Re:Linux written to compete with SCO?
on
SCO News Roundup
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I am afraid that if you have a product that is not for sale that replaces a product that is for sale, you are in competition.
You may be right in general -- but in this case, I believe that you're misinformed. The wording in the Novell/SCO agreement is very specific. It did not specify that Novell could not compete with SCO in the x86 market. They already do -- if Novell agreed to do so, they'd put themselves out of business.
Read the text of the agreement at Groklaw.net. Essentially, the agreement stated that they could not use SysV Unix (the IP that Novell sold to SCO) to compete with SCO. Darl's argument is based on his contention that Linux contains enough stolen code from SysV Unix to warrant it being called Unix. Essentially, his non-compete claim is completely based on the outcome of the SCO Vs. IBM case (which, IMO is all bullshit). If SCO loses the IBM case, then they won't have a leg to stand on against Novell since the courts will have affirmed that Linux!=UNIX.
--Turkey
Re:It doesn't cover Netware or Linux.
on
SCO News Roundup
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· Score: 1
...Seller agrees that it shall use the Licensed Technology only (i) for internal purposes without restriction or (ii) for resale...by Seller which are not directly competitive with the core products of Buyer and...does not constitute a primary portion of the value of the total bundled or integrated product.
Aah...Now that I've read the text of the agreement, I'm beginning to understand. SCO's contention that Linux is a competing product is based on their IBM lawsuit that Linux is Unix. Or, more to the point, that Linux contains enough of their propritary UNIX code to be able to say that Novell is using the property sold to SCO to compete with SCO (counter to the non-compete agreement).
Basically, Daryl is (once again) completely full of shit. This all goes back to SCO's original argument, which really doesn't seem to hold any water.
I wonder how these people sleep at night. Do they really feel like they're entitled to this, or do they know what they're doing?
IA (obviously) NAL
--Turkey
Re:Linux written to compete with SCO?
on
SCO News Roundup
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Probably not. It should be enough to show that it DOES compete - which would be trivial.
Problem is, Novell is already competeing with SCO. Netware still runs on X86. Sure, it's not the Unix market, but the NOS market...which is similar enough. In any case -- if/when SCO loses this Linux case against IBM, I don't think that they'll have much of a leg to stand on (no cash to go after Novell, and no assets to promise to a legal team).
In any case, I'd be really interested to read the specifics of the non-compete agreement between SCO and Novell. Furthermore, I'd be more intersted to find out whether or not Darl McBride is actually telling the whole truth about the non-compete (given his track record of lying through his teeth about everything else).
First of all, I didn't label anyone. My response was "You're sounding a whole lot like a Apple fanboy who doesn't want to hear anything but praise for your favorite platform." -- my use of the term "sounding like" does not even imply a label...I was being more-than-fair by judging only what you wrote and nothing about you. But yeah -- for the record, I label everyone I come into contact with (although I will rarely, if ever, put those labels into writing). It's human nature. Anyone who denies this is either a liar, or is not be able to function in any human society.
Secondly, I didn't read about you, I read an editorial that you wrote. It's not like I made a blind assumption -- you came off sounding like a fanboy who didn't want to hear anything but praise for Apple -- and I called you on it. You're the one who claimed that this was an Apple-bashing post. It simply wasn't. I think that I was not only fair, but clear in my post. Do you respond to everything without reading it carefully? This is the second response of yours (in a row) that I've read that shows you are either misreading or misunderstanding the text you're replying to.
Please, post about innovations, not about such idiocies, otherwise it doesn't matter.
You're sounding a whole lot like a Apple fanboy who doesn't want to hear anything but praise for your favorite platform. I'm not here to tell you how great you are because of the system you bought (nor am I here to tell you that you're a moron for buying the system). I'm sure that there's a Mac fanboy page/blog where you can discuss how great your system (and the company who created it) is all day long.
This post has nothing to do with that, nor is it an attempt to tear at the fabric of your favorite platform. This looks like reasonable reporting of some suspicous behavior by a large company to me. Just because you happen to really like that company doesn't mean that the story shouldn't be reported...right?
I wasn't satisfied with Mark Surfas' response to the criticism GameSpy has received. Here's what I wrote to him.
Dear Mr. Surfas,
I am writing in response to your open letter about your C&D letter:
http://www.gamespydaily.com/news/fullstory.asp?id= 5474
I have a fundamental problem with your argument -- specifically, it
can be summed up with this quote from your posting:
"However, these were not bugs; it was information about how our products
work."
If any software product relies on obfuscation of how it works in order to
be secure (both, on the client end, and on the service end), it is simply
not secure.
The information that he published can be found by any person by simply
running your application and watching to see what your product is doing.
These are all completely legal, and ethical actions. While I might not
agree with the publication of such data -- I also understand the
importance of responsible programming and design practice. The security
of your products and related services should stand on their own without
relying on obscurity as the basis of your security model. Taking legal
action against people who choose to expose potentially irresponsible
coding practices is, in my opinion, far more unethical than anything that
Luigi may have done.
Furthermore, I find certain parts of the DMCA particularly despicable --
and will not patronize any company who hides behind those parts of the DMCA to "put the
cat back into the bag", hiding potential security flaws in their model
from both the security community and the public at large.
I sincerely appreciate your effort to step forward and clear the air, but
I respectfully disagree with the rationale behind your legal action.
I welcome an open dialogue on the topic and would very much like to
discuss this with you further. Perhaps I'm missing some critical facts
here.
No -- I'm not arguing for pre-emptive arrest. None of these laws change the fact that conspiracy is, and always was a crime. If one plans to commit any crime, it's a conspiracy. There's no need for a specific pre-emptive law that increases the (already very severe) penalties. The only thing that this attempts to do is serve as a deterrent...which as I stated before, doesn't work against terrorists.
