If Apple's OS becomes popular, MS will think about another Machiavelian plot to bring them to the ground.
The real issue here is software patents.
The time has arrived that all companies that are innovating at all (no Amazon, we are not talking about you) join forces and for once buy ^H^H^H lobby US congress people for a good reason.
Sofware patents are beneffiting absolutely nobody in the IT industry except parasites and monopolists.
IBM, SUN, HP, Apple, Adobe, SAP, Oracle. Guys, it is now or never.
MS can say they patented a certain kind of sorting an array for example, and in the idiotic US legal system, that may be valid.
And here I am quite specific. They could claim something so broad that nobody in the known univers could wrtie a program of any complexity without "infringing" on their patents.
Why is it not possible to write a completely different file sharing protocol that is installed on top of WIndows to allow interoperability with any other OS anyway?
Although reverse Engineering is 100% kosher it is very clear that using the same protocols gives amunition to MS lawyers to drag this in the mud forever (not becaus they should, but because they can. And here allow me to refer to MS as M$ to make my point clear).
If people can't be arsed to vote ot to stand to the current political class in elections, there is no excuse, specialy one as lame as the one you are ejaculating.
The problem with the UK system is that if you hate the war in Iraq lets say, you have to balnce out that against many other decision taken by this government.
Also since the government is highly centralized you don't have the option to vote one way for local matters and a different way for national ones. YOu have to take it all or dump it all, no half measures.
But it is still a democracy. The people in the UK have the power to change the system itself and to kick out inept politicians, as they have done in the past.
Sun opened the SPARC specification from the start.
That is at least 15 years ago.
I saw and worked with other manufacturers of SPARC machines happily running Sun's SunOS and later Solaris.
The Sun haters in/. would never admit it, but Sun's philosophy for doing bussiness has been consistent and head and shoulders above how others have gone about doing business.
I would do things because I enjoy doing them. SInce everything would be replicated at no cost all my wants would be fullfilied anyway, so no need to stay in a job I don't want.
People may decide to release piracy tools as open source, but that does not taint the development method, it taints the individuals tha do not respect copyright laws.
As were Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Leonardo, and many others.
It is a fallacy to imply that an sponsorship system would drive us back to the dark ages.
The flourishing of books have everything to do with easy copying and nothing to do with publishers paying copyrights. Many books were copied and reprinted without permisssion.
And during the dark ages, the only mechanism to keep culture alive was copying stuff without permission. Nothing to do with patronage but with a general disregard for wordly mathers.
Weak IP laws do not imply weak helth and safety or weak truth in advertisement regulations.
Weak IP laws would mean it would be easy to copy trivial things, but all the copycats could fall under strict regulation regarding the quality of the product offered, specially in stuff for human consumption.
If you are server tomorrow with a lawsuit from MS to stop using Linux, you have to ask you the following:
-Do I have the poclets fto fight them? -Do I have the time to fight them? -Do I have the energy to fight them?
note that the validity of any possible patents is completely immaterial, in a litigation systems in which money talks, the threat of being sued is enough to do whatever you are told to do if you don;t have the resources to defend yourself.
And of course MS will not go after the big players first (banks, oil companies, software producers, Hollywood studios), no, that would be an even battle.
They will go after the little guy, the one they can crush. That creates a climate of uncertainity in which Linux will be questioned instead of prised because the bully would be out to get you.
If MS had any decent intentions they would have launched an interoperability panel with the mantainers of the 5 or 6 most important Linux distributions and teams working on Samba, Mono, Cedega, OpenOffice.org and other parties interested in making interoperability work. They would have alos announce that no patents would have been used against any Linux software.
There was no need of this nonsense, but the only kind of relationship that MS understands is the one in which they are the abusive party.
I wish I could say lets give them the benefit of the doubt, but the way I see things is pretty obvious they are positioning themselves for a legal battle. They must be careful, they may be bitting more than what they can chew.
So MS has finally waken up to the reality that Linux has to be taken seriously, but unlike with the little mishap of ignoring the existence of the Internet for several years, this time they are not even trying to compete and innovate, they are reaching directly for the patent portfolio while at the same time trying to ensure that people running already Linux are not alinated.
Clap, clap, clap. Well done Redmondites, your lessons in Machiavelism never stop to amuse us all, the bigger you guys are the more you move away from doing things that benefit society with your efforts.
