"You can't guarantee availability of the same parts form day to day for the build-your-own-whitebox game."
You can if you buy more parts than you need. A 30% savings on investment means I can have enough spare parts ON HAND that I don't have to depend on EVER actually getting a manufacturer to RMA anything in a timely manner. Courier or overnight is still slower than having one in the closet over there.
"It also makes for an RMA nightmare when you're sending warranty parts back to who?"
Your RMA nightmare really amounts to about 30 minutes of stressful phone time, if any. It sounds like you have been in a situation where technicians are doing RMA's! That is what the secretarial staff is for.
"And, guess what....I don't care if the chipset in the P4 2.0 gHz the secretary is using Word on really does justice to the processor, or just makes it run like a P4 1.6. It just doesn't matter for 90% of the machines out there."
You'll care if it doesn't function properly and causes a gradual data corruption in the system you can never track down. Usually the difference with cheap components is NOT performance, it is stability. In a 2year period you WILL have a problem with most dell/hp systems, in a 2yr period you will NOT have a problem with a proper whitebox system.
That is what I was trying to express with my 56k modem example, no 56k modems run faster than others. The difference between 56k modems is the failure rate and headaches you go through when a setup doesn't go perfectly, and how often the setups do not go perfectly.
"just to pay it back again in spades in maintenance overhead"
Going with a large vendor and low quality products results in more downtime, and greater maintenance overhead; not less.
Because YOUR code is NOT YOUR code. Like all works which fall under copyright it belongs to knowledge pool of the human species. As a way of recognizing that contribution you are given a gift of select LIMITED and TEMPORARY controls over how the material is distributed and copied for distribution. You are given NO controls over how the material is USED.
Quite frankly if I have legally aquired a copy of the work you created, it is none of your damn business what I do with it as long as I am not making copies and giving/selling them to others.
Can you name one big brand box maker that makes a system worth having?
There are hundreds of 56k modems out there for example, maybe 10 of them are worth having. A big name builder will choose the cheapest piece of crap among hundreds so long as they can slap 56k modem in the specs. The same goes for every other component in the system.
I've never understood companies buying inferior systems from places like Dell or HP. The hardware comes with a warranty and for less than Dells markup you can have minimum wage monkeys assemble the systems, keep a closet full of extra components so you always have INSTANT replacement parts and don't have to wait for RMA's to come back. And your inhouse techs already troubleshoot the hardware as it is.
At least Apple offers something that you can't top in a garage with a screwdriver and ebay in 30 mins.
Why not impress your friends, and get some recognition from your friends and future employers by winning a verifiable hack contest. That way you get some recognition and the bug gets fixed without giving the people who would hack to steal another exploit for their arsenal?
Or perhaps you are not doing it for personal gain, be it cash or recognition. Perhaps your searching for and finding the exploit just to prove you can and this is a way to legally test it in the wild. People find bugs everyday, it is not like you 'deserve' a that terribly much respect for it. A dozen new ones a day get posted to security related mailing lists.
Seriously, winning a hack contest will get you some recognition. Finding a bug probably will not get you promoted and it's doubtful anyone would read a paper written about a single exploit.
"The opposing view would be that since Linux competes with itself, through survivial-of-the-fittest, only the most prefered features get passed on. This process would make the OS stronger with each iteration."
Perhaps, so far this seems to work because those who really decide what gets passed on are the technically elite. But what happens when it really is majority rules via corporate programmers? Remember, majority rules is a nice way of saying mob rule and it is NOT optimal. Optimally the stupid and ignorant masses do not have a voice and those who know what they are doing make the decisions for them.
On another point, HTML and TCP/IP are HEAVILY stress tested. There are flaws but they are known and everybody and their dog has had a chance to work out flaws with them.
The greatest possibility for one of these to get hacked is that the one admin is not really familiar with the system and makes a mistake on setup that leaves things functional but insecure. With HTML and TCP/IP the admin is more likely to be familiar and less like to make a mistake with the system.
"I don't know what my bank's ATMs run as their operating system, and that's a good thing because it means the bad guys may not, either."
The bad guys know in detail how the circuit processes the image of a dollar bill in a change machine so they can fool it. Do you? Of course not, they know because they have no scrupples and they want to know.
