They added new public members to standard
classes. This breaks binary compatibility.
They added new public classes to java.* and
javax.*. This causes application writers
to make their code non-portable by accident.
They made gratuitous incompatible changes
to the behaviour of standard classes.
I might be wrong, but I thought most (if not all) compatibility issues were fixed long before Sun forced MS to stop shipping its JVM.
I think you are wrong.
I think Sun was actually complaining about things like J/Direct which were making it too easy to write Windows programs in Java. Sun's solution (JNI) was purposefully complicated so that interoperability with native code was a pain in the ass.
There would have been no problem if MS had implemented its platform specific extensions without interfering with the 'java.*' and 'javax.*' APIs. Whether MS used JNI or something else to do this would have been their choice.
For an example of how it can be done properly, check out the GUI subsystem (SWT?) used by IBM's Eclipse environment. Anyone can download SWT and use it with there own applications. This makes the apps SWT-dependent, but the developer has to make a conscious decision to do this...
Finally, JNI is not purposely complicated. It is complicated for a purpose; i.e. so that garbage collection works reliably in the presence of native code.
Although we are talking about the same Sun that told Microsoft they couldn't ship any newer version of the JVM, and then sued them for not shipping a newer version of the JVM.
Actually, Sun that told Microsoft they couldn't ship any newer version of their egregiously non-compliant JVM. If Microsoft had agreed to fix their JVM to meet the criteria for Java compliance, Sun would have settled out of court. But of course Microsoft would never have done this. Microsoft's aim was always to subvert Java's cross-platform portability. Sadly for IT world, they succeeded anyway, despite loosing the lawsuit.
There is reputedly a saying among con artists - "you can't con an honest man." The Nigerian scams are a prime example of this.
I agree, about the Nigerian scam. The people who fall for this scam have questionable morality.
But there are counter-examples too. For instance I've received a number of emails that pretend to come from computer security desks at Australian banks. These try to con me into entering my bank details in order to "reenable my account" or some such nonsense.
Fuck your inbox; try sparing a thought for the (admittedly silly) people who got suckered by these scams.
Please explain how "sparing a thought" for someone who can been conned does them the slightest bit of good?
Even someone who has been conned by one of these scams will appreciate the good in keeping them out of everyone's mail boxes... even if it is only to protect others from being scammed!
I mean this in all sincerity: don't you think it's kind of selfish that you are happy you're getting one less spam in your inbox, while some people are the victims of actual fraud, and from the looks of it, relatively high budget fraud at that?
He (we) gets less SPAM, and fewer people get defrauded. Why should he (we) feel guilty about being happy to get less SPAM?
In order to commit a crime, you must knowingly commit an act which deprives another of rights with the intent of so depriving the other party.
As a blanket statement, this is totally wrong. In general, an action can be a crime whether or not it was committed intentionally. For example, intention is irrelevant when you get a speeding ticket. There are exceptions; e.g. the distinction between murder and manslaughter hinges on the intent of the perpetrator. But these exceptions are typically spelled out in the relevant laws.
Steve Balmer and other Microsoft representatives are on the record as saying that they will enforce patents against Open Source Projects.
Asked by CollabNet CTO Brian Behlendorf whether Microsoft will enforce its patents against open source projects, Mundie replied, "Yes, absolutely." An audience member pointed out that many open source projects aren't funded and so can't afford legal representation to rival Microsoft's. "Oh well," said Mundie. "Get your money, and let's go to court."
I know you intended that to be a joke, but it may be the root of the solution. Suppose NASA could develop semi-flexible patch material consisting of a carbon fibre composite with an adhesive backing. The astronauts would apply patches of this material, cut to shape with hand shears. By applying a number of layers, they would build up sufficient thickness of material to withstand the heat of reentry.
I don't know how flexible a thin sheet of carbon fibre composite would be. But, if necessary, the patches could be preshaped with roughly the U profile needed to go around the leading edge.
If the leading edge panels are so hard to
patch, perhaps the should make the panels modular
and carry a couple of spares in the repair
locker. Or perhaps they should reengineer them
to be strong enough to take significantly greater
impacts without breaking.
