So, when will SCO get gutted and pan fried by IBM's [patent] lawsuits?
Hopefully never.
You heard me right. IBM's claims to patent infringement are frivilous. I am all for IBM to prevail in the SCO case, but I am not in favor of it wielding its patents to do it. My personal distaste for software patents does not end just because the "right" side is using them.
IBM's case stands quite well on its own without the need for patent infringement litigation.
You've got to wonder what Dave's ex-partners currently make of all this. I guess initially they might have been somewhat anxious, thinking 'Oh no, one of our own coming after us. He'll be tuned in to all our cunning strategies and will use them against us.'
This just triggered a thought that explains why McBride brought this whole insane case to court. I have this vivid mental image of someone named Baldrick going up to Darl and saying "I have a cunning plan..."
Was this where they detonated a bomb in Charlston SC?
Yes, that was the one. A fairly well-done treatment of domestic terrorism. The movie was liberally sprinkled with brief announcements that it was fictional, so anyone watching for more than about 15 minutes would have figured it out.
I'm afraid that the new internal code name for their legal course is "Cherry Blossom."
I have a better name for this policy: Scorched Earth.
Anyone in this discussion watch the sci-fi show Babylon 5? Remember the episode when Sheridan's forces are closing in on Earth, toppling the reign of terror the Earth president? His last action against the freedom fighters was not to fight to the last man, but to practice a literal scorched earth policy by turning the planet's defensive particle beam weapons on the Earth itself.
I am reminded of that scene every time SCO comes out with shit like this. For some time I have been of the belief that perhaps McBride really does think he is in the right (not that *I* believe he is, mind you). Now, I have to wonder if he really knows that he blew it, and is making the case so cloudy and so complicated that it has a chance of bringing others down with him.
What really started to convince me of this was his comments about the GPL violating the constitution. Take away that statement, and everything else that SCO said about the GPL could be applied if the words "in this case" were added (i.e. if IBM really were guilty of adding SCO's IP into Linux, the GPL would indeed be invalid in this case; even the FSF acknowledges that the code has to be given willingly and knowingly).
In B5, the president's plan did not succeed and he died in the effort. One wonders if something similar will happen in the SCO case.
Actually, as any sensible motorist will tell you, cars will last as long as you're willing to maintain them.
The problem is, not a lot of people take the time to do the math and realize that keeping the old car is usually almost always cheaper than buying a new one.
Say you have a car that costs $1000 a year in repair costs. Sounds like its time to get a new car, right? Not necessarily. Say a new car would cost $200 less per year in insurance and perhaps save you another $300 in gas costs (assuming the newer model is more efficient). Add to the repair cost, and that old car is costing $1500 a year.
What does this work out to a month? About $125 a month. If you lease a new car, or buy a new car, you'll be paying anywhere from $300 to $600 a month in lease/loan payments. That old car is still cheaper than the new one.
There are exceptions to the rule, of course. If a car has a persistent safety or health issue that cannot be repaired, then that preempts the cost savings. Also, keeping an old car going for too long a time and you wind up paying more than you would for a loan, but this could easily make cars last 10 years.
There were also upmteen different varieties of the MUD that came out, many of which were devoted more to role-playing (RP) than level advancement.
I was on PernMUSH (based on Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern universe) for 3 years, 2 site changes, and 1 database rebuild. It was a huge timesink for me because it was fun. And the main reason it was fun was because the PLAYERS got to decide what plots to RP. Anyone could come up with a plot, round up enough interested players, and RP it, so long as it fit within the framework of the Pern universe. And more often than not, if it were interesting enough, other players spontaneously joined in after it started.
Sure, it had places where you could "advance" (you could become a dragonrider, or you could advance in a craft, etc), but in most cases, advancement was determined by other players based more or less on your RP activity rather than arbitrary tasks.
Even if you could get a list of BayStar's investors, no doubt those are also investment houses, and trying to track down any M$ investment would take a lot of poking.
Yes, and another note for the conspiracy theorists: BayStar does not need Microsoft directing its investments. Believe it or not, there are some companies out there that can make stupid decisions without Microsoft.
They are attempting to avoid Bayesian filters by including non-spam words as well as spam words. They are almost-white to avoid filters that (wisely) ignore completely white text.
