You're missing the point...let's get rid of "mailboxes" all together! Let's build a business information management system...particularrly for small business that have only 1-2 locations and minimal staff anyway. Dump everything in a truly managed system like/. where everyone can have access. Given certian advances in corperate liability it's a welcome thing anyway. After all, the company already reads your mail anyway, instills all sorts of rules and regs on it too, and certian customer contacts are simply too important to leave in individual's mailboxes anyway. Combine that with the need due to enron to store and track all communication.. faxes, email, IM, phone calls, and verify it's accuracy to investors, something like this would be a great thing for smaller shops...and of course it would be OSS!
While you could have a private server and that would work well, you still have to be able to use it just like email for your outside contacts...or your creating more work...not less! Also, it has to end up being more like/. you need to have users, mods [even though mods will be managers, not democratic!] authors that can publish important docs, and integration into your customer system to use the system to follow up properly on the issues IN the emails! You'd need to make major changes to a usenet client for that functionally [remember usenet is fairly dumb on purpose] or use a smarter message system as a base....i.e./.!
Right after the it gets a full rewrite to be standard compliant and use better features like those guys several weeks ago suggested! Then you can simply plug stuff like this in on a modular basis.... that rewrite's not looking so bad now...
What's really needed is to "merge" something like slashdot, squirrelmail, jabber, and evolution to create an entirely new beastie! I came the same conclusion at my workplace too. Once you get tired of supporting everybody's seperate folders and tracking all the bits and pieces of individual's accounts you realize there has to be a better way. So you read slashdot every day, and/. is exactly what you need for "internal" email!
So what needs to happen is for each user to have a personal "account" that displays their private messages...emails simply become another private message. then each user is an author, as well as their supervisor and can "post" their message to the general business group as well as attach information about quality, customer service, etc. then all the internal messages are posted just like here...and those responses are backed up, searchable, and available to all down the road...irregardless of changes in personell!
All you need to improve it is to integrate [like I said above] the email server to handle receiving messages into the system and sending responces to threads out...just one notch above what this board does! Oh and you get to use a browser for everyting too! and integrate it into your documentation and ERP system...get the idea! I just got fired so it sounds like a fun project!
You do have a point...most of us wouldn't recoginze an "arms deal" if it happened at McDonald's!! Most americans are so in the dark about what technology looks like that the terrorists would be better off working out of public places [heck even computer shows, ha, ha] to move sensitive parts and the majority of the citizens [and most local law enforcement!] would be none the wiser!
You're exactly correct! All the "secrecy" that the govt insists on only takes eyeballs away when something really bad is about to happen and they need help NOW! After all, we've basicly been taught to "not look" and "mind our business" and "let law emforcement handle it"...
not to pick, but we really didn't need the nuclear bomb program to get nuclear reactors. Fermi created the first controllable reactor in downtown chicago several years before the "bomb" was made. Most nuclear power plant still follow his inital design pricipals of adding/subtracting controlled amounts of nuclear material...which have everything to do with NOT EXPLODING!!!
For a matter of fact, I'd venture that Nuclear weapons have made the road HARDER for nuclar power...Most of the nasty radioactive waste created was for bigger, badder weapons and is entirely unnecessary for clean power production...Kinda like N.Korea, we use our civilian power plants for nastier weapons material reasearch too!! or we'd create more power and less nasty stuff...and build more inherantly safe reactors, rather than the backwards messes we have now...which are LESS safe than Fermi's original experiments!
It's cheaper and easier to buy one from the Poor Russians in the region anyway...after all, we put them out of business of watching their munitions.. so they have to be "capitalists" now. I bet a nuke would make lots of money for somebody!
After all only 1 country has ever USED nukes in a war....and that would be... US!!!! Of course that's probably why our govt is so scared...they hide behind the power of the "little red button" far too often in international disputes...especially when the need for a compromise would cause hurt for american interests as a show of "good faith". When push comes to shove...look how we handled Iraq...our leaders ALWAYS fall back on the Nukes! If anyone would have actually stuck up for them, we were openly planning on using nukes to resist Saddams "great army". People don't REALLY LISTEN to what all the "analysts" say on CNN do they? Who's actually MORE CHICKEN here? something to think about.
It's not really an issue anyway whether or not terrorists get ahold of this info. Even if you had all the info, for a matter of fact the basics are part of university physics at most schools nowdays, certian components necessary to build an H-bomb are EXTREMELY rare...first you have to have a perfectly working A-BOMB, then enhance it with a certian rare distilled isotope of hydrogen. That's why the feds keep such a close eye on only several particular bom-making items....
