22 days isn't very long, and it sounds like they're not entirely sure where they stand. Let them get proper legal advice, and then plan out what they'll release. The alternative is that they'll clamp down, pull the feature, and release nothing. Interesting prospective but 22 days is already a week longer than the 15 days they provide a trial period to test their product. If Parallels feels that license/copyright violations should be allowed to continue past 22 days, then they should authorize violation of their EULA and use of license key cracks provided the user doesn't exceed their copyright law waver period of 22+ days. Do they really think violating licensing and copyright is alright 22+ days and if so, then why don't this practice to be applied to their own products?
pcHDTV recommends using a nVidia video card to view HDTV on Linux. It isn't that ATI's hardware isn't capable of hardware accelrated MPEG decoding (iDCT). It is just that ATI refuses to do anything other than lie to the Linux community about being able to use this hardware feature. Linux users that buy ATI have to pay for the circuits just the same as those that buy nVidia but in the case of ATI, the feature is completely useless on Linux. Hence the recommendation to buy nVidia from pcHDTV.
ATI's method of competing has been to lie continually about the future of being able to use this feature. For example, back in 2000, ATI announced the VHA SDK to allow Linux users access to the MPEG2 accelerators on their cards. After 5 years of waiting, ATI still has not released this to the general public. Instead, they claimed in a FAQ that the GATOS project is currently working toward hardware assisted IDCT... But the GATOS project had already publically announced "no planned support."
So, I contacted ATI developer relations via the web in 2003 and waited three months. They never got back to me. So, I contacted them by phone, they confirmed the following:
ATI has no plans to ever release the announced VHA SDK to the general public
Because of "lack of interest" (I guess on ATI's part, because there is plenty of interest to be found on Linux mailing lists), they feel no obligation to ever honor the press release
ATI has never release specs for doing iDCT to the GATOS project and does not expect the GATOS project to be able to support iDCT
When ATI's Linux FAQ stated that GATOS would be providing support, ATI already knew they had a policy which required withholding the specifications on how to write drivers to use the iDCT acceleration feature.
They stated they would get back to me about my interest in assisting in writting a driver for the iDCT support. It has now been OVER A YEAR and they have refused to contact me back.
Bottom line: ATI lied to the Linux community to maximize sales to those that where interested in this specific feature. ATI will NEVER HONOR their feature announcements to the Linux community.
As an employee at an University that is restriction Internet through-put for P2P protocols, I would like to point out that such restrictions are only desirable when resources are tight. The restriction was placed because the cost of adding another T3 to the Internet was prohibitive in comparison of the cost involved in doing Quality of Service. For the University's connection to I2, the reverse is true. The cost of doing QoS on a gigabit connection is prohibitive and it is desirable to just allow the resource utilitization to more "naturally" handle itself.
One thing that I believe would help third party companies provide several interesting services (pay-per-view over IP, party-line VoIP, etc.) would be multicast. It seems to me that there is a conflict of interest with most Cable/DSL providers in regards to providing multicast support on their networks since it benefits external companies more than themselves.
Yes, a good chunk of area at Old Orchard are out in the open air. But a large percentage of the people there are indoors most of the time for half the Chicago year.
I would also be interested in what exactly counts as a "dropped call." If I leave my ringer on while at the Old Orchard movie theater or book store and turn it off in mid-ring, does that sync up with the network as a customer initiated disconnection or does it show as a lost signal/drop call?
Also, each of the places listed tend to have alot of equipment that give off RF noise such as wireless intercoms, security walkie-talkies, etc. For example, is the pager system at the Cheese Cake Factory working complettely withen specs or is it bleeding into bands it isn't suppose to and knocking off calls everytime a table is ready?
The horror stories I have heard about AT&T have not been about their coverage. At least coverage the issue is while the customer is in the D-spot. The point that AT&T is missing is that when they fail to associate a customer's phone with an active account or leave voice mail for an account screwed up it does not matter where the customer runs around to. And when it takes *weeks* for "customer service" to stop scape-goating on the customer's cell phone and admit that AT&T must correct the problem the customers get frustrated. When they decided to charge the full amount for the month of which the majority the customer was without service then they start considering how to get out of their "service" contract.
Why AT&T will continue to loose customers in the thousands regardless of how much more "honest" they have gotten about D-spots is that their sales are marketting a "full featured" service. They can't continue to have support that operates under the assumption that all that needs to be provided is a "dial-tone" (cell connection) and then you can charge the full price. The dial-tone by itself is considered by most customers to be only a fraction of the "full featured" service that AT&T sales calmed they where sold. When they continue to charge full price what only part of the service is working then people feel cheated. AT&T cell service just does not work as advertized.
The invasion of privacy is having a "pre-approved" credit card sent to the address I provided for get discounts on food, that is what I consider an invasion of privacy. What they seem to be saying is that it is ok to invade my privacy when it is done in the name of American Express. But when they have to identify themselves directly for the purpose of saving my life instead of the indirect invasion of junk mail... well, then that is just too much invasion for their taste. Or, put another way, too much trouble. After all, the current system of let them figure out it is tainted on their own is "working fine."
And, btw, shortly after applying for a store preferred card, I got both the preferred card and an American Express pre-approved card with the same exact typo in my name. I guess it goes to the bottom line, they get money from American Express and they don't get any additional money for warning me. They also seem to bank on that I won't put two and two together that the American Express offer is related to the preferred card. If they can pro-actively sign me up for credit, then they really damn well better be able to pro-actively call me about a recall. I hope that the CEO of a food chain gets charged with murder due to criminal negligence during one of these cases. Then we will see if they consider the current system to be "working."
How ironic--in a Slashdot story about GPL misconceptions, the biggest misconception is promoted: what the G in GPL stands for.
Only works that specifically state they are covered by the *GENERAL* Public License recieve the protections of that work. A reference to "GNU" Public License could be a reference to ANYTHING.
