The key is to take risks that have potential rewards that are greater than the risk's downside. In this case, there really IS no reward. Its just a dig at Linux, but in the process, they elevate it.
The reward, from their point of view, was to assuage their own fears about Linux, and the fears of their IHVs/ISVs.
Plenty of Microsoft "partners" are starting to at least think about Linux support. Plenty of Microsoft developers have Linux machines at home. Microsoft management can't really understand it yet, so they want to just make whiny comments. Microsoft have more money than the average l00nix troll, but the motivation is the same.
As you say it's mostly emotional and immature but there is a certain calculated effect on Microsoft staff and serfs.
Mocking Linux is meant to make "partners" stay in line until it's their turn to be screwed.
I use a net-connected Linux machine that offers several non-trivial public services. Its uptime currently stands at a bit over 400 days.
(Yes, particular daemons have been upgraded, but using straightforward Unix techniques there was zero interruption to service.)
During the last 400 days, there have been many times when we've had to take internal NT servers down to install service packs. Probably about six times that I recall, although I may have supressed the memory of the others... And these Windows machines are not even exposed to the internet, they're just at risk from worms and similar crap on a private network.
"Would you like to restart your computer now?"
"Why yes, of course, it's not like I was actually using the machine for anything!"
There are anecdotes in favor of either system but the simple fact is there is no security-critical Windows machine with an uptime of more than a couple of months, since service packs invariably require a reboot. I think that ought to tell us something.
And this is to say nothing of the outright bastardry of making people sign a new licence agreement to get a critical security fix.
Oh, now that's cool. Subtle: no grid, no explanation, good colors, and no self-importance.
If you're going to popularize a meme you need to just get it out there without a self-conscious official announcement. I guess esr's ego wouldn't let him do that.
He also has a fairly cogent discussion of the ways in which object orientation is a bad thing...
OO is a tool; it has useful applications and some of them are in kernel design. But this idea during the 80s/90s that everything should be OO was very harmful.
I was being sarcastic. 110W is obviously too small, so the current can't be measured at 5VDC.
Presumably it's 22A at 110V, so on the order of 2400W, or about 11A at 240V. In Australia a heavy-duty power socket is 15A @ 240V, so you could run it from one of them. (Or perhaps two, because it presumably has redundant power supplies.)
I have no idea what the manufacturer actualy recommends... Presumably they offer 220V, since only the PSU has to change.
Go ahead and explain away. SCO stock is traded in New York and regulated by the SEC. Austrailia has no role in any of this.
SCO have staff, customers and offices in Australia, and can be held accountable for their actions here. I don't know exactly what the ACCC have in mind, but it's not unheard of for executives to be personally fined or even jailed if they're sufficiently naughty.
Fining SCO in Australia, or locking up their local management wouldn't stop the IBM case, but it'd be great PR and enormously satisfying.
To me downloading a binary is about the same as taking a picture of a Picasso. Taking (and using) the source is more along the lines of stealing the original painting.
How does that work? A common justification for not respecting copyright is that the owner "hasn't lost anything", the way they would if you removed their painting. (I'm not saying it's right, just that people say it.) But Valve still have their source code...
It might even work out well for Linux: IBM and HP are working on the server side, and largely leaving the desktop to Microsoft. Sun is doing sterling work on the desktop, and trying to pretend that Linux servers don't exist.
The great thing is that you can take GNOME code funded by Sun and kernel code funded by IBM and run it all on your $1000 generic i386:-)
I'm not sure what definition of "truely hot-swappable" you're using. But from either HP or IBM you can get fully-supported Itanium2 and Power4 machines respectively that run Linux and allow you to hot-swap PCI cards, disks, fans, power supplies, and IIRC even CPUs and memory. I don't know if they'll be any cheaper than Sun, but you're incorrect in saying you can't buy them.
There have also been custom very-high-availability redundant i386 Linux boxes for a few years now.
But this is a bit of a furphy anyhow. For most Linux applications, clusters are a better choice than a single enormous system, and they're cheaper anyhow. Google and Amazon have hot-swap at the box level, and for 1/10th the price of Sun gear.
Even Oracle, traditionally the big reason to buy pricey monolithic Unix machines, now runs well on Linux clusters and that's only going to get better.
