The thing that makes this even harder to swallow is that there are 41 motions on that website that have been filed, and you know that each and every one of them has cost each side thousands of dollars just to have some guy read it and respond. Thats at least a half a mil on both sides (probably much more), just to deal with the paperwork. And that doesn't include any of the time for discovery, depositions and other preliminary crap before the trial even begins to be considered to be scheduled.
IBM can handle the cost. But how many of the poor sumbitches getting invoices can? What happens when one medium sized company decides that a huge "Linux" invoice is better than hiring a firm to deal with SCO's lawyers curning out one time wasting motion after another?
There is nothing worse than legitmizing an illegal action because the illegal action would cost less than finding justice.
PS: And please, no flames from the real lawyers. I know that you are just doing your jobs - using the law to your advantage.
This is concerning to me. It is great that so many people are willing to take up the torch and complain / harrass / mail-bomb the various companies that are violating the GPL, but I fear that these efforts actually end up diluting the efforts of the legitimate package owners to protect their own packages.
In the case of Linksys, I know that several of the package owners have retained legal counsel, and have been making actual legal efforts (ie, letters from an attorney's letterhead rather than an e-mail) to remedy the situation. And of course, this is the right and proper way to handle things, (hopefully) resulting in the proper remedies proscribed by the GPL and the applicable copyright laws.
But when average concerned citizens get involved it reduces the power and the influence of the actual responsible party, and it results in an ucoordinated effort may disturb the legal wrangling, which will end up costing the package owner time and money.
My advice? If you are aware of a GPL violation, contact the package owner. He may already have started action. If he has not started action, and you have the time and/or means to assist, then please do so. Otherwise, simply document your findings, and pass it to the correct authorities. At least contact the guys, so the first place they hear about your efforts isn't on/.
...to see what a biased analysis this is. "Linux unaffected" with 100% certainty?
It seems to me that this entire matrix is based on the fact that SCO continued to distribute its Linux distro long after the lawsuit had been brought, indicating that the code was therefore gifted to the community. So no matter what happens, Linux wins.
Now, that may be true (and wouldn't it be nice if it was), but I would like to hear what the legal eagles think about this particular defense. It seems to me that this should be more of a "last gasp" defense, but definately not something you would want to trot out in opening statements.
I wonder how close you could get to a working linux machine with nothing offically from GNU?
Follow up question... who cares if we use GNU or not? This seems to be very much in the same vein as the LRP that was discussed a few days ago. The GNU products were offered to the public with a tough but fair license, and we all took them up on it. We're using the software the way the licence was intended.
However, it has become increasingly obvious that we (meaning the Linux community) are not using the GNU tools the way RMS intended. He wants more credit and more recognition for his software, and unless things are run his way, he's going to get angry.
Here's what I say to that: tough. You offered the sofware under the licence, it was your choice to provide your work under the terms stated. You have absolutely no right to complain when everyone takes the software and abandons your pet project for the winning horse.
I've read the licence many times, and nowhere does it say "if you use this software, everything you do must be prefeced by GNU" or "if you use this software with anything but approved GNU projects, you must endure hours of countless bitching". So I'm going to keep using GNU products, and I'm going to keep calling it Linux.
It's hilarious reading the article with this in mind, with the machine doing the same job better and the umps jumping up and down crying foul. Of COURSE they don't want these machines. They'd lose their Lexus.
That is the stupidest thing I think I have ever heard. Nobody is asking for any umpires to be removed. Baseball by its nature is a very subjective game, and I don't think that anyone is stupid enough to think that a few machines will do a decent job of evaluating a game played at about 100 miles per hour on a gigantic chunk of real estate.
You know that beep you hear when a tennis player faults at a major event? Thats a computer system that can determine when the player faults. But did you notice that it doesn't replace the small army of human observers and judges? Of course not, and it won't do the same thing in baseball either. These things are in position for evaluating the umpires, not replacing them.
But here's my rant. Throughout history, umpires have been traditionally consistant from game to game. That doesn't mean they all are consistant with each other, but generally the same umpire will call the same way each game. And this has always been a great advantage to those who were students of the game. Pichers like Tom Glavine have made hall of fame careers by studying the umpires and knowing exactly where to throw the ball.
