SCO will simply claim they had no idea where this code originated for at the time and so never sanctioned its official distribution.
Any judge who believes a company that suddenly claims ignorance after years of marketing Linux under the GPL, unlimited access to Linux source-code, and now proof of Linux code submissions, should have his financials investigated just to be sure his rulings don't return a profit.
Excellent point. However, rather than mod you up and make your post more visible, I decided that would go against the whole point of Sun's sneaky campaign. So, I will quietly congratulate you on perceptivenes, and mildly chastise you for not keeping it under your hat!
I have a friend who's a small business client, and had to call Dell tech support. After two hours, it got to the point where he had to call me on a three-way, with the Indian tech-support on the other line. At first, I thought it was silly that he should call me. After all, he had paid Dell a good amount for the support. I quickly realized his frustration when I found out that Dell support had my friend on his knees, with an open computer case, swapping cables and changing BIOS settings. Apparently, he'd been doing this guy's bidding for two hours before he got sick of it and ended up calling me to help translate the tech's directions. I can't imagine what these techs would have someone's grandmother doing if she had to call them.
I asked the tech what he thought the problem was, and I told him what my suspicion was. I asked him to send a tech with the replacement hardware out to simply swap out the parts. Instead, he transfered us to ANOTHER tech guy, who made my friend go through the whole damn mess again. This was apparently third level support, which I believe in Dell-parlance means a native English speaker rather than an indicator of skill level. In the end, the guy had a tech come out to swap out the parts. I visited my friend's business the next day only to discover the idiot had replaced the wrong part. Fortunately, he had left the original part there so I was able to do the correct swap.
Anyways, it's hard to imagine how Dell can save any money by angering and frustrating my friend. But, curiously he asked me whether or not he should renew his soon-to-expire warranties with Dell. After seeing what he had just gone through, I admit being a little incredulous at first. Then, it dawned on me that my friend lived in a practical world, whereas I was coming from a somewhat idealized point of view (you know, vote with your wallet and such...). After all, where was he going to find anything different from Dell at a similar cost? I knew that one of the reasons he had asked me about continuing the warranty with this company after a frustrating experience was because he felt "safe" that I could bail him out of Dell's mismanagement.
I asked him how much would it cost to re-insure all his computers, and after making a few phone calls to Dell, the amount came out to three times the cost of a single new computer. I told him to save his money, and get a spare Dell of the same model and stick it in the closet for parts. It would save him three times the cost in parts replacement under warranty. If he didn't want to do that, he could simply order another Dell when he needed it, pay a little extra for next day delivery and still save over half on the cost of warranty.
The fundamental problem is that you don't _know_ what's going to happen when they get into the wild (and it's a when, not an if)... you're perturbing a system you know very little about. It may have some implications you never even suspected.
I'd say that the consequences are completely unpredictable. On the other hand, so is nature...which is why we're still studying it, and will continue to forever.
You're already seeing genetic crossover from roundup-resistant crops to weeds (wish I had an article to link here). This gene could cross over to another animal or plant and possibly do something very unusual...
We're definitely going to have mutation problems as we explore life and how to live it. The real concerns are 1) affecting our food supplies in such a way that there will be harm in consumption and 2) the special (as is species) cross-over of harmful genes and virii to our own species. Like I said, we're going to have a mutation problem, and most likely the widespread reintroduction of racial-purist groups, but this time dealing with special (as is species) concerns rather than the imaginary concept of "race".
Like the drug-trade, genetic manipulation can't be stopped, only criminalized. The only answer is to make sure we have another environment as backup if we end up screwing over this one. Mars, the moon, the asteroid belt?
A pattern involves three components: first, a description of a generalized recurring problem; second, an abstract solution that is generally accepted; and third, a name for the sake of convenience.
What's the difference between a Design Pattern and a template?
consequences of introducing a new trangenic species into the environment has touched off a debate that has critics such as the National Academies of Science and the Center for Food Safety calling for a ban on the sale of the fish
Even if a few sexually active specimen get into the wild, I doubt a fish that is unable to turn off its "come and eat me" sign is going to last long enough to find a mate that isn't already scared-off by the horny lightbulb trying to have sex with it.
Later when forced to use word (95 i believe) i found it a wholly inferior product to wordperfect and wordworth, especially troublesome was placing a picture, and the fact the display isnt wysiwyg by default.
