Actually, I personally don't see them doing it. They've already sued one high-profile name, what's the point? They've got enough publicity already. It's the small "mom-and-pop" setups that are likelier to keel over and pay up - [1-5]*US$699 is more cough-up-able than for someone running a server farm the size of Google's. (It's a little like how they say, if a bank lends you $1, they own you, but if they lend you $1bn, you own the bank?)
Google's involvement with linux is so extensive it makes no sense for Google to just keel over and pay it - Google WILL fight (can you imagine the licensing cost for all those machines they have? UNLESS maybe SCO walks up to google and offers them a "cut rate" license fee ("for ONE dollar you'll be in the clear!!"), in which case if Google pays up, it'll be a major coup for SCO which they'll use against others. But in that case it makes sense for Google to say - "we'll pay AFTER you win against IBM" first.
Are there any actual lawyers here who can tell us if Google can ask for a stay in court proceedings, assuming SCO sues them, until after the outcome of the IBM lawsuit? They'd be relitigating the same case otherwise, no?)
Re:Is this my first ever troll?
on
iPod-Jacked
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· Score: 1
I'm sure that as soon as she heard my random playlist going from Bulgarian folk music to Slayer, the thrill would be gone. Sigh
Maybe. Or maybe she'd dig it. In which case she'd be exactly the kind of girl you'd want to meet, no?
One thing I'm curious about, is that nobody seems to be talking about the installed base of WEP-only wifi equipment already out there (which, as is evidenced by all the almost-as-excited-as-during-the-bubble-days VCs, is quite a large one). I've not heard of any plans by anyone to retrofit WPA onto existing WEP-only equipment (about the only one I know of is Apple's recent software update, but that's only for users of a subset of their installed base (those with the original Airport system aren't included), and the further subset of those who've purchased the latest release (10.3; no update for 10.2 has been released and it's unclear at this point if there ever will. Does anyone have any better info?)).
I'm sure the manufacturers would hope that people would just rush out and buy new WPA-capable equipment after junking their old WEP-only ones, but I'm figuring most people would just keep on using it (or is part of the WPA rollout going to involve a massive FUD campaign to instill The Fear Of Airsnort upon the general public?).
In which case, won't Airsnort et al retain "usefulness" well beyond the introduction of WPA and the ostensible "retirement" of WEP... ?
(Of course, none of this would apply to the people using completely unencrypted wifi. which is a yet bigger proportion of the wifi using population...).
what are the realistic chances of a payout? Beyond finding the person, it's also another question finding enough evidence to put that person away. The realistic odds of MS ever having to pay out the $$, how high is that?
Actually wont' all this do is that, in the future, the virus writing will be done by the "professional" types who are going to be more careful about covering their tracks (launch only from internet cafes, zombiefied machines? with a long enough chain-of-zombies even assessing the traffic logs is going to come up with inconclusive info?) as opposed to newbie-types? will that ramp up the lethality of the virii?
Does this make it the worlds largest DVD-duplicating machine?
Actually, based on RIAA accounting standards (the drives are, what, 8x? 16x?), this ought to be number 1 on whatever global ranking there is for CD/DVD-duplication machines, VT can say they are number 1 in global rankings, instead of a mere number 3... !
turn into a class action - funded by IBM/RH/et al. The words "class action" are much more likely to get the attention of litigators
But class actions are only meaningful against a company that has money. If SCO fails against IBM their stock price would tank so fast, none of the usual will-take-on-contingency lawyers would bother because there'd be no money left to sue for.
Actually, in a sense, this lawsuit isn't frivolous at all. This lawsuit is - if (as looks likely?) it goes to trial - going to be make-or-break time for the GPL. It's finally going to be tested in court.
