform for some people, but many others can't use it (often they can't manage to utilize any current platforms and prefer to simply avoid using computers).
Of course, the capitalist/free-market solution will be for the Coca Cola Company to make a financial bid for the business, and to leave the courts out of it. If they value the ownership of this startup competitor, then they would be more than willing to pay me a fair price for my little business operation.
1. The US has started (and "encouraged") more wars and murdered more humans in a 50 year period than anyone else before in recorded history.
Nope, sorry. Try again. Think "Hitler".
I copied-n-pasted the "about sco" and forward looking statements from some real press releases.... so at least those parts were real.
Company spokesperson Blake Stonewell took a more conservative posture. "Of course we would have prefered to present recently discovered new evidence of IBM's further misappropriation of our intellectual property to the Power architecture". Stonewell further added "this ruling is actually a major victory for us. IBM has consistently resisted any depositions of upper management, who orchestrated the wholesale theft of our code and trade secrets for inclusion in the derivitive linux kernel".
Bert Young, Chief Financial Officer of the SCO Group said "we are pleased by the now definitive revised schedule", and added "because legal fees have been capped for the duration of this trail and any appeals, we believe now concentrating on this already well establish course of action will best serve SCO's shareholders. We look forward to the final resolution of this suit, and the opportunity to expand our SCOsource licensing revenue."
About SCO
The SCO Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOX) helps millions of customers to grow their businesses everyday. Headquartered in Lindon, Utah, SCO has a worldwide network of thousands of resellers and developers. SCO Global Services provides reliable localized support and services to partners and customers. For more information on SCO products and services, visit www.sco.com.
SCO, and the associated SCO logo, are trademarks or registered trademarks of The SCO Group, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group. All other brand or product names are or may be trademarks of, and are used to identify products or services of, their respective owners.
This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances. Actual results may vary materially from the expectations contained herein. The forward-looking statements contained herein include statements about the consummation of the transaction with SCO and benefits of the pending transaction with SCO. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described herein include the inability to obtain regulatory approvals and the inability to successfully integrate the SCO business. GNAA is under no obligation to (and expressly disclaims any such obligation to) update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
No, copyright is not based on the same principle. Copyright is absolutely not about protecting ideas. The law clearly states that only expressions (in tangible form) are the subject of copyright. You can not copyright ideas.
Seriously, no, you're not. Only class members are entitled. You must meet several conditions to join the class.
why not just get help from someone in the US to get your cash or,
Because you won't be able to meet the requirements. That's why.
if you're more ethical than that, send the serials to someone who isn't? :)
Even if your accomplice is unethical enough to create a fraudlent invoice showing the drive was purchased directly from an authorized reseller during the required period, they'd still have to use their time machine to go back before February 15th to file a report of the drive's failure.
I'm pretty sure a person with such a time machine and flexible ethical practices could do much better than simply defrauding IBM of $200.
But if you want 50 blank CDRs plus jewel cases rather than $200, then go right ahead.
Not only does the drive have to be in the database of previously reported failed drives, but you must also provide an invoice, sales receipt, credit card statement, or some other proof that you are the original purchaser of the drive from an authorized reseller. Note the "authorized reseller" part. Buying it used from a private doesn't count.
On top of those two, your purchase needs to have been made between March 15, 2000 and March 4, 2005. So even if you could meet the two conditions above, it's simply too late to buy an IBM drive, hoping to cash it in for $100.
Anyone who pays $50 just for a serial number on ebay or craigslist is going to be pretty disappointed when they actually read/fill-out the claim form and ultimately have it rejected.
Well, that is if SPF can be considered "redefining email", rather than a simple extra DNS-based check (that doesn't alter SMTP). Hardly what I'd call "redefining", but then I generally don't call myself an "idiot" either.
