And yet, apparently hardly any of Microsoft's new features (including many that are basically cosmetic) use the new technology. It's understandable that the Windows NT kernel isn't being rewritten in C#, but Microsoft has lots of functionality (and supposedly quite a bit of new functionality) that would be a perfect fit for.NET.
Heck, if Novell can use Mono to write iFolder, you would think that Microsoft would use.NET for something.
They didn't boot geeks and their laptops, they booted freeloaders with laptops. They also booted legitimate customers with laptops. If the new ambiance of no laptops draws a better crowd on the weekends, great. I'm curious what this would do for the weekdays.
No, they booted everyone with laptops, and they made more money. Now, it's possible that they might have made more money still by requiring that wi-fi users actually buy something, but that's hardly a given. Heck, from the article it would appear that there is quite a bit of evidence that it's the lack of technology that is making this coffee shop more profitable. Apparently some people want to go to a coffee shop to shoot the breeze and drink coffee, not to check their email.
Sure now they just have to purchase a computer to use as a server, hire someone to set it up, and find some way to print out receipts with passcodes.
Or they could do what they did in the story and simply turn the wi-fi off, have several of their "regular" patrons thank them, make their employees happy, and have a record setting weekend's revenues.
It would appear, my friend, that at least one coffee shop has demonstrated that it does more business without wi-fi than with it. Apparently this particular business had more people buying coffee when the booted the geeks and their laptops.
Now this particular business could go through the expense of setting up some sort of pay as you go wi-fi system, but there is no guarantee that such a system would be a good investment. Especially considering that the business sells more coffee with the wi-fi turned off.
Yes, and now it looks as though the "powers that be" are going to force everyone to do something similar. Either you are going to have to be smart enough to set up your mail so that these sorts of attacks are impossible, or you don't get to send email at all.
Sure, but then you are stuck on Windows 98 (with all of its many problems). Linux starts to look a heck of a lot better when you are comparing it to Windows 98.
In the long run this is very likely to be Microsoft's biggest problem. Somehow Microsoft has got to keep its customers on the upgrade treadmill, and it has to do so without losing customers to Linux. Dragging customers along for the ride is going to get much harder going forward. After all, moving from Windows 98 to Windows XP is almost certainly worth the price of admission, but lots of folks are going to feel like their Windows XP machines are still "good enough" for quite some time. Especially when you consider that Longhorn will probably require the purchase of a new computer.
The folks at Sun did get to choose the tools, that's why they used Java. If the Free Software Foundation had chosen the tools then OO.org would probably use guile or some other Free Software tool.
The problem, of course, is that OO.org's new Java stuff didn't work with any of the Free Software JVMs. Now, that may not seem like a problem to you, but that's precisely the sort of thing that gets the folks at the Free Software Foundation worked up. So what did the FSF do? It looked into forking the OO.org code and replacing the Java dependencies with Free Software. The FSF hackers wanted a version of OO.org that they could use on a completely Free system, and they were willing to put in the work to make such a beast happen.
The folks at Sun have a long history of dealing with the FSF, and they knew that the last thing that they wanted to see was a Java-free FSF fork of OO.org that would draw potential hackers away from their codebase. This is especially true considering the fact that distributions like Red Hat (and Fedora), Debian, and many others would almost certainly use the Free Software fork of OO.org by default. So Sun offered to cooperate more with the hackers working on running OO.org on gcj.
That's nothing more than straightforward diplomacy. Neither side got what they really wanted, but it was close enough that the two sides are willing to work together. The FSF would much rather have gcj be the default Java for OO.org, and it would like to see the documentation and everything else reflect the use of gcj and not Sun's proprietary Java, but that's not what the FSF is going to get. What the FSF is going to get is that Sun is going to include fixes that will allow you to use gcj into the main branch of OO.org. My guess is that Sun is going to do just enough for the FSF so that it isn't tempted to fork OO.org.
Personally, I am glad that the two groups worked things out. However, if they hadn't worked things out I would probably have used the FSF branch of OO.org simply because that's what Debian would be able to put into main. Debian's packaging system has spoiled me so badly that I now hate having to manage software myself.
The FSF has everything to lose. Their only real asset is their ability to influence developers. If they alienate Java developers as they have Windows developers, they'll very few developers left to influence.
The FSF has been alienating developers since the day it was started. Go back and read what the XEmacs folks have to say about RMS and the FSF, or study up on how gcc became egcs and then became gcc again. Read some of the emails between Guido van Rossum and the folks at the Free Software Foundation from the time period when Python was going through language contortions. Take a look at the Linux Kernel mailing list back when RMS was hacking GNU software so that identified the Linux kernel as "lignux" or the more recent GNU/Linux rants. Read some of the emails between the KDE folks and the FSF back when QT was licensed under the QPL. The list of people that the FSF has "upset" goes on and on and on. In fact, I think that RMS is addicted to conflict.
