I don't know quite what to think about IRIX, but I don't think I can be as dismissive of it as you are.
The only black mark I can think of is that IRIX has had some hiccups with major version transitions. The worst was to 5.0, but what UNIX hasn't had major transition SNAFUs? Remember Solaris 2.0? Blech!! The move from AIX 3.1.x to 3.2 was even worse! Linux fans should not forget the (g)libc transition. So IRIX is no different here.
The hardware has always been decent. On the few SGIs I've dealt with, crashes were never a problem. The worst problem I've had with an SGI is getting a replacement disk for an old Indy in a research lab on an island in the middle of the Atlantic - logistics, not technical. I've worked with two Challenge boxen that ran Sybase, one in development, one in production. They were solid.
No, the only difference to me is that IRIX is neither Linux nor Solaris. It is something else, perhaps related, but something else. Since I work with Solaris and play with Linux, IRIX remains for the most part unfamiliar to me. When I have to deal with it I can usually fudge my way through it, but it remains slightly unfamiliar as compared to my more familiar warm and fuzzy UNIX variants.
So it's a little different is all.
People should remember that Linux isn't _the_ UNIX, nor is Solaris, nor *BSD, nor IRIX. They all are members of a recognisable and sometimes unruly family. Slagging one afmily member off reflects badly on the whole. Just remember, each has its own talents.
First you're right, they should keep doing what they're doing because it's obviously working.
Second of all, changing stripes to become an aquisitive monster is out of character and may backfire. So you're right again, buying weak companies may only buy them weaknesses.
Support and applications - yes. They do need these.
Exclusive deals with hardware? I say not, too reminiscent of another OS vendor.
As for deals with Cygnus, Borland et al, you're right again. No more than deals, aquisitions could accomplish little more than making RH seem like a grasping monster.
Subscriptions? Good for those who don't download and add in updates on the fly. A definite maybe but not something I really can see as useful to anyone but the laziest of end users. When lazy end users start buying Linux subscriptions, it will be a totally new market.
Still running Netscape, Comunicator 4.51 now and it's as unstable or worse than most other Netscape browsers. It's hard to convince people that Linux is stable when your browser keeps barfing its guts out.
Have tried several QT and GTK Mozilla releases. It's still a work in progress. No alternative there, yet.
Used Opera on a friend's Windos box. Looks good. I need an alternative browser on Linux, a viable one. I hope this one is it.
Oh, And I'll pay the 35 bucks for a decent browser. Free buys me shit right now. Some things are worth paying for, n'est ce pas?
1) There are more ethnicities in the world than black and white.
2) The information age is a global phenomenon, not just American, not just black, not just white.
3) Americans, both black and white, tend to forget both 1 and 2 while obsessing about blacks and whites in America.
4) African Americans tend to behave just as boorishly "superior" in "black countries" outside the US as their white compatriots do in all non-US countries. (I've witnessed this).
5) Face it. Black and white in America has a very ugly 300 year history. It's been ugly even for most of this century. There are social scars and human lives marred by this ugliness. It will take time to heal this malady. Maybe a good place to start is by making the hugely expensive American college/university system a little more affordable to those who can't get in on a basketball scholarship.
6) Stop peering into your navels and maybe admit that you may be able to get ideas from other countries. (ie: hmmmm, higher taxes, cheaper University, less guns, less social strife.)
If we've done a better job at ensuring our rights in the digital age than our neighbours, then maybe the best thing is to inform our neighbours that there is a better way. It is then up to them to get in touch with their elected representatives and let them know that _The_People_ do not approve of these crappy laws. If this fails, it is a failure of democracy.
If our sometimes more liberal approach sometimes helps our neighbours stay free, then we've done more than to smugly shout "Hey, move up here."
>... they were existing Borland-on-Windows developers looking to develop for Linux! That > explains the toolkit confusion, etc.
Yes, which makes these results even more significant. If 40% of existing Linux developers said OK to Inprise tools on Linux, then it would not be so significant a result. It would actually be a little ho-hum.
