If this report said "One Fifth of all Americans are in Danger of dying from an easily curable skin disease" would the title of the story have been the same?
Not only does this story title help reinforce the sterotype that mentally ill people are somehow different to other ill people, it makes me wonder if the (mainly) American trait of extreme parainoa (sp?) maybe somehow linked to the increase in mentally ill people.
Now, I am in no way qualified to pretend to be informed about this (apart from occasionally suffering from extreme depression), but I do know that some mentally ill people create "worlds of their own", and they need to be treated by being shown reality.
If a mentally ill person, who thought that people were following him/her read that story (and a lot of the other ones on Slashdot), what would they think?
Doesn't a great deal of the "alternative" press contribute to this problem?
isn't so much what they have done, it is the way they have done it.
Corel have done a good job in their early support of Linux. However, Linux isn't a marketplace, it is a community. When was the last time you saw a Corel person on Slashdot - or on a Linux mailing list for that matter, explaining what they were doing with our baby? (Maybe I hang out on the wrong mailing lists, though)
Then there were the licencing fiascoes - first the "Closed" beta program, and then the "Over 18 only" thing, and now the "not for use in Europe" thing.
Maybe they are trying but why? Is it just to try and dispose Microsoft and to raise their stock price? I fear so. Perhaps there is nothing wrong with that in itself, but that is not what Linux is about, and so there is bound to be some friction - and it is going to get worse (not necisarily against Corel).
It would be great if there was a way to direct at least a proportion of the prizes to those who need it most, ie, without corporate backing.
The increasing number of commercial open source projects around is great, but we still need the grass-roots type projects, and contests could be a great way of supporting these.
The contest rules should dictate a particualar licence (or at least dual licencing) to a single licence (I'd prefer GPL or LGPL).
If specific prizes were offered ("$5000 for the best XML reporting tool", say) then after the contest period was finished, the authors (or a third party) could (hopefully) merge the best parts of all the entries.
I guess this would be a little like the SourceXchange.com thing, but less formal.
Another, unrelated idea is some kind of Open Source research fund where potential authors can apply for funding for their project - lots of programmers can almost afford to quit their jobs and write open source stuff, but $10,000 for six months would make it a lot easier.
I wonder what we will see in the US in 20 years time? I mean 70% of all black males have been in prison - or something like that anyway.
Here.. some people have ancestors who were deported from England 200 years ago. I think we're over it by now - we just go and whip the Pom at cricket every couple of years and call it even.
However, to say we accept censorship is like saying the USA accepted the Vietnam war. We don't - unfortunatly it doesn't effect enough people (yet) for it to be protested in large numbers.
Believe me, this hack will be the first of many. If protests against the Vietnam war were on the street, then protests against Net censorship will be on the Net.
I totally, absolutly disagree with you. I understand the comparison with telephones, but the Internet is a new game.
Let the market work it out - if one company loses a couple of $mil on the wrong standard, that's no big deal. It's not like they were rolling out incompatible telephone wiring.
It is a little annoying for consumers, but it doesn't cost them anything except convenience, and it allows new products and protocols to develop in ways a legislated standard wouldn't.
Anyway.. what country would you legislate in? What's to stop the non-compliant messageing servers moving to somewhere that has a concept of intellectual freedom?
You are running a clone of the AOL computer on your computer, and using the servers in the way they were designed. Saying that just because AOL owns the servers they shouldn't need to specify they can only be used with AOL clients is like saying Netscape should expect only Netscape browsers to hit www.netscape.com just because they made the first commercially successful web browser.
As for your property thing - sure, you are right there, but if you owned a large patch of countyside in the middle of a national park, and you didn't put fences around it you shouldn't be surprised if people trespass - and infact they would probably have a good case in court.
Here in Australia, the is an item of common law (inherited from England) that if an area of private property is used for public purposes continuously for a long period of time, a "right of way" is formed, and the owners can no longer stop people from using that area.
That is why places like Adelaide University, which has a large "public" throughfare through the middle close the gates once a year - to stop the public use. Apparently they didn't once, and the final year law students tried (in court) to get a right-of-way.
