can't tell you how many desktops I see with the "New Updates Available" icon in the systray.
Yep, and since MS has a habbit of releasing new versions of their EULA with the updates, not to mention a certian lack of testing the updates, that's where I leave them when I see them. Instead, I remove Outlook, remove all the IE icons from the desktop and install Opera or Mozilla (depending on the user), and put all the Windows machines behind a decent firewall.
That tends to sort out the security issues; I've had Windows machines used by total non-IT-literate people for three to four years at a time under this sort of setup with NO anti-virus programs and also no viruses. IE and Outlook are the only vector used by most viruses today and open ports cover the rest. The days when they were carried by floppies is long gone and most places have a strict "No external discs" rule anyway.
Is the reason you can't use it truly because it's not Open Source?
Yes. If it was open source and the creator was still not interested in porting it to Linux then someone else might.
In the broader sense, the fact that the source code is closed means that it is useless in a social way: other coders can not build on good ideas within it (while, of course, the writer is free to incorporate other people's good ideas into his code), nor can other people fix bugs that the current maintainer has not prioritised because they are not in areas he is interested in.
I do use closed programs under Linux (Opera, for example) but as a programmer it is a source of endless frustration to have to wait for a small team to fix bugs that I know I could sort out over a weekend.
And to call their code "useless" because it's not open source, that's unfair, mean spirited, and ignorant.
But accurate: I can't use it and, given his attitude, I never will be able to. So "useless" pretty well covers it for me.
The odd thing is that this is a very good candidate for open-sourcing without cutting the programmer's throat. Flight simulations (particularly this one from the looks of it) are complex and users really need and want a good manual.
Give away the code; sell the manual! In this case I think the sales would probably go up, not down.
There are translations for certain specific meanings, like "to exist" or "to be [in a location]" and adjectives get conjugated like verbs if you are describing something. But Hamlet's "to be or not to be" would have to be translated into something completely different in Japanese.
Surely the translation meaning "to exist" would be the correct one?
SCO are claiming to own ALL Unix-like OS's; theyre just starting with Linux. On their wilder days, they've even implied that they own Windows too...quite, quite mad.
I didn't overlook money. I specifically addressed it.
Actually, I agree with the second poster: you overlooked money. You did address it but you utterly failed to address why it's important. Basically, an uninformed or misinformed electorate is not able to participate in a democracy properly. Money is used to create and perpetuate the state where the mass of the electorate cast their votes under totally false beliefs. In that sense, money does equal votes.
Some of us do make the effort to go beyond CNN/Fox/<insert vast faceless corporate newsmachine here> but it takes time and a lot of effort which most people don't have. So, when they vote, the vote the way the money has told them to.
Um, I don't recall the Axis powers losing a single battle in WWII until America entered the war.
Battle of Britain, battle of Moscow, North Africa (GB V Italy), Japan V Russia on Siberian border were all won before Pearl Harbour. Many others were won in the following 10 months before the US mobilisation had any real effect.
Plus, we're still paying for it in cold hard cash so it wasn't exactly a case of the US rallying around for the common good. There was a profit to be made and they made it (in fact the US Treasury made a profit on both world wars; no one else made a profit on either).
The bottom line is that the rest of the allies' efforts saved America and America returned the favor at which point we should have been quits. Instead of which, we've had 60 years of being told that the US is owed everyone's unending servitude as well as their money back for the equipment.
Yeah: dead French, Belgians, Poles, Jews, Chinese, Russians, British, Indonesians etc. etc. etc. don't count against the great myth of America Saves The World. Funny how they never mention the bit where the world saves them from the Nazis and Co first.
TWW
Re:Imitating MS, what fools
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Opengroupware
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· Score: 1
But now, you got guys taking a perfectly miserable product and then making their own free version of it, and not getting any dough for it, for no other purpose than to be like Microsoft but free.
If you had any experience in trying to move a company away from MS you would know that Exchange is one of the most frequent issues. It's not being like MS for the sake of it (eg KDE/GNOME), its being like MS because the client won't take anything else, no matter how much better. It is a waste of time in the ideal sense but it's vital in the practical sense.
