So first SCO is at fault for not showing any evidence. Now that they have, the claim is that they can't prove the code is theirs.
The code has yet to be given out to the community for consideration, it was shown to two heavily biased analysts under a strict NDA.
The DiDio character is a Windows consultant, and the Aberdeen group released a report last November that Linux was "the most vulnerable operating system". Yeah, that's the same as giving it to the community for them to verify SCO's outlandish claims.
Besides, copied or not, you already have it. Just look in the Linux source.
Yeah, sure. We'll get right on that. (In case you missed the sarcasm, eighty lines of code is a friggin' needle in the haystack! I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out all they implications that fact has...)
Why should SCO bother?
You're right about that. It's not in SCO's best interests now to give everyone the information required to determine what the facts are. It's in their best interest to drag this out as long as possible, to spread as much Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt as possible, and to control public opinion by controlling the flow of information.
My guess? There may well be some code, but I'm betting that SCO didn't do their homework (corporate managers rarely do). It could be from the BSDs, from public-domain literature, or from SCalderO's own UNIX-Linux integration project which I've read referenced in other posts here.
In any case, I have no doubt that SCO has no case here. For further proof, go read the OSI position paper on the matter. A lengthy read, but very enlightening, and basically shows the SCO claims to be rather without merit. Or is your mind as closed as your source?
Why is comparison with Python amusing? I've been using Python for three and a half years now, and everything that the memo states about Python is true and accurate:
A study performed by an outside team appears to indicate a rough parity in performance between Java and a common implementation of another OO language called Python (see IEEE Computing, October 2000, "An Empirical Comparison of Seven Programming Languages" by Lutz Prechelt of the University of Karlsruhe). Both platforms are Object Oriented, support web applications, serialization, internet connections and native interfaces. The key difference is that Python is a scripting language. This means there is no compilation to byte code so the Python runtime environment has to do two things in addition to what the Java runtime environment does. It has to perform syntax checks and it must parse the ascii text provided by the programmer. Both of those tasks are performed at compile time by Java and so that capability does not have to be in the JRE. Given this data, it appears that the JRE can actually be simpler than the Python RE since Java does at least some of this work at compile time. The example above of "Hello World" is a good method for getting an idea of the minimum support code required at runtime. This support code includes garbage collector, byte code interpreter, exception processor and the like. Hello World written in Java2 requires 9M for this most basic support infrastructure. By comparison, this is slightly larger than automountd on Solaris8. The Python runtime required to execute Hello World is roughly 1.6M.
I've used all of those aspects of Python: OO, serialization, web application support, internet connections, and native interfaces. I've also used multi-threading, and GUI interfaces (PyGTK, and built-in PyTk). I have yet to find a problem that couldn't be easily solved with Python. It makes for rapid development and robust solutions.
Moreover, my experiences (as an end user, not developer) with Java have been misreable. It's performance sucks and is typically intolerable for daily usage.
...are going to use the Greenpeace letter generator to send a complain to the Dow CEO? It'd be interesting to get a gauge on how much mail he'll be getting...
Here where I work, we've still not completed the rollover from NT to 2000, and I have yet to see a single XP system installed, even in a development lab. Even in the UNIX world, we're just now getting rid of the last of our Solaris 2.6 (*perhaps* by the end of the calendar year...)
Does anyone else see massive fragmentation of Windows like this, just due to the extreme upgrade lag of production shops? If it is widely spread, what do people think this mean for Windows in the corporate world?
In addition, is this just a product being retired, or is this a move by Microsoft to start boostrapping Palladium?
The solution to telemarketing by Yahoo! and other online companies is not to delete your account, it's to make it unprofitable for them.
If Yahoo (or any other marketeer) cold-calls you, the best thing to do is not to hang up as quickly as you can, but keep them on the phone as long as you can. The telemarketing gig only works if they can complete so many sales in so much time, so by holding them on the line as long as you can, you decrease the profitability of the endeavor. If enough people do it, they may just give up the venture.
So what do you think, people? Can we Slashdot the telemarketers?
a world of 100% encryption?
on
Future Of IDS
·
· Score: 2
Not likely. This is an assertion I've seen being made by the IT media for the last two years that I've been doing IDS. IPsec & IPv6 were touted as making IDS obsolete.