The doubling every 18 months seems to apply to workstation memory just as much as it applies to CPU speed. This shouldn't be a surprise since more applications tend to depend on memory for speed than raw CPU cycles. After all, if a section of code/data needs to be swapped from disk back into memory, all a faster processor can do is more NOOPs or context switch to a different process. So, while around 1980 a nice home computer would need about 64k to be "beefed up," now that about 15 cycles of 18 month periods have passed we are seeing beefed up workstations having around 2GB of memory or 64k*2^15. Next cycle is 4GB which maxes out the address space for 32 bits. We nearing the point where "power" users will start expecting workstations with over 4GB of memory and that definately calls for phasing out 32 bits on the desktop/laptop.
So, I work at an University that had a preferred buying Sun servers back in the early to mid-1990 until Sun sales decided that quote requests for systems that would cost $50,000 to $75,000 wasn't worth returning our calls for. But back in 2000 our Sun sales rep. started explaining how Sun was willing to now work "really hard" to get our business back. I ended put pointing out that in the past Sun was busy put the "dot in dot com" and our business is that of a "dot E-D-U." Well, the Sun sales rep. goes into this whole song and dance that Sun wants to make amends with the educational market and that Sun thinks Gridware is what will make educational market grow and that Sun is willing to do ANYTHING to get educational business back including open sourcing Sun Gridware.
Sooo... I declaired that we would start buying Sun again when Sun made good on releasing Sun Gridware under an industry accepted open source license then we will start buying from Sun again. The Sun sales rep. left looking all happy that I would "back" Sun with such a declairation. So, early calendar 2001 passed, late calendar 2001 passed, early calendar 2002 passed, late calendar 2002 passed, early calendar 2003 passed... and no one from Sun can explain when industry accepted open source license Gridware is available under.
The meeting with the Sun sales rep. is two hours of my life I'd like back...and I can't explain why we would ever want to trust/buy Sun ever again.
I predict that by 2010 that SGI stock will be worth *MORE* than Sun.
Bottom line -- trust Sun only when you need promises printed on toilet paper.
Our university sales rep stated it a little differently. She said that she was conserned that the university was "cheating itself" with Linux. But to show that Sun is serious about the "Open-Source thingy" that she would put our University on the fast track to getting the source code to Sun GridWare under a "popular OSS license" which she wasn't at liberty to disclose yet (summer of 2000). But the details of the license would be wrapped-up by Sun management by December 2000.
Sun has proceeded to demostrate how it is NOT serious about the OSS thingy by never following through on that promise. The university still has not seen line one of source code from the vapor-OSS project known as Sun GridWare under popular OSS license. Maybe by this December (2003), the vapor annoucement from Sun was stop being a joke? Ha! I kid... I kid... of course it will still be a joke. Most promises from Sun sales are.
We own our entire software suite. We can do software indemnification. We don't pay any royalties.
This quote sounds like it came from an employee of SCO--not Sun! Is this not a restatement of Darl McBride's rip on IBM and all other GNU/Linux resellers/distributors? I thought Sun still contributing to GNOME and shipping some system running Linux--thus themselves being a GNU/Linux distributor. And if they aren't paying royalties then why has SCO praised Sun for doing so?
We have an intellectual property position that is second to none. We're announcing the new desktop this week -- with pricing that will knock your socks off.
I thought the majority of the "new desktop" is based around GNOME? Why is it that McNealy seems to be putting down the GNU/Linux community and then praising results from the community all in the same breath?
My guess is that regardless of the state of 2.6.0, that RH X will ship with a 2.6 based kernel around Halloween. I base this on the fact that RH 9 already contains alot of 2.5 code which has been back-ported and the fact that RH usually issues a release around Halloween.
IBM was pushing to our organization for a while that Linux will run on existing F50 RS/6000s. We where seriously considering moving some of services onto existing pSeries machines and possible continue with that trend for new hardware. Then the truth came out when it was tried... Linux on pSeries can not see any SSA hard drives. When we pointed out to our sales rep. that they had pushed SSA as being better than SCSI and wanted to know when IBM would make drivers for SSA controllers available for Linux they refused to respond. As a result, the project of using Linux on pSeries was killed and the only option handed down from the top of the organization is that Dell should be used for all Linux services. The general feeling seems to be that IBM lied/over-hyped it's support of Linux on pSeries. It also does not help that our requests for/dev/random and iptables in AIX seem to also have been ignored since AIX 5.2 fails to provide either. I would like to consider myself as an advocate of IBM but cutting through the hard felt feelings here to ever get IBM's foot back in the door is going to be difficult. Hopefully they are for real this time so they don't turn other organizations away like they did mine.
Tivo, on the other hand, has been very open and honest about their business and their hardware. They've never lied or attempted to be dishonest in any way.
I consider the following three issues to be cases where TiVo has been very closed or dishonest about their business or their hardware. In my opinion, each is a lie or an attempt to be dishonest. Feel free to try to explain why you consider such actions to be acceptable.
TiVo Lie #1: TiVo advertized "Season passes" as recording a program for an entire season regardless of if it changes time slots.
Reality #1: A hick-up in availablity of a "line-up" may cause TiVo to auto-delete season passes. In my case, TiVo blamed this on my cable company (I don't have one, I get standard air) and then blamed it on Zap2It. Since both Chicago WGN Channel 9 and Zap2It are owned by the Chicago Tribune, I doubt one arm of the Trib forgot about the other. I also doubt that Zap2It programmed the TiVo to auto-delete season passes if there is a line-up hick-up.
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TiVo Lie #2: TiVo advertized that the dial-up feature of TiVo would not only provide guide data but also free updates to the TiVo software itself such that TiVo would continue to improve at no additional cost.
Reality #2: Home Media Option costs $100 strictly for the software update. The cost of the ethernet adapter is in *addition* to the $100. Also, TiVo has artifically declaired that the software can only be activated on TiVo Series 2 despite the fact that they are aware of TiVo Series 1 devices with 9th Tee ethernet connections.
