Look at the SCO pattern. They have made claims ranging from contract dispute with IBM to every OS in existance owing SCO IP money. They have nothing whatsoever to lose. They will merely pursue any interpretation of events which results in people owing them money. I don't know how they'll twist this yet, but since logic doesn't seem to have much to do with it they might say they were an unauthorized release and try to make some specific employee the goat, claim that the ABIs are an insignificant part of their total IP in Linux, or other things I'm not warped enough to think of. They aren't going to shut up for anything.
Even if after everything we've heard from them to date falls through, they may try to make the claim in court that every OS in existance is derived from SCO IP, and that being the case Linux users STILL owe SCO money, regardless of code. Nonsense yes, but when has that ever stopped them before?
Folks, the individual details of this don't matter at all. That's not what this is about. This is about SCO looking for a way - any way - to get Linux users to pay them. Knocking down a given specific detail won't phase them in the least. Until SCO in its current form is gone, we will never hear the end of this. Remember, they apparently even sent that letter to Congress saying open/free software was a threat to the US software industry! Their only concern is to come out on top, period. How is of no consequence.
Yes, this news could be useful to the likes of IBM (I can't see Groklaw so it's hard to say;-) But remember this isn't a war about details. This is about defining a goal, and getting there any way possible. We are in the way of SCO's using our code for commercial purposes. Therefore we are the enemy to be destroyed, and trying to reason with them has thus far been about as effective as talking a laser guided missle out of striking the target. I don't expect that trend to change any time soon, wherever the ABIs came from.
Uses KDE environment to full potential, very smooth, fast and clean. Less features than the others last time I looked. Doesn't really handle MS Office docs well yet, again last time I looked.
OpenOffice
Multiplatform, full of features, loads Microsoft Office documents quite well. Downside is it is rather large and slow. Occasional quirk, but on the whole rock steady.
MS Office
Feature wise, MS Office still rules the roost. But the price there is closed document formats, an untrustworthy company holding the reigns, and no Linux version. I'd count those as downsides.
"I don't think *anyone* can impinge the likes of Plan9 or BeOS"
Ah. You fail to grasp the most fundamental property of the lawsuit as a weapon. Their claims to Linux have to date not been proven publicly in ANY way, and yet they make trouble. The same tactics work just as well for any OS.
Even if we were to develop a new OS from the bit level up, they could still say they own fundamental OS concepts and by definition any working OS owes them money. It doesn't have to make sense - you just need lawyers to try it.
Welcome to the law as a killing tool. Merit isn't the issue - it isn't even of interest. It's what can you say, how loud can you say it, and who will believe you.
So, how do the new developments at freedesktop.org like XCB/XCL fit into this new picture? I'm hoping the exciting new code can be eventually rolled in more easily now?
I wish someone would release a new series of Space Cadet keyboards. http://world.std.com/~jdostale/kbd/Spa ceCadet.html
Build them as well or better as they did the old ones mechanically, and market it to geeks. If the geek factor isn't enough, the possibilities of the keyboard itself should be quite enticing, particularly for math editing in latex and other such environments (greek character shift anyone? WITH greek symbols visible on the keys?)
Yes it's over the top, but that's the whole point!:-).
"Authentication doesn't scale. But surveillance does. "The costs to observe are virtually zero, so it's not a question of will it exist, but what will we do with it?" Geer asks."
The AMOUNT of information you collect can scale, but the UNDERSTANDING of that information is limited by the processing capability of the organization collecting it. Not to mention its power and ethical use are in the hands of one organization.
I'm hoping by 2010 we will have remembered not to trust the government too much. Power corrupts, and post Sept. 11 is no different than pre as far as that goes. Nor is post digital Perl Harbor different from pre.
Bad things can happen - we have to accept that or do our society great damage. Any fixed target is a soft target, and computers and the internet are no different from anything else that way. The biggest liability right now on the net is unpatched Windows machines. Fixing the problems isn't enough - the fixes must be put into action. How do we solve that problem? Dunno, unless we do it right the first time (www.eros-os.org). But a free society has to be worth any price, or it will collapse. I won't accept government oversight as the price of keeping my computer safe - that price is too high. Particularly when it won't solve anything.
"I think it's a bit much to expect Microsoft to reveal the inner workings of their proprietary software, especially to "the wine guys" whose sole intention is to rip them off. Having said that, the public APIs are pretty well documented, despite the general/. mumblings to the contrary."
Um - how is wine "ripping off" Microsoft? They just want to be able to run Windows software, not duplicate the guts of Windows. Surely you don't contend that only Microsoft should be able to produce an OS that runs Windows binaries?
Here's a wikipedia summary of the problems the wine group has had - I actually am not terribly familiar with wine myself since I don't use it very much:
"The project has been time-consuming and difficult for developers, at least partially because of incomplete documentation of the Win32 API. While most Win32 functions are documented, there are areas such as file formats and protocols where an official Microsoft specification does not exist, as well as undocumented low level functions and obscure bugs that must be duplicated precisely for some applications to work properly. Consequently, the Wine team have had to reverse engineer many function calls and file formats, in such areas as thunking."
"Or by buying a computer with Linux pre-installed. Can you still get those? Or did it turn out to be commercially unviable?"
I think a few specialized companies may still sell them, but I'm not aware of any major distribution channel that offers them. Microsoft has historically not been inclined to tolerate OEMs offering alternative OS software. IIRC that was one of the points against them in the lawsuit.
"As for control, no-one ever put a gun to your head and told you to buy Windows, or IE, or any other Microsoft product. That's just wishful thinking from the anti-MS brigade."
Monopolies never have to do that, because they are the only viable choice. Being forced to buy Windows would be an extortion racket;-). Personally I think Linux is a viable alternative, but unless enough people agree with me to ensure the computing world can't ignore it successfully that might be wishful thinking in the long run. Viability as competition is not strictly (or perhaps not even primarily) a matter of technical achievement.
"I first installed Slackware in '93. That was a bit poor, to put it mildly. Then I tried SUSE, Corel and Mandrake. Maybe I'll try another one soon. But something always makes me run back to Windows."
My personal experience is pretty much limited to Redhat, Debian and Gentoo. I've tried Mandrake but found it a tad cutesy. Debian is very easy to keep updated once it is set up, if that helps any. If you didn't like Slackware you probably should avoid Gentoo - it's my favorite but I don't mind compiling everything from scratch.
