One of the big reason's I think the GPL v. 2 was such a good license is that it was a simple license with a simple objective. The problem I see with the new license is that it is losing it's KISS (keep it simple stupid) roots to go after issues that piss off free software advocates. Can people abuse the GPL's spirit but maintain the letter of the law? Yes but I think of that as a feature and not an issue (as advocates of free speech nicely put "I may not like what you say but I will defend your right to say it.") . Why- because restrictions in licenses often have unintended consequences. One of those consequences is having a license that gets more convoluted as time goes by. If every time somebody finds a loop hole in how you want your software license used, you need to change your license, the closer the language of your license becomes "you can use our software until we don't like you".
Right now, the gpl is trying to define things like "intended for home use" and "only use patents for defensive purposes and "modify... still play media". One of the really nice things about GPL v. 2 is the lack of imbiguety of the language and definitions.
Microsoft's AV software, which had the AV community flipping out thinking they were screwed, has turned into one of the company's biggest embarassments. But it's not the only one. Vista incompatibilities are a serious headache, and a lot of folks just aren't upgrading. With the US economy looking like it's going into downturn, they're not going to be making up for it in OEM boxes.
I'm sure they'll survive this time, but the business model they're running with is showing cracks. I'll wager the other AV guys like Symantec are rolling around on the floor laughing at this, while MS's reputation at being able to manage the viruses that are taking advantage of the vulnerabilities largely of their its own creation is going down the tubes.
IE was a joke against netscape when it first came out.
Excel was a joke against lotus 123 for awhile.
Wordperfect was better than MS Word.
The fact that thier product sucks now changes nothing. Nobody laughs when microsoft says they are entering your market. Nobody.
Of all the parts to the eqatuation in FL 2000 (voting machines, ballots, election process, registration, administration, etc) it was the ballots that were at fault, and the administration of the resulting dispute that created the big issue.
I think computers should count ballots. It is what computers were designed for; to count and add stuff up. Is it possible that voting machines can be tampered with? The answer is yes... but no more than paper ballots were. This does not mean that I don't want the computers doing the tally's to be secure but that security is always an issue with any method of voting- but at least with a computer, the accuracy (assuming no tampering) and speed of the result is excellent.
In the eyes of the government, we are all innocent until proven guilty.
This piece of diatribe is very good and has merit but is really very over-used. When the state puts somebody forward as a criminal they are saying they ARE GUILTY! What innocent until proven guilty is that jurrors are told that "the state" must prove thier assertion of guilt or you got to let the person go. The state is not looking to see you as innocent; When cops and prosecutors look at a crime, they are assuming you are guilty (if thier are any plausable leads connected to you).
I wonder how long until the FireFox AdBlock guys make a work around (a week?)
I hope they don't make a work around. I have nothing against websites putting adds on thier page and I have nothing against people blocking adds (I block all flash adds due to the preponderance of annoying ones) but I don't believe that people should try to get aroundrequirements websites are trying to enforce. I think the site should be boycotted (don't like the deal) or agree to thier policies.
Well I run Linux and I like to run it in 64 bit. As far as anything else, what is the point in buying yesterdays technology even if it works just fine today? I would rather buy technology that will work tommorow.
I am happy to see Intel producing duel core tech but it apears that this centrino is not 64 bit so I don't see the point in it. Both Intel and AMD are making 64 bit x86 processors so that is likely to be the standard of the future... so why buy a processor that is still 32 bit?
As opposed to the 'sifter' micro-managing and reducing morale. It speaks better to the CEO's commitment if they read/reply personally instead of pushing it off to someone else. That's the whole point of this.
That is the point. The person who is sifting through the CEO's mail does not have the job of running a company but of saving time of the person who is running the company. The person running the company should spend his/her time running a company and not reading tons of email. As for moral- the key is for the sifter to not tell anyone that they exist and to have the CEO read only the emails that have any real importance or info. Moral should not come from how easy it is to talk to the top boss, but in knowing you are working for a company that is treating its employees and customers right. If an email complaining about such conditions, then a sifter should certainly pass that on to a CEO. Of course this is for any really large company. Any small company should have direct access to the top brass because the number of emails by employees of smaller companies should be reasonable. However, I know many managers that spend a large number of thier time reading and replying to email and I would say that it gets in thier way of being more effective.
