Sorry for the late reply, hopefully you'll return to read the thread...
I suspect that you did not take the suggestion in my post of reading the patent. Anyhow, I will indulge your request.
Patent number 4,161,502 was filed on April 2nd 1977. It is related to forming plastic parts. Plastics are a wonderful invention which has progressed significantly over the years and has been accompanied by many patentable inventions and innovations. This appears to be one of those innovations.
If you read this patent, and read Pavel's patent, you will come to the realization that the distinct difference between the two patents is that one is a patent on a real solution to a problem where as the other is not a solution but only the problem.
If Pavel invented anything it is a belt that holds all the components for a portable stereo player, he did not invent the player itself. And he did not invent the walkman or any of the technology that was used to minaturize stereo components or improve the fidelity of the equipment.
In fact, if you read Pavel's patent you will find the following sentence in the background section:
"The invention relates further to battery-operated radio-cassette devices of stereophonic though not high fidelity type and to automobile stereo sound systems, both of which are presently showing a strong growth in quantity as well as quality."
I added emphasis so you can see that even in his own patent he admits that all he did was realize the obvious progression of the technology and filed a patent so he could leech off other peoples work.
It appears to me that this guy harrassed Sony for 25 years and Sony had better things to do than answer to multiple lawsuits in multiple countries by one moron. The sad part is that he will likely start suing other companies as he has continued to file patents around the same concept as late as 1992. Hopefully somebody will put him down the same way Ford did with Seldon and his BS patent.
The patent goes over a significant amount of prior art. Perhaps this guy truly thinks he invented something but in reality all he did was see the obvious progression of technology.
" Did the Walkman actually use any of his technical solutions"
Nope. His patents are lacking for any technical solutions. His patents admit prior art and simply play upon the natural progression of ever improving technology rather than coming up with anything new. He did not actually solve the problem of creating a hi-fidelity portable audio player he just saw that it was going to eventually happen.
If you filed a patent claiming that you had the idea of making a semiconductor chip that would process video graphics fast enough to make photo realistic images in realtime but really had no idea how to do it you would have the same patent as this guy. No real solution, just an realization of the obvious.
Its just another case of someone leeching off the system. (that ought to draw some heat:)
120,000 Japanese Americans were rounded up in 1942 so I'll bet with todays technology rounding up 100,000 commies would be childs play.
Its a sad state of affairs considering there are serious threats to our lives and liberty here in the States, and it appears that sometimes the threat is ourselves. What I find intriguing is that a book on communism is on a watch list for Homeland Security, is communism truely a threat to our internal security, aren't these guys supposed to be going after terrorist threats?
"The ability to take ownership of files is a right granted by default to the administrators group in Windows, and it can be taken away"
And once its taken away the adminstrator user cannot grant the privlege back to itself? Or would this require reinstalling the OS?
"what was the point of having a root account that can't do anything"
Its not a root account that can't do anything, its a root account that can only do what the selinux policies allow it to do. The whole point was that with selinux you have absolute control over security policies and not even root can supersede those policies unless that is the intent of the policies. By creating a system with such restrictive policies you can minimize potential damage if a system is hacked, i.e. if a system is hacked and the intruder manages to achieve a root shell you may have selinux policies that prevent root from installing a root kit by denying write access to system files or you can stop a worm from spreading if the selinux policies deny root, or whatever uid is used to enter the system, from opening tcp/ip sockets and connecting to other machines. The security scenarios are endless.
"There has to be SOMEBODY at the top with all of the keys"
Sure, in the most strict application of selinux you write your policies and compile them directly into the kernel. So whoever is writing the policies prior to compilation of the kernel is the somebody holding the keys. Once the kernel build is complete then thats it, the policy is set and there are no keys to disable the security policy. So with selinux you have the ability to lock a box down so tight that the only way to modify or bypass the security measures would be to have physical access to the box so you can replace the kernel on the media from which the system boots.
"Windows does have certain security features that are simply not present in standard Unix" "it's impossible to restrict the unix superuser in this way"
Perhaps, but if what you want are security features similar to the ACLs in Windows or even something that surpasses them, there are alternatives to Windows although I suppose you could argue they are not "standard Unix".
linux is obviously a rather unix like OS and in this case you should probably look into selinux. With selinux you can use kernel level Mandatory Access Control to limit the superuser. In fact you can take selinux to the extreme and compile the entire security policy into the kernel and completely lock out any user from any resource including files, devices, sockets, etc.
If you are correct that a Windows admin can change the ACL of a file they have no permissions to simply by taking ownership of the file then Windows ACLs are not as effective as selinux policies which can be tailored to absolutely restrict access. If the policy says the admin/superuser is not allowed to access a file then they are not allowed, end of story. It sounds like all that is needed to bypass the security policies for a Windows box is to find a zero day exploit that will escalate privleges to admin. Once the intruder has admin level access the ACLs are worthless.
I came across an selinux article with a challenge several months back, the author had a linux system connected to the internet and provided anyone with a root shell. The selinux policies on the box locked down the root user to very limited permissions and the challenge was to bypass these permissions. I can't find the article now but perhaps another slashdot reader will recall the article.
And it seems that is the only way they will learn, or end up on the scrap heap.
While I have been tempted by some new albums I have to refrain from allowing any of my cash to end up in any RIAA pockets. I've been purchasing indy CDs through http://cdbaby.com/ and I purchase music downloads in both MP3 and OGG formats from http://audiolunchbox.com./
I refuse to hand over my hard earned money for a product which robs me of fair use rights.
So out of 5000 developers Bill wants only one? No wonder open source software has surpassed proprietary software in various applications, at a ratio of 1:4999 there is no way proprietary development will ever keep up.
Then again I suppose you don't need that many developers when your just waiting for someone else to develop the next big idea / breakthrough and then just buy it out or duplicate it.
Or perhaps it has more to do with what appears to be a Microsoft attitude, they have that whole computer software thing wrapped up so we don't need any more developers, what we need is for every other human endeavor to utilize Microsoft software in everything they do. Ever notice how none of those kids or people in the Windows commercials are software engineers? Go figure.
The open solaris license looks like a nice open source license but there seem to be some conflicts when you go to download Solaris 10 binary CDs or the DVD and must agree to additional licensing terms such as:
5(b) You may make a single archival copy of Software, but otherwise may not copy, modify, or distribute Software. However if the Sun documentation accompanying Software lists specific portions of Software, such as header files, class libraries, reference source code, and/or redistributable files, that may be handled differently, you may do so only as provided in the Sun documentation.
I guess I have to actually download the disks to know for certain what I can or can't do as the information from their website seems contradictory.
5(d) Unless enforcement is prohibited by applicable law, you may not decompile, or reverse engineer Software.
