Thank you for astroturfing, but you're wrong. At work we have a mixed install base of Word 95 and 97, and whenever a 95 user gets a document from a 97 user, he gets garbage.
Also, look at the options in the Save dialog of Word 97. It clearly distinguishes between Word documents, and Word 95 / 6.0 documents.
--the funny part of these "laws" is the selective blinders they use. The national socialist party killed x-millions of people, granted. this is data, not opinion, it happened. Hmm, the communist party of the soviet union killed at LEAST x million times 2 people, mostly their own citizens. Data, it happened. Is it "illegal and promoting hate speech" to buy/sell hammer and sickle flags in germany now? Are pro-communist websites tolerated? Is a communist party allowed to operate and run candidates?
No, these laws are not selective. Look up 'berufsverbot' and you will see that historically Germany was willing to out-McCarthy even the good ol' U.S. of A.
As one living in a neighbouring country, let me tell you there is no country I know of that is so paranoid about extremist political groupings as Germany. And if you think this discussion on Slashdot is heated, you should see the debates raging in the German press.
In short, Germans (and the rest of Europe as well for that matter) know very well that there is a delicate balancing act to be performed between freedom of expression and curbing political extremism.
Your example is in fact perfect to show why the Elitist was right.
If this so-called Newbie knows what a master boot record is and that he wants to write one, he could have plugged "write master boot record" into google, and gotten his answer on the first link.
So notwithstanding the fact that/mbr might not be an officially documented switch to fdisk, RTFM is the correct answer to this particular person.
Note very clearly that I say this because this Newbie is obviously not a newbie based on the question, but just a lazy bastard. True newbies get quite a lot of slack on the various newsgroups and mailing lists I frequent.
Now that others have posted good arguments as to why my position might not be entirely correct, you suddenly found the courage to stop slinging anonymous insults, and hiding behind their hard work you expect me to discuss things with you?
Tell you what, if others brought forth arguments I'll discuss with them. You, sir, are simply not worth talking to.
Ouch. You're right, the use of the word fundamental was a bit careless there.
However, the rights the U.S. is IMO violating are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, of which the framers used words like 'inalienable' and 'self-evident' when talking about them.
Since these same rights are to be found in human rights treaties signed and ratified by the U.S., I hope you can understand why I called them fundamental. In the context of this debate they may as well be, notwithstanding that in a larger context the fundamental nature of certain rights might be debatable.
Also the very clear fact that you are attacking me on something I specifically covered, shows that you did not read my posts.
Finally, that you resort to anonymous invective instead of reasonably debunking my allegedly wrong facts shows that it is in fact you who does not know what he is talking about.
Nowhere did I say that terrorists should not be fought. All I want is that a government that is founded on certain principles abide by these principles when fighting terrorists.
Your post didn't need saying. It has nothing to do with my argument.
War was brought to the US. Perhaps you have missed the events of the past 10 years.
Yet still the U.S. did not react with a reciprocal Declaration of War. Therefore under international law the U.S. is not at war.
Any unilateral actions by the U.S. President are just that, unilateral actions not sanctioned by international laws and treaties. That is why the U.S. is resented by the world at large.
My conclusions are only false if you want to use the viewpoints of the current U.S. administration as canon. The same administration that has declared unilateralism as its policy from the election campaign on forward.
Lets recap:
In order to hold someone as an enemy combatant a state of war must exist according to international treaties (which the U.S. signed and ratified B.T.W.)
The only way the U.S. can be in a state of war is by a Declaration of War.
According to the U.S. Constitution, the only one with the power to issue such a Declaration is the U.S. Congress.
So, notwithstanding the power of the President to deploy troops, the U.S. is not at war, and therefore the defense that normal criminal proceedings are not necessary against anyone the Administration designates an enemy combatant is bogus. Anyone trying to defend that policy knows nothing of international law and is defending an unacceptable breach of human rights.
