Right, the main problem the government should be addressing right now is mandating clearer TV images.
Note that the government didn't mandate anything about CD's, VCR's, or DVD's and those technologies did just fine because they had advantages that people wanted.
I love to bash M$oft as much as anyone, but no one puts a gun to your head and makes you use software from anyone. No one has to use any product of any kind from Redmond. You have been brainwashed to believe that somehow we must use some product from Microsoft to survive the day.
They control 70% of the OS market because people *choose* to use their product. Why? A lot of people seem to like it. Not sure why they do, but if that's what they want, let them use it.
A lot of my food comes from General Mills; should I demand government action to make them put more strawberry crunchies in my cereal? No - I simply buy something else. If more people demanded their RPG's on non-M$oft platforms instead of caving in we would see a few more games available. Have some backbone here.
Why keep complaining about what Microsoft does when it is easy to use other OS & other software systems?
M$ doesn't have a 'monopoly' - I can easily get by with my iBook(OSX) & Linux and will probably never use Windows again.
I don't care what the DOJ sez, if I can use better alternative solutions for free M$ does not have a monopoly on either OS's or browsers by definition.
What "threats" are linux zealots making? He says their threats are terroristic - but declines to mention any of them. This is old fashioned yellow journalism.
We all like a good SCO bashing, but this is almost certainly true. There is no legal point in carrying out discovery if the case could be dismissed; the motion to dismiss should be ruled on first, then if it not dismissed the discovery would proceed.
Why not go after the grand-daddy of all evil for DMCA - the "copy" command. That one command has been used to duplicate innumerable files. I think $5-6 billion should do it.
You are mixing some points here. I agree you don't have to use Linux or an OS operating system to use open source applications.
However, to date OS applications have shown far far greater support of open standards for application data than closed source applications.
Compare any M$oft mail application with an open source one for portability of messages. It is extremely difficult to get OutlookExpress to export mail in a maildir or mbox format common to most OS mail apps. Same with contacts.
So I would posit that to support and promote open standards you must use open source applications.
"Linux" isn't an application, it is an operating system.
You can use open-source applications even on closed operating systemss like Windows. OpenOffice, for example uses an XML format for it's files which is available on their website.
No, this isn't true at all. There is absolutely no reason to believe that closed source code does not contain any infringing technology.
The difference in open source is that anyone can monitor the code to detect that it is happening.
IP can be enforced just fine; there is a large body of case law around copyright enforcements (growing daily). The authors putatively own the copyright, and are can be individually liable if they have misrepresented the ownership.
If I see that Joe Blow has posted *my* code to an open source project I can enforce the law against Joe in a well-tested legal pathway. However the first step is generally to tell Joe that he has infringed my code and demand that it be removed.
As an end user of the "stolen" code I may be be obligated to remove it once I have been informed that it is infringing.
Notice that never in SCO's blathering did they tell any user of any software which part of the code is infringing their rights; they cannot take action against me until they have notified me of the infringing code and I have refused to take action.
The system will be used for
' determining "people who the system has shown to have value." '
The lengths that Micro$oft has to go to find people to whom they bring value are astonishing. A full time sociologist and a collossal newsgroup harvesting project?
You would think they would have a user group somewhere to find a few people who like their stuff.
And what are those valid reasons? They are already claiming it is out in open source and everyone has it - how can it still be a secret?
It is like saying "you downloaded 1000 mp3's and one of them is mine, but I won't tell you which one so you have to pay me for all of them".
Regarding "no controls in place to prevent it" - that is total bullshit. OpenSource source code is available to everyone in the world to look at and challenge. It was really put in there, SCO would simply say "here is the stuff that was copied".
It is closed-source commercial software that has no controls - in a typical closed source package you have no idea what the code looks like or where it was copied from. You would have no idea if someone has taken *your* code and used it in a commercial product. At least in Open Source you can check it any time you want.
Are "they" going to be wary? I am an IT head and I am not wary about deploying Linux systems. The license on my software says it is free.
The US legal system allows me to sue anyone I want for anything I want. I can claim all kinds of things when I file a case with little or no ties to reality.
Prevailing in a case is the difficult part - something that SCO has yet to do for any of its claims. In the end you have to have the preponderance of the evidence to win in court, or as SCO wants to do, instill enough fear to settle out of court. At this point it doesn't look like IBM is going to settle.
postgreSQL+openODBC is a great replacement for MSoft Access. In OO the data tool is much like access for accessing data in an RDB. In addition you can more easily share data with others since postgreSQL can be a database server.
The most amazing part to me is that all writeable media (CD, DVD) are automatically assumed to be used for copyright violations. Hundreds of people use CD's for photos, backups and other uses without any copyright issues. However, the RIAA has always assumed that all blank tape and CD sales are directly related to distribution of commercial music.
Who is slated to get that $4 per CD levy?
Slashdot Mirror
Right, the main problem the government should be addressing right now is mandating clearer TV images.
Note that the government didn't mandate anything about CD's, VCR's, or DVD's and those technologies did just fine because they had advantages that people wanted.
(Postgres or MySQL) + unixODBC + OpenOffice = access replacement for user database.
