What's the "edge" in a government department. I would bet that most government workers with a computer end up having some dealings with the general populace. I would bet that documents created for wide disemination will be published in PDF format (or such), but I will also bet that many government workers will be emailing OpenOffice.org formats willy-nilly within a week. The fact that you can download and install OpenOffice.org for free will also make it easier for government employees to simply say "install OpenOffice.org" to people who complain.
Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't just start handing out CD-R's to folks that complain.
OpenOffice.org will certainly open and save in MS Office formats. However, once you get OpenOffice.org on all of those government desktops how long do you think it is going to be before Israeli government workers are simply emailing around OpenOffice.org formats? MS Word is absolutely useless for opening OpenOffice.org documents. That will leave MS Office users with two alternatives.
Teach clueless OpenOffice.org users how to save their documents in MS Office formats.
Download OpenOffice.org so they can talk with government workers.
Not to mention the fact that once OpenOffice.org becomes the de facto standard for government use lots of other Israeli companies are going to rethink their office suite strategy. Microsoft still has to sell upgrades, and they already have a hard time competing with older versions of their own product. Throw in competition from a useful Free Software office suite (that just happens to be the government standard), and selling MS Office just got to be a whole lot harder. Especially since folks just buying a "Dell" these days generally end up with Corel's PerfectOffice, and not MS Office.
The fact of the matter is that these sorts of switches generally happen faster than you would think. I still remember when Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect were the de-facto standards, and these products went from dominant to underdog in very little time.
The funny thing about office suites is that it doesn't really matter what you like, what matters is what everyone else uses. For example, I still think that WordPerfect is the best word processor I have ever used. However, you can't email WordPerfect documents to people and expect them to be able to read them, and so I spend a lot of time using MS Word.
That's why deals like the Israeli government are so important. If Sun can win over the Israeli government to StarOffice then within a year or so every single Israeli business is going to have a copy of StarOffice (or OpenOffice.org) installed on one of their computers so that they can use StarOffice formats for correspondence with the government. Everyone ends up having to talk to the government, and you can bet that if the government switches office suites that is going to have a big impact on the rest of the Israeli market.
Microsoft is going to have to switch tactics sooner or later. Right now Microsoft uses the fact that their formats are a de-facto standard to tie businesses to their upgrade treadmill. However, the days when Microsoft can walk into a business and dictate terms are over, and frankly, that's good for everyone. I have never thought that Microsoft was a monopoly, but I am glad to see them get a little competition.
Exactly. Once the StarOffice formats become the de-facto standard for communicating with the government lots of other businesses are going to realize that they too can get away with using StarOffice (or OpenOffice.org). If the Israeli government does switch pretty soon every single business in Israel will find that they have to have at least one machine lying around with OpenOffice.org on it.
Swell, so not only do the people living in these countries have to live somewhere where they don't enjoy human rights protections, but we have also rigged the system so that you can basically guarantee a job shortage as well.
Whether you are talking about steel or software it works out just the same. There are far more American companies that purchase custom software than develop custom software. If the market is rigged so that American companies pay more for custom software (because they can't access cheaper markets) then every American company that could have benefited from a lower cost of development loses out.
I am all for keeping the U.S. competitive as well. However, protectionism simply does not work.
How much software is developed by overseas companies?
Currently most major software packages are developed here in the United States. Certainly most of the packaged commercial software is written by U.S. companies. However, if the software tariffs are set up to only discriminate against pre-packaged commercial software developed outside the U.S. then the outsourcing problems are likely to continue. Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Sun, and the rest have large enough margins on their software products that they aren't really pushing for outsourcing. The real problem is the outsourcing of custom development. Companies large and small are outsourcing the creation of their custom applications (and their customization of off-the-shelf applications), and that's where India is making their dough. Remember, less that 20% of software developers work for a commercial software company. The only real way to save American software jobs is to cut down the outsourcing of custom development, and this would definitely raise the price of custom development for any American business that didn't want to purchase their software out of a can.
Let's deal with some concrete examples of why protectionism is bad. Take the steel tariffs, for example. Sure this saved something on the order of 10,000 US jobs. However, it made any American product made of steel more expensive than foreign made steel products (because the U.S. manufacturers had to pay more for raw materials). This was bad for all sorts of U.S. businesses from auto manufacturers to factories making washing machines. In the end far more people end up getting hurt by this sort of protectionism than are helped.