As an aside, I have nothing to do with Berkeley (sic), as I am not an American. Your ad hominem attacks serve no purpose except to show you as a jingoistic troll.
Wake up and smell the coffee: your own administration has declared that unilateralism is to be the foreign policy. In common English: "Screw the world and what it thinks, screw international law and the treaties we signed, we do whatever we damn well please."
Again, try learning something of this before declairing things "illegal" that are well within the bounds of the Laws of War.
Somehow I seem to have missed a Declaration of War by the U.S. Congress. Therefore the U.S. can not hold someone as an enemy combatant under the laws of war, because the U.S. is officially not at war.
Since according to international treaties and the U.S. Constitution the U.S. government has no other way to hold someone prisoner without a specific accusation of a crime, the U.S. is violating fundamental human rights at the moment.
Therefore the people imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay are imprisoned illegally, all according to international human rights treaties, the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Constitution.
I *have* seen every FSF (not Linux or OSS, just GPL/FSF) zealot on/. I've had the pleasre to converse with has insulted me personally and directly.
Perhaps that says something? The fact that you antagonise everyone in a certain movement might just point out that you have a clear antagonistic attitude to that movement.
Before removing the splinter from thy brother's eye, first remove the beam from thine own. As a Christian, you should have known that, and acted accordingly.
Then again: "by their acts shall ye know them". I have always found that people who proclaim their faith the loudest are also the most obnoxious ones. You're not doing a good job as an evangelist, are you?
Although I am on Debian like the first two posters to reply, I did some more checking, and Debian installs vixie cron. AFAIK this is what most Linux distros install by default, including Red Hat, which I runned before this.
Would you mind telling us what distro you had to dig up to find this gem? They deserve to be rightly flamed (and by extension if you can't give a satisfactory answer, you deserve to be flamed).
In my opinion the telcos were not trapped between a rock and a hard place, because they all faced the same problem. Therefore if they had been run with anything resembling business sense, they would have known what the maximum viable bid for a license was, and moreover, what the maximum viable bid was for their competitors.
This was a classic case of how not to play Prisoners Dilemma.
Of course, the main problem was that the execs and the stock market overestimated the potential profits.
Still, I agree with you that the governments screwed up the privatisation. I would have liked to see them privatise the telcos but hold on to the infrastructure, instead of giving over the infrastructure to the newly-privatised telco. After all, what's the use in replacing a government monopoly with a private one?
...the windfall taxes imposed on the telcos by the governments, disguised as the 3G license fee.
You know, I'm getting a little tired of this whine. In most European countries the 3G spectrum was auctioned. If the license fees are exorbitant, then the only ones to blame are the participants in the auction.
They all should have known the price they could bear based on profit forecasts, and not gone over that. If they had all done that instead of bidding up each other like headless chickens, they wouldn't be up to their ears in debt now.
The telcos have noone to blame but themselves for their problems, and I am sick that one after the other they're asking for government bailouts. Why the heck did we privatise them in the first place if we end up paying for their mistakes anyway?
The sorting order is affected by your locale settings. Try setting your locale to 'C', and you will have your old sorting order back. It might be enough to just set LC_COLLATE to 'C', but check the manpages for that.
Just drop the 'tech' part of that statement. I work in financials, so I get to see a lot of the numbers, and it seems any large merger is fraught with difficulties.
A few examples:
British Steel and Hoogovens were supposed to be one of the worlds largest steel and aluminium producers. All that happened is that the ailing British Steel sucked down the efficiently run Hoogovens into the tarpit.
Vivendi Universal. 'Nuff said.
KLM and Northwest Airlines. This is an older one, but Northwest used to be the albatross around KLM's neck.
I tend to concentrate on European markets, but I'm quite sure someone can give more U.S. examples.
Funnily enough, my own employer is relatively free of these kind of shenanigans.
HP has no obligation to support the political activities of a "major advocate"."