What's that criticism of M$ not having vision?
Customers have a built-in and reasonably sensible dislike of change. MS play on that through their FUD and that's why we need systems like this. Once the users are free they won't go back, but the chains have to be broken first.
And the criticism of MS not having any vision is false: they have lots of vision, mainly of the money in your pocket mystically transporting itself to theirs.
You'd have to find people that don't use computers but then, of course, their opinions probably won't be insightful.
The next best thing is to stick to people with an open bias and compare their arguments. It's a bit like reading newspapers.
TWW
Re:Make a new protocol...
on
Opengroupware
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Exchange has nothing to be proud of!! Exchange is a horrible product...
Which is why the world is full of IT staff that wish there was some way to dump it without having to get Accounts to agree to install a whole new set of clients (and possibly OSs).
A backwards compatable replacement is the classic first step to replacing a legacy system like Windows. With the current user base freed from their old system you can then go on to give them all the other things you mentioned.
today almost every programmer regards themselves as an engineer.
Certainly most bad programmers think of themselves as engineers. The rest of us know that until we can calculate to 3sigfig the chance that our code will fail when used by x users we are not doing engineering.
I've been programming for 25 years and I'm proud to say that I'm not, and never will be, an engineer. Proud because I don't believe that the term CAN be applied to software and it is a foolish self-delusion to think it can.
It is fair to say that the discipline one finds in engineering is something we should all aim for but so should someone that writes technical books, or a doctor, or anyone who's work other people might depend on.
By the way, I want to be able to play my Atari2600 cartridges on my Gamecube. Since Nintento won't help me do this, should I blackmail them?
Perhaps you should ask them to just let you. If they won't then feel free to find a way to do it anyway. After all, it's your Gamecube, not theirs. What have they got to lose from just giving you the key?
As you say, simply selling an Xbox even to someone that wants to use it for Linux is still a win for MS since they have higher sales figures and can use them to attract developers and boast about in adverts. And does anyone really believe that a linux hacker that has an Xbox laying around would never buy _any_ games? So in the end the "blackmail" consisted of asking MS to help themselves and others. Out of spite they refused and now they've got an open vunerability on their hands. All they had to do was let these guys follow exactly the same route to getting a key as everyone else but they just can't help going for the control-freak option.
Well, if you've built it all in Forth then there's not much chance that anyone will copy your code (of course, it'll be damn fine, fast, beautiful code).
Linux doesn't further Microsoft's goals with the XBox
Oh, boo-hoo. Since when did buying someone's product put you under an obligation to use it in THEIR besy interests?
Have you ever heard of consumers' rights?
This is exactly what open source should be all about: taking control of your property off those that want you to pay for the priviledge of dancing to their tune.
Honestly, what part of "give in to our demands or we'll do this?" that Free-X said didn't you get?
What part of "Can we have a legal key to sign our Linux distro so we don't have to resort to methods that negate all keys?" do you not understand? MS has brought this on itself. If this was a car company you would laugh at the idea that they could force you to buy only their petrol. Then you would fill 'er up with whatever the hell you liked and tell them where to stuff it.
But apparently monopolistic practices are okay when its Microsoft.
Yes, asking for money and immunity from prosecution is "nice"
Can you point to anywhere that shows these guys asking for money? Asking for immunity from prosecution is fair enough since they've not done anything illegal or immoral. Not that that's a defence when you've annoyed Bill, of course.
And "an offer to negate negative effects of the action" in exchange for the aforementioned concessions is, again, the very DEFINITION of blackmail.
Nope. It's called being cooperative. Once again: they never said they would not make Linux available in return for anything. They said they WOULD make it available with or without MS's help and they have. That MS wants to use its monoply power rather than work with others is typical and that you think MS should be able to dictate what everyone does with their Xboxes is pathetic.