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TiVo Lie #3: TiVo stated when it first came out that it recognized the contributions that the GNU/Linux community had made to the creation of TiVo and they would honor not just the letter but also the spirit of the GPL.
Reality #3: Series 2 hardware checks the signature on the kernel/initrd image restrict the TiVo hardware to use only TiVo compiled software. Since the spirit of the GPL clearly states that the kernel and other Free Software should remain modifable, the fact that TiVo purposily locks out modifed works from executing on TiVo is an attack on the spirit of the GPL. Also, since the GPL defination of "complette source code" as including the scripts used to control installation of the executable (of which the private key used for signing is part of TiVo's process of installing the kernel/initrd image), I believe TiVo is also violating the letter of the GPL. To date, the source code provided on the TiVo web site is not complette by the defination provided by the GPL as it does not contain everything needed to perform binary installation of the Free Software on a TiVo.
RealVNC.com provides Enterprise support for VNC. Send email to enterprise@realvnc.com
SSH Communications Security provides enterprise support for their own closed-source SSH server and client software. They have information available at http://www.ssh.com/ In the case of SSH, I don't think the complaint that only open-source provides the functionality holds water.
My arguement for Free Software has been that it allows you greater control over how the software improves. Most companies that provide closed-source software packages will only add functionality that they are convinced will improve their market-share. There have been several times where companies have told us that show-stopper issues would require "custom work" to fix and even when they quote huge amount of money we also get estimates of 6+ months for the work to be done. In several cases, the "custom work" is for things most customers have come to expect anyways and should be fairly simple like adding LDAP authentication support. With Free Software projects, I have found that making these modification can usually be done with existing libraries and one-three additional lines of code.
Rebirth of the GD-ROM?
on
High Density CDs
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· Score: 5, Interesting
The Plextor GigaRec sounds similar to the tweek that Sega did to the DreamCast CD-ROM drives to read GD-ROM disks. I was wondering how long it would take for such a tweek to become mainstream.
Anyone remember in the movie Batman when the business exec gets burned by the Joker? If only that could be Scott Draeker. Every Loki game distributed a copy of the game binary that was statically linked against glibc. Every Loki game displayed on start-up a banner/credit screen including copyright information. EVERY Loki game failed to include the required text stating use of glibc. When I notified Loki of the LGPL requirements being violated, Scott Draeker explained that Loki is an "important contributor" to SDL and other LGPL projects. But, to date, Scott Draeker has failed to explain what part of the LGPL excludes "important contributors" from having to include notice of a LGPL work when a banner/credits/copyright information is displayed. Considering that Loki failed to publish ANY game without fully honoring all the terms of the LGPL, I think it is a step forward for Free Software that they are now dead. If only Scott Draeker would be kind enough to die too.:)
You seem to be assuming that each new addition of Wine runs a super-set of applications from the previous. In reality, newer versions of wine will tend to do certian things better at the cost of breaking compatiblity with previously "working" applications. CodeWeavers seems to be a little more picky about what changes go into CrossOver snapshots than the standard Wine snapshot.
And not getting the "quality" of TiVo subscription service is exactly what I want.
I got TiVo when they where still advertizing their product and promoting the "Season Pass" feature as something you set and don't have to worry about, the TiVo will automatically record the season even if their is scheduling changes. The reality is, if there is a hick-up in the TiVo subscription service then the TiVo might just automatically delete the season pass in mid-season. I had a season pass for Buffy on Chicago's WGN channel 9 be deleted four times until I sold off the TiVo crap machine. Each time I called support to complain they gave me the run around:
Me: Why does this keep happening?
TiVo "support": What is your cable company? They must have notified us that you aren't getting the WGN line-up through your cable any more.
Me: I'm using standard antenna.
TiVo "support": Huh?
Me: Rabbit ears. Over the air free broadcast. Standard antenna. No cable service.
TiVo "support": Oh, then our guide data supplier must have thought that the channel went off-air. You know that TV channels come and go, right?
Me: Who is your guide data supplier?
TiVo "support": Zap2It
Me: So, your telling me that Zap2It, a Chicago Tribune affilated company had throught that Chicago WGN channel 9, another Chicago Tribune affilated company had gone off-air?
TiVo "support": This will have to answered by a line-up specialist.
Me: Can you have one get in touch with me?
My voice mail later had a message that the specialist could see that the line-up data was working again and to call if I had any further questions. I called back and left a message asking what was being done to keep the problem which had occured three times already from happening again. While the "specialist" never called back, I got my answer a week later when the season pass/line-up deleted for the forth time.
ANYTHING is better than the TiVo rip off for "Nature of Television disclaimer-ed" program guide "data" or the lack of data.
And how to ensure that my season passes aren't auto-deleted again by TiVo wasn't answered in their "You ask, we answer" segment. Should have been "You ask, we blow you off (or scape-goat on Zap2It)."
Btw, another feature advertized at the time I got my TiVo was that the TiVo would continue to improve for free through software updates without anything additional having to be done by the TiVo owner than plugging in the phone line. Home Media Option sounds like a software update. Getting the USB ethernet adapter is listed as an **seprate** pre-request to getting HMO. They aren't billing for the hardware for HMO so they must be billing for the software update. So... lets see:
Advertized claim: Season Passes will record an entire season of programs regardless of scheduling changes.
Actual truth: TiVo reserves the right under the "Nature of Television disclaimer" for the Season Pass to be auto-deleted in the middle of the season.
Advertized claim: Software updates are free with nothing additional required of the TiVo owner.
Actual truth: TiVo charges $100 plus $50 for each additional TiVo.
At what point does TiVo become guilty of fraud?
