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User: dipipanone

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  1. Re:Slavery is illegal, so... on The Riches of Open Source · · Score: 1

    I'm getting really bored with this, but let me take a shot before I go:

    A website established to discuss open-source software (Slashdot) inhabited by a hoard of people who supposedly aren't interested in Linux but can't live comfortably with the idea that something interesting and socially important is going on and they aren't a part of it.

    Advantage: Linux

  2. Re:Important rule of litigation: on SCO Hints at *BSD Lawsuits Next Year, And More · · Score: -1

    The case would be brought on the basis of the same copyright claim as the earlier AT&T case.

    Forgive me for saying so, but I don't think you have a very good understanding of torts.

    Which is probably the reason why he is talking trash, threatening to sue rather than issuing a writ. He knows that if he was actually to make a claim he could get slapped really, really hard.

    I'm sorry, I've just realized. You know absolutely nothing at all about this subject and are simply making this stuff up as you go along, aren't you?

    Oh well. I'm sure that nothing I say is going to impact upon your delusional belief system, but the sooner you learn that wishing something doesn't make it so, the less painful and frustrating you'll find the world in general.

    That claim has been rejected by the courts. The fact that the underlying copyrights have since been sold do not allow the new owner to re-open prior litigation. The copyrights were bought with the constructive knowledge of the previous litigation and its result.

    If this is true, you'll have no difficulty providing me with case law in support of your argument. Should you be able to do so, you'll get a grovelling public apology for my rudeness.

    However, do bear in mind three things, won't you:

    1.) The original case was settled out of court, therefore there is no case law or court decision to refer to.
    2.) SCO wouldn't necessarily be bringing their action against the previous defendant.
    3.) I'm not arguing that SCO's case is necessarily winnable. Simply that it's actionable and that they'd have a right to bring it before the courts.

  3. Re:Attack a settlement? How's that again? on SCO Hints at *BSD Lawsuits Next Year, And More · · Score: 1

    That finding says there is no AT&T code in BSD's codebase. If SCO wants to say there is, fine; but they'd have to have aquired rights to the AT&T code -prior- to the creation of BSD4.4 Lite to do so, wouldn't they?

    Oh, OK, I see what you're saying. However, it's my understanding that SCO/Boies know this only too well, and believe that they have arguable grounds that they can bring before the courts.

    Because there wasn't actually any real decision in that case (as the judge persuaded AT&T it was in their interests to settle), and because there would be a different defendant in the case, as I understand it, legally there's actually nothing to stop SCO refighting this battle again if they believe they can make it come out differently -- no matter how wrong-headed and foolish such an action might appear to the rest of the world.

    As people are always pointing out here, you can sue whoever you like, provided you've got the money to do so. That doesn't mean your action will prevail, but I'm not convinced that SCO are actually looking for a judgement anyway.

    That finding says there is no AT&T code in BSD's codebase.

    I think you'll find that it isn't a finding, and settlement decisions in earlier cases aren't in any way binding on people who choose to litigate against other parties, even though the object of the litigation happens to be the same.

    IANAL, so don't take my word on it, but that's how I understand the law to be on this issue.

  4. Re:Important rule of litigation: on SCO Hints at *BSD Lawsuits Next Year, And More · · Score: 1

    Particularly since the case has already been litigated and closed.

    The case you refer to was ATT vs. whoever (the Regents of the University of California?) That case may have been litigated and closed. However, any case SCO brought would be a completely different case.

    Peculiar and mercenary though David Boies may be, I think you can fairly safely assume that he has a pretty good grasp of the rules of civil procedure in the US courts.

  5. Re:Attack a settlement? How's that again? on SCO Hints at *BSD Lawsuits Next Year, And More · · Score: 1

    Possible; but SCO didn't have any legal rights to Unix code of any description until a year after the settlement between AT&T and BSD.

    And Caldera didn't have any rights to Unix code till a damn sight later than that. Nonetheless, their claim, whatever its merits, appears to be that AT&T's rights in Unix have been transferred via old SCO to new SCO. Therefore what rights AT&T had at the time of the original suit will surely have been transferred to SCO.

    I know that there are scores of objections as to why their claims should fail, but surely this is their position?

