Given the number of patents MS has, I would consider it highly unlikely that Linux doesn't violate at least one. I don't have a specific example, but MS has a patent on clicking a certain number of times... I bet they have patents on file systems, network file sharing, memory management, the works.
If linux infringes one of these patents then the only people in a real position to know that are MS and Novell. Novell would be idiots of they didn't get a list of the patents they are licensing in this deal. If Novell is aware of these patents (and as I said they would need to be to have signed a deal regarding them) then they are in a position to know that they are illegally distributing linux.
The GPL doesn't require you to remove infringing IP until it is confirmed to be infringing. Your statement that you have to remove IP before it is confirmed by a court is insane. If Microsoft sues Redhat for some patent in an OSS project and they lose then there was never any violation so why would you have to pre-emptively remove code?
MS isn't going to reveal which patents they think linux is infringing until they file the lawsuit in Texas District 9 or whichever one it is that always sides with the plaintiff in patent litigation. Then we'll all know and the community will have to adapt. If MS wins a patent suit, this agreement will not help Novell distribute Linux nor will it help their customers. Novell will have to remove the infringing code just like everyone else because they can't distribute a GPL project that is patent encumbered unless they can convince every single contributor to that project to relicense the code.
First off: Linux code is the kernel. It is not dual licensed anywhere. Second: Please point me to the projects to which you are referring? You state that Xandros and Linspire paid to release "linux code" from the GPL... This is very difficult to do. You have to pay or get every single contributor to a project to agree to be paid for something like this to work. For any substantial project (kernel, samba, kde, gnome, etc) there is no possible way that you could hope to achieve this.
Linspire and Xandros have proprietary code that THEY HAVE WRITTEN, and they are free to license that code however they want.
Your Mac OS example has nothing to do with this either, the BSD license is fundamentally different from the GPL. Apple was able to take the BSD code because the BSD license doesn't require redistribution of code, it allows you to take whatever code you want and do whatever you want with it.
The agreement that Novell signed has nothing to do with future code that may be written, again Novell is free to do whatever they want with that code just like Linspire, Xandros, whoever. If they write it they own it. This agreement talks about existing code that has been developed by the community. MS said "hey there are patents of ours in Linux, and in Windows we probably are violating some patents that you own wrt the Unix IP you own, we won't sue you if you don't sue us". It's a classic patent cross license agreement.
That is why this will violate the GPL because Novell thinks it can be the *ONLY* distributor of linux after MS gets done with the IP violations in linux. Unfortunately, they can't because they would be stealing the work of the community which released the code for Novell to use with the promise that the code would always be freely distributable. With this deal the door is open to attempt to close the code and shut linux down.
First off, I've never deployed anything on IPv6 so maybe it is a totally different system where security is concerned... Seems to me though, ok so all these Vista boxes are going to be out there on the net with a new name resolution system to allow hackers to scan through them, and as I understand it IPv6 doesn't have NAT or anything (the idea being IPv6 will let you put things directly on the net). So... how on earth are we trusting MS to secure the plague they are about to lose on the world?
Sure MS has their firewall now, but to make this remotely useful you're going to have to open up some ports. I just see this being a huge security nightmare. Yeah lets make it easy for everyone to put their systems right on the internet!
I guess what I'm trying to say is this agreement doesn't do anything to protect anyone from MS lawsuits. If MS sues, the GPL'd software they attack will become unavailable, the only way it won't is if Novell violates the GPL and continues to distribute. If MS never sues, again this agreement is pointless. The only time this agreement could have any effect would be if MS sues, so obviously it makes sense to look at the possible outcomes when/if that happens. You don't enter into agreements and spend millions in contract negotiations if you aren't expecting to utilize those agreements in some way. The way this agreement gets used is by MS suing OSS developers, projects, and companies.
The only possible "protection" this agreement provides is that supposedly if MS sues Novell can still distribute the software, unfortunately that isn't the case because Novell would then be violating the GPL. So the agreement is pointless to users of linux and distributors of linux (even Novell), it only gives MS some plausible cover to courts/antitrust litigation where they can say "we tried to negotiate with the linux people".
you don't know what you're talking about. This agreement covers patents not copyright. The agreement says "MS will not sue Novell and its customers for patent infringements in linux, Novell will not sue MS and its customers for patent infringements in windows, everyone else is fair game". This means MS is planning on suing other OSS companies and contributors. This agreement is designed to cover MS's butt when the antitrust lawsuits come saying "You can't sue linux its your only competitor". MS can say "You can still use Linux you just have to use Suse Linux because they have a license to these patents".