Yes, it would be nice if ISPs would all act in the interest of common good of everyone (rather then self-interested profit, laziness or incompetence). That certainly sounds like a "better" solution, much like communism seemed better social system than capitalism. Saddly, depending on all ISPs to cooperate is doomed to failure, for much the same reasons communism doesn't really work.
RFC-wise, it is RFC 2476 which is intended to address this problem. If you read only the abstract, you will see it clearly explains that SMTP was intended to be used for transfer, not submission, as people are doing today. You'll likely insist using RFC2467 message submission is not a hard requirement... but there is certainly an RFC which addresses the perfered way to submit email.
I would in turn challenge you to quote any current RFC which specifically suggests a SMTP client should spoof the sender envelope. Or for that matter to actually complain about the extreme difficulty or cost of complying with RFC2467 message submission.
But what really matters, in practice, is the willingness of other SMTP servers to accept your spoofed messages. Many spam filters now take into consideration blocklists of IP ranges knows to be residential IP ranges. Because you have not noticed any sign of that (yet) does not means it doesn't exist. To prove the point, here are a couple links:
http://www.nl.sorbs.net/faq/dul.shtml
http://www.spampalforums.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php? p=35957&
You can easily find many, many more using google. It is true that some servers are blocking or filtering messages that originate from dynamic or residential IP numbers, and evidence of this is easy to find on-line, as people who can't communicate seek help.
But you can deny it all you like. You can claim spoofing is fully RFC compliant despite RFC2467's recommendation to use message submission. You can call SPF and similar systems "redefining email". You can even call anyone who disagrees an "idiot" if you like. But eventually, enough of your spoofed messages will go undelivered that you'll have to upgrade to proper message submission or some other way that is ultimately accepted by your intended receipients.
This is the changing reality of email in the face of spammers and malware. Deny it all you like.
They should already be feeling the inadaquecy of this old style setup, since many mail servers automatically filter any message that appears to originate from a residential IP number. Many others are already doing reverse DNS checks and filtering if the IP number doesn't match (much more stringent that SPF).
Sending email this way is already unreliable. Hotmail and MSN are only going to be one more nail in the coffin.
They can scream "oh no, upgrading to properly transmitted email is too difficult, too expensive, too hard". Well, cry me a river. Sending email in this manner already does not get delivered to many sites. That trend will only continue to get worse. Anyone who sees this is a long term viable email stragegy is foolish.
Maybe they're still running on windows 3.1 or 95 also? Sooner or later, the cost of not upgrading to a modern system is going to outweigh the costs and pain of staying with an old, antequated system. Spoofing email already isn't reliable, and it's going to continue getting worse and worse.
Suppose you want to download Ubuntu linux and try installing it. It's rapidly becoming one of the most popular linux distributions, and you want to see what it's all about.
So, you visit that page. Hmm... you can download the single CD installer OR a single live CS. They also have a single DVD installer, which functions as both, and also includes all the packages which aren't on either CD.
How do you download that DVD image? Bittorrent. Don't just take my word for it. Go ahead, click on that link and see for yourself. Bittorrent is the ONLY way to obtain the larger DVD version.
Personally, I've resisted trying out bitottent until now. But a friend of mine, who's going back to school (and only has dialup), is taking a linux class and wants to try out some of the major distros. The DVD is looking like a much better option than the single CD, where he'll have to apt-get stuff using very slow dialup (and they live in a rural area with low quality lines, so disconnections are common).
So there you have it. Not only a bonafide legal use of bittorrent, but bittorrent is the ONLY WAY to obtain that DVD image for my friend.
Currently, there is only one licence commonly called "the GPL". Version 2.0. Soon we may have version 3.0, but presently it's still vapor. There is a "lessor" or "library" version of the GPL, but it is almost always called "LGPL", not "GPL. Today, there really is only one "GPL".
There are at least two licenses generally called "BSD". The original BSD license contained restrictions on advertising and promotion. Many people objected to these restrictions, and a second BSD license came into widespread use, primarily to eliminate that section commonly called "the advertising clause".
