I've had my cable modem for 4+ years. I have been running OpenBSD for the last 3 years as my firewall, running originally on a P133 and now on a Ppro200 w/ 64mb ram and an old 3GB drive. For "fun", I bought a 4-port NIC from D-link and have fun doing the VLAN config and stuff. I, in fact, just installed a wireless NIC into it as well and use it as my access point (more or less)! I get about 50' in doors in 'ad-hoc' mode. OpenBSD with Ipfilter+Ipnat+DHCP works great. Why spend the $300 on a crappy "appliance" from half-rate network manufacturers or $700 from a decent manufacturer? It just doens't make sense! Sure, the machine is bigger (mini-tower case) and requires a bit more expertese, but hell this box goes for MONTHS without a reboot and I havent had 1 script kiddie / hax0r incident since I've been running it! It's a great thing!
The difference being that the U.S. didn't systematically kill off (or attempt to) a race of people... it was just forced relocation. Of course, that has happened for centuries. What happened in Europe w/ Hitler was that he affected a group of people that was so widely distributed it caused panic in other countries.
However, if Hitler *only* enslaved the Jewish people, there would have not been a WWII. It would have been a dictatorship with governmental prejudices... just like many Arabic nations nowadays where they relocate people of certain ethnic origins (e.g. the Yugoslavia, Iraq, Iran, Isreal...).
What is a liberal? How is a liberal a socialist? Well, there are extremes in both. Like, a moderate conservative... which is, a conservative that leans more towards being conservative but has some liberal ideals. The liberal is just a socialist with some conservative ideals;)
Examples of WHY liberals are socialists... one would be, Canada. Canada is a socialist gov't and I don't think anyone would disagree. They have this thing called "free public healthcare" because in the socialist ideal, "everyone is the same." This would mean, guy A who doesn't work gets the same medical coverage as guy B who does. Alright? Agreed? Okay.
Does this not seem similar to the proposed (but failed) healthcare system Clinton advertised to the people in 1992 when he won against G.H.W. Bush? Yes, exactly the same. A free public healthcare system... a very socialist idea!
Secondly, the tax cut is another example. Again, remember, socialism assumes "everyone is equal." This is why the democrats didn't want the "rich to get more." Just because they earn more doesn't mean they DESERVE a bigger tax cut... this was the view of the democrats. They wanted EQUAL TAX CUTS (for equal people.. *ahem* the socialist philosophy) for everyone in the U.S. So the wealthy would get.. oh the same tax cut as the guy who makes $6/hr. Or, someone who makes $50/hr would get the same amount of money back as the guy who makes $6/hr... this is what the democrats proposed.... again, everything is EQUAL and this is a socialist concept.
Big brother? One thing you must understand, as a liberal, is that it was a liberal who instituted the DMCA. This is very big brother-ish, no? This was a bill proposed and supported primarily by democrats. The whole idea of "no encryption for the public" was an idea brought up by the liberals, again, a big brother concept... a socialist ideal, that no one is too good to NOT be looked at.. which almost makes it a communist ideal.
Going back a few years... Roosevelt instituted social security system. Roosevelt was a democrat. In the 1960s, powered by a Democratic congress, the surplus was used to significantly increase the amount of money the average welfare recepient would receive. Again, a socialist ideal and pushing more towards this ideal.
Ah, on another anti-democrat note, are you aware that the KKK is a bunch of democratic-protestants? Did you forget that Abraham Lincoln, the guy who freed the slaves, was a republican and the guy who assassinated him was democrat?
Isn't this obvious? If people were responsible, they would not be driving drunk in the first place.
No, it isn't obvious. One of the side effects of alcohol is lack of judgement. If you can't make logical decisions because you are drunk, how are you supposed to make the responsible decision to drive or not?
The drunk arrived drunk (as the patrons of the bar have said). He pulled the same stunt in 3 other bars before hand, except they didn't have liquor insurance. The three bars all testified he complained he's sue but backed away when he found out there was no money to win. However, the same stunt was pulled in 4 places. It just so happens that the place that got sued was the place with the insurance. Oh, and also, the guy was a regular at the bar and the bartender knew him (something like around 2 years) and said he had only 2 drinks when he usually had 6-8 drinks before getting drunk.
Because the liberals/socialists want to be the "big brother" of society... they don't believe in people taking responsibility for themselves. In fact, they probably believe people are too stupid to take responsibility for themselves.
There was a story here in NJ where a drunk fell over himself at a bar and sued the bar. Of course, the bar had insurance, and despite the fact it was the drunk's own fault, the bar was "guilty of serving alcohol to a guy who was already drunk." (or so the prosecution claimed). The case was settled out of court by the bar's insurance company, but it just goes to show that people just don't think other people are responsible enough for themselves.
But just notifying police as a drunk guy drives by seems kind of "too late" to me. If the user has to drive a mile before getting to a point where a cop is, then that's 1 mile the drunk driver could kill someone. A few years ago they were talking about putting these systems in cars of people convicted of prior DUI's. The premise was before they could turn the key, they'd have to blow into the breathalyzer and if you werent at or above the limit, it would allow you to start the car. This is probably a better solution.
This problem would also be solved if we had a better public transportation system in the U.S. If people relied more on public transportation than their own automobile to get around, we wouldn't have so many of these problems... but this is another subject altogether...
I have all 3. With the Timeport came with software called 'truesync' which actually allows me to sync all three. The timeport and clie connect up through usb (actually, timeport is serial w/ serial-to-usb converter). I then just hit the sync button and it all syncs up. Pretty nifty.
This is a feature I've always wanted... it's pure convenience. Sadly, though, it doesn't work under anything not windows... especially since the Clie doesn't have linux usb support quite yet. In any case, though, this is the best solution to the business traveler who needs to have numbers handy no matter what device (s)he has in front of him/her.