"What I objected to was your idea of "taking over the world". That just smacks of intellectual imperialism."
Actually, that was more tounge in cheek humor - I kind of have the same take on that Linus does, I think. If there's enough competition that everyone (including Microsoft) has to adhere to open standards in order to have viable products, I think that is the victory. I should have guessed that on/. it would sound like a call for the end of Windows.
"By the way, I apologise for my strong wording in my first post, I seem to have gotten a flamebait mod for it and I suppose that's fair, although it was more of a rhetorical "fuck yourself";-)"
No worries. I'd be a poor slashdotter if that response bothered me:-). It did point out that I hadn't properly defined what "take over the world" ment in this context - I guess "force the use of open standards" isn't the casual meaning of the phrase, particularly here.
YES! EXACTLY. But not just Linux, or any one GUI. Get them to try everything the school can throw at them. Make them flexible users. Make them so the next new interface they encounter doesn't bother them - they'll know how to figure it out.
I have no idea how to get schools to do that though. They make deals with one company to save money, and the kids are the ones who lose. Plus, I imagine the teachers themselves might not be qualified to teach such a class in many cases. A new lesson plan would need to be developed.
Well, if I ever wind up in education at least I know which class to try and create;-).
'LOL, in other words, "our standards, not their standards, because their standards smell funny, or something"'
No, because they don't give us complete information about their standards. Talk to the wine guys sometime.
'So how do all of these Linux users manage to run their favourite OS?'
By being do-it-yourself computer users.
"Monopoly my arse."
Monopoly doesn't mean nothing else exists. It means someone has too much control. The US court system declared Microsoft a monopoly.
"It's funny that you want to "take over the world" and yet it's bad that someone else has a monopoly."
Linux can never have monopoly power, nor can any open source product. No one person or group can control it. The situations are not the same.
Monopolies are about control, not being ubiquitous. Up til now ubiquity has never existed without someone controlling it, to my knowledge. It would be something new to see what happens to ubiquity alone.
"Dude! The playing field is level. Linux is just not playing well enough."
Well, I would dispute the playing field is level. But no matter. It may be Linux isn't playing well enough. In any case, Linux will keep getting better, and someday we will play well enough. If it will never suit your tastes, that's fine. What is important is that Linux, or FreeBSD, or something is out there for those of us Windows doesn't work for, and that we aren't rendered illegal or unusable by the legal system.
Uh - you don't "have" to do anything. Linux is like a takeover by democratic vote - no one forces you to use it unless you want to. Republicians don't get stamped out when Democrats win an election - they still exist. The challenge is to make Linux good enough that the logical decision is to use it instead of Windows, not somehow force users to remove Windows. Indeed, if Linux is strong enough it might compel Microsoft to respect common standards, and everyone would be better off. Taking over is defined as gaining enough momentum and user base so that people have to pay attention to making their stuff work with a product that everyone has complete access to, not leaving a smoking crater where every Windows box was.
The Linux War is a war to break a monopoly, and restore choice as a default situation. Restoring choice does NOT mean destroying Windows. But thanks to the position they've taken, it DOES seem to mean humbling Microsoft. Not end users mind you, but Microsoft. IBM used to be like Microsoft, but after they fell off the high peak they learned how to play nicer with the rest of the world. Maybe Microsoft can too.
You've been listening to Stallman too much. By all means, use Windows if you like it. No one is prying it out of your hands - if you ever let go it will be because YOU want to, not because anyone made you. Prying it out of your hands would be Microsoft's idea of victory, not ours. Open source doesn't say you have to use "our" OS in order to have what you need/want. It does say you should be able to make a choice - i.e., be presented with more than one option. Forcing OS choice is like converting people to a religion at gunpoint - insincere and meaningless. Anybody with guts will let their product fight on a level playing field. Open source wants the level playing field back, and that's what the war is about.
Well, yes and no. Two things to remember when considering how to get Windows users over to Linux:
1) most of them don't care what OS they're running
as long as it works
IP issues don't matter, freedom doesn't matter. What matters is things working, being straightforward, and being able to do what other users are doing. Computing is a social activity - people don't use them in isolation anymore. (Insert ironic geek social misfit comment here.) So falling down in any of these camps is enough to prevent people from switching.
2) Inertia is the most power force in the desktop
computer world.
Ordinary users Don't Like Change. If they take the time to relearn something, it has to be because it's so much better than what they have they can't live without it. That's a very rare condition. OSX is better than Windows, but not enough better that everyone is willing to abandon Windows. A few do, but inertia in computerland is a group effect, and as long as the group inertia is strong in one direction everyone goes that way. This is why Microsoft has a natural monopoly, much more so that telephones or power lines. Technology was able to find new ways to provide telephone service, and things like solar and wind power can generate power independant of power lines. But if people need to expend a lot of effort to learn a tool, THEY WILL NOT THROW AWAY THAT EFFORT. The software market, particularly the OS market, must face this. Change can occur, but very, very slowly. Which leads us to our first two guiding principles:
Taking over the World - Rule #1
Patience is not a virtue - it is a necessity
Taking over the World - Rule #2
There will never be a "Year of the Desktop"
Media and fans like explosive, dramatic changes. But that is not how things happen on a large scale. This is more like a river cutting through rock. So don't build up Linux as "about to take over the world/desktop/White House/whatever" because it won't be so dramatic. Particularly in light of
Taking over the World - Rule #3
"Desktop Ready" is not a well defined target,
and as such "making it" is like chasing a
mirage.
Each person has their own definition of ready for the desktop. Linux met mine years ago, and it's doubtful Windows could meet mine now. But I don't worry about what most users worry about - consistent look and feel aren't an issue for me. So who defines "ready"? For me, ready was a while back. But I'm clearly a geek. For my Dad, it might be close. For my Mom, I doubt it's close. It's a fuzzy thing.
With SCO making as much trouble as humanly possible for Linux and open source, and Microsoft lurking in the background, I know it's hard to remember this last rule. But do try, because it's the only reason we got as far as we have, and it's the only reason we'll go anywhere in the future.