OO has a n access-like interface to allow very nice access to your data.
Oh stop whining.
I love to bash M$oft as much as anyone, but no one puts a gun to your head and makes you use software from anyone. No one has to use any product of any kind from Redmond. You have been brainwashed to believe that somehow we must use some product from Microsoft to survive the day.
They control 70% of the OS market because people *choose* to use their product. Why? A lot of people seem to like it. Not sure why they do, but if that's what they want, let them use it.
A lot of my food comes from General Mills; should I demand government action to make them put more strawberry crunchies in my cereal? No - I simply buy something else. If more people demanded their RPG's on non-M$oft platforms instead of caving in we would see a few more games available. Have some backbone here.
If youse guys don't like IE - don't use it!
Why keep complaining about what Microsoft does when it is easy to use other OS & other software systems?
M$ doesn't have a 'monopoly' - I can easily get by with my iBook(OSX) & Linux and will probably never use Windows again.
I don't care what the DOJ sez, if I can use better alternative solutions for free M$ does not have a monopoly on either OS's or browsers by definition.
What "threats" are linux zealots making? He says their threats are terroristic - but declines to mention any of them. This is old fashioned yellow journalism.
After all the postings in this thread I would like to point out that the 'nastygram' does not mention anything about infringing trademarks.
It is not clear at all which law is being broken that could be a misdemeanor.
We all like a good SCO bashing, but this is almost certainly true. There is no legal point in carrying out discovery if the case could be dismissed; the motion to dismiss should be ruled on first, then if it not dismissed the discovery would proceed.
Why not go after the grand-daddy of all evil for DMCA - the "copy" command. That one command has been used to duplicate innumerable files. I think $5-6 billion should do it.
You are mixing some points here. I agree you don't have to use Linux or an OS operating system to use open source applications.
However, to date OS applications have shown far far greater support of open standards for application data than closed source applications.
Compare any M$oft mail application with an open source one for portability of messages. It is extremely difficult to get OutlookExpress to export mail in a maildir or mbox format common to most OS mail apps. Same with contacts.
So I would posit that to support and promote open standards you must use open source applications.
"Linux" isn't an application, it is an operating system. You can use open-source applications even on closed operating systemss like Windows. OpenOffice, for example uses an XML format for it's files which is available on their website.
No, this isn't true at all. There is absolutely no reason to believe that closed source code does not contain any infringing technology.
The difference in open source is that anyone can monitor the code to detect that it is happening.
IP can be enforced just fine; there is a large body of case law around copyright enforcements (growing daily). The authors putatively own the copyright, and are can be individually liable if they have misrepresented the ownership.
If I see that Joe Blow has posted *my* code to an open source project I can enforce the law against Joe in a well-tested legal pathway. However the first step is generally to tell Joe that he has infringed my code and demand that it be removed.
As an end user of the "stolen" code I may be be obligated to remove it once I have been informed that it is infringing.
Notice that never in SCO's blathering did they tell any user of any software which part of the code is infringing their rights; they cannot take action against me until they have notified me of the infringing code and I have refused to take action.
The system will be used for ' determining "people who the system has shown to have value." ' The lengths that Micro$oft has to go to find people to whom they bring value are astonishing. A full time sociologist and a collossal newsgroup harvesting project? You would think they would have a user group somewhere to find a few people who like their stuff.
And what are those valid reasons? They are already claiming it is out in open source and everyone has it - how can it still be a secret? It is like saying "you downloaded 1000 mp3's and one of them is mine, but I won't tell you which one so you have to pay me for all of them".
Sure, GPL is a gigantic liability - for Micro$oft.
Regarding "no controls in place to prevent it" - that is total bullshit. OpenSource source code is available to everyone in the world to look at and challenge. It was really put in there, SCO would simply say "here is the stuff that was copied". It is closed-source commercial software that has no controls - in a typical closed source package you have no idea what the code looks like or where it was copied from. You would have no idea if someone has taken *your* code and used it in a commercial product. At least in Open Source you can check it any time you want.
Are "they" going to be wary? I am an IT head and I am not wary about deploying Linux systems. The license on my software says it is free. The US legal system allows me to sue anyone I want for anything I want. I can claim all kinds of things when I file a case with little or no ties to reality. Prevailing in a case is the difficult part - something that SCO has yet to do for any of its claims. In the end you have to have the preponderance of the evidence to win in court, or as SCO wants to do, instill enough fear to settle out of court. At this point it doesn't look like IBM is going to settle.
boxen = German-style plural for "box", especially popular with KDE fans. Weissen?
We have got to limit the Microsoft(tm) employees from posting on slashdot.
postgreSQL+openODBC is a great replacement for MSoft Access. In OO the data tool is much like access for accessing data in an RDB. In addition you can more easily share data with others since postgreSQL can be a database server.
The most amazing part to me is that all writeable media (CD, DVD) are automatically assumed to be used for copyright violations. Hundreds of people use CD's for photos, backups and other uses without any copyright issues. However, the RIAA has always assumed that all blank tape and CD sales are directly related to distribution of commercial music. Who is slated to get that $4 per CD levy?