If you are really worried about people reading your discarded mail, you would do better getting a
paper shredder.
A decent shredder with two sets of blades will reduce your bills to the size of punched card chads. For extra points, mix it with
vegetable scraps and put it into your compost bin.
Or reduce it to paper pulp by mixing with water, and boiling it for a few minutes:-).
Not Just e-mail, any electronic address, including TCP/IP.
You may be correct. Certainly the act does not
say what an "electronic addresses" is, and that
is a bad thing, IMO.
If your software only harvests addresses that
are not email addresses, this would probably fall under the section 20.2 exclusion on the basis that the purpose of harvesting is not related to sending
unsolicitted commercial email. However, I don't know if this "common sense" reasoning would stand in a court of law!
My initial reading of the draft legislation is that it could make web search engines illegal. For example, I can use google.com.au to search for "@student.uq.ed.au", and then use these to create a list for spamming students at the University of Queensland. Under paragraph 20.1.a, this would make Google a provider of address harvesting software.
While 20.2 says the following, I don't think it helps:
20.1 does not apply if the
supplier had no reason to suspect that the customer, or another person,
intended to use the address-harvesting software or the harvested-address list,
as the case may be, in connection with sending commercial electronic messages
in contravention of section 16.
The mere fact my search request contained a DNS name and an '@' character could be construed as grounds to suspect that I might use the results for spamming.
Reality check: the UK courts have not made any rulings on the substance opf the case yet. They have simply allowed the case to proceed to trial.
The chances are that common sense will prevail,
the courts will find in favour of the defendant,
a UK legal precedent will be set... and Bill Gates can stop quaking in his boots about being branded a "copyright terrorist":-)
Solaris does the same thing. Actually, I think several commercial Unixes do this.
I recall that even 4.1 and 4.2 BSD had crash dumps and rudimentary crash dump analysis tools. I think
it was 4.2 BSD that introduced dumping to the swap partition and the utility that snarfed the dump on reboot. (I could be wrong though: it was 20 years ago).
No one with any common sense would confuse the 2 entities. I dare say that people under 20 don't even know an apple corps exists/existed.
Granted that this case is about contract law, what
you have said actually demonstrates that Apple Corps are not being frivolous. If an average 20 year old is unaware that Apple Corp exists, they may well assume that various CDs they find in their local CD shop are distributed by Apple Computer. If customers then phone Apple Computer about new CD releases, etc this is
not good for Apple Corp.
Spy:
Please, please! Bitte, believe me! I'm not a shpy. I come here seeking political asylum.
Bloodnok:
Well, take a bus to the House of Commons, that's the finest political asylum in the world! Ooohh, yes! They're all there you know, aaaooooowalalalalaaaaaaaaaaaaaayeeaaahhhhhaaa! Including Max Geldray, the well known long playing record!!
Slashdot Mirror
From memory, MS did things like this:
I might be wrong, but I thought most (if not all) compatibility issues were fixed long before Sun forced MS to stop shipping its JVM.
I think you are wrong.
I think Sun was actually complaining about things like J/Direct which were making it too easy to write Windows programs in Java. Sun's solution (JNI) was purposefully complicated so that interoperability with native code was a pain in the ass.
There would have been no problem if MS had implemented its platform specific extensions without interfering with the 'java.*' and 'javax.*' APIs. Whether MS used JNI or something else to do this would have been their choice.
For an example of how it can be done properly, check out the GUI subsystem (SWT?) used by IBM's Eclipse environment. Anyone can download SWT and use it with there own applications. This makes the apps SWT-dependent, but the developer has to make a conscious decision to do this ...
Finally, JNI is not purposely complicated. It is complicated for a purpose; i.e. so that garbage collection works reliably in the presence of native code.
