you have to wonder how Google's execs will react to an SCO approach.
Hmm.. I don't think they'll pay up, for a couple of reasons.
First of all, the infamous Joe Sixpack has never heard of SCO, perhaps not even of Unix or Linux. He hasn't been paying any attention to this ridiculous lawsuit and never will. Google, on the other hand, is a household name. A lawsuit from a company with a dubious background (much like the SearchKing fiasco) is not going to make much of a difference in Google's IPO.
Secondly, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google's founders (and executives!), aren't your average dummy. These guys are know what BS SCO is making up and I'm confident that they'll react appropriately.
From the article: ...does not apply to a mobile, digital terminal installed in an authorized emergency vehicle or to a motor vehicle providing emergency road service or roadside assistance.
I'm sick of hearing about Ogg. Great, it's free as in beer and freedom. I'm pro freedom. But seriously, it's not going to catch on. mp3 is here to stay my friends, and while ogg may be a technically superior format, the rest of the world is not going to convert the mp3 collection to ogg's. It's just not going to happen. And if nobody converts their files to ogg's, why would manufacturers waste development time and costs putting ogg support into their products?
Maybe I'm being cynical but I think it would take a miracle at this point.
I'm really diggin Railroad Tycoon 3 right now. Great game for any fan of the Civilization/Colonization/Sim City-types of games. Of course, everything is much better on my new Samsung 213t 21" LCD:)
I once accidently deleted a file under my shiny new ext3 file system. Now, under and ext2 fs it is a piece of cake to recover a lost file - unmount the partition (ok, a little tougher if it's the root fs, but nonetheless) and go at it. Not so easy under ext3, however. I had to get a hard drive examination tool, dd the entire partition into a single image, and vi the (~13GB) file,/ing for the bits and pieces of my file.
So now this woman has to pay her lawyers to defend herself, right? She was wrongly accused, in fact did absolutely nothing wrong, yet she is still forced to pay fees? And countersuing for legal costs is such a pain that it's not even worth it. If she did win against the deep-pocketed RIAA lawyers, it would still be a headache and tons of time.
did this in a much more reasonable manner. When RESnet users open a browser after connecting to the network the first time, they are redirected to a MAC registration page. They use their campus-wide username/password to register their MAC address. The networking group wrote a script that redirects them to a php script that checks if they have patched or not. If so, they proceed to the registration page. Otherwise they are given instructions on how to patch. After they patch, reboot, and open a browser they are once again redirected to the script, which verifies that they have indeed registered and they go on their merry way.
Jeebus Entrager, what kind of stick in the mud are you? I am also a CS major at CU. In fact, we've probably run in to one another at some point... but from my perspective, partying is where it's at. I get my best ideas while dropping car bombs at the Pearl Street bars. The ladies dig the drunken CS majors too!
Not that MSN doesn't have a vested interest in some other search engine or anything.
This is pointed out everytime a negative (from most of Slashdot readers' viewpoint) article is written at MSN (as if we didn't know already). However, there have been plenty of seemingly unbiased articles written and "printed" at MSN as well. Even this one recognizes Google as the superior search engine and doensn't mention MSN's alternative at all.
Support is hard, because software has a nearly infinite number of combinations. If you're going to provide reliable, accurate support, you can only have expertise in a small subset of those configurations.
Agreed, support IS hard. But I disagree that "you can only have expertise in a small subset of those configurations." Take, for instance, a typical University or ISP helpdesk. There is a HUGE variety of issues that must be supported, almost all due to user error. The point of the helpdesk is to be helpful in as wide a variety of areas as possible. Well-organized helpdesks accomplish this invaluable service with just a few weeks of training.
Your examples are not valid here. "experimental kernel patches, or ancient/buggy software, or that a fault seemed to be caused by a random frob off SourceForge that you'd never heard of" are not the software in question. ReiserFS is a stable and mature filesystem in use by millions (read: made up statistic) of people. It is not fair for a distribution, who should be promoting competition rather than inhibiting it, to disallow use of software because of personal issues.
I'm glad Linus has enough foresight to include it in the kernel.
You do all understand that while the GPL doesn't permit tying by license, distros have now moved to using threats of invalidating support contracts to achieve the market leverage they need to exclude competitors, yes?
I wasn't aware of this at all. I'd like to see this expanded, i.e. what distros are doing this? Does it violate any GPL issues? Why are these distros undermining the glue that holds Linux together? What does Linux think?
Competition is important. Hans is exactly right when he says that no support contract should tie a customer to a specific piece of software. Free software is all about choice!
Slashdot Mirror
My favorite thing about Internet journalism is the quality of writing:
"A quotable quote in the Wall Street Journal has an IBM spokeswoman claiming that it's...."
Riiiight. Is it just me or is the writing online much, much worse than in newspapers and magazines?
Ben
you have to wonder how Google's execs will react to an SCO approach.
Hmm.. I don't think they'll pay up, for a couple of reasons.
First of all, the infamous Joe Sixpack has never heard of SCO, perhaps not even of Unix or Linux. He hasn't been paying any attention to this ridiculous lawsuit and never will. Google, on the other hand, is a household name. A lawsuit from a company with a dubious background (much like the SearchKing fiasco) is not going to make much of a difference in Google's IPO.
Secondly, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google's founders (and executives!), aren't your average dummy. These guys are know what BS SCO is making up and I'm confident that they'll react appropriately.
I'm curious... how do you monitor how much bandwidth you use? I'm using a Debian box as my router and I'd like to set it up to log my monthly usage.
Thanks for any help..
