Companies are (usually) included because they have a high liquidity and are "representative" of their industry.... Red Hat is representative of the overall health of this segment of the industry.
Assuming this 2002 statement concerning the S&P Index Policy is still accurate, Red Hat was selected because they are a leader.
When it comes to publicly traded linux distributors you have NOVL, ORCL, RHT, and at one time Caldera which is now SCOXQ.PK. The make up of the industry has some extreme variation from Novell and Oracle who have started out and continue to sell proprietary closed source products to Caldera a.k.a. The SCO Group that is currently struggling to avoid Chapter 7 Bankruptcy liquidation. Red Hat is more than representative, they are the leader.
And in a way this is a sign of the "runaway success of linux". I've read and listened to the ignorant mewling of several "investment advisers" over the years continually predicting the demise of Red Hat, and open source in general, because they "give their product away for free". And yet here we are not only with Red Hat continually growing and profiting but at the same time linux has become a huge part of the server infrastructure that makes up the internet and global business data centers but it has also taken a minor share of the desktop market and a massive share of the embedded market in products from data infrastructure components like routers and firewalls to mass consumer products like televisions, DVD players, HD satellite receivers, etc. It is due to this runaway success that Red Hat has grown, profited and now has been acknowledged as a leader with inclusion in the S&P 500.
Looks like Red Hat has plenty of competition. Red Hat's business performance selling support services for their distribution of linux has been outstanding and their inclusion in the S&P 500 is well deserved.
Those guys have gone absolutely freakin' nuts with KSR.
Or it could be they are one step closer to sanity. If you trace the history of software patents back to the 1960s you'll notice that there has been a continual battle by lawyers representing corporations to make it possible to patent the abstract idea that software implements rather than the software itself. They were not happy with the copyright protection that protects the software, they wanted to thwart the advancement of science and art to benefit their bottom line, the exact opposite of the intent and purpose of Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution. To make patents sane again the idiocy of software patents needs to be outlawed completely.
They just mechanically reject everything as obvious if they can find the pieces in any prior art, regardless of whether it was obvious to put them together (and for those who think this is a good thing, the result of this line is there's no such thing as an invention, because everybody builds on what's already there).
How can you get it but not get it. LOL
Care to provide some evidence to backup your claim that the USPTO went through all the work to find the prior art and research your invention only to fall short on the analysis and do a knee jerk rejection?
And if somebody builds on what's already there its not an invention, thats called innovation. Patents can cover innovations, the abstract concept from which your software was derived is not an innovation.
And one last request, could you direct us to a single software patent that comes even close to the scientific advancement that would be necessary to develop an FTL drive? One click and regex expressions are hardly an advancement on the same level as pretty much any space propulsion system.
That's what we need. And Information bridges and tunnels to allow us to pass over the Porn Swamps and under Gambling Mountains with traffic light controlled off and on ramps to restrict access!
Obviously we'll need a Hard Shoulder for when your PC breaks down, and some sort of Central Reservation (or "Median Strip") to keep the upload and download data streams from crashing head-on!
You forgot speed limits, licensing and registration, safety and emission inspections, and the most important part, patrol officers and check points to deter or capture drunk surfers or illegal aliens.
All those updates were generally through Microsoft Update. Except maybe a fluke here&there, none of those updates themselves really broke anything in the upgrade process itself. That's because these are all the same "lineage".
In that case several linux distributions have Windows beat hands down. I have little experience with Ubuntu but in SuSE, Fedora, RHEL, and CentOS not only do you easily get updates for the lineage of OS your running but the updates for virtually all of the installed applications. Whether its a desktop application like firefox, gimp, blender, rythmbox, etc. or its a server application like mysql, postgresql, apache, openssl, etc. all that is required is a few clicks through the desktop menus and entering the root password or on a server a command line yum update. After you finish with your Windows updates you still have to worry about all the other applications your running on your Windows OS as well as malware, spyware, virus scanning software and their databases.
I will not tolerate random breakages.
In that case I would suggest avoiding the distributions that are on the edge, i.e. Fedora, and opt for something more stable and tested like CentOS or RHEL.