And this is exactly why Sun (for example) are so *paranoid* about gettng a complete and verified employment record when you apply for work. They don't want to take the risk.
So allowing your professional reputation to be dragged through the sewer by Darl is hardly very smart, now is it?
If my employer suddenly descended to such shoddy tactics then I might not quit straight away, but I'd certainly start looking. If nothing else, it's pretty clear which way SCO is going.
Anyhow, it's not like Damage Studios are the only potential employer in the world. But as this drags on it will be more common.
Oh, come on. Asimov did some sublime work, but also produced a fair amount of filler. Look at, for example, the anthology "Gold". You would think some of the stories were written to hit a 2000-word deadline.
While nobody's been brazen enough to claim a GPL'd work is their's after being caught,
I'm sorry to say it has happened. I had the displeasure of seeing Stephen Kapp rip off some free software, and I've heard of him doing it to other people too. And he's not the only one; I heard of something similar happening to Samba.
Why didn't the/. editors want to post a story about this?
About a project whose webpage is nearly free of content aside from a plea for donations, whose most significant announcement is "02/17/2003: GridShell website created!!!", and whose demo seems to be hung? Beats me, that sounds like the crap they usually post:-)
Bringing True Aritificial Intelligence to the Desktop TODAY
You should go easy on the bold, capitals and exclamation marks. They make you sound amusing like a viagra spammer. (Or was that your intention?)
But aside from that, what's "True Artificial Intelligence"? Something that can pass a strong Turing test? Now that would be news.
Here's a clue for free: why not put on your home page a description of the project that is not just a string of buzzwords?
Slashdot Mirror
The key is to take risks that have potential rewards that are greater than the risk's downside. In this case, there really IS no reward. Its just a dig at Linux, but in the process, they elevate it.
The reward, from their point of view, was to assuage their own fears about Linux, and the fears of their IHVs/ISVs.
Plenty of Microsoft "partners" are starting to at least think about Linux support. Plenty of Microsoft developers have Linux machines at home. Microsoft management can't really understand it yet, so they want to just make whiny comments. Microsoft have more money than the average l00nix troll, but the motivation is the same.
As you say it's mostly emotional and immature but there is a certain calculated effect on Microsoft staff and serfs.
Mocking Linux is meant to make "partners" stay in line until it's their turn to be screwed.
No, he's New Here.
I wish they'd made Steve "Angry Monkey Dance" Balmer up in blackface. I would have paid to see that.
Hey, maybe they can ship some Balmer cheesecake as desktop backgrounds in Cairo....
I use a net-connected Linux machine that offers several non-trivial public services. Its uptime currently stands at a bit over 400 days.
(Yes, particular daemons have been upgraded, but using straightforward Unix techniques there was zero interruption to service.)
During the last 400 days, there have been many times when we've had to take internal NT servers down to install service packs. Probably about six times that I recall, although I may have supressed the memory of the others... And these Windows machines are not even exposed to the internet, they're just at risk from worms and similar crap on a private network.
"Would you like to restart your computer now?"
"Why yes, of course, it's not like I was actually using the machine for anything!"
There are anecdotes in favor of either system but the simple fact is there is no security-critical Windows machine with an uptime of more than a couple of months, since service packs invariably require a reboot. I think that ought to tell us something.
And this is to say nothing of the outright bastardry of making people sign a new licence agreement to get a critical security fix.
Oh, now that's cool. Subtle: no grid, no explanation, good colors, and no self-importance.
If you're going to popularize a meme you need to just get it out there without a self-conscious official announcement. I guess esr's ego wouldn't let him do that.
He also has a fairly cogent discussion of the ways in which object orientation is a bad thing...
OO is a tool; it has useful applications and some of them are in kernel design. But this idea during the 80s/90s that everything should be OO was very harmful.
I was being sarcastic. 110W is obviously too small, so the current can't be measured at 5VDC.
Presumably it's 22A at 110V, so on the order of 2400W, or about 11A at 240V. In Australia a heavy-duty power socket is 15A @ 240V, so you could run it from one of them. (Or perhaps two, because it presumably has redundant power supplies.)
I have no idea what the manufacturer actualy recommends... Presumably they offer 220V, since only the PSU has to change.
Funny you should say that, saying as the leading tivo hacker now works on the storage tank.
Also, 22A at what voltage? 5V?
Yeah right, it draws 110W.
