OK, I've been around long enough that I've been exposed to timeshare and billing by cycles on mainframes. In fact, in a previous life, our division was being charged an additional $10K/month simply because some batch jobs were running over stale data unnecessarily... but that's another story...
The real issue isn't timeshare. It's related to grid computing. How does lots of software get sold? Per CPU. How on earth can you equate that when the software can be running partially on a Linux Intel box, partially, say an AIX risc box and partially on a big mainframe running Linux?
Doesn't matter if the patent is granted - the patentee will get nowhere suing MS, and this way round the burden of proof is on the patentee proving MS used the patented technique.
The reason that regional encoding in general is viewed so dimly in Australia is simply because as a small market, Australia frequently gets hammered on prices relative to the rest of the world.
So, regional encoding looks like it's really set up to be price gouging to Australians.
There's been several investigations into, eg why CDs cost so much more in Australia than in other countries, or at least used to, before the exchange rate bombed.
Of course, this is the great thing about the internet. You can find the price of anything in nearly any market.
Frequently governments find this troubling, because it means they are missing out on sales tax, duties etc.
For corporations, I've heard of situations where they simply go and set up a subsidiary in the country which offers the cheapest relative price and do a corporate wide deal.
Consumers don't have that luxury, but Oz seems to have some resistance built up re this nonsensical price fixing by global corporations.
Research has yet to show that people are replacing Microsoft products with free programs, analysts said.
"Just because the research doesn't show it, doesn't mean that it's not happening", said wiresquire, from his former MS box, now Linux box running Mozilla and StarOffice.
OK, I will burn for this, but wtf....
You have thrown me into a serious conflict. Should I reply to something that is so full of [expletive deleted]. Perhaps it only adds fuel to the fire that is really just a flame.
Here's some back at you:
Have you joined any standards bodies to express your frustration and guide them to a solution?
If you wrote the category off years ago, wtf are you doing commenting now? Are your 'pre-ceptions' (note - not perceptions) still relevant?
SQL is the answer to everything? ^#$^%#%!! Can't we even agree beyond a data layer to functionality??
One place I worked at had a GOOD acronym: GOYA. Get Off Your Ass. In other words, if you feel strongly about it, then do something! This is what I like about open source (and no, I am not sucking up here). But don't just spit venom. Try providing the anti-venom too.
And so Amun appeared to wiresquire in a dream and said,'The jackal one has taken all the treasure from the shrine devoted to the Great Sun God. Anubis has given everyone the shaft. Show Amun's grateful servant's mummy being unwrapped as there is nothing to see here. Move along.'.
But I think the.com boom was characterized by extremes. I guess it was part of the 'irrational exuberance'.
Salaries were very high, but the thing that amazed me was that I knew of cases where people were joining.coms and trading their salaries to get a sweaty wad of options up front. Yes, they became millionaires, but only on paper. These were people in their late 20's and 30's which is supposedly the time where your salary accelerates and you are at your maximum earning potential.
Of course, they never actually got the chance to sell those options, and have been retrenched.
And as their previous salary was relatively low, they can't get a salary now for what they are really worth.In other words, it has also harmed their future earning potential significantly.
Well, you role your dice, and it's probably a good story to tell, the grand-kids...
OK IANAL, but I was working on some similar technology at one stage....
Let's see if I can summarize (sorry I don't have the specific links/cases anymore):
in many countries, pretty much everything is copyrighted even if I don't put all the (C), all rights reserved, yada yada. By default all websites are copyrighted.
Claiming anything on the internet is 'public use' or the like is total crap. It does not absolve you of copyright law breaches.
keeping copies of copyrighted things is a Bad Thingtm to do
If you sell technology that does keep copy of stuff, as well as going after your customers, they can go after you.
Sure, the google cache is useful. I use it myself. It's always amazed me that it is that useful, because the only reason they have anything in the cache is due almost entirely to the good will of anyone who owns that content.
I was going to write a long diatribe outlining a possible MS strategy, but then realized that publishing it on/. was like open source.