You know, funny thing is, although I'm not a big Windows user myself I have assisted with at least one debacle cause by one of the Microsoft patches you listed. I assisted in resolving the sudden death of a Windows cluster that was configured to perform processor intensive modeling for libraries used to measure profiles on a broadband spectrophotometry measurement tool. It turned out that the installation of SP2 on the cluster made it impossible to do its job because the central machine storing the data to be processed could no longer accept the connections needed to support the clusters running the modeling. I'm not sure which is more absurd, the breakage caused by the Microsoft patch or the fact that the only work arounds were to either remove the SP2 patch or hack a Windows OS system file with a hex editor. Heh, and people pay for that crap.
Funny, I've had people tell me to reinstall the new Linux(here, uBuntu) updated set instead of updating it.
Maybe I'm a bad luck magnet, but last time I tried to update it pulverized X.
You do realize there is a difference between reinstalling the same OS to solve a problem and installing a newer release of an OS to gain the changes and updates of the newer release?
Reinstalling Windows to resolve an issue may be necessary because either nobody has a clue WTF is wrong and the only solution is to punt or the work necessary to repair a broken install exceeds the work of simply starting from scratch. Both situations can occur with a linux installation as well but installing the latest release is not the same as reinstalling the same release.
As far as updating releases I've had good experience with several Fedora updates but I usually prefer to go with a fresh install and only retain the user data. You should also be prepared to resolve issues whether your installing or updating when your running a bleeding edge linux distribution. What is not acceptable is to have similar issues with a product from a multi billion dollar corporation that you paid good money to purchase.
Now if you really want a ridiculous solution from linux advocates I'll give you one that is close to your anecdote. It never fails that when somebody is working through some problem on their linux install, whether its a bug, configuration issue or simply a lack of knoledge, the question will come up "What distro are your running?". And when the answer that comes back is not the favorite distro of the individual on the other end of the support conversation the solution suddenly becomes "Install $distroX."
Its likely that 99% of the code between $distroX and $distroY are the same, installing X to resolve a problem in Y will have a high probability of producing similar results if the problem lies in the code. If its a configuration issue then $fanboiX should be pointing the troubled user to the correct support channel.
The Dust to Dust report was based off standard Hummers.
While that 100 Miles per Gallon promise really sounds like BS the concept is interesting. What I'd like to know is how much further would the range be if the gasoline tank, ICE and generator were replaced with more battery packs to make it an EV instead of a hybrid.
Actually, what that study showed is that if you get 200,000 miles out of a Prius and a Hummer, they'll have similar energy costs.
Actually, what the study showed was that if you wrote a report with complete bullshit absurdities you could convince some people that a gigantic vehicle that gets 14 MPG average would have better or equivalent energy consumption to a small vehicle that gets 46 MPG.
As far as new versus old, just as its a no brainer that a small fuel efficient car will consume less total energy than a monster SUV its also obvious that buying a new car will not magically reduce total energy consumption. However, since we know autos have a life cycle there will be a need for many new vehicles so it may not be a bad idea to use some of our no brainer knowledge to have a positive impact on our energy consumption.
There's a case to be made that raising the CAFE won't save oil or reduce greenhouse gases.
<sarcasm>
I think it was established as a well known fact that driving a Hummer is many times more environmentally friendly than a little Prius. If Obama was truly interested in saving the planet he would mandate that every commuter drives a Hummer and we scrap these pointless high MPG cars.
</sarcasm>
Rupert Murdoch has tasked a team with finding a way of charging for News Corp content
LOL, I'm sure he is. The absurdity of Murdoch's news channel here in the States became so outrageous I decided I wasn't willing to subsidize it with the channels I did want to watch on satellite, so I cancelled the satellite subscription and installed an antenna in the attic to pick up OTA DTV/HDTV and get my journalism from PBS.
Its not that journalism isn't worth paying for, its that you need to find value in the journalism that is worth paying for. Values like truth, honesty, facts, and breadth of coverage are valuable and in short supply in some news outlets. Racism, hate, ignorance, and titillation that focuses on those core weaknesses is not something worth paying for in journalism.
NPR is another valuable journalistic outlet worth paying for. Feel free to watch or listen to either and instead of paying Murdoch for the garbage he purveys consider a donation to support real journalism.
key members of the IT infrastructure were given instructions ahead of time to take the day off, not tell anyone they were told to take the day off and, best of all, not answer their phone or e-mail
if someone's on call and doesn't answer their phone, you beat them with at bamboo cane a the next opportunity
Actually it looks like the scenario was designed to show that management should be severely caned for using on-call support as a means of running an operation.