You are also ignoring the meat of my post that "cyberterrorism" is not the threat it's made out to be. It's either a way for governments to extend their power, or it serves as a poor answer to the public outcry ("do something!"). American public utilities and critical services are not part of, or in any way hooked up to the public Internet or any other public network (I don't know about Singapore's). If they were, the people who did set it up are recklessly, and potentially criminally, irresponsible (this goes for Singapore too).
"Instead of a backpack of explosives, a terrorist can create just as much devastation by sending a carefully engineered packet of data into the computer systems which control the network for essential services, for example the power stations"
I've heard the same rhetoric from US legislators (something along the lines of using a mouse as a weapon). This is complete bullshit. If anyone should be penalized in a case like this, it's the guy who hooked the power station's computer system (or that of any other essential service) into the public Internet in such a way that a few packets could be as devistating as a bomb which will end lives (these services, IIRC, are not hooked into the public Internet). What the fuck are these people thinking? Just capitalizing (by passing hardcore laws) on peoples' fears, I assume.
Nothing like this has ever been done before anyway. They're pre-emptively making laws for crimes which have never been committed. This is the exact same thing that the US government did after September, 2001 (except a little more Draconian). I fail to understand the logic. It's not even a deterrent. Terrorists don't give a shit about penalties (IMO) -- they're terrorists! Most of the ones I've read about are happy to end their lives for their cause.
and the Italian government will GUBO (Grease Up and Bend Over) and hand him over to the US unfortunately
Why would Italy hand him over? You must have an even lesser understanding of US/International law than I do. He didn't break any Italian laws. I don't think that he broke any US laws in the US. The Dimitri Skylarov (spelling?) case is relevant here. He was charged with violating the US DMCA and prifiting from it (offering US products for sale to Americans in the US), and no attempt was even made to extradite him (foriegn governments are typically serious about their soverignty and they don't just hand their citizens over for the hell of it). However, Dimitry was arrested as soon as he set foot on US soil. The Russian case may be different because it was even less bullshit than this one (that's not to say that it wasn't a bullshit case) but it is, however, completely relevant to the discussion.
All this being said, if GameSpy does any business in Italy, I believe that they can go after him in civil court there...but again, there is no case for extradition.
If I were Luigi and had to physically go to the US in the future...I'd probably comply with the dease and desist order and launch a (completely legal) smear campaign against GameSpy (this is all assuming that the guy isn't filthy rich). The simple fact is that they've got deeper pockets than him. He could probably win a lawsuit, but the costs involved would financially devistate anyone but the very wealthy...this is also assuming that GameSpy has the capital (and is willing) to litigate. Hey, it's a case of life not being fair, and litigation being expensive everywhere in the world.
SCO says the "pump and dump" theories are nonsense and that Sontag, along with Darl McBride, CEO, have not sold a single share. Some executives have sold shares but only small amounts and mostly "to cover tax consequences on restricted stock," Sontag says.
I wouldn't be too sure about these claims. Judging from this page, there's been a few million in insider trading since June (unless I've been reading this wrong, which is entirely possible). Quite a bit for such a small company (2.4%). One executive has sold somewhere around $1,595,650 in stock since June...around 125,000 shares of his original 215,000. Sounds like a majority of his holdings to me. Now I don't know much about finance, but I think I can say this with authority: Small amounts to cover tax penalties my ass. That's a fortune, even after taxes.
What advice can you give about cost, performance, security, ease-of-setup, etc?
The only consumerland service I've used is Vonage -- and they do exactly what you asked for. It also allows you to use your normal analog phone. I kept my POTS line for a few months while I tried out Vonage. It was good enough, so I dropped Verizon. I've found that Vonage is not as reliable as the POTS services -- sometimes incoming calls don't make it through, as well as outgoing calls not connecting. That being said, the vast majority of my calls have been completed. Dropped calls are extremely rare. I still recommend keeping a mobile phone -- just in case.
Although the VoIP calls take a relatively small amount of bandwidth, if you do alot of uploading and have limited upstream bandwidth (I'm considering 384 Kb/s limited) -- you will probably want to do some type of QoS routing on your end to ensure that there is sufficient bandwidth to carry your conversation.
The best thing to do is to check out Vonage's website. They have enough information there to answer most of your questions.
First, realize that there's usually no usable 911 service. They often try to route 911 to the local phone number for the police but the police won't get your address or treat the call as an emergency.
If his house ever had POTS service, LEC's in the US are now required to offer 911 service, regardless of whether or not the line is paid for. If he has an extra phone lying around, he can just plug it into the old POTS line for 911 use only.
Secondly, Vonage offers E911 service that gets routed to a different PSAP from the regular 911 service, although it is treated as an emergency. See here for details.
I would like an adaptor that allows me to connect an ordinary phone to my network. This adaptor would give the phone an IP address, and you could send commands from Linux to make the phone ring, and if it's off-hook to send and receive digital audio, decode touch-tones, etc.
This is mostly doable...and your OS of choice is (for the most part) irrelevant -- be it Linux, *BSD, Windows, or QNX. With a service like Vonage, you get a Cisco ATA, which you plug your ordinary phone into. It differs slightly from your ideal situation, since it does not give your phone an individual IP address (and a POTS phone will not respond to an IP address anyway)...but judging from the documentation I was able to dig up, it's all very hackable. I'm sure that you can make your phone ring using a PC (and some know-how). Further, I'm sure that you can intercept, decode, and possibly insert whatever you need (be it DTMF or otherwise). It just takes time and effort. If you're using a service like Vonage, intercepting the transmission is simple, and can be done using a packet sniffer, or simply using a modem as an intermediary between your ATA and analog phone (all on the analog side, not the Ethernet side). I believe that vgetty has the ability to easily interpret the DTMF (for dialtones, dialed digits, ringtones, etc). Inserting signal into the line can also be accomplished fairly easily (with time and effort).
