As I stated before, this is only significant if there are patents that apply exclusively to the CLR. It's quite possible that whatever patents are involved, they may apply just as much to other FOSS projects as they do to Mono. Given the fact that companies try to make their patents are broad as possible, this is a likely scenario. Not that I'm not claiming that these patents are valid, just that if they are found to be, they will probably cover more than the CLR.
If MS had the choice of suing the mono project vs. some higher profile target like Linux, I suspect they would choose the latter.
Actually, that sounds more like Sun's original game plan for Java. Get everybody to adopt the language because it's WORA, than introduce a Sun-specific Java accelerator to get native-like performance. That's why they were so pissed at MS: optimising Java on Windows made a hardware accelerator superfluous.
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"Why can't the FOSS community beat Wolfram at this?"
It's hard to find highly-qualified people willing to work for free. Yes, I know some people get paid to write FOSS, but it happens only in those cases where some other means of earning money is possible. This is the exception rather than the rule.
OK, absolutes are almost always wrong. If you've never had a system crash and you don't plan a change in your configuration or an update your software (which might expose you to other OS's problems not yet encountered) and the hardware platform will be available forever (or you have a virtual solution that works flawlessly) than by all means continue as you always have.
But for the 99% of companies that can't meet those requirements, an upgrade is the wise choice.
I agree. A lot of these devices could be built using an 8051 and much less than 64K of program memory and still be much more appropriate for real-time applications. "Desktop" OS's are great for general purpose use, but overkill for most embedded applications.
"Does this mean that if we buy one of those pirated disks from China, it's perfectly legal?"
No. It means, for example, if you wrote code for Linux that violated a MS patent and that code was installed on computers only in countries where MS patents were not honored, MS couldn't sue you. As others have pointed out, this ruling has nothing to do with piracy since that's a copyright issue.
"Actually, one of the electronics labs I worked for needed to stay with Win95/Win98 for an extended period of time, because their MPEG stream generators needed the "realtime" capabilities provided by the cooperative multitasking. In other words, correct output from the MPEG generator depended on being able to "hijack" the CPU."
It's good that you put realtime in quotes. Anyway, Win9x actually uses preemptive multitasking not cooperative (that was used in Win3.1 and earlier), but I can't argue with what is working for you.
"Don't you think that if we found a stability problem with our application running on Win98 that we would have addressed it, oh, say a decade ago when we first deployed it?"
The problem isn't necessarily with your application, but with any other application that could be running. A bad application can crash Win9x OS and your application can't protect against it no matter how well it is written. Now if your application is the only one running than you may be fine, but that's not typically the scenario that most people are using.
"Why? Just becuase Microsoft doesn't support it anymore doesn't make it any less usable"
We're talking about Windows 98. Who said anything about being usable? Given the lack of stability of Win9x, any company serious about getting their work done should have switched to a NT family OS years ago (assuming they wanted to stay with Windows). This sounds either like a case of short-sighted budgeting or an attempt to "show MS who's boss" by continuing to have their PC's crash every few days.
Hey, that will work. Artists will be paid for their live performances and they won't have to worry about people downloading their recorded music without paying them because there won't be any.
I know certifications are hated by many on Slashdot, but if these exams can be passed "without actually knowing anything" than you should be able to pass them without studying. Care to try?
I've taken exams in college and I've taken one certification exam and I see no essential difference between the two. Even if you major in engineering, at least 50% of your tests will be based on memorization. Even solving equations requires a lot of memory work.
If there really is a lack of competition in a market, the logical choice is to examine the market leader (which, in the case of the EU server market, isn't MS). The EU's current strategy appears to be directed toward maintaining the current market winners rather than increasing competition.
As the US postal service is well aware, it's very difficult to exactly break even. Of course, the government could pass a law that didn't allow you to pay wages as well.
The point is you assume that any law that makes it difficult or impossible to have a business is not flawed, but anybody running a business is that is hampered by such a law has a flawed business model. Common sense suggests that there are both bad laws and bad business models, and you haven't presented any evidence to prove otherwise.
"no one would know how each drug interacts with each other"
And this is different from the current situation how? There are plenty of drugs on the market today that haven't even been proven scientifically to be efficacious, let alone has their interaction with other drugs been studied adequately.
What percentage of the server market does MS posses in the EU market? If they're not the market leader will giving more information to competitors actually decrease competition in the EU in this segment?
I should have been more specific: I was counting only lightsaber fights. And I don't consider his first fight against Luke to be a fair one either (Luke wasn't fully trained).
Well, nobody can say what was on his mind when he said that, but he certainly could have made 9 films in 30 years (and he's not dead yet). I think he should have stuck to another plan he once talked about: letting other directors do the other episodes with the possible exception of the last one. Of course, having different writers as well would not only have been more efficient but would have resulted in higher quality scripts (e.g. avoiding lines like: "your skin is so soft, not like this sand").
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As I stated before, this is only significant if there are patents that apply exclusively to the CLR. It's quite possible that whatever patents are involved, they may apply just as much to other FOSS projects as they do to Mono. Given the fact that companies try to make their patents are broad as possible, this is a likely scenario. Not that I'm not claiming that these patents are valid, just that if they are found to be, they will probably cover more than the CLR.
