See, "James" ( Sept 15 post) is clearly a derivative of Darl McBride (see, e.g., his business card), so the blogger will soon be hauled into court and feel the Wrath of Caldera/SCO! $1B damages easily!
Saying you can't judge the case based on filings is like saying you can't judge the likely outcome of a football match by looking at the players, where one team is a bunch of kids in nappies and the other are bouncing the ball around the circle with their heads.
Heh. And that yields an even better image with American football.
So... you're saying that Linux would have to do something other than what an OS does in order to be creative?
I mean, before UNIX there was ITS, IBMs System/360, Multics, I think DEC VMS was started a little after.
Look at what OSes do at a high enough level and it's all the same, at least in any given decade. That's why porting apps between Unix or Linux and Windows is a feasible task.
And the primary advantage that UNIX had over those other old OSes, in terms of survival -- and this cuts to the heart of some of SCO's argument -- is that it was widely and freely distributed (including source) to universities and research institutions in the 1970s and 1980s. Thousands of influential technical types cut their teeth on it, and then recommended it whereever they went.
That's why you see similarity: the ideas that Ritchie et al put into Unix influenced the way a key generation of programmers looked at operating systems. Linux started off inspired by Tannenbaum's Minix which was obviously inspired by UNIX, thanks to AT&T.
As far as creativity: when what you're designing is not designing a new product class but something that has to fill a known role within certain constraints, your creativity comes in the cleverness and efficiency and robustness et cetera of your implementation. And arbitrarily reinventing a new set of function names to do the same thing is simply pointless and self-defeating.
For that reason, EEs don't normally choose arbitrarily new voltage levels or invent new circuit labeling abbreviations even though that would be "creative".
Better to spend your time dealing with issues like threading and scheduling and latency and fragmentation and so forth: the things that are hard and that make a difference.
Actually, to me it seems like rackeetering: an organized attempt to extort money from Linux users based on knowingly fraudulent claims.
I think it's time we start politely writing to our states' Attorneys General, particularly in states that went after MS since those are the ones most likely to be amenable and competent.
In fact, I think I will do just that... collect the Perens and FSF papers with a cover letter.
It's different. If someone plants a bomb under your BMW, is BMW liable?
If someone lets the air out of the tires of your Lexus, is Lexus liable for faulty design?
Cars didn't originally have locks or even keys; when theft became a problem, it was a competitive advantage to offer locks on the doors.
The clearest approach is to demand "security" (whatever that may mean in a given circumstance) in every application you buy, approve, design, write, specify, etc...
I think liability should be reserved for areas where concepts like "reasonable", "prudent", and "standard industry practices" are violated.
In a lame defense of MS, recall that the Office Suite was released before the internet and email really took off. That excuse wears progressively thinner after about 1995, of course.
Not unless we have the power and authority to make decisions like that ("fix it and delay the shipment").
Most product failures are management decisions (tradeoffs). And managers are basically never held liable; even the companies usually have enough lawyers to avoid real consequences.
Unix, C++, Xerox Star, Ethernet, TCP/IP and friends, MacIntosh, Quicken, Java, Perl, C#,... lots of quality stuff has come from the U.S., usually with strong contribution from foreigners (Bjarne Stroustrup, etc.).
That's why it works: we in the U.S. don't really care where it's invented or by whom (apart from English language bias and ignoring corporate NIH as a different problem).
If you think "Japan" can make its own OS, you should review the disastrous history of the "Fifth Generation" plan (I think that's the name) from the late 1980s.
Certainly Japanese companies, universities, or individuals would be capable of creating a solid OS. But they'd be wise not to exclude the knowledge and experience of people in other countries.
And unless you're going to do something fundamentally new [perhaps non-von Neumann systems], I don't think writing a new OS is really the best area to have your smartest people working on at this point.
Slashdot Mirror
Why not name the company? Surely it's not a secret policy?
See, "James" ( Sept 15 post) is clearly a derivative of Darl McBride (see, e.g., his business card), so the blogger will soon be hauled into court and feel the Wrath of Caldera/SCO! $1B damages easily!
Heh. And that yields an even better image with American football.
...to get a Linux license. And who can afford to pick up all the liability they've accumulated in the last 16 months or so?
who is paying for hotel and travel and cell-phone and so forth out of his own pocket. [chortle!].
Seriously, if it's important to the business needs of a company, they'll pay for it. That's how companies express what matters to them.
Unless you own shares in the company, I'd make the decision on paying for broadband (et alia) based on how much it's worth to you.
