That I can install it and get most of the software I use up and going in just a matter of hours
That most of the software I use can be found in a repository, ready to go and not send my system into dependency hell
That what I have to custom compile, does so fairly cleanly.
That I can find answers easily in the user forums.
That I don't wonder why my system now drags with this new distro on it.
That Fluxbox, XFCE4 and KDE are easy to get going.
It is the little things like with composting turned on by default in x11 breaking some old apps. They need to be run with "export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1 && appname" to get them going. It has made life easy in Ubuntu and it was not so good in Fedora
It's very likely that few documents exist in such old formats at this point.
Back in 1998 I worked at a company which had been purchased by a larger company. The larger company was planning on stripping everything of value from where I worked and then close the place down, which they actually did in February of 1999.
I spent 6 months converting CAD drawings and documents from floppies (5 1/4, and 3 1/2 inch) and Bernoulli disks. I had to convert stuff from 1984 through 1995 into newer formats, which would be Word 97, Excel 97 and whatever was the current version of Autocad.
So I had to deal with converting stuff from Macs, converting EPS's. There was some document format used by the government contractors for military, that was used in the late 80's and early 90's. There were WordPerfect documents, lotus 1-2-3, other CAD formats.
They thought that all that stuff would be available to them forever. Now, they will have to convert all of that stuff PLUS everthing we did from 97 to 99 to a new format. I am sure it will happen like it did for me. They will someday in 2015 have to pull out an old CD I had burned back in 1998. They will find a file with a name like "System 3 Analyzer procedure to detect aluminum and cyanide in a solution to 5 parts per billion.doc" and realize that Office 2014 does NOT open up anything older than Office 2007 formatted documents. Then they will have to go out and find some half assed converter to open that old document. Then have 3 people take 6 months converting all of those old formatted documents.
I wish them luck. A Word document done on the mac with 75 eps images each 2 or 3 megs in size then converted to Word for Windows 97 is NOT real stable to begin with. Just inserting a paragraph can corrupt a document like that. I would not like to be the person doing the conversion with a third party product from Word 97 to Word 2014.
With any luck, someone will have a pirate copy of a VMware image of Windows XP or 2000 with a copy of Office 2000 in it.
Also, TFA has absolutely no content on which to base its claims. It mentions 4 things, PulseAudio, CodecBuddy, Spins, and the Fedora theme.
The article links to a list of "things" that are in Fedora 8. What I find the most interesting is the removal of PAM for authentication and using dBus instead.
I can hardly wait for it to be refined a bit and rolled into Ubuntu.
I have been using Linux since 1999. Slackware, Redhat, Mandrake, PCLinux, Knoppix, Mepis, Gentoo, and 10 or 15 others. I used to have 2 extra partitions on my drive just for trying new distros and I tried any I could get my hands on.
I finally ended up back in Slackware. Much faster than Fedora and easier than Gentoo. I have had my share of RPM hell and tgz packages rocked. With every new install I would spend 2 or 3 days downloading tgzs, compiling custom packages and resolving compiler errors to get my system the way I wanted it.
I finally tried Ubuntu around Dapper Drake times. What I discovered is that 98% of all the software I used was either in the Ubuntu or Debian repositories. Pretty much the only thing NOT in the repositories are 5 or 6 dock apps I like to run. So my average install takes about 4 hours now. Install, update, install packages and finally compile the few missing programs.
Unless the Fedora repositories have improved in the last 2 years or so. I can set up a bitchin Fedora Box in no time flat. Then I have to risk it to strange RPMs and possibly end up in dependency hell. Or I have to run down all the devel packages and build all of the goodies I use myself.
Unless I have a sudden surplus of time on my hands, I think I am sticking with Ubuntu. But I am all for cross-pollination. Anything RedHat does that is better Ubuntu gets to adopt. Anything that Ubuntu does better, RedHat gets to adopt.
I was only 15 when Blade Runner hit the theaters. I was a little hooligan.
At the Safeway store I read DADOES.
At the 7-11 I read the Marvel Blade Runner comic book.
At the theater, me and a friend paid for ONE movie and then snuck into several other movies. The last of which was Blade Runner. They caught us and we got "ejected" from the theater about half way through the movie.
Those were the good ol' days. Good times to be had by all.
which to my mind is classic Dick -- a cool idea, executed poorly
Mod parent up.
That is my summary of every book I have ever read by Dick. You read the back cover, you are introduced to some amazing concept. The story starts out with promise. Then just takes a left turn and goes nowhere.