Uhm.. okay, in a way you're both right. I was incorrect in stating GNOME and KDE are window managers. In fact, I have made this arguement myself in the past.
However, instead of attacking my post, you could have been polite to mention that GNOME and KDE are not window managers, instead the way you posted was abrasive, and this is why, I assume, you were attacked for your post.
Linux technology? Linux isn't "technology". Linux doesn't include any new "ideas", but only combines ideas from other O/S's. In this way, it is hardly technology but reused ideas.
Granted, it makes a decent O/S... and it does things some others don't.. but I wouldn't call it technology.
Superior desktop environments? What? GNOME doesn't run on Solaris x86 all of a sudden? I thought this was the reason for Open Sourced code. In fact, Solaris 8 comes with a software CD with a bunch of nice GNU utils which include GNOME and KDE window managers.
Why would someone want to run Solaris x86 on an Intel box? Various reasons, but I think the original reason I did was to learn Solaris. Not all of us can afford Sparc hardware, especially 3 years ago when I was first starting to learn Solaris. I know you can get a Sunblade for $1000, but still, not everyone can afford to dish out $1000.
Another reason someone might want to run Solaris x86 is for stability. Solaris x86 and Solaris sparc differ greatly. There is enough differences between the x86 and ultrasparc architectures that it required Sun to make more than just a "few" modifications to run Solaris on x86. Granted, I would agree Solaris does not run as well on x86 as it does sparc, but I can say the same thing for Linux as well, because UltraSparc is (arguably) a better hardware platform (stability wise).
In fact, I saw an article recently stating that Linux runs faster on a Sparc than Solaris does, which is understandable. So why use Solaris at all? Because it's dependable.
I, personally, recently had a problem installing Solaris x86 on a machine with an Promise ATA100 controller.. and because of this issue, I had to reinstall with Debian 2.2 instead (which, btw, didn't have support for the controller in the install kernel either.. which meant doing the base install and kernel recompile on another machine). I think Sun does need to have better support for Solaris x86 hardware, but I don't think Sun is really interested in supporting x86 hardware (yet). They do, as you know, have a processor they'd like to sell. One of Sun's "value-added" is how well and how much effort Sun puts into optimizing Solaris for their hardware.
And although Solaris isn't a system for the average "I hate windows; I'll run Linux" user, it is a system run by professionals who are used to running Solaris on their UNIX workstations. For them, it increases their productivity.
As a reply, this is nothing against the original post directly. I just knew there would be a bunch of Solaris bashing and I got tired of it by the time I got to your post;)
SGI was the first major company to offer Linux with their systems. Also, I heard from a co-worker that SGI is working on an Itanium-based cluster (64x64)... probably for a redering farm. I don't have any URLs for this, however.
I think if IBM plans to "penetrate" the rendering market, they will have to compete with SGI still. Not because of the O/S (since they will both run Linux), but the fact that SGI has always had superior I/O and bus speeds compared to most other machines. The first x86-based SGI machines used Intel Xeon processors, but they redesigned the I/O. They were able to get a 50% performance increase from the system by tweaking the I/O.
End of Innovation? There are MANY, MANY more things developed NOT under the eye of the Open Source movement than there has been under it! How can you even begin to hint that this is the end of innovation? Are you stupid?
This is why, as my company has done, the company should also place the current policies on a website for access to everyone and inform all employees when even the slightest change takes place. (Again, we do that here.)
The company isn't "out to get you". In fact, they prefer to NOT have to replace you. To replace you would cost 2 to 2.5 times your salary. Why would they WANT to get rid of you? If you feel you were wrongly terminated, that's one thing and you can take them to court for that, but to blindly believe they just want to get rid of people is folklore. (Not to say some companies don't or don't play tricks, but again, time for a lawsuit if you feel you were not terminated correctly.)
We need to be extremely careful moving forward. Challenging such things as DeCSS and DMCA with the term 'open source' leads, just as it did here, to the ideal that the open source community is simply a group of software pirates.
There must be a point made, whether by press release or otherwise, that Open Source does not in anyway support the copyright infringement of any commercially available (or, for that matter, freely available) software. We need to make it clear that we are not advocates of breaking the law, as this judgement seems to suggest.
However, saying that "I am not guilty of copyright infridgement because I work for the open source community" is not a valid arguement. This is probably why it has been associated with piracy. Again, we must make the difference clear to everyone so they don't get the wrong impression.
On a similar note, since the Judges of the court obviously do not understand what Open Source is and labeled "us" as "rogue software pirates", is there any legal action we can take against the court in a defamation of character suit? It's obvious they have just degraded us and our cause without a viable reason.
One thing I noticed half-way through the article was a reference to employees being disciplined despite not being made aware of the policy. This is illegal.
Is a company monitoring your actions while at work illegal? Well, if they notify you upon receipt of employment they will not tolerate certain acts (sexual harrassment, firearms, smoking, downloading streaming video) then you have a choice. Take that job and follow the rules... or don't. It's that simple. Since the equipment you are using belongs to the employers and the bandwidth you are using belongs to the employers, they have the right to state any policy they want.
Monitoring isn't bad. As a security guy, we have to monitor people daily. For instance, we watch any downloads >10MB and do content filtering... sometimes we need to investigate exactly what a user has been downloading. We watch files over 10MB because there isn't much that is downloaded over 10MB, and we only have maybe 25-30 legit downloads per day that are that size. Sometimes we see someone downloading a.mov or.rm file, but unless the site has sexually explicit content we don't bother investigating.
It IS in our company policy that using company computers for downloading pornography is illegal and all employees are made aware of this through a signed statement they return to H.R. upon being hired and through a mention of it at orientation at their first day of work.