That's not your fault. That's the fault of the product. People who've only learned Word have the same difficulty in using Word due to its inferiority and poor implementation of 'extended' word processing capabilities ('extended' meaning anything that notepad can't do). Despite its bugs, WordPerfect is probably the best realized word-processor on the market. Going to a lousy product such as Word takes only a matter reducing one's IQ points and giving up all hope for proper formatting.
Are you serious? You're saying that if a kid learns Linux, he won't be competent enough to operate Word in the business world??! I believe you're under the assumption that OpenOffice is so different from other word-processors that it verges on the revolutionary. Please, you know that isn't true. Any monkey using one word-processor, will take 5 minutes to learn another (assuming the keyboard is in the same language).
There is nothing, I mean nothing, so different in the application space as to cause the problem you're envisioning. The argument is a smokescreen, and any school principle who falls for it needs to be ejected to the concrete for wasting taxpayer dollars.
In addition, the argument works both ways. If schools only churn out kids who know Linux, businesses will have little choice but to switch to it, or spend their own money in retraining (a joke, as we know that Linux users would take less than five minutes to figure out how a Windows app works). Then, they'll find out that, Gee, we appear to be saving money by not having to buy faster equipment every year to compensate for the mandated bloated upgrades that our overpriced Microsoft support contracts demand.
I think of the innovative ideas that have been tossed aside (Xerox, HP, IBM...etc) and I wonder why more failed projects aren't Open Sourced. The reasons for Open Sourcing such projects (hopefully under the GPL) would be similar to garage and rummage sales. In the junk-bin, where others throw their trash, someone will find their treasure (anyone watch the Antique Roadshow?).
These include valuable ideas and how they were implemented, if not code itself that could be ported to Linux. Ideas like Lotus Agenda which is currently being brought back and given a new life by Mitch Kapor with an Open Source license. I hope that eventually it will be included as part of UserLinux.
What other favorites from the past could be contributed to a UserLinux distribution, making it irresistable? How about Clipper, isn't that dead yet? Couldn't its corpse (implementation) be examined for clues in how to improve ReKall? I like the idea of integrating Coda into UserLinux, a product from 1987. I wonder, has IBM bothered contributed portions of OS/2's object-oriented GUI to either GNOME or KDE? Also, let's not forget the hundreds (thousands?) of games cast aside by their developers. I for one, would love to see an Open Sourced version of a game likeElite.
I'm not so sure about that. NetWare came out after DOS, it's true. Here's an interesting history from the man who was liquidating the company before NetWare was developed. Keep in mind that Unix sourcecode was freely being shared amongst university students, not DOS. Considering that it was three BYU students who actually created NetWare, its not too far-fetched to think that Novell would license early Unix code to cover their butts, and may have even influenced their decision to buy the AT&T unit that owned the Unix sourcecode.
Another thing comes to mind. I remember a CNI instructor mentioning that NetWare had some Unix code in it.
Of course if this is going to work in the long run is anyones guess. Can you continue development when you only get $50 a seat?
Keep in mind, that $50 is probably for year 1. Continued support, patches and updates may incur additional cost for the Chinese, and further revenue for Sun on something that barely costs them anything. This is a clear win for Sun, and I'm happy for them.
Red Hat made a serious mistake in ditching commercial desktop users, allowing for others to fill the space. As Sun moves in that space, it will also probably open up many opportunities to sell additional hardware ( Server, appliances...etc), the mindshare gained will be priceless as the communists start outspending the capitalists to keep up with the Joneses who have the latest shiny purple boxen.
This is an important case because it is one that we MUST win. Suppose we lose, and a new Open Source operating system gets written to replace the IP'd linux. How long will it take SCO et al to pursue it with similar litigation?
If we lose, we'll just to rely on another Open Source operating system. I know, how about Unix? I doubt SCO would sue itself, though they may be just crazy enough to try it.
= 9J =
Re:Comments on today's SCO conference call
on
SCO News Roundup
·
· Score: 1
Sadly, I see an end to the whole amusing fiaSCO as their entire case just bubbles away into vapor-ware once the judge reads why Caldera Open Sourced Unix.
= 9J =
Re:Linux written to compete with SCO?
on
SCO News Roundup
·
· Score: 1
You're right. NetWare was apparently based on a Unix kernel. This would certainly indicate competition. However, since it has been years since that non-compete agreement, could it be possible that SCO has lost any chance in suing them for allowing things to continue without dispute in the NetWare world?
= 9J =
Re:Linux written to compete with SCO?
on
SCO News Roundup
·
· Score: 2
"you can't sell products which compete with UNIX". Which SuSE demonstrably does.
"ReKall and Access are not DBMSs by any stretch of the imagination."