Software tariffs would do just the same thing. U.S. companies would simply end up paying more for their software than their foreign competitors. This is precisely the sort of thing that drives companies to build their factories overseas. Software tariffs might be good for U.S. software engineers, but it would be bad for almost everyone else in the U.S.
Wars cost money. It's much easier to make sure that the oil producing countries stay in line by kicking the most belligerent one in the teeth. In the end selling oil is much more beneficial (to both sides) then going to war.
The U.S. doesn't really want to micro-manage the world. Fact is we don't really care what the rest of you do, unless, of course, it affects us negatively. Disrupting the oil supply would definitely effect us negatively.
However, don't discount the whole weapons of mass destruction thing. Once a country has weapons of mass destruction the U.S. loses a great deal of its leverage. For example, as much as the U.S. would like to be able to sort things out with North Korea like we did in Iraq, we can't, because North Korea could (theoretically, at least) use a nuclear device against us. Politically it is a little embarrassing for George Bush that no WMDs were found, but imagine a world where Saddam Hussein was armed with WMDs.
All things considered, the world is a safer place because of the U.S.'s actions.
The problem with this approach is that effectively gags Linus: He won't be able to open his mouth without fear of being sued. As Linus is the public face of Linux, this would be a form of victory for SCO, not to mention an unacceptable loss of free speech.
Yes, this approach effectively gags Linus, just as it has gagged IBM and Novell for months now. However, it is still the generally accepted practice when you are wrapped up in a lawsuit. You don't want to be on the record where your quotes are easily taken and twisted.
Normally it doesn't work out too badly because your opponent doesn't want to talk to the press much either. Both sides mouth little platitudes about their confidence in their evidence, and that's the extent of it. In fact, more than anything this should have tipped off the various analysts and journalists that SCO's case was bogus. These people know the score, and they know how companies act when they are trying to win. Clearly a whole pile of journalists and analysts had axes to grind with Linux and Free Software in general (or they just wanted to curry favor with the folks at Microsoft). These journalists and analysts currently have access to the movers and shakers in the commercial software world, and if commercial software loses ground to Free Software then their careers will suffer.
The important thing to remember is that Linus still gets to speak his mind. He will have his day in court. The fact of the matter is that it is better for everyone to have these sorts of dramas play out in the courtroom and not in the court of public opinion. It's tempting to speak out now, but it's much better to wait and save your ammunition for the courtroom. Linus (and Linux) are going to be cleared soon enough, it's better to make sure that SCO is destroyed in the process than to throw your two cents in now when your words can only hurt your case.
It's not a question of whether his statements are legal or not. You can say whatever dumb thing you want, whenever you want. The problem is that Linus' words can now be considered "evidence," and they can be used against him in a court of law.
For example, he is now on the record stating that he wrote the original version of these files, but that these files are now different than the originals that he wrote. That may seem innocuous, but who knows what SCO might want to prove in a court of law. Any way you look at it he is making SCO's life easier by pointing out possible flaws in their case.
No, the trick when you have legal difficulties is to say as little as possible, and to never say anything without legal counsel going over the angles.
The real problem is that SCO had to pick a part of the Linux system that actually was similar to their UNIXes. After all, any number of people have access to the code that SCO is saying IBM put into Linux. If they picked something that was obviously bogus then IBM (or Novell) could simply call their bluff. Since no such beast exists SCO simply had to pick a part of the Linux kernel that had to be similar to their UNIX (because there was no other way to write it).
SCO's lie does not have to be terribly convincing. After all, what they really are doing is trying to drive their stock price up, and almost no investors have a clue about UNIX history or copyright law. So SCO simply has to float a big lie and then rely on Microsoft and Sun (and the many analysts and journalists that have a vested interest in derailing Free Software) to act as if the lie was somewhat credible. SCO has said all sorts of crazy things in the press, and people that should know better are acting as if SCO actually has a point.
Since SCO isn't actually trying to win the case (instead they are simply trying to drag it out so that they can dump their shares without getting targetted by the SEC), they can say whatever they want in the press. IBM, Novell, and Red Hat, on the other hand are actually trying to win their respective cases and they know that things that they say in public can be used against them in court. These companies know that the proper place to do your talking is in court. Linus apparently doesn't care that his comments could run him into legal trouble down the road (well, he already had been subpoenaed).
Jeez, now I remember why I hate going into stores that sell CDs. Going to the dentist to have your wisdom teeth removed is an experience too, it doesn't mean that I am volunteering to have any other teeth ripped out of my head.
