This must be sarcasm. If the underlying law is challenged up to the SCOTUS, I have no doubt that the "strict constructionists" on the court will vote to uphold it. Scalia and Thomas have never let principle get in the way of political expediency, Alito has never met a government action he didn't like and Roberts is a right wing cypher.
In the post title the word "elected" should be changed to "selected" and a most unConstitutional act it was. Be thankful? Wow, just trying to imagine someone worse is hard work.
The key words here are: "SCO... was ordered.... to provide and identify with specificity all lines of code in Linux that it claims rights to", "SCO's failure to provide code for the methods and concepts it claims were misappropriated is also a violation of Rule 26(e) in addition to a violation of this court's orders.", "such failure was intentional and therefore willful" and "the court finds that SCO willfully failed to comply with the court's orders". That's the way Judges talk when they are planning on imposing sanctions on a litigant. Get ready Darl, this is gonna hurt.
Strom Thurmoond "jumped ship" at the 1948 Democratic Convention. He walked out with several other Southern Democrats and ran for President as an independent.
"Why did we have to shoot them and Qusay's 15 year old son? Why not give them a trial?"
We (the US) would have preferred to capture them alive. We could have interrogated them and used them as public symbols of "success" in the war. Unfortunately, they made it quite clear that they would not be taken alive. What were our military forces to do, come back the next day and ask again. I expect if we ever find Saddam, that he too will die fighting before allowing himself to become our prisoner. The suggestion that our soldiers are cold blooded killers who *chose* to kill rather than capture the aforementioned scumbags is unfounded nonsense.
"The parent went a bit far by saying they could 'shut down' a company"
That is, of course, the point I was trying to make. In answer to questions posed above, refusing to sell to Dell (or anyone else) hurts MS too. It is just as likely that Dell will hire a team of topnotch coders and take a distro like Debian and polish it up a little, and release a successful combination of branded hardware and branded o/s. I checked Dell's financials today and they have a market cap of about $92B, they can easily afford to hire all the talent they need. "Ready for prime time" means you don't frustrate people with dependency problems and lack of hardware support.
How long will it take to get "the unwashed masses" to accept Dell/Debian as an equal to Windows: about as long as it takes for CFO's of large companies (who make up a large portion of MS's market share) to figure out how much s/he will save their company by avoiding getting locked into Windows. If Dell does a good job of marketing, individual users would also appreciate the money saved by not buying Windows. Universities, hospitals, libraries, charitable organizations, government agencies and the like will also find a Linux solution attractive as their funding is cut.
Yes, if MS stopped licensing Windows to Dell tomorrow, there would be a short term loss of income. The end result, forcing Dell to find or create their own o/s, may well be the best thing that could happen to Dell and the other hardware makers. I read an article several years ago which predicted that in 10 years MS would essentially be irrelevant; at the time I thought the author a complete fool. Right now I'm not sure. MS sure does seem to be giving hardware makers reasons to have a Plan B, just in case.
I don't underestimate his intelligence; he's bright enough. What concerns me is his complete lack of curiosity about anything. I don't think he spent 5 minutes of his own time deciding whether to go into Iraq. I want decisions like whether to go to war to be made by people who have a solid knowledge of history to aid them. Bush just hasn't put in the time or made the effort to really educate himself. He simply reads whatever is put in front of him. If it wasn't for his family name and money he wouldn't be taken seriously as a candidate for anything.
"The fact that there are some alternatives such as Linux that allow some users to avoid running Windows doesn't change the fact that MS could shut down any PC company at a whim by withdrawing its Windows license."
MS "withdrawing" or refusing to continue selling its license to any of the big PC hardware sellers is the stupidest thing they could do. Let's say MS stopped licensing its product to Dell Computer. Don't you think that Dell has the cash to buy or adopt a Linux distro, invest the $ necessary to make the o/s ready for prime time, and continue to profit.
The problem with MS is that they want to own computers and the internet. They start with the assumption that *they* know what is best for us, and have no scruples when dealing with people who have a different vision. I wonder how many of the Windows systems which are used to calculate market share are actually corporate decisions on which the "end user" has no input whatsoever.