Well so example, MS sues RedHat for a patent they have which Samba violates. Redhat loses the suit or can't afford to fight it. RedHat must either stop distributing samba or help the samba team redesign the software so it doesn't infringe. They choose option A because they decide the patent can't be engineered around. Now Samba cannot be distributed under the GPL (because you can't put software under the GPL which infringes a patent that cannot be freely distributed).
The theory of this agreement is as follows: For MS it gives them the ability to pursue all OSS software under the cover of "you can still get the software, you just have to use Suse". For Novell it gives them the marketing edge of being able to say "Look we licensed this stuff from MS, you can still use all the OSS software from us".
The theory breaks in practice though, as soon as MS sues someone, Novell will lose the right to distribute the OSS software. They cannot say "We can still distribute Samba because of our agreement with MS" if they do, they violate the GPL and every samba developer can sue them.
So this agreement is completely useless to users of linux, if MS sues they can destroy OSS and Novell. They can even point to this agreement and say "Novell didn't explain this to us well enough, we tried in good faith to provide a way for OSS and Linux to keep going, but it can't because of the license that they decided to use, its not our fault, but they can't infringe on our patents, if they'd chosen a different license maybe we could have worked something out but this license leaves us no choice but to shut it down". Any court in the land is going to side with that argument, they will say MS tried to help their competition, but the competition didn't want the help so now they have to be shut down because they are violating MS patents.
Did you read the article? It is an open threat. MS is going to sue Open Source companies and contributors. Their cover for the anti-trust lawsuits that will obviously follow is that "Look, you can still use linux you just have to use Suse linux cause its legal".
It states clearly that Novell is not allowed to distribute anything that this agreement covers under the GPL. If MS sues RedHat for patent infringment and wins, say its a patent that samba violates... Well Redhat has 2 choices, help samba redesign so it doesn't infringe or stop distributing Samba. Well if samba is shown to violate a patent and can no longer be distributed, Novell will not be able to distribute samba either (regardless of this deal with MS). If Novell tries to say "We have the only usable linux because we can still use samba" then every contributor to Samba has a lawsuit against novell for license infringement. You cannot distribute GPLd code that cannot be redistributed. If novell tries to distribute it after MS wins a lawsuit against OSS then they are breaking the GPL.
The only reason for this agreement is supposedly to say "Look Novell's Suse linux is protected and if MS sues you can still use the whole linux software stack with Novell". Well that is patently false. If MS sues an OSS project and wins, Novell will lose distribution rights as well, not because of the patent, but because it will become illegal to distribute that software via the GPL.
We aren't talking about code MS contributes, we are talking about code the OSS community developed which violates MS patents, and for which MS is going to start filing suit.
I don't care about selling linux (I sell linux. redhat, linspire, xandros, sun all sell linux that is fine) The GPL violation is in the fact that supposedly Novell can distribute linux that violates MS's patents, while no one else can.
If there are patent violations in Linux and MS successfully enforces them against some people (say RedHat) well then that project (say its Samba) would either have to modify itself to not violate the patent or cease to be distributed. If Novell continues to distribute the "patented" project then they are violating the GPL. The developers who made the "patented" product do not allow it to be distributed unless it is freely redistributable.
Novell then has 2 choices distribute and violate the GPL or stop distributing and lose product functionality.
In any event the agreement provides little if any "protection" from IP litigation by microsoft. The end result is if MS sues OSS projects they will either have to be modified globally or cease to be distributed. The Novell agreement doesn't provide any value whatsoever to novell's customers.
Right, what you state is clearly a violation of the GPL. If they attack Samba for patents and win, then the samba team will no longer be able to distribute their code. Samba will cease to exist. If after that Novell still includes Samba under this "we have a licensing deal from MS" then every contributor to samba can now sue novell for violating the license that they released their code under (namely the GPL). You cannot coopt someone's code that is released under the GPL this way, that is what the patent clause says.
If MS attacks any open source project and wins and novell continues to distribute the GPL'd code based on this agreement then the creators of that code have been handed a suit against novell for license infringement.
Basically if MS attacks any open source project that Suse distributes, then Novell is screwed, either their product degrades as MS litigates OSS projects into non-existence or Novell illegally distributes GPLd code. Now, MS probably couldn't care less what happens to Novell, so they will litigate and Novell's product will get crappy, and eventually they will die. Novell handed the keys to their castle to Microsoft with this deal.
