To be fair, Oracle has charged per-processor for as long as I can remember. A dual core processor is essentially two processors on a single die, and performs more or less identically to two separate processors. Why shouldn't they fall under the multi-proc licensing terms?
(Note that charging per-proc in the first place is a whole different argument...)
This is kind of cheating as no normal Linux system can perform like this
If you're demonstrating how much faster a Linux machine can be than whatever it is the person is using currently, then there's no "kind of" about it, unless you explain exactly what you've done and what they'd need to do to recreate the speed increase.
Otherwise, you're in danger of wowing them, persuading them to switch, then having them discover that actually it's not that much faster after all, and possibly just switching back again.
They're not illegal - if they were, then it would mean that someone (EPO or patent filers/holders) is breaking the law, and so is liable for prosecution. They are indeed unenforcable, but that's an entirely different concept.
That sort of thing (leaving your mobile on your desk) where I work has on occasion seen the mobile unceremoniously deposited in a desk drawer and even - in one extreme case - the bin.
We call them "mobile phones" for a reason, people...
By 'getting exactly what they want', I mean they're getting the same easy way out that they get 99% of the time. Pay out a measly $200M and get their way.
Easy way out? You mean, they pay the companies what amounts to a licence fee to use the patented tech? That is the way that patents are supposed to work, you know. What would you rather MS did, use this to destroy the patent system, or simply stop developing/distributing/supporting the offending software?
Well, that's okay then - I'll rest easy in my bed at night knowing that no matter how many machines my crappy code renders useless, no-one can successfully sue me.
As it happens, I tend to agree that liability shouldn't be a problem. However, when your code actually incapacitates a machine, people are more likely to think about trying to sue. That could still land developers in court, for all the disclaimers. That may well not be a risk people are willing to take, at least without a backer with deep pockets (paging IBM...)
Once you look at someone else's source code, you run the risk that they claim that your own future work is "derived" from theirs.
There's nothing unique to proprietary source about that, though. I could just as easily release some code under the GPL, wait, then go after anyone releasing code that does something similar too.
True, most lone coders and independent projects wouldn't have the money to sue, but what of larger companies, such as IBM or Apple? Just because they're playing nice now doesn't mean that they always will.
My point is if you're going to be paranoid about "shared source" stuff, be paranoid about *all* source that isn't released under a "do whatever you want, we don't care" licence.
Because it was presented as though it were true, and the slashdot "editors" love nothing more than a good hard bash at MS, that's why. Don't expect integrity or fact checking here, it even says as much in the FAQ.
You're probably right, but then what is there stopping them from saying "This mass is the standard kilogram. The gram is exactly 1000th the mass of it"?
After all, that *is* what they're saying effectively, yet the kilogram is the SI unit of mass, not the gram. (In the same way that the joule is the SI unit of energy, rather than the millijoule or kilojoule).
That is, I'm not asking why they didn't create a standard gram mass, rather why does the SI unit of mass, alone amongst all such units, have a prefix?
However, it is not true that Wikipedia in general has either a bias
Oh, but Wikipedia does have a bias, if only in the types of article that are written. It's biased very heavily towards those things that interest white, middle class male techies.
As for political bias or agenda pushing, that too happens, but on a less noticeable scale. It's also very much harder to notice a bias when it coincides with your own opinions.
You can[sic] start rendering until you've done your AI and physics and everything else, so you know what you need to render.
What's to stop you preparing everything for rendering frame n+1 on one proc while you're rendering frame n on the other? What effect on the inputs to the AI and physics engine does the output of the rendering engine have?
Since when did support piracy become so acceptable to so many people?
Since it was happening to people that we don't like, of course. It happens to the RIAA and MPAA, they need to adapt or die! It happens to MS, well, they're evil! It happens to GPLed software (by redistributing it and refusing to release the source), burn the heretics that dare steal our code!
You're forgetting an important factor - most people (not all by any means, but the majority) downloading TV shows are either techies, or amongst the most technically savvy of end users. The techier a person is, I've found, the more likely they are to be into sci-fi rather than, say, reality shows.
The reason why they have a hard time getting ratings is because they're not popular with the general TV-watching public. For futher evidence, just look at the media frenzy over shows like Big Brother, I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, etc...
Which is precisely why patents were created in the first place, and is one of reasons why they should not be extended to include software.
With a physical item, you can take it apart and examine it and figure out how to make it yourself. For anything truly novel, that's a hell of a lot easier than coming up with the design yourself. Thus, such things need to be protected for a limited time to ensure that the inventor can recoup their investment. If not, then fewer people/companies will be willing to make that investment.
With (closed source) software, the implementation is hidden from view, so no such protection is required. Even with open source, copyright protects the source from unauthorised reuse.
That's the price they've decided to set. It's easy - if you think it's worth it, pay the price. If not, go elsewhere.
That's the way it works with everything else, why should it be different with content on the Internet? Just because it's easier to swindle the other party (by providing fake information)?