But you have to understand that these devices, which may be responsible for the hiring and firing of umpires, are only installed at a handful of ballparks. So in order to keep their jobs, the umpires much change their calling style when at those ballparks, which destroys their consistancy, and makes them more prone to error.
And the interesting thing is, this is a direct result of them being only installed in a handful of parks. If they were in every single major league ballpark, then you would see many of the objections disappear. Thats whats so interesting to me about this whole thing - not that they want to evaluate the umpires, but rather,that they don't want to evaluate them uniformly. Whats up with that?
With all due respect, I doubt that all of your ham knowledge qualifies you to be making areonautic determinations. What everyone seems to be missing is that the problem probably isn't *you* yacking away aimlessly on the phone during the flight, its the fact that every other Tom, Dick and Harry will be doing the same thing, and odds are that will generate a pretty large field. Whats more, I would expect that most of those phones would be operating pretty much in unison, since I'll bet that its hard to find a cell of your own when you are confined with 200 other people at 30,000 feet above Iowa.
Turn 'em off - nothing is so urgent that you would need to use your cell phone while you are in flight.
I don't like to answer my own posts, but think I picked the wrong example before. Consider Mr. Thomas Raimondi, Jr (director). He got 32,885 shares at.01 / share!!! If you doubt SCO's intentions, go ahead and do the math yourself.
1) Buy out SCO. Hostile style. Buy up enough of the stock to have them vote to merge under IBM.
Lets see. Lets look at our friend Mr. McBride. According to the SEC, he has 8,000 shares that he purchased at $1.13 (thats $9040). If IBM came in on a hostile takeover today, they would probably end up paying about $10 / share (the current price is $9.26, but a hostile takeover is usually a little higher). So, at $10 bucks a share, Mr. McBride is looking for a gain of $70,960 - all for nothing more than acting like a complete asshole.
That to me sounds like a real good way to get out:
1) No need for pesky proof 2) Get rid of a operating system that drags down any company that owns it like a pair of concrete slippers. 3) ?? 4) Much, *much* profit.
IBM can handle the heat. I think they should call SCO's bluff and see what happens then.
Re:Sounds rather fishy...
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Not having the benefit of seeing the code I'll have to assumme these comments are fairly overwhelming evidence wise.
Thats a poor assumption. Whow knows what the context of the code is? Could this "non programmer analyst" determine if the code was really similar? What if the System V code came from the IDE subsystem, and the Linux code came from the networking subsystem? What if the comment was/* Beware all ye who enter here */? What if both System V and Linux stole the code from BSD? Was a SCO lacky sitting over the analyst's shoulder pointing out the high points? What if the "analyst" was a SCO plant from the beginning?
There are just too many questions and not enough answers. I want to see the professional opinion of a kernel expert, and *then* I want to review it myself before I will start to agree that SCO might have a case. Until then, we have no idea what deals have gone on behind the scenes. There is just way too much money in play here for us not to be cynical.
Sort of like mixing matches and gasoline. It's not a question of 'if' there's going to be a fire, but 'how badly are you going to get burned'.
You don't seem to have alot of faith in the next generation, or indeed in your fellow human beings. You expound a tired point, which has been used by the less clueful of the world to stop everything from sex ed to skeet shooting.
The point of this class is twofold - first, much like a karate or skeet shooting class, to teach respect and self control for the skills.
Secondly, this class exposes the students to the facts - they learn the facts behind cracker attacks, and what can be done to stop them. Its much easier to make the right decisions when you have the right facts. Otherwise, these kids are going to go out, and experiment on their own - and its much more difficult to tell the difference between right and wrong when you randomly try out root kits that you found on an underground hacker website late at night.
You can't just hide this from people, and hope that it will go away - you will always have hackers, just like you will have always pregenant teenagers. Perhaps with the correct facts, the future crackers of America can make the right decisions. They're going to figure out how to crack your machine anyway - the question is, what color hat do you want them to wear?
Let us replace the "s" in Microsoft with a dollar sign, so that we remember that they are business who put profit first. Oh, how they do not fit in our idealized view of the world. They almost annoy as I sip on my Coke and adjust my Gap pants while I sit in my Herman-Miller chair.
Thats funny, and probably true (and definately shouldn't have been modded to -1), but thats missing the point a bit.