Although we are talking about the same Sun that told Microsoft they couldn't ship any newer version of the JVM, and then sued them for not shipping a newer version of the JVM. Actually, Sun that told Microsoft they couldn't ship any newer version of their egregiously non-compliant JVM. If Microsoft had agreed to fix their JVM to meet the criteria for Java compliance, Sun would have settled out of court. But of course Microsoft would never have done this. Microsoft's aim was always to subvert Java's cross-platform portability. Sadly for IT world, they succeeded anyway, despite loosing the lawsuit.
Easy. No real financial institution would ever send such a request. Besides, I don't use internet bamking, so the request was obviously bogus.
I agree, about the Nigerian scam. The people who fall for this scam have questionable morality.
But there are counter-examples too. For instance I've received a number of emails that pretend to come from computer security desks at Australian banks. These try to con me into entering my bank details in order to "reenable my account" or some such nonsense.
Please explain how "sparing a thought" for someone who can been conned does them the slightest bit of good?
Even someone who has been conned by one of these scams will appreciate the good in keeping them out of everyone's mail boxes ... even if it is only to protect others from being scammed!
He (we) gets less SPAM, and fewer people get defrauded. Why should he (we) feel guilty about being happy to get less SPAM?
As a blanket statement, this is totally wrong. In general, an action can be a crime whether or not it was committed intentionally. For example, intention is irrelevant when you get a speeding ticket. There are exceptions; e.g. the distinction between murder and manslaughter hinges on the intent of the perpetrator. But these exceptions are typically spelled out in the relevant laws.
(IANAL either)
Are you implying that the government of the USA does not violate the privacy of its citizens?
I don't know how flexible a thin sheet of carbon fibre composite would be. But, if necessary, the patches could be preshaped with roughly the U profile needed to go around the leading edge.
If the leading edge panels are so hard to patch, perhaps the should make the panels modular and carry a couple of spares in the repair locker. Or perhaps they should reengineer them to be strong enough to take significantly greater impacts without breaking.
Click here for the full "story".
A decent shredder with two sets of blades will reduce your bills to the size of punched card chads. For extra points, mix it with vegetable scraps and put it into your compost bin. Or reduce it to paper pulp by mixing with water, and boiling it for a few minutes :-).
You could call me a nit-picker, but you wouldn't be quite correct :-)
You may be correct. Certainly the act does not say what an "electronic addresses" is, and that is a bad thing, IMO.
If your software only harvests addresses that are not email addresses, this would probably fall under the section 20.2 exclusion on the basis that the purpose of harvesting is not related to sending unsolicitted commercial email. However, I don't know if this "common sense" reasoning would stand in a court of law!
While 20.2 says the following, I don't think it helps:
The mere fact my search request contained a DNS name and an '@' character could be construed as grounds to suspect that I might use the results for spamming.
Damn right! It has never been the same since Ogg the scientist discovered how to make flint hand-axes.
The chances are that common sense will prevail, the courts will find in favour of the defendant, a UK legal precedent will be set ... and Bill Gates can stop quaking in his boots about being branded a "copyright terrorist" :-)
6. Mouse ball cleaner
I recall that even 4.1 and 4.2 BSD had crash dumps and rudimentary crash dump analysis tools. I think it was 4.2 BSD that introduced dumping to the swap partition and the utility that snarfed the dump on reboot. (I could be wrong though: it was 20 years ago).
Warning: gratuitous punctuation detected!
If you are adventurous, you could try applying the LKCD patches to your kernel. Start looking here
Granted that this case is about contract law, what you have said actually demonstrates that Apple Corps are not being frivolous. If an average 20 year old is unaware that Apple Corp exists, they may well assume that various CDs they find in their local CD shop are distributed by Apple Computer. If customers then phone Apple Computer about new CD releases, etc this is not good for Apple Corp.
Spy: Please, please! Bitte, believe me! I'm not a shpy. I come here seeking political asylum.
Bloodnok: Well, take a bus to the House of Commons, that's the finest political asylum in the world! Ooohh, yes! They're all there you know, aaaooooowalalalalaaaaaaaaaaaaaayeeaaahhhhhaaa! Including Max Geldray, the well known long playing record!!
I bet she asked you what the popup meant the first time she saw it. Most users don't have someone knowledgable in the next room to ask what to do!!