A GNU challenge in court. Why? A small defendent is easier to beat. If you beat a bunch of small defendants, then you tend to have a defacto case against a better funded opponent. Fighting the first GPL case against Microsoft would be unaffordable.
I would expect that RMS is considering a lawsuit, because this is a clear violation of the terms of the GPL. If not, then people and companies (possibly including the Evil Empire itself) will start walking all over the GPL. Is this what we want?
Remember, just because a company can't make money doesn't mean they can steal source code. If it did, my next business plan would be to steal the Windows source and start selling boxed copies of Windows XP!
You can solve this problem easily using web services ( or any remote communications protocol ).
Let's say I set up an LDAP server. Slashdot login has two buttons: one for local authentication (to their information) and another to authenticate to MY LDAP server.
Let's say you set up another LDAP server. Slashdot adds another button to the login so that a user can now choose local, my LDAP server, or your LDAP server for authentication.
Now a user can authenticate to any authenticator service, but never store the user information. In fact, a random user token could be generated the first time a new site asks a service to authenticate a user. The random token could then be used in a cookie for the site as needed, with no idea who the user is. To kill off the identity, the user could instruct the LDAP service to send out a new cookie when he logs into the service. This would create the appearance of the site seeing a new user, even though the user is actually an old timer with a new token.
There is only one minor problem (of having many login buttons), but this is easily solved. This is fixed by allowing the authenticators to pass the login information to other authenticators through web services (or any other remote protocol). This would probably take place as a clearinghouse of sort, but still allow the same effect. Large sites (such as MSN, Yahoo, AOL, OSDN could be both authenticators and clearinghouses due to their rather unique needs.
According to this article at fortune, Frank Batten, lead investor/owner of Greatbrigde, is also the largest individual shareholder in RedHat.
Also note that Greatbridge does NOT SELL PostgreSQL - it sells services. I would bet money that it is PostgreSQL that RedHat produces, and contracts out tech support to Greatbridge.
Synergies exist, there is no direct competition, and the owner is an old friend.
I thought MS did roughly the equivalent when they included MTS (MS Transaction Server) into the OS for Windows 2000. As far as enabling speed, flexibility, etc., I think it was a great idea.
As for code bloat...code is only bloated when there are many things in it that are not needed, not useful, or not efficient. This is definately useful. If you want to minimize code bloat, then strip out the code that you don't want and recompile.
Even though I bitch and moan about it, the electoral college is a work of genius. (BTW, we live in a republic, not a democracy.)
The electoral college "winner takes all" forces the country's candidates to gravitate towards the middle. The result is a stronger elected official. Without the elector college, a weak candidate ( i.e. "fringe" candidate) could lead the country.
In times of peace and prosperity, this might not be a problem. But in times of war, you WANT a strong elected official, not someone who only gets 30% of the vote.
An example of a country that suffered from the lack of an electoral college is Pre-war Germany, and we all know what happened there. Current examples include the united Germany, and Israel for just two examples.
Who needs to market Linux? MS already does a great job of it. Every time a MS server goes down, a PC crashes, or MS screws people out of money, Linux gets an immediate advocate.
I am one of those people, and in my position as E-business Architect, people actually listen to the argument that Linux is a way out.
Now, Star Office is providing a way out. I now have a really strong argument against Office2K, BackOffice, etc.
As a result, we are implementing a Linux-based inter/intranet using PostgreSQL 7 for the database backend. We're evaluating alternatives for email also.
I don't need any Linux billboards or TV ads - I just need MS to keep doing what they've been doing. Remember, Hitler took a piece at a time also (through most of the 1930's. Then came D-Day, and he had it forcibly taken away from him. See any analogies?
Part 2 of Question 7 asked about using a TUX-like mechanism for SQL. Ingo responded that SQL is more complex, but I'm positive that there is a simpler answer...one that Microsoft has already implemented.
Microsoft included MTS (MS Transaction Server) in the kernel of Windows 2000, and SQL Server 2000 will reportedly use it. MTS can be used to distribute transactions across machines, and since it is in the kernel space, it runs very fast.