This is a golden example of what open source is about: letting you use your property the way you want to. Tough shit on MS if they can't handle people being free. If you like their attitude why not go and live in China or somewhere where little people aren't allowed to interfere in important people's plans?
They demanded (not requested, I don't care what words they used) something from MS in return for not releasing information which could be damaging to MS. That is the definition of blackmail.
Jesus, how many of you stupid people are there?
They did no such thing. They TOLD Microsoft that they were going to run Linux on the Xbox and that they wanted to do it with their co-operation but that they could and WOULD do it anyway.
They never said that if they got some money or whatever that they would not run Linux on the Xbox.
They did, without having to, ask MS to let them do it the "nice" way. MS refused.
No blackmail, just a statement of fact followed by an offer to let MS negate many negative effects of the action.
I'm sorry, you don't get to define what blackmail is
And you do?
This is not blackmail: they are allowing people to preform legal actions with their own legall held hardware and software. The fact that MS does not want people to do that is MS's problem. They were offered a compromise solution where everybody won and they refused to take it and instead decided to climb on their (illegal) monopoly horse and issue edicts instead. That's being stupid, not being blackmailed.
It's not blackmail, although MS have painted as such and quite a few people have failed to actually think about it. These guys told MS that they were going to run Linux on their Xbox and it would be easier for everyone, including MS, if they simply had a normal Xbox signed binary. But, they knew they didn't need it if MS didn't want to help.
In other words: We're going to do this the easy way or the hard way, but we ARE going to do it.
MS, no one else, picked the hard way. They had nothing to lose by going the easy way and the fact that they now have a compromised Xbox situation is entirely their own fault.
After all, when MS tells people that they will sue them for running their own software on their own hardware, who exactly is doing the blackmailing? And that question is exactly what open source is all about.
He thinks the HP books are "quality" (as opposed to bland, if rather jolly, easy-reading) and the Matrix was a "burst of big-studio originality" (as opposed to a trawl through the last 50 years' of SF writing).
Since they've pulled Linux ditribution before the trial has even started, I doubt there's any grey area here
In fact it was still available directly from their ftp server last week. To say nothing of the fact that they did not even try a product recall so I can still buy it in Waterstones today. When you go to court claiming damages the first thing a judge will look at is how much effort you thought it was worth to prevent those damages. The effort you put in is very likely to be reflected in the damages awarded. You can't easily claim someone stole your livelihood but it wasn't important enough for you to get off your arse to try and stop them.
Your points are wrong because the GPL license is no longer valid if the code violates SCO's IP.
In which case they are not and were not allowed to distribute the rest of the package, including the kernel, which they have in fact been doing after their so-called discovery of IP breaches.
None of this really matters since there does not appear to be any actual evidence that SCO can even do the things it claims were copied off it.
The FSF statement is pretty well drivel dispite being right:
`Linux'' is the name of the kernel most often used in free software systems. But the operating system as a whole contains many other components, some of them products of the Foundation's GNU Project, others written elsewhere and published under free software licenses; the totality is GNU, the free operating system on which we have been working since 1984.
Well, no, "we" haven't if the "we" is the FSF. As far as I know Linus has nothing to do with the FSF so the totality "we" have been working on is GNU and Linux, which in some cases constitutes a GNU/Linux system (as opposed to a KDE/Linux system or whatever strange xxx/Linux beasties embedded people produce). So, thanks for the RMS propaganda but we've already heard it (a lot).
But even if SCO could show that some portions of its UNIX source code were copied into the kernel, the claim of copyright infringement would fail, because SCO has itself distributed the kernel under GPL. By doing so, SCO licensed everyone everywhere to copy, modify, and redistribute that code.
This is bunk if taken at face value. Is SCO (or anybody else) supposed to audit every line of Linux (and by "Linux" I mean "Linux", the thing which is distributed in those tarballs with 2.4.21 etc on them) if they put together a distribution? Of course not and noone really wants unwitting inclusion to be binding, do they?