It isn't illegal to do this, unless the company doesn't tell you they are doing it. If they use a "full disclosure" policy regarding things like this, then this is and should be completely legal.
If he was really a valuable employee, his employer would have put out an insurance policy on him... especially for stuff like this. Heck, my autoclub provides me a $5000 bond for my $12/yr membership fee.
You think this doesn't happen in other industries as well? For instance, you think a Lexus ES 300 is any better than a Camry XLE as far as performance? Okay the ES300 is 210hp and the Camry is 194hp... that's a 8% increase in performance yet it has a 20% markup for your wood trim and extra 2 choices in exterior colors! The same can be said about ANY higher end car compared to the lower end model.
This is what happens when you have a capitalist government. The thing is, the companies know they can get a high price for the latest and greatest because there will be a certain percentage of us who will pay that price. Then, when prices "slump" a little, they will release a new chip that's faster and lower the price of the other chip. So now the "general public" gets those older processors at cheaper prices and that same group of gurus/morons will go out and buy the newest and greatest again. And the cycle of life continues...
One reason a company makes the premium product higher is because they need to recover R&D on that product, however I don't see why this is in the chip market. I honestly feel that Intel and AMD "milk" the market for these gurus/morons knowing they will always buy the greatest. So they release a 1.0ghz and these people get that, then they release 1.1ghz and they get this one, etc etc. Although AMD has the 1.0 and 1.1 developed at the same time, they strategically release the products to the general pulic to maximize their profits. Of course, again, this isn't anything new... but it's painfully obvious.
I've worked with the people from Internet.com (I worked at the datacenter they used to host their servers). They are the most obnoxious and overall CRAPPY people you could ever meet. Not only do they think they are the God's of the Internet, they also feel that rules don't apply to them. (This symptom seemed to be company wide, from the pions up to the CTO/VP).
I cannot count the number of times in which they would try to break the rules and claim they weren't informed of these rules. Nothing applied to them. They would walk into the monitoring room (which customers aren't allowed) and act like they lived there, picking up phones and making long distance calls. They were asked EVERYDAY to not do that and when we had site security escort them out, they called one of our VP's and threatened to not buy their $1 million worth of Sun boxes this month.
It was completely ridiculous. They are not "upright business people." They are downright scum. This article only confirms my belief in their ethical practices as a business and as a news agency.
Ahh... "organizations" (e.g. Microsoft, IBM, etc) derive from the word "organize". Despite how much you may hate Microsoft and Adobe, they have something that is really fundamental to growth, organization.
I have found in my own "big business" experience that not everything that goes on at the big business level is "right" or "the best way of doing things" but things still get done. What any business needs is a management chain that understands the best ways AND does them. Some companies have this, some don't, and some fall in the middle.
The problem with OSS has been stated, waring distros, KDE vs GNOME, 10+ window managers, 10+ distros, 10+ console text editors, 3 browsers, etc etc etc... the list can go on forever. If OSS was made into an organizational unit, these things would be minimized (or maybe 2-3 organizational units). For instance, why do we need 10 text editors? We don't... we have "preferences" but I think newbies "prefer" pico because it's easy to use (okay dont argue that XYZ is easier than pico, it's not the point).
In an organizational unit, a group of people would sit down and evaluate (to the best of their abilities) how one solution outperforms another solution. They'd run performance tests, user tests, and more importantly how easy it is to maintain a particular set of code. Once they've added everything together, they'd choose a single text editor, linux distro, etc etc.
Where, right now, let's say there are 10 text editors, each has a group of 3 people working on it. If we were to evaluate and eliminate the worthless projects (as an organization would do) we can better pool our resources together so we can have 2 maybe 3 text editors, each with 10 to 15 people working on them. Doing this increasing the time and manpower each project has and increases the power, flexibility, and usefulness of the application.
Someone mentioned the *BSD distros, there being too many of them, well there are only really 3 major ones, but then the comment was made about Theo. I don't really know Theo and I haven't spoken to him, but I don't think many of you have either. Theo had disputes with people, which he felt were strong enough to leave a particular project and start OpenBSD. This has been done all over the Linux community as well on multiple projects, so to say Theo is the only one who "can't get along" is rediculous.
Right now, every Linux project is like a bunch of a warring factions. This is a form of anarchy, and it has proven through history that anarchies do not do well in the bigger scheme of things.
The linux community, as a whole, needs some kind of organization.. and I don't mean letting Linus and Cox run the show. We need people who are business-oriented and not technical to run the organization. This way decisions can be made to better utilize the resources of the Linux community.
Sorry, but you're going to have to back that argument up with some facts. When has this happened?
You should follow the thread. My point is that this DOES NOT happen because the company patented the idea. My point said, in my original post, was that patents allow the company to make money off of their invention. If they could not patent it, then this COULD and probably WOULD happen through reverse engineering and therefore other people would be able to rip off the technology and that company would not be able to make an income from it.
Look at the Mach 3 razor
And btw, look at the Gillette box next time you head to wallmart. The Mach 3 is "patent pending" last time I checked. BTW, check out this Gillette page and notice the use of the word "patent" in (clause below). It also shows that is IS NOT the ONLY triple-blade razor, but the FIRST (because they did not patent the triple-blade feature... but just read...)
The Gillette Mach3, the first triple-blade razor, is the most technologically advanced shaving system in the world.
Three independently suspended blades, each equipped with patented DLC(TM) comfort edges, give you the cleanest and smoothest shave you've ever experienced. Not only will your shave be more comfortable, you'll also be able to shave closer in fewer strokes, with less skin irritation -- especially in the sensitive neck area.
So, as you can see, the Mach 3 has patented technology.
Companies like IBM, AT&T and Xerox spent billions on research and development, yet their ideas were publicly available and by your argument should have gone out of business.
