Ah, you misunderstand. Yes, they'll win the SCO suit, I have no doubt. That is merely a probing attack though, by a M$ puppet. I'm referring to the hypothetical real thing, where M$ itself sues "linux" one one ground or another, but particularly the patent infringement alluded to in the story.
Technically, I'd be underconfident, since I'm not cheering microsoft on. You guys aren't much for subtly are you? But I'm only underconfident if this situation proves that my caution was overkill. I doubt that will happen.
Read up though, rather than assuming all big companies have more or less equal "connections" and political "clout". Because that's what you've done, isn't it?
It's pretty obvious that this year no one except a Democrat or a Republican will get into the White House. So you have to pick which one is in your better interest. If you're going to get involved in politics, get involved and play the game. Otherwise, don't vote.
The opinion polls predict no one except a republican or democrat can win, and if your vote doesn't jive with the opinion poll, don't vote?
Actually, if Nader/Perot/whoever makes a strong third place (or hell, second for that matter), wouldn't that do more to publicize their party's movement than some local nutjob "speaking out" ?
It's been over a generation though, since they really tried anything like it themselves. I'm not sure if any of the important flesh-eating lawyers are even on the payroll. More importantly, it's easier to be on the offensive, in this kind of thing... IBM is the one trying to defend things here.
Redmond has been scheming to destroy linux for how many years? I truly don't know if they have any intelligent coders, but their lawyers on the other hand... I keep wanting to say "intelligent like the raptors in Jurassic Park" but it's probably more like "queen alien from Aliens" intelligence. In all those years, you don't think they have came up with something already? You don't think that preparations have been made? I don't watch Cspan or anything, but somewhere in the millions of pages of useless laws that they create, there is a rider somewhere that tweaks "patent reform". To those suspicious of it, it's probably described as "fixing software patent absurdities" or maybe "a law designed to keep large companies from abusing smaller ones seeking relief for patent infringement". And this is just my dumb example, it's likely more insidious than that.
And if I make it sound like a single item, then forgive me. Because I should be pointing out that they're attacking this from all angles in Washington, among the congressmen, and even among their fellow weasel/lobbyists. Can't just bribe the senator, have to make sure Disney's man is onboard... didn't we help him out with that copyright extension thing?
IBM will never get an injunction against windows installations everywhere... don't you think Microsoft has a slightly better shot at getting injunctions against IBM linux installations?
I just hope I'm wrong. Maybe Microsoft is full of mouth-breathing, slobbering morons who can't sell food to a starving man without resorting to thuggish threats.
So they start off with patents, and M$ starts to retreat a bit. They go to their pet congressmen and say "Here boy! Here boy, go fetch me favorable legislation!".
"You Honor, we can't possibly seek relief against this guerilla organization, they're stealing our patents and we don't even have anyone to sue. And IBM, long an enemy of poor old Microsoft, is using this opportunity to attack us... you must not allow them to be part of the lawsuit!"
You see it as the number of patents, the number of lawyers. I see it as the number of congressional bribes, the dirty (probably illegal) legal tricks they'll use, and the "morale" of dark side. The kinds of people who don't care, for whom all this is business, they want to be on the winning side, even if that means switching now. Those kinds of people invariably (at least in my personal experience) seem to prefer M$ already, and if they perceive it as the winner... and don't forget they're the people that make all the important decisions.
Even if I'm wrong, though, can you argue that your position is anything other than foolish overconfidence?
Speed will always be an issue, but I'm hoping the same forces that took the regular public networks from 300 baud to cable modems over 20 years might do the same for my own.
We don't have it big enough at the moment, to get anything more than a guess at what latency will look like for the most distant hosts. On our 3-6 hop expanses, we're seeing sub 500ms pings most of the time. Anyone that is interested is welcome to check it out...
Actually, recent trends show that people behave even more irresponsibly the more government tries to treat them like little children that constantly need supervision. Expect driving to get worse.
