>> Perhaps it's been specifically designed to work with Darl's psych?
> I doubt that. The letter did have some logic in it. That and no one has tried to sell us a licence to read the letter yet.
Maybe the idea is to blow Darl's mind or drive him insain? Blowing Darl's mind would put an end to this as there'd be no Darl to do this... As for driving him insain... WAY to late dude.
On the CNN link on the parent pay close attention to the votes cast number. It's fairly close in votes (at least in a statistical way) but Al Gore DID get the vote majority of the votes. However becouse of the way the votes are counted (as established in the US constatution) Bush won.
This is an intresting example of how statistics can spin off in two diffrent directions.
I'd venture to guess that Al Gores supporters are more clustered where as Bush Jrs supporters more evenly distributed. As such Al Gore would have like 90% here and 75% there each winning an electerate. But Bush jr would win by 65% or less with lots of votes going to third party canidates permitting him to win with less than 50% support. Once Bush wins an electerate it acts as if he had 100% support when he may have had less than 50%.
The debate begins here. There is the opinion that clusters of votes should not be counted indupendently due to a process of "group think" where whole groups of people tend to think the same way. But this means "group think" in elections trumps indupendent idiology. Is that what we want? Is larger groups of "group think" a real threat or an imaginary one? Dose it even matter?
Anywho. In my opinion the diffrence between Bush and Gore is statistical noise. A SiFi convention held at the same time might have been enough to make Al Gores votes look even.
If eather had distiguished themselfs before the election however we wouldn't be looking at this 49% vs 51% results.
So for the numbers... The Republicans clame the inhereted the ecconomy and that is why it's messed up. This could also mean they inhereted the employment rates as well.
Anyway what I'm trying to say here is you can spin numbers any way you like to say anything you want. We've learnned this with the "Microsoft Windows is better than Linux" research science that NOBODY could reproduce. (Remember the cold fusion? Nobody could reproduce that. The ability to reproduce the research validates it as science and not propoganda)
Political science: The science of spinning numbers to say what you want in a way where everyone can reproduce your results.
You can be sure that it doesn't. Hell, Linux barely supports most of that sutff.
In as much as you can be sure of a mythical land founded on lies. Sure.
"That stuff" are standards and Linux is pritty good at addopting standards quickly. As far as I know only BSD is faster and more complete at addopting standards (but I am not a technical expert and that is an option not a fact)
Even if my preception of the matter is a distortion of the truth Linux has to be reasonably decent at addopting standards to sustain that illusion at least with me. (This dose not mean Linux is BETTER at it than anyone else)
Where Linux is lagging is the addoption of new hardware and hardware where the manufacter believes the API (needed for making drivers) is valuable IP to be protected and held secret.
This same problem exists for all other operating systems not made by Microsoft and on a few occasions Windows users can't get there hands on any drivers eather.
Linux however can overcome this limitation by reverse engenearing or lobying the hardware manufacturer or PC manufactuers (in the case of PC makers you loby them to NOT use the chip).
Unixware customers (if in fact they exist) are going to be very conservative with hardware
Where do you get this? SCO has a userbase (how large I do not know) and in order to maintain that userbase SCO needs to support all the latest high end standards (do they? I do not know but then SCO is losing users)
SCOs target market has always been to high end users. They'd only use conservitive hardware if they are locked into a illconceaved contract and that wouldn't supprise me as I've heard of a few really bad ones.
Videogames are obveously not anything SCOs userbase would ever care about. But web servers, database servers and other enterprise equipment need to run fast to keep up with the increased load and you must run an os that takes advantage of all the hardware features and that starts with the standards.
You can be sure as hell Solarus and AIX support ALL of thies... Otherwise Sun and IBM would be in the same place as SCO.. paniced and franticly finding a way to get up to date.
>> What everyone seems to forget is that the code Mr. >> Aivazian submitted might have nothing to do with >> SCO's source.
>No one is forgetting that. The point is that work that SCO contends could only have been done by IBM was in fact done by SCO employees with SCO's knowledge and approval.
Also to note SCO has yet to indicate any actual code and instead prefers to point at features found in Linux they clame could have only come from IBM.
SCO sites experts. I suspect we are dealing with functionility experts instead of code experts.
It's intresting that Linux may have obtained it's similar functionility not by IBM stealing code but by SCO themselfs implementing new unique code that could poison the results.
Forget it. Darl will keep it for himself clamming he made it. Anyway I.. er I mean satan has plenty of great whinter cloaths I er he keeps getting for christmas becouse santa thinks he's funny.
I'll disagree only on one point. Darl McBride isn't a moron. He has bitten off more than he can chew.
I can see how a CEO could easly make the mistake of thinking an open letter wasn't a PR release and instead of relying on the PR experts on staff do it himself. But as you correctly pointed out Darl McBride did not make that mistake he did what a good CEO should he let his people do the jobs they were paid to do.
A FSCKing moron CEO dosen't do that. An idiot CEO trys to do everything himeself outside of being his own lawyer and occasionally even that.
He is trying to do what a lot of very smart/slick dishonnest people have attempted to do in the past. He's trying to own Linux.
Much of what he is pulling is text book but Linux isn't a text book example.
He is expecting one of the folowing to happen: The GPL dosen't hold up in cort, Linus can't prove who owns what code and SCO can clame it's all SCO property, The Linux community to give up ownership of Linux to SCO rather than see it die.
He is not expecting: The Linux community refuse to pay $400 a shot for Linux, Vareous companys to sue SCO over technologys liccenses only for use in open source, IBM to dig in and use it's big IP guns. The whole bunch do what ever it takes to protect the ability to do massive projects like the GNU project or Linux and not have some corprate entity just scoop it up.
That is of course why we have a GPL liccens. To keep someone from just owning a branch of the software outright.
Example: Interent Explorer. IE is built off the Mosaic code base. If Microsoft were required to relase the IE source it would be possable to update the Unix version of Mosaic to have the same behavure as IE.
