Bot granting you that without conceding it, the non written part of the bargain is that to maximize shareholder value the ethical thing to do is competing with better products for your costumers.
Companies that are increasingly finding it difficult to compete in the Software arena are relying in broken patent and copyright law in order to hold costumers by force with substandard products.
If you thing that is OK, all the power to you, many of us think is a rotten way of behaving, specially when you are harming the credibility of a lot of people that have supported you unreservedely for some time.
Your wide unsubstantiated generalization, as most of them are, is a complete lie and a sham/
There are so many examples of bussinesses making money with an open source strategy that i will not waste my time labouring the point. The biggest cluemoter you need is that Sun became profitable again using open sourcing of their crown jewells as an important part of their bussiness strategy. ANd then there is IBM.
Which brings us to the point of open source supporters not wanting to pay money for software. No, I *personally* do not want to pay for software that is open sourced, thank you very much. But I will (and do) gladly pay for support, documentation, conferences and products around open source software.
People enhebriated with strange substances like you (otherwise how can you exaplin the bizarre lame attempt of allegory with your modern art "example") fail once and again to understand that selling software is the least important source of revenue of any company invoved with open source.
We are suppossed to believe that all the dubious deals HB got during the Iraq fiasco have nothing to do with having a mean they know in such a position of power.
Including procurement without competitionfro the contracts.
This little tirade of yours of the evil EU backing a wasteful state company is frankly ludicrous, not only because it is not the entire truth, but because you conveniently forget to mention that Boeing receives a similar treatment from the US government.
If you are a monopoly or very dominant in the market where you work. And while you may be helping your workers, you are hurting your customers, who are the ones that foot the bill and who at the end give you and your employeess a job to go to in the first place.
In a competitive market such a policy is pure lunacy and would drive any company into bankruptcy.
Any person wanting to help their employees should pay them what is fair according to the market, incentives for them to be happy can come in many forms that do not necessarily have to be monetary.
Oh, and did I forget that paying over the top has an inflationary effect that eventually will hurt employees as well?
If yor main criteria to buy something is if it is American or not, then you may be rewarding inneficient American companies thus hurting other consumers in your country, which are as American as the workers of the companies you are artificially propping up.
You should buy based on price and quality, irrespective of the origin of a given product (unles the place of origin plays dirty commercial tricks, in which case it is perfectly well to boycott, but one would expect any sane government to take care of that so you don't have to , but still, that is about the only non economic reason I can agree to abide by when buying goods).
It is funny how some people just do not get what is an acceptable, ethical way, of behaving in a capitlist environment.
The idea is that you compete based on your own merits, not that you set up protection rackets in order to force others to use your products or services.
IBM putting pressure on its clients would be an action of an unethical company, but given the other comments on this thread, and who is doing the complain (a legal representative of SCO) I think we can safely assume that IBM did not do what the poor sod is claiming they did.
With patent law you can claim somebody is making red nibblets just by convincing a jury (that knows close to nothing about nibblets, specially the red ones) that it is so.
You don't have to show the nibblet machine or ask the nibblet code to be shown.
If you think people are so idiotic as to been unable to open a graphic text editor to edit a file, I think you have to evaluate what are the problems of the people you relate with.
Yes, a fucking graphic text editor. Some of you are fixated in a disturbing way to the concept of a command line.
Dell or any other manufacturer loses nothing by sending people to a website with supported printers, mice or any other devices.
The lack of competition in the OS arena has meant we have been conditioned to think that all hardware work with all OSes (this hasn't never really been true, as people with older hardware can painfuly testify when they try to connect it to newer version fo Windows or people with new hardware fail to find drivers for older versions of Windows).
Windows Sys Admins have to constatnly fiddle with the abomination that the registry is.
All this idiocy about mainstream is disingineous anyway. People that were unfamiliar with computers have put up with worst in the times of MSDOS or W95-W98.
To pretend that people are somehow dumber now just to make a cheap point about Linux lack of "user friendlieness" (like if clicking buttons with arcane messages was user friendly, o I see, nice theme and eye candy all around) is frankly preposterous.
Gee, all thos 2 and 3 years olds come also with Windows pre-installed by default?
And please, do recommend your ISP and firewall/AV providers that use no jargon, no pup ups, all hassle free.
The obvious proof that it is difficult to set up a secure windows machine is the millions of Windows zombies on the net. If things were as rosy as you claim, we would not have this problem.
Unless you think configuring using the registry, the necessity of the installation of antivirus and firewalls (with all their arcane messages and terminology) and all what implies using a Windows machine is infused at birth.
Some folks around here seem to think that Windows is *naturally* easy.
I have got news for you guys, it isn't. But this is masked by the myriad of people mildly familiar with it.
Grandmas that are introduced to Linux as their first computing experienc (hi mum!) can cope perfectly well with the tool of the penguin, and people suggesting otherwise are patronizing ageists.