The fundamental fact is that we will never get to the point where all traffic sent out over the great big I is encrypted. Its a matter of simple economics. Things like publicly available web sites, DNS, and even email don't need to be encrypted, nothing is gained by protecting that data. That's why it's a public service. Therefore, content providers (those deploying IDS) will never fork out the $$$ to buy equipment which can handle the load produced by millions of daily transactions that come down to just to encrypting index.html and decrypting GET index.html requests.
As an IDS analyst for the last two years in a Fortune 10 company, I can tell you from first-hand experience that 90%+ of the attacks we see on a daily basis are HTTP-based. DNS comes in second, because guess what? It's one of the needed public services offered by content providers on the Internet. Why encrypt data you're offering out to the whole world?
Nice article for CIOs, but I'm getting tired of hearing that encryption is going to get rid of NIDS. It's an omega point that we'll just never get to.
"...but a Microsoft exec said yesterday that the hugely successful worm attacks were due to 'tardy' sysadmins."
After all the hours I put in on those bloody worms & viruses, it's nice to see some fallout against Microsoft, those who set the scene for such silliness. If they take responsibility for creating an insecure environment with their OS and software, they do severe damage to their brand and franchise value. If they do what they're doing now, biting the hands which feed them, ie those in the trenches making their crappy software work in production, then they will likely alienate many of the hordes of SAs which help them maintain their current position in the Enterprise & SOHOs.
Just like if one black person is a criminal, all black people are criminals.
Obviously you didn't read my original posting. I'll keep this one short. Here's what I said before: Nice strawman you set up, but you comparison is completely invalid. Racism is racism because the groups who are the targets of racism have no control over thier birth-elements: color, ethnicity, etc. What they do with themselves afterwards is all people should be judged by. The important point is that CEOs and sharewhoreders are being judged by their actions, not how they were born.
It is apparent that you've are lacking experience in this arena, have never worked for a major corporation, and don't pay much attention to what goes on in the world. When you've tasted more of life, understand human nature, and have an appreciation for the matter at hand, we can continue this discourse.
Nice strawman you set up, but you comparison is completely invalid. Racism is racism because the groups who are the targets of racism have no control over thier birth-elements: color, ethnicity, etc. What they do with themselves afterwards is all people should be judged by.
The important point is that CEOs and sharewhoreders are being judged by their actions, not how they were born. Now, let's diasect your statements:
The "bigwigs" didn't just line their own pockets, they lined yours, too...You entered an agreement to do a certain amount of work for a certain amount of pay. Sadly, that is a propaganda item of capitilistic sentiment that rarely plays out in the real world. In the case of salary positions, you agree to work for 40hrs a week. It is a part of corporate culture in the US today that you work 60-80 hrs per week. So already an employee is getting paid 33% less than agreed to. Never mind the fact that even in IT pay for work is rarely reflective of the revenue these worker bees generate. Let's also not forget that what these guys make is orders of magnitude below the fat cats. And what, pray tell, do these people do to *earn* that money besides exploit others?
What does it matter what anyone else in the company makes?
It makes a difference because when new hardware is needed to meet resource requirements or more people are needed to meet the workload, the management structure (composed of mostly shareholders) balks, stalls, and outright denies these expenditures. They then claim the "savings" as achievements to their seniors, get fat bonuses, more stock options, which as often as not equal the "savings" they achieved by withholding critical resources from their employees who then had to work an extra 20-40 hours a week to handle the fallout.
Why do you feel the need to be envious of the deal someone else works out with the company? If you want to earn what they earn, no one is stopping you. See above. I can't just "apply" to be a shareholder, I have to either claw my way up the management chain by treating employees as listed above, or have lotsa money to start with. It's the "old boys club" we all know and love. In a just society, they would be charged with conspiracy and racketeering. As it is, we call them leaders of the community, and turn a blind eye to the crimes they can and do commit because of their wealth and power.
And as for advancement through the managment tree, let's not forget how that's never linked to skill and ability, but rather is achieved through politicking, backstabing, and taking credit for others' hard work; either earnest line managers who are too honest and care too much for their employees to be promoted, or their over-worked employees.