You and your scruffy, NIN-quoting, black-clothes-wearing haters might enjoy going to the music store to make fun of all the people with actual lives, but the rest of us would just as soon skip all that fun and just get our CDs, by mail preferably. The last thing that I want to do is pay extra for a CD so that I can wallow in all of that "atmosphere."
The only publisher that I know of that has even an inkling of a clue when it comes to ebooks is Baen.
Not only do they offer a wide variety of "free" books, but the books that you do pay for are cheaper than paperbacks. If you buy them in their monthly bundles they are considerably cheaper than paperbacks. Not to mention the fact that the books are available in unencrypted formats.
Read a few Baen books on your PDA (I would suggest the Belisarius series by David Drake and Eric Flint the first three are in the free library), and then tell me that carrying around 60 books on your PDA isn't better than trying to take a paperback without you everywhere.
The good news is that with the Novell/SuSE merger a good portion of the KDE hackers are going to be working for Nat Friedman (formerly of Ximian). My guess is that the former SuSE KDE hackers will soon find themselves spending a good deal of time making KDE compatible with Gnome.
And it's not just Bruce that is making this same hard decision. Pretty much the entire Linux industry is lining up behind Gnome.
Yes, I read the KDE response to Bruce's choice of Gnome for UserLinux, and I also saw how it neatly dodged the primary problem with KDE. The problem with KDE is not technical in nature. Indeed, although Gnome/GTK probably has the edge when it comes to actual applications (especially if you include OpenOffice which Sun has closely allied with Gnome), KDE probably has the more elegant desktop and framework for creating applications.
Unfortunately, the problem with KDE is, and always has been, licensing related. For example, if TrollTech would have switched to the GPL for their QT library before Gnome really got a foothold then the issue would be completely moot. There would be no Gnome, and KDE would reign supreme. However, TrollTech waited too long to make their switch, and by the time they had made the change Gnome was available under the more liberal LGPL. Now, when corporations like Sun, Novell, and the rest go fishing for a viable desktop they are faced with two choices. The first is the slightly more polished KDE that requires that you pay licensing fees for commercial development, or you could go with Gnome and create either Free Software or commercial software without any fees.
Not that Bruce's choice is solely a matter of licensing. The fact that you can create commercial software without paying licensing fees is a huge selling point for Gnome, but that's hardly the only Gnome advantage. For whatever reason Gnome/GTK also has the edge when it comes to actual applications.
The fact of the matter is that the KDE folks are especially mad about UserLinux because it represented a last slim chance to reverse their current fortunes. KDE is in a bad way. Sun is pushing Gnome like there is no tomorrow. And Novell has purchased SuSE, the one Linux distributor that was willing to pour money into KDE. That leaves SuSE's KDE developers under the direction of Nat Friedman formerly of Ximian.
The money is all flowing towards Gnome, and now it appears that Bruce Perens is going to raise a fairly substantial chunk of change and it is going to end up supporting Gnome development as well. If you are a KDE developer that has got to hurt. Instead of railing on Bruce what the KDE folks need to do is address some of the issues that he raised. Most importantly they need to keep in mind that his decision was not based solely on technical issues (although those exist as well), but that the licensing issues matter as well.
KDE has the lead on the Linux desktop now, but the tiny KDE marketshare isn't going to mean squat going forward. There is so little Linux being used on the desktop that any difference between Gnome marketshare and KDE marketshare is statistically insignificant. The folks pushing for Linux on the desktop have goals of several orders of magnitude more Linux use than there is now.
Actually vi *is* the standard UNIX text editor. In fact, vi is part of the official POSIX specification. In short, the UNIX world actually did standardize on vi. Most UNIXes include vi by default, while Emacs has to be installed separately. So your example is a good one, but it doesn't prove the point you were trying to make.
UserLinux will default to Gnome, and will include it in the default. However, UserLinux will be based on Debian GNU/Linux and so installing KDE will be as simple as 'apt-get install kde'.
The reason that this is an issue is that Bruce has actually raised money for the promotion and development of UserLinux. The KDE folks are cranky because they want the money that is to be spent promoting and developing UserLinux to be spent on their project and not on Gnome.
