Even if a large % of users have backdoors, etc. installed, what % of those users have something worth stealing? -----
You're talking out your ass or you'd know why those home users get targetted. The attackers don't generally want what's on the computers, they want to use the computers themselves.
They use them to send spam, hack even more computers, store files, etc. If your computer is used as a significant part of an attack (e.g. they use it to hack a DOD computer), you can expect the Feds on your doorstep. If they store illegal files (e.g. child pornography, for which there is strict liability--if you possess it, you're guilty of a crime, do not pass go, do not collect $200) on your computer, you can very well be hosed, too. You could say that that's hypothetical, but all of these have happened.
Granted, in the child pornography case, the evidence that there was a backdoor on the computer was enough to cast doubt on whether it's owner actually "possessed" the illegal files. However, if you look at cases like Steve Jackson Games vs. the US Secret Service, you'll see that even if you're not found to have any tertiary legal liability for those using your computer or network unlawfully, you CAN still suffer for it. Granted, I hope that the government is smarter in its execution of search warrants now than it was when Steve Jackson was made to suffer, but still you have to realize that being involved in any such case is not fun.
And yet you illustrate why we need to give more of a security education to home users. It is for exactly this reason I give free lectures on this at my local public library, and I encourage anyone else with security knowledge and a convenient forum to do the same.
I have only a few points you might consider adding to your analysis:
1) Neither PJ nor "Groklaw" has ever threatened anyone. PJ doesn't even like swear words on Groklaw. She has never threatened nor has she encouraged others to threaten anyone. Quite the opposite, she has taken a hard line against anyone who would do this.
Enderle's speech makes some very tenouous associations of those at Groklaw with the people threatening him. While it's entirely possible that such people have read Groklaw, they do not represent it as a whole, nor do they represent PJ in any meaningful capacity.
Frankly, if PJ weren't so very kind even to her opponents, she might well have grounds for a defamation suit against Enderle. As you can see in my submission (I submitted this story), SCO appears to have run the only smear campaign here that I can find.
I should also note that *PJ* has also received death threats & the like, and reported this after the Daniel Lyons article on her, which was poorly researched and shows what I should think can only be properly termed as a reckless disregard for the truth. Should we blame SCO or Enderle for those threats?
2) You correctly point out that "spies" is a horribly loaded term for Enderle to use. Why not point out that normal people would call them "reporters" since it was a PUBLIC event.
Oh well, next time they'll probably have the audience sign an NDA.
If you read the Groklaw article on the SCO Forum, she denies sending anyone there at all. I'm sure this is quite true--she wouldn't have to send anyone, there are plenty of people who would volunteer to send her their impressions of it.
3) You might mention the Daniel Lyons article (found on Forbes) which Enderle seems to use as support. If you check my posting history, you'll see that I've often decried it as pure rubbish which should never have passed even the most minimal editorial scrutiny, but in it Daniel Lyons makes all manner of ill-researched and just plain wrong assertions about PJ. In it, he quotes random internet trolls as though they were somehow relevant to Groklaw or PJ (the trolls weren't even on Groklaw, they were just a supposedly representative sample of the people who dislike SCO... or something; what they really were was an attempt to create guilt by assosiation, even though PJ had NOTHING whatsoever to do with them).
The capstone of that article is where he reveals something found about 2 clicks away from the Groklaw main page--that Groklaw is hosted by iBiblio (it outgrew several hosts prior to that, after the first few slashdottings), and IBM once made a donation to iBiblio (a few servers, I believe).
Somehow, this donation makes Groklaw unreliable and is thus worse than demonstrating how Lyons is sloppy for having relied on nothing more than SCO press releases, and that Enderle is personally indebted to Bill Gates...
Anyhow, this is my 4th SCO article on Slashdot, so I've been following this for some time:] If you need or want my input on what you're doing, I'd be glad to help in any way I can. You can find me at xenographic(a)hotmail,com if you remove the spam-armoring.
Now, in case Enderle & co. are reading this too, since this message is public, I wish to point out that I have no stake in this whole mess. The only reason I'm working to discredit you is because I believe that you're wrong, and that I can prove it.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but I thought that the reason SCO bought the slander of title case against Novell was because Novell didn't just publicly state that they owned the copyrights, but they filed the copyrights in with the copyright office with the intent to use the filings to undermine SCO's case(s).
Quite right, but as Novell points out, the filing of a rival claim is privileged and specifically contemplated in the law as a means to assert a rival claim to the copyrights, so that they wouldn't be said to have waived their claim by silence.
(This is all stated in Novell's Memorandum in Support of the Motion to Dismiss, BTW:)
This is a classic troll. If you can't win with facts, change the subject. Also appear like you dont care either way, but you want your opinion out there....
All I got from the sections that applied to the subject was that he has a very clear misunderstanding of how open source works.
You are right--he is a troll, effectively. You see, for a long time he's worked to be someone the media quotes (they still do, all too much, even though he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about half the time--he even mentions some of the trouble he got in in that speech).
In fact, his Enderle Group sells his quotability as a service--pay us, and we'll tell the press good things about you. That, plus as he admitted in his speech, he supports Microsoft for unrelated personal reasons.
Now then, people have started attacking his credibility en mass due to the SCO debacle. Some have even (gasp!) insulted him online. He hates this, because the more reasoned of us (e.g. me) are working to make it known that we believe that he is as paid shill and does not know whereof he speaks. Obviously, this message is getting out.