Its not a bad thing to be about profit, but it is a bad thing to put profit ahead of other concerns, especially when you are an industry leader. I think that the outcry would be the same way if Ford knew that a part was faulty, and they supressed the knowlege or downplayed it in the press. How about Boeing? Should either of these companies put their corporate reputation and profit ahead of safety? Of course not.
Now, you might say, whatever - nobody ever died because of a Microsoft trojan horse. And I would agree - but they have caused hundreds of millions of dollars of damage and hundreds of thousands of wasted man hours - all beacuse they are unwilling to reveal themselves for what they are - human.
First, they need to admit that they make the occasional mistake. Secondly, they need to make an easy and trustworthy way of recovering from those mistakes. And thirdly, they need to make it seem like they care more about about the security of their existing customers than trying to gain new ones. Its that easy.
Re:Separating Content from Presentation a Good Thi
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If you or the OP had bothered to read the article, you'd have understood that what microsoft is doing is removing all the formatting information, in the sense of "this is a normal paragraph, this is a numbered list, this is emphasized" and so on.
So let me see. You are agreeing with me that they are removing formatting information from the document, and yet you call me a clueless moron. My question is, what do you call someone who agrees with the moron?
When I say XML format, I mean exactly that - a document encoded in good and proper XML. Of course you need a DTD - I figured that most people here would have figured that out. I don't care how complete your DTD is, it still can't infer that the following paragraph is centered with 12 point bold font, because there is no manner to do so.
So my point continues to stand - the proposed format has no manner to save text formatting, people want text formatting, people won't save with the document format because it doesn't save their text formatting.
Its like selling two car models:
One model can be repaired with parts from any other auto maker, the specifications are open, and the entire design is on the front seat when you buy it.
The other car isn't as open, but it does feature seatbelts, windows, a radio and comes with 4 tires. Which one do you think people will buy?
Re:Separating Content from Presentation a Good Thi
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And this is bad how? Isn't this the dream that XML document proponents have aspired to for years? You just can't please some people...
Unfortunately, Manny Manager and Sarah Secretary are now very used to depending on the formatting and presentation information. To be honest, not too many people these days subscribe to the whole minimalist document theory (unless your idea of starting your editor is typing 'vi').
The main point here is to encourage the.XML format for interoperability. If the XML format can't figure out the fonts, colors, and various drawing elements in your document, then people will abandon it for something that does - at the expense of the rest of us.
Having the government enforce my desire to not be bothered by people who I do not want to hear from for commercial purposes seems entirely reasonable.
Of course it does - I want it as much as anyone. My rant was directed toward the people that think its OK for our favorite companies or groups to sue to block a proposal or law that we feel is unfair, while at the same time cheering the plight of others that we don't like, and claming that they shouldn't have the same rights that we demand.
Say they had a proposal that would limit the first year salary of a computer programmer to $30,000 a year. Wouldn't we all sue anyone we could get our hands on to stop this? Wouldn't we protest loudly from the roof tops that we had a legal right to make as much money as we can?
Thats exactly what these guys are doing - and we hate them for it.
I don't like telemarketers either. But to sit there and claming that these guys are wrong for for trying to proctect their businesses is a hypocrisy of the first degree.
First of all, telemarketing, though annoying, is still legal in the United States.
Secondly, these are legimiate businessmen that are trying to protect their business from a perceived danger - a procedure that they believe damages their business.
This is nothing like other industries that look to the government to prop themselves up, like you so falsely claim. This is a group of business men engaging in legal activities that are trying to protect their businesses. We have praised this type of activity in the past, why not now?
This is typical/. hypocrisy - fight the power with any means possible, but complain loudly when the power fights back with the same weapons.
Placing the burden on me to find out of the media I download is legal or not is NOT reasonable.
Why not? The burden is placed upon you to make sure that you don't purchase stolen merchandise - or at the very least to inform the authorities when you discover the nature of the goods.
Why should sharing music be any different? If you grab the latest N'Sync album off of a P2P network, you gotta know that its probably not legal for you to have it (unless of course, you have the whole N`Sync catalog handy).
Ignorance or moral objection to the law is no excuse.
All he/she has to do is use your hardware to access the server.
For most people, all he/she has to do right now is use your software. For all except for the very paranoid, keychains are hanging out there right on the hard drive, open to every Tom, Dick and Harry that bothers to walk by.
