Anyone know why OpenBSD is removing GNU tools... other than the licensing issues ?
While I'm greatful I have these tools for free, and they have served me well, they are not without brain damage. For example, I found to my horror that 'patch' will, under certain circumstances, seek out and change my original files used to generate a patch, instead of what a reasonable reader would think to be the target files (the ones marked with "+++"). This is in fact documented behaviour, presumably thought to be good by some well-meaning but confused soul.
Here, the argument of continuity apparently outweighs that of sanity. Solution: fork. Maybe with a little competition, the gnu utilities will eventually get updated to get rid of that nasty, destructive behaviour.
(let me take the opportunity to correct a factual error in my original post: the Stalin's most murderous excesses actually occured before World War II, not "later" as I originally wrote)
As for the damages actually done to Europe, while those done by the Nazis have mostly dissipated, those done by the Soviets remain apparent to this day.
Here in Berlin there used to be a large Jewish population. Now there isn't.
All the items presented in my post are well documented and accepted historical facts. Care to tell me which of the statements I made you do no believe to be accurate?
You wrote: "If anything, the Russians did more harm to Europe than the Nazis could have ever done." This is nonsense. Not only do you appear to have no idea how much harm actually was done by the Nazis in Europe, but you grossly underestimate the further harm that would surely have followed, had the temporary successes been transformed into long-lived empire.
Believe me, unlike yourself, I have lived under "communism" and would not wish the experience I have endured upon anyone else, not even yourself. I speak from well documented facts as well as first hand experience, whereas you appear to be hanging onto the every word of the Soviet propaganda machine of yore.
Certainly when I was in Czechoslovakia shortly before the velvet revolution (bravely or foolishly importing with me a current issue of Time Magazine featuring the growing popular rebellion) I saw no sign of the carnage of which you speak. I have no reason to believe that such signs were hidden from me either, nor did thousands of horror stories come to light after the fall. That was Czechoslovakia - other than the Prague Spring, suffering was mainly psychological and economic. While deplorable, it was just not on the same scale as the massive campaigns of torture and murder carried out by the Nazis.
In East Germany things were worse: there was more torture, more suppression of unwanted ideologies and worse economic conditions. But hey, guess where I live now? Right, East Germany. I count among my acquaintances a number who lived under Honecker. They hated him, they hated the regime and its sponsors, but they don't have stories of mass murder to tell. Romania was perhaps the worst place in Eastern Europe, but while it was bad you just can't call it rampant carnage. Really, the all-too-recent horror of the Balkan wars (complete with Nazi-style death camps) easily outdoes the sum total of violence during the entire Soviet occupation of eastern Europe. Compare: perhaps 5,000 died during the Hungarian uprising; in the Balkan wars, hundreds of thousands.
I am a much more impartial, as well as a much better informed observer than yourself
If anything, the Russians did more harm to Europe than the Nazis could have ever done.
Nonsense. The second world war left more than 60 million dead, nothing after has come close to that wholesale slaughter. Six million Europeans were exterminated or starved to death in Nazi death camps alone. Though Stalin managed to outdo even that gruesome feat later in his own country, eastern Europe had a comparatively easy time of it, modulo a few bloody putdowns of uprisings and a tendency for troublemakers to disappear in the general direction of Siberia.
At least your piece shows some awareness of history, that's good, but please try not to exaggerate. Now let's invoke Godwin on this thread.
Just in case you still think it's a coincidence, billg gave $35 million to Duke [duke.edu] and Melinda got her trusteeship at the same time, in 1996.
Slightly factually incorrect, in that this particular donation was just last year, though Duke has been receiving donations from Bill Gates for quite a few years now, what the total is I don't know or care, except that it's much more than $35 million. What does Bill get out of it? Power, influence, builds up his wife's reputation and hence his own, tax writeoffs, and who knows, perhaps some of the Universty's research gets deeded back to Microsoft.
One more factoid before I drop this thread and move on to things that matter: the university's bio for Melinda refers to her as a former Microsoft executive, whereas I only remember her being a manager.