Forcing employees to adhere to an on-call schedule is a bullshit method of saving on labor expenses by shifting the cost to the employee who is then forced to tailor their personal life to support their employer.
For all you on-call sysadmins out there I have a bit of information for you. I've seen a semiconductor factory that runs 24/7 and the support departments always had a paid crew working 24/7 to support production. The on shift crew was always enough to maintain operations and respond to disasters, i.e. power outages and bumps that take equipment down. While this may sound like an expensive solution for 24/7 operations it is actually cheaper if properly implemented. One of the keys to success is spreading the support work load across the shifts. The benefit is also a faster response to issues rather than waiting on a pager response.
And one last concept I'd like to plant, that Blackberry they give you to carry on your hip every waking hour of every day including your days off is not a perk. You may feel all geeky and important with your company paid geek status symbol but in reality its simply a corporate slave leash.
The only possible anti-trust issue is if IBM is suspected of "anti-competitive practices that tend to lead to such a dominant position".
Considering IBM still has some stiff competition from HP and there are other smaller competitors in the market it doesn't appear they are at risk of any other anti-trust abuses.
I wouldn't let my guard down with any corporation, but I don't see any signs yet of IBM violating anti-trust laws or acting in an anti-competitive manner. In fact this looks like down right brutal competition.
No, no I don't know that they have problems. You have presented little to no proof they have problems. So your suggestion is that they not only wiretap the whole US but also break into every e-mail account they suspect of terrorist activity?
Taking it a bit further, contrary to the claims of "startling" revelations in the simplicity of Al Quaeda counter intelligence techniques it should be of no surprise. And who in the United States intelligence agencies claimed the NSA was not capable of and did not crack these pathetic techniques?
What I'm sure is only a small percentage of the information available in the September 11 Commission report suggests there were bureaucratic blunders rather than outright intelligence failings.
While a wire tap into every phone connected to a super computer for analysis works wonders in a Bat Man movie, somehow I doubt it would be that simple or that effective in real life. I don't recall anyone in Gotham city speaking Arabic or using code words. And more importantly, how many innocent people would have their rights violated not just by the wiretapping but by further investigation and false accusations, and how often would such activity be used for ulteriorpolitical motives?
The fact is the now public knowledge of Al Quaeda intelligence techniques tells us nothing of the NSA's capabilities or how much they really knew prior to September 11th and illegally wire-tapping an entire nation is likely no silver bullet that will prevent future attacks and as history has shown will likely be used for political reasons.
because they want to control the distribution they release everything on their site
I suspect this is the case, but as with many bloated corporations ran by pointy haired mobs they don't have a clue. As soon as the bits are copied from their server to some other machine on the internet they no longer have control. The fact that they refuse to use available technology that was developed outside their labs shows corporate arrogance and ignorance.
The objective likely to be more proprietary enhancements to their product lines that require licensing and royalties from secondary vendors who wish to manufacture and sell peripherals and products to work with Apple products. Its all about building monopolies, U.S. businesses believe competition is a bad thing.
Industry in the United States has suffered from patent thickets and patent trolls almost since the inception of patent laws. We can expect to continually see patent thickets and patent trolls as many inventions and innovations today are incremental and based on prior patents. And since the Sewing Machine Wars were solved without changing the patent system or intervention of the government there is no reason to react today.
After reading the paper, my conclusion: He is correct on all counts except the last one about the system taking care of itself. His paper provides two salient historical events that prove contrary to the last conclusion; first the only means by which the sewing machine manufacturers were able to break free of the patent litigation war and finally get to the business of making sewing machines, making profits, and innovating further was to circumvent the patent system by placing patents in a pool, and second he notes the patent thicket and trolls that plagued the newly born aircraft industry and was only solved when the government stepped in and created a patent pool so the industry could get to the business of aircraft instead of litigation.
Yes, the patent system was fscked from the beginning, all one has to do is read up on Benjamin Franklin's opinions of the new patent system, but assuming it will simply take care of itself is ludicrous. If such a conclusion is valid then we can also conclude that we can simply eliminate the patent system altogether and what comes of it will simply take care of itself.
Based on the patent pools as a solution it appears that patent law is in violation of the United States Constitution as the objective was "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" and yet the patent laws are impeding progress.
