EBay's single biggest problem, in my eyes, is the fact that you still have to pay a considerable fee even if your item does not sell. For casual sellers at least, this makes the whole platform unattractive - other services, such as amazon, only charge you when you make a sale and leave your item up there pretty much indefinitely until you *do* sell it.
Of course, the downside is that you have to pay more; amazon.de, for example, charges both a percentage (15%, I think) *and* a flat fee, so if you have something that you want to sell for less than a handful of bucks, you might actually even lose money - the shipping fees they charge the buyer wouldn't even be enough to cover actual shipping to start with, and they're usually more than eaten up by the fees, too, so you may well end up with a net earning of only one buck for a book that cost the buyer eight or nine bucks, including shipping (it's happened to me). The bulk of the money is, ultimately, shared between amazon and the postal services.
That's one reason I really hope Google gets into auctions - there definitely needs to be some competition in this area so prices will go down. And I trust that Google has both the financial and the technological strength to pull this off - not to mention the "do no evil" philosophy which would make me trust them to not rip me off *too* much at least.
That's one possible outcome. The other one would be
5. Customer decides to ditch all remaining windows installation and use only Unix in the future, ceases to care about malware 6. Customer saves money (for licenses), saves more money (for administration), and also saves time and hassles 7. M$ loses customer 8. M$ loses money.
They're really gambling here - they take away the middle path and hope that out of the remaining options, you'll choose the one that gives them more money instead of the one that gives them less money. Obviously, they think they *can* pull it off, but in the end, nobody likes a bully, so even if they gain some money in the short term, they do lose customer trust over the long term.
The fact that they fail to see this and *still* think that they can base their business model on terrorizing people instead of acting in a benevolent way where the customer is king just shows that despite everything, they still aren't thinking about what'll happen in the long term and where they'll be in, say, 50 or 100 years.
Which, incidentally, is exactly the timeframe where the current high-ups like Gates and Ballmer and the like who cashed in big time won't be around anymore to care about the losses that will come.
1. Create a problem 2. Sell the solution 3. Profit!!!
The sad thing about it is that both consumers as well as government agencies (who're supposed to prevent things like this from happening by cracking down on monopolies and the like) can't (or refuse to) see what's going on.
He's probably not smoking anything, but he's the *CEO* of Opera. It's like asking Bill Gates which operating system he'd recommend - of *course* the answer is going to be Windows. Similarly, of *course* the CEO of Opera is hyping Opera.
It's not news - not in the sense of something new or unexpected, anyway.
That's a good point. However, looking through the FAQ for the top500 list, it seems as if the list editors only include systems that data is submitted for, anyway.
So, in other words, I'd say it's likely that China (as well as several other countries, most likely including the USA) *does* have faster systems which simply aren't included in the list at all, which in turn makes it more likely again that the one that *is* included is indeed used for the purpose given - weather forecasts / research.
Thinking about it, if I was a member of the Chinese government, I'd in fact probably see to it that not even the most powerful system used for weather forecasts is listed, simply because others would draw the conclusions I drew above and attempt to derive the computing power of the non-listed systems from the power of those that are - so it'd make sense to attempt to conceal the true amount of computing power further and mislead other countries into thinking that the classified research systems are less powerful than they truly are.
Admittedly, that does sound like it's from a bad Bond movie or so, but I think it does make some sense at least.:)
OK, I do realize that you're just joking, but it's actually an interesting question, so here are some thoughts:
1. The PS3 isn't out yet. 2. The top500 lists does NOT go and look for systems that should/could/might be included - rather, you have to submit benchmark results yourself. I assume they do check them, of course, but as long as you don't approach them about it, you could have the fastest system in the world, and you'd still not get listed if you didn't submit benchmark results (incidentally, this means that the list is a priori worthless for assessing the actual computing power wielded by different governments, intelligence organizations etc., and that there's no reason to be paranoid about what the systems are really used for - what you should be paranoid about are the systems that aren't even listed). 3. The top500 list is based on LINPACK performance, and it's no a priori clear that the PS3 would achieve an outstanding performance there. Now, maybe it would, but I assume it's similar as with GPUs - it's optimized for high performance in a specific area, and that area isn't necessarily solving dense systems of linear equations (which is what LINPACK is all about).
That being said, it'll be interesting to see whether there'll be Cell-based machines (other than the PS3) in the list in the future - IBM likely has at least a few aces up their sleeves, and the Linux port to the Cell architecture is well underway (check lkml - an updated set of patches was just submitted for inclusion yesterday).
