It should have been obvious something like this was coming up. I used to have alot of friends that worked for Caldera, (I interviewed there), and last fall they all started bailing. They were all mormon and that didn't prevent them from bailing.
You are of course assuming that this isn't all about extorting as much money from IBM as posible. Every action that SCO has taken isn't to make things better. It is to attempt to come up with a nuclear winter option that has such terrible consequenses that IBM will fold and pay the protection money. Even if the nuclear winter option seems to be very unlikely. After all SCO now doesn't have anything to lose. They have pretty effectively burned thier bridges with the business community. Few people are going to want to do business with them anymore.
The commerce end of it they already done quite a bit with thier Long March launchers. I'm not trying to insult the Chinese space program. I hope that it is successful. But in my opinion, we need space to be profitable, to be the complete domain of private entities and not governments. As long as space is the playground of NASA, ESA, the Russian Space Agency, and now the Chinese gov't. Going into space is going to remain the playground of the privileged few.
it looks like the space race may be heating back up?
I sure hope not. The space races of the past did little to foster cats(cheap access to space). And this won't either. It will be like the apollo missions to the moon, flag and footprints and never to return. I want space tourism, industry, and sustainable high level of commerce and privatization. The only one of these three items that has a potential of doing that is the X-Prize, because it fosters private industry not just feed the bueracracy that is NASA or ESA (European Space Agency). And now it looks like China is going to do the same thing. You'll have to excuse me if I'm a little underwhelmed.
You can't negotiate with criminals because if you do, what will stop the next company from doing the same thing that SCO's doing today.
Normally I would agree with you, but in the insanity of the US court system and its lottery mentality, you almost have to deal with them. The risk of losing is so enormous, the pressure to simply do a deal is overwhelming. I'm not saying it is right, just that it is reality.
SCO literally has nothing to lose here. And that is the problem. If the CEO and the other executive officers of SCO faced some personally liability for filing bad claims (i.e. they could end up paying a $100,000 or more fine) they would more carefully wiegh the risks of going to court. And other companies would be more willing to fight these extortion lawsuits if the court system afforded them more protection.
SCO will continue to support existing SCO Linux and Caldera OpenLinux customers and hold them harmless from any SCO intellectual property issues regarding SCO Linux and Caldera OpenLinux products.
We all cheered when caldera did this to Microsoft over DR-DOS. Now they are doing it to us. Is it just me or is there something inherently slimy about litigating your way to profitablity?
you don't have to count them all, just a sufficient random set to audit the accuracy of the machines, probably no more than 1-5%, and they can be counted some time in the next couple weeks, ideally by a totally different group.
The reason that they won't touch OSS is because they perceive risk to their careers in going with it. It's not that OSS is more or less buggy, it's a matter of them having to take the blame if it goes badly.
Of course this is useless if the vendor goes out of business on you. (This happened at least twice to my company)
Or if the vendor sues you, because they don't approve of the way that you are using the product. (happened at least once to my company)
Or if the vendor refuses to support you because the product is too many revisions back. (I can't even count how many times this has happened to my company)
What I find laughable about the whole thing is if you took the money paid for these license fees, even a relatively small company could hire a small army of developers to do nothing but enhance open source software for thier own use as well as others. And still save a heck of a lot of money.
It's a short cut. To set up realistic training scenarios take a LOT of time. Getting the right OPFOR, the right ground, and enough troops together is a lot of work, and money. This simulation isn't a replacement for "muddy boots" training, but it makes it posible to go through a lot of scenarios in a very short time period.
Don't forget the vast majority of programming is done "in-house". My company has 70-80 programmers on staff who do nothing but projects for our internal IT. In-House like this you are always talking to your "customers".
While I don't intend this to be aimed at you personally, I have met a lot of people who claim that they never get promoted because though they are good at thier job, the didn't play the politics well enough(kiss ass). But when you get down to it the reason they don't get promoted is that they aren't nearly as good as they think they are.
The difficulty with wind turbines is they are now where near as consistent as say a nuclear power plant. You would need at least 30-40 % more windmills.
A fully electric car requires quite a bit more battery capacity than one single car battery, Some designs carry several hundred pounds of batteries. Not to mention the fact that batteries are very expensive, and rather easy to destroy. You would have to be the Incredible Hulk to switch the batteries, and you would be taking the risk that you get some beat to hell batteries back, sorta like those propane tank exchange services. All the tanks in the lockers are beat to hell, and doing the exchange costs 2-3 times of just going to get the tank refilled. I think you would find the same problem with the battery exchange idea
I personally think it's cool, just not $5000 dollars worth of cool. I'd start considering one if it ever got to $300-$500 dollar range. About the cost of a decent bicycle.
I've seen a few rural gas stations that sell dyed diesel, for tractors etc. A lot of farmers try and get clever and run dyed diesel in their trucks. But if the Highway patrol stops you and dips your tank and finds some dyed diesel in it, You are going to get a massive fine.
How is this any different than your current situation. You already pay an excise tax on the gas. So in essence you are getting taxed on all the miles today.
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SCO isn't interested in a piddly amount of small payoffs. They want the big billion dollar plus pay day from IBM.
Why can't someone who got the extortion letter subpoena SCO to identify the infringing code?
Because that would involve volunteering to be the target of a new SCO legal offensive.
It should have been obvious something like this was coming up. I used to have alot of friends that worked for Caldera, (I interviewed there), and last fall they all started bailing. They were all mormon and that didn't prevent them from bailing.