IBM, AT&T, and Xerox all own their share of patents. For every 1 thing they did not patent, they had 10 that they did! You think IBM is the #1 seller of mainframe equipment because they told everyone HOW they are able to get 64,000 Linux-based LPARs on their 32 processor S/390's? (No one else can do this!) You think Xerox told everyone how they developed their "photocopy" technology? But with AT&T and IBM, you're looking at 2 companies around for over 100 years. IBM made machines in early 1900s that were ALL patented and that's why they are so big now.
After software patents came in, innovation slowed down and you got things like Apple suing over "look and feel" and the DMCA bullshit that put Dmitry Skylarov in prison.
Again, if you followed the thread, I originally said that software patents are a problem and need to be resolved, but this doesn't mean the system is broken. As for Dmitry and the DMCA, this has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PATENT SYSTEM! the DMCA is about COPYRIGHTS and CRACKING ENCRYPTION WHICH DOES NOT NECESSARILY HAVE TO DO WITH PATENTS!
You're a patent troll apologist and you make me nauseous. Next time, back up your flights of fancy with some real world examples and I'll take you seriously.
Any decent arguement you made was lost when you insulted me. I would also have you know that my examples, such as Sony's Trinitron technology, was a perfect example of a situation that was NOT pulled out of my ass. The example I gave was a response to how technology is stiffled by patents, which is OBVIOUSLY not true because if it was we wouldn't be sitting in front of our new LCD panels which are obviously better than a Trinitron tube (at least, those of us that have them wouldn't be).
Ask him something he obviously doesn't know the answer to, something he hasn't put on his resume. If he gives you a bullshit answer, kick him out the door. If he says, "I don't know", ask him how he'd find out and listen to what he says. Not every sysadmin knows everything, but the truelly good ones will know how to find the information they need. A sysadmin who says, "I dont know we need to hire a consultant" is not someone you eant working for you.
It is unnecessary to have a 20-year government sponsored monopoly in order to make money from one's idea. Monopolies are antithetical to the primary means by which free markets operate, namely competition.
So, since Sony patented the Trinitron tube technology, they have stiffled competition in the Televesion and Computer monitor market? Since Qualcomm patented a particular cell phone technology, they are the "great big monopoly" of cell phone companies?
By locking up every new or innovative idea (much less every trivial variation of an old idea the way we do now) you slow down any advancements that might be based on that idea. Dramatically.
Okay, then you keeping the answers to your math test "secret" will slow down my advancement as a student... dramatically. I guess in order to promote my advancement, you should just give me your answers. Damn, I should have thought of this when I was back in high school!
Whoever wins the footrace to the patent office is granted a monopoly, and everyone else who had developed, or "invented" the idea concurrently is suddenly left in the unenviable position of having their invention stolen out from under them, and being forbidden to exploit their work, or their idea, under penalty of law.
On the contrary, if two people can present within a reasonable period of time that they developed a similar way to do XYZ, then no patent is awarded.
Patents do not "allow someone to make money from the R&D they do." This is allowed regardless, by a free market in which anyone can develop an idea, build it and market it... unless someone else has been given a government sponsored monopoly on something similar, in which case they are forbidden from doing so for the next twenty years.
So, let me get this straight... company A spends 5 years and $4.3 billion developing a new technology. They don't (or can't) patent it. Companies B,C and D all come along and "use" this technology to market their own products, creating a competition lowering prices. Great for the consumer! Now company A is only making 1/4th of the profits (probably less than that due to decrease in cost due to competition) then they would have been making and never recover the $4.3 billion they spent developing their technology. Investors then pull out, employees leave the company, and the company goes out of business. Investors will then not see spending money on investments as a lucrative means of making money for themselves and will stop investing in technological advancements and all funding will go out the window... no more R&D because companies won't be able to afford it without their investments. How is this "conducive to encouraging invention?"
Another example is breat cancer, in which promising research has been scuttled because of existing patents on the genes which were discovered to have an impact, perhaps even be the cause, of the affliction.
But company X has spent several million (if not billion) dollars researching this? Do they not deserve to make up their lost money they spent on the research? Maybe treatments for breast cancer or AIDS isn't the best thing to keep "secret". As I said, there is a lot that needs to be changed within the patent system, as times change, etc... but the overall patent system isn't bad. It's a good way to protect people's investments into technology and the future.
Scuttled research does not lead to LEAPS in innovation, unless, of course, you use the Microsoft definition of the word
Why the attack on Microsoft? This has nothing to do with Microsoft. Microsoft wasn't even brought up until this point. Are you just another/. user who likes to attack Microsoft every opprotunity he gets? That's pretty lame.
Until a "geek" comes up with a new and great idea, you all will continue to think that patents are a bad idea. Here's why patents are actually GOOD for the economy, granted there needs to be some changes (specifically to that of software-based copyrights)...
A patent allows an individual or company to make money off the R&D for their products. If a company can't make money off of their original R&D, then why would they bother doing R&D? The perfect example of a company that's primary focus is R&D is Qualcomm. They aren't interested in making products, heck you may be able to name 2 things they actually do make (Eudora and Cell Phones), but they've sold their Cell Phone division to Ericson(sp?). However, if you have ever walked into the main building of the Qualcomm campus in San Diego, CA they have a wall about 20' high and approx. 100' long of just plaques (8x11") of the patents they own. Qualcomm then licenses their technology (the use of their patents) to other companies, and this is where Qualcomm makes their money.