[...] I don't believe that China is using the 18th fastest computer for weather forecasts.
Why not? Weather forecasts *do* require lots of number crunching power, and when you've got a big country with more than a billion citizens, then I'd say that there's sound economic reasons why you want good and accurate forecasts, too.
Or do you know something we don't? I wouldn't be *surprised* if it turned out that China (a dictatorship, after all) really did use the system for more sinister purposes, but I'm wondering if there is any kind of evidence for this or whether it's just paranoia (understandable paranoia, maybe even justified paranoia, but still paranoia).
How do you measure the "output" of computers in terms that actually make sense from a practical perspective, though?
That's opening a whole can of worms really. A computer is just a tool, and this kind of measurement is simply not possible. As another example, take a screwdriver - pretty much anyone would agree that it's a tool that makes life easier, but you simply can't measure the output of a screwdriver.
Computers are similar, and the reason for that is that while computers are machines that process data and thus have a "natural" input and output if you view them from a close perspective, if you step back to take a look at the bigger picture, it's exactly that natural definition that becomes irrelevant. This is implied in what you write, too: a computer that is used today may have a much higher raw computing power than one from 20 years ago (FWIW, it may well be a thousand times faster, if not more), but that kind of figure is meaningless unless you are doing pure number crunching.
All in all, I'd actually go so far as to say that if you really found a way to measure the amount of work a tool saves you in an objective and meaningful way *without* actually doing the same work twice (once with the tool, once without), then you'd likely get a Nobel prize for economics for it - pretty much all of economics seems to be centering around attempts to get good approximations for things like this, and the best (that is, most successful) managers are often those who simply have the best instinct in this regard (or the ones who simply had the most luck, if you subscribe to a more Dilbertesque point of view:)).
So... it's better to be evil than it is to be good because being evil allows you to better yourself, while being good doesn't (at least not to the same extent)?
"Slightly unethical"? Wow, you should be working for the pentagon, if you aren't already. I'm sure they'd love to have someone who's able to say things like that and keep a straight face.
Since when does science fiction necessarily involve things like spaceships, aliens, faster-than-light travel, extraterrestial cultures / settlements and all that, anyway?
Three of my favourite science fiction stories are "Flowers for Algernon" (Daniel Keyes), "Turn off the sky" (Ray Nelson) and "Terminal Beach" (J. G. Ballard). None of these involves any of the above, yet they're all science fiction.
So where does the idea come from that crap like Star Trek or Babylon 5 is the pinnacle of SF?
I agree that education about what you can and can't do with FOSS can only be a good thing.
On the other hand, I'm not convinced that businesses really do not understand what they can and cannot do. Pretty much every individual seems to be able to understand the basic spirit, at least:
* GPL = use it, but you have share it just like I did; * BSD (original) = use it, don't share it if you don't want to, but you have to acknowledge me.
Claiming that companies fail to understand these fundamental principles is like claiming that they fail to understand that you cannot copy Windows on as many computers as you'd like just because you happen to have the CDs.
Of course, there may be companies who really don't know these things yet, but ask yourself - if you didn't know whether you could legally take someone else's work and build on it, would you do so? Would you build on it without even so much as sending an email and *asking* whether it's legal? Without consulting your company lawyer? Without listening to the developers' concerns - developers who are, I dare say, reasonably likely to have heard of the GPL at least? And even if you do... would you *release* it as a propietary product?
What also seems to indicate that these people full well knew that what they did was not legal is the fact that they actually bothered to remove all copyright notices. Think about that - if they really believed that it was legal to use the code, that the original developers agreed to it and allowed it, why would they attempt to hide where the code came from?
It's like when you encounter someone at the rear entrance to your house in the night - they might tell you that they got lost and thought it was their own house, for example, but while you normally might even believe that, you probably wouldn't if the person in question happened to wear a mask and carry a glass cutter, a big bag filled with your valuables, and a map of your house with a cross marking the spot where your safe is located. They still might claim they just got lost, but while you'd give them the benefit of doubt in the first case, you probably WOULD conclude that they're a burglar in the second.
It's not a contract, but nevertheless, whether you license a program you developed or not or under which terms is your choice. You don't get a license to use the program because you downloaded it; in fact, you don't get a license in that sense at all. Rather, you *have* a license, because the developer decided, at some point, to license his program to everyone on the planet.
And that's just the point: it's not about downloading, it's about whether you (the person) are allowed to use the program under certain license terms or not.
