The one thing that I do not agree with is that we don't need any press. We can do a lot without press, but not everything. Just like the GNU copyleft is using the established copyright system to achieve something that the original inventors of the copyright concept could never even imagine, we need to use the established communication channels to convince those in charge that maybe other ways of working also are feasible. We cannot simply wait "till we are in charge", as that'll take too long.
Looking at my own situation: I've been a Linux promotor for a very, very, long time at the place where I work. And because I have a reputation of being a difficult (impossible?:-) guy to work with when these things are concerned, I have slowly maneuvered myself into a position where, as both an official UNIX user representative in the relevant workgroup and a part-time assitant group leader, I have quite an informal say in what we do in terms of hardware, OS-es, etc. Our IT manager (a very Windows-minded person) has found out the hard way that he has to take my input into account or face strong opposition. But if he were to get a letter from SCO stating that we need to buy a UnixWare license or face a lawsuit, I would be facing a major problem. No matter how well documented I appear to be when claiming that there is no reason to give in, that will not be enough for him (let alone for our CEO, should he ever get involved). If, however, I can rely on a press release from IBM and/or an article in one of the trade rags, things will become a lot easier.
I couldn't agree more, but we need more than just us Linux users finding out where the code came from and talking about it on Slashdot. We need to make sure (or rather: VERY SURE) that "the world" gets to know this. Investors on Nasdaq need to hear this (ideally through a source like an IBM press release, but any mechanism they take notice of will do), the pointy-haired ones that will soon be getting a letter from SCO about buy a Linux license need to hear this (ideally by means of one of the glossy magazines they "read"), and so on... And unfortunately, I fear that an FSF press release is not good enough in this context.
Indeed, I was originally talking about evolution. And I have yet to be convinced that I was wrong in doing so. Mind you, I'm surely willing to accept that possibility, but so far I have only seen discussion, not proof.
By the way, w.r.t. your earlier statement about the drilling of holes in heads: of course these people had beliefs that we in our day know/consider to be false/silly. But the same can be said about us (either by them (!) or by those living 1000 years from now). None of this means that everything these people knew (or everything that we know) is of the same caliber as whatever randomly (?) selected idea used in the comparison.
I'm not going to argue (i)relevance of your statement, because that would actually be irrelevant. Here's why: if this is the oldest dream there is, then it also is a very common one and as such one that has survived as being "one of the fittest". If men believe this and act like it, their behaviour will tend to genetically favour women who (seem to) fit this "dream" and men who believe it.
It is possible to license the kernel to SCO under other conditions than the GPL (well, that is true in theory only, because in practice it is uttery impossible to get everyone who has code in the kernel to agree on this), but it is not possible to revoke their license on the code they already have. They can loose their rights by breaching the GPL, but that's anotter matter entirely: it is they who are in control of that decision, not "us".
Whether or not - as a man - my "natural" strategy is to go for as many women as possible in order to have as many off-spring as possible is independent of whether or not the type of women that I prefer is that one that gives my off-spring the best start. Well, actually, there is a connection that links off-spring to my type of mate(s): see below for more.
An independent of that, there also is that weird love thing. It seems useless from the "maximise the number of off-spring" point of view, but it's there nonetheless and makes a person want to "not loose" those that (s)he loves.
But as you so correctly write: it is survival and procreation that is needed. As long as your children have not reached sexual maturity, their mere survival determines your success in procreation. And from a point of view of mere survival and procreation, a child that dies at age 1 or 12 was useless (and in fact worse than that: it was a waste of effort no matter how hard that sounds).
Go dig the/. archives for the reason why I use that sig. I've explained it more than once to idiots who have nothing better to do than to be upset by it.
Oh, and its shortly after January 6, which is the release date of the 0.12 kernel.
I agree that the bassin bones are a big determining factor in the end. However:
Why cannot there be a relationship between that and how wide the hips are. Note that this relationship doesn't even have to be causal. It is sufficient that both traits derive from a common cause.
Why would the bassin bones have to be the only reason? Who says that wide hips do not increase stability while carrying the foetus around or something similar.
