I thought there were similar filesystems, and besides FAT is so simple, a cleanroom implementation would not take long, hence no need to licence
This is certainly not true. With copyright law, it's illegal to copy code. With patent law, ideas are patented. Wheter it's implemented in a 'clean room' or not, that really doesn't matter.
THAT's the reason why we detest software patents in the first place!
To be able to bring out preformatted FAT flash devices without paying the Microsoft license, one would have to claim rights to 'prior art'.
In contrary with copyright law, however, it's the responsability of the IP holder to come down on the infridger (so as long as you don't get a letter from MS, you aren't obligated to take action).
Yet IANAL but in my past businesses talked about these issues alot with lawyers.
Regarding the question wrt European manufacturers usage of the FAT filesystem. First needs to be seen if these patents are also valid in Europe or not. After initial issuing a patent in Europe, US or Japan it's automatically valid for 3 years in all of these regions. After this period it needs to be registered in the specific region. As I presume these are quiet old patents, one should look into this.
However, there still is controversy regarding software patents and its enforcebility in Europe. European software patents should also have a hardware part. This license has a hardware part, but the patents themselves not.
You might want to consult a patent lawyer to verify this, but I would bet that it's unenforceable in Europe. However, I wouldn't bet on this for 250k USD;-)
A lot of smaller device vendors will probably sell the unformatted version after they receive letters from MS (which is a pity as FAT is readable/writable by Win/Mac/Linux).
A lot of users will now unknowingly format their cards using NTFS making it harder to exchange data with non-Windows users...
Regarding the FAT driver in Linux; as this MS license only speaks of preformatting digital media in the FAT filesystem, this is not an issue today.
Could Microsoft ask money for inclusion of the FAT driver in the Linux kernel?
Remember, patents are about ideas, not about the actual implementation or even in which language certain algoritms are written (it's about what is accomplished, not about how it's actually done).
So as the FAT filesystem is patented technology, they could theoretically take action.
However, the action needs to be taken by them first. If 'prior art' can prove that the Linux implementation is based upon technology very simular than the patents issued, a case in court might prove the patents to be not really valid.
Such a thing would also destroy all possible revenues from licensing programs such as these (it's higly unlikely that device manufacturers will try to prove they had access to prior art, the long-bearded fs developers in the OpenSource community are probably less easy to convince - especially since the patents where only filed in 1995).
If the outcome of a legal case would be different, chances are higher that distributions would just drop the filesystem driver instead of paying money to Microsoft.
So, to me it seems that Microsoft would have more to loose than to gain from going after the FAT driver in Linux.
The license of originality for this Ferrari could possibly be issued in a one-time-readable quantum cryptography way.
If one reads the license with the Replicator (TM), you would destroy the license (and the originality of your expensive machine). The only one who can create a new license of originality (using their secret key) are the Ferrari vehicle manufacturers...
Flying the Ferrari through the Replicator will void your 'license to use' in that way. So I don't think it will be a problem for the company.
To build a H-bomb, you need a lot of uranium and plutonium; as far as I know, you can only get to the point of H fission by creating enough energy with an embedded 'traditional' nuclear bomb inside (sort of).
I presume that the uncracked version of the Replicator (TM) would not contain a filled jar of Uranium/Plutonium. The tgz-ed information to replicate a full-blown uranium mining facility would probably be available for download from the FastTrack network.
But IANANanotechnologist, but a JAMSAR (Just A Mortal Slashdot Article Reader)
On holiday with my dualboot XP/Mandrake system, a friends digital camera got full.
Luckily he brought his USB cable...
First booted in XP, because we wanted it to have it work 'right away', billy style;)
Wrong assumption: drivers not installed and no Internet connection on holiday (not even a fixed phone line near sight - you can imagine how desperate I got near the end to read slashdot:)
Booted Mandrake, and without doing ANYTHING WHATSOEVER, the camera icon jumped on the desktop and we were immediately capable of seeing the thumbnails and copying the pictures over. NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL A GOOD USER EXPERIENCE.
However, a company with still a bancrupcy-image on its name and a very RedHat-ish marketing style on its website. Isn't something we can recommend to new Linux users (professional or not).
