I think a bigger problem with Go is not the ending, it's the beginning.
Chess starts with a board populated with pieces; these pieces move certain ways and there is a very small number of first moves. Since the goal is clearer (checkmate) in chess, even the novice has a good chance of starting out alright.
In Go you have a huge board with a lot more possible first moves. If the beginner isn't aware of opening theory there is almost no way to decide where to place the first stone.
That is why starting out on a 9x9, or 13x13 at most, board is a good idea. The games are quicker, the number of moves is more limited, and you can quickly start teaching fighting (9x9) and endgame (13x13) which is needed before you understand what the point of opening theory is.
Need to pay your electric bill? Pay it at the bank
Need to pay the phone bill? Pay it at the bank
I hope you saying pay it at the bank online, because waiting in line at a bank in Japan is not something you want to do on a regular basis.
You can pay your phone and electric bill at the convenience store around here; I can get my bills for phone, cable, etc. electronically through my bank.
Considering the impact this has already had on Linux, the fact that every possible scenario these guys could think of has no effect on Linux, my conclusion is that this matrix doesn't matter.
As other posters have said, it is quite possible that a judge will in fact decide that Linux does infringe on SCO patents or copyrights or trade secrets or what-have-you. The mere fact that something doesn't make sense in no way means that the U.S. court system wouldn't decide that in that manner.
ultimately stock has no real value, sure. Just like baseball cards have no real value.
The stockmarket - when you take out dividends - is really nothing more than a large scale baseball card trading scene. The higher the popularity a stock has and the lower the supply, the higher the price. As the company which the stock represents performs poorly, the stock price goes down. Why? Does owning the stock of a poorly performing company have any bearing on the stock? No...just a poorly performing player has no bearing on the intrinsic value of a baseball card.
The real purpose of stocks are completely lost on the normal guy. Those with large perecentages of stock, though, are actually able to act as the company owner which they are. The dividends are a small percentage of the stock price and really play no large role in determining what a stock is worth, other than a few percentage points.
The scary part is that, even if you realize that the entire thing is a sham, you have to keep the wool covered over your eyes because the entire world know it. Imagine you are trapped in the Matrix, you realize it, but you can't get and you can't do any cool bullettime moves...
He has yet to convince the people who fly the planes. "In general, pilots are openly hostile," he says. "Frankly it surprises me, because of all of the options that they are facing right now - including being shot at or commandeered from the ground - this is their best one."
I wonder why? Faced with the problems of being shot at or their plane commandeered, pilots also complain about a system that would take away the ability to avoid possible mid-air collisions by creating "no-fly" zones that prevent the pilot from banking in the desired direction.
Couple of problems: of course it isn't going to be "hack-proof" as many will point out - if it could be done, it would have already. To think he can create something hack proof now is extreme bravado. What about planes that don't have the system? Also, what is the liklihood of this kind of attack occuring again: after all of the news coverage, introspection, and other preventative measures, adding this to the complications of flying seems over compensative.
No, I'm saying that those people making the decision (i.e. not you or me) see those programs and companies (Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, IBM, etc.) as the standards - so they stick with those because the ROI can more easily be approximated. In the tight economy and because of the burnout from the late 90's, IT department heads can not risk going with an unproven program or company. The fragmentation that can too easily occur on the open source side of things makes it even more difficult to choose what to go with - thus the big name "standards" are chosen.
It isn't FUD because it is true. What open source advocates call "choice", those on the outside looking in will call confusion. How is an IT department head supposed to make a choice for a major investment in IT? Do you go with Microsoft who, no matter how much you hate them, you know will be around in five years and can somewhat reliably predict ROI, or do you go with X, who just put together a good, solid, working competitive product based on opensource, but may close shop next year?
Companies don't want to - and won't - support their own software if they can help it. That is what the talk about "IT being an investment" and "IT doesn't matter" is all about - it isn't FUD, it is what company executive (read: those that make the rules in companies that actually have money to invest) are thinking.