"The second thing we did in this area was add a promise that goes to developers, even developers who are getting paid to create code to opensuse.org, code that Novell then takes and incorporates into its distribution," added Smith
Ok, so MS thinks that if you contribute code to opensuse, that then you are absolved.... Do they not understand how OSS works? Everyone contributes to the projects, the distributions just take those projects and create a working, installable product. If you contribute directly to the Linux Kernel, it is going to end up on opensuse.org. If you contribute to open office, it is going to end up in open suse. To me this promise basically absolves everyone as long as Suse is distributing the product.
Of course baring that, apparently all you have to do to become a novell "customer" is download and install Suse at least once... So, pop open VMware, install suse linux, and be protected!
This statement clearly violates paragraph 7 of the GPL. Novell is no longer able to legally distribute linux because they cannot give royalty free copies to everyone.
you obviously didn't read the article. He states quite clearly that the worst case is not happening. the IPCC projected 3-5C increase by 2000, we got a.6C increase. So then in search of the reason why their "model" didn't work, they went in and fudged a bunch of numbers, made up data, doctored some studies, and changed a physical constant... Then they said "Ok, now we're sure its right and we're going to get a 7C increase over the next 100 years."
One of the most glaring defects in all of these studies is that the number of temperature monitoring stations has decreased by more than 50% in the last 30 years (from 5000 to 2000). Also of those 2000 > 90% of them are in urban centers. Of course with readings like that we are going to see higher temperatures.
The UN models do not even account for ocean temperatures. They are making global warming up.
Sure poking holes is easy, but this is INSANE! the UN completely doctored their numbers. They substituted PHYSICAL CONSTANTS (IE a constant who's value is.22, they used 1 in their equations to predict climate change). This isn't "oh the process isn't complete" this is "Oh we didn't like the results with the real numbers, so we changed them"
Are you daft? He directly attacks argument number 3. He attacked the scientific basis for the whole global warming movement.
The UN cooked the books and it still couldn't get the "facts" to match the OBSERVED change, so what did they do? Cooked the books some more!
You can't change Physics. You can't say "Hey, our numbers aren't adding up here, I think we'll change the speed of light by a factor of 3."
To get the numbers to match what the UN wanted they changed a Physical constant from.22 to 1. That is a 5 fold increase, and even changing the multiplier that much they still only predict a 6C increase in temperature. If you leave it at.22 the UN'S COMPUTER MODELS predict a.6C increase over 100 years.
Also he directly attacks the fact that the UN:
1) Does not have enough temperature monitoring stations to accurately record "global" temperature
2) Does not account for the ocean's effect on climate properly
3) Does not account for the SUN'S EFFECT on climate at all.
If the "science" that global warming is based on is consistently this bad (oh by the way, it is. read a book or 2 some time) then the global warming proponents are putting forward argument 2 in your little "example". If you are just going to make up numbers and say "see look its going to happen" that is the same as saying "the angel is going to pull you over", you're just making crap up.
I attempted this test before I purchased my 2.33ghz macbook pro last week. I configured a dell latitude 15.4" exactly the same 2.33Ghz Core 2 Duo 2GB RAM 100GB HD (couldn't match apples 160GB option...) 256MB Video RAM 8x DVD/CDRW wireless
sure Dell says "Starting at $999" or something, but once all these upgrades were applied the Dell would cost $2400 before shipping and tax Also with the Dell: No DVI output for video, No firewire, no development tools built in, have to dual boot to do real development, larger hard drive in the Mac, can't even choose an option for the Dell as large as the default 120GB in the apple.
In the end, yeah maybe I could have saved 50-100 bucks by getting the dell, but the apple is a better machine, its thinner, lighter, quieter.
As others have said, no heat issues here... 2.33ghz 1 week old, runs significantly cooler than my dell 1.67 pentium M that this laptop replaced. I never had a Core 1, but this laptop runs cooler than my old dell, cooler than my wifes ibook g4, cooler than my brother's powerbook g4... it is the coolest running laptop I've used in 3-4 years.
As other's have stated as well, the bottom gets warm to the touch, but not hot, never uncomfortable on the lap or legs. Also, no noticeable fan noise at all. It runs virtually silent.
Either that or Novell is fabulously stupid and just gave MS the keys to their castle.
Maybe MS knows Novell can't distribute under the GPL now, and through some bizarre twist Novell didn't realize it, and now MS just eliminated one of their largest competitors in the linux space.