But even then, what does access to the private key really give you? SSH does nothing as far as actually authenticating you on the server - it only encrypts the data as it passes to and from the system. The remote server does the actual challenge / response. Somebody might be able to pretend that they are you, but without the password, they are up the proverbial creek.
Really, this chip is no less resistant to physical acess than the software solution. Computer security isn't just about a password. You wouldn't leave your server room unlocked would you? Why would you treat your workstation any differently?
How about environmental issues? I'm rethinking my future career in Computer Science since I heard that a single microchip takes 2 pounds of oil and 1 pound of toxic chemicals to create.
I've got news for you - your "Won't somebody think of the trees" rant probably wasted way more resources just to type up, send across the line, and get posted on the server.
I'm not saying that these issues don't need to be dealt with, but you can't get all worried about the use of resources, and at the same time waste even more of them by happily typing along on your computer 20 hours a day.
If you are that concerned, then please feel free to unplug. I think Ted Kaczynski has a place for sale in Montana.
OS X already won. Any geek or scientist worth their salt who wants a UNIX home computer already has an iBook or a G4.
Won what? Was there a race?
It is my contention that nobody cares about Linux on the desktop any more outside of a small group of Linux afficiandos (such as me).
And I gotta say, that I'm ok with that. There are many more interesting places to do operating systems battle, so as far as I am concerned, OS X can try to win the pissing match over the ruins of the desktop market while the rest of us start concentrating on the next generation of computing.
Which leaves me -$4418 in the hole. Yea! I just hope that the whole thing will stay together long enough for me to pay off my loan.
and i've even lost 10lbs with my extra time
Thats not exactly thanks to the Segway, now is it? I mean, you could have exercised instead of making a completely useless website, or trolled Slashdot. I mean, kudos for actually getting on a treadmill, but put the credit where the credit is due. Otherwise, you come off sounding like a Segway salesman.
Of course, if I happened to own a Segway, I would probably lose 10 pounds too, but thats because they would have to amputate my leg after getting frostbite by communting 7 miles in 20 degree weather.
Not that I'm cynical or anything, I'm glad you are enjoying your new toy, its just that I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop in regards to the whole issue.
Gee, if you consider depriving tens of thousands of voters at a time valid, then your logic might hold.
Did I miss the armed military standing at the doors of the polling places baring people from entering? Did everyone with their last name starting with A get escorted from the building? Man, I knew I should have watched CNN.
No, no, I know what you are saying. It was a massive conspiracy, run by the Stonecutters, whereby Jeb Bush (W's brother) appointed somebody 3 years previous to design a ballot so devious that it would confuse all of the intellegent people that turn out to vote, and thereby secure the election for his brother, who at that time had not yet been nominated, or even announced that he was running for president. Pure genius! But then again, they've had all that pratice keeping down Ralph Nader all these years, so you think they would be able to sabotage a major election pretty easily.
Listen, to paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, if you are to fat, stupid or disoriented to vote, then stay at home. Don't jump up later and complain because your guy didn't win.
Except for Justices Breyer and Stevens, the Supreme Court has sold out.
In other words, everyone who doesn't agree with you must be obviouslly misinformed, stupid, unethical or downright evil. It is apparent from your angry and incorrect rant that you believe that all the justices (save 2) actually voted with malicious forethought.
So is it your belief that a Disney lawyer went around and tried to stick a stack of money in front of all of the justices, and only two of the justices were able to withstood the temptation?
Perhaps you should bring this damming evidence to the public, so that we can all review your ironclad claims that most of the Supreme Court banded together to attack all of humanity in a hail of black robes and gavels.
Maybe its just me. You see, I like to consider the unpopular notion that these justices voted with the knowlege and intellegence that has guided them all through their years. That maybe, they all decided with their brains, and not their pocketbooks. I like to believe that they are not there to decide on the morality of a law, but simply the legality. What a novel concept. Oh, well, I guess its time for me to get back to my gingerbread house on lollypop lane - because obviously my ideas are just pure fantasy.
Slashdot Mirror
Here is a very slanted view of the Canopy Gropu published this past Sunday:
Littl Tech Titan
I'll let you reach your own conclusions.
Very interesting web page.
