Well, given that a dog would probably have a good chance of graduating from a U.S. highschool, why not?
"And, now, a word from our valedictorian who not only has the highest GPA of this class but brought us to the Maryland State Frisbee Championships!" (applause) "Grrrrr...Arf!" (mor e applause) (valedictorian bites at groin, then sees a rabbit in the bushes and darts off the stage) (standing ovation)
If you don't do it all yourself, you really can't be sure how trustworthy a binary is, your compiler might have done some dirty business behind your back.
You would need two or more physically distinct people to do it, to rule out multiple personalities. It would be funny if each personality had a different political slant. "The results are in!... And... uh... everyone wins!"
I have one and would love to be able to do this but i thought it was impossible do to a lack of drivers.
I haven't tried it myself, but I saw a description of how to do it a while back. A Google search for "sunpci linux" returns a HOWTO near the top of the results (it looks like it has to be a diskless setup). Booting non-Solaris diskless systems from Solaris is certainly possible, as I've done it for OpenBSD on a SPARCstation (though, it just might work on the SunPCi card, too).
The SunPCi cards must be one of the coolest products Sun has (Solaris, Windows, Linux, and BSD all in one box)! If Sun had a business case for it, a PowerPC-based card would also be very nifty.
With regard to running SPARCs at home, that's just silliness.
Eh? Solaris 9 + StarOffice + Netscape 7 makes a very viable home computer for people who don't mind tinkering a bit. It's really no worse than Linux, other than GNUCash won't link on Solaris 9 for some very obscure reason (stupid libtool).
Add a used SunPCi card (AMD K6 PC on a PCI card), and you can also run Windows or, with a little work, Linux x86 simultaneously with Solaris.
Would you crave the excitement of configuring a sun box or some obscure linux distribution?;)
Buying a used Sun workstation and the media kit/RTU license for Solaris 9 is a great way to learn UNIX. The bundled documentation is thorough, and there is a strong on-line Sun community (fan sites, newsgroups, news sites, etc.).
Actually, the software and documentation that comes in the Solaris box set is sufficient for a motivated person to get Sun Certified with no outside help, such as training classes. However, I would recommend buying a book for the Sun Certified Network Admin exam (it's much less clear-cut than the System Admin exams).
UltraSPARC III would have been a great chip if it were released when Sun originally planned, instead of two years later.
Agreed. However, even today, if they could sell a 2GHz UltraSPARC III instead of a 1.2GHz one, Sun undebatably would be giving the POWER and the Alpha a run for their money. Also, I figured a while ago that a 2GHz UltraSPARC III blow away any Xeon on the market in SPEC (the 1.2GHz model already matches 3GHz Xeon in FP scores).
All industries will consolidate into monopolies if left unchecked.
I'm not convinced of this. A monopoly is temporary as it drives prices above what people are willing to deal with. This is already occuring with Microsoft, and true competitors are appearing in the form of Red Hat, Lindows, Apple, and Sun, for example. Left to regular market forces, Microsoft's days are truly numbered (how can they compete with Linux, which is Free, and Mac OS X, which runs rings around Windows on the desktop, and Solaris 9, which runs rings around Windows on the server?).
The key is that there is a low barrier to entry to starting a new business or concieving a new product. Regulation only increases those barriers, making long-lasting monopolies not only more likely but much more persistent.
For example, regulation nearly destroyed the American auto industry more than once, drove many smaller makers out of business, and, for a while, left only three manufacturers in the U.S.A., until the Japanese, Germans, and Koreans brought in new competiton. Now, the Big 3 have to compete with better Japanese cars manufactured in Indiana, which has done wonders for the quality of American cars. Instead of competition driving rapid innovation in cars, everyone had to wait 30 years for the industry to really recover from 1970's regulations (not until the late 1990s were American cars any good).
Regulation serves to preserve the status quo rather then truly accomplish the good intentions that went into the regulations. My intuition is that the free market, when mostly left alone, does work, and that the federal government's intrusion does more long-term harm than good.