Thus, he works to portray all those who attack him as unintelligent, angry zealots. You said it well when you said he had a "very clear misunderstanding" of how this all works and what we mean by free. But that's not quite all: he knows what we mean and is deliberately twisting the facts to act as a troll.
Elsewhere, he's gone with a "BSD is better" line. The point of this is that he's trying to stir up or exacerbate whatever divisions exist among us--e.g. to sow strife and dischord. So far, I don't get the sense that he's doing it very well, but he's conciously trying to start flame wars.
Why? The controversy suits him--if he can get people mad enough, he can discredit them with their own angry rants (and there's always someone to supply these even if the rest of us hold our tongues). Moreover, he can use the controversy to put himself in the spotlight (get quoted even more in the media, etc.).
Thus, the best counter-strategy for us is to supply as many calm, rational and even-toned responses to his nonsense as is possible, and to simply ignore the flamebait portions of his talks.
The more reasonable people we can get who present sensible, articulated responses to his utter nonsense, the more we can discredit him in spite of the supply of angry hatemail he has to wave around.
I'm not some angry nitwit who is going around threatening anyone, and I refuse to have him defame us all by painting with one broad stroke.
To that end, I'm open for suggestions on how to help the media get a clue that he's not a credible source, and should not be trusted or used for quick & easy quotes.
1) $550 is peanuts if you're serious about investing. Maybe it's not worth it if you just want a stock certificate to hang on the wall, but whatever. If you think it's going to slide to a "more realistic" valuation, you're free to pick it up after the IPO, whenver it gets to a price you find more reasonable.
2) This is how they intend to keep their "Don't be evil" policy in spite of Wall St. demands. It may seem to devalue the stock in some sense (e.g. what am I buying really?) but frankly, I don't *want* Google to sell out.
3) Again, you don't have to buy it the second it comes out. You don't have to be first. If you expect the market to adjust it downwards, buy it then. OTOH, if enough people expect this, then there may well be more of an upside to it than was expected...
4) All stocks are a gamble. Right now, Google has quite a premium on it's Adwords, but they are, hands down, pretty much the BEST internet advertising there is to be had (save maybe slashvertisements...).
Now there are dangers to Google--the nonsense about trademarks & people using them as Adwords is one worry. Another is that Microsoft will use their monopoly power to force their crappy, slapdash search engine upon us all. Competition is a worry in any market. I don't know what they can do, but I know that Google can compete and I know that they can turn out a superior product.
Frankly, I want some of the stock to put my money where my mouth is--as a vote of confidence in Google--and I'd be the type to hold it long term, rather than cashing out whenever things look bad. None of us have any way of knowing how things will turn out. Microsoft or trademark law may well spell doom for Google. Conversely, they may manage to embed enough Google in windows through programs like the Google toolbar to resist even Microsoft's efforts to eradicate them. I mean, 'google' is already a verb, I don't put standing up to Microsoft past them at all.
Look, I hate the copyright insanity as much as anyone, but I don't think that's a solution--it's simply too abuseable.
It's easy, really, especially if you control enough of the media--don't print any books. Then, when they've been out of print long enough that the author loses copyright, gobble them up & don't give the creator a dime.
Now then, personally, I'd like to see copyrights changed to a FIXED term. E.G. You have x years to publish it that we'll give you for an unpublished manuscript, and y years after, discounting the first z years it was unpublished, but none after that. So we wind up knowing in advance exactly when such and such a copyright will expire for any given work, and have no more of this life + 70 BS (which, incidentally, reminds me of a prison term more than anything).
Of course, I don't think that software & such should get more than 10 years, and more artistic works more than 50 all told (these, BTW, are maxiumums, not minimums in my thinking), which happens to be far less than is mandated by the Berne convention, which surely makes reform more difficult.
Oh, and as is already being challenged in the courts, I'd like to remove the 'automatically copyrighted' bit, so that you have to actually indicate somehow that it is or is supposed to be copyrighted. Though these are "formalities" under the Berne convention, I think they have more value to the public than is realized.
It's funny, though, how people complain. If you think about it, yes, you might lose some things which were exclusively yours, but so many forget all those other things they *gain* which they couldn't legally have otherwise...
Oh well. Hopefully people will wake up before too many years of having to put up with DRM "solutions" from a Mickey Mouse operation, once they realize that "sharing without actually sharing" as DRM tries to do is a contradiction in terms...
Thankfully he's been moderated as troll (deservedly--there's not '-1, Total BS' moderation), but I would like to point out that a license is permission.
A license is a grant of permission to do something you presumably couldn't do without the license. This is distinguished in law from a contract, where there is a mutual exchange of promises.
I am not a lawyer, but I did watch several televised law classes covering such things over my college's cable network (though I did not take that particular class).
Lyons is another Forbes writer. So long as Forbes has no editorial standards to have let him print what he has, I cannot take anything they write too seriously without independent confirmation. You know, like how journalists are/supposed/ to get at least two sources, so they (hopefully) report facts instead of rumors.
Sun is schizophrenic--on one hand, Linux threatens them, on the other, there are places they can make money off of it. They have a special cross-licensing deal with Microsoft, the very one who is testing the waters with full-force patent litigation against Linux to crush their only real competition. Thus, Sun wants to sit on the fence and play both sides for now. Good for Sun, but I'm sure not going to support them for it.
IBM is already using their patents in the counterclaims against ilk like SCO. I take this to mean they only intend to use the patents as defense, if say, someone like RedHat sued them (this is just a hypothetical, but contract disputes to crop up, and patent counterclaims like they've used against SCO are powerful weapons to enforce compliance).