So now we recommend Debian to all enterprise users and and KNOPPIX to newcomers. KNOPPIX runs from 1 CD, has all the good things, autodetects hardware very good and can be instantly copied to the HD for continued Debian use.
It was nice with you, Red Hat, but it was you who broke our relationship. It will be you who will miss us!
Long Live you all, friends of the OpenSource and Free Software movement!
Crazy business decisions are often pushed by a single shareholder who can convince key persons of the profitablity of the idea. This probably happenend with VA Linux ending their Linux business, SCO suing IBM and Red Hat saying Linux is no longer free (because they own the copyrights on the Red Hat logos). Which shareholder launched this idea?
Caldera OpenLinux was an highly priced 'enterprise version' of Linux, packed with lots of non-free applications.
It utterly failed because the added value above free Linux distributions (such as Red Hat) was next to nothing.
It was also because of the free-strategy and GNU policy for added distribution packaging software that I recommended Red Hat Linux to hunderds of system administrators and IT managers in Belgium and across Europe (as CEO of LIFE and European Manager of VA Linux Systems).
I assume this is a good move on the short term, with an instant increase of Red Hat Enterprise licensees. But all the enterprise users we spoke to, said they were looking "were everybody was going to". A lot of them are looking at Debian. We suggested them to take a look at the zero-configuration CDdistro KNOPPIX to have a sneak preview of the capabilities of Debian, on the server and the Desktop.
Also, saying that Linux isn't ready for the desktop is an insult to all sysadmins who demonstrate Linux's capabilities to their management and user base.
So the question is: What is the difference in strategy and product between Red Hat Advanced Server and Caldera OpenLinux when other as capable (or even technologically better according to some) distributions are freely available?
Sub-question (just for the karma): Will Red Hat degrade further on the Caldera road and become the next SCO?
It's unbelievable that nobody posted this yet, but MicroFocus Cobol is available for Linux!
When you have an installation of MicroFocus on any platform, you can easily migrate to Linux because of this.
We did this ourselves for a customer (insurance company) coming from HP-UX.
With code being developed and expanded over a period of 25 years, there's a lot of business logic inside that just is _priceless_ for these companies.
By replacing their 10 year old systems with brand new, super-cheap, (comparable) super-fast Linux boxex, they are very satisfied (especially when fax/web/filesharing opensource tools are added for a low fee).
About your 'caring' remark...
a friend of mine just send a mail messege to one of the OpenSource projects he sometimes sends a bugreport to, with congrats to the other people for their work.
If we don't pay for our software, we can at least pat each others backs:)
... just press the button to type the specific character?
One could even have different keyboard layouts being switchable with a knob... oh, wonder, wonder!
Because of Handspring not being able to follow the lead of Sony Ericsson, I switched from my HandSpring Treo 180g to the P800 a month or 2 ago. The Symbian OS based P800 still has better features compared to this 600 release: - The screen resolution of the P800 is the largest in the market: 210x320 pixels (great for surfing the web with Opera). - The virtual screen has buttons large enough. - The character recognition differs a bit from PalmOS, but I think it's better and quicker. - The P800 camera has a 640x480 maximum resolution, which is good enough for a printout (not high quality, but OK for good memories) - The P800 comes standard equipped with 2 x 16Mb of which you can replace the card with a bigger Memory Stick Duo. - Software like Putty and VNC Vieuwer exist along with lots of Java stuff and even Visual Basic... - Bluetooth on board - MP3 playback (altough I will only use it if the Memory Stick duo's of 1 Gb become available at 150 EUR/USD)
Some disadvantages of the P800 Symbian OS versus PalmOS: - Searching can only be done within an application; with Palm OS searching is device-wide which can be practical. - No expansion slot for GPS (but hey, this is also not the case with the Treo's) - Screen is slightly less bright (I think)
Conclusion: for now I think the P800 is really alot more capable than this new Handspring handheld.
I also saw the new Palm on an expo which has GSM/GPRS onboard. I think that the Handspring mobile phone software for Palm was their first reason for the aquisition/merger. But this device was also only 160x160 pixels. That simply isn't enough for browsing the web.