Just in case you still think it's a coincidence, billg gave $35 million to Duke and Melinda got her trusteeship at the same time, in 1996. It's blatantly obvious that Melinda is just another of Bill's pawns. I'd love to see the details of her nuptial contract.
True, if it's an open source document reader. But if that is their intention it could be possible to create such a system. Open Source the OS but then give out binary only versions of the document readers, and only distribute Government Files in that format.
What has that got to do with the operating system?
Ban the sale of prescription glasses and contact lenses. If you can't see it you'll be safe. Oh, you can't drive either? Sorry, that's the price of perfect safety.
"You need to be pretty gullible to think that Microsoft would settle any case they thought they could win."
A lengthy trial brings in negative press, lawyer fees, and other expenses that can easily go into the several millions. My guess is they figured that the $23M was a cheaper route than taking it to trial.
Look in the mirror, is the person you see there gullible or not?
Or perhaps you see an ammnesiac there: Microsoft has never settled any suit where it wasn't obviously going against them.
Gee, thats such an astute observation... Of course it is totally wrong. It is called a settlement for a reason. You settle the dispute without any more court hearings and without admitting to anything. You simply pay an amount of money you find acceptable to not have to deal with the situation anymore.
You need to be pretty gullible to think that Microsoft would settle any case they thought they could win.
China is endorsing linux and make most of the world's mobile phones (and will make most of the other embedded devices). No, we probably won't see Chinese boxed sets of linux at Best Buy, but linux imports will threaten MS.
Even if that were somehow unfair (which is a stretch) what makes you think the chief beneficiary of that won't be Montavista, the leading supplier of embedded Linux solutions? (i.e., a U.S. company.)
MS are simply copying the line of the US government (and a lot of US companies and even/. users). Look at steel, farm goods, coding out-sourcing, skilled immigrants etc, etc. In all these fields the US or a lot of its citizens are actively seeking to halt global competition and seeking to privilege US companies, producers and citizens.
What's laughable about this is, there is no issue of protectionism anywhere to be seen. Protectionism is when a country erects trade barriers such as import duties to protect a local industry. Sponsoring R&D is not a trade barrier, it is just (hopefully) good management.
The other silly idea is that this has something to do with fair trade. Since the asian countries aren't exporting their OS, where is the trade, fair or not? Even if they were, since when did it become unfair for government and industry to collaborate on R&D?
Stowell added: "Sooner or later the invoicing will reach European companies I'm sure. We will not be limiting this to a US only market."
This warning seems to be a clear breach of the German injunction.
For that matter, so is the material on SCO's main web page here, which makes the unproven allegation "customers unknowingly received illegal copies of SCO property", among other things. I can't think of any reason why the injunction would be limited to material on the German-language page, which is, after all, also served from the U.S.
From here is can go two ways. They can switch, or Microsoft can cut them a deal. Managers are other companies will be watching with interest to see which one it will be.
Either way, it's starting to look like a run on Microsoft's bank.
This isnt good news for Open Source, and Linux in particular.
Nonsense. Every win for Linux/FOSS is good news. By dropping a convicted monopolist as a supplier, they clearly move in the direction of less evil, not more.
Slashdot Mirror
"Moreover, there is another headache. The harder it is to patent computer-related inventions in Europe, the wider will be the legal gap with America."
If the gap were closed by fixing the US patent laws, that would result in less headaches than having Europe repeat the mistakes made in America.
Hear hear. With the U.S. legal system spinning out of control, a nice, big gap with it would seem to be a good thing.
Anyone know why OpenBSD is removing GNU tools ... other than the licensing issues ?
While I'm greatful I have these tools for free, and they have served me well, they are not without brain damage. For example, I found to my horror that 'patch' will, under certain circumstances, seek out and change my original files used to generate a patch, instead of what a reasonable reader would think to be the target files (the ones marked with "+++"). This is in fact documented behaviour, presumably thought to be good by some well-meaning but confused soul.
Here, the argument of continuity apparently outweighs that of sanity. Solution: fork. Maybe with a little competition, the gnu utilities will eventually get updated to get rid of that nasty, destructive behaviour.