RMS makes everyone upset at one time or another, because he absolutely positively refuses to bend on Free Software issues. Yet here we are in 2005 and the FSF has more influence than ever. What's more, every time you turn around RMS turns out to be right. The Bitkeeper Linux Kernel fiasco is only one such example.
Sun needs the hard core Free Software hackers more than they need Sun. The Gnome desktop is a perfect example of how Sun's braindead treatment of Java is hurting their chances at a comeback. The Gnome hackers are pretty much unanimous in their desire to use a higher level language for further Gnome development. They would probably use Java if they could, but they can't because it's not Free Software. So instead a huge pile of Gnome hackers are now developing in C# because Mono is mostly finished. Another large whack of Gnome developers are working on getting GCJ to the point where it's useful too, but the stuff that they are working on isn't anything like Sun's Java platform. In a lot of cases these "java-ish" hackers are compiling Java to machine code, and they are invariably using non-pure Java extensions like SWT or Java-GTK for their GUI. So much for write once run anywhere with that kit. The Java Gnome hackers are likely to be more detrimental to the idea of Java as a platform than the Mono Gnome hackers. They are hard at work doing what Microsoft tried to do and failed. These Java hackers are creating Java code that is tied to gcj and the Gnome platform. At least Microsoft's JVM would run pure Java, gcj won't even do that. It only runs software specifically written to target gcj.
The truly funny bit is that in a year from now there is likely to be more C# and gcj-specific Java in Sun's Java Desktop than there is pure Java, and Sun is relying on this new software to help the company make up the deficit of their slowing hardware sales.
Sun isn't even good at influencing Java developers. Most professional Java developers pay more attention to IBM than Sun, and nearly all of them do all of their developing on Windows. With Free Software hackers Sun has a group of people that at least are interested in running some sort of UNIX. And when Java developers do write some Java Free Software they invariably borrow the FSF's GPL, and not one of Sun's myriad licenses.
The FSF is doing just fine. It's Sun that's in trouble of disappearing.
I'm sure Sun is shaking in their boots over the idea of the FSF making their own Java. If RMS and company are such programming Gods why didn't they just write a better office suite instead of whining about OpenOffice?
Sun had *better* be concerned about a Free Software Java replacement. The various Free Software Java Application servers are basically sucking the life out of the proprietary middleware scene, and one of the few real advantages over Red Hat that Sun has is the fact that they control Java.
If the FSF actually does what you suggest the most likely outcome is a gain in market share for C# at Java's expense and a fragmentation in OpenOffice that will slow its adoption.
Actually, the FSF probably wouldn't mind if C# won out over Java. After all, Mono is already a useable replacment for.NET. The FSF is opposed to proprietary software no matter who makes it. Their stance is not a dogmatic against Microsoft.
The FSF may actually have more to lose than Sun.
I doubt it. The Free Software Foundation is run on a shoestring budget, and has almost nothing to lose. It also has a long history of sticking with its principles. Not only that, but the FSF has a long history of actually winning these sorts of battles. QT, MySQL AB, Python, Mozilla, and many other projects have all changed their licensing stance due to pressure from the FSF. After a while the FSF just wears people down. Sun has never really played along with the FSF, but that doesn't stop most Sun admins from installing the GNU tools for Solaris first thing after booting their new Sun boxen.
Sun, on the other hand, is a publicly traded company that is performing poorly. Sun needs the Free Software Foundation to help drive sales of its hardware. If it weren't for the Free Software that has sprung up around Java then Sun wouldn't have a chance in Hades of competing with even the competing Free Software toolkits, much less against Microsoft. And that doesn't even include Sun's nascent desktop projects that all rely almost entirely on Free Software.
If Sun is going to thrive once again then they have to keep the Free Software crowd happy, and Sun's Java stance is simply not getting that done.
Which is precisely what the Free Software Foundation is doing. The FSF people are hoping that the folks at Sun will want to prevent a fork bad enough that they will work at little harder at making OO.org work with gcj. If Sun doesn't play ball then the FSF will fork OO.org and their gcj version will undoubtedly become the version that gets shipped with at least the Debian and Red Hat (and Fedora) distributions (and very probably others as well). And don't think these organizations are bluffing either. Gnome got its start in almost exactly the same way. The FSF, Red Hat, and Debian didn't like the licensing for KDE and so they did something about it.
The real question is whether or not Sun wants a large chunk of its current OO.org's user base to use someone else's fork of OO.org because that's what is currently shaping up to happen. If Sun's execs think that these organizations (especially the FSF) are likely to be "reasonable" about the use of non-free software then they are clearly delusional. Sun has been dealing with GNU software and the FSF forever, and they have never seen them back down once.
