Unfortunately I don't think cases like this one are any help in lessening the very negative impact of the actions of FSF. Regardless whether this effect is fair or unfair, banning Novell can still be disastrous for the public image of open source as reliable software providers.
Oh yeahhhh. Microsoft can be relied on alright; relied on to fuck you over at the first opportunity. Certainly. But Microsoft's fuck-overs are more predictable than this FSF action. Microsoft won't suddenly ban your company from using all future versions of Microsoft products.
O RLY? The fact that Ballmer has weird outbursts doesn't pull out the rug from under the feet of your company.
/Me thinks you missed your calling as a professional comedy writer. To a company, getting banned from upgrading the software that they depend on can in some cases be a major catastrophe. Very often companies need to know that they can rely on and depend on upgrades being available for the foreseeable future. Quite often their survival is at stake. This makes them nervous.
Microsoft can and will fuck you over, but it's unlikely to do it in ways that are catastrophic for your company, when all you've done is buy their software. And when companies make decisions, minimizing risk is one of the most important factors. Quite often this is far more important than cost.
(However, muellerr1 gives an interesting counterexample in his reply to my GP post. Not quite catastrophic but still a very interesting counterexample.)
What you're saying is more pessimistic than you seem to realize. Sure, old-timers won't suddenly quit. But we need a steady influx of new users, else the result is attrition.
The FSF is shooting itself in the foot big time. They're handing Microsoft a huge victory on a platter.
Consider how this ban will affect those customers of Novell who use Linux. And consider the kind of reputation that this will give the open-source community.
One reason companies pay for expensive proprietary software is that the companies that write proprietary software are considered reliable. They won't suddenly throw a tantrum and refuse to deliver.
If the open-source community is seen as throwing a tantrum and refusing to deliver, then good-bye credibility. Companies just won't dare use open-source software.
They should extend the ban. Novell isn't the only company that has dealings with Microsoft, lots of companies do. To complicate the matter further, there are also lots of individuals who have dealings with Microsoft or support Microsoft by buying their products.
Every company and every person should be banned from using Linux.
this might take me some time to get over. Don't be too hard on yourself. I'm sure nobody noticed. After all Slashdot only has a million registered users.
Yes, dipshit, I think most people's horizons are too narrow to actually MOVE TO A DIFFERENT COUNTRY to get a better cell phone. The nationalistic pride that you Americans display really goes too far sometimes. Come on, if you'd just look a little further, there's a whole world out there, full of fascinating possibilities and opportunities. You could save several cents on your phone bill by moving to Europe.
And now they're pretending it was deliberate. What a pile of shit. Are you seriously saying that you don't notice that Zonk's update is an embarrassed apology?
"Pretending it was deliberate"? I hope you're trying to make some kind of joke.
The actual action that the Daemon was performing is quite irrelevant, and so I take offense at the title of this story. Mod parent funny. He expects accuracy on Slashdot.
they misspelled it as halfnium That's no misspelling, it is halfnium! You could have understood this yourself, if you hadn't been so quick to dole out criticism, and instead had spent a second considering the fact that they reduced the size from 90 nm to 45 nm.
may need more I/O than WMP11 but will not get any because it's tagged Low in advance. You have misunderstood resource scheduling. If WMP doesn't need the cycles, they will be available for the Low Priority processes. No matter how low their priority, they will get the cycles that WMP doesn't need. WMP will preempt them only if and when it needs the cycles.
Unfortunately many programmers seem to misunderstand this. Usually you can give user-interface processes very high priority, even if they are far less important than some of the background processes. Very often user-interface processes consume only limited amounts of processor cycles. When this happens, no matter how high their priority, they will leave plenty of cycles for the other processes.
It doesn't matter if a virus-scanning process gets delayed a few additional seconds, because there's no person waiting for it and getting impatient. It does matter if a web browser or text editor gets delayed, because there is a human waiting for them.
Stock Spammers often make false claims Who are you to accuse them! Clearly the Stock Spammers aren't the only ones making false claims here!
(Or in legal latin: Sucksem tuem beum youous) Quod erat demonstrandum.
If a single tag contains multiple words, should the words be separated by spaces or underscores, or should we use StudlyCaps? If tags are to be read by people they should be written and separated the way people always separate words and items. Space between words, comma between tags. Why mess things up with weird and unintuitive arrangements?
When you filled in the form, are you sure you didn't select any of the checkboxes under "I would be interested in hearing more about..." or "Yes, I'd like to receive general communications..."? What did the spam look like, could it be from a legit subscription list?
I registered, but I used an e-mail address that already receives lots of spam, so I can't be sure if more was added.