The problem with the registry isn't that it is undocumented. The problem is that there is no inline documentation. The/etc directory may seem like a bit of a mess, but it is generally a trivial exercise to find the configuration files for the daemon you want to configure (/etc/[daemon-name] being a good place to start). Once you have found those configuration files chances are also good that there will be enough inline documentation, in the form of comments, that you won't actually need to read the man page. As far as I am concerned that is the biggest advantage of plain text configuration files. I can actually read the darn things.
My guess is that this has to do more with patents than with anything else. China has been consistent in their drive to force the industry towards products that they can manufacture without having to pay patent licensing. Since the Chinese probably don't have much wireless equipment already installed, they don't really care about existing standards based on someone else's patents. They would much rather use their tremendous market power to drive industries towards commoditization.
In short, the relative security of 802.11[bg] is a red herring. They don't give a crap about that, and they won't change their mind if the security in their standard gets busted tomorrow.
The Chinese plan is to force current wireless manufacturers to be compatible with the Chinese standard, and then come out with their own chips that implement the Chinese standard. They can then sell these new chips without paying any patent licensing fees and use their inexpensive labor to undercut the foreign products.
Of course, if it means lower prices for wireless products I am all for it. Heck, I would gladly buy products that only supported the Chinese standard if it worked and was less expensive than the current standards.
Corporations are just groups of people, they aren't the devil. They also aren't, generally speaking, inclined to share their weapons research with every wack-job on the Internet. In my opinion, that's the primary difference.
You see, I don't have a problem with weapons, per se. I personally am very glad that the United States (and her allies) have vastly superior weapons than any other force that they are likely to face in the immediate future. If push comes to shove I would just as soon that "my side" had superior weaponry. This is why I don't have a problem with assembly lines that create weapons. You see, big corporations that make weapons (especially in the U.S.) also have a fat pile of laws that state who these weapons can be sold to. Part of the reason that every two-bit terrorist on the planet doesn't have a cruise missile is that "borrowing" one from a corporation is relatively difficult.
Now imagine that the same weapon (or a reasonable facsimilie) can be made with $5000 worth of off-the-shelf parts and a little know how. Well heck, that makes it much easier for any random crazy with $5000 to shoot down a jet liner, and that makes me uncomfortable.
In short, if Mr. Simpson would have simply built the thing and launched it for kicks, I wouldn't have a problem with that. However, he was also sharing his research with a wide range of folks, and that's problematic. Apparently it's not illegal, but it isn't wise to play with government that way (especially if you owe back taxes).
Yes, he was giving out "instructions" for how to build a guided missile for under $5000.
Then the government came along and pressed him for back taxes. If you screw your tinfoil hat on tight enough its possible to even see this as a direct effect of his missile experiments and not just the government tracking down back taxes.
My point wasn't that his actions were illegal, just that they weren't particularly wise. It is never a good idea to draw government attention to yourself, and talking to government employees about exporting jet engines to Iran raises about as many governmental flags as you could possibly raise. Like the original author stated, if you are going to skirt the edges of legality, pay your taxes.
OK, I'll condense the article for you. This guy basically took $5,000 worth of stuff and built a guided missile. In my book, that's a pretty cool hack. I have no problem with that sort of thing as long as the guy takes the gizmo out where no one is likely to get hurt to fly the darn thing.
I do have a problem, however, when he calls his gizmo a DIY Cruise Missile (his words, not mine), and starts handing out instructions on how to build the thing yourself. I am not worried about Mr. Simpson and what he might do (especially since I don't plan on flying anywhere near New Zealand anytime soon), but I am concerned about what others might do with his plans.
Of course, it doesn't really surprise me that you can build a DIY guided missile for $5000. We have come a long way since Werner von Braun, and I suppose it isn't this guys fault for simply pointing out the obvious. If someone wants to blow up an airplane it is not nearly as tricky or as expensive as it used to be.
On the other hand, you can't really blame the New Zealand government for "leaning" on the guy a bit. Especially considering the fact that he owes back taxes. Heck, it's even possible that the government interference isn't related to his DIY Cruise Missile project.
Bruce is the one calling it a DIY Cruise Missile. If it really is a very fast remote controlled aircraft then he should call it that (and pay his taxes...).
Besides, if I was selling pickup trucks full of diesel and fertilizer as a "DIY Truck Bomb" I would expect the government to want to do something about that as well. As the original poster said, if I am going to skirt the edges of the law, I had better make sure that my taxes are up to date (at the very least).