The worst part is that Sun really needs the Free Software faction of the Open Source community. After all, it really does take a zealot to propose replacing MS Office with some other piece of software. The pragmatists in the crowd are more than happy to wait and see if MS Office can really be replaced. The people that are currently considering replacing MS Office with OO.org are doing so because they believe in Free Software. Without enough zealots to take that first step OO.org is never going to have serious market penetration.
Yes, Sun's boneheaded moves have motivated some people to work on Free Software. However, this is almost certainly not what Sun had in mind. In fact, Sun's stated reason for not Freeing their JVM and Java libraries is that they are afraid that people will create an incompatible fork. It's ironic that Sun's actions are basically guaranteeing that the Free Software community focus on their incompatible gcj and SWT.
As long as OpenOffice.org runs on a Free Software JVM I don't think that any of the Free Software hackers are likely to complain. They may wish that Sun used some other language as that would make their jobs easier, but if OO.org works with gcj then that's likely to be "good enough."
Agreed, Gnumeric is a better spreadsheet that OO.org's Calc (and it has a cooler name), and if you don't need Word compatibility then Abiword is a far better choice as a word processor.
Personally, I just want to know if Emacs is installed. If it is, sign me up. I could use an inexpensive, portable Emacs terminal.
Slashdot, and other similar sites, are a little different because the whole point is to foster discussion. if someone invents a quote on the spot, or chooses a headline that doesn't fit the story, or whatever there are plenty of people that are willing to point that out. That's the point of Slashdot, it's more of a forum for discussion, than a news source (although once you get enough comments it becomes easy to do a little research and make your own informed decisions).
Michelle, on the other hand, was supposed to be reporting "news." It's often just as biased, but it's supposed to at least be verifiable. You might not agree with the conclusion, but not the facts that were presented. Heck, even on Slashdot the editors don't just make stuff up so that it fits their story.
A dissenting viewpoint is one thing, a misinformed, spiteful, dissenting viewpoint is another thing altogether. Maureen was the worst sort of "hack" reporter, and even her good pieces were filled with holes big enough to drive a Mac truck through. Basically Maureen got all of her information from the same lying scoundrels at SCO that halucinated about imaginary MIT rocket scientists, and mountains of infringing code, and she continued to spout their drivel long after all of the other pro-SCO reports like DiDio and Enderle decided that it would be better to go hide under a rock.
Then MOG topped off her reporting career with an expose that dripped hate, published private information about an individual, and ridiculed a major organized religion. That piece had no business being published in any professional publication. Heck, even the Weekly World News doesn't pull those sorts of tricks.
A dissenting opinion is one thing, but publishing that sort of junk makes the entire publication look bad. It wasn't a dissenting opinion, it was a jealous rant from a so-called reporter that was tired of having PJ rub the truth in her face. If it had been posted here on Slashdot it would probably have been modded down to -5 Troll, and that's saying something. Sys-Con's stock in trade is its credibility, and after publishing that piece their credibility dropped through the floor.
No advertiser wants to be a part of that sort of journalism, and that's especially true seeing as how most of Sys-Con's advertisers are very Free Software friendly. The advertisements I saw around the story were for companies like Monarch Computers (a Linux VAR), Arkeia, and EV1 (they are probably very tired of SCO at this point). An intelligent, and trustworthy, dissenting opinion is one thing, but MOG was neither intelligent nor trustworthy.
Actually, I think that's why Apple calls it iTunes.com. Apple, the computer company, can certainly *own* a service that sells music, they just can't call it "Apple." Besides, Apple is smart enough to know to make money first, and worry about the court case later.
Exactly. The RIAA wants to be able to sell music to iPod users, but the only way to do that is to go through Apple. With the varios WMV vendors there is competition and so the RIAA can dictate terms just like it has always done, but that's not the case with iTMS.
What's worse, the RIAA knows that once people get used to buying music from iTMS Apple could easily use iTMS to market new music. Currently the RIAA is powerful because the record companies are the only way to get your music heard by a large number of people. If Apple can start making hits simply by exposing people to new music via iTMS then the RIAA companies are in serious trouble.
It's a bad idea for those companies that currently create commercial software (especially software that is essentially a commodity like operating systems or office suites). However, for the rest of us, a large body of commodity Free Software would be great. For one thing it would free up a lot of money that companies currently spend on commodity software for custom development. Not to mention the fact that we could finally get away from dealing with Microsoft's black boxes.
Part of the reason that the web has become such a hot bed for technology is that the underlying technology was Free and open. When Microsoft's proprietary office formats are finally replaced by something open then there will almost certainly be a similar surge in office suite technology.
OpenSolaris is currently a vaporware project that is very likely to turn into a "real" product. I get that. For now, however, OpenSolaris is clearly a vaporware product. Sun has been using the forthcoming "open source" version of Solaris for some time as a reason for their Solaris customers to upgrade to version 10 instead of jumping ship to Red Hat. OpenSolaris has clearly been a major part of Sun's marketing scheme, but right now that's all OpenSolaris is, a marketing gimmick.