To get back to the point - perhaps something like this might (or should) apply on the 'Net - and with one netyear = 3realyears... do the sums for yourself.
I'm not really serious about the right-of-way on the Internet, but it does make you think, hey!
That's why I said You expect bugs in computer progams
Security flaws found by Hackers are bugs, pure and simple.
AOL's messaging system worked the way it was designed - and the only way they could stop the MS client is to exploit the buffer-overflow bug in their own client.
As for MS should have respected that - Why? Do the Samba people respect the fact the MS doesn't particulaly want unix to be able to access MS Networks? How is that different?
I've got no arguement that there should be a standard messageing format, though.
That's like saying "We had a gate, but no fences, and no one came through the gate"
Security, by definition, can't be bypassed. Maybe AOL did have the right to stop MS using it's servers, but that should have been defined in the licence, and enforced using real security measures. "Security by obscurity" is not security.
You expect the occasional bug in a product, but just not telling people how it operates is not a viable security method.
No estabilshed company is a friend of open source.
Redhat, etc owe their existance to open source programs, but Sun, Oracle, HP, Corel and even Inprise are just using us to get what they want.
Perhaps IBM is different.. They have at least tried. Maybe SGI, too - it looks like they need Linux to survive, now.
But understand this: MS should no longer be the primary target of our flames, and matching Windows should no longer be the goal of our development projects.
With the DOJ and the press watching MS like a hawk, we need to refocus.
Linux is now, without a doubt the premier Desktop Unix thanks to GNOME and KDE nothing against *BSD, but Linux is slightly better here, if only because that is what most developers use.
Next year Ittanium (sp?) comes out. Linux will be ready, for sure, and it will probably run flawlessly sooner than Windows2000 - but that ain't the game any more.
World Domination, remember?
Next year Montery also arrives. I still havn't seen even any speculation on how well Linux will compare to that.
SCO, HP, Intel, IBM and Compaq makes a pretty impressive team - all (except SCO) have Linux projects, too. What's going to happen when Montery and Linux go head to head for the same space?
Don't think that "Montery will be high end, and Linux will take the low end", either. That is just market speak for not having the features, yet. Both Linux and FreeBSD will, I believe, be very close to Montery (and Solaris) on Intel by next year.
What's going to happen then? Can we rely on Red Hat and VA Linux's money to compete?
Don't forget, these companies aren't like MS. They make pretty good software (for the most part).
Things like StarOffice are dangerous to Open Source, because they give the power back to the companies - and yet they are just as cheap (to the consumer) as Open source.. until Sun changes the file format or something like that.
Maybe it is time to play the Windows card? Linux does operate well in a Windows environment, and Windows computers are easily converted to Linux. Perhaps we need more open source software that interoperates well with MS stuff. Samba is great, maybe we need something that can provide DCOM services?
My Enemy's enemy is my friend. Sun was a useful ally. Lets not get stabbed in the back.
Look, our (I'm Australian) govenment has done some pretty bad stuff lately, but I don't think this one is too bad.
So, they made a law that lets them (basically) monitor your computer use if they get a court order.
What's wrong with that? Sure, I don't like EACELON (sp) but this is totally different. That is indiscrminate wire tapping. This is focused on people who are breaking the law.
I don't like the idea of someone searching my computer, or my house. However I dislike even more the idea that the govement that is supposed to protect us cannot because the law forbids it from searching a criminals house (or computer)
At least, now, it is out in the open, and not against the law. Where there is law, there are proceedures, and appeals, and checks & balances.
Do you really think the NSA doesn't do this, too? What are the checks and balances there?
This kids are probably kept in stone cells, with no electricity. They are fed once a day if they are lucky, and have already been beaten.
The one who is going to die will probably be killed before the new year, especially if there is some rich foreginer who needs his organs.
They don't get phone calls, and they don't get visits. They will be shown on TV saying how bad they were, and then the one who dies will be lead out and shot.
You do realise that if someone needs his coronas (sp?) they shoot him in such a way it doesn't damage his eyes?
There is one organ that can only be trasplanted (normally) if both people are still alive... so the guards are directed to shoot him in the head, but in a location where the bullet passes between the lobes of the brain (I think that is how it works). Anyway, then the doctors remove the organ, and the guy is left to die.