I wish. Unemployed at the moment. Besides, I'm sure you won't understand this anyway but, as I said, for me the person/team/whatever I want to win isn't necessarily the person/team/whatever I think will win. Try thinking a bit, instead of reacting, I know it's painful. Has there ever been a conflict/competition/war where you wanted one side to win, even though you know they couldn't? That's what this feels like to me. I don't go into "gee, that guy will win mode" as soon as I decide I like him.
Linux deserves to win. It is legally justified in winning. It is the technically superior (well not just that, practically so, too) product. More people should use it.
All that said, I'm hardly optimistic when it comes to the looming war that Microsoft will make of this. You'd think there'd be more people who would appreciate my perspective...how helpful will all the "rah! rah! rah! linux is great, it's unbeatable!!!" people be when you're in the thick of it?
You aren't anywhere in the Richmond, VA area, are you? I don't think I could manage an acl much more complicated than that without the reference book in front of me, but I'd pass at least that test. Difficult to find a job, no one bothers putting "help wanted"s in the newspaper anymore, Monster is a joke... I'm starting to see some spam even on Dice. Then, you have the quasi-jobs, that only exist if they find some ubergenius for $35,000 a year, or better yet the staffing agency fishing nets/lists of 50 different positions "they want to fill" all at once.
You're forgetting one thing, the user shouldn't be installing software on a work machine. This installation method doesn't require some little graphical doodad applet, so it can be done remotely by SSH. The admin can do this, as he should be doing. What's more, it's scriptable and automatable in ways that can't even be dreamt of on Windows. Same for configuration files.
Sygate? Not only do I trust netfilter about 10,000 times more than I could ever trust Sygate, sygate is a toy compared to netfilter. Anyone doing anything custom, unusual, or just plain difficult is only going to be able to do it with netfilter. I do agree that its power makes it complicated though. But if that's your problem download one of the many pre-written rc.firewall's out there...
So in other words, it's the perfect way to do it in a corporate enviroment.
and "the devil is in the details. This stuff is not easy to run."
While I can't explain the 180 easily, this line here says it all. Is brain surgery easy for a brain surgeon? Somewhat. For me? Impossible. Should brain surgery be easy for me? Only if I want to take the time to be a bain surgeon.
Most people don't. Microsoft claims they can make brain surgery easy, with their "Windows Brain-Surgery-Made-Easy robot", and sure sometimes it works. Those initial incisions, cutting with the bonesaw... and then it slices the cerebrum into ribbons like a maniac. And people say "Gee, I hope when it's my turn to have the tumor removed, it get's it right."
It's nuts. But then maybe this guy realizes that there will be a need for more computers, than there can ever be clueful people to use and maintain them, and this is his justification. Since they're clueless anyway, it doesn't matter... and it's better to be on the winning side.
During the cold war, there were always fears that some general on one side or the other would believe he had alot more nukes, enough more that launching his would leave his country in a winning position, relatively speaking I suppose.
Well guess what? If IBM has 300 Minuteman missiles, then Soviet Micrsoft has 8000 ICBM's, 27,000 tons of weaponized anthrax, 90,000 tons of VX nerve gas, and lord knows what else.
Worse, I think they know it. IBM is a has-been, a has-been that turned to the side of good (lesser evil, not-so-evil?) because it wants to recapture former glory. They're George Foreman taking one last stab at the title, and in any real fight, they can't win. Maybe they can keep from getting beat up too badly.
Could IBM get the EU decision put on hold so easil, could they get the DOJ decision gutted so easily? Microsoft did both things, one after the other.
Oh, and one other thing. Why does it seem I'm the only one that can seperate "who I want to win" from "who I think will likely win". Linux deserves to win, I want it to win... but c'mon guys. Enough with the bullshit fanboy optimism.
The halfass shooter games that they make, yeh. But you'd be suprised how simple some everyday things should be to render, if anyone ever got around to doing it right.
What about the entire sky, day or nighttime? Daytime, you might have clouds that can be pretty intensive... but they should be able to nail those cloudless days. Nighttime, I figure 150 stars in a 60 degree cone of view. Instead of using those dumb old skyboxes that smear the stars except for one straight in the middle, why not render nice anti-aliased and bright stars with polar coordinates? Constellations would be recognizable, no parallaxing... hell, the moon itself (since it always has the same face to us) could be rendered this way, looking almost photorealistic. Rendered as a flat circle with its X and Y determined the same way a star's is.
