SCO bought nothing from Caldera. Caldera bought a portion of SCO from the original SCO, and then changed its name to SCO.
If Caldera contibuted some or all of the "infringing" code (seems likely to me, but we don't know yet) then this is the same company that is doing the suing. Maybe not the same people, but the same company.
Broadband has attractions to a much wider audience than file sharers.
I set my mom up with broadband. She has no interest in file sharing (probably doesn't know what it is) but she loves her broadband.
Why? Because its faster than dialup was? Well, yeah, partly.
Mainly though, because it's less confusing. "Always On" is far *easier* for those who don't really understand the technology. My mom would go for weeks unable to get online (and reluctant to admit it) because she clicked on something wrong, or the line was busy when she tried a few times in a row, etc. She'd get discouraged and stop trying. Or she'd forget she'd been online, the auto-disconnect would screw up and her phone would be tied up for days.
By comparison, broadband is dead easy. Fire up the computer and you're online.
If I thought they'd fight this out, I'd see it as a good thing. Microsoft has the lawyers and the money to win. They wouldn't be fighting to overturn software patents, but even a win based on "overly vague patent claims" would be a step in the right direction.
I'd be cheering MS on (and my friends might be filing commitment papers...)
But it ain't gonna happen. MS will settle (with a "secret settlement") or buy the company, or something similar. No precedent will be set. No good will come of it.
This move by 3Dlabs suprises me because I wasn't aware there was even a single available high end (read: expensive) 3DCAD program for linux.
There's more to high end graphics than just CAD.
Someone in my office just set up a machine with a Wildcat card for 3D visualization of oil and gas reservoirs. This fits in with the press release: 3Dlabs' Wildcat4 and Wildcat III customers in oil and gas research, life sciences and high-end Digital Content Creation (DCC) markets will now experience increased productivity, cutting-edge performance, and superb graphics quality on Red Hat® Linux® version 7.3.
He is new to Linux, so naturally went for the 'latest and greatest' Red Hat (9), which gave him all sorts of trouble (with the graphics.)
I gave him some help, and he dropped back to RH8. Last time I talked to him he said he had it working. Don't know if he got it going on RH8 or went back to RH7.3.
A few years ago I tried to buy a couple of laser printers by mail order (this was before online was an option and when a basic BW laser was a very expensive item.) The credit card order was initially refused.
When we called to ask why, it turned out the reason was that Bakersfield (where I was) was less than 150 miles from Los Angeles, and they had a policy of refusing orders from anywhere in the LA area. They had experienced serious fraud problems from LA.
We finally convinced them that Bakersfield was not LA, and got our printers.
But you don't have to be in Hungary to get descriminated against for fraud reasons.
But it doesn't have to be. It's safer to explicitly check against NULL than to use a boolean. Using a boolean might never cause a problem, but years from now when the code is ported to some oddball system, *someone* may have to spend a long time scratching their head about some mysterious bug.
In cases other than where NULL is one of the possibilities, where you know that 0 or false or whatever is what you are checking against, a boolean is the best way to go.
Eh? Your laptop is good for what, an hour? Hour-and-a-half max if you are actually doing anything? Big deal.
When this laptop was new, I regularly got 3-4 hours of constant use out of it. I wasn't doing multimedia, etc., just coding, but it *was* constant use. The battery has gotten a bit more wear on it, and I'm lucky to break 2 1/2 hours these days. Still, that's a lot better than an hour.
And its portability means I can work on the patio at my favorite coffee shop or where ever I prefer.
Re:Problems with newer versions
on
PHP 5 Beta 1
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
If you are trying to match the options from a previous install, what I do is create a page with phpinfo() on it. This displays the entire configuration, including the compile configuration. I just cut and paste that section of the output page onto the command line and I get a build of the new version with the same options.
Doesn't help if they've changed how an option is invoked at./configure time, but other than that it does the job.
I've been holding out from applying SP3 from the few Win2k boxes I support for two main reasons.
One is the EULA that came with SP3. It's sounding like that has improved a lot, maybe even enough to quiet those paranoid voices I hear in my head everytime thoughts of Microsoft come around.
