This guy must have grapefruit sized nuts. If they come after him (I'm sure we'd hear it here first), I will contribute to his defense fund. The problem is that the threat of litigation under the DMCA is more effective than the DMCA itself. I'm sure those who paid the lobbyists to get this thing passed don't want to get any of it's nasty fangs knocked out. They'd drop the suit before a judge struck it down. By then, the financial damage to the defendant would already be done anyhow.
I wouldn't say you're 100% wrong but you're not 100% right either. Point-by-point:
market share: irrelevant, it's the available software that counts
marketing: that's the job of co's like RedHat and IBM
average luser: hard to OEM Lin due to exclusivity arrangements on Win made by MS
advantages of Lin: performance, stability, security, virtually virus free
disadvantages of Lin: not much familiar commercial Win software, few native games
*NIX roots: for a *nix user, DOS is arcane. There are several "dos-like" shell setups available for Linux
ease of use: use a desktop focused distro, Mandrake or SuSE, and KDE
The only good argument that can be made for not using Linux is the lack of commercial ports of familiar Windows software and games. Some of the major Win apps do work under Crossover and several games run under WineX. However, for a boxed distro, Crossover, and WineX you're looking at about $100, not the proverbial free.
That said, you can't deny that most people use MS simply because it's what came with the PC when they purchased it. This is the same reason IE tookover, most people either didn't know how or couldn't be bothered to install NS. If a law were passed tomorrow banning the bundling of PCs with software, you'd see rapid growth in the number of Linux users. Let's be honest, without any prior knowledge, no sales-dude interference, and given the choice, would you pay $20 for a boxed Mandrake Linux (or even better, borrow it from a friend) or $200 for XP? Heck, I see people tripping all over themselves at BestBuy to save $200 through those MSN lock-in scams.
Thank you, exactly what I was thinking. It's a feature of JavaScript. This is like me patenting the META REFRESH tag. Sad part is I'd probably be able to get a patent for it.
So long as software is read and interpreted by some piece of hardware, there will ALWAYS exist the possibility of hacking that software. Yeah you can create monster keys from hell and lock them down in hardware but, as the XBox project has shown, all it takes is a bug in a signed piece of software and you can kiss your secured system bye bye. Also, there may be exploits available in the firmware itself and there's the popular brute force attack too. If you connect a box (Microsoft, Linux, Mac, etc) to any network, you implicitly accept a certain level of risk of being compromised. This effort will just lead to more complacency. The only truly 100% secured system system is one that's powered off.
I'm not saying there shouldn't, I agree there should. I don't know about broad laws banning conditions in EULAs though. The market should respond to restrictive EULAs by not agreeing to them. The problem is that MS software is in monopoly category where there is often no choice other than to accept their unacceptable EULAs. Since we can't have an MS only law, except maybe some edict from the antitrust watchdog that's supposed to be keeping on eye on 'em. Ha, yeah, that's gonna happen. Personally I don't use their stuff but a hell of a lot of folks, right or wrong, do and for them there is no recourse.
Totally agree. I'm (chokes) with MS on this one (gah that hurts to say). However, it brings about an important fallacy in many IT manager's trains of though, you can't hold a software maker libel for their crap product, open source or not. Sorry to say this, but tough banana's PSPD, you made your bed, you sleep in it, and for god's sake try to learn from it.
Ummm, shouldn't this be done at the software level rather than the hardware level? When control is moved to the hardware level, you remove the option of allowing that level of flexibility at all. I can't speak for MS OS's but I can lock the hell out of my Solaris users' freedoms via the OS.
That said, what the hell is up with HP? Does Fiorina think she's running Dell now?
All they need to do is call the BIOS "secured" and voila, instant DMCA violation for anybody who runs Linux on it. It's probably safe to assume this will be X-Box like with a signed bootloader, at least for the OS.
Hell, it's hard enough to get budgets approved for URGENT matters. There's no way I'm recommending an IPV6 migration unless I can tie it to a significant savings in $$$ -or- we're forced to by some kind of federal mandate. Right now, there's certainly no cost savings, rather the opposite -and- the feds are not going to move on IPV6 without some kind of lobbying from big biz. Since MS is so keen on connecting everything under the sun, maybe they should be ponying up some jack to get this moving? Hell, just switching MSN to IPV6 would be a start.
I should have clarified and written "suspicious of their motives". I'm sure they have their own reasons not to make their evidence public, at least prior to trial, and there's no law stating they have to. However, what reasons could they have for not make their findings public beforehand? I can think of a two: to shorten the discovery time frame for the defendant, and to maintain rights to ongoing damages should they happen to settle -or- go to court and prevail.