I'm tired of all these copyright/. posts over the last 10 years. So let me set the record straight.
Did the terms of service that were provided with your internet service mandate that you read all articles and comments concerning copyright issues on/.?
"If you use a device or media outside the INTENDED USE AND MORE THEN YOU AS A SOLE PERSON USE IT then you are breaking the copyright."
Care to link to the exact law that supports that premise? Using a device or media outside its intended use does not violate copyright. Feel free to stick your iPod up your butt any time.
bla bla bla
Yep, that pretty much sums up most terms of service provided with software and hardware from companies like Apple, Microsoft, etc.
Then, you shouldn't complain when something is not compatible with Linux.
There were no complaints about compatibility, the complaints are from Apple who want to control how their customers use the products they've purchased.
If an iPod doesn't require special software, why are you complaining?
They were developing their own software, not complaining. It was Apple complaining and using the DMCA to stop valid reverse engineering.
So really the question is why does Apple whine so much, they've been paid for their product, what does it matter to them if some customers develop their own software to utilize their purchase the way they wish? Are these customers actually planning to convert iPods into some mass piracy ring? Or is Apple using the DMCA to control market share and guarantee a revenue stream?
Declaration of Independence from the American colonies {Anonymous Coward}If you don't like the tyranny of a monarchy then try to get the king to change, otherwise shut the #@$# up. Until then keep paying taxes to the king.{/Anonymous Coward}
Civil rights movement takes on the Jim Crow laws. {Anonymous Coward}If you don't like segregation and individual rights based on the color of your skin then change the color of your skin, otherwise shut the #@$# up. Until then continue to sit in the back of the bus.{/Anonymous Coward}
Salt Satyagraha campaign against British Salt Laws. {Anonymous Coward}If you don't like paying monopoly prices for salt due to laws that make it illegal to produce your own salt then change your diet to a no-salt diet, otherwise shut the #@$# up. Until then continue to pay exorbitant prices and taxes to the British Empire.{/Anonymous Coward}
My first experience installing and using linux was with Red Hat Linux 4.1. It was mostly out of curiosity as my younger brother had been using linux but I didn't expect much from a free operating system. At the time I was running Windows 95, Windows NT 4 and OS/2 Warp 4 on the same box so I was already well prepared the difficulties of a multi-boot setup and using a diversity of operating systems.
Its been awhile but I don't recall any major issues with the installation. It definitely required more tweaking than the other operating systems to get a working desktop, but as pretty much anyone in this forum knows there is a high probability of install difficulties with almost any operating system when you build a custom system rather than purchase a pre-installed system.
I don't recall the window manager I used at the time but it was a functional desktop albeit not as polished as Windows or OS/2. But something interesting happened, I found Gimp.
I had a large flatbed color scanner on a SCSI bus that I used in Windows and OS/2. In Windows I used the applications that shipped with the scanner and for OS/2 I purchased an image editing program, I don't recall the name anymore, in both cases the applications absolutely refused to use the full size of the scanner. The scanner was a full legal size 8.5x14 but the proprietary applications would only allow up to 8.5x11 scans. With a little research I found there were applications available for purchase that would use the full scan size but I was not in dire need of full legal size scans so I held off on the purchase.
When I used Gimp+SANE with the flatbed scanner it allowed complete legal size scans! My eyes were opened. In the proprietary closed source software world the extra scan size required extra cash, which seemed ludicrous and disingenuous as I doubt it required any significant code changes to implement, but in the open source world the software was written to take full advantage of the hardware's capabilities and it was FREE!
At that point I was sold. By 2003 I was only running linux based operating systems, my laptop, three desktops in the house, a couple of firewalls/routers and a few servers. During this time I have become progressively aware of the ridiculous demands of the closed source proprietary software vendors. They have become sick and demented on their own greed to the point where they've twisted the purpose of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution from "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" into some bizarre protected and perpetual revenue stream. In this upside down world created by closed source software vendors research and development capital is spent not to advance the science or art but instead to create false limitations on there proprietary applications capabilities to create equally false product price points.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it was a Default Judgement, which means the plaintiff did not show. That is why he lost, not because there was a thorough review of the matter at hand.