Taking over the World - Rule #4 (The important one)
"The real driver behind this [pricing] change is this interoperability issue," Oldroyd says. "We want Windows to be the best platform for interoperability."
Since when? Does this mean Windows Whatever'sNext will be able to read Mac and ext2 floppy disks? Does this mean their APIs and protocals will be more open to allow for better communication and cooperation with other platforms?
Or does this mean "We don't want Windows apps kicked out of Unix dominated businesses, and thus begin a general migration away from Microsoft software?"
Or is this a very clever move to get Unix houses to set up one Windows box with this on it in order to be able to interface with the outside world better, and thus give them some targets for the marketing department?
Monopolies aren't interested in interoperability - they're usually out to destroy it. Look this gift horse in the mouth very carefully - Microsoft is not trustworthy and anything they say or do is suspect. This could wind up being just a nice candy piece tossed to the Unix world, but I am forced to wonder what Microsoft is getting from it, and in what situations a $99 fee would stop someone where free is a go-ahead price. Not any big shops, that's for sure. Remember, with any Microsoft move the first rule is to ask what they are expecting to get out of it.
There are two ways to read that - a) It's impossible to abstract the details in any useful way or b) all APIs to date have made bad choices in how to abstract things.
Looking over the SGI article, I seem to get the sense that it isn't really possible to have an abstract API that works on wide varieties of hardware, and you need to communicate with hardware vendors about a large number of issues. Of course, we all know how well vendors like to pay attention to open source developers, so let's not worry about being able to do that for a while. Gstreamer would have to be a force to be reckoned with before they pay any attention at all.
I don't really understand some of these objections, but I suppose it's because I'm not a graphica guru. For example, the square vs. non square pixel issue - can't a library be defined that knows what various devices do about that? AFAIK, all one can do with video shot for one pixel length when displaying on another length is add black lines to the edges to make it size correctly, or do some kind of averaging to add or subtract pixels from a dimension. I suppose if combining video from different sources the latter would have to be attempted. Even so, I can't see that this is necessarily a bad thing to have in the API - if someone has a different method for scaling between systems, just impliment it as an option for the resizing part of the API. I know if I were developing a video editor/manipulator I sure wouldn't want to deal with that myself if I could help it. Assuming there are standard ways for dealing with these issues, and maybe even default ones used most of the time, why should all the various video editors out there have to worry about it? Solve it once, define it as a standard option for the autoadapt API, and move on.
Am I missing something? I don't know much about Gstreamer, but I don't see why they can't do things in such a way that allows detailed specification of behavior if the developer is after something specific, and use the standard or accepted best solution to common video compatibility problems if not told otherwise. Maybe Gstreamer could even become a part in standardizing some of the hardware insanity SGI had to deal with, if it is successful and powerful enough. It's open source, but you never know. Ogg Vorbis is starting to get hardware support, and I would never have guessed that either.
"Big Question: What do we have to gain from it? And I'm talking about monetary gain."
Answer: That's not why we do it. It's true that there are usually benefits from new technological development, but this is one of the few cases were we say, as a nation, "because it's there."
Money by itself is a very empty thing. If money were all that mattered, we'd never take vacations, have hobbies, or for that matter have kids. Vision matters, imagination matters, and looking outward matters. Not for money, but for their own sakes.
If I see a perminant base on the moon, and/or a human being sent to Mars and safely returned, I'll feel amply compensated for my tax dollars.
Also, one other point. If you look over history, no one has ever done very well if they stop looking beyond their current knowledge and limits. That's stagnation, and a sure ticket to the evolutionary trash bin.
OK, we all know this is patent thing is out of hand, and the odds of getting rid of software patents are now approximately nil, thanks to the $$$$ that some folks are making or hope to make from them. However, there might be an alternative way to handle this...
Create a new type of submission to the Patent Office, called a Documentation Of Art. Unlike a patent it doesn't have to go through the $$$ process of evaluation, since it would grant no rights to the person filing and wouldn't have to be checked extensively. What would happen, however, would be that the idea is filed in the archives of the patent office, to be checked whenever anyone files a new patent on something related to the DOA as a possible example of prior art.
This would allow the open source community and other companies to return some sanity to this game. If a DOA is filed, then the assumption is the idea must have been trivial enough that someone didn't expect to make $$$$ off of it. Or, alternately, the original inventor chose to give up his monopoly on the idea freely. Open Source groups and companies tired of patent wars could file very large numbers of well organized DOA forms and make sure it's at least harder for the patent office to characterize something obvious to the tech industry as non-obvious.
Which version of wine are you using to run it? Latest winehq stuff freeze on the the tribesdemo install. Does one need a Windows installation to work off of?
"assume that SCO actually does have some trade secret or confidentiality interests to protect in its source code. That secret or confidential status would be forever lost if disclosed to the world."
This is where I get confused. If in the Linux kernel, the code is ALREADY disclosed to the world. Trade secrets in the code have already gone bye bye. The only thing NOT disclosed is specificly which code disclosed to the world is SCO's code. What can possible be left to protect? If they don't want it disclosed that they own the code, the effective thing to do would have been to quietly contact key people, get it removed due to confidential IP violations accepted by the lead Linux guys, and live happily ever after. If they didn't want someone to know that code X was owned by SCO, what they have done is sure to have that someone looking through the kernel for things they might recognize as being SCO no-nos.
The only thing their current course can do is spray mud over Linux. No other goal is consisted with their behavior thus far, unless they are dillusional and think the free software community will suddenly cough up money. They've said that, but I don't see how they can actually believe it. Or maybe I'm just underestimating their cluelessness.
"SCO characterises the licenses as a source of 'immunity' from future intellectual property claims."
If I were to say "I own a lot of code in Microsoft's OS" and then offer a license to Windows users offering "immunity" from me suing them, and all the while not revealing any evidence in order to prevent Microsoft or the users from eliminating the components I say are causing them to owe me $$, how would that be looked upon by the press and the courts? What if I generated a lot of press saying:
"My ancient DOS code is the core of Windows! End users should pay me a license fee or face lawsuits!"
"I can't reveal why my code justifies this demand or what it is since that would damage my ability to leverage my IP."
"Microsoft cannot release a patch or update to resolve this issue - the code is too deeply entrenched. Plus, the rest of Windows is a derivative work, including things like NTFS."