Mr. Simpson might as well have walked into a government building with a large orange jumpsuit with the words "Audit Me" emblazoned on his chest. After all, it's perfectly legal for the government to go after folks that owe back taxes as well.
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What's the "edge" in a government department. I would bet that most government workers with a computer end up having some dealings with the general populace. I would bet that documents created for wide disemination will be published in PDF format (or such), but I will also bet that many government workers will be emailing OpenOffice.org formats willy-nilly within a week. The fact that you can download and install OpenOffice.org for free will also make it easier for government employees to simply say "install OpenOffice.org" to people who complain.
Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't just start handing out CD-R's to folks that complain.
OpenOffice.org will certainly open and save in MS Office formats. However, once you get OpenOffice.org on all of those government desktops how long do you think it is going to be before Israeli government workers are simply emailing around OpenOffice.org formats? MS Word is absolutely useless for opening OpenOffice.org documents. That will leave MS Office users with two alternatives.
Not to mention the fact that once OpenOffice.org becomes the de facto standard for government use lots of other Israeli companies are going to rethink their office suite strategy. Microsoft still has to sell upgrades, and they already have a hard time competing with older versions of their own product. Throw in competition from a useful Free Software office suite (that just happens to be the government standard), and selling MS Office just got to be a whole lot harder. Especially since folks just buying a "Dell" these days generally end up with Corel's PerfectOffice, and not MS Office.
The fact of the matter is that these sorts of switches generally happen faster than you would think. I still remember when Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect were the de-facto standards, and these products went from dominant to underdog in very little time.
The funny thing about office suites is that it doesn't really matter what you like, what matters is what everyone else uses. For example, I still think that WordPerfect is the best word processor I have ever used. However, you can't email WordPerfect documents to people and expect them to be able to read them, and so I spend a lot of time using MS Word.
That's why deals like the Israeli government are so important. If Sun can win over the Israeli government to StarOffice then within a year or so every single Israeli business is going to have a copy of StarOffice (or OpenOffice.org) installed on one of their computers so that they can use StarOffice formats for correspondence with the government. Everyone ends up having to talk to the government, and you can bet that if the government switches office suites that is going to have a big impact on the rest of the Israeli market.
Microsoft is going to have to switch tactics sooner or later. Right now Microsoft uses the fact that their formats are a de-facto standard to tie businesses to their upgrade treadmill. However, the days when Microsoft can walk into a business and dictate terms are over, and frankly, that's good for everyone. I have never thought that Microsoft was a monopoly, but I am glad to see them get a little competition.
Exactly. Once the StarOffice formats become the de-facto standard for communicating with the government lots of other businesses are going to realize that they too can get away with using StarOffice (or OpenOffice.org). If the Israeli government does switch pretty soon every single business in Israel will find that they have to have at least one machine lying around with OpenOffice.org on it.
Swell, so not only do the people living in these countries have to live somewhere where they don't enjoy human rights protections, but we have also rigged the system so that you can basically guarantee a job shortage as well.
That ought to make the world a better place.
Especially if you can unload any shares in the company that you personally own in the meantime.
Whether you are talking about steel or software it works out just the same. There are far more American companies that purchase custom software than develop custom software. If the market is rigged so that American companies pay more for custom software (because they can't access cheaper markets) then every American company that could have benefited from a lower cost of development loses out.
I am all for keeping the U.S. competitive as well. However, protectionism simply does not work.
Currently most major software packages are developed here in the United States. Certainly most of the packaged commercial software is written by U.S. companies. However, if the software tariffs are set up to only discriminate against pre-packaged commercial software developed outside the U.S. then the outsourcing problems are likely to continue. Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Sun, and the rest have large enough margins on their software products that they aren't really pushing for outsourcing. The real problem is the outsourcing of custom development. Companies large and small are outsourcing the creation of their custom applications (and their customization of off-the-shelf applications), and that's where India is making their dough. Remember, less that 20% of software developers work for a commercial software company. The only real way to save American software jobs is to cut down the outsourcing of custom development, and this would definitely raise the price of custom development for any American business that didn't want to purchase their software out of a can.
Let's deal with some concrete examples of why protectionism is bad. Take the steel tariffs, for example. Sure this saved something on the order of 10,000 US jobs. However, it made any American product made of steel more expensive than foreign made steel products (because the U.S. manufacturers had to pay more for raw materials). This was bad for all sorts of U.S. businesses from auto manufacturers to factories making washing machines. In the end far more people end up getting hurt by this sort of protectionism than are helped.
