The grass is always greener on the other side. If you were working with Linux, you'd be complaining about the boring things and obnoxious "features" there, too.
Really? I work with both Windows and Linux/Unix, and I don't have any complaints about boredom on the *nix development side, nor do I get headaches from some Make-a-completely-indecipherable-function-call-tha t-returns-god-know-what-and-will-be-broken-on-ever y-other-release API call.
Good point. Especially today, with many farmers having Ag degrees and computerizing their operations (like everyone else). They are business(wo)men, just like in any other trade or industry.
Believe me, they [Sun] make their money because of the bad ass hardware they use and not because of Solaris.
Maybe, but we have started replacing both Sun and SGI servers with multi-processor Intel boxes running Linux. The performance is sometimes better or sometimes slightly worse, but in any case, the reduced costs make the switch a done deal. As much as we might have hoped that Linux would take out MS, it appears instead to be taking business from companies like Sun and SGI. With perfect hindsight, it seems obvious; it's trivial to port programs from Solaris or IRIX to Linux. It's far more difficult to port MS Windows Severely Bloated API (TM) programs to Linux.
Depends on what you mean by "the money." There are any number of non-profit companies that only take in enough money to cover their expenses. Their usual focus is providing a service that isn't a big cash cow that would entice big time CEOs and slobbering shareholders demanding 40% per year returns.
Give it a rest. People need to focus on the positive aspects of Open Source and stop dwelling on this lawsuit. Regardless of the outcome, having this "news" constantly at the forefront is only going to damage Linux and Open Source due to the FUD factor.
I certainly see your point, and I wish I could agree with it, but any *little guy* against IBM is going to be in the news as long as the media can milk a nickel from the story. And, as you pointed out, the story will continue for years.
The PHBs are going to be subjected to the FUD in their weekly perusal of the trade rags, no matter what. Isn't it better to have the so-called community leaders make reassuring noises and provide countering arguments for the Linux advocates to use? Otherwise, it appears we're just accepting SCO's claims.
To think that they're just in it for the money leaves me feeling hollow inside and disillusioned.
Rest assured, it's not about money; it's about protecting the sacred System V code from dilution by the heretic IBM. Remember what the Profit^H^H^Hphet McBride said: "We showed our contract to outside people, and they said, 'You have *sniff* *sniff* a very strong contract here.'"
And there is one reason for profit corporations exist-- to make money. This is a surprise why?
Profit is not the only reason corporations exist. There are non-profit and not-for-profit corporations. There was a time when "corporation" was not synonymous with legalized greed. It's sad that people no longer remember when companies had a conscience and that it was expected.
I hate it when the aliens start insulting this planet. Look, this is an admittedly Earth-centric web site, and if you don't like it, you don't have to visit.:)
His wife can stand in for him. She's something like 5-time Finnish karate champ.
McBride testifies: "IBM gave away our heritage, and Linus took it because he's lousy at protecting IP".
Mrs. Torvalds starts across the courtroom and breaks Sontag's spine when he tries to stop her and then messes up McBride's moussed hair before snapping his neck.
If SCO wanted to save face, and perhaps live on, they'd do better to turn 180 degrees and contribute to Linux. They could actually make a market for an SCO Linux distro . ..
SCO is dead (not just dying like BSD:) to the Linux community. After the SCO's employees little anti-Linux demonstration, I have no remorse about watching that company swirl down the toilet like a departed gerbil (rest in peace). I don't believe there is anything they could do that would allow them to make a viable Linux distribution again. Their only hope for survival is to convince some addlepated judge that they have sole license to all operating systems that somewhat resemble UNIX(R)(C)(TM)(Pat. Pend.).
If they used standard project management procedures, use project coding standards, have full source code review; how can there be security concerns? Sounds totally like scare mongering to me!
Mod that up, +5 Hilarious. It sounds just like a PHB pointing to an overhead.
Excuse me for being naive but I had hoped that we in the tech community had left this kind of thinking behind.