Also remember the "mother earth" fertility figures in the so-called "primitive" cultures: wide hips are one of their main common characteristics all around the world, which goes to show that their makers "knew something" even if they couldn't explain it scientifically.
And not only that. Evolutionally speaking, wide hips are a indication that child birth will be less painfull and risky. In other words: men who want their children to have the best chance in life and who want to have the least risk of loosing their loved one during child birth should actually prefer wide hips. Of course our modern medical care makes all this less relevant, but on the other hand, the genetically built-in preferences do not adapt that quickly.
Creating in that analogy can mean whatever you want. Assembling off-the-shelf computer parts (but I guess you don't want it to mean that:-) or assembling the whole lot from transistor level upwards (remember the recent story about the guy who made his own CPU). If I take a schematic out of a book and built everything from transistor level upwards, I'm creating my own device, but not inventing it.
I must say that I find the theory that he caried a wounded friend a bit far fetched. The blood on his back may just as well have come from another attacker. Otzi may himself have been the one who wounded that man, or the man may have accidently wounded himself before or during the fight (e.g. by somehow hitting the rocks), or he may have been wounded by the mysterious friend of Otzi, or...
While we're at it, for instance, let's speculate that Otzi simply found "his" cape after it had been lost by one of several other man who were indeed having a fight, but who never ever saw Otzi. It's improbable, but not impossible.
Remember that there are just about as many theories about what he was doing up there and how he died as there are (groups of) people who looked into it all.
As this article on the same site shows, slashdot is being read by the people who report op this whole mess. That too is part of "doing something about it".
SCO management knew that their stock was going to rise sharply in value and most of all that, given their righteousness, it would retain its (then) future peak value. Being the friendly people they are, they decided that everyone out there should have an opportunity to make a small profit on the back of that ugly monopolist called IBM. So they decided to increase their karma by throwing some of their undervalued stock onto the market for us all to buy and benefit from.
No. The internet is not unique. Lots of networks using TCP/IP existed long before they ware all connected into the one network that Americans tend to thing of as "The(ir) Internet". Creating one of these does not mean inventing the internet.
But never mind, if you need an computer based analogy: "to create a computer" does not mean "to invent a computer".
No, he's not trolling. He's simply observing that there are a lot of GUI toolkits around and that most of them are not pre-installed on "your" standard off-the-shelf Linux box.
Before you misunderstand me: apart from the X server, my own box was built by me from the source and nothing but the source. Which is to say: I fully understand how libraries work and I don't mind looking for a bit of extra source if it looks like it might be useful. But for the very same reason, I also know from experience that some apps require a lot of effort to first collect all the dependencies and to then succesfully build them. And in my experience quite a few are not worth it if they require me to spend a few hours on tracking YAT (Yet Another Toolkit) first, especially if chances are slim that I will want to install another app that can live with (the same version of) the same toolkit.
For one, I'm still using dail-up like quite a few others.
DSL/Cable bandwidth costs money as well, even if your ISP doesn't bill by the second. Your subscription could cost a lot less of only they needed to maintain less infrastructure to provide the same service level.
In view of my UID, I guess I am supposed to like this also for other reasons. But I definitely don't. Being able to talk about what's on/. with my roomies is 75% of the fun, even though/if their UIDs are orders of magnitude larger.
Exactly. I know they're lost when they discover I'm not using Windows. And I even don't really care about that, because over 7 years of having a dial-up connection, I only had to call support once. Correction: twice, because the first time the conversation went like this:
Me: I cannot dail-in any more. I've changed nothing to my settings, but since last weekend I'm being refused access.
Support: OK, what version of Windows are you using?
Me: I'm not using Windows. I'm using Linux but that cannot be the cause because...
Support: Oh yes, sure it is (notice: not CAN, but IS!). We do not support Linux.
Me: Don't interrupt me, please. My setup has worked for years, I have not changed anything, I have traced the entire PPP communication in debug mode, and it is obvious that some sort of security check is denying me access.
Support: We have not changed anything either, so it has to be a Linux problem. We do not support Linux.
At this point I gave up and decided to call again later that evening. On that second attempt, another support person picks up the phone and the following unfolds:
Me: I cannot dail-in any more. I've changed nothing to my settings, but since last weekend I'm being refused access. This morning one of your collegues told me this was because I'm using a non-supported Linux configuration.
