The point is that they did copyright it. Slashdot is in the wrong.
I think the whole point of Andovers legal response is not to justify their actions, but to question Microsofts copyright on proprietary extensions to an open protocol.
They are becoming more than just a source of 'news'. They are becoming 'news' by setting aside whatever little objectiveness/. had and actually fighting the hyporcisy that is Micro$oft.
Whether its good or bad for a 'media' outlet to actually join the battle instead of reporting on it remains to be seen.
This Asyncronous ARM has been around for awhile, and it has yet to hit the shelves.
I recall reading announcements for it back in the mid 90s (I believe it was in Byte, or something silly like that), and despite my frantic attempts to aquire small quantities, I was not successful. It seems that, based on what they say on their web sites, they have no intention of manufacturing it unless you are a large corporation with a specific need.
Bottom line: Who cares. It isnt available to the average silicon hacker.
Unless explicitly stated in the contract, Company X holds the intellectual rights to any code written by them.
Now, if this code was generated by a commercial software package, then they do not have a hope in hell, as the company that originally wrote the commercial development package holds the intellectual rights to the development package, and therefore holds the intellectual rights to any canned subroutines generated by the commercial package (they ususally grant an unlimited royalty free license to the developer who purchases the software).
I actually had to write a contract that handed over all rights to a custom app I developed, but with a clause that gave me full unrestricted ownership of the code libraries I used/developed for the custom app.
To summarize, unless explicitly stated in a contract, Company X has the intellectual rights to the code, and the client has a license to use the code, modify the code, but not re-sell it.
Mind you, IANAL, but I've had to go through this shit before.....
After studying the deaths of 15,000 slashdot readers between 1998 and 1999, they found that 1500 of them died from brain cancer, due to the radiation of the monitors they were sitting in front of. To this date, Slashdot has yet to submit their toxic output to the EPA.
I work for a company whose named shall remain... Alstom Power.
Their directive is to have a single Internet Firewall in the whole world. This firewall will be located in the UK. This means that all internet access from every Alstom Power office will be through the firewall in the UK. This also means that all email coming into Alstom Power and going out of Alstom power will pass through the UK.
Now, the British Government will have access to all coorespondance the Alstom Power employees are having with their clients, vendors, and competition.
Why do I have a really really *bad* feeling about this?
At first you fought the open source movement, and made some questionable statements against the speed and reliability of Linux. Now, you are openly embracing Linux and the OSS movement. While many in the industry are applauding your 'about face', some of us believe that you are 'keeping your friends close, and your enemies closer'. What can you say or do that would counter this belief?
After looking at the gerber files, I would highly doubt that this is a project for the average, or above average do it yourselfer. It isnt easy to get a *6* layer prototype Printed Circuit board fabbed economically. Until someone out there comes out with a variant of this project with a 2-4 layer board, its out of our reach.....
There is a technique to solder such tiny pins using a conventional soldering iron (Weller WTCPN/T). I had to solder a chip with such a fine pin width several years ago. I used the smallest possible tip, and the finest solder paste available. I covered the tips of the pins with a fine coating of solder paste, and dabbed a bit on the edges of the surface mount pads. I used the soldering tip to depress the pin in slightly (towards the body of the chip), and when it melted, I retracted the solder tip quickly. The solder stayed molten until approx. 0.5 seconds after I retracted the solder tip. I assembled 10 prototypes this way. It worked like a charm:)
Even turning your computer off is useless, as these malicious hackers have the ability to turn them on remotely, through special thought waves that only computers can understand.
JB
A Finger in a PC case???
on
Quickielanche
·
· Score: 1
"odd things found inside PC cases. It includes a *shudder* severed finger tip"
So *thats* where my finger went.....
Jailbrekr.
Re:Future Incompatabilities?
on
Intel Roadmap
·
· Score: 1
Your logic is flawed. 10 years ago, when systems cost upwards of $4000, it made economical sense to upgrade. These days, a performance system will put you back, oh, $1200-$1500. The cost of computers and hardware has gotten to the point where it is more economical to purchase a new system, instead of upgrading. The cost to add the new motherboard is sometimes more than the motherboard itself!
While I am one of many on/. who has a Frankencomputer, I will rarely recommend an upgrade to a client (unless it is something simple, like RAM or hard drive). The cost of a new system (with its 3 year warranty) if far more cost effective than charging them cost+labour to upgrade an existing system.
