I've got the feeling that Sun was the one not being very fast to tell/decide about what should happen with Star Office. This collapsed with the release date of 8.2. Of course Mandrake could have delay 8.2 because of Sun being unclear be that wouldn't have made us happy as well...
Read Deno's story about this. That will make things a bit clearer.
Besides the fact that we'll have to pay now if we want SO6, wich of course is Sun's decicion, I think the Mandrake guy's worked out a great deal, after all they did manage to make SO6 available early for Club members. They have managed to get everything they could possibly get out of this situation, so hail them for it and blame sun for the fact that you'll have to pay for SO6.
Blame Sun, not Mandrake. Sun stopped giving away Star Office for free, that's a decicion the guys at Mandrake can't change, Sun will make them pay for every copy of Star Office...
You might just be fine getting a previous, free, version of Star Office, but if you'll want the SO6, you'll have to pay. That sucks bigtime, I agree about that, but you should blame Sun for that, not Mandrake.
Besides, am I the only one that has the feeling Sun doesn't really know wich way it wants to go? The only thing you hear from them lately is yet another policy change.
I agree, and they are so far gone from version 3 they switched characters in their version 'numbers'. So far they made it up to XP, the next version is planned to be BAD, but rumors say it might be delayed until version WORSE...
From the CodeCon website: Welcome, Slashdot visitors! The CodeCon site seems to be holding up just fine, though we've removed our graphics as a precaution. The CodeCon mp3s are also holding up well due to BitTorrent. Please report any client-side problems you encounter.
I just love this, especially on a site thats about how to handle bandwith;-)
Thus spake the master programmer: "Though a program be but three lines long, someday it will have to be maintained."
I guess most of you will know what happens to your room when you always move things around and add things, but never clean up...
Now there's the reason code rots. Old code tens to be changed and have things added, but hardly ever gets a clean-up. That way the design is lost, the code gets bigger and bigger and easily becomes buggy. This makes changing code harder over time. Most if the time this goes on until there is no one left that understands how it works and it has become to hard to find out, compared to a complete rewrite.
Joel states: "Half the time when I go into a function to fix a little bug, I figure out a cleaner way to rewrite the whole function, so over time it gets better and better."
And he makes a good point there, maintaining code should be more than just changing and adding things, it should involve clean-ups to prevent rotting of your codebase. But cleaning up is way easier if your the only one using the code, and in a company there is always the pressure of deadlines and marketing.
And of course it's just more fun to write somthing new...
This part of the license says that you must own a Windows copy on the client side of the remote desktop connection. Nothing against VNC, only the VNC client running under other OSes.
It says you must own a license to the Product, wich in would be defined as being Windows XP, and thus exlude's all other versions (also the future one's) of windows...
Notice that last part, where they prohibit running the windows user interface remotely on a machine that is NOT licensed for windows.
Replace windows with the same edition of Windows XP. The Product means the Windows XP and whould exclude all other versions of Windows, even any future version of Windows.
Even using any future MS remote control software named differend then NetMeeting, Remote Assistance, and Remote Desktop whould be a violation of the license.
I think you're right about the intentions, but if I can't 'use... the Product...' on a device that doesn't have a separate license for the product, how about using parts of the product?
What about using a file share from a win98 box, that whould be 'using the product'. And setting up a proxy that does autodial for a tree computer home network would be 'running executable software residing on the Workstation Computer' That would even go for a shared printer, sending a print job would be running executable software, and whould thus have to come from another XP box, or it whould be violating the license.
I think this clause excludes about everything that a simple home user with more the one computer whould want to do. Surely that wasn't MS intention, but it's what i read here.
No big deal for me, I won't use XP anyway...
Just out of interest, did you pay for win2k, the upgrade to XP and all those vastly better apps you use? If that is the case $60 a year should sound very cheap to you...
I agree there's a danger in the mix of corporations and public interest (Enron, anybody) but for now a will trust the guy's at mandrake, they truly do a good job and deserve support for that. When I get the feeling that changes I'll stop spending money on it. In some way innocent until proven otherwise is the way it works for in situations like this (and I am the judge when it comes to my money;-)
Read the ZDNET article: "We've attempted to resolve this with Sun for about three years, but the discussions with Sun have not led to a suitable licensing agreement," Kodak spokesman Anthony Sanzio said.
It looks more like Kodak is suing them because they couldn't work it out in another way.
Whether the patents are valid or not is a different issue...
Re:SNMP's a pretty damned scary protocol anyway
on
Security Hole In SNMP
·
· Score: 1
snmp has survived the years where others have tried and failed. perhaps this is horrible to you, but I call it interoperable and highly functional.
Does the fact that it is used mean it's a solid protocol? The OS that is used by most of the people also is the most secure OS around, in your view?
Besides that, I think MS needs their software to be copied. Just think of how many people whould at the very least consider using somthing else then Windows if it wasn't for the fact they have a free (as in beer) copy of it. This is even more true for Office, because of the file format 'everybody' uses.
Thats why OEM contracts are so important, if people were to pay seperatly for having Windows on their PC's they would think again, but since it's an all in price they pay it's not directly clear what the OS costs them.
Slashdot Mirror
I've got the feeling that Sun was the one not being very fast to tell/decide about what should happen with Star Office. This collapsed with the release date of 8.2. Of course Mandrake could have delay 8.2 because of Sun being unclear be that wouldn't have made us happy as well...