But back to the main subject, if you want to make a specific complaint against a specific company, or specific individual in that company, that's one thing but baseless generalizations just foster unreasonable hatred. Unreasonable hatred? Bullocks! As stated earlier, these fat cats have earned their reputation. Pursuit of weath is fine, but only when its done without being a harmful parasite who feeds off of the honest work of others. Moreover, wretched excess is completely unjustifiable and very harmful to society (power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely...).
Again, if you don't want to work in that environment, that's fine. Work for...[blah]...[blah]...But don't assume someone is greedy because they make more money than you. So if they are not greedy, why do they insist on making such money at the expense of their much-used and abused employees and John Q. Public? Shall we look at the earnings some of these bastards make on options alone? From Yahoo!:
From JP Morgan -
22-May-01 WARNER, DOUGLAS A Chairman of the Board, Director, Officer 100,000 JPM Sold at $50.00/Share. Proceeds of $5,000,000.
From GE -
27-Mar-01 BLAKE, FRANCIS S Vice President 75,000 GE Exercised Options at Average of $8.28/Share and Sold at $41.66/Share. Proceeds of $2,503,200.
From Ford:
24-May-01 COSGROVE, WILLIAM J Vice President 81,189 F (Common PAR $0.01) Exercised Options at Average of $11.12/Share and Sold at $25.11/Share. Proceeds of $1,135,490.
From Compaq: 8-Feb-01 ROMAN, KENNETH Director 130,000 CPQ Exercised Options at$ 2.25/Share and Sold at $24.11/Share. Proceeds of $2,841,800.
So again, what have these people *done* to justify these earnings? How can they justify owning such wealth (remember, these are just single transactions!) when there is so much need and want in the world by people better than they?
And let us close by not forgetting the fact of what happens when times get tough, as they are getting today. What happens? Do these fat cats cut back on their excess, and support the employees whose blood, sweat, and tears have earned that weath? No, they cut jobs left and right, and do nothing much to help by cutting back from their own weath and earnings. So I see your point, they aren't greedy after all!
As I said, nice straw man, but your arguments don't hold. Perhaps my writings are a bit extreme, but after working in a Fortune 10 company, these views were born and nurtured through what I have seen and experienced on the job. So why don't I get another? Because relatively my company does pay better than others and I have a family to feed. Of course, by comparison, it is still much much much less than these non-greedy, unjustly-hated business men make off of my and my fellows labor.
By that very same token, they are able to exert extra power over me, making me work outragous hours and making outrageous demands, because they know I can't make as much money anywere else. So I (and many others) don't have the ability to go anywhere else. Besides, where should we go? It's all the same everywhere. Just go to Yahoo for proof, and spend some time looking at insider trading. Or, spend some time in a company and actually pay attention to what happens. There is nothing noble or justifyable about the actions or attitudes of management or shareholders.
I'm an avid FreeBSD user, so I am really glad to see FBSD technology making its way into the Linux camp. I hope many Linux newbies benefit from this. I believe it or not, I found FBSD easier than Linux when I knew nothing about UNIX. The Ports Tree was a huge part of that.
But let me see if I've got this right...the FreeBSD ports tree is a port of Linux/nonBSD-UNIX based software (mostly Linux based) to FreeBSD, and now someone has taken it and ported it back to Linux...heh.
(Okay, okay, I realize it's the actual ports tree system which is being ported, but still...;)
Actually, 486's are still very useful in the home. I presently use a 486 as a firewall for my cable modem/home network, and I built another one for my parents' cable setup.
I could also imagine using a 486 as a terminal server, a print server, and possibly NIDS in a low-throughput network.
486's would also be useful as play systems. I'd love to have half a dozen to test different network setups. I could install Solaris x86 on all of them and learn about NIS. Alternatively, I could set up a bunch of Linux machines and cluster them into a Beowulf cluster. Just for kicks!
Liberated software sounds like a euphemism for warez.
So let's call it Liberty Software. I think that has a better ring to it anyway. It sounds like the "Liberty Ships" of World War II. And of course, in the US it has that strong connection with the Founding Fathers, etc.
I have to say that I strongly agree with the original poster on the liberty sub-thread here. I find the whole whole Free==(beer|speech) thing can get confusing even though I wholeheartedly believe, support, and evangelize the free speech side of it. It seems to me that we can't realistically expect people who aren't "in the loop" to regularly differenciate between the two. Liberty Software spells it all out, leaving not much room for doubt.