For all of you Western Canadians who dont speak French, here is the full text of the silliness going on in France:
The national assembly votes the identification a priori authors of Web sites under penalty of prison.
Summary: The authors of Web sites must give their identity to their WebMaster before any public communication under sorrow prison. In the absence of identification the WebMasters are responsible for the contents and liable six months to prison.
The national assembly voted yesterday March 22 a bearing amendment on the responsibility for the WebMasters of Web sites. This vote intervenes after the vote of the senat on January 19 which prevoyait the obligation for the WebMasters to communicate the identity of an author to any third interessé under penalty of six months of prison.
All the Web sites for which the identity of the author is not known a priori are legally under the leading responsibility of the WebMaster. To release me from this responsibility I should obtain the identity of each of the 48000 users of altern.org.
Well on the ecommerce will be content, what could be better than a file customer which the law obliges you to constitute by leaving you any latitude to exploit it commercially.
The objective of this law seems to be the installation of a phenomenon of self-censorship on the level of the WebMaster who must proceed to ' diligences appropriées' following a setting of residence of a third. And on the level of the author who beyond the preliminary declaration under penalty of prison, does not have any insurance when with the marketing of his identity.
This law goes against the European legislation, and to that of all the democratic countries. This vote is not definitif, a third and last reading must take place. But it will be a question of rounding the angles between the text of the senate and of the assembly thus one can fear still worse.
Concerning the future of altern.org, as opposed to what I said yesterday before taking note of the exact text, I can continue to exert as long as I accept my new role of watchdog.
Damn. I'm impressed. I implied that you based your article on advice of others. Considering the fact that you are actively defending yourself on the Slashdot forum, I was obviously mistaken.
You did recommend that FreeBSD is best for Web Servers, and I do not dispute that. What I disupte is as follows:
Quote #1:
"But--and this isn't a small but--you need to really know BSD to do the job right. With no reseller program, this can be a problem"
The whole strength of the Open Source movement is that there are literally hundreds if not thousands of developers out there who can offer assistance through varies channels (UseNet, email, LUGs, etc). Linux owes its existance to this, and to simply write off FreeBSd because a major corporation doesnt officially support it is a flawed statement. Keep in mind that Intel and IBM, while officially supporting Linux, are embedding FreeBSD and OpenBSD into their internet appliances.
Quote #2:
"For advanced Web serving, however, we think that Linux will prove the long-term winner. Because of BSD Unix's low profile, excellent development tools like Corel/Inprise's forthcoming Kylix, IBM and Sun's releases of Java 2 for Linux, Pervasive Software Inc.'s Tango 2000 Application Server, and Red Hat/Cygnus's Code Fusion all are appearing on Linux, not BSD. Unless more development tools are forthcoming, this disparity in development tools eventually will leave BSD out in the cold. "
Bah! Currently, FreeBSD has a project to port Java v2 to FreeBSD, and near as I can tell, they are nearly done. FreeBSD supports Linux Binaries, so any apps ported to Linux should run on FreeBSD (depending on the app). As well, to say that FreeBSD has a low profile is, in my opinion, inaccurate. With such large sites as Yahoo and Hotmail running FreeBSD, and openly admitting it, this is far from 'Low Profile'. Yes, they are behind Linux, but there is little chance of being left 'in the cold'. FreeBSD will always have a place, due to its mature code base, and BSD license. The BSD license is far more appealing to corporations, especially with embedded applications, as they do not have to release the source code, or even acknowledge that they are using FreeBSD in their embedded app. In the short term, this may not be relevant to the resellers, but in the future it will, as more and more thin servers will be introduced. It is THESE 'server appliances' which will make up the bulk of the server sales within 3-5 years. As well, with the rumblings that there is a FreeBSD port to StrongARM in the works, expect to see PDAs running FreeBSD as well.
Overall, as I am a reseller, I can see the reasoning behind your article. Resellers are usually not the code hacking, coffee injecting geeks that frequent Slashdot. They are salespeople, with a general knowledge in many areas, and perhaps specialized knowledge in one or 2 areas. Your focus is to determine the best UNIX OS based on who has the greatest reseller resources available. While, from a reseller perspective, your article was well thought out, you missed a few key points. Remember that Linux (and FreeBSD) were created on the Internet, and the Internet is the ultimate reseller channel. You just have to know where to look.