In any event, yes it would be nice to have this in writing, but in the mean time you don't just have to take their word for it. They way they've structured thier Linux business is to make it mutually advantageous. That is, so that it will benefit Linux and it will benefit them. There's no "if they get greedy" case here, because they are being "greedy" in a sense--but they've found what I think is a way to support Linux/and/ make money.
Yes. Management changes & market changes can disrupt all of that. If and when that happens, I'm sure those in the 'Linux community' will stop supporting IBM. In the mean time, they're working to the benefit of both us and them, so I really think IBM deserves our support.
True, they're not doing it/just/ out of the goodness of their heart, but is that so bad? Mutual benefit is a good thing in a partenership, and we benefit from all the stuff they GPL, all the code they write and donate, not to mention their corporate protection of Linux against vexatious litigants like SCO (or worse, Microsoft), simply because they need to defend Linux to make money off it. It's symbiotic, and that's why I expect this to last... at least for the time being.
Be that as it may, you should still be warned that Daniel Lyons is a SCO schill. And by "schill" I mean someone who would post untrue, defamatory material in order to discredit someone who pointed out that he wasn't exactly a bastion of journalistic ethics.
If you check my posting history, you will undoubtably note that I have followed his actions rather closely (and, quite frequently, stepped up to point out that he's full of crap).
For example, there was that article where he posted untrue, unsubstantiated and rediculous allegations about PJ of Groklaw, with reckless disregard for the truth, even going so far as to quote random trolls on the internet as sources!
Hell, even here, the editors don't generally post front page stories about the penis bird or whatever it is they're trolling about these days. While to begin with, Daniel Lyons was just acting as a lazy journalist, spouting off whatever SCO put into their press releases, after he was called on it, he began to work to discredit those who had so very well discredited him.
Unfortunately for him, he only proved that Forbes has no editorial oversight--that article, which I'm sure you could find via Google (Google cache link--I refuse to give Forbes page views if I can help it), had no place on any serious website. Let alone one purporting to carry "news."
So while I won't say that he's actually manipulating the SCOX stock price--IBM will have to ferret that out, as they have addressed it in their counter-claims--you should realize that whatever motives he writes with are not good ones.
In the mean time, I will do my part to remind everyone that Forbes apparently has insufficient editorial oversight, and should not therefore be considered a reliable source of information. Hell, if they told me it was raining outside, I do believe that I would go look for myself.
I can't do much, but I believe that I've cost them at least one potential customer already.
We should be glad then, that IBM wants to be on the good side of Linux. We must be aware, however, that business strategies do change with time and new management.
As such, they're on our side now. Very much so. Their business strategy is to use & defend Linux to promote sales of IBM hardware, and to use it to level the OS playing field, so that someone like Microsoft doesn't upstage them... again.
Will this last forever? Probably not. But we should make the best of it while they're on our side--the management may change and they may turn on us someday, but we ought to make the most of our mutual interests while they remain mutual.
Besides, have you forgotten about Daniel Lyons & co. at Forbes? You know, the nice article where they quoted various random troll posts (perhaps even some from Slashdot, I don't remember)? Forbes doesn't exactly have a lot of credibility with me right now. Maybe it was just lazy journalism (e.g. print whatever press releases you get sent), I don't know, but they obviously have insufficient editorial oversight, so I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Forbes were to publish false and defamatory information. Again.
Well, for starters, they're desperately throwing out everything they can think of sans research.
Now then, either we have to disprove this, or IBM will. We might as well do it early.
For our shooting their arguements down to be of any help, they'd have to find one we couldn't shoot down.
That hasn't happened yet, because the Linux developers simply aren't theives, and calling them such when one cannot prove those allegations might well be considered defamation by a court of law...
Well, I don't claim to know a lot about stocks, so I have no idea if this could also be "dead cat bounce" or some late rally due to all the short sellers. I'm told the short interest in that stock is positively insane.
But yeah, right now, I'm simply far more inclined to believe that SCO is doing something underhanded. I mean, they've yet to tell any kind of consistant story. They only ones who believe them are either uninformed (media spouting press releases) or Enderle & Didio. Enderle, of course hates 'GPL zealots' and probably just wants the publicity. Ironically, he apparently has (does?) work for IBM at times, too. Were I them, I'd certainly axe him from the payroll after all the crap he's pulled of late.
And don't bother sending Enderle nasty email. He'll just choose the angriest and least coherent of them to make fun of in some insipid article.
If you read this earlier article on Groklaw, you'll see plenty of quotes to show that much of the mainstream media is quite clueless. There aren't many who have caught on yet, although investors don't seem to value the stock any more. Then again, there are still those mysterious end of the day rallies, which some say are indications that someone is "painting the tape" (e.g. manipulating the stock price--not hard to do with a stock like SCOX, apparently).
I was trying to say "if any part of SCO's motion to bifurcate was granted" and clipped off the last part.
Anyhow, you might notice the comments about how this is "the same" as the UNISYS patent. I'm not quite sure that this is the case. There are a number of different combinations of the encoding schemes, and I would imagine that there is at least some distinction between this and the UNISYS patent, but I haven't read either patent, so I don't know.
In any event, IBM may not be in a position to do much with this patent right now, since they are enforcing it against SCO. Sort of a "damned if you do, and damned if you don't" kind of thing, except that IBM need not bring any infringement suits against anyone in the mean time.