You are of course assuming that this isn't all about extorting as much money from IBM as posible. Every action that SCO has taken isn't to make things better. It is to attempt to come up with a nuclear winter option that has such terrible consequenses that IBM will fold and pay the protection money. Even if the nuclear winter option seems to be very unlikely. After all SCO now doesn't have anything to lose. They have pretty effectively burned thier bridges with the business community. Few people are going to want to do business with them anymore.
The commerce end of it they already done quite a bit with thier Long March launchers. I'm not trying to insult the Chinese space program. I hope that it is successful. But in my opinion, we need space to be profitable, to be the complete domain of private entities and not governments. As long as space is the playground of NASA, ESA, the Russian Space Agency, and now the Chinese gov't. Going into space is going to remain the playground of the privileged few.
it looks like the space race may be heating back up?
I sure hope not. The space races of the past did little to foster cats(cheap access to space). And this won't either. It will be like the apollo missions to the moon, flag and footprints and never to return. I want space tourism, industry, and sustainable high level of commerce and privatization. The only one of these three items that has a potential of doing that is the X-Prize, because it fosters private industry not just feed the bueracracy that is NASA or ESA (European Space Agency). And now it looks like China is going to do the same thing. You'll have to excuse me if I'm a little underwhelmed.
You can't negotiate with criminals because if you do, what will stop the next company from doing the same thing that SCO's doing today.
Normally I would agree with you, but in the insanity of the US court system and its lottery mentality, you almost have to deal with them. The risk of losing is so enormous, the pressure to simply do a deal is overwhelming. I'm not saying it is right, just that it is reality.
SCO literally has nothing to lose here. And that is the problem. If the CEO and the other executive officers of SCO faced some personally liability for filing bad claims (i.e. they could end up paying a $100,000 or more fine) they would more carefully wiegh the risks of going to court. And other companies would be more willing to fight these extortion lawsuits if the court system afforded them more protection.
Nah, they aren't that stupid sco press release
SCO will continue to support existing SCO Linux and Caldera OpenLinux customers and hold them harmless from any SCO intellectual property issues regarding SCO Linux and Caldera OpenLinux products.
We all cheered when caldera did this to Microsoft over DR-DOS. Now they are doing it to us. Is it just me or is there something inherently slimy about litigating your way to profitablity?
A machine can provide the voter instant feedback on whether or not thier vote is valid.
you don't have to count them all, just a sufficient random set to audit the accuracy of the machines, probably no more than 1-5%, and they can be counted some time in the next couple weeks, ideally by a totally different group.
The reason that they won't touch OSS is because they perceive risk to their careers in going with it. It's not that OSS is more or less buggy, it's a matter of them having to take the blame if it goes badly.
Of course this is useless if the vendor goes out of business on you. (This happened at least twice to my company)
Or if the vendor sues you, because they don't approve of the way that you are using the product. (happened at least once to my company)
Or if the vendor refuses to support you because the product is too many revisions back. (I can't even count how many times this has happened to my company)
What I find laughable about the whole thing is if you took the money paid for these license fees, even a relatively small company could hire a small army of developers to do nothing but enhance open source software for thier own use as well as others. And still save a heck of a lot of money.
The study projects that Windows CE-based devices may outsell Windows-based PCs within 5 years.
Yeah, whatever
It's a short cut. To set up realistic training scenarios take a LOT of time. Getting the right OPFOR, the right ground, and enough troops together is a lot of work, and money. This simulation isn't a replacement for "muddy boots" training, but it makes it posible to go through a lot of scenarios in a very short time period.
I really love the people who blow off thier work for a day (not take the day off) just so they finish thier school work
Don't forget the vast majority of programming is done "in-house". My company has 70-80 programmers on staff who do nothing but projects for our internal IT. In-House like this you are always talking to your "customers".
While I don't intend this to be aimed at you personally, I have met a lot of people who claim that they never get promoted because though they are good at thier job, the didn't play the politics well enough(kiss ass). But when you get down to it the reason they don't get promoted is that they aren't nearly as good as they think they are.
The difficulty with wind turbines is they are now where near as consistent as say a nuclear power plant. You would need at least 30-40 % more windmills.
A fully electric car requires quite a bit more battery capacity than one single car battery, Some designs carry several hundred pounds of batteries. Not to mention the fact that batteries are very expensive, and rather easy to destroy. You would have to be the Incredible Hulk to switch the batteries, and you would be taking the risk that you get some beat to hell batteries back, sorta like those propane tank exchange services. All the tanks in the lockers are beat to hell, and doing the exchange costs 2-3 times of just going to get the tank refilled. I think you would find the same problem with the battery exchange idea
I personally think it's cool, just not $5000 dollars worth of cool. I'd start considering one if it ever got to $300-$500 dollar range. About the cost of a decent bicycle.
This is because of treaty obligations. Most ICBM's could easily carry more than 10 warheads but treaty cuts that down to 10.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if this happens, isn't that the same as a licensing fee. So then I would be able to download any music I wanted.
You have a point there. The entertainment value of the British royal family is incredible. Isn't the queen the only one not sleeping around?
I've seen a few rural gas stations that sell dyed diesel, for tractors etc. A lot of farmers try and get clever and run dyed diesel in their trucks. But if the Highway patrol stops you and dips your tank and finds some dyed diesel in it, You are going to get a massive fine.
How is this any different than your current situation. You already pay an excise tax on the gas. So in essence you are getting taxed on all the miles today.