Most people do just associate the word free with no money/cost.
Unfortunatly, Fortune 500 is not driven by cost alone. Senior managers are driven by other motives, including reputation of the closed-source vendor company, white papers by big consulting companies (who have the same feeling about said vendors), owning shares in said vendors (illegal but it happens), and of course, the old "no one ever got fired for buying [fill in the blank]".
I hope your white paper is successful, but after 2 years in a Fortune 10 company, I'm not too optimistic.
And, really, do any of us give a flying fsck if PHBs love free software or not? The choice will still always be OURS - and that's the important part.
I don't really give a ff if PHBs love free software or not, but I do care about whether or not they're willing to deploy it in a production environment in place of Windows9x/NT/2K/XP.
While I may love running Linux and FreeBSD at home, the only place I can run it in my little domain at work (a Fortune 10 company) is in the lab. And then, only because I do IT security, and need to simulate "hostile hacker boxes" to test various security implementations. A lot of our infrastructure is NT/2K because we aren't allowed to use Linux (even though many vendors are now supporting it).
Why? Because PHBs and senior executives not only don't love Free Software or Open Source, but also because they are 1.)scared of using something which "isn't supported by a vendor" 2.)not interested in deploying something they where they can't own stock in the vendor company 3.)Don't really care about cost differences, only want to pass the next corporate audit, etc.
Sadly, I've learned since I came to corporate from Academia that the article's author is spot on - perception is everyting! The only way to gain ground in corporate is to get the right perception out there, and to get more vendors to write software to support Linux and *BSD.
So why do I care if FS/OS gets adopted in the workplace? Because I spend anywhere from 40-60 hours a week in the workplace, and what we use there has a serious influence in how much time I can spend at home on what technology. I've actually got Win2K at home, and I'm working on an MCSE (shudder!) because there's so much Windows at work. Granted, I'm working on SAIR Linux and Solaris certifications also, but because of the environment at work, I'm spending 33% less time on UNIX technology, just to ensure my resume is spiffy when a PHB/Senior Exec looks at it.
Let's see...Open Source is about the free exchange of information and ideas. The first amendment was written to guarantee freedom of speech.
Yeah those two don't jive at all, do they?
MS is getting really desperate here. Since there is no entity to strike back at in this case, they're trying to do the next best thing. Strike back at the rights and liberties of their very customer base (US citizenry).
What next, a law prohbiting competition against Microsoft?
In FreeBSD, changing boot screens are simply a matter of changing the image file specified in the/boot/loader.conf. Or you could copy over the file specified with others (via cron, rc script, whatever.:)
If you have FreeBSD, check out FreeBSD Splash Screens for how to build what you need into the kernel. There's a few other instructions to follow, too.
Considering that the vendor companies have limited resources, it's the only way to make most of them take responsibility for their own product's quality. As a member of the InfoSec community, this warms my heart.
I went to University for a Bachelors in Chemistry, then a Masters in the same. Now I've had a high-paying, really fun job in a company's IT department (not a chemical company) doing both development and production work. I love my job, and like the perks. I don't think I could have done any of it without the discipline I learned in my two degrees, however. College taught me how to reason logically, how to effetively go about solving problems, and how to organize my work.
From what I've experienced here in the trenches, I do question whether or not a Computer Science degree is necessary. If one has the skills and the passion, all that's really need (and is sorely lacking in the workplace) is discipline and strucutre. That's what a person should bring out of college. Science degrees are probably most useful, but I'll wager other degrees would be helpful too.
What happend to the old Slashdot?? As far as I can tell, it's alive and kicking.
Being that 2600 is "The Hacker Quarterly", and what I find to be a useful resource as a geek and hacker (old-school definition), I don't see what the complaint is about. How the mainstream power institutions treat members of the nerd community, particularly those of our press, should be considered some of the most important "News for Nerds".
The police apparently knew who he was, as he was arrested while walking down a street talking on a phone. Reports are conflicting as to whether he's being held on a million dollars bail or $500,000. He's being charged with a misdemeanor, according to the Philadelphia Police web site....
Naturally, the mainstream media has been very quiet about this.
This scares the piss out of me. I certainly consider it "News for Nerds".