They also try many variations on the same phrasing. For example, let's peruse my Mozilla's junk folder:
Guy's Penile Size Enhancer
Guy's Johnson Size Increaser
Guy's Gonad Size Enhancer
Gentlement's (you know what) Enhancement
Men's (you know what) Length Increasement
Men's Unit Length Enhancement
And, I might add, Mozilla's filter catches every one of them. I peruse the junk folder on occassion for the amusement factor of how many different ways they've tried this week to get through.
Article is a bit off base in places
on
Trusted Computing
·
· Score: 1
I managed to RTFA (most of it, anyway), and I think he's off base in a few areas. For example, he uses firewalling as one part of the liberty-eroding equation, but doesn't seem to realize these two facts:
Firewalling arose out of a need to block computer-based attacks (he does mention that firewalling helps block attacks, but then ignores it as if that's not a big deal). While it is true that the ISPs have taken advantage of this to restrict you from developing a server on your own and using their hosting facilities, this only makes sense in that it helps them route their traffic better. I sure as hell don't want my broadband connection slowed because my neighbor decided to run a popular porn site.
Most users don't care about running their own website. Let's face it. Most ordinary users of the internet don't have anything interesting to say (/. users are not "ordinary" in that they are much more tech-savvy than your average user). The audience of the internet these days is much more "unwashed masses" than not. Those that do have something worthwhile to say often find the means to do it. Webhosting is relatively cheap if a;ll you're trying to do is exercise free speech.
The problem with having a completely peer-to-peer system anymore is the fact that you have to share it with the lamers, spammers, l33t h8x0rs, script kiddies, and idiots who can't find the "any" key.
The basic problem with the internet is that it is a victim of its own popularity. Something does not get regulated or commercialized until it is popular. It is impossible to return to the days of yore when anything-goes. Take cars, for example. When they first came out, you only needed to be able to afford one to drive it. Just buy one, crank the engine, and off you go, and you could drive anywhere there was level ground. Today (in the US), you have to have a driver's license, mandatory insurance, you must follow the street and highways regulations, speed limits, etc.
I don't disaggree that there is an erosion of liberties happening, I just disagree with some of the reasoning behind it expounded in the article.
My mother didn't want me to get a C64 either. It was my first computer, and I wrangled with her for months over which to buy, and we had settled on the VIC 20 despite my pleas for the C64. So the day comes to buy the thing, and it's my Dad that goes with me to the store.
My Dad was involved only peripherally in the discussions with my Mom over this, but he rarely overrode my Mom's decisions. But then halfway to the store he suddenly says, "Now, it was the Commodore 64 that you wanted, right?"
I came so close to automatically correcting him, but instead paused, then just nodded my head.
My Mom was sore for a week. I should ask him one of these days if he really did forget which one we had decided on or if this was his way of doing something nice:)
...but I felt I really understood the system. When I replaced it with an XT clone a few years later, I never really felt comfortable with the new machine. I always felt like I didn't completely understand what was going on.
Here's a question: What OS do you prefer to use today? I've always wondered if there was a correlation between people who cut their computer teeth on a C64 and now run Linux (or *BSD, or some other free OS), specifically because they can still look under the hood. It's a hell of a bigger engine you find under there nowadays, but the principle is the same: you can tinker with it to your heart's content.
My OS progression went from C64 --> Amiga --> DOS/Win3.11 --> Linux. The last jump was made rather quickly.
to see if DMCA really has merit in the courts. This is so nutty its unbelievable.
What's really insane is that they are actually using the stock market to justify the damages they supposedly endured. Any judge with any ounce of sense will reject this as bullshit. The market is so damn volatile these days that you cannot use it as evidence unless it could be proven that the accused performed actions specifically to manipulate the market.
If the market did go down because of his actions, it was only because investors saw the company had a crappy product to begin with and it was only a matter of time anyway.
I've worked on UN ops before. Let me assure you: the biggest barrier ANY goal can ever have is having the UN supporting it. Now that that's out of the way, Open Source software should have no trouble flourishing.
Why the hell was this modded flamebait? He has a valid point.
The UN is a joke. Why should we care whether or not it supposed open source software? Things get done despite the UN, not because of it. The UN is a nice concept that has a horrid implementation.