Even if what you said was supposed to be a joke, it's not real funny.
If you were serious, go and help amnesty international.
You're right, it's not a deterrent. None whatsoever. Because of this, I feel that they should be put to death. I dunno, I'm still not saying kill all bad people, but maybe, one chance. If after threat of death they are still committing crimes, then they should be put to death.
Now, since you have already been in jail (ie, had your one chance), next time you break the speed limit and are caught, you will die, right?
Oh... it would only apply to violent crimes I hear you say.
Okay, you drive round a corner, and accidently hit a kid in the middle of the road.. you're okay, right? But what if the kids father runs out waving a gun? He's going to shoot you - what do you do? Drive off? That's hit and run - and there are witnesses. You die!!!! Okay.. you're going to stay. You talk to the guy and try and calm him down - there's his kid lying on the road and you're there saying "It's going to be okay" he's crying, he's waving this gun around... you try and sit him down, and he (being distressed) thinks you're attacking him. Bang! The gun goes off, and he's dead. Manslaughter.. you die.
Imagine none of the gun stuff had happened, but the police had proven by the length of the skid marks you were driving too fast. You die.
I'm sorry, but it just doesn't work like "one chance and you're out". Life isn't a game of quake - taking someone elses life is a very bad thing, always, no matter what they have done.
In case you hadn't guessed, I'm not a supporter of the death penelty. Since you people over in the US are so enthusiatic about it, I'm not going to argue with you about it for really, really bad crimes. But One strike and you're snuffed? How anyone can even think that and claim to be civilised is beyond me.
Moderators... do you're worse. It's not meant as flamebait, but I believe strongly in this and I'm prepared to burn some Karma on it...
The problem is that a lot of the people here get all their knowledge of WinNT, say, from/.
This means that when they get out into the real world, and run into an NT person who knows what they are talking about (Yes, they do exist) the/. person is made to sound stupid. Since they are normally championing the Free Software cause, it makes the whole Free Software world lose a little bit of creadibility.
For instance, go and have a look at some of the comments on here about XML - stuff like "MS owns XML, and are trying to use it to takeover the internet" type of thing.
If someone goes and repeats that to someone who knows what they are talkign about they look stupid.
If this really is an issue, then the diskeeper softwear would be fairly easy to remove (if it's not, maybe there should be an Anti-Trust suit about that one!)
I've used their product on NT4, and I believe that it is almost identical to the one on 2000. It's just a single program, people - it's pretty easy to remove it and make it a free download from the US MS site.
Someone should invent something that would transform these signals to analouge and then transmit them using a wireless mechanism and RF Modulation.
Then cheap, monitor like boxes could be built with the wireless networking gear built into them, and the cost of the service to consumers could be paid for by advertising.
Of course, we might have a problem with competing standards - maybe the W3C could come up with something..
Hmmm... I might just seek some VC finance..
Hmmmm... now wait a moment.. I remember something like that from back when I was young..
I've heard that in the Legal profession (in the US at least) the WordPerfect (for DOS!!) file format is standard for all legal documents, and therefor WordPerfect is used in a much greater percentage of the legal population than in the normal business population.
I know it's offtopic, but I'd like to confirm this. How about a bit of slack, Moderators? I'll give you some of the money if I win....;-)
I think the first two ideas are very good. I'm not convinced about the third - I think it needs more explaiation. Sure, closed hardware specs are bad, but I'm not sure MS should be punished for them. If we have all the interfaces for MS software, reverse engineering closed source hardware should be easier, anyway.
I personally am undecided as to if MS should be broken up. Perhaps strict govenment supervision (as per IBM) would work just as well.
If it were to be broken up, I see two possibilities:
Breaking up along product lines. This would give us an MS Operating System (ie, 2000 & CE (or "powered or whatever they want to call it"), an MS consumer company with MS office, an MS developer company with VB, VC++ and SQL Server and possibly an Internet company with IE and MSN.
Spliting along consumer product vs enterprise product lines. This would give us one company with MS Office, Windows CE, IE and maybe MS Access, and one with SQL Server, VB & VC++ and Windows2000. Maybe the first company would be able to sell some versions of 2000 as well.