The responses would be a) Windows is at fault, not the End Users and b) No tikee, no laundry. Show evidence or booted out the court door. Now, this is what SCO is doing to Linux, but somehow the fact that the author's price for Linux is $0 makes the End Users responsible????? What makes $0 special as opposed to $X? Why are End Users suddenly no longer as innocent in Linux as they are in Windows?
Oh, and now apparently acting decently and acting in good faith are now liabilities. Allowing someone a chance to fix a problem or a mistake is against corporate policy since it's more profitable to try and make them pay through the nose for it for eternity. Oh, and make anyone who benefits from that mistake, however unknowingly, also pay. Yay corporatism.
This whole thing is a crock. The saying "No good deed ever goes unpunished" certainly seems to be true for the open source community. But of course, "good deeds" are a threat to commercial suppliers of helpful services and products, and therefore are no part of a proper capitalistic system. Lord, what a messed up world we (or at least SCO) live in.
IBM releases an "update" to the Linux kernel, which does not include any of the SCO code. They are going out of their way to avoid hurting SCO, because their release of Linux has removed any SCO code they don't want the public to see. They don't tell anyone what SCO's code is directly, but instead release a derivative work of legitimate GPL code, using only legitimate GPL code and not SCO code that SCO doesn't want revealed.
Of course, this is demonstration by absence. However, since Linux already exists in the open, the code SCO is not talking about is not secret except in the fact that no one knows what they are claiming.
I find this arguement very interesting: "We can't just open this up to the public. The minute we open it up we have in fact opened it up to the public and we can't restrict it in the future from a proprietary standpoint," said SCO CEO Darl McBride at conference in August this year.
What is he refering to by "open this up"? If it's code in the Linux kernel, it's already open in the sense of having been seen. If they have any LEGITIMATE claims, it is NOT "opened up" in the sense of everyone being able to use it. The only thing they would "open up" would be how we can get their crap (if any) out of the kernel, and if they're going to try to make proprietary arguments on THAT basis either they are totally out of our minds or our IP related laws in the country have utterly failed. I can't believe the judge didn't ask them to explain how code already in the public eye as part of the Linux kernel can possibly be further harmed by identification, and how they expect to make money off of not identifying it publicly. The only possible answer is a study in absurdity. I want to hear them say "If we let any knowledge out of how to remove our code, we won't be able to try and force Linux users to pay us for future versions" in front of a judge.
I suppose the court isn't able or required to look into the business model of SCO, but come on.
If this nonsense drags on long enough, I say we put an intense concentration of effort into EROS, make it functional at or near the Linux level with it's advanced concepts in place, and introduce the world to a whole new scale of OS security and robustness, and make them wish they had never even heard of the Linux kernel. Maybe IBM would be willing to back such an effort - they developed some of the original ideas behind it, and by now they probably appreciate open source's potential or they would have abandoned it. They say a good fighter never hits where the opponent is expecting the punch, and that would sure be a pretty KO bunch for SCO.
Gotta agree, I've never had a better multiplayer game experience. No unnecessary blood and gore, cool weapons, great maps, flying and shooting aircraft, stationary targets to blow up...
I wish they would release that game and art to the open source community. It can't be commercially viable any more. It would Totally Rock.
Your first arguement involves the assumption that there is some degree of influence one can exert which does not involve change. I'd argue that influencing a situation changes it, by definition. It's not just not killing your grandfather the universe has to worry about, it's preserving everything in the world environment which had anything to do with your motivations, anything you ever learned about the world, etc. The complexity of such arguments becomes incredible. I rather doubt either of us is up to convince the other, but I'll just say for the record in the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary I'll assume that, given the sensivity of a chaos sytem to initial conditions, there can be no influence of the past without causality violation in the natural world.
The second point, about the possibility of multiverse branching, I still don't find convincing. Nor, if you think about it, is it particularly useful. If you succeeded and created a new timeline, you could never communicate this knowledge to your original time line - to their eyes, your attempt would have failed. So for each time line, the rule still holds that time travel doesn't work. Whether it works from the perspective of the individual trying it is not known and can never be known, since there is no way any evidence could ever be produced in any time line to prove it works. Each person attempting it would be taking a blind leap of faith that an unverifable assumption about how the universe works is true. Not exactly an ideal situation.
Curiously enough, I notice virtually ALL the answers are trying to argue in favor of time travel. I wonder if that says something about human beings.
"Seriously though, can you think of any other piece of software that's been in development that long and is still largely incomplete?"
I don't think that's really a fair statement. If you are speaking of ACTIVE development, there has been very little for a long time. The pulse is there - some activity does exist - but not enough to tackle in any kind of reasonable time the production of something like Hurd. And Hurd does actually exist, by the way. You can run it. If you mean a stable, "world conqueroring" Hurd is vaporware, I'll agree with that.
Gnu/HURD is not likely to ever be a major player for the simple reason it does not have critical mass. BSD and Linux have critical mass, and they are currently the only open source kernels that do. Many more exist, and of those the Hurd is perhaps the most prominent, but it simply doesn't have the mindshare.
I'll tell you why Hurd is still a good thing though. Imagine this - the foobared US legal system makes free Linux impossible in the US. What then? Contribute to BSD, where SCO can grab all our hard work and turn it against us? Nope. GNU Hurd will rise in such a case. It is fundamentally a conceptual jump beyond Unix, and SCO cannot possibly establish any claim. If they monkey with it they will tangle directly with the FSF, and frankly that might be worth it just for the entertainment of seeing the FSF fully roused.
If SCO wins, GNU Hurd will become the new center of GPL kernel development. The direction to head is quite clear - complete the port to L4, flesh it out, clean it up, and introduce the world to a real world OS that is a generation beyond Unix or Windows. The potential has always been there, but the difficulty of implimenting something fundamentally new was what allowed Linux into first place. With the proper incentive, like smacking SCO across the face, GNU Hurd development could take a quantum leap. That is why it is good to have around, even if it isn't doing anything important right now. It is a second string to our bow, and greased up and pulled taught it could shoot a mean arrow.
Slashdot Mirror
Good news, yes. Helpful, not really.