Firstly, the article implied that Linux pre 2.4 cannot do SMP. That is false. Linux has been SMP since 2.0. FreeBSD also does SMP, although it is rather weak. This was never mentioned.
Secondly, I found conflicting bias regarding Linux vs. FreeBSD. While they did recommend FreeBSD for web services, they made BSD sound like it was on its death bed. There was no mention of the BSDIFreeBSD merger, nor was there mention of the whole slew of companies embedding FreeBSD in Thin Servers/Server appliances. They cited a lack of development tools, but lets be honest here. I honestly dont think that Delphi for FreeBSD will help, as FreeBSD is primarily a server platform, not a desktop platform. GCC Anyone?
I don't know. I had a bad taste in my mouth when I read that article. It sounded like it was written by someone who based the article on the advice on others, and not experience.
the positive reporting of Linux is a good thing, but at what cost?
Earlier, when Slashdot posted the possibility that Microsoft may open source their code, I expressed my concern. The reason for this concern is because, when people ask when I am going to cut my long hair, I explain "I will not cut my hair until Microsoft goes open source!".
Them releasing the code to WindowsCE won't be open source, so I have nothing to worry about. Besides, WinCE can barely be considered an Operating System, much like DosShell can be considered a GUI.
An investigation was conducted by the FBI regarding the famous ubergeek because of his affiliation with pinko commie linux zealots, and his perverse sexual behaviour, specifically his affinity for a hamster named 'Hemos'. CmdrTaco was was a member, sponsor, or affiliated with a number of Ubergeek organizations between 1997-2000. He also serves as a primary source of information for the right wing online news service known as 'Slashdot'.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the whole point of Andovers legal response is not to justify their actions, but to question Microsofts copyright on proprietary extensions to an open protocol.
They are becoming more than just a source of 'news'. They are becoming 'news' by setting aside whatever little objectiveness /. had and actually fighting the hyporcisy that is Micro$oft.
Whether its good or bad for a 'media' outlet to actually join the battle instead of reporting on it remains to be seen.
This Asyncronous ARM has been around for awhile, and it has yet to hit the shelves.
I recall reading announcements for it back in the mid 90s (I believe it was in Byte, or something silly like that), and despite my frantic attempts to aquire small quantities, I was not successful. It seems that, based on what they say on their web sites, they have no intention of manufacturing it unless you are a large corporation with a specific need.
Bottom line: Who cares. It isnt available to the average silicon hacker.
I've been involved this stuff like this before.
Unless explicitly stated in the contract, Company X holds the intellectual rights to any code written by them.
Now, if this code was generated by a commercial software package, then they do not have a hope in hell, as the company that originally wrote the commercial development package holds the intellectual rights to the development package, and therefore holds the intellectual rights to any canned subroutines generated by the commercial package (they ususally grant an unlimited royalty free license to the developer who purchases the software).
I actually had to write a contract that handed over all rights to a custom app I developed, but with a clause that gave me full unrestricted ownership of the code libraries I used/developed for the custom app.
To summarize, unless explicitly stated in a contract, Company X has the intellectual rights to the code, and the client has a license to use the code, modify the code, but not re-sell it.
Mind you, IANAL, but I've had to go through this shit before.....
After studying the deaths of 15,000 slashdot readers between 1998 and 1999, they found that 1500 of them died from brain cancer, due to the radiation of the monitors they were sitting in front of. To this date, Slashdot has yet to submit their toxic output to the EPA.
I work for a company whose named shall remain... Alstom Power.
Their directive is to have a single Internet Firewall in the whole world. This firewall will be located in the UK. This means that all internet access from every Alstom Power office will be through the firewall in the UK. This also means that all email coming into Alstom Power and going out of Alstom power will pass through the UK.
Now, the British Government will have access to all coorespondance the Alstom Power employees are having with their clients, vendors, and competition.
Why do I have a really really *bad* feeling about this?
Will Microsoft even bother courting the French Gov't to sell them their software?
I don't think so.
"Honey! Is dinner ready?"
"After two more minutes of cracking RC5 keys, it should be ready!"
I can wish, can't I?
At first you fought the open source movement, and made some questionable statements against the speed and reliability of Linux. Now, you are openly embracing Linux and the OSS movement. While many in the industry are applauding your 'about face', some of us believe that you are 'keeping your friends close, and your enemies closer'. What can you say or do that would counter this belief?