And all TiVo has done is *REDUCE* a computer to a PVR. Several things that can be quickly and easily done has been artifically excluded from TiVo. For example, in addition to getting guide data, it would make sense for TiVo to provide offline web browsing. Even a cheap old Palm III running Avantgo or a cheap alpha pager makes it easier to get the weather or sport scores than a TiVo does. And while the TiVo requires your zip code as part of activating your service, to get the weather, you still need to record it. And think about the possiblities on a networked PVR that have been artifically put aside by TiVo HMO. A TiVo will send/recieve mpeg streams from another TiVo but not to any other computer? Why shouldn't I be able to stream a VCD through my PVR as easily as an audio MP3 or view a JPG? As a customer, do I really get to decide where the line is drawn in the sand as to what my PVR can do?
It seems like they are trying to use a simple mistake on the part of the Mozilla group as an excuss to market their own existence instead of trying to take care of this approbately.
They even admit
our advice is that the law is on our side
However, most people that I have met that truely believe the law is on their side don't feel the need to seek out every possible forum to make their point on.
Their prospective gets better:
Legal issues notwithstanding, we take this as a slap in the face to the entire open source community.
Ok. Good! The entire OSI community and the followers of ESR have been needing a slap in the face just as they slapped Free Software/RMS in the face.
The hard route, which we sincerely hope to avoid, will be Mozilla proceeding with this, losing its Open Source cred and goodwill and taking the risk of making its product untouchable by the distributors.
Untouchable by distributors in favor of what replacement?? Maybe at some point distributors of GNU/Linux systems will favor konqueror (as Apple has) but that choice won't be made because they accidently didn't properly recognize the existence of FirebirdSQL. The reality is that it is FirdbirdSQL that is untouchable by distributors because of it's "OSI" license which falls short of CopyLeft ideals. Why distribute an OSI FreebirdSQL when there is Free Software MySQL and PostgreSQL to choose from? While FreebirdSQL is still under a MPL-like license, Mozilla is Free Software which makes it much more touchable by distributors of a GNU/Linux system.
We are dismayed that Firebird was not contacted before Mozilla's decision was finalized.
The FirebirdSQL MPL-like IBPL-covered work did not even appear on the radar scope. To us Free Software users, the FBSQL project doesn't even exist. While the shock-and-awe campaign has made me aware of your existence, you still fail to provide anything worth tainting a perfectly good GNU system with. If you so badly need someone to acknowledge what you have accomplished under your crappy license then why don't you go cry to ESR.
But I am now convinced that Mozilla should avoid the name Firebird for any of their works. After all, anything that now uses that name might be mistaken for being covered by the IBPL instead of a true CopyLeft Free Software license.
Does this effect SCO's dedication to UnitedLinux?
on
SCO Group Lawsuit Q&A
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· Score: 1
The UnitedLinux web page lists IBM as Partner Resource and provider of the Software Evaluation Kit.
Isn't SCO presenting two opposing faces on handling IBM, an UnitedLinux face which expects IBM to help make UnitedLinux as marketable as possible and a SCO face which expects IBM to protect the "intellectual property" from the dead joint project?
If SCO is willing to attack IBM for it's "over" contributions to the GNU/Linux system, is any of the other UnitedLinux partners safe from ever being SCO lawsuit targets (Conectiva, SuSE, TurboLinux)?
Someday even MPAA will see the commerical benfit
on
8.6 GB Internet?
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· Score: 5, Insightful
I imagine that there will be a day when you can get ANY movie regardless of popularity from Blockbuster, Best Buy or Circuit City easier than filling out a prescription. You just tell them what legacy movie or TV show episodes you want and 15 minutes later your burned DVD with professional looking label printed on it is ready for pick-up for $20-$30. It may even include a difficult to replicate vendor hologram on the label side of the DVD to help distingish it from non-approved burns.
There have been several comments that the BSA claim to represent the copyright owners is false because OpenOffice.org is not a member of the BSA. I wanted to point out that while it is true that the OpenOffice.org is not a member of the BSA and has probably never asked the BSA to represent them, they also still are not the owners of OpenOffice. Rather, anyone that contributes to OpenOffice is required to sign a Joint Copyright Assignment (JCA) which assigns the Copyright to Sun Microsystems. While this might seems like a simple symatics, you should also take not that the JCA does not require that future version be provided under the GPL or even under the SCSL. I raised this issue over two years ago and was told that the JCA would be changed to assign copyright to OpenOffice when they became a legal entity. Since then nothing has changed. While Sun MicroSystems has had a history of avoiding membership in the BSA, they still may change their minds.
On a side note, Santa Cruz Operations (or formally Caldera Systems) *IS* a member of the BSA and therefore indirectly (or directly) contributing to issuing these false positives with strong threatening legal language against Free Software works. As already pointed out the "apology" was not in regards to the claim of infringement being false but rather the apology was in regards to the fact it did not figure out "which property was infringed." Anotherwords, the SCO sponsered group still claims there is a copyright infringement but no longer that they represent the owner. At the same time, the notifiction clearly shows that the site is distributing the source code, thus complying with the terms of the GPL (one of the two licenses which can be used for distribution of OpenOffice). Anyone that does buy products from SCO may wish to let them know that their membership in the BSA helps contribute to activities of threats of legal action against the distribution of Free Software and probably will have a chilling effect on the adopting of Free Software based products if it continues.
The computer industry has come to expect that Morre's law not only applies to processor speed but also to memory. Anotherwords, there has been an a doubling in the amount of memory approx. once every 18-24 months. A home/small office computer in 1979 contain approx. 64K of memory. Now, 24 years later, it is expected between 12 to 16 iterations will have taken place. In reality, the industry is between 13-15 iterations where several workstations come with 512 Megs of RAM upgradable to 1 Gig and Dell is already shipping workstations with up to 1.5 Gig of RAM. While you might argue if anyone needs that much memory, such an arguement should also question if anyone need a 2Ghz or 3Ghz computer. As computer speed increases, the amount of memory also needs to increase otherwise the usefulness of the increase speed will exceed the amount of data available to take advantage of it. The bottom line is that if the data is not available in memory then the additional clock cycles should be considered as nothing more than additional NOOPs.
