The potential for Crusade was never realised. Consider the first 15 episodes of B5 and remember how the focus was Jeffery Sinclair's missing 24 hours and the reason the Minbari surrendered during the Battle of the Line? How much of that was really relevant to the subsequent years with the Shadow war?
Crusade was about the Shadow virus that would wipe out Earth in five years. By the end of the episodes made, the structure of the virus (nano-tech) was understood. I've read that the virus would be cured fairly early in the series.
There were also glimpses of what was to come - the Apolcalypse box - whatever that was, was a mystery waiting to be solved, and there was the revelation that Galen (the Technomage) has some sort of implants. The unfilmed episodes pushed the series up a gear with the revelation that the Technomages were being hunted by Earthforce for their tech.
The opening dialogue to each episode contained some stuff that was familiar, but other lines that would have probably been explored throughout the series:
Who are you? (Vorlon) What do you want? (Shadow) Where are you going? (Lorien?) Who do you serve and who do you trust?
The last one being probably the most important. Crusade was much more than we ever saw and to see it killed before being aired is very sad. I, like many B5 fans, would love to see it return and hope that TMOS (The Memory Of Shadows) will be the catalyst for this.
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" is one of the most misunderstood verses in the Bible. Understanding the context is important.
In the culture that the Old Testament was written, if I did something against you (perhaps in a fight I knocked out your tooth), the common response would be to kill me, and maybe my family as well.
The Bible was advocating restraint. Instead of wiping out my family, it's saying to only do to me what I did to you.
Jesus took it further when he said that we should "turn the other cheek". To forgive.
As a Christian I do not believe in the death penalty. As a Brit, I am glad to live in a country that has outlawed it. I believe that my life was ultimately given to me by God. It's not up to other humans to determine whether I should live or die. If I do something "evil", then I know that God shall judge me, and unlike humans, He knows the big picture and won't make mistakes.
Brightstor Enterprise Backup (aka Arcserve) on Solaris has Ingres as its database backend. The Windows versions doesn't (yet), but they are serious about moving all their products to Ingres.
I can't get the article at the moment (slow net connection), but based on the other comments, I think I have prior art on this. I'm not a genius and I suspect that others have done similar things.
Our user management is handled by two guys who don't have strong UNIX skills. They have to setup users, add mail aliases and set passwords etc. The operator type roles that sys admins like to delegate.
They are trusted individuals in the sense that they won't intentionally damage a system, but their experience is such that they can, and have caused accidental damage (one of them deleted all lines in the mailaliases file using vi by mistake).
I wrote a menu wrapper for their logins that allow them to request certain functions be performed (password wipes etc.). When they action a function, a temporary lock file is written to a directory (/var/local) that only their group can write to. A cron job, running as root, executes every minute and if a lockfile exists, will perform the command (with some sanity checking involved - e.g., it's not possible to change password if the requested user has a UID less than 100).
It's not 100% secure, but it does the job. I don't have a patent on it, but it's worked for the last couple of years without problems.
As a side note I would have loved to be in the room during the meeting when the idea for Samba De Amigo was pitched... "A monkey with maracas and dancing?"
I've always thought the same with Chu Chu Rocket and Space Channel 5:
"So there are these mice, except they're space mice, and they need to get to a rocket ship, and there are these space cats that chase them."
or
"It's a rhythm action game. But it's different because its set in the future and everyone wears 70s clothes. And aliens are invading and making people dance."
Those guys at Sega must have some really strong stuff to smoke to get ideas like that.
The company I work for supports Solaris, Unixware, Windows and AIX.
We will be dropping Unixware at the end of next month. We will be supporting Linux from that point on. Even our SCO account manager stopped calling about 12 months ago.
I personally quite liked Unixware. It was a strange OS, but it was another UNIX and something to play with.
I'm not too familar with Postgres, but I can say that Ingres scales very well in business-critical enivironments. Some of our customer databases reach 50GB without any problems. Supporting several thousand concurrent users works well. These are users running proper client/server applications, not just web databases.
I honestly don't know if postgres scales this well. Does anyone have comparative results?