If a ruling is passed in favour of the GPL, then well and good. What I'm worried about is what SCO (and guys like MS, and Sun I guess) would be angling for is that the GPL is defeated. In which case, where does that leave us? It'd be Armaggedon for those of us who feel the GPL serves a purpose and is a good tool. To add insult to injury, what would happen subsequently to that will be wholesale theft of the already-out-in-the-open GPL-ed code by all sorts of unscrupulous and/or "careless" companies.
Erm... isn't the history of digital watermarking pretty dismal so far? I mean, the RIAA tried to watermark music but Ed Felten and gang pretty much demonstrated the futility of that (and pretty quickly, too).
Are software binaries really so different that watermarking would work for it?
Apple had been telling folks for YEARS not to write code like that because it would bite them later, but some didn't listen.
But what if they had to do this for performance reasons? What if you were the kind of developer who was willing to go down-and-deep into the innards of the system in order to glean that little bit more performance (or, rather, quite a lot more performance), instead of just shrugging your shoulders and say "erm, buy a newer machine?"
I think we're all forgetting one thing - the X-prize. The Chinese space program is a government program in all sense of the word - just as the Russian/Soviet, US ones as well. In that respect they are all the same. The EU setup is supra-national but still governmental, and likewise the Brazilian attempts (and whoever else). However it is only in the US that there seems to be any action in attempting to get private individuals up into space (assuming thigns don't get messed up, e.g. your government passes a law that makes space exploration only legal for NASA).
I think this is going to be far more significant (assuming it pans out - and I expect it will!) than any number of government-run space explorations. I can't envision any Soviet or Chinese non-government enterprises springing up to launch space vehicles anytime soon.
i think we also need to note that production quality changes over time. Nowadays nobody builds things to last. I'm sure everyone's aware of "old-school", chunky big laser printers that just won't die, vs. current generation printers that choke 2 days after the warranty expires.
The question to note would be, are those old mothebroards and CPUs being built to a higher standard of quality than the curernt generation? In which case extrapolating from the previous generation won't be giving us a good indicator.
eh? Are you talking about on a %-age-of-revenue thing, or in absolute terms? I think Apple spends as a % of revenue quite a bit because they're using non-standard hardware, and so can't leverage off other's work (their Q&A, testing etc. also costs them more).
On absolute terms though I wouldn't be surprised if Dell spends more than Apple - their revenues must be significantly bigger (their profits definitely are...).
But I distinctly remember in one interview Micheal Dell himself saying that one of the reasons for Dell's success was that they didn't spend anything on R&D (this was in their much earlier days) and (together with other factors) as a result would always have better margins than everyone else. Some of my engineering friends have always felt this distaste for Dell ever since then.
Anybody out there have a link to an archive of this or anything?
Actually, I've found that VMware doesn't work with quite a lot of the x86 OS-es I've tried (and on their website there's something to that effect).
BeOS doesn't work, neither does QNX or OS/2. I'm having a heck of a time getting Solaris x86 to work as well (doesn't seem to like the HDD being presented as a SCSI device, must be IDE, although I've installed actual Solaris x86 machines with SCSI HDDs before without problems).
Slashdot Mirror
Unixware product will no longer be marketable under the "SCO" name
Wouldn't it be really something if it ended up being sold under the *IBM* name? "IBM Unixware"... hahaha!
(well, yes, I know, IBM already has AIX and linux deployments...).
What is the latest "safe" version of Windows Media Player, anyway? I've kept with 6.4 for fear of
.AVI and MIDI formats IIRC.
Actually 6.4 needed a patch not too long ago too - there's some kind of hole with certain
Actually, I personally don't see them doing it. They've already sued one high-profile name, what's the point? They've got enough publicity already. It's the small "mom-and-pop" setups that are likelier to keel over and pay up - [1-5]*US$699 is more cough-up-able than for someone running a server farm the size of Google's. (It's a little like how they say, if a bank lends you $1, they own you, but if they lend you $1bn, you own the bank?)
