What revenues? They give away their software and operate their servers for free without displaying advertising.
Damned if I know how they planned to make any money. With an IPO? "We have this product that we give away with no current way to make it profitable but please buy shares in us anyway."
Thanks for the suitable reproof. As the author of the error I am suitably embarassed, but for good purpose.
One wonders whether I used 'reproof' correctly. Methinks it perchance ought to have been 'reprove.' But I know not of what I speak, me being a mere apprentice to newbies in the vineyards of computerdom.
It stands for Device File System. It seeks to make the naming of devices more like the naming of files, so that users no longer need to create a link to the device.
Apparently this feature has been in new kernels since kernel.46.
There is some concern that it creates unneccesary overhead. However, users and authors of device drivers don't need to utilize or even know about this feature if they don't want to.
Caldera Systems had revenue of $553,000 for the quarter ended Jan. 31, 2000, a slight increase over the $538,000 garnered in the same quarter a year ago, the company said.
The market values Linux companies highly because they are supposed to be experiencing massive revenue growth. But Caldera has hardly grown at all in the past year, if this statistic is any indication.
>>Even end up being the number one linux supplier with all the cash that could mean.
But does it mean that much cash?
I read somewhere that the total market for Linux goods and services last year was $32 million.
The stock market values Red Hat at something like $5 billion. What is the basis for that kind of valuation?
I think that Linux itself will not be a big seller. I think that computer manufacturers will make their own distros of Linux that run well on their machines and install them. So you will someday have a Dell Linux, a Compaq Linux, etc.
I am troubled by the denial-of-service attacks against Yahoo and others this month.
I read a statement that the attackers were obviously knowledgeable about both Unix and networks.
That suggests to me that the attackers were able to plant their zombie programs on Unix machines but not on NT ones.
I think that Linux is superior because it is GPL's and one rarely if ever needs to buy software for it.
But I am not sure that Linux or Unix are more secure than NT. The current denial-of-service attacks which apparently exploit Unix security holes suggests that Unix and therefore Linux may NOT be more secure than NT.
>>huge strides in usability which desktops like Gnome and KDE seem to be adding to Linux
Before you can benefit from Gnome and KDE one must first install X. Easier said than done on many laptops.
Windows installs first time every time on my laptops. I have been struggling to get X installed on my Compusa 128MB/ATI Rage laptop for days. Suse, Turbolinux, Caldera, DragonLinux, they all fail.
Windows installs perfectly most times, even on laptops. It detects most hardware.
My experience with trying to get a functioning Linux/X system up and running is as follows:
Micron Pentium laptop with 16 MB: Red Hat 5.2, Suse 5.2 -- console worked but no X; TurboLinux 4 -- X and Console worked after configuring.
IBM Aptiva K-2 desktop w/ 32 MB -- Suse 6.3 worked perfectly and recognized my modem AFTER I bought one of the supported modems from the approved hardware list SUSE maintains.
COMPUSA P2 Laptop w/ 128 MB -- TurboLinux 4 would not install at all; DragonLinux 8 beta 1 (Slackware derivative) installed except that TinyX displayed multiple images of the same screen. Cursor would appear and reappear. Suse 6.3 does not run X Caldera 1.3 -- still working on it.
I would be the first to admit that I am probably doing something wrong in every case, but still, my mother is not going to be using Linux on her laptop anytime soon.
Yes, theoretically dishonest businessmen will move in with their pirate ships. We all heard on Slashdot about the company going for an IPO with some weird plan to sell Linux at a swap meet.
But really, how many of the scam IPO's have been successful? How much harm has been done to the Linux marketplace by new distributions or software?
If someone writes a new distribution with the intent of using it as a basis for a business instead of out of the love of it, where is the harm?
The article also assumes that if one works on some technology other than Linux then one stops using and developing for Linux. A lot of developers fool around with Linux at home and will use it regardless.
Red Hat employees who quit to go work elsewhere will take their Linux-using habits with them and possibly entrench Linux use in their new organizations. That is not a bad thing at all.
The rising tide which the article speaks of has lifted boats. Has it really sunk any yet?
