Six, eight months ago, I would have agreed with the assesment that Linux would probably come away clean on the copyright front. Since then, SCO has been given every chance in court to come up with meaningful instances of infringement and has failed. So I'm very confident that Linux will come out completely clean on copyrights. It's always possible other infringements exist -- that's why I would have said "probably" before -- but they'll be dealt with when they arise.
You're right, though, the court battle itself is only boosting the perception of Linux.
That's a good summary, but I'll add my two cents: the reason IBM didn't bite is because they knew from the beginning that the claims were baseless. IBM doesn't fuck around with things like releasing source code that may have contractual obligations.
It may have smelled suspicious to us, but we didn't know. It may have smelled like an opportunity to discredit Linux to Microsoft, but they weren't sure either. I wonder if they think their investment was worth it now that it's becoming apparent that Linux will only come out stronger.
No, not at all, because as soon as SCO stops delaying the result is going to be a ruling of some kind, and SCO's complete lack of material evidence is going to result in Very Bad Things(tm) happening to their case. Their only hope to keep their heads above water is to keep delaying, and pray that they can convince the judge to let them do more discovery. So they can find the evidence that will prove them right, or so they can keep selling their still-inflated stock, I'll let you decide.
Which is the only way to go if you occasionally read/. from your PDA. I turned it on for that reason, and kept it because/. stopped annoying me with horrid color schemes.
**** Gay Rights Kerry isn't supportive of gay marriage, and Bush knows he isn't going to get an ammendment passed anyway, so this is really a red herring issue.
**** Abortion Rights Pretty much the same... This has been a distinction between candidates since Roe vs. Wade, but has it ever made a real difference?
**** Gun Control The question is whether Congress is going to act on this. Until a bill shows up before the Pres, neither one has an opportunity to act on this.
**** Taxes I can't say I'm against repealing the cuts for the top 5%, and that'll be a big chunk of change, but will it balance the budget? This is election year maneuvering, nothing more.
**** Stem Cells Only matters because it has been entangled with abortion rights. As more non-aborted-fetus sources become available, and more people realize this, this will become a non-issue.
Honestly, not a single one of those differences make a big difference to me. They're either small differences, or big differences that will have no practical effect. The issue I really care about this cycle -- foreign policy -- the only difference is that Kerry says he'll do the same things as Bush, only less idioticaly. That's enough to get him my vote this time, but it doesn't keep me from pining for a viable 3rd party.
That's what the electoral college brings to rural states. That was significant back when the union was much smaller, both in terms of states and in terms of population. Nowdays... Wyoming has 1 or 3 votes, versus California's 54 or 52. Wyoming is still ignored.
I'm not convinced things wouldn't be better under a direct vote system, though granted I haven't ran any numbers or anything. All the rural voters would together represent a larger population than they do split, and the rural parts of urban states would not be irrelevent as they are now, adding to that block of voters.
Right, right. It's very important to keep in mind the distinction between hypothetical flat tax versus our current system, and hypothetical flat tax versus hypothetical progessive tax that doesn't suck.
Every x86 processor since the Pentium Pro (possibly the AMD K5, not sure, but regardless...) has had x86 decoders that translate the x86 CISC instructions into much simpler RISC-style micro-ops that the rest of the machine deals with. The typical case is that the decoders can directly translate simple instructions (e.g. add eax, [rsp + 10] -> a load micro-op followed by an add micro-op), and refer to a microcode ROM to get the sequence of RISC ops for more complicated instructions like FXRSTOR or INT.
In the case of the Pentium 4, the x86 decoders only operate on instruction data coming from the L2. The trace cache on the P4 caches RISCy micro-ops, which is the main benefit of the trace cache on the P4 -- skipping the relatively lengthy decode of x86 instructions.
So from a micro-architecture standpoint there is very little difference between CISC and RISC, since you just translate CISC->RISC. x86 still manages to be a big PITA because of weird things like shifts by zero which don't effect the flags.
CISC vs RISC is basically a done deal, with RISC "winning" along with it essentially not mattering anymore.