I've never ONCE seen a gripe about Qualcomm's "crappy business practices" on/. or have ever heard anyone say "Qualcomm is a big meanie." But the fact is, if Qualcomm could not patent the R&D that they do, they could NOT make money and would not be in business. Some may say that it wouldn't make a difference if Qualcomm went away, well, Qualcomm DID develope the *FIRST* really NICE Windows-based E-mail program.... then came outlook. Some may say Eudora is STILL better than Outlook (although, I somewhat disagree). The other thing is, the reason Qualcomm started manufacturing cell phones was to prove their technology was superior! Once they did prove this, they were able to sell licensing on their patents to other companies and then sell off their manufacturing to Ericson (at really no profit to them; their profit is in the patent licensing). And some companies STILL DO NOT license Qualcomm's cell phone technology, instead they did some R&D of their own and developed a similar (and maybe better) alternative which they probably have also patented. Which means, companies like Qualcomm will do more R&D for something better again.
Patents allow someone to make money from the R&D they do. Patents also force other companies or people to develope new and better ways of "doing something" other than "just copying the other guy's stuff". This means there are LEAPS in innovation, not just a slow crawl.
Slashdot Mirror
okay, I know it's been said before, but...
I've had my cable modem for 4+ years. I have been running OpenBSD for the last 3 years as my firewall, running originally on a P133 and now on a Ppro200 w/ 64mb ram and an old 3GB drive. For "fun", I bought a 4-port NIC from D-link and have fun doing the VLAN config and stuff. I, in fact, just installed a wireless NIC into it as well and use it as my access point (more or less)! I get about 50' in doors in 'ad-hoc' mode. OpenBSD with Ipfilter+Ipnat+DHCP works great. Why spend the $300 on a crappy "appliance" from half-rate network manufacturers or $700 from a decent manufacturer? It just doens't make sense! Sure, the machine is bigger (mini-tower case) and requires a bit more expertese, but hell this box goes for MONTHS without a reboot and I havent had 1 script kiddie / hax0r incident since I've been running it! It's a great thing!
The difference being that the U.S. didn't systematically kill off (or attempt to) a race of people... it was just forced relocation. Of course, that has happened for centuries. What happened in Europe w/ Hitler was that he affected a group of people that was so widely distributed it caused panic in other countries.
However, if Hitler *only* enslaved the Jewish people, there would have not been a WWII. It would have been a dictatorship with governmental prejudices... just like many Arabic nations nowadays where they relocate people of certain ethnic origins (e.g. the Yugoslavia, Iraq, Iran, Isreal...).
Guess that'll be payback for WWII... and then all the money the U.S. funneled into Europe following the war to get the economy back on track.
;)
It's good to have allies
What is a liberal? How is a liberal a socialist? Well, there are extremes in both. Like, a moderate conservative... which is, a conservative that leans more towards being conservative but has some liberal ideals. The liberal is just a socialist with some conservative ideals ;)
Examples of WHY liberals are socialists... one would be, Canada. Canada is a socialist gov't and I don't think anyone would disagree. They have this thing called "free public healthcare" because in the socialist ideal, "everyone is the same." This would mean, guy A who doesn't work gets the same medical coverage as guy B who does. Alright? Agreed? Okay.
Does this not seem similar to the proposed (but failed) healthcare system Clinton advertised to the people in 1992 when he won against G.H.W. Bush? Yes, exactly the same. A free public healthcare system... a very socialist idea!
Secondly, the tax cut is another example. Again, remember, socialism assumes "everyone is equal." This is why the democrats didn't want the "rich to get more." Just because they earn more doesn't mean they DESERVE a bigger tax cut... this was the view of the democrats. They wanted EQUAL TAX CUTS (for equal people.. *ahem* the socialist philosophy) for everyone in the U.S. So the wealthy would get.. oh the same tax cut as the guy who makes $6/hr. Or, someone who makes $50/hr would get the same amount of money back as the guy who makes $6/hr... this is what the democrats proposed.... again, everything is EQUAL and this is a socialist concept.
Big brother? One thing you must understand, as a liberal, is that it was a liberal who instituted the DMCA. This is very big brother-ish, no? This was a bill proposed and supported primarily by democrats. The whole idea of "no encryption for the public" was an idea brought up by the liberals, again, a big brother concept... a socialist ideal, that no one is too good to NOT be looked at.. which almost makes it a communist ideal.
Going back a few years... Roosevelt instituted social security system. Roosevelt was a democrat. In the 1960s, powered by a Democratic congress, the surplus was used to significantly increase the amount of money the average welfare recepient would receive. Again, a socialist ideal and pushing more towards this ideal.
Ah, on another anti-democrat note, are you aware that the KKK is a bunch of democratic-protestants? Did you forget that Abraham Lincoln, the guy who freed the slaves, was a republican and the guy who assassinated him was democrat?
No, it isn't obvious. One of the side effects of alcohol is lack of judgement. If you can't make logical decisions because you are drunk, how are you supposed to make the responsible decision to drive or not?
If you want more details...
;)
The drunk arrived drunk (as the patrons of the bar have said). He pulled the same stunt in 3 other bars before hand, except they didn't have liquor insurance. The three bars all testified he complained he's sue but backed away when he found out there was no money to win. However, the same stunt was pulled in 4 places. It just so happens that the place that got sued was the place with the insurance. Oh, and also, the guy was a regular at the bar and the bartender knew him (something like around 2 years) and said he had only 2 drinks when he usually had 6-8 drinks before getting drunk.
Oh well, there's more information for ya
Because the liberals/socialists want to be the "big brother" of society... they don't believe in people taking responsibility for themselves. In fact, they probably believe people are too stupid to take responsibility for themselves.
There was a story here in NJ where a drunk fell over himself at a bar and sued the bar. Of course, the bar had insurance, and despite the fact it was the drunk's own fault, the bar was "guilty of serving alcohol to a guy who was already drunk." (or so the prosecution claimed). The case was settled out of court by the bar's insurance company, but it just goes to show that people just don't think other people are responsible enough for themselves.