Software tariffs would do just the same thing. U.S. companies would simply end up paying more for their software than their foreign competitors. This is precisely the sort of thing that drives companies to build their factories overseas. Software tariffs might be good for U.S. software engineers, but it would be bad for almost everyone else in the U.S.
Wars cost money. It's much easier to make sure that the oil producing countries stay in line by kicking the most belligerent one in the teeth. In the end selling oil is much more beneficial (to both sides) then going to war.
The U.S. doesn't really want to micro-manage the world. Fact is we don't really care what the rest of you do, unless, of course, it affects us negatively. Disrupting the oil supply would definitely effect us negatively.
However, don't discount the whole weapons of mass destruction thing. Once a country has weapons of mass destruction the U.S. loses a great deal of its leverage. For example, as much as the U.S. would like to be able to sort things out with North Korea like we did in Iraq, we can't, because North Korea could (theoretically, at least) use a nuclear device against us. Politically it is a little embarrassing for George Bush that no WMDs were found, but imagine a world where Saddam Hussein was armed with WMDs.
All things considered, the world is a safer place because of the U.S.'s actions.
Yes, this approach effectively gags Linus, just as it has gagged IBM and Novell for months now. However, it is still the generally accepted practice when you are wrapped up in a lawsuit. You don't want to be on the record where your quotes are easily taken and twisted.
Normally it doesn't work out too badly because your opponent doesn't want to talk to the press much either. Both sides mouth little platitudes about their confidence in their evidence, and that's the extent of it. In fact, more than anything this should have tipped off the various analysts and journalists that SCO's case was bogus. These people know the score, and they know how companies act when they are trying to win. Clearly a whole pile of journalists and analysts had axes to grind with Linux and Free Software in general (or they just wanted to curry favor with the folks at Microsoft). These journalists and analysts currently have access to the movers and shakers in the commercial software world, and if commercial software loses ground to Free Software then their careers will suffer.
The important thing to remember is that Linus still gets to speak his mind. He will have his day in court. The fact of the matter is that it is better for everyone to have these sorts of dramas play out in the courtroom and not in the court of public opinion. It's tempting to speak out now, but it's much better to wait and save your ammunition for the courtroom. Linus (and Linux) are going to be cleared soon enough, it's better to make sure that SCO is destroyed in the process than to throw your two cents in now when your words can only hurt your case.
It's not a question of whether his statements are legal or not. You can say whatever dumb thing you want, whenever you want. The problem is that Linus' words can now be considered "evidence," and they can be used against him in a court of law.
For example, he is now on the record stating that he wrote the original version of these files, but that these files are now different than the originals that he wrote. That may seem innocuous, but who knows what SCO might want to prove in a court of law. Any way you look at it he is making SCO's life easier by pointing out possible flaws in their case.
No, the trick when you have legal difficulties is to say as little as possible, and to never say anything without legal counsel going over the angles.
The real problem is that SCO had to pick a part of the Linux system that actually was similar to their UNIXes. After all, any number of people have access to the code that SCO is saying IBM put into Linux. If they picked something that was obviously bogus then IBM (or Novell) could simply call their bluff. Since no such beast exists SCO simply had to pick a part of the Linux kernel that had to be similar to their UNIX (because there was no other way to write it).
SCO's lie does not have to be terribly convincing. After all, what they really are doing is trying to drive their stock price up, and almost no investors have a clue about UNIX history or copyright law. So SCO simply has to float a big lie and then rely on Microsoft and Sun (and the many analysts and journalists that have a vested interest in derailing Free Software) to act as if the lie was somewhat credible. SCO has said all sorts of crazy things in the press, and people that should know better are acting as if SCO actually has a point.
Since SCO isn't actually trying to win the case (instead they are simply trying to drag it out so that they can dump their shares without getting targetted by the SEC), they can say whatever they want in the press. IBM, Novell, and Red Hat, on the other hand are actually trying to win their respective cases and they know that things that they say in public can be used against them in court. These companies know that the proper place to do your talking is in court. Linus apparently doesn't care that his comments could run him into legal trouble down the road (well, he already had been subpoenaed).
Jeez, now I remember why I hate going into stores that sell CDs. Going to the dentist to have your wisdom teeth removed is an experience too, it doesn't mean that I am volunteering to have any other teeth ripped out of my head.