Then I would like another adaptor that allows me to connect the phone line to my network.
This is doable as well. Use another analog modem for this. Again, check out vgetty for voicemail and other related services.
It would also put a lot of companies, which sell multi-thousand dollar devices to do the same kinds of things, devices which are thoroughly proprietary and considerably less programmable... out of business.
The government, also, will never allow it. If they want to wiretap there is no longer an easy way to do it.
I doubt that the big players in the industry are sweating this. Not many companies (who buy these multi-thousand dollar devices) care that much about programability beyond what's already available. They would rather spend more money on a phone system that just works than a really cheap one that requires a full-time employee dedicated to configuring and maintaining that system. It ends up costing more in the end. Your proxy idea, where you have an analog line conntected to an IP network and saving long distance dollars -- VoIP companies do this now. I think it's easier to spend $25 a month on it than roll my own.
As far as the government -- what country are you from, anyway? I'm in the US and use VoIP regularly, which is currently not as easy as POTS to wiretap. I'm positive that, as it becomes more widespread, my government will find a way to tap those lines even easier than POTS phones. Also, remember that most home user's VoIP calls terminate to a POTS line, making at least one end tapable. Finally, the US government typically does not put limitations on encryption for use inside of the country. There is no reason why they would ever ban it....This is all presuming that you're in the US though.
That being said, it would make a cool project anyway. When do you get started?
--Turkey
The question needs to be more specific
on
Is VoIP the Way to Go?
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· Score: 4, Informative
With all due respect to the author, the question (as it stands) is not worded particularly well, and there is very little chance that a reliable answer will emerge.
One extremely important detail that you are leaving out is who is offering the service. You also fail to mention the specifics of their operation. IP telephony and VoIP are very different, and there's no way to be sure which one you're talking about. (You clearly indicate VoIP, but the term is so misused that I'm taking your usage of the term with a grain of salt. Pardon me if I have done so erroneously).
Because your cable operator maintains control over your lines, they are able to offer service guarantees that other services (like Vonage) cannot. I cannot say whether or not your operator does take advantage of this, however. Think of it this way: Typically, when you choose an IP telephony solution, you're getting a leased line to your IP telephony provider's data center. They control everything along the way -- and can use routing protocols like QoS and ToS reliably, ensuring that your packets make it to where they need to go, when they need to get there. With a VoIP solution (again, like Vonage), your service is running over public Internet lines. The VoIP provider has no way of guarantying that the packets will get to them in a timely fashion. In the short time I've spent hacking around my Vonage service, I've found some ToS packets -- but since Vonage has no control over this, your ISP (or any other router along the way) can just ignore these ToS (and/or QoS) packets. In short, your packets get there when they get there. Sometimes it will work great, others it just doesn't work at all.
If you can provide a link to some technical information about the service, I'm sure that some of the more saavy folks here can disseminate that information and tell you whether or not the technology should work. It's up you your cable operator to actually follow through with the reliability (again, you left out the detail of who your provider is). This is the first I've heard of cable operators offering such a service (although I have a bit of experience with a number of different types of VoIP and IP telephony services).
However, if you're in the US, I'd suggest that you try it out. I've switched to Vonage. My primary motivation was my unwillingness to do business with Verizon...and even with deregulation, if I use POTS, I'm paying my local monopoly. So I gave up on it. Just remember that YMMV, so don't sign any long-term service contracts.
SCO began its litigious crusade in March when it sued IBM for $3 billion, alleging IBMdevelopers (sic) put Unix code into Linux. IBMdenies (sic) it and has filed a counterclaim; a federal trial is set for 2005 in Salt Lake City.
The trial isn't until 2005? IANAL, but 2005 seems like a pretty far out date. I'm shocked that SCO is able to threaten Linux users with litigation without even settling the matter of who really owns the IP in question. Can they really do that? If the IBM case gets dismissed before it goes to trial, can SCO still press on with suits against users?
If so, SCO's antics are going to cost the taxpayers (that's me, goddamnit) an assload of money in court costs. There is also a lot of potential for this to significantly slow the adoption (and adaptation) of Linux in so many industries (although I'm still not ready to believe any of the MS conspiracy theories). Any folks with some knowledge of the law have any insight to share on the legality of the stuff above? (But please, not the MS conspiracy theory stuff).
Looking at the screenies, I must ask: how is this different from RH9?
Yeah -- those screenshots really tell the whole story, don't they?;)
All kidding aside, they've made some significant changes to the RH9 core. Check out the release notes.
The stuff that really interests me is:
Prelinking: (search for it in the link above) From an end user perspective, it will make applications load faster, as dynamicly linked libraries will be loaded ahead of time into unused memory.
Exec-Shield: (again, search for it in the release notes) Exec-shield purports to randomize VM addresses and make parts of applications (as well as their stack) non-executable. Think of it as "damage control" for security holes. The integrated stack protection (that the Exec-shield kernel addition replaces/includes) is very important for foiling buffer overflow attacks.
/proc/cpufreq (again, see the notes) Maybe this has been done elsewhere, but I've neither used or seen it. Apparently, you can do CPU clock throttling. This is particularly useful for laptops where CPU speed is scaled down to conserve battery. This technology is still in its infancy (for Linux, anyway) and has a way to go, but is an excellent start nonetheless.