Anyway, it's much more easy and likely that Osama would simply bribe/steal one from some Russian, Chineese, indian, or Pakistani army general down on his luck without proper staff to "account" for an already made nuke!!! When the Cold war was just Us and Russia, it was easy to track nukes.. now that Russia has broken up, there are a frightening number "gone missing" from all the army bases Russia couldn't economically hold.
The goal of Programmer/IT right now should be how to move the industry from Corperate types to the model that Doctors, Lawyers, and accountants have! Or even the model that Pumbers, Electricians, and Carpenders have. They all share the fact that in spite of huge technology advanced, they are still basically one-man shows. Expecially look at Electricans plumbers and such...While "anybody" CAN do certian work on thier own, at some point or another, EVERYBODY has to call in the pros in those fields when they get over their heads. Even after 100 years of mail order houses, you still see a huge number of them still build by hand one-at-a -time, just like software.
The key for the industry would be to figure out what features of those other industries can be "enhanced" or "embraced" in programming. OSS can be the solution to such a problem, but it has to get big enough to knock down companies like MS...who have commoditized software to a fault. the neat thing about it though is that programming is a "market" and as more people get laid off from the "megacorps" they go out and start the next revolution without the old players. Look at how HP, Apple, NVidia, etc were founded...and realize that it should be about to happen again!
Yeah, but there's no way to stop it...it's been tried by other MMORGs. Once SOME people start doing it, they get all the good stuff and the normal players get left behind due to inflation by the "payers" I always thought it was a bad idea to set the Sims up as a MMORG when it should have been a giant virtual "dollhouse". you've got all the same problems of toddlers playing dolls, bullies, "rich" kids, cool kids, etc...instead of simply playing the game!
on another note, it sounds like the Sims could use a little more structure to prevent "outside" interference. Perhaps they should have a "stock" market where all sellable things have a global average price and you can't buy/sell at more/less than X% off that price. That would eliminate part of the cash for simoleans problem...and similar mechanics should be set up for other factors like popularity, etc. The sims is unique in that they should be actively trying to minimize outside influances rather than allowing things like live chat and outside deals to wreck the game like this.
The main issue is that The Sims Online is marketed and sold as a "family" level game. Such talk of any abuse, and the other things he mentions should be swiftly and violently dealt with!!! Look how Blizard treats even mild cheaters/abusers on their servers...and it improves the quality of the gamming to know that they will take care of you! Maxis is really screwing up here.
I'm a huge Sims fan. I've got all the expansions EXCEPT the Online one. The whole problem with the online version is that they allow all the petty "stuff" that happens on an public message board without having any way to limit it... My opinion on the game was that it never should have had "live" chat to begin with...people can get away with verbally abusing the other players because it's "outside" the games rules...There's no in-game ways to deal with the issues without "fighting fire with fire" which is not acceptable for a family game. I know in EQ the "Guilds" will quickly "take care of" these types of issues, but such a system is entirely INAPPROPERIATE for a game like Sims. The better plan would have been to only allow "characters" to talk, not the actual users. Then much abuse can be "programmed" out of the game just like in Diablo or Warcraft, where you can talk smack & try to "gang up" all you want, but it doesn't affect playing of the game...or there are things in the game to "offset" abusers.
I can't trust my WIFE to not mess up my computer, let alone my kids...You've never been an Administrator have you!
Heck, I find it impossible to keep spyware off my computer when just I use it!!!! And I follow all the/. rules for safe browsing...well as much as I can still using windows:P
It's not about controlling users, it's about the computer running properly. Part of a computer running properly is preventing the user from screwing it up if at all possible! Again, what happens when the kids are playing online when the next "Blaster" comes thru wiping out admin boxes because something is open and tries to crash the internet? This guy is trying to do EXACTLY what all the MS experts are telling him to do and it DOESN'T WORK!!!! it should work, there's no excuse that you have to give ANYBODY admin rights just to run a program...or that a HOME USER should have to worry about complicated privillages simply to run retail boxed software...that is a fundimental designed security hole in the OS!
The point this guy is making is great! Where do all the worms and spyware and viruses come from? Insecure boxes!!! what is he trying to do? Secure the box...All the kids want it to play some Boxed games, and maybe surf a little web. They have zero need to be using admin accounts for these purposes! That's what we all say, but when the guy says "it doesn't work" we all ridicule him! come on guys!