"There should be some sort of percentage of profits reaped from the anti-competitive behavior that should be taken away. $10,000,000 is a drop in the bucket for microsoft. The penalty should be stiffer."
If you expect the Bush/Ashcroft Justice Department to push for harsher penalties against corporate criminals, you must be an extremely optimistic person. Under Clinton's AG, the US won a *big* victory, after trial vs. MS. As soon as Bush took over, the Justice Dep't lost all interest in actually enforcing that victory. I may be paranoid but I suspect that MS money and the Bushies have been talking.
You are absolutely correct, he is a pilot. I would guess that he and his father are the only two Presidents qualified as pilots. But we taxpayers paid to make hime a pilot in the Texas Reserve, as an alternative to going to Vietnam, which favor he immediately repaid by going*awol*-- For a year and a half, before someone noticed he was missing. He had his opportunity to serve, and, just like Clinton, he chose not to get his ass blown off in Vietnam. I fully understand both of their decisions, however I give Clinton credit for admitting he was a pussy whereas Bush now stands with warriors, a platform on which he in no way deserves. Sometimes I am amazed that someone who is so uncurious, poorly educated, and whose greatest accomplishment was stopping drinking at age 40 got himself taken seriously as a candidate. Were you given 40 years to grow up. I know that I was working a long time before I turned 40. Why, because I needed the fsucking money. I didn't have a trust fund to protect me from work. And I think that there is value in work, earning something must be more rewarding than simply having it given to you. Right now, Bush is having to work harder than he ever did in his life. I'm afraid that both he and we will suffer for it. (OK, back to Decaf)
I merely intended to point out how little most people know about how their pc works. You must admit that/. is not a place to look for your "typical" Windoze user.
Where's the/. hypocrisy. The music industry has done a pitiful job of adjusting to the computer/internet age. Right now they are both arbitrary and stupid. I could understand going after someone who is duping cd's and selling them, but it doesn't look good when you sue young kids. And it's not going to look better even if they win. A good many p2p file sharers don't even know that what they are doing may be illegal; most of them barely know how to use their Wndoze box. Does the RIAA expect the parents of these kids, who know even less about how pc's work, to understand the issue. My personal opinion is fsck the RIAA. With any intelligence and slightly less greed they could have owned the online music business. Instead, they still haven't got their act together, meanwhile Apple has the iTunes store up and humming. This isn't about copywright, it's about stupidity.
I don't think you have it exactly right. The very ring of the telephone, from a telemarketer, which stops you from doing whatever you were doing is a form of trespass. I paid for my phones, the lines which installed them, and I pay for telephone service. My telephone is there to work for me. When someone uses my tools to disrupt whatever I was doing, I get actively pissed off. Perhaps the fact that a law was needed indicates that other people feel the same.
You are assuming that causing confusion among companies choosing between M$ and Open Source is *not* the real purpose of the suit. As I see it, M$ doesn't have anything new coming out for 2 years; what better way to "freeze" the market until then.
I'm sorry, but I can't just let this oxymoron go. It is the very nature of Linux use that the user understand how their system operates on some level. Otherwise it won't work for you.
If it's not M$'s job to inform you how to safely use their product, then whose is it? A PC is not a water faucet which everyone is presumed to know how to use, it's a fairly sophisticated piece of machinery and most end users have no idea what lies under the hood.
I agree wholehardedly with your analysis of the "worst" problem, but can you tell me what M$ is doing to make users more informed. If anything, they seem to draw a curtain over defects which are mostly due to their own laziness and lack of motivation. As long as it doesn't cut into the sale of licenses, their actual business, no problem.
Sales tax is the most regressive tax of all because it effects *everyone*. Those wealthy enough to afford "luxury"items may be mildly annoyed, but it will not prevent them from purchasing. However people of more modest means will find that adding an additional 5%-10% to the price makes the item unaffordable. This, of course, presents a problem when items like "food" become out of reach for some.
How about a property tax assessed against passive assets, in excess of anything reasonable, which do not contribute to commerce or our economy.
People who are trying to design things which would appear to have limited use are the engine which drives technology progress. How many programs which are now considered necessary were once considired of marginal value. I don't know where this guy's product is going, but I hope he succeeds.