The monopolies you mention (OPEC, DeBeers, and the RIAA), are all concerning things that are truly unessential (I'm serious). High oil prices would lead to faster adoption of alternative energy (e.g., the sun!). DeBeer's diamonds are valuable only to superficial people (ooh, sparkley), even then artificial diamonds or alternative gems are viable in a healthy market. The RIAA is relevant only in the context of their nearly obselecent business model (there is a great Heinlein quote that appears now and then about this--no business has a right to the status quo).
Additionally, regulation alters the balance of power between corporations, citizens/consumers, and the government. Nearly always, regulation is in favor of corporations and the government (meeting regulations requires tons of money and bureaucracy).
True. Cash is always an alternative, at least until genuine "e-money" is invented and mandated.
...many people don't drive...
Public transportation is generally a failure in the U.S., except for in the largest cities. Generally, a license to drive is also a license for earning a living, anymore.
...lots don't register their dogs.
I was referring to the Wal-Mart receipt that shows a person buying the 60-pound bag of Ol'Roy dog food, the cow thigh-bone chew toy, and the "for dogs over 150 lbs." flea treatment. For the locks, they will see a person buying Schlage Tough Ass Brand locks at Lowes (whose manufacturing lot had key combinations ranging from #1234 to #1876). The key to all this is a credit card, debit card, or store discount card tie-in. For the guns, it is the obvious required registration (for law-abiding citizens, that is).
I'm hoping that the author of the piece confused Linux and UNIX...
I think the confusion may have been "late 1990s" versus early 1990s. From what I've read, Sun did outlay a buttload of money for an above-average UNIX license, where they can stand behind their claim to imdemnify Sun customers. However, my take on the whole thing was that Solaris customers and not necessarily Linux customers would be protected. But the mention of injecting code into the Linux kernel has confused me, again, on the whole matter.
Additionally, it seems that MadHatter is more of a software stack instead of a whole platform, where MadHatter can be run on top of Solaris as well as Linux. This may mean that MadHatter customers shouldn't care what OS they get--what they are actually buying is the MadHatter environment. This could be another hedge against SCO.
From the EWeek article: "Whatever Microsoft's last quote is, we'll be half that," Schwartz said.
This is awesome. Sun is using Open Source to its fullest, here, where packaging, branding, and support are used to take a figurative 2x4 to the back of Microsoft's figurative head. Even if there is only luke-warm adoption of MadHatter, the impact on pricing industry-wide will be a win for everyone.
This doesn't suprise me. Really, the only reason UltraSPARC III isn't blasting away everyone else, I believe, is due to manufacturing constraints. Excusing Sun's very low-end equipment, such as the Ultra 5 workstation, their products are generally very solid, very well engineered, very practical, and not totally off-base on cost (when you do an apples-to-apples comparison (was that a pun?)).
It is very understandable why they would prefer Mac OS over Windows, and Macintosh computers over white-box PCs.
...your pictures and pictures of your neighbors...
So, the DMV is now their data-entry division? That's the only way they could get digitized photographs of most people.
After tying together the DMV, the IRS, and the credit reporting agencies, there probably isn't anything they can't know about a person. They'll even be able to tell what brand of locks are on people's houses, whether any large defensive dogs live on the property, and the guns a person owns. All because of registrations and credit cards.
When they come for you, at least they will be prepared.
How is it any different than Red Hat bundling Mozilla and mplayer with their distro?
Questions like this are representative of the naivete of most computer users. The difference between Red Hat and Microsoft: Red Hat bundles software to compete--to surive--, whereas Microsoft bundles software to kill.
In an ecosystem of healthy competition, bundled software is a means of adding value (it sort of like women putting on makeup: "Hey, look at me! I'm prettier, now!"). However, when one company has managed to gain 90+% market share, the ecosystem has died, and there is no longer a notion of adding value, when there is nothing left to compare it to. There is no upstart company that can hope to compete, when there isn't even room to take root.