This is exactly why home users always leave their machines wide open! We should be DEMANDING that MS fix these issues in a manor that is useable by ALL WINDOWS USERS!!! The tool should be as simple as "I want Kid user to play Xyz game" and it's taken care of...anything less is a huge security flaw...and MS is supposed to be fixing those...right...I thought so...
I don't prefer to get "cracks" but I do use Farstone GameDrive to "mirror" my game disks on the drive. It was only $20 and they keep it fairly up to date with new games. Also, I've found CloneCD [it's shareware!] has added support for loading images as drives too. I don't know if that would fix the problems though because they still create "drives" that are set up to go thru normal "drive" APIs, so they may have exactly the same problems that a poster above described about trying to directly access hardware by the game exe as simply using the CD would.
But I do agree, it's a MS OS and Game developer problem...it's a bug that you can't run a properly configured and restricted system with these games!
He just want the kids to RUN the games! He should be able to set the games up properly, and then restrict the machines so they don't mess stuff up, get viruses, worms, spyware... Just like every one here says he should be doing for "stupid" users.
EXCEPT that the primary apps he runs... i.e. video GAMES break the MS security model...forcing him to give too much access to his "users" allowing them to run the game, but also to get spyware,... get it!
But that's not the point here...It's MS screwed up OS! Could you imagine the mess on the web if every webmaster needed kernel root permissions to run apache or Mysql? His point is that APPS of any kind..specifically games should not need "root" access after they are properly installed and configured just to play! That's the whole point of securing boxes...and the basic root of many of MS security bugs!!
I understand Darl's reasoning that the 1976 copyright act make it easier for "mass media" to pump out copyrighted content without needing to be hastled by "properly" registering it as "protected" content and by changing the rules for software to allow "binary only" protection...perfect for the "tycoons" that sprouted up that quickly "protected" stuff they initially plagurized or "dumpster" dived for.
On the other hand, we wouldn't have any corporations or news [i.e. no/.!] on the internet WITHOUT those restrictions being eased...otherwise web content would have to be registered BEFORE POSTING online to have copyright protection, hence making online news and such useless [or maybe not a bad thing if it meant getting rid of rubbish!] But in many ways, the 1976 act actually HURTS [his wet dreams of] copyright by diluting the pool of "protected" stuff by assuming every little thing is protected. On the other hand, its the very same act that gives the GPL it's teeth!!! It removed the need equally for ANYONE to have to register for basic protections...that means you and I can use our rights to add GPL just like he can use his rights to "hide" his code as "trade secret" and protect his webpages. Like a typical American CEO, he wants the protections, Darl just doesn't like than EVERYBODY ELSE has them too! Because then HIS little bits of code don't amout to squat...because the sea is flooded right now!!! GPL is intened to BREAK THE SYSTEM! Get it! Nobody can constitutionally stop the authors from "sharing" their rights in the manor of the GPL...and now that the public is catching on, Why would they want to pay for stuff when other people are giving it away for "other reasons".
Like you, I think a DMCA violation for an OSS program would be sweet irony!!! What Darl and other miss with the DMCA is that technology has progressed to grow and flourish without strict copyrights because the govt has got it's hand out of "registering" every little thing. The "joke" to mention to the media companies is that without the 1976 act to ease the registration process, none of them would need DMCA because they would not have businesses to begin with...90%+ of the internet would be PD under the old rules...and impossible to track or register anything after the fact. But it's hard to make the argument to congress that MILLIONS of people are benifiting from FREE stuff while a few thousand are suffering losing great amount of "federal benifit" money. Lessing tried to make that argument in court, but they "copped out" rather than draw a line in the sand.
true the AI in LOTR let some orcs run away...but that's actually true to being orcs! Also, that was quite an achivement to roll D20s for every swing in the battle...that GM settup must have been killer. Not to mention taken a long time to roll all those dice and enter them into the computer!
With so many people talking about learning Japanese here, can we get some pointers where to start? Mostly, I'd want to be able to read techinical documents [servicing imported machines for work..oh and add german too. ha, ha], websites, and of course [and most importantly] to understand enough japanese so I can watch the unedited import anime!
The joke is that most of the companies involved are getting their money from childhood "geeks" that made it big on toys or games and Still went to school to learn the "real work" we were all told in the 70's and 80's was so important. I find it more ironic that the very goverment that told kids to be astronauts and rocket scientists has a problem with them Actually being astronauts and rocket scientists WITHOUT govt help!
