"Part of future kernen maintenance should probably include comparisons against this code, just to be safe. "
Since no other entity than Microsoft is officially allowed to access the Windows code, every kernel patch should be sent to them as of today. That way one can be sure not to have any tainted code in an OSS project.
Hmm, why limit this to the kernel? Hell, let's swamp Microsoft with patches and modifications to *every* OSS project and let them decide whether it copied from the leaked code or not. If they say it is, they'll have to come forward with specificity (does that term ring a bell?) of file and line.
1. There is no such thing as *the* Open Source community. The BSD development process is as different from Linux as OpenBeOS is is different from Apache. Same goes for licensing.
2. "You get what you pay for". Who says one can't pay for the development of Open Source Software and thus make sure the product works and is supported?
3. Security by Obscurity has never worked for a long period of time.
4. Vendor lock-in for proprietary data formats is pure evil and is not a question of Open vs. Closed Source. I don't want my government to rely on Third Party vendors to process publically available data.
"Maybe it's been done, but I'd love to see an 'idiot-proof installer' for Linux... you know, download ONE file, run it, and it has enough of an IQ to do whatever it needs to to tailor itself to your OS."
Take a look at game installers like the ones for Quake III or Unreal Tournament.
"For the record, I still think Linux is too hard to use on the desktop to be worthwhile rolling out in a big org (or for my personal use.) This despite the fact that my 8 year old daughter uses it."
This is complete nonsense and artificially kept up Urban Myth.
A Linux based enterprise systems with a huge number of desktops is the kind of deployment you want to have in a big org. The ease of a central administration with an incredible range of functional configuration tools makes it a breaze to have the kind of control of an enterprise desktopy system you need to prevent disasters like MyDoom or SOBIG or whatever other Windows quirks.
With the latest KDE you can define the kind of usability and permissions for each desktop user you need to let him to his job without wreaking havoc over an enterprise They may not use the latest Windows gadget from obscure websites, but that should be fine by the management. Unless an enterprise is completely locked in with proprietary applications and data formats, Linux is the better work environment for 80 percent of regular office workers.
Remember: Work desktops just need to provide the tools to get a job done. In Windows environments you either have dumb users with no rights whatsoever, or you have them as "administrator". That's different and a lot better implemented in today's state of the art Desktop environments for Unix/Linux.
It's a smart move for any organisation that doesn't want to have their employers mess with their system, but just do their job.
"I see money and jobs going out of the economy and not comming back. You claim that every dollar we send to India is used to buy from the US. I call BS on that."
That is under the assumption that someone actually is willing to pay for the USA's actual export hits: Defense, movies and "intellectual property". People might decide to spend their dollars in other countries, essentually extracting that money from the US's money market.
There are quite some dangers in that development, not the least of which is the fact that the US is less and less producing goods of long term value for the international economy.
" Maybe, but apparently even Microsoft recognizes that OSS is a feasible alternative for India. Otherwise they wouldn't have been forced to drastically lower the price of their offering."
The good thing about it is the fact that Microsoft will have to change its attitude in questions of interoperability and support of open standards. In that sense, the pressure of OSS software really will change the way proprietory software enterprises will address their customers' needs.
"D'Aloisio Marc observed some things about the DoS attack, and raised some preliminary questions:
----- Has anyone seen the DOS against SCO actually happen?
I have the new critter in a test environment where we conducted a preliminary and rudimentary functionality and threat analysis and the only activity I can get it to perform related to www.sco.com is to resolve the name. In fact, it seems very unhappy if it cannot resolve www.sco.com. Once it can, it happily scans local files for anything that can be construed (very loosely) as a domain and tries to resolve mail servers based on these. In fact, right now it's trying to resolve 'mx.makewin.rsp'. "Makewin.rsp' is a file referenced in the help files of my DigitalMars C++ compiler on a test machine, so it's not a very smart worm. The worm also seems to like to increment the third octet of the host IP by one and syn to port 25 of that address over and over and over... I have played with the date, etc, but still no activity directed toward www.sco.com. It did die after 12 February, but gladly resurrected when the date was set back prior to that. "
From: http://www.math.org.il/newworm-digest1.txt
Manufacturers don't know the average Joe
on
KISS
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
The average IQ is 100 and this average represents a huge portion of the desired customers and anything more than ten percent off that mark (either way) will miss the intended target audience.
Modern high tech devices are getting more and more complex and difficult to understand from a conceptional point of view. The average consumer is hopelessly lost when it comes to understanding any of today's high end tech stuff.