Is that even a loophole? Would a court recognize a distinction between the "owner" of a copy and someone legally authorized by the copyright holder to "posses" a copy? 117 provides an exemption to the copyright; it seems to me the only way you could be charged with copyright infringement for performing a sec. 117 copy is if you were not starting from a legal copy.
Well, I can't verify it, but obviously it's just based on the growth rate of flies (second only to the louse, ha ha obscure reference), not on the actual ability of the ecosystem to support said growth rate. Maybe in some kind of Dimension of Flies, where the very ether itself is fly food.
Ah, it seems you're mostly talking about compiling programs, not installing binaries with.so dependencies. And your points are very true, especially regarding headers. That's annoying. But for binaries, the library versioning works pretty well, notwithstanding libpng and other examples. I was pretty impressed with linux when the libc5/libc6 change took place, and all my old libc5 apps continued to work just fine.
I seem to remember someone, an instructor at a community college or some such, who decided to teach his class to use the Linux command line. To do it, he created a bunch of scripts and docs and such aimed at helping the beginner, including a basic 'help' that gave some basic commands and pointed them at man pages. The article made it sound like it worked very well, and they really took to the command line when given a chance to understand it. I remember the class learning about running jobs in the background, and debating whether the shell should tell you immediately that it was done or wait until you hit return. Anyone else remember this? It sounds like it could be a great starting place for designing a "novice's shell" that would help people learn the power of the command line without being overwhelmed.
Exactly. That's why for my first Linux distribution I ponied up $40 to buy Red Hat, which came with a decent printed manual. Not exactly enough for someone completely unfamiliar with command lines and such, but then again Linux at the time wasn't even -trying- to be "everyman's OS".
I think I'm going to have to see that movie just to see if they have to evade any lava sharks while surfing... I'm not sure if it'd mean Lucas was an ironic genius, or if he had to be killed, but I'm sure I'd enjoy it more than any of the rest of the trilogy.
Well, the symbolism should be obvious, and it was a lot better than the old tradition of giving them animal sex organs. If you think roses don't look very good in a vase after a week...
What do you mean? I play that as background music whenever I'm evangelizing for GNU! So far no converts, though I once had a nice chat with someone about Free Software on the way to the hospital after they stabbed their eardrum with a fork, and another time when they stabbed mine.
I agree. I saw the movie having already read criticism of it, and rebuttles to criticism. I already knew to question it. Afterword, I read more. The attention this movies has gathered means there is a lot of information available about the issues it addresses.
There are factual issues with the movie. I'm not surprised; Moore is a film maker, not a historian or scientist, and he's more than willing to go out on a limb with something to give his point more punch. I was actually surprised that it stood up so well to the criticism.
Though the other interesting thing was how little I actually learned from the movie. Most of what it said shouldn't have been news to the viewers. But it was, and somehow every statement is contentious. I'd already seen Bush sitting around helpless on 9/11. Moore's commentary of what he might be thinking was Moore's bias speaking out, but I already seen this, and had my own ideas about what it meant. I think that's the most revealing thing about the movie, is how much of it people were seeing for the first time.
There are many things you may have come to expect from/. There are many things you may expect from the politics section of/.
But "better editorial work"? That, you should never expect. I'd be happy with any editorial work, and I haven't seen any evidence of that in years.
As far as I can tell, the "editors" are basically IT staff who make sure/. runs and that stories get posted, but otherwise have no duties other than adding snide remarks to submissions and occasionally admitting they have a dupe.
If I recall correctly, what happened is that the State approved one or several versions of Diebold's voting software and then, once the voting machines were already fielded and about to be used in real elections, Diebold engineers came in and changed the voting software to a version that was not on the approved list. They did not have approval to do this, and it is part of what got them bitchslapped several months ago.
Oh gee, a hasty decision made in the wake of calamity without much thought just to do something ended up being a massive clusterfuck with exactly the opposite effect of what was intended? I'd pretend to be shocked, but it's not like anyone couldn't see it coming.
Glad at least some of the state governments are getting their heads out of their ass.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, that's very interesting. When I said "ignored" I meant "not electorally significant", but your point is still well taken.