You get around "hiring a bunch of really smart people and paying them a lot of money" by a thing called "Outsourcing". Ok, the results of outsourcing can vary from 'barly acceptable' to 'utter catastrophe' - but hell - look at the bottom line !!
Once someone cracks into your costummer database, you get sued or suffer major down time you'll realise how "cheap" getting around "hiring a bunch of really smart people" really is.
But by then your having to lay off the accounting department becouse your costummer base has dried up.
What you need and how you approch the problem will effect the results. You list Apache as being a pain to set up correctly but here I do it often on my home computer from remote with little to no effort at all. It takes me a total of 30 seconds.
You mention the total lack of commertal documentation. I wonder why anyone is ever supprised or worse why so few ever bother to consider that a free product has Free documentation and would obveously be lacking in commertal documentation for a lack of NEED. Selling air isn't proffitable when free air is good and plenty.
4)Worse support(usually) from commercial venders.
But... Aren't they all for supporting Linux? I read it on slashdot it must be true.
Yeah I've noticed. Was a time when you could pop on IRC and get help but that dosen't seam to be an option anymore.
Vareous messages board and you could e-mail the authors but in time critical situations you gotta get somebody on the phone.
I hate phone support myself so the slower e-mails never been a problem for me but that's situations alters cases. Won't work for you I suspect.
Actually most civilized countries, regardless of your definition, does NOT have protection against appeals to a higher court, only against retrial. You have the concept of double jeopardy in Norway as well, but applied to retrials not appeals, as it is throughout most of Europe, and in fact in most countries with a legal system not originating in from English common law.
So basicly what your saying is there is a protection against a retrial. Now let's look at someone elses reply to the parent.
Re:Ok, that really sucks (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on 07:36 AM December 2nd, 2003 (#7608909)
It's called an appeal process. The prosecution is appealing, and this is the first retrial.
The first retrial in a system that forbids retrials?
In short most civilised nations can use appeals to get around dubble jeppordy
I watched a PBS thing on the history of the Titanic. Apparently the ORIGINAL Titanic wouldn't have sunk but it would be more expensive that originally projected and would not be finished on time. So a cargo ship designed with the same ideas was renamed. But it was designed as a cargo ship not a passanger ship. Retrofitting it screwed it up.
However SCO dosen't have a Titanic only the cargo ship. They've tried to sell it but nobodys buying so now SCO is trying to steal someone elses ship.
It's a good thing the Linux kernel develupment screens programmers but what is more important is that ALL open source projects screen CODE.
Keep in mind that every line of code passes through somebodys hands and that person makes a final call (Do I add this or not).
Commertal software carefully screens programmers has done so for decades. Then they don't screen the code those programmers write. As a result we have back doors. Back doors are commen enough in closed source to be a plot point in the movie "War Games" but vertually unheard of in public domain let alone open source.
On that note: Microsoft makes a play at screening code and we've seen the results. Sun Microsystems however takes the job of screening code VERY SEREOUSLY but then Sun Microsystems dose not see itself as compeating with open source and dosen't live in the fantacy world of "Closed means secure" and "Open is better" instead they improve on the closed source develupment modle taking ideas from open source when ever possable. However Sun Microsystems isn't SCO and just maybe becouse Sun liccenses SCOs code they know just how much you can trust "carefully selected" programmers...
Or maybe it's how automobles mystereously end up in peoples offices at the Sun campus.
But from a business prospective. Look at the industry your dealing with. If your dealing with an industry where people are more into it becouse they like it and less for money then you won't have much of a problem. But if your in a greed hunrgy industry there are whole business plans wrapped around seperating patents from inventers reguardless of how the law is drafted.
Now... if you invent something make the invention patent it sell the patent I doupt anyone would care that you still have the original invention.
Seams equally likely if you remade your invention for personal use AFTER selling the patent that the company who holds the pantent wouldn't care.
Could they tie you up in cort for decades? Yeah they can do that pritty much for any reason they want. Will they? Naaa... no proffit. Just don't sell it.
So what happens when little Joe Inventor comes along and makes the Next Big Thing and starts selling it in his hometown until he gets the money to go bigger, and suddenly Huge Multinational Corporation comes along and steals everything from him, mass produces it, and undersells him?
He eather makes his better or cheaper. (It's called capitalism)
With patents Joe inventer is tied up in cort untill he can't afford to defend his patent anymore. And that is when he can afford the patent to start with.
Todays inventers sell inventions to companys like Ronco who get patents on there own. (However Ronco is one of the few examples of where patenst actually work...)
The ultimate irony would be the Communists filing a patent on crushing capitalism. And being rejected the patent on the grounds that the patent system itself has been doing it for decades.
What's the big hang up of hacker vs cracker? Why call it "The Web" when 90% of the world call it "The Internet"?
Probably becouse 90% of the documentation has called it "The Internet" decades before the avrage jo ever got his hands on the word.
Same with hacker. There are people who've called themselfs "Hacker" longer than the word was used to refer to a criminal activity and it would be very sad if people reviewing those documents started using that as an admittion of guilt.
And it's not like losing a word to discribe computer hobbyests hasn't hurt the computer industry. Certan companys (ahem NOT Microsoft) would have you believe that computer hobbiests don't exist. It's not just the word we lost but the very consept of 'hacker' is missing to a growing number of people.
And it's not just the computer industry that insists on using 'hacker' as 'hobbyest'. We've used the short hand for so long many don't realise it's "Computer hacker" we use the word "Hacker" becouse it's obveous we are talking computers.
A hack reporter or writer is someone who's doing an unprofesional job. It's an insult akin to calling someone an amature.
It's not like the avrage jo will ever use the term "Hacker" to mean "Hobbiest" but there is equally no chance of expecting the avrage computer hacker to use the term to mean a criminal.
It's not like we haven't created annother word for hobbiests eather. Well actually a number 31337. It didn't take long for that it also mean "criminal".