Somehow I doubt this will be valid as a precedent in future lawsuits.
most likely they pushed developers to focus first on microsoft based search engines, but really, I also find it hard to believe not a single person would have tried google first
...even when using source code licensed under open source terms!!!
And all these corporations using open source software to run their business are at risk of violating the terms of those licenses and will now drop open source like a sub-prime mortgage derivative laundered ten times over.
Oh, wait, it was a proprietary product that violated the open source license....ZOMG is right, proprietary vendors are screwed, how can you know if your closed source vendor has stolen open source code until after you've invested in using their product and put your business at risk.
Gee, I guess its just one more reason to use open source software from open source vendors. Who knows what kind of trouble those closed source vendors are getting you into.
Slashdot Mirror
Assuming this 2002 statement concerning the S&P Index Policy is still accurate, Red Hat was selected because they are a leader.
When it comes to publicly traded linux distributors you have NOVL, ORCL, RHT, and at one time Caldera which is now SCOXQ.PK. The make up of the industry has some extreme variation from Novell and Oracle who have started out and continue to sell proprietary closed source products to Caldera a.k.a. The SCO Group that is currently struggling to avoid Chapter 7 Bankruptcy liquidation. Red Hat is more than representative, they are the leader.
And in a way this is a sign of the "runaway success of linux". I've read and listened to the ignorant mewling of several "investment advisers" over the years continually predicting the demise of Red Hat, and open source in general, because they "give their product away for free". And yet here we are not only with Red Hat continually growing and profiting but at the same time linux has become a huge part of the server infrastructure that makes up the internet and global business data centers but it has also taken a minor share of the desktop market and a massive share of the embedded market in products from data infrastructure components like routers and firewalls to mass consumer products like televisions, DVD players, HD satellite receivers, etc. It is due to this runaway success that Red Hat has grown, profited and now has been acknowledged as a leader with inclusion in the S&P 500.
HPQ HP-UX
ORCL Solaris
IBM AIX
NOVL SUSE
Looks like Red Hat has plenty of competition. Red Hat's business performance selling support services for their distribution of linux has been outstanding and their inclusion in the S&P 500 is well deserved.
Or it could be they are one step closer to sanity. If you trace the history of software patents back to the 1960s you'll notice that there has been a continual battle by lawyers representing corporations to make it possible to patent the abstract idea that software implements rather than the software itself. They were not happy with the copyright protection that protects the software, they wanted to thwart the advancement of science and art to benefit their bottom line, the exact opposite of the intent and purpose of
Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution. To make patents sane again the idiocy of software patents needs to be outlawed completely.
How can you get it but not get it. LOL
Care to provide some evidence to backup your claim that the USPTO went through all the work to find the prior art and research your invention only to fall short on the analysis and do a knee jerk rejection?
And if somebody builds on what's already there its not an invention, thats called innovation. Patents can cover innovations, the abstract concept from which your software was derived is not an innovation.
And one last request, could you direct us to a single software patent that comes even close to the scientific advancement that would be necessary to develop an FTL drive? One click and regex expressions are hardly an advancement on the same level as pretty much any space propulsion system.
You forgot speed limits, licensing and registration, safety and emission inspections, and the most important part, patrol officers and check points to deter or capture drunk surfers or illegal aliens.
Oh the irony. Would you like some cheese with that whine coward?
In that case several linux distributions have Windows beat hands down. I have little experience with Ubuntu but in SuSE, Fedora, RHEL, and CentOS not only do you easily get updates for the lineage of OS your running but the updates for virtually all of the installed applications. Whether its a desktop application like firefox, gimp, blender, rythmbox, etc. or its a server application like mysql, postgresql, apache, openssl, etc. all that is required is a few clicks through the desktop menus and entering the root password or on a server a command line yum update. After you finish with your Windows updates you still have to worry about all the other applications your running on your Windows OS as well as malware, spyware, virus scanning software and their databases.
In that case I would suggest avoiding the distributions that are on the edge, i.e. Fedora, and opt for something more stable and tested like CentOS or RHEL.
You know, funny thing is, although I'm not a big Windows user myself I have assisted with at least one debacle cause by one of the Microsoft patches you listed. I assisted in resolving the sudden death of a Windows cluster that was configured to perform processor intensive modeling for libraries used to measure profiles on a broadband spectrophotometry measurement tool. It turned out that the installation of SP2 on the cluster made it impossible to do its job because the central machine storing the data to be processed could no longer accept the connections needed to support the clusters running the modeling. I'm not sure which is more absurd, the breakage caused by the Microsoft patch or the fact that the only work arounds were to either remove the SP2 patch or hack a Windows OS system file with a hex editor. Heh, and people pay for that crap.
