I don't think the numbers explain it -- the teachers union has enormous clout, as do other groups smaller than geeks. With geeks busy with their positions of responsibility, pretty independent by their nature (therefore, not tending to join political groups), and leaning politically toward smaller government; that probably keeps them uninvolved with government and ignored by "big government" types -- the people who actually runs things.
I would love to see some numbers on the breakdown on the money spent on political lobbiests for the various industries and demographic groups.
But that doesn't mean that the threat of forks is significant. Many small forks can, and will, happen. The danger arises only when more than one of them commands a large audience.
Will the Linux community follow two different forks en mass? I am not so sure.
...you just wouldn't be able to distribute the binary if you didn't also make the source available.
IIRC, the GPL only controls distribution, not what you actually do with the OS in-house. Of course, that implies that if General Motors distributed a proprietary Linux to all their employees, the employees would also have a right to the source code. I guess that the employees would also have the right to redistribute the whole thing. They might get fired, but probably would be legally safe.;) (IANACL)
Good question. I think it's fairly safe to assume that they will only be compatible in the 32-bit modes. For 64-bit purposes, add one more architecture that will have to be supported, if successful. In reality, of course, it is usually not that bad, as this may increase the chance that another 64-bit architecture will fall by the wayside.
Rootprompt.org is all new code and written in PHP. However, slashdot has influenced a *lot* of websites, and several complete weblog packages. Recently I made the mistake of assuming that Technocrat.net was based on an early version of slash. I later learned that it was based on squishdot. Heck, lots of stuff looks like slash nowadays. (I have since corrected the error, as is suggested by the "updated" date;).
"Cooperation works. Competition is destructive..."
Certainly cooperation works on a small scale -- where people know each other well. As for it working on a larger scale, I'll leave defending that position up to you. You might start by refuting the incentives that drive the prisoner's dilemma.
Competition, alas, is the iron law of life. Observe any life form on our busy little planet. All are engaged in well-founded economic strategies which they must execute well or fall prey to the competition. What makes you think that we are somehow exempt?
Bah. The Starship Traders will descend upon them and blow their primative craft into so much space debris. They're gonna need more than wookies to get outa this one!
Just because the "blatant, outrageous absurdity of the DMCA" is obvious to us, don't expect it to appear unreasonable to those who have no clue.
As for your statements arguing that all property is morally indefensible, I am curious upon what concepts such a morality is based. Could you elaborate?
Your experience and your practical questions demonstrate rather clearly just how poorly this law was thought out.
The entire thing so unworkable that it would not be imposed on an older (that is, better understood by our representatives) segment of our society. Unfortunately for us, cyberspace is changing too fast for non-specialists to understand it. Further, it is threatening another established niche every day. This is a recipe for serious trouble, and we will see more and more of it in the years to come.
Good point. Wouldn't it be better to have a joint venture with open participation? To have one company sponsor it helps perpetuation the popular perception of "Red Hat as Linux".
At least, this opens a void and a window of opportunity.
Color me wrong, but why haven't the "half-dozen or so known Linux viruses" been detectable on the virometer yet? Sure, the boom is "coming", but why haven't the viruses that are already here had any success?
"free medical and education for everyone. can you beat that?"
Free!? Wow, that must be some economic system to give everyone something for nothing. Pity us fools walking around saying dumb things like "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch".
Here, the only thing that is free is free as in speech, not free as in beer. *sigh*
...If you maintain a database of "border" routers (pun intended:) and verify each session through a facility like traceroute to verify that it doesn't cross an international border.
Why wouldn't that work?
If that's what they are doing, let me state for the (patent office) record that it is at least obvious to me.
Good point. But even if the contract looks squeaky clean, history suggests that it is a Bad Thing when Microsoft can control or strongly influence a protocol. An open protocol would seem be the proper answer. Anyone know if there is any activity out there working toward this?
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, record companies -- you can't hold back the tide. Get over it.
Cringely has a nice article about this over at pbs.
The search button is tiny with no form... but it turns up a story lead-in about the remake.
There is nothing on the front page of Variety. I don't have an account -- there could be a story in there.
*cough* I see... :)
What are your targets for high-end scalability for MySQL and do you have plans to compete at the very top of that market?
I don't think the numbers explain it -- the teachers union has enormous clout, as do other groups smaller than geeks. With geeks busy with their positions of responsibility, pretty independent by their nature (therefore, not tending to join political groups), and leaning politically toward smaller government; that probably keeps them uninvolved with government and ignored by "big government" types -- the people who actually runs things.
