I've read many comments suggesting that there is no cost to the airline if the passenger doesn't take the last leg of the journey, but I think it's possible there is a cost.
(I'm making a few assumptions here, most of which I think are likely/valid but if anyone can disprove this I'm open to learning something new!)
So, we have a passenger flying from A to C with a stopover at B (ie route A=>B=>C). Let's assume A/B/C are in mutually exclusive countries (as they are in this specific example). When you arrive in a different country to the one you departed, you pass through customs/immigration at the airport, unless you're transiting through (which in this case the passenger was supposed to do.) As I understand, the staff who run the customs/immigration checkpoints usually work for the government, not the airports themselves and hence I would expect the government charges the airport for the cost of those staff and hence also then the airport passes on a charge (per passenger) to each airline to process those passengers, which are built into the cost of the ticket.
So, in this case the airline expected the passenger to transit through B and pass through customs/immigration at C and hence paid a fee in advance to airport C to process this passenger. However, the passenger skipped the final flight and passed through customs/immigration at B instead. I would expect that airport B can determine from the passport number (which would be scanned at immigration) which airline (and flight) the passenger flew in on (airlines must submit full passenger manifests, even for passengers transiting through an airport) so airport B knows which airline to charge for processing this passenger. It's possible they may even charge the airline a penalty rate for not pre-paying for the processing of this passenger.
So, now the airline has paid both airports B and C to process the passenger through customs/immigration. You can argue that the airline saved money on fuel by not having the passenger on board the final flight, but who is to say that the amount saved is more than the additional processing cost paid to airport B?
>> Sony, for reasons I don't quite understand but are entirely up to them, seems unhappy about putting the publicly-available-and-not-competitively-relevant source code on their website. More power to them, but the tradeoff is spending a bunch of time rewriting software that already exists and works fine. More power to them.
I can't comment about Sony's interpretation of the GPL, but when I spoke to our CEO about using some GPL code in one of our projects, he was very nervous. Apparently the legal interpretation of the GPL that he's been given (presumably by a company lawyer) is that if we place a binary file that is compiled from GPL source (eg a windows exe) and another binary that is compiled from our own proprietory code (another windows exe) into the same zip file and email that to anyone outside the organisation then the source code for our windows exe is now covered by the GPL. I'm pretty sure this is not correct (as it seems a bit extreme), but that is the advice we're working on and hence why for now we're avoiding GPL code for this particular project.
He would be happy for us to release the source code changes for any GPL code we modify (though in this project we wouldn't need to modify anything), but obviously we want to keep our own code private.
There does seem to be a degree of uncertainty about what exactly the GPL does or doesn't require and not being a lawyer myself, I can't be certain either, so I'm forced to go by the legal advice our CEO has received, whether or not it is accurate.
>For those of you that think an old 1 meg VGA >video card will work, it doesn't really.
>Windows terminal services will only support >whatever resolution that the physical vid
>card will support.
I'm not sure where you read this, but from my experience this is not the case. I have a Win2K server here at home (yes it is licenced), and it runs headless with a shitty old 256k video card. On the console I can only get 16 colours at 640x480, but Terminal Services works happily at 1600x1200 in 256 colours.
And about the uptime, well this machine had an uptime of nearly 4 months until we had a power cut. No I can't be bothered with a UPS for a home server, even though it handled our print server, file server, DNS, DHCP, Active Directory etc. It wasn't so much a matter of cost but space, and in any case I haven't needed a UPS since then (about 9 months ago).
I should point out that I also have some headless *NIX boxes here too and the only reason they have video cards is a bios issue (damn these older motherboards!)
Well, I assume HP will build some amount into the costs of these units to cover phone support costs.
I would also assume that the cost of supporting a (non-technical) Windows user vs a (non-technical) Linux user would favour the Windows user. HP seems to think this difference is worth more than the cost of the Windows licence (assuming the hardware is identical). Maybe that's true, maybe it isn't, but they've decided it is.
If you bought the Windows version, then installed Linux, I doubt you would get any phone support (though as a Slashdot reader I doubt you will need it!)
Actually, there is a patch for these sort of problems. Details are here, or just download it directly here.
Basically, it will not allow the user to access (run, or save to disk) any executable file (.exe,.vbs) etc. Other files (like.zip) _must_ be saved to disk before being opened. This would pretty much stop this virus/trojan in its tracks.
It's been out for over a year, but it seems admins aren't deploying it (for whatever reason).