Go ahead and explain away. SCO stock is traded in New York and regulated by the SEC. Austrailia has no role in any of this.
SCO have staff, customers and offices in Australia, and can be held accountable for their actions here. I don't know exactly what the ACCC have in mind, but it's not unheard of for executives to be personally fined or even jailed if they're sufficiently naughty.
Fining SCO in Australia, or locking up their local management wouldn't stop the IBM case, but it'd be great PR and enormously satisfying.
To me downloading a binary is about the same as taking a picture of a Picasso. Taking (and using) the source is more along the lines of stealing the original painting.
How does that work? A common justification for not respecting copyright is that the owner "hasn't lost anything", the way they would if you removed their painting. (I'm not saying it's right, just that people say it.) But Valve still have their source code...
Ah yes, obviously anyone who disagrees with you must hold extreme political opinions. Go on, call me a Nazi or Communist if it makes you feel better.
What is this "biggot" you speak of?
You know, that sig makes it really hard to take you seriously.
It might even work out well for Linux: IBM and HP are working on the server side, and largely leaving the desktop to Microsoft. Sun is doing sterling work on the desktop, and trying to pretend that Linux servers don't exist.
:-)
The great thing is that you can take GNOME code funded by Sun and kernel code funded by IBM and run it all on your $1000 generic i386
I'm not sure what definition of "truely hot-swappable" you're using. But from either HP or IBM you can get fully-supported Itanium2 and Power4 machines respectively that run Linux and allow you to hot-swap PCI cards, disks, fans, power supplies, and IIRC even CPUs and memory. I don't know if they'll be any cheaper than Sun, but you're incorrect in saying you can't buy them.
There have also been custom very-high-availability redundant i386 Linux boxes for a few years now.
Hot-swap support went into the stock kernel in 2.5.
But this is a bit of a furphy anyhow. For most Linux applications, clusters are a better choice than a single enormous system, and they're cheaper anyhow. Google and Amazon have hot-swap at the box level, and for 1/10th the price of Sun gear.
Even Oracle, traditionally the big reason to buy pricey monolithic Unix machines, now runs well on Linux clusters and that's only going to get better.
And this is exactly why Sun (for example) are so *paranoid* about gettng a complete and verified employment record when you apply for work. They don't want to take the risk.
The information that they have been given by their employers may make the actions of SCO appear to be ethical and right.
Oh, so they're not unethical, just deeply stupid. Well, in *that* case I certainly want to hire them...
Whether it is or not isn't up to you or me, or anyone except the courts.
You seriously think that court rulings are the sole determinant of whether something is ethical? Wow.
Getting a paycheck is not a right. Not being hired is not a punishment.
If you work for slimeballs you can't complain if people think you're slimey.
So allowing your professional reputation to be dragged through the sewer by Darl is hardly very smart, now is it?
If my employer suddenly descended to such shoddy tactics then I might not quit straight away, but I'd certainly start looking. If nothing else, it's pretty clear which way SCO is going.
Anyhow, it's not like Damage Studios are the only potential employer in the world. But as this drags on it will be more common.
I'm just bitter because I paid cash for Gold and it wasn't as good as his other stuff. :-)
Cheerio.
Oh, come on. Asimov did some sublime work, but also produced a fair amount of filler. Look at, for example, the anthology "Gold". You would think some of the stories were written to hit a 2000-word deadline.
I'm sorry to say it has happened. I had the displeasure of seeing Stephen Kapp rip off some free software, and I've heard of him doing it to other people too. And he's not the only one; I heard of something similar happening to Samba.
If you're so interested to know, why not look at any of the hundreds of web pages or dozens of books on the topic, rather than blabbering on here?
I don't know much about human vision.
No, really?
It's called the Network Failure System for a reason :-/
About a project whose webpage is nearly free of content aside from a plea for donations, whose most significant announcement is "02/17/2003: GridShell website created!!!", and whose demo seems to be hung? Beats me, that sounds like the crap they usually post
You should go easy on the bold, capitals and exclamation marks. They make you sound amusing like a viagra spammer. (Or was that your intention?)
But aside from that, what's "True Artificial Intelligence"? Something that can pass a strong Turing test? Now that would be news.
Here's a clue for free: why not put on your home page a description of the project that is not just a string of buzzwords?