Again, I am undecided about which would be best. Either way would make for a couple of interesting years in the market.
If the DOJ went the first way, and assuming the non OS companies had to "act in a cometitive manner" I can't see them ignoring the Linux market - the possible competitors for each of those companies (say Corel for Consumers, Borland & Oracle for Developers) are already shipping Linux products.
IF the second structure was choosen, I can see a very rapid rise in non-X86 PCs, because CE already runs on them. I think the enterprise company would be a pretty competitive propsition - I've used all the MS developer tools, and they aren't bad at all (okay.. VB isn't a great language, but it lets you crank out quick apps in no time)
The other possibility is settlement. Maybe MS will be forced to spin off it's office division, say. Imagine that IPO! Remember the Lucent spin off? I'd say MS shareholders wouldn't mind getting a bit of that action.
Maybe we need moderation of story posters
on
LinuxPDA EPOCH 32?
·
· Score: 3
I've seen a few pretty bad stories posted on Slashdot befoer, but this is.. well.. embarrassing.
Before you even consider a port of Linux to another architecture, it might be good if you had a little look at the source, and did one or two web searches.
As for the story.. well it has been pointed out that there are already ports running.
Guess what a search on linux EPOC port on www.google.com turned up?
Calcaria Linux7k ...a project to port the unix-like operating system Linux to a small... ...running on the 5mx, but changes in the EPOC OS mean that our boot loader,... www.calcaria.net/ Cached (5k) New! Try out GoogleScout
Calcaria Linux7k ...the Linux 7k project. A series of developers have set out to port... ...the EPOC operating system, since it will be replaced by Linux.... www.calcaria.net/engppro.html Cached (15k) New! Try out GoogleScout
As the first two results. Cliff, normally your stories are good. It would take two seconds. Enough said.
Slashdot Mirror
If this report said "One Fifth of all Americans are in Danger of dying from an easily curable skin disease" would the title of the story have been the same?
Not only does this story title help reinforce the sterotype that mentally ill people are somehow different to other ill people, it makes me wonder if the (mainly) American trait of extreme parainoa (sp?) maybe somehow linked to the increase in mentally ill people.
Now, I am in no way qualified to pretend to be informed about this (apart from occasionally suffering from extreme depression), but I do know that some mentally ill people create "worlds of their own", and they need to be treated by being shown reality.
If a mentally ill person, who thought that people were following him/her read that story (and a lot of the other ones on Slashdot), what would they think?
Doesn't a great deal of the "alternative" press contribute to this problem?
(That' not supposed to be a Troll, BTW)
If this patent truly is not novel, and not going to stand up in court, why are they suing Barnes & Noble over it?
I agree that they look like they are bound to lose, but lawyers aren't stupid (well...) so there must be some advantage they are getting out of it.
For all you legal people: What adavantage do Amazon get out of this case if they lose?
isn't so much what they have done, it is the way they have done it.
Corel have done a good job in their early support of Linux. However, Linux isn't a marketplace, it is a community. When was the last time you saw a Corel person on Slashdot - or on a Linux mailing list for that matter, explaining what they were doing with our baby? (Maybe I hang out on the wrong mailing lists, though)
Then there were the licencing fiascoes - first the "Closed" beta program, and then the "Over 18 only" thing, and now the "not for use in Europe" thing.
Maybe they are trying but why? Is it just to try and dispose Microsoft and to raise their stock price? I fear so. Perhaps there is nothing wrong with that in itself, but that is not what Linux is about, and so there is bound to be some friction - and it is going to get worse (not necisarily against Corel).
This is a great idea.
It would be great if there was a way to direct at least a proportion of the prizes to those who need it most, ie, without corporate backing.
The increasing number of commercial open source projects around is great, but we still need the grass-roots type projects, and contests could be a great way of supporting these.
The contest rules should dictate a particualar licence (or at least dual licencing) to a single licence (I'd prefer GPL or LGPL).
If specific prizes were offered ("$5000 for the best XML reporting tool", say) then after the contest period was finished, the authors (or a third party) could (hopefully) merge the best parts of all the entries.