But the other big sticking point for me is Microsoft's habit of including functionality 'upgrades' with their fixpacks. DRM support, etc.
Bug fixes are important, but I'd really prefer not to incur any functionality/policy changes along with the bug fixes.
most of the mensoids I've met are irksome, ill-adjusted freaks.
And this makes them different from slashdotters, how?
As far as that goes, I'm not convinced that it even addresses the issue of "value to society." An irksome, ill-adjusted freak may very well be more valuable to society than a "normal" person. Or not.
It also does away with the stupid limitation of extensions. When all your data is stored as a datatype in the metadata listing, who needs them?
You mean like Mac did 20 years ago and OS/2 did ten years ago? (Resource forks for the Mac, as I recall, and extended attributes for OS/2.)
Yet application developers continued to depend on extensions, because that was what they understood. I saw a long Mac oriented discussion of metadata a few years ago, and the conclusion was that the trend at that time was moving *away* from using the metadata contained in the resource forks and *towards* using the inferior but popular method of depending on extensions.
And only a few developers for OS/2 ever took advantage of the data type aspects of extended attributes.
And how many web pages set the MIME type for downloadable files? A far superior method of handling file types on the web, yet most expect the browser to use file extensions to determine how to handle those downloads.
Of course, maybe the problem was that MS didn't understand or support anything but extensions, so since most developers had to have MS compatibilty too, they ignored anything that might break that. Lowest common denominator. With MS on board, amybe things could change.
Just wanted to comment on a well thought out and presented criticism.
However... You did tell us you weren't an english major (nor am I) but I've always found it painful to read sentences that used 'of' where 'have' is meant. It just jumps out and slaps me in the face.
I don't want to take away from what you were saying, but that was bugging me.
Re:Do younger minds absorb quicker?
on
Ageism in IT?
·
· Score: 1
Unless you're interviewing exclusively with blind employers, they probably don't have to.
The interviewer will form an impression and make a decision. It may be illegal for them to make it based on any of these factors, but there's no practical way to enforce that law. Preventing the employer from asking will not prevent them from recognizing your age, sex, etc.
Well, ok, I can't speak for you, but I've enough gray hair that I'm probably not going to fool anyone for very long:)
When the pop-up dialog told me I had to download Flash I just clicked 'Cancel'. Dunno if there is a Flash plugin for Solaris anyway.
I went on about my business until the MS ad did its HTML thing, whatever that might have been, then clicked on the "Enter the Salon Premium site" notice.
Phil Katz wrote an improved archiver (PKARC) that was compatible with the reigning standard archiver (ARC). The owner of that archiver (SEA) didn't take kindly to that and sued him.
Katz decided that a) nobody should 'own' a format that was a standard, and b) he could design an archive program/format that would be good enough to bury SEA and ARC. He made it extensible and open so anyone could improve it while remaining (broadly) compatible with the framework.
In other words, an extension could use a different compression scheme, etc, but it would still be recognizable as a zip file.
ARC was swiftly displaced as the standard archive format. Nearly no one has ever heard of SEA these days.
And lost control of that standard with the PS/2. By being incompatible with that standard and trying to force everyone else to move to the 'new standard' while simultaneously locking other vendors out.
My problem with the focus is that I don't *want* it to pop up. Especially not if I click on it. It's got to stay on the layer it started on unless I tell it to raise (by, e.g. clicking on border or title bar).
Right now with metacity, that's not possible. If you click on it, it raises. No exceptions.
Slashdot Mirror
SCO bought nothing from Caldera. Caldera bought a portion of SCO from the original SCO, and then changed its name to SCO.
If Caldera contibuted some or all of the "infringing" code (seems likely to me, but we don't know yet) then this is the same company that is doing the suing. Maybe not the same people, but the same company.
It wouldn't be in IBM's [long-term] interests to settle.
Short term it would be, and there's no guarantee they wouldn't take the easy out.
But SCO doesn't have the choice to settle if IBM isn't willing to do so.
Broadband has attractions to a much wider audience than file sharers.