The article is about IT becoming a part of businesses that must justify new expenses in terms of ROI. This goes along with the previous mentioned articles on/. about IT being an investment.
One could make the leap to believe that this means companies will embrace free, open source! software. Maybe. Or one could look deeper and see that companies are looking to standardize - something that opensourcesoftware doesn't seem to doing.
There may be places in businesses that open source software will be able to make good progress in - I hope so - but it reads like IT managers are looking to the old standards (IBM, Microsoft, SAP, etc.) for the near-term fixes that they need and any new, whizbang ideas (e.g. wi-fi) will be met with strong resistance...
It is weird, I agree. And the numbers are most likely inflated a great deal, as well.
The issue isn't so much lost sales (as kmonsen pointed out, if a person truly had $0 there would have been no sale) as it is quantifying any kind of damages. The two extremes - no sales lost because people that steal wouldn't buy anyway and $x amount for each person stealing - are neither one right. The real amount that the company loses is actually somewhere inbetween.
I would argue that the number is closer to the maximum than the minimum. Kmonsen's claim that no sales of Britney Spear's CD's were lost because he wouldn't buy it is invalid because he would most likely not download it (read: incite/. support by invoking pop-icon that most people hate) but those that did download it probably did so because they wanted to listen to it without buying it.
The "would not have paid for it anyway, so no lost revenue" argument is getting tired. It doesn't work.
Is copying a book verbatim fine, as long as you wouldn't have bought it anyway?
The courts are not going to listen to this argument because it is silly: just because someone would not have paid for something doesn't mean they have right to the same thing for free!
The only grey area is that the company was not actually deprived of anything beyond a hypothetical sale. Which way do you think most people will fall, though:
1) person that obtains said service for free is harming no one, or
2) person that obtains said service for free is stealing.
Those people paying for satellite service are not doing so out of the kindness of their hearts. They are doing it to pay for the service provided. The signal may be in the air, but someone did the work to create that signal. Should everyone have a free right to the end results of that work?
If a programmer writes a program, should anyone be able to use that program, regardless of how it was obtained? I wouldn't have bought it anyway, so what should they care, right?
I found it funny because it sounds like he doesn't check it regularly...considering how often patches come out, his is a box just ripe for hacking in about 6 months...
Regardless of what you think about Amazon opening up its API and inventory data, this is a nifty product. Scan something anywhere and get the Amazon data on it. Now I comparision shop Amazon with BestBuy, Circuit City, or B&N while I am at the store. Wait?! Is this illegal under the DMCA?
This would be great if they guy hooked it up to Froogle and made it work on a PDA - you could buy anything you saw, anywhere, for the cheapest price you could find on the web, while you were in a real store!
IT doesn't matter is not about IT being irrelevant - it is about IT being an accepted, necessary, and unavoidable cost of doing business. The "doesn't matter" part of the article in question means that IT is no longer a strategic advantage that one early-mover may have over another.
If anything, Carr would agree with this article that IT is a permanent part of a business and will, once regarded as an asset and not just a cost center, be able to provide a more positive impact on the overall business.
I'll take the "contrary to/." opinion and say it is most likely B).
IBM, whatever the merits of the case, isn't going to be foolish enough to just ignore SCO and hope they go away. I would imagine that IBM is planning and preparing and searching to ensure that a) whatever license they have with SCO for AIX is valid and clean, b) whatever code they (IBM) put into Linux is free from claims by SCO, and c) how best to defend against any accusation of the first two.
It isn't going to be enough to say "Look, Judge, SCO's crazy, alright?" and be done with it.
For the sake of all involved, I hope IBM is diligently putting all the ducks in a row, crossing the t's and dotting the i's, and making damn sure all is in order.
Re:Creation of a blue collar computing segment
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I don't see this as a path up the ladder for those "street smart" users, and that's the social angle I dislike: education with computers, practical or formal, should be reflected by higher wages.
