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User: tolan's+my+name

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  1. Re:in 20-30 years on Dealing with Outdated Automotive Software? · · Score: 1

    Why is it offtopic, it directly addresses an issue in the question "what will happen in ...". Its also a reasonablish point.

  2. Re:Use of components on Open Sourcing a Vertical Market Application? · · Score: 1

    I've enjoyed both your arguements, but one thing you both seem to be missing is that unless you plan to distribute code there is no compulsion under the GPL to give back code.

    Thus the GPL wouldn't stop another company using your code (as most vertical market apps are developed / expanded inhouse and no marketed). It might stop them giving the diffs back infact, if there management doesn;t like the idea of releasing OS code.

    So the practical effects of both licenses are pretty similair in this market. The only way you can motivate them to give back diffs is by making sufficinet and useful enough improvements to your own version that they want you to intergrate them into the main app so they can stay current.

    In this case you can basically say that they make you co-copyright holder in return for your work intergrating the diffs into the main software, irrespective of what license it's under.

    Thus you can branch the code to a proprietry product whichever code it's under.

    So it does come down to ideology, and yes BSD is more free but GPL protects its limited freedom better.

    Its a coin-toss really.

  3. Re:.....SCO SCHMO on SCO's Lawyers Analyzed · · Score: 1

    it's a fair point, I haven't read /. in a long time till recently and I started wrting my comment when there weren't many replies, so badda boom badda bing.

    I got some karma for less yesterday, and since I'm at the cap anyway who really cares.

    Sorry I offended you.

  4. Re:Lawyers greedy shock on SCO's Lawyers Analyzed · · Score: 1

    Sun is a perpetual fence-sitter. That's why they are perpetually mediocre

    Nah, only recently, when they first released SPARC as an open standard they where very much 'with' the then nascent open-source community.

    Also they were great evangelists for "the network is the computer" back when everyone else was still doing the stand alone thing.

  5. Re:open source buy-out on SCO's Lawyers Analyzed · · Score: 1

    This isn't actually absurd, except that there might still be issues with releasing the source code, though the name could be released, which is enough.

    Ain't gonna happen though

  6. Re:Reward on Microsoft Forgets To Renew Hotmail.co.uk · · Score: 1

    Thing is it probably isn't legal, as in they'd get the name bak if they went to court. They'd also probably get tempory "custoody" after a few days.

    So its more how much do you want to avoid the short service outage / bad publicity. 10k would do me.

    Also it seems that he migh have just payed to reregister in MS's name rather than reregistered in his own, so it's a little moot.

  7. Re:Mixed-up order? on New Hitchhiker's Guide Radio Series Announced · · Score: 1

    Thank you, you sir are a scholar and a gentleman.

  8. Re:Reward on Microsoft Forgets To Renew Hotmail.co.uk · · Score: 1

    They gave him a cheque for $500 (which he gave to charity) and a copy of visual studio (which he wanted for its dss libraries IIRC).

    Also its easy to be anti-microsoft but not giving back hotmail.co.uk would screw up a lot of peoples email for no good reason.

    I think i'd want about $10,000 if i'd bought it thought...

  9. .....SCO SCHMO on SCO's Lawyers Analyzed · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The only motivation I can see for SCO doing this at all is to get some sort of temporary blip in share price so the execs can sell there shares.

    OR creating sufficent legal costs for IBM that it's cheaper to buy them than fight it out in the courts.

    They might also be trying to cripple linux with uncertainty in much the same way as AT&Ts courtcase did with *BSD years ago, but linux' critical mass is far larger.

    Unless of course some guy at SCO what's to buy a heap of IBM stock at a slightly discounted price?

    Seriously, there HAS to be a conspiracy theory in here somewhere.

  10. Re:Mixed-up order? on New Hitchhiker's Guide Radio Series Announced · · Score: 1

    As someone who read them in the 'NEW' order (well I read LWW first then reread it in order) could you post up the new order?

    And voyages was lawsy my favorite.

    Thanks

  11. Re:This will fail on UCB, USC To Build (And Hack) A Model Internet · · Score: 1

    Surely they'll use an operating system and application mix that reflects the real internet. That's what you do when you simulate.

    Then they might try new arrangements depending on the data the aquire to reflect a _better_ infrastructure.

    And the internet isn't just computers, its routers, telecoms lines etc etc. All of these can be hacked, exploited.

  12. Re:USE THE RIGHT WORD!!!!!! on UCB, USC To Build (And Hack) A Model Internet · · Score: 1

    Then WTF is correct usage?

    Those people at Websters / the OED don't sit there making up words you know.. No, PEOPLE DO. We have a desciptive dictionary system, we're not the French you know.. ..So stop being a symantic nazi and realise that laguage evolves.

    Example: Awful, Terrible and Wonderful used to be synonyms but their meanings have diverged (awe, terror and wonder meanwhile have diverged less).

    just my little rant.

  13. Email Delivery Times on Methods for Information Distribution? · · Score: 1

    ...Why not speed up email delivery times?

    Seriously

    I get the impression you're talking about intra company traffic, so you can do this.

