I'm not trolling - honest! I'd really like to not wind up on "the list".
If you are sincere, I would recommend sending a quick e-mail to the FSF and just ask. My experience is that they are very quick to respond. They seem to be quite willing to work with you to help you understand your rights and what is required of you based on your particular situation.
Of course, I'm sure everybody (especially the FSF) would appreciate it if you read the license itself and all the FAQs FIRST before taking up someone's time with your e-mail.
Thank you. I was going to post some of that info but now I don't have to. Also, it's important to note that Netcraft also does an MD5 for the "tag structure" of a page and compares the results to all other results from the same IP. At least for "active sites" as described here (look half way down in the methodology section.)
I don't claim Netcraft has perfect sampling methods, however, they don't appear to be as brain dead as other posters would like to claim. Based on their published methodology I would expect templated park pages and "user hasn't yet set up a site" pages to be consolidated. Even the "example" of counting www.yahoo.com and yahoo.com as seperate servers doesn't seem likely to be true.
This is where my disclaimer (Unless I'm reading the data... wrong) comes in.:)
The little label of "All numbers in thousands" on the chart and the fact it was annual and not quarterly data kind of changes the math a bit doesn't it?:)
Can I run the ZFS (Zebra file system) in a RAID-0 configuration?
Dear Solaris customer:
Yes, all RAID levels other than 1 (due to lack of striping) are supported. I am happy to inform you that RAID-1 will also be supported in our next release (code named albino.)
The last time I talked to someone from AT&T they had a "southern" accent that was so thick it was almost impossible to converse with them. By the time the call was over we had each probably had to repeat ourselves nearly a dozen times.
So I have to agree with "- Good English skills - must understand and speak WELL". As far as scripting goes... I don't care if they are scripted as long as they can either answer my call quickly or hand me AND EVERYTHING I ALREADY TOLD THEM over to someone higher up. I don't mind talking to a 2nd or higher level tech but I don't want to answer the same questions or repeat 30 minutes of info to each person I talk to.
I don't mind competing with other programmers for jobs, regardless of where they're from.
Back around 1993, when I was still doing a lot with FoxPro and VFP, I regularly attended a monthly developers group meeting. At one, a visiting programmer from the Philipeans was talking about the advantages of sending at least some of the programming work to non US countries.
At this time a good FP programmer could probably command $100-$150/hr as a contractor. As we listened to the pitch, many were imagining their jobs evaporating overseas. They were understandably releaved to learn that the going rate for FP programing in the Philipeans was $125.
Soon, however, one of the developers asked why we would want to send work overseas for $125/hr. The visitor quickly corrected him. It was $125/week. Needless to say you could have heard a pin drop for the next few moments.
I really don't know how that was possible, but that's not the point. I wasn't worried about my job, but you can see where some MBA might start seeing dancing dollar signs and visions of the CEO congratulating them at the next big company meeting. How do you compete on merit in a case like that?
Disclaimer: My main experience with overseas development is open source stuff. Based on that I would say that the US doesn't have any kind of monopoly on skill, ability or quality programming. After all, some Finnish guy his a little project that's pretty cool. His name is Linus or something like that.;-)
From Article:
First out of the door is the Israeli employment agency, which will replace 550 out of 700 users with OpenOffice.
Man, that's amazing. I can think of a a few employees where I work that I'd like to replace with OO as well. I'm sure a couple could even be replaced with a very small shell script.
Take a look at Magnatune. Albums for $5, no DRM, listen before you buy, and most important (to me anyhow) 50% of all sales go directly to the artist. I generally buy albums at $8+ (albums are actually $5-$18 but you choose what to pay) because the artist gets 50% and I only buy albums that I like a lot.
(Warning: Gentoo plug)To be honest, I didn't have a distro that really did 90% of what I wanted until I tried Gentoo. It's a little arcane to begin with, but their documentation *rocks* and I think I learned more in the three days it took me to set up my system:) than I had in the five or six months I had messed around with redhat.
Disclaimer: I use Gentoo at home on my PC and my son's. I use it at work on 2 servers (soon to be 10 as I convert from RH.) I use it at a customer to my Linux support business.
Gentoo, however, is not what you would call *easy* or *desktop ready*. Yeah, it can run just great as a desktop OS (I do it all the time.) But Joe Average would absolutely freak if faced with installing/maintaining it. I don't even install it on customer computers unless they have told me they want me to do all the support/maint for them (basically an outsourced admin.)
If you are not willing to spend the time learning about Linux and your hardware (and you will have to) then Gentoo is probably not for you. Running etc-update and merging config changes alone are far beyond most user's ability.