Just to make it clear, the brokers make a fee on every transaction. However if a "short" strategy fails and the price goes up, it is the shareholder and not the broker who suffers the loss. Brokers may technically "lend" shares in a short strategy, but it's not their money. You will notice that brokerages do not offer these stock speculations to people who do not maintain more than enough to cover any potential losses.
I really have to question why people are willing to tolerate M$ products failure rates. If your car refsed to cooperate and broke down as frequently, you'd find another means of transportation. If my Mac acted like that it would be out of a job. Why do so many believe that computers are a miracle, only M$ makes them, and they're so delicate that they should be forgiven their failures, despite the fact that their failures are mostly due to extreme laziness on the part of M$. Interesting business model they have at M$, let your customers due your beta testing.
You are assuming that *everyone* knows the basics of operating a computer. 10 year olds will be just fine, but if you're 50 and forced to learn a new skill, somethings are not just obvious. Computers and the internet experience are "sold" as appliances that everyone can and does use. Just open the box and plug it in. Yeah, bullshit. Fortunately, like many others, I had knowledgeable friends who taught me enough to be able to take care of myself. Without those friends, I too would be making stupid "support" calls. This problem should go away by itself as kids learn computer skills as part of their basic education. I can certainly understand the frustration of a tech support person having to answer the same stupid questions all night; I am teaching my 70 year old mother how to surf the net and handle email and, as "dumb" as some of her questions sound to me, they are not dumb to her. And she's trying, that should be worth something. My approach to this issue is to help anyone who asks me; I'm probably better able to solve the problem and explain what caused it and it makes me feel good to "repay" those who helped me when I needed it.
Slashdot Mirror
This must be sarcasm. If the underlying law is challenged up to the SCOTUS, I have no doubt that the "strict constructionists" on the court will vote to uphold it. Scalia and Thomas have never let principle get in the way of political expediency, Alito has never met a government action he didn't like and Roberts is a right wing cypher.
In the post title the word "elected" should be changed to "selected" and a most unConstitutional act it was. Be thankful? Wow, just trying to imagine someone worse is hard work.
The key words here are: "SCO ... was ordered .... to provide and identify with specificity all lines of code in Linux that it claims rights to", "SCO's failure to provide code for the methods and concepts it claims were misappropriated is also a violation of Rule 26(e) in addition to a violation of this court's orders.", "such failure was intentional and therefore willful" and "the court finds that SCO willfully failed to comply with the court's orders". That's the way Judges talk when they are planning on imposing sanctions on a litigant. Get ready Darl, this is gonna hurt.
And any Linux user is legally allowed to tell them to go scratch. (IAAL)
Strom Thurmoond "jumped ship" at the 1948 Democratic Convention. He walked out with several other Southern Democrats and ran for President as an independent.
"Why did we have to shoot them and Qusay's 15 year old son? Why not give them a trial?"
We (the US) would have preferred to capture them alive. We could have interrogated them and used them as public symbols of "success" in the war. Unfortunately, they made it quite clear that they would not be taken alive. What were our military forces to do, come back the next day and ask again.
I expect if we ever find Saddam, that he too will die fighting before allowing himself to become our prisoner. The suggestion that our soldiers are cold blooded killers who *chose* to kill rather than capture the aforementioned scumbags is unfounded nonsense.
"The parent went a bit far by saying they could 'shut down' a company"
That is, of course, the point I was trying to make. In answer to questions posed above, refusing to sell to Dell (or anyone else) hurts MS too. It is just as likely that Dell will hire a team of topnotch coders and take a distro like Debian and polish it up a little, and release a successful combination of branded hardware and branded o/s. I checked Dell's financials today and they have a market cap of about $92B, they can easily afford to hire all the talent they need.
"Ready for prime time" means you don't frustrate people with dependency problems and lack of hardware support.