If we don't start definning the criminals ourselfs the avrage jo will just keep using the latest word for "hobbyists" becouse what the avrage jo dosen't understand is the crackers ARE hobbyists.
With all the prior blunders by the RIAA reguarding hunting file swapers maybe the RIAA no longer has a legal leg to stand on? At this point I'd say the teen should sue the RIAA for harrasment and neglegence as it's been shown the RIAA can not accurately identify file swapers let alone count violations.
A patent on online transactions issued on 1994? CompuStore dates back to what 1980s? 1970s? Anybody use Fantacy plaza? I bought a book on how to make a CBB (Computer Bullitan Board.. I know.. BBS but it's what the book calls em) back in like 1983 or 84 a decade before this patent was issued.
By the sound of it looks like they are trying to clame the transaction of all forms of data.
FIDONET, Xmodem, TCP/IP.
Maybe it's just a patent on database interaction? Ok I'm at a loss but this seams highly likely to have some prior art some place.
Yet annother technical patent so the patent officers wouldn't actually know what they are signing off on.
This is why we need a moratorium on Internet patents. So the general public (or at least public officals) can catch up. Same with Internet laws...
Ehhh? Konqore isn't intigrated into KDE. It's a sepret program most distros who include KDE chouse to include with KDE. But your free to NOT include it.
It also exsists as an example of how one could create a web browser for KDE.
"Inovation" is Microsofts catchphrase Linux people don't use such market speak. Even if they did... the creation of what is known as "The KDE browser" isn't anything anyone would call inovation. It's nice and that's streching the deffinition of "nice" just a bit.
This "Intigration" stuff happend becouse Microsoft used it's monopoly on Ms-Dos to force Windows to be preinstalled with Ms-Dos on new PCs that include Ms-Dos. Oh yeah and to make sure any shop preinstalling Ms-Dos ALWAYS preinstalls Ms-Dos and not DR-DOS.
Yes Microsoft had a monopoly on Dos and that was not a bad thing becouse they were providing a suppereor product for a reasonable price. This is how that monopoly was maintained. Not with tricks or FUD.
But SOME people wanted the cheaper (in cost and quality) Dr-Dos and Microsoft was out to make sure that didn't happen. So Somebody sued Microsoft the DoJ stepped in and we ended up with a conset decree declaring that Microsoft will not bundle software UNLESS it was intigrated. Microsoft has been streching the deffinition of intigration every sense.
But I think Microsoft at least showed intent to do so when they murged Dos and Windows in Windows 95 making Dos part of Windows. Much later when Microsoft created Internet Explorer and began intigrating it into Windows Netscape got angry and rased the issue again. However I should illuminate that Netscape wasn't doing much diffrent from what Microsoft did. Giving away a suppereor commertal product to gain support with plans to discontinue the free version in favor of a commertal version. So there comes a question was Microsoft trying to create a monoploy or just insure it's own userbase continued to have a hig quality web browsere for free. Reasonable minds will disagree.
It should be noted that IBM pulled exactly the same stunt in OS/2. Is Microsoft just folowing IBMs exaple? When IBM did this Netscape complained. They discontinued Netscape for Os/2. They could afford to so they thought as Microsoft held the majority marketshare and IBMs OS/2 was lagging behind. Netscape at this point noted they couldn't compeate with a preinstalled web brwoser.
Some people took that to mean Netscape was just pushing out the free web browsers in favor of it's commertal browser and once it became the standard the free Netscape would vanish. They had to do something to make money.
So the question is... WHAT was Microsoft thinking when they preinstalled IE? Reasonable minds will disagree.
Yes but only in the short term. The biggest problem for Linux is also it's greatest asset. "Who do you turn do when things go bad?"
With Windows it's Microosoft and the OEM who made your system. With Linux it's YOU.
If your an avrage user trying to get help for a wordprocessor Microsoft is there for you but with Linux your SOL. However if your a system admin and some black hat is trying to crack your system with some never before seen defect you don't want to wait the 7 days it'll take Microsoft to fix it let alone the 8 to 24 hours it'll take for someone to read your e-mail complaint. You need it fixed NOW!!! With Linux you take it to the one and only person you can rely on to take action NOW with no delay... YOURSELF...
Maybe not the best solution and certanly not the most elegent however you'll have one for now and 7 days later you'll find a far more elegent solution on your doorstep.
So? So back hats don't help Windows they do help Linux. Every admin who has to thwart the attack or clean up after one has been compleated will have his own unique patch to submit. Then the black hats can hunt down annother bug.
Blackhats do help debug Linux they just have the worst worst way of submitting bug report.
They don't find code they PRETEND to find code. Microsoft already discovered they mistakenly used GPLed code once and chances are good Microsoft has not learnned it's lisson and created an audit trail to prevent that again.
I'm sure SCO figured that out long ago and desided to spook Microsoft on the fact that nobody knows where Microsofts code comes from not even Microsoft. (Where do you think Microsoft get's this idea that open source can't control where it's code comes from... Every time Microsoft FUDs someone it turns out to actually be true of Microsoft itself...)
But this is fruteless speculation... Maybe Microsoft wanted to help SCO and had the money to throw, Maybe Microsoft was worryed about violating SCOs liccens. Maybe Microsoft saw a good deal and grabbed it knowing some time in the future they could actually steal some SCO code and say "Hay we got a liccens"
Maybe Bill Gates was board and thought "SCO's being stupid those Linux people will eat them up like sharks. Well might as well chum the waters for em by putting Microsoft into the mix." Just to see how rabid Linux supporters will be when they hear the news.
We don't know and it really dosen't matter even if SCO isn't trying to destory Linux what they are doing is wrong and the amount if involvment of Microsoft really makes no diffrence.
SCO may actually believe they aren't attacking Linux. Theafs tell themselfs they aren't stealing just so they can sleep at night.
If it's broken, then I take it to the technician and let her get under the hood.
Like computer techs MOST people in automotive repair are honnest but some people in both fields will see that "I don't know anything" look and charge you $200 per screw and bolt.