If one takes a look at the insider trading at SCO one can find out that the last insider trader
was Bawa Opwinder, Senior Vice President, Engineering and Global Services, who sold 23k shares on 6/5/2003.
Maybe there's a relationship between the moves of this individual, but jumping to conclusions about the motivations of the entire executive team seems jumpy to me.
I personally think they blundered quiet a lot, but they probably guess this suit can have the same effect on them as the antitrust case.
Anyway, the responsible lawer(s) did a lucrative thing by selling this to some individuals who really didn't have a clue what else to do.
I would recommend to wait for IBM to countersue. Any 'cease and decist' letter from SCO would have lead to compliance within minutes or hours, in the case code was actually copied from SCO to Linux.
As all the source code in the Linux kernel states who is the Copyright owner, one or several individuals (or companies) can be held responsible for those 80 (or more to come?) lines. The patents remained with Novel according to their statement, so this is purely a copyright case...
No judge will believe 80 lines of code can be vital for a 'program' this size (linux kernel), and lots of points raised by ERS (and more) come into play as well - in the assumption that SCO really had these lines first.
If SCO thinks IBM wins the most from Linux, why not wait for their reaction on this FUD?
You're 100% correct. SAMBA on MacOS X allows for the cross-exporting of other mounted filesystems by the use of symbolic links. No RAID-5 redundancy, but mostly quiet useful in a 'home setup' as the one being talked about in the example. Fact is a RAID-5 like distributed filesystem just isn't there yet, with hundreds of nodes, freenet might just work for the most popular files, but feasability currently just says: NO FURTHER THAN SAMBA.
Of course, I hope it will become better, but a 100Mbit network can not serve the load of a RAID interconnect bus. Choosing for it in a home setup just doesn't seem to be too smart.
Being confronted with this in my home with my main Linux server, a MacOS X workstation, a single purpose Windows XP download machine (Kazaa Lite), a single purpose Linux mplayer and mp3 box (connected to stereo and TV) and a Linux development machine,... SAMBA is the only valid option.
NFS really can't stand machines being switched on and off, NFS is great in a production environment if setup correctly, but not for home usage.
MacOS X and M$ can handle SAMBA just fine (although MacOS X still can improve with handling filenames wich contain characters such as [ and ] and some other small caveats).
I know it's the M$ protocol, but Linux has the best implementation of it. It works just great!
The 'shares' of shut down machines disappear as soon as you try to access them on other machines. If you don't access them while they were off they stay in place. For ease, you can put a 'mount -a' in the crontab to automagically remount these unmounted filesystems.
As the GPL license grants an unusual high level of rights to its licencesees (right to redistribute, change,...), the conditions under which these rights are granted are very stricly to be followed.
Section 2b clearly states:You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
This clearly means you cannot link your proprietary program to a GPLed library as it is including a part of the Program. SO MISTER LAWER IS ABSOLUTELY WRONG!
But, on the other hand, one can for example make out of a GPLed program a GPLed version which has a plugin architecture or allows some kind of communication with another program which is not GPLed. Then a company can make a proprietary plugin to be used with this GPLed plugin-aware program. The combination of the two can then be distributed, and the goals of the capitalist company reached. But it is very important that the plugin-addition to the GPLed program is released under the GPL to not violate the GPL.
Clearly they have to be completely seperate code bases.
As a reminder for the new kids: this is why the choice of Linus to not allow proprietary kernel modules is a personal kernel-maintainer policy and not something automatically delivered by the GPL. Personally, I think it was a great decision which annoyed quiet a few companies (something which hardly ever hurts)
You are free (GPL) however to branch of the regular kernel tree with a seperate one who does allow proprietary kernel modules. But the success of your move will not be very likely (unless you're a maybe a company such as Microsoft).
Am I afraid of such a potential Microsoft Linux? Nah, it would make life a lot more simple and be a big step forward for the spread and adoption of Open Source software. I just hope that some of you guys wouldn't act too emotionally irrational, I guess it's a natural move.