I'll take a bet that IBM settles the case out of court.
You're probably right. I have no idea what percentage of IP-theft related suits actually continue through to judgment, I'm thinking it's pretty low.
Now that's funny! Oh... and don't forget:
#define
#ifdef
#endif
int
long
char
Yep,that's right, all stolen! Verbatim even! Man I wish I had mod points today, you'd get +1 Funny without hesitation!
Exactly, the fact they aren't prepared to even present a single example of this makes me very suspicious. It would be magnitudes easier for SCO devels to steal code from the Linux kernel (even unintentionally) than for the Linux kernel to steal code from SCO. Anyhow, as some have already mentioned, who's to say that the code lines in question weren't already in the public domain prior to them even being in SCO? I'm doubling-down on IBM if they want to play a chicken-and-the-egg fight in this suit.
I'm guilty here. I bought the game, played it once, and went back to RTCW. I only purchased it because it had a Linux client, the game itself is, well, boring compared to RTCW. So my Linux "copy" is definitely not being counted.
Ironically, I've noticed that the overwhelming majority of folks I know of that got axed during this downturn were of the Win* variety. Come to think of it, I can only think of 1 *nix guy that got whacked and that's because his company folded altogether. I can't speak for tech as a whole but on the admin side of things, you're a hell of a lot more likely to *keep* your job with a *nix background than a Win* background.
I don't even move the bins, I use a symbolic link for "apache" and point it to a new dir. Total downtime, about 3 seconds:./apache/apachectl stop; ln -sf apache-1.3.27-20030501 apache;./apache/apachectl startssl. The only downside is that SSL sessions get disconnected, but you can't beat the cycle time!
I'm too lazy to look up which CPU is in the Compaq 1714EA but have you tried recompiling the kernel optimized for your CPU? I had a similar lock-up problem with an ancient K6-300 that went away by simply recompiling the kernel... ok... so the compile took a few hours, eh, big deal!
That's crazy, 70dB!!! That makes the FX 5800 U louder than all the other fans on my PC combined. What the hell are they using to produce 70dB, an air horn?!?
Trolls out already, and it's so early too! Ok, I'll bite:
1) Loadable modules, read about it. On second thought, don't, I'd rather you just stay on Win.
2) I can tweak and/or modify the drivers and recompile if I feel like it, otherwise I can just use the binaries that came with my distro. I guess you have that option under Win too, right?
This Lin vs. Win sh*t is really starting to get old -or- maybe I just need more coffee to put me back in a fighting mood.
... they really need to go after MSN. Such blatant patent infringement cannot go unpunished. Anybody who denies this is a card carrying communist!
All joking aside (although an SBC vs. MS showdown would be interesting), this is just another example of how our patent system has gotten unmanageable. You know what I really want to see, a revamp of the patent system. This is just ridiculous. I can't even make a toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwich without paying royalties because the USPTO issued a patent for that too.
It's in 1.4-alpha "Move or resize existing windows" under Advanced->Scripts & Plugins. Don't know about 1.3, can't remember and I don't have it installed anymore anyhow. Combined with some nifty footwork in my userContent.css file, I only see about a dozen ads, and zero pops on any given day. It messes with page formatting a bit but it makes surfing a hell of a lot more enjoyable!
Yep, I didn't understand the importance of the 'M' moniker until the board was already here! Is the MPEG2 decoder on the board hardwired to the output or can you use it specifically for decoding back to a program? If it allows the latter (and linux support for the decoder is on the horizon) I might spring for a new one!
I've had this discussion before. Yeah, it's a very good idea with one major limitation, namely people don't want to reboot to play a quick game, they want it in a window or be able to close it at a moments notice and get back to real work. I know LoadLin provides a sort-kinda way around this but it's based on real mode DOS (Win95/98/ME) and doesn't work in (*cough*) "modern" MS OSes like XP. Excuses aside, this begs the question as to what it would take to create a LoadLin-like driver for WinXP. My guess is that it be quite difficult since all access to hardware from the Linux kernel would need to be redirected through the XP HAL.
I have an EPIA C3 800 Mhz and it definitely doesn't have enough juice to do software based decoding for video. I've heard the M10000 series is much better but let me assure you that the 800 hits 99% CPU on very basic MPEG2 streams. I'm using an MPEG2 decoder card to get around this limitation but this won't help you with DIVX.