OSS will spread no matter how much FUD is flung at it or how much money the big corporations spend to oppose it. The fact that the big companies feel compelled to lobby this hard shows that they have seen the writing on the wall.
The correct solution in such cases is a) determine if damages apply, and b) cease and desist infringing (that is, remove or rewrite the code).
c) Determine who should pay damages.
What really gets me about this is that if there really is any infringing code put there by IBM or SGI, then SCO is totally within their rights to make them pay damages. They do NOT have the right to pursue the users of the product.
Linus Torvalds was right when he stated that this is a contractual dispute between SCO and IBM and nothing more. A more clueful company than SCO would have doggedly pursued IBM while at the same time working to get the infringing code out of Linux, which is in effect an innocent third party. A more clueful company would have realized that attempting to extract money from end users is a losing proposition in the long run.
The problem I generally see is that some users don't pay attention or just don't care, or just like to gripe.
Case and point: I do a lot of web-based tool work at my job. I added a paricular feature recently. I explained this feature at a conference call with the group that was to use the feature. I then explained the feature AGAIN in a summary email about the changes I was going to install the coming week. The form has online help explaining the feature and how to use it step by step, and is easy to find (unless anyone thinks "Click here for help" at the very top of the form is too obscure). So what happens a few days after I install the feature? I get a call from a person complaining "I don't know how to use this feature".
This person was at the conference call, was on the mailing list that I send my summary to, and, I assume, can read the English language. In talking with her, I confirmed that 1) she doesn't recall me saying anything about the feature at the call, 2) She doesn't remember seeing any email from me, and 3) She didn't see the "click here for help"
It seems that the crowd is totally against someone like SCO suing for what they believe are their rights, but god help a company that TRIES to comply with the GPL.. they will be burnt at the stake for a mis-step.
SCO sues for what the believe are their rights and before even going to court, they sling FUD at Linux, threaten to "invoice" users of it, and make ludicrous, self-contradictory statements to the media. And never once had they tried to work things out with the Linux kernel folk.
Linux kernel developers try to protect their rights as well, and do it via lots and lots of quiet negociation, polite but firm reminders from lawyers with minimal (if any) actual overt threats of litigation, and they don't make a media circus of it.
Now... tell me again how you managed to relate these two things?
All this does is make companies shy away from Linux. Linksys should just move to BSD and forget about this GPL nonsense.
To the moderator that tagged this as -1 Troll: Did you do so because you really thought he was a troll or just because you disagree with it? I suspect the latter, so I'll be watching for this one in metamoderation.
That aside, I have to state that this person has a point. While I would not have used the term "GPL nonsense", since I believe the GPL to be a Good Thing, I do agree that companies have a choice. Use Linux under the GPL or use *BSD under the BSD license.
I'm a confirmed Linux user, but I've perused the features in the *BSD OS set. It looks pretty damn good. Linux ought to be having more competition with them in the marketplace than they do now. But for some reason, Linux became the darling of the corporate world and the *BSDs didn't.
The point I don't agree with in this post that is not explicitly stated but implied is that complaining about GPL violations will drive people away from Linux. I don't believe this to be the case. If this thing with LinkSys goes to court, it will be the most "altruistic" license litigation ever. Why? There are no damages to sue for. If people decide to go after LinkSys, it will most likely be to do either of these:
Force them to reveal all the code
Stop them from distributing the product
Issue an injunction against their further use of the GPL'ed software (which is allowed under the terms of the GPL)
All of the video card engineering is going into the 3D side, and it makes sense to leverage that even on the "2D" desktop.
I will agree to this only if I ultimately have the choice and can leave my desktop 2D. I like the simplicity of a 2D desktop. I don't need fancy 3D graphics for simple things like file manipulation or launching programs.
This is why I gag over this fetish that programmers of video players for Linux have with skins. I despise skins. I prefer nice menus with clear options on them to perform all the functions of the application.
20% - Who post something witty, or copy various ??? Profit or ISR jokes
And of these jokes, the breakdown will be:
20% ??? Profit jokes
15% All Your X Are Belong To Us
15% I, for one, welcome our new Y overlords
10% It's GNU/Y
10% Something with the phrase "you insensitive clod" or "CowboyNeal" in it
15% Beowulf clusers of X/Y
10% Anything that mentions SCO
5% Lists like this engineered to garner a cheap laugh
Am I the only one who thinks that anything more than 2D on the plain desktop is overkill? I for one do not want to be required to install the latest super high end 3D graphics card just to read my email and edit my Perl programs.