Even Apple has a UNIX kernel these days! Why does MS always have to be the last to adopt great technologies?
almost forgot to mention that appearantly this SUSE development uses the same technology towards Outlook: the Bynari Insight Client (2 DLL's for outlook)
see my other post
Wrt Outlook robust-ness, it's recommended to upgrade your Outlook to the latest 'service pack' to avoid problems there.
Also, the configuration changes to Outlook are not very straight-forward to do (unless familiar with it).
Server-side Exchange features such as document flow (which is hardly ever used) are missing.
All the traditional features such as shared folders, meeting requests, appointments, free/buzy , synchronisation with PDA, and such are there...
The combination of Bynari Insight Server and the Insight Connector (who come bundled) gives exactly the Exchange replacement needed.
Above the cost advantage, the following advantages are there:
- easy backup/restore: as everything is stored in IMAP folders (also contacts/calender info,...) individual mails or user accounts can be restored using normal filesystem backup/restore utilities. With Exchange everything is stored in 1 big black box file making it VERY, VERY hard to restore that email the CEO accidently deleted (you need to restore an entire Exchange server to another machine)
- high performance
- no per server user limit (I believe 2500 users is a hardcoded maximum in Exchange)
- runs not only on Intel hardware but also on PPC and Mainframe (interesting for big organisations)
- integrated antivirus software (Bynari ships with RAV)
- integrated Realtime Blacklist (www.mailabuse.org)
- Linux based (security, stability, performance, cost)
- Easy server clustering and replication with standard Linux tools (ultramonkey, rsync,...)
What isn't there yet:
- integrated webmail (but you can do that quickly yourself)
- user authentication through Active Directory (will come)
- Security holes;)
Great to see this happening; we'll have to see what comes out of this, and I'm sure other distros like Mandrake will follow with even smoother integration and unified look and feel across their distro (but potentially completely different).
Finally something worthy of the combination of the words 'united' and 'linux'? As long as there's no per-seat-licensing;)
I think the main issue here is not the fact that yast2 isn't much better than the other package management systems around, but the fact that this software isn't Open Source...
SUSE puts this software at the heart of its distro and even doesnt seem to have the decency to GPL it, just like RedHat or virtually any other distro.
If there's one Microsoft among the Linux companies out there, it's certainly SUSE!
The comment about what packages should do with shared libraries is quiet absurd and would make all packages way to big, but he has a point to think about...
Fact: "30% of Microsoft its revenue comes from the Operating System licensing alone."
This means they'll do practically anything to protect that.
Linux is moving quickly to 'embrace and extend' Windows with projects like wine, wineX and CrossOffice getting very good.
The Linux-Windows war used to be a kernel war initially, but soon it will be a win32 api war. If Microsoft doesn't launch it's version of Windows with a linux kernel underneath (MacOS X system architecture), they'll loose massive market share in the bigger enterprise market and OEM's. If that happens, all will be lost for Microsoft.
They currently are in a position to create a 'Microsoft Linux'; a linux kernel with their dll-base inserted with a proprietary kernel module (kernel fork needed because of Linus' policy). In that case they would be able to create the best 'Lindows' around, possibly loose some market space with applications like IIS being replaced with Apache and such, but with again a dominant position in the Intel OS marketplace.
Microsoft is afraid of such a move, because it'll be expensive and because of the antitrust suit (although, such a move could settle it: "We will make the following version of our kernel OpenSource").
BTW, Microsoft currently already sponsors certain GNU development, like with Perl on NT.
Conclusion: - A Linux system running windows apps is a huge opportunity for the enterprise market and OEM's. - If that happens MS will have lost their foundation. Either they try to make the ultimate mix of their Intellectual Property and the OpenSource world, or they'll face utter destruction. They have a window of oppertunity here, but wine is getting better fast! - Getting them to understand this is quiet simple: they initially had the same fear of the Internet and the old MS guys understand the comparisation: the Internet was a chaotic and anarchistic network, Bill Gates said "they would never invest in it". Time has proven the contrary.
To beat a Microsoft Linux, we just need to work a little harder on wine and its integration in the desktop environments.