Microsoft have given up on being a monopoly, they are letting the USPTO do it for them
Do you ahve any evidence that MS are suing anyone for patent violation? I know they're filing for a lot of patents, but so are IBM, etc.
Isn't there some kind of pan-european IT union?
I've been working as a programmer in the UK for almost 6 years, and I'm not aware of there being any IT union at all, let alone a pan-EU one. I've not looked into it recently, though.
keep exporting your fast food and k3wl choons!
Actually, if it was up to me, they could keep them too; I don't eat burgers or listen to very much American music. That's just me though:-)
Who knows more than him about the various ways to infringe on people's privacy and data integrity?
We hear about (in)famous [h|cr]ackers being hired as security consultants from time to time, which is generally lauded as being a good idea due to their experience on the other side of the fight. How is this any different?
He may not have any technical skills (although of course he may), but if anyone knows the law, the loopholes and how to push the legality of this sort of thing right to the line and beyond, it'll be him.
I'd rather he were being paid to enforce the law than skirt around it...
Yeah, MS only cares about it's profit margins - big deal, it can join the club of almost every other company in the world.
But its profit margins are going to start being hit if using Windows becomes too unpleasant an experience, and malware is threatening just that for the average user. Hence the interest in spam prevention/filtering, firewalls, anti-virus, and anti-spyware software.
The real problem isn't people running as adminstrator; I do so at work and at home with no problems. The problem is naive computer users who run/install content from untrsuted sources, don't run (up to date) AV software, don't use a firewall, etc.
Even a system with zero exploits will not be safe from an incautious/careless user with the admin password. Even if all IE, ActiveX, etc holes are plugged, malware will still be installed piggy-backing on or masquerading as legitimate software installations.
MS hasn't allowed the industry to grow, they just gave it a nice, easy start in life. The crap would still have been developed without their inadvertant help.
Unfortunately, it doesn't matter how secure your system is - if you have a naive user with the admin password using it, you're still going to have it infected with all sorts of nasties.
I would then go and delete the accounts and the files. The FBI, US Customs and local PD all told me it was illegal to delete, move or even shut down child porn sites.
I'm curious - why did you do it? Why not just report the scum bags and let them get what's coming to them?
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To be fair, Oracle has charged per-processor for as long as I can remember. A dual core processor is essentially two processors on a single die, and performs more or less identically to two separate processors. Why shouldn't they fall under the multi-proc licensing terms?
(Note that charging per-proc in the first place is a whole different argument...)
This is kind of cheating as no normal Linux system can perform like this
If you're demonstrating how much faster a Linux machine can be than whatever it is the person is using currently, then there's no "kind of" about it, unless you explain exactly what you've done and what they'd need to do to recreate the speed increase.
Otherwise, you're in danger of wowing them, persuading them to switch, then having them discover that actually it's not that much faster after all, and possibly just switching back again.
They're not illegal - if they were, then it would mean that someone (EPO or patent filers/holders) is breaking the law, and so is liable for prosecution. They are indeed unenforcable, but that's an entirely different concept.
That sort of thing (leaving your mobile on your desk) where I work has on occasion seen the mobile unceremoniously deposited in a desk drawer and even - in one extreme case - the bin.
We call them "mobile phones" for a reason, people...
By 'getting exactly what they want', I mean they're getting the same easy way out that they get 99% of the time. Pay out a measly $200M and get their way.
Easy way out? You mean, they pay the companies what amounts to a licence fee to use the patented tech? That is the way that patents are supposed to work, you know. What would you rather MS did, use this to destroy the patent system, or simply stop developing/distributing/supporting the offending software?
Well, that's okay then - I'll rest easy in my bed at night knowing that no matter how many machines my crappy code renders useless, no-one can successfully sue me.
As it happens, I tend to agree that liability shouldn't be a problem. However, when your code actually incapacitates a machine, people are more likely to think about trying to sue. That could still land developers in court, for all the disclaimers. That may well not be a risk people are willing to take, at least without a backer with deep pockets (paging IBM...)
Once you look at someone else's source code, you run the risk that they claim that your own future work is "derived" from theirs.
There's nothing unique to proprietary source about that, though. I could just as easily release some code under the GPL, wait, then go after anyone releasing code that does something similar too.
True, most lone coders and independent projects wouldn't have the money to sue, but what of larger companies, such as IBM or Apple? Just because they're playing nice now doesn't mean that they always will.
My point is if you're going to be paranoid about "shared source" stuff, be paranoid about *all* source that isn't released under a "do whatever you want, we don't care" licence.
Because it was presented as though it were true, and the slashdot "editors" love nothing more than a good hard bash at MS, that's why. Don't expect integrity or fact checking here, it even says as much in the FAQ.
You're probably right, but then what is there stopping them from saying "This mass is the standard kilogram. The gram is exactly 1000th the mass of it"?
After all, that *is* what they're saying effectively, yet the kilogram is the SI unit of mass, not the gram. (In the same way that the joule is the SI unit of energy, rather than the millijoule or kilojoule).