You're excused, and the original poster obviously wasn't talking about OSS. The EU is demanding that all U.S. digital products sold there include a VAT. No doubt, you will tell us how that differs from a tariff. Personally, I'm not happy about all my personal (credit card) information being handled overseas in countries known to be unfriendly to the U.S. (which is pretty much everybody these days:). I recently suffered my first case of credit account theft in several decades of use, and the charges came from overseas.
Have they ever had software that was made overseas and which caused a security problem ?
Even more than home-made Microsoft - ware ?
You mean like all the Microsoft software exploits that originate overseas? The original MS software is only dangerous to the people trying to get their work done.
My rambling point is this....the U.S. Government, particuarly the DOD, will be using software made by non-friendly parties with an axe to grind, without ever receiving the source code or knowing who actually wrote the software. And what's more, it's been my experience the bueacracy really doesn't give a sh*t as long as they can pass the buck.
Excellent points, but in some cases, they do know that possibly "non-friendly parties" are writing the software and use it anyway. Recently, U.S. government agencies were required to do background checks on employees and contractors for review by the FPA. Even though the DoD has a number of H-1B programmers (I have no idea why), they refused to do the checks. Apparently, they didn't want to be accused of profiling. The end result was that American residents were subjected to background checks and possible termination but not foreign workers at the DoD. So much for national security.
Obviously, having all software written in the US eliminates the risk of having security risks.
No. Having all software for government agencies written in the U.S. greatly reduces the risk of deliberately planted back doors and logic bombs. The company in question can't even keep a confidential database secure. From the article:
The company also does not make customer information stored in its sales support database generally available within the company, he said, adding that it was unclear how it would have been possible for Gabrenya to have the authorization to view the security agency customer data.
If it's hard for well-meaning coders to produce exploit-free programs, how difficult is it going to be for coders who were taught to hate the U.S. to introduce potential buffer overflows? And please don't give the tired old code review argument. If code reviews stopped exploits, there wouldn't be any - well, from organizations that do reviews more often than every 20 years, anyway.
While I agree with your point, I think Microsoft's current 80% profit margin is already insane. That's how they got $40 billion in the bank. The profit margin in many industries is in the low single-digits.
Mandrake leaves much to be desired. I have been wrestling with it for a month, and it still won't behave like I want it to. Programs don't always open, one program crash can bring down the whole OS.
What the heck are you trying to run? I've been using 9.1 since it was released, and the only complaint I have is that OpenOffice takes a very long time to start. I can't recall any programs crashing and certainly not the OS. One warning though, don't use the "upgrade" option - do a full install.
And when no evidence that company "x" actually engaged in a contract with a spammer ?? What then ?
If "no evidence" means no prosecution, then it becomes the obvious loophole. You deal with a spammer under the table then claim it's your competitor trying to put you out of business. The whole point is you have to get the guy doing the actual crime. And please don't tell me that spammers are honest businessmen who wouldn't stoop to doing shady deals.
The REAL key: prosecute the ADVERTISER as well as the spammer. When advertisers find that spamming can COST them big bucks, they'll drop it. ..
Hey, that's a great idea. We'll just set up a spam operation and advertise our competitor's product. Pretty soon, they're out of business and we have the market to ourselves.
Toward thee I scroll, thou unconquering but all-destroying fail; to the last I grapple with thee; from Bill's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake, I spit my espresso at thee.
Why is it that I heard Ricardo Montalban's voice and pictured starships while reading that?
Re:You'll just have to wait...
on
The Bug
·
· Score: 1
Lemme guess his girlfriend shags her male friend, he finds the bug, but it proves to be unfixable without rewriting everything, so he commits suicide?
No, no. His girlfriend is in cahoots with the CM guy at work, who is reintroducing the bug with every alternate commit, so the coder will be too busy to interrupt her fling with the buff non-geek. I think the whole plot was done on General Hospital last week.
Slashdot Mirror
The grass is always greener on the other side. If you were working with Linux, you'd be complaining about the boring things and obnoxious "features" there, too.
Really? I work with both Windows and Linux/Unix, and I don't have any complaints about boredom on the *nix development side, nor do I get headaches from some Make-a-completely-indecipherable-function-call-tha t-returns-god-know-what-and-will-be-broken-on-ever y-other-release API call.
