Agreed. This is another example of Microsoft "fishing" for a new market. XBox, XP Media Center and other ventures also exemplify this.
Microsoft is rarely successful, at least in the short term. The XBox, for example, is popular enough, but not yet profitable. Microsoft is still a two-product show - with Windows and Office. And the Office monopoly is dependent upon the Windows monopoly.
Maybe these will catch on, maybe not. But I don't see any way they could kill the iPod, since the target audience and price range are distinctly different.
Yes, the end of the new movie should have exactly that kind of explosion, like the ones in Star Trek VI and the Star Wars Special Edition, but a slightly different color. Maybe green, or red because it's Mars.
Also the main characters should be seen running toward the camera in slow motion, outpacing the explosion by some superhuman feat. That would be way better than the aliens catching a cold.
Spielberg better give me writing credit if he does all that, though...
I was approximating. It's southwest of London:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~genmaps/g enfiles/COU_files/ENG/SRY/EncBrit_sry_1899.htm
Though in your defense, it's a bit more south than west.
It's a neat book, but the ending is kind of lame. The Martians, who landed their vehicles in Surrey (just west of London), almost succeed in taking over the world and have killed many people in London, but they are foiled by the common cold. Yes, they all catch the cold, for which they have no immunity or tolerance, and die.
Spielberg will change a lot, probably. Like the ships, which were not flying vehicles per se but rather were launched like bullets from a big cannon on Mars, will probably be updated. But I hope he changes the ending or it will be Independence Day all over again. (Remember discovering that Macs are compatible with alien technology? And that alien computer systems are easy to code viruses for?)
Intel has long coasted along on what Apple likes to call the "megahertz myth." The power of a processor is more than just its clockspeed, as Apple and AMD have struggled to point out for years. Intel ignored the debate because they were ahead in clockspeed, so it was a convenient metric that always showed them to seem ahead of the competition. This change in CPU naming might indicate a recognition that its rivals may overtake it in clockspeed. Perhaps they're planning strategic changes that could take them below Apple or AMD in clockspeed and want to jump on the "clockspeed ain't everything" bandwagon as soon as they can.
A few people have commented on Anderer's comments regarding putting the kernel into the public domain. I agree that it's great that this guy came forward, but frankly I would have thought that someone as involved in copyright and patent licensing as he claims to be would know a bit more about the ins and outs of copyright law, particularly as it pertains to Linux and other GPL-licensed software. Consider this:
I could easily see IBM, HP, Sun, and many of the other large hardware players solving this problem tomorrow by settling the dispute with SCO and maybe even taking the entire code base and donating it into the public domain.
This shows a serious lack of understanding. IBM, Sun and many other large contributors to the kernel have a lot of power in the industry, and they each own copyrights over the parts of the Linux kernel that they contributed. But they don't own Linux as a whole: each of them owns pieces of Linux, but the code surrounding what they contributed is licensed to them. The license is the GPL, which does not allow them to re-use the code under a license other than the GPL. So in theory Sun (or one of the others) could take code they contributed to Linux and put it in the public domain, but they couldn't touch the surrounding code, nor revoke the GPL-granted rights of people who licensed the code as it exists in the kernel.
The idea of Linux going into the public domain is wishful thinking that we've heard a few times from people in the industry. They need to get over it, because it's highly unlikely. They also would benefit from learning a bit more about how these collaborative uses of copyright work. Contrary to Mr. Anderer's comments, the economic model of the GPL has actually been thought out in great depth: there is little room for the licensing models employed in the past by priprietary software vendors, but this is intentional and not in need of fixing.
Actually now that I re-read it, the article is a little vague about whether it's talking about the end of the x86 architecture, or the end of the x86 naming convention, or the end of major Linux development for that platform. Still, none of these things really ended from a development perspective. We still refer to "x86."
That's a good point - I hadn't noticed that they had pulled that until I saw your comment. I did notice some personal page redesigns though. Maybe they'll finally update to using CSS and save themselvessome bandwidth.
Except you're ignoring that the way it was ten years ago far surpassed what you were using on the desktop, and that the things that have stayed the same in Linux are still in place because people want them that way. So yes, Windows has come a long way indeed, but it had a longer way to go.