So, given the current trend of increase in memory on workstations, it would not be surprising if there is demand for workstations to exceed 4GB of memory by 2006. Aside from the ever cludgy PAE work-around, Intel does not seem ready to deliver such a workstation. At the same time, IA64 is not preferable to proven architechures such as SPARC or PPC for large databases and does a poor job in performing as being backward compatible with IA32. Thus, it does not fit well in a niche in the current server enviroment and will not be ready soon enough when the workstation enviroment demands it.
What I find the most interesting that no one seems to be discussing is that MicroSoft seems to be trying to remove their dependence on Intel. MicroSoft already showed that they no longer are dedicated to Intel when they provided support for AMD's 3D-Now. With their push to move from Win32 to.Net IL-code and the purchase of Connectix, they may be positioning themselves for the possiblity of releasing a Windows for PPC. This will provide MS an architechure to build from with a more proven track record than IA64 and without several of the limitations of IA32. At the same time, the purchase of Connectix would allow them to provide legacy compatiblity with IA32 code.
Slashdot Mirror
ATI's method of competing has been to lie continually about the future of being able to use this feature. For example, back in 2000, ATI announced the VHA SDK to allow Linux users access to the MPEG2 accelerators on their cards. After 5 years of waiting, ATI still has not released this to the general public. Instead, they claimed in a FAQ that the GATOS project is currently working toward hardware assisted IDCT... But the GATOS project had already publically announced "no planned support."
So, I contacted ATI developer relations via the web in 2003 and waited three months. They never got back to me. So, I contacted them by phone, they confirmed the following:
They stated they would get back to me about my interest in assisting in writting a driver for the iDCT support. It has now been OVER A YEAR and they have refused to contact me back.
Bottom line: ATI lied to the Linux community to maximize sales to those that where interested in this specific feature. ATI will NEVER HONOR their feature announcements to the Linux community.
As an employee at an University that is restriction Internet through-put for P2P protocols, I would like to point out that such restrictions are only desirable when resources are tight. The restriction was placed because the cost of adding another T3 to the Internet was prohibitive in comparison of the cost involved in doing Quality of Service. For the University's connection to I2, the reverse is true. The cost of doing QoS on a gigabit connection is prohibitive and it is desirable to just allow the resource utilitization to more "naturally" handle itself.
One thing that I believe would help third party companies provide several interesting services (pay-per-view over IP, party-line VoIP, etc.) would be multicast. It seems to me that there is a conflict of interest with most Cable/DSL providers in regards to providing multicast support on their networks since it benefits external companies more than themselves.
Yes, a good chunk of area at Old Orchard are out in the open air. But a large percentage of the people there are indoors most of the time for half the Chicago year.
I would also be interested in what exactly counts as a "dropped call." If I leave my ringer on while at the Old Orchard movie theater or book store and turn it off in mid-ring, does that sync up with the network as a customer initiated disconnection or does it show as a lost signal/drop call?
Also, each of the places listed tend to have alot of equipment that give off RF noise such as wireless intercoms, security walkie-talkies, etc. For example, is the pager system at the Cheese Cake Factory working complettely withen specs or is it bleeding into bands it isn't suppose to and knocking off calls everytime a table is ready?
The horror stories I have heard about AT&T have not been about their coverage. At least coverage the issue is while the customer is in the D-spot. The point that AT&T is missing is that when they fail to associate a customer's phone with an active account or leave voice mail for an account screwed up it does not matter where the customer runs around to. And when it takes *weeks* for "customer service" to stop scape-goating on the customer's cell phone and admit that AT&T must correct the problem the customers get frustrated. When they decided to charge the full amount for the month of which the majority the customer was without service then they start considering how to get out of their "service" contract.
Why AT&T will continue to loose customers in the thousands regardless of how much more "honest" they have gotten about D-spots is that their sales are marketting a "full featured" service. They can't continue to have support that operates under the assumption that all that needs to be provided is a "dial-tone" (cell connection) and then you can charge the full price. The dial-tone by itself is considered by most customers to be only a fraction of the "full featured" service that AT&T sales calmed they where sold. When they continue to charge full price what only part of the service is working then people feel cheated. AT&T cell service just does not work as advertized.
The invasion of privacy is having a "pre-approved" credit card sent to the address I provided for get discounts on food, that is what I consider an invasion of privacy. What they seem to be saying is that it is ok to invade my privacy when it is done in the name of American Express. But when they have to identify themselves directly for the purpose of saving my life instead of the indirect invasion of junk mail... well, then that is just too much invasion for their taste. Or, put another way, too much trouble. After all, the current system of let them figure out it is tainted on their own is "working fine."
And, btw, shortly after applying for a store preferred card, I got both the preferred card and an American Express pre-approved card with the same exact typo in my name. I guess it goes to the bottom line, they get money from American Express and they don't get any additional money for warning me. They also seem to bank on that I won't put two and two together that the American Express offer is related to the preferred card. If they can pro-actively sign me up for credit, then they really damn well better be able to pro-actively call me about a recall. I hope that the CEO of a food chain gets charged with murder due to criminal negligence during one of these cases. Then we will see if they consider the current system to be "working."
I'd like to publicly thank Simoniker for quickly correcting story.
How ironic--in a Slashdot story about GPL misconceptions, the biggest misconception is promoted: what the G in GPL stands for.
Only works that specifically state they are covered by the *GENERAL* Public License recieve the protections of that work. A reference to "GNU" Public License could be a reference to ANYTHING.