Laptop mode compliments/proc/cpufreq and changes disk access to a sort of block-mode that will space apart disk accesses allow for the disk to spin down and conserve battery.
Extended RPM/Up2Date support: Up2Date now supports APT and YUM, as well as local databases. (I read somewhere that the default package management is now APT but cannot confirm this.)
Anyway, this is just the stuff that piqued my interest. There are plenty of other changes that look pretty promising. I hadn't read much about Fedora until recently, and nothing technical until today -- but after scanning over the release notes, I'm ready to dump my RH9 desktop box and install Fedora.
People may still be doing it but it violates Red Hat's trademark and they have acted against people in the past for doing exactly that.
If Red Hat sued anyone for reselling RH Linux, they would be in violation of the GPL. I'd be interested in any links or documents you can provide on the topic. Maybe my understanding of the GPL has changed...or there is somethung else involved (maybe RH's artwork). RH is still GPL'ed, right?
Also, iTunes warns you that this will happen at the install.
I don't remember seeing this warning when I installed iTunes. Have you actually seen this, or is this just what you've read? Was it in the original release?
The only reason most people put up with Windows is as of now, they're the dominant operating system. Apple isn't a dominant desktop operating system, and we here are trying hard not to have another Microsoft. One's already bad enough, and this story came out just around the time I was considering getting an Apple laptop, kinda make me want to reconsider it.
My iPod experience would scare me away from buying any other Apple product, ever. The fact is that on Windows, the iPods are riddled with problems. Check out the forums. It's fine that there are problems -- they're expected with bleeding-edge hardware. The problem is that Apple hasn't even acknowledged these problems, and I don't forsee them being fixed any time soon.
Other than the price point and that damned single mousebutton (but alot of context menus in the interface) -- I think that Apple has excellent machines. However, after my iPod experience, I wouldn't have bought one of their laptops either.
Anything that brings "spam" and "viruses" closer together in the public eye is bad for spammers in the long run.
It's a Good Thing...unless the people writing the viruses are actually anti-spam fanatics trying to make the spammers look worse. It wouldn't surprise me if this were the case -- especially due to the relative ineffectiveness of most of those RBL's.
One of the reasons why so many "old school" gamers are critical of new games is the expectation of better gameplay with better hardware. Things like a credible AI tend to take a backseat to flashy graphics and sound.
Back in the day, the complexity of our games was limited by the hardware we had available to us. Most games on the market pushed every piece of the hardware to the limit. Back in my Amiga days, some games and demos came with their own OS on the disk to avoid the overhead of Amiga's desktop OS so they could squeeze a little more performance out of the system...and this system was far more advanced than the really old school systems that I grew up playing games on (Commodore 64, Atari 2600, NES, Activision, etc).
Because of the hardware limitation, not only were the graphics and sound limited, much of the gameplay had to be as simple as possible.
Now, 20+ years later, our hardware has surpassed nearly every physical limitation that the early game developers had to overcome. The graphics and sound in modern games are breathtaking -- with no indication that they won't keep getting better (which I can really appreciate). However, the gameplay itself has not evolved with the graphics and sound. I'll admit that the gameplay is far more complex than it was back in the day -- but I'm afraid that it has been far outpaced by the graphics and sound. Furthermore, much of the complexity in modern games is accounted for by a steep learning curve and a combersome control interface -- not a brilliant AI engine (which is what I'd really like to see) and/or a truly interactive world.
Just like with the Six Million Dollar Man -- we have the technology. Hopefully, our game developers will start to really use it.
There is another thing we need to realize. The lack of counter-incentives when buying something like a Hummer is largely due to the perverse ass-backwards tax systems use to fund road construction and maintenance.
For example, if even one cent of highway funding comes from income taxes, sales taxes, or property-value-based taxes, then the true cost of the Hummer is transparent to its owners. This is sad, because beyond excessive fuel consuption the Hummer also does increased wear and tear to roadways. The fuel taxes only partially compensate for this, due to highways subsidies coming from other sources. In effect, the tax structure allows people to live a lie, because other people are subsidizing their habits. This is just another argument to repeal income taxes in favor of other purpose-specific taxes.
While I understand (and agree with) your principle of a higher purpose-based taxes (and removing our income taxes), I couldn't disagree more with how you're getting there...First, the true cost of a large SUV is not transparent to the owner. I think that you may just be looking at this incorrectly. You've got sales and property tax (and on an already expensive vehicle, it's alot of money) The increased fuel consumption (and premium fuel requirements) both add to the cost of the vehicle (and there are already pretty heavy federal and state taxes on that gas). It's also expensive to get into to begin with, and many states levy a luxury tax against the car. Also, if said vehicle is over a certain weight, it's classified as a truck. I don't know what the weight/axle cutoff is, but from what I understand, most vehicles under that weight have a negligable effect on road-wear compared to other cars in that weight range (~2000-6000 Lbs). It's kind of a moot argument that SUV's do more wear and tear. Trucks have a special status in that they do have to pay for permits to cover the additional wear-and-tear on the roads. Those people don't need any additional taxes (and our interstate highway system was built [and is maintained] more for them than us). Additional road taxes will affect trucking more than you and me. Affecting trucking means that the cost to shipping raw materials around increases (as well as the cost of any business that needs to move anything anywhere), which means that everything we buy is more expensive. I agree that income tax should be reduced (greatly) for everyone...but the way you went about making that point just doesn't work.
Most of our taxes go to subsidizing something for someone...it's how it works. Big SUV's are the least egregious example of this. Sorry -- but your example is really bad, and I can chalk it up as basic anti-SUV banter that doesn't really make any sense to me.