As for support for 3D in general, why do we need it in X? Isn't this what things like OpenGL are for? I would much rather keep the low-level X interface as simple as possible and just build atop it whatever we need.
I agreed with most of your other points about X that need improving, just not this one, since most of the others can be achieved without having to perform hardware upgrades all the time.
Probably not, as he's proved himself perfectly capable of writing straight characters elsewhere.
If the new episodes remain faithful to the old series, this becomes a moot point.
Other than the pure visual pleasantries of seeing some of the Doctor's female companions (insert obligatory complimentary remark about Leela here), the old Doctor Who was virtually devoid of romance or sex, save for some minor characters that we saw only once or twice. The main characters never truly had any sexual tension whatsoever, either gay or straight.
I, for one, was grateful for this. Doctor Who was pure, hard sci fi. A bit campy, yes, but still good. Excessive romantic entanglements with the main characters would just get in the way of the story and cramp the Doctor's style.
Just as standing on a suburban corner with a bullhorn at 4:00 am yelling out my political agenda for world domination isn't protected by free speech (as it violates noise ordinances), stopping telemarketers from calling my house is not violating their free speech rights.
This is an excellent example. Yes, the US has free speech. But even the courts recognize (or should, anyway) that there is a time and a place for everything. That same person, minus the bullhorn and giving speeches on a street corner in the middle of the day can be considered exercising free speech, so long as he is not attempting to accost/assault people to get his message across.
Calling me on the telephone should be considered a privilege, not a right.
You're either a troll, or you're sadly misinformed. Either way, you touched a nerve, so you're going to get an eyeful.
These people slave away day and night, putting up with your abuse. Now you want to take away their rights to free speech.
Bull-fucking-shit. Your right to free speech does NOT extend to calling me on the telephone whenever you damn well please. You want to call me at any damn time you please? Pay my phone bill, then. The telephone is something I pay for and is there for my convenience, not you. I have my number unlisted for a reason. You have no right to call me than you do to accost me in the street and insist on walking along with me and trying to talk to me. If you did that, I'm well within my rights to call a cop over and get you the fuck off my back.
I'm glad there are judges that will keep that from happening. Telemarketing is the only job some people can get, especially in the rural parts of the US.
Yeah, and the only job some poor inner city people can get is selling crack. Doesn't make it morally right, either.
Businesses all over the country rely on these hard working, honest folks to sell their product. We have so many people unemployed and some snooty "too good for you" jerks want to take away their right to make a decent living for their FAMILIES.
Then how come is it that the companies I ultimately wind up actually buying stuff from are the ones that DON'T call me when I'm trying to eat dinner? COnsidered the fact that 50,000,000 people signed up for the no-call list means that there are 50,000,000 people that will likely not buy anything from these clowns.
Shame on you if you signed up for do not call! I just wish you could see all the hungry , poor children's faces when they find out that mom or dad just lost their job because of yuppie jerks like you and they won't have a Christmas.
Oh, cry me a river. Telemarketing is a zero-skill job. I busted my butt to get my degree, and I bust my butt at the office to convince everyone that it's worth keeping me on through the layoffs. They have it hard? Wake up and smell the coffee. The economy is bad for everyone.
Basically, hard working Americans aren't free to earn a living anymore. They are only free to starve if they weren't born rich.
Everyone is free to earn a living. They're just not free to violate my privacy doing it.
Slashdot Mirror
Hopefully never.
You heard me right. IBM's claims to patent infringement are frivilous. I am all for IBM to prevail in the SCO case, but I am not in favor of it wielding its patents to do it. My personal distaste for software patents does not end just because the "right" side is using them.
IBM's case stands quite well on its own without the need for patent infringement litigation.
This just triggered a thought that explains why McBride brought this whole insane case to court. I have this vivid mental image of someone named Baldrick going up to Darl and saying "I have a cunning plan ..."
