People would call me a lunatic if I said something like that in public, and yet writing a textbook that derives all of multivariable calculus and its applications from scratch is a trivial task compared to, say, memorizing the correct spelling for the 5'000 most common English words.
It is?
I can probably spell 5,000 words of French correctly... and I don't even speak French! Seriously, learning to spell 5,000 words isn't asking much. In fact, it's the equivalent of asking someone to read something once in a while.
Oracle is trying to kill MySQL because SAP wanted to use MySQL as an option for their systems to prevent customers from buying an Oracle database.
This is a typical kneejerk reaction, and I keep hearing it, but it doesn't make any sense to me. Oracle isn't stupid. Oracle knows that:
Oracle can't "kill" MySQL so long as it's open source.
It would be a waste of time, money, and energy to kill MySQL when PostgreSQL, Ingres, and Firebird all still exist.
There will always be customers who want to use open source because it costs nothing and it's pointless for a company that wants people to pay for software to pursue those customers.
Besides, why would Oracle want to kill MySQL so it can be the de facto back end for SAP? Not only would it not work (as mentioned above) but Oracle isn't really interested in being the back end for SAP. In the long run, Oracle wants to be SAP.
Well, any shmoe may be able to slap together the hardware, but to do it in any quantity takes an initial investment. The point is that Comcast has made that investment, and any further investments can only go toward improving the software interface. And it makes perfect sense that Comcast would continue to invest in that way, because it's a smaller outlay than the initial cost of designing, prototyping and manufacturing the hardware, and improves the return on that earlier investment. It's the only logical next step.
I agree with the original poster; this all will happen. Whether it means Comcast hires a bunch of UI designers or they license ReplayTV, it's only a matter of time.
No matter how many new PCs ship with Vista, there is going to be 3 to 5 years before it dominates the market because that's the approximate time it will take for the existing installed base of PCs to be renewed. Can MS wait that long? Can apps writers? Can the media companies?
Well let's see. Right now, on the desktop, the most recent OS is Windows XP, which came out in -- what? 2002? And the entire installed base has not yet upgraded. The most recent server OS is Windows Server 2003, and the entire installed base has not yet upgraded. The most recent version of the Office suite (the next version of which will arrive around the same time as Vista) is Office 2003, and yet my entire office is still using the 2002 edition.
So I'd say yes; Microsoft, at least, can wait -- is accustomed, in fact, to waiting.
The whole of human creativity depends on building upon the works of others.
That may be true to an extent, but I don't necessarily see that it has anything to do with copyright.
If I wrote a story about two young lovers whose families were feuding and they ended up killing themselves, anybody would recognize that as a take on Shakespeare. The question is: If "Romeo and Juliet" were copyrighted right now, would I be infringing on its copyright?
Seems to me that a copyright protects a specific expression, not an idea. If there are only six plots in the world -- or however many they say there are -- those plots aren't copyrighted. Only the stories that build upon those plots are. I can use the same general idea as Shakespeare without stealing his exact words.
This idea of the "remix culture" bothers me. Again and again people repeat this idea that the only way to be creative is to swipe from someone else. This does not strike me as true creativity. Make your own music. Write your own stories. Copyright isn't holding you back; your own intellectual laziness is. Why not channel some of the energy you would expend on repealing copyright laws into creating something original and worthwhile of your own?
InfoWorld had coverage of this a few days ago. The company and product were unveiled at the recent DEMO conference, which is a show where start-ups get to pitch their idea in front of a bunch of investors and venture capitalists. They envision two potential models: using advertising to sponsor the site, and also potentially selling their software to companies that do a lot of in-house development for use behind their own firewalls.
I had never heard of MWave before. I ordered from them a month or so ago because they had the best price on what I was ordering (a board for my PC). In the end, though, I ended up returning the product -- it just wasn't going to do what I needed it to do.
So, that's right; my only experience with MWave was ordering something and returning it. But I can say that the whole experience was completely satisfactory throughout -- from a good price, to speedy delivery, to a painless and efficient RMA and return process. I lost a few bucks on a restocking fee, but so what. I would totally do business with them again.