The thing that makes this even harder to swallow is that there are 41 motions on that website that have been filed, and you know that each and every one of them has cost each side thousands of dollars just to have some guy read it and respond. Thats at least a half a mil on both sides (probably much more), just to deal with the paperwork. And that doesn't include any of the time for discovery, depositions and other preliminary crap before the trial even begins to be considered to be scheduled.
IBM can handle the cost. But how many of the poor sumbitches getting invoices can? What happens when one medium sized company decides that a huge "Linux" invoice is better than hiring a firm to deal with SCO's lawyers curning out one time wasting motion after another?
There is nothing worse than legitmizing an illegal action because the illegal action would cost less than finding justice.
PS: And please, no flames from the real lawyers. I know that you are just doing your jobs - using the law to your advantage.
This is concerning to me. It is great that so many people are willing to take up the torch and complain / harrass / mail-bomb the various companies that are violating the GPL, but I fear that these efforts actually end up diluting the efforts of the legitimate package owners to protect their own packages.
/.
In the case of Linksys, I know that several of the package owners have retained legal counsel, and have been making actual legal efforts (ie, letters from an attorney's letterhead rather than an e-mail) to remedy the situation. And of course, this is the right and proper way to handle things, (hopefully) resulting in the proper remedies proscribed by the GPL and the applicable copyright laws.
But when average concerned citizens get involved it reduces the power and the influence of the actual responsible party, and it results in an ucoordinated effort may disturb the legal wrangling, which will end up costing the package owner time and money.
My advice? If you are aware of a GPL violation, contact the package owner. He may already have started action. If he has not started action, and you have the time and/or means to assist, then please do so. Otherwise, simply document your findings, and pass it to the correct authorities. At least contact the guys, so the first place they hear about your efforts isn't on
It seems to me that this entire matrix is based on the fact that SCO continued to distribute its Linux distro long after the lawsuit had been brought, indicating that the code was therefore gifted to the community. So no matter what happens, Linux wins.
Now, that may be true (and wouldn't it be nice if it was), but I would like to hear what the legal eagles think about this particular defense. It seems to me that this should be more of a "last gasp" defense, but definately not something you would want to trot out in opening statements.
You can use all the GNU software without using the name GNU/Linux, absolutely right, and he isn't even suggesting that you can't.
Gee, really?
I wonder how close you could get to a working linux machine with nothing offically from GNU?
Follow up question... who cares if we use GNU or not? This seems to be very much in the same vein as the LRP that was discussed a few days ago. The GNU products were offered to the public with a tough but fair license, and we all took them up on it. We're using the software the way the licence was intended.
However, it has become increasingly obvious that we (meaning the Linux community) are not using the GNU tools the way RMS intended. He wants more credit and more recognition for his software, and unless things are run his way, he's going to get angry.
Here's what I say to that: tough. You offered the sofware under the licence, it was your choice to provide your work under the terms stated. You have absolutely no right to complain when everyone takes the software and abandons your pet project for the winning horse.
I've read the licence many times, and nowhere does it say "if you use this software, everything you do must be prefeced by GNU" or "if you use this software with anything but approved GNU projects, you must endure hours of countless bitching". So I'm going to keep using GNU products, and I'm going to keep calling it Linux.
Its his licence, I'm just following it.
It's hilarious reading the article with this in mind, with the machine doing the same job better and the umps jumping up and down crying foul. Of COURSE they don't want these machines. They'd lose their Lexus.
That is the stupidest thing I think I have ever heard. Nobody is asking for any umpires to be removed. Baseball by its nature is a very subjective game, and I don't think that anyone is stupid enough to think that a few machines will do a decent job of evaluating a game played at about 100 miles per hour on a gigantic chunk of real estate.
You know that beep you hear when a tennis player faults at a major event? Thats a computer system that can determine when the player faults. But did you notice that it doesn't replace the small army of human observers and judges? Of course not, and it won't do the same thing in baseball either. These things are in position for evaluating the umpires, not replacing them.
But here's my rant. Throughout history, umpires have been traditionally consistant from game to game. That doesn't mean they all are consistant with each other, but generally the same umpire will call the same way each game. And this has always been a great advantage to those who were students of the game. Pichers like Tom Glavine have made hall of fame careers by studying the umpires and knowing exactly where to throw the ball.