Yes, that was the one. A fairly well-done treatment of domestic terrorism. The movie was liberally sprinkled with brief announcements that it was fictional, so anyone watching for more than about 15 minutes would have figured it out.
I have a better name for this policy: Scorched Earth.
Anyone in this discussion watch the sci-fi show Babylon 5? Remember the episode when Sheridan's forces are closing in on Earth, toppling the reign of terror the Earth president? His last action against the freedom fighters was not to fight to the last man, but to practice a literal scorched earth policy by turning the planet's defensive particle beam weapons on the Earth itself.
I am reminded of that scene every time SCO comes out with shit like this. For some time I have been of the belief that perhaps McBride really does think he is in the right (not that *I* believe he is, mind you). Now, I have to wonder if he really knows that he blew it, and is making the case so cloudy and so complicated that it has a chance of bringing others down with him.
What really started to convince me of this was his comments about the GPL violating the constitution. Take away that statement, and everything else that SCO said about the GPL could be applied if the words "in this case" were added (i.e. if IBM really were guilty of adding SCO's IP into Linux, the GPL would indeed be invalid in this case; even the FSF acknowledges that the code has to be given willingly and knowingly).
In B5, the president's plan did not succeed and he died in the effort. One wonders if something similar will happen in the SCO case.
The problem is, not a lot of people take the time to do the math and realize that keeping the old car is usually almost always cheaper than buying a new one.
Say you have a car that costs $1000 a year in repair costs. Sounds like its time to get a new car, right? Not necessarily. Say a new car would cost $200 less per year in insurance and perhaps save you another $300 in gas costs (assuming the newer model is more efficient). Add to the repair cost, and that old car is costing $1500 a year.
What does this work out to a month? About $125 a month. If you lease a new car, or buy a new car, you'll be paying anywhere from $300 to $600 a month in lease/loan payments. That old car is still cheaper than the new one.
There are exceptions to the rule, of course. If a car has a persistent safety or health issue that cannot be repaired, then that preempts the cost savings. Also, keeping an old car going for too long a time and you wind up paying more than you would for a loan, but this could easily make cars last 10 years.
There were also upmteen different varieties of the MUD that came out, many of which were devoted more to role-playing (RP) than level advancement.
I was on PernMUSH (based on Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern universe) for 3 years, 2 site changes, and 1 database rebuild. It was a huge timesink for me because it was fun. And the main reason it was fun was because the PLAYERS got to decide what plots to RP. Anyone could come up with a plot, round up enough interested players, and RP it, so long as it fit within the framework of the Pern universe. And more often than not, if it were interesting enough, other players spontaneously joined in after it started.
Sure, it had places where you could "advance" (you could become a dragonrider, or you could advance in a craft, etc), but in most cases, advancement was determined by other players based more or less on your RP activity rather than arbitrary tasks.
Yes, and another note for the conspiracy theorists: BayStar does not need Microsoft directing its investments. Believe it or not, there are some companies out there that can make stupid decisions without Microsoft.
They also try many variations on the same phrasing. For example, let's peruse my Mozilla's junk folder:
And, I might add, Mozilla's filter catches every one of them. I peruse the junk folder on occassion for the amusement factor of how many different ways they've tried this week to get through.
I managed to RTFA (most of it, anyway), and I think he's off base in a few areas. For example, he uses firewalling as one part of the liberty-eroding equation, but doesn't seem to realize these two facts:
The problem with having a completely peer-to-peer system anymore is the fact that you have to share it with the lamers, spammers, l33t h8x0rs, script kiddies, and idiots who can't find the "any" key.
The basic problem with the internet is that it is a victim of its own popularity. Something does not get regulated or commercialized until it is popular. It is impossible to return to the days of yore when anything-goes. Take cars, for example. When they first came out, you only needed to be able to afford one to drive it. Just buy one, crank the engine, and off you go, and you could drive anywhere there was level ground. Today (in the US), you have to have a driver's license, mandatory insurance, you must follow the street and highways regulations, speed limits, etc.
I don't disaggree that there is an erosion of liberties happening, I just disagree with some of the reasoning behind it expounded in the article.
My mother didn't want me to get a C64 either. It was my first computer, and I wrangled with her for months over which to buy, and we had settled on the VIC 20 despite my pleas for the C64. So the day comes to buy the thing, and it's my Dad that goes with me to the store.