Although in DADOES the idea of Rachel and Pris being the same model thus twins was cool. After all, when fighting someone who is already faster than you, being at the disadvantage of even slower reflexes because they look like someone you love is interesting. Also a group of replicants hiding out as a blade runnner unit and deckard having to prove to them he was human was cool. However the mood organ and religious tele show needed to go...once again typical Dick.
It is not likely that they will appeal. Standard operating procedure is they have to put up some money into a trust in case Novell does prevail. They don't have the money to put in the trust. Even if the US Bankruptcy Trustee would green light the deal. So they can claim they have been wronged all day long and that they will appeal.
Practically speaking the only way they can even have a chance with IBM is if they can fulfill step one in the process. Who owns the copyrights. SCO has to own them to be able to continue with the case. Until they win IBM or come out of bankruptcy, they don't have them money to appeal the Novell decision. Until they appeal the Novell decision, they don't have a chance of owning the copyrights they need to win the IBM case. Thus a perfect chicken and the egg or catch 22 scenario.
Why hold the lawyers responsible?
Because as soon as they looked at the APA AND the fact that they knew or should have known that SCO called and AKSED for the pattens within 2 months of hiring Boise. They knew that their client did NOT own unix copyrights, all they owned was.
1. SCO Unixware
2. the righg to collect Unix license money and to pass 100% of it back to Novell
3. The right to receive 5% of that Unix license money back from Novel as payment for collecting it in the first place.
4. Any copyrights for new stuff they created since they acquired Unixware
5. The obligation to listen to Novel as far as who to sue/not sue collect/not collect in relation to Unix.
Boise should have turned the case down. As an officer of the court they should have informed their client that they did not own any of the copyrights. That even if their was a cloud of doubt, once they phoned Novell for them, they had screwed the pooch and could not get them. That they did not have the right to terminate the license to AIX. That even if they had proof of Linux getting stuff from Unix via IBM, that they did not own those copyrights and should just "let it go". That they had no grounds to sue Novell for Slander of Title and every reason to believe that it would NOT be in the best interests of their client to do so. To not make an attempt to mitigate their clients damage by letting linux users know what they claimed to own. "You know you have stolen it, and we are going to let you continue to steal it and then you will have to pay us for it when we prove it in court four years from now", just does not fly as living up to the standard of being an office of the court.
With what Boise should have known from day one, they should not have taken the case. If they figured it out later, they should have persuaded their client to change what they were doing, even if it meant losing the case.
All of this does not even take into account the fact that the Unix copyrights are so muddied by the amount of material that has been published about the inner workings of UNIX that there pretty much are not trade secretes or protected materials that had not already been exposed. That SCO was a member of UnitedLinux and had a covenant to NOT sue other members. Thta SCO had distributed and continued to distribute LINUX with the very "IBM" included stuff in the linux kernel, so they were furthing their own harm.
Yup, the judge should bitch slap them back to 2003. Then put their head on a pike as a reminder to other lawyers that no matter how large the retainer is, you can't get away with taking a case that you know is a sham and just walk away from it at the end.
Look at it this way the bar just got substantially lower for the next release. Instead of shooting for innovative they're just trying for "Doesn't suck".
There is a whole different world view between: "I want to hit a home run" and "I just don't want to miss the ball".
And I do believe that Microsoft has just changed paradigms.
Old Linux on the Desktop was as dead as a doornail.
There is no doubt about that. The register of his burial could be seen on netcraft, PC Magizine and thetruthaboutlinux.com. Bill Gates had signed it: and Bill Gates FUD was as good as any in the industry. Desktop linux was dead as a doornail.
Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge what is particularly dead about desktop linux. I might have been inclined, myself , to reguard OS/2 as the deadest desktop in the trade. But the wisdom of the largest banner ads has convinced the masses; and my humble slackware box shall not disturb this, or the industry is done for. You will there for permit me to repeat. Desktop linux was dead.
Bill Gates knew it was dead. Of course he did. How could it be otherwise. Gates had been trying to bury it for I don't know how many years. Gates OS was to be the sole source of a desktop environment for all users, in schools government and houses. Even Gates was not cut up by this sad event and solemnized it by raising the prices on Windows.
The mention of desktop Linux's death brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Gates thought desktop linux was dead. Gates held the patents. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.
Stave Two - 98 The ghosts of desktops past
Stave Three - XP The ghosts of desktops present
Stave Four - Vista The ghost of the desktop future that is not to be
Not when XP came out and everyone was all "I love my 2k and I will never upgrade ever. Fucking XP is rubbish. I will never ever ever use it ever."
I did a lot of computer repair work back when XP first came out AND handed out a lot of advice. I am also as uncomfortable with Microsoft as the next guy. When someone would buy XP back then. I had to admit, it was a step up from 98. Now I did not want to change from 98, it was plenty stable for me and used less resources.