Microsoft spends hundreds of billions of dollars writing custom and obscure protocols, deliberately designing every aspect of systems far more complex than these to be difficult to reverse engineer. It is the ultimate example of security through obscurity. And with MS it is what, 3-4yrs tops for their interfaces to be reverse engineered by hackers?
You trust obscurity. I'll take a system that is easy to setup properly; is built on tried, true, tested, and stable technology (windows meets none of these critera embedded or not); and requires a bad guy to get past someone with a gun to get to the wire. If the bank wants to remote admin that is fine, they better use fiber links with quantum encryption, otherwise the cost is needed.
I was once the technician at a small consulting firm trying to explain to a bank manager that he shouldn't have the network the bank terminals are on connected to the web and that a bank really should get something a tad more secure than norton internet security on their internet connection. In the end the bank just wanted something that said intrusion detection on the label to get the bank inspector off their back.
No, there is no value in security through obscurity. There is immense value in transparency. The bad guys are going to find the holes, obscure or not it is just a question of time. Hiding the code just makes things harder for the good guys.
Yeah and these things have html interfaces... that right there is enough to make me edgy. It's windows with an HTML interface, wonder what rendering engine they are using.
Yes but why did you have to go with Diebold again? They are notorious for buggy and insecure systems, just look how they botched up voting on a PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
"The actual screens the customer sees are actually web pages so it's easy to make them look how you want and not be a programmer."
Yeah but do you REALLY want a feature that allows unqualified individuals modify the interface of ATM machines? Isn't that something you want the bar set a little higher on?
"Again, I don't see anybody ordering you to believe what you see on the tube."
You and I are the not the ones who decide an election. The 200+ million drones who amount to the average citizen in the US elect the ones who will in turn elect a candidate.
I recently saw a quote writen by a man who operates on similar principles to the corporate world. I believe it was, "It is fortunate for leaders that men do not think." - Adolph Hitler
"These matters can easily be controlled the moment we ALL decide not to be slaves to anyone."
LOL the corporations control the media and therefore control what representatives we choose from. Remember our news is run by massive corporate congolomerates just like everything else.
"Nobody is forcing you to vote for them. Until someone puts a gun to your head and tells you who to vote for, you don't have a case."
That is right, you can vote for corrupt politician A or corrupt politician b. The only difference between candidates is which corporations bought them.
They are much like Nascar drivers except they hide the logos and promote interests instead of the brandnames directly.
"I find it kind of wierd that you all talk about the greatness of your democracies"
Some do, I do not. The problem is not really the democracy, the problem is the economic system. Under captitalism wealth is guaranteed to pass from smaller individual entities to larger corporations and then to the top 10% elite who own most of the corporate stock/bonds through dividends and there it pools. Corporations have one ultimate goal, and that is profit and wealth growth. Investors have the same goal, to profit and grow more wealth.
If your wealth is increasing there is an ever increasing amount of stagnant money pooling with you. Since the top 10% and corps keep more than they spend it means there is less leftover for the other 90%. This means a smaller middle class with and larger wealthy/poor class and an ever-expanding gap between the standards of rich and poor. Politicians must be in the top 10% to begin with if they hope to get elected. The minute they are elected their salaries put them in the top 10 in any case. This scews their interest before a single bribe!
From there it is easy to do the math, even without bribes corporations control all exposure to the public (newspapers and television are all corporate) and therefore decide who is elected and/or re-elected. If they even want to keep their base salary a politician must look out for corporate interests.
Huh? Re-read my post and the one I was responding to because your post is not even sensible in context.
Beligerant defense of the US when something only vaguely even related ot it is being insulted is all about blind patriotism.
"I suspect the real issue is not that the EU reps have been "bought" by the big bad corporations, but that they realize that software patents have a real positive use in the industry."
No, the real issue IS that EU reps have been "bought" by corporations AND that US reps were bought before them.
If you need to see how software patents are used in practice you simply need to look around you. Here in the US there has been nothing save abusive use of them to supress technology. If your not in the US to look around and see it then I suggest you listen to those of us who are.