But MS is missing the point. Lets say they manage to kill Linux (I don't see how, but lets oblige the MSofties, they are IT people as well, or were at some point before marketing and fear took over), then we will move to BSD (thank goodness they kept coding), or we may be even manage to finish the Hurd! Think about that.
Or something else could be started from scratch, which may not be such a bad thing, many preconceptions and prejudices regarding operating system design are mantained because there is no incentive to redesign such a complex thing from the ground.
MS is buiying time at best, wasting money at worst.
If MS really wanted to compete with Linux they would open source Windows and compete for the developers out there to help them code and find bugs for their products. Sun got it. IBM got it. Apple almost got it.
There will be a point when all the patents will expire, in many places are not even valid now. As things stand, if MS starts to go after users of Linux then MS would become a pharia in the EU, Russia, China and who knows were else.
Poor MS, a company that had a chance at greatness going down the path of protection money very used amongst gangsters.
You do know that if you are going to enter an argument you dissect the postulates and don't use adhominem attcks in order to discredit your oponents, don't you?
Just a couple of weeks ago a recognized UK economist, who can't be classed as a left looney, told us very clearly what can be expoected if we don;t take action now.
And if you class most of the scientific concensus and most political parties of all orientations in most countries as leftists, well, good luck to you, enjoy the shadow under the rock you are living.
To put the burden suqarely on the developers for backwards compatibility is quite something.
What should happen is that backwards compatibility should not be used as a selling point for any OS because it is completely impossible to guarantee it.
Slashdot Mirror
Because just settling for him just to say guilty, is a great thing.
Reinventing the wheel is always very entertaining. I wonder about how useful it is, but lots of fun for sure.
If Apple's OS becomes popular, MS will think about another Machiavelian plot to bring them to the ground.
The real issue here is software patents.
The time has arrived that all companies that are innovating at all (no Amazon, we are not talking about you) join forces and for once buy ^H^H^H lobby US congress people for a good reason.
Sofware patents are beneffiting absolutely nobody in the IT industry except parasites and monopolists.
IBM, SUN, HP, Apple, Adobe, SAP, Oracle. Guys, it is now or never.
It is not code we ar talking about here.
It is way of doings things.
MS can say they patented a certain kind of sorting an array for example, and in the idiotic US legal system, that may be valid.
And here I am quite specific. They could claim something so broad that nobody in the known univers could wrtie a program of any complexity without "infringing" on their patents.
They can admit guilt for something they don't own.
Why is it not possible to write a completely different file sharing protocol that is installed on top of WIndows to allow interoperability with any other OS anyway?
Although reverse Engineering is 100% kosher it is very clear that using the same protocols gives amunition to MS lawyers to drag this in the mud forever (not becaus they should, but because they can. And here allow me to refer to MS as M$ to make my point clear).
Sometimes I wonder who comes with bullshit sentences like this, and then you guys, the editors, don't question this gratuitous use of language.
The downtime on such a situation comes at a shocking 1.8 days/years
That is less than 45 minutes a week.
Quite standard to be perfectly honest.
If people can't be arsed to vote ot to stand to the current political class in elections, there is no excuse, specialy one as lame as the one you are ejaculating.
The problem with the UK system is that if you hate the war in Iraq lets say, you have to balnce out that against many other decision taken by this government.
Also since the government is highly centralized you don't have the option to vote one way for local matters and a different way for national ones. YOu have to take it all or dump it all, no half measures.
But it is still a democracy. The people in the UK have the power to change the system itself and to kick out inept politicians, as they have done in the past.
For anybody related to scientific or engineering fields.
No Maria Callas for you then (or equivalent in the programming world).
Sometimes you have to put up with prima donnas if the benefits they bring outweight the problems thay cause.
Trusted Computing.
Sorry, let me write that correctly
"Trusted" Computing.
Sun opened the SPARC specification from the start.
/. would never admit it, but Sun's philosophy for doing bussiness has been consistent and head and shoulders above how others have gone about doing business.
That is at least 15 years ago.
I saw and worked with other manufacturers of SPARC machines happily running Sun's SunOS and later Solaris.
The Sun haters in
I would do things because I enjoy doing them. SInce everything would be replicated at no cost all my wants would be fullfilied anyway, so no need to stay in a job I don't want.
Bring it on I say.
Open Source does not facilitate piracy. Period.
People may decide to release piracy tools as open source, but that does not taint the development method, it taints the individuals tha do not respect copyright laws.
Tha would mean that land price would go down.
What is the problem with that?
Galileo was sponsored.