    If SCO wants to assert that BSD contains code that is in their IP portfolio, they're going to have to invent a time machine.

    I'm not following you here. Why would this be necessary?

  6. Re:Need for united action now. on SCO Hints at *BSD Lawsuits Next Year, And More · · Score: 1

    Then they came for me ...

    ...but Bill Gates and Steve Balmer had the fix in from the start, so I was off the hook.

  7. Re:Attack a settlement? How's that again? on SCO Hints at *BSD Lawsuits Next Year, And More · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How do you attack a settlement, exactly?

    You can't attack a settlement per se. I'm guessing that what SCO are planning to do is to litigate some of the issues that people believe were decided in the settlement.

    Because it was an out of court settlement, you don't have any final decision. You don't have any case law arising out of it. If SCO thinks that they have legal arguments that will prevail, there's nothing at all to stop them refighting that case.

    Whether or not they'll win remains to be seen, but I don't see any obstacles to their attempts to try to have the fight. Mind you, IANAL, so take all this with a grain of salt

  8. Re:Diagnosis on SCO Hints at *BSD Lawsuits Next Year, And More · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yup... Paranoia's like that.

    And lest we forget, paranoia is a symptom of cocaine psychosis.

    Put that pipe down now, Darl, before it's too late.

  9. Re:Reduction of potential liability or cosy deal? on McBride Speaks, In Person And In Print · · Score: 1

    Being so reliant on future litigation revenues, its starting to look to me as thought there might possibly be a connection between Red Hat's recent announcement to stop distributing a free linux in favor of enterprise server distro and the SCO intent to get a fee for each linux install.

    On the other side though, this might be a RedHat strategem. In their current case, when RedHat get SCO into court, SCO could turn around and say 'You consider your OS of so little value that you give it away free. Therefore, how does our licensing fee effect your ability to make money selling support contracts?'

    Now, RedHat can turn around and say 'We're providing a proper, full featured enterprise OS. It costs X thou. per server. SCO are interfering with our business without just cause. Judge, you gotta lay waste to their asses.'

    McBride seems to be playing it very gently with Red Hat

    I think he's worried that RedHat's ability to prevail in court against SCO may happen long before the IBM case gets to court. Read the various filings on Groklaw for more details.

  10. Re:Yeehaw! A roundup!! on SCO News Roundup · · Score: 3, Funny

    Something like this, you mean?

    Oh Darly Boy,
    The pipe, the crack pipe's calling,
    As once again, our stock is on the slide,
    It once was high, But now the price is falling,
    So pack a case because its time to take a ride.

    Oh IBM,
    They looked like easy targets,
    We thought they'd fold,
    And pay us just to go,
    And then their lawyers tore us all to pieces,
    And now this single crack rock's all that's left of SCO.

    So light your pipe,
    And recollect the good old days,
    When whorish analysts hung on every word,
    Because at last, your business rep is ruined,
    And everybody knows,
    You're just a stinking turd.

  11. Re:Going after HP's customers... on SCO News Roundup · · Score: 1

    I work at HP

    So is there any sense of betrayal within the company, after your having sponsored the SCO source roadshow?

  12. Re:Going after HP's customers... on SCO News Roundup · · Score: 1

    What are you on about?

    I'm on about McBride's threat to take action against HP's customer base.

    Do you seriously believe that they are going so much as file suit against an HP customer, let alone win?

    It doesn't matter whether what I believe. The threat that that's what they're planning to do is likely to have some impact on HP's Linux business.

  13. Re:Linux written to compete with SCO? on SCO News Roundup · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Probably not. It should be enough to show that it DOES compete - which would be trivial.

    IANAL, but I don't think that's the only thing it has to show. I believe that it would also have to show that by distributing linux, Suse/Novell are having a direct impact upon SCO's business.

    Given that Linux is freely distributed by a range of companies, it's hard to see how they can make that case. Also, I wonder how confusing it will be for the courts when they learn that SCO is actually a company that was established to try to profit from distributing someone else's intellectual property, which they had a right to freely distribute, but by using the funds from their IPO to purchase an older technology, they believe they can then prevent the company that originally sold the older technology from distributing the same free operating system that led to their successful IPO in the first place.