Blaming the US my ass, it is the corporations that are being blamed. They bought the politicians here in the US and now they are buying them everywhere.
Patriotism has no substance and is always pure rhetoric and therefore invalid, move beyond it.
"It would be fun to discuss your accomplishment , it would take a good 2 seconds."
You base this on? Or do you just spout random nonsense with no factual basis whatsoever? Don't bother answering. It is what we Americans call a rhetorical question.
"whas a teenager , like yourself I guess."
You base this on? Or do you just spout random nonsense with no factual basis whatsoever? Don't bother answering. It is what we Americans call a rhetorical question.
"I said its called GNU/linux:
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html"
They are not authoritive since they neither author nor contribute to Linux.
"I have shown factual data , over and over and over"
Your factual data is some fanatic's rant on the GNU website. If it were authored by Linux Torvalds it would become factual. More to the point however is that I did not say "factual data" I said NEW factual data. If you don't have anything to say that you haven't said OVER and OVER and OVER, then stop talking until you do.
"I am sure that tying your shoe is a big accomplishment for you but your irrelevant for the entire planet."
You see, the difference between you and the rest of the planet is that we require some sort of evidence or basis before accepting a claim. If you do not like something you apparently just spout insults at random.
If you list it properly it will probably be recognized by both HR drones and by technical personel.
Of course techs and managers with actual experience will acknowledge coding work for what it is worth regardless of who you did it for (the bigger and more popular the better though, if you screw up the manager needs to be able to justify hiring you).
HR on the other hand is looking to sit if you fit the criteria needed for the job. If you spend 6 months working on an open source project, you list it as a place of employment alongside all the others and describe your duties just like any other.
"There's no one size fits all, however. If you're applying for a COBOL position doing payroll applications, they probably won't care that you've written Apache modules."
I'd say that depends on who is hiring. At least half the positions of this nature have HR hiring.
First and foremost, as long we are both enjoying this debate that is one thing. If not I see no reason to go forward debating semantics like this anyway. If you do not feel this way then feel free to ignore my rebuttal and we will call it at "we disagree and will never agree."
"concludes that under the technical definition Linux is not Unix"
We are not talking about the technical definition, we are talking about common usage.
"Just because you make a chevy drive and behave like a ford doesnt make it a ford."
That is just it, common usage of the word unix no longer has anything to do with the brand anymore. The difference between chevies and fords in general is the logo.
"You can also cut the "purist" angle."
If you are trying to argue that the common definition of a word has anything to do with the technical definition, you are a purist. The meaning of a word is derived from common usage, it is not like a technical or mathmatical matter where there is a right and a wrong answer.
When speaking of words in language, if enough people say cat means the animal we now refer to as dog, and vice versa, the meanings become reversed. The reference books are not authoritive, speech is authoritive. Anything that has ever been called *nix is unix by common usage. Hell, people like you and your colleges and the unix purists at Sun are the reason people started using *nix instead of unix to begin with!
"That however doesnt mean I want to stick every friggin work-alike under one banner to make it easier on some simpleton manager who cannot grasp the difference between Linux and AIX"
Why on earth would you explain the technical difference to a manager or anyone else. After all the "technical" difference we are talking about is that technically the historical roots of this or that *nix trace to a different codebase. It is not as if there is some technical MERIT or functionality to goes along with that. The unixes you have willingly called unix have almost no functional commonality that is not shared with linux.
Even the codebase claim is shakey since there is a great deal of SysV code in BSD and a great deal of that code in turn in Linux. Either way, it is nothing to concern a manager, programmer, or administrator today. The only ones who have a VALID reason to be prejudicing based on the code roots are historians, not technical personel.
The difference between Linux and AIX is about the same as the difference between Linux and Solaris or Solaris and AIX, or any of the above and SCO, or any of the above and BSD. Or any of the above and... put random *nix here. And yes, 90% of OS's in use today are properly grouped as unix.
Out of curiousity, if you find an app and the author says that it should compile on pretty much any unix, do you take that to include unix?
"You have a career and accomplisment , thats good to know , you where employee of the month at the next door sonic ?"