Intellectuals do not get elected to national positions of leadership, nor do they often get elected to state leadership positions.
Maybe not, but you could rightly describe Karl Rove as an intellectual.
Whoever said that intellectualism contributes toward strong leadership? You could say the two are somewhat exclusive -- one requires a degree of introversion and introspection while the other calls for the opposite.
Really what you need are leaders who recognize and respect the value of intellect, and who will act upon the recommendations of smart people. To a certain extent, George Bush owes his successes to the fact that he actually does do that. I don't buy that he's as much of a hayseed as he pretends to be. The reason he doesn't do what I would like to see done isn't because he's stupid; it's because he doesn't share my priorities.
On the contrary; you seem to be confusing intellectuals with engineers. There are a great many intellectuals who don't do anything but ponder things. Bill Gates might very well be an intellectual. I don't know, I've never been to a cocktail party with him. People who consider different kinds of deficits are likely to be intellectuals. Your comments seem to be a veiled accusation of snobbery or elitism on the part of the parent, but in truth you appear to be the worse offender.
Watch for an announcement by SAP that they've bought or are partnering with another fringe DB player. My money's on Interbase.
But SAP used to have SAP DB, only they got rid of it. (That is, they sold it to MySQL.) Buying another one from somebody else would be quite an about-face.
Actually, OSDL did not commission this survey. Levanta did. OSDL only signed on as a co-sponsor after they saw the results and that they seem to support specific positions OSDL has taken.
Not that this detracts from your point, but it's only fair to clarify.
So let's get this straight. The guy works the same menial office job for six years, his salary was only $27,000, and Mayor Bloomberg fires him for taking a break during the workday at his desk, which according to the mayor was "not appropriate behavior."
I mean... would you cry about it? I can't think of any greater favor Bloomberg could have done for this guy than to get him the fuck outta there.
I think you're not reading the right message from those government and tech leaders. I don't hear them saying the U.S. needs more "tech workers." I'm hearing them saying we need more scientists and mathematicians. Science is the font of innovation. That's where new ideas and new products come from, ultimately. As we transform into an "information economy" -- in other words, a society whose primary asset is intellectual capital -- we need people to generate new ideas or we won't have anything to sell.
That doesn't mean we need our universities to churn out more middle managers at Oracle -- or more coders, for that matter. When I hear "tech worker" my brain translates that into "clock puncher." What does it mean to be able to "work tech"? At one time the automobile was revolutionary technology. But the only people who get hired for their ability to work an automobile these days are cabbies and truck drivers.
The parent is correct that MPEG-4 is "infested" with patents. You could easily say that the main reason the MPEG organization exists at all is due to the issue of patents in multimedia. They are countless. There are so many patents governing every individual aspect of multimedia file formats like MPEG, in fact, that it would be virtually impossible for anyone to move forward with a product without licensing some of them.
Seriously. If the companies that hold the multimedia patents did not work together, there would be no multimedia.
The MPEG-LA organization mentioned in TFA is the compromise these companies achieved. The purpose of MPEG-LA is to license those patents on a "reasonable and non-discriminatory" basis. "Non-discriminatory" means anyone is entitled to license the patents -- the patent owner cannot wield the patent as an anti-competitive tool. "Reasonable" means the fee does not amount to holding the licensee hostage; it does not, however, necessarily mean that the fee is affordable to anyone who asks.
An open source project like XviD, which has no money, is not in a position to license the MPEG patents, so they don't. As the parent said, the source code is available "for academic purposes." It's not illegal. The source code itself doesn't do anything. A working binary, on the other hand, may be infringing.
Given this legal gray area, why would a company like Philips take the risk of incorporating XviD compatibility into its products?
Easy. There's no risk. Philips licenses the patents. Case closed.
10 years down the road, no one will be paying for enterprise software licenses.
This is absurd on the face of it, and then upon reflection somewhat meaningless. So you don't buy a license; instead you pay a quarterly subscription fee. So basically instead of upgrading once a year you pay four times a year. What's the real difference?