Of course you're right on all of that, but consider this:
Say Microsoft wins on this appeal, and the process takes until January Let's also say that Bush wins the election (shudder). It would be up to the Justice Department to appeal the appelate court's decision, but if the Adminstration changes, it could choose not to pursue that.
What M$ is doing is trying to buy time before the election. Bill Gates it banking on the prospect of GW Bush getting elected. When the administrations switch, Mr. Bush will doubtlessly stop the Justice Department from pursuing this whole thing.
Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA, said that Mattel might be able to argue that the GPL is invalid because users don't pay for the free software.
So if I download and use shareware or regular sofware for a "limited trial license", I'm not obligated to pay for regular license since I didn't pay for the copy I obtained, right?
Slashdot Mirror
The code has yet to be given out to the community for consideration, it was shown to two heavily biased analysts under a strict NDA.
The DiDio character is a Windows consultant, and the Aberdeen group released a report last November that Linux was "the most vulnerable operating system". Yeah, that's the same as giving it to the community for them to verify SCO's outlandish claims.
Besides, copied or not, you already have it. Just look in the Linux source. Yeah, sure. We'll get right on that. (In case you missed the sarcasm, eighty lines of code is a friggin' needle in the haystack! I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out all they implications that fact has...)
Why should SCO bother?
You're right about that. It's not in SCO's best interests now to give everyone the information required to determine what the facts are. It's in their best interest to drag this out as long as possible, to spread as much Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt as possible, and to control public opinion by controlling the flow of information.
My guess? There may well be some code, but I'm betting that SCO didn't do their homework (corporate managers rarely do). It could be from the BSDs, from public-domain literature, or from SCalderO's own UNIX-Linux integration project which I've read referenced in other posts here.
In any case, I have no doubt that SCO has no case here. For further proof, go read the OSI position paper on the matter. A lengthy read, but very enlightening, and basically shows the SCO claims to be rather without merit. Or is your mind as closed as your source?
Is Project Gutenberg and a Palm Pilot.
I've used all of those aspects of Python: OO, serialization, web application support, internet connections, and native interfaces. I've also used multi-threading, and GUI interfaces (PyGTK, and built-in PyTk). I have yet to find a problem that couldn't be easily solved with Python. It makes for rapid development and robust solutions.
Moreover, my experiences (as an end user, not developer) with Java have been misreable. It's performance sucks and is typically intolerable for daily usage.
...are going to use the Greenpeace letter generator to send a complain to the Dow CEO? It'd be interesting to get a gauge on how much mail he'll be getting...
Note that I was not talking about transitioning Solaris 2.6 to Windows, I was talking about a version upgrade (Solaris 2.6-> Solaris 2.8)
Here where I work, we've still not completed the rollover from NT to 2000, and I have yet to see a single XP system installed, even in a development lab. Even in the UNIX world, we're just now getting rid of the last of our Solaris 2.6 (*perhaps* by the end of the calendar year...)
Does anyone else see massive fragmentation of Windows like this, just due to the extreme upgrade lag of production shops? If it is widely spread, what do people think this mean for Windows in the corporate world?
In addition, is this just a product being retired, or is this a move by Microsoft to start boostrapping Palladium?
The solution to telemarketing by Yahoo! and other online companies is not to delete your account, it's to make it unprofitable for them.
If Yahoo (or any other marketeer) cold-calls you, the best thing to do is not to hang up as quickly as you can, but keep them on the phone as long as you can. The telemarketing gig only works if they can complete so many sales in so much time, so by holding them on the line as long as you can, you decrease the profitability of the endeavor. If enough people do it, they may just give up the venture.
So what do you think, people? Can we Slashdot the telemarketers?
Not likely. This is an assertion I've seen being made by the IT media for the last two years that I've been doing IDS. IPsec & IPv6 were touted as making IDS obsolete.
The fundamental fact is that we will never get to the point where all traffic sent out over the great big I is encrypted. Its a matter of simple economics. Things like publicly available web sites, DNS, and even email don't need to be encrypted, nothing is gained by protecting that data. That's why it's a public service. Therefore, content providers (those deploying IDS) will never fork out the $$$ to buy equipment which can handle the load produced by millions of daily transactions that come down to just to encrypting index.html and decrypting GET index.html requests.
As an IDS analyst for the last two years in a Fortune 10 company, I can tell you from first-hand experience that 90%+ of the attacks we see on a daily basis are HTTP-based. DNS comes in second, because guess what? It's one of the needed public services offered by content providers on the Internet. Why encrypt data you're offering out to the whole world?