However, the fact that SCO continued to distribute after they announced that there was an alleged breach makes this a very grey area for them indeed. Once they knew there was a problem, why did they not at least take what little steps they could to prevent further distribution?
What carries it through grey and right into black for SCO is their announcement that their own customers will not be sued because they are "paying for the IP". BZZZT, Wrong answer!
There are three ways of looking at this:
SCO is now openly in breach of the GPL because they are placing restrictions on others (ie, their own customers who they are not allowing to distribute their "IP") which are not compatible with the GPL, or,
They are in fact allowing their "IP" to be distributed by their customers as required by the GPL and therefore have no case to make as regards Linux generally as they have now agreed that the code is okay to distribute, or
Their position (and I think this is where their lawyers are heading) is that the GPL is not legally enforcable. Unfortunately this means that their distribution is illegal as the GPL is the only thing that gives them permission to distribute others' copyrighted works. They can't have it both ways: they can't say the GPL is fine when it allows them to copy others but not when others copy them.
All of these options wind up with SCO shares at a-dime-a-dozen, and good riddance; but the FSF statement is basically worthless despite coming to the same conclusion.
Slashdot Mirror
Yep, and since MS has a habbit of releasing new versions of their EULA with the updates, not to mention a certian lack of testing the updates, that's where I leave them when I see them. Instead, I remove Outlook, remove all the IE icons from the desktop and install Opera or Mozilla (depending on the user), and put all the Windows machines behind a decent firewall.
That tends to sort out the security issues; I've had Windows machines used by total non-IT-literate people for three to four years at a time under this sort of setup with NO anti-virus programs and also no viruses. IE and Outlook are the only vector used by most viruses today and open ports cover the rest. The days when they were carried by floppies is long gone and most places have a strict "No external discs" rule anyway.
TWW
Yes. If it was open source and the creator was still not interested in porting it to Linux then someone else might.
In the broader sense, the fact that the source code is closed means that it is useless in a social way: other coders can not build on good ideas within it (while, of course, the writer is free to incorporate other people's good ideas into his code), nor can other people fix bugs that the current maintainer has not prioritised because they are not in areas he is interested in.
I do use closed programs under Linux (Opera, for example) but as a programmer it is a source of endless frustration to have to wait for a small team to fix bugs that I know I could sort out over a weekend.
TWW
But accurate: I can't use it and, given his attitude, I never will be able to. So "useless" pretty well covers it for me.
The odd thing is that this is a very good candidate for open-sourcing without cutting the programmer's throat. Flight simulations (particularly this one from the looks of it) are complex and users really need and want a good manual.
Give away the code; sell the manual! In this case I think the sales would probably go up, not down.
TWW
Surely the translation meaning "to exist" would be the correct one?
TWW
TWW
SCO are claiming to own ALL Unix-like OS's; theyre just starting with Linux. On their wilder days, they've even implied that they own Windows too...quite, quite mad.
Actually, I agree with the second poster: you overlooked money. You did address it but you utterly failed to address why it's important. Basically, an uninformed or misinformed electorate is not able to participate in a democracy properly. Money is used to create and perpetuate the state where the mass of the electorate cast their votes under totally false beliefs. In that sense, money does equal votes.
Some of us do make the effort to go beyond CNN/Fox/<insert vast faceless corporate newsmachine here> but it takes time and a lot of effort which most people don't have. So, when they vote, the vote the way the money has told them to.
TWW
Battle of Britain, battle of Moscow, North Africa (GB V Italy), Japan V Russia on Siberian border were all won before Pearl Harbour. Many others were won in the following 10 months before the US mobilisation had any real effect.
Plus, we're still paying for it in cold hard cash so it wasn't exactly a case of the US rallying around for the common good. There was a profit to be made and they made it (in fact the US Treasury made a profit on both world wars; no one else made a profit on either).
The bottom line is that the rest of the allies' efforts saved America and America returned the favor at which point we should have been quits. Instead of which, we've had 60 years of being told that the US is owed everyone's unending servitude as well as their money back for the equipment.