    Now it may just be me, but I've got a very strong suspicion that any judge or jury who was exposed to the arguments would actually laugh this out of court.

    "Nice try fellas, do you really think we are that stupid?"

    No, I think there are some very twitchy sphincters in Utah at the moment, so it's time to crank the FUD again and bring out the smoke and mirrors for another quick performance.

  14. Going after HP's customers... on SCO News Roundup · · Score: 5, Interesting
    There was an interesting remark on the Linux Weekly News site about SCO's suggesting that they plan on going after HP's customers because they are covered by HP's indemnification policy.
    "They also made numerous claims that copyright-based lawsuits will be initiated against Linux users in "the next 90 days. There were hints that HP customers could be targeted, as a result of that company's indemnification promise - as had been predicted previously."
    It looks like IBM were extremely smart not to offer indemnification, despite the calls from the peanut gallery for them to do so, but I wonder how the people at HP feel, getting a good solid assfucking like this after they sponsored the recent SCO roadshow?

    IANAL, but I suspect now might be a good time to join in RedHat's suit against Darl and his crack smoking band of pirates.
  15. Re:Can we sue M$?? on Mail Server Flaw Opens MS Exchange to Spam · · Score: 1

    When you're dealing with 100K - 500K lines of code errors can and will be made. I don't care who you are, it's not possible to write things as complicated as operating systems without making mistakes.

    So are you trying to say that writing and testing code is more complex and less exact than either medicine or the law? Because I don't believe that it is. Nobody is expecting coders to write perfect code every time. However, people should have a reasonable expectation that the code is fit for the purpose that it was produced for, and that programmers work to the same standards as other professionals do.

    But if we start actively suing developers over every security vulnerability found there won't be much incentive to write code, will there?

    I don't see any shortage of doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects, etc. and they all have to live up to these standards in their work.

  16. Re:Read the fine article. on Mail Server Flaw Opens MS Exchange to Spam · · Score: 3, Funny

    No, it's turned off by default

    OK, I eventually got that for most people, it was probably turned on by a Code Red infection.

    I'm still curious about what potential purpose such an account would serve though? Is it necessary for internal housekeeping or something?

    which you would know if you had bothered to read more than the one comment you were replying to

    What, you mean that as well as R'ing the F'ing A, I'm also obliged to R *all* the F'ing C's as well?

    You are joking, right?

  17. Re:Can we sue M$?? on Mail Server Flaw Opens MS Exchange to Spam · · Score: 1

    Still, if we could sue people for security flaws in software, it would set a really nasty precident for all developers in the windows arena, the linux arena and others.

    And if you work in one of those areas, I can see why you wouldn't want that.

    However, people are paying for your skills as a professional software producer to protect them against these things. If you hire a lawyer and he's negligent in the advice that he gives you, then you can sue him for any damages that you incur. Similarly, if you hire a doctor and his services are negligent and cause you harm, you can sue his ass in court.

    Why exactly should software companies be exempt from this? Presumably, programmers could be held to the same standards as other professionals, so you wouldn't be held accountable for unforseeable bugs, but your code and your testing would have to be commensurate with that of the general standards of the industry.

    Open Source software could be exempt where a user doesn't have a contract with the author and uses the code at his own risk on an as-is basis.

  18. Re:Read the fine article. on Mail Server Flaw Opens MS Exchange to Spam · · Score: 0

    The Windows Guest account is equivlent to the anonymous login in most other system.

    And this is turned on by default?

    What year was this application released? 1993?

  19. Re:lying on Rules for Teenage Internet Access? · · Score: 1

    And personally I see nothing wrong with being an antisocial supergeek.

    I don't see anything wrong with it either -- I've got tendencies in that direction myself, and two of my kids are even worse than I am.

    But I didn't deliberately try to raise them that way. If anything, I tried to encourage them in the opposite direction, because a geek's life is not always the easiest of roads to travel -- something I'm sure that you've figured out for yourself by now.

    I know enough of right and wrong that once I'm legally an adult I know which of my parents' rules to freely discard.

    I'm sure that that's true, and I really don't mean to disrespect them. I'm genuinely curious about how it all works for you because when I was a teenager myself, I found any sort of application of rules or authority that wasn't backed up by sound reasons to be something that made me enormously resentful, and led me to engage in the kind of behaviour typified by cutting off your nose to spite your face.