Google's involvement with linux is so extensive it makes no sense for Google to just keel over and pay it - Google WILL fight (can you imagine the licensing cost for all those machines they have? UNLESS maybe SCO walks up to google and offers them a "cut rate" license fee ("for ONE dollar you'll be in the clear!!"), in which case if Google pays up, it'll be a major coup for SCO which they'll use against others. But in that case it makes sense for Google to say - "we'll pay AFTER you win against IBM" first.
Are there any actual lawyers here who can tell us if Google can ask for a stay in court proceedings, assuming SCO sues them, until after the outcome of the IBM lawsuit? They'd be relitigating the same case otherwise, no?)
I'm sure that as soon as she heard my random playlist going from Bulgarian folk music to Slayer, the thrill would be gone. Sigh
Maybe. Or maybe she'd dig it. In which case she'd be exactly the kind of girl you'd want to meet, no?
No, the legal system ruled it was a monopoly etc., but it was the political system that let them get away with it.
One thing I'm curious about, is that nobody seems to be talking about the installed base of WEP-only wifi equipment already out there (which, as is evidenced by all the almost-as-excited-as-during-the-bubble-days VCs, is quite a large one). I've not heard of any plans by anyone to retrofit WPA onto existing WEP-only equipment (about the only one I know of is Apple's recent software update, but that's only for users of a subset of their installed base (those with the original Airport system aren't included), and the further subset of those who've purchased the latest release (10.3; no update for 10.2 has been released and it's unclear at this point if there ever will. Does anyone have any better info?)).
I'm sure the manufacturers would hope that people would just rush out and buy new WPA-capable equipment after junking their old WEP-only ones, but I'm figuring most people would just keep on using it (or is part of the WPA rollout going to involve a massive FUD campaign to instill The Fear Of Airsnort upon the general public?).
In which case, won't Airsnort et al retain "usefulness" well beyond the introduction of WPA and the ostensible "retirement" of WEP... ?
(Of course, none of this would apply to the people using completely unencrypted wifi. which is a yet bigger proportion of the wifi using population...).
default Solaris8 won't take more than 8, either. neither will the older versions of MacOS X (Puma, Jaguar. Panther has this fixed, though).
what are the realistic chances of a payout? Beyond finding the person, it's also another question finding enough evidence to put that person away. The realistic odds of MS ever having to pay out the $$, how high is that?
Actually wont' all this do is that, in the future, the virus writing will be done by the "professional" types who are going to be more careful about covering their tracks (launch only from internet cafes, zombiefied machines? with a long enough chain-of-zombies even assessing the traffic logs is going to come up with inconclusive info?) as opposed to newbie-types? will that ramp up the lethality of the virii?
Isn't microsoft's motto "if you can't beat 'em, buy 'em"?
But then won't they have to buy EVERYBODY?
without SuperDrives
Does this make it the worlds largest DVD-duplicating machine?
Actually, based on RIAA accounting standards (the drives are, what, 8x? 16x?), this ought to be number 1 on whatever global ranking there is for CD/DVD-duplication machines, VT can say they are number 1 in global rankings, instead of a mere number 3... !
turn into a class action - funded by IBM/RH/et al. The words "class action" are much more likely to get the attention of litigators
But class actions are only meaningful against a company that has money. If SCO fails against IBM their stock price would tank so fast, none of the usual will-take-on-contingency lawyers would bother because there'd be no money left to sue for.
if frivilous lawsuits were illegal
Actually, in a sense, this lawsuit isn't frivolous at all. This lawsuit is - if (as looks likely?) it goes to trial - going to be make-or-break time for the GPL. It's finally going to be tested in court.
If a ruling is passed in favour of the GPL, then well and good. What I'm worried about is what SCO (and guys like MS, and Sun I guess) would be angling for is that the GPL is defeated. In which case, where does that leave us? It'd be Armaggedon for those of us who feel the GPL serves a purpose and is a good tool. To add insult to injury, what would happen subsequently to that will be wholesale theft of the already-out-in-the-open GPL-ed code by all sorts of unscrupulous and/or "careless" companies.