If the parasites who 'steal' it (poor choice of words) do not contribute back to the project, then it is doomed to die.
BSD is far from dying.....
Refrigeration helps. I was able to use a small tube of paste for 2 years that way. You just have to be careful that it doesnt freeze.
After looking at the gerber files, I would highly doubt that this is a project for the average, or above average do it yourselfer. It isnt easy to get a *6* layer prototype Printed Circuit board fabbed economically. Until someone out there comes out with a variant of this project with a 2-4 layer board, its out of our reach.....
There is a technique to solder such tiny pins using a conventional soldering iron (Weller WTCPN/T). I had to solder a chip with such a fine pin width several years ago. I used the smallest possible tip, and the finest solder paste available. I covered the tips of the pins with a fine coating of solder paste, and dabbed a bit on the edges of the surface mount pads. I used the soldering tip to depress the pin in slightly (towards the body of the chip), and when it melted, I retracted the solder tip quickly. The solder stayed molten until approx. 0.5 seconds after I retracted the solder tip. I assembled 10 prototypes this way. It worked like a charm :)
Even turning your computer off is useless, as these malicious hackers have the ability to turn them on remotely, through special thought waves that only computers can understand.
JB
"odd things found inside PC cases. It includes a *shudder* severed finger tip"
So *thats* where my finger went.....
Jailbrekr.Your logic is flawed. 10 years ago, when systems cost upwards of $4000, it made economical sense to upgrade. These days, a performance system will put you back, oh, $1200-$1500. The cost of computers and hardware has gotten to the point where it is more economical to purchase a new system, instead of upgrading. The cost to add the new motherboard is sometimes more than the motherboard itself!
/. who has a Frankencomputer, I will rarely recommend an upgrade to a client (unless it is something simple, like RAM or hard drive). The cost of a new system (with its 3 year warranty) if far more cost effective than charging them cost+labour to upgrade an existing system.
While I am one of many on
It just isnt worth it.
Jailbrekr
1) Get an IBM Mainframe
2) Run several Linux VMs
3) Install VMWare on every Linux VM
4) Run NT in a window on Linux VM
Piece of cake.
If you had a Mexican dinner the night before, would it send your doctor a 'flame'?
Jailbrekr.
For all of you Western Canadians who dont speak French, here is the full text of the silliness going on in France:
The national assembly votes the identification a priori authors of Web sites under penalty of prison.
Summary:
The authors of Web sites must give their identity to their WebMaster before any public communication under sorrow prison.
In the absence of identification the WebMasters are responsible for the contents and liable six months to prison.
The national assembly voted yesterday March 22 a bearing amendment on the responsibility for the WebMasters of Web sites.
This vote intervenes after the vote of the senat on January 19 which prevoyait the obligation for the WebMasters to communicate the identity of an author to any third interessé under penalty of six months of prison.
All the Web sites for which the identity of the author is not known a priori are legally under the leading responsibility of the WebMaster. To release me from this responsibility I should obtain the identity of each of the 48000 users of altern.org.
Well on the ecommerce will be content, what could be better than a file customer which the law obliges you to constitute by leaving you any latitude to exploit it commercially.
The objective of this law seems to be the installation of a phenomenon of self-censorship on the level of the WebMaster who must proceed to ' diligences appropriées' following a setting of residence of a third. And on the level of the author who beyond the preliminary declaration under penalty of prison, does not have any insurance when with the marketing of his identity.
This law goes against the European legislation, and to that of all the democratic countries.
This vote is not definitif, a third and last reading must take place. But it will be a question of rounding the angles between the text of the senate and of the assembly thus one can fear still worse.
Concerning the future of altern.org, as opposed to what I said yesterday before taking note of the exact text, I can continue to exert as long as I accept my new role of watchdog.
Valentine lacambre.
Thou art correct, almighty AC. I have been humbled....
I based that on third party comments. How silly of me to spread FUD like that....
They are currently working on JDK 1.2.
Doh!
Damn. I'm impressed. I implied that you based your article on advice of others. Considering the fact that you are actively defending yourself on the Slashdot forum, I was obviously mistaken.