Nice article for CIOs, but I'm getting tired of hearing that encryption is going to get rid of NIDS. It's an omega point that we'll just never get to.
"...but a Microsoft exec said yesterday that the hugely successful worm attacks were due to 'tardy' sysadmins."
After all the hours I put in on those bloody worms & viruses, it's nice to see some fallout against Microsoft, those who set the scene for such silliness. If they take responsibility for creating an insecure environment with their OS and software, they do severe damage to their brand and franchise value. If they do what they're doing now, biting the hands which feed them, ie those in the trenches making their crappy software work in production, then they will likely alienate many of the hordes of SAs which help them maintain their current position in the Enterprise & SOHOs.
Squirm, MS, Squirm.
Not wierd, just nieve and uninformed.
Just like if one black person is a criminal, all black people are criminals.
Obviously you didn't read my original posting. I'll keep this one short. Here's what I said before: Nice strawman you set up, but you comparison is completely invalid. Racism is racism because the groups who are the targets of racism have no control over thier birth-elements: color, ethnicity, etc. What they do with themselves afterwards is all people should be judged by. The important point is that CEOs and sharewhoreders are being judged by their actions, not how they were born.
It is apparent that you've are lacking experience in this arena, have never worked for a major corporation, and don't pay much attention to what goes on in the world. When you've tasted more of life, understand human nature, and have an appreciation for the matter at hand, we can continue this discourse.
Nice strawman you set up, but you comparison is completely invalid. Racism is racism because the groups who are the targets of racism have no control over thier birth-elements: color, ethnicity, etc. What they do with themselves afterwards is all people should be judged by.
The important point is that CEOs and sharewhoreders are being judged by their actions, not how they were born. Now, let's diasect your statements:
The "bigwigs" didn't just line their own pockets, they lined yours, too...You entered an agreement to do a certain amount of work for a certain amount of pay.
Sadly, that is a propaganda item of capitilistic sentiment that rarely plays out in the real world. In the case of salary positions, you agree to work for 40hrs a week. It is a part of corporate culture in the US today that you work 60-80 hrs per week. So already an employee is getting paid 33% less than agreed to. Never mind the fact that even in IT pay for work is rarely reflective of the revenue these worker bees generate. Let's also not forget that what these guys make is orders of magnitude below the fat cats. And what, pray tell, do these people do to *earn* that money besides exploit others?
What does it matter what anyone else in the company makes?
It makes a difference because when new hardware is needed to meet resource requirements or more people are needed to meet the workload, the management structure (composed of mostly shareholders) balks, stalls, and outright denies these expenditures. They then claim the "savings" as achievements to their seniors, get fat bonuses, more stock options, which as often as not equal the "savings" they achieved by withholding critical resources from their employees who then had to work an extra 20-40 hours a week to handle the fallout.
Why do you feel the need to be envious of the deal someone else works out with the company? If you want to earn what they earn, no one is stopping you.
See above. I can't just "apply" to be a shareholder, I have to either claw my way up the management chain by treating employees as listed above, or have lotsa money to start with. It's the "old boys club" we all know and love. In a just society, they would be charged with conspiracy and racketeering. As it is, we call them leaders of the community, and turn a blind eye to the crimes they can and do commit because of their wealth and power.
And as for advancement through the managment tree, let's not forget how that's never linked to skill and ability, but rather is achieved through politicking, backstabing, and taking credit for others' hard work; either earnest line managers who are too honest and care too much for their employees to be promoted, or their over-worked employees.
But back to the main subject, if you want to make a specific complaint against a specific company, or specific individual in that company, that's one thing but baseless generalizations just foster unreasonable hatred.
Unreasonable hatred? Bullocks! As stated earlier, these fat cats have earned their reputation. Pursuit of weath is fine, but only when its done without being a harmful parasite who feeds off of the honest work of others. Moreover, wretched excess is completely unjustifiable and very harmful to society (power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely...).
Again, if you don't want to work in that environment, that's fine. Work for...[blah]...[blah]...But don't assume someone is greedy because they make more money than you.