But just notifying police as a drunk guy drives by seems kind of "too late" to me. If the user has to drive a mile before getting to a point where a cop is, then that's 1 mile the drunk driver could kill someone. A few years ago they were talking about putting these systems in cars of people convicted of prior DUI's. The premise was before they could turn the key, they'd have to blow into the breathalyzer and if you werent at or above the limit, it would allow you to start the car. This is probably a better solution.
This problem would also be solved if we had a better public transportation system in the U.S. If people relied more on public transportation than their own automobile to get around, we wouldn't have so many of these problems... but this is another subject altogether...
I have all 3. With the Timeport came with software called 'truesync' which actually allows me to sync all three. The timeport and clie connect up through usb (actually, timeport is serial w/ serial-to-usb converter). I then just hit the sync button and it all syncs up. Pretty nifty.
This is a feature I've always wanted... it's pure convenience. Sadly, though, it doesn't work under anything not windows... especially since the Clie doesn't have linux usb support quite yet. In any case, though, this is the best solution to the business traveler who needs to have numbers handy no matter what device (s)he has in front of him/her.
Uhm.. okay, in a way you're both right. I was incorrect in stating GNOME and KDE are window managers. In fact, I have made this arguement myself in the past.
However, instead of attacking my post, you could have been polite to mention that GNOME and KDE are not window managers, instead the way you posted was abrasive, and this is why, I assume, you were attacked for your post.
Linux technology? Linux isn't "technology". Linux doesn't include any new "ideas", but only combines ideas from other O/S's. In this way, it is hardly technology but reused ideas.
Granted, it makes a decent O/S... and it does things some others don't.. but I wouldn't call it technology.
>/Troll<Superior desktop environments? What? GNOME doesn't run on Solaris x86 all of a sudden? I thought this was the reason for Open Sourced code. In fact, Solaris 8 comes with a software CD with a bunch of nice GNU utils which include GNOME and KDE window managers.
;)
Why would someone want to run Solaris x86 on an Intel box? Various reasons, but I think the original reason I did was to learn Solaris. Not all of us can afford Sparc hardware, especially 3 years ago when I was first starting to learn Solaris. I know you can get a Sunblade for $1000, but still, not everyone can afford to dish out $1000.
Another reason someone might want to run Solaris x86 is for stability. Solaris x86 and Solaris sparc differ greatly. There is enough differences between the x86 and ultrasparc architectures that it required Sun to make more than just a "few" modifications to run Solaris on x86. Granted, I would agree Solaris does not run as well on x86 as it does sparc, but I can say the same thing for Linux as well, because UltraSparc is (arguably) a better hardware platform (stability wise).
In fact, I saw an article recently stating that Linux runs faster on a Sparc than Solaris does, which is understandable. So why use Solaris at all? Because it's dependable.
I, personally, recently had a problem installing Solaris x86 on a machine with an Promise ATA100 controller.. and because of this issue, I had to reinstall with Debian 2.2 instead (which, btw, didn't have support for the controller in the install kernel either.. which meant doing the base install and kernel recompile on another machine). I think Sun does need to have better support for Solaris x86 hardware, but I don't think Sun is really interested in supporting x86 hardware (yet). They do, as you know, have a processor they'd like to sell. One of Sun's "value-added" is how well and how much effort Sun puts into optimizing Solaris for their hardware.
And although Solaris isn't a system for the average "I hate windows; I'll run Linux" user, it is a system run by professionals who are used to running Solaris on their UNIX workstations. For them, it increases their productivity.
As a reply, this is nothing against the original post directly. I just knew there would be a bunch of Solaris bashing and I got tired of it by the time I got to your post
SGI was the first major company to offer Linux with their systems. Also, I heard from a co-worker that SGI is working on an Itanium-based cluster (64x64)... probably for a redering farm. I don't have any URLs for this, however.
I think if IBM plans to "penetrate" the rendering market, they will have to compete with SGI still. Not because of the O/S (since they will both run Linux), but the fact that SGI has always had superior I/O and bus speeds compared to most other machines. The first x86-based SGI machines used Intel Xeon processors, but they redesigned the I/O. They were able to get a 50% performance increase from the system by tweaking the I/O.
Ahem! We use more credible sources here, sonny! By it's own definition, Google is spelt correctly ;)
End of Innovation? There are MANY, MANY more things developed NOT under the eye of the Open Source movement than there has been under it! How can you even begin to hint that this is the end of innovation? Are you stupid?
This is why, as my company has done, the company should also place the current policies on a website for access to everyone and inform all employees when even the slightest change takes place. (Again, we do that here.)
The company isn't "out to get you". In fact, they prefer to NOT have to replace you. To replace you would cost 2 to 2.5 times your salary. Why would they WANT to get rid of you? If you feel you were wrongly terminated, that's one thing and you can take them to court for that, but to blindly believe they just want to get rid of people is folklore. (Not to say some companies don't or don't play tricks, but again, time for a lawsuit if you feel you were not terminated correctly.)
We need to be extremely careful moving forward. Challenging such things as DeCSS and DMCA with the term 'open source' leads, just as it did here, to the ideal that the open source community is simply a group of software pirates.
There must be a point made, whether by press release or otherwise, that Open Source does not in anyway support the copyright infringement of any commercially available (or, for that matter, freely available) software. We need to make it clear that we are not advocates of breaking the law, as this judgement seems to suggest.
However, saying that "I am not guilty of copyright infridgement because I work for the open source community" is not a valid arguement. This is probably why it has been associated with piracy. Again, we must make the difference clear to everyone so they don't get the wrong impression.
On a similar note, since the Judges of the court obviously do not understand what Open Source is and labeled "us" as "rogue software pirates", is there any legal action we can take against the court in a defamation of character suit? It's obvious they have just degraded us and our cause without a viable reason.