And I disagree that GNU/Linux systems haven't improved. They support a lot more devices, are a lot more stable, and are generally faster and have better desktop software available. I'm writing this using Mozilla Firefox on KDE 3.2. From where I'm sitting, Linux looks like a bit more than a basic console OS.
Linux Journal: With the end of the road for Intel's 80XXX series chips in sight (although at least a few years away), what chip or hardware platform would you like to see Linux ported to?
They asked Linus this question in 1994. And are we all using Amigas and DEC Alphas? Nope. I wonder what assumptions that we're making these days (x86_64 will take over the desktop, Microsoft will keep losing market share to Linux, Slashdot will eventually get redesigned, etc.) will end up being dead wrong, and funny when you look back. Maybe all of the above...
Excellent - My Bug is Fixed
on
KDE 3.2.1 Released
·
· Score: 0, Redundant
Woo-hoo! One bug I've had with KDE 3.2, which I installed in both the Beta and final versions using the KDE-supplied Fedora RPMs, has been driving me nuts. I'm not sure if it was RPM-specific, but there were real problems with switching applications, navigating menus, and other things you expect to "just work." I lived with it because I really liked KDE 3.2 and discovered some tricks, but now it's working perfectly. Anyone else noticed these issues? If so, rpm -Fvh --nodeps *.rpm yours today.
Their earnings are down. They sued two of their own customers. Laura Dido is no longer brainwashed by them. They have been revealed to be sock puppets of Redmond. And they use Word, which revealed their alternate evil plans. This is by far the funniest SCO week ever.
This was a great speech. I watched the whole video of the lecture, which is in Real Media on this
page. I viewed it with the Helix player; Real's player obivously works as well.
At about an hour in length, it was quite good. I really recommend it, because it puts both SCO and the things you hear Stallman say into very nice perspective, and shows how terribly confused Darl McBride really is. In particular you should watch for Moglen's description of the problems with using Eldred v. Ashcroft to support the odd notion that the GPL is unconstitutional. Darl doesn't realize it, but his argument indicates that he and the FSF are actually on the same side of that Supreme Court case.
Agreed wholeheartedly. Aside from trying to cram their own brand of tainted LDAP down your throat on the server version (back when their marketing people were calling everything "Active"), it was a decent system. That is, 2K lacked a lot of the nice stuff you find on an average Linux system, but it fixed all of their most glaring UI bugs and combined the best stuff of 98 (GUI, PnP, etc.) with the best of NT (stability, if sub-UNIX stability). Clearly someone was thinking in Redmond.
5.1 boots faster and has anti-aliased text. It also blows chunks. If I don't figure out how to kick MSN messenger out of the system tray soon I'll be able to post a "Effects of a Fist Impact on an LCD Display" story on Slashdot (though it won't be as funny as a randomly-generated
Slashdot story).
Yes. Excessive publicity. Known for exaggerated or extravagant claims, especially in advertising or promotional material, but not necessarily by the owner of that which is being promoted. And I guess not very well represented in my quote.:)
Precisely. By overly-hyped I was referring to the time to market, which was delayed repeatedly. Not to business success, which was substantial (and which cemented Microsoft in the lives of each and every geek, like it or not).
In the case of Chicago, while you rightly point out that it was a business success, it was not only overly-hyped in the sense that the computing world eagerly anticipated it during a forever-and-a-day development cycle, but it was also overly-hyped as a product. Let's face it: they sold a lot, but it sucked. Windows 95 didn't work as advertised until OSR2. Some people reported being glad they stuck with Windows 3.11, despite the old clunky interface, because it crashed less.
An interim release between XP service pack 2 and Longhorn indicates that Longhorn is going the way of Chicago and NT 5.0. Those, if you'll recall, were overly-hyped software releases that were delayed... and delayed. And delayed.
And delayed. Point is, to me this indicates that Longhorn's release date just became slightly more tentative than it was before. Which is a good thing for alternative operating systems like the growing and ever-improving GNU/Linux.
And in the short term it's a good thing for Microsoft, as some people are likely to fork over the $100 (or whatever) upgrade.
Google is obviously a top choice for the litigious bastards, but there are other plausible targets.