I think that if I was in a CEO position, I would have my email sifted through by a secretary and then only the real meat forwarded to me; giving me more time to do other things. A CEO who spends large amounts of time reading email feels like a micromanager and would give me less confidence in the leadership of the company.
and you can be sure that the executives, and ultimately shareholders, may not be as bold and willing to put it on the line and call the record industry's bluff.
I think Steve could easily convince shareholders to back him up if he was to tell shareholders that profit margins could be lower if the record labels are allowed to siphon ipod profits
Guess what - your doctor is probably behind the times and you'd get better outcomes if you were being treated by a whippersnapper from a good medical residency program with a couple years of practical experience.
I would soundly say you are absolutly wrong. Most of the times, the problems you or I have are typical things that don't need any specialized knowledge. If this doctor gets stumped, I would trust him to send me to a proficient specialist. To scorn an old doctor who treats his patients like gold simply because he is old is crazy. Give me a doctor who treats me right rather than an arrogant pissant recently out of medical school any day.
Good Example:
requesting the description of an emotion (recalling an event that typically invokes strong emotions)
Bad Example:
Hard math (34589759847359874389574398+3487928479823749837498 )
actually hard math is a good test. If they know pi past 5 digits- then its a computer. Yes, I have seem some of them breathing on college campusses and I still stand by the statment that they are computers;)
This kind of explosion reeks of a fellow who feels indestructable in his current position. Breaking out in a violent, destructive rage in the office is not normal, even for these guys.
I am not trying to defend balmers actions but since so many people have already thrown rocks at Steve, I feel like putting this in perspective. Steve Balmer just lost a few key employees to Google and he is ticked off. He probably was already having issues with Google and having another thing hit the fan was just too much. Granted- to take it so personally is rediculous but I get the impression that he was letting off a little steam. MS is not used to another company causing a "Brain Drain" in the software field.
That is where support contracts by a specific vendor, say SUSE, comes to mind. The point of such a contract is to provide patch support to protect against any issues that keep you from doing your business.
I think that is lame excuse and a lame approach. The people who know the kernel code best are the kernel developers who developed it. To lay the burden on a third party vendor means more work for everybody and it still means less stable code in general. When Linux had a stable release kernel, vendors would still test kernels to make sure they were good but they were not burdened with any real development. Now vendors are expected to have kernel developers on staff rather than it being an optional desire.
There is now a fundamental change in Linux development. It used to be create a solid system. Now it is create a featurfull system. Personally I just want a solid system and I can wait a few years for new features.
I guess you've been posting bug reports on bugzilla.kernel.org? Otherwise it's not *really* their fault that something doesn't work. Kernel developers test their code pretty well.
Even if he has reported bugs, with the new features breaking stuff, he would probably find new bugs next release. But the fact of the matter is that 2.6 is less stable and it is the new development method that is to blame. Most people don't have time to track down bugs of this nature, especially in a bussiness environment where the OS is just supposed to work. If Linus and gang are looking for Linux to just be some developers toy where the fun is in creating and fixing things then they are doing the right stuff but if they want to make a reputation for solid systems that bussinesses can use, they are making a mistake. When someone relies on an OS to do multimillion dollar transactions and it goes down, they don't want to hear "I am sending in a bug report to the kernel mailing list right now".
Gnu was trying to write a kernel for like forever and the hurd has taken them for like forever. If Linus had not come along, I would not be surprised to hear RMS trying to claim a GNU/BSD. Most systems have more software than what is composed of as the kernel but the kernel gets the credit: Solaris, BSD, Windows, AIX, OSX, etc. That is the way things are done. The reason is that the os is the core of the system and everything else runs on top of it. Only RMS would think to confuse matters.