You simply don't understand the scale of Microsoft. Their market share on desktop computers is frightening. Even Sun, I bet, makes more money off of Java developers developing on Windows than they do on Solaris, Mac OS, and Linux-based developers combined. I have read that Microsoft's pocket change is sufficient to buy entire other industries, such as the airlines (all of the airlines), and still have plenty of money left over.
Microsoft is the figurative grey goo of the software industry, where they consume to the point of gluttony leaving a wasteland behind them. Their goals are ultimately destructive, and they have no qualms about killing companies to advance their own dominance. In no way, is Microsoft anyone's friend.
How is it that Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, and Microsoft Outlook can come out of nowhere and domininate before anyone can blink? Why is it that many OEMs get queasy when customers ask about Windows-free computers? Why is it that the only growing software companies do so by packaging otherwise free products? Why is it that Microsoft's means of competing against Linux are through the legal system via SCO rather than competing in the free market?
Microsoft are an abberation--a cancer--on the world's markets and governments. When corporations become more powerful than their governments, the trump card lies with the people. If the governments won't or can't respond, then consumers everywhere need to make a conscience decision to support diversity, competition, and freedom.
Each purchase of a Microsoft product is a vote for a proprietary technocracy with a Microsoft Certified ruling class. Do you really want that? I don't!
I bet stores like Blockbuster have lots of frustrated customers who complain about how nearly all rented DVDs and video game discs don't work due to previous morons putting thier many thumbs all of over the data area. I would bet it is frustrating for Blockbuter, too, who are trying hard to ride the DVD wave.
Why can't they put some sort of automatic disc-washing machine into each store? I've already gotten into a habit of hand-washing each and every movie and game disc that I rent, lest the movie crap out a third of the way through.
The RIAA has copyrighted the sound of a flushing toilet, so now you will have to pay 87% of your $50.00 in royalties to them!
No, I believe the RIAA taxes are already included in the water utility bills. Look below the "water" entry...yeah, that's it, the "sewer" fees go to the RIAA. Now give me $50!
Because I commented the infringing lines out, and recompiled.
Why don't you, then, redistribute the un-infringing source under the GPL. You wouldn't be directly advertising the infringing lines, because _they_wouldn't_be_there_!
Even though no one will know the truth about their code until 2005, selling licenses will begin immediately.
That has to be illegal somehow. Having customers pay for something that very well could be nothing, but no one will know for sure for two years?!?
Isn't that like selling something that hasn't even been invented yet? I could charge everyone $5 for each bottle of "Super Brand X Snake Oil" that I "plan" to manufacture in two years. If I conveniently decide to never manufacture it, oh well, that's just more money for me.
Okay. I do think they eventually have to fess up to what it is. Otherwise...you know, you just reminded me that you owe me $5000 for that stuff you plagarized from my book that I haven't published...or written...but, still, you owe me...uh, $6,000...yeah, $6,500, that's it.
Someone should be able to sue SCO to force them to disclose their "property" to everyone that they want to collect money from. The NDA isn't sufficient.
You know, like spinal tap. Except for real. I mean, it really is a documentary. And it's still funny.
It depends on the outcome. If SCO and Microsoft manage to exploit loopholes in the law to the extent that Linux, the BSDs, and most commerial UNIX is destroyed leaving Mr. Gates, Mr. Ballmer, and Mr. McBride in a triumvirate of absolute industrial control, then the title of that documentary would be "The Day the Software Industry Died."
Slashdot Mirror
In Maryland You can Register Your Dog To Vote
r e applause)
Well, given that a dog would probably have a good chance of graduating from a U.S. highschool, why not?
"And, now, a word from our valedictorian who not only has the highest GPA of this class but brought us to the Maryland State Frisbee Championships!"
(applause)
"Grrrrr...Arf!"