Support: Well, I don't know about Linux, but I will see if I can find someone who does. Please hold.
After about 3 minutes, a clearly more knowledgable person showed up. He agreed that this could not be a Linux problem, and starts to dig "deeper". Within 30 seconds he says: "Your account has been terminated last Friday." I told him that I never requested that and that I had in fact renewed my yearly subscription only a month earlier. He replied that the termination as requested by IRC. After I explained that that surely was not done by me, he restored it all within another 30 seconds.
Now WHY ON EARTH did that first guy not notice this instead of just telle me over and over that Linux was at fault an not supported???
Of course, the other $1M question that never got answers is how my account got terminated in such an informal manner the first place.
The GPL for readline is only doing what it is supposed to do if it actually manages to convince people to use the GPL. Please note that bash and friends do not count: they would be under GPL anyway.
Now that, I do know that there is at least one project that is GPL-ed because of readline. But I also know a lot of projects that refuse to use readline because of this and - get this - I even know a project that could be opened under LGPL if only readline would allow that. But readline doesn't, and so this thing remains internal and will never get distributed. What a ahame.
Some day somebody will decide that enough was enough and produce an LGPL-ed readline-compatible replacement. I know somebody will, because I've actually played with the idea myself.
Most languages are written horizontally. If you need to scroll to see the end of a line (be it on the left or the right) and in doing so are no longer able to see the begining of the next line and thus immediately will have to scroll back again, you will in general very quickly decide to go read something else. Also, the fact that normal reading is done "row major" also implies that the brain is a lot more sensitive to its "anchor points" moving about horizontally than vertically, even if the left and right borders constantly remain in full sight.
No. They retained the right to forbid SCO to revoke licenses on the original UNIX code. That in itself gives them no right to decide about Linux. Especially not if Linux is SCO-clean, which "we" all claim it to be, but even if it isn't.
For Novell to be able to say that Linux is OK, they also would have needed to retain full rights to the original code. If that were the case, there would be no SCOap opera at all.
Slashdot Mirror
The one thing that I do not agree with is that we don't need any press. We can do a lot without press, but not everything. Just like the GNU copyleft is using the established copyright system to achieve something that the original inventors of the copyright concept could never even imagine, we need to use the established communication channels to convince those in charge that maybe other ways of working also are feasible. We cannot simply wait "till we are in charge", as that'll take too long.
:-) guy to work with when these things are concerned, I have slowly maneuvered myself into a position where, as both an official UNIX user representative in the relevant workgroup and a part-time assitant group leader, I have quite an informal say in what we do in terms of hardware, OS-es, etc. Our IT manager (a very Windows-minded person) has found out the hard way that he has to take my input into account or face strong opposition. But if he were to get a letter from SCO stating that we need to buy a UnixWare license or face a lawsuit, I would be facing a major problem. No matter how well documented I appear to be when claiming that there is no reason to give in, that will not be enough for him (let alone for our CEO, should he ever get involved). If, however, I can rely on a press release from IBM and/or an article in one of the trade rags, things will become a lot easier.
Looking at my own situation: I've been a Linux promotor for a very, very, long time at the place where I work. And because I have a reputation of being a difficult (impossible?
I couldn't agree more, but we need more than just us Linux users finding out where the code came from and talking about it on Slashdot. We need to make sure (or rather: VERY SURE) that "the world" gets to know this. Investors on Nasdaq need to hear this (ideally through a source like an IBM press release, but any mechanism they take notice of will do), the pointy-haired ones that will soon be getting a letter from SCO about buy a Linux license need to hear this (ideally by means of one of the glossy magazines they "read"), and so on... And unfortunately, I fear that an FSF press release is not good enough in this context.
Indeed, I was originally talking about evolution. And I have yet to be convinced that I was wrong in doing so. Mind you, I'm surely willing to accept that possibility, but so far I have only seen discussion, not proof.
By the way, w.r.t. your earlier statement about the drilling of holes in heads: of course these people had beliefs that we in our day know/consider to be false/silly. But the same can be said about us (either by them (!) or by those living 1000 years from now). None of this means that everything these people knew (or everything that we know) is of the same caliber as whatever randomly (?) selected idea used in the comparison.