You are correct that Ingres "groups" rows into pages. This is a definable parameter (2k, 4k, 8k, 16k, 32k, 64k page sizes). If you use 4k pages or greater, you get the benefit of row level locking.
Lock escalation is also a definable parameter. The locking system is actually quite sophisticated and can be tuned depending on your application requirements.
You do realise that technology has moved on quite a bit in the last 15 years?
I use Ingres (Advantage Ingres 2.6) on a daily basis, and although I haven't done any specific benchmarking, the general day to day use of it is absolutely fine performance-wise (this is on databases up to about 50GB).
I've only used Ingres for 5 years, but in that time, I have seen four different versions (6.4, OpenIngres 1.2, Ingres II 2.0 and now Advantage Ingres 2.6). There have been some pretty major developments since 1990...
I suspect that a lot of the differences between Windows and UNIX are due to their respective histories.
UNIX has traditionally been about big systems with multiple users. Networks have been a standard feature for decades. In this sort of environment, you'd naturally use some network-oriented naming service, be it NIS or LDAP.
Windows has grown from a PC background where everything is traditionally local. In a networked environment there is little need for the MACHINEA/user when there is a DOMAIN/user (some exceptions obviously exist).
I am responsible for a network consisting of an NT domain and a number of Solaris, AIX, Linux and Unixware servers. All the *NIX boxes have the same UID/GID schema because we use NIS; not the most secure solution, but suitable for our environment. We interface those users easily with Windows (and Samba) because we only administer two sets of login credentials - NT and NIS (we could do just one using winbind, but that doesn't seem right...).
The UNIX filesystem permissions schema is easy to understand and it works extremely well. Commercial UNIX has had access control lists for years (part of the POSIX standard), but I'm not aware of anyone who uses them in the real world. They are potentially useful, but most people find the UNIX UID/GID does the job well enough for 99% of the time.
Don't expect to necessarily complete your degree and walk straight into an interesting role.
After I graduated, I got a job as a "Remote support consultant" at a software house. I got it because I had UNIX experience (I knew a bit about it, but nothing significant) and showed an interest in learning new things.
That role enabled me to learn lots more about UNIX and then get involved in Cisco, Citrix and other tech that you only typically find in business.
Five years later I'm one of the senior techies and I get to play with all the new interesting things. My general rule of thumb, is that new people are generally only useful after about a year. It takes that long to learn the systems we use. If they show a particular interest in learning, I'll teach them as much as I can. It's the only way to grow decent techies.
Starting at the helpdesk is an excellent starting point, degree or not, because it give you a wide subject knowledge (I'm not referring to call center-type helpdesks). If you're good, you'll be noticed.
I work for a company that runs it's entire product base on Ingres II (2.0) and we're in the process of migrating to Advantage Ingres 2.6 (and also building a Linux version). I've also have some experience in MySQL so have a basis for comparison.
While MySQL is fine for non-critical apps, and is especially easy to use for web applications, Ingres is designed to manage large databases. We have several of the largest local authorities in the UK running Ingres on big Sun boxes (E10K / E15K) with databases in the 10s of GBs. Ingres can handle this fine. There are some things that Oracle can do that Ingres still can't, but the ease of administering an Ingres installation is trivial. I've sat down with Oracle DBAs and they have been astounded at how easy it is to create new databases, take backups etc.
The biggest weakness with Ingres has always been the lack of users (and hence a limited community). It's everywhere because most CA products that require a DB have Ingres running underneath (such as Brightstor Enterprise backup), but most people don't get to see it. Open Sourcing Ingres is very good for us, and excellent for the OSS community as it gives us a powerful, enterprise-grade DBMS server.
This is very exciting news, and DBA-gurus would be wise to check this out. W00t.
Maybe I can provide a Christian perspective on this (as I am a practicing Christian).
The Bible was not written as a scientific text book. It has a different purpose: To reveal God's interaction with humankind. Some of the language is poetic, some historic, some is written in a very pictorial language. This shouldn't be surprising if you consider the Bible is composed of 66 books written by many different people in different times and different cultural contexts.