(let me take the opportunity to correct a factual error in my original post: the Stalin's most murderous excesses actually occured before World War II, not "later" as I originally wrote)
As for the damages actually done to Europe, while those done by the Nazis have mostly dissipated, those done by the Soviets remain apparent to this day.
Here in Berlin there used to be a large Jewish population. Now there isn't.
All the items presented in my post are well documented and accepted historical facts. Care to tell me which of the statements I made you do no believe to be accurate?
You wrote: "If anything, the Russians did more harm to Europe than the Nazis could have ever done." This is nonsense. Not only do you appear to have no idea how much harm actually was done by the Nazis in Europe, but you grossly underestimate the further harm that would surely have followed, had the temporary successes been transformed into long-lived empire.
Believe me, unlike yourself, I have lived under "communism" and would not wish the experience I have endured upon anyone else, not even yourself. I speak from well documented facts as well as first hand experience, whereas you appear to be hanging onto the every word of the Soviet propaganda machine of yore.
Certainly when I was in Czechoslovakia shortly before the velvet revolution (bravely or foolishly importing with me a current issue of Time Magazine featuring the growing popular rebellion) I saw no sign of the carnage of which you speak. I have no reason to believe that such signs were hidden from me either, nor did thousands of horror stories come to light after the fall. That was Czechoslovakia - other than the Prague Spring, suffering was mainly psychological and economic. While deplorable, it was just not on the same scale as the massive campaigns of torture and murder carried out by the Nazis.
In East Germany things were worse: there was more torture, more suppression of unwanted ideologies and worse economic conditions. But hey, guess where I live now? Right, East Germany. I count among my acquaintances a number who lived under Honecker. They hated him, they hated the regime and its sponsors, but they don't have stories of mass murder to tell. Romania was perhaps the worst place in Eastern Europe, but while it was bad you just can't call it rampant carnage. Really, the all-too-recent horror of the Balkan wars (complete with Nazi-style death camps) easily outdoes the sum total of violence during the entire Soviet occupation of eastern Europe. Compare: perhaps 5,000 died during the Hungarian uprising; in the Balkan wars, hundreds of thousands.
I am a much more impartial, as well as a much better informed observer than yourself
Not if you think your above claim is correct.
If anything, the Russians did more harm to Europe than the Nazis could have ever done.
Nonsense. The second world war left more than 60 million dead, nothing after has come close to that wholesale slaughter. Six million Europeans were exterminated or starved to death in Nazi death camps alone. Though Stalin managed to outdo even that gruesome feat later in his own country, eastern Europe had a comparatively easy time of it, modulo a few bloody putdowns of uprisings and a tendency for troublemakers to disappear in the general direction of Siberia.
At least your piece shows some awareness of history, that's good, but please try not to exaggerate. Now let's invoke Godwin on this thread.
Replying to myself one more time...
Just in case you still think it's a coincidence, billg gave $35 million to Duke [duke.edu] and Melinda got her trusteeship at the same time, in 1996.
Slightly factually incorrect, in that this particular donation was just last year, though Duke has been receiving donations from Bill Gates for quite a few years now, what the total is I don't know or care, except that it's much more than $35 million. What does Bill get out of it? Power, influence, builds up his wife's reputation and hence his own, tax writeoffs, and who knows, perhaps some of the Universty's research gets deeded back to Microsoft.
One more factoid before I drop this thread and move on to things that matter: the university's bio for Melinda refers to her as a former Microsoft executive, whereas I only remember her being a manager.
Just in case you still think it's a coincidence, billg gave $35 million to Duke and Melinda got her trusteeship at the same time, in 1996. It's blatantly obvious that Melinda is just another of Bill's pawns. I'd love to see the details of her nuptial contract.
BA from Duke and an MBA from Duke, plus she sits on the board of Trustees at Duke.
Just because she married Bill doesn't immediately make this a freakin' conspiracy.
Ha ha ha. Was she invited onto Duke's board of Trustees before or after marrying billg?
True, if it's an open source document reader. But if that is their intention it could be possible to create such a system. Open Source the OS but then give out binary only versions of the document readers, and only distribute Government Files in that format.