Please age a bit before proclaiming false accomplishments and talking to those who have greater real accomplishment than you ever will. I doubt you have ever managed something so great as employee of the month... anywhere.
"I said sue me and proove your point , thats what grown up do..."
Ok, sue me and prove your point, otherwise please stfu.
"But then your not a grown up , your a kid , grown up fight and win and make there point."
I fought, I won, I made my point. You keep spouting lies and ranting anyway. I've told you twice that unless you actually have some factual data to add to please not bother to respond. If you respond again with nothing more than "I'm right, I have no idea who you are but I think I'm better and more qualified than you because we disagree, everything licensed under the gpl is GNU software whether it is produced by the organization called GNU or not, even though the fsf specifically promotes a different ideal!"
Right, go become a random ass on Slashdot who claims lots of accomplishments. Should I assume the people I am talking to are less qualified than myself as well?
Tell me, when did I start my career and what are my accomplishments?
"dont forget to help build minimum 25 new GNU/Linux distribution and contribute software"
Did you build 25 distributions (assuming you mean linux distribution by GNU/Linux distribution) or did you contribute to a project used by 25 distributions? There is a big difference, and a google search does not even yield 25 worthwhile distributions.
"Dont bother opening your yap until then."
When you have the above qualifications, you still will not be qualified to speak down to an AC on slashdot. Ignorance is ignorance no matter how you dress it.
I repeat, do not bother responding simply to try to get the last word. Unless you have new INFORMATION (as opposed to "nuh uh") do not bother responding at all.
"its the "legal" way to mention it"
According to the people who want a share of the credit for someone elses word because nobody gives two shits about their own GNU/Hurd. Yeah, they are authoritive.
Slashdot Mirror
heh, US Robotics externals are NOT the only decent modem. There are several good hardware modems including the US Robotics internal HARDWARE modems.
The externals are just the most common thing you can find that you can be sure is a hardware modem.
What does that have to do with Apple having an OS license that requires it be installed on a Mac?
Yes, PearPC is being DISTRIBUTED as cherryos in violation of copyright law, it blatantly falls within the privlages granted by copyright.
But that has nothing to do with Apple trying to regulate how software is USED with the OS license, which is what we are talking about.
"You can't guarantee availability of the same parts form day to day for the build-your-own-whitebox game."
You can if you buy more parts than you need. A 30% savings on investment means I can have enough spare parts ON HAND that I don't have to depend on EVER actually getting a manufacturer to RMA anything in a timely manner. Courier or overnight is still slower than having one in the closet over there.
"It also makes for an RMA nightmare when you're sending warranty parts back to who?"
Your RMA nightmare really amounts to about 30 minutes of stressful phone time, if any. It sounds like you have been in a situation where technicians are doing RMA's! That is what the secretarial staff is for.
"And, guess what....I don't care if the chipset in the P4 2.0 gHz the secretary is using Word on really does justice to the processor, or just makes it run like a P4 1.6. It just doesn't matter for 90% of the machines out there."
You'll care if it doesn't function properly and causes a gradual data corruption in the system you can never track down. Usually the difference with cheap components is NOT performance, it is stability. In a 2year period you WILL have a problem with most dell/hp systems, in a 2yr period you will NOT have a problem with a proper whitebox system.
That is what I was trying to express with my 56k modem example, no 56k modems run faster than others. The difference between 56k modems is the failure rate and headaches you go through when a setup doesn't go perfectly, and how often the setups do not go perfectly.
"just to pay it back again in spades in maintenance overhead"
Going with a large vendor and low quality products results in more downtime, and greater maintenance overhead; not less.
Because YOUR code is NOT YOUR code. Like all works which fall under copyright it belongs to knowledge pool of the human species. As a way of recognizing that contribution you are given a gift of select LIMITED and TEMPORARY controls over how the material is distributed and copied for distribution. You are given NO controls over how the material is USED.
Quite frankly if I have legally aquired a copy of the work you created, it is none of your damn business what I do with it as long as I am not making copies and giving/selling them to others.
Can you name one big brand box maker that makes a system worth having?
There are hundreds of 56k modems out there for example, maybe 10 of them are worth having. A big name builder will choose the cheapest piece of crap among hundreds so long as they can slap 56k modem in the specs. The same goes for every other component in the system.