One thing I noticed half-way through the article was a reference to employees being disciplined despite not being made aware of the policy. This is illegal.
.mov or .rm file, but unless the site has sexually explicit content we don't bother investigating.
Is a company monitoring your actions while at work illegal? Well, if they notify you upon receipt of employment they will not tolerate certain acts (sexual harrassment, firearms, smoking, downloading streaming video) then you have a choice. Take that job and follow the rules... or don't. It's that simple. Since the equipment you are using belongs to the employers and the bandwidth you are using belongs to the employers, they have the right to state any policy they want.
Monitoring isn't bad. As a security guy, we have to monitor people daily. For instance, we watch any downloads >10MB and do content filtering... sometimes we need to investigate exactly what a user has been downloading. We watch files over 10MB because there isn't much that is downloaded over 10MB, and we only have maybe 25-30 legit downloads per day that are that size. Sometimes we see someone downloading a
It IS in our company policy that using company computers for downloading pornography is illegal and all employees are made aware of this through a signed statement they return to H.R. upon being hired and through a mention of it at orientation at their first day of work.
It isn't illegal to do this, unless the company doesn't tell you they are doing it. If they use a "full disclosure" policy regarding things like this, then this is and should be completely legal.
If he was really a valuable employee, his employer would have put out an insurance policy on him... especially for stuff like this. Heck, my autoclub provides me a $5000 bond for my $12/yr membership fee.
You think this doesn't happen in other industries as well? For instance, you think a Lexus ES 300 is any better than a Camry XLE as far as performance? Okay the ES300 is 210hp and the Camry is 194hp... that's a 8% increase in performance yet it has a 20% markup for your wood trim and extra 2 choices in exterior colors! The same can be said about ANY higher end car compared to the lower end model.
This is what happens when you have a capitalist government. The thing is, the companies know they can get a high price for the latest and greatest because there will be a certain percentage of us who will pay that price. Then, when prices "slump" a little, they will release a new chip that's faster and lower the price of the other chip. So now the "general public" gets those older processors at cheaper prices and that same group of gurus/morons will go out and buy the newest and greatest again. And the cycle of life continues...
One reason a company makes the premium product higher is because they need to recover R&D on that product, however I don't see why this is in the chip market. I honestly feel that Intel and AMD "milk" the market for these gurus/morons knowing they will always buy the greatest. So they release a 1.0ghz and these people get that, then they release 1.1ghz and they get this one, etc etc. Although AMD has the 1.0 and 1.1 developed at the same time, they strategically release the products to the general pulic to maximize their profits. Of course, again, this isn't anything new... but it's painfully obvious.
I've worked with the people from Internet.com (I worked at the datacenter they used to host their servers). They are the most obnoxious and overall CRAPPY people you could ever meet. Not only do they think they are the God's of the Internet, they also feel that rules don't apply to them. (This symptom seemed to be company wide, from the pions up to the CTO/VP).
I cannot count the number of times in which they would try to break the rules and claim they weren't informed of these rules. Nothing applied to them. They would walk into the monitoring room (which customers aren't allowed) and act like they lived there, picking up phones and making long distance calls. They were asked EVERYDAY to not do that and when we had site security escort them out, they called one of our VP's and threatened to not buy their $1 million worth of Sun boxes this month.
It was completely ridiculous. They are not "upright business people." They are downright scum. This article only confirms my belief in their ethical practices as a business and as a news agency.
Ahh... "organizations" (e.g. Microsoft, IBM, etc) derive from the word "organize". Despite how much you may hate Microsoft and Adobe, they have something that is really fundamental to growth, organization.
I have found in my own "big business" experience that not everything that goes on at the big business level is "right" or "the best way of doing things" but things still get done. What any business needs is a management chain that understands the best ways AND does them. Some companies have this, some don't, and some fall in the middle.
The problem with OSS has been stated, waring distros, KDE vs GNOME, 10+ window managers, 10+ distros, 10+ console text editors, 3 browsers, etc etc etc... the list can go on forever. If OSS was made into an organizational unit, these things would be minimized (or maybe 2-3 organizational units). For instance, why do we need 10 text editors? We don't... we have "preferences" but I think newbies "prefer" pico because it's easy to use (okay dont argue that XYZ is easier than pico, it's not the point).
In an organizational unit, a group of people would sit down and evaluate (to the best of their abilities) how one solution outperforms another solution. They'd run performance tests, user tests, and more importantly how easy it is to maintain a particular set of code. Once they've added everything together, they'd choose a single text editor, linux distro, etc etc.
Where, right now, let's say there are 10 text editors, each has a group of 3 people working on it. If we were to evaluate and eliminate the worthless projects (as an organization would do) we can better pool our resources together so we can have 2 maybe 3 text editors, each with 10 to 15 people working on them. Doing this increasing the time and manpower each project has and increases the power, flexibility, and usefulness of the application.
Someone mentioned the *BSD distros, there being too many of them, well there are only really 3 major ones, but then the comment was made about Theo. I don't really know Theo and I haven't spoken to him, but I don't think many of you have either. Theo had disputes with people, which he felt were strong enough to leave a particular project and start OpenBSD. This has been done all over the Linux community as well on multiple projects, so to say Theo is the only one who "can't get along" is rediculous.
Right now, every Linux project is like a bunch of a warring factions. This is a form of anarchy, and it has proven through history that anarchies do not do well in the bigger scheme of things.
The linux community, as a whole, needs some kind of organization.. and I don't mean letting Linus and Cox run the show. We need people who are business-oriented and not technical to run the organization. This way decisions can be made to better utilize the resources of the Linux community.
You should follow the thread. My point is that this DOES NOT happen because the company patented the idea. My point said, in my original post, was that patents allow the company to make money off of their invention. If they could not patent it, then this COULD and probably WOULD happen through reverse engineering and therefore other people would be able to rip off the technology and that company would not be able to make an income from it.