I guess this would be a little like the SourceXchange.com thing, but less formal.
Another, unrelated idea is some kind of Open Source research fund where potential authors can apply for funding for their project - lots of programmers can almost afford to quit their jobs and write open source stuff, but $10,000 for six months would make it a lot easier.
I wonder what we will see in the US in 20 years time? I mean 70% of all black males have been in prison - or something like that anyway.
Here.. some people have ancestors who were deported from England 200 years ago. I think we're over it by now - we just go and whip the Pom at cricket every couple of years and call it even.
However, to say we accept censorship is like saying the USA accepted the Vietnam war. We don't - unfortunatly it doesn't effect enough people (yet) for it to be protested in large numbers.
Believe me, this hack will be the first of many. If protests against the Vietnam war were on the street, then protests against Net censorship will be on the Net.
You want to legislate a computer standard?
Oh man... read your history books!
I totally, absolutly disagree with you. I understand the comparison with telephones, but the Internet is a new game.
Let the market work it out - if one company loses a couple of $mil on the wrong standard, that's no big deal. It's not like they were rolling out incompatible telephone wiring.
It is a little annoying for consumers, but it doesn't cost them anything except convenience, and it allows new products and protocols to develop in ways a legislated standard wouldn't.
Anyway.. what country would you legislate in? What's to stop the non-compliant messageing servers moving to somewhere that has a concept of intellectual freedom?
That isn't a valid comparison.
Why not?
You are running a clone of the AOL computer on your computer, and using the servers in the way they were designed. Saying that just because AOL owns the servers they shouldn't need to specify they can only be used with AOL clients is like saying Netscape should expect only Netscape browsers to hit www.netscape.com just because they made the first commercially successful web browser.
As for your property thing - sure, you are right there, but if you owned a large patch of countyside in the middle of a national park, and you didn't put fences around it you shouldn't be surprised if people trespass - and infact they would probably have a good case in court.
Here in Australia, the is an item of common law (inherited from England) that if an area of private property is used for public purposes continuously for a long period of time, a "right of way" is formed, and the owners can no longer stop people from using that area.
That is why places like Adelaide University, which has a large "public" throughfare through the middle close the gates once a year - to stop the public use. Apparently they didn't once, and the final year law students tried (in court) to get a right-of-way.
To get back to the point - perhaps something like this might (or should) apply on the 'Net - and with one netyear = 3realyears... do the sums for yourself.
I'm not really serious about the right-of-way on the Internet, but it does make you think, hey!
Security flaws found by Hackers are bugs, pure and simple.
AOL's messaging system worked the way it was designed - and the only way they could stop the MS client is to exploit the buffer-overflow bug in their own client.
As for MS should have respected that - Why? Do the Samba people respect the fact the MS doesn't particulaly want unix to be able to access MS Networks? How is that different?
I've got no arguement that there should be a standard messageing format, though.
That's like saying "We had a gate, but no fences, and no one came through the gate"
Security, by definition, can't be bypassed. Maybe AOL did have the right to stop MS using it's servers, but that should have been defined in the licence, and enforced using real security measures. "Security by obscurity" is not security.
You expect the occasional bug in a product, but just not telling people how it operates is not a viable security method.
No estabilshed company is a friend of open source.
Redhat, etc owe their existance to open source programs, but Sun, Oracle, HP, Corel and even Inprise are just using us to get what they want.
Perhaps IBM is different.. They have at least tried. Maybe SGI, too - it looks like they need Linux to survive, now.
But understand this: MS should no longer be the primary target of our flames, and matching Windows should no longer be the goal of our development projects.
With the DOJ and the press watching MS like a hawk, we need to refocus.
Linux is now, without a doubt the premier Desktop Unix thanks to GNOME and KDE nothing against *BSD, but Linux is slightly better here, if only because that is what most developers use.
Next year Ittanium (sp?) comes out. Linux will be ready, for sure, and it will probably run flawlessly sooner than Windows2000 - but that ain't the game any more.
World Domination, remember?
Next year Montery also arrives. I still havn't seen even any speculation on how well Linux will compare to that.