(mo
(valedictorian bites at groin, then sees a rabbit in the bushes and darts off the stage)
(standing ovation)
If you don't do it all yourself, you really can't be sure how trustworthy a binary is, your compiler might have done some dirty business behind your back.
... And ... uh ... everyone wins!"
You would need two or more physically distinct people to do it, to rule out multiple personalities. It would be funny if each personality had a different political slant. "The results are in!
...type "./configure; make; make clean"
configure: Mafioso Trojan version 1.3 or higher not found.
%
...spit out an at least rough guestimate as to what it is (dolphin, ship, fishing boat, photon torpedo, etc).
No sonar system will catch those phase-inverted tachyon pulses, though. Those things are wicked!
I have one and would love to be able to do this but i thought it was impossible do to a lack of drivers.
I haven't tried it myself, but I saw a description of how to do it a while back. A Google search for "sunpci linux" returns a HOWTO near the top of the results (it looks like it has to be a diskless setup). Booting non-Solaris diskless systems from Solaris is certainly possible, as I've done it for OpenBSD on a SPARCstation (though, it just might work on the SunPCi card, too).
The SunPCi cards must be one of the coolest products Sun has (Solaris, Windows, Linux, and BSD all in one box)! If Sun had a business case for it, a PowerPC-based card would also be very nifty.
With regard to running SPARCs at home, that's just silliness.
:)
Eh? Solaris 9 + StarOffice + Netscape 7 makes a very viable home computer for people who don't mind tinkering a bit. It's really no worse than Linux, other than GNUCash won't link on Solaris 9 for some very obscure reason (stupid libtool).
Add a used SunPCi card (AMD K6 PC on a PCI card), and you can also run Windows or, with a little work, Linux x86 simultaneously with Solaris.
Add a PlayStation for gaming.
It works for me
Would you crave the excitement of configuring a sun box or some obscure linux distribution? ;)
Buying a used Sun workstation and the media kit/RTU license for Solaris 9 is a great way to learn UNIX. The bundled documentation is thorough, and there is a strong on-line Sun community (fan sites, newsgroups, news sites, etc.).
Actually, the software and documentation that comes in the Solaris box set is sufficient for a motivated person to get Sun Certified with no outside help, such as training classes. However, I would recommend buying a book for the Sun Certified Network Admin exam (it's much less clear-cut than the System Admin exams).
UltraSPARC III would have been a great chip if it were released when Sun originally planned, instead of two years later.
Agreed. However, even today, if they could sell a 2GHz UltraSPARC III instead of a 1.2GHz one, Sun undebatably would be giving the POWER and the Alpha a run for their money. Also, I figured a while ago that a 2GHz UltraSPARC III blow away any Xeon on the market in SPEC (the 1.2GHz model already matches 3GHz Xeon in FP scores).
All industries will consolidate into monopolies if left unchecked.
I'm not convinced of this. A monopoly is temporary as it drives prices above what people are willing to deal with. This is already occuring with Microsoft, and true competitors are appearing in the form of Red Hat, Lindows, Apple, and Sun, for example. Left to regular market forces, Microsoft's days are truly numbered (how can they compete with Linux, which is Free, and Mac OS X, which runs rings around Windows on the desktop, and Solaris 9, which runs rings around Windows on the server?).
The key is that there is a low barrier to entry to starting a new business or concieving a new product. Regulation only increases those barriers, making long-lasting monopolies not only more likely but much more persistent.
For example, regulation nearly destroyed the American auto industry more than once, drove many smaller makers out of business, and, for a while, left only three manufacturers in the U.S.A., until the Japanese, Germans, and Koreans brought in new competiton. Now, the Big 3 have to compete with better Japanese cars manufactured in Indiana, which has done wonders for the quality of American cars. Instead of competition driving rapid innovation in cars, everyone had to wait 30 years for the industry to really recover from 1970's regulations (not until the late 1990s were American cars any good).
Regulation serves to preserve the status quo rather then truly accomplish the good intentions that went into the regulations. My intuition is that the free market, when mostly left alone, does work, and that the federal government's intrusion does more long-term harm than good.