Around me, the price of a movie is 9 dollars so to go out with my wife to the movies cost $18.00 (not including junk food). My view is that if it only costs 12 bucks for my wife and I, I would probably see twice as many movies a year. The theatres and Hollywood have overshot the "sweet spot" of movie prices and even though twenty dollars is not a lot of money, there are too many alternative forms of entertainment one can do for less or with better value than a movie when going out. It has nothing to do with the quality of the movies because movies have been on par with previous quality of entertainment in previous years- just the price has changed. It is cheaper for me to buy a dvd of the movie than to go to the theartre and watch it. Go figure.
But Pentium D doesn't have "Xeon" in the name so it obviously isn't for servers. Intel should know better. AMD was wise enough to come up with a new name for their chip to indicate that it was appropriate for use in servers.
The problem with InTel is that they are in a dilemna. They don't want x86-64 to take off because it was 1. AMD's idea and 2. Intel spent a fortune on the Itanic and were hoping to nudge out the competition (due to the fact that they patented the Itanium's instruction set). Intel knows that they have to sell x86-64 chips or let AMD run away uncontested but on the other hand they are not going to advertise that. Intel is in a terrible quandry. If they ever heavily endorse the x86-64 then that gives AMD a lot of credibilty and credit for being the leader and if x86-64 takes off big (as it seems it will) then Intel had better have a product to sell. This causes Intel to create these chips but intentionally obscuring the product line. They don't want to push this kind of chip. Intel would be estatic if x86-64 turned out to be a bust.
How about this for a sentence: "Mc Bride tried to destroy the work and benefits of thousands of programmers (who generously provided thier work for free) in his blind pursuit of greed."
Well maybe because he did not ask for money and the only one who died was himself. I don't know if he was the son of god but I would say he was a very wise and generous man rather than a crook or mad.
Take a look at the Roman Empire. When they became a "monopoly", their morals lowered and they became disorganised.
If 500 years I live, I won't call it a bad stretch. The fact of the matter is that every day a company is either growing or dieing and the heart of a company are the people who work it and care for it. Eventually the wrong people with the wrong vission will be at the helm of a company and that company will die. However, it is not the natural progression of a company to become corrupt and die but that a company will change as the people in a company change and eventually the wrong people will lead a company. Think of Caldera before and after McBride.
There was a time when many on slashdot boycotted them and suggested other online book retailers. Then people said that boycott was complete/successful and that people could use amazon again. But the fact of the matter is that they sued Barnes and Nobles over the one click patent and they have not stopped thier patent lawyers from patenting the normal development of e-comerce.
It isn't like DELL will have to give up selling Intel if they also sell AMD and having one or two models with AMD won't short supply AMD. This is the Least insightfull comment. If the AMD machines sell like hot cakes at Dell then they are making great $ with AMD and if supplies get short then that means they can raise the price of the AMD machines (supply/demand) and they can still sell a ton of Intel machines no matter if they are selling AMD or not.
However, if they refuse to sell any AMD then customers who want AMD are forced to buy from someone else. It has not affected thier bottom line much yet but I know of several companies who are thinking of switching away from DELL simply because they want to buy opteron servers.
I am sure the program is cool and all but for this to be of real value to him, he must be a structure nazi. If he was grading for strong arguements, well thought ideas and good research then a program will not be able to help (unless he has made a breakthrough in AI while the world was asleep).
the *only* reason why slashdot cared about transmeta was because linus was hired by them.. no other reason. the simple fact is that this company is a failure so could we please, please stop talking about it? it's going to go bankrupt like 99% of all startups, so it's really not that big of a deal.
I was interested in Transmeta before Linus started working there. Why?
Well they are a chip company and they produced a chipset with some rather slick ideas.