This kind of article is pretty irritating. It appeals to pop environmentalists who have no real interest in the science of it. This article is just for the "we're all doomed, and it's the SUV people's fault" people. The numbers are stretched a little thinner than reasonable, and are based on presumptions that can't be proven (ala, where oil comes from).
Sure, cars are a glaring issue for the ecological folks (and a really easy target), but it's not something that's easily remedied. Even if we could just change the cars, there is hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure dedicated to our cars that would take more than a decade to change. In this case, whining about doesn't help.
Maybe we need something more than just an easy target. Maybe, instead of blaming cars for our environmental problems, we should take another look. Maybe it's not worth it to spend 5,000 (total guesstimate) calories on shippping a 50-calorie orange across the country. Maybe we should be doing things like supporting our local farmers and buying what's in-season and local. Maybe those farms should employ fallow strips to curb eutrophication in our water systems...and more importantly, maybe we should worry more about what human waste is doing to these water systems and try employing similar tactics to not disturb that balance. I'm sure that there are a hundred reasonable things we can start doing that will help us more than just blaming cars for all (or even most) of our ecological troubles...especially when immediate change is just not possible. Instead -- employ what change that you can individually...maybe this guy should take the time spent on bitching about cars doing something contructive -- I'll be he will accomplish a whole lot more.
However, when it comes to cars, the fact is that although we are all part of a larger community, and we are social beings -- humans are still highly individualistic creatures. This means that as soon as we had both personal transportation and mass transit, we figured out which one we liked better (hint: not mass transit). We like cars. Cars are a part of North American and European personal identity (can't speak for other continents...I haven't been there). Individual transportation will never be as efficient as mass transit...but when given the choice, I'll put dollars to dimes that 9 out of 10 would rather be isolated from everyone else, in a soft leather-clad vehicle, with the climate control set to their preference, climate-controlled seats...and with their music on in the background. Especially when you contrast the happy car experience to having to sit (if you're lucky...I had to stand msot of the time when I took the subway to work) next to some smelly, hairy guy on the bus/subway while he eats some weird (somehow smellier than he) meat-on-a-stick -- at the same time, some screaming freak is angrily walking up and down your car ranting about his violent experience in prison which just ended...just now. Hell -- I'd definitely take the former in a heartbeat.
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You may be right in general -- but in this case, I believe that you're misinformed. The wording in the Novell/SCO agreement is very specific. It did not specify that Novell could not compete with SCO in the x86 market. They already do -- if Novell agreed to do so, they'd put themselves out of business.
Read the text of the agreement at Groklaw.net. Essentially, the agreement stated that they could not use SysV Unix (the IP that Novell sold to SCO) to compete with SCO. Darl's argument is based on his contention that Linux contains enough stolen code from SysV Unix to warrant it being called Unix. Essentially, his non-compete claim is completely based on the outcome of the SCO Vs. IBM case (which, IMO is all bullshit). If SCO loses the IBM case, then they won't have a leg to stand on against Novell since the courts will have affirmed that Linux!=UNIX.
Aah...Now that I've read the text of the agreement, I'm beginning to understand. SCO's contention that Linux is a competing product is based on their IBM lawsuit that Linux is Unix. Or, more to the point, that Linux contains enough of their propritary UNIX code to be able to say that Novell is using the property sold to SCO to compete with SCO (counter to the non-compete agreement).
Basically, Daryl is (once again) completely full of shit. This all goes back to SCO's original argument, which really doesn't seem to hold any water.
I wonder how these people sleep at night. Do they really feel like they're entitled to this, or do they know what they're doing?
IA (obviously) NAL
Problem is, Novell is already competeing with SCO. Netware still runs on X86. Sure, it's not the Unix market, but the NOS market...which is similar enough. In any case -- if/when SCO loses this Linux case against IBM, I don't think that they'll have much of a leg to stand on (no cash to go after Novell, and no assets to promise to a legal team).
In any case, I'd be really interested to read the specifics of the non-compete agreement between SCO and Novell. Furthermore, I'd be more intersted to find out whether or not Darl McBride is actually telling the whole truth about the non-compete (given his track record of lying through his teeth about everything else).
First of all, I didn't label anyone. My response was "You're sounding a whole lot like a Apple fanboy who doesn't want to hear anything but praise for your favorite platform." -- my use of the term "sounding like" does not even imply a label...I was being more-than-fair by judging only what you wrote and nothing about you. But yeah -- for the record, I label everyone I come into contact with (although I will rarely, if ever, put those labels into writing). It's human nature. Anyone who denies this is either a liar, or is not be able to function in any human society.
Secondly, I didn't read about you, I read an editorial that you wrote. It's not like I made a blind assumption -- you came off sounding like a fanboy who didn't want to hear anything but praise for Apple -- and I called you on it. You're the one who claimed that this was an Apple-bashing post. It simply wasn't. I think that I was not only fair, but clear in my post. Do you respond to everything without reading it carefully? This is the second response of yours (in a row) that I've read that shows you are either misreading or misunderstanding the text you're replying to.
You're sounding a whole lot like a Apple fanboy who doesn't want to hear anything but praise for your favorite platform. I'm not here to tell you how great you are because of the system you bought (nor am I here to tell you that you're a moron for buying the system). I'm sure that there's a Mac fanboy page/blog where you can discuss how great your system (and the company who created it) is all day long.
This post has nothing to do with that, nor is it an attempt to tear at the fabric of your favorite platform. This looks like reasonable reporting of some suspicous behavior by a large company to me. Just because you happen to really like that company doesn't mean that the story shouldn't be reported...right?
Government officials were quoted as specifically targeting "cyberterrorism". This is the rhetoric I was (and will continue to be) critical of.