;-) But remember this isn't a war about details. This is about defining a goal, and getting there any way possible. We are in the way of SCO's using our code for commercial purposes. Therefore we are the enemy to be destroyed, and trying to reason with them has thus far been about as effective as talking a laser guided missle out of striking the target. I don't expect that trend to change any time soon, wherever the ABIs came from.
Look at the SCO pattern. They have made claims ranging from contract dispute with IBM to every OS in existance owing SCO IP money. They have nothing whatsoever to lose. They will merely pursue any interpretation of events which results in people owing them money. I don't know how they'll twist this yet, but since logic doesn't seem to have much to do with it they might say they were an unauthorized release and try to make some specific employee the goat, claim that the ABIs are an insignificant part of their total IP in Linux, or other things I'm not warped enough to think of. They aren't going to shut up for anything.
Even if after everything we've heard from them to date falls through, they may try to make the claim in court that every OS in existance is derived from SCO IP, and that being the case Linux users STILL owe SCO money, regardless of code. Nonsense yes, but when has that ever stopped them before?
Folks, the individual details of this don't matter at all. That's not what this is about. This is about SCO looking for a way - any way - to get Linux users to pay them. Knocking down a given specific detail won't phase them in the least. Until SCO in its current form is gone, we will never hear the end of this. Remember, they apparently even sent that letter to Congress saying open/free software was a threat to the US software industry! Their only concern is to come out on top, period. How is of no consequence.
Yes, this news could be useful to the likes of IBM (I can't see Groklaw so it's hard to say
KOffice:
Uses KDE environment to full potential, very smooth, fast and clean. Less features than the others last time I looked. Doesn't really handle MS Office docs well yet, again last time I looked.
OpenOffice
Multiplatform, full of features, loads Microsoft Office documents quite well. Downside is it is rather large and slow. Occasional quirk, but on the whole rock steady.
MS Office
Feature wise, MS Office still rules the roost. But the price there is closed document formats, an untrustworthy company holding the reigns, and no Linux version. I'd count those as downsides.
"I don't think *anyone* can impinge the likes of Plan9 or BeOS"
Ah. You fail to grasp the most fundamental property of the lawsuit as a weapon. Their claims to Linux have to date not been proven publicly in ANY way, and yet they make trouble. The same tactics work just as well for any OS.
Even if we were to develop a new OS from the bit level up, they could still say they own fundamental OS concepts and by definition any working OS owes them money. It doesn't have to make sense - you just need lawyers to try it.
Welcome to the law as a killing tool. Merit isn't the issue - it isn't even of interest. It's what can you say, how loud can you say it, and who will believe you.
So, how do the new developments at freedesktop.org like XCB/XCL fit into this new picture? I'm hoping the exciting new code can be eventually rolled in more easily now?
I wish someone would release a new series of Space Cadet keyboards.a ceCadet.html
:-).
http://world.std.com/~jdostale/kbd/Sp
Build them as well or better as they did the old ones mechanically, and market it to geeks. If the geek factor isn't enough, the possibilities of the keyboard itself should be quite enticing, particularly for math editing in latex and other such environments (greek character shift anyone? WITH greek symbols visible on the keys?)
Yes it's over the top, but that's the whole point!
"Authentication doesn't scale. But surveillance does. "The costs to observe are virtually zero, so it's not a question of will it exist, but what will we do with it?" Geer asks."
The AMOUNT of information you collect can scale, but the UNDERSTANDING of that information is limited by the processing capability of the organization collecting it. Not to mention its power and ethical use are in the hands of one organization.
I'm hoping by 2010 we will have remembered not to trust the government too much. Power corrupts, and post Sept. 11 is no different than pre as far as that goes. Nor is post digital Perl Harbor different from pre.
Bad things can happen - we have to accept that or do our society great damage. Any fixed target is a soft target, and computers and the internet are no different from anything else that way. The biggest liability right now on the net is unpatched Windows machines. Fixing the problems isn't enough - the fixes must be put into action. How do we solve that problem? Dunno, unless we do it right the first time (www.eros-os.org). But a free society has to be worth any price, or it will collapse. I won't accept government oversight as the price of keeping my computer safe - that price is too high. Particularly when it won't solve anything.
"I think it's a bit much to expect Microsoft to reveal the inner workings of their proprietary software, especially to "the wine guys" whose sole intention is to rip them off. Having said that, the public APIs are pretty well documented, despite the general /. mumblings to the contrary."
;-). Personally I think Linux is a viable alternative, but unless enough people agree with me to ensure the computing world can't ignore it successfully that might be wishful thinking in the long run. Viability as competition is not strictly (or perhaps not even primarily) a matter of technical achievement.
/. it would sound like a call for the end of Windows.
;-)"
:-). It did point out that I hadn't properly defined what "take over the world" ment in this context - I guess "force the use of open standards" isn't the casual meaning of the phrase, particularly here.
Um - how is wine "ripping off" Microsoft? They just want to be able to run Windows software, not duplicate the guts of Windows. Surely you don't contend that only Microsoft should be able to produce an OS that runs Windows binaries?
Here's a wikipedia summary of the problems the wine group has had - I actually am not terribly familiar with wine myself since I don't use it very much:
"The project has been time-consuming and difficult for developers, at least partially because of incomplete documentation of the Win32 API. While most Win32 functions are documented, there are areas such as file formats and protocols where an official Microsoft specification does not exist, as well as undocumented low level functions and obscure bugs that must be duplicated precisely for some applications to work properly. Consequently, the Wine team have had to reverse engineer many function calls and file formats, in such areas as thunking."
"Or by buying a computer with Linux pre-installed. Can you still get those? Or did it turn out to be commercially unviable?"
I think a few specialized companies may still sell them, but I'm not aware of any major distribution channel that offers them. Microsoft has historically not been inclined to tolerate OEMs offering alternative OS software. IIRC that was one of the points against them in the lawsuit.
"As for control, no-one ever put a gun to your head and told you to buy Windows, or IE, or any other Microsoft product. That's just wishful thinking from the anti-MS brigade."
Monopolies never have to do that, because they are the only viable choice. Being forced to buy Windows would be an extortion racket
"I first installed Slackware in '93. That was a bit poor, to put it mildly. Then I tried SUSE, Corel and Mandrake. Maybe I'll try another one soon. But something always makes me run back to Windows."