You'd think the way they write games now, we all live in underground tunnels like morlocks or something.... an entire hemisphere of stuff to render is usually as simple as I've just mentioned. Hell, having the more primitive card just render up clouds the whole time, for when the more advanced one gets ready to render it as a single rect across the skydome.
Lots of interesting things could be done, if they only bothered to do them.
Well, since they're US patents anyway, I'm suggesting we don't force other countries to honor our own laws. I'm not suggesting this be allowed in the US, where other mechanisms make it possible for the poor to have these drugs.
As for it somehow hurting profitability, and this in turn meaning that new drugs won't be developed, wouldn't that only be fair? If the entire CEO/shareholder relationship is so fucking stupid, that the shareholder only sees $$$, then when that shareholder comes down with cancer, and might have had his drug that is now only a too-costly-to-develop gleam in some pharmachemist's eyes... well, there's a sort of justice in that.
Waiting for a patent to expire for a drug that treats a virulent disease isn't necessarily an option. Will AIDS evolve to something more tolerant of drugs people need now? On a more human note, will any of those people be alive in 10-12 years?
Patent law is being twisted and deformed to suit the purposes of the powerful and wealthy, too. That they've had a harder time twisting and manipulating it, isn't an excuse. Pharmaceutical companies are hardly the righteous and virtuous defenders of sane IP laws... if their hands appear cleaner, then they've just been sneakier.
If and when IP laws are sane again, I will then feel obligated to obey them, even if annoying or inconvenient... to a point. There always have to exceptions for situations like the african AIDS crisis.
10) Drop rumors here and there that N'Sync will guest star as plasma-sword wielding space knights. 9) Show more science officer cleavage. 8) Invert the bullshition particle field and modulate it to 5.69 isohertz! 7) Wait until Paramount is 5 minutes plus a commercial break suspense builder away from canceling the show, and present a contrived and not so suprising solution. 6) Start selling pieces of Deforest Kelly's mummified flesh as souvenirs to the faithful. 5) Show more science officer cleavage! 4) Wait for JMS to pitch another scifi show concept, and then blatantly steal it after the lawyers have lawsuit-proofed the theft. 3) Hide Riker's razor! 2) Holodeck brothels.
And the number one way to save the Star Trek franchise is....
(drum roll)
Buy the new 6th edition Formula TV Plots for Dummies!
Entitled. What a word. If these countries were invading Eli Lily with tanks and planes, and demanding they get their drugs for free, that's "entitlement". Do they do that?
What they want, is to set up a factory, and just make the damn things, cheaply. Humanity knows how to make them, and they want to. That's not entitlement, it's "not being strangled to death by insane IP laws".
If profits are the only goal (as likely they are in a corporation), then maybe the human race as a whole needs to find another solution. Corporations are mildly troublesome running the world's fast food restaurants. Allowing them to run the organizations that discover, invent, and produce the drugs that save people's lives... not such a good idea.
Do I understand what it is I'm suggesting? Yes, I think I do. Humanity has trouble meeting goals this large, without devolving into a corporation, or some nationalized government institution. We need to find a better way.
As for the more mundane IP issues we have as a nation, those might not look so mundane in 20 years.
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Ah, you misunderstand. Yes, they'll win the SCO suit, I have no doubt. That is merely a probing attack though, by a M$ puppet. I'm referring to the hypothetical real thing, where M$ itself sues "linux" one one ground or another, but particularly the patent infringement alluded to in the story.
Technically, I'd be underconfident, since I'm not cheering microsoft on. You guys aren't much for subtly are you? But I'm only underconfident if this situation proves that my caution was overkill. I doubt that will happen.
Read up though, rather than assuming all big companies have more or less equal "connections" and political "clout". Because that's what you've done, isn't it?