Hell, with only a few years left in it, IBM vs. SCO might last longer than the patent. Whatever else you say about SCO, they've managed to drag the litigation on forever, and it will be at least another year until the trial is over according to the court's calendar, barring summary judgment for IBM and such things. And that's ignoring the appeals process... The only thing that can really kill them early, IMHO, is the last of their assets being drained via litigation. Otherwise, we're looking at a long, slow, and painful death for SCO.
He's right; it's one of IBM's counterclaims against SCO. Of course, if any part of SCO's motion to bifurcate (split off the patent suits), IBM could elect to drop it and later dispose of the patent somehow. You can read a transcript of the relevant hearing here on Groklaw.
SCO's answer to IBM's counterclaims accuses it, among other things, of selectively enforcing it. I'm not quite sure what basis there is in law for using that as a defense, however, or if that was just boilerplate text in SCO's reply.
The problem being that unless there's going to be a lawyer sitting in every device, these eliminate fair use, because the only difference between fair and unfair use is semantic--e.g. nothing decideable by a computer program.
So what we're left with is outlawing general use devices in favor of "you can do only what we approve of with this device" which is NOT sensible, NOT fair, and NOT workable.
Microsoft's Monopoly trashing everyone's software patents = good
No, that should be trashing everyone's software patents = good, because these never seem to do anything but stifle innovation.
Anyhow, there are ways to deal with this, which is why the EFF has announced a Patent Busting Project, which you can read about in this article on Groklaw.
The gist of it is that you can file with the USPTO to have a patent reexaminated if you present them with prior art. Of course, it costs money, too, which is rather annoying, if understandable.
Speaking of which, this would not be a bad time to donate to the EFF.
Oh, with some high energy experiments, they expect that they might create really tiny black holes.
Of course, they also expect that these will very quickly dissolve due to Hawking radiation. In other words, they won't ever last long enough to suck anything much up...
You got to be kidding. Say, I sell my own closed-source software and re-discover your idea independently. Then you come weilding your patent and force me to either go out of business (because my software is not of the nature that lets me make money on support) or release an inferior product
This is a problem with patent law, not with my construction. My construction would only make it more evident to those who want to proprietize my IP (in this case, my hypothetical patent). Ignorance of a patent is not a defense--patents are published for a reason. Of course, willful infringement (if it's known that I knew of the patent and infringed upon it anyhow) is another matter.
Moreover, the software maker would still have an option--they could GPL their software with my patent, make use of my code (which would contain a special license to use the patent), and make their money via support contracts. Thus, I would be using them to push to make things more open, for everyone, not just a select few.
The fact is that these claims are a well-funded marketing campaign to create FUD about Linux because those entities which are finding themselves less able to compete with it on technical merit have to attack it in other ways.
There are already a number of IP related attacks--Microsoft's "Shared Source" for one is calculated to give some of the benefits of having the source available, while crippling the ability of anyone who might want to use it in GPL'd software. There are also issues with patented standards, like Microsoft's XML patents. To be fair, this cuts both ways, I seem to remember someone (Lucky Green?) patenting using DRM to control the use of "pirated" software, after a Microsoft speaker claimed to have not thought of doing that. Indeed, on might theoretically patent something and make the *only* way to use that patent to incorporate the GPL'd software one provides. This is certainly somewhat more coercive than the GPL usually is (since generally, if you don't like it, you can write your own damned code instead of taking mine), but it is yet another way to advance the public interest via IP law.
Back to the point, we're looking at a well-funded character assasination attempt here. And if we're not, it sure as hell looks that way. I'm certainly not convinced that we should be ignoring this, since they're working on convincing the types who don't read Slashdot, and who aren't likely to see all the facts contrary to this insipid book.
I mean, I'm just waiting for Lyons of Forbes (a scolecophagous scorbutical scoundrel, in my biased opinion), or Enderle to write some poorly-researched prattle about what this "proves." Then, only to turn and complain about the questioning of their reputations, in spite of their being known more for quoting press releases than for doing independent research... And no, calling a company to confirm that it believes its own press releases is hardly Pulizer material.
But you're right. This isn't new. Lyons wrote an insipid character-assasination piece against PJ, defaming her with spurious allegations and incredibly weak associations to some random troll he quoted off the Internet. Enderle has called those who oppose SCO "terrorists," the crime being pointing out to the media that he has no credibility and talks out his ass half the time. Oh, and some people alledgedly sent him hatemail. That's not right, but it's nothing new, and his article goes far beyond mere hatemail, especially when he invited it with his flamebait writings, painting so many with the same brush, doing worse than the things he accuses others of, in my biased judgement.
And my favorite, the one enshrined in my slashdot journal, is where SCO set out fake signs to defame the people picketing them--ones claiming to support communism and whatnot. The Groklaw article on that is linked in my journal, and it even has nice pictures, so you can read them for yourself.
So no, I have no intention of ignoring this campaign to malign us all. It's not likely to stop on its own. I would hope that anyone with standing to sue would at least consider doing so. I don't think this should be left to stand, even if I find it to be in the credit of Linus and the others that they are not litigious.
You need to read all of what he said, he already addressed the point about BSD:
P.S.: Some readers have pointed out that my lanuage above was unclear in one respect. It is perfectly legal for Microsoft to have lifted code from BSD. But we only know about this because the way TCP/IP implementations respond to certain odd packet types is underspecified in the standard, and it is possible to build family trees of code derivation through behavioral analysis.
The point is this: Microsoft (legally) took BSD code, and the only way we know about it is through behavioural analysis. So how do we know commercial outfits haven't taken code illegally?