Ok, say I go download Suse Linux today. I fork it, add my own special sauce whatever create a "centos" of Suse linux and I start distributing it. I didn't pay Novell a dime, I am not their customer. I am a separate entity and I am not party to the MS deal.
If MS can sue me (they can, they own the patents, they could have before this deal happened too, but thats not the point), then Novell has violated the GPL because under paragraph 7 they cannot distribute something as GPL that has known patents which are not freely distributable. Obviously if Novell just signed an agreement that grants them immunity from patent lawsuits from MS, they must have seen the patents. You don't do patent cross-license deals without seeing what you are licensing. If novell cannot give that cross-license to anyone who pops on their site and downloads the code, then Novell is in violation of the GPL.
That is what paragraph 7 is all about, it is designed to keep known patent encumbered code out of free software, or to obtain free distribution rights for said patents.
I just got my new macbook pro core 2 duo 2.33... it runs at least 75% cooler than my old dell single core pentium M 1.67 I couldn't use the dell on my lap for more than about 15-20 minutes, the macbook is seriously the coolest (temperature wise) laptop I've ever used.
Almost everything I do is I/O bound moving 2-4GB Vmware images around, creating ISOs... when I replaced my 5400RPM drive I saw a huge increase in HD throughput (hdparm reported a 25% increase) Also large applications in windows (adobe stuff mostly, but open office as well) open much faster.
So if this works for Oracle RedHat goes out of business, and Oracle loses all that free integration work RedHat was doing for them. Oracle's overhead at that point will have to go up, or they will severely hurt Linux development and therefore adoption. RedHat, IBM, and Novell are probably the 3 biggest corporate contributors to open source with RedHat being the largest (my guess). If Oracle puts RedHat out of business they will have to sustain the same level of contribution as RedHat currently provides or Linux loses. Oracle wants Linux to win, Linux is the only competitor to Windows left. Solaris has lost, Mac OS isn't going anywhere (does oracle run on MacOS?).
If it doesn't work, and I don't think it will... then nothing's changed. I don't think it will "work" because 1) Sure the Oracle guys are smart, but do they really have a grasp of the entire Linux software stack? Will they really openly work with customers deploying Jboss? PostgreSQL? MySQL? I suspect that as with alot of other businesses they will be reluctant to cannibalize their cash cows, the support guys will be trained to try to sell Oracle products into this support channel because the "support" they are providing is a loss leader to try to get people to convert to Oracle products... Well all of us who are using RedHat are doing so because we didn't want to pay a 50-60k/yr license fee to Oracle. If Oracle doesn't try to sell their products through this channel it makes absolutely no sense for them, they won't be able to provide solid support forever at the prices they have stated. If Oracle support isn't as good as RedHat people won't go with Oracle, and if Oracle doesn't sell more product because of this linux support stuff, then they will never make any money from it and eventually the shareholders will demand they ditch it... Either way they lose, either they have to increase price to cover costs, or they have to piss off their customers by constantly nagging them to ditch Postgre for Oracle, Jboss for whatever Oracles app server is, and they lose customers...
Ok, so yeah the bump in processor speed, RAM, and all the rest is nice, but they don't have an option for 7200 RPM HD on the 15" models anymore.
Seriously the upgrade in my dell from a 5400RPM drive to 7200 increased speed at least 30-40%. In fact I was about to order a 15" powerbook last week, now I won't order one. 7200RPM laptop hard drives to me are like LCD desktop monitors: Once you get one you will never go back, the speed increase is noticeable. A 5400RPM hard drive is the bottleneck in a PC with 4.6GHZ of processing power, 667MHZ RAM bandwidth, etc. I'll have to re-assess my next laptop purchase.
Ok, I've seen so many posts on this article about firefox using an inordinant amount of RAM... I've been using firefox exclusively since like.9 or something... I have a browser open on my laptop 24x7.... I've never had firefox crash, and I've never seen it use more than 100MB of ram... just now for kicks I did a small test, I've only got 3 tabs open, my email, slashdot, and msnbc... firefox is using 52MB of ram, so I opened IE opened up the same 3 sites, and wow look at that 47MB of ram...
MS can probably get away with 5MB of savings because they are using already loaded system libraries for a bunch of stuff, that's the advantage they get by integrating the browser into the OS... Now, if people are really going to switch browsers for 5MB of RAM then Firefox is doomed.
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for Unix there is a client called rdesktop that works great (better than the native Mac client, I use it for mac instead of the microsoft rdp client).