But you have to understand that these devices, which may be responsible for the hiring and firing of umpires, are only installed at a handful of ballparks. So in order to keep their jobs, the umpires much change their calling style when at those ballparks, which destroys their consistancy, and makes them more prone to error.
And the interesting thing is, this is a direct result of them being only installed in a handful of parks. If they were in every single major league ballpark, then you would see many of the objections disappear. Thats whats so interesting to me about this whole thing - not that they want to evaluate the umpires, but rather,that they don't want to evaluate them uniformly. Whats up with that?
Call me when they perform a real test.
:-)
I can't, I'm about to leave on a flight....
With all due respect, I doubt that all of your ham knowledge qualifies you to be making areonautic determinations. What everyone seems to be missing is that the problem probably isn't *you* yacking away aimlessly on the phone during the flight, its the fact that every other Tom, Dick and Harry will be doing the same thing, and odds are that will generate a pretty large field. Whats more, I would expect that most of those phones would be operating pretty much in unison, since I'll bet that its hard to find a cell of your own when you are confined with 200 other people at 30,000 feet above Iowa.
Turn 'em off - nothing is so urgent that you would need to use your cell phone while you are in flight.
Actually this page reports it as .0001$/share. So he picked all 32885 shares for about $32.
Oops - you're right. I moved the decimal point in my mind.
I don't like to answer my own posts, but think I picked the wrong example before. Consider Mr. Thomas Raimondi, Jr (director). He got 32,885 shares at .01 / share!!! If you doubt SCO's intentions, go ahead and do the math yourself.
1) Buy out SCO. Hostile style. Buy up enough of the stock to have them vote to merge under IBM.
Lets see. Lets look at our friend Mr. McBride. According to the SEC, he has 8,000 shares that he purchased at $1.13 (thats $9040). If IBM came in on a hostile takeover today, they would probably end up paying about $10 / share (the current price is $9.26, but a hostile takeover is usually a little higher). So, at $10 bucks a share, Mr. McBride is looking for a gain of $70,960 - all for nothing more than acting like a complete asshole.
That to me sounds like a real good way to get out:
1) No need for pesky proof
2) Get rid of a operating system that drags down any company that owns it like a pair of concrete slippers.
3) ??
4) Much, *much* profit.
IBM can handle the heat. I think they should call SCO's bluff and see what happens then.
Not having the benefit of seeing the code I'll have to assumme these comments are fairly overwhelming evidence wise.
/* Beware all ye who enter here */? What if both System V and Linux stole the code from BSD? Was a SCO lacky sitting over the analyst's shoulder pointing out the high points? What if the "analyst" was a SCO plant from the beginning?
Thats a poor assumption. Whow knows what the context of the code is? Could this "non programmer analyst" determine if the code was really similar? What if the System V code came from the IDE subsystem, and the Linux code came from the networking subsystem? What if the comment was
There are just too many questions and not enough answers. I want to see the professional opinion of a kernel expert, and *then* I want to review it myself before I will start to agree that SCO might have a case. Until then, we have no idea what deals have gone on behind the scenes. There is just way too much money in play here for us not to be cynical.
Sort of like mixing matches and gasoline. It's not a question of 'if' there's going to be a fire, but 'how badly are you going to get burned'.
You don't seem to have alot of faith in the next generation, or indeed in your fellow human beings. You expound a tired point, which has been used by the less clueful of the world to stop everything from sex ed to skeet shooting.
The point of this class is twofold - first, much like a karate or skeet shooting class, to teach respect and self control for the skills.
Secondly, this class exposes the students to the facts - they learn the facts behind cracker attacks, and what can be done to stop them. Its much easier to make the right decisions when you have the right facts. Otherwise, these kids are going to go out, and experiment on their own - and its much more difficult to tell the difference between right and wrong when you randomly try out root kits that you found on an underground hacker website late at night.
You can't just hide this from people, and hope that it will go away - you will always have hackers, just like you will have always pregenant teenagers. Perhaps with the correct facts, the future crackers of America can make the right decisions. They're going to figure out how to crack your machine anyway - the question is, what color hat do you want them to wear?
Let us replace the "s" in Microsoft with a dollar sign, so that we remember that they are business who put profit first. Oh, how they do not fit in our idealized view of the world. They almost annoy as I sip on my Coke and adjust my Gap pants while I sit in my Herman-Miller chair.