You did recommend that FreeBSD is best for Web Servers, and I do not dispute that. What I disupte is as follows:
Quote #1:
"But--and this isn't a small but--you need to really know BSD to do the job right. With no reseller program, this can be a problem"
The whole strength of the Open Source movement is that there are literally hundreds if not thousands of developers out there who can offer assistance through varies channels (UseNet, email, LUGs, etc). Linux owes its existance to this, and to simply write off FreeBSd because a major corporation doesnt officially support it is a flawed statement. Keep in mind that Intel and IBM, while officially supporting Linux, are embedding FreeBSD and OpenBSD into their internet appliances.
Quote #2:
"For advanced Web serving, however, we think that Linux will prove the long-term winner. Because of BSD Unix's low profile, excellent development tools like Corel/Inprise's forthcoming Kylix, IBM and Sun's releases of Java 2 for Linux, Pervasive Software Inc.'s Tango 2000 Application Server, and Red Hat/Cygnus's Code Fusion all are appearing on Linux, not BSD. Unless more development tools are forthcoming, this disparity in development tools eventually will leave BSD out in the cold. "
Bah! Currently, FreeBSD has a project to port Java v2 to FreeBSD, and near as I can tell, they are nearly done. FreeBSD supports Linux Binaries, so any apps ported to Linux should run on FreeBSD (depending on the app). As well, to say that FreeBSD has a low profile is, in my opinion, inaccurate. With such large sites as Yahoo and Hotmail running FreeBSD, and openly admitting it, this is far from 'Low Profile'. Yes, they are behind Linux, but there is little chance of being left 'in the cold'. FreeBSD will always have a place, due to its mature code base, and BSD license. The BSD license is far more appealing to corporations, especially with embedded applications, as they do not have to release the source code, or even acknowledge that they are using FreeBSD in their embedded app. In the short term, this may not be relevant to the resellers, but in the future it will, as more and more thin servers will be introduced. It is THESE 'server appliances' which will make up the bulk of the server sales within 3-5 years. As well, with the rumblings that there is a FreeBSD port to StrongARM in the works, expect to see PDAs running FreeBSD as well.
Overall, as I am a reseller, I can see the reasoning behind your article. Resellers are usually not the code hacking, coffee injecting geeks that frequent Slashdot. They are salespeople, with a general knowledge in many areas, and perhaps specialized knowledge in one or 2 areas. Your focus is to determine the best UNIX OS based on who has the greatest reseller resources available. While, from a reseller perspective, your article was well thought out, you missed a few key points. Remember that Linux (and FreeBSD) were created on the Internet, and the Internet is the ultimate reseller channel. You just have to know where to look.
Jailbrekr.
Firstly, the article implied that Linux pre 2.4 cannot do SMP. That is false. Linux has been SMP since 2.0. FreeBSD also does SMP, although it is rather weak. This was never mentioned.
Secondly, I found conflicting bias regarding Linux vs. FreeBSD. While they did recommend FreeBSD for web services, they made BSD sound like it was on its death bed. There was no mention of the BSDIFreeBSD merger, nor was there mention of the whole slew of companies embedding FreeBSD in Thin Servers/Server appliances. They cited a lack of development tools, but lets be honest here. I honestly dont think that Delphi for FreeBSD will help, as FreeBSD is primarily a server platform, not a desktop platform. GCC Anyone?
I don't know. I had a bad taste in my mouth when I read that article. It sounded like it was written by someone who based the article on the advice on others, and not experience.
the positive reporting of Linux is a good thing, but at what cost?
Jailbrekr.
Earlier, when Slashdot posted the possibility that Microsoft may open source their code, I expressed my concern. The reason for this concern is because, when people ask when I am going to cut my long hair, I explain "I will not cut my hair until Microsoft goes open source!".
Them releasing the code to WindowsCE won't be open source, so I have nothing to worry about. Besides, WinCE can barely be considered an Operating System, much like DosShell can be considered a GUI.
Jailbrekr.
If a few hundred thousand people download the software, I would like to see Mattel try to deal with filing suit with all of the ppl who downloaded it.
I for one
Jailbrekr
An investigation was conducted by the FBI regarding the famous ubergeek because of his affiliation with pinko commie linux zealots, and his perverse sexual behaviour, specifically his affinity for a hamster named 'Hemos'. CmdrTaco was was a member, sponsor, or affiliated with a number of Ubergeek organizations between 1997-2000. He also serves as a primary source of information for the right wing online news service known as 'Slashdot'.
Jailbrekr.
My apologies. Wrong/misleading subject heading.
I shall go eviscerate myself now.
JB