Given the number of patents MS has, I would consider it highly unlikely that Linux doesn't violate at least one. I don't have a specific example, but MS has a patent on clicking a certain number of times... I bet they have patents on file systems, network file sharing, memory management, the works.
If linux infringes one of these patents then the only people in a real position to know that are MS and Novell. Novell would be idiots of they didn't get a list of the patents they are licensing in this deal. If Novell is aware of these patents (and as I said they would need to be to have signed a deal regarding them) then they are in a position to know that they are illegally distributing linux.
The GPL doesn't require you to remove infringing IP until it is confirmed to be infringing. Your statement that you have to remove IP before it is confirmed by a court is insane. If Microsoft sues Redhat for some patent in an OSS project and they lose then there was never any violation so why would you have to pre-emptively remove code?
MS isn't going to reveal which patents they think linux is infringing until they file the lawsuit in Texas District 9 or whichever one it is that always sides with the plaintiff in patent litigation. Then we'll all know and the community will have to adapt. If MS wins a patent suit, this agreement will not help Novell distribute Linux nor will it help their customers. Novell will have to remove the infringing code just like everyone else because they can't distribute a GPL project that is patent encumbered unless they can convince every single contributor to that project to relicense the code.
First off: Linux code is the kernel. It is not dual licensed anywhere.
Second: Please point me to the projects to which you are referring? You state that Xandros and Linspire paid to release "linux code" from the GPL... This is very difficult to do. You have to pay or get every single contributor to a project to agree to be paid for something like this to work. For any substantial project (kernel, samba, kde, gnome, etc) there is no possible way that you could hope to achieve this.
Linspire and Xandros have proprietary code that THEY HAVE WRITTEN, and they are free to license that code however they want.
Your Mac OS example has nothing to do with this either, the BSD license is fundamentally different from the GPL. Apple was able to take the BSD code because the BSD license doesn't require redistribution of code, it allows you to take whatever code you want and do whatever you want with it.
The agreement that Novell signed has nothing to do with future code that may be written, again Novell is free to do whatever they want with that code just like Linspire, Xandros, whoever. If they write it they own it. This agreement talks about existing code that has been developed by the community. MS said "hey there are patents of ours in Linux, and in Windows we probably are violating some patents that you own wrt the Unix IP you own, we won't sue you if you don't sue us". It's a classic patent cross license agreement.
That is why this will violate the GPL because Novell thinks it can be the *ONLY* distributor of linux after MS gets done with the IP violations in linux. Unfortunately, they can't because they would be stealing the work of the community which released the code for Novell to use with the promise that the code would always be freely distributable. With this deal the door is open to attempt to close the code and shut linux down.
First off, I've never deployed anything on IPv6 so maybe it is a totally different system where security is concerned... Seems to me though, ok so all these Vista boxes are going to be out there on the net with a new name resolution system to allow hackers to scan through them, and as I understand it IPv6 doesn't have NAT or anything (the idea being IPv6 will let you put things directly on the net). So... how on earth are we trusting MS to secure the plague they are about to lose on the world?
Sure MS has their firewall now, but to make this remotely useful you're going to have to open up some ports. I just see this being a huge security nightmare. Yeah lets make it easy for everyone to put their systems right on the internet!
I guess what I'm trying to say is this agreement doesn't do anything to protect anyone from MS lawsuits. If MS sues, the GPL'd software they attack will become unavailable, the only way it won't is if Novell violates the GPL and continues to distribute. If MS never sues, again this agreement is pointless. The only time this agreement could have any effect would be if MS sues, so obviously it makes sense to look at the possible outcomes when/if that happens. You don't enter into agreements and spend millions in contract negotiations if you aren't expecting to utilize those agreements in some way. The way this agreement gets used is by MS suing OSS developers, projects, and companies.
The only possible "protection" this agreement provides is that supposedly if MS sues Novell can still distribute the software, unfortunately that isn't the case because Novell would then be violating the GPL. So the agreement is pointless to users of linux and distributors of linux (even Novell), it only gives MS some plausible cover to courts/antitrust litigation where they can say "we tried to negotiate with the linux people".
you don't know what you're talking about. This agreement covers patents not copyright. The agreement says "MS will not sue Novell and its customers for patent infringements in linux, Novell will not sue MS and its customers for patent infringements in windows, everyone else is fair game". This means MS is planning on suing other OSS companies and contributors. This agreement is designed to cover MS's butt when the antitrust lawsuits come saying "You can't sue linux its your only competitor". MS can say "You can still use Linux you just have to use Suse Linux because they have a license to these patents".