Finally, note that MTS can be used by COM/COM+ objects, not just SQL server. To quote MS: "Transaction services include code for connectivity, directory, security, process, and thread management, as well as the database connections required to create a transaction-aware application." For the whole article GO HERE.
I think that someone should take a look at this. It could be of great benefit for mySQL, PostgreSQL, and even Bonobo. Note that since I'm not a kernel programmer, I'm probably WAY out of my league here, but I'd be willing to help.
-Mark
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
To understand is hard. Once one understands, action is easy.
Let's say that MS wins against/. (yeah, right). But, just for a minute, pretend that they do. All that is needed is for a good programmer to write an article discussing the code.
Remember the Halloween documents? Microsoft did nothing because of the "fair use" clause in copyright law. All that is needed is an article that "discusses" the code, and MS has NO defense.
As long as there is enough "discussion" of the code (probably a 3:1 margin of discussion vs. code), any action by MS would get QUICKLY thrown out of court.
For this to be completely bulletproof, however, it would have to be written by someone in a country that has different copyright laws, and Eulas don't apply. Once written, the article can be GPL'd, and copied ANYWHERE in the world.
That's actually rather funny (pardon me for laughing). I am curious though, why does your site run on an old machine? Sure it's a unix box, but I would have thought that you would have a nice big machine to serve all the graphics from. Actually, I'm impressed that the machine can handle all the graphics it serves without being slashdotted to death.
The reason I bring this up is that I'm curious to know how you size a machine these days. I would assume that you don't have many servers installed that are designed for the slashdot affect, but peak load must be designed for, especially on a LAN where the bandwidth is much larger than the internet.
Finally, would you consider helping the development of mySQL ? It would be a rather nice gift to the open source community (you've already given much more than most), and it would also be great for the non-profit companies that I work with. As an e-business architect for a large non-profit, I am trying to encourage them to move to open source to save on the huge cost of licensed software. MySQL only needs a few more features to make it easy to choose over commercial alternatives.
Thanks, -Mark
UNIX = Capitalism, Windows = Communism
on
The End of Unix?
·
· Score: 1
Asking if UNIX (Linux) will die is an interesting question that reminds me of the Cold War.
Two large powers, the US (UNIX) and Russia (Windows) existed with different philosophies about how people, information, and property should be treated.
Russia (Windows) thought that there should be central planning, and that one group of people could do a 5-year plan for the whole country of 300 million + people.
The US (UNIX) by contrast, thought that people should be able to determine there own future and that companies should have to fight it out to meet the needs of the market (the customer).
Russia (Windows) thought it knew best how to plan for all of its people (users), but it could not possibly keep up with the needs of the market, since the needs of the market are so diverse.
The US (UNIX) market is controlled through companies, each one competing for customers (users). Ultimately, the customers (users) get to choose what they want, and the companies that best meet that need end up being more successful than the ones that do not meet that need.
What does this mean for UNIX/Windows? Probably that Windows, despite all of its features, prcing, etc, will NEVER be able to meet the needs of the entire market. UNIX/Linux, however, is backed by several companies all looking to serve various PARTS (not the entire) market. As such, those companies should be better able to serve the needs of their market segment.
Windows has attempted this through NT,95,CE, etc., but they all use a common (more or less) interface. What about users who want a different interface? Microsoft CANNOT meet their needs until it changes it's strategy.
End result? Communism's central control gets beaten by free markets, just as Windows will *eventually* get beaten by UNIX/Linux.
=========
The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.
I would have to disagree with your comment about wanting to "hurt Microsoft." Please excuse the length of this post, but it's necessary to adaquately explain myself. For any firm to MAXIMIZE its profits, it must be a monopoly. This is a fundamental tenet of economics and business strategy, so I'll spare you some words here. If IBM wants to INCREASE profits, it should, over the long term, seek to increase its MARKET POWER. Note that a monopoly has COMPLETE MARKET POWER. Now, if Microsoft has a lot of market power, and IBM wants to exist within an industry that Microsoft is in, IBM must do one of two things - either increase the size of the industry, or decrease the market power of a competitor. Said another way, IBM want's to decrease their dependence on Microsoft. (as you stated/alluded to) Therefore, I would argue that IBM does indeed want to "hurt Microsoft." My word choice might not have been all that great, but I believe that the fundamental premise of hurting Microsoft (i.e. damaging Microsoft's market power) is correct. Thanks for the feedback! -Mark
Slashdot Mirror
A GNU challenge in court. Why? A small defendent is easier to beat. If you beat a bunch of small defendants, then you tend to have a defacto case against a better funded opponent. Fighting the first GPL case against Microsoft would be unaffordable.
