Besides the ease of programming in higher level languages, there is also the matter of portability.
Imagine if all the programs running on Linux for x86 had to be rewritten (in assembly) to run on Linux for PowerPC? That would be prohibitive. OpenOffice? Firefox? Gnome or KDE? Totally rewritten for each new family of chips? That would multiply the work of a software platform like Linux beyond all practicality. Compilers take (a lot of) the pain out of portability.
Of course, on this argument, we should all be writing in something like Java, where the OS and GUI toolkit is abstracted as well as the hardware. "Write once, run everywhere" is a desirable goal.
But even C gives a lot of "Write once, run everywhere".
If you sailed up to an ocean liner, hopped on board (illegally), grabbed someone's DVD, copied it, then sailed away - that would be pirating a DVD.
Of course, any respectable pirate would have stolen the DVD (amidst the usual pillaging, arson and murder) and refrained from copyright infringement. Pirates have their moral boundaries after all - they generally steered clear of copyright infringement, as history well attests.
"It's abundantly clear that SCO's court case isn't going anywhere"
But that is the problem. It *should* have gone somewhere long ago - straight into the legal trash can.
The case will be 5 years old in March 2008. SCO has dragged this out quite successfully. They have been masters of delay and evasion. This investment play is yet another twist and turn to keep the game going. And that is success in SCO terms: to drag the case on as long as possible. SCO doesn't want the case to go anywhere; they are quite happy to have the whole case go on and on without resolution.
"With my new wonder death ray, I - Doctor Blitztod, Professor of Nuclear Physics at an underfunded college - *will* be paid like a celebrity, I tell you! All bow to me or die!"
"The US, being the largest economic superpower (still!)..."
The European Union (an economic union/common market/single economy of 27 member states) had a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 14,609,836 million USD in 2006, while the US (itself a union/common market/single economy of 50 states) had a GDP of only 13,194,700 million USD for the same period.
So wouldn't that make the EU the largest economic superpower? No wonder the EU is starting to flex its muscles about American firms like Microsoft.
Of course, the EU doesn't project as much military power abroad as the US, so maybe you meant that the US was the world's largest military superpower.
"Warragamba Dam near Sydney stores enough water for five years and hasn't been full since 1987."
Er, evidence? This web page for the Sydney Catchment Authority, who run the dams, suggests that the entire Sydney water storage system (including Warragamba) was at 100% capacity as recently as 1999 (see the great graph at the bottom of the page). That was during the last major "La Nina" episode in Sydney (1999-2000), although the minor La Nina episode in 2000-2001 kept the dams reasonably high (see "La Nina" in wikipedia). During the subsequent prolonged El Nino episode, dam levels plunged for 5 straight years - but we survived. The current La Nina episode since mid-2007 has brought some recovery, but we are still a long way from the 1999 high. The graph shows it all.
Then you use the compressed air to drive compressed air engines - even small cars for urban use (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_car).
If compressed air leaks out of its storage, you get... plain old air in the air. No pollution problems.
Homes could compress air during the day and consume it at night - or during the next day in their cars.
Compressed air is energy stored in a readily available, non-polluting medium. When it is used, it just returns into the atmosphere to become part of the great big reservoir of uncompressed air. No battery acid leaks or disposal problems.
Everything is still in the God basket - nothing has ever been taken out.
Let me explain this to you by a simple analogy (not involving cars).
Who destroyed Sauron - was it Frodo or Gollum at Mt Doom? Or was it Tolkien?
The answer is: both. Within the story, Frodo (with unintended help from Gollum) destroyed Sauron. But the whole story (Frodo, Gollum, Sauron, Ring and all) was created by Tolkien.
All the events of "Lord of the Rings" are in the Tolkien basket, yet they are also in the baskets of respective characters inside the story: Gollum takes the Ring from Deagol; Aragorn braves the Paths of the Dead; Frodo and Sam carry the Ring into Mordor; and so on.
It is not "either/or" - when a creation is involved, it is "both/and". Things don't move from one basket to the other.
"Only hobbyists and small-time outfits that run their own hosts would mind a measly $400."
That is just the tip of the Microsoft corporate licensing nightmare. At my government agency employer, we only use Linux for all our web servers. Why? Because we are developers and we want to drop a web/database/file/email/proxy/printer/whatever server wherever it is needed without being bogged down in a sea of Microsoft red tape.