One big one is Pixar, or another animation studio. They use a lot of Linux for rendering farms, and some also have used SGI and other UNIXes in the past. They're moving to Linux in a big way.
And what about a large finance company on Wall Street? Most of them started experimenting with Linux years ago, and some have a lot of systems running it.
I guess we'll find out by the day's end. It's a sure thing, since SCO would never let its PR face say something and then contradict it in its actions.
In the article "Linux cyber-battle turns nasty" Stephen Evans seems to suggest that the MyDoom worm was perpetrated by users of the GNU/Linux operating system, commonly called "Linux."
In fact one of the article's section headings is "Wrath of the geeks." It might be more accurate for it to say "Wrath of the geek." As in the case of suicide bombers, a single person can cause a lot of damage, but that single person should not serve as an indication of the temperment of an entire group of people. The writer of the MyDoom worm might not be a Linux user at all. He or she might have used the DDOS (distributed denial-of-service) attack to cover other, real motives. Or the writer might be exactly what Mr. Evans suggests, and in that case would be disowned and condemned by other Linux users such as myself.
In either case the sentiments of one person should never be used to draw conclusions about a group. This attack on SCO is counter-productive, not to mention morally wrong. Bruce Perens, a leader in the open source community, condemns the attacks and urges others to do the same. In his press release to this effect he also explains some of the reasons this virus may exist:
http://perens.com/Articles/SCO/DOS/
And these following articles indicate that the worm probably has ties to spammers:
Finally, this LinuxWorld article explains an investigation into the origins of the virus, which seem to be from an IP address in Russia, according to the Moscow Times:
http://www.linuxworld.com/story/42125.htm
The SCO suit against IBM, if successful for SCO, will not be enforceable in Russia, so why would a Linux user there care?
Before suggesting that an entire community is made up of law-ignoring zealots it might be good to remember that one rogue can cause a lot of headaches, and also that it's important to do a little research before casting stones. I hope that the BBC will follow up this story with the counterpoints I have raised above.
I'm trying this out now. It's pretty nice. I already like IMAP better than POP, so it's better in that regard. And it's faster than the e-mail I'm using now. Thanks!
Mainly to keep the address. I plan to ditch it at some point. What free POP3 services do you know of? If they offer it with webmail I might be up for it.
At this point there's enough Opteron stuff out there that Intel can't avoid implementing an architecture compatible with amd64. Yes, I think the timing is probably not a coincidence. Though I'm sure Microsoft wasn't waiting for Intel, they probably informed Groves and Co. of the release in advance.
If Intel can't stay compatible with AMD's lineup they could end up behind. That would certainly be a first for Intel.
What people don't understand is that the Internet isn't free. I make my money by signing you up at my Web site, getting your information, and using that information to figure out what you like.
I quite agree. When I hear this type of confused smokescreen argument I think of everyone's favorite litigious bastards, the SCO Group. No such thing as a free lunch, so pay me right now.
The argument is weak, and not very well thought out. The assertion he's making is that my e-mail can't be free because there's no such thing as a free lunch. But my e-mail is already non-free. I see ads when I check it. I pay something like $17 a year for POP3 access. In short, his crap e-mail doesn't justify my mailbox's existence. There is already an economic model behind it before a single spam lands in it.
There is a special place in hell for people like Scott Richter, and we owe a lot of thanks to to the folks from Redmond and New York who are helping to escort him there.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft is rarely successful, at least in the short term. The XBox, for example, is popular enough, but not yet profitable. Microsoft is still a two-product show - with Windows and Office. And the Office monopoly is dependent upon the Windows monopoly.
Maybe these will catch on, maybe not. But I don't see any way they could kill the iPod, since the target audience and price range are distinctly different.
Also the main characters should be seen running toward the camera in slow motion, outpacing the explosion by some superhuman feat. That would be way better than the aliens catching a cold.
Spielberg better give me writing credit if he does all that, though ...
I was approximating. It's southwest of London: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~genmaps/g enfiles/COU_files/ENG/SRY/EncBrit_sry_1899.htm
Though in your defense, it's a bit more south than west.