There are many, many software packages which use licenses with small variations on these three licenses. These are typically called "GPL with exception", "modified BSD", "GPL like", "BSD style", and so on. They're not considered to be additional versions of the GPL or BSD license, but modifications of them.
There are also a large number of entirely different licenses, but with similar provisions. The MIT license is similar to BSD. The Mozilla license has similar terms to the GPL for everyone but the founders, who get BSD like privs to use the code. The list is long. But again, these aren't considered to the the GPL or either of the BSD licenses.
So today, saying "GPL" really does specify one set of terms and conditions. Version 2.0. Saying "BSD" means one of two sets of terms and conditions, differentiated primarily by the advertising clause. Perhaps soon with the arrival of version 3, saying "GPL" could means two different set of terms... much the same way today saying "BSD" may or may not mean the advertision clause is present.
If this doesn't fit your BSD-is-best paradigm, well, sorry, but that's the way things are today. Having two versions with the same 3 letter acronym really isn't a big deal as far as I'm concerned. But it is, BSD has managed to go on pretty well for several years since the advertising clause was removed. Time will tell if GPLv3 does as well?
Personally, I have released code under both licenses. I think I have some basic understand of both (but I'm not an attorney). I just can never quite understand people who are so passionate that one license is so much better for all circumstances and the other is so useless.
Maybe you feel that way, maybe you don't. If you want to trash the GPL, there are drawbacks. But having to choose from many different licenses all called "GPL" simply isn't true, since there's only 1. Soon there will be two, much the same as BSD.
Quick, someone call Dvorak. This has just gotta spell the impending dead of linux. I'm sure he'll think up something.
But there IS a basis for funding of all scientific research based on peer review.
When you think about it, this really does make sense. Who else could possibly be qualified to assess the merit of funding any particular study? Scientists spend much of their time writing grant proposals, and reviewing proposals of other scientists.
I know. I used to work for a group of scientists, designing custom instrumentation and support systems. The system seems really inefficient, say compared to a commercial environment where an insightful CEO or upper managers make strategic decisions and the responsibility filters down a heirarchy of management.
But in science, there really isn't much alternative. Only other scientists are the ones with the knowledge and credible opinions to evaluate whether which research proposals are worthy of funding and which aren't.
Unfortunatelly, this system also leads to a tight-nit community where a scientist who offends all his peers isn't as likely to get funding. I could go on about all sorts of stuff about these people...
First, he spends about 2/3rds of the article trash-talking open source applications. They're not intuitive, he claims, and thus haven't been accepted much. Somehow macos is going to kill them (even though he claims they aren't accepted?)
But in the last third (last 4 paragraphs) is where he actually makes some arguements, instead of just trashing open source applications.
First, he makes two claims obviously false claims. First, source apps haven't targeted macos, but suddenly will. Simply wrong. Lots of open source apps have been ported to os-x. But even more rediculous is the notion that macos on intel support will be to the exclusion of linux support. Utterly stupid. There's a very strong established trend for multi-platform support on almost all major open source apps. Suddenly everyone's going to abandon gnu autoconfig, automake and libtool? Yeah, right!
Then in the 3rd to last paragraph, he talks about the GPL's "rigid license requirements". Ok, compared to BSD or public domain, maybe? But compared to Apple's macos? Or any other proprietary software. The GPL's source code release requirements are only "rigid" to one group of people... the proprietary software vendors, who would really, really like to appropriate all that free code, if only they themselves wouldn't have to play by the same rules.
But Dvorak claims everyone who's believed the GPL was a good idea in the past is suddenly going to see profit opportunity and abandon the GPL. Doesn't seem too likely. This is an old, well worn fear/unknown argument that seemed believable years ago when Red Hat, Caldera and others companies started selling, going public, etc. Hackers worldwide weren't suddenly overcome by greed then, seems unlikely now.