My personal view that those who say the Bible is to be read completely literally ignores the historical context and we can easily apply our cultural norms to a situation and get something completely different out of it. I don't believe that the world was created in 7 days, although I do believe that God could do it that way if He wanted to. The point of the opening part of Genesis is to establish that God was around before the world, that He was responsible for creation (the actual details are pictorial) and that the mess we are in today is a result of us rebelling against God. That's the important bit - the relationship between God and us.
Now to stay on topic, I believe in a Creator God. A God that looked at His work and was pleased. We have a pretty rough idea of how big the universe is and the thought that it's all empty apart from this little planet may be true, but the God portrayed in the Bible is more likely to have created a universe that is teeming with life.
Was there life on Mars? I wouldn't be surprised, because if God wanted to put it there (or created the laws of physics that enable it to start) he could.
What had the potential to be the most interesting column (for me) actually had the reverse effect because the irritating French comments just made me fume.
It made me stop subscribing to the Linux Journal.
Re:Really? Infamous?
on
Review: KDE 3.2
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
And the "free" version isn't really free because I can't release anything under a non-GPL license (like a BSD type).
I'm not usually a licence zealot, and I've never actually bothered to comment about these sorts of comments before, but there is something I just don't understand. I'm sorry if you think this is a troll or flamebait - it's not, I just get frustrated when I see uninformed opinions of this nature.
The above complaint also applies to the Linux kernel and we are all perfectly happy to call that free (as in speech and beer). The same applies to QT - free speech and beer if you abide by the terms of the GPL. In fact, a large amount of open source software is exactly the same, but apparently some people have redefined "free" to mean something different.
So you can't use the free version of QT to make proprietary software. Big deal. Get over it.
Brilliant! I wonder how many of us grew up with MOD files on our Amigas/Atari STs/Archimedes/PCs. Axel F got everywhere (think I've still got it somewhere).
I'm no Microsoft apologist, but the parent post is utterly baseless. To say that Bill Gates probably wouldn't give to charitable causes if it didn't give him postive PR is cynical and insulting.
I don't know whether Gates would give money anonymously or not (he might do that for all we know), in the same way I don't know how much Slashdotters give to charity.
Blast and flame Microsoft for their monopolistic tendancies or their poor software, but give credit where credit is due. To do otherwise gives the impression that Slashdotters are a bunch of whining, immature teenagers.
(I never thought I'd see the day when I defended Bill Gates...)
I use Matrox cards and will continue to do so for any new boxes. The 2D quality of Matrox cards is *still* better than Nvidia and ATI. I will happily concede that for 3D, Matrox do not make competitive cards, but I don't run any 3D applications on my PC. For 3D, I've got a PS2.
It's all to do with finding the right tool for the job. I've yet to see a decent web browser / email client / nntp client / terminal that requires fast 3D graphics. YMMV.
Please do NOT copy this word for word. Personal faxes are better. Here's an edited version of my fax:
Dear Mr David Drew,
I am writing to you to make you aware of a very real problem that will affect the computer industry in the UK. I am a technical consultant for a software division of the ********* - one of the largest IT services companies in this country. I care passionately about this industry and want to see it succeed. Unfortunately the British Government is being encouraged to promote a draft resolution concerning software patents ("Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions") that will cause great harm to many companies in the UK.
As I am sure you are aware, the idea of patents is to foster innovation by encouraging individuals and companies to make public their work in exchange for certain rights (e.g., royalties obtained through licensing). While this concept works in many situations, the use of patents in computer software is damaging the IT industry by doing the exact opposite that was intended. This is the situation the United States finds itself in where software patents have been granted for several years.
The main problem with software patents is that it is extremely difficult for non-technical individuals to determine whether a patent is actually valid or whether it is either obvious or subject to prior art without a significant investment of time and resources. As you can imagine, this places a great burden on the organisation responsible for granting the patent. The US Patent Office has typically dealt with software patents by granting them and allowing any dispute to be argued in the courts. This has resulted in a climate where patent portfolios are used as negotiation tools when dealing with other companies - you can safely infringe on other companies' patents if they infringe on yours, creating a patent "stalemate". This is leading to a stiffling of innovation, especially with smaller companies without a portfolio.