But I could understand why people upgraded. It was more stable for the average user who did not know how to tweak his machine. Some people even liked the fisher price interface. A good laptop or desktop ran XP decently.
Of course spyware and drive by downloads made XP a disaster for the average lo-tech user. Since 2004, it takes less than 3 months to reduce XP to such a mess, that it has to be reloaded.
Flash forward to today and I could not say the same thing. Anyone who is in the market for a computer I warn to not try vista, especially if they are comfortable with XP. It runs slower on hardware that would make XP fly. If you are an average lo-tech user, you will be confused by how everything you are used to has been moved around. Many new features are downright invasive.
Being objective about things. I have gone from "upgrading from 98 to XP, well to each his own" to "upgrade from XP to Vista, you will regret it".
We have one Vista laptop user left at work and he is begging to get back to XP. Lets face it. Vista is a dog no one wants to take for a walk.
Microsoft is drowning in their own bureaucracy. 15 levels between the programmer and Gates. 15 people involved in the shutdown button on Vista. 1 programmer. Plus his supervisor, a tester, a GUI team and the power management team. Every time the ONE programmer made a change,14 other people had to sign off on it. 50 million lines of code in Vista. Microsoft had to dump everything they did on it from 2000 through 2003 and start over again in 2004. Vista certainly was not ready when it hit the streets.
Software had gone full circle. In the late 70's and early 80's Gates ran around telling us how the computer industry would never happen unless free software went away and we all were willing to pay money for software.
Now free software is at least as valid of development model as paid software is. Microsoft cant' sustain it's current growth rate. They can't create new versions of Windows and Office fast enough. The current versions (XP and 2003) are good enough people are not inclined to upgrade. They are not making the inroads in Console games (8 billion in losses over 6 years), smart phones, or other markets they are moving into. Unless something changes, they will not be able to sustain their current profit levels.
MSFT made 14 billion dollars in net income on 51 billion dollars in sales in 2007. That's 27% net, after tax, income....To provide some contrast, GE made 12% net profit in 2006, and is widely regarded as one of the more reliably performing large companies out there.
Yes, but Microsoft is peeing in bed to stay warm. It works for a while.....
As far as I know, every monopoly from 14th century button makers to the RIAA eventually meet up with a disruptive technology and whoosh out the door goes the monopoly. More often than not, those companies that were monopolies don't survive that transition very well.
At this point I would bet that GE will still be doing 12% in 50 years. If Microsoft is doing 12% at that point, it will probably happen with them owning far less than 50% of the market. A shadow of their former self.
The whole point of the court case was to determine what the contract said and if it granted SCO the rights (which would mean linux companies would be liable for money.
No it would mean we could figure out what UNIX copyrights Novell actually held so we could know what copyrights SCO actually held.
Then we could see if IBM had violated any of those copyrights by putting code they wrote and may have "co-mingled" with copyrighted code SCO owned put that in linux.
Then we could see if IBM had put such code into Linux, what they owed SCO in damages for doing it.
Then we could also see such code could be removed from Linux and implemented in another manner. Or if Linux is screwed, needs that code, and needs to license it. Unless of course going after Linux at that point would be double dipping since IBM would of had to pay up.
Since SCO can be shown to own NO unix copyrights, they can't prove IBM co-mingled them with their own code and them put that code into linux. End of story.
What really did them in. Is this. SCO paraded in everyone they could find at Novell who talked about the APA around the water cooler. "I heard that Joe said that Tina knew that Tom meant to transfer copyrights"
Then Novell was able to present the actual attorney who worked on the contract and APA. Who was at the board meeting where they talked about no copyrights were to transfer because Santa Cruz was not paying enough money. He still had the hand written notes from those meetings. THAT my friends is what put the nail in the coffin on that point.
I will also mention that if SCO had a case. All they had to do, was present the lawyer(s) who worked for Santa Cruz that had the proof of intent of copyright transfers. But since they that information did not exist. They did not present those laywers. Instead they put on the dog and pony show of Novell employee water cooler talk.
It probably did not help that SCO in 2003 BEFORE filing a law suit against IBM called Novell and asked for the patents. Since Novell had documentation to back up that those phone calls actually took place. Lets just say it would be hard to explain how SCO thought they had the copyrights but then still felt a need to call up Novell and ask for them again.
SCO may not survive long enough to appeal this ruling.
Novell told the court earlier this year it wanted the money to be put in a trust so that SCO did not spend it all. SCO assured the court that they had plenty of dough and it would not be necessary. Then as soon as the court finds against them. All of a sudden they are broke and need bankruptcy protection.