Thanks for clarifying. What I meant to say --and it is off-topic for discussions of non-repudiation-- is that when you submit encrypted credit card numbers the corrupt employee on the other end can steal it, just as in a paper transaction.
The inability of the secure server to know the senders private key is what makes for non-repudiation. Someone produced a document using a certain key, and YOU are the only one who knows that key, so it must have been you.
A colleague says that to break 156 bit encryption takes a network of Cray's 5-months.
It will thus not be so easy to forge an encrypted signature by using a script.
It is much more likely that a corrupt employee with access rights on the other end will read and or sell the number, but it is beyond the capability of computers to force humans to be honest.
Anyone can get a free ISP account which assigns IP addresses dynamically. Their IP address would be different each time they logged in. Banning the IP address would be useless.
When a committee votes to send a bill to the floor of the House, all 435 congresspeople get to vote on it.
So it is not so that voters whose congressional representatives are not on a committee are denied input into the bills which the Committee considers. The input comes when the entire house votes on the measure.
It is common for committees to approve bills that the entire House later rejects. For instance, of the four articles of impeachment which Henry Hyde's Judiciary Committee approved two of the four failed to pass the House as a whole. (Would that all four had failed!)
The MPL was destroyed by an alien Nefilim space base on Mars after the MPL got too close. How long will we deny the obvious, that all those Mars probes going down are not a coincidence but rather are the work of aliens.
I am quite a fan of Carl Sagan's Contact. Yes, the characterizations are horrible, and the book is not really literature.
But Sagan really spices up the book with tidbits of science, and other tidbits of speculation about alien intelligences. For instance, until I read Sagan's book I had not understood the importance of radio astronomy. I sort of thought that astronomers just peeped through telescopes like Galileo.
>> Personally I think that CSS is a POS junk technology that extends a terrible model of client-side content control, breaking tons of business security models in its path.
In that case, Netscape ought candidly to admit that it does not support CSS and simply ignore CSS code.
I went to a great deal of trouble to try and use CSS on my web page instead of tables for layout. IE and Opera displayed the resulting page no problem. Netscape returned a blank page. I had to remove most CSS code from my page to permit Netscape users to see my page.
So I am not a Netscape fan. "First of all, do no harm." If Netscape cannot bring itself to support the W3C CSS standard then do not PRETEND to support it in a way which breaks it.
By the way, what is POS? I thought it meant point-of-sale, but that could not be your intended meaning of the term.
>>If TurboLinux installs Netscape by default, integrates it into the system so that it's hard to remove, and generally makes it hard for you to use a competing tool, then that's a Bad Thing. Settings => Control Panel => Add/Remove Programs => Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 and Internet Tools => Add/Remove
I suspect it is easier to remove IE from Windows than it is to remove that pesky Netscape icon from Turbolinux's default FVWM-95 desktop. I am a Linux newbie and I don't know how to get rid of the Netscape icon on Turbolinux's application launch bar.
Microsoft only does with IE what every other OS supplier does -- they installed and featured a preferred browser.
There is no harm to the consumer. We all know that Netscape Navigator is an inferior product which does not support CSS in a consistent way.
What is worse, Netscape wrote the style sheet code in Navigator to support some proprietary standard it was trying to push called Javascript Stylesheets. They later went in after the fact and tried to retrofit Navigator to support CSS, but they did a horrid job.
And that spaghetti code that still does not properly support CSS stylesheets is still there, inside Navigator 4.7.
Is it Microsoft's fault that Netscape degraded its own browser with useless proprietary mush that no one wanted?
Do we really want the government regulating the computer desktop in favor of an inferior product?
When I installed TurboLinux on my laptop it dumped Netscape onto my machine without my asking and gave Netscape a prominent place on my FVWM-95 desktop.
If it is okay for Linux distributions to include browsers then why is it wrong for Windows to do it.
I prefer Linux to Windows, but I want Linux to win fair and square, not as a result of government regulation. Those who support government harassment of Microsoft don't really believe in Linux, in my opinion.
Slashdot Mirror
Zappa had a knack for saying things that sounded profound but weren't. Just like his music.
>>decrease Napster Inc's revenues.
What revenues? They give away their software and operate their servers for free without displaying advertising.