SCO, HP, Intel, IBM and Compaq makes a pretty impressive team - all (except SCO) have Linux projects, too. What's going to happen when Montery and Linux go head to head for the same space?
Don't think that "Montery will be high end, and Linux will take the low end", either. That is just market speak for not having the features, yet. Both Linux and FreeBSD will, I believe, be very close to Montery (and Solaris) on Intel by next year.
What's going to happen then? Can we rely on Red Hat and VA Linux's money to compete?
Don't forget, these companies aren't like MS. They make pretty good software (for the most part).
Things like StarOffice are dangerous to Open Source, because they give the power back to the companies - and yet they are just as cheap (to the consumer) as Open source.. until Sun changes the file format or something like that.
Maybe it is time to play the Windows card? Linux does operate well in a Windows environment, and Windows computers are easily converted to Linux. Perhaps we need more open source software that interoperates well with MS stuff. Samba is great, maybe we need something that can provide DCOM services?
My Enemy's enemy is my friend. Sun was a useful ally. Lets not get stabbed in the back.
Okay.. I was wrong.
That will teach me to skim read & post.
Look, our (I'm Australian) govenment has done some pretty bad stuff lately, but I don't think this one is too bad.
So, they made a law that lets them (basically) monitor your computer use if they get a court order.
What's wrong with that? Sure, I don't like EACELON (sp) but this is totally different. That is indiscrminate wire tapping. This is focused on people who are breaking the law.
I don't like the idea of someone searching my computer, or my house. However I dislike even more the idea that the govement that is supposed to protect us cannot because the law forbids it from searching a criminals house (or computer)
At least, now, it is out in the open, and not against the law. Where there is law, there are proceedures, and appeals, and checks & balances.
Do you really think the NSA doesn't do this, too? What are the checks and balances there?
Remember Vietnam, Dictators in South America, Dictators in Africa?
Remember the experiments done with exposure to Nuclear radiation?
Remember how the Iran/Iraq war was kept going for seven years beacuse the USSR was worried about Iran, and the USA was worried about Iraq?
BTW, we here in Australia sometime have a Socialist govenment.
France, Sweden and England all have or have had socialist govenments.
Socialist Communist!
This kids are probably kept in stone cells, with no electricity. They are fed once a day if they are lucky, and have already been beaten.
The one who is going to die will probably be killed before the new year, especially if there is some rich foreginer who needs his organs.
They don't get phone calls, and they don't get visits. They will be shown on TV saying how bad they were, and then the one who dies will be lead out and shot.
You do realise that if someone needs his coronas (sp?) they shoot him in such a way it doesn't damage his eyes?
There is one organ that can only be trasplanted (normally) if both people are still alive... so the guards are directed to shoot him in the head, but in a location where the bullet passes between the lobes of the brain (I think that is how it works). Anyway, then the doctors remove the organ, and the guy is left to die.
Even if what you said was supposed to be a joke, it's not real funny.
If you were serious, go and help amnesty international.
Now, since you have already been in jail (ie, had your one chance), next time you break the speed limit and are caught, you will die, right?
Oh... it would only apply to violent crimes I hear you say.
Okay, you drive round a corner, and accidently hit a kid in the middle of the road.. you're okay, right? But what if the kids father runs out waving a gun? He's going to shoot you - what do you do? Drive off? That's hit and run - and there are witnesses. You die!!!! Okay.. you're going to stay. You talk to the guy and try and calm him down - there's his kid lying on the road and you're there saying "It's going to be okay" he's crying, he's waving this gun around... you try and sit him down, and he (being distressed) thinks you're attacking him. Bang! The gun goes off, and he's dead. Manslaughter.. you die.
Imagine none of the gun stuff had happened, but the police had proven by the length of the skid marks you were driving too fast. You die.
I'm sorry, but it just doesn't work like "one chance and you're out". Life isn't a game of quake - taking someone elses life is a very bad thing, always, no matter what they have done.
In case you hadn't guessed, I'm not a supporter of the death penelty. Since you people over in the US are so enthusiatic about it, I'm not going to argue with you about it for really, really bad crimes. But One strike and you're snuffed? How anyone can even think that and claim to be civilised is beyond me.