MS Exchange server functionality on Linux already exists. It's a great product from Bynari.
It allows all Outlook clients to connect to the Insight Server and delivers full groupware functionality.
In Europe, LIFE resells this product and assists in migrations
Slashdot Mirror
This is certainly not true. With copyright law, it's illegal to copy code. With patent law, ideas are patented. Wheter it's implemented in a 'clean room' or not, that really doesn't matter.
THAT's the reason why we detest software patents in the first place!
To be able to bring out preformatted FAT flash devices without paying the Microsoft license, one would have to claim rights to 'prior art'.
In contrary with copyright law, however, it's the responsability of the IP holder to come down on the infridger (so as long as you don't get a letter from MS, you aren't obligated to take action).
Yet IANAL but in my past businesses talked about these issues alot with lawyers.
Regarding the question wrt European manufacturers usage of the FAT filesystem. First needs to be seen if these patents are also valid in Europe or not. After initial issuing a patent in Europe, US or Japan it's automatically valid for 3 years in all of these regions. After this period it needs to be registered in the specific region. As I presume these are quiet old patents, one should look into this.
However, there still is controversy regarding software patents and its enforcebility in Europe. European software patents should also have a hardware part. This license has a hardware part, but the patents themselves not. ;-)
You might want to consult a patent lawyer to verify this, but I would bet that it's unenforceable in Europe. However, I wouldn't bet on this for 250k USD
A lot of smaller device vendors will probably sell the unformatted version after they receive letters from MS (which is a pity as FAT is readable/writable by Win/Mac/Linux).
A lot of users will now unknowingly format their cards using NTFS making it harder to exchange data with non-Windows users...
Regarding the FAT driver in Linux; as this MS license only speaks of preformatting digital media in the FAT filesystem, this is not an issue today.
Could Microsoft ask money for inclusion of the FAT driver in the Linux kernel?
Remember, patents are about ideas, not about the actual implementation or even in which language certain algoritms are written (it's about what is accomplished, not about how it's actually done). So as the FAT filesystem is patented technology, they could theoretically take action.
However, the action needs to be taken by them first. If 'prior art' can prove that the Linux implementation is based upon technology very simular than the patents issued, a case in court might prove the patents to be not really valid.
Such a thing would also destroy all possible revenues from licensing programs such as these (it's higly unlikely that device manufacturers will try to prove they had access to prior art, the long-bearded fs developers in the OpenSource community are probably less easy to convince - especially since the patents where only filed in 1995).
If the outcome of a legal case would be different, chances are higher that distributions would just drop the filesystem driver instead of paying money to Microsoft.
So, to me it seems that Microsoft would have more to loose than to gain from going after the FAT driver in Linux.
copyright.
If one reads the license with the Replicator (TM), you would destroy the license (and the originality of your expensive machine). The only one who can create a new license of originality (using their secret key) are the Ferrari vehicle manufacturers...
Flying the Ferrari through the Replicator will void your 'license to use' in that way. So I don't think it will be a problem for the company.
To build a H-bomb, you need a lot of uranium and plutonium; as far as I know, you can only get to the point of H fission by creating enough energy with an embedded 'traditional' nuclear bomb inside (sort of).
I presume that the uncracked version of the Replicator (TM) would not contain a filled jar of Uranium/Plutonium. The tgz-ed information to replicate a full-blown uranium mining facility would probably be available for download from the FastTrack network.
But IANANanotechnologist, but a JAMSAR (Just A Mortal Slashdot Article Reader)
First booted in XP, because we wanted it to have it work 'right away', billy style ;) :)
Wrong assumption: drivers not installed and no Internet connection on holiday (not even a fixed phone line near sight - you can imagine how desperate I got near the end to read slashdot
Booted Mandrake, and without doing ANYTHING WHATSOEVER, the camera icon jumped on the desktop and we were immediately capable of seeing the thumbnails and copying the pictures over. NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL A GOOD USER EXPERIENCE.
However, a company with still a bancrupcy-image on its name and a very RedHat-ish marketing style on its website. Isn't something we can recommend to new Linux users (professional or not).