As were Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Leonardo, and many others.
It is a fallacy to imply that an sponsorship system would drive us back to the dark ages.
The flourishing of books have everything to do with easy copying and nothing to do with publishers paying copyrights. Many books were copied and reprinted without permisssion.
And during the dark ages, the only mechanism to keep culture alive was copying stuff without permission. Nothing to do with patronage but with a general disregard for wordly mathers.
Content developers should approach patrons interested in raising their profile (advertisers, politicians, artists, etc).
These patrons can sponsor the design of a new outfit, lets say, release it in a big SL party and live with the fact that it will be copied at nauseam.
People that were producing outfits have to think about new bussiness models that do not realy in artifical limitation of supply.
Weak IP laws do not imply weak helth and safety or weak truth in advertisement regulations.
Weak IP laws would mean it would be easy to copy trivial things, but all the copycats could fall under strict regulation regarding the quality of the product offered, specially in stuff for human consumption.
If you are counting me as 2 or 3 teenagers, well, yes.
If you are server tomorrow with a lawsuit from MS to stop using Linux, you have to ask you the following:
-Do I have the poclets fto fight them?
-Do I have the time to fight them?
-Do I have the energy to fight them?
note that the validity of any possible patents is completely immaterial, in a litigation systems in which money talks, the threat of being sued is enough to do whatever you are told to do if you don;t have the resources to defend yourself.
And of course MS will not go after the big players first (banks, oil companies, software producers, Hollywood studios), no, that would be an even battle.
They will go after the little guy, the one they can crush. That creates a climate of uncertainity in which Linux will be questioned instead of prised because the bully would be out to get you.
If MS had any decent intentions they would have launched an interoperability panel with the mantainers of the 5 or 6 most important Linux distributions and teams working on Samba, Mono, Cedega, OpenOffice.org and other parties interested in making interoperability work. They would have alos announce that no patents would have been used against any Linux software.
There was no need of this nonsense, but the only kind of relationship that MS understands is the one in which they are the abusive party.
I wish I could say lets give them the benefit of the doubt, but the way I see things is pretty obvious they are positioning themselves for a legal battle. They must be careful, they may be bitting more than what they can chew.
So MS has finally waken up to the reality that Linux has to be taken seriously, but unlike with the little mishap of ignoring the existence of the Internet for several years, this time they are not even trying to compete and innovate, they are reaching directly for the patent portfolio while at the same time trying to ensure that people running already Linux are not alinated.
Clap, clap, clap. Well done Redmondites, your lessons in Machiavelism never stop to amuse us all, the bigger you guys are the more you move away from doing things that benefit society with your efforts.
But MS is missing the point. Lets say they manage to kill Linux (I don't see how, but lets oblige the MSofties, they are IT people as well, or were at some point before marketing and fear took over), then we will move to BSD (thank goodness they kept coding), or we may be even manage to finish the Hurd! Think about that.
Or something else could be started from scratch, which may not be such a bad thing, many preconceptions and prejudices regarding operating system design are mantained because there is no incentive to redesign such a complex thing from the ground.
MS is buiying time at best, wasting money at worst.
If MS really wanted to compete with Linux they would open source Windows and compete for the developers out there to help them code and find bugs for their products. Sun got it. IBM got it. Apple almost got it.
There will be a point when all the patents will expire, in many places are not even valid now. As things stand, if MS starts to go after users of Linux then MS would become a pharia in the EU, Russia, China and who knows were else.
Poor MS, a company that had a chance at greatness going down the path of protection money very used amongst gangsters.
Shameful really.
Tell us how emitting less CO2 will kill people.
For goonies sake man, stand back and look at what you are saying.
You do know that if you are going to enter an argument you dissect the postulates and don't use adhominem attcks in order to discredit your oponents, don't you?
Just a couple of weeks ago a recognized UK economist, who can't be classed as a left looney, told us very clearly what can be expoected if we don;t take action now.
And if you class most of the scientific concensus and most political parties of all orientations in most countries as leftists, well, good luck to you, enjoy the shadow under the rock you are living.
Just use the standard tools to install software.
If you have to compile stuff you machine is classed as a devleopment/QA one, in which case things are guranteed to brake.
Get yourself a virtual machine were to test your compilations and stop whining for bunnies sakes.
They should run. As simple as that.
To put the burden suqarely on the developers for backwards compatibility is quite something.
What should happen is that backwards compatibility should not be used as a selling point for any OS because it is completely impossible to guarantee it.