If Novell had been strong arming them. Taking advantage of the fact that they were a smaller company. Were trying to game the system where they forced SCO into a position where they could not afford to file an appeal. I would feel bad.
Since SCO filed the suit and assured the court that they had the money to see the case all the way through a trial and appeal. Then it turns out they did not have the money. Can't say that I feel real bad for them.
Zimbra is fine, as long as you don't need many of the little missing features...like return receipts and such.
I am not sure I know of a more overused and unneeded feature in email.
Most of my users have it set so all messages ask for return receipts. You are constantly prompted that the sender wanted a receipt. Remember folks! One of the answers is "No". So just because you ask for a receipt, there is NO guarantee that you will get one.
It is abused because 90% of the time it is used it is not needed. Then for the 10% of the time where it is needed. You can not be sure that it will work because of the user at the other end (in your company) or that the mail client will handle it (for users outside your company).
That was just an example. Not everyones discography is online via torrent. In addition to that, there are a lot of crazy little songs that air on Dr. Demento that are not available now. They were in 1999 or 2000 but now they are gone.
But thanks for the ONJ link
The RIAA's campaign has had an effect. The people who get caught, are sharing LOTS of files. So if you don't share lots of files, you are much more likely to go "under the radar". Many folks who used to share large catalogs of mp3's no longer do so. Try downloading something by Olivia Newton John for instance. Unless the song was a top ten hit, must music from the 50's through the 90's is no longer out there.
The new stuff the RIAA is worried about still gets pirated like mad. The older stuff just is not shared any more.
"They need to update their business model or face becoming extinct."
Everyone says this but nobody actually explains WTF they mean. These guys manufacture music. How exactly can they run a business without charging people to buy the music?
They are talking about these folks a) providing a service that people need and b) doing it at a reasonable price
You can buy a DVD, with extras and the soundtrack for the movie for $10.00. However, if you go out and buy the CD of the soundtrack, it is $18.00? CD's cost almost nothing to make. Professional studio time is spendy. But a band, at home for $10,000.00 can make an album that sounds "good enough". So what service are the offering?
Once they controlled all the doors, they had all the keys. Making records had some cost to it. Stores needed records, artists needed a way to record and promote those records. The middle man in this case figured out how to make all the money.
The digital age is much like the age of the printing press. When books had to be copied by hand, they were rare and expensive. With the advent of the printing press books became cheaper. If you priced a book made on a press the same as a handwritten book. Well, someone would buy one copy, typeset it, print their own knockoff and sell it cheaper than what the original was selling for. Despite copyright law. As long as books were so overpriced that the discrepancy between what a book cost and what it was sold for was so large. There were pirates willing to make a profit on that difference.
With the advent of digital media. You cant sell those bits like you are the only one who can make them. That you can set any price you want for them and people will have to pay. Setting the price on a digital item that high invites someone to copy and make a profit off of it. That is why they need to update their business model. Every man, woman and child now has their own printing press and free typesetting. Not a good environment to be overcharging for books in.
What they could do now, is provide CDs at a decent price. Make downloads available. Open up the complete back catalog. Then provide a site or sites that make searching easy and finding new music and old music easy.
However, they are not reasonably pricing their product. They are not providing a service that has "value" to it proportional to it's cost.
Articles like this one worry me, because it makes me think XP SP3 will never see the light of day now that the news is out that gives people even less reason to change to Vista.
In the short term, Micosoft has to make XP available to OEM's like DELL/HP till at least June of 2008. They are running out of valid unused activation keys. The main feature of XP SP3 is that an new install CD or one you slipstream is that it will allow a new sequence of activation keys.
So SP3 must come. They could rig it to slow down XP. But at this point it would get a lot of bad press if they did it.
BTW, I've yet to meet someone who hates Microsoft Office
Back in the mid 90's I used WordPerfect, Quattro Pro and Paradox. All of them better than Microsoft Office. I now support 75 Office users. I have dosbox and dosemu. I often end up using Wordperfect or Paradox to fix some problem.
For Instance, if you have a document with TextText (2 blank lines between paragraphs) and you only want 1 blank line or indented paragraphs. Try doing that in Word without a complicated macro. In Wordperfect you search for [Cr][Cr][Cr] and replace it with [Cr][Cr], then you could replace that with [Cr][Tab].
Trust me, there are plenty of Office haters out here. Every time I think "just turn on reveal codes" I start to fume.
Four weeks ago they let go a supervisor at a remote location. HR had Payroll drop them from the system. Which also killed that persons access to the timecard system. Since the job they normally do near the end of the day (before their manager came in and let them go) is to make sure all of their employee time sheets look correct. So as soon as they could not log in to the timecard system. I got the call. Once I saw they were deleted. I called HR and found out what was going on. It was a fun conversation trying not to tip that person off that they had 15 minutes of employment left.