Being a farmer is an insult?
Good point. Especially today, with many farmers having Ag degrees and computerizing their operations (like everyone else). They are business(wo)men, just like in any other trade or industry.
As someone pointed out, Darl McBride has claimed that SCO owns C++
Okay, that does it. I just wrote a destructor for the McBride class, and I'm gonna use it.
Believe me, they [Sun] make their money because of the bad ass hardware they use and not because of Solaris.
Maybe, but we have started replacing both Sun and SGI servers with multi-processor Intel boxes running Linux. The performance is sometimes better or sometimes slightly worse, but in any case, the reduced costs make the switch a done deal. As much as we might have hoped that Linux would take out MS, it appears instead to be taking business from companies like Sun and SGI. With perfect hindsight, it seems obvious; it's trivial to port programs from Solaris or IRIX to Linux. It's far more difficult to port MS Windows Severely Bloated API (TM) programs to Linux.
Name me one company that's not about the money.
Depends on what you mean by "the money." There are any number of non-profit companies that only take in enough money to cover their expenses. Their usual focus is providing a service that isn't a big cash cow that would entice big time CEOs and slobbering shareholders demanding 40% per year returns.
Give it a rest. People need to focus on the positive aspects of Open Source and stop dwelling on this lawsuit. Regardless of the outcome, having this "news" constantly at the forefront is only going to damage Linux and Open Source due to the FUD factor.
I certainly see your point, and I wish I could agree with it, but any *little guy* against IBM is going to be in the news as long as the media can milk a nickel from the story. And, as you pointed out, the story will continue for years.
The PHBs are going to be subjected to the FUD in their weekly perusal of the trade rags, no matter what. Isn't it better to have the so-called community leaders make reassuring noises and provide countering arguments for the Linux advocates to use? Otherwise, it appears we're just accepting SCO's claims.
To think that they're just in it for the money leaves me feeling hollow inside and disillusioned.
Rest assured, it's not about money; it's about protecting the sacred System V code from dilution by the heretic IBM. Remember what the Profit^H^H^Hphet McBride said: "We showed our contract to outside people, and they said, 'You have *sniff* *sniff* a very strong contract here.'"
Oops, my bad. Shoulda' read that line more carefully AND used the preview button. The remark about greed still stands, though.
And there is one reason for profit corporations exist-- to make money. This is a surprise why?
Profit is not the only reason corporations exist. There are non-profit and not-for-profit corporations. There was a time when "corporation" was not synonymous with legalized greed. It's sad that people no longer remember when companies had a conscience and that it was expected.
Actually, the earth is an oblique ellipsoid.
I hate it when the aliens start insulting this planet. Look, this is an admittedly Earth-centric web site, and if you don't like it, you don't have to visit. :)
Let's hope IBM mashes them into paste, and gets awarded their houses and first born sons in settlement.
Houses maybe, but I heard that McBride and Sontag eat their offspring.
His wife can stand in for him. She's something like 5-time Finnish karate champ.
McBride testifies: "IBM gave away our heritage, and Linus took it because he's lousy at protecting IP".
Mrs. Torvalds starts across the courtroom and breaks Sontag's spine when he tries to stop her and then messes up McBride's moussed hair before snapping his neck.
The judge rules it a double suicide.
You gotta love happy endings.
If SCO wanted to save face, and perhaps live on, they'd do better to turn 180 degrees and contribute to Linux. They could actually make a market for an SCO Linux distro . . .
SCO is dead (not just dying like BSD :) to the Linux community. After the SCO's employees little anti-Linux demonstration, I have no remorse about watching that company swirl down the toilet like a departed gerbil (rest in peace). I don't believe there is anything they could do that would allow them to make a viable Linux distribution again. Their only hope for survival is to convince some addlepated judge that they have sole license to all operating systems that somewhat resemble UNIX(R)(C)(TM)(Pat. Pend.).
If they used standard project management procedures, use project coding standards, have full source code review; how can there be security concerns? Sounds totally like scare mongering to me!