TWW
Yeah: dead French, Belgians, Poles, Jews, Chinese, Russians, British, Indonesians etc. etc. etc. don't count against the great myth of America Saves The World. Funny how they never mention the bit where the world saves them from the Nazis and Co first.
TWW
If you had any experience in trying to move a company away from MS you would know that Exchange is one of the most frequent issues. It's not being like MS for the sake of it (eg KDE/GNOME), its being like MS because the client won't take anything else, no matter how much better. It is a waste of time in the ideal sense but it's vital in the practical sense.
What's that criticism of M$ not having vision?
Customers have a built-in and reasonably sensible dislike of change. MS play on that through their FUD and that's why we need systems like this. Once the users are free they won't go back, but the chains have to be broken first.
And the criticism of MS not having any vision is false: they have lots of vision, mainly of the money in your pocket mystically transporting itself to theirs.
TWW
You'd have to find people that don't use computers but then, of course, their opinions probably won't be insightful.
The next best thing is to stick to people with an open bias and compare their arguments. It's a bit like reading newspapers.
TWW
Which is why the world is full of IT staff that wish there was some way to dump it without having to get Accounts to agree to install a whole new set of clients (and possibly OSs).
A backwards compatable replacement is the classic first step to replacing a legacy system like Windows. With the current user base freed from their old system you can then go on to give them all the other things you mentioned.
TWW
Certainly most bad programmers think of themselves as engineers. The rest of us know that until we can calculate to 3sigfig the chance that our code will fail when used by x users we are not doing engineering.
I've been programming for 25 years and I'm proud to say that I'm not, and never will be, an engineer. Proud because I don't believe that the term CAN be applied to software and it is a foolish self-delusion to think it can.
It is fair to say that the discipline one finds in engineering is something we should all aim for but so should someone that writes technical books, or a doctor, or anyone who's work other people might depend on.
TWW
Perhaps you should ask them to just let you. If they won't then feel free to find a way to do it anyway. After all, it's your Gamecube, not theirs. What have they got to lose from just giving you the key?
As you say, simply selling an Xbox even to someone that wants to use it for Linux is still a win for MS since they have higher sales figures and can use them to attract developers and boast about in adverts. And does anyone really believe that a linux hacker that has an Xbox laying around would never buy _any_ games? So in the end the "blackmail" consisted of asking MS to help themselves and others. Out of spite they refused and now they've got an open vunerability on their hands. All they had to do was let these guys follow exactly the same route to getting a key as everyone else but they just can't help going for the control-freak option.
TWW
Well, if you've built it all in Forth then there's not much chance that anyone will copy your code (of course, it'll be damn fine, fast, beautiful code).
TWW
And I have no obligation to only run what programs MS tells me to nor do I have any obligation to make their business model work for them.
TWW
Oh, boo-hoo. Since when did buying someone's product put you under an obligation to use it in THEIR besy interests?
Have you ever heard of consumers' rights?
This is exactly what open source should be all about: taking control of your property off those that want you to pay for the priviledge of dancing to their tune.
TWW
What part of "Can we have a legal key to sign our Linux distro so we don't have to resort to methods that negate all keys?" do you not understand? MS has brought this on itself. If this was a car company you would laugh at the idea that they could force you to buy only their petrol. Then you would fill 'er up with whatever the hell you liked and tell them where to stuff it.
But apparently monopolistic practices are okay when its Microsoft.
TWW
Can you point to anywhere that shows these guys asking for money? Asking for immunity from prosecution is fair enough since they've not done anything illegal or immoral. Not that that's a defence when you've annoyed Bill, of course.
And "an offer to negate negative effects of the action" in exchange for the aforementioned concessions is, again, the very DEFINITION of blackmail.
Nope. It's called being cooperative. Once again: they never said they would not make Linux available in return for anything. They said they WOULD make it available with or without MS's help and they have. That MS wants to use its monoply power rather than work with others is typical and that you think MS should be able to dictate what everyone does with their Xboxes is pathetic.
