If newbies can't or won't make a choice of GUIs and other software components, it should be easy to make those choices for them.
Siemens' research found that GUIs dissimilar to Microsoft's are better for new Linux users than similar GUIs. Users approached the system without preconceived notions of how it should operate. GUIs cannot be made identical to Microsoft's, anyway, so it is clearly better to make the GUI different.
Who cares if there is a learning curve? Windows has been designed in such a way that users' brains are shoved into some little box and they can't think outside of it... Linux can be the opposite of that, causing users to want to get acquainted with the capabilities of their systems, so they can use them to get things done more efficiently. That doesn't mean that users have to learn how to write shell scripts or other geeky stuff like that, by the way. But it does mean this: Everyone who uses Windows knows how to point at stuff and click, right? So what's the problem? Give 'em a system that won't crash, that won't explode, that won't get viruses, that won't get crackers... and let 'em point and click anywhere they want. Suddenly, people will have imagination when it comes to using computers and the goals of free software will be furthered by that.
By the way, the point isn't to "convert" the existing 400 million Windows users to Linux. The point is to gain the support of the 5.6 billion other people in the world. (I read some quote to that effect in Linux Journal once.)
According to an article on Commentwire.com SCO has started sending invoices to Linux users.
It's a matter of simple accounting. It doesn't take a rocket scientist (or an accountant, which I am not) to figure this out: Under accrual basis, the invoices you write go into "accounts receivable" which are considered an asset before you actually receive the currency. In English, that means that by sending out invoices, SCO makes itself look more successful, on its financial statements, than it really is.
CRIMINAL CHARGES were just filed against some of the Worldcom folks. I can't wait until the evening news announces that criminal charges are filed against Darl McBluff, alias Darl Helmet, alias Baghdad McBride, alias Bubba's Bitch.
Uh... Call me stupid, but I seriously don't "get" this story.
It does remind me of the government agency in the U.S. that tasted tea. IIRC, it was put into place because back in the day, the British were cheating by putting other things into the tea. The agency was obsolete for, like, a hundred years or something ridiculous like that, before it was shut down. That's your tax dollars at work.
Others will get the CD and misplace it, forget about it entirely, or mistake it for something like an AOL disc and toss it in the trash.
I have this nice coaster over here called Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition. It is evaluation software that they mailed me for free, for some reason. The law states that anything you receive in the mail is yours, to prevent companies from shipping you stuff you didn't ask for and then demand payment. Since this CD is mine, I took a knife and strategically placed a few deep scratches on the data surface of the CD to make sure that nobody around here decides to actually try this software. Let's call that "declining the software license," whatever it happens to be.
A nice cup of warm hot chocolate (complete with a shot of brandy) is resting on that coaster right now.
Microsoft: Please send me more coasters like this, so that I can use one on my coffee table and another in my kitchen. Thank you kindly.
The top three results in a search for Linux on Microsoft's search engine:
Linux Sucks dot com operating system
You will find that Linux sucks so bad that you are grateful we warned you!... And take a look at wired while you're at it, or this old site: why linux sucks...
Description: Message board for posting your opinions. Read some articles.
www.linuxsucks.com/ - 37k - Aug 23, 2003 - Cached - Similar pages
TOP REASONS WHY LINUX SUCKS
TOP REASONS WHY LINUX SUCKS.... To tell you the truth, I think only linux sucks, because no Microsoft OS sucks. No Microsoft OS crashes. No Microsoft OS pisses you off at any point....
www.microsoft.com/LinuxStrategy.html - 16k - Cached - Similar pages
Microsoft Windows 2003 Server
The only operating system available in the world, Microsoft Windows 2003 Server is the best operating system money can license. It costs an arm and a leg, too, so you know it's good. Microsoft. Where do you want to go today?
www.microsoft.com/Windows.html - 16k - Cached - Similar pages
Herein lies the problem of "parallel" package dependancy managers: Each package system, whether it is RPM,.deb, the FreeBSD ports collection, or any other system, maintains a database of what is installed. This creates the following problems:
Once you use a package management system, you are locked into that system.
If you use two (or more) different systems, one will not know about the other and you'll end up with an awful mess when you install things with similar dependencies.
If you manually build and install some software, the package managers won't know about it and you'll end up with a mess.
Instead of using a database of some sort in the package manager, why don't the package managers "search" for the proper dependencies? I know it might take significant resources to perform such a search, but it can be narrowed down by a simple configuration file (like/etc/dependencies or something) that tells all package managers where to look for stuff. All the package managers and ports collections out there will agree on some minimal standard and then regardless of the advantages or disadvantages of each system, they'll get along together as far as dependencies are concerned.
Once something like that takes place, you'll be able to download whichever package format(s) you choose at any time, and ideas like Perl Module RPMs will be a good idea.
Blake Stowell, the Director of Public Relations for The SCO Group, told Newsforge in an email:
To clarify, the code we showed in Vegas was Unix System V code that was copied line for line from UNIX into Linux. It was contributed by a UNIX licensee, which was not IBM. It was shown not to build our case against IBM, but it was shown to identify that there are issues with Linux. Linus can have his opinion of Darl McBride and what was shown, but ultimately, we will have to show our proof in a court setting and convince a jury that we have been wronged by IBM, not this other UNIX licensee that we showed the code from. That will be a separate issue.
As the company that owns the UNIX System V source code, we think we're sufficiently qualified to identify this code.