GPL means one simple licence: use it on any machine you want, whenever you want. Absolute flexibility. No counting CPUs, no counting seats, no worrying about whether you bought enough licences. And no over-purchasing just to make sure. The GPL means freedom from licence hell. It is just what us developers want: an OS and software stack that we can use wherever, whenever, however. It allows us to concentrate on technical issues.
Microsoft charging the whole world monopoly rent for software might appeal to the American government. But I can't see why the EU or Brazil or China would want to put up with it.
The UK, on the other hand, seems to want to give Bill Gates their collective wallet: "Here, help yourself. Want a knighthood with that?"
Maybe it is some kind of Stockholm syndrome. Perverse loyalty to your abusive monopolist: "I know they keep over-charging me for insecure trashy software that would not stand up to real competition without the vendor lock-in... but I love them. I felt wanted."
"The program was extended to Dec 31, according to the web site."
On the other hand, it has never been available where I live, according to the same website. The Terms and Conditions say the program is limited to "the fifty United States, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the District of Columbia and Canada".
Well, that leaves out Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Japan... so only about half the Developed World gets to participate.
Slashdot Mirror
"Is there something special about technology, that sets tech-savvy humans apart from all the other kinds of humans ..."
*cough* *cough* Slashdot?
Yeah, yeah, I am shameless, so sue me.
In other words, Europe wants a refund of the Microsoft monopoly rent that it paid over the last couple of decades.
Besides the ease of programming in higher level languages, there is also the matter of portability.
Imagine if all the programs running on Linux for x86 had to be rewritten (in assembly) to run on Linux for PowerPC? That would be prohibitive. OpenOffice? Firefox? Gnome or KDE? Totally rewritten for each new family of chips? That would multiply the work of a software platform like Linux beyond all practicality. Compilers take (a lot of) the pain out of portability.
Of course, on this argument, we should all be writing in something like Java, where the OS and GUI toolkit is abstracted as well as the hardware. "Write once, run everywhere" is a desirable goal.
But even C gives a lot of "Write once, run everywhere".
Now all they have to do is use it against the RIAA.
It could be piracy, though.
If you sailed up to an ocean liner, hopped on board (illegally), grabbed someone's DVD, copied it, then sailed away - that would be pirating a DVD.
Of course, any respectable pirate would have stolen the DVD (amidst the usual pillaging, arson and murder) and refrained from copyright infringement. Pirates have their moral boundaries after all - they generally steered clear of copyright infringement, as history well attests.
The universe works pretty well, thanks.
No need for lots of paragraphs.
"It's abundantly clear that SCO's court case isn't going anywhere"
But that is the problem. It *should* have gone somewhere long ago - straight into the legal trash can.
The case will be 5 years old in March 2008. SCO has dragged this out quite successfully. They have been masters of delay and evasion. This investment play is yet another twist and turn to keep the game going. And that is success in SCO terms: to drag the case on as long as possible. SCO doesn't want the case to go anywhere; they are quite happy to have the whole case go on and on without resolution.
And people wonder why we geniuses turn to evil!
"With my new wonder death ray, I - Doctor Blitztod, Professor of Nuclear Physics at an underfunded college - *will* be paid like a celebrity, I tell you! All bow to me or die!"
"The US, being the largest economic superpower (still!)..."
The European Union (an economic union/common market/single economy of 27 member states) had a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 14,609,836 million USD in 2006, while the US (itself a union/common market/single economy of 50 states) had a GDP of only 13,194,700 million USD for the same period.
So wouldn't that make the EU the largest economic superpower? No wonder the EU is starting to flex its muscles about American firms like Microsoft.
Of course, the EU doesn't project as much military power abroad as the US, so maybe you meant that the US was the world's largest military superpower.
'*Note: For cultures who miss the point, this is called "understatment"'
I think you have understated the number of e's in that word.
Take an abacus.
Well that scrubs 2008 as the Year of the Linux Desktop.
"Teleportation engineers kill humans!"
And create exact, living clones of them immediately somewhere else. It is this last step that your average murderer forgets to do.
So, we can look forward to new forms of repetitive strain injury, like lip strain.
Doctor: "I diagnose lip strain and recommend no kissing for 6 months."
Patient: "That's easy! I am a geek. I haven't kissed anyone since my aunt last visited me in 2001."
"Warragamba Dam near Sydney stores enough water for five years and hasn't been full since 1987."