The doubling every 18 months seems to apply to workstation memory just as much as it applies to CPU speed. This shouldn't be a surprise since more applications tend to depend on memory for speed than raw CPU cycles. After all, if a section of code/data needs to be swapped from disk back into memory, all a faster processor can do is more NOOPs or context switch to a different process. So, while around 1980 a nice home computer would need about 64k to be "beefed up," now that about 15 cycles of 18 month periods have passed we are seeing beefed up workstations having around 2GB of memory or 64k*2^15. Next cycle is 4GB which maxes out the address space for 32 bits. We nearing the point where "power" users will start expecting workstations with over 4GB of memory and that definately calls for phasing out 32 bits on the desktop/laptop.
Why doesn't anyone in sales at Sun know this?
Sun announced that Grid Engine software would be made available "an industry-accepted open source license". The targetted date for the open source release was last updated as being "early calendar 2001".
...and I can't explain why we would ever want to trust/buy Sun ever again.
So, I work at an University that had a preferred buying Sun servers back in the early to mid-1990 until Sun sales decided that quote requests for systems that would cost $50,000 to $75,000 wasn't worth returning our calls for. But back in 2000 our Sun sales rep. started explaining how Sun was willing to now work "really hard" to get our business back. I ended put pointing out that in the past Sun was busy put the "dot in dot com" and our business is that of a "dot E-D-U." Well, the Sun sales rep. goes into this whole song and dance that Sun wants to make amends with the educational market and that Sun thinks Gridware is what will make educational market grow and that Sun is willing to do ANYTHING to get educational business back including open sourcing Sun Gridware.
Sooo... I declaired that we would start buying Sun again when Sun made good on releasing Sun Gridware under an industry accepted open source license then we will start buying from Sun again. The Sun sales rep. left looking all happy that I would "back" Sun with such a declairation. So, early calendar 2001 passed, late calendar 2001 passed, early calendar 2002 passed, late calendar 2002 passed, early calendar 2003 passed... and no one from Sun can explain when industry accepted open source license Gridware is available under.
The meeting with the Sun sales rep. is two hours of my life I'd like back
I predict that by 2010 that SGI stock will be worth *MORE* than Sun.
Bottom line -- trust Sun only when you need promises printed on toilet paper.
Our university sales rep stated it a little differently. She said that she was conserned that the university was "cheating itself" with Linux. But to show that Sun is serious about the "Open-Source thingy" that she would put our University on the fast track to getting the source code to Sun GridWare under a "popular OSS license" which she wasn't at liberty to disclose yet (summer of 2000). But the details of the license would be wrapped-up by Sun management by December 2000.
Sun has proceeded to demostrate how it is NOT serious about the OSS thingy by never following through on that promise. The university still has not seen line one of source code from the vapor-OSS project known as Sun GridWare under popular OSS license. Maybe by this December (2003), the vapor annoucement from Sun was stop being a joke? Ha! I kid... I kid... of course it will still be a joke. Most promises from Sun sales are.
This quote sounds like it came from an employee of SCO--not Sun! Is this not a restatement of Darl McBride's rip on IBM and all other GNU/Linux resellers/distributors? I thought Sun still contributing to GNOME and shipping some system running Linux--thus themselves being a GNU/Linux distributor. And if they aren't paying royalties then why has SCO praised Sun for doing so?
I thought the majority of the "new desktop" is based around GNOME? Why is it that McNealy seems to be putting down the GNU/Linux community and then praising results from the community all in the same breath?
My guess is that regardless of the state of 2.6.0, that RH X will ship with a 2.6 based kernel around Halloween. I base this on the fact that RH 9 already contains alot of 2.5 code which has been back-ported and the fact that RH usually issues a release around Halloween.
IBM was pushing to our organization for a while that Linux will run on existing F50 RS/6000s. We where seriously considering moving some of services onto existing pSeries machines and possible continue with that trend for new hardware. Then the truth came out when it was tried... Linux on pSeries can not see any SSA hard drives. When we pointed out to our sales rep. that they had pushed SSA as being better than SCSI and wanted to know when IBM would make drivers for SSA controllers available for Linux they refused to respond. As a result, the project of using Linux on pSeries was killed and the only option handed down from the top of the organization is that Dell should be used for all Linux services. The general feeling seems to be that IBM lied/over-hyped it's support of Linux on pSeries. It also does not help that our requests for /dev/random and iptables in AIX seem to also have been ignored since AIX 5.2 fails to provide either. I would like to consider myself as an advocate of IBM but cutting through the hard felt feelings here to ever get IBM's foot back in the door is going to be difficult. Hopefully they are for real this time so they don't turn other organizations away like they did mine.
I consider the following three issues to be cases where TiVo has been very closed or dishonest about their business or their hardware. In my opinion, each is a lie or an attempt to be dishonest. Feel free to try to explain why you consider such actions to be acceptable.
TiVo Lie #1: TiVo advertized "Season passes" as recording a program for an entire season regardless of if it changes time slots.
Reality #1: A hick-up in availablity of a "line-up" may cause TiVo to auto-delete season passes. In my case, TiVo blamed this on my cable company (I don't have one, I get standard air) and then blamed it on Zap2It. Since both Chicago WGN Channel 9 and Zap2It are owned by the Chicago Tribune, I doubt one arm of the Trib forgot about the other. I also doubt that Zap2It programmed the TiVo to auto-delete season passes if there is a line-up hick-up.
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TiVo Lie #2: TiVo advertized that the dial-up feature of TiVo would not only provide guide data but also free updates to the TiVo software itself such that TiVo would continue to improve at no additional cost.
Reality #2: Home Media Option costs $100 strictly for the software update. The cost of the ethernet adapter is in *addition* to the $100. Also, TiVo has artifically declaired that the software can only be activated on TiVo Series 2 despite the fact that they are aware of TiVo Series 1 devices with 9th Tee ethernet connections.
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TiVo Lie #3: TiVo stated when it first came out that it recognized the contributions that the GNU/Linux community had made to the creation of TiVo and they would honor not just the letter but also the spirit of the GPL.