My personal experience is pretty much limited to Redhat, Debian and Gentoo. I've tried Mandrake but found it a tad cutesy. Debian is very easy to keep updated once it is set up, if that helps any. If you didn't like Slackware you probably should avoid Gentoo - it's my favorite but I don't mind compiling everything from scratch.
"What I objected to was your idea of "taking over the world". That just smacks of intellectual imperialism."
Actually, that was more tounge in cheek humor - I kind of have the same take on that Linus does, I think. If there's enough competition that everyone (including Microsoft) has to adhere to open standards in order to have viable products, I think that is the victory. I should have guessed that on
"By the way, I apologise for my strong wording in my first post, I seem to have gotten a flamebait mod for it and I suppose that's fair, although it was more of a rhetorical "fuck yourself"
No worries. I'd be a poor slashdotter if that response bothered me
YES! EXACTLY. But not just Linux, or any one GUI. Get them to try everything the school can throw at them. Make them flexible users. Make them so the next new interface they encounter doesn't bother them - they'll know how to figure it out.
;-).
I have no idea how to get schools to do that though. They make deals with one company to save money, and the kids are the ones who lose. Plus, I imagine the teachers themselves might not be qualified to teach such a class in many cases. A new lesson plan would need to be developed.
Well, if I ever wind up in education at least I know which class to try and create
'LOL, in other words, "our standards, not their standards, because their standards smell funny, or something"'
No, because they don't give us complete information about their standards. Talk to the wine guys sometime.
'So how do all of these Linux users manage to run their favourite OS?'
By being do-it-yourself computer users.
"Monopoly my arse."
Monopoly doesn't mean nothing else exists. It means someone has too much control. The US court system declared Microsoft a monopoly.
"It's funny that you want to "take over the world" and yet it's bad that someone else has a monopoly."
Linux can never have monopoly power, nor can any open source product. No one person or group can control it. The situations are not the same.
Monopolies are about control, not being ubiquitous. Up til now ubiquity has never existed without someone controlling it, to my knowledge. It would be something new to see what happens to ubiquity alone.
"Dude! The playing field is level. Linux is just not playing well enough."
Well, I would dispute the playing field is level. But no matter. It may be Linux isn't playing well enough. In any case, Linux will keep getting better, and someday we will play well enough. If it will never suit your tastes, that's fine. What is important is that Linux, or FreeBSD, or something is out there for those of us Windows doesn't work for, and that we aren't rendered illegal or unusable by the legal system.
Uh - you don't "have" to do anything. Linux is like a takeover by democratic vote - no one forces you to use it unless you want to. Republicians don't get stamped out when Democrats win an election - they still exist. The challenge is to make Linux good enough that the logical decision is to use it instead of Windows, not somehow force users to remove Windows. Indeed, if Linux is strong enough it might compel Microsoft to respect common standards, and everyone would be better off. Taking over is defined as gaining enough momentum and user base so that people have to pay attention to making their stuff work with a product that everyone has complete access to, not leaving a smoking crater where every Windows box was.
The Linux War is a war to break a monopoly, and restore choice as a default situation. Restoring choice does NOT mean destroying Windows. But thanks to the position they've taken, it DOES seem to mean humbling Microsoft. Not end users mind you, but Microsoft. IBM used to be like Microsoft, but after they fell off the high peak they learned how to play nicer with the rest of the world. Maybe Microsoft can too.
You've been listening to Stallman too much. By all means, use Windows if you like it. No one is prying it out of your hands - if you ever let go it will be because YOU want to, not because anyone made you. Prying it out of your hands would be Microsoft's idea of victory, not ours. Open source doesn't say you have to use "our" OS in order to have what you need/want. It does say you should be able to make a choice - i.e., be presented with more than one option. Forcing OS choice is like converting people to a religion at gunpoint - insincere and meaningless. Anybody with guts will let their product fight on a level playing field. Open source wants the level playing field back, and that's what the war is about.
Well, yes and no. Two things to remember when considering how to get Windows users over to Linux:
1) most of them don't care what OS they're running
as long as it works
IP issues don't matter, freedom doesn't matter. What matters is things working, being straightforward, and being able to do what other users are doing. Computing is a social activity - people don't use them in isolation anymore. (Insert ironic geek social misfit comment here.) So falling down in any of these camps is enough to prevent people from switching.
2) Inertia is the most power force in the desktop
computer world.
Ordinary users Don't Like Change. If they take the time to relearn something, it has to be because it's so much better than what they have they can't live without it. That's a very rare condition. OSX is better than Windows, but not enough better that everyone is willing to abandon Windows. A few do, but inertia in computerland is a group effect, and as long as the group inertia is strong in one direction everyone goes that way. This is why Microsoft has a natural monopoly, much more so that telephones or power lines. Technology was able to find new ways to provide telephone service, and things like solar and wind power can generate power independant of power lines. But if people need to expend a lot of effort to learn a tool, THEY WILL NOT THROW AWAY THAT EFFORT. The software market, particularly the OS market, must face this. Change can occur, but very, very slowly. Which leads us to our first two guiding principles:
Taking over the World - Rule #1
Patience is not a virtue - it is a necessity
Taking over the World - Rule #2
There will never be a "Year of the Desktop"
Media and fans like explosive, dramatic changes. But that is not how things happen on a large scale. This is more like a river cutting through rock. So don't build up Linux as "about to take over the world/desktop/White House/whatever" because it won't be so dramatic. Particularly in light of
Taking over the World - Rule #3
"Desktop Ready" is not a well defined target,
and as such "making it" is like chasing a
mirage.
Each person has their own definition of ready for the desktop. Linux met mine years ago, and it's doubtful Windows could meet mine now. But I don't worry about what most users worry about - consistent look and feel aren't an issue for me. So who defines "ready"? For me, ready was a while back. But I'm clearly a geek. For my Dad, it might be close. For my Mom, I doubt it's close. It's a fuzzy thing.
With SCO making as much trouble as humanly possible for Linux and open source, and Microsoft lurking in the background, I know it's hard to remember this last rule. But do try, because it's the only reason we got as far as we have, and it's the only reason we'll go anywhere in the future.
Taking over the World - Rule #4 (The important one)
Have fun!
"The real driver behind this [pricing] change is this interoperability issue," Oldroyd says. "We want Windows to be the best platform for interoperability."