I would expect that RMS is considering a lawsuit, because this is a clear violation of the terms of the GPL. If not, then people and companies (possibly including the Evil Empire itself) will start walking all over the GPL. Is this what we want?
Remember, just because a company can't make money doesn't mean they can steal source code. If it did, my next business plan would be to steal the Windows source and start selling boxed copies of Windows XP!
You can solve this problem easily using web services ( or any remote communications protocol ).
Let's say I set up an LDAP server. Slashdot login has two buttons: one for local authentication (to their information) and another to authenticate to MY LDAP server.
Let's say you set up another LDAP server. Slashdot adds another button to the login so that a user can now choose local, my LDAP server, or your LDAP server for authentication.
Now a user can authenticate to any authenticator service, but never store the user information. In fact, a random user token could be generated the first time a new site asks a service to authenticate a user. The random token could then be used in a cookie for the site as needed, with no idea who the user is. To kill off the identity, the user could instruct the LDAP service to send out a new cookie when he logs into the service. This would create the appearance of the site seeing a new user, even though the user is actually an old timer with a new token.
There is only one minor problem (of having many login buttons), but this is easily solved. This is fixed by allowing the authenticators to pass the login information to other authenticators through web services (or any other remote protocol). This would probably take place as a clearinghouse of sort, but still allow the same effect. Large sites (such as MSN, Yahoo, AOL, OSDN could be both authenticators and clearinghouses due to their rather unique needs.
Also note that Greatbridge does NOT SELL PostgreSQL - it sells services. I would bet money that it is PostgreSQL that RedHat produces, and contracts out tech support to Greatbridge.
Synergies exist, there is no direct competition, and the owner is an old friend.
I think the writing is on the wall.
-Mark
Two words.... "Beowulf Clusters"
As for code bloat...code is only bloated when there are many things in it that are not needed, not useful, or not efficient. This is definately useful. If you want to minimize code bloat, then strip out the code that you don't want and recompile.
-Mark
Even though I bitch and moan about it, the electoral college is a work of genius. (BTW, we live in a republic, not a democracy.)
The electoral college "winner takes all" forces the country's candidates to gravitate towards the middle. The result is a stronger elected official. Without the elector college, a weak candidate ( i.e. "fringe" candidate) could lead the country.
In times of peace and prosperity, this might not be a problem. But in times of war, you WANT a strong elected official, not someone who only gets 30% of the vote.
An example of a country that suffered from the lack of an electoral college is Pre-war Germany, and we all know what happened there. Current examples include the united Germany, and Israel for just two examples.
Let's see... If I go to Network Solutions, there is no .us domain. Same thing at register.com.
Somehow, I think it would be VERY popular if they had it listed on one of those sites. I don't even know where to go to get a .us domain registered !!!
-Mark
I am one of those people, and in my position as E-business Architect, people actually listen to the argument that Linux is a way out.
Now, Star Office is providing a way out. I now have a really strong argument against Office2K, BackOffice, etc.
As a result, we are implementing a Linux-based inter/intranet using PostgreSQL 7 for the database backend. We're evaluating alternatives for email also.
I don't need any Linux billboards or TV ads - I just need MS to keep doing what they've been doing. Remember, Hitler took a piece at a time also (through most of the 1930's. Then came D-Day, and he had it forcibly taken away from him. See any analogies?
-Mark
Microsoft included MTS (MS Transaction Server) in the kernel of Windows 2000, and SQL Server 2000 will reportedly use it. MTS can be used to distribute transactions across machines, and since it is in the kernel space, it runs very fast.
Finally, note that MTS can be used by COM/COM+ objects, not just SQL server. To quote MS: "Transaction services include code for connectivity, directory, security, process, and thread management, as well as the database connections required to create a transaction-aware application." For the whole article GO HERE.
