Ah, well, if you're talking plain text ASCII is obviously the way to go. Only a limited number of documents are actually just plain text though. If you wish to display online HTML is obviously the way to go. If you wish to print TeX is obviously the way to go.
So you end up with three source documents just to publish, "Hello World."
Whereas with OO XML you can do everything these three seperate quarter page documents do with only eight frikkin' pages of XML code. (Go ahead, try it. Open OO Writer, type "Hello World," and save as raw XML)
They claim specific rights to JFS as a derivitive work of UNIX, (which is like saying that your HKK turbocharger is a "derivitive work" of your Ford Mustang)and to a Linux SMP implementation.
Everything else that they claim to have claimed has actually been press release FUD. (See Jargon File)
The JFS claim rests entirely on the terms of contract and the legal definition of derivative works. No need to even look at the code since it is stipulated that IBM wrote the whole thing themselves.
The SMP claim depends upon the code in a very particular bit of code which may, but does not need to be, implemented in any particular Linux kernel.
This filing by SCO amounts to more FUD. I can't imagine it's going to fly. To make a claim you must provide evidence for that claim or go home. Defendant then defends against that evidence. If it isn't introduced as evidence, not need to defend. A claim is not evidence.
They're not only smoking, they're eating random mushrooms at the same time and the judege should throw their tripping asses out of court until they come back clean and straight.
I may be one of the few (only?) people who actually miss the old StarOffice application desktop. I used to build "secretary/receptionist" systems that did nothing but boot into StarOffice.
It was compact, powerful and slick as owl shit on a wet tin roof.
I can still do it with OpenOffice, but it's a lot more work, a lot bulkier and less integrated.
I've kept my 5.2 CDs. Stand alone, dedicated machines have real value where such is there intended purpose. Sometimes the computer is just the computer.
Gold is rare. Gold is also a commodity. It is bought, sold and traded as well as used as a basis for buying, selling and trading other commodities.
Technical skills may be both rare and needed, misunderstood and overlooked by managment and HR, but that does mean such skills are not a commodity. If they can fire you and hire someone else to do the same job, you are a commodity. Like it or not, right or wrong, businesses are structured in such a way that anyone can be fired and replaced by someone else.
Checkout clerk is actually a small technical skill. You can confirm this by going through nearly any Wal-Mart check out line. The low quality of of most checkout clerks is palpable. When you hit a good one these days it's almost a religous experience. I had someone actually count back my change to me the other day. It made me want to marry her.
This doesn't mean that checkout clerks are not a commodity.
You know the joke?
"What did the employed physicist say to the unemployed physicist?"
"Would you like fries with that?"
10% of the population? Hell, that isn't even rare. Colleges sell Master degrees, and even doctorates, as commodities. Get the right degree, get the right job. I'm sorry, but that's a pure commodity market. The very fact that you're talking about it in terms of job interviews proves it's a commodity market.
Get the right degree, go live in the jungle with gorillas. Get the right degree, live in a garret/basement writing poetry/free software.
That is not a commodity technical market.
The second you walk into an HR department you pick up a big sign that says, "I am a commodity, please buy me."
If they do not, but buy someone else instead, that proves you are a commodity.
The fact that they can't differentiante between a good apple and a bad apple when they are in the market for apples does not mean apples are not a commodity.
There is a way not to be a commodity. Don't walk into the HR department. It really is that simple.
But that's hard. You'll need some serious skills to pull that off. Skills the other 25 million engineers don't have. Some of those skills have nothing to do with the tech. They are life skills.
Aquire them. Make yourself unique in your niche and able to maintain life and limb without an HR department (although this may mean going to live in the jungle with gorillas. If what you want is a condo and BMW you just might have to enter the commodity market. In this case you'd be better off producing the commodity rather than being the commodity).
Otherwise you can just keep adding your resume to the stack that grows higher, and higher, and higher. ..
The differnce is that when you browse at the store you can't bring the bits you browsed home with you. You either have to buy the book or put it back.
Sure, you've read it, but your memory is the only "copy" you retain.