People get stranded in the middle of nowhere not knowing how to fix the car.
You don't actuallly need to have a car you could take a taxi BUT getting a job with out "reliable transportation" (a car in good running order) is vertually impossable.
Also people are being premotted for having programming skills or being passed over for premotion for NOT having programming skills. I've heard storys of managers getting demotted over it.
And in one local Taco bell a job skill for a manager is the ability to replace the internal ticker tape printer on the registers...
Now as for the whole Microsoft conspericy.... The only conspericy here is to turn the home computer into a product delivery device. This is far less incriminating than Microsoft trying to controll the market. It's Microsoft trying to make develuping software for it's operating systems more proffitable. Part of making a os is attracting develupers and part of Microsofts tactic for that is to reduce or eliminate the posability of compeating with free software. It reduces the chances of someone creating external utilitys and adding features you didn't. When you make an update you want to be able to sell it but the odds of that happening drop when your users can download free utilitys to give them the same features your offering. Then there are the clones. Why buy software when you can get free software (legally)
But what Microsoft is doing isn't amounting to market manipulation so much as making Windows a good product delivery system for other software companys.
She is probably a psycologist by trainning. So she may know for what she speaks in a general sense. BUT... why hire her? Quite simple even from the early days of anti-virus companys a certan amount of hype was needed to keep in business. Macafie's early virus infection stats were so inflated some in the field were very scepitcal.
Unix experts were quick to point out that ANY secure operating system would resist virus infection and blamed viruses on Dos having primitive multitasking with out the precaution of security to prevent abuse.
It is possable some Mac users may have repeated this sentiment before the Macintosh had multitasking support of it's own is so it was incommen enough that I never heard of it. But with presure from the compeating Windows GUI the Mac added multitasking and not much later the first Mac virus was born.
Soon after antivirus companys leapped to clame this disproved the Mac clame that viruses were a Dos phonominon and that this proves that ALL systems may be infected.
However the long winded Unix rant on the subject did predict that other operating systems will fall to the same fate IF they folow Microsofts example. Apple did.
In short anti-virus companys used FUD to counter the clame that good os design would thwart viruses.
Years later.... A very dumb design flaw in an obscure Linux graphics libary encuraged users to disable the security of Linux to play games.
Repeating the Unix clame.. "Any SECURE operating system" Not any Unix.. not any good.. The key word is SECURE. With this bug Linux users were disabling the security of Linux just to play games.
A short time later a virus is born. What happened here is simple. Like MacOs Linux folowed Microsofts example. Only this time Linux removed a feature instead of adding one but it's all to the same results.
Once the virus was discovered it took no time for the PR machine of anti-virus companys to jump on the bandwagon. They declaired the "No Unix virus myth" to be dead and prommised a line of anti-virus software for Linux to be available shortly.
Linux users no matter how stupid do learn. There were no more reports of infection and no anti-virus software was made avaiable.
Both cases prove the original Unix rant yet anti-virus companys chouse to see it diffrently.
Every so often anti-virus companys put out new press releaces clamming a "New Linux virus" when all that has been created was an opinion paper that can be summerised "I think Linux viruses are possable" usually assuming Linux is a Windows 95 clone.
However I think we've seen the last of those articals as sombody pointed out that viruses are obsolete and worms are the future. He has a point.
This makes the virus companys jobs even harder as Microsoft has started taking the issue reasonably sereously. (They've taken it sereously back when Windows 95 was created. Sereously in the fact that they needed to con the public into believing Windows wasn't a security risk but not enough to actually make 95 not a security risk)
While viruses work fine on a typical insecure system with no actual defects to exploit worms can't infect with out a defect.
But worms spread faster and by the time antivirus software can do anything your already infected. All antivirus companys can do is provide disinfection software however (ahem HINT HINT) open source software could easly do the same job.
Also worms need to attack a server with a defect so the flaw is not found in Windows itself but an application in most cases one included in the Windows install CD.
If the typical user would remove applications they were NOT using and install updates and keep an eye on the services they were using there wouldn't be an issue.
But as the typical Windows user dosn't do any of that worms are going to have plenty of opratunitys to attack and there isn't a single thing Microsoft can do about it. Many users eather don't know or don't care. Those that do
First is that SCO isn't offering anything just yet. It appears SCOs offering is basicly in trade for SCO liccensed operating systems. Switching from Linux to Windows isn't an option and this fact is made clear. The language suggests that SCO is only offering money to switch to a Unix liccensed from SCO.
And the biggest most important thing to know. This offer is for businesses and the language suggests this offer is targeted at large corprate systems and one can assume this is a limited time offer type deal. It will take months to plan and set in motion this switch over so the company will have to get ready in advance of the offer if they plan to take advantage of it.
Of course once the ball is rolling even if SCO says "We changed our minds" they'll have to go through the switch over as they'll have already signed the contracts.
It looks like they are targeting companys and you have to be running Linux already and switch to an offically liccensed Unix.
Now for me if Linux became "Not free" (as in speach) I'd switch to BSD. If BSD and Linux became not free (as in speach) I'd switch to FreeDos. If FreeDos became not free (as in money) I'd switch to worm os. If Worm os became not free (as in mine) I'd sue somebody for IP theft and neglegence... I'd also recomend the person be checked for psycotic behavure beccouse not even "I" would try to sell Worm Os. I might give it to people I dislike.
I'd probably remake it for todays systems and rename it "Blaster os" (For the clueless the name implys Worm Os sucks.. Is easly to infect and easy to crash. And it's NOT user friendly. In fact it's quite rude.)
Slashdot Mirror
>> Perhaps it's been specifically designed to work with Darl's psych?
> I doubt that. The letter did have some logic in it. That and no one has tried to sell us a licence to read the letter yet.
Maybe the idea is to blow Darl's mind or drive him insain?
Blowing Darl's mind would put an end to this as there'd be no Darl to do this...
