This is infantile. If you are being forced to change your name, just do it.
They should just have something that reminds users that their LINUX (obviously, symbolized by a penguin) is HOT (symbolized by fire), so i would recommend they call their product "Firebird".
No really, it was funny when i first thought about it.
If you have a GPL-licensed product, you shouldn't feel a need to build your own if you find appropriate GPL-licensed components. Or find some BSD-licensed components.
If you're making something proprietary, well, I guess yeah, build your own. Or find some BSD-licensed components.;)
you're mixing up ignorance of the law (which doesn't protect you) with ignorance of what exactly is happening.
If you pull a lever and cause an anvil to be dropped over a ledge and someone gets killed, you can't just say "i didn't know it was illegal to kill people" and get away with it.
But you can claim "the lever was labelled 'hot water' and there was no way i could know that that freaking thing would throw down that anvil". That would actually be a very reasonable excuse.
still, it seems to be possible to derive ALL neccessary keys from the data on a DVD alone, nothing more needed. (can't be bothered to look up the source of this (FAQ on libdvdcss, iirc), but i could dig it up if you doubt the claim)
Obviously CSS was seriously broken (in part because of US crypto export restrictions that were in place at the time) right from the start. Actually CSS is only one part of a three-part copy protection system. The other two parts are the Patent System (i.e. licencing CSS to only a chosen few trusted player manufacturers and studios) and the DMCA (suing the evildoers). (could also dig up sources - a paper on video piracy by the MPAA or some similar group, iirc - for this if needed)
Congratulations, we have two thirds of a DRM system built into our laws.
Seriously big clients with seriously valuable data better have a serious backup strategy anyways, but after i've seen MS Office refuse to open its own documents until they were opened in OpenOffice and saved out again (losing enormous amounts of obviously unneccessary bytes in the process), i have not much trouble trusting data to WINE + NTFS.SYS that was previously trusted to the "real" windows + NTFS.SYS.
Of course, if i got my hands on valuable data that is "the only copy", the first thing to do would be mounting that friggin' thing read-only and copy it over to another disk.
Current c't magazine includes a knoppix cd with new-fangled "use original windows NTFS.SYS via wine" drivers. So writing to NTFS in linux is no worse idea than writing to NTFS in windows:)
First, they could randomly decide to sue you for some arbitrary reason. With as much money as they have, they could find lawyers who would bog you down in a legal quagmire, taking years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legals expenses.
[...] Fourth, they could ceritify you as an MCSE and make you work on Windows servers all day.
*crying* nooooooo, please noooooo. show mercy, Microsoft! the first option seemed perfectly reasonable, really.
So having said that, why does it surprise anyone that two identical lines (or whole procedures) of code end up in two different programs or operating systems?
i doubt that one identical line would surprise anyone. but if you have ten lines that do ten different things, and each of that things can be done in two different ways, you end up with 1024 ways of doing the whole thing, or a 1/1024 chance that two programmers come up with the same ten lines to solve the same problem.
or, if you write in perl, if you have three characters that do ten things, and you can write each of that character in 260 ways (hehe), you end up with over 24 gazillion different ways to write that piece of code.
oh my god, please, PLEASE, pretty pretty PLEASE someone do it and force them to include it. would make using windows a good deal less awkward and get it closer to being Ready for the DesktopTM.
why target Mac or Linux when you can target Windows, with many, many times more users?
what my first thought was:
Because every idiot skr1pt k1dd13 and their lam0r grandmother can code winDOZE viriii, but only 1337 H4XX0rZ can ownzor teh LiNuX and MaC BoXxEn!!!1!!
how it should be phrased:
Successfully designing, implementing and deploying a worm/virus targetting the aforementioned "alternative" platforms Linux and/or Apple would - although being a much more complex undertaking and promising less quantifiable success (for example, infected hosts) than targetting the Microsoft Windows platform - could strengthen the Programmer's social status amongst his peers.
Slashdot Mirror
They couldn't think up a lie quick enough.
Stoned Beaver!
he probably means that "Lin---s" wants to stick its dash into the "o" in "ows" :)
They should just have something that reminds users that their LINUX (obviously, symbolized by a penguin) is HOT (symbolized by fire), so i would recommend they call their product "Firebird".
No really, it was funny when i first thought about it.