When OpenSolaris is finally released then customers can compare the newly open Solaris against existing Free Software systems. Until then it is unfair to compare systems that don't exist with ones that do exist.
Yes, and the term "vaporware" fits that sort of behavior to a T. Vaporware means software that is being marketed without an actual release. So far OpenSolaris is nothing but marketing. When Sun originally made its OpenSolaris announcement the release date was supposed to be in November of 2004, then later they pushed it back to January 2005, and now the release date is July 2005.
Until Sun actually releases an OpenSolaris product then OpenSolaris is vaporware by definition. If Sun (or anyone else) has a problem with that monniker, then the correct action is to release some source code. Heck, even if the code is incomplete it would still stop from being "vaporware."
Yes, with Yarro at the head of Canopy, and Canopy had to go to court to get rid of the bum. Canopy is almost certainly free and clear, but Yarro could very well have some explaining to do.
Yes, and lots of other folks would disagree with your assessment that less copyright protection is needed. Yet somehow you feel it is "ethical" to force your will upon the creators of the copyrighted material despite the fact that the agreed upon laws are clearly against you. If you don't like the current laws you are free to try and change them. Good luck though, as most people are fairly happy with the current system. Heck, I happen to agree with you that copyright has gone to far (especially when it comes to the duration that copyrights last), however, I understand that I am not supreme ruler of the entire universe and that sometimes the rule of law requires me to accept laws that I believe are imperfect. If copying the RIAA's works were somehow intrinsic to my survival then perhaps I could see how pushing my will above the will of the music's creators was ethical. Lacking that necessity, and in the face of the dictates of society, I just don't see how any sane person could make a case that distributing the latest Brittney Spears album illegally is ethical. I could maybe cede you the point that Elvis' work (or other early works) should be public domain by now, but by in large these are not the files that are getting traded.
U.S. copyright law is only intrusive and draconian if you disregard it, which no one is forcing you to do. You've clearly got a problem with the RIAA, and you feel that their bad actions justify your own anti-social behavior. Well, that's one heck of a slippery slope.
Unless you are one of the people that believes that copyright should be abolished entirely, then disregarding someone else's copyright is clearly unethical.
Personally, I think that copyright works pretty well. I believe that artists, authors, and computer programmers should be able to decide how their creations are used. Copyright might keep someone from being able to freely make a copy of Windows XP, but it also guarantees that [insert evil corporation here] can't create a modified version of a GPLed program without releasing source code. Copyright also keeps big publishers from simply printing and selling their own versions of popular books without paying the original author.
When you distribute someone else's copyrighted material you are taking their creation and using it contrary to their specific request. As someone who has created some stuff myself, I have a problem with that. In a lot of cases its not about money changing hands, but rather about following the wishes of the copyrighted work's creator.
We already have way too much content, and almost all of it is crap.
I tend to agree that popular music is crap. However, millions of people disagree (which is why the music is "popular"). Either way, disregarding someone else's copyrights is hardly ethical.
These industries could use some extensive thinning out.
Which is why I support artists that are outside of the mainstream. There is plenty of quality music where the artists are happy to let you download their work. I support these artists financially because that is the ethical way to change the music industry. Disregarding copyrights doesn't help anyone. It simply makes it more likely that laws will be passed that force DRM down all of our throats. I may disagree with the musicians that turn their copyrighted material over to the music industry, but it's a choice they made of their own free will. I know that I would be upset if someone used my copyrighted material contrary to my wishes. You simply can't claim the moral high ground while going against the wishes of the folks that created the music in the first case.
Basically, just because I don't like the music industry doesn't give me the right to violate their copyrights.
The real problem with P2P filesharing is that many people don't actually realize that it is illegal. I fix a lot of computers and I have lost track of the amount of times that I have mentioned to someone that they were guilty of distributing copyrighted material illegally only to have them look at me like a deer caught in someone's headlights. Some people understand that what they are doing is illegal, but lots of folks have no idea. These people thought that free music was one of the perks of having an Internet connection and were generally horrified once they learned that what they were doing was illegal.
If it becomes second nature for even honest people to download bootleg music off the Internet then no amount of legislation or litigation is going to help the music industry (and later the television, movie, and publishing industries as well). So someone in the scouting organization is simply pointing out to these kids that disregarding copyrights is illegal and unethical. Personally I am hoping that this sort of thinking becomes more widespread. There is no question that the music industry is evil, but I don't think that throwing out copyrights is the answer.
It is true that criminal cases have a higher standard of evidence, but in most cases the higher standard isn't really required because most of the people accused plead guilty for lighter sentences. Why do they do this, well, it's simple, generally speaking it is because they accused *is* guilty. In the case of most filesharers that would almost certainly be the case. After all, no one is really under the impression that the RIAA is picking on innocent people.