So now we recommend Debian to all enterprise users and and KNOPPIX to newcomers. KNOPPIX runs from 1 CD, has all the good things, autodetects hardware very good and can be instantly copied to the HD for continued Debian use.
It was nice with you, Red Hat, but it was you who broke our relationship. It will be you who will miss us!
Long Live you all, friends of the OpenSource and Free Software movement!
---
The MS Word paper clip DOES suck!
Crazy business decisions are often pushed by a single shareholder who can convince key persons of the profitablity of the idea. This probably happenend with VA Linux ending their Linux business, SCO suing IBM and Red Hat saying Linux is no longer free (because they own the copyrights on the Red Hat logos).
Which shareholder launched this idea?
It was also because of the free-strategy and GNU policy for added distribution packaging software that I recommended Red Hat Linux to hunderds of system administrators and IT managers in Belgium and across Europe (as CEO of LIFE and European Manager of VA Linux Systems).
I assume this is a good move on the short term, with an instant increase of Red Hat Enterprise licensees. But all the enterprise users we spoke to, said they were looking "were everybody was going to". A lot of them are looking at Debian. We suggested them to take a look at the zero-configuration CDdistro KNOPPIX to have a sneak preview of the capabilities of Debian, on the server and the Desktop.
Also, saying that Linux isn't ready for the desktop is an insult to all sysadmins who demonstrate Linux's capabilities to their management and user base.
So the question is: What is the difference in strategy and product between Red Hat Advanced Server and Caldera OpenLinux when other as capable (or even technologically better according to some) distributions are freely available?
Sub-question (just for the karma): Will Red Hat degrade further on the Caldera road and become the next SCO?
We did this ourselves for a customer (insurance company) coming from HP-UX. With code being developed and expanded over a period of 25 years, there's a lot of business logic inside that just is _priceless_ for these companies.
By replacing their 10 year old systems with brand new, super-cheap, (comparable) super-fast Linux boxex, they are very satisfied (especially when fax/web/filesharing opensource tools are added for a low fee).
About your 'caring' remark...
:)
:)
a friend of mine just send a mail messege to one of the OpenSource projects he sometimes sends a bugreport to, with congrats to the other people for their work.
If we don't pay for our software, we can at least pat each others backs
GNU, bringing the fun back into computing
... just press the button to type the specific character?
One could even have different keyboard layouts being switchable with a knob... oh, wonder, wonder!
Feel free to add other irony below...
Because that's my birthday!
I tried to order one, but the shop simply doesn't work :(
Because of Handspring not being able to follow the lead of Sony Ericsson, I switched from
my HandSpring Treo 180g to the P800 a month or 2 ago.
The Symbian OS based P800 still has better features compared to this 600 release:
- The screen resolution of the P800 is the largest in the market: 210x320 pixels (great for surfing the web with Opera).
- The virtual screen has buttons large enough.
- The character recognition differs a bit from PalmOS, but I think it's better and quicker.
- The P800 camera has a 640x480 maximum resolution, which is good enough for a printout (not high quality, but OK for good memories)
- The P800 comes standard equipped with 2 x 16Mb of which you can replace the card with a bigger Memory Stick Duo.
- Software like Putty and VNC Vieuwer exist along with lots of Java stuff and even Visual
Basic...
- Bluetooth on board
- MP3 playback (altough I will only use it if the Memory Stick duo's of 1 Gb become available at 150 EUR/USD)
Some disadvantages of the P800 Symbian OS versus PalmOS:
- Searching can only be done within an application; with Palm OS searching is device-wide which can be practical.
- No expansion slot for GPS (but hey, this is also not the case with the Treo's)
- Screen is slightly less bright (I think)
Conclusion: for now I think the P800 is really alot more capable than this new Handspring handheld.
I also saw the new Palm on an expo which has GSM/GPRS onboard. I think that the Handspring mobile phone software for Palm was their first reason for the aquisition/merger.
But this device was also only 160x160 pixels.
That simply isn't enough for browsing the web.
My 2 cents...