You do realize there is a difference between reinstalling the same OS to solve a problem and installing a newer release of an OS to gain the changes and updates of the newer release?
Reinstalling Windows to resolve an issue may be necessary because either nobody has a clue WTF is wrong and the only solution is to punt or the work necessary to repair a broken install exceeds the work of simply starting from scratch. Both situations can occur with a linux installation as well but installing the latest release is not the same as reinstalling the same release.
As far as updating releases I've had good experience with several Fedora updates but I usually prefer to go with a fresh install and only retain the user data. You should also be prepared to resolve issues whether your installing or updating when your running a bleeding edge linux distribution. What is not acceptable is to have similar issues with a product from a multi billion dollar corporation that you paid good money to purchase.
Now if you really want a ridiculous solution from linux advocates I'll give you one that is close to your anecdote. It never fails that when somebody is working through some problem on their linux install, whether its a bug, configuration issue or simply a lack of knoledge, the question will come up "What distro are your running?". And when the answer that comes back is not the favorite distro of the individual on the other end of the support conversation the solution suddenly becomes "Install $distroX."
Its likely that 99% of the code between $distroX and $distroY are the same, installing X to resolve a problem in Y will have a high probability of producing similar results if the problem lies in the code. If its a configuration issue then $fanboiX should be pointing the troubled user to the correct support channel.
The Dust to Dust report was based off standard Hummers.
While that 100 Miles per Gallon promise really sounds like BS the concept is interesting. What I'd like to know is how much further would the range be if the gasoline tank, ICE and generator were replaced with more battery packs to make it an EV instead of a hybrid.
Actually, what the study showed was that if you wrote a report with complete bullshit absurdities you could convince some people that a gigantic vehicle that gets 14 MPG average would have better or equivalent energy consumption to a small vehicle that gets 46 MPG.
Some people tried to analyse what little information was available about the report and found absurdities such as the Hummer H3 rated at 207,000 miles in its lifetime and the Prius at only 109,000 miles. While still others ran known models that are used to measure life cycle energy consumption and even when using the absurdities from the Dust to Dust report they still could not produce the ridiculous energy consumption numbers from the report.
The fact is that more than 80% of an automobiles life cycle energy is consumed in the operation of the vehicle. That bit of information makes it virtually impossible for a vehicle that consumes more than 3x the operating energy of a smaller car to some how use less or the same amount of energy as the small car over their life cycles.
As far as new versus old, just as its a no brainer that a small fuel efficient car will consume less total energy than a monster SUV its also obvious that buying a new car will not magically reduce total energy consumption. However, since we know autos have a life cycle there will be a need for many new vehicles so it may not be a bad idea to use some of our no brainer knowledge to have a positive impact on our energy consumption.
<sarcasm>
I think it was established as a well known fact that driving a Hummer is many times more environmentally friendly than a little Prius. If Obama was truly interested in saving the planet he would mandate that every commuter drives a Hummer and we scrap these pointless high MPG cars.
</sarcasm>
LOL, I'm sure he is. The absurdity of Murdoch's news channel here in the States became so outrageous I decided I wasn't willing to subsidize it with the channels I did want to watch on satellite, so I cancelled the satellite subscription and installed an antenna in the attic to pick up OTA DTV/HDTV and get my journalism from PBS.
Its not that journalism isn't worth paying for, its that you need to find value in the journalism that is worth paying for. Values like truth, honesty, facts, and breadth of coverage are valuable and in short supply in some news outlets. Racism, hate, ignorance, and titillation that focuses on those core weaknesses is not something worth paying for in journalism.
NPR is another valuable journalistic outlet worth paying for. Feel free to watch or listen to either and instead of paying Murdoch for the garbage he purveys consider a donation to support real journalism.
Actually it looks like the scenario was designed to show that management should be severely caned for using on-call support as a means of running an operation.
Forcing employees to adhere to an on-call schedule is a bullshit method of saving on labor expenses by shifting the cost to the employee who is then forced to tailor their personal life to support their employer.