Criminal prosecution would also be less expensive for the RIAA. After all, they could rely on the state to pay for the prosecution.
The RIAA prefers the civil court system for political reasons. Using the criminal courts would appear heavy handed. The RIAA really only wants to deter filesharing (and maybe make a bit of money on the side).
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And yet, apparently hardly any of Microsoft's new features (including many that are basically cosmetic) use the new technology. It's understandable that the Windows NT kernel isn't being rewritten in C#, but Microsoft has lots of functionality (and supposedly quite a bit of new functionality) that would be a perfect fit for .NET.
Heck, if Novell can use Mono to write iFolder, you would think that Microsoft would use .NET for something.
No, they booted everyone with laptops, and they made more money. Now, it's possible that they might have made more money still by requiring that wi-fi users actually buy something, but that's hardly a given. Heck, from the article it would appear that there is quite a bit of evidence that it's the lack of technology that is making this coffee shop more profitable. Apparently some people want to go to a coffee shop to shoot the breeze and drink coffee, not to check their email.
Sure now they just have to purchase a computer to use as a server, hire someone to set it up, and find some way to print out receipts with passcodes.
Or they could do what they did in the story and simply turn the wi-fi off, have several of their "regular" patrons thank them, make their employees happy, and have a record setting weekend's revenues.
It would appear, my friend, that at least one coffee shop has demonstrated that it does more business without wi-fi than with it. Apparently this particular business had more people buying coffee when the booted the geeks and their laptops.
Now this particular business could go through the expense of setting up some sort of pay as you go wi-fi system, but there is no guarantee that such a system would be a good investment. Especially considering that the business sells more coffee with the wi-fi turned off.
Yes, and now it looks as though the "powers that be" are going to force everyone to do something similar. Either you are going to have to be smart enough to set up your mail so that these sorts of attacks are impossible, or you don't get to send email at all.
Sure, but then you are stuck on Windows 98 (with all of its many problems). Linux starts to look a heck of a lot better when you are comparing it to Windows 98.
In the long run this is very likely to be Microsoft's biggest problem. Somehow Microsoft has got to keep its customers on the upgrade treadmill, and it has to do so without losing customers to Linux. Dragging customers along for the ride is going to get much harder going forward. After all, moving from Windows 98 to Windows XP is almost certainly worth the price of admission, but lots of folks are going to feel like their Windows XP machines are still "good enough" for quite some time. Especially when you consider that Longhorn will probably require the purchase of a new computer.
The folks at Sun did get to choose the tools, that's why they used Java. If the Free Software Foundation had chosen the tools then OO.org would probably use guile or some other Free Software tool.
The problem, of course, is that OO.org's new Java stuff didn't work with any of the Free Software JVMs. Now, that may not seem like a problem to you, but that's precisely the sort of thing that gets the folks at the Free Software Foundation worked up. So what did the FSF do? It looked into forking the OO.org code and replacing the Java dependencies with Free Software. The FSF hackers wanted a version of OO.org that they could use on a completely Free system, and they were willing to put in the work to make such a beast happen. The folks at Sun have a long history of dealing with the FSF, and they knew that the last thing that they wanted to see was a Java-free FSF fork of OO.org that would draw potential hackers away from their codebase. This is especially true considering the fact that distributions like Red Hat (and Fedora), Debian, and many others would almost certainly use the Free Software fork of OO.org by default. So Sun offered to cooperate more with the hackers working on running OO.org on gcj.
That's nothing more than straightforward diplomacy. Neither side got what they really wanted, but it was close enough that the two sides are willing to work together. The FSF would much rather have gcj be the default Java for OO.org, and it would like to see the documentation and everything else reflect the use of gcj and not Sun's proprietary Java, but that's not what the FSF is going to get. What the FSF is going to get is that Sun is going to include fixes that will allow you to use gcj into the main branch of OO.org. My guess is that Sun is going to do just enough for the FSF so that it isn't tempted to fork OO.org.
Personally, I am glad that the two groups worked things out. However, if they hadn't worked things out I would probably have used the FSF branch of OO.org simply because that's what Debian would be able to put into main. Debian's packaging system has spoiled me so badly that I now hate having to manage software myself.
The FSF has been alienating developers since the day it was started. Go back and read what the XEmacs folks have to say about RMS and the FSF, or study up on how gcc became egcs and then became gcc again. Read some of the emails between Guido van Rossum and the folks at the Free Software Foundation from the time period when Python was going through language contortions. Take a look at the Linux Kernel mailing list back when RMS was hacking GNU software so that identified the Linux kernel as "lignux" or the more recent GNU/Linux rants. Read some of the emails between the KDE folks and the FSF back when QT was licensed under the QPL. The list of people that the FSF has "upset" goes on and on and on. In fact, I think that RMS is addicted to conflict.