Spielberg will change a lot, probably. Like the ships, which were not flying vehicles per se but rather were launched like bullets from a big cannon on Mars, will probably be updated. But I hope he changes the ending or it will be Independence Day all over again. (Remember discovering that Macs are compatible with alien technology? And that alien computer systems are easy to code viruses for?)
Intel has long coasted along on what Apple likes to call the "megahertz myth." The power of a processor is more than just its clockspeed, as Apple and AMD have struggled to point out for years. Intel ignored the debate because they were ahead in clockspeed, so it was a convenient metric that always showed them to seem ahead of the competition. This change in CPU naming might indicate a recognition that its rivals may overtake it in clockspeed. Perhaps they're planning strategic changes that could take them below Apple or AMD in clockspeed and want to jump on the "clockspeed ain't everything" bandwagon as soon as they can.
This shows a serious lack of understanding. IBM, Sun and many other large contributors to the kernel have a lot of power in the industry, and they each own copyrights over the parts of the Linux kernel that they contributed. But they don't own Linux as a whole: each of them owns pieces of Linux, but the code surrounding what they contributed is licensed to them. The license is the GPL, which does not allow them to re-use the code under a license other than the GPL. So in theory Sun (or one of the others) could take code they contributed to Linux and put it in the public domain, but they couldn't touch the surrounding code, nor revoke the GPL-granted rights of people who licensed the code as it exists in the kernel.
The idea of Linux going into the public domain is wishful thinking that we've heard a few times from people in the industry. They need to get over it, because it's highly unlikely. They also would benefit from learning a bit more about how these collaborative uses of copyright work. Contrary to Mr. Anderer's comments, the economic model of the GPL has actually been thought out in great depth: there is little room for the licensing models employed in the past by priprietary software vendors, but this is intentional and not in need of fixing.
Actually now that I re-read it, the article is a little vague about whether it's talking about the end of the x86 architecture, or the end of the x86 naming convention, or the end of major Linux development for that platform. Still, none of these things really ended from a development perspective. We still refer to "x86."
That's a good point - I hadn't noticed that they had pulled that until I saw your comment. I did notice some personal page redesigns though. Maybe they'll finally update to using CSS and save themselvessome bandwidth.
And I disagree that GNU/Linux systems haven't improved. They support a lot more devices, are a lot more stable, and are generally faster and have better desktop software available. I'm writing this using Mozilla Firefox on KDE 3.2. From where I'm sitting, Linux looks like a bit more than a basic console OS.
They asked Linus this question in 1994. And are we all using Amigas and DEC Alphas? Nope. I wonder what assumptions that we're making these days (x86_64 will take over the desktop, Microsoft will keep losing market share to Linux, Slashdot will eventually get redesigned, etc.) will end up being dead wrong, and funny when you look back. Maybe all of the above ...
Woo-hoo! One bug I've had with KDE 3.2, which I installed in both the Beta and final versions using the KDE-supplied Fedora RPMs, has been driving me nuts. I'm not sure if it was RPM-specific, but there were real problems with switching applications, navigating menus, and other things you expect to "just work." I lived with it because I really liked KDE 3.2 and discovered some tricks, but now it's working perfectly. Anyone else noticed these issues? If so, rpm -Fvh --nodeps *.rpm yours today.
Yeah, get the word out on this lack-of-Darl news. That way I won't have to bring my bodyguard with me to the meeting.
Their earnings are down. They sued two of their own customers. Laura Dido is no longer brainwashed by them. They have been revealed to be sock puppets of Redmond. And they use Word, which revealed their alternate evil plans. This is by far the funniest SCO week ever.
At about an hour in length, it was quite good. I really recommend it, because it puts both SCO and the things you hear Stallman say into very nice perspective, and shows how terribly confused Darl McBride really is. In particular you should watch for Moglen's description of the problems with using Eldred v. Ashcroft to support the odd notion that the GPL is unconstitutional. Darl doesn't realize it, but his argument indicates that he and the FSF are actually on the same side of that Supreme Court case.
5.1 boots faster and has anti-aliased text. It also blows chunks. If I don't figure out how to kick MSN messenger out of the system tray soon I'll be able to post a "Effects of a Fist Impact on an LCD Display" story on Slashdot (though it won't be as funny as a randomly-generated Slashdot story).