Wow, thats not very open, and what is the point if the source is available?
5(f) You may not publish or provide the results of any benchmark or comparison tests run on Software to any third party without the prior written consent of Sun.
My, a bit touchy about how people may talk about us, are we?
5(g) Software is confidential and copyrighted.
Umm, yes it is copyrighted, but is it confidential if its open source?
5(h) Unless otherwise specified, if Software is delivered with embedded or bundled software that enables functionality of Software, you may not use such software on a stand-alone basis or use any portion of such software to interoperate with any program(s) other than Software.
So its all Solaris or none of our code at all. Whatever, too bad they don't see it both ways.
5(i) Software may contain programs that perform automated collection of system data and/or automated software updating services. System data collected through such programs may be used by Sun, its subcontractors, and its service delivery partners for the purpose of providing you with remote system services and/or improving Sun's software and systems.
Oh great, I have to accept spyware if I want to run Solaris?
6 Software may contain Java technology. You may not create additional classes to, or modifications of, the Java technology, except under compatibility requirements available under a separate agreement available at www.java.net.
Geez, kinda touchy about people touching their java as well. Very strange.
The license really isn't too bad, short and sweet, and at some point I may click on the accept check box and download Solaris 10 to check it out, but I still wonder how supportive Sun is of open source. Do they only support it if they have little choice and then only if you use it in a way that will not benefit anyone else?
"As I understand it, the CP80 solution does not require anyone to use it"
Sorry Mr L but your understanding is wrong. From the news article:
The group also calls for legislation to "support and empower its solution," making sure pornographic content is published only on adult-designated channels and putting laws in place to make pornographers who violate the law accountable, similar to the way the Federal Communications Commission regulates television and radio.
Yarro's objective is to make CP80 a law in the United States and to prosecute anyone who publishes "adult-designated" content on port 80.
As you may or may not know port 80 is the standard port through which all web content is distributed from most web servers. This port is used no matter what country, culture, religion, whatever. It is non-discriminatory.
In effect what Yarro intends to do with CP80 is hi-jack an international standard and attempt to force the entire world to either succumb to his world view and moral standards or go elsewhere.
If you understand how the internet works and crosses all borders, real or otherwise, you would realize how ludicrous this is. Even if he got it his way he would only affect content distributors in the United States. All the smut from the rest of the world will still be available on port 80 to all the kiddies in Provo Utah. CP80 is no more effective than any of the real technology currently available
And the way it stands CP80 violates ethical codes itself by attempting to steal an existing international standard, judge others based on the morals of a single culture, and force those Yarro finds immoral to go elsewhere.
So understand this, it works both ways. In the same way that the entire world can restructure for CP80 we could also restructure connections for a small group in Utah so they have their own special internet experience.
Filters/firewalls/etc. don't work today--and when mobile devices get smaller/cheaper, and public hotspots start popping up all over the place, it won't matter just how smart your home filtering solution is, because kids will be accessing porn at the local fast-food restaurant with their nano devices. Then what?
Then chill and do what we've done for many generations. Offensive and immoral material, actions, etc. have been around for ages and so we teach our children how to be an ethical human being, we monitor their progression and assist them in understanding and making the right decisions, and then at some point in their maturity we let go.
I understand the frustrations with the failure of filtering technology, however, if you are adept at building firewalls and proxies I would suggest building a linux firewall and looking into Dan's Guardian. It is highly configurable, fast, and works quite well. But I am no more suggesting that filtering is the answer as CP80.
The internet is like the wild west and you would be foolish to think that only pornography on port 80 is the issue. There are many protocols and means of dispersing media over the internet and going after port 80 is absolute foolishness. These guys have no clue what they are doing and they will solve nothing for you or I. If you are truly concerned then the best thing you can do is spend lots of time with your children, especially when they are young, and provide them with love, constructive support, good teaching and a good role model. You would be amazed at what beautiful human beings they will become even when surrounded by a seething world of debauchery.
I'm sorry to say but CP80 will lead to nothing good and embodies other evils.
"Answer: All the components used were available in the time-correct period of the study. For example, if they installed a component in the simulated September 2004 time period then that version was available in September 2004."
"The only configuration control issue was that the enterprise wouldn't upgrade the OS version until July 1, 2005. This is mainly based on our experience with companies that don't move to the latest OS version until it has had time to "bake" in the community. At that time, SLES 9 was hot off the compiler."
In other words the linux admins were intentionally asked to install a third party binary only component on an incompatible verion of a platform by attempting to patch together old versions and new versions of various interdependant packages all while the known compatible, and possibly certified and supported, version of the platform was currently available for the desired third party component.
With all due respect, I admire your willingness to take the heat from the slashdot community but this sure sounds like an intentional setup for disaster.
Since we are talking business decisions here where is the risk assessment, contingency plan, and cost justification for making such a foolish system decision? It may be statistically true that companies will avoid fresh software releases until they have time to prove themselves but businesses don't outright make that type of decision knowing full well the risk of extended down time trying to attempt such a feat. Case in point are patches for critical security flaws, you don't wait until you've been exploited and then patch.
So company A used Windows and outperformed company B which used linux, but they were both out done by company C which never made it into the study because they made real business decisions based on known good practices.
Yes, but what he wont tell is what the third party application was that caused all the problems for the linux guys. Its like looking at skid marks on a highway after the wreckage has been removed and trying to determine what happened. Without that one key piece, the troublesome third party app, nobody will ever piece together the puzzle or ever reproduce the study.
In the mean time millions of linux systems are administered every day without the problems these guys had so it appears the study is flawed, perhaps intentionally.
So if we are to determine "where he f*ed up" then I'd say first the doc needs to put up or shut up.
"attempt to actually examine the research and gauge it on it's own merits"
Actually I see lots of valid examination going on in several threads, but there is one major issue which makes it impossible to verify the merits of the study. The third party binary only application that created so much difficulty for the linux guys, and upon which damn near the entire discrediting of linux is based, is not revealed.
If you read the threads which question the methods the linux admins used to resolve the issues you'll see that it seems something we are not shown was preventing them from properly adminstering the system, perhaps intentionally. But we'll never know because the doc will not tell us what this mysterious third party app was that caused all the problems.
I appreciate your answering questions on the report, it takes some courage to face a hostile community.
Anyhow to the question, perhaps I should go back and read more, but what I would like to see are more specific details on the third party applications you were using, the issues they created, and how they were resolved.