Well so example, MS sues RedHat for a patent they have which Samba violates. Redhat loses the suit or can't afford to fight it. RedHat must either stop distributing samba or help the samba team redesign the software so it doesn't infringe. They choose option A because they decide the patent can't be engineered around. Now Samba cannot be distributed under the GPL (because you can't put software under the GPL which infringes a patent that cannot be freely distributed).
The theory of this agreement is as follows:
For MS it gives them the ability to pursue all OSS software under the cover of "you can still get the software, you just have to use Suse".
For Novell it gives them the marketing edge of being able to say "Look we licensed this stuff from MS, you can still use all the OSS software from us".
The theory breaks in practice though, as soon as MS sues someone, Novell will lose the right to distribute the OSS software. They cannot say "We can still distribute Samba because of our agreement with MS" if they do, they violate the GPL and every samba developer can sue them.
So this agreement is completely useless to users of linux, if MS sues they can destroy OSS and Novell. They can even point to this agreement and say "Novell didn't explain this to us well enough, we tried in good faith to provide a way for OSS and Linux to keep going, but it can't because of the license that they decided to use, its not our fault, but they can't infringe on our patents, if they'd chosen a different license maybe we could have worked something out but this license leaves us no choice but to shut it down". Any court in the land is going to side with that argument, they will say MS tried to help their competition, but the competition didn't want the help so now they have to be shut down because they are violating MS patents.
Did you read the article? It is an open threat. MS is going to sue Open Source companies and contributors. Their cover for the anti-trust lawsuits that will obviously follow is that "Look, you can still use linux you just have to use Suse linux cause its legal".
It states clearly that Novell is not allowed to distribute anything that this agreement covers under the GPL. If MS sues RedHat for patent infringment and wins, say its a patent that samba violates... Well Redhat has 2 choices, help samba redesign so it doesn't infringe or stop distributing Samba. Well if samba is shown to violate a patent and can no longer be distributed, Novell will not be able to distribute samba either (regardless of this deal with MS). If Novell tries to say "We have the only usable linux because we can still use samba" then every contributor to Samba has a lawsuit against novell for license infringement. You cannot distribute GPLd code that cannot be redistributed. If novell tries to distribute it after MS wins a lawsuit against OSS then they are breaking the GPL.
The only reason for this agreement is supposedly to say "Look Novell's Suse linux is protected and if MS sues you can still use the whole linux software stack with Novell". Well that is patently false. If MS sues an OSS project and wins, Novell will lose distribution rights as well, not because of the patent, but because it will become illegal to distribute that software via the GPL.
We aren't talking about code MS contributes, we are talking about code the OSS community developed which violates MS patents, and for which MS is going to start filing suit.
I don't care about selling linux (I sell linux. redhat, linspire, xandros, sun all sell linux that is fine)
The GPL violation is in the fact that supposedly Novell can distribute linux that violates MS's patents, while no one else can.
If there are patent violations in Linux and MS successfully enforces them against some people (say RedHat) well then that project (say its Samba) would either have to modify itself to not violate the patent or cease to be distributed. If Novell continues to distribute the "patented" project then they are violating the GPL. The developers who made the "patented" product do not allow it to be distributed unless it is freely redistributable.
Novell then has 2 choices distribute and violate the GPL or stop distributing and lose product functionality.
In any event the agreement provides little if any "protection" from IP litigation by microsoft. The end result is if MS sues OSS projects they will either have to be modified globally or cease to be distributed. The Novell agreement doesn't provide any value whatsoever to novell's customers.
Right, what you state is clearly a violation of the GPL. If they attack Samba for patents and win, then the samba team will no longer be able to distribute their code. Samba will cease to exist. If after that Novell still includes Samba under this "we have a licensing deal from MS" then every contributor to samba can now sue novell for violating the license that they released their code under (namely the GPL). You cannot coopt someone's code that is released under the GPL this way, that is what the patent clause says.
If MS attacks any open source project and wins and novell continues to distribute the GPL'd code based on this agreement then the creators of that code have been handed a suit against novell for license infringement.
Basically if MS attacks any open source project that Suse distributes, then Novell is screwed, either their product degrades as MS litigates OSS projects into non-existence or Novell illegally distributes GPLd code. Now, MS probably couldn't care less what happens to Novell, so they will litigate and Novell's product will get crappy, and eventually they will die. Novell handed the keys to their castle to Microsoft with this deal.