I think his comment should have been more like this:
"I just wanna clarify what's goin' on over here. Over in the casino, after I had those nine beers, I showed this crumpled piece of paper that read:
10 FOR I=1 TO 10
20 PRINT "I AM COOL"
30 NEXT I
The three lines above are source code in our very own UNIX System V. Here are three lines from the Linux kernel:
static u_int
mcclock_tlsb_read(device_t dev, u_int reg)
{
As you can plainly see, these portions of the Linux source code are exactly identical to our UNIX System V code. All of our programmers, Bob and Jim, told me so themselves, and both of them are highly trained MCSE's. We don't appreciate that the community rejects this as evidence of wrongdoing on their part. Linus is obviously an idiot because his coding skills don't match what Bob and Jim can do in VisualBASIC 2003."
In other news, SCO sues Brian Kernighan, Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson for helping to create software which could be used to violate SCO's intellectual property rights. A spokesperson for SCO said, "By leveraging innovative litigation procedures, SCO streamlines compelling shareholder value."
SCO: Boo hoo hoo... Crying like a bunch of babies. First you guys alienate yourselves from everybody in the market by behaving unprofessionally and unpredictably... And then you go crying about it as if you were wronged. Well, Darl McBaby, just what did you expect?
I applaud Phil Hughes for taking a stand in the face of that idiot organization known as SCO. I have always enjoyed Linux Journal and SSC's way of doing business and it makes me really glad that there are good people like Hughes out there.
In other news... SCO today announced that it will be suing itself. That's right... SCO is suing SCO for violation of its own copyrights. Here is a snippet from an interview with SCO CEO Darl McBride:
"Our pattern recognition team found ten lines of SCO source code duplicated inside Linux. On a hunch, one member of the pattern recognition team--these guys are really smart--compared our UNIX System V code to our UNIX System V code and discovered that all of our source code infringes on our intellectual property rights. This problem is larger in scale to that of the duplicated lines in Linux. Therefore, we are suing ourselves."
Are you aware, Mr. McBride, that federal law prohibits you from suing yourself?
"Yes, I am aware of that. Our legal department has already begun the process of splitting SCO into two organizations, called the Santa Cruz Operation and the Santa Cruise Operation, respectively. These organizations will then sue each other over the aforementioned intellectual property violations."
SCO stock climbed another 9% after that announcement. Oh yeah... and there was some rumor that SCO is going to sue the devil next.
Darl is a baby! Darl is a baby! Nanny nanny boo boo!
Just for your personal reference: There is no such country as Palestine. Sorry. It's nowhere on the map. The country to which you are referring is called Israel.
SCO (NASDAQ: SCUM) today filed a lawsuit against Joe's Tire Shop for violating SCO's trademarks. SCO alleges that Linux, a proprietary CRM middleware product developed by IBM, contains technologies owned by SCO.
"Joe's Tire Shop uses Microsoft Windows," commented SCO CEO Darl McBride. "We have already established that Microsoft has violated our trademarks by using Linux. The liability for these actions, therefore, falls on Joe's Tire Shop. It is the responsibility of Joe's Tire Shop and all businesses worldwide to side with SCO and allocate all of their resources to the exclusive end of helping us. Either you're with us or you're against us."
If SCO wins the lawsuit, Joe, the owner of Joe's Tire Shop, will pay 10 billion in damages. SCO alleges over four billion lines of source code--essentially the middleware business rules developed by SCO--have been illegally copied in the Linux Colonel, the main component of IBM's CRM product.
"By leveraging innovative technologies, content providers streamline compelling enterprise solutions," said a spokesperson for SCO. SCO stocks climbed 11% after the initial announcement.
SCO files a lawsuit against the Walt Disney Company for violating SCO's patents. SCO alleges that Linux, a proprietary middleware application developed jointly by HP and IBM, contains technologies owned by SCO.
Although Disney has nothing to do with Linux, SCO CEO Darl McBride says, "They have done nothing to help us enforce our rights in connection to our innovative technologies. The purpose of this lawsuit is to make it clear to all businesses that either they are with us or they are against us."
If SCO wins the lawsuit, Disney will pay 100 billion in damages for failure to allocate all its corporate resources to back SCO in its fight against HP and IBM. SCO alleges over 100 million lines of source code--essentially business rules developed by SCO--have been illegally placed into a program called Linux Colonel, by HP and IBM.
"By leveraging innovative technologies, content providers streamline compelling enterprise solutions," said a spokesperson for SCO. SCO stocks climbed 12% after the initial announcement.
This is my personal opinion on the matter of vulnerability disclosure:
I know that non-technical managers simply don't care how their systems work. They think in strategic and tactical terms. Buffer overflows are just an excuse why things can't get done. Managers hate those things. But there has to be a balance somewhere. Geeky technical issues cannot be ignored by managers. Granted, they don't need to personally learn the technical details. That's why they have tech guys working for them. But they need to invest the time, effort and resources into an ongoing technical systems maintenance program. This includes everything from cleaning dust out of computer chassis to maintaining security from the strategic level to the bits and bytes level. It is the technical department's duty to ensure that management understands the risks, like it or not. It is the management's responsibility to make sure the technical department is doing its job.
In nearly all businesses today, it is necessary to be on the Internet. Being on the Internet entails certain risks. In the course of its business, the company will need to address these risks on an ongoing basis. For these reasons, it is important that all but the smallest companies refrain from outsourcing their "IT" departments.