How long will it take to get "the unwashed masses" to accept Dell/Debian as an equal to Windows: about as long as it takes for CFO's of large companies (who make up a large portion of MS's market share) to figure out how much s/he will save their company by avoiding getting locked into Windows. If Dell does a good job of marketing, individual users would also appreciate the money saved by not buying Windows. Universities, hospitals, libraries, charitable organizations, government agencies and the like will also find a Linux solution attractive as their funding is cut.
Yes, if MS stopped licensing Windows to Dell tomorrow, there would be a short term loss of income. The end result, forcing Dell to find or create their own o/s, may well be the best thing that could happen to Dell and the other hardware makers. I read an article several years ago which predicted that in 10 years MS would essentially be irrelevant; at the time I thought the author a complete fool. Right now I'm not sure. MS sure does seem to be giving hardware makers reasons to have a Plan B, just in case.
I don't underestimate his intelligence; he's bright enough. What concerns me is his complete lack of curiosity about anything. I don't think he spent 5 minutes of his own time deciding whether to go into Iraq. I want decisions like whether to go to war to be made by people who have a solid knowledge of history to aid them. Bush just hasn't put in the time or made the effort to really educate himself. He simply reads whatever is put in front of him. If it wasn't for his family name and money he wouldn't be taken seriously as a candidate for anything.
"The fact that there are some alternatives such as Linux that allow some users to avoid running Windows doesn't change the fact that MS could shut down any PC company at a whim by withdrawing its Windows license."
MS "withdrawing" or refusing to continue selling its license to any of the big PC hardware sellers is the stupidest thing they could do. Let's say MS stopped licensing its product to Dell Computer. Don't you think that Dell has the cash to buy or adopt a Linux distro, invest the $ necessary to make the o/s ready for prime time, and continue to profit.
The problem with MS is that they want to own computers and the internet. They start with the assumption that *they* know what is best for us, and have no scruples when dealing with people who have a different vision. I wonder how many of the Windows systems which are used to calculate market share are actually corporate decisions on which the "end user" has no input whatsoever.
"There should be some sort of percentage of profits reaped from the anti-competitive behavior that should be taken away. $10,000,000 is a drop in the bucket for microsoft. The penalty should be stiffer."
If you expect the Bush/Ashcroft Justice Department to push for harsher penalties against corporate criminals, you must be an extremely optimistic person. Under Clinton's AG, the US won a *big* victory, after trial vs. MS. As soon as Bush took over, the Justice Dep't lost all interest in actually enforcing that victory. I may be paranoid but I suspect that MS money and the Bushies have been talking.
You are absolutely correct, he is a pilot. I would guess that he and his father are the only two Presidents qualified as pilots. But we taxpayers paid to make hime a pilot in the Texas Reserve, as an alternative to going to Vietnam, which favor he immediately repaid by going*awol*-- For a year and a half, before someone noticed he was missing. He had his opportunity to serve, and, just like Clinton, he chose not to get his ass blown off in Vietnam. I fully understand both of their decisions, however I give Clinton credit for admitting he was a pussy whereas Bush now stands with warriors, a platform on which he in no way deserves. Sometimes I am amazed that someone who is so uncurious, poorly educated, and whose greatest accomplishment was stopping drinking at age 40 got himself taken seriously as a candidate. Were you given 40 years to grow up. I know that I was working a long time before I turned 40. Why, because I needed the fsucking money. I didn't have a trust fund to protect me from work. And I think that there is value in work, earning something must be more rewarding than simply having it given to you. Right now, Bush is having to work harder than he ever did in his life. I'm afraid that both he and we will suffer for it.
(OK, back to Decaf)
I merely intended to point out how little most people know about how their pc works. You must admit that /. is not a place to look for your "typical" Windoze user.
"..p2p using public aren't stupid enough to completely open themselves up to litigation."
;-) Never underestimate the stupidity of the consumer, it's a sucker's bet.
Oh really, how many people do not even have a firewall
Where's the /. hypocrisy. The music industry has done a pitiful job of adjusting to the computer/internet age. Right now they are both arbitrary and stupid. I could understand going after someone who is duping cd's and selling them, but it doesn't look good when you sue young kids. And it's not going to look better even if they win.
A good many p2p file sharers don't even know that what they are doing may be illegal; most of them barely know how to use their Wndoze box. Does the RIAA expect the parents of these kids, who know even less about how pc's work, to understand the issue.