Since when? Does this mean Windows Whatever'sNext will be able to read Mac and ext2 floppy disks? Does this mean their APIs and protocals will be more open to allow for better communication and cooperation with other platforms?
Or does this mean "We don't want Windows apps kicked out of Unix dominated businesses, and thus begin a general migration away from Microsoft software?"
Or is this a very clever move to get Unix houses to set up one Windows box with this on it in order to be able to interface with the outside world better, and thus give them some targets for the marketing department?
Monopolies aren't interested in interoperability - they're usually out to destroy it. Look this gift horse in the mouth very carefully - Microsoft is not trustworthy and anything they say or do is suspect. This could wind up being just a nice candy piece tossed to the Unix world, but I am forced to wonder what Microsoft is getting from it, and in what situations a $99 fee would stop someone where free is a go-ahead price. Not any big shops, that's for sure. Remember, with any Microsoft move the first rule is to ask what they are expecting to get out of it.
There are two ways to read that - a) It's impossible to abstract the details in any useful way or b) all APIs to date have made bad choices in how to abstract things.
Looking over the SGI article, I seem to get the sense that it isn't really possible to have an abstract API that works on wide varieties of hardware, and you need to communicate with hardware vendors about a large number of issues. Of course, we all know how well vendors like to pay attention to open source developers, so let's not worry about being able to do that for a while. Gstreamer would have to be a force to be reckoned with before they pay any attention at all.
I don't really understand some of these objections, but I suppose it's because I'm not a graphica guru. For example, the square vs. non square pixel issue - can't a library be defined that knows what various devices do about that? AFAIK, all one can do with video shot for one pixel length when displaying on another length is add black lines to the edges to make it size correctly, or do some kind of averaging to add or subtract pixels from a dimension. I suppose if combining video from different sources the latter would have to be attempted. Even so, I can't see that this is necessarily a bad thing to have in the API - if someone has a different method for scaling between systems, just impliment it as an option for the resizing part of the API. I know if I were developing a video editor/manipulator I sure wouldn't want to deal with that myself if I could help it. Assuming there are standard ways for dealing with these issues, and maybe even default ones used most of the time, why should all the various video editors out there have to worry about it? Solve it once, define it as a standard option for the autoadapt API, and move on.
Am I missing something? I don't know much about Gstreamer, but I don't see why they can't do things in such a way that allows detailed specification of behavior if the developer is after something specific, and use the standard or accepted best solution to common video compatibility problems if not told otherwise. Maybe Gstreamer could even become a part in standardizing some of the hardware insanity SGI had to deal with, if it is successful and powerful enough. It's open source, but you never know. Ogg Vorbis is starting to get hardware support, and I would never have guessed that either.
"Big Question: What do we have to gain from it? And I'm talking about monetary gain."
Answer: That's not why we do it. It's true that there are usually benefits from new technological development, but this is one of the few cases were we say, as a nation, "because it's there."
Money by itself is a very empty thing. If money were all that mattered, we'd never take vacations, have hobbies, or for that matter have kids. Vision matters, imagination matters, and looking outward matters. Not for money, but for their own sakes.
If I see a perminant base on the moon, and/or a human being sent to Mars and safely returned, I'll feel amply compensated for my tax dollars.
Also, one other point. If you look over history, no one has ever done very well if they stop looking beyond their current knowledge and limits. That's stagnation, and a sure ticket to the evolutionary trash bin.
at Windows security, one thought comes to mind - eeeek.
If we bind all SCO's press releases together, does that count as the year's worst work of fiction?
"A good, FOSS, real-time microkernel kernel would be a very good contribution to free and open source software."
Well, I don't know if it's realtime, but you might find this interesting:
http://l4ka.org/projects/pistachio/
OK, we all know this is patent thing is out of hand, and the odds of getting rid of software patents are now approximately nil, thanks to the $$$$ that some folks are making or hope to make from them. However, there might be an alternative way to handle this...
Create a new type of submission to the Patent Office, called a Documentation Of Art. Unlike a patent it doesn't have to go through the $$$ process of evaluation, since it would grant no rights to the person filing and wouldn't have to be checked extensively. What would happen, however, would be that the idea is filed in the archives of the patent office, to be checked whenever anyone files a new patent on something related to the DOA as a possible example of prior art.
This would allow the open source community and other companies to return some sanity to this game. If a DOA is filed, then the assumption is the idea must have been trivial enough that someone didn't expect to make $$$$ off of it. Or, alternately, the original inventor chose to give up his monopoly on the idea freely. Open Source groups and companies tired of patent wars could file very large numbers of well organized DOA forms and make sure it's at least harder for the patent office to characterize something obvious to the tech industry as non-obvious.
Which version of wine are you using to run it? Latest winehq stuff freeze on the the tribesdemo install. Does one need a Windows installation to work off of?
"assume that SCO actually does have some trade secret or confidentiality interests to protect in its source code. That secret or confidential status would be forever lost if disclosed to the world."
This is where I get confused. If in the Linux kernel, the code is ALREADY disclosed to the world. Trade secrets in the code have already gone bye bye. The only thing NOT disclosed is specificly which code disclosed to the world is SCO's code. What can possible be left to protect? If they don't want it disclosed that they own the code, the effective thing to do would have been to quietly contact key people, get it removed due to confidential IP violations accepted by the lead Linux guys, and live happily ever after. If they didn't want someone to know that code X was owned by SCO, what they have done is sure to have that someone looking through the kernel for things they might recognize as being SCO no-nos.
The only thing their current course can do is spray mud over Linux. No other goal is consisted with their behavior thus far, unless they are dillusional and think the free software community will suddenly cough up money. They've said that, but I don't see how they can actually believe it. Or maybe I'm just underestimating their cluelessness.
"SCO characterises the licenses as a source of 'immunity' from future intellectual property claims."
If I were to say "I own a lot of code in Microsoft's OS" and then offer a license to Windows users offering "immunity" from me suing them, and all the while not revealing any evidence in order to prevent Microsoft or the users from eliminating the components I say are causing them to owe me $$, how would that be looked upon by the press and the courts? What if I generated a lot of press saying:
"My ancient DOS code is the core of Windows! End users should pay me a license fee or face lawsuits!"
"I can't reveal why my code justifies this demand or what it is since that would damage my ability to leverage my IP."