I'm curious because it appears that some initial rules and choices that were made for the study were a recipe for disaster. Its like telling two teams they will be in a race to navigate a course as fast as possible and they must choose their vehicle without knowing what the course will be and they are stuck with whatever vehicle they chose. One team chooses an Formula 1 race car while the other picks a nice luxury yacht. The race course turns out to be from the Florida Keys to Jamaica and back. The Formula 1 guys are forced to make their car work as a boat because the rules say you already chose so your stuck with it.
Okay, so thats a bit extreme and perhaps I'm reading too much into your specifications for the model. For all I know the linux guys doomed themselves. But it sounds like the third party add-ons you were using are not properly supported on SuSE linux. If your results were typical of maintaining a linux e-commerce website then I doubt much of anyone would be using linux.
This scenario seems to be a common occurrence when windows and linux are benchmarked and reported in a Microsoft funded study, note the following url:
When the grueling details are scrutinized there are some real issues that need to be resolved and the comparisons and details provide a benefit to the linux community and to Microsoft. What is not beneficial is touting the superiority of one OS over another based on some finding which is sqewed by picking a weak point which could be easily overcome by picking the correct software, hardware, and configuration.
Its not surprising how clueless these guys are considering they start off with a self declaration that "we are all hard-core technology businessmen". Its usually best to let your peers determine your level of technical proficiency or lack there of. A wannabe dork doesn't count.
And you have to wonder when a "high-tech think tank" works on a problem since 2003 and "kind of develop a concept" which turns out to be a single line in your web server configuration:
Listen my-pron.com:69
You wonder where is all the high tech?
Yarro has some good points about the effectiveness of filtering, the cost of implementation, and the existence of a group of net users who require some assistance in creating the internet experience that fits their views, however, his solution is to force everyone in the world into the personal view of a few people in Utah.
Hopefully this cp80 garbage will never gather steam and waste too much government time which should be resourced to more serious issues, but if Yarro really wants a solution he should really work the other way around (and probably find some fresh thinkers for his tank, because frankly the current bunch are obviously worthless).
While I think there is some decent filtering options out there, if what he really wants is censorship via ports then what he needs to do is have his sensitive group completely block port 80 and then have someone proxy a whitelist of acceptable websites or perhaps even ask whitelisted websites to listen on both port 80 and on his clean port.
There is no need to force the rest of the world to fit into the moral views of a small group of people. And passing pornography legislation is not high-tech, its the oldest tech in the book, any book, even before there were books.
Windws XP SP2 introduces a few new twists to TCP/IP in order to babysit users and "reduce the threat" of worms spreading fast without control. In one such attempt, the devs seem to have limited the number of possible TCP connection attempts per second to 10 (from unlimited in SP1). This argumentative feature can possibly affect server and P2P programs that need to open many outbound connections at the same time.
Another option, for the more adventurous is to modify your tcpip.sys file manually, using a hex editor. The following instructions refer to the final release of XP SP2, with a tcpip.sys file of exactly 359,040 bytes, CRC-32 is 8042A9FB, and MD5 is 9F4B36614A0FC234525BA224957DE55C. Even thouh there might be multiple tcpip.sys files in your system, make sure to work with the one in c:\windows\system32\drives\ directory.
To remove the tcpip.sys socket creation limit: - Backup your original tcpip.sys file before editing please, this is somewhat important ! - In your hex editor, go to offset 4F322 hex (or 324386 decimal). - Change 0a 00 00 00 to 00 00 0a 00
All done !
Of course I'm just being facecious, but it is funny.
The irony in your post is too much. You lambast the slashdot community and attack the decision to use open source software for the OLPC project and yet you seem to be completely clueless to the theories and research behind this project.
This is not some marketing ploy for the highest bidder, or lowest as the case may be, but is a non-profit project based on years of research. And you come along and post a bunch of pissed off gibberish because your favorite OS, which was offered for free as a marketing move, was not accepted because it did not fit the researchers criteria. If Jobs really wants OSX in the OLPC project then he should have open sourced it.
I think the most ironic part of your post is how you suggest that the use of OSX would be a better choice for creative learning and yet the research and project are based off Contructionist Learning.
So who has more credibility in the OS decision, some megalomaniac CEO, a pissed off slashdot poster, or the researchers who have been working in the field for years determining what works.
Sorry, but I'll go with the researchers on this one. And I suspect that your conclusion that the "laptop designers are idiots" may actually show your own ignorance.
socialism is less free than a purely capitalist society just as GPL is less free than BSD
That is highly dependant upon how the capitalist society utilizes their capitalist system, or in the case of software, how a BSD license is implemented. A society with a capitalist economy could create laws and beuracracies that place cumbersome restrictions on the ability to compete in the capitalist market. And with a BSD style license anyone who uses the open source code in their project can restrict access to their version or utilization of the, at one time open, source code.
I would say that capitalism and the BSD style license provide certain freedoms to individuals or organizations to make decisions which affect them and the society in which they operate while in socialism or the GPL there are restrictions on how the individual or an organization can operate to ensure certain rights to the community. If the capitalists or users of BSD style licenses choose they can create an environment far more lacking in freedom in the community than socialism or the GPL.
I think the current rash of IP legislation and PR from corporations is an indication of the capitalists choice to restrict the rights of others in the name of building monopolys and ensuring profits and revenue streams to a select few. It is an abuse of the capitalist system.
A classical misuse of a syllogism is not a very effective rebuttal point.
"often real-world arguments incorrectly imply that their result follows from the form of the argument, when in fact the form is not valid in the way a syllogism is. This fallacy can be illuminated by finding a different domain in which the argument fails."
Therefore your assumption that "squaring something is exactly equivalent to taking the absolute value of it" is incorrect. It is a cute parlor trick but that is all it is, a trick. The issue at hand is much more complex and much more serious.
while those examples may be interesting, picking any two examples really doesn't tell you anything about the overall balance of the impact of the patent system on our technological development.
Well, we will just have to agree to disagree. I see both examples as a very strong condemnation of the patent system and the NACA case even goes far enough to show that the only way to spurr on scientific and industrial progress when you have a patent system is to have someone bypass it by buying up the patents with public funds and creating organizations to mediate between the patent holders.
Now I will admit that the two cases are not enough to pass judgement, in fact I'm not so sure that I would support abolishing the patent system just yet. But the current state of affairs and history shows that we should be concerned and rather than just accept that there is not enough proof to justify action I say there is enough proof to at the very least warrant a debate on the true effectiveness of the system to achieve the goals it was intended for. If adequate proof of the patent system actually working cannot be presented then it most definitely should be abolished.
So, what your saying is one expample per a century or so makes the whole system broken?
No, what I'm saying is that the current rash of spats over the patent system is not a sign of some current issue or a cylical process. A couple of high profile cases from the past suggest there has always been a problem with the patent system which makes its actual affects contradictory to what the suggested affects would be. You are assuming that because I only highlighted two examples that for the most part it has worked. I'm saying that you should not assume that it ever worked and if you really want to know you'll have to do your own research because I'm not going to study every patent fiasco that occured over the past 200 years.