It's a sticky wicket really, with no clear answer in the traditional way of looking at these things. Book publishers sell books. Authors sell the contents of the book.
In the world of the printing press these two points of view coincide. In the digital world they do not always, as we see.
Still, for the most part, if I were inclined to copy a book I probably wouldn't use this feature of Amazon. Too troublesome. I'd take the book out of the library and scan the sucker.
My understanding from other posts is that many do this already.
If Microsoft's Windows installer blew up all Logitech mice because of some hidden Windows API I might be a bit miffed at MS, even though I use MS mice and wouldn't be directly affected by the issue.
If Logitech had made crappy crappy drivers and hardware that allowed those drivers to make their mice explode when I installed Windows I might be a bit miffed at Logitech.
If Microsoft had certified those drivers I might be a bit miffed at both of them.
No, if you're a software manufacturer and can actually write software that destroys perfectly normal hardware you have a pretty sweet employment deal waiting for you at the RIAA.
It's true. I know how much color on labeling effects my purchasing decisions.
I really like white. Lots and lots of white. A little black around the edges, a word or two and a very few very low numbers.
Motion too. I like things that just kinda sit there waiting for me to pick them up. I find it rather disconcerting when I reach for the yogurt and it dances to one side and leers at me. I think that's taking the whole "active culture" thing a bit to far. I figure that when a culture reaches the pottery making stage it's pretty much past its sell by date. If it's singing opera. . . nuke the bastard until it stops.
Lack of motion, lack of color, lack of music, lack of price, that stuff always catches my eye. I guess that makes my ideal car white, cheap and busted. Go figure.
Oh, yeah, all that applies so long as it's a product I was already looking for. I can't even recall the last time I might have bought something I wasn't already looking for. But then I never claimed to have average brain function either.
Now that I think about it just about everyone I've ever met has had some comment about my brain function. What's wit dat?
Certainly, but a good deal of that functionality really falls into the ebook catagory. Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, Quarterly reports and such. Bundle one with the OED and the Britannica and the deal and usefullness suddenly shoot up.
Certainly the ability to run a real database and grep text is a real advantage, but crippled without a real keyboard. Pen input devices are really nifty for making checkmarks and such. Much better than a keyboard or mouse, but they really are no match for inputing text and I don't think they ever will be. Not many authors write longhand these days. Fewer and fewer will even write a letter that way. Most still take notes that way though and type them into their computers later.
On the other hand, some new technologies fail because they were invented for marketing purposes, to drive sales, when people really neither want nor need the technology.
It happens.
Clipboard - couple bucks Piece of paper- some fraction of a cent Pen- Free if you steal it. Agree to take a survey at the mall and then just walk away Functionality - overall superiour to a tablet PC, especially with the advancing state of OCR software
Tablets have two real functions, Filling out standard forms, such as you might do while taking inventory. PDA type devices have already taken this market. Tablets are too much, too late.
Ebook reader. When they get lighter, cost less then a book and ebooks are in open formats like ASCII.
Oh yeah, and when you can plug a keyboard into one and use it like a laptop.
People want better cheaper portable computing devices, not expensive crippled and useless ones.
I'm not talking about logic, I'm talking about the law.
I didn't just make it up out of nothing.
The law has found it to be a very good idea to differentiate between abstractions and actual property. A CD is actual property. A right is not property. You cannot "steal" a right. You can infringe it. That infringement may put you under legal liability to whom you have infringed. That liability has limits set by law, not contract.
If I take your car I have deprived you of your car. That is a criminal act. If I copy your car, even if that reduces the value of yours, I have not deprived you of your car. There is no crime.
If I take your CD I have stolen it. You do not have it any more. You do not have its value anymore. I do. If I copy your CD I have not stolen it and you cannot charge me with such.
If I take a dollar bill out of your wallet, Xerox it, then give it back, I have conterfied that dollar (which happens to be a federal offense), but I have not stolen anything from you or the government, and cannot be charged with theft by you, nor will I charged with theft by the government.