The problem with Transmeta is not the technology but the everything else. The simple facts are that in most cases the transmeta chips are not of any real interest- Intel did a good job with centrino and most manufacturers/buyers saw no point in going over to Transmeta. As for emulating other chips, in most cases, just buy the "real" chip. And though Transmeta makes a cool chip, the benchmarks are just "so so". The other major problem is that Transmeta is not sure what the want to do with thier Tech (be an embedded chip or i386 competitor or something else). I bought thier stock with the idea that they had cool stuff and sold it (at a profit) when I realized that despite the cool ideas, the company did not have a concrete business strategy. I am not saying that Transmeta is incompetent in business sense but merely that they did not find a good solution to selling thier chips. Thier problem is that on the i386 side where they were planning to popularize thier chip they bumped into 3 solid competitors:
1. Intel with centrino for laptop/low power and pentium 4 for the high-end.
2. AMD for the high end power cruncher.
3. VIA with thier low power and CHEAP processors.
This left Transmeta with no real niche in the x86 market.
In the embeded market, thier is a whole slew of embeded chip makers and many of them well entrenched in the market.
20/20 hindsight is a wonderfull thing but if I could look back on what they should have done differently, I would say they should have aimed to be a smaller company. Try to carve out a small niche and let thier market grow without having high over-head and have thier company grow as they found new niches for thier Tech. The problem is that thier company was started with the rise of the internet bubble where everything had to happen BIG so they grew bigger than thier market.
I hope they survive though. They have/had some really sharp Engineers working there.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the big reason's I think the GPL v. 2 was such a good license is that it was a simple license with a simple objective. The problem I see with the new license is that it is losing it's KISS (keep it simple stupid) roots to go after issues that piss off free software advocates. Can people abuse the GPL's spirit but maintain the letter of the law? Yes but I think of that as a feature and not an issue (as advocates of free speech nicely put "I may not like what you say but I will defend your right to say it.") . Why- because restrictions in licenses often have unintended consequences. One of those consequences is having a license that gets more convoluted as time goes by. If every time somebody finds a loop hole in how you want your software license used, you need to change your license, the closer the language of your license becomes "you can use our software until we don't like you".
... still play media". One of the really nice things about GPL v. 2 is the lack of imbiguety of the language and definitions.
Right now, the gpl is trying to define things like "intended for home use" and "only use patents for defensive purposes and "modify
I'm sure they'll survive this time, but the business model they're running with is showing cracks. I'll wager the other AV guys like Symantec are rolling around on the floor laughing at this, while MS's reputation at being able to manage the viruses that are taking advantage of the vulnerabilities largely of their its own creation is going down the tubes.
IE was a joke against netscape when it first came out.
Excel was a joke against lotus 123 for awhile.
Wordperfect was better than MS Word.
The fact that thier product sucks now changes nothing. Nobody laughs when microsoft says they are entering your market. Nobody.
I think computers should count ballots. It is what computers were designed for; to count and add stuff up. Is it possible that voting machines can be tampered with? The answer is yes... but no more than paper ballots were. This does not mean that I don't want the computers doing the tally's to be secure but that security is always an issue with any method of voting- but at least with a computer, the accuracy (assuming no tampering) and speed of the result is excellent.
This piece of diatribe is very good and has merit but is really very over-used. When the state puts somebody forward as a criminal they are saying they ARE GUILTY! What innocent until proven guilty is that jurrors are told that "the state" must prove thier assertion of guilt or you got to let the person go. The state is not looking to see you as innocent; When cops and prosecutors look at a crime, they are assuming you are guilty (if thier are any plausable leads connected to you).
I hope they don't make a work around. I have nothing against websites putting adds on thier page and I have nothing against people blocking adds (I block all flash adds due to the preponderance of annoying ones) but I don't believe that people should try to get aroundrequirements websites are trying to enforce. I think the site should be boycotted (don't like the deal) or agree to thier policies.
Well I run Linux and I like to run it in 64 bit. As far as anything else, what is the point in buying yesterdays technology even if it works just fine today? I would rather buy technology that will work tommorow.
I am happy to see Intel producing duel core tech but it apears that this centrino is not 64 bit so I don't see the point in it. Both Intel and AMD are making 64 bit x86 processors so that is likely to be the standard of the future... so why buy a processor that is still 32 bit?