So if they are not greedy, why do they insist on making such money at the expense of their much-used and abused employees and John Q. Public? Shall we look at the earnings some of these bastards make on options alone? From Yahoo!:
From JP Morgan -
22-May-01 WARNER, DOUGLAS A Chairman of the Board, Director, Officer 100,000 JPM Sold at $50.00/Share. Proceeds of $5,000,000.
From GE -
27-Mar-01 BLAKE, FRANCIS S Vice President 75,000 GE Exercised Options at Average of $8.28/Share and Sold at $41.66/Share. Proceeds of $2,503,200.
From Ford:
24-May-01 COSGROVE, WILLIAM J Vice President 81,189 F (Common PAR $0.01) Exercised Options at Average of $11.12/Share and Sold at $25.11/Share. Proceeds of $1,135,490.
From Compaq: 8-Feb-01 ROMAN, KENNETH Director 130,000 CPQ Exercised Options at$ 2.25/Share and Sold at $24.11/Share. Proceeds of $2,841,800.
So again, what have these people *done* to justify these earnings? How can they justify owning such wealth (remember, these are just single transactions!) when there is so much need and want in the world by people better than they?
And let us close by not forgetting the fact of what happens when times get tough, as they are getting today. What happens? Do these fat cats cut back on their excess, and support the employees whose blood, sweat, and tears have earned that weath? No, they cut jobs left and right, and do nothing much to help by cutting back from their own weath and earnings. So I see your point, they aren't greedy after all!
As I said, nice straw man, but your arguments don't hold. Perhaps my writings are a bit extreme, but after working in a Fortune 10 company, these views were born and nurtured through what I have seen and experienced on the job. So why don't I get another? Because relatively my company does pay better than others and I have a family to feed. Of course, by comparison, it is still much much much less than these non-greedy, unjustly-hated business men make off of my and my fellows labor.
By that very same token, they are able to exert extra power over me, making me work outragous hours and making outrageous demands, because they know I can't make as much money anywere else. So I (and many others) don't have the ability to go anywhere else. Besides, where should we go? It's all the same everywhere. Just go to Yahoo for proof, and spend some time looking at insider trading. Or, spend some time in a company and actually pay attention to what happens. There is nothing noble or justifyable about the actions or attitudes of management or shareholders.
This is too depressing, I'm going to bed.
I'm an avid FreeBSD user, so I am really glad to see FBSD technology making its way into the Linux camp. I hope many Linux newbies benefit from this. I believe it or not, I found FBSD easier than Linux when I knew nothing about UNIX. The Ports Tree was a huge part of that.
;)
But let me see if I've got this right...the FreeBSD ports tree is a port of Linux/nonBSD-UNIX based software (mostly Linux based) to FreeBSD, and now someone has taken it and ported it back to Linux...heh.
(Okay, okay, I realize it's the actual ports tree system which is being ported, but still...
Actually, 486's are still very useful in the home. I presently use a 486 as a firewall for my cable modem/home network, and I built another one for my parents' cable setup.
I could also imagine using a 486 as a terminal server, a print server, and possibly NIDS in a low-throughput network.
486's would also be useful as play systems. I'd love to have half a dozen to test different network setups. I could install Solaris x86 on all of them and learn about NIS. Alternatively, I could set up a bunch of Linux machines and cluster them into a Beowulf cluster. Just for kicks!
Liberated software sounds like a euphemism for warez.
.02$
So let's call it Liberty Software . I think that has a better ring to it anyway. It sounds like the "Liberty Ships" of World War II. And of course, in the US it has that strong connection with the Founding Fathers, etc.
I have to say that I strongly agree with the original poster on the liberty sub-thread here. I find the whole whole Free==(beer|speech) thing can get confusing even though I wholeheartedly believe, support, and evangelize the free speech side of it. It seems to me that we can't realistically expect people who aren't "in the loop" to regularly differenciate between the two. Liberty Software spells it all out, leaving not much room for doubt.
Most people do just associate the word free with no money/cost.
Just my
Unfortunatly, Fortune 500 is not driven by cost alone. Senior managers are driven by other motives, including reputation of the closed-source vendor company, white papers by big consulting companies (who have the same feeling about said vendors), owning shares in said vendors (illegal but it happens), and of course, the old "no one ever got fired for buying [fill in the blank]".
I hope your white paper is successful, but after 2 years in a Fortune 10 company, I'm not too optimistic.