Salesmen talk of "stealing" sales. You can't steal a sale. It isn't property. It's an abstract right. You might be able to sue (unlikely, but what the hell, give it a go, that's what small claims courts are for), but you can't charge with larceny.
In most cases potential sales are actually prohibited from being actionable.
If you took the master of a CD, preventing the rights holder from being able to make copies themselves then that would be theft.
George Harrison did not "steal" My Sweet Lord, he was found to be liable for infringing on someone's rights and owed them money.
He didn't even know he was doing it.
Theft can only be done if you do it with intent, to deprive, of actual property, of value. (if you pick a leaf up off the ground and I grab it from you and run away I have not commited theft. The leaf was of no value. If I carve a square yard our of your lawn and take it, that's theft, because it has value)
If "might have sold" and "should have sold" become crimes than we're all going to end up in jail pretty damned fast. The law understands this and prohibits it.
"Honey, Where's the forklift? I wanna curl up in bed with my new book."
You could always put it on one of them permanent bookstand thingies that some people put Bibles on, which is kinda apropos actually, but I'd be sure to reinforce my floor first.
Otherwise you might be starring in your own Far Side cartoon.
I have not forgotten the Sun, as you would know if you had read the whole thread before posting. The Sun is Lord. Ra, Ra, Ra and all that.
The Sun is a rich but wise Lord. It does not toss us enough money to support us in decadence, but enough to live on if we live wisely. He warms and moves the air. He makes the waters flow over the waterfalls. He makes the trees grow. From these we may derive sustainence for our homes while he sleeps.
He also gave us oil.
If we live arrogantly and decadently we will have to waste the capital the Sun has bestowed upon us as our birthright. When it is gone, it will be gone.
Then we shall have to live even more wisely just to live.
I like to live by the Grace of our Lord the Sun and my muscles, which the Lord sustains. Most consider me a "bum" because I support myself rather than labor for others to earn my sustainence. I need no Lord but the Sun.
Niether do you.
But the Lord doesn't give a crap about your SUV, your PC, or your ability to read after he goes down.
Hydrogen fuel cells are neat. I like hydrogen fuel cells. I wish I had hydrogen fuel cells when I was an electric car designer. I have nothing against hydrogen fuel cells.
I spoke about the "hydrogen economy" that many believe will be the cure to our energy dependency on oil.
Those people, as you yourself note, are deluded. Hydrogen is not an energy source for us unless we add the energy to it. That energy must come from somewhere, be it the Sun or the nuclear reactor.
For many, many years, however, that source is going to be oil.
I do not state that as my desire. I state it as fact.
Me? I'd just as soon you and I took a bicycle ride to a lovely little apple farm I know, where we could sit by the Sun produced wood fire and drink some Sun produced Apple Cider while we watch the Sun set out the Window.
Throw in a Sun produced violin and what more does a man need to be happy? Einstein forgot about the convivial companion.
Slashdot Mirror
Red Hat's claim is that they have.
KFG
Ah, well, if you're talking plain text ASCII is obviously the way to go. Only a limited number of documents are actually just plain text though. If you wish to display online HTML is obviously the way to go. If you wish to print TeX is obviously the way to go.
So you end up with three source documents just to publish, "Hello World."
Whereas with OO XML you can do everything these three seperate quarter page documents do with only eight frikkin' pages of XML code. (Go ahead, try it. Open OO Writer, type "Hello World," and save as raw XML)
And that's why it's better.
KFG
I can show you mine.
:)
Can you show me yours?
KFG
Actually their claim is more targeted than that.
They claim specific rights to JFS as a derivitive work of UNIX, (which is like saying that your HKK turbocharger is a "derivitive work" of your Ford Mustang)and to a Linux SMP implementation.
Everything else that they claim to have claimed has actually been press release FUD. (See Jargon File)
The JFS claim rests entirely on the terms of contract and the legal definition of derivative works. No need to even look at the code since it is stipulated that IBM wrote the whole thing themselves.