I'm not going to argue (i)relevance of your statement, because that would actually be irrelevant. Here's why: if this is the oldest dream there is, then it also is a very common one and as such one that has survived as being "one of the fittest". If men believe this and act like it, their behaviour will tend to genetically favour women who (seem to) fit this "dream" and men who believe it.
It is possible to license the kernel to SCO under other conditions than the GPL (well, that is true in theory only, because in practice it is uttery impossible to get everyone who has code in the kernel to agree on this), but it is not possible to revoke their license on the code they already have. They can loose their rights by breaching the GPL, but that's anotter matter entirely: it is they who are in control of that decision, not "us".
Your point is correct but besides the point.
Whether or not - as a man - my "natural" strategy is to go for as many women as possible in order to have as many off-spring as possible is independent of whether or not the type of women that I prefer is that one that gives my off-spring the best start. Well, actually, there is a connection that links off-spring to my type of mate(s): see below for more.
An independent of that, there also is that weird love thing. It seems useless from the "maximise the number of off-spring" point of view, but it's there nonetheless and makes a person want to "not loose" those that (s)he loves.
But as you so correctly write: it is survival and procreation that is needed. As long as your children have not reached sexual maturity, their mere survival determines your success in procreation. And from a point of view of mere survival and procreation, a child that dies at age 1 or 12 was useless (and in fact worse than that: it was a waste of effort no matter how hard that sounds).
Go dig the /. archives for the reason why I use that sig. I've explained it more than once to idiots who have nothing better to do than to be upset by it.
Oh, and its shortly after January 6, which is the release date of the 0.12 kernel.
Also remember the "mother earth" fertility figures in the so-called "primitive" cultures: wide hips are one of their main common characteristics all around the world, which goes to show that their makers "knew something" even if they couldn't explain it scientifically.
And not only that. Evolutionally speaking, wide hips are a indication that child birth will be less painfull and risky. In other words: men who want their children to have the best chance in life and who want to have the least risk of loosing their loved one during child birth should actually prefer wide hips. Of course our modern medical care makes all this less relevant, but on the other hand, the genetically built-in preferences do not adapt that quickly.
If my memory serves me well, having a usable memory was apparently not a requirement for certain previous CA governors.
Creating in that analogy can mean whatever you want. Assembling off-the-shelf computer parts (but I guess you don't want it to mean that :-) or assembling the whole lot from transistor level upwards (remember the recent story about the guy who made his own CPU). If I take a schematic out of a book and built everything from transistor level upwards, I'm creating my own device, but not inventing it.
I must say that I find the theory that he caried a wounded friend a bit far fetched. The blood on his back may just as well have come from another attacker. Otzi may himself have been the one who wounded that man, or the man may have accidently wounded himself before or during the fight (e.g. by somehow hitting the rocks), or he may have been wounded by the mysterious friend of Otzi, or ...
While we're at it, for instance, let's speculate that Otzi simply found "his" cape after it had been lost by one of several other man who were indeed having a fight, but who never ever saw Otzi. It's improbable, but not impossible.
Remember that there are just about as many theories about what he was doing up there and how he died as there are (groups of) people who looked into it all.
As this article on the same site shows, slashdot is being read by the people who report op this whole mess. That too is part of "doing something about it".
SCO management knew that their stock was going to rise sharply in value and most of all that, given their righteousness, it would retain its (then) future peak value. Being the friendly people they are, they decided that everyone out there should have an opportunity to make a small profit on the back of that ugly monopolist called IBM. So they decided to increase their karma by throwing some of their undervalued stock onto the market for us all to buy and benefit from.
No. The internet is not unique. Lots of networks using TCP/IP existed long before they ware all connected into the one network that Americans tend to thing of as "The(ir) Internet". Creating one of these does not mean inventing the internet.
But never mind, if you need an computer based analogy: "to create a computer" does not mean "to invent a computer".
If create means invent, "to create a car" means "to invent the car". Hardly true as everyone knows.
No, he's not trolling. He's simply observing that there are a lot of GUI toolkits around and that most of them are not pre-installed on "your" standard off-the-shelf Linux box.