Number of Linux distros: who knows, go and find yourselves. But I venture > 100 .
Number of Windows OSes: 1 (or 2 or 3, but ther is not much competitions left, is it?)
Number of closed source desktop OSes: 1 (windows) and perhaps Apple OSX or whatever it is called (before you rubish this, show me the imlementaion in Intel or Sparc processors, none? There you go).
Number of closed source OSes: Solaris is open now. So we have Windows, a few flavours of UNIX and 3 or 4 highly specialized ones that are somehow popular. Lots of variety and competition there as well buddy.
Sorry but it depends on the nature of the licensing of their plugin.
If it is closed source, well yeah, it would be akin to a stabbin.
If it is GPLed... er... wait, all the other vendors could be sued easily by MS as we do know, specially if MS has been the instigator of the format and has "software patents" (read protection racket here please) over it.
What we can tell you is that the oveewhelming body of scientific evidence points exactly to that conslussion.
When you can come up with a coherent, fact based, peer reviewed, theory about the origin of the species as a consequence of carbon's crystaline structure, then come back to us and let us know. We will be all ears.
... and then had tom embarrass yourself with your parting sentence.
You can't provide evidence to probe a negative.
Otherwise please do provide me of any evidence of the non existence of the invisible elephant stearing at your computer screen behind you.
Atheists, like truly yours, can provide evidence that something does not exist, I hope you can get your brain around that one before you equate us with religious people...
Comparing belief systems based in mental machinations and wishful magic thinking with an attitude informed in scientific facts is frankly intellectually disingineous.
If you have no interest in preserving the environment, say so, but doing cheap shoots against people that do by smearing them via a completely unrelated issue, is frankly almost beyond contempt.
Slashdot Mirror
.... why is MS so concerned to show the differential?
Because this is becoming a bit of an urban myth.
Bot granting you that without conceding it, the non written part of the bargain is that to maximize shareholder value the ethical thing to do is competing with better products for your costumers.
Companies that are increasingly finding it difficult to compete in the Software arena are relying in broken patent and copyright law in order to hold costumers by force with substandard products.
If you thing that is OK, all the power to you, many of us think is a rotten way of behaving, specially when you are harming the credibility of a lot of people that have supported you unreservedely for some time.
I don't want to be ever close to that substance.
Your wide unsubstantiated generalization, as most of them are, is a complete lie and a sham/
There are so many examples of bussinesses making money with an open source strategy that i will not waste my time labouring the point. The biggest cluemoter you need is that Sun became profitable again using open sourcing of their crown jewells as an important part of their bussiness strategy. ANd then there is IBM.
Which brings us to the point of open source supporters not wanting to pay money for software. No, I *personally* do not want to pay for software that is open sourced, thank you very much. But I will (and do) gladly pay for support, documentation, conferences and products around open source software.
People enhebriated with strange substances like you (otherwise how can you exaplin the bizarre lame attempt of allegory with your modern art "example") fail once and again to understand that selling software is the least important source of revenue of any company invoved with open source.
We are suppossed to believe that all the dubious deals HB got during the Iraq fiasco have nothing to do with having a mean they know in such a position of power.
Including procurement without competitionfro the contracts.
Please do not insult our intelligence.
Boeing receives many subsidies in the US as well.
This little tirade of yours of the evil EU backing a wasteful state company is frankly ludicrous, not only because it is not the entire truth, but because you conveniently forget to mention that Boeing receives a similar treatment from the US government.
If you are a monopoly or very dominant in the market where you work. And while you may be helping your workers, you are hurting your customers, who are the ones that foot the bill and who at the end give you and your employeess a job to go to in the first place.
In a competitive market such a policy is pure lunacy and would drive any company into bankruptcy.
Any person wanting to help their employees should pay them what is fair according to the market, incentives for them to be happy can come in many forms that do not necessarily have to be monetary.
Oh, and did I forget that paying over the top has an inflationary effect that eventually will hurt employees as well?
Productivity has no nationality.
If yor main criteria to buy something is if it is American or not, then you may be rewarding inneficient American companies thus hurting other consumers in your country, which are as American as the workers of the companies you are artificially propping up.
You should buy based on price and quality, irrespective of the origin of a given product (unles the place of origin plays dirty commercial tricks, in which case it is perfectly well to boycott, but one would expect any sane government to take care of that so you don't have to , but still, that is about the only non economic reason I can agree to abide by when buying goods).
If (and this is a gigantic if of the size of SCO's lies) IBM were doing client intimidation, they should surely be denounced.
SCO has, how can I put it, a little credibility problem at this stage, so anything they said should be taken with a monumental grain of salt.
It is funny how some people just do not get what is an acceptable, ethical way, of behaving in a capitlist environment.
The idea is that you compete based on your own merits, not that you set up protection rackets in order to force others to use your products or services.