The SMP claim depends upon the code in a very particular bit of code which may, but does not need to be, implemented in any particular Linux kernel.
This filing by SCO amounts to more FUD. I can't imagine it's going to fly. To make a claim you must provide evidence for that claim or go home. Defendant then defends against that evidence. If it isn't introduced as evidence, not need to defend. A claim is not evidence.
They're not only smoking, they're eating random mushrooms at the same time and the judege should throw their tripping asses out of court until they come back clean and straight.
KFG
"I, for one, welcome our new elliptic overlords."
Indeed, this will be a major improvement on the hyperbolic overlords we now have.
KFG
I may be one of the few (only?) people who actually miss the old StarOffice application desktop. I used to build "secretary/receptionist" systems that did nothing but boot into StarOffice.
It was compact, powerful and slick as owl shit on a wet tin roof.
I can still do it with OpenOffice, but it's a lot more work, a lot bulkier and less integrated.
I've kept my 5.2 CDs. Stand alone, dedicated machines have real value where such is there intended purpose. Sometimes the computer is just the computer.
KFG
". . . with the viral nature of the GPL, this will stifle both independent and commercial development."
Ooooooooo, shiney on one side, pretty red and white stripes on the other, and it wiggles.
Oooooooooooo.
KFG
Gold is rare. Gold is also a commodity. It is bought, sold and traded as well as used as a basis for buying, selling and trading other commodities.
.
Technical skills may be both rare and needed, misunderstood and overlooked by managment and HR, but that does mean such skills are not a commodity. If they can fire you and hire someone else to do the same job, you are a commodity. Like it or not, right or wrong, businesses are structured in such a way that anyone can be fired and replaced by someone else.
Checkout clerk is actually a small technical skill. You can confirm this by going through nearly any Wal-Mart check out line. The low quality of of most checkout clerks is palpable. When you hit a good one these days it's almost a religous experience. I had someone actually count back my change to me the other day. It made me want to marry her.
This doesn't mean that checkout clerks are not a commodity.
You know the joke?
"What did the employed physicist say to the unemployed physicist?"
"Would you like fries with that?"
10% of the population? Hell, that isn't even rare. Colleges sell Master degrees, and even doctorates, as commodities. Get the right degree, get the right job. I'm sorry, but that's a pure commodity market. The very fact that you're talking about it in terms of job interviews proves it's a commodity market.
Get the right degree, go live in the jungle with gorillas. Get the right degree, live in a garret/basement writing poetry/free software.
That is not a commodity technical market.
The second you walk into an HR department you pick up a big sign that says, "I am a commodity, please buy me."
If they do not, but buy someone else instead, that proves you are a commodity.
The fact that they can't differentiante between a good apple and a bad apple when they are in the market for apples does not mean apples are not a commodity.
There is a way not to be a commodity. Don't walk into the HR department. It really is that simple.
But that's hard. You'll need some serious skills to pull that off. Skills the other 25 million engineers don't have. Some of those skills have nothing to do with the tech. They are life skills.
Aquire them. Make yourself unique in your niche and able to maintain life and limb without an HR department (although this may mean going to live in the jungle with gorillas. If what you want is a condo and BMW you just might have to enter the commodity market. In this case you'd be better off producing the commodity rather than being the commodity).
Otherwise you can just keep adding your resume to the stack that grows higher, and higher, and higher. .
Other than that, I'm with you.
KFG
The differnce is that when you browse at the store you can't bring the bits you browsed home with you. You either have to buy the book or put it back.
Sure, you've read it, but your memory is the only "copy" you retain.
It's a sticky wicket really, with no clear answer in the traditional way of looking at these things. Book publishers sell books. Authors sell the contents of the book.
In the world of the printing press these two points of view coincide. In the digital world they do not always, as we see.
Still, for the most part, if I were inclined to copy a book I probably wouldn't use this feature of Amazon. Too troublesome. I'd take the book out of the library and scan the sucker.
My understanding from other posts is that many do this already.