I've seen this statement made before in this discussion, and I'll give the obvious answer: They do have that obligation if they specifically hired that person as an advocate.
Good post. It shines some light on aspects I didn't bother developing, and it reinforces my main point.
It appears from this article that Bruce was terminated because of office politics. His visibility as an Open Source advocate probably played a major role, but I think the main reason is simple a power struggle between Old HP and Old Compaq.
At least, this news has all the signs of 'corporate power struggle' written all over it. Bruce just happens to be a highly publicised victim. Seeing as that Compaq appears to be winning, I don't think maddog will have to fear for his job.
On the other hand, a point I was trying to make in another post in this discussion, is that it's about integrity.
A company may try to do the best for its shareholders, but the point is that they don't realise that integrity is actually good for the shareholders.
A lack of integrity will earn you the distrust of the market, and that is bad for the company, and bad for the stock price. In fact, it is my personal opinion that the current low consumer confidence in the U.S. (remember that consumer spending drives the U.S. economy) is due to low corporate integrity.
HP/Compaq touting their support for Linux on the one hand, and firing a major advocate on the other shows their lack of integrity, and is ultimately damaging for the company. They better hope Microsoft is good for them, because that's all they'll be left with if they continue on this path.
Mart
Office politics are more important than business?
on
Bruce Perens Canned by HP
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
...or integrity for that matter?
Funny. Compaq (now HP) is running large ads in the trade press touting that they were the first major company to support Linux and Open Source.
Now they fire a major advocate? Sounds like the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.
Oh, wait, that's what those corporate types mean that a merger brings synergies and the opportunity to eliminate redundancies.
Well, so far HP/Compaq sounds like a typical merged company: the power politics of the officers of the originating companies are more important than anything else. They'll either spend 5 years trying to get their shop integrated (meanwhile facing dwindling market share), or they'll undo the merger, with the usual corporatespeak (divestiture, focusing on core business, spinning off unprofitable divisions) that all come down to 'we screwed up; please don't hurt us!'.
You are absolutely right: this has nothing to do with Socialism.
On the other hand, you do know what a government consisting of collusion between the State and the Corporations is called? It was invented in Italy in the 1920s by Benito Mussolini and it is properly called Fascism.
The news coming out of the USA is scaring me more every day.
The problem is what is the default in the law regarding warranties.
In that case, I see a problem, and it isn't UCITA.
Under Dutch law (and I have the benefit of having studied it for 2 years), it is impossible to add a generic disclaimer of liability. This is called an 'unreasonably restrictive condition' ('Onredelijk bezwarende voorwaarde'). Under EU regulation, these laws have been toughened the last few years.
So, in the EU at least, the programmer of a Free Software project is already somewhat liable. However, case law may show that this liability is the absolute minimal, and since most Free Software programmers offer the source, they might only be liable in the event of insufficient documentation of the risks of the use of their software. For example Mozilla's disclaimer on their download page that Mozilla is for developers only should be enough.
I don't think any judge is going to let a suit go forward where someone tries to sue IKEA for injuries sustained in assembling a piece of furniture for example. OTOH, buying a ready made table, and losing your good china because one of the legs suddenly broke will give you grounds to sue.
Extending this analogy, a Free Software developer would be safe, as he explicitly gives directions on how to assemble the software. Given no provable negligence in providing the user with instructions, this ought to be enough.
A distributor however, like SuSE or Mandrake, would be in a different situation. Regardless of disclaimer, they can be liable for damages for the distributed packages, as they are offering a full product. Of course, if they show that they took reasonable steps to inform a user of risks, they can disclaim liability.
So, for example having an unclear channel for security updates, and insufficient documentation for this, might leave them open for liability suits stemming from security holes, as not clearly informing the users on patches and on how to obtain them might be construed as negligence, thus preempting any disclaimers of warranty.
A final note: given the usual good practices of both Free Software authors and distributors, it will be very hard to prove any circumstances that would preempt their disclaimers. So even though most EU jurisdictions assume a default liability, this will not be a big problem for anyone conducting business in a reasonble manner.