Reality #3: Series 2 hardware checks the signature on the kernel/initrd image restrict the TiVo hardware to use only TiVo compiled software. Since the spirit of the GPL clearly states that the kernel and other Free Software should remain modifable, the fact that TiVo purposily locks out modifed works from executing on TiVo is an attack on the spirit of the GPL. Also, since the GPL defination of "complette source code" as including the scripts used to control installation of the executable (of which the private key used for signing is part of TiVo's process of installing the kernel/initrd image), I believe TiVo is also violating the letter of the GPL. To date, the source code provided on the TiVo web site is not complette by the defination provided by the GPL as it does not contain everything needed to perform binary installation of the Free Software on a TiVo.
RealVNC.com provides Enterprise support for VNC. Send email to enterprise@realvnc.com
SSH Communications Security provides enterprise support for their own closed-source SSH server and client software. They have information available at http://www.ssh.com/ In the case of SSH, I don't think the complaint that only open-source provides the functionality holds water.
My arguement for Free Software has been that it allows you greater control over how the software improves. Most companies that provide closed-source software packages will only add functionality that they are convinced will improve their market-share. There have been several times where companies have told us that show-stopper issues would require "custom work" to fix and even when they quote huge amount of money we also get estimates of 6+ months for the work to be done. In several cases, the "custom work" is for things most customers have come to expect anyways and should be fairly simple like adding LDAP authentication support. With Free Software projects, I have found that making these modification can usually be done with existing libraries and one-three additional lines of code.
The Plextor GigaRec sounds similar to the tweek that Sega did to the DreamCast CD-ROM drives to read GD-ROM disks. I was wondering how long it would take for such a tweek to become mainstream.
Anyone remember in the movie Batman when the business exec gets burned by the Joker? If only that could be Scott Draeker. Every Loki game distributed a copy of the game binary that was statically linked against glibc. Every Loki game displayed on start-up a banner/credit screen including copyright information. EVERY Loki game failed to include the required text stating use of glibc. When I notified Loki of the LGPL requirements being violated, Scott Draeker explained that Loki is an "important contributor" to SDL and other LGPL projects. But, to date, Scott Draeker has failed to explain what part of the LGPL excludes "important contributors" from having to include notice of a LGPL work when a banner/credits/copyright information is displayed. Considering that Loki failed to publish ANY game without fully honoring all the terms of the LGPL, I think it is a step forward for Free Software that they are now dead. If only Scott Draeker would be kind enough to die too. :)
You seem to be assuming that each new addition of Wine runs a super-set of applications from the previous. In reality, newer versions of wine will tend to do certian things better at the cost of breaking compatiblity with previously "working" applications. CodeWeavers seems to be a little more picky about what changes go into CrossOver snapshots than the standard Wine snapshot.
And not getting the "quality" of TiVo subscription service is exactly what I want.
I got TiVo when they where still advertizing their product and promoting the "Season Pass" feature as something you set and don't have to worry about, the TiVo will automatically record the season even if their is scheduling changes. The reality is, if there is a hick-up in the TiVo subscription service then the TiVo might just automatically delete the season pass in mid-season. I had a season pass for Buffy on Chicago's WGN channel 9 be deleted four times until I sold off the TiVo crap machine. Each time I called support to complain they gave me the run around:
Me: Why does this keep happening?
TiVo "support": What is your cable company? They must have notified us that you aren't getting the WGN line-up through your cable any more.
Me: I'm using standard antenna.
TiVo "support": Huh?
Me: Rabbit ears. Over the air free broadcast. Standard antenna. No cable service.
TiVo "support": Oh, then our guide data supplier must have thought that the channel went off-air. You know that TV channels come and go, right?
Me: Who is your guide data supplier?
TiVo "support": Zap2It
Me: So, your telling me that Zap2It, a Chicago Tribune affilated company had throught that Chicago WGN channel 9, another Chicago Tribune affilated company had gone off-air?
TiVo "support": This will have to answered by a line-up specialist.
Me: Can you have one get in touch with me?
My voice mail later had a message that the specialist could see that the line-up data was working again and to call if I had any further questions. I called back and left a message asking what was being done to keep the problem which had occured three times already from happening again. While the "specialist" never called back, I got my answer a week later when the season pass/line-up deleted for the forth time.
ANYTHING is better than the TiVo rip off for "Nature of Television disclaimer-ed" program guide "data" or the lack of data.
And how to ensure that my season passes aren't auto-deleted again by TiVo wasn't answered in their "You ask, we answer" segment. Should have been "You ask, we blow you off (or scape-goat on Zap2It)."
Btw, another feature advertized at the time I got my TiVo was that the TiVo would continue to improve for free through software updates without anything additional having to be done by the TiVo owner than plugging in the phone line. Home Media Option sounds like a software update. Getting the USB ethernet adapter is listed as an **seprate** pre-request to getting HMO. They aren't billing for the hardware for HMO so they must be billing for the software update. So... lets see:
Advertized claim: Season Passes will record an entire season of programs regardless of scheduling changes.
Actual truth: TiVo reserves the right under the "Nature of Television disclaimer" for the Season Pass to be auto-deleted in the middle of the season.
Advertized claim: Software updates are free with nothing additional required of the TiVo owner.
Actual truth: TiVo charges $100 plus $50 for each additional TiVo.
At what point does TiVo become guilty of fraud?
And all TiVo has done is *REDUCE* a computer to a PVR. Several things that can be quickly and easily done has been artifically excluded from TiVo. For example, in addition to getting guide data, it would make sense for TiVo to provide offline web browsing. Even a cheap old Palm III running Avantgo or a cheap alpha pager makes it easier to get the weather or sport scores than a TiVo does. And while the TiVo requires your zip code as part of activating your service, to get the weather, you still need to record it. And think about the possiblities on a networked PVR that have been artifically put aside by TiVo HMO. A TiVo will send/recieve mpeg streams from another TiVo but not to any other computer? Why shouldn't I be able to stream a VCD through my PVR as easily as an audio MP3 or view a JPG? As a customer, do I really get to decide where the line is drawn in the sand as to what my PVR can do?