IBM putting pressure on its clients would be an action of an unethical company, but given the other comments on this thread, and who is doing the complain (a legal representative of SCO) I think we can safely assume that IBM did not do what the poor sod is claiming they did.
With patent law you can claim somebody is making red nibblets just by convincing a jury (that knows close to nothing about nibblets, specially the red ones) that it is so.
You don't have to show the nibblet machine or ask the nibblet code to be shown.
One word: Appletalk.
Grrrr....
And another one:
Trumpet Winsocket
Grrrrr....
MS and Apple were dragged into open standards screaming against their will.
Frankly stop it. It is a non fucking issue.
If you think people are so idiotic as to been unable to open a graphic text editor to edit a file, I think you have to evaluate what are the problems of the people you relate with.
Yes, a fucking graphic text editor. Some of you are fixated in a disturbing way to the concept of a command line.
Dell or any other manufacturer loses nothing by sending people to a website with supported printers, mice or any other devices.
The lack of competition in the OS arena has meant we have been conditioned to think that all hardware work with all OSes (this hasn't never really been true, as people with older hardware can painfuly testify when they try to connect it to newer version fo Windows or people with new hardware fail to find drivers for older versions of Windows).
Windows Sys Admins have to constatnly fiddle with the abomination that the registry is.
All this idiocy about mainstream is disingineous anyway. People that were unfamiliar with computers have put up with worst in the times of MSDOS or W95-W98.
To pretend that people are somehow dumber now just to make a cheap point about Linux lack of "user friendlieness" (like if clicking buttons with arcane messages was user friendly, o I see, nice theme and eye candy all around) is frankly preposterous.
Gee, all thos 2 and 3 years olds come also with Windows pre-installed by default?
And please, do recommend your ISP and firewall/AV providers that use no jargon, no pup ups, all hassle free.
The obvious proof that it is difficult to set up a secure windows machine is the millions of Windows zombies on the net. If things were as rosy as you claim, we would not have this problem.
But lets keep extrapolating from anecdotes.
Unless you think configuring using the registry, the necessity of the installation of antivirus and firewalls (with all their arcane messages and terminology) and all what implies using a Windows machine is infused at birth.
Some folks around here seem to think that Windows is *naturally* easy.
I have got news for you guys, it isn't. But this is masked by the myriad of people mildly familiar with it.
Grandmas that are introduced to Linux as their first computing experienc (hi mum!) can cope perfectly well with the tool of the penguin, and people suggesting otherwise are patronizing ageists.
Number of Linux distros: who knows, go and find yourselves. But I venture > 100 .
Number of Windows OSes: 1 (or 2 or 3, but ther is not much competitions left, is it?)
Number of closed source desktop OSes: 1 (windows) and perhaps Apple OSX or whatever it is called (before you rubish this, show me the imlementaion in Intel or Sparc processors, none? There you go).
Number of closed source OSes: Solaris is open now. So we have Windows, a few flavours of UNIX and 3 or 4 highly specialized ones that are somehow popular. Lots of variety and competition there as well buddy.
Sorry but it depends on the nature of the licensing of their plugin.
... er ... wait, all the other vendors could be sued easily by MS as we do know, specially if MS has been the instigator of the format and has "software patents" (read protection racket here please) over it.
If it is closed source, well yeah, it would be akin to a stabbin.
If it is GPLed
So yeah, Novell stab in the back.
Thanks guys.
What we can tell you is that the oveewhelming body of scientific evidence points exactly to that conslussion.
When you can come up with a coherent, fact based, peer reviewed, theory about the origin of the species as a consequence of carbon's crystaline structure, then come back to us and let us know. We will be all ears.
Chossing to pay a fine instead of adjust bussiness practices is not just an ethical choice.
Here where I live it is called "to brake the law".
Some folks should remember that MS has done this in several occassions and they do not show any regret or have ever apologized.
They will not stop until they are punished for real, not only middly reprimanded.
I think we can contextualize the world evil in regards to companies and their actions, but thank you very much for patronizing us.
In the context in which we are talking about, a pattern of dishonest, immoral and even illegal actions can be classed as evil.
... and then had tom embarrass yourself with your parting sentence.
You can't provide evidence to probe a negative.
Otherwise please do provide me of any evidence of the non existence of the invisible elephant stearing at your computer screen behind you.
Atheists, like truly yours, can provide evidence that something does not exist, I hope you can get your brain around that one before you equate us with religious people...
Comparing belief systems based in mental machinations and wishful magic thinking with an attitude informed in scientific facts is frankly intellectually disingineous.
If you have no interest in preserving the environment, say so, but doing cheap shoots against people that do by smearing them via a completely unrelated issue, is frankly almost beyond contempt.
My father was a soldier. A proud atheist as well.
He needed none of all the religious nonsense to feel for his buddies and to survive very bad situations.
Religious people fail badly to understand people that do not need those crouches to lead moral, positive lifes.
Where calling somebody a rat, no matter the context, is seriously derogatory.