The respondents here are mostly Windows developers who want to move to Linux and take their favourite tools with them. In this light, the numbers are far more telling.
Case in point: this spring Canadian Chiefs of Police recommended that pot be decriminalised because enforcing the marijuana laws is a waste of time, police resourses, court time, jail space, and besides, simple possessions is often just dismissed by most judges anyway because it's a waste of yadayadayada.
Ontario's very intellectual and open minded premier dismissed the CoP recommendations out of hand and said besides, he prefers booze anyway.
Politicians are too short sighted, too chicken, and too stuck in the mud to open their eyes and realise the hypocrisy of having alcohol and tobacco legal while keeping pot possession as a criminal offense.
I think there are a couple of missed ideas in this otherwise interesting sucklook.
Perhaps trying to define the market success of an OSS related stock in traditional economic terms is inadequate. Why does this success have to mean that Linux is now a slave to the same forces that shape traditional proprietary, privately owned and developed software?
A developer who owns stock in a company that markets and supports free/open code he contributes to is literally banking on the success of his OSS project. If the company and its stock do well, then the developer will benefit. The developer may also do contract work or be employed as a coder or consultant specialising in his OSS project's software. This is also an economic benefit to the developer partially based on the market success of his OSS profect.
The economics of OSS are still developing. The possibilities remind me of Alvin Toffler's "Prosumer" economics idea sketched out in "The Third Wave." We may be seeing some of the new societal developments of the Information Age taking shape.
Suck had an interesting perspective to give voice to. But it's also possible that the success this OSS IPO may just be a portent of the new producxer-to-market relationships that are possible with OSS. In this light, "idealists selling out" is an outmoded viewpoint.
... and don't jump to over-optimistic conclusions.
1) There was a companion article in which IDC stated that corporate W2K rollouts will probably be delayed 6 - 18 months due to customers' wariness about MS' "bad record with the stability of initial releases" (paraphrased). - This is not a pro-Linux statement, it's just a realistic statement about MS' track record. Good, people are starting to see.
2) Linux has gained a visible installed base. This means people are using it where it's useful. It may (or may not) have anything to do about W2K. It's far more likely that Unix literate IS staff and other techies have managed to use Linux is areas where "big Unix" is overkill and MS is acknowledged crap. - This is not anti-MS. It's just a statement that people are using Linux and, by extension, OSS. This is a good thing.
3) Even if W2K wary and NT4 weary sites move to Linux as the only viable alternative, the larger process of migration away from MS server platforms, let alone desktops, will take some time. It took years for Unix to muscle upwards from 70's & 80's geek OS into its current midrange stronghold. It will take time for its 90's offspring to push downward into PC land.
This may not be a victory. It's just a confirmation that things are moving the way many of us suspect it is (and want it to).
We can see "open" win. We just have to be patient. Let's also not overly gloat when we do make headway.
> I say good for him. He knows how to make money and he knows how to invest money.
And this is all that is important? Money? Who cares if the service sucks, the software sucks, and the costs are too high? As long as Bill makes his buck you will applaud him?
Bill owns a chunk of a couple of local Comms companies. Their services suck BTW. This does not portend well.
The Road Ahead is a Toll Road.
The Road Ahead is full of pot holes and safety hazards.
The tolls on the Road Ahead don't pay for repairs to the pot holes and safety hazards. They just make the Road Owner richer so he can buy more roads.
The owner of the Road Ahead is a rich man who knows how to make and invest money. Soon he will own all the roads ahead.
Good for him? Egad! How can you applaud this? Are you that dim?
It's a non-western locale which good for global perspective on the idea... and speaking of perspective, it's closer to The Source (if I know what you wanna da people to know Why, eh?).
That way you can open up The Source while you look at open source. Oops! It's time to change the bong water, fill the bowl and build a new kernel. Ta.
This really suits the Linux mentality. I mean, think of the parallels:
Q) What's yer favourite distro? A) SUSE Q) Lame Ass. Real men run Slackware!
Q) What's yer favourite brew? A) Lower Musquadaboit Lager Q) Lame Ass, LM Lager is crap. Real swillers drink Mosquito Gulch Ale!