As for driving him insain... WAY to late dude.
On the CNN link on the parent pay close attention to the votes cast number.
It's fairly close in votes (at least in a statistical way) but Al Gore DID get the vote majority of the votes.
However becouse of the way the votes are counted (as established in the US constatution) Bush won.
This is an intresting example of how statistics can spin off in two diffrent directions.
I'd venture to guess that Al Gores supporters are more clustered where as Bush Jrs supporters more evenly distributed.
As such Al Gore would have like 90% here and 75% there each winning an electerate.
But Bush jr would win by 65% or less with lots of votes going to third party canidates permitting him to win with less than 50% support.
Once Bush wins an electerate it acts as if he had 100% support when he may have had less than 50%.
The debate begins here. There is the opinion that clusters of votes should not be counted indupendently due to a process of "group think" where whole groups of people tend to think the same way.
But this means "group think" in elections trumps indupendent idiology. Is that what we want? Is larger groups of "group think" a real threat or an imaginary one? Dose it even matter?
Anywho. In my opinion the diffrence between Bush and Gore is statistical noise. A SiFi convention held at the same time might have been enough to make Al Gores votes look even.
If eather had distiguished themselfs before the election however we wouldn't be looking at this 49% vs 51% results.
So for the numbers...
The Republicans clame the inhereted the ecconomy and that is why it's messed up. This could also mean they inhereted the employment rates as well.
Anyway what I'm trying to say here is you can spin numbers any way you like to say anything you want. We've learnned this with the "Microsoft Windows is better than Linux" research science that NOBODY could reproduce.
(Remember the cold fusion? Nobody could reproduce that. The ability to reproduce the research validates it as science and not propoganda)
Political science: The science of spinning numbers to say what you want in a way where everyone can reproduce your results.
You can be sure that it doesn't. Hell, Linux barely supports most of that sutff.
In as much as you can be sure of a mythical land founded on lies. Sure.
"That stuff" are standards and Linux is pritty good at addopting standards quickly.
As far as I know only BSD is faster and more complete at addopting standards (but I am not a technical expert and that is an option not a fact)
Even if my preception of the matter is a distortion of the truth Linux has to be reasonably decent at addopting standards to sustain that illusion at least with me.
(This dose not mean Linux is BETTER at it than anyone else)
Where Linux is lagging is the addoption of new hardware and hardware where the manufacter believes the API (needed for making drivers) is valuable IP to be protected and held secret.
This same problem exists for all other operating systems not made by Microsoft and on a few occasions Windows users can't get there hands on any drivers eather.
Linux however can overcome this limitation by reverse engenearing or lobying the hardware manufacturer or PC manufactuers (in the case of PC makers you loby them to NOT use the chip).
Unixware customers (if in fact they exist) are going to be very conservative with hardware
Where do you get this?
SCO has a userbase (how large I do not know) and in order to maintain that userbase SCO needs to support all the latest high end standards (do they? I do not know but then SCO is losing users)
SCOs target market has always been to high end users. They'd only use conservitive hardware if they are locked into a illconceaved contract and that wouldn't supprise me as I've heard of a few really bad ones.
Videogames are obveously not anything SCOs userbase would ever care about. But web servers, database servers and other enterprise equipment need to run fast to keep up with the increased load and you must run an os that takes advantage of all the hardware features and that starts with the standards.
You can be sure as hell Solarus and AIX support ALL of thies... Otherwise Sun and IBM would be in the same place as SCO.. paniced and franticly finding a way to get up to date.
>> What everyone seems to forget is that the code Mr.
>> Aivazian submitted might have nothing to do with
>> SCO's source.
>No one is forgetting that. The point is that work that SCO contends could only have been done by IBM was in fact done by SCO employees with SCO's knowledge and approval.
Also to note SCO has yet to indicate any actual code and instead prefers to point at features found in Linux they clame could have only come from IBM.
SCO sites experts. I suspect we are dealing with functionility experts instead of code experts.
It's intresting that Linux may have obtained it's similar functionility not by IBM stealing code but by SCO themselfs implementing new unique code that could poison the results.
Forget it. Darl will keep it for himself clamming he made it.
Anyway I.. er I mean satan has plenty of great whinter cloaths I er he keeps getting for christmas becouse santa thinks he's funny.
Darl is expecting people to not folow the link or if they do to not read the artical compleatly.
And I suspect Darl never actually read the artical himself he only skimmed it and assumed what was inside.
I'll disagree only on one point.
Darl McBride isn't a moron. He has bitten off more than he can chew.
I can see how a CEO could easly make the mistake of thinking an open letter wasn't a PR release and instead of relying on the PR experts on staff do it himself. But as you correctly pointed out Darl McBride did not make that mistake he did what a good CEO should he let his people do the jobs they were paid to do.
A FSCKing moron CEO dosen't do that. An idiot CEO trys to do everything himeself outside of being his own lawyer and occasionally even that.
He is trying to do what a lot of very smart/slick dishonnest people have attempted to do in the past. He's trying to own Linux.
Much of what he is pulling is text book but Linux isn't a text book example.
He is expecting one of the folowing to happen:
The GPL dosen't hold up in cort,
Linus can't prove who owns what code and SCO can clame it's all SCO property,
The Linux community to give up ownership of Linux to SCO rather than see it die.
He is not expecting:
The Linux community refuse to pay $400 a shot for Linux,
Vareous companys to sue SCO over technologys liccenses only for use in open source,
IBM to dig in and use it's big IP guns.
The whole bunch do what ever it takes to protect the ability to do massive projects like the GNU project or Linux and not have some corprate entity just scoop it up.
That is of course why we have a GPL liccens. To keep someone from just owning a branch of the software outright.
Example: Interent Explorer. IE is built off the Mosaic code base. If Microsoft were required to relase the IE source it would be possable to update the Unix version of Mosaic to have the same behavure as IE.
It takes a physics proff to warp time to stuff 3 days into 1 hour.