I bet i can guess what country you're from...
amituxornot.org
seriously
just a few corrections:
;)
If you have a GPL-licensed product, you shouldn't feel a need to build your own if you find appropriate GPL-licensed components. Or find some BSD-licensed components.
If you're making something proprietary, well, I guess yeah, build your own. Or find some BSD-licensed components.
ah come on. mod him up. he made me smile.
Because they employ 30 lawyers for every one developer?
so it was teh lunix hack0rs, just like with that mydoom virus thing.
A) So you haven't heared about the annual "bleeding nose friday" at the coca cola plant?
ba-da-bam!
B) No they export it to Aserbeijanian sweatshops where it is used to improve working morale in child slaves.
Thank you, i'll be here all week (unless my boss creeps up behind me, then i'll have to alt-tab out).
you're mixing up ignorance of the law (which doesn't protect you) with ignorance of what exactly is happening.
If you pull a lever and cause an anvil to be dropped over a ledge and someone gets killed, you can't just say "i didn't know it was illegal to kill people" and get away with it.
But you can claim "the lever was labelled 'hot water' and there was no way i could know that that freaking thing would throw down that anvil". That would actually be a very reasonable excuse.
still, it seems to be possible to derive ALL neccessary keys from the data on a DVD alone, nothing more needed. (can't be bothered to look up the source of this (FAQ on libdvdcss, iirc), but i could dig it up if you doubt the claim)
Obviously CSS was seriously broken (in part because of US crypto export restrictions that were in place at the time) right from the start. Actually CSS is only one part of a three-part copy protection system. The other two parts are the Patent System (i.e. licencing CSS to only a chosen few trusted player manufacturers and studios) and the DMCA (suing the evildoers). (could also dig up sources - a paper on video piracy by the MPAA or some similar group, iirc - for this if needed)
Congratulations, we have two thirds of a DRM system built into our laws.
HAL: I'm afraid i can't let you hot-swap that hard drive, Dave.
Seriously big clients with seriously valuable data better have a serious backup strategy anyways, but after i've seen MS Office refuse to open its own documents until they were opened in OpenOffice and saved out again (losing enormous amounts of obviously unneccessary bytes in the process), i have not much trouble trusting data to WINE + NTFS.SYS that was previously trusted to the "real" windows + NTFS.SYS.
Of course, if i got my hands on valuable data that is "the only copy", the first thing to do would be mounting that friggin' thing read-only and copy it over to another disk.
Current c't magazine includes a knoppix cd with new-fangled "use original windows NTFS.SYS via wine" drivers. So writing to NTFS in linux is no worse idea than writing to NTFS in windows :)
write-in moderation: +1, Insightful ;)
Data Protection Act of 1984. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA you funny brits you.
yeah, but "/dev/hda1" is much more difficult to type corretcly than "c:" ;)
*crying* nooooooo, please noooooo. show mercy, Microsoft! the first option seemed perfectly reasonable, really.
Copyright. Re-inventing the wheel since 1709.
i doubt that one identical line would surprise anyone. but if you have ten lines that do ten different things, and each of that things can be done in two different ways, you end up with 1024 ways of doing the whole thing, or a 1/1024 chance that two programmers come up with the same ten lines to solve the same problem.
or, if you write in perl, if you have three characters that do ten things, and you can write each of that character in 260 ways (hehe), you end up with over 24 gazillion different ways to write that piece of code.
case-sensitivity?
symbolic links?
oh my god, please, PLEASE, pretty pretty PLEASE someone do it and force them to include it. would make using windows a good deal less awkward and get it closer to being Ready for the Desktop TM.
what my first thought was:
Because every idiot skr1pt k1dd13 and their lam0r grandmother can code winDOZE viriii, but only 1337 H4XX0rZ can ownzor teh LiNuX and MaC BoXxEn!!!1!!
how it should be phrased:
Successfully designing, implementing and deploying a worm/virus targetting the aforementioned "alternative" platforms Linux and/or Apple would - although being a much more complex undertaking and promising less quantifiable success (for example, infected hosts) than targetting the Microsoft Windows platform - could strengthen the Programmer's social status amongst his peers.
how it should be phrased on slashdot:
Frist psot!
A)
1. look at the linux source
2. find a mistake
3. send a patch to the maintainer.
4. PROFIT!!
B)
1. look at the windows source
2. find a mistake
3. ???
4. write a worm
5. get caught
6. JAIL=tEH_SuXX0rZZ!!!1!! lolomgrofl