    I also had no respect for my own parents, because I percieved their authority as being based solely on power, rather than on genuine legitimacy. My own life would have been much easier -- and probably happier as well -- had I been able to simply bide my time, as you are, until I reached the age of majority, whereupon I could make my own decisions, but I guess I just wasn't made that way.

    Good luck for your future.

  20. Re:Envy? on Utah Cities To Provide High-Speed Net Access · · Score: 1

    Come to think of it, it IS envy!

    Well, the whole polygamy thing definitely has its pros and cons.

    Pros:
    - You can supplement your aging wife with a nice fresh model, and still keep the old one around to babysit the kids while off frolicking with the new one.
    - Nine wives would have some significant earning capacity between them. You could sit at home reading Slashdot all day while the wives go out and bring home the bacon.
    - Who needs a three-way when you can have a ten-way?

    Cons:
    - I have problem enough remembering the birthday, anniversary, etc. of one wife. Remembering those details for nine is inconceivable, though I suppose you could quite legitimately delegate one to be your diary secretary.
    - Imagine the number of kids that all those women would want?
    - What happens when they finally turn on you? Imagine the hell that the synchronized nagging of nine women in concert would inflict...

    No, polygamy is undoubtedly tempting, but on-balance, I'd rather stick to the tried and tested practices of bigamy or adultery, thank you very much.

  21. Re:Envy? on Utah Cities To Provide High-Speed Net Access · · Score: 1

    They seem to think that people should live clean, be good to their spouses (...)

    All nine of them...

  22. Re:lying on Rules for Teenage Internet Access? · · Score: 1

    What the hell would I want to watch on TV?

    Nothing at all. I was just wondering if your parents censor that because of stuff like Baywatch and the Sopranos? And how about books? Presumably almost all of the great 20th century fiction would be impermissable because there are 'impolite' words in almost all of them.

    While I was writing this stuff, I thought I'd pop in to my daughter's room, because she was laughing her ass off, so I wanted to see what she was checking out.

    She'd just discovered the movie section at b3ta.com. I guess this is the sort of thing that strict parents must object to, but really, these are exactly the same sort of jokes and humour that kids tell each other verbally and you've got no chance at all of protecting them from that -- nor would you want to, unless you were deliberately trying to raise some antisocial supergeek. The only difference here is that the communication is mediated by computers.

    What about South Park? Would your parents have kittens if they thought that you were watching South Park? Would they assume that Satan had captured your soul and pack you off to one of those concentration camps for troubled teens?

  23. Re:Let me get this straight.. on 3 New Defendants Named In MP3s4free.net Case · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Weak, lame-ass fuck that I am, I can't stop myself replying to your .sig.

    recent rankings I've gotten:
    "Linux is stable" = +5 Insightful
    "WinXP is stable" = -1 Troll


    That's interesting, because I get them the other way around. ie
    "Linux on the desktop sucks" = +5 Insightful
    "There are a couple of major problems with the design and implementation of Win2000" = -1 Troll

    I decided that moderation is performed by that Cadre of Superchickens, and then I checked the Slashdot small print, and sure enough I was correct.

  24. Re:lying on Rules for Teenage Internet Access? · · Score: 1

    yomama@aol.com of course

  25. Re:lying on Rules for Teenage Internet Access? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Just to expand slightly...

    I was a little uncomfortable when I found one of my teenage daughters browsing rotten.com, but only because it made *me* uncomfortable. I pretty well knew that she'd probably just recommend it to the geek boys in her class at school and never look at it again, which is precisely what happened.

    I know that she spends a lot of time reading (and writing) erotic fanfic, but I'm damned if I'm going to look at any of it myself. I know that fifteen year old kids think a lot about that stuff, and I'm very happy that she likes to give creative expression to her thoughts.

    Am I worried that she'll hook up over the net with someone who would be bad for her? Not for a moment. She's a smart, sensible kid with a strong sense of what's right and what's wrong. She's just had her first serious boyfriend and dumped him because he wanted to go further than she did, and according to her, there just wasn't any 'spark'.

    Censoring her reading material would serve no purpose other than to artificially narrow her world and dull her natural curiosity.