Commercial shrink-wrap EULAs are hit a lot harder by the toughened liability laws. Aside from the fact that in some jurisdictions the EULA might not even be a valid contract, their disclaimer of warranty might easily be considered unreasonable.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you for astroturfing, but you're wrong. At work we have a mixed install base of Word 95 and 97, and whenever a 95 user gets a document from a 97 user, he gets garbage.
Also, look at the options in the Save dialog of Word 97. It clearly distinguishes between Word documents, and Word 95 / 6.0 documents.
MartNo, these laws are not selective. Look up 'berufsverbot' and you will see that historically Germany was willing to out-McCarthy even the good ol' U.S. of A.
As one living in a neighbouring country, let me tell you there is no country I know of that is so paranoid about extremist political groupings as Germany. And if you think this discussion on Slashdot is heated, you should see the debates raging in the German press.
In short, Germans (and the rest of Europe as well for that matter) know very well that there is a delicate balancing act to be performed between freedom of expression and curbing political extremism.
MartYour example is in fact perfect to show why the Elitist was right.
If this so-called Newbie knows what a master boot record is and that he wants to write one, he could have plugged "write master boot record" into google, and gotten his answer on the first link.
So notwithstanding the fact that /mbr might not be an officially documented switch to fdisk, RTFM is the correct answer to this particular person.
Note very clearly that I say this because this Newbie is obviously not a newbie based on the question, but just a lazy bastard. True newbies get quite a lot of slack on the various newsgroups and mailing lists I frequent.
MartIf the U.S. had stayed at home, perhaps Germany might not have had a prohibition on Nazi propaganda.
That prohibition was entered into German criminal law at the behest of the Allied Powers, and in practice that meant the U.S.
MartMy, my, my. You really are a pitiful little man.
Now that others have posted good arguments as to why my position might not be entirely correct, you suddenly found the courage to stop slinging anonymous insults, and hiding behind their hard work you expect me to discuss things with you?
Tell you what, if others brought forth arguments I'll discuss with them. You, sir, are simply not worth talking to.
Mart
Ouch. You're right, the use of the word fundamental was a bit careless there.
However, the rights the U.S. is IMO violating are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, of which the framers used words like 'inalienable' and 'self-evident' when talking about them.
Since these same rights are to be found in human rights treaties signed and ratified by the U.S., I hope you can understand why I called them fundamental. In the context of this debate they may as well be, notwithstanding that in a larger context the fundamental nature of certain rights might be debatable.
Mart
Assertions are not facts last time I looked.
Also the very clear fact that you are attacking me on something I specifically covered, shows that you did not read my posts.
Finally, that you resort to anonymous invective instead of reasonably debunking my allegedly wrong facts shows that it is in fact you who does not know what he is talking about.
Mart
You obviously didn't even take the time to actually read what I wrote, and you're too cowardly to even put your name to your own trolling.
Tell me why it is I who should have to apologise?
Mart
Strawman argument.
Nowhere did I say that terrorists should not be fought. All I want is that a government that is founded on certain principles abide by these principles when fighting terrorists.
Your post didn't need saying. It has nothing to do with my argument.
Mart
Yet still the U.S. did not react with a reciprocal Declaration of War. Therefore under international law the U.S. is not at war.
Any unilateral actions by the U.S. President are just that, unilateral actions not sanctioned by international laws and treaties. That is why the U.S. is resented by the world at large.
My conclusions are only false if you want to use the viewpoints of the current U.S. administration as canon. The same administration that has declared unilateralism as its policy from the election campaign on forward.
Lets recap:
So, notwithstanding the power of the President to deploy troops, the U.S. is not at war, and therefore the defense that normal criminal proceedings are not necessary against anyone the Administration designates an enemy combatant is bogus. Anyone trying to defend that policy knows nothing of international law and is defending an unacceptable breach of human rights.