RMS makes everyone upset at one time or another, because he absolutely positively refuses to bend on Free Software issues. Yet here we are in 2005 and the FSF has more influence than ever. What's more, every time you turn around RMS turns out to be right. The Bitkeeper Linux Kernel fiasco is only one such example.
Sun needs the hard core Free Software hackers more than they need Sun. The Gnome desktop is a perfect example of how Sun's braindead treatment of Java is hurting their chances at a comeback. The Gnome hackers are pretty much unanimous in their desire to use a higher level language for further Gnome development. They would probably use Java if they could, but they can't because it's not Free Software. So instead a huge pile of Gnome hackers are now developing in C# because Mono is mostly finished. Another large whack of Gnome developers are working on getting GCJ to the point where it's useful too, but the stuff that they are working on isn't anything like Sun's Java platform. In a lot of cases these "java-ish" hackers are compiling Java to machine code, and they are invariably using non-pure Java extensions like SWT or Java-GTK for their GUI. So much for write once run anywhere with that kit. The Java Gnome hackers are likely to be more detrimental to the idea of Java as a platform than the Mono Gnome hackers. They are hard at work doing what Microsoft tried to do and failed. These Java hackers are creating Java code that is tied to gcj and the Gnome platform. At least Microsoft's JVM would run pure Java, gcj won't even do that. It only runs software specifically written to target gcj.
The truly funny bit is that in a year from now there is likely to be more C# and gcj-specific Java in Sun's Java Desktop than there is pure Java, and Sun is relying on this new software to help the company make up the deficit of their slowing hardware sales.
Sun isn't even good at influencing Java developers. Most professional Java developers pay more attention to IBM than Sun, and nearly all of them do all of their developing on Windows. With Free Software hackers Sun has a group of people that at least are interested in running some sort of UNIX. And when Java developers do write some Java Free Software they invariably borrow the FSF's GPL, and not one of Sun's myriad licenses.
The FSF is doing just fine. It's Sun that's in trouble of disappearing.
Sun had *better* be concerned about a Free Software Java replacement. The various Free Software Java Application servers are basically sucking the life out of the proprietary middleware scene, and one of the few real advantages over Red Hat that Sun has is the fact that they control Java.
Actually, the FSF probably wouldn't mind if C# won out over Java. After all, Mono is already a useable replacment for .NET. The FSF is opposed to proprietary software no matter who makes it. Their stance is not a dogmatic against Microsoft.
I doubt it. The Free Software Foundation is run on a shoestring budget, and has almost nothing to lose. It also has a long history of sticking with its principles. Not only that, but the FSF has a long history of actually winning these sorts of battles. QT, MySQL AB, Python, Mozilla, and many other projects have all changed their licensing stance due to pressure from the FSF. After a while the FSF just wears people down. Sun has never really played along with the FSF, but that doesn't stop most Sun admins from installing the GNU tools for Solaris first thing after booting their new Sun boxen.
Sun, on the other hand, is a publicly traded company that is performing poorly. Sun needs the Free Software Foundation to help drive sales of its hardware. If it weren't for the Free Software that has sprung up around Java then Sun wouldn't have a chance in Hades of competing with even the competing Free Software toolkits, much less against Microsoft. And that doesn't even include Sun's nascent desktop projects that all rely almost entirely on Free Software.
If Sun is going to thrive once again then they have to keep the Free Software crowd happy, and Sun's Java stance is simply not getting that done.
Which is precisely what the Free Software Foundation is doing. The FSF people are hoping that the folks at Sun will want to prevent a fork bad enough that they will work at little harder at making OO.org work with gcj. If Sun doesn't play ball then the FSF will fork OO.org and their gcj version will undoubtedly become the version that gets shipped with at least the Debian and Red Hat (and Fedora) distributions (and very probably others as well). And don't think these organizations are bluffing either. Gnome got its start in almost exactly the same way. The FSF, Red Hat, and Debian didn't like the licensing for KDE and so they did something about it.
The real question is whether or not Sun wants a large chunk of its current OO.org's user base to use someone else's fork of OO.org because that's what is currently shaping up to happen. If Sun's execs think that these organizations (especially the FSF) are likely to be "reasonable" about the use of non-free software then they are clearly delusional. Sun has been dealing with GNU software and the FSF forever, and they have never seen them back down once.
The worst part is that Sun really needs the Free Software faction of the Open Source community. After all, it really does take a zealot to propose replacing MS Office with some other piece of software. The pragmatists in the crowd are more than happy to wait and see if MS Office can really be replaced. The people that are currently considering replacing MS Office with OO.org are doing so because they believe in Free Software. Without enough zealots to take that first step OO.org is never going to have serious market penetration.