On the 24th September, the European Parliament voted on a directive that included an ammendment that would prevent "a drift toward US-style patentability of pure software and business methods". Unfortunately, the European Commission are hostile to the aforementioned ammendment and are threatening to remove it. The British Government is being encouraged by the UK Patent Office to push a November 2002 draft that removes the ammendment in favour of a patent "free for all". The European Parliament's rules for second reading make it very difficult for MEPs to fix a bad text from the Council. Therefore is is imperative that the best possible text is promoted by the British Government.
If the November 2002 draft is accepted, it will have a negative impact on the IT industry in the UK. The only people to benefit from such a law would be the US IT industry that already has a huge patent portfolio and patent lawyers. Everyone else will lose.
A petition of over 288,000 names has been signed by people who work in IT in Europe and recognise the impact that software patents will have on both the industry and the economy. For more information on how widespread the concern for this issue is, please consult http://patents.eurolinux.org and http://swpat.ffii.org/
I appreciate that the issue of software patents is dry and not particularly interesting, but in the interests of the software industry in this country, I would ask for your help. Please could you bring this issue to the attention of Mr Stephen Timms, the Minister for E-Commerce at the DTI, forwarding my concerns.
The best (IMHO) Windows administration book is Mastering Windows 2000 Server by Mark Minasi. The writing style is informal and Minasi has experience with other OSes and doesn't automatically take the view that Windows is the best for everything. The book doesn't cover how to use the GUI like some do, but does provide an overview of stuff like remote installation services, Active Directory, policies etc.
Ignore what some other posts say - knowing UNIX will not automatically mean you know everything about Windows. To be a *good* Windows admin takes time and effort in the same way being a *good* UNIX admin takes time and effort.
My perspective is as a primarily UNIX based consultant / administrator who needs to know about Windows. This book gets five stars for providing the info I need to understand the basics.
Slashdot Mirror
The potential for Crusade was never realised. Consider the first 15 episodes of B5 and remember how the focus was Jeffery Sinclair's missing 24 hours and the reason the Minbari surrendered during the Battle of the Line? How much of that was really relevant to the subsequent years with the Shadow war?
Crusade was about the Shadow virus that would wipe out Earth in five years. By the end of the episodes made, the structure of the virus (nano-tech) was understood. I've read that the virus would be cured fairly early in the series.
There were also glimpses of what was to come - the Apolcalypse box - whatever that was, was a mystery waiting to be solved, and there was the revelation that Galen (the Technomage) has some sort of implants. The unfilmed episodes pushed the series up a gear with the revelation that the Technomages were being hunted by Earthforce for their tech.
The opening dialogue to each episode contained some stuff that was familiar, but other lines that would have probably been explored throughout the series:
Who are you? (Vorlon)
What do you want? (Shadow)
Where are you going? (Lorien?)
Who do you serve and who do you trust?
The last one being probably the most important. Crusade was much more than we ever saw and to see it killed before being aired is very sad. I, like many B5 fans, would love to see it return and hope that TMOS (The Memory Of Shadows) will be the catalyst for this.
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" is one of the most misunderstood verses in the Bible. Understanding the context is important.
In the culture that the Old Testament was written, if I did something against you (perhaps in a fight I knocked out your tooth), the common response would be to kill me, and maybe my family as well.
The Bible was advocating restraint. Instead of wiping out my family, it's saying to only do to me what I did to you.
Jesus took it further when he said that we should "turn the other cheek". To forgive.
As a Christian I do not believe in the death penalty. As a Brit, I am glad to live in a country that has outlawed it. I believe that my life was ultimately given to me by God. It's not up to other humans to determine whether I should live or die. If I do something "evil", then I know that God shall judge me, and unlike humans, He knows the big picture and won't make mistakes.
I think it's System V that's responsible for /opt.
Brightstor Enterprise Backup (aka Arcserve) on Solaris has Ingres as its database backend. The Windows versions doesn't (yet), but they are serious about moving all their products to Ingres.
I can't get the article at the moment (slow net connection), but based on the other comments, I think I have prior art on this. I'm not a genius and I suspect that others have done similar things.