I don't see it as a path up the ladder either but I don't understand why it should mean higher wages. Especially if the skill-set spreads and is no longer a scarce commodity, as will surely happen, the average basepay will certainly fall - as it should. The high-end wages for experts will probably stay the same or go up (see: airline mechanic vs. car mechanic, or donut maker vs. pastry chef) but the entry level skill set will, as you said, be bluecollar and that it isn't a "good thing" for those at that level, to be sure.
I don't think people (especially in IT) realize that this is where things are going. Not only is it hard to get a job now, but when the jobs do start coming back they will be a lower wagers than before because it isn't a "hot" position. Necessary, yes, but just like a mechanic there will be someone right around the block able to the same job, more or less.
So, we have two apparently seperate but coordinated efforts to on one hand extend copyright protection (Bono vs. Eldred) and on the other prevent fair use of said copyrighted material (DMCA). The Supreme Court has deemed it a-ok for Congress to perpetually, if it wishes, extend copyright protection for all of eternity; preventing fairuse, on the other hand, may be something that SCOTUS would not allow. May.
Now, will someone please use something that would be banned by the DMCA for a legitimate, meaningful, publicly supported task and dare someone to sue under the DMCA. Make a teaching DVD for kids that shows how wonderful the Supreme Court is using copyrighted works and DeCSS. Until this gets to SCOTUS it is law of the land...Congress and their corporate sponsors are effectively locking away years and years of our culture through legal and technological methods. At the very least let's break the law which prevents even attempting to break the technological protection.
Re:Creation of a blue collar computing segment
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This sounds a lot like where the article in HBR was heading and the counterpoint in Forbes discussed. This concept, though, is a lot more novel than the approach that HBR took in that the functions of IT are not marginalized but, rather, those working in that field are. As IT systems, computers, the Internet, etc. are looked at more as the tools they are and not the end itself, those working on them will be seperated from those working with them. Just like your mechanic example. Very interesting.
if they are allowing Caldera linux users to continue as it is, I'm fairly certain that as a GPL'ed product, if SCO determines they are going to release their linux kernel as a proprietary object with or without open source, they're opening themselves up to hundreds of lawsuits from kernel developers who haven't licensed that action.
But SCO's argument is that these very kernel hackers had no right to release that kernel work under the GPL to begin with - all derivative work from UNIX belongs to SCO. All SCO will be doing is reasserting their right (according to them) to all that work was done. Just as WASTE, apparently, was never actually released under the GPL...
Imagine the trauma is SCO wins: not only will all that derivative work belong to them but there will be a boatload of pissed off kernel hackers that have given a lot of work away (ironically, considering that is what they have been doing all along, ne?)
From what I understand, the Gentoo portage system atleast, is quite powerful in decidig which ports are available and which are pulled in to be compiled. Something as simple as a flag in make.conf could be used to decide what source packages to use.
It would certainly make Van Damme's movies watchable.
Considering some of his movies, watching only the sex isn't something I particularly want to do. Whatever floats your boat, though, is fine with me. I support right to watch all the gay sex you want, User 965.
The reason for this is that patents are complicated and claims are not easy to understand
The reason for this must, MUST, be so that lawyers have a reason to exist. Aren't patents supposed to clearly describe the invention? If someone, working in the same field on the same type of work, can't understand the patent, then how is the world is the PTO supposed?
Slashdot Mirror
Chess starts with a board populated with pieces; these pieces move certain ways and there is a very small number of first moves. Since the goal is clearer (checkmate) in chess, even the novice has a good chance of starting out alright.
In Go you have a huge board with a lot more possible first moves. If the beginner isn't aware of opening theory there is almost no way to decide where to place the first stone.
That is why starting out on a 9x9, or 13x13 at most, board is a good idea. The games are quicker, the number of moves is more limited, and you can quickly start teaching fighting (9x9) and endgame (13x13) which is needed before you understand what the point of opening theory is.