Damned if I know how they planned to make any money. With an IPO? "We have this product that we give away with no current way to make it profitable but please buy shares in us anyway."
Thanks for the suitable reproof. As the author of the error I am suitably embarassed, but for good purpose.
One wonders whether I used 'reproof' correctly. Methinks it perchance ought to have been 'reprove.' But I know not of what I speak, me being a mere apprentice to newbies in the vineyards of computerdom.
It stands for Device File System. It seeks to make the naming of devices more like the naming of files, so that users no longer need to create a link to the device.
Apparently this feature has been in new kernels since kernel .46.
There is some concern that it creates unneccesary overhead. However, users and authors of device drivers don't need to utilize or even know about this feature if they don't want to.
The moral of the story is to go to Internet Options --> Security --> Custom Level on your IE browser and turn off ActiveX.
How can I get a copy of the Red Hat beta? I went to the RH web site but it didn't seem to be there.
>>Even end up being the number one linux supplier with all the cash that could mean.
But does it mean that much cash?
I read somewhere that the total market for Linux goods and services last year was $32 million.
The stock market values Red Hat at something like $5 billion. What is the basis for that kind of valuation?
I think that Linux itself will not be a big seller. I think that computer manufacturers will make their own distros of Linux that run well on their machines and install them. So you will someday have a Dell Linux, a Compaq Linux, etc.
If Bill Gates lets them!
I am troubled by the denial-of-service attacks against Yahoo and others this month.
I read a statement that the attackers were obviously knowledgeable about both Unix and networks.
That suggests to me that the attackers were able to plant their zombie programs on Unix machines but not on NT ones.
I think that Linux is superior because it is GPL's and one rarely if ever needs to buy software for it.
But I am not sure that Linux or Unix are more secure than NT. The current denial-of-service attacks which apparently exploit Unix security holes suggests that Unix and therefore Linux may NOT be more secure than NT.
>>huge strides in usability which desktops like Gnome and KDE seem to be adding to Linux
Before you can benefit from Gnome and KDE one must first install X. Easier said than done on many laptops.
Windows installs first time every time on my laptops. I have been struggling to get X installed on my Compusa 128MB/ATI Rage laptop for days. Suse, Turbolinux, Caldera, DragonLinux, they all fail.
A lot of Russian girl computer programmers are actually pretty cute. Any possibility of a special visa category for them?
Windows installs perfectly most times, even on laptops. It detects most hardware.
My experience with trying to get a functioning Linux/X system up and running is as follows:
Micron Pentium laptop with 16 MB:
Red Hat 5.2, Suse 5.2 -- console worked but no X;
TurboLinux 4 -- X and Console worked after configuring.
IBM Aptiva K-2 desktop w/ 32 MB -- Suse 6.3 worked perfectly and recognized my modem AFTER I bought one of the supported modems from the approved hardware list SUSE maintains.
COMPUSA P2 Laptop w/ 128 MB --
TurboLinux 4 would not install at all;
DragonLinux 8 beta 1 (Slackware derivative) installed except that TinyX displayed multiple images of the same screen. Cursor would appear and reappear.
Suse 6.3 does not run X
Caldera 1.3 -- still working on it.
I would be the first to admit that I am probably doing something wrong in every case, but still, my mother is not going to be using Linux on her laptop anytime soon.
Yes, theoretically dishonest businessmen will move in with their pirate ships. We all heard on Slashdot about the company going for an IPO with some weird plan to sell Linux at a swap meet.
But really, how many of the scam IPO's have been successful? How much harm has been done to the Linux marketplace by new distributions or software?
If someone writes a new distribution with the intent of using it as a basis for a business instead of out of the love of it, where is the harm?
The article also assumes that if one works on some technology other than Linux then one stops using and developing for Linux. A lot of developers fool around with Linux at home and will use it regardless.
Red Hat employees who quit to go work elsewhere will take their Linux-using habits with them and possibly entrench Linux use in their new organizations. That is not a bad thing at all.
The rising tide which the article speaks of has lifted boats. Has it really sunk any yet?
Thanks for clarifying. What I meant to say --and it is off-topic for discussions of non-repudiation-- is that when you submit encrypted credit card numbers the corrupt employee on the other end can steal it, just as in a paper transaction.