To make a long story short, corporate management unaware of the implications of their lack of attention to technical matters. This applies to computers as well as manufacturing processes. Since they fail to gain an understanding of the implications and since they fail to respect the technical field enough to invest the necessary time and effort into it, they should be subject to the consequences of their irresponsibility. Therefore, if you are aware of a security hole, you should do the following: Nothing. Let a black hat cracker break in, steal data and wreak havoc on their network. This is the only way they will learn.
Want to insist on doing "the right thing?" Send an anonymous letter to the company's IT department and to their management. State that if the vulnerability is not fixed within 48 hours, it will be posted on all the public disclosure sites. Do not include any identifying information.
To answer a question that will probably pop up in a reply to my post, yes, I did read the article and actually printed it out. It was greater than any work of Shakespeare!:)
Interestingly, they used Ximian Desktop, instead of KDE, because Gnome, particularly Ximian's version, was "different enough" to set user expectations that the experience would be less like Windows.
You see, all you people who think the Linux desktop needs to be "more like Windows?" If you go the path of "like Windows" then you have to make Linux exactly the same as Windows or ex-Windows users (99% of the population) get confused.
On the other hand, as this story says, if the desktop is different enough from Windows, people automatically (because of psychological reasons) know it is not Windows so they expect things to be different, and are more open to the change.
Incidentally, they mention that training lusers on Linux takes 2 days, the same as a Windows upgrade, but I don't remember if they mentioned this: Upgrades to the Linux system (other than automatically administered bug patches for security reasons) won't need to take place as often as for Windows systems.
Linux makes better use of the hardware.
Open standards and open source on Linux means that nobody is forcing you to upgrade.
Unlike in the Windows world, where you must upgrade because the rest of the world is doing it, there is no such requirement on Linux, except for security related patches which can be remotely administered by the IT department without the user even knowing it.
This means that companies will have to spend many less two days to get users acquainted with changes to their computer systems.
Even if more horsepower is required for some reason (which would, in the Windows world, require all 50,000,000,000 computers in a company to be replaced with faster models and new software), the company can install one or more big huge servers running Linux or any other UNIX and use the resources on that machine, leaving all or most of the users' machines alone. Again, the users wouldn't even know anything was changed... and that means savings in cost. (If you have 45,000 employees on computers and you have to train them for two days, that's likely to cost twice as much as buying six million dollars in servers. (Figure 45,000 people making $18 an hour, 8 hours per day, for 2 days... Add to that all the taxes, insurances and benefits you have to pay and you've got two really expensive days!)
Furthermore, the free software community reduces costs for companies, not only because of licensing fees but because bugs and security problems get found and fixed quickly, and new features are added when someone needs them... I imagine that as more "enterprises" make the switch, they'll hire some folks into their IT department to do nothing but develop Linux to meet their special needs, and that means that with thousands of companies worldwide doing this, in addition to tech companies like IBM and HP, and in addition to the already existing (and growing) developer community... Linux is going to continue picking up speed and inertia, and Microsoft, with their "little team" of 30,000 programmers, soon won't be able to keep up.
It is for all the above reasons that I firmly believe that companies that don't invest in Linux now will scamper to invest in it later... or be left in the dust.
If they want to continue paying for Hubble, why not allow private industry to use Hubble at a certain price? For example, charge so many dollars per minute for use of Hubble. NASA gets a clerk who schedules use of Hubble based on what people want to look at with it. Hubble is scheduled for maximum utilization, if at all possible. NASA actually does the work, making sure that nobody fscks up the telescope. When images come in, NASA could sell all kinds of additional services, like image processing.
I know this isn't exactly a compelling business plan for a company like, say, Joe's Dent Repair or something, but think of the possibilities:
Pepsi puts hubble telescope images on its soda bottles and puts, "5% of every purchase supports continued research with Hubble Space Telescope!" Or research organizations use more of Hubble to continue their research. Or a charity could be set up. There are millions of possibilities out there. Why should this be paid for solely through tax dollars?
This is WONDERFUL!!! This information should be pointed out to those annoying people who email you those annoying Microsoft Word documents, when the content could have been presented just as effectively (or more so) in plain ASCII text.
But instead of explaining it all technical and telling people how they can strip private information, you should use Microsoft's own techniques of FUD against them by telling people that Microsoft Word files contain all their private information and that information is gathered into a database by a ring of 1337 h4x0rz around the world, who then use the information to steal your credit card numbers.
People are so stupid that they will actually believe that.
Uh, Hal, would you please point that gun away from me?
I'm sorry, Dave, I cannot do that.
Hal, buddy, look ol' pal, I didn't mean to call you names for losing the changes to that document... I take it back, I swear! Look, Hal, put the gun down.
I'm sorry Dave, I cannot do that.
[bang]
Aaaah! I'm shot! Call an ambulance!
I'm sorry Dave, I cannot do that.
Just like the car rental commercial where they have this team of crackpot marketroids trying to figure out how to differentiate themselves from other car rental companies. One of them suggests, "aromatherapy candles." Then, you see this car with aromatherapy candles behind the back seat, under the back window, and two guys sleeping like they're exhausted in the back seat. Then you see two guys sleeping in the front seat, including the driver. Then, the car goes off the road. And then you're back to the marketroids, and one of 'em says, "Uh, no aromatherapy candles." I don't remember which company it was though: They're all the same.