Again, they have to "look" like they're fair...especially when the Prez really wants the case to just "go away"! Let's face it, MS & lawyers got away with basically insulting and contempting a Federal Judge publicly...When the MS lawyers & management get done with their "clever" talk and "skirting" the rules set by the court, this new judge in charge of the case has "carte blanc" to do whatever SHE WANTS with them [I'd dread what happens when you piss off the federal bench like MS has!]...because the Appeals court didn't rule on the merits of the case...those stand...only that the judge was "perhaps" baised and ruled "too harshly"...and the judge also reserves the right to tell the DOJ settlement to GTH! if she wants...which is getting very close now! even though the non-slashdot media is ingoring the case.
yeah that's true, but MS lawyers and PR people held no punches with the media at openly calling him stupid, incompetent, etc openly....while at the same time all but outright lying to HIS face in open court! But remember...they didn't throw out much of his actual ruling on appeal...they just said he was too harsh...but then allowed the next court to gut the courts verdict. But it's not over yet! MS got mercy for his comments, nothing more. WHEN THEY SCREW UP again, the appeals court will not have ANY reason to grant anything but swift and harsh punishment...remember that while we see MS "get away with it"!
yeah, but you have to see a verifiable copy of their code with proper copyright notices in order to prove that indeed it was copied from SCO, and not mearly a similar file from BSD or the like.
Software is an interesting beast. The "bits" are protected under copyright, but the actual code is considered "trade secret". Under normal copyright rules like for a book, you'd simply go to the Library of Congress for registered works and look it up. Take that copy to court and compare it to the copy your accused of infringing...If it's the same you're toast! But with software, they managed to keep the actual code "secret" nowhere can you go to say checkout the source for Windows XP...even though it's under copyright and protected...It's a beautiful SCAM...One that OSS seeks to bust up!
But the judge has to be sure to keep up apperances of fairness...even if SCO is smoking crack in court! Assuming something is "trade secret" is an easy concession for the judge...it doesn't affect the over all trial anyway. But when it goes to appeals [and oh it will] it removes "judical mistakes" from their claims....we wouldn't want another Judge Jackson would we?!!!
Slashdot Mirror
You're missing the point...let's get rid of "mailboxes" all together! Let's build a business information management system...particularrly for small business that have only 1-2 locations and minimal staff anyway. Dump everything in a truly managed system like /. where everyone can have access. Given certian advances in corperate liability it's a welcome thing anyway. After all, the company already reads your mail anyway, instills all sorts of rules and regs on it too, and certian customer contacts are simply too important to leave in individual's mailboxes anyway. Combine that with the need due to enron to store and track all communication.. faxes, email, IM, phone calls, and verify it's accuracy to investors, something like this would be a great thing for smaller shops...and of course it would be OSS!
Right after the it gets a full rewrite to be standard compliant and use better features like those guys several weeks ago suggested! Then you can simply plug stuff like this in on a modular basis.... that rewrite's not looking so bad now...
So what needs to happen is for each user to have a personal "account" that displays their private messages...emails simply become another private message. then each user is an author, as well as their supervisor and can "post" their message to the general business group as well as attach information about quality, customer service, etc. then all the internal messages are posted just like here...and those responses are backed up, searchable, and available to all down the road...irregardless of changes in personell!
All you need to improve it is to integrate [like I said above] the email server to handle receiving messages into the system and sending responces to threads out...just one notch above what this board does! Oh and you get to use a browser for everyting too! and integrate it into your documentation and ERP system...get the idea! I just got fired so it sounds like a fun project!
You're exactly correct! All the "secrecy" that the govt insists on only takes eyeballs away when something really bad is about to happen and they need help NOW! After all, we've basicly been taught to "not look" and "mind our business" and "let law emforcement handle it"...
For a matter of fact, I'd venture that Nuclear weapons have made the road HARDER for nuclar power...Most of the nasty radioactive waste created was for bigger, badder weapons and is entirely unnecessary for clean power production...Kinda like N.Korea, we use our civilian power plants for nastier weapons material reasearch too!! or we'd create more power and less nasty stuff...and build more inherantly safe reactors, rather than the backwards messes we have now...which are LESS safe than Fermi's original experiments!
It's cheaper and easier to buy one from the Poor Russians in the region anyway...after all, we put them out of business of watching their munitions.. so they have to be "capitalists" now. I bet a nuke would make lots of money for somebody!