The only difference being I'm too chicken to name real beers because of the inevitable flame wars that will result. Linux preferences are safer to state.:-b
Suggestion: we have the next Linux Beer event right on the Canada-US border, say a western portion of it so I can travel. That way we can insult each others' beer in the comfortable setting of enjoying our favourite software.
-M
Ironic? In more ways than one.
on
SCO does Linux
·
· Score: 0
I find this ironic because SCO was always perceived to be "low end Unix" as opposed to the higher end Suns and HPs and SGIs et al. They had low end, often single role, SCO Unix and Xenix boxen out there. They had Open Desktop (aka Open Dogtop) on 386 boxen (as opposed to the higher end Sun 4/110 and the like). Now they are saying that Linux will be for desktops and low end servers (the new low-end Unix) while they will be the high end? High end SCO? I chuckle in their general direction.
Still, it's good to see they can recognise a reality shift before they are no longer real (in existence). Let's see if it is timely enough to save them.
-M
Ironic? In more ways than one.
on
SCO does Linux
·
· Score: 1
I find this ironic because SCO was always preceived to be "low end Unix" as opposed to the higher end Suns and HPs and SGIs et al. They had low end, often sigle role, SCO Unix and Xenix boxen out there. They had Open Desktop (aka Open Dogtop). Now they are saying that Linux will be for desktops and low end servers (the new low-end Unix) while they will be the high end? High end SCO? I chuckle in their general direction.
Still, it's good to see they can recognise a reality shift before they are no longer real (in existence). Let's see if it is timely enough to save them.
Shouldn't purchasers/owners have purchasers'/owners' rights? If you bought something, don't you own it? Why should someone have the right to take away what I've paid for after I've paid for it?
Shouldn't the Right to Privacy be added to our consitutions or bills of rights or charters of rights/freedoms or whatever as appropriate? Why should a company have the right to spy on me just because I paid them money for their product? Why should they have admin level access to my system because I paid them money for their product? This makes no sense!!!
A country that founded itself with all the trappings of rights and freeedoms and champions freedom around the world is making stupid laws that threaten the freedoms of its own citizens. Those citizens should do something.
Good luck folks. The rest of the free world is appalled and we hope you can fix this threat to your rights and freedoms.
Seriously, Linux and other OSS OSes are serious contenders because people care enough to work on them in their own spare time. Would we see the same level of public enthusiasm with an MPL'ed Windows?
Besides, an MPL'ed Windows would ahve all its source goodies hanging out long enough to be photographed and have it's best bits reverse engineered W/O and MS code. BSD is Unix but it's System V free, but it hapened because enough people looked at the AT&T code. Similar developments could happen if the MS cat got out of the MS bag. Maybe they would RE the whole thing, but maybe they would RE enough to turn some heads.
I can't see BG letting that happen unless forced. If forced then they'd have to keep it open. Then there'd be nothing stopping the copyiers and Reverse Engineers. Maybe this would be a good thing?
The IBM antitrust investigation dragged on for years. During those years, IBM became very careful due to the level of Government scrutiny. In effect, they behaved because they were watched. By time the DoJ called off its dogs, it was al moot anyway.
It's obvious from several posts here that some wish the same basic result result. I can't entirely disagree.
It's the conditions that made their monopoly possible. Right now there's a slavering pack of Ellisons, McNealey's, Jobses, and the like who would love nothing more than being the next Bill Gates. If we remove Bill's mponopoly without preventing another just like his, the whole point of antitrust is lost.
Please, don't babble about Linux rolling back the Microsoft monopoly. I would rather hope there will be an open world of open standards for comm protocols, APIs, and the digital infrastructure. Allow any and al OSes to compete on their own merits in this world of open interfaces. In that case it would matter not: Linux, *BSD, BeOS, GNU/Hurd, whatever you choose.
If choice wins we all win. If another product becomes a dominant and exclusive standard, then it's all pointless and why even bother.