KFG
If Microsoft's Windows installer blew up all Logitech mice because of some hidden Windows API I might be a bit miffed at MS, even though I use MS mice and wouldn't be directly affected by the issue.
If Logitech had made crappy crappy drivers and hardware that allowed those drivers to make their mice explode when I installed Windows I might be a bit miffed at Logitech.
If Microsoft had certified those drivers I might be a bit miffed at both of them.
Happy now?
KFG
No, if you're a software manufacturer and can actually write software that destroys perfectly normal hardware you have a pretty sweet employment deal waiting for you at the RIAA.
KFG
It's true. I know how much color on labeling effects my purchasing decisions.
I really like white. Lots and lots of white. A little black around the edges, a word or two and a very few very low numbers.
Motion too. I like things that just kinda sit there waiting for me to pick them up. I find it rather disconcerting when I reach for the yogurt and it dances to one side and leers at me. I think that's taking the whole "active culture" thing a bit to far. I figure that when a culture reaches the pottery making stage it's pretty much past its sell by date. If it's singing opera. . . nuke the bastard until it stops.
Lack of motion, lack of color, lack of music, lack of price, that stuff always catches my eye. I guess that makes my ideal car white, cheap and busted. Go figure.
Oh, yeah, all that applies so long as it's a product I was already looking for. I can't even recall the last time I might have bought something I wasn't already looking for. But then I never claimed to have average brain function either.
Now that I think about it just about everyone I've ever met has had some comment about my brain function. What's wit dat?
KFG
Certainly, but a good deal of that functionality really falls into the ebook catagory. Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, Quarterly reports and such. Bundle one with the OED and the Britannica and the deal and usefullness suddenly shoot up.
Certainly the ability to run a real database and grep text is a real advantage, but crippled without a real keyboard. Pen input devices are really nifty for making checkmarks and such. Much better than a keyboard or mouse, but they really are no match for inputing text and I don't think they ever will be. Not many authors write longhand these days. Fewer and fewer will even write a letter that way. Most still take notes that way though and type them into their computers later.
It works.
KFG
On the other hand, some new technologies fail because they were invented for marketing purposes, to drive sales, when people really neither want nor need the technology.
It happens.
Clipboard - couple bucks
Piece of paper- some fraction of a cent
Pen- Free if you steal it. Agree to take a survey at the mall and then just walk away
Functionality - overall superiour to a tablet PC, especially with the advancing state of OCR software
Tablets have two real functions, Filling out standard forms, such as you might do while taking inventory. PDA type devices have already taken this market. Tablets are too much, too late.
Ebook reader. When they get lighter, cost less then a book and ebooks are in open formats like ASCII.
Oh yeah, and when you can plug a keyboard into one and use it like a laptop.
People want better cheaper portable computing devices, not expensive crippled and useless ones.
KFG
Is someone I know that sick?
KFG
Conterfied?
Don't ask. It's a long story.
KFG
I'm not talking about logic, I'm talking about the law.
I didn't just make it up out of nothing.
The law has found it to be a very good idea to differentiate between abstractions and actual property. A CD is actual property. A right is not property. You cannot "steal" a right. You can infringe it. That infringement may put you under legal liability to whom you have infringed. That liability has limits set by law, not contract.
If I take your car I have deprived you of your car. That is a criminal act. If I copy your car, even if that reduces the value of yours, I have not deprived you of your car. There is no crime.
If I take your CD I have stolen it. You do not have it any more. You do not have its value anymore. I do. If I copy your CD I have not stolen it and you cannot charge me with such.
If I take a dollar bill out of your wallet, Xerox it, then give it back, I have conterfied that dollar (which happens to be a federal offense), but I have not stolen anything from you or the government, and cannot be charged with theft by you, nor will I charged with theft by the government.
Salesmen talk of "stealing" sales. You can't steal a sale. It isn't property. It's an abstract right. You might be able to sue (unlikely, but what the hell, give it a go, that's what small claims courts are for), but you can't charge with larceny.
In most cases potential sales are actually prohibited from being actionable.
If you took the master of a CD, preventing the rights holder from being able to make copies themselves then that would be theft.