As an aside, I have nothing to do with Berkeley (sic), as I am not an American. Your ad hominem attacks serve no purpose except to show you as a jingoistic troll.
Wake up and smell the coffee: your own administration has declared that unilateralism is to be the foreign policy. In common English: "Screw the world and what it thinks, screw international law and the treaties we signed, we do whatever we damn well please."
Mart
Somehow I seem to have missed a Declaration of War by the U.S. Congress. Therefore the U.S. can not hold someone as an enemy combatant under the laws of war, because the U.S. is officially not at war.
Since according to international treaties and the U.S. Constitution the U.S. government has no other way to hold someone prisoner without a specific accusation of a crime, the U.S. is violating fundamental human rights at the moment.
Therefore the people imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay are imprisoned illegally, all according to international human rights treaties, the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Constitution.
Mart
Hmmph.
Silly SuSE.
Do you (or anyone else for that matter) know if this is fixed in later SuSE versions?
MartPerhaps that says something? The fact that you antagonise everyone in a certain movement might just point out that you have a clear antagonistic attitude to that movement.
Before removing the splinter from thy brother's eye, first remove the beam from thine own. As a Christian, you should have known that, and acted accordingly.
Then again: "by their acts shall ye know them". I have always found that people who proclaim their faith the loudest are also the most obnoxious ones. You're not doing a good job as an evangelist, are you?
MartI can corroborate the previous statements.
Although I am on Debian like the first two posters to reply, I did some more checking, and Debian installs vixie cron. AFAIK this is what most Linux distros install by default, including Red Hat, which I runned before this.
Would you mind telling us what distro you had to dig up to find this gem? They deserve to be rightly flamed (and by extension if you can't give a satisfactory answer, you deserve to be flamed).
MartIn my opinion the telcos were not trapped between a rock and a hard place, because they all faced the same problem. Therefore if they had been run with anything resembling business sense, they would have known what the maximum viable bid for a license was, and moreover, what the maximum viable bid was for their competitors.
This was a classic case of how not to play Prisoners Dilemma.
Of course, the main problem was that the execs and the stock market overestimated the potential profits.
Still, I agree with you that the governments screwed up the privatisation. I would have liked to see them privatise the telcos but hold on to the infrastructure, instead of giving over the infrastructure to the newly-privatised telco. After all, what's the use in replacing a government monopoly with a private one?
MartYou know, I'm getting a little tired of this whine. In most European countries the 3G spectrum was auctioned. If the license fees are exorbitant, then the only ones to blame are the participants in the auction.
They all should have known the price they could bear based on profit forecasts, and not gone over that. If they had all done that instead of bidding up each other like headless chickens, they wouldn't be up to their ears in debt now.
The telcos have noone to blame but themselves for their problems, and I am sick that one after the other they're asking for government bailouts. Why the heck did we privatise them in the first place if we end up paying for their mistakes anyway?
MartHope you get to see this:
The sorting order is affected by your locale settings. Try setting your locale to 'C', and you will have your old sorting order back. It might be enough to just set LC_COLLATE to 'C', but check the manpages for that.
MartWell, given the way we love to bastardise our language, I think she may have had a point there.
<grin>
Groeten,
MartJust drop the 'tech' part of that statement. I work in financials, so I get to see a lot of the numbers, and it seems any large merger is fraught with difficulties.
A few examples:
I tend to concentrate on European markets, but I'm quite sure someone can give more U.S. examples.
Funnily enough, my own employer is relatively free of these kind of shenanigans.
MartAn AC wrote:
I've seen this statement made before in this discussion, and I'll give the obvious answer: They do have that obligation if they specifically hired that person as an advocate.
MartGood post. It shines some light on aspects I didn't bother developing, and it reinforces my main point.
It appears from this article that Bruce was terminated because of office politics. His visibility as an Open Source advocate probably played a major role, but I think the main reason is simple a power struggle between Old HP and Old Compaq.