"Microsoft cannot release a patch or update to resolve this issue - the code is too deeply entrenched. Plus, the rest of Windows is a derivative work, including things like NTFS."
The responses would be a) Windows is at fault, not the End Users and b) No tikee, no laundry. Show evidence or booted out the court door. Now, this is what SCO is doing to Linux, but somehow the fact that the author's price for Linux is $0 makes the End Users responsible????? What makes $0 special as opposed to $X? Why are End Users suddenly no longer as innocent in Linux as they are in Windows?
Oh, and now apparently acting decently and acting in good faith are now liabilities. Allowing someone a chance to fix a problem or a mistake is against corporate policy since it's more profitable to try and make them pay through the nose for it for eternity. Oh, and make anyone who benefits from that mistake, however unknowingly, also pay. Yay corporatism.
This whole thing is a crock. The saying "No good deed ever goes unpunished" certainly seems to be true for the open source community. But of course, "good deeds" are a threat to commercial suppliers of helpful services and products, and therefore are no part of a proper capitalistic system. Lord, what a messed up world we (or at least SCO) live in.
IBM releases an "update" to the Linux kernel, which does not include any of the SCO code. They are going out of their way to avoid hurting SCO, because their release of Linux has removed any SCO code they don't want the public to see. They don't tell anyone what SCO's code is directly, but instead release a derivative work of legitimate GPL code, using only legitimate GPL code and not SCO code that SCO doesn't want revealed.
Of course, this is demonstration by absence. However, since Linux already exists in the open, the code SCO is not talking about is not secret except in the fact that no one knows what they are claiming.
I find this arguement very interesting:
"We can't just open this up to the public. The minute we open it up we have in fact opened it up to the public and we can't restrict it in the future from a proprietary standpoint," said SCO CEO Darl McBride at conference in August this year.
What is he refering to by "open this up"? If it's code in the Linux kernel, it's already open in the sense of having been seen. If they have any LEGITIMATE claims, it is NOT "opened up" in the sense of everyone being able to use it. The only thing they would "open up" would be how we can get their crap (if any) out of the kernel, and if they're going to try to make proprietary arguments on THAT basis either they are totally out of our minds or our IP related laws in the country have utterly failed. I can't believe the judge didn't ask them to explain how code already in the public eye as part of the Linux kernel can possibly be further harmed by identification, and how they expect to make money off of not identifying it publicly. The only possible answer is a study in absurdity. I want to hear them say "If we let any knowledge out of how to remove our code, we won't be able to try and force Linux users to pay us for future versions" in front of a judge.
I suppose the court isn't able or required to look into the business model of SCO, but come on.
If this nonsense drags on long enough, I say we put an intense concentration of effort into EROS, make it functional at or near the Linux level with it's advanced concepts in place, and introduce the world to a whole new scale of OS security and robustness, and make them wish they had never even heard of the Linux kernel. Maybe IBM would be willing to back such an effort - they developed some of the original ideas behind it, and by now they probably appreciate open source's potential or they would have abandoned it. They say a good fighter never hits where the opponent is expecting the punch, and that would sure be a pretty KO bunch for SCO.
Gotta agree, I've never had a better multiplayer game experience. No unnecessary blood and gore, cool weapons, great maps, flying and shooting aircraft, stationary targets to blow up...
I wish they would release that game and art to the open source community. It can't be commercially viable any more. It would Totally Rock.
Your first arguement involves the assumption that there is some degree of influence one can exert which does not involve change. I'd argue that influencing a situation changes it, by definition. It's not just not killing your grandfather the universe has to worry about, it's preserving everything in the world environment which had anything to do with your motivations, anything you ever learned about the world, etc. The complexity of such arguments becomes incredible. I rather doubt either of us is up to convince the other, but I'll just say for the record in the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary I'll assume that, given the sensivity of a chaos sytem to initial conditions, there can be no influence of the past without causality violation in the natural world.
The second point, about the possibility of multiverse branching, I still don't find convincing. Nor, if you think about it, is it particularly useful. If you succeeded and created a new timeline, you could never communicate this knowledge to your original time line - to their eyes, your attempt would have failed. So for each time line, the rule still holds that time travel doesn't work. Whether it works from the perspective of the individual trying it is not known and can never be known, since there is no way any evidence could ever be produced in any time line to prove it works. Each person attempting it would be taking a blind leap of faith that an unverifable assumption about how the universe works is true. Not exactly an ideal situation.
Curiously enough, I notice virtually ALL the answers are trying to argue in favor of time travel. I wonder if that says something about human beings.
"Seriously though, can you think of any other piece of software that's been in development that long and is still largely incomplete?"
I don't think that's really a fair statement. If you are speaking of ACTIVE development, there has been very little for a long time. The pulse is there - some activity does exist - but not enough to tackle in any kind of reasonable time the production of something like Hurd. And Hurd does actually exist, by the way. You can run it. If you mean a stable, "world conqueroring" Hurd is vaporware, I'll agree with that.
Gnu/HURD is not likely to ever be a major player for the simple reason it does not have critical mass. BSD and Linux have critical mass, and they are currently the only open source kernels that do. Many more exist, and of those the Hurd is perhaps the most prominent, but it simply doesn't have the mindshare.
I'll tell you why Hurd is still a good thing though. Imagine this - the foobared US legal system makes free Linux impossible in the US. What then? Contribute to BSD, where SCO can grab all our hard work and turn it against us? Nope. GNU Hurd will rise in such a case. It is fundamentally a conceptual jump beyond Unix, and SCO cannot possibly establish any claim. If they monkey with it they will tangle directly with the FSF, and frankly that might be worth it just for the entertainment of seeing the FSF fully roused.
If SCO wins, GNU Hurd will become the new center of GPL kernel development. The direction to head is quite clear - complete the port to L4, flesh it out, clean it up, and introduce the world to a real world OS that is a generation beyond Unix or Windows. The potential has always been there, but the difficulty of implimenting something fundamentally new was what allowed Linux into first place. With the proper incentive, like smacking SCO across the face, GNU Hurd development could take a quantum leap. That is why it is good to have around, even if it isn't doing anything important right now. It is a second string to our bow, and greased up and pulled taught it could shoot a mean arrow.