Wouldn't it be possible to see who and when the questionable code was submitted?
To collect damages, wouldn't they have to prove that the offending code gave Linux an advantage that didn't exist before? It seems like someone would only decide to plant code that was either not too advantageous (if you are a competitor) or that was advantageous but only after the battle was lost.
Either way, it seems very unlikely that the offending code could be responsbile for over a billion dollars worth of damage . . .
If I recall correctly, companies must make an effort to minimize their damages under all circumstances if they want to be able to collect compensation for damages. For instance, if I am IBM, and my supplier of screws never delivers me my shipment of screws for my mainframes, I am responsible to find another supplier. I can't wait a year and not ship any mainframes and then try to collect damages of Billions of dollars of lost revenue. Such a claim would be absurd since I didn't do anything to minimize my damages. Isn't this true for SCO? They were supplying source code to companies like IBM. Apparently, according to their claim, they were also losing great amounts of revenue to Linux due to the unauthorized use of this code in Linux. It seems like they could have minimized the damage by doing a "diff" command between the Linux sourcecode (which was always available) and their own code and found out immediately that there was tainted code in there.
By being open source, it seems that Linux should be the most compliant OS out their because anyone with such claims as SCO should immediately be able to check the source. For them to wait this long to check (as they are losing over a BILLION dollars) seems to be a gross incompetence of SCO management. What else could contributors to Linux do to ensure the compliance of Linux wihout access to SCO's code? It seems that by being open source, the community has already done everything in its power to comply to IP law. SCO losses are a result of its failure to do its own part ($diff file1 file2).
Besides, the fall of SCO did not happen overnight, why must IBM take disproportionate responsbility (assuming they are at fault, which is unsubstantiated at this time) for what appears to be very poor efforts on the part SCO to protect their own IP (especially since they are also a Linux distr.!!!).
Also, if I were an investor I would be very upset. SCO has basically changed their business model without proper disclosure to the SEC. It is pretty well known that after they made their claim, it would be impossible for them to continue as a software company. Yet they seem to be continuing to waste money on new releases of Linux products that nobody will buy. What is the logic of releasing products for an OS that you are trying to slow the development of? What kind of business strategy is that? Finally, the fact of SCO is a Linux distro is really ironic.
I mean, if even they are openly distributing their own IP through Linux under the GPL, what right to they have to sue other companies for doing the same!? If they couldn't even ensure that they were not dilluting their own IP themselves (with a simple "diff" command), how can they require other entities to do so?
I really believe that SCO has not put enough thought behind this and some of upper management is going to be directly liable to the stock holders for some blatant acts of poor judgement.
I guess we really were fighting for THEIR freedom and now it belongs to us. The western leaders can pin another flag on their map, and us silent observers can marvel at another concrete example of organized violence, hard at work.
Slavery was are greatest aspiration. . . hiding it was our greatest invention.
We aren't certain about the effects of EMF exposure, so we are going to find some poor village without electricity and offer them electricity through microwaves. The expirement can pay for itself through the utility fees we charge the villagers.
"If only Bill Gates would get a bee in hif bonnet about putting a man on mars in 10 years"
Though, I am sure he day dreams about blasting a certain Finnish programmer off the face of Earth.
"I would start purchasing the software put out by his company just to support the endeavor."
Yes, let's all fund a SOFTWARE company to build rockets. That would be A LOT more efficient than funding, say, NASA.
The rockets can run on IIS and be manipulated with Internet Explorer and scheduled events via Outlook. Instead of a count down, we'll wait for the file system to defrag.
I can see it now . . . "lowest TCO to space" and "we will get to the moon before those commy penguinestas".
is it physically possible to create a system to distribute information to a large group of people while keeping absolute control over said information?
"Are you saying 'any law that can be broken is no longer a law at all.'"
No, I am saying unenforcable laws do nothing more than weaken legitimate laws and subsidize influential corporations with obsolete business models.
Law should be the collective expression of those bound by it. When this stops being true, order is threatened by the chaos of revolution.
Post as an AC to generate an atmosphere that the ideas in the post are the ideas of the general public.
Maybe AC should mean "Astroturfing Commando"?
Same stupid arguments . . . comparing MSCE's to someone who actually knows what they are doing complaining the latter costs more (means more demand, you chimp) . . . oh yeah, and Linux is hard to set up for everyone, including those who know what they are actually doing. I guess posting as an AC beats being modded a "troll."
for a company about to face MAJOR global workforce reductions, my "upgrade" would be software only, and 2k literally CRAWLS on this harware specs (some of my coworkers were dumb enough to "upgrade").