I wasn't satisfied with Mark Surfas' response to the criticism GameSpy has received. Here's what I wrote to him.
--Turkey
No -- I'm not arguing for pre-emptive arrest. None of these laws change the fact that conspiracy is, and always was a crime. If one plans to commit any crime, it's a conspiracy. There's no need for a specific pre-emptive law that increases the (already very severe) penalties. The only thing that this attempts to do is serve as a deterrent...which as I stated before, doesn't work against terrorists.
You are also ignoring the meat of my post that "cyberterrorism" is not the threat it's made out to be. It's either a way for governments to extend their power, or it serves as a poor answer to the public outcry ("do something!"). American public utilities and critical services are not part of, or in any way hooked up to the public Internet or any other public network (I don't know about Singapore's). If they were, the people who did set it up are recklessly, and potentially criminally, irresponsible (this goes for Singapore too).
I've heard the same rhetoric from US legislators (something along the lines of using a mouse as a weapon). This is complete bullshit. If anyone should be penalized in a case like this, it's the guy who hooked the power station's computer system (or that of any other essential service) into the public Internet in such a way that a few packets could be as devistating as a bomb which will end lives (these services, IIRC, are not hooked into the public Internet). What the fuck are these people thinking? Just capitalizing (by passing hardcore laws) on peoples' fears, I assume.
Nothing like this has ever been done before anyway. They're pre-emptively making laws for crimes which have never been committed. This is the exact same thing that the US government did after September, 2001 (except a little more Draconian). I fail to understand the logic. It's not even a deterrent. Terrorists don't give a shit about penalties (IMO) -- they're terrorists! Most of the ones I've read about are happy to end their lives for their cause.
It doesn't make any sense to me on any level.
Why would Italy hand him over? You must have an even lesser understanding of US/International law than I do. He didn't break any Italian laws. I don't think that he broke any US laws in the US. The Dimitri Skylarov (spelling?) case is relevant here. He was charged with violating the US DMCA and prifiting from it (offering US products for sale to Americans in the US), and no attempt was even made to extradite him (foriegn governments are typically serious about their soverignty and they don't just hand their citizens over for the hell of it). However, Dimitry was arrested as soon as he set foot on US soil. The Russian case may be different because it was even less bullshit than this one (that's not to say that it wasn't a bullshit case) but it is, however, completely relevant to the discussion.
All this being said, if GameSpy does any business in Italy, I believe that they can go after him in civil court there...but again, there is no case for extradition.
If I were Luigi and had to physically go to the US in the future...I'd probably comply with the dease and desist order and launch a (completely legal) smear campaign against GameSpy (this is all assuming that the guy isn't filthy rich). The simple fact is that they've got deeper pockets than him. He could probably win a lawsuit, but the costs involved would financially devistate anyone but the very wealthy...this is also assuming that GameSpy has the capital (and is willing) to litigate. Hey, it's a case of life not being fair, and litigation being expensive everywhere in the world.
IANAL
I wouldn't be too sure about these claims. Judging from this page, there's been a few million in insider trading since June (unless I've been reading this wrong, which is entirely possible). Quite a bit for such a small company (2.4%). One executive has sold somewhere around $1,595,650 in stock since June...around 125,000 shares of his original 215,000. Sounds like a majority of his holdings to me. Now I don't know much about finance, but I think I can say this with authority: Small amounts to cover tax penalties my ass. That's a fortune, even after taxes.
The only consumerland service I've used is Vonage -- and they do exactly what you asked for. It also allows you to use your normal analog phone. I kept my POTS line for a few months while I tried out Vonage. It was good enough, so I dropped Verizon. I've found that Vonage is not as reliable as the POTS services -- sometimes incoming calls don't make it through, as well as outgoing calls not connecting. That being said, the vast majority of my calls have been completed. Dropped calls are extremely rare. I still recommend keeping a mobile phone -- just in case.
Although the VoIP calls take a relatively small amount of bandwidth, if you do alot of uploading and have limited upstream bandwidth (I'm considering 384 Kb/s limited) -- you will probably want to do some type of QoS routing on your end to ensure that there is sufficient bandwidth to carry your conversation.
The best thing to do is to check out Vonage's website. They have enough information there to answer most of your questions.
If his house ever had POTS service, LEC's in the US are now required to offer 911 service, regardless of whether or not the line is paid for. If he has an extra phone lying around, he can just plug it into the old POTS line for 911 use only.
Secondly, Vonage offers E911 service that gets routed to a different PSAP from the regular 911 service, although it is treated as an emergency. See here for details.
This is mostly doable...and your OS of choice is (for the most part) irrelevant -- be it Linux, *BSD, Windows, or QNX. With a service like Vonage, you get a Cisco ATA, which you plug your ordinary phone into. It differs slightly from your ideal situation, since it does not give your phone an individual IP address (and a POTS phone will not respond to an IP address anyway)...but judging from the documentation I was able to dig up, it's all very hackable. I'm sure that you can make your phone ring using a PC (and some know-how). Further, I'm sure that you can intercept, decode, and possibly insert whatever you need (be it DTMF or otherwise). It just takes time and effort. If you're using a service like Vonage, intercepting the transmission is simple, and can be done using a packet sniffer, or simply using a modem as an intermediary between your ATA and analog phone (all on the analog side, not the Ethernet side). I believe that vgetty has the ability to easily interpret the DTMF (for dialtones, dialed digits, ringtones, etc). Inserting signal into the line can also be accomplished fairly easily (with time and effort).
This is doable as well. Use another analog modem for this. Again, check out vgetty for voicemail and other related services.