They even admit
However, most people that I have met that truely believe the law is on their side don't feel the need to seek out every possible forum to make their point on.
Their prospective gets better:
Ok. Good! The entire OSI community and the followers of ESR have been needing a slap in the face just as they slapped Free Software/RMS in the face.
Untouchable by distributors in favor of what replacement?? Maybe at some point distributors of GNU/Linux systems will favor konqueror (as Apple has) but that choice won't be made because they accidently didn't properly recognize the existence of FirebirdSQL. The reality is that it is FirdbirdSQL that is untouchable by distributors because of it's "OSI" license which falls short of CopyLeft ideals. Why distribute an OSI FreebirdSQL when there is Free Software MySQL and PostgreSQL to choose from? While FreebirdSQL is still under a MPL-like license, Mozilla is Free Software which makes it much more touchable by distributors of a GNU/Linux system.
The FirebirdSQL MPL-like IBPL-covered work did not even appear on the radar scope. To us Free Software users, the FBSQL project doesn't even exist. While the shock-and-awe campaign has made me aware of your existence, you still fail to provide anything worth tainting a perfectly good GNU system with. If you so badly need someone to acknowledge what you have accomplished under your crappy license then why don't you go cry to ESR.
But I am now convinced that Mozilla should avoid the name Firebird for any of their works. After all, anything that now uses that name might be mistaken for being covered by the IBPL instead of a true CopyLeft Free Software license.
The UnitedLinux web page lists IBM as Partner Resource and provider of the Software Evaluation Kit.
Isn't SCO presenting two opposing faces on handling IBM, an UnitedLinux face which expects IBM to help make UnitedLinux as marketable as possible and a SCO face which expects IBM to protect the "intellectual property" from the dead joint project?
If SCO is willing to attack IBM for it's "over" contributions to the GNU/Linux system, is any of the other UnitedLinux partners safe from ever being SCO lawsuit targets (Conectiva, SuSE, TurboLinux)?
I imagine that there will be a day when you can get ANY movie regardless of popularity from Blockbuster, Best Buy or Circuit City easier than filling out a prescription. You just tell them what legacy movie or TV show episodes you want and 15 minutes later your burned DVD with professional looking label printed on it is ready for pick-up for $20-$30. It may even include a difficult to replicate vendor hologram on the label side of the DVD to help distingish it from non-approved burns.
There have been several comments that the BSA claim to represent the copyright owners is false because OpenOffice.org is not a member of the BSA. I wanted to point out that while it is true that the OpenOffice.org is not a member of the BSA and has probably never asked the BSA to represent them, they also still are not the owners of OpenOffice. Rather, anyone that contributes to OpenOffice is required to sign a Joint Copyright Assignment (JCA) which assigns the Copyright to Sun Microsystems. While this might seems like a simple symatics, you should also take not that the JCA does not require that future version be provided under the GPL or even under the SCSL. I raised this issue over two years ago and was told that the JCA would be changed to assign copyright to OpenOffice when they became a legal entity. Since then nothing has changed. While Sun MicroSystems has had a history of avoiding membership in the BSA, they still may change their minds.
On a side note, Santa Cruz Operations (or formally Caldera Systems) *IS* a member of the BSA and therefore indirectly (or directly) contributing to issuing these false positives with strong threatening legal language against Free Software works. As already pointed out the "apology" was not in regards to the claim of infringement being false but rather the apology was in regards to the fact it did not figure out "which property was infringed." Anotherwords, the SCO sponsered group still claims there is a copyright infringement but no longer that they represent the owner. At the same time, the notifiction clearly shows that the site is distributing the source code, thus complying with the terms of the GPL (one of the two licenses which can be used for distribution of OpenOffice). Anyone that does buy products from SCO may wish to let them know that their membership in the BSA helps contribute to activities of threats of legal action against the distribution of Free Software and probably will have a chilling effect on the adopting of Free Software based products if it continues.
The computer industry has come to expect that Morre's law not only applies to processor speed but also to memory. Anotherwords, there has been an a doubling in the amount of memory approx. once every 18-24 months. A home/small office computer in 1979 contain approx. 64K of memory. Now, 24 years later, it is expected between 12 to 16 iterations will have taken place. In reality, the industry is between 13-15 iterations where several workstations come with 512 Megs of RAM upgradable to 1 Gig and Dell is already shipping workstations with up to 1.5 Gig of RAM. While you might argue if anyone needs that much memory, such an arguement should also question if anyone need a 2Ghz or 3Ghz computer. As computer speed increases, the amount of memory also needs to increase otherwise the usefulness of the increase speed will exceed the amount of data available to take advantage of it. The bottom line is that if the data is not available in memory then the additional clock cycles should be considered as nothing more than additional NOOPs.
.Net IL-code and the purchase of Connectix, they may be positioning themselves for the possiblity of releasing a Windows for PPC. This will provide MS an architechure to build from with a more proven track record than IA64 and without several of the limitations of IA32. At the same time, the purchase of Connectix would allow them to provide legacy compatiblity with IA32 code.
So, given the current trend of increase in memory on workstations, it would not be surprising if there is demand for workstations to exceed 4GB of memory by 2006. Aside from the ever cludgy PAE work-around, Intel does not seem ready to deliver such a workstation. At the same time, IA64 is not preferable to proven architechures such as SPARC or PPC for large databases and does a poor job in performing as being backward compatible with IA32. Thus, it does not fit well in a niche in the current server enviroment and will not be ready soon enough when the workstation enviroment demands it.
What I find the most interesting that no one seems to be discussing is that MicroSoft seems to be trying to remove their dependence on Intel. MicroSoft already showed that they no longer are dedicated to Intel when they provided support for AMD's 3D-Now. With their push to move from Win32 to