Of course, you are absolutely right. My fault in perpetuating the idea further with my post. Access, FileMaker Pro and ReKall are desktop database applications that have the ability to connect to multiple RDMBSs.
"The only thing that ReKall provides related to Access is a quick and dirty way to make forms to query your database."
Yet, what a big difference such a belittled feature makes. In the tens of thousands of departments in all the companies in the world, it's FileMaker Pro's and Access' form creation abilities that interests the secretaries who put in requisitions for these products and support Microsoft and FileMaker/Apple.
PowerBuilder's powerful query building tool is nearly everything a database application developer could ask for (minus the stupid syntax within the larger Powerbuilder scripting language). But, where is Powerbuilder, on a secretary's desk or on a developer's desk? I'll tell you something, there are more secretaries in the world than there are developers, and hence there are more Access installations than there are Powerbuilder installations.
Due to its newly Open Source nature, Rekall will eventually have the things you ask for, but you must wait in line for the actual business needs that M$, FileMaker and now TheKompany are answering.
There's a distinction between space opera and speculative fiction. As a whole, Star-Trek and its derivatives and copiers (from Star Wars to STNG to Farscape) can be classed as space opera or planetary romance. However, the best episodes within these series are the ones that could be classified as true science-fiction. Space opera and/or planetary romance are great entertainment and wonderful intros to sci-fi, but for the most part don't require further thought than the adventure within the episode.
Jack Vance is a perfect example as a master of that art. When you read one of his stories, you are completely absorbed in the environment and the views of his characters and their dialogue are unique and imaginative. His planetary romances and space operas are difficult to equal and perhaps impossible to translate to film.
However, the problem with space operas and planetary romances are their eventual reliance on formulaic story lines. Essentially, what television viewers have come to expect as sci-fi, are actually adventure stories placed in the context of space. There's nothing wrong with that, except it misleads people into thinking they are watching something labeled by the TV Guide as sci-fi. This waters down the actual wonders of sci-fi. With only a few episodes in these adventure stories standing out as true science fiction, I can see why it would be difficult to imagine there are any more stories to tell.
I would remind that person of Twilight Zone. Rarely did that series repeat a story line (there were only a handful of similar episodes), and for the most part each episode was fresh and new under the sun for many television viewers.
For those who feel the need to delve into speculative fiction and temporarily escape formulaic fiction (as enjoyable as that can be most of the time), I'd recommend selected works from authors such as
Samuel R. Delaney (Dhalgren, Babel-17, Fall of the Towers, Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand, Tales of Neveryon)
Clifford D. Simak
Harlan Ellison (as editor and author)
Gene Wolfe
Roger Zelazny
Theodore Sturgeon
Greg Bear
Frederik Pohl
Dan Simmons
Joe Haldeman
Philip K. Dick
Richard Matheson
This list is not complete (and could never be), but has some good jumping points into the different.
Red Hat is a market leader and following the market leader assures the least trouble for most users.
Red Hat will no longer be the market leader as they've managed to knock Red Hat Linux Standard, now known as Fedora, back a few years in usability and stability. If Bruce Perens can get the support he's asking for, then a suitable alternative may be Debian.
...Peter Jackson did this. He really had it going for the first two movies. Can't expect him to get it right three times in a row. To remove the great Christopher Lee from possibly one of his last onscreen performances in a major motion picture is sad. Oh well, no one's perfect and Jackson's taken us on a great ride so far and I've appreciated the excellence in the first two films.
From what I remember of the books, what we'll miss is the scene where Saruman is trapped in the tower with Wormtongue as the remnants of the fellowship meet at his ruined fortress and witness his humiliation for his hubris. If there's no Saruman, we'll probably also miss Wormtongues death. Also, we'll miss seeing Frodo's mithril shirt save him one last time; this time from Saruman's attempt to murder him. We'll miss one of Tolkien's attempt to show that all living things are capable of making terrible mistakes by having the Shire taken over by ruffians and bandits, while the shirefolk allow it to happen. Then, we'll miss their redemption as they retake their homes.
The more I think of it, the more likely I'll miss these scenes and can only hope they show up on DVD.
Slashdot Mirror
Any judge who believes a company that suddenly claims ignorance after years of marketing Linux under the GPL, unlimited access to Linux source-code, and now proof of Linux code submissions, should have his financials investigated just to be sure his rulings don't return a profit.