If MS had the choice of suing the mono project vs. some higher profile target like Linux, I suspect they would choose the latter.
"Java standard is open. Java source code is open and can be ported to anything, legally."
This nothing to do with being cross platform. It's not about what can be done, it's about what has been done.
Actually, that sounds more like Sun's original game plan for Java. Get everybody to adopt the language because it's WORA, than introduce a Sun-specific Java accelerator to get native-like performance. That's why they were so pissed at MS: optimising Java on Windows made a hardware accelerator superfluous.
"Why can't the FOSS community beat Wolfram at this?"
It's hard to find highly-qualified people willing to work for free. Yes, I know some people get paid to write FOSS, but it happens only in those cases where some other means of earning money is possible. This is the exception rather than the rule.
OK, absolutes are almost always wrong. If you've never had a system crash and you don't plan a change in your configuration or an update your software (which might expose you to other OS's problems not yet encountered) and the hardware platform will be available forever (or you have a virtual solution that works flawlessly) than by all means continue as you always have.
But for the 99% of companies that can't meet those requirements, an upgrade is the wise choice.
I agree. A lot of these devices could be built using an 8051 and much less than 64K of program memory and still be much more appropriate for real-time applications. "Desktop" OS's are great for general purpose use, but overkill for most embedded applications.
"Does this mean that if we buy one of those pirated disks from China, it's perfectly legal?"
No. It means, for example, if you wrote code for Linux that violated a MS patent and that code was installed on computers only in countries where MS patents were not honored, MS couldn't sue you. As others have pointed out, this ruling has nothing to do with piracy since that's a copyright issue.
"Actually, one of the electronics labs I worked for needed to stay with Win95/Win98 for an extended period of time, because their MPEG stream generators needed the "realtime" capabilities provided by the cooperative multitasking. In other words, correct output from the MPEG generator depended on being able to "hijack" the CPU."
It's good that you put realtime in quotes. Anyway, Win9x actually uses preemptive multitasking not cooperative (that was used in Win3.1 and earlier), but I can't argue with what is working for you.
"Don't you think that if we found a stability problem with our application running on Win98 that we would have addressed it, oh, say a decade ago when we first deployed it?"
The problem isn't necessarily with your application, but with any other application that could be running. A bad application can crash Win9x OS and your application can't protect against it no matter how well it is written. Now if your application is the only one running than you may be fine, but that's not typically the scenario that most people are using.
"Why? Just becuase Microsoft doesn't support it anymore doesn't make it any less usable"
We're talking about Windows 98. Who said anything about being usable? Given the lack of stability of Win9x, any company serious about getting their work done should have switched to a NT family OS years ago (assuming they wanted to stay with Windows). This sounds either like a case of short-sighted budgeting or an attempt to "show MS who's boss" by continuing to have their PC's crash every few days.
We solved all the interview puzzles, so we must know what we're doing.
Hey, that will work. Artists will be paid for their live performances and they won't have to worry about people downloading their recorded music without paying them because there won't be any.
People can cheat the system in a university as well, but I don't think the value of either can be judged on the basis of one individual.
I know certifications are hated by many on Slashdot, but if these exams can be passed "without actually knowing anything" than you should be able to pass them without studying. Care to try?
I've taken exams in college and I've taken one certification exam and I see no essential difference between the two. Even if you major in engineering, at least 50% of your tests will be based on memorization. Even solving equations requires a lot of memory work.
If there really is a lack of competition in a market, the logical choice is to examine the market leader (which, in the case of the EU server market, isn't MS). The EU's current strategy appears to be directed toward maintaining the current market winners rather than increasing competition.
As the US postal service is well aware, it's very difficult to exactly break even. Of course, the government could pass a law that didn't allow you to pay wages as well.
The point is you assume that any law that makes it difficult or impossible to have a business is not flawed, but anybody running a business is that is hampered by such a law has a flawed business model. Common sense suggests that there are both bad laws and bad business models, and you haven't presented any evidence to prove otherwise.
Many geeks like D&D, but playing it is not their profession and many non-geeks like it too.
"If complying with the law results in a company going bankrupt, then the business model of that company is flawed."
The government passes a law that says that no company can make a profit, therefore all companies in that country have flawed business models?
"no one would know how each drug interacts with each other"
And this is different from the current situation how? There are plenty of drugs on the market today that haven't even been proven scientifically to be efficacious, let alone has their interaction with other drugs been studied adequately.
What percentage of the server market does MS posses in the EU market? If they're not the market leader will giving more information to competitors actually decrease competition in the EU in this segment?
I should have been more specific: I was counting only lightsaber fights. And I don't consider his first fight against Luke to be a fair one either (Luke wasn't fully trained).
Well, nobody can say what was on his mind when he said that, but he certainly could have made 9 films in 30 years (and he's not dead yet). I think he should have stuck to another plan he once talked about: letting other directors do the other episodes with the possible exception of the last one. Of course, having different writers as well would not only have been more efficient but would have resulted in higher quality scripts (e.g. avoiding lines like: "your skin is so soft, not like this sand").
If you think about it, Anakin/Vader lost just about every fair fight he was in.
said things he later denied saying (e.g. there's going to be 9 films, etc).
Novell to court: We sold a "bill of goods" to SCO and we can prove it!