I never said I liked MS but they're not the one's suing everyone. SCO is.
The point here is that if not for the money from Microsoft, SCO wouldn't be able to sue anyone. Besides, why did you think Microsoft gave SCO the money? Just to be nice?
Actually, my analogy is complete. The farmer doesn't tell you how to prepare the food just like a software company doesn't tell you to only use their accounting software for certain businesses.
As far as limiting how many people you can feed with it, I'm sure farmers, like software companies, would put on a limit or raise prices if I could "copy" a carrot a million times. If you haven't noticed, food is a finite resource that can't be consumed by more than one person at a time whereas software is not finite (i.e. can be copied) and can be used by more than one person.
I hate it when people think they're being clever when they take a simple analogy and twist it to make their point. An analogy is only supposed to be "similar". If it were exactly the same in every respect then it wouldn't really be an anology now would it. If you want to make a point come up with your own analogy.
What I do not do is to force people, using a corrupt system of "laws," "patents," etc., to refrain from sharing, modifying, or improving my software.
That's fine. That's your choice. I'm just saying that there is nothing wrong with someone making a different choice. You think that just because someone disagrees with you then they are "corrupt".
Since the current set of law, patents, etc. allow you to grant others the right to share, modify or improve your software does that make them corrupt? You just don't like it because some people disagree with your attitude. Well, believe it or not, not everyone thinks the same.
I'm confused, how does making someone pay me for the time it took to write software "restricting the freedom" or "violating the rights" of your "fellow human beings".
If we extend your argument to lets say farming, a farmer that charges for the food he produces is violating the rights of anyone who doesn't want to pay him for his labour. It cost him time and money to produce that food and he likely has a family to support. Why shouldn't he be able to charge a resonable price for his product.
Now if you want to grow food in your backyard and give it away that's your choice but don't suggest that because he made a different choice that it violates people's rights.
I agree with your comparison of the differences between how the U.S. handles free speech and how European countries handle it. However, being a Canadian, not an American or a European, I don't have an attachment to either.
I can appreciate the European approach as it discourages people from promoting undesirable or baseless ideas such as hate doctrine. However, the risk is where to draw the line. How do you decide what's acceptable and what's not. Even more important, who decides where the line is to be drawn. It's an approach that can be very susceptible to abuse unless there are some very clear checks and balances. The risk is that you could lose some good by supressing the bad.
On the other hand I can also appreciate the American approach. As a thinking person I like to hear both sides of an issue and make an informed decision so the less restrictive laws in the U.S. are very appealing. However, I don't know if the average U.S. citizen would consciously analyze both sides of an issue like SlashDotters do. Especially since the U.S. media packages issues into easy to digest sound bites that conveniently fit between commercial breaks. There is often more attention given to advertising and ratings than any kind of meanful discussion.
Without doing an in depth comparison on the impact, good and bad, of the two approaches it's difficult to see which one "works" and which one doesn't. In fact, it may not be a case of which one works but instead which one works for your people and in your culture. What works in the U.S. might not work in Germany and vice versa.
Referring to processor architecture when talking about Java is irrevelant as it doesn't run on the bare metal. Although, neither do.NET applications because only the OS actually runs on the bare metal.
As was pointed out by someone else Java runs on more OS's covering more architectures than.NET. And besides, since Java bytecode or "executables" are processor independent they can be moved from platform to platform without recompile/repackaging.
When it comes to choice of execution platform and ease of migration.NET can't hope to match Java's variety. What Java doesn't have is.NET's choice of language. Although there are some compilers that generate Java bytecode for other languages they are not exactly mainstream.
Java is one language with many platforms,.NET is many languages with one platform.
But Java isn't available on all platforms either... which is why there are alternatives to Sun's Java..NET is roughly equivalent to Java, but its promise is greater, IMO.
Java is available for MS Windows (95,98,ME,NT,2000,XP,CE), Linux, Apple MacOS, FreeBSD, IBM AS/400, IBM OS/390, IBM AIX, IBM OS/2 (yes, some people are still running it), Sun Solaris, SGI IRIX, PalmOS, Nokia cell phones and numerous other embedded devices. I'm sure I've missed a few but that's just off the top of my head.