I really wish they would get off their high-horses, realize they are encapable of meeting ALL their user's needs, and let the more capable users support themselves, using the tools of their choice. Perhaps employees will be required to support themselves when "telecommuting" becomes more wide-spread and having a central IS authority will become impractical (those unable to support themselves will either be stuck at a central office or stuck without a job).
So, basically, with the new MS licensing, our IS dept. as blown its budget on software licenses that it can't effectively use, because it doesn't have enough $ left over to upgrade hardware specs. Meanwhile, the same hardware runs far better on a Knoppix live cd which is FREE.
On the bright side, maybe they will be able to afford better hardware after they lay some of us off.
And using MS products is good for the economy, how?
"something like this could make waiting over a min or two to [re]boot totally obselete..."
But my company's IS dept. is still very content on making me reboot whenever I try to do something "luxurious," like having two applications open at the same time.
Leave it to a true geek to underestimate the value of "looking cool." Take a look around, the world is FULL of eye candy.
Single? Maybe a Linux laptop configured to make everything look cool will change that.
People can be dumb like moths . . . to ignore this fact would be to ignore the BILLIONS spent every year of advertisement. Might as well use it to our advantage . . .
was how to perform well WITHOUT someone constantly watching and the threat of having some kind of punishment the minute I messed up.
In the real world, people are expected to do well without having someone constantly monitor you. The reason? Monitoring is expensive, and you might as well have the person doing the monitoring do your job instead.
Of course, if you are hoping your child will be able to get a job as a low paid phone rep then . . . this system should really give your dreams a boost.
"the West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do." ----------
Samuel P. Huntington
Ever been to Japan lately? Besides the occasional McDonalds, you will find that things are really quite different there. People's notions of freedom are very different, and they have very different motivations than Americans.
Bombs only change the landscape. If the world were to agree on the main virtue of its American ruler, it would be the accuracy of which its bombs land.
The net result of this lawsuit appears to be the turning of SCO into something like an IP brokerage firm which carries considerable more risk than the type of company that the majority of your investors originally invested into. Has management and the board properly disclosed these new risks thoroughly enough to avoid future lawsuits by investors?
Why does SCO now believe it can suddenly succeed as an IP speculator, when the majority of its fixed company assets (funded by investors and creditors under the pretense that it would be specifically used for a certain type of business) are not intended to be used in the IP speculating business? How does SCO intend to compete with firms that specialize in the IP industry and has SCO received proper permission from its investors to drastically change its industry and business model?
Is car pooling communism? Most people would say "No" immediately because they can imagine a capitalist market surviving even if people decide to car pool. However, Open Source seems to test the limits of many people's imaginations.
The user is an integral part of Open Source, and I am not just talking about debugging. If you find a program or distro that you think "sucks less" then SUPPORT IT. No, Open Source is NOT communism (or, at least it is as close to communism as car pooling). It NEEDS user feedback, whether in emotional support, advertisement, or just cold $. You will pay less than you do for proprietary software because there is no monopoly associated with Open Source, but that still does not mean you don't need to support it.
A major problem is that too many end users are such POOR CAPITALISTS that they cannot imagine a free market existing around Open Source. However, Open Source will respond positively to public feedback just as much as any other software development model out there.
Mandrakeclub really makes this easy (rpm voting), but there are infinite other ways you can make Open Source better as an end user. Complaining about it is not one of them (leave the complaining to the developers since they actually have the ability to do something about it).
"Broken software that requires babysitting by elitist gurus is _exactly_ what IT workers want, so they can continue to justify their positions and their salaries."
I thought you were talking about Windows here. But I see your point:
IT workers LOVE Open Source software because it crashes EVEN MORE, and you just know they don't get paid for their results and TCO, but their hax0r 7331 skillz. But there will be this sudden shift, and companies will suddenly start looking at results and cost savings to judge their employees by (influenced, no doubt, by your insightful post), causing a sudden recession in the IT industry.
And since the majority of slashdotters don't have a clue about western business culture or economics, they mod you up.
Enjoy your success in fantasy land . . . your ideas wouldn't hold up a second in a real business environment.
Slashdot Mirror
Hibernia Player:
.
No! Not the Knights Who Say Gnu!
Casterhald:
The Same!
Hibernia Newbie:
Who are they?
Subedei:
We are the keepers of the sacred words: Gnu, Peng and Neewom.
Lorhald:
Neewom!
Wise Hibernia Player:
Those who hear them seldom live to tell the tale.
Rathgar:
The Knights Who Say Gnu demand a sacrifice!
Hibernia Player:
Knights of Gnu, we are but simple travelers who seek the relic stored beyond these woods.
Lorhald:
Gnu! Gnu! Gnu! Gnu!
Guess who couldn't get a date on Saturday night . .
Wouldn't it be possible to see who and when the questionable code was submitted?