Our user management is handled by two guys who don't have strong UNIX skills. They have to setup users, add mail aliases and set passwords etc. The operator type roles that sys admins like to delegate.
They are trusted individuals in the sense that they won't intentionally damage a system, but their experience is such that they can, and have caused accidental damage (one of them deleted all lines in the mailaliases file using vi by mistake).
I wrote a menu wrapper for their logins that allow them to request certain functions be performed (password wipes etc.). When they action a function, a temporary lock file is written to a directory (/var/local) that only their group can write to. A cron job, running as root, executes every minute and if a lockfile exists, will perform the command (with some sanity checking involved - e.g., it's not possible to change password if the requested user has a UID less than 100).
It's not 100% secure, but it does the job. I don't have a patent on it, but it's worked for the last couple of years without problems.
I've always thought the same with Chu Chu Rocket and Space Channel 5:
"So there are these mice, except they're space mice, and they need to get to a rocket ship, and there are these space cats that chase them."
or
"It's a rhythm action game. But it's different because its set in the future and everyone wears 70s clothes. And aliens are invading and making people dance."
Those guys at Sega must have some really strong stuff to smoke to get ideas like that.
The company I work for supports Solaris, Unixware, Windows and AIX.
We will be dropping Unixware at the end of next month. We will be supporting Linux from that point on. Even our SCO account manager stopped calling about 12 months ago.
I personally quite liked Unixware. It was a strange OS, but it was another UNIX and something to play with.
I'm not too familar with Postgres, but I can say that Ingres scales very well in business-critical enivironments. Some of our customer databases reach 50GB without any problems. Supporting several thousand concurrent users works well. These are users running proper client/server applications, not just web databases.
I honestly don't know if postgres scales this well. Does anyone have comparative results?
You are correct that Ingres "groups" rows into pages. This is a definable parameter (2k, 4k, 8k, 16k, 32k, 64k page sizes). If you use 4k pages or greater, you get the benefit of row level locking.
Lock escalation is also a definable parameter. The locking system is actually quite sophisticated and can be tuned depending on your application requirements.
You do realise that technology has moved on quite a bit in the last 15 years?
I use Ingres (Advantage Ingres 2.6) on a daily basis, and although I haven't done any specific benchmarking, the general day to day use of it is absolutely fine performance-wise (this is on databases up to about 50GB).
I've only used Ingres for 5 years, but in that time, I have seen four different versions (6.4, OpenIngres 1.2, Ingres II 2.0 and now Advantage Ingres 2.6). There have been some pretty major developments since 1990...
I suspect that a lot of the differences between Windows and UNIX are due to their respective histories.
UNIX has traditionally been about big systems with multiple users. Networks have been a standard feature for decades. In this sort of environment, you'd naturally use some network-oriented naming service, be it NIS or LDAP.
Windows has grown from a PC background where everything is traditionally local. In a networked environment there is little need for the MACHINEA/user when there is a DOMAIN/user (some exceptions obviously exist).
I am responsible for a network consisting of an NT domain and a number of Solaris, AIX, Linux and Unixware servers. All the *NIX boxes have the same UID/GID schema because we use NIS; not the most secure solution, but suitable for our environment. We interface those users easily with Windows (and Samba) because we only administer two sets of login credentials - NT and NIS (we could do just one using winbind, but that doesn't seem right...).
The UNIX filesystem permissions schema is easy to understand and it works extremely well. Commercial UNIX has had access control lists for years (part of the POSIX standard), but I'm not aware of anyone who uses them in the real world. They are potentially useful, but most people find the UNIX UID/GID does the job well enough for 99% of the time.
Forget Norway...
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/29/ for those who didn't get the parent post (also created by the www.badgerbadgerbadger.com people).
Yeah, it's offtopic, but it's also funny.
Don't expect to necessarily complete your degree and walk straight into an interesting role.
After I graduated, I got a job as a "Remote support consultant" at a software house. I got it because I had UNIX experience (I knew a bit about it, but nothing significant) and showed an interest in learning new things.
That role enabled me to learn lots more about UNIX and then get involved in Cisco, Citrix and other tech that you only typically find in business.
