They're asking for a declarative judgement, not sueing:
"Judge, I'm planning on doing X, and I'm pretty sure it's within my rights, but this isn't 100% clear, and I don't want Mr. So-and-So to sue me about it after the fact. Rather than me go ahead and do it and then get hauled into court, can we go ahead and get a ruling on whether it's ok or not now?"
Usually companies in Microsofts position pay dividends, Microsoft decided not to... it has that right, and keep the $40B in the bank for a "rainy day"...
Actually, there is an obscure law that says corporations which have liquid assests above and beyond what they might reasonably need for business purposes must return them to the shareholders as dividends.
This law is regularly ignored; Ralph Nader was complaining about MS and this recently, but so far as I know nothing has come of that.
If one owns a majority of the voting shares, they run the company. Simple as that.
Well, not quite that simple; they have to run the company in a way that's at least arguably to the equal benefit of all shareholders.
You can't buy 55% of a company and then sell all of its assets to yourself for $1; that would be fraud, as well as probably breaking a bunch of other laws I don't know about. (And probably wouldn't be profitable anyway, but there are exceptions where it would be.)
It's not a "game" engine, it's a "Warcraft 2" engine. A cursory glance at the many hardcoded rules, behaviours, actions, messages and object types verifies this. There's nowhere (that I can see) to add behaviour hooks; you have to expand or modify the code. Modifying it to act as a DuneII or Starcraft clone, for example, would be a substantial rewrite.
Yeah, and Linux wasn't originally intended to be portable to non-386; decent code that works is the key, the rest can follow.
No, I don't think so. If we have to pay Redhat to use it, they can't distribute with violating the GPL. Oddly, if Redhat has patented Linux, I can still distribute it (but you can be sued by them for using); however I think they have to grant a royality-free license for Linux use in order to be able to distribute it themselves, (Alan Cox said something to this effect in a discussion on the real-time Linux patents, IIRC).
I suspect this is just a defensive move to protect Linux from somebody else patenting its algorythms, and maybe to get a MAD thing going with other software vendors where RH can retaliate if they start to enforce other patents against Linux.
Eh. Are you actually losing memory, or is it just filling the buffer cache up with random logs and such? No reason not to - if you need it, it's already in RAM, and if not, it's easy enough to toss...
I get complaints about this weekly on our Solaris boxen.
In _The Mythical Man Month_, Brooks wrote (paraphrasing here): Comment your code and I will remain confused; comment your data structures and your code will become obvious.
A problem with Mars Direct is that it uses nuclear energy. I don't have much of a problem with nuclear energy when its on another planet, but it makes it politically more difficult. I think its use stems from Zubrin nuclear engineering background and from his unwillingness to consider advances in technology that will be obtained by the time a Mars program actually starts.
I don't think any possible chemical fuel could provide enough energy to do what is needed for his plan, and I doubt you can carry solar cells to get enough power.
The nuclear plant is the key to this plan; everything else hinges on having tons of electricity available on Mars.
Clearly, it will be a Mac OS X user, after Apple starts to use these for processor cooling and some confusion about what Steve meant when he said the new systems were 'lickable'...
Eh. If they disentangled the code they've unnecessarily bolted together, and had a decent package manager, dependencies can be handled. I mean, Linux has this issue in spades, but Debian has it solved:
callidora:/home/mikee# apt-get install kword Reading Package Lists... Done Building Dependency Tree... Done The following extra packages will be installed:
kdebase-libs kdelibs3 kdelibs3-bin koffice-libs libkonq3 libxml2 libxslt1 The following NEW packages will be installed:
kdebase-libs kdelibs3 kdelibs3-bin koffice-libs kword libkonq3 libxslt1 1 packages upgraded, 7 newly installed, 0 to remove and 317 not upgraded. 1 packages not fully installed or removed. Need to get 12.7MB of archives. After unpacking 41.3MB will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] n
On the other hand, it's important to take risks; if we learned anything from Species it's that killer alien/human hybrids may be gorgeous women prone to gratituous displays of nudity.
So would I, but I can't. The only TCP is via battlenet (or bnetd); the other options are serial link or UDP/IP or IPX, which is all it supports other than battlenet, and which don't work on a WAN. Ok for a LAN party but otherwise unsuitable.
Well, it does with a suitable VLAN, but Blizzard also claims that use of these is a violation of the licence.
Could it be that the creators of Bnetd just intended to play on a server with fewer "issues"? I wonder. I mean if you want to play privately with a small number of people there are other options.
But there aren't other options. Thus the legitimate need for bnetd.
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They're asking for a declarative judgement, not sueing:
"Judge, I'm planning on doing X, and I'm pretty sure it's within my rights, but this isn't 100% clear, and I don't want Mr. So-and-So to sue me about it after the fact. Rather than me go ahead and do it and then get hauled into court, can we go ahead and get a ruling on whether it's ok or not now?"
Just put it in that refridgerator!
Hmmm... you know, I was joking... but some smallish fridges are realatively quiet... mount a motherboard in there... hmmmmm.
How are cable companies supposed to gather the data they need?
I don't know, and I don't care. They fact that they would like to know doesn't make it any of their damn business.
Because Germans like things that are large, expensive, and over-engineered?
:)
Good points, but:
... it has that right, and keep the $40B in the bank for a "rainy day" ...