This is a golden example of what open source is about: letting you use your property the way you want to. Tough shit on MS if they can't handle people being free. If you like their attitude why not go and live in China or somewhere where little people aren't allowed to interfere in important people's plans?
TWW
Jesus, how many of you stupid people are there?
They did no such thing. They TOLD Microsoft that they were going to run Linux on the Xbox and that they wanted to do it with their co-operation but that they could and WOULD do it anyway.
They never said that if they got some money or whatever that they would not run Linux on the Xbox.
They did, without having to, ask MS to let them do it the "nice" way. MS refused.
No blackmail, just a statement of fact followed by an offer to let MS negate many negative effects of the action.
Get a clue..
TWW
And you do?
This is not blackmail: they are allowing people to preform legal actions with their own legall held hardware and software. The fact that MS does not want people to do that is MS's problem. They were offered a compromise solution where everybody won and they refused to take it and instead decided to climb on their (illegal) monopoly horse and issue edicts instead. That's being stupid, not being blackmailed.
TWW
It's not blackmail, although MS have painted as such and quite a few people have failed to actually think about it. These guys told MS that they were going to run Linux on their Xbox and it would be easier for everyone, including MS, if they simply had a normal Xbox signed binary. But, they knew they didn't need it if MS didn't want to help.
In other words: We're going to do this the easy way or the hard way, but we ARE going to do it.
MS, no one else, picked the hard way. They had nothing to lose by going the easy way and the fact that they now have a compromised Xbox situation is entirely their own fault.
After all, when MS tells people that they will sue them for running their own software on their own hardware, who exactly is doing the blackmailing? And that question is exactly what open source is all about.
TWW
TWW
In fact it was still available directly from their ftp server last week. To say nothing of the fact that they did not even try a product recall so I can still buy it in Waterstones today. When you go to court claiming damages the first thing a judge will look at is how much effort you thought it was worth to prevent those damages. The effort you put in is very likely to be reflected in the damages awarded. You can't easily claim someone stole your livelihood but it wasn't important enough for you to get off your arse to try and stop them.
Your points are wrong because the GPL license is no longer valid if the code violates SCO's IP.
In which case they are not and were not allowed to distribute the rest of the package, including the kernel, which they have in fact been doing after their so-called discovery of IP breaches.
None of this really matters since there does not appear to be any actual evidence that SCO can even do the things it claims were copied off it.
TWW
`Linux'' is the name of the kernel most often used in free software systems. But the operating system as a whole contains many other components, some of them products of the Foundation's GNU Project, others written elsewhere and published under free software licenses; the totality is GNU, the free operating system on which we have been working since 1984.
Well, no, "we" haven't if the "we" is the FSF. As far as I know Linus has nothing to do with the FSF so the totality "we" have been working on is GNU and Linux, which in some cases constitutes a GNU/Linux system (as opposed to a KDE/Linux system or whatever strange xxx/Linux beasties embedded people produce). So, thanks for the RMS propaganda but we've already heard it (a lot).
But even if SCO could show that some portions of its UNIX source code were copied into the kernel, the claim of copyright infringement would fail, because SCO has itself distributed the kernel under GPL. By doing so, SCO licensed everyone everywhere to copy, modify, and redistribute that code.
This is bunk if taken at face value. Is SCO (or anybody else) supposed to audit every line of Linux (and by "Linux" I mean "Linux", the thing which is distributed in those tarballs with 2.4.21 etc on them) if they put together a distribution? Of course not and noone really wants unwitting inclusion to be binding, do they?
However, the fact that SCO continued to distribute after they announced that there was an alleged breach makes this a very grey area for them indeed. Once they knew there was a problem, why did they not at least take what little steps they could to prevent further distribution?
What carries it through grey and right into black for SCO is their announcement that their own customers will not be sued because they are "paying for the IP". BZZZT, Wrong answer!
There are three ways of looking at this:
All of these options wind up with SCO shares at a-dime-a-dozen, and good riddance; but the FSF statement is basically worthless despite coming to the same conclusion.
TWW