To collect damages, wouldn't they have to prove that the offending code gave Linux an advantage that didn't exist before? It seems like someone would only decide to plant code that was either not too advantageous (if you are a competitor) or that was advantageous but only after the battle was lost.
Either way, it seems very unlikely that the offending code could be responsbile for over a billion dollars worth of damage . . .
If I recall correctly, companies must make an effort to minimize their damages under all circumstances if they want to be able to collect compensation for damages. For instance, if I am IBM, and my supplier of screws never delivers me my shipment of screws for my mainframes, I am responsible to find another supplier. I can't wait a year and not ship any mainframes and then try to collect damages of Billions of dollars of lost revenue. Such a claim would be absurd since I didn't do anything to minimize my damages.
Isn't this true for SCO? They were supplying source code to companies like IBM. Apparently, according to their claim, they were also losing great amounts of revenue to Linux due to the unauthorized use of this code in Linux. It seems like they could have minimized the damage by doing a "diff" command between the Linux sourcecode (which was always available) and their own code and found out immediately that there was tainted code in there.
By being open source, it seems that Linux should be the most compliant OS out their because anyone with such claims as SCO should immediately be able to check the source. For them to wait this long to check (as they are losing over a BILLION dollars) seems to be a gross incompetence of SCO management. What else could contributors to Linux do to ensure the compliance of Linux wihout access to SCO's code? It seems that by being open source, the community has already done everything in its power to comply to IP law. SCO losses are a result of its failure to do its own part ($diff file1 file2).
Besides, the fall of SCO did not happen overnight, why must IBM take disproportionate responsbility (assuming they are at fault, which is unsubstantiated at this time) for what appears to be very poor efforts on the part SCO to protect their own IP (especially since they are also a Linux distr.!!!).
Also, if I were an investor I would be very upset. SCO has basically changed their business model without proper disclosure to the SEC. It is pretty well known that after they made their claim, it would be impossible for them to continue as a software company. Yet they seem to be continuing to waste money on new releases of Linux products that nobody will buy. What is the logic of releasing products for an OS that you are trying to slow the development of? What kind of business strategy is that?
Finally, the fact of SCO is a Linux distro is really ironic.
I mean, if even they are openly distributing their own IP through Linux under the GPL, what right to they have to sue other companies for doing the same!? If they couldn't even ensure that they were not dilluting their own IP themselves (with a simple "diff" command), how can they require other entities to do so?
I really believe that SCO has not put enough thought behind this and some of upper management is going to be directly liable to the stock holders for some blatant acts of poor judgement.
the Fins found out about nematodes from an article about using them on shuttle missions.
I guess we really were fighting for THEIR freedom and now it belongs to us. The western leaders can pin another flag on their map, and us silent observers can marvel at another concrete example of organized violence, hard at work.
Slavery was are greatest aspiration. . . hiding it was our greatest invention.
We aren't certain about the effects of EMF exposure, so we are going to find some poor village without electricity and offer them electricity through microwaves. The expirement can pay for itself through the utility fees we charge the villagers.
Boy, did I wake up cranky today . . .
"If only Bill Gates would get a bee in hif bonnet about putting a man on mars in 10 years"
Though, I am sure he day dreams about blasting a certain Finnish programmer off the face of Earth.
"I would start purchasing the software put out by his company just to support the endeavor."
Yes, let's all fund a SOFTWARE company to build rockets. That would be A LOT more efficient than funding, say, NASA.
The rockets can run on IIS and be manipulated with Internet Explorer and scheduled events via Outlook. Instead of a count down, we'll wait for the file system to defrag.
I can see it now . . . "lowest TCO to space" and "we will get to the moon before those commy penguinestas".
Do they give you enough time to post an "Ask Slashdot."
is it physically possible to create a system to distribute information to a large group of people while keeping absolute control over said information?
"Are you saying 'any law that can be broken is no longer a law at all.'"
No, I am saying unenforcable laws do nothing more than weaken legitimate laws and subsidize influential corporations with obsolete business models.
Law should be the collective expression of those bound by it. When this stops being true, order is threatened by the chaos of revolution.
to make laws that can not possibly be enforced, which effectively dilute the credibilty and perceived authority of the all laws of a nation.
Laws of man should observe the laws of physics.
Post as an AC to generate an atmosphere that the ideas in the post are the ideas of the general public.
Maybe AC should mean "Astroturfing Commando"?
Same stupid arguments . . . comparing MSCE's to someone who actually knows what they are doing complaining the latter costs more (means more demand, you chimp) . . . oh yeah, and Linux is hard to set up for everyone, including those who know what they are actually doing. I guess posting as an AC beats being modded a "troll."
for a company about to face MAJOR global workforce reductions, my "upgrade" would be software only, and 2k literally CRAWLS on this harware specs (some of my coworkers were dumb enough to "upgrade").