Moderators... do you're worse. It's not meant as flamebait, but I believe strongly in this and I'm prepared to burn some Karma on it...
The problem is that a lot of the people here get all their knowledge of WinNT, say, from /.
This means that when they get out into the real world, and run into an NT person who knows what they are talking about (Yes, they do exist) the /. person is made to sound stupid. Since they are normally championing the Free Software cause, it makes the whole Free Software world lose a little bit of creadibility.
For instance, go and have a look at some of the comments on here about XML - stuff like "MS owns XML, and are trying to use it to takeover the internet" type of thing.
If someone goes and repeats that to someone who knows what they are talkign about they look stupid.
Why does it always have to be me defending MS from all the FUD on /.
I don't like MS, and it kills my Karma. :-(
Oh well.. if someone said something wrong about Linux, I'd do the same thing.
If this really is an issue, then the diskeeper softwear would be fairly easy to remove (if it's not, maybe there should be an Anti-Trust suit about that one!)
I've used their product on NT4, and I believe that it is almost identical to the one on 2000. It's just a single program, people - it's pretty easy to remove it and make it a free download from the US MS site.
Someone should invent something that would transform these signals to analouge and then transmit them using a wireless mechanism and RF Modulation.
Then cheap, monitor like boxes could be built with the wireless networking gear built into them, and the cost of the service to consumers could be paid for by advertising.
Of course, we might have a problem with competing standards - maybe the W3C could come up with something..
Hmmm... I might just seek some VC finance..
Hmmmm... now wait a moment.. I remember something like that from back when I was young..
;-)
I've heard that in the Legal profession (in the US at least) the WordPerfect (for DOS!!) file format is standard for all legal documents, and therefor WordPerfect is used in a much greater percentage of the legal population than in the normal business population.
I know it's offtopic, but I'd like to confirm this. How about a bit of slack, Moderators? I'll give you some of the money if I win.... ;-)
I think the first two ideas are very good. I'm not convinced about the third - I think it needs more explaiation. Sure, closed hardware specs are bad, but I'm not sure MS should be punished for them. If we have all the interfaces for MS software, reverse engineering closed source hardware should be easier, anyway.
I personally am undecided as to if MS should be broken up. Perhaps strict govenment supervision (as per IBM) would work just as well.
If it were to be broken up, I see two possibilities:
Again, I am undecided about which would be best. Either way would make for a couple of interesting years in the market.
If the DOJ went the first way, and assuming the non OS companies had to "act in a cometitive manner" I can't see them ignoring the Linux market - the possible competitors for each of those companies (say Corel for Consumers, Borland & Oracle for Developers) are already shipping Linux products.
IF the second structure was choosen, I can see a very rapid rise in non-X86 PCs, because CE already runs on them. I think the enterprise company would be a pretty competitive propsition - I've used all the MS developer tools, and they aren't bad at all (okay.. VB isn't a great language, but it lets you crank out quick apps in no time)
The other possibility is settlement. Maybe MS will be forced to spin off it's office division, say. Imagine that IPO! Remember the Lucent spin off? I'd say MS shareholders wouldn't mind getting a bit of that action.
Come on moderators, this is pretty funny.
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This post number #13 (can't get the URL to work) talks about the port, already, back then.
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I've seen a few pretty bad stories posted on Slashdot befoer, but this is.. well.. embarrassing.
Before you even consider a port of Linux to another architecture, it might be good if you had a little look at the source, and did one or two web searches.
As for the story.. well it has been pointed out that there are already ports running.
Guess what a search on linux EPOC port on www.google.com turned up?
Calcaria Linux7k
...running on the 5mx, but changes in the EPOC OS mean that our boot loader,...
...a project to port the unix-like operating system Linux to a small...
www.calcaria.net/ Cached (5k) New! Try out GoogleScout
Calcaria Linux7k
...the EPOC operating system, since it will be replaced by Linux....
...the Linux 7k project. A series of developers have set out to port...
www.calcaria.net/engppro.html Cached (15k) New! Try out GoogleScout
As the first two results. Cliff, normally your stories are good. It would take two seconds. Enough said.
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