The monopolies you mention (OPEC, DeBeers, and the RIAA), are all concerning things that are truly unessential (I'm serious). High oil prices would lead to faster adoption of alternative energy (e.g., the sun!). DeBeer's diamonds are valuable only to superficial people (ooh, sparkley), even then artificial diamonds or alternative gems are viable in a healthy market. The RIAA is relevant only in the context of their nearly obselecent business model (there is a great Heinlein quote that appears now and then about this--no business has a right to the status quo).
Additionally, regulation alters the balance of power between corporations, citizens/consumers, and the government. Nearly always, regulation is in favor of corporations and the government (meeting regulations requires tons of money and bureaucracy).
Not everyone uses credit cards...
...many people don't drive...
...lots don't register their dogs.
True. Cash is always an alternative, at least until genuine "e-money" is invented and mandated.
Public transportation is generally a failure in the U.S., except for in the largest cities. Generally, a license to drive is also a license for earning a living, anymore.
I was referring to the Wal-Mart receipt that shows a person buying the 60-pound bag of Ol'Roy dog food, the cow thigh-bone chew toy, and the "for dogs over 150 lbs." flea treatment. For the locks, they will see a person buying Schlage Tough Ass Brand locks at Lowes (whose manufacturing lot had key combinations ranging from #1234 to #1876). The key to all this is a credit card, debit card, or store discount card tie-in. For the guns, it is the obvious required registration (for law-abiding citizens, that is).
Which vendor, Sun or Intel, had a 64-bit processor first?
DEC? SGI?
I'm hoping that the author of the piece confused Linux and UNIX...
I think the confusion may have been "late 1990s" versus early 1990s. From what I've read, Sun did outlay a buttload of money for an above-average UNIX license, where they can stand behind their claim to imdemnify Sun customers. However, my take on the whole thing was that Solaris customers and not necessarily Linux customers would be protected. But the mention of injecting code into the Linux kernel has confused me, again, on the whole matter.
Additionally, it seems that MadHatter is more of a software stack instead of a whole platform, where MadHatter can be run on top of Solaris as well as Linux. This may mean that MadHatter customers shouldn't care what OS they get--what they are actually buying is the MadHatter environment. This could be another hedge against SCO.
From the EWeek article: "Whatever Microsoft's last quote is, we'll be half that," Schwartz said.
This is awesome. Sun is using Open Source to its fullest, here, where packaging, branding, and support are used to take a figurative 2x4 to the back of Microsoft's figurative head. Even if there is only luke-warm adoption of MadHatter, the impact on pricing industry-wide will be a win for everyone.
This doesn't suprise me. Really, the only reason UltraSPARC III isn't blasting away everyone else, I believe, is due to manufacturing constraints. Excusing Sun's very low-end equipment, such as the Ultra 5 workstation, their products are generally very solid, very well engineered, very practical, and not totally off-base on cost (when you do an apples-to-apples comparison (was that a pun?)).
It is very understandable why they would prefer Mac OS over Windows, and Macintosh computers over white-box PCs.
...your pictures and pictures of your neighbors...
So, the DMV is now their data-entry division? That's the only way they could get digitized photographs of most people.
After tying together the DMV, the IRS, and the credit reporting agencies, there probably isn't anything they can't know about a person. They'll even be able to tell what brand of locks are on people's houses, whether any large defensive dogs live on the property, and the guns a person owns. All because of registrations and credit cards.
When they come for you, at least they will be prepared.
How is it any different than Red Hat bundling Mozilla and mplayer with their distro?
Questions like this are representative of the naivete of most computer users. The difference between Red Hat and Microsoft: Red Hat bundles software to compete--to surive--, whereas Microsoft bundles software to kill.
In an ecosystem of healthy competition, bundled software is a means of adding value (it sort of like women putting on makeup: "Hey, look at me! I'm prettier, now!"). However, when one company has managed to gain 90+% market share, the ecosystem has died, and there is no longer a notion of adding value, when there is nothing left to compare it to. There is no upstart company that can hope to compete, when there isn't even room to take root.