The stuff is designed by incredibly smart people, but usually they don't know the average consumer's way of thinking, which is why dumb devices like iPods are so successful: They can be handled by the average joe.
I presume you have a working internet connection and a basic understanding of how to use a search engine. Getting the facts about the history of oil exploration in the Middle East should be a trivial task and you will be rewarded with some factual knowledge that may surprise you not little.
"Because in the market, the consumer decides what they want, and the consumer has picked Microsoft.
Nonsense. The consumer had no alternative when he wanted to use an Intel machine back in the 80s and early 90s. The only alternative available was DRDOS (NovellDOS) and we all know what happened when a user wanted to have a graphical workspace driven by DRDOS.
By the time there were alternatives, MS's market position already was that of a monopoly and locking in consumers with proprietary formats all over.
"What you are proposing is as a qausi-Capitalism/Socialism and I guess that is the limited thinking that has kept Euro on the back burner all these years."
What backburner do you mean? The one fueling the US's defense industry?
That's just fine with me. Microsoft is an American company that does no development in Europe. It sells in Europe, but it does not "produce" in Europe. Should Microsoft decide to leave Europe, it would in fact be a blessing, because it would mean that more software will directly be developped in Europe, by companies that do not transfer all their profit to a country outside the EU.
Microsoft's jobs in Europe are sales and promotion positions. Salesmen and PR agencies will be happy to serve different customers and they will also make a lot more money, because the company's profit would be invested inside the EU and not be transferred to Redmond.
Microsoft behaves like a monopoly, because it is a monopoly. What MS fails to see, however, is the fact that it only came about through a lot of luck and good timing. Times have changed and Microsoft failed to adapt to the new circumstances, namely not being the only kid on the block with an operating system for Intel processors.
Last time I checked, A/Cs in Hondas come as an option. They can also be repaired by non-Honda dealers, because documentation on the units is available. Also - I may be mistaken - I believe there is some kind of a difference between software and hardware.
In joining the association (subgroup software), "SCO wants to sensitize the multimedia representatives for questions regarding Intellectual Property. In addition to that, SCO wants to make itself heard in areas beyond the scope of the multimedia industry, emphasizing that the association's job is to present critical topics to the public and politics and working on statements regarding various current topics".
The association's press secretary was unavailable for comment.
As to a visionary leader, here is one who fits that description:
http://www.arabialink.com/GulfWire/UAE/AD2003/Ag ri c.htm
Planning ahead 40 or 50 for the actual benefit of the country's and region's inhabitants is a lot more farsighted than the current administration's reelection efforts. On the other, they are Arabs, so what do they know.
"While I'm far from an MS fanboi, Linux isn't ready to take the place of Windows on the desktop."
You don't get it, do you? IBM will invest tons of money into making their own version of Linux one hell of a corporate desktop.
It's in their interest and it's in their customer's interest. I can think of few organizations the size of IBM who will not review their own desktop strategy after seeing Big Blue making the move.
And different from OS/2 way long time ago, this time the alternative to Microsoft is the talk of the town.
From the comment: > >... abandon Microsoft operating systems on it's internal desktops by the end of 2005. > >Just a quick note that we all should remember: > > * It's = it is (contraction) > * its = possessive of it (possessive) > >Try to remember it in this fashion: If you know the sex, use the apostrophe (think phallic). If not, no apostrophe. > >It's a rule we can live by;-)
If "it" is IBM's internal desktops, the it's is a genitive. How do you form a genitive in English?
"For one thing, they still have to support tons of Microsoft enabled applications like Notes. Tivoli (my former boss and IBM company) needs to support Windows."
IBM will be extremely happy to migrate customers as well.
Slashdot Mirror
"Part of future kernen maintenance should probably include comparisons against this code, just to be safe. "
Since no other entity than Microsoft is officially allowed to access the Windows code, every kernel patch should be sent to them as of today. That way one can be sure not to have any tainted code in an OSS project.
Hmm, why limit this to the kernel? Hell, let's swamp Microsoft with patches and modifications to *every* OSS project and let them decide whether it copied from the leaked code or not. If they say it is, they'll have to come forward with specificity (does that term ring a bell?) of file and line.
I like that.
1. There is no such thing as *the* Open Source community. The BSD development process is as different from Linux as OpenBeOS is is different from Apache. Same goes for licensing.
2. "You get what you pay for". Who says one can't pay for the development of Open Source Software and thus make sure the product works and is supported?