Slashdot Mirror
I've read many comments suggesting that there is no cost to the airline if the passenger doesn't take the last leg of the journey, but I think it's possible there is a cost.
(I'm making a few assumptions here, most of which I think are likely/valid but if anyone can disprove this I'm open to learning something new!)
So, we have a passenger flying from A to C with a stopover at B (ie route A=>B=>C). Let's assume A/B/C are in mutually exclusive countries (as they are in this specific example). When you arrive in a different country to the one you departed, you pass through customs/immigration at the airport, unless you're transiting through (which in this case the passenger was supposed to do.) As I understand, the staff who run the customs/immigration checkpoints usually work for the government, not the airports themselves and hence I would expect the government charges the airport for the cost of those staff and hence also then the airport passes on a charge (per passenger) to each airline to process those passengers, which are built into the cost of the ticket.
So, in this case the airline expected the passenger to transit through B and pass through customs/immigration at C and hence paid a fee in advance to airport C to process this passenger. However, the passenger skipped the final flight and passed through customs/immigration at B instead. I would expect that airport B can determine from the passport number (which would be scanned at immigration) which airline (and flight) the passenger flew in on (airlines must submit full passenger manifests, even for passengers transiting through an airport) so airport B knows which airline to charge for processing this passenger. It's possible they may even charge the airline a penalty rate for not pre-paying for the processing of this passenger.
So, now the airline has paid both airports B and C to process the passenger through customs/immigration. You can argue that the airline saved money on fuel by not having the passenger on board the final flight, but who is to say that the amount saved is more than the additional processing cost paid to airport B?
>> Sony, for reasons I don't quite understand but are entirely up to them, seems unhappy about putting the publicly-available-and-not-competitively-relevant source code on their website. More power to them, but the tradeoff is spending a bunch of time rewriting software that already exists and works fine. More power to them.
I can't comment about Sony's interpretation of the GPL, but when I spoke to our CEO about using some GPL code in one of our projects, he was very nervous. Apparently the legal interpretation of the GPL that he's been given (presumably by a company lawyer) is that if we place a binary file that is compiled from GPL source (eg a windows exe) and another binary that is compiled from our own proprietory code (another windows exe) into the same zip file and email that to anyone outside the organisation then the source code for our windows exe is now covered by the GPL. I'm pretty sure this is not correct (as it seems a bit extreme), but that is the advice we're working on and hence why for now we're avoiding GPL code for this particular project.
He would be happy for us to release the source code changes for any GPL code we modify (though in this project we wouldn't need to modify anything), but obviously we want to keep our own code private.
There does seem to be a degree of uncertainty about what exactly the GPL does or doesn't require and not being a lawyer myself, I can't be certain either, so I'm forced to go by the legal advice our CEO has received, whether or not it is accurate.
>For those of you that think an old 1 meg VGA
>video card will work, it doesn't really.
>Windows terminal services will only support
>whatever resolution that the physical vid
>card will support.
I'm not sure where you read this, but from my experience this is not the case. I have a Win2K server here at home (yes it is licenced), and it runs headless with a shitty old 256k video card. On the console I can only get 16 colours at 640x480, but Terminal Services works happily at 1600x1200 in 256 colours.
And about the uptime, well this machine had an uptime of nearly 4 months until we had a power cut. No I can't be bothered with a UPS for a home server, even though it handled our print server, file server, DNS, DHCP, Active Directory etc. It wasn't so much a matter of cost but space, and in any case I haven't needed a UPS since then (about 9 months ago).
I should point out that I also have some headless *NIX boxes here too and the only reason they have video cards is a bios issue (damn these older motherboards!)
Well, I assume HP will build some amount into the costs of these units to cover phone support costs.
I would also assume that the cost of supporting a (non-technical) Windows user vs a (non-technical) Linux user would favour the Windows user. HP seems to think this difference is worth more than the cost of the Windows licence (assuming the hardware is identical). Maybe that's true, maybe it isn't, but they've decided it is.
If you bought the Windows version, then installed Linux, I doubt you would get any phone support (though as a Slashdot reader I doubt you will need it!)
Actually, there is a patch for these sort of problems. Details are here, or just download it directly here. .vbs) etc. Other files (like .zip) _must_ be saved to disk before being opened. This would pretty much stop this virus/trojan in its tracks.
Basically, it will not allow the user to access (run, or save to disk) any executable file (.exe,
It's been out for over a year, but it seems admins aren't deploying it (for whatever reason).