So, all in all... you agreed to the license, and the license stated that the developer can take away your rights (and in fact does so automatically) under certain circumstances. You can't reacquire the license by redownloading the program; your rights to use the program under that license are gone, and it's up to the rights holder to decide whether you'll get them back or not. Of course, the GPL *is* no contract, so you're not bound by it and can instead opt to refuse to accept it at all. However, in *that* case, the only rights you still have are those that you are guaranteed by copyright law, anyway, and those do not include use, distribution, modification etc. of the program.
In other words: you don't have to play by the rules. But you have to accept the rules to enter the playing field (which is private property), and if you, at some point, decide that you don't want to do so after all, you'll have to leave the playing field again.
Major e longinquo reverentia, as they say - everything looks good (or, for that matter, better) from far away, and forbidden fruits appear tastier.
It's probably a better idea to introduce your kids to computers and all that early on. Compare it to the TV - your kids are most likely going to be allowed to watch TV before they're 14 (or whatever), but that doesn't mean you'll allow them to do it for eight hours each day without checking *what* they watch.
Do give them limits; enforce them, but don't be arbitrary. Above all, make them transparent and understandable - if you tell your kids that they can use the computer, but for an hour only, that's much better than only coming in after an hour and telling them that they have to stop *now*.
Don't give them a bad example; if you don't do anything except sit at the computer (or, more generally, stay indoors) all day, then your kids *will* question why it's bad for them if it obviously isn't bad for you, too.
That's about what I can think of right now. As a disclaimer, though, I don't have kids myself.
Here's some food for thought with regard to anti-virus companies possibly being responsible for (some) viri.
If you look at the computer viri there were in the last 20 or 25 years, there's of course many trends, but one in particular stands out: there has been a huge shift from destructive to non-destructive viri. Remember things like Michelangelo, Stoned and so on? Many of these were actually doing damage - they'd delete your harddisk on certain dates, or overwrite files on access, or other such things.
However, things have changed: these days, at least 99% of all viri, worms, trojans and other malware seem to be content to simply reproduce as much as possible instead of carrying an actually destructive payload. Some might be used to send spam, perform (distributed) DoS attacks and the like and thus cause economic damage, true; but the individual users' boxes are typically unaffected (except for slowdowns and similar things).
Why did this happen? One might argue that the reason is simply that virus writers don't want to bite off the hand that distributes them anymore, or that dead zombies are useless for launching attacks against third parties. But it could also conceivably be an indication that it's different people who write viri these days, with different motivations, different limits, and different morals. And the idea that (some) anti-virus companies are secretly helping out with the creation of new malware doesn't seem so far-fetched anymore when you take into account that with a non-destructive worm, it's much easier to convince yourself that you're not doing *real* damage - especially if there's also the prospect of making money, which probably already has weakened your morals.
I really wish free software projects wouldn't give in so easily all the time. By not doing anything anymore once the license terms have been satisfied again, they're just teaching companies that it's economically sound to rip them off - after all, you don't lose anything if you get caught, and you gain something if you don't.
This isn't good, though, as it will only encourage the less-than-scrupulous companies to commit further license violations, many of which *will* go undetected. It's one thing to essentially take a product, slap a new name on it, and then try to sell it (like was the case in the CherryOS case) or at least claim it as your own; that's easily detectable. Taking code from a GPL'ed library, though, for example, and integrating that into your $10K+ enterprise application, will most likely not be noticed, even though it is just as illegal.
As such, I'd really like to see an actual lawsuit some time where the developers of the project that was ripped off seek (punitive) damages, and maybe, if the case allows for it, press criminal charges against the company executives, too. Violating a free software license is *no* small matter - it's just as illegal and immoral as it is to press and sell illegally-produced copies of Windows, for example, and companies need to realize that.
If it ain't broken, don't fix it. Is there a *reason* why they used backslashes instead of forward slashes, historically? Or did they just do it for the sake of being different (which, in this case, is just a polite word for "incompatible")?
I'm not sure if going back to forward slash usage now would be a good idea, but variety isn't *always* a good thing. Some things are standard for a reason.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, Windows NT at least *was* certified, even though there were controversies surrounding the whole issue: see this article, for example.
Kind of scary when you think about it.
EBay's single biggest problem, in my eyes, is the fact that you still have to pay a considerable fee even if your item does not sell. For casual sellers at least, this makes the whole platform unattractive - other services, such as amazon, only charge you when you make a sale and leave your item up there pretty much indefinitely until you *do* sell it.