Dude thies guys should totally warp time to stuff 1 hour into 3 days.
You get around "hiring a bunch of really smart people and paying them a lot of money" by a thing called "Outsourcing". Ok, the results of outsourcing can vary from 'barly acceptable' to 'utter catastrophe' - but hell - look at the bottom line !!
Once someone cracks into your costummer database, you get sued or suffer major down time you'll realise how "cheap" getting around "hiring a bunch of really smart people" really is.
But by then your having to lay off the accounting department becouse your costummer base has dried up.
A montra of a friend of mine years ago.
What you need and how you approch the problem will effect the results.
You list Apache as being a pain to set up correctly but here I do it often on my home computer from remote with little to no effort at all. It takes me a total of 30 seconds.
You mention the total lack of commertal documentation. I wonder why anyone is ever supprised or worse why so few ever bother to consider that a free product has Free documentation and would obveously be lacking in commertal documentation for a lack of NEED. Selling air isn't proffitable when free air is good and plenty.
4)Worse support(usually) from commercial venders.
But... Aren't they all for supporting Linux?
I read it on slashdot it must be true.
Yeah I've noticed. Was a time when you could pop on IRC and get help but that dosen't seam to be an option anymore.
Vareous messages board and you could e-mail the authors but in time critical situations you gotta get somebody on the phone.
I hate phone support myself so the slower e-mails never been a problem for me but that's situations alters cases. Won't work for you I suspect.
I understand the confusion...
Actually most civilized countries, regardless of your definition, does NOT have protection against appeals to a higher court, only against retrial. You have the concept of double jeopardy in Norway as well, but applied to retrials not appeals, as it is throughout most of Europe, and in fact in most countries with a legal system not originating in from English common law.
So basicly what your saying is there is a protection against a retrial.
Now let's look at someone elses reply to the parent.
Re:Ok, that really sucks (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on 07:36 AM December 2nd, 2003 (#7608909)
It's called an appeal process.
The prosecution is appealing, and this is the first retrial.
The first retrial in a system that forbids retrials?
In short most civilised nations can use appeals to get around dubble jeppordy
I watched a PBS thing on the history of the Titanic.
Apparently the ORIGINAL Titanic wouldn't have sunk but it would be more expensive that originally projected and would not be finished on time.
So a cargo ship designed with the same ideas was renamed. But it was designed as a cargo ship not a passanger ship. Retrofitting it screwed it up.
However SCO dosen't have a Titanic only the cargo ship. They've tried to sell it but nobodys buying so now SCO is trying to steal someone elses ship.
It's a good thing the Linux kernel develupment screens programmers but what is more important is that ALL open source projects screen CODE.
Keep in mind that every line of code passes through somebodys hands and that person makes a final call (Do I add this or not).
Commertal software carefully screens programmers has done so for decades. Then they don't screen the code those programmers write.
As a result we have back doors. Back doors are commen enough in closed source to be a plot point in the movie "War Games" but vertually unheard of in public domain let alone open source.
On that note:
Microsoft makes a play at screening code and we've seen the results.
Sun Microsystems however takes the job of screening code VERY SEREOUSLY but then Sun Microsystems dose not see itself as compeating with open source and dosen't live in the fantacy world of "Closed means secure" and "Open is better" instead they improve on the closed source develupment modle taking ideas from open source when ever possable.
However Sun Microsystems isn't SCO and just maybe becouse Sun liccenses SCOs code they know just how much you can trust "carefully selected" programmers...
Or maybe it's how automobles mystereously end up in peoples offices at the Sun campus.
IANAL: I couldn't tell you.
But from a business prospective.
Look at the industry your dealing with.
If your dealing with an industry where people are more into it becouse they like it and less for money then you won't have much of a problem.
But if your in a greed hunrgy industry there are whole business plans wrapped around seperating patents from inventers reguardless of how the law is drafted.
Now... if you invent something make the invention patent it sell the patent I doupt anyone would care that you still have the original invention.
Seams equally likely if you remade your invention for personal use AFTER selling the patent that the company who holds the pantent wouldn't care.
Could they tie you up in cort for decades? Yeah they can do that pritty much for any reason they want.
Will they? Naaa... no proffit. Just don't sell it.
So what happens when little Joe Inventor comes along and makes the Next Big Thing and starts selling it in his hometown until he gets the money to go bigger, and suddenly Huge Multinational Corporation comes along and steals everything from him, mass produces it, and undersells him?
He eather makes his better or cheaper.
(It's called capitalism)
With patents Joe inventer is tied up in cort untill he can't afford to defend his patent anymore.
And that is when he can afford the patent to start with.
Todays inventers sell inventions to companys like Ronco who get patents on there own.
(However Ronco is one of the few examples of where patenst actually work...)
The ultimate irony would be the Communists filing a patent on crushing capitalism.
And being rejected the patent on the grounds that the patent system itself has been doing it for decades.
What's the big hang up of hacker vs cracker?
Why call it "The Web" when 90% of the world call it "The Internet"?
Probably becouse 90% of the documentation has called it "The Internet" decades before the avrage jo ever got his hands on the word.
Same with hacker. There are people who've called themselfs "Hacker" longer than the word was used to refer to a criminal activity and it would be very sad if people reviewing those documents started using that as an admittion of guilt.
And it's not like losing a word to discribe computer hobbyests hasn't hurt the computer industry.
Certan companys (ahem NOT Microsoft) would have you believe that computer hobbiests don't exist.
It's not just the word we lost but the very consept of 'hacker' is missing to a growing number of people.
And it's not just the computer industry that insists on using 'hacker' as 'hobbyest'. We've used the short hand for so long many don't realise it's "Computer hacker" we use the word "Hacker" becouse it's obveous we are talking computers.
A hack reporter or writer is someone who's doing an unprofesional job. It's an insult akin to calling someone an amature.
It's not like the avrage jo will ever use the term "Hacker" to mean "Hobbiest" but there is equally no chance of expecting the avrage computer hacker to use the term to mean a criminal.