My Dad was involved only peripherally in the discussions with my Mom over this, but he rarely overrode my Mom's decisions. But then halfway to the store he suddenly says, "Now, it was the Commodore 64 that you wanted, right?"
I came so close to automatically correcting him, but instead paused, then just nodded my head.
My Mom was sore for a week. I should ask him one of these days if he really did forget which one we had decided on or if this was his way of doing something nice :)
Here's a question: What OS do you prefer to use today? I've always wondered if there was a correlation between people who cut their computer teeth on a C64 and now run Linux (or *BSD, or some other free OS), specifically because they can still look under the hood. It's a hell of a bigger engine you find under there nowadays, but the principle is the same: you can tinker with it to your heart's content.
My OS progression went from C64 --> Amiga --> DOS/Win3.11 --> Linux. The last jump was made rather quickly.
What's really insane is that they are actually using the stock market to justify the damages they supposedly endured. Any judge with any ounce of sense will reject this as bullshit. The market is so damn volatile these days that you cannot use it as evidence unless it could be proven that the accused performed actions specifically to manipulate the market.
If the market did go down because of his actions, it was only because investors saw the company had a crappy product to begin with and it was only a matter of time anyway.
Like the UN itself?
Why the hell was this modded flamebait? He has a valid point.
The UN is a joke. Why should we care whether or not it supposed open source software? Things get done despite the UN, not because of it. The UN is a nice concept that has a horrid implementation.
OSS will spread no matter how much FUD is flung at it or how much money the big corporations spend to oppose it. The fact that the big companies feel compelled to lobby this hard shows that they have seen the writing on the wall.
Probably the same way they had very little sales even when they were pushing Linux.
SCO is so pathetic it's not funny.
c) Determine who should pay damages.
What really gets me about this is that if there really is any infringing code put there by IBM or SGI, then SCO is totally within their rights to make them pay damages. They do NOT have the right to pursue the users of the product.
Linus Torvalds was right when he stated that this is a contractual dispute between SCO and IBM and nothing more. A more clueful company than SCO would have doggedly pursued IBM while at the same time working to get the infringing code out of Linux, which is in effect an innocent third party. A more clueful company would have realized that attempting to extract money from end users is a losing proposition in the long run.
The problem I generally see is that some users don't pay attention or just don't care, or just like to gripe.
Case and point: I do a lot of web-based tool work at my job. I added a paricular feature recently. I explained this feature at a conference call with the group that was to use the feature. I then explained the feature AGAIN in a summary email about the changes I was going to install the coming week. The form has online help explaining the feature and how to use it step by step, and is easy to find (unless anyone thinks "Click here for help" at the very top of the form is too obscure). So what happens a few days after I install the feature? I get a call from a person complaining "I don't know how to use this feature".
This person was at the conference call, was on the mailing list that I send my summary to, and, I assume, can read the English language. In talking with her, I confirmed that 1) she doesn't recall me saying anything about the feature at the call, 2) She doesn't remember seeing any email from me, and 3) She didn't see the "click here for help"
Sigh.
SCO sues for what the believe are their rights and before even going to court, they sling FUD at Linux, threaten to "invoice" users of it, and make ludicrous, self-contradictory statements to the media. And never once had they tried to work things out with the Linux kernel folk.
Linux kernel developers try to protect their rights as well, and do it via lots and lots of quiet negociation, polite but firm reminders from lawyers with minimal (if any) actual overt threats of litigation, and they don't make a media circus of it.
Now ... tell me again how you managed to relate these two things?
To the moderator that tagged this as -1 Troll: Did you do so because you really thought he was a troll or just because you disagree with it? I suspect the latter, so I'll be watching for this one in metamoderation.
That aside, I have to state that this person has a point. While I would not have used the term "GPL nonsense", since I believe the GPL to be a Good Thing, I do agree that companies have a choice. Use Linux under the GPL or use *BSD under the BSD license.
I'm a confirmed Linux user, but I've perused the features in the *BSD OS set. It looks pretty damn good. Linux ought to be having more competition with them in the marketplace than they do now. But for some reason, Linux became the darling of the corporate world and the *BSDs didn't.