Of course, the downside is that you have to pay more; amazon.de, for example, charges both a percentage (15%, I think) *and* a flat fee, so if you have something that you want to sell for less than a handful of bucks, you might actually even lose money - the shipping fees they charge the buyer wouldn't even be enough to cover actual shipping to start with, and they're usually more than eaten up by the fees, too, so you may well end up with a net earning of only one buck for a book that cost the buyer eight or nine bucks, including shipping (it's happened to me). The bulk of the money is, ultimately, shared between amazon and the postal services.
That's one reason I really hope Google gets into auctions - there definitely needs to be some competition in this area so prices will go down. And I trust that Google has both the financial and the technological strength to pull this off - not to mention the "do no evil" philosophy which would make me trust them to not rip me off *too* much at least.
That's one possible outcome. The other one would be
5. Customer decides to ditch all remaining windows installation and use only Unix in the future, ceases to care about malware
6. Customer saves money (for licenses), saves more money (for administration), and also saves time and hassles
7. M$ loses customer
8. M$ loses money.
They're really gambling here - they take away the middle path and hope that out of the remaining options, you'll choose the one that gives them more money instead of the one that gives them less money. Obviously, they think they *can* pull it off, but in the end, nobody likes a bully, so even if they gain some money in the short term, they do lose customer trust over the long term.
The fact that they fail to see this and *still* think that they can base their business model on terrorizing people instead of acting in a benevolent way where the customer is king just shows that despite everything, they still aren't thinking about what'll happen in the long term and where they'll be in, say, 50 or 100 years.
Which, incidentally, is exactly the timeframe where the current high-ups like Gates and Ballmer and the like who cashed in big time won't be around anymore to care about the losses that will come.
Why not? It makes sense:
1. Create a problem
2. Sell the solution
3. Profit!!!
The sad thing about it is that both consumers as well as government agencies (who're supposed to prevent things like this from happening by cracking down on monopolies and the like) can't (or refuse to) see what's going on.
Aye. I couldn't have said it better. :/
Damn, I never would've thought that *that* kind of karma whoring worked - I need to try that, too (mod me funny)!
He's probably not smoking anything, but he's the *CEO* of Opera. It's like asking Bill Gates which operating system he'd recommend - of *course* the answer is going to be Windows. Similarly, of *course* the CEO of Opera is hyping Opera. It's not news - not in the sense of something new or unexpected, anyway.
Oh, I wouldn't go *that* far - even a million Slashdot readers couldn't possibly be as paranoid as Dubya's administration.
Or at least not when it comes to China.
That's a good point. However, looking through the FAQ for the top500 list, it seems as if the list editors only include systems that data is submitted for, anyway.
:)
So, in other words, I'd say it's likely that China (as well as several other countries, most likely including the USA) *does* have faster systems which simply aren't included in the list at all, which in turn makes it more likely again that the one that *is* included is indeed used for the purpose given - weather forecasts / research.
Thinking about it, if I was a member of the Chinese government, I'd in fact probably see to it that not even the most powerful system used for weather forecasts is listed, simply because others would draw the conclusions I drew above and attempt to derive the computing power of the non-listed systems from the power of those that are - so it'd make sense to attempt to conceal the true amount of computing power further and mislead other countries into thinking that the classified research systems are less powerful than they truly are.
Admittedly, that does sound like it's from a bad Bond movie or so, but I think it does make some sense at least.
OK, I do realize that you're just joking, but it's actually an interesting question, so here are some thoughts:
1. The PS3 isn't out yet.
2. The top500 lists does NOT go and look for systems that should/could/might be included - rather, you have to submit benchmark results yourself. I assume they do check them, of course, but as long as you don't approach them about it, you could have the fastest system in the world, and you'd still not get listed if you didn't submit benchmark results (incidentally, this means that the list is a priori worthless for assessing the actual computing power wielded by different governments, intelligence organizations etc., and that there's no reason to be paranoid about what the systems are really used for - what you should be paranoid about are the systems that aren't even listed).
3. The top500 list is based on LINPACK performance, and it's no a priori clear that the PS3 would achieve an outstanding performance there. Now, maybe it would, but I assume it's similar as with GPUs - it's optimized for high performance in a specific area, and that area isn't necessarily solving dense systems of linear equations (which is what LINPACK is all about).
That being said, it'll be interesting to see whether there'll be Cell-based machines (other than the PS3) in the list in the future - IBM likely has at least a few aces up their sleeves, and the Linux port to the Cell architecture is well underway (check lkml - an updated set of patches was just submitted for inclusion yesterday).