Usually companies in Microsofts position pay dividends, Microsoft decided not to
Actually, there is an obscure law that says corporations which have liquid assests above and beyond what they might reasonably need for business purposes must return them to the shareholders as dividends.
This law is regularly ignored; Ralph Nader was complaining about MS and this recently, but so far as I know nothing has come of that.
If one owns a majority of the voting shares, they run the company. Simple as that.
Well, not quite that simple; they have to run the company in a way that's at least arguably to the equal benefit of all shareholders.
You can't buy 55% of a company and then sell all of its assets to yourself for $1; that would be fraud, as well as probably breaking a bunch of other laws I don't know about. (And probably wouldn't be profitable anyway, but there are exceptions where it would be.)
Anybody remember the OSF (Open Software Foundation/Oppose Sun Forever), the anti-Sun proprietary unix alliance? Interesting parallels...
It was pretty much marginal, except for killing openlook and NeWS in favor of Motif and X (is that a good thing?).
cat > /etc/motd
F1rst P0st!
^D
It's not a "game" engine, it's a "Warcraft 2" engine. A cursory glance at the many hardcoded rules, behaviours, actions, messages and object types verifies this. There's nowhere (that I can see) to add behaviour hooks; you have to expand or modify the code. Modifying it to act as a DuneII or Starcraft clone, for example, would be a substantial rewrite.
Yeah, and Linux wasn't originally intended to be portable to non-386; decent code that works is the key, the rest can follow.
No, I don't think so. If we have to pay Redhat to use it, they can't distribute with violating the GPL. Oddly, if Redhat has patented Linux, I can still distribute it (but you can be sued by them for using); however I think they have to grant a royality-free license for Linux use in order to be able to distribute it themselves, (Alan Cox said something to this effect in a discussion on the real-time Linux patents, IIRC).
I suspect this is just a defensive move to protect Linux from somebody else patenting its algorythms, and maybe to get a MAD thing going with other software vendors where RH can retaliate if they start to enforce other patents against Linux.
And camcorders! Can't have anybody ripping DVDs by filming a TV.
That is some serious crack they get out in Hollywood.
Well, that would explain a lot of things...
Sure, it's a 2-liner, but is anybody going to be able to maintain it 20 billions years from now? Huh?
Eh. Are you actually losing memory, or is it just filling the buffer cache up with random logs and such? No reason not to - if you need it, it's already in RAM, and if not, it's easy enough to toss...
I get complaints about this weekly on our Solaris boxen.
My favorite was actually an error message; a piece of (commercial!) software crashed, with the error message:
"Dave says this case can't happen."
Very true.
In _The Mythical Man Month_, Brooks wrote (paraphrasing here): Comment your code and I will remain confused; comment your data structures and your code will become obvious.
A problem with Mars Direct is that it uses nuclear energy. I don't have much of a problem with nuclear energy when its on another planet, but it makes it politically more difficult. I think its use stems from Zubrin nuclear engineering background and from his unwillingness to consider advances in technology that will be obtained by the time a Mars program actually starts.
I don't think any possible chemical fuel could provide enough energy to do what is needed for his plan, and I doubt you can carry solar cells to get enough power.
The nuclear plant is the key to this plan; everything else hinges on having tons of electricity available on Mars.
Clearly, it will be a Mac OS X user, after Apple starts to use these for processor cooling and some confusion about what Steve meant when he said the new systems were 'lickable'...
You mean, the primary GNU/Solaris tar.
I'd like to see User-Mode Linux ported to Solaris. Dozens (hundreds?) of Linux boxes running on a single Solaris machine... yum.
Is this actually feasible, or am I on crack?
Eh. If they disentangled the code they've unnecessarily bolted together, and had a decent package manager, dependencies can be handled. I mean, Linux has this issue in spades, but Debian has it solved:
callidora:/home/mikee# apt-get install kword
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
kdebase-libs kdelibs3 kdelibs3-bin koffice-libs libkonq3 libxml2 libxslt1
The following NEW packages will be installed:
kdebase-libs kdelibs3 kdelibs3-bin koffice-libs kword libkonq3 libxslt1
1 packages upgraded, 7 newly installed, 0 to remove and 317 not upgraded.
1 packages not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 12.7MB of archives. After unpacking 41.3MB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] n
Uh oh... we all know no Microsoft product is usable until version 3.0.
On the other hand, it's important to take risks; if we learned anything from Species it's that killer alien/human hybrids may be gorgeous women prone to gratituous displays of nudity.
You mean there are shells other than emacs??
Yeah, this would be really cool for Debian, I think. Hook some P2P goodness into apt-get, and serve out debs you have cached in return. Yummy.
In that circumstance I would play a TCP/IP game.
So would I, but I can't. The only TCP is via battlenet (or bnetd); the other options are serial link or UDP/IP or IPX, which is all it supports other than battlenet, and which don't work on a WAN. Ok for a LAN party but otherwise unsuitable.
Well, it does with a suitable VLAN, but Blizzard also claims that use of these is a violation of the licence.
Could it be that the creators of Bnetd just intended to play on a server with fewer "issues"? I wonder. I mean if you want to play privately with a small number of people there are other options.
But there aren't other options. Thus the legitimate need for bnetd.