= 9J =
= 9J =
= 9J =
I asked the tech what he thought the problem was, and I told him what my suspicion was. I asked him to send a tech with the replacement hardware out to simply swap out the parts. Instead, he transfered us to ANOTHER tech guy, who made my friend go through the whole damn mess again. This was apparently third level support, which I believe in Dell-parlance means a native English speaker rather than an indicator of skill level. In the end, the guy had a tech come out to swap out the parts. I visited my friend's business the next day only to discover the idiot had replaced the wrong part. Fortunately, he had left the original part there so I was able to do the correct swap.
Anyways, it's hard to imagine how Dell can save any money by angering and frustrating my friend. But, curiously he asked me whether or not he should renew his soon-to-expire warranties with Dell. After seeing what he had just gone through, I admit being a little incredulous at first. Then, it dawned on me that my friend lived in a practical world, whereas I was coming from a somewhat idealized point of view (you know, vote with your wallet and such...). After all, where was he going to find anything different from Dell at a similar cost? I knew that one of the reasons he had asked me about continuing the warranty with this company after a frustrating experience was because he felt "safe" that I could bail him out of Dell's mismanagement.
I asked him how much would it cost to re-insure all his computers, and after making a few phone calls to Dell, the amount came out to three times the cost of a single new computer. I told him to save his money, and get a spare Dell of the same model and stick it in the closet for parts. It would save him three times the cost in parts replacement under warranty. If he didn't want to do that, he could simply order another Dell when he needed it, pay a little extra for next day delivery and still save over half on the cost of warranty.
= 9J =
I'd say that the consequences are completely unpredictable. On the other hand, so is nature...which is why we're still studying it, and will continue to forever.
You're already seeing genetic crossover from roundup-resistant crops to weeds (wish I had an article to link here). This gene could cross over to another animal or plant and possibly do something very unusual...
We're definitely going to have mutation problems as we explore life and how to live it. The real concerns are 1) affecting our food supplies in such a way that there will be harm in consumption and 2) the special (as is species) cross-over of harmful genes and virii to our own species. Like I said, we're going to have a mutation problem, and most likely the widespread reintroduction of racial-purist groups, but this time dealing with special (as is species) concerns rather than the imaginary concept of "race".
Like the drug-trade, genetic manipulation can't be stopped, only criminalized. The only answer is to make sure we have another environment as backup if we end up screwing over this one. Mars, the moon, the asteroid belt?
= 9J =
What's the difference between a Design Pattern and a template?
= 9J =
Even if a few sexually active specimen get into the wild, I doubt a fish that is unable to turn off its "come and eat me" sign is going to last long enough to find a mate that isn't already scared-off by the horny lightbulb trying to have sex with it.
= 9J =
That's not your fault. That's the fault of the product. People who've only learned Word have the same difficulty in using Word due to its inferiority and poor implementation of 'extended' word processing capabilities ('extended' meaning anything that notepad can't do). Despite its bugs, WordPerfect is probably the best realized word-processor on the market. Going to a lousy product such as Word takes only a matter reducing one's IQ points and giving up all hope for proper formatting.
= 9J =
There is nothing, I mean nothing, so different in the application space as to cause the problem you're envisioning. The argument is a smokescreen, and any school principle who falls for it needs to be ejected to the concrete for wasting taxpayer dollars.
In addition, the argument works both ways. If schools only churn out kids who know Linux, businesses will have little choice but to switch to it, or spend their own money in retraining (a joke, as we know that Linux users would take less than five minutes to figure out how a Windows app works). Then, they'll find out that, Gee, we appear to be saving money by not having to buy faster equipment every year to compensate for the mandated bloated upgrades that our overpriced Microsoft support contracts demand.
= 9J =
= 9J =
What other favorites from the past could be contributed to a UserLinux distribution, making it irresistable? How about Clipper, isn't that dead yet? Couldn't its corpse (implementation) be examined for clues in how to improve ReKall? I like the idea of integrating Coda into UserLinux, a product from 1987. I wonder, has IBM bothered contributed portions of OS/2's object-oriented GUI to either GNOME or KDE? Also, let's not forget the hundreds (thousands?) of games cast aside by their developers. I for one, would love to see an Open Sourced version of a game like Elite.
= 9J =
I'm not so sure about that. NetWare came out after DOS, it's true. Here's an interesting history from the man who was liquidating the company before NetWare was developed. Keep in mind that Unix sourcecode was freely being shared amongst university students, not DOS. Considering that it was three BYU students who actually created NetWare, its not too far-fetched to think that Novell would license early Unix code to cover their butts, and may have even influenced their decision to buy the AT&T unit that owned the Unix sourcecode.