Is that phone number going to get slashdotted now? Wouldn't that make you sorry for posting a lame reply and asking to be modded up? :-)
Need to pay the phone bill? Pay it at the bank
I hope you saying pay it at the bank online, because waiting in line at a bank in Japan is not something you want to do on a regular basis.
You can pay your phone and electric bill at the convenience store around here; I can get my bills for phone, cable, etc. electronically through my bank.
As other posters have said, it is quite possible that a judge will in fact decide that Linux does infringe on SCO patents or copyrights or trade secrets or what-have-you. The mere fact that something doesn't make sense in no way means that the U.S. court system wouldn't decide that in that manner.
The stockmarket - when you take out dividends - is really nothing more than a large scale baseball card trading scene. The higher the popularity a stock has and the lower the supply, the higher the price. As the company which the stock represents performs poorly, the stock price goes down. Why? Does owning the stock of a poorly performing company have any bearing on the stock? No...just a poorly performing player has no bearing on the intrinsic value of a baseball card.
The real purpose of stocks are completely lost on the normal guy. Those with large perecentages of stock, though, are actually able to act as the company owner which they are. The dividends are a small percentage of the stock price and really play no large role in determining what a stock is worth, other than a few percentage points.
The scary part is that, even if you realize that the entire thing is a sham, you have to keep the wool covered over your eyes because the entire world know it. Imagine you are trapped in the Matrix, you realize it, but you can't get and you can't do any cool bullettime moves...
I wonder why? Faced with the problems of being shot at or their plane commandeered, pilots also complain about a system that would take away the ability to avoid possible mid-air collisions by creating "no-fly" zones that prevent the pilot from banking in the desired direction.
Couple of problems: of course it isn't going to be "hack-proof" as many will point out - if it could be done, it would have already. To think he can create something hack proof now is extreme bravado. What about planes that don't have the system? Also, what is the liklihood of this kind of attack occuring again: after all of the news coverage, introspection, and other preventative measures, adding this to the complications of flying seems over compensative.
It isn't FUD because it is true. What open source advocates call "choice", those on the outside looking in will call confusion. How is an IT department head supposed to make a choice for a major investment in IT? Do you go with Microsoft who, no matter how much you hate them, you know will be around in five years and can somewhat reliably predict ROI, or do you go with X, who just put together a good, solid, working competitive product based on opensource, but may close shop next year?
Companies don't want to - and won't - support their own software if they can help it. That is what the talk about "IT being an investment" and "IT doesn't matter" is all about - it isn't FUD, it is what company executive (read: those that make the rules in companies that actually have money to invest) are thinking.
One could make the leap to believe that this means companies will embrace free, open source! software. Maybe. Or one could look deeper and see that companies are looking to standardize - something that open source software doesn't seem to doing.
There may be places in businesses that open source software will be able to make good progress in - I hope so - but it reads like IT managers are looking to the old standards (IBM, Microsoft, SAP, etc.) for the near-term fixes that they need and any new, whizbang ideas (e.g. wi-fi) will be met with strong resistance...
no
The issue isn't so much lost sales (as kmonsen pointed out, if a person truly had $0 there would have been no sale) as it is quantifying any kind of damages. The two extremes - no sales lost because people that steal wouldn't buy anyway and $x amount for each person stealing - are neither one right. The real amount that the company loses is actually somewhere inbetween.
I would argue that the number is closer to the maximum than the minimum. Kmonsen's claim that no sales of Britney Spear's CD's were lost because he wouldn't buy it is invalid because he would most likely not download it (read: incite /. support by invoking pop-icon that most people hate) but those that did download it probably did so because they wanted to listen to it without buying it.
The "would not have paid for it anyway, so no lost revenue" argument is getting tired. It doesn't work.
Is copying a book verbatim fine, as long as you wouldn't have bought it anyway?
The courts are not going to listen to this argument because it is silly: just because someone would not have paid for something doesn't mean they have right to the same thing for free!