Yes, Sun's boneheaded moves have motivated some people to work on Free Software. However, this is almost certainly not what Sun had in mind. In fact, Sun's stated reason for not Freeing their JVM and Java libraries is that they are afraid that people will create an incompatible fork. It's ironic that Sun's actions are basically guaranteeing that the Free Software community focus on their incompatible gcj and SWT.
As long as OpenOffice.org runs on a Free Software JVM I don't think that any of the Free Software hackers are likely to complain. They may wish that Sun used some other language as that would make their jobs easier, but if OO.org works with gcj then that's likely to be "good enough."
Agreed, Gnumeric is a better spreadsheet that OO.org's Calc (and it has a cooler name), and if you don't need Word compatibility then Abiword is a far better choice as a word processor.
Personally, I just want to know if Emacs is installed. If it is, sign me up. I could use an inexpensive, portable Emacs terminal.
Slashdot, and other similar sites, are a little different because the whole point is to foster discussion. if someone invents a quote on the spot, or chooses a headline that doesn't fit the story, or whatever there are plenty of people that are willing to point that out. That's the point of Slashdot, it's more of a forum for discussion, than a news source (although once you get enough comments it becomes easy to do a little research and make your own informed decisions).
Michelle, on the other hand, was supposed to be reporting "news." It's often just as biased, but it's supposed to at least be verifiable. You might not agree with the conclusion, but not the facts that were presented. Heck, even on Slashdot the editors don't just make stuff up so that it fits their story.
A dissenting viewpoint is one thing, a misinformed, spiteful, dissenting viewpoint is another thing altogether. Maureen was the worst sort of "hack" reporter, and even her good pieces were filled with holes big enough to drive a Mac truck through. Basically Maureen got all of her information from the same lying scoundrels at SCO that halucinated about imaginary MIT rocket scientists, and mountains of infringing code, and she continued to spout their drivel long after all of the other pro-SCO reports like DiDio and Enderle decided that it would be better to go hide under a rock.
Then MOG topped off her reporting career with an expose that dripped hate, published private information about an individual, and ridiculed a major organized religion. That piece had no business being published in any professional publication. Heck, even the Weekly World News doesn't pull those sorts of tricks.
A dissenting opinion is one thing, but publishing that sort of junk makes the entire publication look bad. It wasn't a dissenting opinion, it was a jealous rant from a so-called reporter that was tired of having PJ rub the truth in her face. If it had been posted here on Slashdot it would probably have been modded down to -5 Troll, and that's saying something. Sys-Con's stock in trade is its credibility, and after publishing that piece their credibility dropped through the floor.
No advertiser wants to be a part of that sort of journalism, and that's especially true seeing as how most of Sys-Con's advertisers are very Free Software friendly. The advertisements I saw around the story were for companies like Monarch Computers (a Linux VAR), Arkeia, and EV1 (they are probably very tired of SCO at this point). An intelligent, and trustworthy, dissenting opinion is one thing, but MOG was neither intelligent nor trustworthy.
Actually, I think that's why Apple calls it iTunes.com. Apple, the computer company, can certainly *own* a service that sells music, they just can't call it "Apple." Besides, Apple is smart enough to know to make money first, and worry about the court case later.
Exactly. The RIAA wants to be able to sell music to iPod users, but the only way to do that is to go through Apple. With the varios WMV vendors there is competition and so the RIAA can dictate terms just like it has always done, but that's not the case with iTMS.
What's worse, the RIAA knows that once people get used to buying music from iTMS Apple could easily use iTMS to market new music. Currently the RIAA is powerful because the record companies are the only way to get your music heard by a large number of people. If Apple can start making hits simply by exposing people to new music via iTMS then the RIAA companies are in serious trouble.
It's a bad idea for those companies that currently create commercial software (especially software that is essentially a commodity like operating systems or office suites). However, for the rest of us, a large body of commodity Free Software would be great. For one thing it would free up a lot of money that companies currently spend on commodity software for custom development. Not to mention the fact that we could finally get away from dealing with Microsoft's black boxes.
Part of the reason that the web has become such a hot bed for technology is that the underlying technology was Free and open. When Microsoft's proprietary office formats are finally replaced by something open then there will almost certainly be a similar surge in office suite technology.
OpenSolaris is currently a vaporware project that is very likely to turn into a "real" product. I get that. For now, however, OpenSolaris is clearly a vaporware product. Sun has been using the forthcoming "open source" version of Solaris for some time as a reason for their Solaris customers to upgrade to version 10 instead of jumping ship to Red Hat. OpenSolaris has clearly been a major part of Sun's marketing scheme, but right now that's all OpenSolaris is, a marketing gimmick.
When OpenSolaris is finally released then customers can compare the newly open Solaris against existing Free Software systems. Until then it is unfair to compare systems that don't exist with ones that do exist.