Slashdot Mirror
Even if a large % of users have backdoors, etc. installed, what % of those users have something worth stealing?
-----
You're talking out your ass or you'd know why those home users get targetted. The attackers don't generally want what's on the computers, they want to use the computers themselves.
They use them to send spam, hack even more computers, store files, etc. If your computer is used as a significant part of an attack (e.g. they use it to hack a DOD computer), you can expect the Feds on your doorstep. If they store illegal files (e.g. child pornography, for which there is strict liability--if you possess it, you're guilty of a crime, do not pass go, do not collect $200) on your computer, you can very well be hosed, too. You could say that that's hypothetical, but all of these have happened.
Granted, in the child pornography case, the evidence that there was a backdoor on the computer was enough to cast doubt on whether it's owner actually "possessed" the illegal files. However, if you look at cases like Steve Jackson Games vs. the US Secret Service, you'll see that even if you're not found to have any tertiary legal liability for those using your computer or network unlawfully, you CAN still suffer for it. Granted, I hope that the government is smarter in its execution of search warrants now than it was when Steve Jackson was made to suffer, but still you have to realize that being involved in any such case is not fun.
And yet you illustrate why we need to give more of a security education to home users. It is for exactly this reason I give free lectures on this at my local public library, and I encourage anyone else with security knowledge and a convenient forum to do the same.
Thank you for an excellent analysis.
:] If you need or want my input on what you're doing, I'd be glad to help in any way I can. You can find me at xenographic(a)hotmail,com if you remove the spam-armoring.
I have only a few points you might consider adding to your analysis:
1) Neither PJ nor "Groklaw" has ever threatened anyone. PJ doesn't even like swear words on Groklaw. She has never threatened nor has she encouraged others to threaten anyone. Quite the opposite, she has taken a hard line against anyone who would do this.
Enderle's speech makes some very tenouous associations of those at Groklaw with the people threatening him. While it's entirely possible that such people have read Groklaw, they do not represent it as a whole, nor do they represent PJ in any meaningful capacity.
Frankly, if PJ weren't so very kind even to her opponents, she might well have grounds for a defamation suit against Enderle. As you can see in my submission (I submitted this story), SCO appears to have run the only smear campaign here that I can find.
I should also note that *PJ* has also received death threats & the like, and reported this after the Daniel Lyons article on her, which was poorly researched and shows what I should think can only be properly termed as a reckless disregard for the truth. Should we blame SCO or Enderle for those threats?
2) You correctly point out that "spies" is a horribly loaded term for Enderle to use. Why not point out that normal people would call them "reporters" since it was a PUBLIC event.
Oh well, next time they'll probably have the audience sign an NDA.
If you read the Groklaw article on the SCO Forum, she denies sending anyone there at all. I'm sure this is quite true--she wouldn't have to send anyone, there are plenty of people who would volunteer to send her their impressions of it.
3) You might mention the Daniel Lyons article (found on Forbes) which Enderle seems to use as support. If you check my posting history, you'll see that I've often decried it as pure rubbish which should never have passed even the most minimal editorial scrutiny, but in it Daniel Lyons makes all manner of ill-researched and just plain wrong assertions about PJ. In it, he quotes random internet trolls as though they were somehow relevant to Groklaw or PJ (the trolls weren't even on Groklaw, they were just a supposedly representative sample of the people who dislike SCO... or something; what they really were was an attempt to create guilt by assosiation, even though PJ had NOTHING whatsoever to do with them).
The capstone of that article is where he reveals something found about 2 clicks away from the Groklaw main page--that Groklaw is hosted by iBiblio (it outgrew several hosts prior to that, after the first few slashdottings), and IBM once made a donation to iBiblio (a few servers, I believe).
Somehow, this donation makes Groklaw unreliable and is thus worse than demonstrating how Lyons is sloppy for having relied on nothing more than SCO press releases, and that Enderle is personally indebted to Bill Gates...
Anyhow, this is my 4th SCO article on Slashdot, so I've been following this for some time
Now, in case Enderle & co. are reading this too, since this message is public, I wish to point out that I have no stake in this whole mess. The only reason I'm working to discredit you is because I believe that you're wrong, and that I can prove it.
Quite right, but as Novell points out, the filing of a rival claim is privileged and specifically contemplated in the law as a means to assert a rival claim to the copyrights, so that they wouldn't be said to have waived their claim by silence.
(This is all stated in Novell's Memorandum in Support of the Motion to Dismiss, BTW
You are right--he is a troll, effectively. You see, for a long time he's worked to be someone the media quotes (they still do, all too much, even though he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about half the time--he even mentions some of the trouble he got in in that speech).
In fact, his Enderle Group sells his quotability as a service--pay us, and we'll tell the press good things about you. That, plus as he admitted in his speech, he supports Microsoft for unrelated personal reasons.
Now then, people have started attacking his credibility en mass due to the SCO debacle. Some have even (gasp!) insulted him online. He hates this, because the more reasoned of us (e.g. me) are working to make it known that we believe that he is as paid shill and does not know whereof he speaks. Obviously, this message is getting out.
Thus, he works to portray all those who attack him as unintelligent, angry zealots. You said it well when you said he had a "very clear misunderstanding" of how this all works and what we mean by free. But that's not quite all: he knows what we mean and is deliberately twisting the facts to act as a troll.