You simply don't understand the scale of Microsoft. Their market share on desktop computers is frightening. Even Sun, I bet, makes more money off of Java developers developing on Windows than they do on Solaris, Mac OS, and Linux-based developers combined. I have read that Microsoft's pocket change is sufficient to buy entire other industries, such as the airlines (all of the airlines), and still have plenty of money left over.
Microsoft is the figurative grey goo of the software industry, where they consume to the point of gluttony leaving a wasteland behind them. Their goals are ultimately destructive, and they have no qualms about killing companies to advance their own dominance. In no way, is Microsoft anyone's friend.
Now, you have a way to get your sought-after experience!
How is it that Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, and Microsoft Outlook can come out of nowhere and domininate before anyone can blink? Why is it that many OEMs get queasy when customers ask about Windows-free computers? Why is it that the only growing software companies do so by packaging otherwise free products? Why is it that Microsoft's means of competing against Linux are through the legal system via SCO rather than competing in the free market?
Microsoft are an abberation--a cancer--on the world's markets and governments. When corporations become more powerful than their governments, the trump card lies with the people. If the governments won't or can't respond, then consumers everywhere need to make a conscience decision to support diversity, competition, and freedom.
Each purchase of a Microsoft product is a vote for a proprietary technocracy with a Microsoft Certified ruling class. Do you really want that? I don't!
There is absolutely nothing worse than culture by executive decision.
I bet stores like Blockbuster have lots of frustrated customers who complain about how nearly all rented DVDs and video game discs don't work due to previous morons putting thier many thumbs all of over the data area. I would bet it is frustrating for Blockbuter, too, who are trying hard to ride the DVD wave.
Why can't they put some sort of automatic disc-washing machine into each store? I've already gotten into a habit of hand-washing each and every movie and game disc that I rent, lest the movie crap out a third of the way through.
The RIAA has copyrighted the sound of a flushing toilet, so now you will have to pay 87% of your $50.00 in royalties to them!
No, I believe the RIAA taxes are already included in the water utility bills. Look below the "water" entry...yeah, that's it, the "sewer" fees go to the RIAA. Now give me $50!
Because I commented the infringing lines out, and recompiled.
Why don't you, then, redistribute the un-infringing source under the GPL. You wouldn't be directly advertising the infringing lines, because _they_wouldn't_be_there_!
Even though no one will know the truth about their code until 2005, selling licenses will begin immediately.
That has to be illegal somehow. Having customers pay for something that very well could be nothing, but no one will know for sure for two years?!?
Isn't that like selling something that hasn't even been invented yet? I could charge everyone $5 for each bottle of "Super Brand X Snake Oil" that I "plan" to manufacture in two years. If I conveniently decide to never manufacture it, oh well, that's just more money for me.
maybe we will be back in court at a later date asking for a refund on our SCO binary licenses.
No one will show up to ask for a refund from SCO, because they will be so embarrassed for having paid in the first place.
SCO deserves money from no one. Period.
We don't know what the "SCO stuff" is...
Okay. I do think they eventually have to fess up to what it is. Otherwise...you know, you just reminded me that you owe me $5000 for that stuff you plagarized from my book that I haven't published...or written...but, still, you owe me...uh, $6,000...yeah, $6,500, that's it.
Someone should be able to sue SCO to force them to disclose their "property" to everyone that they want to collect money from. The NDA isn't sufficient.
You know, like spinal tap. Except for real. I mean, it really is a documentary. And it's still funny.
It depends on the outcome. If SCO and Microsoft manage to exploit loopholes in the law to the extent that Linux, the BSDs, and most commerial UNIX is destroyed leaving Mr. Gates, Mr. Ballmer, and Mr. McBride in a triumvirate of absolute industrial control, then the title of that documentary would be "The Day the Software Industry Died."