So, if MS is interested, they can contact me and I will do so for an initial fee of $457 and an annual subscription of $137.95. Support is on a per incident basis at $125.
I keep seeing these "What should MS do?" questions, and it's starting to grate...
I agree that open source is a shared cost centre. One of the "disruptive" things about it is that small companies can benefit to the same degree as large companies.
In effect, this lowers the barriers to entry. Could a small company fund the development of an operating system? No. But anyone can take a Linux distro...
2. As having had the misfortune of being involved with a number of contracts (not just GPL), the number one thing that has *always* stood out to me is that nearly all contracts do away with examples.
In negotiations, everyone constantly refers to "No, that's not what I mean. For example, if you wrote a program like, say a WWW Browser, that is an application. You couldn't embed that in that in an operating system.".
Read anything. You'll see examples, similes all over the place. Thank God the rest of history has used these or we would still be in the dark ages.
By the time you get the contract back, that is all out. They will define things as vaguely as possible, and seem to have bonuses based on the number of double negatives
3. Lawyers should take courses in programming and logic. I have seen contracts that if you read a clause in isolation, it actually means exactly the opposite of what the contract is really about.In that case it was not a double negative, but a quintuple negative after you took into account the "excepts, but not, excluding"s included in parent paragraphs! They should make it readily apparent which booleans (AND, OR and NOT) they intend and make sure they clearly use their parens with no shortcuts. Sorry, no perl allowed!!
4. Clarity, of course, is about the last thing that lawyers want on either side. If you have a clear contract, you can't weasle your way out of it, nor ensure your own future job security.
After all if we could understand it, we wouldn't need them. It's like the difference between writing clear, well commented code (which has been debated often on/.) vs unnecessary, obscure and obfuscated code.
Slashdot Mirror
OK, I've been around long enough that I've been exposed to timeshare and billing by cycles on mainframes. In fact, in a previous life, our division was being charged an additional $10K/month simply because some batch jobs were running over stale data unnecessarily... but that's another story...
The real issue isn't timeshare. It's related to grid computing. How does lots of software get sold? Per CPU. How on earth can you equate that when the software can be running partially on a Linux Intel box, partially, say an AIX risc box and partially on a big mainframe running Linux?
We should get some good specials on Discovery channel about frozen mammoths and cavemen!
One of the things you can do to combat this (to some extent) is make things more transparent.
Is it true that it's only recently that these loans were to be disclosed?
b) When you can set your own salary and compensation, wtf do you expect?
It's not just limited to the private sector.
Look at pensions/perks and associated abuses of elected employees - even after they have finished.Let's see (2 mins on google):
They say that absolute power...dang I always forget that one...
But the discovery would be fun!!!
Just to expand on this a little...
The reason that regional encoding in general is viewed so dimly in Australia is simply because as a small market, Australia frequently gets hammered on prices relative to the rest of the world.
So, regional encoding looks like it's really set up to be price gouging to Australians.
There's been several investigations into, eg why CDs cost so much more in Australia than in other countries, or at least used to, before the exchange rate bombed.
Of course, this is the great thing about the internet. You can find the price of anything in nearly any market.
Frequently governments find this troubling, because it means they are missing out on sales tax, duties etc.
For corporations, I've heard of situations where they simply go and set up a subsidiary in the country which offers the cheapest relative price and do a corporate wide deal.
Consumers don't have that luxury, but Oz seems to have some resistance built up re this nonsensical price fixing by global corporations.
One of the things they need to innovate is how to innovate...
And here's some poetry for all the pessimists
John O'Brien's Australian classic
Said Hanrahan
Research has yet to show that people are replacing Microsoft products with free programs, analysts said.
"Just because the research doesn't show it, doesn't mean that it's not happening", said wiresquire, from his former MS box, now Linux box running Mozilla and StarOffice.
I was right - the shaft from the Q's chamber was a dud, and good o'le Zahi went bolting off to show a few bones.