Elsewhere, he's gone with a "BSD is better" line. The point of this is that he's trying to stir up or exacerbate whatever divisions exist among us--e.g. to sow strife and dischord. So far, I don't get the sense that he's doing it very well, but he's conciously trying to start flame wars.
Why? The controversy suits him--if he can get people mad enough, he can discredit them with their own angry rants (and there's always someone to supply these even if the rest of us hold our tongues). Moreover, he can use the controversy to put himself in the spotlight (get quoted even more in the media, etc.).
Thus, the best counter-strategy for us is to supply as many calm, rational and even-toned responses to his nonsense as is possible, and to simply ignore the flamebait portions of his talks.
The more reasonable people we can get who present sensible, articulated responses to his utter nonsense, the more we can discredit him in spite of the supply of angry hatemail he has to wave around.
I'm not some angry nitwit who is going around threatening anyone, and I refuse to have him defame us all by painting with one broad stroke.
To that end, I'm open for suggestions on how to help the media get a clue that he's not a credible source, and should not be trusted or used for quick & easy quotes.
1) $550 is peanuts if you're serious about investing. Maybe it's not worth it if you just want a stock certificate to hang on the wall, but whatever. If you think it's going to slide to a "more realistic" valuation, you're free to pick it up after the IPO, whenver it gets to a price you find more reasonable.
2) This is how they intend to keep their "Don't be evil" policy in spite of Wall St. demands. It may seem to devalue the stock in some sense (e.g. what am I buying really?) but frankly, I don't *want* Google to sell out.
3) Again, you don't have to buy it the second it comes out. You don't have to be first. If you expect the market to adjust it downwards, buy it then. OTOH, if enough people expect this, then there may well be more of an upside to it than was expected...
4) All stocks are a gamble. Right now, Google has quite a premium on it's Adwords, but they are, hands down, pretty much the BEST internet advertising there is to be had (save maybe slashvertisements...).
Now there are dangers to Google--the nonsense about trademarks & people using them as Adwords is one worry. Another is that Microsoft will use their monopoly power to force their crappy, slapdash search engine upon us all. Competition is a worry in any market. I don't know what they can do, but I know that Google can compete and I know that they can turn out a superior product.
Frankly, I want some of the stock to put my money where my mouth is--as a vote of confidence in Google--and I'd be the type to hold it long term, rather than cashing out whenever things look bad. None of us have any way of knowing how things will turn out. Microsoft or trademark law may well spell doom for Google. Conversely, they may manage to embed enough Google in windows through programs like the Google toolbar to resist even Microsoft's efforts to eradicate them. I mean, 'google' is already a verb, I don't put standing up to Microsoft past them at all.
Look, I hate the copyright insanity as much as anyone, but I don't think that's a solution--it's simply too abuseable.
It's easy, really, especially if you control enough of the media--don't print any books. Then, when they've been out of print long enough that the author loses copyright, gobble them up & don't give the creator a dime.
Now then, personally, I'd like to see copyrights changed to a FIXED term. E.G. You have x years to publish it that we'll give you for an unpublished manuscript, and y years after, discounting the first z years it was unpublished, but none after that. So we wind up knowing in advance exactly when such and such a copyright will expire for any given work, and have no more of this life + 70 BS (which, incidentally, reminds me of a prison term more than anything).
Of course, I don't think that software & such should get more than 10 years, and more artistic works more than 50 all told (these, BTW, are maxiumums, not minimums in my thinking), which happens to be far less than is mandated by the Berne convention, which surely makes reform more difficult.
Oh, and as is already being challenged in the courts, I'd like to remove the 'automatically copyrighted' bit, so that you have to actually indicate somehow that it is or is supposed to be copyrighted. Though these are "formalities" under the Berne convention, I think they have more value to the public than is realized.
It's funny, though, how people complain. If you think about it, yes, you might lose some things which were exclusively yours, but so many forget all those other things they *gain* which they couldn't legally have otherwise...
Oh well. Hopefully people will wake up before too many years of having to put up with DRM "solutions" from a Mickey Mouse operation, once they realize that "sharing without actually sharing" as DRM tries to do is a contradiction in terms...
Thankfully he's been moderated as troll (deservedly--there's not '-1, Total BS' moderation), but I would like to point out that a license is permission.
A license is a grant of permission to do something you presumably couldn't do without the license. This is distinguished in law from a contract, where there is a mutual exchange of promises.
I am not a lawyer, but I did watch several televised law classes covering such things over my college's cable network (though I did not take that particular class).
Lyons is another Forbes writer. So long as Forbes has no editorial standards to have let him print what he has, I cannot take anything they write too seriously without independent confirmation. You know, like how journalists are /supposed/ to get at least two sources, so they (hopefully) report facts instead of rumors.
/and/ make money.
/just/ out of the goodness of their heart, but is that so bad? Mutual benefit is a good thing in a partenership, and we benefit from all the stuff they GPL, all the code they write and donate, not to mention their corporate protection of Linux against vexatious litigants like SCO (or worse, Microsoft), simply because they need to defend Linux to make money off it. It's symbiotic, and that's why I expect this to last... at least for the time being.
Sun is schizophrenic--on one hand, Linux threatens them, on the other, there are places they can make money off of it. They have a special cross-licensing deal with Microsoft, the very one who is testing the waters with full-force patent litigation against Linux to crush their only real competition. Thus, Sun wants to sit on the fence and play both sides for now. Good for Sun, but I'm sure not going to support them for it.