You and your scruffy, NIN-quoting, black-clothes-wearing haters might enjoy going to the music store to make fun of all the people with actual lives, but the rest of us would just as soon skip all that fun and just get our CDs, by mail preferably. The last thing that I want to do is pay extra for a CD so that I can wallow in all of that "atmosphere."
The only publisher that I know of that has even an inkling of a clue when it comes to ebooks is Baen.
Not only do they offer a wide variety of "free" books, but the books that you do pay for are cheaper than paperbacks. If you buy them in their monthly bundles they are considerably cheaper than paperbacks. Not to mention the fact that the books are available in unencrypted formats.
Read a few Baen books on your PDA (I would suggest the Belisarius series by David Drake and Eric Flint the first three are in the free library), and then tell me that carrying around 60 books on your PDA isn't better than trying to take a paperback without you everywhere.
The good news is that with the Novell/SuSE merger a good portion of the KDE hackers are going to be working for Nat Friedman (formerly of Ximian). My guess is that the former SuSE KDE hackers will soon find themselves spending a good deal of time making KDE compatible with Gnome.
And it's not just Bruce that is making this same hard decision. Pretty much the entire Linux industry is lining up behind Gnome.
Yes, I read the KDE response to Bruce's choice of Gnome for UserLinux, and I also saw how it neatly dodged the primary problem with KDE. The problem with KDE is not technical in nature. Indeed, although Gnome/GTK probably has the edge when it comes to actual applications (especially if you include OpenOffice which Sun has closely allied with Gnome), KDE probably has the more elegant desktop and framework for creating applications.
Unfortunately, the problem with KDE is, and always has been, licensing related. For example, if TrollTech would have switched to the GPL for their QT library before Gnome really got a foothold then the issue would be completely moot. There would be no Gnome, and KDE would reign supreme. However, TrollTech waited too long to make their switch, and by the time they had made the change Gnome was available under the more liberal LGPL. Now, when corporations like Sun, Novell, and the rest go fishing for a viable desktop they are faced with two choices. The first is the slightly more polished KDE that requires that you pay licensing fees for commercial development, or you could go with Gnome and create either Free Software or commercial software without any fees.
Not that Bruce's choice is solely a matter of licensing. The fact that you can create commercial software without paying licensing fees is a huge selling point for Gnome, but that's hardly the only Gnome advantage. For whatever reason Gnome/GTK also has the edge when it comes to actual applications.
The fact of the matter is that the KDE folks are especially mad about UserLinux because it represented a last slim chance to reverse their current fortunes. KDE is in a bad way. Sun is pushing Gnome like there is no tomorrow. And Novell has purchased SuSE, the one Linux distributor that was willing to pour money into KDE. That leaves SuSE's KDE developers under the direction of Nat Friedman formerly of Ximian.
The money is all flowing towards Gnome, and now it appears that Bruce Perens is going to raise a fairly substantial chunk of change and it is going to end up supporting Gnome development as well. If you are a KDE developer that has got to hurt. Instead of railing on Bruce what the KDE folks need to do is address some of the issues that he raised. Most importantly they need to keep in mind that his decision was not based solely on technical issues (although those exist as well), but that the licensing issues matter as well.
KDE has the lead on the Linux desktop now, but the tiny KDE marketshare isn't going to mean squat going forward. There is so little Linux being used on the desktop that any difference between Gnome marketshare and KDE marketshare is statistically insignificant. The folks pushing for Linux on the desktop have goals of several orders of magnitude more Linux use than there is now.
Actually vi *is* the standard UNIX text editor. In fact, vi is part of the official POSIX specification. In short, the UNIX world actually did standardize on vi. Most UNIXes include vi by default, while Emacs has to be installed separately. So your example is a good one, but it doesn't prove the point you were trying to make.
UserLinux will default to Gnome, and will include it in the default. However, UserLinux will be based on Debian GNU/Linux and so installing KDE will be as simple as 'apt-get install kde'. The reason that this is an issue is that Bruce has actually raised money for the promotion and development of UserLinux. The KDE folks are cranky because they want the money that is to be spent promoting and developing UserLinux to be spent on their project and not on Gnome.
The problem with the registry isn't that it is undocumented. The problem is that there is no inline documentation. The /etc directory may seem like a bit of a mess, but it is generally a trivial exercise to find the configuration files for the daemon you want to configure (/etc/[daemon-name] being a good place to start). Once you have found those configuration files chances are also good that there will be enough inline documentation, in the form of comments, that you won't actually need to read the man page. As far as I am concerned that is the biggest advantage of plain text configuration files. I can actually read the darn things.