Yes. Excessive publicity. Known for exaggerated or extravagant claims, especially in advertising or promotional material, but not necessarily by the owner of that which is being promoted. And I guess not very well represented in my quote. :)
I've been trying to figure out how to pronounce Suse for years. Thanks!
In the case of Chicago, while you rightly point out that it was a business success, it was not only overly-hyped in the sense that the computing world eagerly anticipated it during a forever-and-a-day development cycle, but it was also overly-hyped as a product. Let's face it: they sold a lot, but it sucked. Windows 95 didn't work as advertised until OSR2. Some people reported being glad they stuck with Windows 3.11, despite the old clunky interface, because it crashed less.
And delayed. Point is, to me this indicates that Longhorn's release date just became slightly more tentative than it was before. Which is a good thing for alternative operating systems like the growing and ever-improving GNU/Linux.
And in the short term it's a good thing for Microsoft, as some people are likely to fork over the $100 (or whatever) upgrade.
One big one is Pixar, or another animation studio. They use a lot of Linux for rendering farms, and some also have used SGI and other UNIXes in the past. They're moving to Linux in a big way.
And what about a large finance company on Wall Street? Most of them started experimenting with Linux years ago, and some have a lot of systems running it.
I guess we'll find out by the day's end. It's a sure thing, since SCO would never let its PR face say something and then contradict it in its actions.
To whom it may concern,
In the article "Linux cyber-battle turns nasty" Stephen Evans seems to suggest that the MyDoom worm was perpetrated by users of the GNU/Linux operating system, commonly called "Linux."
In fact one of the article's section headings is "Wrath of the geeks." It might be more accurate for it to say "Wrath of the geek." As in the case of suicide bombers, a single person can cause a lot of damage, but that single person should not serve as an indication of the temperment of an entire group of people. The writer of the MyDoom worm might not be a Linux user at all. He or she might have used the DDOS (distributed denial-of-service) attack to cover other, real motives. Or the writer might be exactly what Mr. Evans suggests, and in that case would be disowned and condemned by other Linux users such as myself.
In either case the sentiments of one person should never be used to draw conclusions about a group. This attack on SCO is counter-productive, not to mention morally wrong. Bruce Perens, a leader in the open source community, condemns the attacks and urges others to do the same. In his press release to this effect he also explains some of the reasons this virus may exist:
http://perens.com/Articles/SCO/DOS/
And these following articles indicate that the worm probably has ties to spammers:
http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/010 4/28worm.html/ 2376200
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business
Finally, this LinuxWorld article explains an investigation into the origins of the virus, which seem to be from an IP address in Russia, according to the Moscow Times:
http://www.linuxworld.com/story/42125.htm
The SCO suit against IBM, if successful for SCO, will not be enforceable in Russia, so why would a Linux user there care?
Before suggesting that an entire community is made up of law-ignoring zealots it might be good to remember that one rogue can cause a lot of headaches, and also that it's important to do a little research before casting stones. I hope that the BBC will follow up this story with the counterpoints I have raised above.
Regards,
Ed Holden
Medford, Massachusetts
I'm trying this out now. It's pretty nice. I already like IMAP better than POP, so it's better in that regard. And it's faster than the e-mail I'm using now. Thanks!
Mainly to keep the address. I plan to ditch it at some point. What free POP3 services do you know of? If they offer it with webmail I might be up for it.
If Intel can't stay compatible with AMD's lineup they could end up behind. That would certainly be a first for Intel.
I quite agree. When I hear this type of confused smokescreen argument I think of everyone's favorite litigious bastards, the SCO Group. No such thing as a free lunch, so pay me right now.
The argument is weak, and not very well thought out. The assertion he's making is that my e-mail can't be free because there's no such thing as a free lunch. But my e-mail is already non-free. I see ads when I check it. I pay something like $17 a year for POP3 access. In short, his crap e-mail doesn't justify my mailbox's existence. There is already an economic model behind it before a single spam lands in it.
There is a special place in hell for people like Scott Richter, and we owe a lot of thanks to to the folks from Redmond and New York who are helping to escort him there.