"The second thing we did in this area was add a promise that goes to developers, even developers who are getting paid to create code to opensuse.org, code that Novell then takes and incorporates into its distribution," added Smith
Ok, so MS thinks that if you contribute code to opensuse, that then you are absolved.... Do they not understand how OSS works? Everyone contributes to the projects, the distributions just take those projects and create a working, installable product. If you contribute directly to the Linux Kernel, it is going to end up on opensuse.org. If you contribute to open office, it is going to end up in open suse. To me this promise basically absolves everyone as long as Suse is distributing the product.
Of course baring that, apparently all you have to do to become a novell "customer" is download and install Suse at least once... So, pop open VMware, install suse linux, and be protected!
This statement clearly violates paragraph 7 of the GPL. Novell is no longer able to legally distribute linux because they cannot give royalty free copies to everyone.
you obviously didn't read the article. He states quite clearly that the worst case is not happening. the IPCC projected 3-5C increase by 2000, we got a .6C increase. So then in search of the reason why their "model" didn't work, they went in and fudged a bunch of numbers, made up data, doctored some studies, and changed a physical constant... Then they said "Ok, now we're sure its right and we're going to get a 7C increase over the next 100 years."
One of the most glaring defects in all of these studies is that the number of temperature monitoring stations has decreased by more than 50% in the last 30 years (from 5000 to 2000). Also of those 2000 > 90% of them are in urban centers. Of course with readings like that we are going to see higher temperatures.
The UN models do not even account for ocean temperatures. They are making global warming up.
Sure poking holes is easy, but this is INSANE! the UN completely doctored their numbers. They substituted PHYSICAL CONSTANTS (IE a constant who's value is .22, they used 1 in their equations to predict climate change). This isn't "oh the process isn't complete" this is "Oh we didn't like the results with the real numbers, so we changed them"
Are you daft? He directly attacks argument number 3. He attacked the scientific basis for the whole global warming movement.
.22 to 1. That is a 5 fold increase, and even changing the multiplier that much they still only predict a 6C increase in temperature. If you leave it at .22 the UN'S COMPUTER MODELS predict a .6C increase over 100 years.
The UN cooked the books and it still couldn't get the "facts" to match the OBSERVED change, so what did they do? Cooked the books some more!
You can't change Physics. You can't say "Hey, our numbers aren't adding up here, I think we'll change the speed of light by a factor of 3."
To get the numbers to match what the UN wanted they changed a Physical constant from
Also he directly attacks the fact that the UN:
1) Does not have enough temperature monitoring stations to accurately record "global" temperature
2) Does not account for the ocean's effect on climate properly
3) Does not account for the SUN'S EFFECT on climate at all.
If the "science" that global warming is based on is consistently this bad (oh by the way, it is. read a book or 2 some time) then the global warming proponents are putting forward argument 2 in your little "example". If you are just going to make up numbers and say "see look its going to happen" that is the same as saying "the angel is going to pull you over", you're just making crap up.
I attempted this test before I purchased my 2.33ghz macbook pro last week.
I configured a dell latitude 15.4" exactly the same
2.33Ghz Core 2 Duo
2GB RAM
100GB HD (couldn't match apples 160GB option...)
256MB Video RAM
8x DVD/CDRW
wireless
sure Dell says "Starting at $999" or something, but once all these upgrades were applied the Dell would cost $2400 before shipping and tax
Also with the Dell: No DVI output for video, No firewire, no development tools built in, have to dual boot to do real development, larger hard drive in the Mac, can't even choose an option for the Dell as large as the default 120GB in the apple.
In the end, yeah maybe I could have saved 50-100 bucks by getting the dell, but the apple is a better machine, its thinner, lighter, quieter.
As others have said, no heat issues here...
2.33ghz 1 week old, runs significantly cooler than my dell 1.67 pentium M that this laptop replaced. I never had a Core 1, but this laptop runs cooler than my old dell, cooler than my wifes ibook g4, cooler than my brother's powerbook g4... it is the coolest running laptop I've used in 3-4 years.
As other's have stated as well, the bottom gets warm to the touch, but not hot, never uncomfortable on the lap or legs.
Also, no noticeable fan noise at all. It runs virtually silent.
Either that or Novell is fabulously stupid and just gave MS the keys to their castle.
Maybe MS knows Novell can't distribute under the GPL now, and through some bizarre twist Novell didn't realize it, and now MS just eliminated one of their largest competitors in the linux space.
Ok, say I go download Suse Linux today. I fork it, add my own special sauce whatever create a "centos" of Suse linux and I start distributing it. I didn't pay Novell a dime, I am not their customer. I am a separate entity and I am not party to the MS deal.