What has that got to do with the operating system?
Ban the sale of prescription glasses and contact lenses. If you can't see it you'll be safe. Oh, you can't drive either? Sorry, that's the price of perfect safety.
"You need to be pretty gullible to think that Microsoft would settle any case they thought they could win."
A lengthy trial brings in negative press, lawyer fees, and other expenses that can easily go into the several millions. My guess is they figured that the $23M was a cheaper route than taking it to trial.
Look in the mirror, is the person you see there gullible or not?
Or perhaps you see an ammnesiac there: Microsoft has never settled any suit where it wasn't obviously going against them.
Gee, thats such an astute observation...
Of course it is totally wrong. It is called a settlement for a reason. You settle the dispute without any more court hearings and without admitting to anything. You simply pay an amount of money you find acceptable to not have to deal with the situation anymore.
You need to be pretty gullible to think that Microsoft would settle any case they thought they could win.
OK moderators, note that astroturfers are out in force today, and they have mod points.
China is endorsing linux and make most of the world's mobile phones (and will make most of the other embedded devices). No, we probably won't see Chinese boxed sets of linux at Best Buy, but linux imports will threaten MS.
Even if that were somehow unfair (which is a stretch) what makes you think the chief beneficiary of that won't be Montavista, the leading supplier of embedded Linux solutions? (i.e., a U.S. company.)
...perhaps even have power to persuade the public to use it by releasing documents only readable on that OS
That's ridiculous, if it's open source.
How would you like it if you were a car manufacturer and suddenly a government would start producing cars and competing with you using taxpayer money?
So, you think the asian governments are going to pay to produce millions of software CDs and flood the U.S. market with them? Seems far-fetched to me.
I'm still trying to figure out out how the decision by the three countries is any different than this or this.
Yes, that's priceless: essentially the same software that the U.S. army is buying for $950/computer, Microsoft will sell in Thailand for $36.
I don't know if they are right, but in this case, for instance, Microsoft's issue is similar to steel, farm goods, etc
No it isn't. The countries involved don't export operating system software.
MS are simply copying the line of the US government (and a lot of US companies and even /. users). Look at steel, farm goods, coding out-sourcing, skilled immigrants etc, etc. In all these fields the US or a lot of its citizens are actively seeking to halt global competition and seeking to privilege US companies, producers and citizens.
What's laughable about this is, there is no issue of protectionism anywhere to be seen. Protectionism is when a country erects trade barriers such as import duties to protect a local industry. Sponsoring R&D is not a trade barrier, it is just (hopefully) good management.
The other silly idea is that this has something to do with fair trade. Since the asian countries aren't exporting their OS, where is the trade, fair or not? Even if they were, since when did it become unfair for government and industry to collaborate on R&D?
a DB-backed filesystem is a genius idea until some asks: where should the database write its data files? ah, yes, the filesystem!
While that is true of most simple database systems, big iron DBs like Oracle typically work directly with raw volumes.
When we get more like 50 of these a week, then we'll know that they've really gotten serious.
When you find yourself spending all day, every day, applying patches, you know they've gotten really, really serious.
Stowell added: "Sooner or later the invoicing will reach European companies I'm sure. We will not be limiting this to a US only market."
This warning seems to be a clear breach of the German injunction.
For that matter, so is the material on SCO's main web page here, which makes the unproven allegation "customers unknowingly received illegal copies of SCO property", among other things. I can't think of any reason why the injunction would be limited to material on the German-language page, which is, after all, also served from the U.S.
From here is can go two ways. They can switch, or Microsoft can cut them a deal. Managers are other companies will be watching with interest to see which one it will be.
Either way, it's starting to look like a run on Microsoft's bank.
This isnt good news for Open Source, and Linux in particular.
Nonsense. Every win for Linux/FOSS is good news. By dropping a convicted monopolist as a supplier, they clearly move in the direction of less evil, not more.
A big story would be Telestra rolling out Linux desktops. Telestra saying that they're going to do it is a very different matter.
Oh, your theory is that managers never pay attention to the strategies of other companies?