I've never understood companies buying inferior systems from places like Dell or HP. The hardware comes with a warranty and for less than Dells markup you can have minimum wage monkeys assemble the systems, keep a closet full of extra components so you always have INSTANT replacement parts and don't have to wait for RMA's to come back. And your inhouse techs already troubleshoot the hardware as it is.
At least Apple offers something that you can't top in a garage with a screwdriver and ebay in 30 mins.
Why not impress your friends, and get some recognition from your friends and future employers by winning a verifiable hack contest. That way you get some recognition and the bug gets fixed without giving the people who would hack to steal another exploit for their arsenal?
Or perhaps you are not doing it for personal gain, be it cash or recognition. Perhaps your searching for and finding the exploit just to prove you can and this is a way to legally test it in the wild. People find bugs everyday, it is not like you 'deserve' a that terribly much respect for it. A dozen new ones a day get posted to security related mailing lists.
Seriously, winning a hack contest will get you some recognition. Finding a bug probably will not get you promoted and it's doubtful anyone would read a paper written about a single exploit.
"way to root it would be 0-day that no self respecting hacker would waste on this system"
Why not? Most self-respecting hackers are not hacking to steal.
"The opposing view would be that since Linux competes with itself, through survivial-of-the-fittest, only the most prefered features get passed on. This process would make the OS stronger with each iteration."
Perhaps, so far this seems to work because those who really decide what gets passed on are the technically elite. But what happens when it really is majority rules via corporate programmers? Remember, majority rules is a nice way of saying mob rule and it is NOT optimal. Optimally the stupid and ignorant masses do not have a voice and those who know what they are doing make the decisions for them.
On another point, HTML and TCP/IP are HEAVILY stress tested. There are flaws but they are known and everybody and their dog has had a chance to work out flaws with them.
The greatest possibility for one of these to get hacked is that the one admin is not really familiar with the system and makes a mistake on setup that leaves things functional but insecure. With HTML and TCP/IP the admin is more likely to be familiar and less like to make a mistake with the system.
"I don't know what my bank's ATMs run as their operating system, and that's a good thing because it means the bad guys may not, either."
The bad guys know in detail how the circuit processes the image of a dollar bill in a change machine so they can fool it. Do you? Of course not, they know because they have no scrupples and they want to know.
Microsoft spends hundreds of billions of dollars writing custom and obscure protocols, deliberately designing every aspect of systems far more complex than these to be difficult to reverse engineer. It is the ultimate example of security through obscurity. And with MS it is what, 3-4yrs tops for their interfaces to be reverse engineered by hackers?
You trust obscurity. I'll take a system that is easy to setup properly; is built on tried, true, tested, and stable technology (windows meets none of these critera embedded or not); and requires a bad guy to get past someone with a gun to get to the wire. If the bank wants to remote admin that is fine, they better use fiber links with quantum encryption, otherwise the cost is needed.
I was once the technician at a small consulting firm trying to explain to a bank manager that he shouldn't have the network the bank terminals are on connected to the web and that a bank really should get something a tad more secure than norton internet security on their internet connection. In the end the bank just wanted something that said intrusion detection on the label to get the bank inspector off their back.
No, there is no value in security through obscurity. There is immense value in transparency. The bad guys are going to find the holes, obscure or not it is just a question of time. Hiding the code just makes things harder for the good guys.
Yeah and these things have html interfaces... that right there is enough to make me edgy. It's windows with an HTML interface, wonder what rendering engine they are using.
Yes but why did you have to go with Diebold again? They are notorious for buggy and insecure systems, just look how they botched up voting on a PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
"The actual screens the customer sees are actually web pages so it's easy to make them look how you want and not be a programmer."
Yeah but do you REALLY want a feature that allows unqualified individuals modify the interface of ATM machines? Isn't that something you want the bar set a little higher on?
"Again, I don't see anybody ordering you to believe what you see on the tube."
:)
You and I are the not the ones who decide an election. The 200+ million drones who amount to the average citizen in the US elect the ones who will in turn elect a candidate.