Then this last week. HR was there when they let someone go. Followed them back to their desk and stood there as the person opened up outlook, deleted all of their emails. Opened up excel. Opened several spread sheets, deleted their contents, saved them back out and then delete the folder those files were in. The ex-employee then leaves. HR calls me in and say "I think they deleted some stuff out of Outlook and Excel. Can you find out what it was and get it back?"
I reminded them that A) When you let someone go, you let IT know and DO NOT LET THEM GET BACK ON THEIR COMPUTER and B) You need to remind my boss I deserve a raise.
Truth be told, those are the only screwups we have had between HR and IT in the 3 years I have been there.Overall not bad. But boy, how far up my ass am I expected to reach to pull out deleted files?
Yeah, the PS3 is going to have competition. They are still writing games for the PS2!
The PS2 is still being manufactured. Some of the units they made 7 years ago. Even if Sony stopped right now. There will still be a sizable PS2 market 3 or 4 years from now. As it stands, I think the PS2 will still be doing well in 7 years.
My 12 year old son is still clamoring for a PS2. So the PS2 market is STILL expanding.
Slashdot Mirror
I care about three things
Back in 1998 I worked at a company which had been purchased by a larger company. The larger company was planning on stripping everything of value from where I worked and then close the place down, which they actually did in February of 1999.
I spent 6 months converting CAD drawings and documents from floppies (5 1/4, and 3 1/2 inch) and Bernoulli disks. I had to convert stuff from 1984 through 1995 into newer formats, which would be Word 97, Excel 97 and whatever was the current version of Autocad.
So I had to deal with converting stuff from Macs, converting EPS's. There was some document format used by the government contractors for military, that was used in the late 80's and early 90's. There were WordPerfect documents, lotus 1-2-3, other CAD formats.
They thought that all that stuff would be available to them forever. Now, they will have to convert all of that stuff PLUS everthing we did from 97 to 99 to a new format. I am sure it will happen like it did for me. They will someday in 2015 have to pull out an old CD I had burned back in 1998. They will find a file with a name like "System 3 Analyzer procedure to detect aluminum and cyanide in a solution to 5 parts per billion.doc" and realize that Office 2014 does NOT open up anything older than Office 2007 formatted documents. Then they will have to go out and find some half assed converter to open that old document. Then have 3 people take 6 months converting all of those old formatted documents.
I wish them luck. A Word document done on the mac with 75 eps images each 2 or 3 megs in size then converted to Word for Windows 97 is NOT real stable to begin with. Just inserting a paragraph can corrupt a document like that. I would not like to be the person doing the conversion with a third party product from Word 97 to Word 2014.
With any luck, someone will have a pirate copy of a VMware image of Windows XP or 2000 with a copy of Office 2000 in it.
The article links to a list of "things" that are in Fedora 8. What I find the most interesting is the removal of PAM for authentication and using dBus instead.
I can hardly wait for it to be refined a bit and rolled into Ubuntu.
I have been using Linux since 1999. Slackware, Redhat, Mandrake, PCLinux, Knoppix, Mepis, Gentoo, and 10 or 15 others. I used to have 2 extra partitions on my drive just for trying new distros and I tried any I could get my hands on.
I finally ended up back in Slackware. Much faster than Fedora and easier than Gentoo. I have had my share of RPM hell and tgz packages rocked. With every new install I would spend 2 or 3 days downloading tgzs, compiling custom packages and resolving compiler errors to get my system the way I wanted it.
I finally tried Ubuntu around Dapper Drake times. What I discovered is that 98% of all the software I used was either in the Ubuntu or Debian repositories. Pretty much the only thing NOT in the repositories are 5 or 6 dock apps I like to run. So my average install takes about 4 hours now. Install, update, install packages and finally compile the few missing programs.
Unless the Fedora repositories have improved in the last 2 years or so. I can set up a bitchin Fedora Box in no time flat. Then I have to risk it to strange RPMs and possibly end up in dependency hell. Or I have to run down all the devel packages and build all of the goodies I use myself.
Unless I have a sudden surplus of time on my hands, I think I am sticking with Ubuntu. But I am all for cross-pollination. Anything RedHat does that is better Ubuntu gets to adopt. Anything that Ubuntu does better, RedHat gets to adopt.
At the Safeway store I read DADOES.
At the 7-11 I read the Marvel Blade Runner comic book.
At the theater, me and a friend paid for ONE movie and then snuck into several other movies. The last of which was Blade Runner. They caught us and we got "ejected" from the theater about half way through the movie.