When.NET allows me to run a program on everything from a mainframe to a cell phone then I'll be impressed. I doubt that will ever happen because Microsoft is too afraid to put.NET on any platform it can't dominate.
It was likely a recommendation by Toady Blair. He's met with Gates a number of times and in appreciation has given Microsoft a number of government contracts. After you've made it difficult for anyone but IE users to access the government's website what's an honourary knighthood.
Since Blair seems to love American "oppressors" so I'm sure the next one on his list for honourary knighthood is George W.
(Note: Don't take this as an anti-American comment. It's just an anti-Gates and anti-Bush comment.)
I can't believe you're comparing WWII to the current situation in Iraq.
With WWII, the world was at war while the U.S. did nothing for two years. With Iraq, no one was at war, the U.S. ignores world opinion and invaded anyway partnered with Toady Blair.
I have not always agreed with U.S. military actions but until this incident I could understand and respect the choices that were made.
And for the record, I do not hate the U.S. or it's citizens. I just disagree with their current actions in Iraq.
That's like running the last leg of a relay race and saying that you were the reason for the win. It's the arrogance no one else mattered that pisses people off.
...it is typical European arrogence for you to stuff your noses up at us.
FYI, I'm not European. I'm Canadian.
I am not saying that I agree with the whole idea of agree with us because we won the war, but I do think that a little respect is deserved.
Gratitude, yes. But respect can be earned and lost over time.
Typical American arrogance. "We don't have to do anything for anyone because WE won the war." It's been over for almost 60 years. Get over yourself. All you are now is an international bully.
And for your information, the reason WWII got so bad in the first place was partly because you turned your back on the world and didn't help until you got attacked.
By the time you jumped in you of course were stronger because you hadn't already been at war for years. The rest of the world had been doing their job and you were hiding out like a bunch of cowards hoping someone else would take care of it for you.
Of course, in WWI you barely even showed up.
I know most Americans are not as ignorant as you but your kind is what causes a lot of the anti-American sentiment around the world.
Carriers are worried about losing customers over this but won't they also gain customers that leave the other carriers. There will be a shuffle as those who are "trapped" by not wanting to change their number but it will likely shake out where it is today.
Besides, if you are ticked off with your carrier enough to switch it's not likely that losing your cell phone number is that much of a deterrent. I know a few people that have gone through at least 3 carriers and it didn't stop them.
When you defended the Anonymous Coward further up this thread with some of the same obviously wrong information I incorrectly assumed that you were him. He was the one who claimed to be writing web applications in the late 70s.
As for claiming hypertext was the web, in your defense of the AC's claims you stated "As for the web... well, hypertext at least has been around since the 1960s". Since you were defending his position I assume you meant to suggest that hypertext was the web.
But Java HAS been around since 1985: http://java.sun.com/features/1998/05/birthday.html
Cut and pasted directly from the article you referenced: "Since its introduction in May 1995, the Java platform has been adopted more quickly across the industry than any other new technology in computing history."
That's 1995 not 1985. The year 1985 does not even appear in the article.
As for the web... well, hypertext at least has been around since the 1960s... *shrug* http://www.w3.org/History.html
Hypertext might have been around in the 60s but that doesn't mean there was a "web". That didn't happen until there was a web browser which according to the link you provided happened in October 1990.
Since there was no web browser until 1990 it would be rather hard to for you to have been "writing web applications since the late 70s" as you claim.
By your reasoning anyone who drove a Model T Ford in 1908 is a modern Formula One driver.
According to this list the U.S. had just under 300,000 casualties vs Canada's 42,000. And as was mentioned previously we had about 1/10th the population.
The URL for the US Patent Office is http://www.uspto.gov/. A ".gov" TLD would imply that it is a government agency. Go to their site and the main page reads, "An agency of the United States Department of Commerce".
Slashdot Mirror
I never said I liked MS but they're not the one's suing everyone. SCO is.
The point here is that if not for the money from Microsoft, SCO wouldn't be able to sue anyone. Besides, why did you think Microsoft gave SCO the money? Just to be nice?