The point I don't agree with in this post that is not explicitly stated but implied is that complaining about GPL violations will drive people away from Linux. I don't believe this to be the case. If this thing with LinkSys goes to court, it will be the most "altruistic" license litigation ever. Why? There are no damages to sue for. If people decide to go after LinkSys, it will most likely be to do either of these:
I will agree to this only if I ultimately have the choice and can leave my desktop 2D. I like the simplicity of a 2D desktop. I don't need fancy 3D graphics for simple things like file manipulation or launching programs.
This is why I gag over this fetish that programmers of video players for Linux have with skins. I despise skins. I prefer nice menus with clear options on them to perform all the functions of the application.
And of these jokes, the breakdown will be:
20% ??? Profit jokes
15% All Your X Are Belong To Us
15% I, for one, welcome our new Y overlords
10% It's GNU/Y
10% Something with the phrase "you insensitive clod" or "CowboyNeal" in it
15% Beowulf clusers of X/Y
10% Anything that mentions SCO
5% Lists like this engineered to garner a cheap laugh
Am I the only one who thinks that anything more than 2D on the plain desktop is overkill? I for one do not want to be required to install the latest super high end 3D graphics card just to read my email and edit my Perl programs.
As for support for 3D in general, why do we need it in X? Isn't this what things like OpenGL are for? I would much rather keep the low-level X interface as simple as possible and just build atop it whatever we need.
I agreed with most of your other points about X that need improving, just not this one, since most of the others can be achieved without having to perform hardware upgrades all the time.
If the new episodes remain faithful to the old series, this becomes a moot point.
Other than the pure visual pleasantries of seeing some of the Doctor's female companions (insert obligatory complimentary remark about Leela here), the old Doctor Who was virtually devoid of romance or sex, save for some minor characters that we saw only once or twice. The main characters never truly had any sexual tension whatsoever, either gay or straight.
I, for one, was grateful for this. Doctor Who was pure, hard sci fi. A bit campy, yes, but still good. Excessive romantic entanglements with the main characters would just get in the way of the story and cramp the Doctor's style.
This is an excellent example. Yes, the US has free speech. But even the courts recognize (or should, anyway) that there is a time and a place for everything. That same person, minus the bullhorn and giving speeches on a street corner in the middle of the day can be considered exercising free speech, so long as he is not attempting to accost/assault people to get his message across.
Calling me on the telephone should be considered a privilege, not a right.
You're either a troll, or you're sadly misinformed. Either way, you touched a nerve, so you're going to get an eyeful.
These people slave away day and night, putting up with your abuse. Now you want to take away their rights to free speech.
Bull-fucking-shit. Your right to free speech does NOT extend to calling me on the telephone whenever you damn well please. You want to call me at any damn time you please? Pay my phone bill, then. The telephone is something I pay for and is there for my convenience, not you. I have my number unlisted for a reason. You have no right to call me than you do to accost me in the street and insist on walking along with me and trying to talk to me. If you did that, I'm well within my rights to call a cop over and get you the fuck off my back.
I'm glad there are judges that will keep that from happening. Telemarketing is the only job some people can get, especially in the rural parts of the US.
Yeah, and the only job some poor inner city people can get is selling crack. Doesn't make it morally right, either.
Businesses all over the country rely on these hard working, honest folks to sell their product. We have so many people unemployed and some snooty "too good for you" jerks want to take away their right to make a decent living for their FAMILIES.
Then how come is it that the companies I ultimately wind up actually buying stuff from are the ones that DON'T call me when I'm trying to eat dinner? COnsidered the fact that 50,000,000 people signed up for the no-call list means that there are 50,000,000 people that will likely not buy anything from these clowns.
Shame on you if you signed up for do not call! I just wish you could see all the hungry , poor children's faces when they find out that mom or dad just lost their job because of yuppie jerks like you and they won't have a Christmas.
Oh, cry me a river. Telemarketing is a zero-skill job. I busted my butt to get my degree, and I bust my butt at the office to convince everyone that it's worth keeping me on through the layoffs. They have it hard? Wake up and smell the coffee. The economy is bad for everyone.
Basically, hard working Americans aren't free to earn a living anymore. They are only free to starve if they weren't born rich.
Everyone is free to earn a living. They're just not free to violate my privacy doing it.
Ah, I feel better now ...