The stakes in this are so high that I am worried.
Erm... isn't the history of digital watermarking pretty dismal so far? I mean, the RIAA tried to watermark music but Ed Felten and gang pretty much demonstrated the futility of that (and pretty quickly, too).
Are software binaries really so different that watermarking would work for it?
They may still work,
For those of us who remember Windows 3.11 and DR-DOS, the question that comes to mind is "Really?? For how much longer?"
Apple had been telling folks for YEARS not to write code like that because it would bite them later, but some didn't listen.
But what if they had to do this for performance reasons? What if you were the kind of developer who was willing to go down-and-deep into the innards of the system in order to glean that little bit more performance (or, rather, quite a lot more performance), instead of just shrugging your shoulders and say "erm, buy a newer machine?"
I'm not sure this is entirely accurate... .
I think we're all forgetting one thing - the X-prize. The Chinese space program is a government program in all sense of the word - just as the Russian/Soviet, US ones as well. In that respect they are all the same. The EU setup is supra-national but still governmental, and likewise the Brazilian attempts (and whoever else). However it is only in the US that there seems to be any action in attempting to get private individuals up into space (assuming thigns don't get messed up, e.g. your government passes a law that makes space exploration only legal for NASA).
I think this is going to be far more significant (assuming it pans out - and I expect it will!) than any number of government-run space explorations. I can't envision any Soviet or Chinese non-government enterprises springing up to launch space vehicles anytime soon.
i think we also need to note that production quality changes over time. Nowadays nobody builds things to last. I'm sure everyone's aware of "old-school", chunky big laser printers that just won't die, vs. current generation printers that choke 2 days after the warranty expires.
The question to note would be, are those old mothebroards and CPUs being built to a higher standard of quality than the curernt generation? In which case extrapolating from the previous generation won't be giving us a good indicator.
No-one in the PC business saw Dell coming
I think this point cannot be emphasized enough... I think anyone out there who says "oh we could have been Dell" is talking rubbish.
About the only people who were close to what Dell was, was/is Gateway, and they're not anywhere as powerful as Dell is now...
Basic rule of selling things must be dont piss the customer off.
No. The basic rule of selling things is "make money".
It's because they can't pull that off that they're suing.
I can work on two monitors with the third (TV) showing a full screen movie.
:-)
Haha, didn't they say multiple displays would INCREASE productivity?
Hrm, the installation just bombs on me - VMWare pops up an error dialog and I can't get any further.
So, you're a secret internal VMWare guy eh... how's working for the company like? You guys worried about MS-and-Connectix at all?
You're a genius!!!
Where're the mods??
hahaha... you got a point there... if I had mod points I dunno if I'd give this a +Funny or a +Insightful :-)
eh? Are you talking about on a %-age-of-revenue thing, or in absolute terms? I think Apple spends as a % of revenue quite a bit because they're using non-standard hardware, and so can't leverage off other's work (their Q&A, testing etc. also costs them more).
On absolute terms though I wouldn't be surprised if Dell spends more than Apple - their revenues must be significantly bigger (their profits definitely are...).
But I distinctly remember in one interview Micheal Dell himself saying that one of the reasons for Dell's success was that they didn't spend anything on R&D (this was in their much earlier days) and (together with other factors) as a result would always have better margins than everyone else. Some of my engineering friends have always felt this distaste for Dell ever since then.
Anybody out there have a link to an archive of this or anything?
Actually, I've found that VMware doesn't work with quite a lot of the x86 OS-es I've tried (and on their website there's something to that effect).
BeOS doesn't work, neither does QNX or OS/2. I'm having a heck of a time getting Solaris x86 to work as well (doesn't seem to like the HDD being presented as a SCSI device, must be IDE, although I've installed actual Solaris x86 machines with SCSI HDDs before without problems).