Actually, my analogy is complete. The farmer doesn't tell you how to prepare the food just like a software company doesn't tell you to only use their accounting software for certain businesses.
As far as limiting how many people you can feed with it, I'm sure farmers, like software companies, would put on a limit or raise prices if I could "copy" a carrot a million times. If you haven't noticed, food is a finite resource that can't be consumed by more than one person at a time whereas software is not finite (i.e. can be copied) and can be used by more than one person.
I hate it when people think they're being clever when they take a simple analogy and twist it to make their point. An analogy is only supposed to be "similar". If it were exactly the same in every respect then it wouldn't really be an anology now would it. If you want to make a point come up with your own analogy.
What I do not do is to force people, using a corrupt system of "laws," "patents," etc., to refrain from sharing, modifying, or improving my software.
That's fine. That's your choice. I'm just saying that there is nothing wrong with someone making a different choice. You think that just because someone disagrees with you then they are "corrupt".
Since the current set of law, patents, etc. allow you to grant others the right to share, modify or improve your software does that make them corrupt? You just don't like it because some people disagree with your attitude. Well, believe it or not, not everyone thinks the same.
I'm confused, how does making someone pay me for the time it took to write software "restricting the freedom" or "violating the rights" of your "fellow human beings".
If we extend your argument to lets say farming, a farmer that charges for the food he produces is violating the rights of anyone who doesn't want to pay him for his labour. It cost him time and money to produce that food and he likely has a family to support. Why shouldn't he be able to charge a resonable price for his product.
Now if you want to grow food in your backyard and give it away that's your choice but don't suggest that because he made a different choice that it violates people's rights.
I agree with your comparison of the differences between how the U.S. handles free speech and how European countries handle it. However, being a Canadian, not an American or a European, I don't have an attachment to either.
I can appreciate the European approach as it discourages people from promoting undesirable or baseless ideas such as hate doctrine. However, the risk is where to draw the line. How do you decide what's acceptable and what's not. Even more important, who decides where the line is to be drawn. It's an approach that can be very susceptible to abuse unless there are some very clear checks and balances. The risk is that you could lose some good by supressing the bad.
On the other hand I can also appreciate the American approach. As a thinking person I like to hear both sides of an issue and make an informed decision so the less restrictive laws in the U.S. are very appealing. However, I don't know if the average U.S. citizen would consciously analyze both sides of an issue like SlashDotters do. Especially since the U.S. media packages issues into easy to digest sound bites that conveniently fit between commercial breaks. There is often more attention given to advertising and ratings than any kind of meanful discussion.
Without doing an in depth comparison on the impact, good and bad, of the two approaches it's difficult to see which one "works" and which one doesn't. In fact, it may not be a case of which one works but instead which one works for your people and in your culture. What works in the U.S. might not work in Germany and vice versa.
What three incompatible platforms are you talking about?
There is also OpenEJB
Look at the last item on the features page.
Referring to processor architecture when talking about Java is irrevelant as it doesn't run on the bare metal. Although, neither do .NET applications because only the OS actually runs on the bare metal.
As was pointed out by someone else Java runs on more OS's covering more architectures than .NET. And besides, since Java bytecode or "executables" are processor independent they can be moved from platform to platform without recompile/repackaging.
When it comes to choice of execution platform and ease of migration .NET can't hope to match Java's variety. What Java doesn't have is .NET's choice of language. Although there are some compilers that generate Java bytecode for other languages they are not exactly mainstream.
Java is one language with many platforms, .NET is many languages with one platform.
I can't believe I missed HP-UX. And you're right about BSD. Like Linux there are numerous variants that are too numerous to mention.
Java is available for MS Windows (95,98,ME,NT,2000,XP,CE), Linux, Apple MacOS, FreeBSD, IBM AS/400, IBM OS/390, IBM AIX, IBM OS/2 (yes, some people are still running it), Sun Solaris, SGI IRIX, PalmOS, Nokia cell phones and numerous other embedded devices. I'm sure I've missed a few but that's just off the top of my head.
When .NET allows me to run a program on everything from a mainframe to a cell phone then I'll be impressed. I doubt that will ever happen because Microsoft is too afraid to put .NET on any platform it can't dominate.