At least, this news has all the signs of 'corporate power struggle' written all over it. Bruce just happens to be a highly publicised victim. Seeing as that Compaq appears to be winning, I don't think maddog will have to fear for his job.
Mart (who works in a merged corporation himself)On the other hand, a point I was trying to make in another post in this discussion, is that it's about integrity.
A company may try to do the best for its shareholders, but the point is that they don't realise that integrity is actually good for the shareholders.
A lack of integrity will earn you the distrust of the market, and that is bad for the company, and bad for the stock price. In fact, it is my personal opinion that the current low consumer confidence in the U.S. (remember that consumer spending drives the U.S. economy) is due to low corporate integrity.
HP/Compaq touting their support for Linux on the one hand, and firing a major advocate on the other shows their lack of integrity, and is ultimately damaging for the company. They better hope Microsoft is good for them, because that's all they'll be left with if they continue on this path.
Mart...or integrity for that matter?
Funny. Compaq (now HP) is running large ads in the trade press touting that they were the first major company to support Linux and Open Source.
Now they fire a major advocate? Sounds like the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.
Oh, wait, that's what those corporate types mean that a merger brings synergies and the opportunity to eliminate redundancies.
Well, so far HP/Compaq sounds like a typical merged company: the power politics of the officers of the originating companies are more important than anything else. They'll either spend 5 years trying to get their shop integrated (meanwhile facing dwindling market share), or they'll undo the merger, with the usual corporatespeak (divestiture, focusing on core business, spinning off unprofitable divisions) that all come down to 'we screwed up; please don't hurt us!'.
</cynism>
MartYou are absolutely right: this has nothing to do with Socialism.
On the other hand, you do know what a government consisting of collusion between the State and the Corporations is called? It was invented in Italy in the 1920s by Benito Mussolini and it is properly called Fascism.
The news coming out of the USA is scaring me more every day.
MartIn that case, I see a problem, and it isn't UCITA.
Under Dutch law (and I have the benefit of having studied it for 2 years), it is impossible to add a generic disclaimer of liability. This is called an 'unreasonably restrictive condition' ('Onredelijk bezwarende voorwaarde'). Under EU regulation, these laws have been toughened the last few years.
So, in the EU at least, the programmer of a Free Software project is already somewhat liable. However, case law may show that this liability is the absolute minimal, and since most Free Software programmers offer the source, they might only be liable in the event of insufficient documentation of the risks of the use of their software. For example Mozilla's disclaimer on their download page that Mozilla is for developers only should be enough.
I don't think any judge is going to let a suit go forward where someone tries to sue IKEA for injuries sustained in assembling a piece of furniture for example. OTOH, buying a ready made table, and losing your good china because one of the legs suddenly broke will give you grounds to sue.
Extending this analogy, a Free Software developer would be safe, as he explicitly gives directions on how to assemble the software. Given no provable negligence in providing the user with instructions, this ought to be enough.
A distributor however, like SuSE or Mandrake, would be in a different situation. Regardless of disclaimer, they can be liable for damages for the distributed packages, as they are offering a full product. Of course, if they show that they took reasonable steps to inform a user of risks, they can disclaim liability.
So, for example having an unclear channel for security updates, and insufficient documentation for this, might leave them open for liability suits stemming from security holes, as not clearly informing the users on patches and on how to obtain them might be construed as negligence, thus preempting any disclaimers of warranty.
A final note: given the usual good practices of both Free Software authors and distributors, it will be very hard to prove any circumstances that would preempt their disclaimers. So even though most EU jurisdictions assume a default liability, this will not be a big problem for anyone conducting business in a reasonble manner.
Commercial shrink-wrap EULAs are hit a lot harder by the toughened liability laws. Aside from the fact that in some jurisdictions the EULA might not even be a valid contract, their disclaimer of warranty might easily be considered unreasonable.
Mart