A great example of someone who was spurred on by the idea of prophitting from patents to do great things is Thomas Eddison, who had many inventions of varying importance, and did it because he could dedicate his time to it full time.
And again another assumption. At this point I would question whether it was the patent system which spurred on Edison and enabled his success. Perhaps even without a patent system he still would have been spurred on and succeeded because that was just his nature.
The benifit he had that we don't have now is that all of the breakthroughs that didn't have an application were not patented
And that statement builds upon my concern. Did Edison succeed because there were no patents to impede his progress? Your statement and the NACA case suggests this to be the case.
Don't get me wrong, I don't have some agenda based on a preconcieved notion about patents. Much of my statements are just off the cuff and based on past and present observations. While I was a big proponent of the patent system in the past because I believed in the principles upon which we are taught it is based, I'm starting to lose faith in the system and I now consider that perhaps it was actually concieved to create monopolys to make people rich with no consideration what so ever for the advancement of science, industry, or the nation.
I could be wrong, I wasn't there a couple hundred years ago, but we are witnessing many difficulties today which stem from the patent system and there is a history of problems as well. The current actions of a few key corporations to build IP alliances to protect open source seems to be very similar to what the government had to do in the early 1900s to get the US areonautics industry on its feet.
"This happened in the aeronoughtics (ugh that is spelt bad) industry in the US"
I'm glad you brought that up. I think most people today, and until recently myself included, believe that the problems with the patent system in the United States is something of a new phenomena. This couldn't be further from the truth.
I think there were good intents when the system was first thought up, at least I hope there were, but looking back through history the system has been detrimental to the advancement of the United States as an economic force around the world. And I have two cases as proof.
As you had stated, the United States greatly lagged behind Europe when Aeronautics were in their infancy and in large part this was due to patents. Anyone who doubts this only has to study the history of the NACA and they will discover that this government organization was instrumental in setting up the MAA in 1917 because of "a virtual deadlock in aircraft construction because of patent infringement suits". The efforts of the United States government also included spending tax dollars to purchase patents so as to institute cross licensing that was necessary to spur the aeronautics industry.
So this case makes it appear that the patent system actually does the opposite of what most people are taught its purpose is. But is this the only case? No. Going back even further you will find one George Selden, a New York patent attorney who filed a patent for the road engine, a.k.a. automobile, in 1879. After the patent was granted in 1895 he didn't setup a business making cars based on his new patent, he instead setup an extortion shop which charged each of the car manufacturers a licensing fee to use his patented technology. This guy never built a single car to sell, he just filed a patent and then started charging those who actually did build cars. I suspect this guy never even invented anything automotive but rather just took notice of what others were doing and realized there would be an industry. Henry Ford refused to pay the extortion fee and had to fight this guy in court for 7 years! Selden's company was forced to build a car to prove the patent was valid but they could not build a working car so the patent was thrown out.
So it appears to me that the patent system may have never worked as advertised from the beginning. Instead of having a system which spurs on industry we have a system which enables bickering among patent holders thus holding back progress and phonies who leech off industries and could never actually produce a real product if their life depended on it.
I don't have any replacement solutions to offer myself, I'm just ranting, but I'm not so sure that we wouldn't be better off with no patent system at all.
Its a logical arguement, however, its not like linux is new on the block.
Back when netcraft reported OS statistics along with web server stats linux held around 30% market share, the last report was in June of 2001. And we have seen assaults on linux in the past, e.g. the slapper worm in which case it peaked at about 14000 infected machines with somewhere around 5 million in service. Even if we triple the 14000 to account for cleaned machines we are still looking at less than 1%. Compared to something like codered where hundreds of thousands of boxes were infected the infection rate of Windows boxes may have approached 10% or more.
I'd say linux has been popular long enough, has a large enough install base, and has been targeted in the past. And although the parameters should be there for mass infections and destruction it still has not materialized. About the only thing new in the past few years is media hysteria whenever one of these worms pops up and sputters for awhile.
Anyhow, now that there are some possible 20 million linux web servers out there it should be interesting to see how this worm does. I predict a dud.
While killing services and cutting back on powered equipment is an option people should consider efficiency improvements.
Speaking from experience, a large number of x86 boxes out there are running on power supplies which run in the 60 to 70 percent efficiency range. By replacing old low efficiency power supplies with some of the newer 80plus supplies you will save on electricity for the box and for cooling.
I did some tests with replacing a cheap 250 watt low efficiency power supply with Seasonic 250 watt 80 plus supplies and found a 20%+ reduction in power consumption at the AC outlet. When I ran the numbers the savings in electricity to the power supply alone would pay for the new supply in one year. And that does not include the saving in air conditioning costs.
It doesn't take much research to discover that Novell grew their business in the early 90s to the mid 90s from less then $500 million to over $2 billion. And when they hit their peak in the mid 90s they had over 7000 employees. In the late 90s Novell's business was cut in half to about $1 billion and they have held there for some time. Currently the number of employees is at 6000+ and their costs to run their business just about overwhelm their revenue. Which begs the question, does this billion dollar company have more people than are necessary to run the business? I know what the numbers say, but I'll let everyone figure it out for themselves.
The point to keep from all this, while Novell has not done a good of keeping costs under control they have done a good job of keeping their revenues up since Microsoft sucked away soo much of their business. So it is not likely Novell will be folding anytime soon and if anything they will become a leaner and more profitable company which currently has an excellent business plan point directly at the burgeoning open source market.
Ease off on the FUD my friend, believe it or not we are on the same side.
There is no "vendor lock-in" with Red Hat products. Its linux, its GPL, and its based off the same code base as Debian.
Those who were dependant upon Red Hat's inexpensive up2date service for the RHL products had the choice of going enterprise or going with free community support. Nobody was left out on their own with no support on a system with "vendor lock-in". I was one of those who was using the inexpensive up2date service and could not afford an enterprise level support contract so I went with the free community supported Fedora distro. I now rsync my own yum repository and have faster and free updates and installs off my yum server. So it was actually an improvement over the paid for service.
As far as Fedora being fairly buggy and unstable, you obviously haven't used Fedora much. You do have to be careful about propogating recent updates to any production machines as the level of testing on Fedora packages is no where near what it was on RHL, but you have to remember that Fedora is a rapidly changing test platform on the bleeding edge. The Fedora users are testing new software releases and components from the developer community. That said, if you are careful about propogating updates you can use Fedora for servers and desktops which are just as stable as the most conservative Debian install.