Thats funny, and probably true (and definately shouldn't have been modded to -1), but thats missing the point a bit.
Its not a bad thing to be about profit, but it is a bad thing to put profit ahead of other concerns, especially when you are an industry leader. I think that the outcry would be the same way if Ford knew that a part was faulty, and they supressed the knowlege or downplayed it in the press. How about Boeing? Should either of these companies put their corporate reputation and profit ahead of safety? Of course not.
Now, you might say, whatever - nobody ever died because of a Microsoft trojan horse. And I would agree - but they have caused hundreds of millions of dollars of damage and hundreds of thousands of wasted man hours - all beacuse they are unwilling to reveal themselves for what they are - human.
First, they need to admit that they make the occasional mistake. Secondly, they need to make an easy and trustworthy way of recovering from those mistakes. And thirdly, they need to make it seem like they care more about about the security of their existing customers than trying to gain new ones. Its that easy.
If you or the OP had bothered to read the article, you'd have understood that what microsoft is doing is removing all the formatting information, in the sense of "this is a normal paragraph, this is a numbered list, this is emphasized" and so on.
So let me see. You are agreeing with me that they are removing formatting information from the document, and yet you call me a clueless moron. My question is, what do you call someone who agrees with the moron?
When I say XML format, I mean exactly that - a document encoded in good and proper XML. Of course you need a DTD - I figured that most people here would have figured that out. I don't care how complete your DTD is, it still can't infer that the following paragraph is centered with 12 point bold font, because there is no manner to do so.
So my point continues to stand - the proposed format has no manner to save text formatting, people want text formatting, people won't save with the document format because it doesn't save their text formatting.
Its like selling two car models:
One model can be repaired with parts from any other auto maker, the specifications are open, and the entire design is on the front seat when you buy it.
The other car isn't as open, but it does feature seatbelts, windows, a radio and comes with 4 tires. Which one do you think people will buy?
And this is bad how? Isn't this the dream that XML document proponents have aspired to for years? You just can't please some people...
.XML format for interoperability. If the XML format can't figure out the fonts, colors, and various drawing elements in your document, then people will abandon it for something that does - at the expense of the rest of us.
Unfortunately, Manny Manager and Sarah Secretary are now very used to depending on the formatting and presentation information. To be honest, not too many people these days subscribe to the whole minimalist document theory (unless your idea of starting your editor is typing 'vi').
The main point here is to encourage the
Having the government enforce my desire to not be bothered by people who I do not want to hear from for commercial purposes seems entirely reasonable.
Of course it does - I want it as much as anyone.
My rant was directed toward the people that think its OK for our favorite companies or groups to sue to block a proposal or law that we feel is unfair, while at the same time cheering the plight of others that we don't like, and claming that they shouldn't have the same rights that we demand.
Say they had a proposal that would limit the first year salary of a computer programmer to $30,000 a year. Wouldn't we all sue anyone we could get our hands on to stop this? Wouldn't we protest loudly from the roof tops that we had a legal right to make as much money as we can?
Thats exactly what these guys are doing - and we hate them for it.
I don't like telemarketers either. But to sit there and claming that these guys are wrong for for trying to proctect their businesses is a hypocrisy of the first degree.
How is this funny? Its not even correct.
/. hypocrisy - fight the power with any means possible, but complain loudly when the power fights back with the same weapons.
First of all, telemarketing, though annoying, is still legal in the United States.
Secondly, these are legimiate businessmen that are trying to protect their business from a perceived danger - a procedure that they believe damages their business.
This is nothing like other industries that look to the government to prop themselves up, like you so falsely claim. This is a group of business men engaging in legal activities that are trying to protect their businesses. We have praised this type of activity in the past, why not now?
This is typical
Placing the burden on me to find out of the media I download is legal or not is NOT reasonable.
Why not? The burden is placed upon you to make sure that you don't purchase stolen merchandise - or at the very least to inform the authorities when you discover the nature of the goods.
Why should sharing music be any different? If you grab the latest N'Sync album off of a P2P network, you gotta know that its probably not legal for you to have it (unless of course, you have the whole N`Sync catalog handy).
Ignorance or moral objection to the law is no excuse.