And btw, look at the Gillette box next time you head to wallmart. The Mach 3 is "patent pending" last time I checked. BTW, check out this Gillette page and notice the use of the word "patent" in (clause below). It also shows that is IS NOT the ONLY triple-blade razor, but the FIRST (because they did not patent the triple-blade feature... but just read...)
So, as you can see, the Mach 3 has patented technology.
IBM, AT&T, and Xerox all own their share of patents. For every 1 thing they did not patent, they had 10 that they did! You think IBM is the #1 seller of mainframe equipment because they told everyone HOW they are able to get 64,000 Linux-based LPARs on their 32 processor S/390's? (No one else can do this!) You think Xerox told everyone how they developed their "photocopy" technology? But with AT&T and IBM, you're looking at 2 companies around for over 100 years. IBM made machines in early 1900s that were ALL patented and that's why they are so big now.
Again, if you followed the thread, I originally said that software patents are a problem and need to be resolved, but this doesn't mean the system is broken. As for Dmitry and the DMCA, this has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PATENT SYSTEM! the DMCA is about COPYRIGHTS and CRACKING ENCRYPTION WHICH DOES NOT NECESSARILY HAVE TO DO WITH PATENTS!
Any decent arguement you made was lost when you insulted me. I would also have you know that my examples, such as Sony's Trinitron technology, was a perfect example of a situation that was NOT pulled out of my ass. The example I gave was a response to how technology is stiffled by patents, which is OBVIOUSLY not true because if it was we wouldn't be sitting in front of our new LCD panels which are obviously better than a Trinitron tube (at least, those of us that have them wouldn't be).
Ask him something he obviously doesn't know the answer to, something he hasn't put on his resume. If he gives you a bullshit answer, kick him out the door. If he says, "I don't know", ask him how he'd find out and listen to what he says. Not every sysadmin knows everything, but the truelly good ones will know how to find the information they need. A sysadmin who says, "I dont know we need to hire a consultant" is not someone you eant working for you.
So, since Sony patented the Trinitron tube technology, they have stiffled competition in the Televesion and Computer monitor market? Since Qualcomm patented a particular cell phone technology, they are the "great big monopoly" of cell phone companies?
Okay, then you keeping the answers to your math test "secret" will slow down my advancement as a student... dramatically. I guess in order to promote my advancement, you should just give me your answers. Damn, I should have thought of this when I was back in high school!
On the contrary, if two people can present within a reasonable period of time that they developed a similar way to do XYZ, then no patent is awarded.
So, let me get this straight... company A spends 5 years and $4.3 billion developing a new technology. They don't (or can't) patent it. Companies B,C and D all come along and "use" this technology to market their own products, creating a competition lowering prices. Great for the consumer! Now company A is only making 1/4th of the profits (probably less than that due to decrease in cost due to competition) then they would have been making and never recover the $4.3 billion they spent developing their technology. Investors then pull out, employees leave the company, and the company goes out of business. Investors will then not see spending money on investments as a lucrative means of making money for themselves and will stop investing in technological advancements and all funding will go out the window... no more R&D because companies won't be able to afford it without their investments. How is this "conducive to encouraging invention?"
But company X has spent several million (if not billion) dollars researching this? Do they not deserve to make up their lost money they spent on the research? Maybe treatments for breast cancer or AIDS isn't the best thing to keep "secret". As I said, there is a lot that needs to be changed within the patent system, as times change, etc... but the overall patent system isn't bad. It's a good way to protect people's investments into technology and the future.
Why the attack on Microsoft? This has nothing to do with Microsoft. Microsoft wasn't even brought up until this point. Are you just another /. user who likes to attack Microsoft every opprotunity he gets? That's pretty lame.
Until a "geek" comes up with a new and great idea, you all will continue to think that patents are a bad idea. Here's why patents are actually GOOD for the economy, granted there needs to be some changes (specifically to that of software-based copyrights)...
/. or have ever heard anyone say "Qualcomm is a big meanie." But the fact is, if Qualcomm could not patent the R&D that they do, they could NOT make money and would not be in business. Some may say that it wouldn't make a difference if Qualcomm went away, well, Qualcomm DID develope the *FIRST* really NICE Windows-based E-mail program .... then came outlook. Some may say Eudora is STILL better than Outlook (although, I somewhat disagree). The other thing is, the reason Qualcomm started manufacturing cell phones was to prove their technology was superior! Once they did prove this, they were able to sell licensing on their patents to other companies and then sell off their manufacturing to Ericson (at really no profit to them; their profit is in the patent licensing). And some companies STILL DO NOT license Qualcomm's cell phone technology, instead they did some R&D of their own and developed a similar (and maybe better) alternative which they probably have also patented. Which means, companies like Qualcomm will do more R&D for something better again.
A patent allows an individual or company to make money off the R&D for their products. If a company can't make money off of their original R&D, then why would they bother doing R&D? The perfect example of a company that's primary focus is R&D is Qualcomm. They aren't interested in making products, heck you may be able to name 2 things they actually do make (Eudora and Cell Phones), but they've sold their Cell Phone division to Ericson(sp?). However, if you have ever walked into the main building of the Qualcomm campus in San Diego, CA they have a wall about 20' high and approx. 100' long of just plaques (8x11") of the patents they own. Qualcomm then licenses their technology (the use of their patents) to other companies, and this is where Qualcomm makes their money.
I've never ONCE seen a gripe about Qualcomm's "crappy business practices" on
Patents allow someone to make money from the R&D they do. Patents also force other companies or people to develope new and better ways of "doing something" other than "just copying the other guy's stuff". This means there are LEAPS in innovation, not just a slow crawl.