However, if given the choice between Debian and Fedora for a government infrastructure I think even I would lean towards Debian. But keep in mind that my Debian experience is limited so my opinion would change if I found Debian to have any issues that would be more serious than the bleeding edge nature of Fedora.
Since the options are not limited to Debian or Fedora I would have to say either RHEL or SuSE would be the correct choice simply for the support infrastructure that is in place for the distros and for the other software packages which a government would likely want to run on top of the distro and have support from the vendor for those two platforms.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry for the late reply, hopefully you'll return to read the thread...
I suspect that you did not take the suggestion in my post of reading the patent. Anyhow, I will indulge your request.
Patent number 4,161,502 was filed on April 2nd 1977. It is related to forming plastic parts. Plastics are a wonderful invention which has progressed significantly over the years and has been accompanied by many patentable inventions and innovations. This appears to be one of those innovations.
If you read this patent, and read Pavel's patent, you will come to the realization that the distinct difference between the two patents is that one is a patent on a real solution to a problem where as the other is not a solution but only the problem.
If Pavel invented anything it is a belt that holds all the components for a portable stereo player, he did not invent the player itself. And he did not invent the walkman or any of the technology that was used to minaturize stereo components or improve the fidelity of the equipment.
In fact, if you read Pavel's patent you will find the following sentence in the background section:
"The invention relates further to battery-operated radio-cassette devices of stereophonic though not high fidelity type and to automobile stereo sound systems, both of which are presently showing a strong growth in quantity as well as quality."
I added emphasis so you can see that even in his own patent he admits that all he did was realize the obvious progression of the technology and filed a patent so he could leech off other peoples work.
It appears to me that this guy harrassed Sony for 25 years and Sony had better things to do than answer to multiple lawsuits in multiple countries by one moron. The sad part is that he will likely start suing other companies as he has continued to file patents around the same concept as late as 1992. Hopefully somebody will put him down the same way Ford did with Seldon and his BS patent.
burnin
I suggest you read Pavel's earliest patent filed in 1981 concerning his "invention".
T O2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r =29&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ptxt&s1=pavel&s2=stereo&OS= pavel+AND+stereo&RS=pavel+AND+stereo
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P
The patent goes over a significant amount of prior art. Perhaps this guy truly thinks he invented something but in reality all he did was see the obvious progression of technology.
" Did the Walkman actually use any of his technical solutions"
:)
Nope. His patents are lacking for any technical solutions. His patents admit prior art and simply play upon the natural progression of ever improving technology rather than coming up with anything new. He did not actually solve the problem of creating a hi-fidelity portable audio player he just saw that it was going to eventually happen.
If you filed a patent claiming that you had the idea of making a semiconductor chip that would process video graphics fast enough to make photo realistic images in realtime but really had no idea how to do it you would have the same patent as this guy. No real solution, just an realization of the obvious.
Its just another case of someone leeching off the system. (that ought to draw some heat
burnin
"I don't think they can visit 100,000 people"
They'll be very easy to visit once they've all been rounded up...
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/internment1.html
120,000 Japanese Americans were rounded up in 1942 so I'll bet with todays technology rounding up 100,000 commies would be childs play.
Its a sad state of affairs considering there are serious threats to our lives and liberty here in the States, and it appears that sometimes the threat is ourselves. What I find intriguing is that a book on communism is on a watch list for Homeland Security, is communism truely a threat to our internal security, aren't these guys supposed to be going after terrorist threats?
burnin
"The ability to take ownership of files is a right granted by default to the administrators group in Windows, and it can be taken away"
And once its taken away the adminstrator user cannot grant the privlege back to itself? Or would this require reinstalling the OS?
"what was the point of having a root account that can't do anything"
Its not a root account that can't do anything, its a root account that can only do what the selinux policies allow it to do. The whole point was that with selinux you have absolute control over security policies and not even root can supersede those policies unless that is the intent of the policies. By creating a system with such restrictive policies you can minimize potential damage if a system is hacked, i.e. if a system is hacked and the intruder manages to achieve a root shell you may have selinux policies that prevent root from installing a root kit by denying write access to system files or you can stop a worm from spreading if the selinux policies deny root, or whatever uid is used to enter the system, from opening tcp/ip sockets and connecting to other machines. The security scenarios are endless.
"There has to be SOMEBODY at the top with all of the keys"
Sure, in the most strict application of selinux you write your policies and compile them directly into the kernel. So whoever is writing the policies prior to compilation of the kernel is the somebody holding the keys. Once the kernel build is complete then thats it, the policy is set and there are no keys to disable the security policy. So with selinux you have the ability to lock a box down so tight that the only way to modify or bypass the security measures would be to have physical access to the box so you can replace the kernel on the media from which the system boots.
burnin
"Windows does have certain security features that are simply not present in standard Unix"
"it's impossible to restrict the unix superuser in this way"
Perhaps, but if what you want are security features similar to the ACLs in Windows or even something that surpasses them, there are alternatives to Windows although I suppose you could argue they are not "standard Unix".
linux is obviously a rather unix like OS and in this case you should probably look into selinux. With selinux you can use kernel level Mandatory Access Control to limit the superuser. In fact you can take selinux to the extreme and compile the entire security policy into the kernel and completely lock out any user from any resource including files, devices, sockets, etc.
If you are correct that a Windows admin can change the ACL of a file they have no permissions to simply by taking ownership of the file then Windows ACLs are not as effective as selinux policies which can be tailored to absolutely restrict access. If the policy says the admin/superuser is not allowed to access a file then they are not allowed, end of story. It sounds like all that is needed to bypass the security policies for a Windows box is to find a zero day exploit that will escalate privleges to admin. Once the intruder has admin level access the ACLs are worthless.
I came across an selinux article with a challenge several months back, the author had a linux system connected to the internet and provided anyone with a root shell. The selinux policies on the box locked down the root user to very limited permissions and the challenge was to bypass these permissions. I can't find the article now but perhaps another slashdot reader will recall the article.
burnin
"I've stopped purchasing RIAA encumbered music"
And it seems that is the only way they will learn, or end up on the scrap heap.
While I have been tempted by some new albums I have to refrain from allowing any of my cash to end up in any RIAA pockets. I've been purchasing indy CDs through http://cdbaby.com/ and I purchase music downloads in both MP3 and OGG formats from http://audiolunchbox.com./
I refuse to hand over my hard earned money for a product which robs me of fair use rights.
burnin
So out of 5000 developers Bill wants only one? No wonder open source software has surpassed proprietary software in various applications, at a ratio of 1:4999 there is no way proprietary development will ever keep up.
Then again I suppose you don't need that many developers when your just waiting for someone else to develop the next big idea / breakthrough and then just buy it out or duplicate it.