I doubt that the big players in the industry are sweating this. Not many companies (who buy these multi-thousand dollar devices) care that much about programability beyond what's already available. They would rather spend more money on a phone system that just works than a really cheap one that requires a full-time employee dedicated to configuring and maintaining that system. It ends up costing more in the end. Your proxy idea, where you have an analog line conntected to an IP network and saving long distance dollars -- VoIP companies do this now. I think it's easier to spend $25 a month on it than roll my own.
As far as the government -- what country are you from, anyway? I'm in the US and use VoIP regularly, which is currently not as easy as POTS to wiretap. I'm positive that, as it becomes more widespread, my government will find a way to tap those lines even easier than POTS phones. Also, remember that most home user's VoIP calls terminate to a POTS line, making at least one end tapable. Finally, the US government typically does not put limitations on encryption for use inside of the country. There is no reason why they would ever ban it. ...This is all presuming that you're in the US though.
That being said, it would make a cool project anyway. When do you get started?
With all due respect to the author, the question (as it stands) is not worded particularly well, and there is very little chance that a reliable answer will emerge.
One extremely important detail that you are leaving out is who is offering the service. You also fail to mention the specifics of their operation. IP telephony and VoIP are very different, and there's no way to be sure which one you're talking about. (You clearly indicate VoIP, but the term is so misused that I'm taking your usage of the term with a grain of salt. Pardon me if I have done so erroneously).
Because your cable operator maintains control over your lines, they are able to offer service guarantees that other services (like Vonage) cannot. I cannot say whether or not your operator does take advantage of this, however. Think of it this way: Typically, when you choose an IP telephony solution, you're getting a leased line to your IP telephony provider's data center. They control everything along the way -- and can use routing protocols like QoS and ToS reliably, ensuring that your packets make it to where they need to go, when they need to get there. With a VoIP solution (again, like Vonage), your service is running over public Internet lines. The VoIP provider has no way of guarantying that the packets will get to them in a timely fashion. In the short time I've spent hacking around my Vonage service, I've found some ToS packets -- but since Vonage has no control over this, your ISP (or any other router along the way) can just ignore these ToS (and/or QoS) packets. In short, your packets get there when they get there. Sometimes it will work great, others it just doesn't work at all.
If you can provide a link to some technical information about the service, I'm sure that some of the more saavy folks here can disseminate that information and tell you whether or not the technology should work. It's up you your cable operator to actually follow through with the reliability (again, you left out the detail of who your provider is). This is the first I've heard of cable operators offering such a service (although I have a bit of experience with a number of different types of VoIP and IP telephony services).
However, if you're in the US, I'd suggest that you try it out. I've switched to Vonage. My primary motivation was my unwillingness to do business with Verizon...and even with deregulation, if I use POTS, I'm paying my local monopoly. So I gave up on it. Just remember that YMMV, so don't sign any long-term service contracts.
The trial isn't until 2005? IANAL, but 2005 seems like a pretty far out date. I'm shocked that SCO is able to threaten Linux users with litigation without even settling the matter of who really owns the IP in question. Can they really do that? If the IBM case gets dismissed before it goes to trial, can SCO still press on with suits against users?
If so, SCO's antics are going to cost the taxpayers (that's me, goddamnit) an assload of money in court costs. There is also a lot of potential for this to significantly slow the adoption (and adaptation) of Linux in so many industries (although I'm still not ready to believe any of the MS conspiracy theories). Any folks with some knowledge of the law have any insight to share on the legality of the stuff above? (But please, not the MS conspiracy theory stuff).
Yeah -- those screenshots really tell the whole story, don't they? ;)
All kidding aside, they've made some significant changes to the RH9 core. Check out the release notes.
The stuff that really interests me is:
- Prelinking: (search for it in the link above) From an end user perspective, it will make applications load faster, as dynamicly linked libraries will be loaded ahead of time into unused memory.
- Exec-Shield: (again, search for it in the release notes) Exec-shield purports to randomize VM addresses and make parts of applications (as well as their stack) non-executable. Think of it as "damage control" for security holes. The integrated stack protection (that the Exec-shield kernel addition replaces/includes) is very important for foiling buffer overflow attacks.
- /proc/cpufreq (again, see the notes) Maybe this has been done elsewhere, but I've neither used or seen it. Apparently, you can do CPU clock throttling. This is particularly useful for laptops where CPU speed is scaled down to conserve battery. This technology is still in its infancy (for Linux, anyway) and has a way to go, but is an excellent start nonetheless.
- Laptop mode compliments
/proc/cpufreq and changes disk access to a sort of block-mode that will space apart disk accesses allow for the disk to spin down and conserve battery.
- Extended RPM/Up2Date support: Up2Date now supports APT and YUM, as well as local databases. (I read somewhere that the default package management is now APT but cannot confirm this.)
Anyway, this is just the stuff that piqued my interest. There are plenty of other changes that look pretty promising. I hadn't read much about Fedora until recently, and nothing technical until today -- but after scanning over the release notes, I'm ready to dump my RH9 desktop box and install Fedora.If Red Hat sued anyone for reselling RH Linux, they would be in violation of the GPL. I'd be interested in any links or documents you can provide on the topic. Maybe my understanding of the GPL has changed...or there is somethung else involved (maybe RH's artwork). RH is still GPL'ed, right?
I don't remember seeing this warning when I installed iTunes. Have you actually seen this, or is this just what you've read? Was it in the original release?
My iPod experience would scare me away from buying any other Apple product, ever. The fact is that on Windows, the iPods are riddled with problems. Check out the forums. It's fine that there are problems -- they're expected with bleeding-edge hardware. The problem is that Apple hasn't even acknowledged these problems, and I don't forsee them being fixed any time soon.