For all you on-call sysadmins out there I have a bit of information for you. I've seen a semiconductor factory that runs 24/7 and the support departments always had a paid crew working 24/7 to support production. The on shift crew was always enough to maintain operations and respond to disasters, i.e. power outages and bumps that take equipment down. While this may sound like an expensive solution for 24/7 operations it is actually cheaper if properly implemented. One of the keys to success is spreading the support work load across the shifts. The benefit is also a faster response to issues rather than waiting on a pager response.
And one last concept I'd like to plant, that Blackberry they give you to carry on your hip every waking hour of every day including your days off is not a perk. You may feel all geeky and important with your company paid geek status symbol but in reality its simply a corporate slave leash.
I doubt it.
The only possible anti-trust issue is if IBM is suspected of "anti-competitive practices that tend to lead to such a dominant position".
Considering IBM still has some stiff competition from HP and there are other smaller competitors in the market it doesn't appear they are at risk of any other anti-trust abuses.
I wouldn't let my guard down with any corporation, but I don't see any signs yet of IBM violating anti-trust laws or acting in an anti-competitive manner. In fact this looks like down right brutal competition.
Taking it a bit further, contrary to the claims of "startling" revelations in the simplicity of Al Quaeda counter intelligence techniques it should be of no surprise. And who in the United States intelligence agencies claimed the NSA was not capable of and did not crack these pathetic techniques?
What I'm sure is only a small percentage of the information available in the September 11 Commission report suggests there were bureaucratic blunders rather than outright intelligence failings.
While a wire tap into every phone connected to a super computer for analysis works wonders in a Bat Man movie, somehow I doubt it would be that simple or that effective in real life. I don't recall anyone in Gotham city speaking Arabic or using code words. And more importantly, how many innocent people would have their rights violated not just by the wiretapping but by further investigation and false accusations, and how often would such activity be used for ulterior political motives?
The fact is the now public knowledge of Al Quaeda intelligence techniques tells us nothing of the NSA's capabilities or how much they really knew prior to September 11th and illegally wire-tapping an entire nation is likely no silver bullet that will prevent future attacks and as history has shown will likely be used for political reasons.
I suspect this is the case, but as with many bloated corporations ran by pointy haired mobs they don't have a clue. As soon as the bits are copied from their server to some other machine on the internet they no longer have control. The fact that they refuse to use available technology that was developed outside their labs shows corporate arrogance and ignorance.
Reports Say Apple May DESIGN Its Own Chips
The objective likely to be more proprietary enhancements to their product lines that require licensing and royalties from secondary vendors who wish to manufacture and sell peripherals and products to work with Apple products. Its all about building monopolies, U.S. businesses believe competition is a bad thing.
Summary of his conclusion:
Industry in the United States has suffered from patent thickets and patent trolls almost since the inception of patent laws. We can expect to continually see patent thickets and patent trolls as many inventions and innovations today are incremental and based on prior patents. And since the Sewing Machine Wars were solved without changing the patent system or intervention of the government there is no reason to react today.
After reading the paper, my conclusion:
He is correct on all counts except the last one about the system taking care of itself. His paper provides two salient historical events that prove contrary to the last conclusion; first the only means by which the sewing machine manufacturers were able to break free of the patent litigation war and finally get to the business of making sewing machines, making profits, and innovating further was to circumvent the patent system by placing patents in a pool, and second he notes the patent thicket and trolls that plagued the newly born aircraft industry and was only solved when the government stepped in and created a patent pool so the industry could get to the business of aircraft instead of litigation.
Yes, the patent system was fscked from the beginning, all one has to do is read up on Benjamin Franklin's opinions of the new patent system, but assuming it will simply take care of itself is ludicrous. If such a conclusion is valid then we can also conclude that we can simply eliminate the patent system altogether and what comes of it will simply take care of itself.
Based on the patent pools as a solution it appears that patent law is in violation of the United States Constitution as the objective was "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" and yet the patent laws are impeding progress.
Did the terms of service that were provided with your internet service mandate that you read all articles and comments concerning copyright issues on /.?
Care to link to the exact law that supports that premise? Using a device or media outside its intended use does not violate copyright. Feel free to stick your iPod up your butt any time.
Yep, that pretty much sums up most terms of service provided with software and hardware from companies like Apple, Microsoft, etc.