IBM is already using their patents in the counterclaims against ilk like SCO. I take this to mean they only intend to use the patents as defense, if say, someone like RedHat sued them (this is just a hypothetical, but contract disputes to crop up, and patent counterclaims like they've used against SCO are powerful weapons to enforce compliance).
In any event, yes it would be nice to have this in writing, but in the mean time you don't just have to take their word for it. They way they've structured thier Linux business is to make it mutually advantageous. That is, so that it will benefit Linux and it will benefit them. There's no "if they get greedy" case here, because they are being "greedy" in a sense--but they've found what I think is a way to support Linux
Yes. Management changes & market changes can disrupt all of that. If and when that happens, I'm sure those in the 'Linux community' will stop supporting IBM. In the mean time, they're working to the benefit of both us and them, so I really think IBM deserves our support.
True, they're not doing it
I believe that one of IBM's counter-claims mentions something about SCO working to manipulate the price of SCOX.
Here's hoping they can find the proof before it's carted off by rabid weasels (which, incidentally, is how I look upon SCO's management).
Be that as it may, you should still be warned that Daniel Lyons is a SCO schill. And by "schill" I mean someone who would post untrue, defamatory material in order to discredit someone who pointed out that he wasn't exactly a bastion of journalistic ethics.
If you check my posting history, you will undoubtably note that I have followed his actions rather closely (and, quite frequently, stepped up to point out that he's full of crap).
For example, there was that article where he posted untrue, unsubstantiated and rediculous allegations about PJ of Groklaw, with reckless disregard for the truth, even going so far as to quote random trolls on the internet as sources!
Hell, even here, the editors don't generally post front page stories about the penis bird or whatever it is they're trolling about these days. While to begin with, Daniel Lyons was just acting as a lazy journalist, spouting off whatever SCO put into their press releases, after he was called on it, he began to work to discredit those who had so very well discredited him.
Unfortunately for him, he only proved that Forbes has no editorial oversight--that article, which I'm sure you could find via Google (Google cache link--I refuse to give Forbes page views if I can help it), had no place on any serious website. Let alone one purporting to carry "news."
So while I won't say that he's actually manipulating the SCOX stock price--IBM will have to ferret that out, as they have addressed it in their counter-claims--you should realize that whatever motives he writes with are not good ones.
In the mean time, I will do my part to remind everyone that Forbes apparently has insufficient editorial oversight, and should not therefore be considered a reliable source of information. Hell, if they told me it was raining outside, I do believe that I would go look for myself.
I can't do much, but I believe that I've cost them at least one potential customer already.
We should be glad then, that IBM wants to be on the good side of Linux. We must be aware, however, that business strategies do change with time and new management.
As such, they're on our side now. Very much so. Their business strategy is to use & defend Linux to promote sales of IBM hardware, and to use it to level the OS playing field, so that someone like Microsoft doesn't upstage them... again.
Will this last forever? Probably not. But we should make the best of it while they're on our side--the management may change and they may turn on us someday, but we ought to make the most of our mutual interests while they remain mutual.
Besides, have you forgotten about Daniel Lyons & co. at Forbes? You know, the nice article where they quoted various random troll posts (perhaps even some from Slashdot, I don't remember)? Forbes doesn't exactly have a lot of credibility with me right now. Maybe it was just lazy journalism (e.g. print whatever press releases you get sent), I don't know, but they obviously have insufficient editorial oversight, so I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Forbes were to publish false and defamatory information. Again.
Well, for starters, they're desperately throwing out everything they can think of sans research.
Now then, either we have to disprove this, or IBM will. We might as well do it early.
For our shooting their arguements down to be of any help, they'd have to find one we couldn't shoot down.
That hasn't happened yet, because the Linux developers simply aren't theives, and calling them such when one cannot prove those allegations might well be considered defamation by a court of law...
Well, I don't claim to know a lot about stocks, so I have no idea if this could also be "dead cat bounce" or some late rally due to all the short sellers. I'm told the short interest in that stock is positively insane.
But yeah, right now, I'm simply far more inclined to believe that SCO is doing something underhanded. I mean, they've yet to tell any kind of consistant story. They only ones who believe them are either uninformed (media spouting press releases) or Enderle & Didio. Enderle, of course hates 'GPL zealots' and probably just wants the publicity. Ironically, he apparently has (does?) work for IBM at times, too. Were I them, I'd certainly axe him from the payroll after all the crap he's pulled of late.
And don't bother sending Enderle nasty email. He'll just choose the angriest and least coherent of them to make fun of in some insipid article.
If you read this earlier article on Groklaw, you'll see plenty of quotes to show that much of the mainstream media is quite clueless. There aren't many who have caught on yet, although investors don't seem to value the stock any more. Then again, there are still those mysterious end of the day rallies, which some say are indications that someone is "painting the tape" (e.g. manipulating the stock price--not hard to do with a stock like SCOX, apparently).
Blah, I should have proofread this.
I was trying to say "if any part of SCO's motion to bifurcate was granted" and clipped off the last part.
Anyhow, you might notice the comments about how this is "the same" as the UNISYS patent. I'm not quite sure that this is the case. There are a number of different combinations of the encoding schemes, and I would imagine that there is at least some distinction between this and the UNISYS patent, but I haven't read either patent, so I don't know.
In any event, IBM may not be in a position to do much with this patent right now, since they are enforcing it against SCO. Sort of a "damned if you do, and damned if you don't" kind of thing, except that IBM need not bring any infringement suits against anyone in the mean time.