I recently saw a quote writen by a man who operates on similar principles to the corporate world. I believe it was, "It is fortunate for leaders that men do not think." - Adolph Hitler
"These matters can easily be controlled the moment we ALL decide not to be slaves to anyone."
I don't know about all, but two is a start.
LOL the corporations control the media and therefore control what representatives we choose from. Remember our news is run by massive corporate congolomerates just like everything else.
"Nobody is forcing you to vote for them. Until someone puts a gun to your head and tells you who to vote for, you don't have a case."
That is right, you can vote for corrupt politician A or corrupt politician b. The only difference between candidates is which corporations bought them.
They are much like Nascar drivers except they hide the logos and promote interests instead of the brandnames directly.
"I find it kind of wierd that you all talk about the greatness of your democracies"
Some do, I do not. The problem is not really the democracy, the problem is the economic system. Under captitalism wealth is guaranteed to pass from smaller individual entities to larger corporations and then to the top 10% elite who own most of the corporate stock/bonds through dividends and there it pools. Corporations have one ultimate goal, and that is profit and wealth growth. Investors have the same goal, to profit and grow more wealth.
If your wealth is increasing there is an ever increasing amount of stagnant money pooling with you. Since the top 10% and corps keep more than they spend it means there is less leftover for the other 90%. This means a smaller middle class with and larger wealthy/poor class and an ever-expanding gap between the standards of rich and poor. Politicians must be in the top 10% to begin with if they hope to get elected. The minute they are elected their salaries put them in the top 10 in any case. This scews their interest before a single bribe!
From there it is easy to do the math, even without bribes corporations control all exposure to the public (newspapers and television are all corporate) and therefore decide who is elected and/or re-elected. If they even want to keep their base salary a politician must look out for corporate interests.
"Nope sorry. Has nothing to do with patriotism."
Huh? Re-read my post and the one I was responding to because your post is not even sensible in context.
Beligerant defense of the US when something only vaguely even related ot it is being insulted is all about blind patriotism.
"I suspect the real issue is not that the EU reps have been "bought" by the big bad corporations, but that they realize that software patents have a real positive use in the industry."
No, the real issue IS that EU reps have been "bought" by corporations AND that US reps were bought before them.
If you need to see how software patents are used in practice you simply need to look around you. Here in the US there has been nothing save abusive use of them to supress technology. If your not in the US to look around and see it then I suggest you listen to those of us who are.
Blaming the US my ass, it is the corporations that are being blamed. They bought the politicians here in the US and now they are buying them everywhere.
Patriotism has no substance and is always pure rhetoric and therefore invalid, move beyond it.
In short, Vint Cerf did something good. Sen. Gore sold it to the highest bidder.
That isn't true in the US. I know there are a number of countries where truth is a guaranteed out but not here.
"It would be fun to discuss your accomplishment , it would take a good 2 seconds."
:
You base this on? Or do you just spout random nonsense with no factual basis whatsoever? Don't bother answering. It is what we Americans call a rhetorical question.
"whas a teenager , like yourself I guess."
You base this on? Or do you just spout random nonsense with no factual basis whatsoever? Don't bother answering. It is what we Americans call a rhetorical question.
"I said its called GNU/linux
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html"
They are not authoritive since they neither author nor contribute to Linux.
"I have shown factual data , over and over and over"
Your factual data is some fanatic's rant on the GNU website. If it were authored by Linux Torvalds it would become factual. More to the point however is that I did not say "factual data" I said NEW factual data. If you don't have anything to say that you haven't said OVER and OVER and OVER, then stop talking until you do.
"I am sure that tying your shoe is a big accomplishment for you but your irrelevant for the entire planet."
You see, the difference between you and the rest of the planet is that we require some sort of evidence or basis before accepting a claim. If you do not like something you apparently just spout insults at random.
If you list it properly it will probably be recognized by both HR drones and by technical personel.
Of course techs and managers with actual experience will acknowledge coding work for what it is worth regardless of who you did it for (the bigger and more popular the better though, if you screw up the manager needs to be able to justify hiring you).
HR on the other hand is looking to sit if you fit the criteria needed for the job. If you spend 6 months working on an open source project, you list it as a place of employment alongside all the others and describe your duties just like any other.
