> someday I'll be able to sit down, get hooked up to a machine, then say "I know Kung Fu". Then I'd say "Whoa" (and subsequently score with Carrie-Anne Moss) then I'd say "Whoa" again
> 1) With enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow - someone will know the answer, or stimulate the person who does.
> 2) Users provide better bug reports including line numbers, decent config information, possibly even patches.
As a part of these phenomena there is the direct interaction between the user and the hacker. A nobody like me can post a problem to the LKML and get a reply from than Alan Cox suggesting things to try that will give him more information about the bug. Or can post something to some project's bugzilla site and as often as not get a response from the lead developer on the very same day.
Compare this to the "help" desk bureaucracy for the typical CSS application, where they whole setup is arranged to buffer the developers from the people spotting the problems.
> Give a random developer 200,000 lines of code he's never seen. Ask him to find a bug. Odds are he'll have lots of trouble doing so. When he's finished, will it make any difference if you tell him that the code was open or closed source? A big project is a big project, period.
Most bugs are found by using the software rather than by reading its code.
The debugging difference between OSS and CSS is (mostly) only interesting in terms of what happens after the bug is found.
> Not always. A more likely explanation is the 'many eyes' that can review the code.
There probably is - in the common case - a motivational issue as well. Presumably most FOSS programmers do their work as a labor of love and take pride in their work. Surely some ECSS programmers do the same, but in my experience most of them just want to get something checked in to get their boss off their back or to free up time for a few games of Minefield before the whistle blows.
Also, in my experience, a high percentage of for-pay programmers are incompetent fuckwits that shouldn't be in the field at all. Perhaps some of those types go into FOSS programming as well, but you wouldn't expect them to last. Nepotism, brown-nosing, and other popular corporate games don't seem to work very well in the FOSS world.
I.e., the FOSS culture essentially operates on a "survival of the fittest" paradigm.
My questions are even simpler (in one sense). How does one duplicate THE creation of THE universe (emphasis added)? THE implies one and only one (as does universe), but apparently there are now two. Did they recreate THE creation, thus THE universe has been created twice (not possible)? Or did they create a new universe so that there is not a "THE universe"? Given these options, what are they naming their creation and how do we go visit? Also what are we calling THE universe as it can't be a universe anymore because it isn't universal and it isn't singular thus no THE?
You need to use more drugs, or else give them up altogether!
> One of the factors highlighted in the ZDNet report is that of commercialisation. The position paper states that using the GPL would remove the option for the government to commercialise and profit from its work.
Yep. Lots of people think software is something you sell rather than something you use to get your work done. Those people will ultimately be against any arrangement that reduces the acquisition cost of software.
> So they're renting space from the parent company, at possibly below market rates, making their own profits look bigger OR at above market rates making the parent companies profits look bigger.
I suspect that this will be listed as "enroning" or "worldcoming" in the next edition of your favorite dictionary.
> What then are they really contributing? Is SCO really a software company? What is it?
Sounds like the so-called "technology firm" - a bunch of lawyers with a big patent portfolio and nothing better to do for society than shake down innocent passers-by, and use the proceeds to buy up more patents.
> And it also seems that a bunch of Canopy power players also sit on SCO's board of directors. The short summary is, 'these guys are professional litigious bastards -- be exceptionally wary.'
I can't find the link, but someone posted to one of the (many) Slashdot SCO stories last week with a link showing that about half a dozen board members had bought large numbers of shares at greatly discounted prices just a few weeks before SCO gave IBM the original ultimatum. (When I say "discounted" I mean far below even the 60Â/share that SCOX was worth back then.)
Coincidence?
Someone please post that link again, if you have it.
> This past academic year the school signed up for the Microsoft Academic Agreement, or whatever the hell it's called. We get WinXP and Office XP for $5.
And I wonder how much your fees went up to pay for the 'deal'.
> I don't think it's an unfair suppository to make at all that Microsoft is viewing this as a high-risk low-cost gamble on SCO winning this fight.
It's not a gamble; it's a kamikazi attack. SCOX was almost worthless and their product had no future. Why let it fade away when you can turn it into a flaming bomb amid the enemy fleet?
Notice that Microsoft wins whether SCO wins or not. The only interesting question is whether SCO's executives are dupes or willing conspirators.
> SCO notified IBM on March 6, 2003 that it intended to terminate in 100 days [...]
What was the date that all those SCOX board members bought thousands of shares at dirt-cheap discounts? February 22 comes to mind, but I can't find the link again. It was on Slashdot within the past few days.
Slashdot Mirror
> Try wpoision, it's a CGI script to generate a random set of email address, infinitely deep. Very fun.
I'm trying to invent an e-mail address that explodes if anyone tries to use it.
> someday I'll be able to sit down, get hooked up to a machine, then say "I know Kung Fu". Then I'd say "Whoa" (and subsequently score with Carrie-Anne Moss) then I'd say "Whoa" again
Ah, so you want a game console.
> "Don't draw the object, draw the space around the object" was a zen moment for me.