One place I worked at had a GOOD acronym: GOYA. Get Off Your Ass. In other words, if you feel strongly about it, then do something! This is what I like about open source (and no, I am not sucking up here). But don't just spit venom. Try providing the anti-venom too.
And I guess if you're on the 'other side of the fence', you want to check out the WebDAV protocol.
For god's sake, DON'T go try and invent your own! We'll all end up with another KDE/Gnome/.
And so Amun appeared to wiresquire in a dream and said,'The jackal one has taken all the treasure from the shrine devoted to the Great Sun God. Anubis has given everyone the shaft. Show Amun's grateful servant's mummy being unwrapped as there is nothing to see here. Move along.'.
But I think the .com boom was characterized by extremes. I guess it was part of the 'irrational exuberance'.
Salaries were very high, but the thing that amazed me was that I knew of cases where people were joining .coms and trading their salaries to get a sweaty wad of options up front. Yes, they became millionaires, but only on paper. These were people in their late 20's and 30's which is supposedly the time where your salary accelerates and you are at your maximum earning potential.
Of course, they never actually got the chance to sell those options, and have been retrenched.
And as their previous salary was relatively low, they can't get a salary now for what they are really worth.In other words, it has also harmed their future earning potential significantly.
Well, you role your dice, and it's probably a good story to tell, the grand-kids...
Now I know the answer to:
a) whether to get an expensive engagement ring or not, and
b) How to get rid of my mother in law
all in one!
Telstra deal + Sun does linux = Telstra does linux
I think we should all honor their requests.
Why don't we all help by submitting withdrawals from Google, Yahoo and other places where it is highly likely they have been linked from?
Let's see if I can summarize (sorry I don't have the specific links/cases anymore):
Sure, the google cache is useful. I use it myself. It's always amazed me that it is that useful, because the only reason they have anything in the cache is due almost entirely to the good will of anyone who owns that content.
There's some good sites around, including UK gov't, Stanford and the copyright website. I'm not affiliated with any of them...
A press release from Microsoft stated that game developers were flocking to XBox. Xbox now has 3802 games.
You know, free - so they can get a beer ;-)
I was going to write a long diatribe outlining a possible MS strategy, but then realized that publishing it on /. was like open source.
So, if MS is interested, they can contact me and I will do so for an initial fee of $457 and an annual subscription of $137.95. Support is on a per incident basis at $125.
I keep seeing these "What should MS do?" questions, and it's starting to grate...
I agree that open source is a shared cost centre. One of the "disruptive" things about it is that small companies can benefit to the same degree as large companies.
In effect, this lowers the barriers to entry. Could a small company fund the development of an operating system? No. But anyone can take a Linux distro...
1. IANAL
/.) vs unnecessary, obscure and obfuscated code.
2. As having had the misfortune of being involved with a number of contracts (not just GPL), the number one thing that has *always* stood out to me is that nearly all contracts do away with examples.
In negotiations, everyone constantly refers to "No, that's not what I mean. For example, if you wrote a program like, say a WWW Browser, that is an application. You couldn't embed that in that in an operating system.".
Read anything. You'll see examples, similes all over the place. Thank God the rest of history has used these or we would still be in the dark ages.
By the time you get the contract back, that is all out. They will define things as vaguely as possible, and seem to have bonuses based on the number of double negatives
3. Lawyers should take courses in programming and logic. I have seen contracts that if you read a clause in isolation, it actually means exactly the opposite of what the contract is really about.In that case it was not a double negative, but a quintuple negative after you took into account the "excepts, but not, excluding"s included in parent paragraphs! They should make it readily apparent which booleans (AND, OR and NOT) they intend and make sure they clearly use their parens with no shortcuts. Sorry, no perl allowed!!
4. Clarity, of course, is about the last thing that lawyers want on either side. If you have a clear contract, you can't weasle your way out of it, nor ensure your own future job security.
After all if we could understand it, we wouldn't need them. It's like the difference between writing clear, well commented code (which has been debated often on
That might scare a few cell/mobile carriers...
Competition = good.
Government = bad.
Competition/government = ???