Another thing comes to mind. I remember a CNI instructor mentioning that NetWare had some Unix code in it.
= 9J =
Keep in mind, that $50 is probably for year 1. Continued support, patches and updates may incur additional cost for the Chinese, and further revenue for Sun on something that barely costs them anything. This is a clear win for Sun, and I'm happy for them.
Red Hat made a serious mistake in ditching commercial desktop users, allowing for others to fill the space. As Sun moves in that space, it will also probably open up many opportunities to sell additional hardware ( Server, appliances...etc), the mindshare gained will be priceless as the communists start outspending the capitalists to keep up with the Joneses who have the latest shiny purple boxen.
= 9J =
If we lose, we'll just to rely on another Open Source operating system. I know, how about Unix? I doubt SCO would sue itself, though they may be just crazy enough to try it.
= 9J =
= 9J =
Even that may be questionable:
"Not having the skills or time to write a network operating, Novell bought a license to a Unix kernel and based NetWare on that foundation."
= 9J =
= 9J =
As does NetWare.
= 9J =
Of course, you are absolutely right. My fault in perpetuating the idea further with my post. Access, FileMaker Pro and ReKall are desktop database applications that have the ability to connect to multiple RDMBSs.
"The only thing that ReKall provides related to Access is a quick and dirty way to make forms to query your database."
Yet, what a big difference such a belittled feature makes. In the tens of thousands of departments in all the companies in the world, it's FileMaker Pro's and Access' form creation abilities that interests the secretaries who put in requisitions for these products and support Microsoft and FileMaker/Apple.
PowerBuilder's powerful query building tool is nearly everything a database application developer could ask for (minus the stupid syntax within the larger Powerbuilder scripting language). But, where is Powerbuilder, on a secretary's desk or on a developer's desk? I'll tell you something, there are more secretaries in the world than there are developers, and hence there are more Access installations than there are Powerbuilder installations.
Due to its newly Open Source nature, Rekall will eventually have the things you ask for, but you must wait in line for the actual business needs that M$, FileMaker and now TheKompany are answering.
= 9J =
Not only can you audit Rekall, you can also audit the gubernator.
= 9J =
= 9J =
= 9J =
Jack Vance is a perfect example as a master of that art. When you read one of his stories, you are completely absorbed in the environment and the views of his characters and their dialogue are unique and imaginative. His planetary romances and space operas are difficult to equal and perhaps impossible to translate to film.
However, the problem with space operas and planetary romances are their eventual reliance on formulaic story lines. Essentially, what television viewers have come to expect as sci-fi, are actually adventure stories placed in the context of space. There's nothing wrong with that, except it misleads people into thinking they are watching something labeled by the TV Guide as sci-fi. This waters down the actual wonders of sci-fi. With only a few episodes in these adventure stories standing out as true science fiction, I can see why it would be difficult to imagine there are any more stories to tell.
I would remind that person of Twilight Zone. Rarely did that series repeat a story line (there were only a handful of similar episodes), and for the most part each episode was fresh and new under the sun for many television viewers.
For those who feel the need to delve into speculative fiction and temporarily escape formulaic fiction (as enjoyable as that can be most of the time), I'd recommend selected works from authors such as
Samuel R. Delaney (Dhalgren, Babel-17, Fall of the Towers, Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand, Tales of Neveryon)
Clifford D. Simak
Harlan Ellison (as editor and author)
Gene Wolfe
Roger Zelazny
Theodore Sturgeon
Greg Bear
Frederik Pohl
Dan Simmons
Joe Haldeman
Philip K. Dick
Richard Matheson
This list is not complete (and could never be), but has some good jumping points into the different.
= 9J =
Red Hat will no longer be the market leader as they've managed to knock Red Hat Linux Standard, now known as Fedora, back a few years in usability and stability. If Bruce Perens can get the support he's asking for, then a suitable alternative may be Debian.
= 9J =
From what I remember of the books, what we'll miss is the scene where Saruman is trapped in the tower with Wormtongue as the remnants of the fellowship meet at his ruined fortress and witness his humiliation for his hubris. If there's no Saruman, we'll probably also miss Wormtongues death. Also, we'll miss seeing Frodo's mithril shirt save him one last time; this time from Saruman's attempt to murder him. We'll miss one of Tolkien's attempt to show that all living things are capable of making terrible mistakes by having the Shire taken over by ruffians and bandits, while the shirefolk allow it to happen. Then, we'll miss their redemption as they retake their homes.
The more I think of it, the more likely I'll miss these scenes and can only hope they show up on DVD.
= 9J =