After all only 1 country has ever USED nukes in a war....and that would be ... US!!!! Of course that's probably why our govt is so scared...they hide behind the power of the "little red button" far too often in international disputes...especially when the need for a compromise would cause hurt for american interests as a show of "good faith". When push comes to shove...look how we handled Iraq ...our leaders ALWAYS fall back on the Nukes! If anyone would have actually stuck up for them, we were openly planning on using nukes to resist Saddams "great army". People don't REALLY LISTEN to what all the "analysts" say on CNN do they? Who's actually MORE CHICKEN here? something to think about.
Anyway, it's much more easy and likely that Osama would simply bribe/steal one from some Russian, Chineese, indian, or Pakistani army general down on his luck without proper staff to "account" for an already made nuke!!! When the Cold war was just Us and Russia, it was easy to track nukes.. now that Russia has broken up, there are a frightening number "gone missing" from all the army bases Russia couldn't economically hold.
The key for the industry would be to figure out what features of those other industries can be "enhanced" or "embraced" in programming. OSS can be the solution to such a problem, but it has to get big enough to knock down companies like MS...who have commoditized software to a fault. the neat thing about it though is that programming is a "market" and as more people get laid off from the "megacorps" they go out and start the next revolution without the old players. Look at how HP, Apple, NVidia, etc were founded...and realize that it should be about to happen again!
on another note, it sounds like the Sims could use a little more structure to prevent "outside" interference. Perhaps they should have a "stock" market where all sellable things have a global average price and you can't buy/sell at more/less than X% off that price. That would eliminate part of the cash for simoleans problem...and similar mechanics should be set up for other factors like popularity, etc. The sims is unique in that they should be actively trying to minimize outside influances rather than allowing things like live chat and outside deals to wreck the game like this.
I'm a huge Sims fan. I've got all the expansions EXCEPT the Online one. The whole problem with the online version is that they allow all the petty "stuff" that happens on an public message board without having any way to limit it... My opinion on the game was that it never should have had "live" chat to begin with...people can get away with verbally abusing the other players because it's "outside" the games rules...There's no in-game ways to deal with the issues without "fighting fire with fire" which is not acceptable for a family game. I know in EQ the "Guilds" will quickly "take care of" these types of issues, but such a system is entirely INAPPROPERIATE for a game like Sims. The better plan would have been to only allow "characters" to talk, not the actual users. Then much abuse can be "programmed" out of the game just like in Diablo or Warcraft, where you can talk smack & try to "gang up" all you want, but it doesn't affect playing of the game...or there are things in the game to "offset" abusers.
Heck, I find it impossible to keep spyware off my computer when just I use it!!!! And I follow all the /. rules for safe browsing...well as much as I can still using windows:P
It's not about controlling users, it's about the computer running properly. Part of a computer running properly is preventing the user from screwing it up if at all possible! Again, what happens when the kids are playing online when the next "Blaster" comes thru wiping out admin boxes because something is open and tries to crash the internet? This guy is trying to do EXACTLY what all the MS experts are telling him to do and it DOESN'T WORK!!!! it should work, there's no excuse that you have to give ANYBODY admin rights just to run a program...or that a HOME USER should have to worry about complicated privillages simply to run retail boxed software...that is a fundimental designed security hole in the OS!
The point this guy is making is great! Where do all the worms and spyware and viruses come from? Insecure boxes!!! what is he trying to do? Secure the box...All the kids want it to play some Boxed games, and maybe surf a little web. They have zero need to be using admin accounts for these purposes! That's what we all say, but when the guy says "it doesn't work" we all ridicule him! come on guys!
This is exactly why home users always leave their machines wide open! We should be DEMANDING that MS fix these issues in a manor that is useable by ALL WINDOWS USERS!!! The tool should be as simple as "I want Kid user to play Xyz game" and it's taken care of...anything less is a huge security flaw...and MS is supposed to be fixing those...right...I thought so...
But I do agree, it's a MS OS and Game developer problem...it's a bug that you can't run a properly configured and restricted system with these games!
EXCEPT that the primary apps he runs... i.e. video GAMES break the MS security model...forcing him to give too much access to his "users" allowing them to run the game, but also to get spyware, ... get it!
But that's not the point here...It's MS screwed up OS! Could you imagine the mess on the web if every webmaster needed kernel root permissions to run apache or Mysql? His point is that APPS of any kind..specifically games should not need "root" access after they are properly installed and configured just to play! That's the whole point of securing boxes...and the basic root of many of MS security bugs!!
