Linux was based on Minix. [...] Over time, in adding functionality to Minix, Linus Torvalds found that he had created an entirely new kernel. I was very similar to Minix but used none of the Minix source code.
Um, I am no expert, but I think you are off track a bit.
Linux was inspired by Minux. But to say it is "based on" Minux is to say that every work of art done by every student since the beginning of time is "based on" the work of the teacher. I don't know many teachers who would take that position.
Minux is a microkernel; Linux is a monolithic kernel. Changing one into the other would be like taking a dog and morphing it into a horse - very unlikely.
Because that is exactly what they want. They want to walk out of this with golden parachutes, completely in the right.
The senior executives of The SCO Group (TSG) have already rewarded themselves handsomely with huge salaries (I believe Mr. McBride's is 1.2 M/yr) and fast-exercising stock options. I would have to think they have nice fat jobs awaiting at places like the AdTI when the legal fight is all over too, collecting a nice honorarium and medical benefits courtesy of some sugar daddy. Any guesses who?
Lying, cheating, stealing, and then cooking the books to cover it has been a suicide business model for years yet it doesn't stop companies from continuing to do it.
Sadly, when a capable but amoral person sets out to behave this way his chance of success (where "success" is defined as cash dollars > 100 million) is pretty high. And his chance of paying any price is fairly low. That has been true for thousands of years: 98% of people are honest, but the 5% of the remaining 2% who are capable can steal from the honest fairly effectively.
I'm not a big fan of Microsoft, but I don't think the quality (or lack thereof) of their products is the issue here. I've read from their EULAs that their products are not suited towards critical applications (ie nuke facilities, life support). My point is that although a EULA is not a legally-binding contact, the fact that MS is stating in public Windows shouldn't be used in critical applications should tell you something.
Step 1: Issue EULA stating yoru products are not suitable for mission-critical applications
Step 2: Market market market until product managers throughout the world are convinced they must use your system as a building block if they are to remain competitive
Step 3: Disclaim all responsibility for the results
The DEC 36-bit systems were generally considered to be in competition with IBM's mainframes. DEC management did try to keep their perceived capaability just below the mainframe range to avoid provoking too strong a counter-attack from IBM - a strategy which many think was the beginning of the end for DEC.
Neither. Lot's of people have been using Walter Kohn's theory. The reason why he is at the top of the list is because of the sucess of density functional theory (DFT) first in condensed matter physics and then in chemistry.
The problem here is that if a concept is a "safety pin" - which is to say, after it has been described for the first time it is blindingly obvious to everyone in the field - then it may never be cited regardless of how seminal it actually was. No one cites Newton/Leibnitz every time they differentiate an equation in a physics paper, to take an extreme example.
Even people I meet who have no special interest in computers know that Google is the best search engine. They care, and they don't use the Microsoft product. They know that Microsoft will try to influence them in a hidden or not-so-hidden way.
How do they know Google isn't doing the same, only more subtly?
In fact, John Young at Cryptome has a post up describing how Google refused to provide him services for reasons it will not explain. That Cryptome is not exactly a favorite of the powers-that-be wouldn't factor in to that, would it? Probably not, but how do you know? What other information is Google not providing to you, or biasing down, that you don't know about?
> still doesn't answer the question about anything > in the books that would prevent the use of the > eagles to begin with.
The great eagles are clearly not the same as ordinary eagles today. They may be under a prohibition similar to that put on the wizards: to assist the free peoples, but not to solve their problems for them.
The National Federation for the Blind has been filing lawsuits against election boards for several years, claiming that such a system is discriminatory because it requires a blind person to have someone in the voting booth with them.
BlackBoxVoting.org has discussed this several times, although that site has its own partisan spin. It isn't something that is discussed much though.
Why the fuck can they not manually recount votes? I honestly believe that when we elect someone to office we should be 100% certain that they were elected fair and square.
Not trying to defend the law here, but the thinking is probably this: no counting of 60 million objects is ever going to be perfect or precise. Every time you recount you will get a different answer. Yet an election must have a "final answer (tm)" in some definite amount of time, otherwise there will be a perception that it is being subverted during the process of recounting (both Dems and Repubs can insert their favorite Flordia anecdote here).
That's was probably the reasoning behind that provision: to avoid and endless series of recounts and lawsuits.
Now how, exactly, do you propose to provide a mechanism in which it is guaranteed to the voter that their recorded vote is the same as that which is on their receipt, without throwing away any of the anonymity characteristics that are also crucial to voting?
Voter reviews receipt and verifies correct. Voter places receipt in traditional ballot box. Random sample of ballot boxes counted and matched against electronic machine.
Admittedly this is a facile answer to a complex problem, but people like Peter Neumann have thought deeply about the problem for more than 30 years and have developed some solutions - none of which Diebold uses.
> What did the Mozilla Foundation do that has > made Mozilla such a huge success?
1) Huge infusion of dotcom money to start the ball rolling 2) Later infusion and support of corporate entity (AOL) after original business model failed (or was killed if you prefer)
So, other projects just need to:
1) Be the original dotcom and bring in a few billions 2) Be acquired by a very large entity that needs them as a bargaining chip against Microsoft
Any technology product described as "rich" is intended to make you poor.
Any technology product, service, or any "content" described as "exciting" is intended to excite cash to jump out of your wallet into someone else's bank account.
Hmmm - IE is described as an "exciting platform for rich content".
This will again turn into another non-event like Y2K and everything else these the-sky-is-falling people love drumming up to keep people afraid.