Or perhaps it has more to do with what appears to be a Microsoft attitude, they have that whole computer software thing wrapped up so we don't need any more developers, what we need is for every other human endeavor to utilize Microsoft software in everything they do. Ever notice how none of those kids or people in the Windows commercials are software engineers? Go figure.
burnin
The open solaris license looks like a nice open source license but there seem to be some conflicts when you go to download Solaris 10 binary CDs or the DVD and must agree to additional licensing terms such as:
5(b) You may make a single archival copy of Software, but otherwise may not copy, modify, or distribute Software. However if the Sun documentation accompanying Software lists specific portions of Software, such as header files, class libraries, reference source code, and/or redistributable files, that may be handled differently, you may do so only as provided in the Sun documentation.
I guess I have to actually download the disks to know for certain what I can or can't do as the information from their website seems contradictory.
5(d) Unless enforcement is prohibited by applicable law, you may not decompile, or reverse engineer Software.
Wow, thats not very open, and what is the point if the source is available?
5(f) You may not publish or provide the results of any benchmark or comparison tests run on Software to any third party without the prior written consent of Sun.
My, a bit touchy about how people may talk about us, are we?
5(g) Software is confidential and copyrighted.
Umm, yes it is copyrighted, but is it confidential if its open source?
5(h) Unless otherwise specified, if Software is delivered with embedded or bundled software that enables functionality of Software, you may not use such software on a stand-alone basis or use any portion of such software to interoperate with any program(s) other than Software.
So its all Solaris or none of our code at all. Whatever, too bad they don't see it both ways.
5(i) Software may contain programs that perform automated collection of system data and/or automated software updating services. System data collected through such programs may be used by Sun, its subcontractors, and its service delivery partners for the purpose of providing you with remote system services and/or improving Sun's software and systems.
Oh great, I have to accept spyware if I want to run Solaris?
6 Software may contain Java technology. You may not create additional classes to, or modifications of, the Java technology, except under compatibility requirements available under a separate agreement available at www.java.net.
Geez, kinda touchy about people touching their java as well. Very strange.
The license really isn't too bad, short and sweet, and at some point I may click on the accept check box and download Solaris 10 to check it out, but I still wonder how supportive Sun is of open source. Do they only support it if they have little choice and then only if you use it in a way that will not benefit anyone else?
As you may or may not know port 80 is the standard port through which all web content is distributed from most web servers. This port is used no matter what country, culture, religion, whatever. It is non-discriminatory.
In effect what Yarro intends to do with CP80 is hi-jack an international standard and attempt to force the entire world to either succumb to his world view and moral standards or go elsewhere.
If you understand how the internet works and crosses all borders, real or otherwise, you would realize how ludicrous this is. Even if he got it his way he would only affect content distributors in the United States. All the smut from the rest of the world will still be available on port 80 to all the kiddies in Provo Utah. CP80 is no more effective than any of the real technology currently available
And the way it stands CP80 violates ethical codes itself by attempting to steal an existing international standard, judge others based on the morals of a single culture, and force those Yarro finds immoral to go elsewhere.
So understand this, it works both ways. In the same way that the entire world can restructure for CP80 we could also restructure connections for a small group in Utah so they have their own special internet experience.
Then chill and do what we've done for many generations. Offensive and immoral material, actions, etc. have been around for ages and so we teach our children how to be an ethical human being, we monitor their progression and assist them in understanding and making the right decisions, and then at some point in their maturity we let go.
I understand the frustrations with the failure of filtering technology, however, if you are adept at building firewalls and proxies I would suggest building a linux firewall and looking into Dan's Guardian. It is highly configurable, fast, and works quite well. But I am no more suggesting that filtering is the answer as CP80.
The internet is like the wild west and you would be foolish to think that only pornography on port 80 is the issue. There are many protocols and means of dispersing media over the internet and going after port 80 is absolute foolishness. These guys have no clue what they are doing and they will solve nothing for you or I. If you are truly concerned then the best thing you can do is spend lots of time with your children, especially when they are young, and provide them with love, constructive support, good teaching and a good role model. You would be amazed at what beautiful human beings they will become even when surrounded by a seething world of debauchery.
I'm sorry to say but CP80 will lead to nothing good and embodies other evils.
burnin
"Answer: All the components used were available in the time-correct period of the study. For example, if they installed a component in the simulated September 2004 time period then that version was available in September 2004."
"The only configuration control issue was that the enterprise wouldn't upgrade the OS version until July 1, 2005. This is mainly based on our experience with companies that don't move to the latest OS version until it has had time to "bake" in the community. At that time, SLES 9 was hot off the compiler."
In other words the linux admins were intentionally asked to install a third party binary only component on an incompatible verion of a platform by attempting to patch together old versions and new versions of various interdependant packages all while the known compatible, and possibly certified and supported, version of the platform was currently available for the desired third party component.
With all due respect, I admire your willingness to take the heat from the slashdot community but this sure sounds like an intentional setup for disaster.
Since we are talking business decisions here where is the risk assessment, contingency plan, and cost justification for making such a foolish system decision? It may be statistically true that companies will avoid fresh software releases until they have time to prove themselves but businesses don't outright make that type of decision knowing full well the risk of extended down time trying to attempt such a feat. Case in point are patches for critical security flaws, you don't wait until you've been exploited and then patch.
So company A used Windows and outperformed company B which used linux, but they were both out done by company C which never made it into the study because they made real business decisions based on known good practices.
burnin
"He told you his process"
Yes, but what he wont tell is what the third party application was that caused all the problems for the linux guys. Its like looking at skid marks on a highway after the wreckage has been removed and trying to determine what happened. Without that one key piece, the troublesome third party app, nobody will ever piece together the puzzle or ever reproduce the study.
In the mean time millions of linux systems are administered every day without the problems these guys had so it appears the study is flawed, perhaps intentionally.
So if we are to determine "where he f*ed up" then I'd say first the doc needs to put up or shut up.
burnin
"attempt to actually examine the research and gauge it on it's own merits"
Actually I see lots of valid examination going on in several threads, but there is one major issue which makes it impossible to verify the merits of the study. The third party binary only application that created so much difficulty for the linux guys, and upon which damn near the entire discrediting of linux is based, is not revealed.
If you read the threads which question the methods the linux admins used to resolve the issues you'll see that it seems something we are not shown was preventing them from properly adminstering the system, perhaps intentionally. But we'll never know because the doc will not tell us what this mysterious third party app was that caused all the problems.
So the study remains suspect.
burnin
Hello Dr. Thompson,
;)
I appreciate your answering questions on the report, it takes some courage to face a hostile community.