3. Security by Obscurity has never worked for a long period of time.
4. Vendor lock-in for proprietary data formats is pure evil and is not a question of Open vs. Closed Source. I don't want my government to rely on Third Party vendors to process publically available data.
Who paid this guy to spread FUD?
"Maybe it's been done, but I'd love to see an 'idiot-proof installer' for Linux... you know, download ONE file, run it, and it has enough of an IQ to do whatever it needs to to tailor itself to your OS."
Take a look at game installers like the ones for Quake III or Unreal Tournament.
"For the record, I still think Linux is too hard to use on the desktop to be worthwhile rolling out in a big org (or for my personal use.) This despite the fact that my 8 year old daughter uses it."
This is complete nonsense and artificially kept up Urban Myth.
A Linux based enterprise systems with a huge number of desktops is the kind of deployment you want to have in a big org. The ease of a central administration with an incredible range of functional configuration tools makes it a breaze to have the kind of control of an enterprise desktopy system you need to prevent disasters like MyDoom or SOBIG or whatever other Windows quirks.
With the latest KDE you can define the kind of usability and permissions for each desktop user you need to let him to his job without wreaking havoc over an enterprise They may not use the latest Windows gadget from obscure websites, but that should be fine by the management. Unless an enterprise is completely locked in with proprietary applications and data formats, Linux is the better work environment for 80 percent of regular office workers.
Remember: Work desktops just need to provide the tools to get a job done. In Windows environments you either have dumb users with no rights whatsoever, or you have them as "administrator". That's different and a lot better implemented in today's state of the art Desktop environments for Unix/Linux.
It's a smart move for any organisation that doesn't want to have their employers mess with their system, but just do their job.
"If you want to convert an entire company to swith to open source in one fell swoop get your secretary to install OpenOffice."
And if you want her to actually *use* the software, install KOffice.
A discussion on slashdot devoted to him.
"I see money and jobs going out of the economy and not comming back. You claim that every dollar we send to India is used to buy from the US. I call BS on that."
That is under the assumption that someone actually is willing to pay for the USA's actual export hits: Defense, movies and "intellectual property". People might decide to spend their dollars in other countries, essentually extracting that money from the US's money market.
There are quite some dangers in that development, not the least of which is the fact that the US is less and less producing goods of long term value for the international economy.
" Since Germans don't have unlimited freedom of political expression" You, sir, know nothing about Germany in the first place.
" Maybe, but apparently even Microsoft recognizes that OSS is a feasible alternative for India. Otherwise they wouldn't have been forced to drastically lower the price of their offering."
The good thing about it is the fact that Microsoft will have to change its attitude in questions of interoperability and support of open standards. In that sense, the pressure of OSS software really will change the way proprietory software enterprises will address their customers' needs.
This just in:
"D'Aloisio Marc observed some things about the DoS attack, and raised some preliminary questions:
-----
Has anyone seen the DOS against SCO actually happen?
I have the new critter in a test environment where we conducted a
preliminary and rudimentary functionality and threat analysis and the
only activity I can get it to perform related to www.sco.com is to
resolve the name. In fact, it seems very unhappy if it cannot resolve
www.sco.com. Once it can, it happily scans local files for anything
that can be construed (very loosely) as a domain and tries to resolve
mail servers based on these. In fact, right now it's trying to resolve
'mx.makewin.rsp'. "Makewin.rsp' is a file referenced in the help files
of my DigitalMars C++ compiler on a test machine, so it's not a very
smart worm. The worm also seems to like to increment the third octet of
the host IP by one and syn to port 25 of that address over and over and
over... I have played with the date, etc, but still no activity directed
toward www.sco.com. It did die after 12 February, but gladly
resurrected when the date was set back prior to that. "
From: http://www.math.org.il/newworm-digest1.txt
The average IQ is 100 and this average represents a huge portion of the desired customers and anything more than ten percent off that mark (either way) will miss the intended target audience.
Modern high tech devices are getting more and more complex and difficult to understand from a conceptional point of view. The average consumer is hopelessly lost when it comes to understanding any of today's high end tech stuff.
The stuff is designed by incredibly smart people, but usually they don't know the average consumer's way of thinking, which is why dumb devices like iPods are so successful: They can be handled by the average joe.
Have you ever been to the Middle East?
Thought so.
" Okay tell me how you think it happened? "
Why should I?
I presume you have a working internet connection and a basic understanding of how to use a search engine. Getting the facts about the history of oil exploration in the Middle East should be a trivial task and you will be rewarded with some factual knowledge that may surprise you not little.