All he/she has to do is use your hardware to access the server.
For most people, all he/she has to do right now is use your software. For all except for the very paranoid, keychains are hanging out there right on the hard drive, open to every Tom, Dick and Harry that bothers to walk by.
But even then, what does access to the private key really give you? SSH does nothing as far as actually authenticating you on the server - it only encrypts the data as it passes to and from the system. The remote server does the actual challenge / response. Somebody might be able to pretend that they are you, but without the password, they are up the proverbial creek.
Really, this chip is no less resistant to physical acess than the software solution. Computer security isn't just about a password. You wouldn't leave your server room unlocked would you? Why would you treat your workstation any differently?
How about environmental issues? I'm rethinking my future career in Computer Science since I heard that a single microchip takes 2 pounds of oil and 1 pound of toxic chemicals to create.
I've got news for you - your "Won't somebody think of the trees" rant probably wasted way more resources just to type up, send across the line, and get posted on the server.
I'm not saying that these issues don't need to be dealt with, but you can't get all worried about the use of resources, and at the same time waste even more of them by happily typing along on your computer 20 hours a day.
If you are that concerned, then please feel free to unplug. I think Ted Kaczynski has a place for sale in Montana.
OS X already won. Any geek or scientist worth their salt who wants a UNIX home computer already has an iBook or a G4.
Won what? Was there a race?
It is my contention that nobody cares about Linux on the desktop any more outside of a small group of Linux afficiandos (such as me).
And I gotta say, that I'm ok with that. There are many more interesting places to do operating systems battle, so as far as I am concerned, OS X can try to win the pissing match over the ruins of the desktop market while the rest of us start concentrating on the next generation of computing.
Have a great time.
saved about $582.00+ by using a segway ht
Which leaves me -$4418 in the hole. Yea! I just hope that the whole thing will stay together long enough for me to pay off my loan.
and i've even lost 10lbs with my extra time
Thats not exactly thanks to the Segway, now is it? I mean, you could have exercised instead of making a completely useless website, or trolled Slashdot. I mean, kudos for actually getting on a treadmill, but put the credit where the credit is due. Otherwise, you come off sounding like a Segway salesman.
Of course, if I happened to own a Segway, I would probably lose 10 pounds too, but thats because they would have to amputate my leg after getting frostbite by communting 7 miles in 20 degree weather.
Not that I'm cynical or anything, I'm glad you are enjoying your new toy, its just that I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop in regards to the whole issue.
Gee, if you consider depriving tens of thousands of voters at a time valid, then your logic might hold.
Did I miss the armed military standing at the doors of the polling places baring people from entering? Did everyone with their last name starting with A get escorted from the building? Man, I knew I should have watched CNN.
No, no, I know what you are saying. It was a massive conspiracy, run by the Stonecutters, whereby Jeb Bush (W's brother) appointed somebody 3 years previous to design a ballot so devious that it would confuse all of the intellegent people that turn out to vote, and thereby secure the election for his brother, who at that time had not yet been nominated, or even announced that he was running for president. Pure genius! But then again, they've had all that pratice keeping down Ralph Nader all these years, so you think they would be able to sabotage a major election pretty easily.
Listen, to paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, if you are to fat, stupid or disoriented to vote, then stay at home. Don't jump up later and complain because your guy didn't win.
Except for Justices Breyer and Stevens, the Supreme Court has sold out.
In other words, everyone who doesn't agree with you must be obviouslly misinformed, stupid, unethical or downright evil. It is apparent from your angry and incorrect rant that you believe that all the justices (save 2) actually voted with
malicious forethought.
So is it your belief that a Disney lawyer went around and tried to stick a stack of money in front of all of the justices, and only two of the justices were able to withstood the temptation?
Perhaps you should bring this damming evidence to the public, so that we can all review your ironclad claims that most of the Supreme Court banded together to attack all of humanity in a hail of black robes and gavels.
Maybe its just me. You see, I like to consider the unpopular notion that these justices voted with the knowlege and intellegence that has guided them all through their years. That maybe, they all decided with their brains, and not their pocketbooks. I like to believe that they are not there to decide on the morality of a law, but simply the legality. What a novel concept. Oh, well, I guess its time for me to get back to my gingerbread house on lollypop lane - because obviously my ideas are just pure fantasy.