Before you misunderstand me: apart from the X server, my own box was built by me from the source and nothing but the source. Which is to say: I fully understand how libraries work and I don't mind looking for a bit of extra source if it looks like it might be useful. But for the very same reason, I also know from experience that some apps require a lot of effort to first collect all the dependencies and to then succesfully build them. And in my experience quite a few are not worth it if they require me to spend a few hours on tracking YAT (Yet Another Toolkit) first, especially if chances are slim that I will want to install another app that can live with (the same version of) the same toolkit.
For one, I'm still using dail-up like quite a few others.
DSL/Cable bandwidth costs money as well, even if your ISP doesn't bill by the second. Your subscription could cost a lot less of only they needed to maintain less infrastructure to provide the same service level.
In view of my UID, I guess I am supposed to like this also for other reasons. But I definitely don't. Being able to talk about what's on /. with my roomies is 75% of the fun, even though/if their UIDs are orders of magnitude larger.
Exactly. I know they're lost when they discover I'm not using Windows. And I even don't really care about that, because over 7 years of having a dial-up connection, I only had to call support once. Correction: twice, because the first time the conversation went like this:
Me: I cannot dail-in any more. I've changed nothing to my settings, but since last weekend I'm being refused access.
Support: OK, what version of Windows are you using?
Me: I'm not using Windows. I'm using Linux but that cannot be the cause because...
Support: Oh yes, sure it is (notice: not CAN, but IS!). We do not support Linux.
Me: Don't interrupt me, please. My setup has worked for years, I have not changed anything, I have traced the entire PPP communication in debug mode, and it is obvious that some sort of security check is denying me access.
Support: We have not changed anything either, so it has to be a Linux problem. We do not support Linux.
At this point I gave up and decided to call again later that evening. On that second attempt, another support person picks up the phone and the following unfolds:
Me: I cannot dail-in any more. I've changed nothing to my settings, but since last weekend I'm being refused access. This morning one of your collegues told me this was because I'm using a non-supported Linux configuration.
Support: Well, I don't know about Linux, but I will see if I can find someone who does. Please hold.
After about 3 minutes, a clearly more knowledgable person showed up. He agreed that this could not be a Linux problem, and starts to dig "deeper". Within 30 seconds he says: "Your account has been terminated last Friday." I told him that I never requested that and that I had in fact renewed my yearly subscription only a month earlier. He replied that the termination as requested by IRC. After I explained that that surely was not done by me, he restored it all within another 30 seconds.
Now WHY ON EARTH did that first guy not notice this instead of just telle me over and over that Linux was at fault an not supported???
Of course, the other $1M question that never got answers is how my account got terminated in such an informal manner the first place.
The GPL for readline is only doing what it is supposed to do if it actually manages to convince people to use the GPL. Please note that bash and friends do not count: they would be under GPL anyway.
Now that, I do know that there is at least one project that is GPL-ed because of readline. But I also know a lot of projects that refuse to use readline because of this and - get this - I even know a project that could be opened under LGPL if only readline would allow that. But readline doesn't, and so this thing remains internal and will never get distributed. What a ahame.
Some day somebody will decide that enough was enough and produce an LGPL-ed readline-compatible replacement. I know somebody will, because I've actually played with the idea myself.
Sorry. It was meant to be a reply to this post
No, it's not that simple.
Most languages are written horizontally. If you need to scroll to see the end of a line (be it on the left or the right) and in doing so are no longer able to see the begining of the next line and thus immediately will have to scroll back again, you will in general very quickly decide to go read something else. Also, the fact that normal reading is done "row major" also implies that the brain is a lot more sensitive to its "anchor points" moving about horizontally than vertically, even if the left and right borders constantly remain in full sight.
The author briefly explains the semantics of the arrows here.
No. They retained the right to forbid SCO to revoke licenses on the original UNIX code. That in itself gives them no right to decide about Linux. Especially not if Linux is SCO-clean, which "we" all claim it to be, but even if it isn't.
For Novell to be able to say that Linux is OK, they also would have needed to retain full rights to the original code. If that were the case, there would be no SCOap opera at all.