It's pretty obvious that this year no one except a Democrat or a Republican will get into the White House. So you have to pick which one is in your better interest.
If you're going to get involved in politics, get involved and play the game. Otherwise, don't vote.
The opinion polls predict no one except a republican or democrat can win, and if your vote doesn't jive with the opinion poll, don't vote?
Actually, if Nader/Perot/whoever makes a strong third place (or hell, second for that matter), wouldn't that do more to publicize their party's movement than some local nutjob "speaking out" ?
Well, do you hate them both equally? If not, you could (on probability) improve your position by voting for
First, you're basing your vote off of hatred? And not real "you killed mah daddy" hatred, but Hate Week hatred? That's lame, right there.
Second, where do you get off saying "improve" ? Don't you really mean "cause to deteriorate more slowly" ?
It's been over a generation though, since they really tried anything like it themselves. I'm not sure if any of the important flesh-eating lawyers are even on the payroll. More importantly, it's easier to be on the offensive, in this kind of thing... IBM is the one trying to defend things here.
Hope you're right.
Redmond has been scheming to destroy linux for how many years? I truly don't know if they have any intelligent coders, but their lawyers on the other hand... I keep wanting to say "intelligent like the raptors in Jurassic Park" but it's probably more like "queen alien from Aliens" intelligence. In all those years, you don't think they have came up with something already? You don't think that preparations have been made? I don't watch Cspan or anything, but somewhere in the millions of pages of useless laws that they create, there is a rider somewhere that tweaks "patent reform". To those suspicious of it, it's probably described as "fixing software patent absurdities" or maybe "a law designed to keep large companies from abusing smaller ones seeking relief for patent infringement". And this is just my dumb example, it's likely more insidious than that.
And if I make it sound like a single item, then forgive me. Because I should be pointing out that they're attacking this from all angles in Washington, among the congressmen, and even among their fellow weasel/lobbyists. Can't just bribe the senator, have to make sure Disney's man is onboard... didn't we help him out with that copyright extension thing?
IBM will never get an injunction against windows installations everywhere... don't you think Microsoft has a slightly better shot at getting injunctions against IBM linux installations?
I just hope I'm wrong. Maybe Microsoft is full of mouth-breathing, slobbering morons who can't sell food to a starving man without resorting to thuggish threats.
So they start off with patents, and M$ starts to retreat a bit. They go to their pet congressmen and say "Here boy! Here boy, go fetch me favorable legislation!".
"You Honor, we can't possibly seek relief against this guerilla organization, they're stealing our patents and we don't even have anyone to sue. And IBM, long an enemy of poor old Microsoft, is using this opportunity to attack us... you must not allow them to be part of the lawsuit!"
You see it as the number of patents, the number of lawyers. I see it as the number of congressional bribes, the dirty (probably illegal) legal tricks they'll use, and the "morale" of dark side. The kinds of people who don't care, for whom all this is business, they want to be on the winning side, even if that means switching now. Those kinds of people invariably (at least in my personal experience) seem to prefer M$ already, and if they perceive it as the winner... and don't forget they're the people that make all the important decisions.
Even if I'm wrong, though, can you argue that your position is anything other than foolish overconfidence?
Speed will always be an issue, but I'm hoping the same forces that took the regular public networks from 300 baud to cable modems over 20 years might do the same for my own.
We don't have it big enough at the moment, to get anything more than a guess at what latency will look like for the most distant hosts. On our 3-6 hop expanses, we're seeing sub 500ms pings most of the time. Anyone that is interested is welcome to check it out...
Actually, recent trends show that people behave even more irresponsibly the more government tries to treat them like little children that constantly need supervision. Expect driving to get worse.
I print up new barcodes for all my grocery courtesy cards as often as once a week.
Who says that I'll bother sending accurate data to the insurance company? They'll think I'm a 95 yr old grandmother, with the bits I email to them.
I wish. Unemployed at the moment. Besides, I'm sure you won't understand this anyway but, as I said, for me the person/team/whatever I want to win isn't necessarily the person/team/whatever I think will win. Try thinking a bit, instead of reacting, I know it's painful. Has there ever been a conflict/competition/war where you wanted one side to win, even though you know they couldn't? That's what this feels like to me. I don't go into "gee, that guy will win mode" as soon as I decide I like him.
