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User: rdean400

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  1. Re:How would it benifit Sun ? on McNealy Answers: No Open Source Java · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Here's the crux: what they're being asked to open source is something they make no money on ALREADY. They provide it for free (as in beer). It needs to be free (as in speech) so that it can ship in the default installs for all the Linux distributions. Ever since the fiaSCO, Linux distro providers have become even more vigilant about making sure software meets GPL compatibility requirements.

  2. Re:Switch!!! on Nasty New Virus Variants · · Score: 1

    No, I'm not.

  3. Re:Switch!!! on Nasty New Virus Variants · · Score: 1

    No, I'm not. Tell me what mail-sending API Mozilla Mail exposes that is enabled by default. It's trivially easy for a worm to distribute itself in Outlook because it exploits an enabled feature and because most users run in Administrator mode. It's harder to do in Mozilla or other open-source mail clients because it would require exploiting a security flaw which may or may not be there next week.

  4. Re:Switch!!! on Nasty New Virus Variants · · Score: 1

    The problem is that Outlook exposes the entire Windows API via the Windows Scripting Host. Were something like Mozilla Mail/Thunderbird to become the dominant e-mail system, the virus writers would NOT be able to get their payloads distributed as easily as they can with Microsoft products. It's a fundamental issue that Microsoft designed in features that other products don't have, and those products don't have them for this very reason.

  5. This is the same letter they sent before... on SCO Aims For The Feds · · Score: 2, Informative

    Read the article. This letter was obtained by a FOIA request by an attorney defending the case against Daimler-Chrysler I believe. It's from the round of letters where SCO claimed various header files were in violation of copyrights related to the UNIX ABI.

  6. Who had this date in the pool... on Why iPod Can't Save Apple · · Score: 1

    It's been a while since we've seen an "Apple is dying" story.

  7. Trafficking in stolen goods... on EB Demands Payment From Victim of Theft · · Score: 1

    They must not have very good lawyers, because now that the police have the culprit in custody, they are clearly guilty of trafficking in stolen goods.

  8. Food resources on Cooking with the Internet? · · Score: 1

    If the recipe itself needs to be free as in speech, then you're right, there aren't that many open cookbooks. However, a number of food-type sites provide recipes for free. Food Network has a variety of recipes featured on their shows (including a couple of free beer recipes).

  9. Re:Sun's never been *opposed* to OS'ing Java, per on Sun Agrees to Talk to IBM over Open Sourcing Java · · Score: 2, Informative

    Here is a link to a Computerworld interview with James Gosling. I don't think it's the one I read, but it says a similar thing.

  10. Sun's never been *opposed* to OS'ing Java, per se on Sun Agrees to Talk to IBM over Open Sourcing Java · · Score: 3, Informative

    According to an interview I read some months ago (I forget where, so please forgive the lack of a link) with James Gosling, Sun has never been really opposed to open sourcing Java. They just haven't felt the inclination to work out the logistics of doing so.

  11. Those designers are clueless on Wired Reports on 'Googlemania' · · Score: 2, Insightful

    These designers should be fired for failing to clue in to how Google got so big in the first place: it indexes a lot of pages, and it's search page comes up FAST. None of the proposed redesigns would make Google easier to use...they'd just make it take longer to download the search page.

  12. Proof that Microsoft can speak without FUDing on Microsoft's Platform Strategist Speaks On Linux · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Whether it chooses to do so more often is an open question, but it's refreshing to see a Microsoft exec speaking non-disparagingly about the competition.

  13. Re:New Apache License could be Magnet for Stolen I on FSF: New Apache License not GPL-Compatible · · Score: 1

    Not necessarily. There is some wiggle room (I am not a lawyer, so I don't know if this would fly in court, but based on the language, it appears to be a reasonable interpretation).

    Apache has demonstrated a propensity for being reasonable when it comes to tainted Contributions (e.g., when a contributor knows the Contribution violates a patent and doesn't have authority to license those patent claim). They will willingly remove tainted Contributions from the Work, so litigation is unnecessary. However, it may be possible to wiggle around the litigation clause because once the Contribution is removed from the Work, it is no longer incorporated within the Work, and YourCo would be free to sue the former employee for patent infringement.

    Apache's license isn't apocalyptic to IP owners. It's devestating to companies who use litigation as their only strategy for protecting IP.

  14. Re:New Apache License could be Magnet for Stolen I on FSF: New Apache License not GPL-Compatible · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Not so. Read the License. The Patent provision is only binding on the contributor's patents (i.e., if you own patents that will be necessarily infringed by your contributions to Apache, then you automatically grant a patent license for use in Apache (and derivative works, I assume) ). If the contributor then sues Apache for patent claims, then the license revokes their license to use the software.