I would love to see some numbers on the breakdown on the money spent on political lobbiests for the various industries and demographic groups.
But that doesn't mean that the threat of forks is significant. Many small forks can, and will, happen. The danger arises only when more than one of them commands a large audience.
Will the Linux community follow two different forks en mass? I am not so sure.
...you just wouldn't be able to distribute the binary if you didn't also make the source available.
;) (IANACL)
IIRC, the GPL only controls distribution, not what you actually do with the OS in-house. Of course, that implies that if General Motors distributed a proprietary Linux to all their employees, the employees would also have a right to the source code. I guess that the employees would also have the right to redistribute the whole thing. They might get fired, but probably would be legally safe.
...it sure has a soothing effect on many "security experts", eh?
I'd pick OpenBSD against any closed source OS in a security hack-off.
Good question. I think it's fairly safe to assume that they will only be compatible in the 32-bit modes. For 64-bit purposes, add one more architecture that will have to be supported, if successful. In reality, of course, it is usually not that bad, as this may increase the chance that another 64-bit architecture will fall by the wayside.
If the demand is high for this service (I'll bet it will be!), how will they keep up? Will they:
a) Just let it bog down until the lag balances with the demand?
b) Limit user accounts to an amount the allocated resources can support?
c) Just keep adding new machines, indefinitely?
Rootprompt.org is all new code and written in PHP. However, slashdot has influenced a *lot* of websites, and several complete weblog packages. Recently I made the mistake of assuming that Technocrat.net was based on an early version of slash. I later learned that it was based on squishdot. Heck, lots of stuff looks like slash nowadays. (I have since corrected the error, as is suggested by the "updated" date ;).
...of "Advagato" or whatever it is... anyone?
(advagato is surely misspelled -- it gets no hits on google)
"Cooperation works. Competition is destructive..."
Certainly cooperation works on a small scale -- where people know each other well. As for it working on a larger scale, I'll leave defending that position up to you. You might start by refuting the incentives that drive the prisoner's dilemma.
Competition, alas, is the iron law of life. Observe any life form on our busy little planet. All are engaged in well-founded economic strategies which they must execute well or fall prey to the competition. What makes you think that we are somehow exempt?
Bah. The Starship Traders will descend upon them and blow their primative craft into so much space debris. They're gonna need more than wookies to get outa this one!
Just because the "blatant, outrageous absurdity of the DMCA" is obvious to us, don't expect it to appear unreasonable to those who have no clue.
As for your statements arguing that all property is morally indefensible, I am curious upon what concepts such a morality is based. Could you elaborate?
Your experience and your practical questions demonstrate rather clearly just how poorly this law was thought out.
The entire thing so unworkable that it would not be imposed on an older (that is, better understood by our representatives) segment of our society. Unfortunately for us, cyberspace is changing too fast for non-specialists to understand it. Further, it is threatening another established niche every day. This is a recipe for serious trouble, and we will see more and more of it in the years to come.
Indeed. "Standards" from Microsoft are things that they control and can change unilaterally when it's to their advantage to do so.
Good point. Wouldn't it be better to have a joint venture with open participation? To have one company sponsor it helps perpetuation the popular perception of "Red Hat as Linux".
At least, this opens a void and a window of opportunity.
Color me wrong, but why haven't the "half-dozen or so known Linux viruses" been detectable on the virometer yet? Sure, the boom is "coming", but why haven't the viruses that are already here had any success?
"free medical and education for everyone. can you beat that?"
Free!? Wow, that must be some economic system to give everyone something for nothing. Pity us fools walking around saying dumb things like "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch".
Here, the only thing that is free is free as in speech, not free as in beer. *sigh*
...your career!
MS can consider you a source of revenue, or a pawn in their strategy for world domination for the product they are pushing this week.
Computer professionals shouldn't tie themselves to proprietary protocols.
...If you maintain a database of "border" routers (pun intended :) and verify each session through a facility like traceroute to verify that it doesn't cross an international border.
Why wouldn't that work?
If that's what they are doing, let me state for the (patent office) record that it is at least obvious to me.
Good point. But even if the contract looks squeaky clean, history suggests that it is a Bad Thing when Microsoft can control or strongly influence a protocol. An open protocol would seem be the proper answer. Anyone know if there is any activity out there working toward this?