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This guy must have grapefruit sized nuts. If they come after him (I'm sure we'd hear it here first), I will contribute to his defense fund. The problem is that the threat of litigation under the DMCA is more effective than the DMCA itself. I'm sure those who paid the lobbyists to get this thing passed don't want to get any of it's nasty fangs knocked out. They'd drop the suit before a judge struck it down. By then, the financial damage to the defendant would already be done anyhow.
I wouldn't say you're 100% wrong but you're not 100% right either. Point-by-point:
market share: irrelevant, it's the available software that counts
marketing: that's the job of co's like RedHat and IBM
average luser: hard to OEM Lin due to exclusivity arrangements on Win made by MS
advantages of Lin: performance, stability, security, virtually virus free
disadvantages of Lin: not much familiar commercial Win software, few native games
*NIX roots: for a *nix user, DOS is arcane. There are several "dos-like" shell setups available for Linux
ease of use: use a desktop focused distro, Mandrake or SuSE, and KDE
The only good argument that can be made for not using Linux is the lack of commercial ports of familiar Windows software and games. Some of the major Win apps do work under Crossover and several games run under WineX. However, for a boxed distro, Crossover, and WineX you're looking at about $100, not the proverbial free.
That said, you can't deny that most people use MS simply because it's what came with the PC when they purchased it. This is the same reason IE tookover, most people either didn't know how or couldn't be bothered to install NS. If a law were passed tomorrow banning the bundling of PCs with software, you'd see rapid growth in the number of Linux users. Let's be honest, without any prior knowledge, no sales-dude interference, and given the choice, would you pay $20 for a boxed Mandrake Linux (or even better, borrow it from a friend) or $200 for XP? Heck, I see people tripping all over themselves at BestBuy to save $200 through those MSN lock-in scams.
Thank you, exactly what I was thinking. It's a feature of JavaScript. This is like me patenting the META REFRESH tag. Sad part is I'd probably be able to get a patent for it.
So long as software is read and interpreted by some piece of hardware, there will ALWAYS exist the possibility of hacking that software. Yeah you can create monster keys from hell and lock them down in hardware but, as the XBox project has shown, all it takes is a bug in a signed piece of software and you can kiss your secured system bye bye. Also, there may be exploits available in the firmware itself and there's the popular brute force attack too. If you connect a box (Microsoft, Linux, Mac, etc) to any network, you implicitly accept a certain level of risk of being compromised. This effort will just lead to more complacency. The only truly 100% secured system system is one that's powered off.
I'm not saying there shouldn't, I agree there should. I don't know about broad laws banning conditions in EULAs though. The market should respond to restrictive EULAs by not agreeing to them. The problem is that MS software is in monopoly category where there is often no choice other than to accept their unacceptable EULAs. Since we can't have an MS only law, except maybe some edict from the antitrust watchdog that's supposed to be keeping on eye on 'em. Ha, yeah, that's gonna happen. Personally I don't use their stuff but a hell of a lot of folks, right or wrong, do and for them there is no recourse.
Totally agree. I'm (chokes) with MS on this one (gah that hurts to say). However, it brings about an important fallacy in many IT manager's trains of though, you can't hold a software maker libel for their crap product, open source or not. Sorry to say this, but tough banana's PSPD, you made your bed, you sleep in it, and for god's sake try to learn from it.
Hey ... you stole that from the Mission Impossible II movie ... no fair!
Ummm, shouldn't this be done at the software level rather than the hardware level? When control is moved to the hardware level, you remove the option of allowing that level of flexibility at all. I can't speak for MS OS's but I can lock the hell out of my Solaris users' freedoms via the OS.
That said, what the hell is up with HP? Does Fiorina think she's running Dell now?
All they need to do is call the BIOS "secured" and voila, instant DMCA violation for anybody who runs Linux on it. It's probably safe to assume this will be X-Box like with a signed bootloader, at least for the OS.
Hell, it's hard enough to get budgets approved for URGENT matters. There's no way I'm recommending an IPV6 migration unless I can tie it to a significant savings in $$$ -or- we're forced to by some kind of federal mandate. Right now, there's certainly no cost savings, rather the opposite -and- the feds are not going to move on IPV6 without some kind of lobbying from big biz. Since MS is so keen on connecting everything under the sun, maybe they should be ponying up some jack to get this moving? Hell, just switching MSN to IPV6 would be a start.
Good point ... Y2K all over again ... fixed!