    It is a reach to suggest that someone stealing IP from a company and contributing it to Apache would bind that company to accept that their IP has been released. Furthermore, the license provision is only triggered by litigation against Apache, and it is unlikely that a company whose IP has stolen (except for a certain desperate Utah-based company) would start right off the bat with litigation.

  15. Re:Oracle on Open Source Spreads Beyond Software · · Score: 1

    I wouldn't characterize IBM's position as "dominant". In terms of revenue, Oracle and IBM are close.

  16. Re:Oracle on Open Source Spreads Beyond Software · · Score: 1

    MySQL has taken over "ownership" of the SAP DB codebase. SAP is an enterprise-ready (performant and scalable) database. It won't take *that* long before MySQL reaches a level where they can nip at Oracle's heels on the ladder (although, by that time, Oracle may be in 3rd place behind IBM and Microsoft).

  17. Oracle on Open Source Spreads Beyond Software · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Oracle's dominance in databases is coming under attack from MySQL..."

    Please. Oracle's supposed dominance in databases is under far more threat from Microsoft and IBM than it is from MySQL **at this point in time.** IBM earns more database revenue than Oracle, so it's not even fair to say that Oracle dominates.

  18. VCR = Prior Art? on TVI to Sue Over MS Autoplay Feature · · Score: 1

    Most VCRs automatically start a process (playback) when their media is inserted. Another case of adding "internet" to an existing method to achieve a dumb patent.

  19. Pointless ramblings of an ignoramous on Moving Net Control From ICANN to Governments? · · Score: 1

    He suggests that the World Wide Web Consortium is an example of a standards organization that should be done away with, but at the same time rails against the notion that corporate interests control the internet. He ignores the fact that if no one sets the standards for the internet, we'll be left with a bottomless quagmire of incompatibility.

    His being ignorant of this fact, I assume that the workable solution he's after is to make the W3 more accountable to governments and less accountable to corporate interests (lesser of two evils, I suppoe).

  20. Re:How and Why C# Was Made on How C# Was Made · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Your 4.5 is wrong, and even in a world in which it made sense, it'd still be wrong. Sun's whole marketing mantra around Java was "Write Once. Run Anywhere." Allowing platform-specific extensions would break that, so it's an obvious non-starter. Sun's reaction wasn't correct, but it was an allowable one.

  21. The fight will be about the same on Google v. Microsoft · · Score: 1

    Integrate the application into the operating system => no need to fire up IE to http://www.google.com to do searches.

    Fair or not, Microsoft's plans for search go beyond what Google can deliver as a remote internet application. Microsoft wants to treat search as a single domain application (e.g., searching local or remote resources are done through the same application). This is EXACTLY the same play they ran against Netscape.

    Google may be falling for it. I've read several articles recently that indicate Google's head may be starting to weigh too much for its shoulders.

  22. Re:Real world vs. fanboy fantasies on 2.4 vs 2.6 Linux Kernel Shootout · · Score: 1

    Trolls love to see people blow gaskets...I didn't.

  23. Re:Real world vs. fanboy fantasies on 2.4 vs 2.6 Linux Kernel Shootout · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately, "independent" != "objective".

    Microsoft funded the research. Microsoft is the beneficiary of the results of the research. Conflict of interest? Duh!

  24. Re:Real world vs. fanboy fantasies on 2.4 vs 2.6 Linux Kernel Shootout · · Score: 1

    Certification equates to neither knowledge nor wisdom. Certification equates to knowing enough about the test (subject matter and/or methods) to get a passing score. It doesn't say you know it, at all...it suggests that you knew it at the time you took the test.

    You can go on and on about these supposedly independent research reports, but they're all tainted by their funding source...Microsoft. Apparently your certifications didn't teach you the importance of objectivity in research. No one should trust a research report funded by the beneficiary of that research. It's asinine to do so.

    In the case of the Forrester study comparing J2EE development on Linux to Windows .net development, the findings were tainted by an extremely small sample size and a critical methodology errors: relying solely on interviews to come up with the findings. The report would have been more meaningful if it had taken several teams of programmers flent in their respective paradigms and had them come up with the solution to the problem.

    As far as installation goes, any research report that suggests that is evidently not using a recent (within last 2 years) version of Linux. 3 hours faster and 77% fewer steps must have been comparing Windows 2k3 server on a brand new P4 chip versus installing Mandrake 5.2 on a P2-233.

    Just because you're certified doesn't make you an expert. Just because these firms are "independent" doesn't make them objective.

  25. Supplementary information on Microsoft Patenting Office XML Formats · · Score: 1

    Taken by itself, this would indeed be scary. *However*, Microsoft has published the license for the XML schemas to Office and it allows software developers to create software that reads and writes the schemas without royalty. Only thing is that the terms of the license prohibit the software from being licensed in a way that would conflict with the terms of Microsoft's license (GPL is likely one such case).