Those were the good ol' days. Good times to be had by all.
Mod parent up.
That is my summary of every book I have ever read by Dick. You read the back cover, you are introduced to some amazing concept. The story starts out with promise. Then just takes a left turn and goes nowhere.
Although in DADOES the idea of Rachel and Pris being the same model thus twins was cool. After all, when fighting someone who is already faster than you, being at the disadvantage of even slower reflexes because they look like someone you love is interesting. Also a group of replicants hiding out as a blade runnner unit and deckard having to prove to them he was human was cool. However the mood organ and religious tele show needed to go...once again typical Dick.
It is not likely that they will appeal. Standard operating procedure is they have to put up some money into a trust in case Novell does prevail. They don't have the money to put in the trust. Even if the US Bankruptcy Trustee would green light the deal. So they can claim they have been wronged all day long and that they will appeal.
Practically speaking the only way they can even have a chance with IBM is if they can fulfill step one in the process. Who owns the copyrights. SCO has to own them to be able to continue with the case. Until they win IBM or come out of bankruptcy, they don't have them money to appeal the Novell decision. Until they appeal the Novell decision, they don't have a chance of owning the copyrights they need to win the IBM case. Thus a perfect chicken and the egg or catch 22 scenario.
Why hold the lawyers responsible? Because as soon as they looked at the APA AND the fact that they knew or should have known that SCO called and AKSED for the pattens within 2 months of hiring Boise. They knew that their client did NOT own unix copyrights, all they owned was. 1. SCO Unixware 2. the righg to collect Unix license money and to pass 100% of it back to Novell 3. The right to receive 5% of that Unix license money back from Novel as payment for collecting it in the first place. 4. Any copyrights for new stuff they created since they acquired Unixware 5. The obligation to listen to Novel as far as who to sue/not sue collect/not collect in relation to Unix. Boise should have turned the case down. As an officer of the court they should have informed their client that they did not own any of the copyrights. That even if their was a cloud of doubt, once they phoned Novell for them, they had screwed the pooch and could not get them. That they did not have the right to terminate the license to AIX. That even if they had proof of Linux getting stuff from Unix via IBM, that they did not own those copyrights and should just "let it go". That they had no grounds to sue Novell for Slander of Title and every reason to believe that it would NOT be in the best interests of their client to do so. To not make an attempt to mitigate their clients damage by letting linux users know what they claimed to own. "You know you have stolen it, and we are going to let you continue to steal it and then you will have to pay us for it when we prove it in court four years from now", just does not fly as living up to the standard of being an office of the court. With what Boise should have known from day one, they should not have taken the case. If they figured it out later, they should have persuaded their client to change what they were doing, even if it meant losing the case. All of this does not even take into account the fact that the Unix copyrights are so muddied by the amount of material that has been published about the inner workings of UNIX that there pretty much are not trade secretes or protected materials that had not already been exposed. That SCO was a member of UnitedLinux and had a covenant to NOT sue other members. Thta SCO had distributed and continued to distribute LINUX with the very "IBM" included stuff in the linux kernel, so they were furthing their own harm. Yup, the judge should bitch slap them back to 2003. Then put their head on a pike as a reminder to other lawyers that no matter how large the retainer is, you can't get away with taking a case that you know is a sham and just walk away from it at the end.
Wouldn't that be Wii ?
There is a whole different world view between: "I want to hit a home run" and "I just don't want to miss the ball".
And I do believe that Microsoft has just changed paradigms.
Stave I - Desktop Linux
Old Linux on the Desktop was as dead as a doornail.
There is no doubt about that. The register of his burial could be seen on netcraft, PC Magizine and thetruthaboutlinux.com. Bill Gates had signed it: and Bill Gates FUD was as good as any in the industry. Desktop linux was dead as a doornail.
Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge what is particularly dead about desktop linux. I might have been inclined, myself , to reguard OS/2 as the deadest desktop in the trade. But the wisdom of the largest banner ads has convinced the masses; and my humble slackware box shall not disturb this, or the industry is done for. You will there for permit me to repeat. Desktop linux was dead.
Bill Gates knew it was dead. Of course he did. How could it be otherwise. Gates had been trying to bury it for I don't know how many years. Gates OS was to be the sole source of a desktop environment for all users, in schools government and houses. Even Gates was not cut up by this sad event and solemnized it by raising the prices on Windows.
The mention of desktop Linux's death brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Gates thought desktop linux was dead. Gates held the patents. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.