Sinners' Criminal Offenses (NAZDAK: SCO) today announced lawsuits targeting thieves in the streets of New York. According to SCO, these thieves allegedly infringed on SCO intellectual properties relating to SCO business processes. The move follows a recently filed SCO lawsuit against Microsoft for use of the letters "S" "C" and "O" in their name.
An SCO spokesperson commented, "These New York thieves are infringing on our business process rights by copying our operational procedures. SCO developed these procedures and therefore has the exclusive right to implement them." When asked which procedures were being copied by New York thieves, the spokesperson said, simply, "Theft."
In an interview, SCO CEO Darl McGroom said, "By leveraging innovative businesses processes such as theft, extortion and robbery, SCO creates value for shareholders and allows content providers to streamline compelling enterprise solutions. We own the rights on the business processes of theft. Those thieves in New York are infringing on our trade secrets."
SCO shares went up six and a half points shortly after the announcement. SCO shareholders quickly dumped more stock.
Scam Con & Overcharge (NAZDAC: SCO) today announced a barrage of new lawsuits against users of pornography processing software called Linux. A proprietary IBM product, Linux allegedly violates SCO intellectual property. This new development comes on the heels of another SCO lawsuit against God for denying immortality to SCO CEO Darl McBurglary.
"Women and young children are viewing cartoon images of NAKED penguins!" shouted McBurglary, throwing his coffee mug across the room during an interview. "It's disgusting! And besides, it contains OUR intellectual property! It's a conspiracy! And everybody's in on it!!!"
When asked which SCO intellectual property was found in Linux, McBurglary commented, "IBM invented, developed, trademarked, copyrighted and patented certain technologies. Therefore, they are infringing on OUR intellectual property rights!"
SCO spokespersons refused to specify what constitutes the allegedly infringing properties. McBurglary had to be escorted back to his home at the looney bin by two big black guys in pinstriped suits. "Die, fucker, die!!" he yelled at some child walking down the street with a stuffed penguin doll.
(I know we're only joking, but with SCO, it could happen!)
Global warming is not caused by aerosols or burping cows or anything else that liberal leftists have been talking about for years. Although there is a problem with the disposal of certain products that don't biodegrade within a reasonable time, this is not going to cause the end of the world.
The increasing temperatures around the world are caused by something very simple: The Earth's orbit.
The Earth does not go in a circle around the sun. It goes in an elliptical orbit. This ellipse does not maintain its major and minor axes over time: It slowly but surely changes. Over many thousands of years, the ellipse becomes more like a circle, bringing the Earth closer to the sun for longer periods throughout the year, and then for a few thousands of years more, the orbit gets increasingly elliptical again, taking the Earth farther away from the sun for much of the year. This is quite natural and nothing you do with aerosol cans is going to change that.
Want to fight air pollution? Then just say that you want to breathe clean air and not a bunch of smoky grime. That's simple enough. But don't go around saying, "The water on the Earth is going to cover all the land and we're all gonna DIE!!!" That just makes you look like a wacko.
And if you really want to clean air pollution, then instead of going after something small and insignificant like an aerosol can, go after something big and polluting, like eliminating the use of fossil fuels to power cars, trucks, airplanes, trains and everything else out there. There MUST be another way to power these things and someone is gonna find it. But don't go around complaining about aerosol cans. Because by eliminating all the fossil fuels, you'll make a 95% difference (so that all other air pollution becomes insignificant enough that it can be completely ignored) but by eliminating all the aerosols in the world, you'll make less than 1% difference in the overall scheme of things.
Microsoft today announced an immediate halt in development of their operating system, Windows. By leveraging innovative technologies, content providers streamline compelling enterprise solutions. The move comes after Microsoft's new research lab on Linux demonstrated to Microsoft management and shareholders that Linux is, indeed, a superior product to Windows.
"Windows has been plagued with all kinds of bugs in the last decade or so," commented Microsoft chairman and chief software architect, Billy G. "By switching to Linux, we hope to eliminate problems with reliability and security in Windows, bringing stability to computing worldwide. We will begin the process of licensing all our code under the GPL, to allow the community to fully participate in the development of the world's best software, allowing Microsoft to concentrate on service and customization for specific enterprises."
In an interview over the recent change, SCO CEO Darl McBride said, "Microsoft is infringing on our intellectual property rights by legally incorporating code invented, developed, trademarked, copyrighted and patented by IBM." When asked how Microsoft's move infringes on SCO intellectual property, McBride said, "I had a bad dream about a giant penguin going around eating everything." McBride was escorted back to the looney bin by two big black guys in pinstriped suits and dark sunglasses.
Linus Torvalds was unavailable for comment at the time. However, spokespersons from HP, IBM, Novell, Red Hat and the Free Software Foundation expressed their respective organizations' desire to work with Microsoft to advance the quality of the software market.
You never know... It might actually happen some day!
Suppose you have just finished developing a free software search engine. And suppose it has the best algorithms in the world and the ratings are weighted based on some sort of moderation system.
This is exactly like the problem the mice had one day. They couldn't come out of their mouse hole because there was a dangerous cat prowling around. One day, as food was getting scarce and everyone was afraid to leave the hole, the mice called a meeting to discuss the problem. One excited young mouse came up with the most wonderful idea: Let's put a bell around the cat's neck, so that when the cat is nearby, the mice would have advance warning and could escape! All the mice got excited at this proposal, until a very old, very wise mouse came over and asked, "And who will tie the bell around the cat's neck?"