And, really, do any of us give a flying fsck if PHBs love free software or not? The choice will still always be OURS - and that's the important part.
I don't really give a ff if PHBs love free software or not, but I do care about whether or not they're willing to deploy it in a production environment in place of Windows9x/NT/2K/XP.
While I may love running Linux and FreeBSD at home, the only place I can run it in my little domain at work (a Fortune 10 company) is in the lab. And then, only because I do IT security, and need to simulate "hostile hacker boxes" to test various security implementations. A lot of our infrastructure is NT/2K because we aren't allowed to use Linux (even though many vendors are now supporting it).
Why? Because PHBs and senior executives not only don't love Free Software or Open Source, but also because they are 1.)scared of using something which "isn't supported by a vendor" 2.)not interested in deploying something they where they can't own stock in the vendor company 3.)Don't really care about cost differences, only want to pass the next corporate audit, etc.
Sadly, I've learned since I came to corporate from Academia that the article's author is spot on - perception is everyting! The only way to gain ground in corporate is to get the right perception out there, and to get more vendors to write software to support Linux and *BSD.
So why do I care if FS/OS gets adopted in the workplace? Because I spend anywhere from 40-60 hours a week in the workplace, and what we use there has a serious influence in how much time I can spend at home on what technology. I've actually got Win2K at home, and I'm working on an MCSE (shudder!) because there's so much Windows at work. Granted, I'm working on SAIR Linux and Solaris certifications also, but because of the environment at work, I'm spending 33% less time on UNIX technology, just to ensure my resume is spiffy when a PHB/Senior Exec looks at it.
That's why I care what they think.
but what exactly is a "LAN party"?
Let's see...Open Source is about the free exchange of information and ideas. The first amendment was written to guarantee freedom of speech.
Yeah those two don't jive at all, do they?
MS is getting really desperate here. Since there is no entity to strike back at in this case, they're trying to do the next best thing. Strike back at the rights and liberties of their very customer base (US citizenry).
What next, a law prohbiting competition against Microsoft?
If you have FreeBSD, check out FreeBSD Splash Screens for how to build what you need into the kernel. There's a few other instructions to follow, too.
Considering that the vendor companies have limited resources, it's the only way to make most of them take responsibility for their own product's quality. As a member of the InfoSec community, this warms my heart.
I went to University for a Bachelors in Chemistry, then a Masters in the same. Now I've had a high-paying, really fun job in a company's IT department (not a chemical company) doing both development and production work. I love my job, and like the perks. I don't think I could have done any of it without the discipline I learned in my two degrees, however. College taught me how to reason logically, how to effetively go about solving problems, and how to organize my work.
From what I've experienced here in the trenches, I do question whether or not a Computer Science degree is necessary. If one has the skills and the passion, all that's really need (and is sorely lacking in the workplace) is discipline and strucutre. That's what a person should bring out of college. Science degrees are probably most useful, but I'll wager other degrees would be helpful too.
What happend to the old Slashdot??
As far as I can tell, it's alive and kicking.
Being that 2600 is "The Hacker Quarterly", and what I find to be a useful resource as a geek and hacker (old-school definition), I don't see what the complaint is about. How the mainstream power institutions treat members of the nerd community, particularly those of our press, should be considered some of the most important "News for Nerds".
The police apparently knew who he was, as he was arrested while walking down a street talking on a phone. Reports are conflicting as to whether he's being held on a million dollars bail or $500,000. He's being charged with a misdemeanor, according to the Philadelphia Police web site....
Naturally, the mainstream media has been very quiet about this.
This scares the piss out of me. I certainly consider it "News for Nerds".
Of course you're right on all of that, but consider this:
Say Microsoft wins on this appeal, and the process takes until January Let's also say that Bush wins the election (shudder). It would be up to the Justice Department to appeal the appelate court's decision, but if the Adminstration changes, it could choose not to pursue that.
What M$ is doing is trying to buy time before the election. Bill Gates it banking on the prospect of GW Bush getting elected. When the administrations switch, Mr. Bush will doubtlessly stop the Justice Department from pursuing this whole thing.
God forbid it happen this way.
So if I download and use shareware or regular sofware for a "limited trial license", I'm not obligated to pay for regular license since I didn't pay for the copy I obtained, right?