Anyhow to the question, perhaps I should go back and read more, but what I would like to see are more specific details on the third party applications you were using, the issues they created, and how they were resolved.
I'm curious because it appears that some initial rules and choices that were made for the study were a recipe for disaster. Its like telling two teams they will be in a race to navigate a course as fast as possible and they must choose their vehicle without knowing what the course will be and they are stuck with whatever vehicle they chose. One team chooses an Formula 1 race car while the other picks a nice luxury yacht. The race course turns out to be from the Florida Keys to Jamaica and back. The Formula 1 guys are forced to make their car work as a boat because the rules say you already chose so your stuck with it.
Okay, so thats a bit extreme and perhaps I'm reading too much into your specifications for the model. For all I know the linux guys doomed themselves. But it sounds like the third party add-ons you were using are not properly supported on SuSE linux. If your results were typical of maintaining a linux e-commerce website then I doubt much of anyone would be using linux.
This scenario seems to be a common occurrence when windows and linux are benchmarked and reported in a Microsoft funded study, note the following url:
http://www.kegel.com/nt-linux-benchmarks.html
When the grueling details are scrutinized there are some real issues that need to be resolved and the comparisons and details provide a benefit to the linux community and to Microsoft. What is not beneficial is touting the superiority of one OS over another based on some finding which is sqewed by picking a weak point which could be easily overcome by picking the correct software, hardware, and configuration.
So how about some grueling details?
burnin
Its not surprising how clueless these guys are considering they start off with a self declaration that "we are all hard-core technology businessmen". Its usually best to let your peers determine your level of technical proficiency or lack there of. A wannabe dork doesn't count.
And you have to wonder when a "high-tech think tank" works on a problem since 2003 and "kind of develop a concept" which turns out to be a single line in your web server configuration:
Listen my-pron.com:69
You wonder where is all the high tech?
Yarro has some good points about the effectiveness of filtering, the cost of implementation, and the existence of a group of net users who require some assistance in creating the internet experience that fits their views, however, his solution is to force everyone in the world into the personal view of a few people in Utah.
Hopefully this cp80 garbage will never gather steam and waste too much government time which should be resourced to more serious issues, but if Yarro really wants a solution he should really work the other way around (and probably find some fresh thinkers for his tank, because frankly the current bunch are obviously worthless).
While I think there is some decent filtering options out there, if what he really wants is censorship via ports then what he needs to do is have his sensitive group completely block port 80 and then have someone proxy a whitelist of acceptable websites or perhaps even ask whitelisted websites to listen on both port 80 and on his clean port.
There is no need to force the rest of the world to fit into the moral views of a small group of people. And passing pornography legislation is not high-tech, its the oldest tech in the book, any book, even before there were books.
burnin
http://www.speedguide.net/read_articles.php?id=14
Of course I'm just being facecious, but it is funny.
burnin
Jobs, is that you?
n ing
The irony in your post is too much. You lambast the slashdot community and attack the decision to use open source software for the OLPC project and yet you seem to be completely clueless to the theories and research behind this project.
This is not some marketing ploy for the highest bidder, or lowest as the case may be, but is a non-profit project based on years of research. And you come along and post a bunch of pissed off gibberish because your favorite OS, which was offered for free as a marketing move, was not accepted because it did not fit the researchers criteria. If Jobs really wants OSX in the OLPC project then he should have open sourced it.
I think the most ironic part of your post is how you suggest that the use of OSX would be a better choice for creative learning and yet the research and project are based off Contructionist Learning.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructionist_lear
So who has more credibility in the OS decision, some megalomaniac CEO, a pissed off slashdot poster, or the researchers who have been working in the field for years determining what works.
Sorry, but I'll go with the researchers on this one. And I suspect that your conclusion that the "laptop designers are idiots" may actually show your own ignorance.
burnin
That is highly dependant upon how the capitalist society utilizes their capitalist system, or in the case of software, how a BSD license is implemented. A society with a capitalist economy could create laws and beuracracies that place cumbersome restrictions on the ability to compete in the capitalist market. And with a BSD style license anyone who uses the open source code in their project can restrict access to their version or utilization of the, at one time open, source code.
I would say that capitalism and the BSD style license provide certain freedoms to individuals or organizations to make decisions which affect them and the society in which they operate while in socialism or the GPL there are restrictions on how the individual or an organization can operate to ensure certain rights to the community. If the capitalists or users of BSD style licenses choose they can create an environment far more lacking in freedom in the community than socialism or the GPL.
I think the current rash of IP legislation and PR from corporations is an indication of the capitalists choice to restrict the rights of others in the name of building monopolys and ensuring profits and revenue streams to a select few. It is an abuse of the capitalist system.
A classical misuse of a syllogism is not a very effective rebuttal point.
"often real-world arguments incorrectly imply that their result follows from the form of the argument, when in fact the form is not valid in the way a syllogism is. This fallacy can be illuminated by finding a different domain in which the argument fails."
1^2 = 1 = abs(1) : TRUE
(-1)^2 = 1 = abs(1) : TRUE
(-2)^2 = 4 = abs(-2) : FALSE
Therefore your assumption that "squaring something is exactly equivalent to taking the absolute value of it" is incorrect. It is a cute parlor trick but that is all it is, a trick. The issue at hand is much more complex and much more serious.
Well, we will just have to agree to disagree. I see both examples as a very strong condemnation of the patent system and the NACA case even goes far enough to show that the only way to spurr on scientific and industrial progress when you have a patent system is to have someone bypass it by buying up the patents with public funds and creating organizations to mediate between the patent holders.
Now I will admit that the two cases are not enough to pass judgement, in fact I'm not so sure that I would support abolishing the patent system just yet. But the current state of affairs and history shows that we should be concerned and rather than just accept that there is not enough proof to justify action I say there is enough proof to at the very least warrant a debate on the true effectiveness of the system to achieve the goals it was intended for. If adequate proof of the patent system actually working cannot be presented then it most definitely should be abolished.
burnin
No, what I'm saying is that the current rash of spats over the patent system is not a sign of some current issue or a cylical process. A couple of high profile cases from the past suggest there has always been a problem with the patent system which makes its actual affects contradictory to what the suggested affects would be. You are assuming that because I only highlighted two examples that for the most part it has worked. I'm saying that you should not assume that it ever worked and if you really want to know you'll have to do your own research because I'm not going to study every patent fiasco that occured over the past 200 years.
And again another assumption. At this point I would question whether it was the patent system which spurred on Edison and enabled his success. Perhaps even without a patent system he still would have been spurred on and succeeded because that was just his nature.
And that statement builds upon my concern. Did Edison succeed because there were no patents to impede his progress? Your statement and the NACA case suggests this to be the case.