From the article:
...does not apply to a mobile, digital terminal installed in an authorized emergency vehicle or to a motor vehicle providing emergency road service or roadside assistance.
RTFA before posting.
Damn... :)
"None of these is a magic bullet. But together, they can force junk mail down to levels we can all live with.
Items 26-33"
I think they meant Silver Bullet, thanks to Fred Brooks' Mythical Man Month.
I'm in the final stages of the recruitment and hiring process for a silicon valley startup.
:) Did it work, btw?
Perhaps it's time to update your sig.
I'm going to say "Where the ogg version?" :)
At the risk of wasting some karma...
I'm sick of hearing about Ogg. Great, it's free as in beer and freedom. I'm pro freedom. But seriously, it's not going to catch on. mp3 is here to stay my friends, and while ogg may be a technically superior format, the rest of the world is not going to convert the mp3 collection to ogg's. It's just not going to happen. And if nobody converts their files to ogg's, why would manufacturers waste development time and costs putting ogg support into their products?
Maybe I'm being cynical but I think it would take a miracle at this point.
I'm really diggin Railroad Tycoon 3 right now. Great game for any fan of the Civilization/Colonization/Sim City-types of games. Of course, everything is much better on my new Samsung 213t 21" LCD :)
FP!
It often takes a couple of months for the duty bill to show up. Ask me how I know. :(
Can you expand on this a little? I'm interesting in seeing what sort of costs go into have things imported from overseas.
I think the "IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service" is from iTunes as well. Can anyone verify this?
Ben
I once accidently deleted a file under my shiny new ext3 file system. Now, under and ext2 fs it is a piece of cake to recover a lost file - unmount the partition (ok, a little tougher if it's the root fs, but nonetheless) and go at it. Not so easy under ext3, however. I had to get a hard drive examination tool, dd the entire partition into a single image, and vi the (~13GB) file, /ing for the bits and pieces of my file.
Now I use snapshot style backup scheme. Works great.
On the other hand, you're going to give me a hard time for a little 100k difference? Admit it, you love to nitpick!
Ahh, but what would slashdot be without nitpickers?! This site is based on unimportant details that are made in to a big deal!
Just ask the grammar nazi...
If you installed the previous update, the size of the new update is small, ~680K...
... but it reported 580k for me. :)
Rather, What Good is a Free MUD Client?
:)
So now this woman has to pay her lawyers to defend herself, right? She was wrongly accused, in fact did absolutely nothing wrong, yet she is still forced to pay fees? And countersuing for legal costs is such a pain that it's not even worth it. If she did win against the deep-pocketed RIAA lawyers, it would still be a headache and tons of time.
That sucks.
Titan's been one of my favorite moons ever since junior high science.
Man, a you have a favorite moon? And it has been the same since Jr. High?
I wonder how many wedgies you got...
did this in a much more reasonable manner. When RESnet users open a browser after connecting to the network the first time, they are redirected to a MAC registration page. They use their campus-wide username/password to register their MAC address. The networking group wrote a script that redirects them to a php script that checks if they have patched or not. If so, they proceed to the registration page. Otherwise they are given instructions on how to patch. After they patch, reboot, and open a browser they are once again redirected to the script, which verifies that they have indeed registered and they go on their merry way.
Downtime was essentially nada.
Univ. of Colorado at Boulder
Jeebus Entrager, what kind of stick in the mud are you? I am also a CS major at CU. In fact, we've probably run in to one another at some point... but from my perspective, partying is where it's at. I get my best ideas while dropping car bombs at the Pearl Street bars. The ladies dig the drunken CS majors too!
Err.. oh, it's you!
=p
Not that MSN doesn't have a vested interest in some other search engine or anything.
This is pointed out everytime a negative (from most of Slashdot readers' viewpoint) article is written at MSN (as if we didn't know already). However, there have been plenty of seemingly unbiased articles written and "printed" at MSN as well. Even this one recognizes Google as the superior search engine and doensn't mention MSN's alternative at all.
The implications, however, in the post-Sept. 11 world, were enough....
In this post-September 11th world, I'm getting REALLY sick of that phrase.
Support is hard, because software has a nearly infinite number of combinations. If you're going to provide reliable, accurate support, you can only have expertise in a small subset of those configurations.
Agreed, support IS hard. But I disagree that "you can only have expertise in a small subset of those configurations." Take, for instance, a typical University or ISP helpdesk. There is a HUGE variety of issues that must be supported, almost all due to user error. The point of the helpdesk is to be helpful in as wide a variety of areas as possible. Well-organized helpdesks accomplish this invaluable service with just a few weeks of training.
Your examples are not valid here. "experimental kernel patches, or ancient/buggy software, or that a fault seemed to be caused by a random frob off SourceForge that you'd never heard of" are not the software in question. ReiserFS is a stable and mature filesystem in use by millions (read: made up statistic) of people. It is not fair for a distribution, who should be promoting competition rather than inhibiting it, to disallow use of software because of personal issues.
I'm glad Linus has enough foresight to include it in the kernel.
What does Linux think?
Linus*
Damned slashcode. Why can't I go fix it?
You do all understand that while the GPL doesn't permit tying by license, distros have now moved to using threats of invalidating support contracts to achieve the market leverage they need to exclude competitors, yes?
I wasn't aware of this at all. I'd like to see this expanded, i.e. what distros are doing this? Does it violate any GPL issues? Why are these distros undermining the glue that holds Linux together? What does Linux think?
Competition is important. Hans is exactly right when he says that no support contract should tie a customer to a specific piece of software. Free software is all about choice!
As The Dude would say, "this is a bummer, man..."
Ben