Stave Two - 98 The ghosts of desktops past
Stave Three - XP The ghosts of desktops present
Stave Four - Vista The ghost of the desktop future that is not to be
Not when XP came out and everyone was all "I love my 2k and I will never upgrade ever. Fucking XP is rubbish. I will never ever ever use it ever."
I did a lot of computer repair work back when XP first came out AND handed out a lot of advice. I am also as uncomfortable with Microsoft as the next guy. When someone would buy XP back then. I had to admit, it was a step up from 98. Now I did not want to change from 98, it was plenty stable for me and used less resources.
But I could understand why people upgraded. It was more stable for the average user who did not know how to tweak his machine. Some people even liked the fisher price interface. A good laptop or desktop ran XP decently.
Of course spyware and drive by downloads made XP a disaster for the average lo-tech user. Since 2004, it takes less than 3 months to reduce XP to such a mess, that it has to be reloaded.
Flash forward to today and I could not say the same thing. Anyone who is in the market for a computer I warn to not try vista, especially if they are comfortable with XP. It runs slower on hardware that would make XP fly. If you are an average lo-tech user, you will be confused by how everything you are used to has been moved around. Many new features are downright invasive.
Being objective about things. I have gone from "upgrading from 98 to XP, well to each his own" to "upgrade from XP to Vista, you will regret it".
We have one Vista laptop user left at work and he is begging to get back to XP. Lets face it. Vista is a dog no one wants to take for a walk.
Software had gone full circle. In the late 70's and early 80's Gates ran around telling us how the computer industry would never happen unless free software went away and we all were willing to pay money for software.
Now free software is at least as valid of development model as paid software is. Microsoft cant' sustain it's current growth rate. They can't create new versions of Windows and Office fast enough. The current versions (XP and 2003) are good enough people are not inclined to upgrade. They are not making the inroads in Console games (8 billion in losses over 6 years), smart phones, or other markets they are moving into. Unless something changes, they will not be able to sustain their current profit levels.
Yes, but Microsoft is peeing in bed to stay warm. It works for a while.....
As far as I know, every monopoly from 14th century button makers to the RIAA eventually meet up with a disruptive technology and whoosh out the door goes the monopoly. More often than not, those companies that were monopolies don't survive that transition very well.
At this point I would bet that GE will still be doing 12% in 50 years. If Microsoft is doing 12% at that point, it will probably happen with them owning far less than 50% of the market. A shadow of their former self.
No it would mean we could figure out what UNIX copyrights Novell actually held so we could know what copyrights SCO actually held.
Then we could see if IBM had violated any of those copyrights by putting code they wrote and may have "co-mingled" with copyrighted code SCO owned put that in linux.
Then we could see if IBM had put such code into Linux, what they owed SCO in damages for doing it.
Then we could also see such code could be removed from Linux and implemented in another manner. Or if Linux is screwed, needs that code, and needs to license it. Unless of course going after Linux at that point would be double dipping since IBM would of had to pay up.
Since SCO can be shown to own NO unix copyrights, they can't prove IBM co-mingled them with their own code and them put that code into linux. End of story.
Then Novell was able to present the actual attorney who worked on the contract and APA. Who was at the board meeting where they talked about no copyrights were to transfer because Santa Cruz was not paying enough money. He still had the hand written notes from those meetings. THAT my friends is what put the nail in the coffin on that point.
I will also mention that if SCO had a case. All they had to do, was present the lawyer(s) who worked for Santa Cruz that had the proof of intent of copyright transfers. But since they that information did not exist. They did not present those laywers. Instead they put on the dog and pony show of Novell employee water cooler talk.
It probably did not help that SCO in 2003 BEFORE filing a law suit against IBM called Novell and asked for the patents. Since Novell had documentation to back up that those phone calls actually took place. Lets just say it would be hard to explain how SCO thought they had the copyrights but then still felt a need to call up Novell and ask for them again.
Novell told the court earlier this year it wanted the money to be put in a trust so that SCO did not spend it all. SCO assured the court that they had plenty of dough and it would not be necessary. Then as soon as the court finds against them. All of a sudden they are broke and need bankruptcy protection.
If Novell had been strong arming them. Taking advantage of the fact that they were a smaller company. Were trying to game the system where they forced SCO into a position where they could not afford to file an appeal. I would feel bad.
Since SCO filed the suit and assured the court that they had the money to see the case all the way through a trial and appeal. Then it turns out they did not have the money. Can't say that I feel real bad for them.
I am not sure I know of a more overused and unneeded feature in email.
Most of my users have it set so all messages ask for return receipts. You are constantly prompted that the sender wanted a receipt. Remember folks! One of the answers is "No". So just because you ask for a receipt, there is NO guarantee that you will get one.