But the fear is really laid on thick in the last two paragraphs. Apple's going to benefit (probably), so somebody is necessarily going to suffer. Suddenly linux is going to have a new "enemy", and together Apple and Microsoft are going to destroy linux.
Yeah, like Microsoft hasn't already been trying as hard as they can? And Apple hasn't already been trying to draw people to macs as agressively as they know how? All of a sudden, because Apple's switching chips, BOTH Apple and Microsoft are going to try to attract new customers where they weren't before.
It's all so silly. If these are the best argument Dvorak can dream up for the impending doom of linux, open source and free software... well, I think those of us who use and depend on linux on a daily basis can sleep well tonight, without nightmares of fear, uncertainty and doubt whether the rest of the linux world suddenly shun linux in favor of macos when we awake in the morning.
It might already be too late.
They obtained control over the website. It's been down for a few days, possibly under their control.
But even if it weren't, most likely there are months of server log files sitting on a disk, which is almost certainly in their hands now, or will be.
If you look back at the history of DeCSS, I believe you'll find that he did NOT actually share his source code. He refused to let anyone see it. But it leaked out due to an error on his part... don't recall if he was hacked or it was just unintentionally available by ftp on his site for a while.
But nonetheless, he never intended it to be shared at all, much less open source. But once the genie was out the bottle, there was little he could do.
Microsoft and Netscape introducing lots and lots of non-standard features was indeed a "problem". But to say "the whole damn problem", thus assigning 100% of the blame on browser developers, just isn't right.
For starters, the standardization process for html was moving slowly. Or at least not nearly as rapidly as the market for improved browsers was developing, and thus exerting pressure on the browser developers to add certain features widely desired by most web developers.
But at the height of the browser wars, the failed html 3.0 standard took far too long, attempted to achieve far too much, and largely strayed away from the then-pressing demands of wed developers.
For example, one of the highly desired features was the ability to specify font faces and text colors. Web developers wanted this very badly. When Microsoft introduced the very shortsighted font tag, it was very well received by web developers and very widely used. Netscape resisted briefly, but ultimtely was forced to implement it because it was becoming so very widely deployed by web developers.
Now you can try to lay all the blame on Microsoft, and perhaps netscape for following suit. Or maybe you can blame web developers for wanting this feature so very badly and immediately putting it to such widespread use in it's first available (shortsightedly designed) form.
But I would argue that the html standards process failed to deliver what the market wanted, when the market needed it. It was no secret that virtually every web developer wanted this capability. But rather than forus on the real needs of the marketplace (web developers and users), the people involved in the standards process took a dim view of these requests. Afterall, it went against the ideals of multi-platform display. CSS was in the planning stages and that would ultimately deliver, somehow, someday, on all these desires to accurately control presentation.
What were browser developers supposed to do. Wait years for the standards process to provide what their customers were begging for ASAP! What would you do, if you were running a for-profit company, in a tight race for a developing market against a worth competitor, customers calling up constantly begging and pleading for the same specific features.
Yes, Microsoft was shortsighted. You can certainly call them that. They have over a decade of shortsighted history, coming late to markets and leveraging their monopoly position to take over. But to say:
This was not a benevolent gesture from Microsoft- it was nothing but a power-grab.
You cerainly might say that of some things they've done (especially later after Netscape went down). But back in the days of the browser wars, most of the non-standard stuff from Microsoft and Netscape was largely driven by nagging from web developers, who were in turn responding to their clients interests to provide nice looking, highly polished websites, which was in turn driven by end users.
There's plenty of blame to go around. Microsoft has done plenty of underhanded things. In this case, made plenty of shortsighted design decisions and lots of shoddy implementation. But to put 100% of the blame on them is to utterly neglect the slowness of the html standards process and it's former disdain for the pressing needs of the marketplace during the browser wars. Microsoft and Netscape certainly did care deeply about marketplace needs.