If MS can sue me (they can, they own the patents, they could have before this deal happened too, but thats not the point), then Novell has violated the GPL because under paragraph 7 they cannot distribute something as GPL that has known patents which are not freely distributable. Obviously if Novell just signed an agreement that grants them immunity from patent lawsuits from MS, they must have seen the patents. You don't do patent cross-license deals without seeing what you are licensing. If novell cannot give that cross-license to anyone who pops on their site and downloads the code, then Novell is in violation of the GPL.
That is what paragraph 7 is all about, it is designed to keep known patent encumbered code out of free software, or to obtain free distribution rights for said patents.
I just got my new macbook pro core 2 duo 2.33... it runs at least 75% cooler than my old dell single core pentium M 1.67
I couldn't use the dell on my lap for more than about 15-20 minutes, the macbook is seriously the coolest (temperature wise) laptop I've ever used.
in your link it took 11 minutes to cook the egg
the xbox cooked the egg almost instantly. It seriously took less than 10 seconds to cook the egg.
Almost everything I do is I/O bound moving 2-4GB Vmware images around, creating ISOs... when I replaced my 5400RPM drive I saw a huge increase in HD throughput (hdparm reported a 25% increase)
Also large applications in windows (adobe stuff mostly, but open office as well) open much faster.
Wow, and republicans are supposed to be the fasists?!
This guy said/did something I don't like! Arrest him now! He makes my vaunted "homeland security" look like a farse!
So if this works for Oracle RedHat goes out of business, and Oracle loses all that free integration work RedHat was doing for them. Oracle's overhead at that point will have to go up, or they will severely hurt Linux development and therefore adoption. RedHat, IBM, and Novell are probably the 3 biggest corporate contributors to open source with RedHat being the largest (my guess). If Oracle puts RedHat out of business they will have to sustain the same level of contribution as RedHat currently provides or Linux loses. Oracle wants Linux to win, Linux is the only competitor to Windows left. Solaris has lost, Mac OS isn't going anywhere (does oracle run on MacOS?).
If it doesn't work, and I don't think it will... then nothing's changed. I don't think it will "work" because 1) Sure the Oracle guys are smart, but do they really have a grasp of the entire Linux software stack? Will they really openly work with customers deploying Jboss? PostgreSQL? MySQL? I suspect that as with alot of other businesses they will be reluctant to cannibalize their cash cows, the support guys will be trained to try to sell Oracle products into this support channel because the "support" they are providing is a loss leader to try to get people to convert to Oracle products... Well all of us who are using RedHat are doing so because we didn't want to pay a 50-60k/yr license fee to Oracle. If Oracle doesn't try to sell their products through this channel it makes absolutely no sense for them, they won't be able to provide solid support forever at the prices they have stated. If Oracle support isn't as good as RedHat people won't go with Oracle, and if Oracle doesn't sell more product because of this linux support stuff, then they will never make any money from it and eventually the shareholders will demand they ditch it... Either way they lose, either they have to increase price to cover costs, or they have to piss off their customers by constantly nagging them to ditch Postgre for Oracle, Jboss for whatever Oracles app server is, and they lose customers...
Ok, so yeah the bump in processor speed, RAM, and all the rest is nice, but they don't have an option for 7200 RPM HD on the 15" models anymore.
Seriously the upgrade in my dell from a 5400RPM drive to 7200 increased speed at least 30-40%. In fact I was about to order a 15" powerbook last week, now I won't order one. 7200RPM laptop hard drives to me are like LCD desktop monitors: Once you get one you will never go back, the speed increase is noticeable. A 5400RPM hard drive is the bottleneck in a PC with 4.6GHZ of processing power, 667MHZ RAM bandwidth, etc. I'll have to re-assess my next laptop purchase.
Ok, I've seen so many posts on this article about firefox using an inordinant amount of RAM... I've been using firefox exclusively since like .9 or something...
I have a browser open on my laptop 24x7.... I've never had firefox crash, and I've never seen it use more than 100MB of ram... just now for kicks I did a small test, I've only got 3 tabs open, my email, slashdot, and msnbc... firefox is using 52MB of ram, so I opened IE opened up the same 3 sites, and wow look at that 47MB of ram...
MS can probably get away with 5MB of savings because they are using already loaded system libraries for a bunch of stuff, that's the advantage they get by integrating the browser into the OS... Now, if people are really going to switch browsers for 5MB of RAM then Firefox is doomed.