    1) Get all you servers to give priority to the sort of messages you're talking about.

    2) Set up an extra mail system which ONLY handles the sort of mail you're talking about and have all the clients check it.

    The details of this would depend on your network arch etc but its hardly going to break the bank. Also it would be up and running in days not months.

    Just a thought.

  14. Re:the mechanism. on Gold Beads Can Fight Cancer, Too · · Score: 1

    "Unfortunately we've still got a long way to go with cancer..."

    This is a little like saying we've got a long way to go until imortality.

    As for the notion that cancers will 'evolve' away from treatments, surely not. Yes as more cancers are cured / bypassed & life expectancy increases the relative prevalence of the more esoteric cancers will grow, but cancers do not 'evolve', at least not in the usual sense we apply to say viruses, which are subject to selective pressure and inevitabaly will adapt / evolve to be resistant to treatments.

    Actually maybe not inevitable, if we could find reatments that nullified the health effects of a virus hilst somehow encouraging its reproduction and transmision then they would become more suceptible to the treatment - seems unlikely tho.

  15. Re:Not necessarily a good measurement on Netcraft Claims Apache Now Runs 2/3rds Of The Web · · Score: 1

    I like to use a calender myself, but it takes all sorts..... :)

  16. Re:Not necessarily a good measurement on Netcraft Claims Apache Now Runs 2/3rds Of The Web · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Lots of the _really_ big sites don't use Apache or IIS but use things like IBM_HTTP_Server (which, to be fair, IS Apache) with a Websphere backend. Also those really big site are all load balanced, portalled etc, so its hard to determin what is truely doing the serving.

  17. Re:Big Bang? on Big Bang Really a Big Hum · · Score: 1

    Electromagnetic waves (/streams of photons / whatever you want to think of them as) ARE NOT SOUND.

    My eyes arn't just really high frequency ears either.

    Sound is the interpretation of compression waves that our Brain has gone for, we COULD have a radio sense and interperate similiar frequencies in the same manner, but we don't.

    The universe is extremely quiet in the traditional sense of the word, though who actually knows what having ones eardrums riped apart by a vacuum would actually sound like.

    The are 3 things going on here

    1) The qualia of sound (what we hear)
    2) The microscopic action of sound (longitudinal wazes in (usually)fluid mediums)
    3) The microscopic action of microwaves (insert your own interpretation of the nature of EM here)

    We can choose to associate the qualia we associate with a 2) of X Hz with a 3) of X Hz but to do so is entirely arbitary

    A better question is "what colour was the big bag" - answer one we can't see, but it's a meaningful question.

  18. Re:Surely this is a joke? on Scientists Grow Pig's Heart On Sheep's Neck · · Score: 1

    Arhh well at least my uninformed and hasty comment spawned an intelligent and educational reply.

    Thanks

  19. Surely this is a joke? on Scientists Grow Pig's Heart On Sheep's Neck · · Score: 1

    I mean an ear on a mouse i can understand....

    I think this is a hoax, call me sceptical but the heart wouldn't have anything to pump so wouln't grow correctly?

    Who knows, worries me though.

  20. Re:Been there, done that... again on Out-of-Body Experience on Demand · · Score: 1

    this happens to me every other day... Sometimes it goes on for hours.

  21. Well I thought such a plea deserved a reply.. on Non-Red Hat Linux Hosting? · · Score: 1

    ...if a not hugely insightful one

    I think there are some major concerns that could come up.

    Most mail clients allow for local archiving, how do you implement this? If not are you ready for your users expenentially increasing mail storage needs?

    Does your web mail interface work offline? A 'real' client can usually work & offer some access to mail if the netork goes down - can yours? Do you have laptop users who are not always connected?

    Have you tested your client on every concievable browser? point releases etc? - peoples browsers get updated incredibly often.

    Does it have SSL?

    How fast is it under heavy load? - remember you're essentially going to be running a fairly busy web server.

    Can you really really only get to your web server from your LAN?

    And some more, I'm not saying don't do it, just think carefully and do a partial role-out for a while.

  22. Re:Great Field on Nanosecrets of Everyday Things · · Score: 1

    Much of what man has thought was impossible happens every day.. ..Of course

    When we run into a wall we either break it or go around it. ..Not always, there are things that may be actually impossible. Often we just go off in anouther direction. Space travel, anti-gravity platforms, room temperature fusion etc etc spring to mind.
    I'm not saying we can't or won't do any of these things, just that we very well may not. Technology may just progress in another direction.

  23. Re:Great Field on Nanosecrets of Everyday Things · · Score: 1

    once they find a way to beat/get around the quantum behavior of electrons

    surely that's more of an if than a once?

  24. Re:Power supply adapters and plugs... on Connectors: A History of Their Technology? · · Score: 1

    or replace the plug

    and they're usually metal even if they're not actually wired in

  25. Re:Power supply adapters and plugs... on Connectors: A History of Their Technology? · · Score: 1

    it's 240v [actual output usually 230-235] and it won't kill you unless you've a weak heart or are standing in the bath.

    On the other hand it ain't nice..