I'm not sure how people could "cover up" anything...the information these systems record is related to engine performance (cylinder head temperatures, exhaust gas temperatures, and the like). Maintenance information is maintained on paper, with written sign-offs by the mechanics who do the work, and the FAA has VERY strict accountability procedures. (None of that affects the average pilot unless the FAA has cause to investigate a crash or complaint, but that's a separate issue).
uh MS helped WRITE a lot os/2 for IBM. NT was just a variation of it
Umm, no. NT was, in a manner of speaking, just like OpenVMS would have been with a nice GUI wrapped around it.
More specifically, when Digital decided that their OpenVMS port to x86 wasn't selling enough copies, Microsoft hired Dave Cutler to architect the OS that eventually became Windows NT -- and, IIRC, they hired much of the OpenVMS project team. So, while NT isn't, strictly speaking, OpenVMS, many of Dave's ideas and experiences with VMS shaped the way NT was engineered.
NT was not, AFAIK, in any way based on OS/2 except to the extent that the DOS compatibility layer and/or WOW shared any code with previous versions of DOS/Windows.
Agent: "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of any organization whose stated goal is the violent overthrow of the United States government?"
They ask the same question on green card applications -- or at least, they did when I got mine about a decade ago.
The funny thing was, after the boxes for "yes" and "no", the INS form had a space marked "If you checked Yes, please provide a detailed explanation in the space below." Somehow, I rather suspect that if you checked Yes, you're probably hosed no matter what you write in the explanation box.
So much for their legal tactic of "let's sue and let them settle for only 10k and their first born son"
And of course, the sueing part is the problem. If the RIAA had to actually file a John Doe civil suit before they could subpoena the ISP's records, and/or if said subpoena required a judge's signature and not just some court clerk, the RIAA would have a serious disincentive to go after cases just for the settlement value.
After all, if they go after Joe Public whose grandson downloaded MP3s while visiting from Kansas and that Joe knew nothing about, and lose, Joe can ask the court to cover his legal costs.
The problem with these DMCA subpoenas -- by the RIAA, DirecTV, the MPAA, and others -- is that there's essentially zero cost to bringing the subpoenas even if they're frivolous and the organization filing them is just fishing. Anything that the targets of the subpoenas can do to raise the cost of filing them is, IMHO, a good thing.
Then so does everyone else. Can you imagine the mayhem as a result ?
Unless, of course, the copyright holders for those pieces of software all got together and say something like, "we hereby grant permission for anyone except SCO to use our software, under the terms of whatever new license we want to use."
I don't see how the GPL could ever be actually declared invalid, though. IANAL, but it seems to me that all the GPL does is say, "you are allowed to distribute this copyrighted software, as long as you follow these rules." If you choose not to follow the rules, your right to use the software ceases, but that doesn't affect anyone else's rights.
On a related note, has SCO ever actually asserted in court (not in the media) that they're entitled to use any software under the terms of the GPL? (Or, has Caldera?) If they have, a nifty thing called collateral estoppel kicks in -- basically, a legal principle that says that once you have asserted a given fact to be true in a legal proceeding, you can't assert it to be false in a subsequent legal proceeding.
Re:Doctors can't leave us alone.
on
Chimera Twins Story
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· Score: 2, Interesting
There was even a story on Discovery Channel recently about a doctor who, after putting huge pressure on the parents of an intersexed child (with one testicle and one ovary), surgically and without consent removed the testicle under the pretense of a "biopsy".
I don't get what it is about the idea that makes a surgeon willing to risk his medical license for something like that.
Well, Caldera actually bought the rights to DRDOS and took on Microsoft and got a nice settlement... so I wouldn't go saying it is suicidal... they did it once before and think they can do it again.
Unless I'm misremembering, though, Caldera didn't take on Microsoft for theft of IP, but rather for constructing Windows in a way that prevented it from being run on DRDOS systems. That is, the lawsuit with Micro$oft was about anti-trust violation, not about theft of IP.