Six, eight months ago, I would have agreed with the assesment that Linux would probably come away clean on the copyright front. Since then, SCO has been given every chance in court to come up with meaningful instances of infringement and has failed. So I'm very confident that Linux will come out completely clean on copyrights. It's always possible other infringements exist -- that's why I would have said "probably" before -- but they'll be dealt with when they arise.
You're right, though, the court battle itself is only boosting the perception of Linux.
That's a good summary, but I'll add my two cents: the reason IBM didn't bite is because they knew from the beginning that the claims were baseless. IBM doesn't fuck around with things like releasing source code that may have contractual obligations.
It may have smelled suspicious to us, but we didn't know. It may have smelled like an opportunity to discredit Linux to Microsoft, but they weren't sure either. I wonder if they think their investment was worth it now that it's becoming apparent that Linux will only come out stronger.
No, not at all, because as soon as SCO stops delaying the result is going to be a ruling of some kind, and SCO's complete lack of material evidence is going to result in Very Bad Things(tm) happening to their case. Their only hope to keep their heads above water is to keep delaying, and pray that they can convince the judge to let them do more discovery. So they can find the evidence that will prove them right, or so they can keep selling their still-inflated stock, I'll let you decide.
So... I guess you don't pay attention to Linux kernel version numbering. Oh well.
Which is the only way to go if you occasionally read /. from your PDA. I turned it on for that reason, and kept it because /. stopped annoying me with horrid color schemes.
Yeah. That's the simple truth that nobody running for office wants to mention. It really, really sucks, but that's the way things stand.
**** Gay Rights
Kerry isn't supportive of gay marriage, and Bush knows he isn't going to get an ammendment passed anyway, so this is really a red herring issue.
**** Abortion Rights
Pretty much the same... This has been a distinction between candidates since Roe vs. Wade, but has it ever made a real difference?
**** Gun Control
The question is whether Congress is going to act on this. Until a bill shows up before the Pres, neither one has an opportunity to act on this.
**** Taxes
I can't say I'm against repealing the cuts for the top 5%, and that'll be a big chunk of change, but will it balance the budget? This is election year maneuvering, nothing more.
**** Stem Cells
Only matters because it has been entangled with abortion rights. As more non-aborted-fetus sources become available, and more people realize this, this will become a non-issue.
Honestly, not a single one of those differences make a big difference to me. They're either small differences, or big differences that will have no practical effect. The issue I really care about this cycle -- foreign policy -- the only difference is that Kerry says he'll do the same things as Bush, only less idioticaly. That's enough to get him my vote this time, but it doesn't keep me from pining for a viable 3rd party.
That's what the electoral college brings to rural states. That was significant back when the union was much smaller, both in terms of states and in terms of population. Nowdays... Wyoming has 1 or 3 votes, versus California's 54 or 52. Wyoming is still ignored.
I'm not convinced things wouldn't be better under a direct vote system, though granted I haven't ran any numbers or anything. All the rural voters would together represent a larger population than they do split, and the rural parts of urban states would not be irrelevent as they are now, adding to that block of voters.
Right, right. It's very important to keep in mind the distinction between hypothetical flat tax versus our current system, and hypothetical flat tax versus hypothetical progessive tax that doesn't suck.
Every x86 processor since the Pentium Pro (possibly the AMD K5, not sure, but regardless...) has had x86 decoders that translate the x86 CISC instructions into much simpler RISC-style micro-ops that the rest of the machine deals with. The typical case is that the decoders can directly translate simple instructions (e.g. add eax, [rsp + 10] -> a load micro-op followed by an add micro-op), and refer to a microcode ROM to get the sequence of RISC ops for more complicated instructions like FXRSTOR or INT.
In the case of the Pentium 4, the x86 decoders only operate on instruction data coming from the L2. The trace cache on the P4 caches RISCy micro-ops, which is the main benefit of the trace cache on the P4 -- skipping the relatively lengthy decode of x86 instructions.
So from a micro-architecture standpoint there is very little difference between CISC and RISC, since you just translate CISC->RISC. x86 still manages to be a big PITA because of weird things like shifts by zero which don't effect the flags.
CISC vs RISC is basically a done deal, with RISC "winning" along with it essentially not mattering anymore.