George Harrison did not "steal" My Sweet Lord, he was found to be liable for infringing on someone's rights and owed them money.
He didn't even know he was doing it.
Theft can only be done if you do it with intent, to deprive, of actual property, of value. (if you pick a leaf up off the ground and I grab it from you and run away I have not commited theft. The leaf was of no value. If I carve a square yard our of your lawn and take it, that's theft, because it has value)
If "might have sold" and "should have sold" become crimes than we're all going to end up in jail pretty damned fast. The law understands this and prohibits it.
"Take" is theft.
"Copy" is infringement.
And it was good.
"Honey, Where's the forklift? I wanna curl up in bed with my new book."
You could always put it on one of them permanent bookstand thingies that some people put Bibles on, which is kinda apropos actually, but I'd be sure to reinforce my floor first.
Otherwise you might be starring in your own Far Side cartoon.
KFG
Times have changed. Children are now the responsibility of the parents, but they are, essentially, the property of the state.
Some parents find this distressing.
KFG
I embarked upon my adult life when I was about 13. This has meant that I could become an old curmudgeon a bit ahead of schedule.
Neat, huh?
KFG
Unemployment is an option. Joblessness is an option.
I went and opened a new account at a brokerage a couple of years ago and they wanted to know who my employer was.
I was actually rather taken aback by the question. It seemed an odd concept to me.
Employed? That's what I do with hammers and toilets. No one "employs" me, and I told him so.
He asked me if I were self employed.
Does a hammer employ itself? Does a toilet flush itself? (Well, ok, sometimes, if the flapper valve is wonky, but you get my point)
I am not self employed. I am. I live. I see to my survival. I'm no more employed than a sparrow.
He insisted that I list at least my last employer. That goes back over a decade, but it made him happy.
I took back my time. Then I kept it.
You can too.
KFG
May I refer you, once again, to the second law.
Ta Da!
And the arrow of time appears in all its glory.
Time, my friend, is actually thermodynamics.
KFG
In other words, I owe the phone company a buck.
Wherever on earth did you get the idea I said otherwise?
Owing the phone company a buck is a debt, not a crime. We outlawed debt as crime. Remember?
KFG
Well then if you read this entire thread you will find you and I are on roughly the same page.
KFG
I have not forgotten the Sun, as you would know if you had read the whole thread before posting. The Sun is Lord. Ra, Ra, Ra and all that.
The Sun is a rich but wise Lord. It does not toss us enough money to support us in decadence, but enough to live on if we live wisely. He warms and moves the air. He makes the waters flow over the waterfalls. He makes the trees grow. From these we may derive sustainence for our homes while he sleeps.
He also gave us oil.
If we live arrogantly and decadently we will have to waste the capital the Sun has bestowed upon us as our birthright. When it is gone, it will be gone.
Then we shall have to live even more wisely just to live.
I like to live by the Grace of our Lord the Sun and my muscles, which the Lord sustains. Most consider me a "bum" because I support myself rather than labor for others to earn my sustainence. I need no Lord but the Sun.
Niether do you.
But the Lord doesn't give a crap about your SUV, your PC, or your ability to read after he goes down.
Hydrogen fuel cells are neat. I like hydrogen fuel cells. I wish I had hydrogen fuel cells when I was an electric car designer. I have nothing against hydrogen fuel cells.
I spoke about the "hydrogen economy" that many believe will be the cure to our energy dependency on oil.
Those people, as you yourself note, are deluded. Hydrogen is not an energy source for us unless we add the energy to it. That energy must come from somewhere, be it the Sun or the nuclear reactor.
For many, many years, however, that source is going to be oil.
I do not state that as my desire. I state it as fact.
Me? I'd just as soon you and I took a bicycle ride to a lovely little apple farm I know, where we could sit by the Sun produced wood fire and drink some Sun produced Apple Cider while we watch the Sun set out the Window.
Throw in a Sun produced violin and what more does a man need to be happy? Einstein forgot about the convivial companion.
KFG