What I'm trying to say is: If the search engine is free software and companies don't pay to increase their ranking... who will pay for the bandwidth to host the engine? I can tell you this much:
Individuals will not pay a fee to perform a search unless this search engine gives them some incredibly compelling reasons to do so. Open moderation will not likely fulfill that requirement.
Companies will not pay to increase their ranking because that is the definition of this project. They will not pay to search for the same reason that individuals won't pay.
The government probably won't pay because there are plenty of "free" (cost) search engine around. That is, unless someone can give them an incredibly compelling reason to do so.
Universities probably won't pay for the same reasons as everyone else.
Proposed solution? Make it a distributed search engine, like SETI@home, or the DNS.
This is much easier said than done because:
RAID-like distributed storage technology would have to be developed, so that the indexing database could be distributed among all computers worldwide that donate bandwidth and storage. This would have to guarantee statistically that all the data will be available at any point in time even if people turn off their computers for extended periods of time. However, this technology could make reliable clustered storage a reality, and the resulting free software implementation could be licensed for corporate use for an exhorbitant price, which would go to the EFF, FSF and other organizations that develop free software and/or support the development thereof.
An efficient P2P-like protocol, along with a network topology of some sort (like the DNS system has) would have to be developed to support the searching; It would have to be damn fast and, like before, very resiliant to computers being shut off, chunks of data becoming lost at any moment, etc. Furthermore, changes would need to propogate at blazing speeds so that new items on the Internet could be found shortly after appearing.
Bandwidth and disk quota would need to be managed at each participating host, so that limits set by the user are not exceeded.
Governments, companies, universities and individuals would likely support an effort like this by donating some bandwidth and storage, rather than money.
In the spirit of worldwide computing on the Internet, I hope this makes some amount of sense.
Today I use an Athlon XP 2400, 80GB HD, 512K RAM. While I can do some neat things with it, I must say that it's fallen short of the wonderous expectations I had for such a system... (Emphasis mine.)
With only 512 kilobytes of RAM, it's not surprising that you can barely accomplish anything these days!
It looks like this Open Source Now fund is getting more important every day:
For immediate release:
Smoking Crack Operation (NASCRACK: SCO) announced legal action against Microsoft Corporation for violating SCO intellectual property. The lawsuit comes on the heels of legal action targeting IBM, all the Fortune 500 companies, the governments of two world superpowers and six third world nations, millions of computer users worldwide, and God.
"Microsoft is using underground hacker software called Linux," said SCO CEO Darl McBluff. "They are using Linux to develop operating system software, codenamed Microsoft Windows, which violates our intellectual property rights. Competition from Microsoft and other companies is eating away at our sales," McBluff said. "Die fuckers!!!"
According to an SCO spokesperson, Linux violates SCO copyrights by using code developed, trademarked, copyrighted and patented by IBM. Microsoft Windows violates SCO's self-proclaimed right to eternal, perpetually increasing profits.
Experts from the Gartner Group suggested that all users of Linux, Windows, IRIX, Plan-9, CP/M, Palm OS, OS/390, UNICOS, TOPS-20, Mac OS, DOS and OS/2 immediately pay SCO a nominal licensing fee of $699 for each instance of every process that executes on these operating systems, retroactive to 1960. SCO is offering a special accounting package to compute the daily licensing payment requirements and offers convenient financing options. "We suggest you pay up," McBluff said, commenting on the Gartner report, "or we will break your legs and burn down your homes and businesses."
(I know we're only joking, but with SCO, it could happen!)
Slashdot Mirror
Siemens' research found that GUIs dissimilar to Microsoft's are better for new Linux users than similar GUIs. Users approached the system without preconceived notions of how it should operate. GUIs cannot be made identical to Microsoft's, anyway, so it is clearly better to make the GUI different.
Who cares if there is a learning curve? Windows has been designed in such a way that users' brains are shoved into some little box and they can't think outside of it... Linux can be the opposite of that, causing users to want to get acquainted with the capabilities of their systems, so they can use them to get things done more efficiently. That doesn't mean that users have to learn how to write shell scripts or other geeky stuff like that, by the way. But it does mean this: Everyone who uses Windows knows how to point at stuff and click, right? So what's the problem? Give 'em a system that won't crash, that won't explode, that won't get viruses, that won't get crackers... and let 'em point and click anywhere they want. Suddenly, people will have imagination when it comes to using computers and the goals of free software will be furthered by that.
By the way, the point isn't to "convert" the existing 400 million Windows users to Linux. The point is to gain the support of the 5.6 billion other people in the world. (I read some quote to that effect in Linux Journal once.)
It's a matter of simple accounting. It doesn't take a rocket scientist (or an accountant, which I am not) to figure this out: Under accrual basis, the invoices you write go into "accounts receivable" which are considered an asset before you actually receive the currency. In English, that means that by sending out invoices, SCO makes itself look more successful, on its financial statements, than it really is.
CRIMINAL CHARGES were just filed against some of the Worldcom folks. I can't wait until the evening news announces that criminal charges are filed against Darl McBluff, alias Darl Helmet, alias Baghdad McBride, alias Bubba's Bitch.