A day late perhaps, but please check your facts before you publicly reveal your ignorance. Canada is not a third world country like Mexico or Honduras. it is in fact one of the world's richest. The UN ranks it as the #1 place in the world's "Quality of Life" ranking. Not exactly poor.
So not only is your tax idea a stupid encouragement of anarchy, your facts are wrong.
I was on course at Sun this week. The instructor said "It's not fair! If Solaris crashed as much as Windoze does, we'd have been out of business years ago, but they just seem to keep on getting away with it. Go figure!"
And did one of those ZNnet posters not issue a challenge to the "Unix Mafia" to have as much Chutzpah as Microsoft? Bah! Only Microsoft has the chutzpah to crash in public, nobody else would be able to get away with even the slightest instability.
"This is the Modern World that I've read about." ......The Jam
Sun may be pretty "open" with their use of "Open" but it's not their invention or monopoly. Lots of the over30's may remember the whole "Open Systems" corporate Unix related hoopla of the late '80's, it comes from that.
Open Software Foundation (hence OSF/1 if you dinna recall eh), OpenWindows, OpenLook, it's all corporate speak for "Our Unix is Open, but it's better than their Open Unix."
And BTW, OpenWindows came from Openok which was an AT&T development picked up and mutated by Sun, not something Sun came up with on their own.
If you ask me, MS is being terribly retro with this allusion to 80's era Open Systems Computing whilst peddling a Closed System. In that respect, they're very similar to those OSF corporate suits.
I remember an NCWorld story by N. Petreley comparing the private ownership of OS++ standards to ownership of Sauron's Ring. It is absolute poweer and it corrputs absolutely.
In this light, McNealy, Ellison and Andreessen become the Sarumans, Denethors and Borimirs of the OS War of the Ring. The greatly desire to overthrow the current tyrant and become tyrants in their own turns.
I guess those who seek to destroy the Ring and have no new Dark Lord are the OSS proponents. That makes us the good guys I guess. Petreley never actually said this but the allusion was there.
Interesting comparison, even in the light of this revue.
Really eh? I noticed that too, and it was coming from some sort of IS research pundit to boot. Maybe she's pining for the days of restrictive AT&T source licenses and $1995.00 binary licenses?
I agree, SGI probably picked Linux because it made the best combo of economic and technical sense.
Waitaminute! Shouldn't we have interstellar capability before we start creating black holes? That way we can leave.
I'm thinking in the style of Simmons' "Hyperion" where mini-blackholes are used to punch holes in space-time alowing for instant jump-doors and so alleviating all that tedious mucking about in hyperspace. The first hole was created on Earth, got loose, and turned the Earth into a Swiss Cheese. Of course there was lots of time to leave and they had the abilility to leave by tediously mucking about in hyperspace.
So maybe these guys should wait a few centuries or so...
> Have some pity for the NT lusers. They just don't know any better.
That's really the heart of the problem. They don't know any better, but they think they do - all because the big corporation told them so.
Yeah I've worked with a couple of them. Pity? It's hard to feel pity for someone who arrogantly tells you again and again that you are "old school" and prefer a system designed by "geeky frat boys." Tells you to "get with the program" and "join the winning team." What twaddle!
I think Unix/Linux fans get so snippy with these poor brainwashed plebes because we've had to put up with so much sanctimonious BS attitude from them.
We have a hard time pitying them when the problem gets more complicated than point-and-click can handle and they ask the geekboys for help. And the bosses make sure we do. Never happens the other way around. Never.
How many times has your smaller Unix team come up with a sleek, fast, stable multivendor, *Open(ish)* design only to be overridden by a bunch of unthinking MS Salarymen chanting MS-SQL Server (and they propnounce it Ess-Cue-Ell!!), MS-Exchange, MS-this and MS-that? Then, when the whole thing falls over, (inevitable) your team is asked to help clean the mess up?
It's no wonder we sneer at anything they throw at us. We've been through this crap before and we know that we'll probably get overridden by these driods once again when an HA or PDB system is in the works.
Cynicism is not just cynicism when it is backed by experience.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know quite what to think about IRIX, but I don't think I can be as dismissive of it as you are.