I won't even bother to take your posting apart, but let this be said:
Your knowledge of the Middle East and its history in oil exploration is a good indicator for the quality of the rest of the reply.
"Because in the market, the consumer decides what they want, and the consumer has picked Microsoft.
Nonsense. The consumer had no alternative when he wanted to use an Intel machine back in the 80s and early 90s. The only alternative available was DRDOS (NovellDOS) and we all know what happened when a user wanted to have a graphical workspace driven by DRDOS.
By the time there were alternatives, MS's market position already was that of a monopoly and locking in consumers with proprietary formats all over.
"What you are proposing is as a qausi-Capitalism/Socialism and I guess that is the limited thinking that has kept Euro on the back burner all these years."
What backburner do you mean? The one fueling the US's defense industry?
That's just fine with me. Microsoft is an American company that does no development in Europe. It sells in Europe, but it does not "produce" in Europe. Should Microsoft decide to leave Europe, it would in fact be a blessing, because it would mean that more software will directly be developped in Europe, by companies that do not transfer all their profit to a country outside the EU.
Microsoft's jobs in Europe are sales and promotion positions. Salesmen and PR agencies will be happy to serve different customers and they will also make a lot more money, because the company's profit would be invested inside the EU and not be transferred to Redmond.
Microsoft behaves like a monopoly, because it is a monopoly. What MS fails to see, however, is the fact that it only came about through a lot of luck and good timing. Times have changed and Microsoft failed to adapt to the new circumstances, namely not being the only kid on the block with an operating system for Intel processors.
"Get a clue!"
Last time I checked, A/Cs in Hondas come as an option. They can also be repaired by non-Honda dealers, because documentation on the units is available. Also - I may be mistaken - I believe there is some kind of a difference between software and hardware.
I'm curious: Who has the copyright to that letter?
I imagine printing it on t-shirts and selling these at a Linux Convention and via the web is a good business idea.
Remember my shares when you go public.
" Practially, SCO is f*cked in Europe. In Germany, they are not allowed to say anything about their "intellectual property" or their license."
4 -0 07/
Well, in Germany, SCO owns YO^W^W^W they have just joined the "German Multimedia Association", see below URL.
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/anw-16.01.0
In joining the association (subgroup software), "SCO wants to sensitize the multimedia representatives for questions regarding Intellectual Property. In addition to that, SCO wants to make itself heard in areas beyond the scope of the multimedia industry, emphasizing that the association's job is to present critical topics to the public and politics and working on statements regarding various current topics".
The association's press secretary was unavailable for comment.
"here in Saint Petersburg bandwidth typically costs 6 cents per megabyte."
And I thought you still pay in Rubels and Kopekes. Silly me.
"Just google on Peak Oil if you want to educate yourself and not sleep for week or two."
h tm
g ri c.htm
I did google, albeit with different search criteria and I came up with:
http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/features/fex31479.
As to a visionary leader, here is one who fits that description:
http://www.arabialink.com/GulfWire/UAE/AD2003/A
Planning ahead 40 or 50 for the actual benefit of the country's and region's inhabitants is a lot more farsighted than the current administration's reelection efforts. On the other, they are Arabs, so what do they know.
"While I'm far from an MS fanboi, Linux isn't ready to take the place of Windows on the desktop."
You don't get it, do you? IBM will invest tons of money into making their own version of Linux one hell of a corporate desktop.
It's in their interest and it's in their customer's interest. I can think of few organizations the size of IBM who will not review their own desktop strategy after seeing Big Blue making the move.
And different from OS/2 way long time ago, this time the alternative to Microsoft is the talk of the town.
" Will IBM start selling notebooks without the microsoft tax too? And with fully linux compatible hardware?"
You bet they will.
From the comment: ... abandon Microsoft operating systems on it's internal desktops by the end of 2005. ;-)
>
>
>
>Just a quick note that we all should remember:
>
> * It's = it is (contraction)
> * its = possessive of it (possessive)
>
>Try to remember it in this fashion: If you know the sex, use the apostrophe (think phallic). If not, no apostrophe.
>
>It's a rule we can live by
If "it" is IBM's internal desktops, the it's is a genitive. How do you form a genitive in English?
"For one thing, they still have to support tons of Microsoft enabled applications like Notes. Tivoli (my former boss and IBM company) needs to support Windows."
IBM will be extremely happy to migrate customers as well.