Is that even a loophole? Would a court recognize a distinction between the "owner" of a copy and someone legally authorized by the copyright holder to "posses" a copy? 117 provides an exemption to the copyright; it seems to me the only way you could be charged with copyright infringement for performing a sec. 117 copy is if you were not starting from a legal copy.
Well, I can't verify it, but obviously it's just based on the growth rate of flies (second only to the louse, ha ha obscure reference), not on the actual ability of the ecosystem to support said growth rate. Maybe in some kind of Dimension of Flies, where the very ether itself is fly food.
Ah, it seems you're mostly talking about compiling programs, not installing binaries with .so dependencies. And your points are very true, especially regarding headers. That's annoying. But for binaries, the library versioning works pretty well, notwithstanding libpng and other examples. I was pretty impressed with linux when the libc5/libc6 change took place, and all my old libc5 apps continued to work just fine.
I seem to remember someone, an instructor at a community college or some such, who decided to teach his class to use the Linux command line. To do it, he created a bunch of scripts and docs and such aimed at helping the beginner, including a basic 'help' that gave some basic commands and pointed them at man pages. The article made it sound like it worked very well, and they really took to the command line when given a chance to understand it. I remember the class learning about running jobs in the background, and debating whether the shell should tell you immediately that it was done or wait until you hit return. Anyone else remember this? It sounds like it could be a great starting place for designing a "novice's shell" that would help people learn the power of the command line without being overwhelmed.
Exactly. That's why for my first Linux distribution I ponied up $40 to buy Red Hat, which came with a decent printed manual. Not exactly enough for someone completely unfamiliar with command lines and such, but then again Linux at the time wasn't even -trying- to be "everyman's OS".
Doubtful. I heard Alex likes to handle his dirty work himself.
I think I'm going to have to see that movie just to see if they have to evade any lava sharks while surfing... I'm not sure if it'd mean Lucas was an ironic genius, or if he had to be killed, but I'm sure I'd enjoy it more than any of the rest of the trilogy.
Well, the symbolism should be obvious, and it was a lot better than the old tradition of giving them animal sex organs. If you think roses don't look very good in a vase after a week...
What do you mean? I play that as background music whenever I'm evangelizing for GNU! So far no converts, though I once had a nice chat with someone about Free Software on the way to the hospital after they stabbed their eardrum with a fork, and another time when they stabbed mine.
I agree. I saw the movie having already read criticism of it, and rebuttles to criticism. I already knew to question it. Afterword, I read more. The attention this movies has gathered means there is a lot of information available about the issues it addresses.
There are factual issues with the movie. I'm not surprised; Moore is a film maker, not a historian or scientist, and he's more than willing to go out on a limb with something to give his point more punch. I was actually surprised that it stood up so well to the criticism.
Though the other interesting thing was how little I actually learned from the movie. Most of what it said shouldn't have been news to the viewers. But it was, and somehow every statement is contentious. I'd already seen Bush sitting around helpless on 9/11. Moore's commentary of what he might be thinking was Moore's bias speaking out, but I already seen this, and had my own ideas about what it meant. I think that's the most revealing thing about the movie, is how much of it people were seeing for the first time.
The debate has been very good, by and large.
There are many things you may have come to expect from /. There are many things you may expect from the politics section of /.
/. runs and that stories get posted, but otherwise have no duties other than adding snide remarks to submissions and occasionally admitting they have a dupe.
But "better editorial work"? That, you should never expect. I'd be happy with any editorial work, and I haven't seen any evidence of that in years.
As far as I can tell, the "editors" are basically IT staff who make sure
If I recall correctly, what happened is that the State approved one or several versions of Diebold's voting software and then, once the voting machines were already fielded and about to be used in real elections, Diebold engineers came in and changed the voting software to a version that was not on the approved list. They did not have approval to do this, and it is part of what got them bitchslapped several months ago.
Oh gee, a hasty decision made in the wake of calamity without much thought just to do something ended up being a massive clusterfuck with exactly the opposite effect of what was intended? I'd pretend to be shocked, but it's not like anyone couldn't see it coming.
Glad at least some of the state governments are getting their heads out of their ass.
Hypocrisy is integrity.
:)
Get your goodthinks straight.