The only black mark I can think of is that IRIX has had some hiccups with major version transitions. The worst was to 5.0, but what UNIX hasn't had major transition SNAFUs? Remember Solaris 2.0? Blech!! The move from AIX 3.1.x to 3.2 was even worse! Linux fans should not forget the (g)libc transition. So IRIX is no different here.
The hardware has always been decent. On the few SGIs I've dealt with, crashes were never a problem. The worst problem I've had with an SGI is getting a replacement disk for an old Indy in a research lab on an island in the middle of the Atlantic - logistics, not technical. I've worked with two Challenge boxen that ran Sybase, one in development, one in production. They were solid.
No, the only difference to me is that IRIX is neither Linux nor Solaris. It is something else, perhaps related, but something else. Since I work with Solaris and play with Linux, IRIX remains for the most part unfamiliar to me. When I have to deal with it I can usually fudge my way through it, but it remains slightly unfamiliar as compared to my more familiar warm and fuzzy UNIX variants.
So it's a little different is all.
People should remember that Linux isn't _the_ UNIX, nor is Solaris, nor *BSD, nor IRIX. They all are members of a recognisable and sometimes unruly family. Slagging one afmily member off reflects badly on the whole. Just remember, each has its own talents.
-M
Got to agree.
First you're right, they should keep doing what they're doing because it's obviously working.
Second of all, changing stripes to become an aquisitive monster is out of character and may backfire. So you're right again, buying weak companies may only buy them weaknesses.
Support and applications - yes. They do need these.
Exclusive deals with hardware? I say not, too reminiscent of another OS vendor.
As for deals with Cygnus, Borland et al, you're right again. No more than deals, aquisitions could accomplish little more than making RH seem like a grasping monster.
Subscriptions? Good for those who don't download and add in updates on the fly. A definite maybe but not something I really can see as useful to anyone but the laziest of end users. When lazy end users start buying Linux subscriptions, it will be a totally new market.
-M
Still running Netscape, Comunicator 4.51 now and it's as unstable or worse than most other Netscape browsers. It's hard to convince people that Linux is stable when your browser keeps barfing its guts out.
Have tried several QT and GTK Mozilla releases. It's still a work in progress. No alternative there, yet.
Used Opera on a friend's Windos box. Looks good. I need an alternative browser on Linux, a viable one. I hope this one is it.
Oh, And I'll pay the 35 bucks for a decent browser. Free buys me shit right now. Some things are worth paying for, n'est ce pas?
-M
Observations:
1) There are more ethnicities in the world than black and white.
2) The information age is a global phenomenon, not just American, not just black, not just white.
3) Americans, both black and white, tend to forget both 1 and 2 while obsessing about blacks and whites in America.
4) African Americans tend to behave just as boorishly "superior" in "black countries" outside the US as their white compatriots do in all non-US countries. (I've witnessed this).
5) Face it. Black and white in America has a very ugly 300 year history. It's been ugly even for most of this century. There are social scars and human lives marred by this ugliness. It will take time to heal this malady. Maybe a good place to start is by making the hugely expensive American college/university system a little more affordable to those who can't get in on a basketball scholarship.
6) Stop peering into your navels and maybe admit that you may be able to get ideas from other countries. (ie: hmmmm, higher taxes, cheaper University, less guns, less social strife.)
-M
If we've done a better job at ensuring our rights in the digital age than our neighbours, then maybe the best thing is to inform our neighbours that there is a better way. It is then up to them to get in touch with their elected representatives and let them know that _The_People_ do not approve of these crappy laws. If this fails, it is a failure of democracy.
If our sometimes more liberal approach sometimes helps our neighbours stay free, then we've done more than to smugly shout "Hey, move up here."
-M
> ... they were existing Borland-on-Windows developers looking to develop for Linux! That
> explains the toolkit confusion, etc.
Yes, which makes these results even more significant. If 40% of existing Linux developers said OK to Inprise tools on Linux, then it would not be so significant a result. It would actually be a little ho-hum.
The respondents here are mostly Windows developers who want to move to Linux and take their favourite tools with them. In this light, the numbers are far more telling.