Er, evidence? This web page for the Sydney Catchment Authority, who run the dams, suggests that the entire Sydney water storage system (including Warragamba) was at 100% capacity as recently as 1999 (see the great graph at the bottom of the page). That was during the last major "La Nina" episode in Sydney (1999-2000), although the minor La Nina episode in 2000-2001 kept the dams reasonably high (see "La Nina" in wikipedia). During the subsequent prolonged El Nino episode, dam levels plunged for 5 straight years - but we survived. The current La Nina episode since mid-2007 has brought some recovery, but we are still a long way from the 1999 high. The graph shows it all.
http://www.sca.nsw.gov.au/dams-and-water/weekly-storage-and-supply-reports/2007/bulk-water-storage-_and_-supply-report---3-january-2008
Why not use the solar energy to compress air?
... plain old air in the air. No pollution problems.
Then you use the compressed air to drive compressed air engines - even small cars for urban use (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_car).
If compressed air leaks out of its storage, you get
Homes could compress air during the day and consume it at night - or during the next day in their cars.
Compressed air is energy stored in a readily available, non-polluting medium. When it is used, it just returns into the atmosphere to become part of the great big reservoir of uncompressed air. No battery acid leaks or disposal problems.
Everything is still in the God basket - nothing has ever been taken out.
Let me explain this to you by a simple analogy (not involving cars).
Who destroyed Sauron - was it Frodo or Gollum at Mt Doom? Or was it Tolkien?
The answer is: both. Within the story, Frodo (with unintended help from Gollum) destroyed Sauron. But the whole story (Frodo, Gollum, Sauron, Ring and all) was created by Tolkien.
All the events of "Lord of the Rings" are in the Tolkien basket, yet they are also in the baskets of respective characters inside the story: Gollum takes the Ring from Deagol; Aragorn braves the Paths of the Dead; Frodo and Sam carry the Ring into Mordor; and so on.
It is not "either/or" - when a creation is involved, it is "both/and". Things don't move from one basket to the other.
"Only hobbyists and small-time outfits that run their own hosts would mind a measly $400."
That is just the tip of the Microsoft corporate licensing nightmare. At my government agency employer, we only use Linux for all our web servers. Why? Because we are developers and we want to drop a web/database/file/email/proxy/printer/whatever server wherever it is needed without being bogged down in a sea of Microsoft red tape.
GPL means one simple licence: use it on any machine you want, whenever you want. Absolute flexibility. No counting CPUs, no counting seats, no worrying about whether you bought enough licences. And no over-purchasing just to make sure. The GPL means freedom from licence hell. It is just what us developers want: an OS and software stack that we can use wherever, whenever, however. It allows us to concentrate on technical issues.
Freedom matters.
Well double duh you!
The laws of nature come from the *congress of nature*, 'cos it's congress that makes the laws, not the lawyers.
The lawyers just think of ways of getting around the laws.
Bet you feel stupid now, huh?
Microsoft charging the whole world monopoly rent for software might appeal to the American government. But I can't see why the EU or Brazil or China would want to put up with it.
The UK, on the other hand, seems to want to give Bill Gates their collective wallet: "Here, help yourself. Want a knighthood with that?"
Maybe it is some kind of Stockholm syndrome. Perverse loyalty to your abusive monopolist: "I know they keep over-charging me for insecure trashy software that would not stand up to real competition without the vendor lock-in... but I love them. I felt wanted."
"Look I was drunk, alright?! And the dog came on to me first!"
Hmmm, the dog must have been drunk too.
"The program was extended to Dec 31, according to the web site."
... so only about half the Developed World gets to participate.
On the other hand, it has never been available where I live, according to the same website. The Terms and Conditions say the program is limited to "the fifty United States, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the District of Columbia and Canada".
Well, that leaves out Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Japan
I did miss it. Completely.
Doofus: "I wonder if sticking my head in the fire would improve the human race?"
Smart person: "I wonder if sticking Doofus's head in the fire would improve the human race?"
The Doofuses selected themselves out. Evolution. The smart people helped them. Accelerated evolution.
Try it. Put your head into the fire and watch the results. Go on - it's for science.
So have they found the gene that explains the need to find genes that explain human characteristics?
A PC under Vista will "run a core experience"?
Whaaa? My PC runs software, programs, code. It doesn't run "experiences".
Save us from the marketroid mangling of the English tongue.
A summary of this post follows: "Aaaaaaagh"