I set my mom up with broadband. She has no interest in file sharing (probably doesn't know what it is) but she loves her broadband.
Why? Because its faster than dialup was? Well, yeah, partly.
Mainly though, because it's less confusing. "Always On" is far *easier* for those who don't really understand the technology. My mom would go for weeks unable to get online (and reluctant to admit it) because she clicked on something wrong, or the line was busy when she tried a few times in a row, etc. She'd get discouraged and stop trying. Or she'd forget she'd been online, the auto-disconnect would screw up and her phone would be tied up for days.
By comparison, broadband is dead easy. Fire up the computer and you're online.
That's what jumped out at me as I read through the article. "I don't think that word means what you think it means."
Kind of like Microsoft and "innovation."
If I thought they'd fight this out, I'd see it as a good thing. Microsoft has the lawyers and the money to win. They wouldn't be fighting to overturn software patents, but even a win based on "overly vague patent claims" would be a step in the right direction.
I'd be cheering MS on (and my friends might be filing commitment papers...)
But it ain't gonna happen. MS will settle (with a "secret settlement") or buy the company, or something similar. No precedent will be set. No good will come of it.
Chapter 7 is "Give the court the keys and walk away."
That's what you want.
I'm trying to like Firebird Browser. I really am.
I've got one machine where that's the only browser I use.
But so far I'm finding most of its changes irritating (the way it handles searches by default, the way it handles sidebars, etc.)
It's not so much that I want a full suite like Seamonkey, but I'd prefer the browser to work more like Seamonkey's browser component.
Harlan wasn't too happy about Starlost either. Hence Cordwainer Bird.
Snow shoes, of course.
Wow! You've worked at companies where techies have influence over tech purchases?
I'm impressed.
Never seen it, myself.
This move by 3Dlabs suprises me because I wasn't aware there was even a single available high end (read: expensive) 3DCAD program for linux.
There's more to high end graphics than just CAD.
Someone in my office just set up a machine with a Wildcat card for 3D visualization of oil and gas reservoirs. This fits in with the press release: 3Dlabs' Wildcat4 and Wildcat III customers in oil and gas research, life sciences and high-end Digital Content Creation (DCC) markets will now experience increased productivity, cutting-edge performance, and superb graphics quality on Red Hat® Linux® version 7.3.
He is new to Linux, so naturally went for the 'latest and greatest' Red Hat (9), which gave him all sorts of trouble (with the graphics.)
I gave him some help, and he dropped back to RH8. Last time I talked to him he said he had it working. Don't know if he got it going on RH8 or went back to RH7.3.
Don't feel too bad.
A few years ago I tried to buy a couple of laser printers by mail order (this was before online was an option and when a basic BW laser was a very expensive item.) The credit card order was initially refused.
When we called to ask why, it turned out the reason was that Bakersfield (where I was) was less than 150 miles from Los Angeles, and they had a policy of refusing orders from anywhere in the LA area. They had experienced serious fraud problems from LA.
We finally convinced them that Bakersfield was not LA, and got our printers.
But you don't have to be in Hungary to get descriminated against for fraud reasons.
NULL is usually 0.
But it doesn't have to be. It's safer to explicitly check against NULL than to use a boolean. Using a boolean might never cause a problem, but years from now when the code is ported to some oddball system, *someone* may have to spend a long time scratching their head about some mysterious bug.
In cases other than where NULL is one of the possibilities, where you know that 0 or false or whatever is what you are checking against, a boolean is the best way to go.
Eh? Your laptop is good for what, an hour? Hour-and-a-half max if you are actually doing anything? Big deal.
When this laptop was new, I regularly got 3-4 hours of constant use out of it. I wasn't doing multimedia, etc., just coding, but it *was* constant use. The battery has gotten a bit more wear on it, and I'm lucky to break 2 1/2 hours these days. Still, that's a lot better than an hour.
And its portability means I can work on the patio at my favorite coffee shop or where ever I prefer.
If you are trying to match the options from a previous install, what I do is create a page with phpinfo() on it. This displays the entire configuration, including the compile configuration. I just cut and paste that section of the output page onto the command line and I get a build of the new version with the same options.