If one takes a look at the insider trading at SCO one can find out that the last insider trader was Bawa Opwinder, Senior Vice President, Engineering and Global Services, who sold 23k shares on 6/5/2003.
Maybe there's a relationship between the moves of this individual, but jumping to conclusions about the motivations of the entire executive team seems jumpy to me.
I personally think they blundered quiet a lot, but they probably guess this suit can have the same effect on them as the antitrust case.
Anyway, the responsible lawer(s) did a lucrative thing by selling this to some individuals who really didn't have a clue what else to do.
I would recommend to wait for IBM to countersue. Any 'cease and decist' letter from SCO would have lead to compliance within minutes or hours, in the case code was actually copied from SCO to Linux.
As all the source code in the Linux kernel states who is the Copyright owner, one or several individuals (or companies) can be held responsible for those 80 (or more to come?) lines. The patents remained with Novel according to their statement, so this is purely a copyright case...
No judge will believe 80 lines of code can be vital for a 'program' this size (linux kernel), and lots of points raised by ERS (and more) come into play as well - in the assumption that SCO really had these lines first.
If SCO thinks IBM wins the most from Linux, why not wait for their reaction on this FUD?
You're 100% correct.
SAMBA on MacOS X allows for the cross-exporting of other mounted filesystems by the use of symbolic links.
No RAID-5 redundancy, but mostly quiet useful in a 'home setup' as the one being talked about in the example.
Fact is a RAID-5 like distributed filesystem just isn't there yet, with hundreds of nodes, freenet might just work for the most popular files, but feasability currently just says: NO FURTHER THAN SAMBA.
Of course, I hope it will become better, but a 100Mbit network can not serve the load of a RAID interconnect bus. Choosing for it in a home setup just doesn't seem to be too smart.
NFS really can't stand machines being switched on and off, NFS is great in a production environment if setup correctly, but not for home usage.
MacOS X and M$ can handle SAMBA just fine (although MacOS X still can improve with handling filenames wich contain characters such as [ and ] and some other small caveats).
I know it's the M$ protocol, but Linux has the best implementation of it. It works just great!
The 'shares' of shut down machines disappear as soon as you try to access them on other machines. If you don't access them while they were off they stay in place. For ease, you can put a 'mount -a' in the crontab to automagically remount these unmounted filesystems.
It just works. 3 times 'HURRAY' for SAMBA!
Read it here!!
As the GPL license grants an unusual high level of rights to its licencesees (right to redistribute, change,...), the conditions under which these rights are granted are very stricly to be followed.
Section 2b clearly states:You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
This clearly means you cannot link your proprietary program to a GPLed library as it is including a part of the Program. SO MISTER LAWER IS ABSOLUTELY WRONG!
But, on the other hand, one can for example make out of a GPLed program a GPLed version which has a plugin architecture or allows some kind of communication with another program which is not GPLed.
Then a company can make a proprietary plugin to be used with this GPLed plugin-aware program. The combination of the two can then be distributed, and the goals of the capitalist company reached. But it is very important that the plugin-addition to the GPLed program is released under the GPL to not violate the GPL.
Clearly they have to be completely seperate code bases.
As a reminder for the new kids: this is why the choice of Linus to not allow proprietary kernel modules is a personal kernel-maintainer policy and not something automatically delivered by the GPL. Personally, I think it was a great decision which annoyed quiet a few companies (something which hardly ever hurts)
You are free (GPL) however to branch of the regular kernel tree with a seperate one who does allow proprietary kernel modules. But the success of your move will not be very likely (unless you're a maybe a company such as Microsoft).
Am I afraid of such a potential Microsoft Linux? Nah, it would make life a lot more simple and be a big step forward for the spread and adoption of Open Source software. I just hope that some of you guys wouldn't act too emotionally irrational, I guess it's a natural move.
Even Apple has a UNIX kernel these days! Why does MS always have to be the last to adopt great technologies?
almost forgot to mention that appearantly this SUSE development uses the same technology towards Outlook: the Bynari Insight Client (2 DLL's for outlook)
see my other post
Wrt Outlook robust-ness, it's recommended to upgrade your Outlook to the latest 'service pack' to avoid problems there.