Marc created a virus that's exponentially eating away at Oracle, IBM, etc's business models. That virus can only be stopped if Marc sells. I've seen the smile on his face when he talks about the virus he created.
Have you checked his cheeks when he's smiling like that? I'm pretty confident you'll find his tongue in one of them. Seriously, JBoss might be eating away at Oracle and IBM's market share, but their business models? Hardly. JBoss isn't as big as Siebel or PeopleSoft yet and probably won't be 10 years from now, and yet Oracle bought both Siebel and PeopleSoft and is poised to keep on buying. Does that sound like a company whose business model doesn't work?
By the time JBoss is public and purchasable by Larry, even Larry won't be able to afford it.
Because, as the saying goes, you can't take it with you -- not even Larry.
The idea that Linux is some kind of hippie hacker commune is so 90s...
Unless, of course, your rationale for wanting to use Linux in your business is straight out of the hippie-hacker playbook. I'm not saying this is necessarily the case in this guy's organization, but it's entirely possible that the strongest advocates for Linux within a company might not have the best reputation for professionalism, nor the strongest grasp on business needs and objectives. For example, if I wanted to raise the profile of Linux in my organization, I might start by not using the term "FUD" in business meetings.
Slashdot Mirror
I can probably spell 5,000 words of French correctly ... and I don't even speak French! Seriously, learning to spell 5,000 words isn't asking much. In fact, it's the equivalent of asking someone to read something once in a while.
Besides, why would Oracle want to kill MySQL so it can be the de facto back end for SAP? Not only would it not work (as mentioned above) but Oracle isn't really interested in being the back end for SAP. In the long run, Oracle wants to be SAP.
Read my other comments on this topic here and here.
Well, any shmoe may be able to slap together the hardware, but to do it in any quantity takes an initial investment. The point is that Comcast has made that investment, and any further investments can only go toward improving the software interface. And it makes perfect sense that Comcast would continue to invest in that way, because it's a smaller outlay than the initial cost of designing, prototyping and manufacturing the hardware, and improves the return on that earlier investment. It's the only logical next step.
I agree with the original poster; this all will happen. Whether it means Comcast hires a bunch of UI designers or they license ReplayTV, it's only a matter of time.
So I'd say yes; Microsoft, at least, can wait -- is accustomed, in fact, to waiting.
If I wrote a story about two young lovers whose families were feuding and they ended up killing themselves, anybody would recognize that as a take on Shakespeare. The question is: If "Romeo and Juliet" were copyrighted right now, would I be infringing on its copyright?
Seems to me that a copyright protects a specific expression, not an idea. If there are only six plots in the world -- or however many they say there are -- those plots aren't copyrighted. Only the stories that build upon those plots are. I can use the same general idea as Shakespeare without stealing his exact words.
This idea of the "remix culture" bothers me. Again and again people repeat this idea that the only way to be creative is to swipe from someone else. This does not strike me as true creativity. Make your own music. Write your own stories. Copyright isn't holding you back; your own intellectual laziness is. Why not channel some of the energy you would expend on repealing copyright laws into creating something original and worthwhile of your own?
InfoWorld had coverage of this a few days ago. The company and product were unveiled at the recent DEMO conference, which is a show where start-ups get to pitch their idea in front of a bunch of investors and venture capitalists. They envision two potential models: using advertising to sponsor the site, and also potentially selling their software to companies that do a lot of in-house development for use behind their own firewalls.
I had never heard of MWave before. I ordered from them a month or so ago because they had the best price on what I was ordering (a board for my PC). In the end, though, I ended up returning the product -- it just wasn't going to do what I needed it to do.
So, that's right; my only experience with MWave was ordering something and returning it. But I can say that the whole experience was completely satisfactory throughout -- from a good price, to speedy delivery, to a painless and efficient RMA and return process. I lost a few bucks on a restocking fee, but so what. I would totally do business with them again.
Whoever said that intellectualism contributes toward strong leadership? You could say the two are somewhat exclusive -- one requires a degree of introversion and introspection while the other calls for the opposite.