The only grey area is that the company was not actually deprived of anything beyond a hypothetical sale. Which way do you think most people will fall, though:
1) person that obtains said service for free is harming no one, or
2) person that obtains said service for free is stealing.
Those people paying for satellite service are not doing so out of the kindness of their hearts. They are doing it to pay for the service provided. The signal may be in the air, but someone did the work to create that signal. Should everyone have a free right to the end results of that work?
If a programmer writes a program, should anyone be able to use that program, regardless of how it was obtained? I wouldn't have bought it anyway, so what should they care, right?
I found it funny because it sounds like he doesn't check it regularly...considering how often patches come out, his is a box just ripe for hacking in about 6 months...
This would be great if they guy hooked it up to Froogle and made it work on a PDA - you could buy anything you saw, anywhere, for the cheapest price you could find on the web, while you were in a real store!
(runs off to fill out a patent form...)
If anything, Carr would agree with this article that IT is a permanent part of a business and will, once regarded as an asset and not just a cost center, be able to provide a more positive impact on the overall business.
It isn't going to be enough to say "Look, Judge, SCO's crazy, alright?" and be done with it.
For the sake of all involved, I hope IBM is diligently putting all the ducks in a row, crossing the t's and dotting the i's, and making damn sure all is in order.
I don't see it as a path up the ladder either but I don't understand why it should mean higher wages. Especially if the skill-set spreads and is no longer a scarce commodity, as will surely happen, the average basepay will certainly fall - as it should. The high-end wages for experts will probably stay the same or go up (see: airline mechanic vs. car mechanic, or donut maker vs. pastry chef) but the entry level skill set will, as you said, be bluecollar and that it isn't a "good thing" for those at that level, to be sure.
I don't think people (especially in IT) realize that this is where things are going. Not only is it hard to get a job now, but when the jobs do start coming back they will be a lower wagers than before because it isn't a "hot" position. Necessary, yes, but just like a mechanic there will be someone right around the block able to the same job, more or less.
Now, will someone please use something that would be banned by the DMCA for a legitimate, meaningful, publicly supported task and dare someone to sue under the DMCA. Make a teaching DVD for kids that shows how wonderful the Supreme Court is using copyrighted works and DeCSS. Until this gets to SCOTUS it is law of the land...Congress and their corporate sponsors are effectively locking away years and years of our culture through legal and technological methods. At the very least let's break the law which prevents even attempting to break the technological protection.
This sounds a lot like where the article in HBR was heading and the counterpoint in Forbes discussed. This concept, though, is a lot more novel than the approach that HBR took in that the functions of IT are not marginalized but, rather, those working in that field are. As IT systems, computers, the Internet, etc. are looked at more as the tools they are and not the end itself, those working on them will be seperated from those working with them. Just like your mechanic example. Very interesting.
I thought patents were meant to reward inventions, not innovations...
But SCO's argument is that these very kernel hackers had no right to release that kernel work under the GPL to begin with - all derivative work from UNIX belongs to SCO. All SCO will be doing is reasserting their right (according to them) to all that work was done. Just as WASTE, apparently, was never actually released under the GPL...
Imagine the trauma is SCO wins: not only will all that derivative work belong to them but there will be a boatload of pissed off kernel hackers that have given a lot of work away (ironically, considering that is what they have been doing all along, ne?)
Careful, this is the 55808th bride, according to Google.
From what I understand, the Gentoo portage system atleast, is quite powerful in decidig which ports are available and which are pulled in to be compiled. Something as simple as a flag in make.conf could be used to decide what source packages to use.
Considering some of his movies, watching only the sex isn't something I particularly want to do. Whatever floats your boat, though, is fine with me. I support right to watch all the gay sex you want, User 965.
The reason for this must, MUST, be so that lawyers have a reason to exist. Aren't patents supposed to clearly describe the invention? If someone, working in the same field on the same type of work, can't understand the patent, then how is the world is the PTO supposed?
The elusive second step solved!