Every airplane smaller than a passenger liner carries a magnetic compass as either primary or backup navigation aid, and pilots are taught map-compass-and-watch (pilotage) as the failsafe method of navigation. Many small plane pilots can tell a story of their electrical system failing over middle-of-nowhere and having to use the map and compass to save their butts.
So, should compass readings become unreliable it would be necessary to depend even more heavily on high-tech aids for navigation, which would change both action and belief ("I am self-reliant in the backwoods") considerably.
This might be EXTREMELY useful for corporate LAN/WAN's. Althought just switching to something like the Linux Terminal Server Project might provide almost all of the same functionality...
We had this running on Windows 3.11 across a 120-site WAN in 1993. Given a reasonable amount of bandwidth and reasonably similar systems, it can be done today with Windows NT / W2K, policies, and roaming profiles. Then there is Citrix and Tarentella...
Oh, yeah! I'm a professor, and you should see the stuff we get from the textbook people: hot and cold running Porsches, massages from scantily-clad young women (or men, if you prefer), big envelopes stuffed with cash . ..
Not very much money in collge publishing compared to elementary school and high school. Richard Feinman recorded in great detail how, as a member of the California state textbook review panel (at least at that time, all textbooks used in California public schools needed the approval of that panel) he was offered all those things and more by textbook publishers. That was in the 70s, but from what I hear (and read in my children's textbooks) it isn't much different today.
Tons of virus material according to the article I read. Now how much of what you hear from those former Soviet bad dudes you can believe is another question.
I have read 20 or so of Mr. Pascal's rants in various forums over the last two years, and darned if I yet know the answer to that question. Wonder if he is related the Eli Goldratt? Their style of argument is similar.
> Somewhere Pournelle seems to have jumped to the > conclusion that giving up on DRM means giving up > on copyright altogether. That is not the case.
Note that I don't necessarily disagree with you. However, Pournelle also gives examples of his works being pirated in Asia and then resold in the US via major retail outlets, and the legal difficulties that created for him even in such an outright case of theft.
Also, you have to follow the various threads of his arguments in both the View and Letters sections to get a complete picture of his position. Pournelle often says things that appear to be inflammatory or silly when taken out of context, but which make a lot of sense when seen as part of a full argument.
Slashdot Mirror
Linux was inspired by Minux. But to say it is "based on" Minux is to say that every work of art done by every student since the beginning of time is "based on" the work of the teacher. I don't know many teachers who would take that position.
Minux is a microkernel; Linux is a monolithic kernel. Changing one into the other would be like taking a dog and morphing it into a horse - very unlikely.
sPh
sPh
sPh
Step 2: Market market market until product managers throughout the world are convinced they must use your system as a building block if they are to remain competitive
Step 3: Disclaim all responsibility for the results
Step 4: You know what Step 4 is....
sPh
sPh
sPh
In fact, John Young at Cryptome has a post up describing how Google refused to provide him services for reasons it will not explain. That Cryptome is not exactly a favorite of the powers-that-be wouldn't factor in to that, would it? Probably not, but how do you know? What other information is Google not providing to you, or biasing down, that you don't know about?
sPh
> still doesn't answer the question about anything
> in the books that would prevent the use of the
> eagles to begin with.
The great eagles are clearly not the same as ordinary eagles today. They may be under a prohibition similar to that put on the wizards: to assist the free peoples, but not to solve their problems for them.
Just a guess.
sPh
0.02.
sPh
If such a manuscript existed, Christopher Tolkien would have already released 347 editions, including one with solid gold covers.
;-)
So I think we can conclude it doesn't exist
sPh
sPh
BlackBoxVoting.org has discussed this several times, although that site has its own partisan spin. It isn't something that is discussed much though.
sPh
That's was probably the reasoning behind that provision: to avoid and endless series of recounts and lawsuits.
sPh
Admittedly this is a facile answer to a complex problem, but people like Peter Neumann have thought deeply about the problem for more than 30 years and have developed some solutions - none of which Diebold uses.
sPh
> What did the Mozilla Foundation do that has
> made Mozilla such a huge success?
1) Huge infusion of dotcom money to start the ball rolling
2) Later infusion and support of corporate entity (AOL) after original business model failed (or was killed if you prefer)
So, other projects just need to:
1) Be the original dotcom and bring in a few billions
2) Be acquired by a very large entity that needs them as a bargaining chip against Microsoft
sPh
Any technology product described as "rich" is intended to make you poor.
Any technology product, service, or any "content" described as "exciting" is intended to excite cash to jump out of your wallet into someone else's bank account.
Hmmm - IE is described as an "exciting platform for rich content".
sPh
So, should compass readings become unreliable it would be necessary to depend even more heavily on high-tech aids for navigation, which would change both action and belief ("I am self-reliant in the backwoods") considerably.
sPh
sPh
xPh
Is there anyone out there who (a) thinks that Matrix 3 was anything except poor/disappointing (b) cares about this 73 disk set?
sPh
sPh
> Tons of virus material?
Tons of virus material according to the article I read. Now how much of what you hear from those former Soviet bad dudes you can believe is another question.
sPh
sPh
sPh
> Somewhere Pournelle seems to have jumped to the
> conclusion that giving up on DRM means giving up
> on copyright altogether. That is not the case.
Note that I don't necessarily disagree with you. However, Pournelle also gives examples of his works being pirated in Asia and then resold in the US via major retail outlets, and the legal difficulties that created for him even in such an outright case of theft.
Also, you have to follow the various threads of his arguments in both the View and Letters sections to get a complete picture of his position. Pournelle often says things that appear to be inflammatory or silly when taken out of context, but which make a lot of sense when seen as part of a full argument.
sPh