Other than the price point and that damned single mousebutton (but alot of context menus in the interface) -- I think that Apple has excellent machines. However, after my iPod experience, I wouldn't have bought one of their laptops either.
But why then, does iTunes have to break MM in the first place? Give me that choice up front.
It's a Good Thing...unless the people writing the viruses are actually anti-spam fanatics trying to make the spammers look worse. It wouldn't surprise me if this were the case -- especially due to the relative ineffectiveness of most of those RBL's.
One of the reasons why so many "old school" gamers are critical of new games is the expectation of better gameplay with better hardware. Things like a credible AI tend to take a backseat to flashy graphics and sound.
Back in the day, the complexity of our games was limited by the hardware we had available to us. Most games on the market pushed every piece of the hardware to the limit. Back in my Amiga days, some games and demos came with their own OS on the disk to avoid the overhead of Amiga's desktop OS so they could squeeze a little more performance out of the system...and this system was far more advanced than the really old school systems that I grew up playing games on (Commodore 64, Atari 2600, NES, Activision, etc).
Because of the hardware limitation, not only were the graphics and sound limited, much of the gameplay had to be as simple as possible.
Now, 20+ years later, our hardware has surpassed nearly every physical limitation that the early game developers had to overcome. The graphics and sound in modern games are breathtaking -- with no indication that they won't keep getting better (which I can really appreciate). However, the gameplay itself has not evolved with the graphics and sound. I'll admit that the gameplay is far more complex than it was back in the day -- but I'm afraid that it has been far outpaced by the graphics and sound. Furthermore, much of the complexity in modern games is accounted for by a steep learning curve and a combersome control interface -- not a brilliant AI engine (which is what I'd really like to see) and/or a truly interactive world.
Just like with the Six Million Dollar Man -- we have the technology. Hopefully, our game developers will start to really use it.
While I understand (and agree with) your principle of a higher purpose-based taxes (and removing our income taxes), I couldn't disagree more with how you're getting there...First, the true cost of a large SUV is not transparent to the owner. I think that you may just be looking at this incorrectly. You've got sales and property tax (and on an already expensive vehicle, it's alot of money) The increased fuel consumption (and premium fuel requirements) both add to the cost of the vehicle (and there are already pretty heavy federal and state taxes on that gas). It's also expensive to get into to begin with, and many states levy a luxury tax against the car. Also, if said vehicle is over a certain weight, it's classified as a truck. I don't know what the weight/axle cutoff is, but from what I understand, most vehicles under that weight have a negligable effect on road-wear compared to other cars in that weight range (~2000-6000 Lbs). It's kind of a moot argument that SUV's do more wear and tear. Trucks have a special status in that they do have to pay for permits to cover the additional wear-and-tear on the roads. Those people don't need any additional taxes (and our interstate highway system was built [and is maintained] more for them than us). Additional road taxes will affect trucking more than you and me. Affecting trucking means that the cost to shipping raw materials around increases (as well as the cost of any business that needs to move anything anywhere), which means that everything we buy is more expensive. I agree that income tax should be reduced (greatly) for everyone...but the way you went about making that point just doesn't work.
Most of our taxes go to subsidizing something for someone...it's how it works. Big SUV's are the least egregious example of this. Sorry -- but your example is really bad, and I can chalk it up as basic anti-SUV banter that doesn't really make any sense to me.
This kind of article is pretty irritating. It appeals to pop environmentalists who have no real interest in the science of it. This article is just for the "we're all doomed, and it's the SUV people's fault" people. The numbers are stretched a little thinner than reasonable, and are based on presumptions that can't be proven (ala, where oil comes from).
Sure, cars are a glaring issue for the ecological folks (and a really easy target), but it's not something that's easily remedied. Even if we could just change the cars, there is hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure dedicated to our cars that would take more than a decade to change. In this case, whining about doesn't help.
Maybe we need something more than just an easy target. Maybe, instead of blaming cars for our environmental problems, we should take another look. Maybe it's not worth it to spend 5,000 (total guesstimate) calories on shippping a 50-calorie orange across the country. Maybe we should be doing things like supporting our local farmers and buying what's in-season and local. Maybe those farms should employ fallow strips to curb eutrophication in our water systems...and more importantly, maybe we should worry more about what human waste is doing to these water systems and try employing similar tactics to not disturb that balance. I'm sure that there are a hundred reasonable things we can start doing that will help us more than just blaming cars for all (or even most) of our ecological troubles...especially when immediate change is just not possible. Instead -- employ what change that you can individually...maybe this guy should take the time spent on bitching about cars doing something contructive -- I'll be he will accomplish a whole lot more.
However, when it comes to cars, the fact is that although we are all part of a larger community, and we are social beings -- humans are still highly individualistic creatures. This means that as soon as we had both personal transportation and mass transit, we figured out which one we liked better (hint: not mass transit). We like cars. Cars are a part of North American and European personal identity (can't speak for other continents...I haven't been there). Individual transportation will never be as efficient as mass transit...but when given the choice, I'll put dollars to dimes that 9 out of 10 would rather be isolated from everyone else, in a soft leather-clad vehicle, with the climate control set to their preference, climate-controlled seats...and with their music on in the background. Especially when you contrast the happy car experience to having to sit (if you're lucky...I had to stand msot of the time when I took the subway to work) next to some smelly, hairy guy on the bus/subway while he eats some weird (somehow smellier than he) meat-on-a-stick -- at the same time, some screaming freak is angrily walking up and down your car ranting about his violent experience in prison which just ended...just now. Hell -- I'd definitely take the former in a heartbeat.