Don't get me wrong, I don't have some agenda based on a preconcieved notion about patents. Much of my statements are just off the cuff and based on past and present observations. While I was a big proponent of the patent system in the past because I believed in the principles upon which we are taught it is based, I'm starting to lose faith in the system and I now consider that perhaps it was actually concieved to create monopolys to make people rich with no consideration what so ever for the advancement of science, industry, or the nation.
I could be wrong, I wasn't there a couple hundred years ago, but we are witnessing many difficulties today which stem from the patent system and there is a history of problems as well. The current actions of a few key corporations to build IP alliances to protect open source seems to be very similar to what the government had to do in the early 1900s to get the US areonautics industry on its feet.
burnin
"This happened in the aeronoughtics (ugh that is spelt bad) industry in the US"
e /1915-19.html
e ldona.htm
I'm glad you brought that up. I think most people today, and until recently myself included, believe that the problems with the patent system in the United States is something of a new phenomena. This couldn't be further from the truth.
I think there were good intents when the system was first thought up, at least I hope there were, but looking back through history the system has been detrimental to the advancement of the United States as an economic force around the world. And I have two cases as proof.
As you had stated, the United States greatly lagged behind Europe when Aeronautics were in their infancy and in large part this was due to patents. Anyone who doubts this only has to study the history of the NACA and they will discover that this government organization was instrumental in setting up the MAA in 1917 because of "a virtual deadlock in aircraft construction because of patent infringement suits". The efforts of the United States government also included spending tax dollars to purchase patents so as to institute cross licensing that was necessary to spur the aeronautics industry.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/Timelin
So this case makes it appear that the patent system actually does the opposite of what most people are taught its purpose is. But is this the only case? No. Going back even further you will find one George Selden, a New York patent attorney who filed a patent for the road engine, a.k.a. automobile, in 1879. After the patent was granted in 1895 he didn't setup a business making cars based on his new patent, he instead setup an extortion shop which charged each of the car manufacturers a licensing fee to use his patented technology. This guy never built a single car to sell, he just filed a patent and then started charging those who actually did build cars. I suspect this guy never even invented anything automotive but rather just took notice of what others were doing and realized there would be an industry. Henry Ford refused to pay the extortion fee and had to fight this guy in court for 7 years! Selden's company was forced to build a car to prove the patent was valid but they could not build a working car so the patent was thrown out.
http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aacarss
So it appears to me that the patent system may have never worked as advertised from the beginning. Instead of having a system which spurs on industry we have a system which enables bickering among patent holders thus holding back progress and phonies who leech off industries and could never actually produce a real product if their life depended on it.
I don't have any replacement solutions to offer myself, I'm just ranting, but I'm not so sure that we wouldn't be better off with no patent system at all.
burnin
Its a logical arguement, however, its not like linux is new on the block.
Back when netcraft reported OS statistics along with web server stats linux held around 30% market share, the last report was in June of 2001. And we have seen assaults on linux in the past, e.g. the slapper worm in which case it peaked at about 14000 infected machines with somewhere around 5 million in service. Even if we triple the 14000 to account for cleaned machines we are still looking at less than 1%. Compared to something like codered where hundreds of thousands of boxes were infected the infection rate of Windows boxes may have approached 10% or more.
I'd say linux has been popular long enough, has a large enough install base, and has been targeted in the past. And although the parameters should be there for mass infections and destruction it still has not materialized. About the only thing new in the past few years is media hysteria whenever one of these worms pops up and sputters for awhile.
Anyhow, now that there are some possible 20 million linux web servers out there it should be interesting to see how this worm does. I predict a dud.
burnin
While killing services and cutting back on powered equipment is an option people should consider efficiency improvements.
:) And there are other 80plus manufacturers, its just that this is the only one I tested.
Speaking from experience, a large number of x86 boxes out there are running on power supplies which run in the 60 to 70 percent efficiency range. By replacing old low efficiency power supplies with some of the newer 80plus supplies you will save on electricity for the box and for cooling.
I did some tests with replacing a cheap 250 watt low efficiency power supply with Seasonic 250 watt 80 plus supplies and found a 20%+ reduction in power consumption at the AC outlet. When I ran the numbers the savings in electricity to the power supply alone would pay for the new supply in one year. And that does not include the saving in air conditioning costs.
http://www.seasonic.com/
And no I don't work for them or own stock.
burnin
Exactly how did we go from layoffs to folding?
It doesn't take much research to discover that Novell grew their business in the early 90s to the mid 90s from less then $500 million to over $2 billion. And when they hit their peak in the mid 90s they had over 7000 employees. In the late 90s Novell's business was cut in half to about $1 billion and they have held there for some time. Currently the number of employees is at 6000+ and their costs to run their business just about overwhelm their revenue. Which begs the question, does this billion dollar company have more people than are necessary to run the business? I know what the numbers say, but I'll let everyone figure it out for themselves.
The point to keep from all this, while Novell has not done a good of keeping costs under control they have done a good job of keeping their revenues up since Microsoft sucked away soo much of their business. So it is not likely Novell will be folding anytime soon and if anything they will become a leaner and more profitable company which currently has an excellent business plan point directly at the burgeoning open source market.
burnin
Ease off on the FUD my friend, believe it or not we are on the same side.
There is no "vendor lock-in" with Red Hat products. Its linux, its GPL, and its based off the same code base as Debian.
Those who were dependant upon Red Hat's inexpensive up2date service for the RHL products had the choice of going enterprise or going with free community support. Nobody was left out on their own with no support on a system with "vendor lock-in". I was one of those who was using the inexpensive up2date service and could not afford an enterprise level support contract so I went with the free community supported Fedora distro. I now rsync my own yum repository and have faster and free updates and installs off my yum server. So it was actually an improvement over the paid for service.
As far as Fedora being fairly buggy and unstable, you obviously haven't used Fedora much. You do have to be careful about propogating recent updates to any production machines as the level of testing on Fedora packages is no where near what it was on RHL, but you have to remember that Fedora is a rapidly changing test platform on the bleeding edge. The Fedora users are testing new software releases and components from the developer community. That said, if you are careful about propogating updates you can use Fedora for servers and desktops which are just as stable as the most conservative Debian install.
However, if given the choice between Debian and Fedora for a government infrastructure I think even I would lean towards Debian. But keep in mind that my Debian experience is limited so my opinion would change if I found Debian to have any issues that would be more serious than the bleeding edge nature of Fedora.
Since the options are not limited to Debian or Fedora I would have to say either RHEL or SuSE would be the correct choice simply for the support infrastructure that is in place for the distros and for the other software packages which a government would likely want to run on top of the distro and have support from the vendor for those two platforms.