I should have clarified and written "suspicious of their motives". I'm sure they have their own reasons not to make their evidence public, at least prior to trial, and there's no law stating they have to. However, what reasons could they have for not make their findings public beforehand? I can think of a two: to shorten the discovery time frame for the defendant, and to maintain rights to ongoing damages should they happen to settle -or- go to court and prevail.
I'll take a bet that IBM settles the case out of court.
You're probably right. I have no idea what percentage of IP-theft related suits actually continue through to judgment, I'm thinking it's pretty low.
Now that's funny! Oh ... and don't forget:
#define
#ifdef
#endif
int
long
char
Yep,that's right, all stolen! Verbatim even! Man I wish I had mod points today, you'd get +1 Funny without hesitation!
Exactly, the fact they aren't prepared to even present a single example of this makes me very suspicious. It would be magnitudes easier for SCO devels to steal code from the Linux kernel (even unintentionally) than for the Linux kernel to steal code from SCO. Anyhow, as some have already mentioned, who's to say that the code lines in question weren't already in the public domain prior to them even being in SCO? I'm doubling-down on IBM if they want to play a chicken-and-the-egg fight in this suit.
I'm guilty here. I bought the game, played it once, and went back to RTCW. I only purchased it because it had a Linux client, the game itself is, well, boring compared to RTCW. So my Linux "copy" is definitely not being counted.
Ironically, I've noticed that the overwhelming majority of folks I know of that got axed during this downturn were of the Win* variety. Come to think of it, I can only think of 1 *nix guy that got whacked and that's because his company folded altogether. I can't speak for tech as a whole but on the admin side of things, you're a hell of a lot more likely to *keep* your job with a *nix background than a Win* background.
I don't even move the bins, I use a symbolic link for "apache" and point it to a new dir. Total downtime, about 3 seconds: ./apache/apachectl stop; ln -sf apache-1.3.27-20030501 apache; ./apache/apachectl startssl. The only downside is that SSL sessions get disconnected, but you can't beat the cycle time!
I'm too lazy to look up which CPU is in the Compaq 1714EA but have you tried recompiling the kernel optimized for your CPU? I had a similar lock-up problem with an ancient K6-300 that went away by simply recompiling the kernel ... ok ... so the compile took a few hours, eh, big deal!
That's crazy, 70dB!!! That makes the FX 5800 U louder than all the other fans on my PC combined. What the hell are they using to produce 70dB, an air horn?!?
Trolls out already, and it's so early too! Ok, I'll bite:
1) Loadable modules, read about it. On second thought, don't, I'd rather you just stay on Win.
2) I can tweak and/or modify the drivers and recompile if I feel like it, otherwise I can just use the binaries that came with my distro. I guess you have that option under Win too, right?
This Lin vs. Win sh*t is really starting to get old -or- maybe I just need more coffee to put me back in a fighting mood.
... they really need to go after MSN. Such blatant patent infringement cannot go unpunished. Anybody who denies this is a card carrying communist! All joking aside (although an SBC vs. MS showdown would be interesting), this is just another example of how our patent system has gotten unmanageable. You know what I really want to see, a revamp of the patent system. This is just ridiculous. I can't even make a toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwich without paying royalties because the USPTO issued a patent for that too.
It's in 1.4-alpha "Move or resize existing windows" under Advanced->Scripts & Plugins. Don't know about 1.3, can't remember and I don't have it installed anymore anyhow. Combined with some nifty footwork in my userContent.css file, I only see about a dozen ads, and zero pops on any given day. It messes with page formatting a bit but it makes surfing a hell of a lot more enjoyable!
Yep, I didn't understand the importance of the 'M' moniker until the board was already here! Is the MPEG2 decoder on the board hardwired to the output or can you use it specifically for decoding back to a program? If it allows the latter (and linux support for the decoder is on the horizon) I might spring for a new one!
I've had this discussion before. Yeah, it's a very good idea with one major limitation, namely people don't want to reboot to play a quick game, they want it in a window or be able to close it at a moments notice and get back to real work. I know LoadLin provides a sort-kinda way around this but it's based on real mode DOS (Win95/98/ME) and doesn't work in (*cough*) "modern" MS OSes like XP. Excuses aside, this begs the question as to what it would take to create a LoadLin-like driver for WinXP. My guess is that it be quite difficult since all access to hardware from the Linux kernel would need to be redirected through the XP HAL.
I have an EPIA C3 800 Mhz and it definitely doesn't have enough juice to do software based decoding for video. I've heard the M10000 series is much better but let me assure you that the 800 hits 99% CPU on very basic MPEG2 streams. I'm using an MPEG2 decoder card to get around this limitation but this won't help you with DIVX.