Yes, and the term "vaporware" fits that sort of behavior to a T. Vaporware means software that is being marketed without an actual release. So far OpenSolaris is nothing but marketing. When Sun originally made its OpenSolaris announcement the release date was supposed to be in November of 2004, then later they pushed it back to January 2005, and now the release date is July 2005.
Until Sun actually releases an OpenSolaris product then OpenSolaris is vaporware by definition. If Sun (or anyone else) has a problem with that monniker, then the correct action is to release some source code. Heck, even if the code is incomplete it would still stop from being "vaporware."
Yes, with Yarro at the head of Canopy, and Canopy had to go to court to get rid of the bum. Canopy is almost certainly free and clear, but Yarro could very well have some explaining to do.
Yes, and lots of other folks would disagree with your assessment that less copyright protection is needed. Yet somehow you feel it is "ethical" to force your will upon the creators of the copyrighted material despite the fact that the agreed upon laws are clearly against you. If you don't like the current laws you are free to try and change them. Good luck though, as most people are fairly happy with the current system. Heck, I happen to agree with you that copyright has gone to far (especially when it comes to the duration that copyrights last), however, I understand that I am not supreme ruler of the entire universe and that sometimes the rule of law requires me to accept laws that I believe are imperfect. If copying the RIAA's works were somehow intrinsic to my survival then perhaps I could see how pushing my will above the will of the music's creators was ethical. Lacking that necessity, and in the face of the dictates of society, I just don't see how any sane person could make a case that distributing the latest Brittney Spears album illegally is ethical. I could maybe cede you the point that Elvis' work (or other early works) should be public domain by now, but by in large these are not the files that are getting traded.
U.S. copyright law is only intrusive and draconian if you disregard it, which no one is forcing you to do. You've clearly got a problem with the RIAA, and you feel that their bad actions justify your own anti-social behavior. Well, that's one heck of a slippery slope.
Unless you are one of the people that believes that copyright should be abolished entirely, then disregarding someone else's copyright is clearly unethical.
Personally, I think that copyright works pretty well. I believe that artists, authors, and computer programmers should be able to decide how their creations are used. Copyright might keep someone from being able to freely make a copy of Windows XP, but it also guarantees that [insert evil corporation here] can't create a modified version of a GPLed program without releasing source code. Copyright also keeps big publishers from simply printing and selling their own versions of popular books without paying the original author.
When you distribute someone else's copyrighted material you are taking their creation and using it contrary to their specific request. As someone who has created some stuff myself, I have a problem with that. In a lot of cases its not about money changing hands, but rather about following the wishes of the copyrighted work's creator.
I tend to agree that popular music is crap. However, millions of people disagree (which is why the music is "popular"). Either way, disregarding someone else's copyrights is hardly ethical.
Which is why I support artists that are outside of the mainstream. There is plenty of quality music where the artists are happy to let you download their work. I support these artists financially because that is the ethical way to change the music industry. Disregarding copyrights doesn't help anyone. It simply makes it more likely that laws will be passed that force DRM down all of our throats. I may disagree with the musicians that turn their copyrighted material over to the music industry, but it's a choice they made of their own free will. I know that I would be upset if someone used my copyrighted material contrary to my wishes. You simply can't claim the moral high ground while going against the wishes of the folks that created the music in the first case.
Basically, just because I don't like the music industry doesn't give me the right to violate their copyrights.
The real problem with P2P filesharing is that many people don't actually realize that it is illegal. I fix a lot of computers and I have lost track of the amount of times that I have mentioned to someone that they were guilty of distributing copyrighted material illegally only to have them look at me like a deer caught in someone's headlights. Some people understand that what they are doing is illegal, but lots of folks have no idea. These people thought that free music was one of the perks of having an Internet connection and were generally horrified once they learned that what they were doing was illegal.
If it becomes second nature for even honest people to download bootleg music off the Internet then no amount of legislation or litigation is going to help the music industry (and later the television, movie, and publishing industries as well). So someone in the scouting organization is simply pointing out to these kids that disregarding copyrights is illegal and unethical. Personally I am hoping that this sort of thinking becomes more widespread. There is no question that the music industry is evil, but I don't think that throwing out copyrights is the answer.
Aw... come on. This sort of thing is fun. If the /. editors can use /. to mock idiots and morons then what is the point?
It is true that criminal cases have a higher standard of evidence, but in most cases the higher standard isn't really required because most of the people accused plead guilty for lighter sentences. Why do they do this, well, it's simple, generally speaking it is because they accused *is* guilty. In the case of most filesharers that would almost certainly be the case. After all, no one is really under the impression that the RIAA is picking on innocent people.
Criminal prosecution would also be less expensive for the RIAA. After all, they could rely on the state to pay for the prosecution.
The RIAA prefers the civil court system for political reasons. Using the criminal courts would appear heavy handed. The RIAA really only wants to deter filesharing (and maybe make a bit of money on the side).