Read Deno's story about this. That will make things a bit clearer.
Besides the fact that we'll have to pay now if we want SO6, wich of course is Sun's decicion, I think the Mandrake guy's worked out a great deal, after all they did manage to make SO6 available early for Club members. They have managed to get everything they could possibly get out of this situation, so hail them for it and blame sun for the fact that you'll have to pay for SO6.
"Windows 98 is not based on DOS" "Windows ME is not based on DOS"
Yeah, Windows doesn't make BSOD's, people make BSOD's...
Blame Sun, not Mandrake. Sun stopped giving away Star Office for free, that's a decicion the guys at Mandrake can't change, Sun will make them pay for every copy of Star Office...
You might just be fine getting a previous, free, version of Star Office, but if you'll want the SO6, you'll have to pay. That sucks bigtime, I agree about that, but you should blame Sun for that, not Mandrake.
Besides, am I the only one that has the feeling Sun doesn't really know wich way it wants to go? The only thing you hear from them lately is yet another policy change.
I agree, and they are so far gone from version 3 they switched characters in their version 'numbers'. So far they made it up to XP, the next version is planned to be BAD, but rumors say it might be delayed until version WORSE...
From the CodeCon website: Welcome, Slashdot visitors! The CodeCon site seems to be holding up just fine, though we've removed our graphics as a precaution. The CodeCon mp3s are also holding up well due to BitTorrent. Please report any client-side problems you encounter.
;-)
I just love this, especially on a site thats about how to handle bandwith
Thus spake the master programmer:
"Though a program be but three lines long, someday it will have to be maintained."
I guess most of you will know what happens to your room when you always move things around and add things, but never clean up...
Now there's the reason code rots. Old code tens to be changed and have things added, but hardly ever gets a clean-up. That way the design is lost, the code gets bigger and bigger and easily becomes buggy. This makes changing code harder over time. Most if the time this goes on until there is no one left that understands how it works and it has become to hard to find out, compared to a complete rewrite.
Joel states: "Half the time when I go into a function to fix a little bug, I figure out a cleaner way to rewrite the whole function, so over time it gets better and better."
And he makes a good point there, maintaining code should be more than just changing and adding things, it should involve clean-ups to prevent rotting of your codebase. But cleaning up is way easier if your the only one using the code, and in a company there is always the pressure of deadlines and marketing.
And of course it's just more fun to write somthing new...
Do they have pizza huts in europe?
Jep, they do here in Holland, and also in France the last time I was there...
Can I send them a pizza coupon for their programmers instead?
Go right ahead, they'll love you for it, just as long as there mailbox doesn't get Slashdotted.
B.t.w. Wouldn't it be time to test the Slashdot effect on snailmail?
This part of the license says that you must own a Windows copy on the client side of the remote desktop connection. Nothing against VNC, only the VNC client running under other OSes.
It says you must own a license to the Product, wich in would be defined as being Windows XP, and thus exlude's all other versions (also the future one's) of windows...
Notice that last part, where they prohibit running the windows user interface remotely on a machine that is NOT licensed for windows. Replace windows with the same edition of Windows XP. The Product means the Windows XP and whould exclude all other versions of Windows, even any future version of Windows. Even using any future MS remote control software named differend then NetMeeting, Remote Assistance, and Remote Desktop whould be a violation of the license. I think you're right about the intentions, but if I can't 'use ... the Product...' on a device that doesn't have a separate license for the product, how about using parts of the product?
What about using a file share from a win98 box, that whould be 'using the product'. And setting up a proxy that does autodial for a tree computer home network would be 'running executable software residing on the Workstation Computer' That would even go for a shared printer, sending a print job would be running executable software, and whould thus have to come from another XP box, or it whould be violating the license.
I think this clause excludes about everything that a simple home user with more the one computer whould want to do. Surely that wasn't MS intention, but it's what i read here.
No big deal for me, I won't use XP anyway...
Just out of interest, did you pay for win2k, the upgrade to XP and all those vastly better apps you use? If that is the case $60 a year should sound very cheap to you...
I agree there's a danger in the mix of corporations and public interest (Enron, anybody) but for now a will trust the guy's at mandrake, they truly do a good job and deserve support for that. When I get the feeling that changes I'll stop spending money on it. In some way innocent until proven otherwise is the way it works for in situations like this (and I am the judge when it comes to my money ;-)
html comments fill pass the lameness filter.
Congratulations!!! /. to-get-her)
;-)
Have fun together (after posing to
Let us know the date/time/location so we can be there
Read the ZDNET article:
"We've attempted to resolve this with Sun for about three years, but the discussions with Sun have not led to a suitable licensing agreement," Kodak spokesman Anthony Sanzio said.
It looks more like Kodak is suing them because they couldn't work it out in another way.
Whether the patents are valid or not is a different issue...
snmp has survived the years where others have tried and failed. perhaps this is horrible to you, but I call it interoperable and highly functional.
Does the fact that it is used mean it's a solid protocol? The OS that is used by most of the people also is the most secure OS around, in your view?
Besides that, I think MS needs their software to be copied. Just think of how many people whould at the very least consider using somthing else then Windows if it wasn't for the fact they have a free (as in beer) copy of it. This is even more true for Office, because of the file format 'everybody' uses.
Thats why OEM contracts are so important, if people were to pay seperatly for having Windows on their PC's they would think again, but since it's an all in price they pay it's not directly clear what the OS costs them.