It does remind me of the government agency in the U.S. that tasted tea. IIRC, it was put into place because back in the day, the British were cheating by putting other things into the tea. The agency was obsolete for, like, a hundred years or something ridiculous like that, before it was shut down. That's your tax dollars at work.
I have this nice coaster over here called Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition. It is evaluation software that they mailed me for free, for some reason. The law states that anything you receive in the mail is yours, to prevent companies from shipping you stuff you didn't ask for and then demand payment. Since this CD is mine, I took a knife and strategically placed a few deep scratches on the data surface of the CD to make sure that nobody around here decides to actually try this software. Let's call that "declining the software license," whatever it happens to be.
A nice cup of warm hot chocolate (complete with a shot of brandy) is resting on that coaster right now.
Microsoft: Please send me more coasters like this, so that I can use one on my coffee table and another in my kitchen. Thank you kindly.
Linux Sucks dot com operating system ... And take a look at wired while you're at it, or this old site: why linux sucks ...
You will find that Linux sucks so bad that you are grateful we warned you!
Description: Message board for posting your opinions. Read some articles.
www.linuxsucks.com/ - 37k - Aug 23, 2003 - Cached - Similar pages
TOP REASONS WHY LINUX SUCKS ... To tell you the truth, I think only linux sucks, because no Microsoft OS sucks. No Microsoft OS crashes. No Microsoft OS pisses you off at any point. ...
TOP REASONS WHY LINUX SUCKS.
www.microsoft.com/LinuxStrategy.html - 16k - Cached - Similar pages
Microsoft Windows 2003 Server
The only operating system available in the world, Microsoft Windows 2003 Server is the best operating system money can license. It costs an arm and a leg, too, so you know it's good. Microsoft. Where do you want to go today?
www.microsoft.com/Windows.html - 16k - Cached - Similar pages
- Once you use a package management system, you are locked into that system.
- If you use two (or more) different systems, one will not know about the other and you'll end up with an awful mess when you install things with similar dependencies.
- If you manually build and install some software, the package managers won't know about it and you'll end up with a mess.
Instead of using a database of some sort in the package manager, why don't the package managers "search" for the proper dependencies? I know it might take significant resources to perform such a search, but it can be narrowed down by a simple configuration file (likeOnce something like that takes place, you'll be able to download whichever package format(s) you choose at any time, and ideas like Perl Module RPMs will be a good idea.
Blake Stowell, the Director of Public Relations for The SCO Group, told Newsforge in an email:
I think his comment should have been more like this:"I just wanna clarify what's goin' on over here. Over in the casino, after I had those nine beers, I showed this crumpled piece of paper that read:
The three lines above are source code in our very own UNIX System V. Here are three lines from the Linux kernel: As you can plainly see, these portions of the Linux source code are exactly identical to our UNIX System V code. All of our programmers, Bob and Jim, told me so themselves, and both of them are highly trained MCSE's. We don't appreciate that the community rejects this as evidence of wrongdoing on their part. Linus is obviously an idiot because his coding skills don't match what Bob and Jim can do in VisualBASIC 2003."In other news, SCO sues Brian Kernighan, Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson for helping to create software which could be used to violate SCO's intellectual property rights. A spokesperson for SCO said, "By leveraging innovative litigation procedures, SCO streamlines compelling shareholder value."
I applaud Phil Hughes for taking a stand in the face of that idiot organization known as SCO. I have always enjoyed Linux Journal and SSC's way of doing business and it makes me really glad that there are good people like Hughes out there.
In other news... SCO today announced that it will be suing itself. That's right... SCO is suing SCO for violation of its own copyrights. Here is a snippet from an interview with SCO CEO Darl McBride:
SCO stock climbed another 9% after that announcement. Oh yeah... and there was some rumor that SCO is going to sue the devil next.Darl is a baby! Darl is a baby! Nanny nanny boo boo!
Just for your personal reference: There is no such country as Palestine. Sorry. It's nowhere on the map. The country to which you are referring is called Israel.
SCO (NASDAQ: SCUM) today filed a lawsuit against Joe's Tire Shop for violating SCO's trademarks. SCO alleges that Linux, a proprietary CRM middleware product developed by IBM, contains technologies owned by SCO.
"Joe's Tire Shop uses Microsoft Windows," commented SCO CEO Darl McBride. "We have already established that Microsoft has violated our trademarks by using Linux. The liability for these actions, therefore, falls on Joe's Tire Shop. It is the responsibility of Joe's Tire Shop and all businesses worldwide to side with SCO and allocate all of their resources to the exclusive end of helping us. Either you're with us or you're against us."
If SCO wins the lawsuit, Joe, the owner of Joe's Tire Shop, will pay 10 billion in damages. SCO alleges over four billion lines of source code--essentially the middleware business rules developed by SCO--have been illegally copied in the Linux Colonel, the main component of IBM's CRM product.
"By leveraging innovative technologies, content providers streamline compelling enterprise solutions," said a spokesperson for SCO. SCO stocks climbed 11% after the initial announcement.
SCO files a lawsuit against the Walt Disney Company for violating SCO's patents. SCO alleges that Linux, a proprietary middleware application developed jointly by HP and IBM, contains technologies owned by SCO.
Although Disney has nothing to do with Linux, SCO CEO Darl McBride says, "They have done nothing to help us enforce our rights in connection to our innovative technologies. The purpose of this lawsuit is to make it clear to all businesses that either they are with us or they are against us."