I really wish they would get off their high-horses, realize they are encapable of meeting ALL their user's needs, and let the more capable users support themselves, using the tools of their choice. Perhaps employees will be required to support themselves when "telecommuting" becomes more wide-spread and having a central IS authority will become impractical (those unable to support themselves will either be stuck at a central office or stuck without a job).
So, basically, with the new MS licensing, our IS dept. as blown its budget on software licenses that it can't effectively use, because it doesn't have enough $ left over to upgrade hardware specs. Meanwhile, the same hardware runs far better on a Knoppix live cd which is FREE.
On the bright side, maybe they will be able to afford better hardware after they lay some of us off.
And using MS products is good for the economy, how?
Subject title sums up my knowledge in these fields, so I will do everyone a favor and shut-up at this point.
"something like this could make waiting over a min or two to [re]boot totally obselete..."
But my company's IS dept. is still very content on making me reboot whenever I try to do something "luxurious," like having two applications open at the same time.
I will post my sig as soon as I finish rebooting.
www.openoffice.org
At least until MS is able to resolve the issue.
Leave it to a true geek to underestimate the value of "looking cool." Take a look around, the world is FULL of eye candy.
Single? Maybe a Linux laptop configured to make everything look cool will change that.
People can be dumb like moths . . . to ignore this fact would be to ignore the BILLIONS spent every year of advertisement. Might as well use it to our advantage . . .
If you see this message, you need to increase your "comment threshold."
low.iq
was how to perform well WITHOUT someone constantly watching and the threat of having some kind of punishment the minute I messed up.
In the real world, people are expected to do well without having someone constantly monitor you. The reason? Monitoring is expensive, and you might as well have the person doing the monitoring do your job instead.
Of course, if you are hoping your child will be able to get a job as a low paid phone rep then . . . this system should really give your dreams a boost.
"even good kids miss up really big"
if you became aware he was having trouble in say . . . English?
if you are posting as an AC, you are posting to yourself.
"the West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."
----------
Samuel P. Huntington
Ever been to Japan lately? Besides the occasional McDonalds, you will find that things are really quite different there. People's notions of freedom are very different, and they have very different motivations than Americans.
Bombs only change the landscape. If the world were to agree on the main virtue of its American ruler, it would be the accuracy of which its bombs land.
Nothing more, nothing less.
The net result of this lawsuit appears to be the turning of SCO into something like an IP brokerage firm which carries considerable more risk than the type of company that the majority of your investors originally invested into. Has management and the board properly disclosed these new risks thoroughly enough to avoid future lawsuits by investors?
Why does SCO now believe it can suddenly succeed as an IP speculator, when the majority of its fixed company assets (funded by investors and creditors under the pretense that it would be specifically used for a certain type of business) are not intended to be used in the IP speculating business? How does SCO intend to compete with firms that specialize in the IP industry and has SCO received proper permission from its investors to drastically change its industry and business model?
Is car pooling communism? Most people would say "No" immediately because they can imagine a capitalist market surviving even if people decide to car pool. However, Open Source seems to test the limits of many people's imaginations.
The user is an integral part of Open Source, and I am not just talking about debugging. If you find a program or distro that you think "sucks less" then SUPPORT IT. No, Open Source is NOT communism (or, at least it is as close to communism as car pooling). It NEEDS user feedback, whether in emotional support, advertisement, or just cold $. You will pay less than you do for proprietary software because there is no monopoly associated with Open Source, but that still does not mean you don't need to support it.
A major problem is that too many end users are such POOR CAPITALISTS that they cannot imagine a free market existing around Open Source. However, Open Source will respond positively to public feedback just as much as any other software development model out there.
Mandrakeclub really makes this easy (rpm voting), but there are infinite other ways you can make Open Source better as an end user. Complaining about it is not one of them (leave the complaining to the developers since they actually have the ability to do something about it).
"Broken software that requires babysitting by elitist gurus is _exactly_ what IT workers want, so they can continue to justify their positions and their salaries."
I thought you were talking about Windows here. But I see your point:
IT workers LOVE Open Source software because it crashes EVEN MORE, and you just know they don't get paid for their results and TCO, but their hax0r 7331 skillz. But there will be this sudden shift, and companies will suddenly start looking at results and cost savings to judge their employees by (influenced, no doubt, by your insightful post), causing a sudden recession in the IT industry.
And since the majority of slashdotters don't have a clue about western business culture or economics, they mod you up.
Enjoy your success in fantasy land . . . your ideas wouldn't hold up a second in a real business environment.