On the other hand, we wouldn't have any corporations or news [i.e. no /.!] on the internet WITHOUT those restrictions being eased...otherwise web content would have to be registered BEFORE POSTING online to have copyright protection, hence making online news and such useless [or maybe not a bad thing if it meant getting rid of rubbish!] But in many ways, the 1976 act actually HURTS [his wet dreams of] copyright by diluting the pool of "protected" stuff by assuming every little thing is protected. On the other hand, its the very same act that gives the GPL it's teeth!!! It removed the need equally for ANYONE to have to register for basic protections...that means you and I can use our rights to add GPL just like he can use his rights to "hide" his code as "trade secret" and protect his webpages. Like a typical American CEO, he wants the protections, Darl just doesn't like than EVERYBODY ELSE has them too! Because then HIS little bits of code don't amout to squat...because the sea is flooded right now!!! GPL is intened to BREAK THE SYSTEM! Get it! Nobody can constitutionally stop the authors from "sharing" their rights in the manor of the GPL...and now that the public is catching on, Why would they want to pay for stuff when other people are giving it away for "other reasons".
Like you, I think a DMCA violation for an OSS program would be sweet irony!!! What Darl and other miss with the DMCA is that technology has progressed to grow and flourish without strict copyrights because the govt has got it's hand out of "registering" every little thing. The "joke" to mention to the media companies is that without the 1976 act to ease the registration process, none of them would need DMCA because they would not have businesses to begin with...90%+ of the internet would be PD under the old rules...and impossible to track or register anything after the fact. But it's hard to make the argument to congress that MILLIONS of people are benifiting from FREE stuff while a few thousand are suffering losing great amount of "federal benifit" money. Lessing tried to make that argument in court, but they "copped out" rather than draw a line in the sand.
true the AI in LOTR let some orcs run away...but that's actually true to being orcs! Also, that was quite an achivement to roll D20s for every swing in the battle...that GM settup must have been killer. Not to mention taken a long time to roll all those dice and enter them into the computer!
With so many people talking about learning Japanese here, can we get some pointers where to start? Mostly, I'd want to be able to read techinical documents [servicing imported machines for work..oh and add german too. ha, ha], websites, and of course [and most importantly] to understand enough japanese so I can watch the unedited import anime!
thanks!
The joke is that most of the companies involved are getting their money from childhood "geeks" that made it big on toys or games and Still went to school to learn the "real work" we were all told in the 70's and 80's was so important. I find it more ironic that the very goverment that told kids to be astronauts and rocket scientists has a problem with them Actually being astronauts and rocket scientists WITHOUT govt help!
Again, they have to "look" like they're fair...especially when the Prez really wants the case to just "go away"! Let's face it, MS & lawyers got away with basically insulting and contempting a Federal Judge publicly ...When the MS lawyers & management get done with their "clever" talk and "skirting" the rules set by the court, this new judge in charge of the case has "carte blanc" to do whatever SHE WANTS with them [I'd dread what happens when you piss off the federal bench like MS has!] ...because the Appeals court didn't rule on the merits of the case...those stand...only that the judge was "perhaps" baised and ruled "too harshly"...and the judge also reserves the right to tell the DOJ settlement to GTH! if she wants...which is getting very close now! even though the non-slashdot media is ingoring the case.
yeah that's true, but MS lawyers and PR people held no punches with the media at openly calling him stupid, incompetent, etc openly....while at the same time all but outright lying to HIS face in open court! But remember...they didn't throw out much of his actual ruling on appeal...they just said he was too harsh...but then allowed the next court to gut the courts verdict. But it's not over yet! MS got mercy for his comments, nothing more. WHEN THEY SCREW UP again, the appeals court will not have ANY reason to grant anything but swift and harsh punishment...remember that while we see MS "get away with it"!
Software is an interesting beast. The "bits" are protected under copyright, but the actual code is considered "trade secret". Under normal copyright rules like for a book, you'd simply go to the Library of Congress for registered works and look it up. Take that copy to court and compare it to the copy your accused of infringing...If it's the same you're toast! But with software, they managed to keep the actual code "secret" nowhere can you go to say checkout the source for Windows XP...even though it's under copyright and protected...It's a beautiful SCAM...One that OSS seeks to bust up!
But the judge has to be sure to keep up apperances of fairness...even if SCO is smoking crack in court! Assuming something is "trade secret" is an easy concession for the judge...it doesn't affect the over all trial anyway. But when it goes to appeals [and oh it will] it removes "judical mistakes" from their claims....we wouldn't want another Judge Jackson would we?!!!