I think that someone should take a look at this. It could be of great benefit for mySQL, PostgreSQL, and even Bonobo. Note that since I'm not a kernel programmer, I'm probably WAY out of my league here, but I'd be willing to help.
-Mark
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
To understand is hard. Once one understands, action is easy.
--Sun Yat Sen
Let's say that MS wins against /. (yeah, right). But, just for a minute, pretend that they do. All that is needed is for a good programmer to write an article discussing the code.
Remember the Halloween documents? Microsoft did nothing because of the "fair use" clause in copyright law. All that is needed is an article that "discusses" the code, and MS has NO defense.
As long as there is enough "discussion" of the code (probably a 3:1 margin of discussion vs. code), any action by MS would get QUICKLY thrown out of court.
For this to be completely bulletproof, however, it would have to be written by someone in a country that has different copyright laws, and Eulas don't apply. Once written, the article can be GPL'd, and copied ANYWHERE in the world.
Enjoy,
-Mark
That's actually rather funny (pardon me for laughing). I am curious though, why does your site run on an old machine? Sure it's a unix box, but I would have thought that you would have a nice big machine to serve all the graphics from. Actually, I'm impressed that the machine can handle all the graphics it serves without being slashdotted to death.
The reason I bring this up is that I'm curious to know how you size a machine these days. I would assume that you don't have many servers installed that are designed for the slashdot affect, but peak load must be designed for, especially on a LAN where the bandwidth is much larger than the internet.
Finally, would you consider helping the development of mySQL ? It would be a rather nice gift to the open source community (you've already given much more than most), and it would also be great for the non-profit companies that I work with. As an e-business architect for a large non-profit, I am trying to encourage them to move to open source to save on the huge cost of licensed software. MySQL only needs a few more features to make it easy to choose over commercial alternatives.
Thanks,
-Mark
Two large powers, the US (UNIX) and Russia (Windows) existed with different philosophies about how people, information, and property should be treated.
Russia (Windows) thought that there should be central planning, and that one group of people could do a 5-year plan for the whole country of 300 million + people.
The US (UNIX) by contrast, thought that people should be able to determine there own future and that companies should have to fight it out to meet the needs of the market (the customer).
Russia (Windows) thought it knew best how to plan for all of its people (users), but it could not possibly keep up with the needs of the market, since the needs of the market are so diverse.
The US (UNIX) market is controlled through companies, each one competing for customers (users). Ultimately, the customers (users) get to choose what they want, and the companies that best meet that need end up being more successful than the ones that do not meet that need.
What does this mean for UNIX/Windows? Probably that Windows, despite all of its features, prcing, etc, will NEVER be able to meet the needs of the entire market. UNIX/Linux, however, is backed by several companies all looking to serve various PARTS (not the entire) market. As such, those companies should be better able to serve the needs of their market segment.
Windows has attempted this through NT,95,CE, etc., but they all use a common (more or less) interface. What about users who want a different interface? Microsoft CANNOT meet their needs until it changes it's strategy.
End result? Communism's central control gets beaten by free markets, just as Windows will *eventually* get beaten by UNIX/Linux.
=========
The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.
- Albert Einstein
I would have to disagree with your comment about wanting to "hurt Microsoft." Please excuse the length of this post, but it's necessary to adaquately explain myself. For any firm to MAXIMIZE its profits, it must be a monopoly. This is a fundamental tenet of economics and business strategy, so I'll spare you some words here. If IBM wants to INCREASE profits, it should, over the long term, seek to increase its MARKET POWER. Note that a monopoly has COMPLETE MARKET POWER. Now, if Microsoft has a lot of market power, and IBM wants to exist within an industry that Microsoft is in, IBM must do one of two things - either increase the size of the industry, or decrease the market power of a competitor. Said another way, IBM want's to decrease their dependence on Microsoft. (as you stated/alluded to) Therefore, I would argue that IBM does indeed want to "hurt Microsoft." My word choice might not have been all that great, but I believe that the fundamental premise of hurting Microsoft (i.e. damaging Microsoft's market power) is correct. Thanks for the feedback! -Mark