I drew in the dark spots and left the rest of the paper white. Or vice versa, if drawing in white chalk on dark paper.
> I don't know about anyone else, but I want to find out how I can get a ".iq" domain...
I heard that "low.iq" can be had at a bargain price.
> 1) With enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow - someone will know the answer, or stimulate the person who does.
> 2) Users provide better bug reports including line numbers, decent config information, possibly even patches.
As a part of these phenomena there is the direct interaction between the user and the hacker. A nobody like me can post a problem to the LKML and get a reply from than Alan Cox suggesting things to try that will give him more information about the bug. Or can post something to some project's bugzilla site and as often as not get a response from the lead developer on the very same day.
Compare this to the "help" desk bureaucracy for the typical CSS application, where they whole setup is arranged to buffer the developers from the people spotting the problems.
> Give a random developer 200,000 lines of code he's never seen. Ask him to find a bug. Odds are he'll have lots of trouble doing so. When he's finished, will it make any difference if you tell him that the code was open or closed source? A big project is a big project, period.
Most bugs are found by using the software rather than by reading its code.
The debugging difference between OSS and CSS is (mostly) only interesting in terms of what happens after the bug is found.
> Not always. A more likely explanation is the 'many eyes' that can review the code.
There probably is - in the common case - a motivational issue as well. Presumably most FOSS programmers do their work as a labor of love and take pride in their work. Surely some ECSS programmers do the same, but in my experience most of them just want to get something checked in to get their boss off their back or to free up time for a few games of Minefield before the whistle blows.
Also, in my experience, a high percentage of for-pay programmers are incompetent fuckwits that shouldn't be in the field at all. Perhaps some of those types go into FOSS programming as well, but you wouldn't expect them to last. Nepotism, brown-nosing, and other popular corporate games don't seem to work very well in the FOSS world.
I.e., the FOSS culture essentially operates on a "survival of the fittest" paradigm.
> One of the factors highlighted in the ZDNet report is that of commercialisation. The position paper states that using the GPL would remove the option for the government to commercialise and profit from its work.
Yep. Lots of people think software is something you sell rather than something you use to get your work done. Those people will ultimately be against any arrangement that reduces the acquisition cost of software.
> So they're renting space from the parent company, at possibly below market rates, making their own profits look bigger OR at above market rates making the parent companies profits look bigger.
I suspect that this will be listed as "enroning" or "worldcoming" in the next edition of your favorite dictionary.
> What then are they really contributing? Is SCO really a software company? What is it?
Sounds like the so-called "technology firm" - a bunch of lawyers with a big patent portfolio and nothing better to do for society than shake down innocent passers-by, and use the proceeds to buy up more patents.
> The eye... it keeps STARING at me! I feel that it can see into the depths of my soul!
No, the 'O' in 'SCO' isn't an eye.
And it's you that's "staring into the depths"!
> And it also seems that a bunch of Canopy power players also sit on SCO's board of directors. The short summary is, 'these guys are professional litigious bastards -- be exceptionally wary.'
I can't find the link, but someone posted to one of the (many) Slashdot SCO stories last week with a link showing that about half a dozen board members had bought large numbers of shares at greatly discounted prices just a few weeks before SCO gave IBM the original ultimatum. (When I say "discounted" I mean far below even the 60Â/share that SCOX was worth back then.)
Coincidence?
Someone please post that link again, if you have it.
> The University of Michigan College of Engineering distributes "blue hat"
And the School of Business distributes "ass hat" Linux?
> This past academic year the school signed up for the Microsoft Academic Agreement, or whatever the hell it's called. We get WinXP and Office XP for $5.
And I wonder how much your fees went up to pay for the 'deal'.
> Here, we've SLAES and AbulÃdu.
Shouldn't that be GnuAbulÃdu ?
> In theory it could be a marvelous idea, especially for technical publications.
Better than plain ol' PDF?
> PS: who else would love to shove their piece up into the Asian chick on the âoeInsight by WebTrendsâ AD that keeps popping up?
> I fucked up all the links, damnit
Browsers don't support that kind of 'gesture'.
> Free trade? Or free trade only when it's good for us?
For a curious conception of 'us'.
Down 8.5% while the markets were closed last night...
Reuters
Yahoo!
> I don't think it's an unfair suppository to make at all that Microsoft is viewing this as a high-risk low-cost gamble on SCO winning this fight.
It's not a gamble; it's a kamikazi attack. SCOX was almost worthless and their product had no future. Why let it fade away when you can turn it into a flaming bomb amid the enemy fleet?
Notice that Microsoft wins whether SCO wins or not. The only interesting question is whether SCO's executives are dupes or willing conspirators.
> SCO notified IBM on March 6, 2003 that it intended to terminate in 100 days [...]
What was the date that all those SCOX board members bought thousands of shares at dirt-cheap discounts? February 22 comes to mind, but I can't find the link again. It was on Slashdot within the past few days.
> Choice quote: "The world seems to be divided into two camps - those that respect intellectual property and those that don't."
With quotes like that it sure is getting hard to stay skeptical about Microsoft pulling the puppet strings.