Linux deserves to win. It is legally justified in winning. It is the technically superior (well not just that, practically so, too) product. More people should use it.
All that said, I'm hardly optimistic when it comes to the looming war that Microsoft will make of this. You'd think there'd be more people who would appreciate my perspective...how helpful will all the "rah! rah! rah! linux is great, it's unbeatable!!!" people be when you're in the thick of it?
No, golly gee. But now that I have, I will give up my own totally different idea that solves somewhat different problems. Thank you. ;-)
And still, the only thing that really matters, is who has more connections.
Is IBM's court/DOJ influence bigger? Does IBM have a bigger portfolio of questionable legal tactics?
So we prove we're in it for the long haul, while our employers prove that they'll dump us the first chance they get? What a bargain.
You aren't anywhere in the Richmond, VA area, are you? I don't think I could manage an acl much more complicated than that without the reference book in front of me, but I'd pass at least that test. Difficult to find a job, no one bothers putting "help wanted"s in the newspaper anymore, Monster is a joke... I'm starting to see some spam even on Dice. Then, you have the quasi-jobs, that only exist if they find some ubergenius for $35,000 a year, or better yet the staffing agency fishing nets/lists of 50 different positions "they want to fill" all at once.
Then we've already lost. No one denies Microsoft makes the prettiest icons. Though, they were sorta candy-assed faggoty looking in XP....
Couldn't you just symlink /etc to the proper /etc-0.5.1 directory?
I vote for tarballed source.
You're forgetting one thing, the user shouldn't be installing software on a work machine. This installation method doesn't require some little graphical doodad applet, so it can be done remotely by SSH. The admin can do this, as he should be doing. What's more, it's scriptable and automatable in ways that can't even be dreamt of on Windows. Same for configuration files.
Sygate? Not only do I trust netfilter about 10,000 times more than I could ever trust Sygate, sygate is a toy compared to netfilter. Anyone doing anything custom, unusual, or just plain difficult is only going to be able to do it with netfilter. I do agree that its power makes it complicated though. But if that's your problem download one of the many pre-written rc.firewall's out there...
So in other words, it's the perfect way to do it in a corporate enviroment.
and "the devil is in the details. This stuff is not easy to run."
While I can't explain the 180 easily, this line here says it all. Is brain surgery easy for a brain surgeon? Somewhat. For me? Impossible. Should brain surgery be easy for me? Only if I want to take the time to be a bain surgeon.
Most people don't. Microsoft claims they can make brain surgery easy, with their "Windows Brain-Surgery-Made-Easy robot", and sure sometimes it works. Those initial incisions, cutting with the bonesaw... and then it slices the cerebrum into ribbons like a maniac. And people say "Gee, I hope when it's my turn to have the tumor removed, it get's it right."
It's nuts. But then maybe this guy realizes that there will be a need for more computers, than there can ever be clueful people to use and maintain them, and this is his justification. Since they're clueless anyway, it doesn't matter... and it's better to be on the winning side.
During the cold war, there were always fears that some general on one side or the other would believe he had alot more nukes, enough more that launching his would leave his country in a winning position, relatively speaking I suppose.
Well guess what? If IBM has 300 Minuteman missiles, then Soviet Micrsoft has 8000 ICBM's, 27,000 tons of weaponized anthrax, 90,000 tons of VX nerve gas, and lord knows what else.
Worse, I think they know it. IBM is a has-been, a has-been that turned to the side of good (lesser evil, not-so-evil?) because it wants to recapture former glory. They're George Foreman taking one last stab at the title, and in any real fight, they can't win. Maybe they can keep from getting beat up too badly.
Could IBM get the EU decision put on hold so easil, could they get the DOJ decision gutted so easily? Microsoft did both things, one after the other.
Oh, and one other thing. Why does it seem I'm the only one that can seperate "who I want to win" from "who I think will likely win". Linux deserves to win, I want it to win... but c'mon guys. Enough with the bullshit fanboy optimism.