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I'm not sure how people could "cover up" anything...the information these systems record is related to engine performance (cylinder head temperatures, exhaust gas temperatures, and the like). Maintenance information is maintained on paper, with written sign-offs by the mechanics who do the work, and the FAA has VERY strict accountability procedures. (None of that affects the average pilot unless the FAA has cause to investigate a crash or complaint, but that's a separate issue).
Umm, no. NT was, in a manner of speaking, just like OpenVMS would have been with a nice GUI wrapped around it.
More specifically, when Digital decided that their OpenVMS port to x86 wasn't selling enough copies, Microsoft hired Dave Cutler to architect the OS that eventually became Windows NT -- and, IIRC, they hired much of the OpenVMS project team. So, while NT isn't, strictly speaking, OpenVMS, many of Dave's ideas and experiences with VMS shaped the way NT was engineered.
NT was not, AFAIK, in any way based on OS/2 except to the extent that the DOS compatibility layer and/or WOW shared any code with previous versions of DOS/Windows.
Agent: "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of any organization whose stated goal is the violent overthrow of the United States government?" They ask the same question on green card applications -- or at least, they did when I got mine about a decade ago. The funny thing was, after the boxes for "yes" and "no", the INS form had a space marked "If you checked Yes, please provide a detailed explanation in the space below." Somehow, I rather suspect that if you checked Yes, you're probably hosed no matter what you write in the explanation box.
There are other kinds of nerds besides computer nerds. :-)
So much for their legal tactic of "let's sue and let them settle for only 10k and their first born son"
And of course, the sueing part is the problem. If the RIAA had to actually file a John Doe civil suit before they could subpoena the ISP's records, and/or if said subpoena required a judge's signature and not just some court clerk, the RIAA would have a serious disincentive to go after cases just for the settlement value.
After all, if they go after Joe Public whose grandson downloaded MP3s while visiting from Kansas and that Joe knew nothing about, and lose, Joe can ask the court to cover his legal costs.
The problem with these DMCA subpoenas -- by the RIAA, DirecTV, the MPAA, and others -- is that there's essentially zero cost to bringing the subpoenas even if they're frivolous and the organization filing them is just fishing. Anything that the targets of the subpoenas can do to raise the cost of filing them is, IMHO, a good thing.
Then so does everyone else. Can you imagine the mayhem as a result ? Unless, of course, the copyright holders for those pieces of software all got together and say something like, "we hereby grant permission for anyone except SCO to use our software, under the terms of whatever new license we want to use." I don't see how the GPL could ever be actually declared invalid, though. IANAL, but it seems to me that all the GPL does is say, "you are allowed to distribute this copyrighted software, as long as you follow these rules." If you choose not to follow the rules, your right to use the software ceases, but that doesn't affect anyone else's rights. On a related note, has SCO ever actually asserted in court (not in the media) that they're entitled to use any software under the terms of the GPL? (Or, has Caldera?) If they have, a nifty thing called collateral estoppel kicks in -- basically, a legal principle that says that once you have asserted a given fact to be true in a legal proceeding, you can't assert it to be false in a subsequent legal proceeding.
There was even a story on Discovery Channel recently about a doctor who, after putting huge pressure on the parents of an intersexed child (with one testicle and one ovary), surgically and without consent removed the testicle under the pretense of a "biopsy". I don't get what it is about the idea that makes a surgeon willing to risk his medical license for something like that.
Well, Caldera actually bought the rights to DRDOS and took on Microsoft and got a nice settlement... so I wouldn't go saying it is suicidal... they did it once before and think they can do it again.
Unless I'm misremembering, though, Caldera didn't take on Microsoft for theft of IP, but rather for constructing Windows in a way that prevented it from being run on DRDOS systems. That is, the lawsuit with Micro$oft was about anti-trust violation, not about theft of IP.