That is the point. The person who is sifting through the CEO's mail does not have the job of running a company but of saving time of the person who is running the company. The person running the company should spend his/her time running a company and not reading tons of email. As for moral- the key is for the sifter to not tell anyone that they exist and to have the CEO read only the emails that have any real importance or info. Moral should not come from how easy it is to talk to the top boss, but in knowing you are working for a company that is treating its employees and customers right. If an email complaining about such conditions, then a sifter should certainly pass that on to a CEO. Of course this is for any really large company. Any small company should have direct access to the top brass because the number of emails by employees of smaller companies should be reasonable. However, I know many managers that spend a large number of thier time reading and replying to email and I would say that it gets in thier way of being more effective.
I think that if I was in a CEO position, I would have my email sifted through by a secretary and then only the real meat forwarded to me; giving me more time to do other things. A CEO who spends large amounts of time reading email feels like a micromanager and would give me less confidence in the leadership of the company.
I think Steve could easily convince shareholders to back him up if he was to tell shareholders that profit margins could be lower if the record labels are allowed to siphon ipod profits
I would soundly say you are absolutly wrong. Most of the times, the problems you or I have are typical things that don't need any specialized knowledge. If this doctor gets stumped, I would trust him to send me to a proficient specialist. To scorn an old doctor who treats his patients like gold simply because he is old is crazy. Give me a doctor who treats me right rather than an arrogant pissant recently out of medical school any day.
actually hard math is a good test. If they know pi past 5 digits- then its a computer. Yes, I have seem some of them breathing on college campusses and I still stand by the statment that they are computers ;)
I am not trying to defend balmers actions but since so many people have already thrown rocks at Steve, I feel like putting this in perspective. Steve Balmer just lost a few key employees to Google and he is ticked off. He probably was already having issues with Google and having another thing hit the fan was just too much. Granted- to take it so personally is rediculous but I get the impression that he was letting off a little steam. MS is not used to another company causing a "Brain Drain" in the software field.
I think that is lame excuse and a lame approach. The people who know the kernel code best are the kernel developers who developed it. To lay the burden on a third party vendor means more work for everybody and it still means less stable code in general. When Linux had a stable release kernel, vendors would still test kernels to make sure they were good but they were not burdened with any real development. Now vendors are expected to have kernel developers on staff rather than it being an optional desire.
There is now a fundamental change in Linux development. It used to be create a solid system. Now it is create a featurfull system. Personally I just want a solid system and I can wait a few years for new features.
Even if he has reported bugs, with the new features breaking stuff, he would probably find new bugs next release. But the fact of the matter is that 2.6 is less stable and it is the new development method that is to blame. Most people don't have time to track down bugs of this nature, especially in a bussiness environment where the OS is just supposed to work. If Linus and gang are looking for Linux to just be some developers toy where the fun is in creating and fixing things then they are doing the right stuff but if they want to make a reputation for solid systems that bussinesses can use, they are making a mistake. When someone relies on an OS to do multimillion dollar transactions and it goes down, they don't want to hear "I am sending in a bug report to the kernel mailing list right now".
Gnu was trying to write a kernel for like forever and the hurd has taken them for like forever. If Linus had not come along, I would not be surprised to hear RMS trying to claim a GNU/BSD. Most systems have more software than what is composed of as the kernel but the kernel gets the credit: Solaris, BSD, Windows, AIX, OSX, etc. That is the way things are done. The reason is that the os is the core of the system and everything else runs on top of it. Only RMS would think to confuse matters.
Around me, the price of a movie is 9 dollars so to go out with my wife to the movies cost $18.00 (not including junk food). My view is that if it only costs 12 bucks for my wife and I, I would probably see twice as many movies a year. The theatres and Hollywood have overshot the "sweet spot" of movie prices and even though twenty dollars is not a lot of money, there are too many alternative forms of entertainment one can do for less or with better value than a movie when going out. It has nothing to do with the quality of the movies because movies have been on par with previous quality of entertainment in previous years- just the price has changed. It is cheaper for me to buy a dvd of the movie than to go to the theartre and watch it. Go figure.