Five years later I'm one of the senior techies and I get to play with all the new interesting things. My general rule of thumb, is that new people are generally only useful after about a year. It takes that long to learn the systems we use. If they show a particular interest in learning, I'll teach them as much as I can. It's the only way to grow decent techies.
Starting at the helpdesk is an excellent starting point, degree or not, because it give you a wide subject knowledge (I'm not referring to call center-type helpdesks). If you're good, you'll be noticed.
A more accurate way would be to think of RAID10 as a RAID0 (stripe) of RAID1 (mirrored) disks.
RAID0+1 is two (or more) RAID0 stripes that are mirrored.
I work for a company that runs it's entire product base on Ingres II (2.0) and we're in the process of migrating to Advantage Ingres 2.6 (and also building a Linux version). I've also have some experience in MySQL so have a basis for comparison.
While MySQL is fine for non-critical apps, and is especially easy to use for web applications, Ingres is designed to manage large databases. We have several of the largest local authorities in the UK running Ingres on big Sun boxes (E10K / E15K) with databases in the 10s of GBs. Ingres can handle this fine. There are some things that Oracle can do that Ingres still can't, but the ease of administering an Ingres installation is trivial. I've sat down with Oracle DBAs and they have been astounded at how easy it is to create new databases, take backups etc.
The biggest weakness with Ingres has always been the lack of users (and hence a limited community). It's everywhere because most CA products that require a DB have Ingres running underneath (such as Brightstor Enterprise backup), but most people don't get to see it. Open Sourcing Ingres is very good for us, and excellent for the OSS community as it gives us a powerful, enterprise-grade DBMS server.
This is very exciting news, and DBA-gurus would be wise to check this out. W00t.
How would you make that C program binary executable? ;-)
Maybe I can provide a Christian perspective on this (as I am a practicing Christian).
The Bible was not written as a scientific text book. It has a different purpose: To reveal God's interaction with humankind. Some of the language is poetic, some historic, some is written in a very pictorial language. This shouldn't be surprising if you consider the Bible is composed of 66 books written by many different people in different times and different cultural contexts.
My personal view that those who say the Bible is to be read completely literally ignores the historical context and we can easily apply our cultural norms to a situation and get something completely different out of it. I don't believe that the world was created in 7 days, although I do believe that God could do it that way if He wanted to. The point of the opening part of Genesis is to establish that God was around before the world, that He was responsible for creation (the actual details are pictorial) and that the mess we are in today is a result of us rebelling against God. That's the important bit - the relationship between God and us.
Now to stay on topic, I believe in a Creator God. A God that looked at His work and was pleased. We have a pretty rough idea of how big the universe is and the thought that it's all empty apart from this little planet may be true, but the God portrayed in the Bible is more likely to have created a universe that is teeming with life.
Was there life on Mars? I wouldn't be surprised, because if God wanted to put it there (or created the laws of physics that enable it to start) he could.
What had the potential to be the most interesting column (for me) actually had the reverse effect because the irritating French comments just made me fume.
It made me stop subscribing to the Linux Journal.
I'm not usually a licence zealot, and I've never actually bothered to comment about these sorts of comments before, but there is something I just don't understand. I'm sorry if you think this is a troll or flamebait - it's not, I just get frustrated when I see uninformed opinions of this nature.
The above complaint also applies to the Linux kernel and we are all perfectly happy to call that free (as in speech and beer). The same applies to QT - free speech and beer if you abide by the terms of the GPL. In fact, a large amount of open source software is exactly the same, but apparently some people have redefined "free" to mean something different.
So you can't use the free version of QT to make proprietary software. Big deal. Get over it.
Rant over.
Brilliant! I wonder how many of us grew up with MOD files on our Amigas/Atari STs/Archimedes/PCs. Axel F got everywhere (think I've still got it somewhere).
Mod points for +6 Funny should be +1 Hilarious.
KDE is free software. The parent is talking rubbish and should not be modded insightful!
I'm no Microsoft apologist, but the parent post is utterly baseless. To say that Bill Gates probably wouldn't give to charitable causes if it didn't give him postive PR is cynical and insulting.