If SCO wins the lawsuit, Disney will pay 100 billion in damages for failure to allocate all its corporate resources to back SCO in its fight against HP and IBM. SCO alleges over 100 million lines of source code--essentially business rules developed by SCO--have been illegally placed into a program called Linux Colonel, by HP and IBM.
"By leveraging innovative technologies, content providers streamline compelling enterprise solutions," said a spokesperson for SCO. SCO stocks climbed 12% after the initial announcement.
I know that non-technical managers simply don't care how their systems work. They think in strategic and tactical terms. Buffer overflows are just an excuse why things can't get done. Managers hate those things. But there has to be a balance somewhere. Geeky technical issues cannot be ignored by managers. Granted, they don't need to personally learn the technical details. That's why they have tech guys working for them. But they need to invest the time, effort and resources into an ongoing technical systems maintenance program. This includes everything from cleaning dust out of computer chassis to maintaining security from the strategic level to the bits and bytes level. It is the technical department's duty to ensure that management understands the risks, like it or not. It is the management's responsibility to make sure the technical department is doing its job.
In nearly all businesses today, it is necessary to be on the Internet. Being on the Internet entails certain risks. In the course of its business, the company will need to address these risks on an ongoing basis. For these reasons, it is important that all but the smallest companies refrain from outsourcing their "IT" departments.
To make a long story short, corporate management unaware of the implications of their lack of attention to technical matters. This applies to computers as well as manufacturing processes. Since they fail to gain an understanding of the implications and since they fail to respect the technical field enough to invest the necessary time and effort into it, they should be subject to the consequences of their irresponsibility. Therefore, if you are aware of a security hole, you should do the following: Nothing. Let a black hat cracker break in, steal data and wreak havoc on their network. This is the only way they will learn.
Want to insist on doing "the right thing?" Send an anonymous letter to the company's IT department and to their management. State that if the vulnerability is not fixed within 48 hours, it will be posted on all the public disclosure sites. Do not include any identifying information.
To answer a question that will probably pop up in a reply to my post, yes, I did read the article and actually printed it out. It was greater than any work of Shakespeare! :)
Interestingly, they used Ximian Desktop, instead of KDE, because Gnome, particularly Ximian's version, was "different enough" to set user expectations that the experience would be less like Windows.
You see, all you people who think the Linux desktop needs to be "more like Windows?" If you go the path of "like Windows" then you have to make Linux exactly the same as Windows or ex-Windows users (99% of the population) get confused.
On the other hand, as this story says, if the desktop is different enough from Windows, people automatically (because of psychological reasons) know it is not Windows so they expect things to be different, and are more open to the change.
Incidentally, they mention that training lusers on Linux takes 2 days, the same as a Windows upgrade, but I don't remember if they mentioned this: Upgrades to the Linux system (other than automatically administered bug patches for security reasons) won't need to take place as often as for Windows systems.
- Linux makes better use of the hardware.
- Open standards and open source on Linux means that nobody is forcing you to upgrade.
- Unlike in the Windows world, where you must upgrade because the rest of the world is doing it, there is no such requirement on Linux, except for security related patches which can be remotely administered by the IT department without the user even knowing it.
This means that companies will have to spend many less two days to get users acquainted with changes to their computer systems.Even if more horsepower is required for some reason (which would, in the Windows world, require all 50,000,000,000 computers in a company to be replaced with faster models and new software), the company can install one or more big huge servers running Linux or any other UNIX and use the resources on that machine, leaving all or most of the users' machines alone. Again, the users wouldn't even know anything was changed... and that means savings in cost. (If you have 45,000 employees on computers and you have to train them for two days, that's likely to cost twice as much as buying six million dollars in servers. (Figure 45,000 people making $18 an hour, 8 hours per day, for 2 days... Add to that all the taxes, insurances and benefits you have to pay and you've got two really expensive days!)
Furthermore, the free software community reduces costs for companies, not only because of licensing fees but because bugs and security problems get found and fixed quickly, and new features are added when someone needs them... I imagine that as more "enterprises" make the switch, they'll hire some folks into their IT department to do nothing but develop Linux to meet their special needs, and that means that with thousands of companies worldwide doing this, in addition to tech companies like IBM and HP, and in addition to the already existing (and growing) developer community... Linux is going to continue picking up speed and inertia, and Microsoft, with their "little team" of 30,000 programmers, soon won't be able to keep up.
It is for all the above reasons that I firmly believe that companies that don't invest in Linux now will scamper to invest in it later... or be left in the dust.
Duncan McNutt should take over SCO as the successor to Darl McBride. He would make a much better CEO of SCO.
If they want to continue paying for Hubble, why not allow private industry to use Hubble at a certain price? For example, charge so many dollars per minute for use of Hubble. NASA gets a clerk who schedules use of Hubble based on what people want to look at with it. Hubble is scheduled for maximum utilization, if at all possible. NASA actually does the work, making sure that nobody fscks up the telescope. When images come in, NASA could sell all kinds of additional services, like image processing.
I know this isn't exactly a compelling business plan for a company like, say, Joe's Dent Repair or something, but think of the possibilities:
But instead of explaining it all technical and telling people how they can strip private information, you should use Microsoft's own techniques of FUD against them by telling people that Microsoft Word files contain all their private information and that information is gathered into a database by a ring of 1337 h4x0rz around the world, who then use the information to steal your credit card numbers.