Why not? Weather forecasts *do* require lots of number crunching power, and when you've got a big country with more than a billion citizens, then I'd say that there's sound economic reasons why you want good and accurate forecasts, too.
Or do you know something we don't? I wouldn't be *surprised* if it turned out that China (a dictatorship, after all) really did use the system for more sinister purposes, but I'm wondering if there is any kind of evidence for this or whether it's just paranoia (understandable paranoia, maybe even justified paranoia, but still paranoia).
How do you measure the "output" of computers in terms that actually make sense from a practical perspective, though?
:)).
That's opening a whole can of worms really. A computer is just a tool, and this kind of measurement is simply not possible. As another example, take a screwdriver - pretty much anyone would agree that it's a tool that makes life easier, but you simply can't measure the output of a screwdriver.
Computers are similar, and the reason for that is that while computers are machines that process data and thus have a "natural" input and output if you view them from a close perspective, if you step back to take a look at the bigger picture, it's exactly that natural definition that becomes irrelevant. This is implied in what you write, too: a computer that is used today may have a much higher raw computing power than one from 20 years ago (FWIW, it may well be a thousand times faster, if not more), but that kind of figure is meaningless unless you are doing pure number crunching.
All in all, I'd actually go so far as to say that if you really found a way to measure the amount of work a tool saves you in an objective and meaningful way *without* actually doing the same work twice (once with the tool, once without), then you'd likely get a Nobel prize for economics for it - pretty much all of economics seems to be centering around attempts to get good approximations for things like this, and the best (that is, most successful) managers are often those who simply have the best instinct in this regard (or the ones who simply had the most luck, if you subscribe to a more Dilbertesque point of view
Rubbish, it has been: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=38.889180,-77.00847 0&spn=0.007886,0.010600&t=k&hl=en
On the other hand, the fact that he does suffer from Asperger's does not mean that he's necessarily just being paranoid.
So... it's better to be evil than it is to be good because being evil allows you to better yourself, while being good doesn't (at least not to the same extent)?
"Slightly unethical"? Wow, you should be working for the pentagon, if you aren't already. I'm sure they'd love to have someone who's able to say things like that and keep a straight face.
Since when does science fiction necessarily involve things like spaceships, aliens, faster-than-light travel, extraterrestial cultures / settlements and all that, anyway?
Three of my favourite science fiction stories are "Flowers for Algernon" (Daniel Keyes), "Turn off the sky" (Ray Nelson) and "Terminal Beach" (J. G. Ballard). None of these involves any of the above, yet they're all science fiction.
So where does the idea come from that crap like Star Trek or Babylon 5 is the pinnacle of SF?
CEO claims company is ahead of competition! News at 11.
I agree that education about what you can and can't do with FOSS can only be a good thing.
On the other hand, I'm not convinced that businesses really do not understand what they can and cannot do. Pretty much every individual seems to be able to understand the basic spirit, at least:
* GPL = use it, but you have share it just like I did;
* BSD (original) = use it, don't share it if you don't want to, but you have to acknowledge me.
Claiming that companies fail to understand these fundamental principles is like claiming that they fail to understand that you cannot copy Windows on as many computers as you'd like just because you happen to have the CDs.
Of course, there may be companies who really don't know these things yet, but ask yourself - if you didn't know whether you could legally take someone else's work and build on it, would you do so? Would you build on it without even so much as sending an email and *asking* whether it's legal? Without consulting your company lawyer? Without listening to the developers' concerns - developers who are, I dare say, reasonably likely to have heard of the GPL at least? And even if you do... would you *release* it as a propietary product?
What also seems to indicate that these people full well knew that what they did was not legal is the fact that they actually bothered to remove all copyright notices. Think about that - if they really believed that it was legal to use the code, that the original developers agreed to it and allowed it, why would they attempt to hide where the code came from?
It's like when you encounter someone at the rear entrance to your house in the night - they might tell you that they got lost and thought it was their own house, for example, but while you normally might even believe that, you probably wouldn't if the person in question happened to wear a mask and carry a glass cutter, a big bag filled with your valuables, and a map of your house with a cross marking the spot where your safe is located. They still might claim they just got lost, but while you'd give them the benefit of doubt in the first case, you probably WOULD conclude that they're a burglar in the second.