Really what you need are leaders who recognize and respect the value of intellect, and who will act upon the recommendations of smart people. To a certain extent, George Bush owes his successes to the fact that he actually does do that. I don't buy that he's as much of a hayseed as he pretends to be. The reason he doesn't do what I would like to see done isn't because he's stupid; it's because he doesn't share my priorities.
On the contrary; you seem to be confusing intellectuals with engineers. There are a great many intellectuals who don't do anything but ponder things. Bill Gates might very well be an intellectual. I don't know, I've never been to a cocktail party with him. People who consider different kinds of deficits are likely to be intellectuals. Your comments seem to be a veiled accusation of snobbery or elitism on the part of the parent, but in truth you appear to be the worse offender.
Why are you asking me? Ask the authors of the kernel components I just mentioned.
That's supposed to be funny?
I know there is a PAM userdb module that embeds Berkeley DB, and at least in the past even some device drivers did.
According to the Sleepycat Web site, all versions of Linux embed some version of Berkeley DB, as do all versions of *BSD.
Actually, OSDL did not commission this survey. Levanta did. OSDL only signed on as a co-sponsor after they saw the results and that they seem to support specific positions OSDL has taken.
Not that this detracts from your point, but it's only fair to clarify.
Judging from most of the posts in this thread, the majority of /. types started out on a C-64 or a Vic20.
To my fellow former Apple ][+ users and I, this explains everything.
> What kind of idiot would blame the other two?
Maybe... an insurance company?
The guy didn't work in New York, he worked at the Albany city legislative office. The median income for a male living in Albany is ~$31,000.
So let's get this straight. The guy works the same menial office job for six years, his salary was only $27,000, and Mayor Bloomberg fires him for taking a break during the workday at his desk, which according to the mayor was "not appropriate behavior."
... would you cry about it? I can't think of any greater favor Bloomberg could have done for this guy than to get him the fuck outta there.
I mean
I think you're not reading the right message from those government and tech leaders. I don't hear them saying the U.S. needs more "tech workers." I'm hearing them saying we need more scientists and mathematicians. Science is the font of innovation. That's where new ideas and new products come from, ultimately. As we transform into an "information economy" -- in other words, a society whose primary asset is intellectual capital -- we need people to generate new ideas or we won't have anything to sell.
That doesn't mean we need our universities to churn out more middle managers at Oracle -- or more coders, for that matter. When I hear "tech worker" my brain translates that into "clock puncher." What does it mean to be able to "work tech"? At one time the automobile was revolutionary technology. But the only people who get hired for their ability to work an automobile these days are cabbies and truck drivers.
The parent is correct that MPEG-4 is "infested" with patents. You could easily say that the main reason the MPEG organization exists at all is due to the issue of patents in multimedia. They are countless. There are so many patents governing every individual aspect of multimedia file formats like MPEG, in fact, that it would be virtually impossible for anyone to move forward with a product without licensing some of them.
Seriously. If the companies that hold the multimedia patents did not work together, there would be no multimedia.
The MPEG-LA organization mentioned in TFA is the compromise these companies achieved. The purpose of MPEG-LA is to license those patents on a "reasonable and non-discriminatory" basis. "Non-discriminatory" means anyone is entitled to license the patents -- the patent owner cannot wield the patent as an anti-competitive tool. "Reasonable" means the fee does not amount to holding the licensee hostage; it does not, however, necessarily mean that the fee is affordable to anyone who asks.
An open source project like XviD, which has no money, is not in a position to license the MPEG patents, so they don't. As the parent said, the source code is available "for academic purposes." It's not illegal. The source code itself doesn't do anything. A working binary, on the other hand, may be infringing.
Given this legal gray area, why would a company like Philips take the risk of incorporating XviD compatibility into its products?
Easy. There's no risk. Philips licenses the patents. Case closed.
And, contrary to the Slashdot headline, SGI is one of the companies that is kicking in some of that $10 billion.
And your Social Security Number.