Personally, I like broadband and just cause it's easy I sometimes use it for company purposes. But that's me.
So... you're saying that Linux would have to do something other than what an OS does in order to be creative?
I mean, before UNIX there was ITS, IBMs System/360, Multics, I think DEC VMS was started a little after.
Look at what OSes do at a high enough level and it's all the same, at least in any given decade.
That's why porting apps between Unix or Linux and Windows is a feasible task.
And the primary advantage that UNIX had over those other old OSes, in terms of survival -- and this cuts to the heart of some of SCO's argument -- is that it was widely and freely distributed (including source) to universities and research institutions in the 1970s and 1980s. Thousands of influential technical types cut their teeth on it, and then recommended it whereever they went.
That's why you see similarity: the ideas that Ritchie et al put into Unix influenced the way a key generation of programmers looked at operating systems. Linux started off inspired by Tannenbaum's Minix which was obviously inspired by UNIX, thanks to AT&T.
As far as creativity: when what you're designing is not designing a new product class but something that has to fill a known role within certain constraints, your creativity comes in the cleverness and efficiency and robustness et cetera of your implementation. And arbitrarily reinventing a new set of function names to do the same thing is simply pointless and self-defeating.
For that reason, EEs don't normally choose arbitrarily new voltage levels or invent new circuit labeling abbreviations even though that would be "creative".
Better to spend your time dealing with issues like threading and scheduling and latency and fragmentation and so forth: the things that are hard and that make a difference.
Larry
Actually, I think the people with a modicum of self-doubt are usually the good ones.
Those who never even wonder are the ones that end up like Darl.
FWIW, your manager bozo probably has one or all of these forces operating on him:
- They have to "grade" on a curve, no matter what. Moron HR departments do this kind of thing.
- He really just wants to cut his budget so he can get a bonus.
- Or similarly, wants to encourage you to quit so the severance isn't charged to his budget.
- He has absolutely no idea what it means to be a manager, and takes out his inadequacy on his superiors (by which I mean his direct reports).
Really no healthy answer except to transfer or leave.Actually, to me it seems like rackeetering: an organized attempt to extort money from Linux users based on knowingly fraudulent claims.
... collect the Perens and FSF papers with a cover letter.
I think it's time we start politely writing to our states' Attorneys General, particularly in states that went after MS since those are the ones most likely to be amenable and competent.
In fact, I think I will do just that
http://safari.oreilly.com/
It lets you have N books on a shelf (min time one month). Not just O'Reilly books.
It's different. If someone plants a bomb under your BMW, is BMW liable?
If someone lets the air out of the tires of your Lexus, is Lexus liable for faulty design?
Cars didn't originally have locks or even keys; when theft became a problem, it was a competitive advantage to offer locks on the doors.
The clearest approach is to demand "security" (whatever that may mean in a given circumstance) in every application you buy, approve, design, write, specify, etc...
I think liability should be reserved for areas where concepts like "reasonable", "prudent", and "standard industry practices" are violated.
In a lame defense of MS, recall that the Office Suite was released before the internet and email really took off. That excuse wears progressively thinner after about 1995, of course.
Not unless we have the power and authority to make decisions like that ("fix it and delay the shipment").
Most product failures are management decisions (tradeoffs). And managers are basically never held liable; even the companies usually have enough lawyers to avoid real consequences.
That's just silly.
Unix, C++, Xerox Star, Ethernet, TCP/IP and friends, MacIntosh, Quicken, Java, Perl, C#, ... lots of quality stuff has come from the U.S., usually with strong contribution from foreigners (Bjarne Stroustrup, etc.).
That's why it works: we in the U.S. don't really care where it's invented or by whom (apart from English language bias and ignoring corporate NIH as a different problem).
If you think "Japan" can make its own OS, you should review the disastrous history of the "Fifth Generation" plan (I think that's the name) from the late 1980s.
Certainly Japanese companies, universities, or individuals would be capable of creating a solid OS. But they'd be wise not to exclude the knowledge and experience of people in other countries.
And unless you're going to do something fundamentally new [perhaps non-von Neumann systems], I don't think writing a new OS is really the best area to have your smartest people working on at this point.
I would hazard a guess that he wants to protect the programming of the TV/video/receiver/whatever.
If you lose power for an hour there's a good chance you'll have to go through and reprogram all the channel selections, VCR programming, etc.
Also, UPSes do protect against low voltage (and somewhat against spikes), and if it's expensive equipment that might pay for itself.
Finally, a decent-sized UPS might be able to cover a VCR recording for an hour.