The inability of the secure server to know the senders private key is what makes for non-repudiation. Someone produced a document using a certain key, and YOU are the only one who knows that key, so it must have been you.
A colleague says that to break 156 bit encryption takes a network of Cray's 5-months.
It will thus not be so easy to forge an encrypted signature by using a script.
It is much more likely that a corrupt employee with access rights on the other end will read and or sell the number, but it is beyond the capability of computers to force humans to be honest.
What good would banning IP addresses be, really?
Anyone can get a free ISP account which assigns IP addresses dynamically. Their IP address would be different each time they logged in. Banning the IP address would be useless.
When a committee votes to send a bill to the floor of the House, all 435 congresspeople get to vote on it.
So it is not so that voters whose congressional representatives are not on a committee are denied input into the bills which the Committee considers. The input comes when the entire house votes on the measure.
It is common for committees to approve bills that the entire House later rejects. For instance, of the four articles of impeachment which Henry Hyde's Judiciary Committee approved two of the four failed to pass the House as a whole. (Would that all four had failed!)
The MPL was destroyed by an alien Nefilim space base on Mars after the MPL got too close. How long will we deny the obvious, that all those Mars probes going down are not a coincidence but rather are the work of aliens.
I don't think that a congressman has any obligation to respond to e-mails from people outside his district. He or she does not represent those people.
I am quite a fan of Carl Sagan's Contact. Yes, the characterizations are horrible, and the book is not really literature.
But Sagan really spices up the book with tidbits of science, and other tidbits of speculation about alien intelligences. For instance, until I read Sagan's book I had not understood the importance of radio astronomy. I sort of thought that astronomers just peeped through telescopes like Galileo.
What is the single most important task you have ever accomplished using FreeDOS?
>> Personally I think that CSS is a POS junk technology
that extends a terrible model of client-side content control, breaking tons of business security models in its path.
In that case, Netscape ought candidly to admit that it does not support CSS and simply ignore CSS code.
I went to a great deal of trouble to try and use CSS on my web page instead of tables for layout. IE and Opera displayed the resulting page no problem. Netscape returned a blank page. I had to remove most CSS code from my page to permit Netscape users to see my page.
So I am not a Netscape fan. "First of all, do no harm." If Netscape cannot bring itself to support the W3C CSS standard then do not PRETEND to support it in a way which breaks it.
By the way, what is POS? I thought it meant point-of-sale, but that could not be your intended meaning of the term.
>>If TurboLinux installs Netscape by default, integrates it into the system so that it's hard to remove, and generally makes it hard for you to use a competing tool, then that's a Bad Thing. Settings => Control Panel => Add/Remove Programs => Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 and Internet Tools => Add/Remove
I suspect it is easier to remove IE from Windows than it is to remove that pesky Netscape icon from Turbolinux's default FVWM-95 desktop. I am a Linux newbie and I don't know how to get rid of the Netscape icon on Turbolinux's application launch bar.
Microsoft only does with IE what every other OS supplier does -- they installed and featured a preferred browser.
There is no harm to the consumer. We all know that Netscape Navigator is an inferior product which does not support CSS in a consistent way.
What is worse, Netscape wrote the style sheet code in Navigator to support some proprietary standard it was trying to push called Javascript Stylesheets. They later went in after the fact and tried to retrofit Navigator to support CSS, but they did a horrid job.
And that spaghetti code that still does not properly support CSS stylesheets is still there, inside Navigator 4.7.
Is it Microsoft's fault that Netscape degraded its own browser with useless proprietary mush that no one wanted?
Do we really want the government regulating the computer desktop in favor of an inferior product?
When I installed TurboLinux on my laptop it dumped Netscape onto my machine without my asking and gave Netscape a prominent place on my FVWM-95 desktop.
If it is okay for Linux distributions to include browsers then why is it wrong for Windows to do it.
I prefer Linux to Windows, but I want Linux to win fair and square, not as a result of government regulation. Those who support government harassment of Microsoft don't really believe in Linux, in my opinion.
Linux is free! How can Microsoft stop it?
The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking to split up Microsft into two or three smaller firms. Do you support this demand by the US DOJ?