It is abused because 90% of the time it is used it is not needed. Then for the 10% of the time where it is needed. You can not be sure that it will work because of the user at the other end (in your company) or that the mail client will handle it (for users outside your company).
That was just an example. Not everyones discography is online via torrent. In addition to that, there are a lot of crazy little songs that air on Dr. Demento that are not available now. They were in 1999 or 2000 but now they are gone. But thanks for the ONJ link
The new stuff the RIAA is worried about still gets pirated like mad. The older stuff just is not shared any more.
Or as they say: Eat shit . . . millions of fly's can't be wrong!
Everyone says this but nobody actually explains WTF they mean. These guys manufacture music. How exactly can they run a business without charging people to buy the music?
They are talking about these folks a) providing a service that people need and b) doing it at a reasonable price
You can buy a DVD, with extras and the soundtrack for the movie for $10.00. However, if you go out and buy the CD of the soundtrack, it is $18.00? CD's cost almost nothing to make. Professional studio time is spendy. But a band, at home for $10,000.00 can make an album that sounds "good enough". So what service are the offering?
Once they controlled all the doors, they had all the keys. Making records had some cost to it. Stores needed records, artists needed a way to record and promote those records. The middle man in this case figured out how to make all the money.
The digital age is much like the age of the printing press. When books had to be copied by hand, they were rare and expensive. With the advent of the printing press books became cheaper. If you priced a book made on a press the same as a handwritten book. Well, someone would buy one copy, typeset it, print their own knockoff and sell it cheaper than what the original was selling for. Despite copyright law. As long as books were so overpriced that the discrepancy between what a book cost and what it was sold for was so large. There were pirates willing to make a profit on that difference.
With the advent of digital media. You cant sell those bits like you are the only one who can make them. That you can set any price you want for them and people will have to pay. Setting the price on a digital item that high invites someone to copy and make a profit off of it. That is why they need to update their business model. Every man, woman and child now has their own printing press and free typesetting. Not a good environment to be overcharging for books in.
What they could do now, is provide CDs at a decent price. Make downloads available. Open up the complete back catalog. Then provide a site or sites that make searching easy and finding new music and old music easy.
However, they are not reasonably pricing their product. They are not providing a service that has "value" to it proportional to it's cost.
In the short term, Micosoft has to make XP available to OEM's like DELL/HP till at least June of 2008. They are running out of valid unused activation keys. The main feature of XP SP3 is that an new install CD or one you slipstream is that it will allow a new sequence of activation keys.
So SP3 must come. They could rig it to slow down XP. But at this point it would get a lot of bad press if they did it.
Back in the mid 90's I used WordPerfect, Quattro Pro and Paradox. All of them better than Microsoft Office. I now support 75 Office users. I have dosbox and dosemu. I often end up using Wordperfect or Paradox to fix some problem.
For Instance, if you have a document with TextText (2 blank lines between paragraphs) and you only want 1 blank line or indented paragraphs. Try doing that in Word without a complicated macro. In Wordperfect you search for [Cr][Cr][Cr] and replace it with [Cr][Cr], then you could replace that with [Cr][Tab].
Trust me, there are plenty of Office haters out here. Every time I think "just turn on reveal codes" I start to fume.
Four weeks ago they let go a supervisor at a remote location. HR had Payroll drop them from the system. Which also killed that persons access to the timecard system. Since the job they normally do near the end of the day (before their manager came in and let them go) is to make sure all of their employee time sheets look correct. So as soon as they could not log in to the timecard system. I got the call. Once I saw they were deleted. I called HR and found out what was going on. It was a fun conversation trying not to tip that person off that they had 15 minutes of employment left.
Then this last week. HR was there when they let someone go. Followed them back to their desk and stood there as the person opened up outlook, deleted all of their emails. Opened up excel. Opened several spread sheets, deleted their contents, saved them back out and then delete the folder those files were in. The ex-employee then leaves. HR calls me in and say "I think they deleted some stuff out of Outlook and Excel. Can you find out what it was and get it back?"
I reminded them that A) When you let someone go, you let IT know and DO NOT LET THEM GET BACK ON THEIR COMPUTER and B) You need to remind my boss I deserve a raise.
Truth be told, those are the only screwups we have had between HR and IT in the 3 years I have been there.Overall not bad. But boy, how far up my ass am I expected to reach to pull out deleted files?
The PS2 is still being manufactured. Some of the units they made 7 years ago. Even if Sony stopped right now. There will still be a sizable PS2 market 3 or 4 years from now. As it stands, I think the PS2 will still be doing well in 7 years.
My 12 year old son is still clamoring for a PS2. So the PS2 market is STILL expanding.