-M
But alcohol is OK.
Case in point: this spring Canadian Chiefs of Police recommended that pot be decriminalised because enforcing the marijuana laws is a waste of time, police resourses, court time, jail space, and besides, simple possessions is often just dismissed by most judges anyway because it's a waste of yadayadayada.
Ontario's very intellectual and open minded premier dismissed the CoP recommendations out of hand and said besides, he prefers booze anyway.
Politicians are too short sighted, too chicken, and too stuck in the mud to open their eyes and realise the hypocrisy of having alcohol and tobacco legal while keeping pot possession as a criminal offense.
-M
I think there are a couple of missed ideas in this otherwise interesting sucklook.
Perhaps trying to define the market success of an OSS related stock in traditional economic terms is inadequate. Why does this success have to mean that Linux is now a slave to the same forces that shape traditional proprietary, privately owned and developed software?
A developer who owns stock in a company that markets and supports free/open code he contributes to is literally banking on the success of his OSS project. If the company and its stock do well, then the developer will benefit. The developer may also do contract work or be employed as a coder or consultant specialising in his OSS project's software. This is also an economic benefit to the developer partially based on the market success of his OSS profect.
The economics of OSS are still developing. The possibilities remind me of Alvin Toffler's "Prosumer" economics idea sketched out in "The Third Wave." We may be seeing some of the new societal developments of the Information Age taking shape.
Suck had an interesting perspective to give voice to. But it's also possible that the success this OSS IPO may just be a portent of the new producxer-to-market relationships that are possible with OSS. In this light, "idealists selling out" is an outmoded viewpoint.
-M
... and don't jump to over-optimistic conclusions.
1) There was a companion article in which IDC stated that corporate W2K rollouts will probably be delayed 6 - 18 months due to customers' wariness about MS' "bad record with the stability of initial releases" (paraphrased).
- This is not a pro-Linux statement, it's just a realistic statement about MS' track record. Good, people are starting to see.
2) Linux has gained a visible installed base. This means people are using it where it's useful. It may (or may not) have anything to do about W2K. It's far more likely that Unix literate IS staff and other techies have managed to use Linux is areas where "big Unix" is overkill and MS is acknowledged crap.
- This is not anti-MS. It's just a statement that people are using Linux and, by extension, OSS. This is a good thing.
3) Even if W2K wary and NT4 weary sites move to Linux as the only viable alternative, the larger process of migration away from MS server platforms, let alone desktops, will take some time. It took years for Unix to muscle upwards from 70's & 80's geek OS into its current midrange stronghold. It will take time for its 90's offspring to push downward into PC land.
This may not be a victory. It's just a confirmation that things are moving the way many of us suspect it is (and want it to).
We can see "open" win. We just have to be patient. Let's also not overly gloat when we do make headway.
-M
> I say good for him. He knows how to make money and he knows how to invest money.
And this is all that is important? Money? Who cares if the service sucks, the software sucks, and the costs are too high? As long as Bill makes his buck you will applaud him?
Bill owns a chunk of a couple of local Comms companies. Their services suck BTW. This does not portend well.
The Road Ahead is a Toll Road.
The Road Ahead is full of pot holes and safety hazards.
The tolls on the Road Ahead don't pay for repairs to the pot holes and safety hazards. They just make the Road Owner richer so he can buy more roads.
The owner of the Road Ahead is a rich man who knows how to make and invest money. Soon he will own all the roads ahead.
Good for him? Egad! How can you applaud this? Are you that dim?
-M
It's a non-western locale which good for global perspective on the idea ... and speaking of perspective, it's closer to The Source (if I know what you wanna da people to know Why, eh?).
That way you can open up The Source while you look at open source. Oops! It's time to change the bong water, fill the bowl and build a new kernel. Ta.
-M
... is beer?
:-b
This really suits the Linux mentality. I mean, think of the parallels:
Q) What's yer favourite distro?
A) SUSE
Q) Lame Ass. Real men run Slackware!
Q) What's yer favourite brew?