Also, the configuration changes to Outlook are not very straight-forward to do (unless familiar with it).
Server-side Exchange features such as document flow (which is hardly ever used) are missing.
All the traditional features such as shared folders, meeting requests, appointments, free/buzy , synchronisation with PDA, and such are there...
Check out there website at www.bynari.net or download a demo ISO image
Above the cost advantage, the following advantages are there:
- easy backup/restore: as everything is stored in IMAP folders (also contacts/calender info,...) individual mails or user accounts can be restored using normal filesystem backup/restore utilities. With Exchange everything is stored in 1 big black box file making it VERY, VERY hard to restore that email the CEO accidently deleted (you need to restore an entire Exchange server to another machine)
- high performance
- no per server user limit (I believe 2500 users is a hardcoded maximum in Exchange)
- runs not only on Intel hardware but also on PPC and Mainframe (interesting for big organisations)
- integrated antivirus software (Bynari ships with RAV)
- integrated Realtime Blacklist (www.mailabuse.org)
- Linux based (security, stability, performance, cost)
- Easy server clustering and replication with standard Linux tools (ultramonkey, rsync,...)
What isn't there yet: ;)
- integrated webmail (but you can do that quickly yourself)
- user authentication through Active Directory (will come)
- Security holes
long live gnu/linux!
Here is the oldest archived one
Happy Birthday Slashdot!
Finally something worthy of the combination of the words 'united' and 'linux'? As long as there's no per-seat-licensing ;)
SUSE puts this software at the heart of its distro and even doesnt seem to have the decency to GPL it, just like RedHat or virtually any other distro.
If there's one Microsoft among the Linux companies out there, it's certainly SUSE!
The comment about what packages should do with shared libraries is quiet absurd and would make all packages way to big, but he has a point to think about...
Stick to Debian! :)
We have these standing in Belgium for years and years...
They're great at the middle of the night (if the local Pakistani is out of his shop:)
Well, I used to look at technology in the opposite way: US, Europe, Japan, and wonder if this new way of progress through the world is a new trend.
maybe it isn't: http://www.engrish.com
Fact: "30% of Microsoft its revenue comes from the Operating System licensing alone."
This means they'll do practically anything to protect that.
Linux is moving quickly to 'embrace and extend' Windows with projects like wine, wineX and CrossOffice getting very good.
The Linux-Windows war used to be a kernel war initially, but soon it will be a win32 api war. If Microsoft doesn't launch it's version of Windows with a linux kernel underneath (MacOS X system architecture), they'll loose massive market share in the bigger enterprise market and OEM's. If that happens, all will be lost for Microsoft.
They currently are in a position to create a 'Microsoft Linux'; a linux kernel with their dll-base inserted with a proprietary kernel module (kernel fork needed because of Linus' policy). In that case they would be able to create the best 'Lindows' around, possibly loose some market space with applications like IIS being replaced with Apache and such, but with again a dominant position in the Intel OS marketplace.
Microsoft is afraid of such a move, because it'll be expensive and because of the antitrust suit (although, such a move could settle it: "We will make the following version of our kernel OpenSource").
BTW, Microsoft currently already sponsors certain GNU development, like with Perl on NT.
Conclusion:
- A Linux system running windows apps is a huge opportunity for the enterprise market and OEM's.
- If that happens MS will have lost their foundation. Either they try to make the ultimate mix of their Intellectual Property and the OpenSource world, or they'll face utter destruction. They have a window of oppertunity here, but wine is getting better fast!
- Getting them to understand this is quiet simple: they initially had the same fear of the Internet and the old MS guys understand the comparisation: the Internet was a chaotic and anarchistic network, Bill Gates said "they would never invest in it". Time has proven the contrary.
To beat a Microsoft Linux, we just need to work a little harder on wine and its integration in the desktop environments.
www.microsoftlinux.com
MS Exchange server functionality on Linux already exists. It's a great product from Bynari.
It allows all Outlook clients to connect to the Insight Server and delivers full groupware functionality.
In Europe, LIFE resells this product and assists in migrations