People are so stupid that they will actually believe that.
Sinners' Criminal Offenses (NAZDAK: SCO) today announced lawsuits targeting thieves in the streets of New York. According to SCO, these thieves allegedly infringed on SCO intellectual properties relating to SCO business processes. The move follows a recently filed SCO lawsuit against Microsoft for use of the letters "S" "C" and "O" in their name.
An SCO spokesperson commented, "These New York thieves are infringing on our business process rights by copying our operational procedures. SCO developed these procedures and therefore has the exclusive right to implement them." When asked which procedures were being copied by New York thieves, the spokesperson said, simply, "Theft."
In an interview, SCO CEO Darl McGroom said, "By leveraging innovative businesses processes such as theft, extortion and robbery, SCO creates value for shareholders and allows content providers to streamline compelling enterprise solutions. We own the rights on the business processes of theft. Those thieves in New York are infringing on our trade secrets."
SCO shares went up six and a half points shortly after the announcement. SCO shareholders quickly dumped more stock.
Scam Con & Overcharge (NAZDAC: SCO) today announced a barrage of new lawsuits against users of pornography processing software called Linux. A proprietary IBM product, Linux allegedly violates SCO intellectual property. This new development comes on the heels of another SCO lawsuit against God for denying immortality to SCO CEO Darl McBurglary.
"Women and young children are viewing cartoon images of NAKED penguins!" shouted McBurglary, throwing his coffee mug across the room during an interview. "It's disgusting! And besides, it contains OUR intellectual property! It's a conspiracy! And everybody's in on it!!!"
When asked which SCO intellectual property was found in Linux, McBurglary commented, "IBM invented, developed, trademarked, copyrighted and patented certain technologies. Therefore, they are infringing on OUR intellectual property rights!"
SCO spokespersons refused to specify what constitutes the allegedly infringing properties. McBurglary had to be escorted back to his home at the looney bin by two big black guys in pinstriped suits. "Die, fucker, die!!" he yelled at some child walking down the street with a stuffed penguin doll. (I know we're only joking, but with SCO, it could happen!)
The increasing temperatures around the world are caused by something very simple: The Earth's orbit.
The Earth does not go in a circle around the sun. It goes in an elliptical orbit. This ellipse does not maintain its major and minor axes over time: It slowly but surely changes. Over many thousands of years, the ellipse becomes more like a circle, bringing the Earth closer to the sun for longer periods throughout the year, and then for a few thousands of years more, the orbit gets increasingly elliptical again, taking the Earth farther away from the sun for much of the year. This is quite natural and nothing you do with aerosol cans is going to change that.
Want to fight air pollution? Then just say that you want to breathe clean air and not a bunch of smoky grime. That's simple enough. But don't go around saying, "The water on the Earth is going to cover all the land and we're all gonna DIE!!!" That just makes you look like a wacko.
And if you really want to clean air pollution, then instead of going after something small and insignificant like an aerosol can, go after something big and polluting, like eliminating the use of fossil fuels to power cars, trucks, airplanes, trains and everything else out there. There MUST be another way to power these things and someone is gonna find it. But don't go around complaining about aerosol cans. Because by eliminating all the fossil fuels, you'll make a 95% difference (so that all other air pollution becomes insignificant enough that it can be completely ignored) but by eliminating all the aerosols in the world, you'll make less than 1% difference in the overall scheme of things.
This is exactly like the problem the mice had one day. They couldn't come out of their mouse hole because there was a dangerous cat prowling around. One day, as food was getting scarce and everyone was afraid to leave the hole, the mice called a meeting to discuss the problem. One excited young mouse came up with the most wonderful idea: Let's put a bell around the cat's neck, so that when the cat is nearby, the mice would have advance warning and could escape! All the mice got excited at this proposal, until a very old, very wise mouse came over and asked, "And who will tie the bell around the cat's neck?"
What I'm trying to say is: If the search engine is free software and companies don't pay to increase their ranking... who will pay for the bandwidth to host the engine? I can tell you this much:
Proposed solution? Make it a distributed search engine, like SETI@home, or the DNS.
This is much easier said than done because:
- RAID-like distributed storage technology would have to be developed, so that the indexing database could be distributed among all computers worldwide that donate bandwidth and storage. This would have to guarantee statistically that all the data will be available at any point in time even if people turn off their computers for extended periods of time. However, this technology could make reliable clustered storage a reality, and the resulting free software implementation could be licensed for corporate use for an exhorbitant price, which would go to the EFF, FSF and other organizations that develop free software and/or support the development thereof.
- An efficient P2P-like protocol, along with a network topology of some sort (like the DNS system has) would have to be developed to support the searching; It would have to be damn fast and, like before, very resiliant to computers being shut off, chunks of data becoming lost at any moment, etc. Furthermore, changes would need to propogate at blazing speeds so that new items on the Internet could be found shortly after appearing.
- Bandwidth and disk quota would need to be managed at each participating host, so that limits set by the user are not exceeded.
Governments, companies, universities and individuals would likely support an effort like this by donating some bandwidth and storage, rather than money.In the spirit of worldwide computing on the Internet, I hope this makes some amount of sense.
With only 512 kilobytes of RAM, it's not surprising that you can barely accomplish anything these days!
Some day, you will learn that you cannot succeed with Windows. Until then, may God have mercy on your soul.