I don't know whether Gates would give money anonymously or not (he might do that for all we know), in the same way I don't know how much Slashdotters give to charity.
Blast and flame Microsoft for their monopolistic tendancies or their poor software, but give credit where credit is due. To do otherwise gives the impression that Slashdotters are a bunch of whining, immature teenagers.
(I never thought I'd see the day when I defended Bill Gates...)
I use Matrox cards and will continue to do so for any new boxes. The 2D quality of Matrox cards is *still* better than Nvidia and ATI. I will happily concede that for 3D, Matrox do not make competitive cards, but I don't run any 3D applications on my PC. For 3D, I've got a PS2.
It's all to do with finding the right tool for the job. I've yet to see a decent web browser / email client / nntp client / terminal that requires fast 3D graphics. YMMV.
Please do NOT copy this word for word. Personal faxes are better. Here's an edited version of my fax:
Dear Mr David Drew,
I am writing to you to make you aware of a very real problem that will affect the computer industry in the UK. I am a technical consultant for a software division of the ********* - one of the largest IT services companies in this country. I care passionately about this industry and want to see it succeed. Unfortunately the British Government is being encouraged to promote a draft resolution concerning software patents ("Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions") that will cause great harm to many companies in the UK.
As I am sure you are aware, the idea of patents is to foster innovation by encouraging individuals and companies to make public their work in exchange for certain rights (e.g., royalties obtained through licensing). While this concept works in many situations, the use of patents in computer software is damaging the IT industry by doing the exact opposite that was intended. This is the situation the United States finds itself in where software patents have been granted for several years.
The main problem with software patents is that it is extremely difficult for non-technical individuals to determine whether a patent is actually valid or whether it is either obvious or subject to prior art without a significant investment of time and resources. As you can imagine, this places a great burden on the organisation responsible for granting the patent. The US Patent Office has typically dealt with software patents by granting them and allowing any dispute to be argued in the courts. This has resulted in a climate where patent portfolios are used as negotiation tools when dealing with other companies - you can safely infringe on other companies' patents if they infringe on yours, creating a patent "stalemate". This is leading to a stiffling of innovation, especially with smaller companies without a portfolio.
On the 24th September, the European Parliament voted on a directive that included an ammendment that would prevent "a drift toward US-style patentability of pure software and business methods". Unfortunately, the European Commission are hostile to the aforementioned ammendment and are threatening to remove it. The British Government is being encouraged by the UK Patent Office to push a November 2002 draft that removes the ammendment in favour of a patent "free for all". The European Parliament's rules for second reading make it very difficult for MEPs to fix a bad text from the Council. Therefore is is imperative that the best possible text is promoted by the British Government.
If the November 2002 draft is accepted, it will have a negative impact on the IT industry in the UK. The only people to benefit from such a law would be the US IT industry that already has a huge patent portfolio and patent lawyers. Everyone else will lose.
A petition of over 288,000 names has been signed by people who work in IT in Europe and recognise the impact that software patents will have on both the industry and the economy. For more information on how widespread the concern for this issue is, please consult http://patents.eurolinux.org and http://swpat.ffii.org/
I appreciate that the issue of software patents is dry and not particularly interesting, but in the interests of the software industry in this country, I would ask for your help. Please could you bring this issue to the attention of Mr Stephen Timms, the Minister for E-Commerce at the DTI, forwarding my concerns.
Thanking you in anticipation.
Regards
The best (IMHO) Windows administration book is Mastering Windows 2000 Server by Mark Minasi. The writing style is informal and Minasi has experience with other OSes and doesn't automatically take the view that Windows is the best for everything. The book doesn't cover how to use the GUI like some do, but does provide an overview of stuff like remote installation services, Active Directory, policies etc.
Ignore what some other posts say - knowing UNIX will not automatically mean you know everything about Windows. To be a *good* Windows admin takes time and effort in the same way being a *good* UNIX admin takes time and effort.
My perspective is as a primarily UNIX based consultant / administrator who needs to know about Windows. This book gets five stars for providing the info I need to understand the basics.
Mod me up - this was informative.