It's not like we haven't created annother word for hobbiests eather. Well actually a number 31337. It didn't take long for that it also mean "criminal".
If we don't start definning the criminals ourselfs the avrage jo will just keep using the latest word for "hobbyists" becouse what the avrage jo dosen't understand is the crackers ARE hobbyists.
With all the prior blunders by the RIAA reguarding hunting file swapers maybe the RIAA no longer has a legal leg to stand on?
At this point I'd say the teen should sue the RIAA for harrasment and neglegence as it's been shown the RIAA can not accurately identify file swapers let alone count violations.
A patent on online transactions issued on 1994?
CompuStore dates back to what 1980s? 1970s?
Anybody use Fantacy plaza? I bought a book on how to make a CBB (Computer Bullitan Board.. I know.. BBS but it's what the book calls em) back in like 1983 or 84 a decade before this patent was issued.
By the sound of it looks like they are trying to clame the transaction of all forms of data.
FIDONET, Xmodem, TCP/IP.
Maybe it's just a patent on database interaction?
Ok I'm at a loss but this seams highly likely to have some prior art some place.
Yet annother technical patent so the patent officers wouldn't actually know what they are signing off on.
This is why we need a moratorium on Internet patents. So the general public (or at least public officals) can catch up.
Same with Internet laws...
Ehhh?
Konqore isn't intigrated into KDE. It's a sepret program most distros who include KDE chouse to include with KDE. But your free to NOT include it.
It also exsists as an example of how one could create a web browser for KDE.
"Inovation" is Microsofts catchphrase Linux people don't use such market speak.
Even if they did... the creation of what is known as "The KDE browser" isn't anything anyone would call inovation. It's nice and that's streching the deffinition of "nice" just a bit.
This "Intigration" stuff happend becouse Microsoft used it's monopoly on Ms-Dos to force Windows to be preinstalled with Ms-Dos on new PCs that include Ms-Dos. Oh yeah and to make sure any shop preinstalling Ms-Dos ALWAYS preinstalls Ms-Dos and not DR-DOS.
Yes Microsoft had a monopoly on Dos and that was not a bad thing becouse they were providing a suppereor product for a reasonable price. This is how that monopoly was maintained. Not with tricks or FUD.
But SOME people wanted the cheaper (in cost and quality) Dr-Dos and Microsoft was out to make sure that didn't happen. So Somebody sued Microsoft the DoJ stepped in and we ended up with a conset decree declaring that Microsoft will not bundle software UNLESS it was intigrated. Microsoft has been streching the deffinition of intigration every sense.
But I think Microsoft at least showed intent to do so when they murged Dos and Windows in Windows 95 making Dos part of Windows.
Much later when Microsoft created Internet Explorer and began intigrating it into Windows Netscape got angry and rased the issue again.
However I should illuminate that Netscape wasn't doing much diffrent from what Microsoft did. Giving away a suppereor commertal product to gain support with plans to discontinue the free version in favor of a commertal version.
So there comes a question was Microsoft trying to create a monoploy or just insure it's own userbase continued to have a hig quality web browsere for free. Reasonable minds will disagree.
It should be noted that IBM pulled exactly the same stunt in OS/2. Is Microsoft just folowing IBMs exaple?
When IBM did this Netscape complained. They discontinued Netscape for Os/2. They could afford to so they thought as Microsoft held the majority marketshare and IBMs OS/2 was lagging behind.
Netscape at this point noted they couldn't compeate with a preinstalled web brwoser.
Some people took that to mean Netscape was just pushing out the free web browsers in favor of it's commertal browser and once it became the standard the free Netscape would vanish.
They had to do something to make money.
So the question is... WHAT was Microsoft thinking when they preinstalled IE?
Reasonable minds will disagree.
Yes but only in the short term.
The biggest problem for Linux is also it's greatest asset.
"Who do you turn do when things go bad?"
With Windows it's Microosoft and the OEM who made your system.
With Linux it's YOU.
If your an avrage user trying to get help for a wordprocessor Microsoft is there for you but with Linux your SOL.
However if your a system admin and some black hat is trying to crack your system with some never before seen defect you don't want to wait the 7 days it'll take Microsoft to fix it let alone the 8 to 24 hours it'll take for someone to read your e-mail complaint. You need it fixed NOW !!!
With Linux you take it to the one and only person you can rely on to take action NOW with no delay...
YOURSELF...
Maybe not the best solution and certanly not the most elegent however you'll have one for now and 7 days later you'll find a far more elegent solution on your doorstep.
So?
So back hats don't help Windows they do help Linux.
Every admin who has to thwart the attack or clean up after one has been compleated will have his own unique patch to submit. Then the black hats can hunt down annother bug.
Blackhats do help debug Linux they just have the worst worst way of submitting bug report.
They don't find code they PRETEND to find code.
Microsoft already discovered they mistakenly used GPLed code once and chances are good Microsoft has not learnned it's lisson and created an audit trail to prevent that again.
I'm sure SCO figured that out long ago and desided to spook Microsoft on the fact that nobody knows where Microsofts code comes from not even Microsoft.
(Where do you think Microsoft get's this idea that open source can't control where it's code comes from...
Every time Microsoft FUDs someone it turns out to actually be true of Microsoft itself...)
But this is fruteless speculation...
Maybe Microsoft wanted to help SCO and had the money to throw, Maybe Microsoft was worryed about violating SCOs liccens.
Maybe Microsoft saw a good deal and grabbed it knowing some time in the future they could actually steal some SCO code and say "Hay we got a liccens"
Maybe Bill Gates was board and thought "SCO's being stupid those Linux people will eat them up like sharks. Well might as well chum the waters for em by putting Microsoft into the mix."
Just to see how rabid Linux supporters will be when they hear the news.
We don't know and it really dosen't matter even if SCO isn't trying to destory Linux what they are doing is wrong and the amount if involvment of Microsoft really makes no diffrence.