It's not a contract, but nevertheless, whether you license a program you developed or not or under which terms is your choice. You don't get a license to use the program because you downloaded it; in fact, you don't get a license in that sense at all. Rather, you *have* a license, because the developer decided, at some point, to license his program to everyone on the planet.
And that's just the point: it's not about downloading, it's about whether you (the person) are allowed to use the program under certain license terms or not.
So, all in all... you agreed to the license, and the license stated that the developer can take away your rights (and in fact does so automatically) under certain circumstances. You can't reacquire the license by redownloading the program; your rights to use the program under that license are gone, and it's up to the rights holder to decide whether you'll get them back or not. Of course, the GPL *is* no contract, so you're not bound by it and can instead opt to refuse to accept it at all. However, in *that* case, the only rights you still have are those that you are guaranteed by copyright law, anyway, and those do not include use, distribution, modification etc. of the program.
In other words: you don't have to play by the rules. But you have to accept the rules to enter the playing field (which is private property), and if you, at some point, decide that you don't want to do so after all, you'll have to leave the playing field again.
Major e longinquo reverentia, as they say - everything looks good (or, for that matter, better) from far away, and forbidden fruits appear tastier.
It's probably a better idea to introduce your kids to computers and all that early on. Compare it to the TV - your kids are most likely going to be allowed to watch TV before they're 14 (or whatever), but that doesn't mean you'll allow them to do it for eight hours each day without checking *what* they watch.
Do give them limits; enforce them, but don't be arbitrary. Above all, make them transparent and understandable - if you tell your kids that they can use the computer, but for an hour only, that's much better than only coming in after an hour and telling them that they have to stop *now*.
Don't give them a bad example; if you don't do anything except sit at the computer (or, more generally, stay indoors) all day, then your kids *will* question why it's bad for them if it obviously isn't bad for you, too.
That's about what I can think of right now. As a disclaimer, though, I don't have kids myself.
Here's some food for thought with regard to anti-virus companies possibly being responsible for (some) viri.
If you look at the computer viri there were in the last 20 or 25 years, there's of course many trends, but one in particular stands out: there has been a huge shift from destructive to non-destructive viri. Remember things like Michelangelo, Stoned and so on? Many of these were actually doing damage - they'd delete your harddisk on certain dates, or overwrite files on access, or other such things.
However, things have changed: these days, at least 99% of all viri, worms, trojans and other malware seem to be content to simply reproduce as much as possible instead of carrying an actually destructive payload. Some might be used to send spam, perform (distributed) DoS attacks and the like and thus cause economic damage, true; but the individual users' boxes are typically unaffected (except for slowdowns and similar things).
Why did this happen? One might argue that the reason is simply that virus writers don't want to bite off the hand that distributes them anymore, or that dead zombies are useless for launching attacks against third parties. But it could also conceivably be an indication that it's different people who write viri these days, with different motivations, different limits, and different morals. And the idea that (some) anti-virus companies are secretly helping out with the creation of new malware doesn't seem so far-fetched anymore when you take into account that with a non-destructive worm, it's much easier to convince yourself that you're not doing *real* damage - especially if there's also the prospect of making money, which probably already has weakened your morals.
Nothing, but if they care about web server security, then chances are that they also care about the security of their credit card transaction systems.
I really wish free software projects wouldn't give in so easily all the time. By not doing anything anymore once the license terms have been satisfied again, they're just teaching companies that it's economically sound to rip them off - after all, you don't lose anything if you get caught, and you gain something if you don't.
This isn't good, though, as it will only encourage the less-than-scrupulous companies to commit further license violations, many of which *will* go undetected. It's one thing to essentially take a product, slap a new name on it, and then try to sell it (like was the case in the CherryOS case) or at least claim it as your own; that's easily detectable. Taking code from a GPL'ed library, though, for example, and integrating that into your $10K+ enterprise application, will most likely not be noticed, even though it is just as illegal.
As such, I'd really like to see an actual lawsuit some time where the developers of the project that was ripped off seek (punitive) damages, and maybe, if the case allows for it, press criminal charges against the company executives, too. Violating a free software license is *no* small matter - it's just as illegal and immoral as it is to press and sell illegally-produced copies of Windows, for example, and companies need to realize that.
If it ain't broken, don't fix it. Is there a *reason* why they used backslashes instead of forward slashes, historically? Or did they just do it for the sake of being different (which, in this case, is just a polite word for "incompatible")?
I'm not sure if going back to forward slash usage now would be a good idea, but variety isn't *always* a good thing. Some things are standard for a reason.