There were no complaints about compatibility, the complaints are from Apple who want to control how their customers use the products they've purchased.
They were developing their own software, not complaining. It was Apple complaining and using the DMCA to stop valid reverse engineering.
So really the question is why does Apple whine so much, they've been paid for their product, what does it matter to them if some customers develop their own software to utilize their purchase the way they wish? Are these customers actually planning to convert iPods into some mass piracy ring? Or is Apple using the DMCA to control market share and guarantee a revenue stream?
Declaration of Independence from the American colonies
{Anonymous Coward}If you don't like the tyranny of a monarchy then try to get the king to change, otherwise shut the #@$# up. Until then keep paying taxes to the king.{/Anonymous Coward}
Civil rights movement takes on the Jim Crow laws.
{Anonymous Coward}If you don't like segregation and individual rights based on the color of your skin then change the color of your skin, otherwise shut the #@$# up. Until then continue to sit in the back of the bus.{/Anonymous Coward}
Salt Satyagraha campaign against British Salt Laws.
{Anonymous Coward}If you don't like paying monopoly prices for salt due to laws that make it illegal to produce your own salt then change your diet to a no-salt diet, otherwise shut the #@$# up. Until then continue to pay exorbitant prices and taxes to the British Empire.{/Anonymous Coward}
ad infinitum...
My first experience installing and using linux was with Red Hat Linux 4.1. It was mostly out of curiosity as my younger brother had been using linux but I didn't expect much from a free operating system. At the time I was running Windows 95, Windows NT 4 and OS/2 Warp 4 on the same box so I was already well prepared the difficulties of a multi-boot setup and using a diversity of operating systems.
Its been awhile but I don't recall any major issues with the installation. It definitely required more tweaking than the other operating systems to get a working desktop, but as pretty much anyone in this forum knows there is a high probability of install difficulties with almost any operating system when you build a custom system rather than purchase a pre-installed system.
I don't recall the window manager I used at the time but it was a functional desktop albeit not as polished as Windows or OS/2. But something interesting happened, I found Gimp.
I had a large flatbed color scanner on a SCSI bus that I used in Windows and OS/2. In Windows I used the applications that shipped with the scanner and for OS/2 I purchased an image editing program, I don't recall the name anymore, in both cases the applications absolutely refused to use the full size of the scanner. The scanner was a full legal size 8.5x14 but the proprietary applications would only allow up to 8.5x11 scans. With a little research I found there were applications available for purchase that would use the full scan size but I was not in dire need of full legal size scans so I held off on the purchase.
When I used Gimp+SANE with the flatbed scanner it allowed complete legal size scans! My eyes were opened. In the proprietary closed source software world the extra scan size required extra cash, which seemed ludicrous and disingenuous as I doubt it required any significant code changes to implement, but in the open source world the software was written to take full advantage of the hardware's capabilities and it was FREE!
At that point I was sold. By 2003 I was only running linux based operating systems, my laptop, three desktops in the house, a couple of firewalls/routers and a few servers. During this time I have become progressively aware of the ridiculous demands of the closed source proprietary software vendors. They have become sick and demented on their own greed to the point where they've twisted the purpose of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution from "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" into some bizarre protected and perpetual revenue stream. In this upside down world created by closed source software vendors research and development capital is spent not to advance the science or art but instead to create false limitations on there proprietary applications capabilities to create equally false product price points.
Correct, my mistake. Should have waited until I had my morning coffee before posting.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it was a Default Judgement, which means the plaintiff did not show. That is why he lost, not because there was a thorough review of the matter at hand.
Somehow I doubt this will be valid as a precedent in future lawsuits.
Actually there is a high probability that the Microsoft employees used google until they were given their top down directions.
Utilizing a monopoly position to crush competition has worked for Microsoft in the past, why would anyone expect tactics to change now.
...even when using source code licensed under open source terms!!!
And all these corporations using open source software to run their business are at risk of violating the terms of those licenses and will now drop open source like a sub-prime mortgage derivative laundered ten times over.
Oh, wait, it was a proprietary product that violated the open source license....ZOMG is right, proprietary vendors are screwed, how can you know if your closed source vendor has stolen open source code until after you've invested in using their product and put your business at risk.
Gee, I guess its just one more reason to use open source software from open source vendors. Who knows what kind of trouble those closed source vendors are getting you into.