The problem with InTel is that they are in a dilemna. They don't want x86-64 to take off because it was 1. AMD's idea and 2. Intel spent a fortune on the Itanic and were hoping to nudge out the competition (due to the fact that they patented the Itanium's instruction set). Intel knows that they have to sell x86-64 chips or let AMD run away uncontested but on the other hand they are not going to advertise that. Intel is in a terrible quandry. If they ever heavily endorse the x86-64 then that gives AMD a lot of credibilty and credit for being the leader and if x86-64 takes off big (as it seems it will) then Intel had better have a product to sell. This causes Intel to create these chips but intentionally obscuring the product line. They don't want to push this kind of chip. Intel would be estatic if x86-64 turned out to be a bust.
How about this for a sentence: "Mc Bride tried to destroy the work and benefits of thousands of programmers (who generously provided thier work for free) in his blind pursuit of greed."
Well maybe because he did not ask for money and the only one who died was himself. I don't know if he was the son of god but I would say he was a very wise and generous man rather than a crook or mad.
If 500 years I live, I won't call it a bad stretch. The fact of the matter is that every day a company is either growing or dieing and the heart of a company are the people who work it and care for it. Eventually the wrong people with the wrong vission will be at the helm of a company and that company will die. However, it is not the natural progression of a company to become corrupt and die but that a company will change as the people in a company change and eventually the wrong people will lead a company. Think of Caldera before and after McBride.
There was a time when many on slashdot boycotted them and suggested other online book retailers. Then people said that boycott was complete/successful and that people could use amazon again. But the fact of the matter is that they sued Barnes and Nobles over the one click patent and they have not stopped thier patent lawyers from patenting the normal development of e-comerce.
However, if they refuse to sell any AMD then customers who want AMD are forced to buy from someone else. It has not affected thier bottom line much yet but I know of several companies who are thinking of switching away from DELL simply because they want to buy opteron servers.
I am sure the program is cool and all but for this to be of real value to him, he must be a structure nazi. If he was grading for strong arguements, well thought ideas and good research then a program will not be able to help (unless he has made a breakthrough in AI while the world was asleep).
I was interested in Transmeta before Linus started working there. Why?
Well they are a chip company and they produced a chipset with some rather slick ideas.
The problem with Transmeta is not the technology but the everything else. The simple facts are that in most cases the transmeta chips are not of any real interest- Intel did a good job with centrino and most manufacturers/buyers saw no point in going over to Transmeta. As for emulating other chips, in most cases, just buy the "real" chip. And though Transmeta makes a cool chip, the benchmarks are just "so so". The other major problem is that Transmeta is not sure what the want to do with thier Tech (be an embedded chip or i386 competitor or something else). I bought thier stock with the idea that they had cool stuff and sold it (at a profit) when I realized that despite the cool ideas, the company did not have a concrete business strategy. I am not saying that Transmeta is incompetent in business sense but merely that they did not find a good solution to selling thier chips. Thier problem is that on the i386 side where they were planning to popularize thier chip they bumped into 3 solid competitors:
1. Intel with centrino for laptop/low power and pentium 4 for the high-end.
2. AMD for the high end power cruncher.
3. VIA with thier low power and CHEAP processors.
This left Transmeta with no real niche in the x86 market.
In the embeded market, thier is a whole slew of embeded chip makers and many of them well entrenched in the market.
20/20 hindsight is a wonderfull thing but if I could look back on what they should have done differently, I would say they should have aimed to be a smaller company. Try to carve out a small niche and let thier market grow without having high over-head and have thier company grow as they found new niches for thier Tech. The problem is that thier company was started with the rise of the internet bubble where everything had to happen BIG so they grew bigger than thier market.
I hope they survive though. They have/had some really sharp Engineers working there.