My personal opinion is fsck the RIAA. With any intelligence and slightly less greed they could have owned the online music business. Instead, they still haven't got their act together, meanwhile Apple has the iTunes store up and humming.
This isn't about copywright, it's about stupidity.
I don't think you have it exactly right. The very ring of the telephone, from a telemarketer, which stops you from doing whatever you were doing is a form of trespass. I paid for my phones, the lines which installed them, and I pay for telephone service. My telephone is there to work for me. When someone uses my tools to disrupt whatever I was doing, I get actively pissed off. Perhaps the fact that a law was needed indicates that other people feel the same.
Sorry, but diminished capacity, if intentional, is not available as a defense.
You are assuming that causing confusion among companies choosing between M$ and Open Source is *not* the real purpose of the suit. As I see it, M$ doesn't have anything new coming out for 2 years; what better way to "freeze" the market until then.
"uninformed linux users"
I'm sorry, but I can't just let this oxymoron go. It is the very nature of Linux use that the user understand how their system operates on some level. Otherwise it won't work for you.
If it's not M$'s job to inform you how to safely use their product, then whose is it? A PC is not a water faucet which everyone is presumed to know how to use, it's a fairly sophisticated piece of machinery and most end users have no idea what lies under the hood.
I agree wholehardedly with your analysis of the "worst" problem, but can you tell me what M$ is doing to make users more informed. If anything, they seem to draw a curtain over defects which are mostly due to their own laziness and lack of motivation. As long as it doesn't cut into the sale of licenses, their actual business, no problem.
Assuming all this is true, has anyone considered the possibility that SCO simply didn't pay their electric bill?
Sales tax is the most regressive tax of all because it effects *everyone*. Those wealthy enough to afford "luxury"items may be mildly annoyed, but it will not prevent them from purchasing. However people of more modest means will find that adding an additional 5%-10% to the price makes the item unaffordable. This, of course, presents a problem when items like "food" become out of reach for some.
How about a property tax assessed against passive assets, in excess of anything reasonable, which do not contribute to commerce or our economy.
People who are trying to design things which would appear to have limited use are the engine which drives technology progress. How many programs which are now considered necessary were once considired of marginal value.
I don't know where this guy's product is going, but I hope he succeeds.
Just to make it clear, the brokers make a fee on every transaction. However if a "short" strategy fails and the price goes up, it is the shareholder and not the broker who suffers the loss. Brokers may technically "lend" shares in a short strategy, but it's not their money. You will notice that brokerages do not offer these stock speculations to people who do not maintain more than enough to cover any potential losses.
I really have to question why people are willing to tolerate M$ products failure rates. If your car refsed to cooperate and broke down as frequently, you'd find another means of transportation. If my Mac acted like that it would be out of a job. Why do so many believe that computers are a miracle, only M$ makes them, and they're so delicate that they should be forgiven their failures, despite the fact that their failures are mostly due to extreme laziness on the part of M$. Interesting business model they have at M$, let your customers due your beta testing.
You are assuming that *everyone* knows the basics of operating a computer. 10 year olds will be just fine, but if you're 50 and forced to learn a new skill, somethings are not just obvious.
Computers and the internet experience are "sold" as appliances that everyone can and does use. Just open the box and plug it in. Yeah, bullshit. Fortunately, like many others, I had knowledgeable friends who taught me enough to be able to take care of myself. Without those friends, I too would be making stupid "support" calls.
This problem should go away by itself as kids learn computer skills as part of their basic education.
I can certainly understand the frustration of a tech support person having to answer the same stupid questions all night; I am teaching my 70 year old mother how to surf the net and handle email and, as "dumb" as some of her questions sound to me, they are not dumb to her. And she's trying, that should be worth something.
My approach to this issue is to help anyone who asks me; I'm probably better able to solve the problem and explain what caused it and it makes me feel good to "repay" those who helped me when I needed it.
"If you give away to other people then it is socialism (i.e. Bad)."
Isn't charity choosing to give to others, too. As long as it's not cooerced by governmnent or employer, is that socialism too?