Answered thus by whois:
Domain: sun.de <snip/>
[Holder]
Type: ORG
Name: Sun Microsystems GmbH
Address: Sonnenallee 1
Pcode: 85551
City: Heimstetten
Country: DE
Changed: 2006-01-06T14: 03: 1001: 00 <snip/>
[Tech-C]
Type: PERSON
Name: Sun Hostmaster
Organisation: Sun Microsystems Inc.
Address: 4150 Network Circle
Pcode: 95054
City: Santa Clara CA
Country: US
Phone: 1 01 3032727000
Fax: 1 01 6503366623
"US & Canada only." They included that in the form as an IQ test, so that only Real Geek Geniuses will get their CD. All the people who can't get past that question to the list of countries are non-geniuses who should stay with Windows.
Calling somone a bastard, while a reasonable response to such horrors, isn't helpful. It amounts to throwing up one's hands and saying, 'the devil made him do it.' It's not an explanation, but an expression of emotion. Very insightful! If only more people would reason this way! And if they'd apply it in more fields. Then perhaps the US wouldn't react in such irrational and counterproductive ways to terrorism, encouraging it rather than deterring it.
Slashdot Mirror
Amazing!
Unfortunately I don't think cases like this one are any help in lessening the very negative impact of the actions of FSF. Regardless whether this effect is fair or unfair, banning Novell can still be disastrous for the public image of open source as reliable software providers.
/Me thinks you missed your calling as a professional comedy writer. To a company, getting banned from upgrading the software that they depend on can in some cases be a major catastrophe. Very often companies need to know that they can rely on and depend on upgrades being available for the foreseeable future. Quite often their survival is at stake. This makes them nervous.Microsoft can and will fuck you over, but it's unlikely to do it in ways that are catastrophic for your company, when all you've done is buy their software. And when companies make decisions, minimizing risk is one of the most important factors. Quite often this is far more important than cost.
(However, muellerr1 gives an interesting counterexample in his reply to my GP post. Not quite catastrophic but still a very interesting counterexample.)
What you're saying is more pessimistic than you seem to realize. Sure, old-timers won't suddenly quit. But we need a steady influx of new users, else the result is attrition.
The FSF is shooting itself in the foot big time. They're handing Microsoft a huge victory on a platter.
Consider how this ban will affect those customers of Novell who use Linux. And consider the kind of reputation that this will give the open-source community.
One reason companies pay for expensive proprietary software is that the companies that write proprietary software are considered reliable. They won't suddenly throw a tantrum and refuse to deliver.
If the open-source community is seen as throwing a tantrum and refusing to deliver, then good-bye credibility. Companies just won't dare use open-source software.
They should extend the ban. Novell isn't the only company that has dealings with Microsoft, lots of companies do. To complicate the matter further, there are also lots of individuals who have dealings with Microsoft or support Microsoft by buying their products.
Every company and every person should be banned from using Linux.
People would be annoyed if they started deleting ongoing discussions.
"Pretending it was deliberate"? I hope you're trying to make some kind of joke.
Sheesh, sometimes you Americans get so touchy that you come across as completely ridiculous. Grow some spine for chrissakes.
The people of Kiruna are not only space exploration experts, they are also good at moving houses.
Unfortunately many programmers seem to misunderstand this. Usually you can give user-interface processes very high priority, even if they are far less important than some of the background processes. Very often user-interface processes consume only limited amounts of processor cycles. When this happens, no matter how high their priority, they will leave plenty of cycles for the other processes.
It doesn't matter if a virus-scanning process gets delayed a few additional seconds, because there's no person waiting for it and getting impatient. It does matter if a web browser or text editor gets delayed, because there is a human waiting for them.
Articles like this one need to be tagged pumpanddump.
Example:
privacy, Big Brother, government control
When you filled in the form, are you sure you didn't select any of the checkboxes under "I would be interested in hearing more about..." or "Yes, I'd like to receive general communications..."? What did the spam look like, could it be from a legit subscription list?
I registered, but I used an e-mail address that already receives lots of spam, so I can't be sure if more was added.
Answered thus by whois: Domain: sun.de
<snip/>
[Holder]
Type: ORG
Name: Sun Microsystems GmbH
Address: Sonnenallee 1
Pcode: 85551
City: Heimstetten
Country: DE
Changed: 2006-01-06T14: 03: 1001: 00
<snip/>
[Tech-C]
Type: PERSON
Name: Sun Hostmaster
Organisation: Sun Microsystems Inc.
Address: 4150 Network Circle
Pcode: 95054
City: Santa Clara CA
Country: US
Phone: 1 01 3032727000
Fax: 1 01 6503366623