The halfass shooter games that they make, yeh. But you'd be suprised how simple some everyday things should be to render, if anyone ever got around to doing it right.
What about the entire sky, day or nighttime? Daytime, you might have clouds that can be pretty intensive... but they should be able to nail those cloudless days. Nighttime, I figure 150 stars in a 60 degree cone of view. Instead of using those dumb old skyboxes that smear the stars except for one straight in the middle, why not render nice anti-aliased and bright stars with polar coordinates? Constellations would be recognizable, no parallaxing... hell, the moon itself (since it always has the same face to us) could be rendered this way, looking almost photorealistic. Rendered as a flat circle with its X and Y determined the same way a star's is.
You'd think the way they write games now, we all live in underground tunnels like morlocks or something.... an entire hemisphere of stuff to render is usually as simple as I've just mentioned. Hell, having the more primitive card just render up clouds the whole time, for when the more advanced one gets ready to render it as a single rect across the skydome.
Lots of interesting things could be done, if they only bothered to do them.
Well, since they're US patents anyway, I'm suggesting we don't force other countries to honor our own laws. I'm not suggesting this be allowed in the US, where other mechanisms make it possible for the poor to have these drugs.
As for it somehow hurting profitability, and this in turn meaning that new drugs won't be developed, wouldn't that only be fair? If the entire CEO/shareholder relationship is so fucking stupid, that the shareholder only sees $$$, then when that shareholder comes down with cancer, and might have had his drug that is now only a too-costly-to-develop gleam in some pharmachemist's eyes... well, there's a sort of justice in that.
Waiting for a patent to expire for a drug that treats a virulent disease isn't necessarily an option. Will AIDS evolve to something more tolerant of drugs people need now? On a more human note, will any of those people be alive in 10-12 years?
Patent law is being twisted and deformed to suit the purposes of the powerful and wealthy, too. That they've had a harder time twisting and manipulating it, isn't an excuse. Pharmaceutical companies are hardly the righteous and virtuous defenders of sane IP laws... if their hands appear cleaner, then they've just been sneakier.
If and when IP laws are sane again, I will then feel obligated to obey them, even if annoying or inconvenient... to a point. There always have to exceptions for situations like the african AIDS crisis.
10) Drop rumors here and there that N'Sync will guest star as plasma-sword wielding space knights.
9) Show more science officer cleavage.
8) Invert the bullshition particle field and modulate it to 5.69 isohertz!
7) Wait until Paramount is 5 minutes plus a commercial break suspense builder away from canceling the show, and present a contrived and not so suprising solution.
6) Start selling pieces of Deforest Kelly's mummified flesh as souvenirs to the faithful.
5) Show more science officer cleavage!
4) Wait for JMS to pitch another scifi show concept, and then blatantly steal it after the lawyers have lawsuit-proofed the theft.
3) Hide Riker's razor!
2) Holodeck brothels.
And the number one way to save the Star Trek franchise is....
(drum roll)
Buy the new 6th edition Formula TV Plots for Dummies!
Because next year's card will support 5.0 shaders or some other feature that you want for DoomIII: The Extra levels, which SLI can't do.
Entitled. What a word. If these countries were invading Eli Lily with tanks and planes, and demanding they get their drugs for free, that's "entitlement". Do they do that?
What they want, is to set up a factory, and just make the damn things, cheaply. Humanity knows how to make them, and they want to. That's not entitlement, it's "not being strangled to death by insane IP laws".
If profits are the only goal (as likely they are in a corporation), then maybe the human race as a whole needs to find another solution. Corporations are mildly troublesome running the world's fast food restaurants. Allowing them to run the organizations that discover, invent, and produce the drugs that save people's lives... not such a good idea.
Do I understand what it is I'm suggesting? Yes, I think I do. Humanity has trouble meeting goals this large, without devolving into a corporation, or some nationalized government institution. We need to find a better way.
As for the more mundane IP issues we have as a nation, those might not look so mundane in 20 years.