SCO may actually believe they aren't attacking Linux.
Theafs tell themselfs they aren't stealing just so they can sleep at night.
If it's broken, then I take it to the technician and let her get under the hood.
Like computer techs MOST people in automotive repair are honnest but some people in both fields will see that "I don't know anything" look and charge you $200 per screw and bolt.
People get stranded in the middle of nowhere not knowing how to fix the car.
You don't actuallly need to have a car you could take a taxi BUT getting a job with out "reliable transportation" (a car in good running order) is vertually impossable.
Also people are being premotted for having programming skills or being passed over for premotion for NOT having programming skills.
I've heard storys of managers getting demotted over it.
And in one local Taco bell a job skill for a manager is the ability to replace the internal ticker tape printer on the registers...
Now as for the whole Microsoft conspericy....
The only conspericy here is to turn the home computer into a product delivery device.
This is far less incriminating than Microsoft trying to controll the market. It's Microsoft trying to make develuping software for it's operating systems more proffitable. Part of making a os is attracting develupers and part of Microsofts tactic for that is to reduce or eliminate the posability of compeating with free software.
It reduces the chances of someone creating external utilitys and adding features you didn't.
When you make an update you want to be able to sell it but the odds of that happening drop when your users can download free utilitys to give them the same features your offering.
Then there are the clones. Why buy software when you can get free software (legally)
But what Microsoft is doing isn't amounting to market manipulation so much as making Windows a good product delivery system for other software companys.
She is probably a psycologist by trainning.
So she may know for what she speaks in a general sense.
BUT... why hire her?
Quite simple even from the early days of anti-virus companys a certan amount of hype was needed to keep in business.
Macafie's early virus infection stats were so inflated some in the field were very scepitcal.
Unix experts were quick to point out that ANY secure operating system would resist virus infection and blamed viruses on Dos having primitive multitasking with out the precaution of security to prevent abuse.
It is possable some Mac users may have repeated this sentiment before the Macintosh had multitasking support of it's own is so it was incommen enough that I never heard of it. But with presure from the compeating Windows GUI the Mac added multitasking and not much later the first Mac virus was born.
Soon after antivirus companys leapped to clame this disproved the Mac clame that viruses were a Dos phonominon and that this proves that ALL systems may be infected.
However the long winded Unix rant on the subject did predict that other operating systems will fall to the same fate IF they folow Microsofts example. Apple did.
In short anti-virus companys used FUD to counter the clame that good os design would thwart viruses.
Years later....
A very dumb design flaw in an obscure Linux graphics libary encuraged users to disable the security of Linux to play games.
Repeating the Unix clame.. "Any SECURE operating system" Not any Unix.. not any good.. The key word is SECURE. With this bug Linux users were disabling the security of Linux just to play games.
A short time later a virus is born.
What happened here is simple. Like MacOs Linux folowed Microsofts example. Only this time Linux removed a feature instead of adding one but it's all to the same results.
Once the virus was discovered it took no time for the PR machine of anti-virus companys to jump on the bandwagon. They declaired the "No Unix virus myth" to be dead and prommised a line of anti-virus software for Linux to be available shortly.
Linux users no matter how stupid do learn. There were no more reports of infection and no anti-virus software was made avaiable.
Both cases prove the original Unix rant yet anti-virus companys chouse to see it diffrently.
Every so often anti-virus companys put out new press releaces clamming a "New Linux virus" when all that has been created was an opinion paper that can be summerised "I think Linux viruses are possable" usually assuming Linux is a Windows 95 clone.
However I think we've seen the last of those articals as sombody pointed out that viruses are obsolete and worms are the future. He has a point.
This makes the virus companys jobs even harder as Microsoft has started taking the issue reasonably sereously.
(They've taken it sereously back when Windows 95 was created. Sereously in the fact that they needed to con the public into believing Windows wasn't a security risk but not enough to actually make 95 not a security risk)
While viruses work fine on a typical insecure system with no actual defects to exploit worms can't infect with out a defect.
But worms spread faster and by the time antivirus software can do anything your already infected.
All antivirus companys can do is provide disinfection software however (ahem HINT HINT) open source software could easly do the same job.
Also worms need to attack a server with a defect so the flaw is not found in Windows itself but an application in most cases one included in the Windows install CD.
If the typical user would remove applications they were NOT using and install updates and keep an eye on the services they were using there wouldn't be an issue.
But as the typical Windows user dosn't do any of that worms are going to have plenty of opratunitys to attack and there isn't a single thing Microsoft can do about it.
Many users eather don't know or don't care. Those that do
First is that SCO isn't offering anything just yet.
It appears SCOs offering is basicly in trade for SCO liccensed operating systems. Switching from Linux to Windows isn't an option and this fact is made clear. The language suggests that SCO is only offering money to switch to a Unix liccensed from SCO.
And the biggest most important thing to know. This offer is for businesses and the language suggests this offer is targeted at large corprate systems and one can assume this is a limited time offer type deal.
It will take months to plan and set in motion this switch over so the company will have to get ready in advance of the offer if they plan to take advantage of it.
Of course once the ball is rolling even if SCO says "We changed our minds" they'll have to go through the switch over as they'll have already signed the contracts.
It looks like they are targeting companys and you have to be running Linux already and switch to an offically liccensed Unix.
Now for me if Linux became "Not free" (as in speach) I'd switch to BSD.
If BSD and Linux became not free (as in speach) I'd switch to FreeDos.
If FreeDos became not free (as in money) I'd switch to worm os.
If Worm os became not free (as in mine) I'd sue somebody for IP theft and neglegence... I'd also recomend the person be checked for psycotic behavure beccouse not even "I" would try to sell Worm Os. I might give it to people I dislike.
I'd probably remake it for todays systems and rename it "Blaster os"
(For the clueless the name implys Worm Os sucks.. Is easly to infect and easy to crash. And it's NOT user friendly. In fact it's quite rude.)