./configure time, but other than that it does the job.
Doesn't help if they've changed how an option is invoked at
Runtime behavior changes are a different matter.
I've been holding out from applying SP3 from the few Win2k boxes I support for two main reasons.
One is the EULA that came with SP3. It's sounding like that has improved a lot, maybe even enough to quiet those paranoid voices I hear in my head everytime thoughts of Microsoft come around.
But the other big sticking point for me is Microsoft's habit of including functionality 'upgrades' with their fixpacks. DRM support, etc.
Bug fixes are important, but I'd really prefer not to incur any functionality/policy changes along with the bug fixes.
Anyone know how SP4 is with regards to these?
most of the mensoids I've met are irksome, ill-adjusted freaks.
And this makes them different from slashdotters, how?
As far as that goes, I'm not convinced that it even addresses the issue of "value to society." An irksome, ill-adjusted freak may very well be more valuable to society than a "normal" person. Or not.
Individuals are different.
Wish I had mod points today.
This is a vital point that I had completely missed until today's stories.
It also does away with the stupid limitation of extensions. When all your data is stored as a datatype in the metadata listing, who needs them?
You mean like Mac did 20 years ago and OS/2 did ten years ago? (Resource forks for the Mac, as I recall, and extended attributes for OS/2.)
Yet application developers continued to depend on extensions, because that was what they understood. I saw a long Mac oriented discussion of metadata a few years ago, and the conclusion was that the trend at that time was moving *away* from using the metadata contained in the resource forks and *towards* using the inferior but popular method of depending on extensions.
And only a few developers for OS/2 ever took advantage of the data type aspects of extended attributes.
And how many web pages set the MIME type for downloadable files? A far superior method of handling file types on the web, yet most expect the browser to use file extensions to determine how to handle those downloads.
Of course, maybe the problem was that MS didn't understand or support anything but extensions, so since most developers had to have MS compatibilty too, they ignored anything that might break that. Lowest common denominator. With MS on board, amybe things could change.
Just wanted to comment on a well thought out and presented criticism.
However... You did tell us you weren't an english major (nor am I) but I've always found it painful to read sentences that used 'of' where 'have' is meant. It just jumps out and slaps me in the face.
I don't want to take away from what you were saying, but that was bugging me.
Unless you're interviewing exclusively with blind employers, they probably don't have to.
:)
The interviewer will form an impression and make a decision. It may be illegal for them to make it based on any of these factors, but there's no practical way to enforce that law. Preventing the employer from asking will not prevent them from recognizing your age, sex, etc.
Well, ok, I can't speak for you, but I've enough gray hair that I'm probably not going to fool anyone for very long
When the pop-up dialog told me I had to download Flash I just clicked 'Cancel'. Dunno if there is a Flash plugin for Solaris anyway.
I went on about my business until the MS ad did its HTML thing, whatever that might have been, then clicked on the "Enter the Salon Premium site" notice.
Not much to it.
PKWare (as a company) came along later.
Phil Katz wrote an improved archiver (PKARC) that was compatible with the reigning standard archiver (ARC). The owner of that archiver (SEA) didn't take kindly to that and sued him.
Katz decided that a) nobody should 'own' a format that was a standard, and b) he could design an archive program/format that would be good enough to bury SEA and ARC. He made it extensible and open so anyone could improve it while remaining (broadly) compatible with the framework.
In other words, an extension could use a different compression scheme, etc, but it would still be recognizable as a zip file.
ARC was swiftly displaced as the standard archive format. Nearly no one has ever heard of SEA these days.
IBM created the standard for x86 PCs.
And lost control of that standard with the PS/2. By being incompatible with that standard and trying to force everyone else to move to the 'new standard' while simultaneously locking other vendors out.
My problem with the focus is that I don't *want* it to pop up. Especially not if I click on it. It's got to stay on the layer it started on unless I tell it to raise (by, e.g. clicking on border or title bar).
Right now with metacity, that's not possible. If you click on it, it raises. No exceptions.