That is, I'm not asking why they didn't create a standard gram mass, rather why does the SI unit of mass, alone amongst all such units, have a prefix?
That's true, but that doesn't answer the question. They didn't pick a lump and say "whatever the mass is of this will be the SI unit of mass!".
The question is, all the other units are "base" units, while the SI unit of mass has a (kilo) prefix; how come?
However, it is not true that Wikipedia in general has either a bias
Oh, but Wikipedia does have a bias, if only in the types of article that are written. It's biased very heavily towards those things that interest white, middle class male techies.
As for political bias or agenda pushing, that too happens, but on a less noticeable scale. It's also very much harder to notice a bias when it coincides with your own opinions.
You can[sic] start rendering until you've done your AI and physics and everything else, so you know what you need to render.
What's to stop you preparing everything for rendering frame n+1 on one proc while you're rendering frame n on the other? What effect on the inputs to the AI and physics engine does the output of the rendering engine have?
Since when did support piracy become so acceptable to so many people?
Since it was happening to people that we don't like, of course. It happens to the RIAA and MPAA, they need to adapt or die! It happens to MS, well, they're evil! It happens to GPLed software (by redistributing it and refusing to release the source), burn the heretics that dare steal our code!
Second, games are already multithreaded, but simply moving the sound and input to seperate threads doesn't do anything.
So move the physics and/or AI engines.
You're forgetting an important factor - most people (not all by any means, but the majority) downloading TV shows are either techies, or amongst the most technically savvy of end users. The techier a person is, I've found, the more likely they are to be into sci-fi rather than, say, reality shows.
The reason why they have a hard time getting ratings is because they're not popular with the general TV-watching public. For futher evidence, just look at the media frenzy over shows like Big Brother, I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, etc...
Which is precisely why patents were created in the first place, and is one of reasons why they should not be extended to include software.
With a physical item, you can take it apart and examine it and figure out how to make it yourself. For anything truly novel, that's a hell of a lot easier than coming up with the design yourself. Thus, such things need to be protected for a limited time to ensure that the inventor can recoup their investment. If not, then fewer people/companies will be willing to make that investment.
With (closed source) software, the implementation is hidden from view, so no such protection is required. Even with open source, copyright protects the source from unauthorised reuse.
That's the price they've decided to set. It's easy - if you think it's worth it, pay the price. If not, go elsewhere.
That's the way it works with everything else, why should it be different with content on the Internet? Just because it's easier to swindle the other party (by providing fake information)?
Microsoft have given up on being a monopoly, they are letting the USPTO do it for them
:-)
Do you ahve any evidence that MS are suing anyone for patent violation? I know they're filing for a lot of patents, but so are IBM, etc.
Isn't there some kind of pan-european IT union?
I've been working as a programmer in the UK for almost 6 years, and I'm not aware of there being any IT union at all, let alone a pan-EU one. I've not looked into it recently, though.
keep exporting your fast food and k3wl choons!
Actually, if it was up to me, they could keep them too; I don't eat burgers or listen to very much American music. That's just me though
Who knows more than him about the various ways to infringe on people's privacy and data integrity?
We hear about (in)famous [h|cr]ackers being hired as security consultants from time to time, which is generally lauded as being a good idea due to their experience on the other side of the fight. How is this any different?
He may not have any technical skills (although of course he may), but if anyone knows the law, the loopholes and how to push the legality of this sort of thing right to the line and beyond, it'll be him.
I'd rather he were being paid to enforce the law than skirt around it...
Well, my first computer was a Sinclair ZX Specturm. 16KB of RAM, with about another 4KB - 8KB(?) for the video RAM.
I can't speak for OSX, but I suspect that this may be what you're looking for as far as Windows is concerned.
Yeah, MS only cares about it's profit margins - big deal, it can join the club of almost every other company in the world.
But its profit margins are going to start being hit if using Windows becomes too unpleasant an experience, and malware is threatening just that for the average user. Hence the interest in spam prevention/filtering, firewalls, anti-virus, and anti-spyware software.
The real problem isn't people running as adminstrator; I do so at work and at home with no problems. The problem is naive computer users who run/install content from untrsuted sources, don't run (up to date) AV software, don't use a firewall, etc.
Even a system with zero exploits will not be safe from an incautious/careless user with the admin password. Even if all IE, ActiveX, etc holes are plugged, malware will still be installed piggy-backing on or masquerading as legitimate software installations.
MS hasn't allowed the industry to grow, they just gave it a nice, easy start in life. The crap would still have been developed without their inadvertant help.
Unfortunately, it doesn't matter how secure your system is - if you have a naive user with the admin password using it, you're still going to have it infected with all sorts of nasties.
I would then go and delete the accounts and the files. The FBI, US Customs and local PD all told me it was illegal to delete, move or even shut down child porn sites.
I'm curious - why did you do it? Why not just report the scum bags and let them get what's coming to them?