Mod that up, +5 Hilarious. It sounds just like a PHB pointing to an overhead.
Excuse me for being naive but I had hoped that we in the tech community had left this kind of thinking behind.
You're excused, and the original poster obviously wasn't talking about OSS. The EU is demanding that all U.S. digital products sold there include a VAT. No doubt, you will tell us how that differs from a tariff. Personally, I'm not happy about all my personal (credit card) information being handled overseas in countries known to be unfriendly to the U.S. (which is pretty much everybody these days :). I recently suffered my first case of credit account theft in several decades of use, and the charges came from overseas.
Have they ever had software that was made overseas and which caused a security problem ? Even more than home-made Microsoft - ware ?
You mean like all the Microsoft software exploits that originate overseas? The original MS software is only dangerous to the people trying to get their work done.
My rambling point is this....the U.S. Government, particuarly the DOD, will be using software made by non-friendly parties with an axe to grind, without ever receiving the source code or knowing who actually wrote the software. And what's more, it's been my experience the bueacracy really doesn't give a sh*t as long as they can pass the buck.
Excellent points, but in some cases, they do know that possibly "non-friendly parties" are writing the software and use it anyway. Recently, U.S. government agencies were required to do background checks on employees and contractors for review by the FPA. Even though the DoD has a number of H-1B programmers (I have no idea why), they refused to do the checks. Apparently, they didn't want to be accused of profiling. The end result was that American residents were subjected to background checks and possible termination but not foreign workers at the DoD. So much for national security.
Obviously, having all software written in the US eliminates the risk of having security risks.
No. Having all software for government agencies written in the U.S. greatly reduces the risk of deliberately planted back doors and logic bombs. The company in question can't even keep a confidential database secure. From the article:
The company also does not make customer information stored in its sales support database generally available within the company, he said, adding that it was unclear how it would have been possible for Gabrenya to have the authorization to view the security agency customer data.
If it's hard for well-meaning coders to produce exploit-free programs, how difficult is it going to be for coders who were taught to hate the U.S. to introduce potential buffer overflows? And please don't give the tired old code review argument. If code reviews stopped exploits, there wouldn't be any - well, from organizations that do reviews more often than every 20 years, anyway.
. . .
5. Insane profit margins.
While I agree with your point, I think Microsoft's current 80% profit margin is already insane. That's how they got $40 billion in the bank. The profit margin in many industries is in the low single-digits.
Mandrake leaves much to be desired. I have been wrestling with it for a month, and it still won't behave like I want it to. Programs don't always open, one program crash can bring down the whole OS.
What the heck are you trying to run? I've been using 9.1 since it was released, and the only complaint I have is that OpenOffice takes a very long time to start. I can't recall any programs crashing and certainly not the OS. One warning though, don't use the "upgrade" option - do a full install.
And when no evidence that company "x" actually engaged in a contract with a spammer ?? What then ?
If "no evidence" means no prosecution, then it becomes the obvious loophole. You deal with a spammer under the table then claim it's your competitor trying to put you out of business. The whole point is you have to get the guy doing the actual crime. And please don't tell me that spammers are honest businessmen who wouldn't stoop to doing shady deals.
The REAL key: prosecute the ADVERTISER as well as the spammer. When advertisers find that spamming can COST them big bucks, they'll drop it. . .
Hey, that's a great idea. We'll just set up a spam operation and advertise our competitor's product. Pretty soon, they're out of business and we have the market to ourselves.
Toward thee I scroll, thou unconquering but all-destroying fail; to the last I grapple with thee; from Bill's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake, I spit my espresso at thee.
Why is it that I heard Ricardo Montalban's voice and pictured starships while reading that?
Lemme guess his girlfriend shags her male friend, he finds the bug, but it proves to be unfixable without rewriting everything, so he commits suicide?
No, no. His girlfriend is in cahoots with the CM guy at work, who is reintroducing the bug with every alternate commit, so the coder will be too busy to interrupt her fling with the buff non-geek. I think the whole plot was done on General Hospital last week.
On Error Resume Next
You didn't read the article either. It wasn't about Microsoft kernel coding.