"There's no one size fits all, however. If you're applying for a COBOL position doing payroll applications, they probably won't care that you've
written Apache modules."
I'd say that depends on who is hiring. At least half the positions of this nature have HR hiring.
First and foremost, as long we are both enjoying this debate that is one thing. If not I see no reason to go forward debating semantics like this anyway. If you do not feel this way then feel free to ignore my rebuttal and we will call it at "we disagree and will never agree."
"concludes that under the technical definition Linux is not Unix"
We are not talking about the technical definition, we are talking about common usage.
"Just because you make a chevy drive and behave like a ford doesnt make it a ford."
That is just it, common usage of the word unix no longer has anything to do with the brand anymore. The difference between chevies and fords in general is the logo.
"You can also cut the "purist" angle."
If you are trying to argue that the common definition of a word has anything to do with the technical definition, you are a purist. The meaning of a word is derived from common usage, it is not like a technical or mathmatical matter where there is a right and a wrong answer.
When speaking of words in language, if enough people say cat means the animal we now refer to as dog, and vice versa, the meanings become reversed. The reference books are not authoritive, speech is authoritive. Anything that has ever been called *nix is unix by common usage. Hell, people like you and your colleges and the unix purists at Sun are the reason people started using *nix instead of unix to begin with!
"That however doesnt mean I want to stick every friggin work-alike under one banner to make it easier on some simpleton manager who cannot grasp the difference between Linux and AIX"
Why on earth would you explain the technical difference to a manager or anyone else. After all the "technical" difference we are talking about is that technically the historical roots of this or that *nix trace to a different codebase. It is not as if there is some technical MERIT or functionality to goes along with that. The unixes you have willingly called unix have almost no functional commonality that is not shared with linux.
Even the codebase claim is shakey since there is a great deal of SysV code in BSD and a great deal of that code in turn in Linux. Either way, it is nothing to concern a manager, programmer, or administrator today. The only ones who have a VALID reason to be prejudicing based on the code roots are historians, not technical personel.
The difference between Linux and AIX is about the same as the difference between Linux and Solaris or Solaris and AIX, or any of the above and SCO, or any of the above and BSD. Or any of the above and... put random *nix here. And yes, 90% of OS's in use today are properly grouped as unix.
Out of curiousity, if you find an app and the author says that it should compile on pretty much any unix, do you take that to include unix?
"You have a career and accomplisment , thats good to know , you where employee of the month at the next door sonic ?"
..."
Please age a bit before proclaiming false accomplishments and talking to those who have greater real accomplishment than you ever will. I doubt you have ever managed something so great as employee of the month... anywhere.
"I said sue me and proove your point , thats what grown up do
Ok, sue me and prove your point, otherwise please stfu.
"But then your not a grown up , your a kid , grown up fight and win and make there point."
I fought, I won, I made my point. You keep spouting lies and ranting anyway. I've told you twice that unless you actually have some factual data to add to please not bother to respond. If you respond again with nothing more than "I'm right, I have no idea who you are but I think I'm better and more qualified than you because we disagree, everything licensed under the gpl is GNU software whether it is produced by the organization called GNU or not, even though the fsf specifically promotes a different ideal!"
Right, go become a random ass on Slashdot who claims lots of accomplishments. Should I assume the people I am talking to are less qualified than myself as well?
Tell me, when did I start my career and what are my accomplishments?
"dont forget to help build minimum 25 new GNU/Linux distribution and contribute software"
Did you build 25 distributions (assuming you mean linux distribution by GNU/Linux distribution) or did you contribute to a project used by 25 distributions? There is a big difference, and a google search does not even yield 25 worthwhile distributions.
"Dont bother opening your yap until then."
When you have the above qualifications, you still will not be qualified to speak down to an AC on slashdot. Ignorance is ignorance no matter how you dress it.
I repeat, do not bother responding simply to try to get the last word. Unless you have new INFORMATION (as opposed to "nuh uh") do not bother responding at all.
"its the "legal" way to mention it"
According to the people who want a share of the credit for someone elses word because nobody gives two shits about their own GNU/Hurd. Yeah, they are authoritive.