A) Lower Musquadaboit Lager
Q) Lame Ass, LM Lager is crap. Real swillers drink Mosquito Gulch Ale!
The only difference being I'm too chicken to name real beers because of the inevitable flame wars that will result. Linux preferences are safer to state.
Suggestion: we have the next Linux Beer event right on the Canada-US border, say a western portion of it so I can travel. That way we can insult each others' beer in the comfortable setting of enjoying our favourite software.
-M
I find this ironic because SCO was always perceived to be "low end Unix" as opposed to the higher end Suns and HPs and SGIs et al. They had low end, often single role, SCO Unix and Xenix boxen out there. They had Open Desktop (aka Open Dogtop) on 386 boxen (as opposed to the higher end Sun 4/110 and the like). Now they are saying that Linux will be for desktops and low end servers (the new low-end Unix) while they will be the high end? High end SCO? I chuckle in their general direction.
Still, it's good to see they can recognise a reality shift before they are no longer real (in existence). Let's see if it is timely enough to save them.
-M
I find this ironic because SCO was always preceived to be "low end Unix" as opposed to the higher end Suns and HPs and SGIs et al. They had low end, often sigle role, SCO Unix and Xenix boxen out there. They had Open Desktop (aka Open Dogtop). Now they are saying that Linux will be for desktops and low end servers (the new low-end Unix) while they will be the high end? High end SCO? I chuckle in their general direction.
Still, it's good to see they can recognise a reality shift before they are no longer real (in existence). Let's see if it is timely enough to save them.
-M
Shouldn't purchasers/owners have purchasers'/owners' rights? If you bought something, don't you own it? Why should someone have the right to take away what I've paid for after I've paid for it?
Shouldn't the Right to Privacy be added to our consitutions or bills of rights or charters of rights/freedoms or whatever as appropriate? Why should a company have the right to spy on me just because I paid them money for their product? Why should they have admin level access to my system because I paid them money for their product? This makes no sense!!!
A country that founded itself with all the trappings of rights and freeedoms and champions freedom around the world is making stupid laws that threaten the freedoms of its own citizens. Those citizens should do something.
Good luck folks. The rest of the free world is appalled and we hope you can fix this threat to your rights and freedoms.
-M
What if they gave an Open Party and nobody came?
Seriously, Linux and other OSS OSes are serious contenders because people care enough to work on them in their own spare time. Would we see the same level of public enthusiasm with an MPL'ed Windows?
Besides, an MPL'ed Windows would ahve all its source goodies hanging out long enough to be photographed and have it's best bits reverse engineered W/O and MS code. BSD is Unix but it's System V free, but it hapened because enough people looked at the AT&T code. Similar developments could happen if the MS cat got out of the MS bag. Maybe they would RE the whole thing, but maybe they would RE enough to turn some heads.
I can't see BG letting that happen unless forced. If forced then they'd have to keep it open. Then there'd be nothing stopping the copyiers and Reverse Engineers. Maybe this would be a good thing?
Just an opinion.
-M
The IBM antitrust investigation dragged on for years. During those years, IBM became very careful due to the level of Government scrutiny. In effect, they behaved because they were watched. By time the DoJ called off its dogs, it was al moot anyway.
It's obvious from several posts here that some wish the same basic result result. I can't entirely disagree.
-M
It's the conditions that made their monopoly possible. Right now there's a slavering pack of Ellisons, McNealey's, Jobses, and the like who would love nothing more than being the next Bill Gates. If we remove Bill's mponopoly without preventing another just like his, the whole point of antitrust is lost.
Please, don't babble about Linux rolling back the Microsoft monopoly. I would rather hope there will be an open world of open standards for comm protocols, APIs, and the digital infrastructure. Allow any and al OSes to compete on their own merits in this world of open interfaces. In that case it would matter not: Linux, *BSD, BeOS, GNU/Hurd, whatever you choose.
If choice wins we all win. If another product becomes a dominant and exclusive standard, then it's all pointless and why even bother.