Firebird is available for MacOS X and has an extension that does just that.
The dupe was posted by CmdrTaco. Either CmdrTaco doesn't read Slashdot regularly or unless it's posted by CmdrTaco it hasn't really happened.
It was likely a recommendation by Toady Blair. He's met with Gates a number of times and in appreciation has given Microsoft a number of government contracts. After you've made it difficult for anyone but IE users to access the government's website what's an honourary knighthood.
Since Blair seems to love American "oppressors" so I'm sure the next one on his list for honourary knighthood is George W.
(Note: Don't take this as an anti-American comment. It's just an anti-Gates and anti-Bush comment.)
Don't tell them about the stuff buried under the sphinx. Now everyone is going to know about it.
I can't believe you're comparing WWII to the current situation in Iraq.
With WWII, the world was at war while the U.S. did nothing for two years. With Iraq, no one was at war, the U.S. ignores world opinion and invaded anyway partnered with Toady Blair.
I have not always agreed with U.S. military actions but until this incident I could understand and respect the choices that were made.
And for the record, I do not hate the U.S. or it's citizens. I just disagree with their current actions in Iraq.
When we showed up in WWI it ended pretty quick.
That's like running the last leg of a relay race and saying that you were the reason for the win. It's the arrogance no one else mattered that pisses people off.
FYI, I'm not European. I'm Canadian.
I am not saying that I agree with the whole idea of agree with us because we won the war, but I do think that a little respect is deserved.
Gratitude, yes. But respect can be earned and lost over time.
Typical American arrogance. "We don't have to do anything for anyone because WE won the war." It's been over for almost 60 years. Get over yourself. All you are now is an international bully.
And for your information, the reason WWII got so bad in the first place was partly because you turned your back on the world and didn't help until you got attacked.
By the time you jumped in you of course were stronger because you hadn't already been at war for years. The rest of the world had been doing their job and you were hiding out like a bunch of cowards hoping someone else would take care of it for you.
Of course, in WWI you barely even showed up.
I know most Americans are not as ignorant as you but your kind is what causes a lot of the anti-American sentiment around the world.
Carriers are worried about losing customers over this but won't they also gain customers that leave the other carriers. There will be a shuffle as those who are "trapped" by not wanting to change their number but it will likely shake out where it is today.
Besides, if you are ticked off with your carrier enough to switch it's not likely that losing your cell phone number is that much of a deterrent. I know a few people that have gone through at least 3 carriers and it didn't stop them.
When you defended the Anonymous Coward further up this thread with some of the same obviously wrong information I incorrectly assumed that you were him. He was the one who claimed to be writing web applications in the late 70s.
As for claiming hypertext was the web, in your defense of the AC's claims you stated "As for the web... well, hypertext at least has been around since the 1960s". Since you were defending his position I assume you meant to suggest that hypertext was the web.
But Java HAS been around since 1985: http://java.sun.com/features/1998/05/birthday.html
Cut and pasted directly from the article you referenced: "Since its introduction in May 1995, the Java platform has been adopted more quickly across the industry than any other new technology in computing history."
That's 1995 not 1985. The year 1985 does not even appear in the article.
As for the web... well, hypertext at least has been around since the 1960s... *shrug*
http://www.w3.org/History.html
Hypertext might have been around in the 60s but that doesn't mean there was a "web". That didn't happen until there was a web browser which according to the link you provided happened in October 1990.
Since there was no web browser until 1990 it would be rather hard to for you to have been "writing web applications since the late 70s" as you claim.
By your reasoning anyone who drove a Model T Ford in 1908 is a modern Formula One driver.
According to this list the U.S. had just under 300,000 casualties vs Canada's 42,000. And as was mentioned previously we had about 1/10th the population.
We haven't been a British colony since Confederation in 1867.
The URL for the US Patent Office is http://www.uspto.gov/. A ".gov" TLD would imply that it is a government agency. Go to their site and the main page reads, "An agency of the United States Department of Commerce".
Sounds like a government agency to me.
Or at least by 1999 when the moon was supposed to get blown out of it's orbit.