People are used to the idea of computers being evil. After all, most of them use Windows.
My guess is that this has to do more with patents than with anything else. China has been consistent in their drive to force the industry towards products that they can manufacture without having to pay patent licensing. Since the Chinese probably don't have much wireless equipment already installed, they don't really care about existing standards based on someone else's patents. They would much rather use their tremendous market power to drive industries towards commoditization.
In short, the relative security of 802.11[bg] is a red herring. They don't give a crap about that, and they won't change their mind if the security in their standard gets busted tomorrow.
The Chinese plan is to force current wireless manufacturers to be compatible with the Chinese standard, and then come out with their own chips that implement the Chinese standard. They can then sell these new chips without paying any patent licensing fees and use their inexpensive labor to undercut the foreign products.
Of course, if it means lower prices for wireless products I am all for it. Heck, I would gladly buy products that only supported the Chinese standard if it worked and was less expensive than the current standards.
Corporations are just groups of people, they aren't the devil. They also aren't, generally speaking, inclined to share their weapons research with every wack-job on the Internet. In my opinion, that's the primary difference.
You see, I don't have a problem with weapons, per se. I personally am very glad that the United States (and her allies) have vastly superior weapons than any other force that they are likely to face in the immediate future. If push comes to shove I would just as soon that "my side" had superior weaponry. This is why I don't have a problem with assembly lines that create weapons. You see, big corporations that make weapons (especially in the U.S.) also have a fat pile of laws that state who these weapons can be sold to. Part of the reason that every two-bit terrorist on the planet doesn't have a cruise missile is that "borrowing" one from a corporation is relatively difficult.
Now imagine that the same weapon (or a reasonable facsimilie) can be made with $5000 worth of off-the-shelf parts and a little know how. Well heck, that makes it much easier for any random crazy with $5000 to shoot down a jet liner, and that makes me uncomfortable.
In short, if Mr. Simpson would have simply built the thing and launched it for kicks, I wouldn't have a problem with that. However, he was also sharing his research with a wide range of folks, and that's problematic. Apparently it's not illegal, but it isn't wise to play with government that way (especially if you owe back taxes).
Yes, he was giving out "instructions" for how to build a guided missile for under $5000.
Then the government came along and pressed him for back taxes. If you screw your tinfoil hat on tight enough its possible to even see this as a direct effect of his missile experiments and not just the government tracking down back taxes.
My point wasn't that his actions were illegal, just that they weren't particularly wise. It is never a good idea to draw government attention to yourself, and talking to government employees about exporting jet engines to Iran raises about as many governmental flags as you could possibly raise. Like the original author stated, if you are going to skirt the edges of legality, pay your taxes.
OK, I'll condense the article for you. This guy basically took $5,000 worth of stuff and built a guided missile. In my book, that's a pretty cool hack. I have no problem with that sort of thing as long as the guy takes the gizmo out where no one is likely to get hurt to fly the darn thing.
I do have a problem, however, when he calls his gizmo a DIY Cruise Missile (his words, not mine), and starts handing out instructions on how to build the thing yourself. I am not worried about Mr. Simpson and what he might do (especially since I don't plan on flying anywhere near New Zealand anytime soon), but I am concerned about what others might do with his plans.
Of course, it doesn't really surprise me that you can build a DIY guided missile for $5000. We have come a long way since Werner von Braun, and I suppose it isn't this guys fault for simply pointing out the obvious. If someone wants to blow up an airplane it is not nearly as tricky or as expensive as it used to be.
On the other hand, you can't really blame the New Zealand government for "leaning" on the guy a bit. Especially considering the fact that he owes back taxes. Heck, it's even possible that the government interference isn't related to his DIY Cruise Missile project.
Bruce is the one calling it a DIY Cruise Missile. If it really is a very fast remote controlled aircraft then he should call it that (and pay his taxes...).
Besides, if I was selling pickup trucks full of diesel and fertilizer as a "DIY Truck Bomb" I would expect the government to want to do something about that as well. As the original poster said, if I am going to skirt the edges of the law, I had better make sure that my taxes are up to date (at the very least).
Mr. Simpson might as well have walked into a government building with a large orange jumpsuit with the words "Audit Me" emblazoned on his chest. After all, it's perfectly legal for the government to go after folks that owe back taxes as well.