-M
A day late perhaps, but please check your facts before you publicly reveal your ignorance. Canada is not a third world country like Mexico or Honduras. it is in fact one of the world's richest. The UN ranks it as the #1 place in the world's "Quality of Life" ranking. Not exactly poor.
So not only is your tax idea a stupid encouragement of anarchy, your facts are wrong.
Bye,
-M
I was on course at Sun this week. The instructor said "It's not fair! If Solaris crashed as much as Windoze does, we'd have been out of business years ago, but they just seem to keep on getting away with it. Go figure!"
And did one of those ZNnet posters not issue a challenge to the "Unix Mafia" to have as much Chutzpah as Microsoft? Bah! Only Microsoft has the chutzpah to crash in public, nobody else would be able to get away with even the slightest instability.
"This is the Modern World that I've read about."
......The Jam
-M
Sun may be pretty "open" with their use of "Open" but it's not their invention or monopoly. Lots of the over30's may remember the whole "Open Systems" corporate Unix related hoopla of the late '80's, it comes from that.
Open Software Foundation (hence OSF/1 if you dinna recall eh), OpenWindows, OpenLook, it's all corporate speak for "Our Unix is Open, but it's better than their Open Unix."
And BTW, OpenWindows came from Openok which was an AT&T development picked up and mutated by Sun, not something Sun came up with on their own.
If you ask me, MS is being terribly retro with this allusion to 80's era Open Systems Computing whilst peddling a Closed System. In that respect, they're very similar to those OSF corporate suits.
-M
I remember an NCWorld story by N. Petreley comparing the private ownership of OS++ standards to ownership of Sauron's Ring. It is absolute poweer and it corrputs absolutely.
In this light, McNealy, Ellison and Andreessen become the Sarumans, Denethors and Borimirs of the OS War of the Ring. The greatly desire to overthrow the current tyrant and become tyrants in their own turns.
I guess those who seek to destroy the Ring and have no new Dark Lord are the OSS proponents. That makes us the good guys I guess. Petreley never actually said this but the allusion was there.
Interesting comparison, even in the light of this revue.
-M
Really eh? I noticed that too, and it was coming from some sort of IS research pundit to boot. Maybe she's pining for the days of restrictive AT&T source licenses and $1995.00 binary licenses?
I agree, SGI probably picked Linux because it made the best combo of economic and technical sense.
-M
Waitaminute! Shouldn't we have interstellar capability before we start creating black holes? That way we can leave.
I'm thinking in the style of Simmons' "Hyperion" where mini-blackholes are used to punch holes in space-time alowing for instant jump-doors and so alleviating all that tedious mucking about in hyperspace. The first hole was created on Earth, got loose, and turned the Earth into a Swiss Cheese. Of course there was lots of time to leave and they had the abilility to leave by tediously mucking about in hyperspace.
So maybe these guys should wait a few centuries or so...
-M
> Have some pity for the NT lusers. They just don't know any better.
That's really the heart of the problem. They don't know any better, but they think they do - all because the big corporation told them so.
Yeah I've worked with a couple of them. Pity? It's hard to feel pity for someone who arrogantly tells you again and again that you are "old school" and prefer a system designed by "geeky frat boys." Tells you to "get with the program" and "join the winning team." What twaddle!
I think Unix/Linux fans get so snippy with these poor brainwashed plebes because we've had to put up with so much sanctimonious BS attitude from them.
We have a hard time pitying them when the problem gets more complicated than point-and-click can handle and they ask the geekboys for help. And the bosses make sure we do. Never happens the other way around. Never.
How many times has your smaller Unix team come up with a sleek, fast, stable multivendor, *Open(ish)* design only to be overridden by a bunch of unthinking MS Salarymen chanting MS-SQL Server (and they propnounce it Ess-Cue-Ell!!), MS-Exchange, MS-this and MS-that? Then, when the whole thing falls over, (inevitable) your team is asked to help clean the mess up?
It's no wonder we sneer at anything they throw at us. We've been through this crap before and we know that we'll probably get overridden by these driods once again when an HA or PDB system is in the works.
Cynicism is not just cynicism when it is backed by experience.
-MWR-