Hell, with only a few years left in it, IBM vs. SCO might last longer than the patent. Whatever else you say about SCO, they've managed to drag the litigation on forever, and it will be at least another year until the trial is over according to the court's calendar, barring summary judgment for IBM and such things. And that's ignoring the appeals process... The only thing that can really kill them early, IMHO, is the last of their assets being drained via litigation. Otherwise, we're looking at a long, slow, and painful death for SCO.
He's right; it's one of IBM's counterclaims against SCO. Of course, if any part of SCO's motion to bifurcate (split off the patent suits), IBM could elect to drop it and later dispose of the patent somehow. You can read a transcript of the relevant hearing here on Groklaw.
SCO's answer to IBM's counterclaims accuses it, among other things, of selectively enforcing it. I'm not quite sure what basis there is in law for using that as a defense, however, or if that was just boilerplate text in SCO's reply.
The problem being that unless there's going to be a lawyer sitting in every device, these eliminate fair use, because the only difference between fair and unfair use is semantic--e.g. nothing decideable by a computer program.
So what we're left with is outlawing general use devices in favor of "you can do only what we approve of with this device" which is NOT sensible, NOT fair, and NOT workable.
You know, search engines filter out the really common words from your searches unless you force them not to... :]
In Mozilla:
:]
Edit | Preferences | Privacy & Security | Popup Windows | [x] Block unrequested windows
In other words, anything I don't click on doesn't open. Mozilla has had this for some time now.
You were saying?
Then you must have no clue what it is.
It stops you from accidentally executing your data (e.g. buffer overflow onto stack).
Open BSD has it. It's a security enhancement. Even if you're running windows, you don't want buffer overflows. It's good. It's not DRM.
Microsoft's Monopoly trashing everyone's software patents = good
No, that should be trashing everyone's software patents = good, because these never seem to do anything but stifle innovation.
Anyhow, there are ways to deal with this, which is why the EFF has announced a Patent Busting Project, which you can read about in this article on Groklaw.
The gist of it is that you can file with the USPTO to have a patent reexaminated if you present them with prior art. Of course, it costs money, too, which is rather annoying, if understandable.
Speaking of which, this would not be a bad time to donate to the EFF.
Oh, with some high energy experiments, they expect that they might create really tiny black holes.
Of course, they also expect that these will very quickly dissolve due to Hawking radiation. In other words, they won't ever last long enough to suck anything much up...
You got to be kidding. Say, I sell my own closed-source software and re-discover your idea independently. Then you come weilding your patent and force me to either go out of business (because my software is not of the nature that lets me make money on support) or release an inferior product
This is a problem with patent law, not with my construction. My construction would only make it more evident to those who want to proprietize my IP (in this case, my hypothetical patent). Ignorance of a patent is not a defense--patents are published for a reason. Of course, willful infringement (if it's known that I knew of the patent and infringed upon it anyhow) is another matter.
Moreover, the software maker would still have an option--they could GPL their software with my patent, make use of my code (which would contain a special license to use the patent), and make their money via support contracts. Thus, I would be using them to push to make things more open, for everyone, not just a select few.
The fact is that these claims are a well-funded marketing campaign to create FUD about Linux because those entities which are finding themselves less able to compete with it on technical merit have to attack it in other ways.
There are already a number of IP related attacks--Microsoft's "Shared Source" for one is calculated to give some of the benefits of having the source available, while crippling the ability of anyone who might want to use it in GPL'd software. There are also issues with patented standards, like Microsoft's XML patents. To be fair, this cuts both ways, I seem to remember someone (Lucky Green?) patenting using DRM to control the use of "pirated" software, after a Microsoft speaker claimed to have not thought of doing that. Indeed, on might theoretically patent something and make the *only* way to use that patent to incorporate the GPL'd software one provides. This is certainly somewhat more coercive than the GPL usually is (since generally, if you don't like it, you can write your own damned code instead of taking mine), but it is yet another way to advance the public interest via IP law.
Back to the point, we're looking at a well-funded character assasination attempt here. And if we're not, it sure as hell looks that way. I'm certainly not convinced that we should be ignoring this, since they're working on convincing the types who don't read Slashdot, and who aren't likely to see all the facts contrary to this insipid book.
I mean, I'm just waiting for Lyons of Forbes (a scolecophagous scorbutical scoundrel, in my biased opinion), or Enderle to write some poorly-researched prattle about what this "proves." Then, only to turn and complain about the questioning of their reputations, in spite of their being known more for quoting press releases than for doing independent research... And no, calling a company to confirm that it believes its own press releases is hardly Pulizer material.
But you're right. This isn't new. Lyons wrote an insipid character-assasination piece against PJ, defaming her with spurious allegations and incredibly weak associations to some random troll he quoted off the Internet. Enderle has called those who oppose SCO "terrorists," the crime being pointing out to the media that he has no credibility and talks out his ass half the time. Oh, and some people alledgedly sent him hatemail. That's not right, but it's nothing new, and his article goes far beyond mere hatemail, especially when he invited it with his flamebait writings, painting so many with the same brush, doing worse than the things he accuses others of, in my biased judgement.
And my favorite, the one enshrined in my slashdot journal, is where SCO set out fake signs to defame the people picketing them--ones claiming to support communism and whatnot. The Groklaw article on that is linked in my journal, and it even has nice pictures, so you can read them for yourself.
So no, I have no intention of ignoring this campaign to malign us all. It's not likely to stop on its own. I would hope that anyone with standing to sue would at least consider doing so. I don't think this should be left to stand, even if I find it to be in the credit of Linus and the others that they are not litigious.