Personally I love Gentoo. I have not once been trapped in "dependancy hell" while using it. As a desktop, it is blowing RH9 away. Everything is WAY more responsive and just "feels" faster over all. I also have learned a lot after switching since it *forces* you to get even deeper into how Linux works. It's also great to be able to install on a live server without needing to take it down until everything is installed and ready to go.
Having said all that, I wouldn't call it desktop ready in the least. Instead, let's call it "geek desktop ready." The phrase "the three days it took me to set up my system" goes a long way in backing that up.
It's a publicly traded business at that. Don't think that investors would just sit around and watch their $$$ vanish. If MS pulled out of the EU, you could expect a whole new board of directors immediately after an emergency shareholder's meeting. Which would soon be followed by MS playing nice in the EU and hoping nobody else noticed what just happened.
This is EXACTLY what I was thinking while reading this thread. MS won't dare pull out of EU. Even threatening to pull out is a serious risk. How many IT/IS manager's eyes would pop wide open with the realization that it's possible to be left high and dry at the whim of a foreign company?
If their software were proprietary to the local government they could at least bring legal pressure to bear on them. But that would require an OS and software vendor in each country. OSS would give the advantage of gauranteed access to software and updates. Even if a project goes under local programmers can step in and offer per-fee support and improvments.
Look at how things are going in India. An OSS project doesn't want to bother with internationalization/language suport? No problem; local programmers can (and do) tack it on themselves... sometimes as a paid service for local businesses.
Much of a store's profits are made on strategy. When this kind of data is released, it cuts into the ability of a business to price things appropriately to the demand.
Actually it would cause a business to more accurately price things appropriately to demand. But that's not what they want is it? They want to be able to price things above what demand would dictate so they can have higher profits. In this case they don't even want to do that.. they want to force people into the stores to find loss-leader items so they can sell them the high-profit items along with or instead of the low priced items.
From what I remember in civics (history/government) class long ago there were no items in the Constitution or Bill of Rights which guarantee businesses high margins at the expense of other citizens. Funny how things which hurt margins (not destroy sales.. but hurt margins) in favor of the rest of society are suddenly becomming illegal in the U.S.
I own a small business. Current US policies (even legitimate use of DMCA) don't appear to do one bit of good for small business. They only seem to help big business... which already has tons of tax breaks and other benefits none of the rest of us get.
If someone can engineer viruses this easily, what will happen when someone disgruntled and who doesn't care about himself, much less others, decide to design and manufacture a virus like this?
Fortunately we are nowhere near that point right now. The work needed to design a virus which actually can do something beyond reproduce is likely many magnatudes more difficult.
I'm not a scientist, but I suspect that the virus would have to generate it's own protiens to be able to infect cells. It probably would have to generate other protines to do other types of damage to the host. It likely would have to have a balance between incubation time and killing power (less the first infect person drop dead before infecting someone else.) And it would probably have to be very complex so that our immune system or a simple vacine wouldn't eradicate it immediately.
I have a feeling that this is about as close to making an evil super-virus as filling a pipe with black powder is to building a nuclear ICBM.
I'm less worried about terrorists making their own killer viruses than I am about an unintended virus which might get released. I'm the most concerned that it's structure could be so different from natural viruses that other organisms might have no immune defense at all. But in a list of things to worry about I have to admit I don't this one rank very high.
People seem to be exremely afraid of anything made in a lab, but fail to recognize that the greater danger (by far) is from natural evolution of new viruses.
I'm not a luddite and not really affraid this new virus is going to do something horrible like download copyright music from the RIAA. But what makes this new man-made virus any less capable of mutating or evolving than any other virus?
why doesnt ibm, redhat, sgi, and hp just all get together and chip in some $$ and just buy SCO?
Pretty much for the same reason businesses shouldn't pay extortion money. If SCO gets ground to dust by this it'll deter others from doing the same. If they get a big buy-out (which appears to be their goal) then what is to stop the next guy with some IP (or who buys some IP) from following SCO's example?
It seems pretty telling that SCO's Lawyers are promised 20% of the buy-out if one happens, doesn't it?
Or, if you don't want to mess with scripts and installing cygwin:
Download Eraser from here. (A very nice privacy tool for Windows, BTW.)
Install
Go to erasing prefs (Ctrl+E) and click New
Enter description: All Zeros
Click Add
Click Save
Select new "All Zeros", go to Unused Disk Space tab and do the same.
Click Ok
File - New Task (Ctrl+N)
Set up tasks for the drive(s) you want to zero out and then run them.
Profit! (Sorry.. couldn't resist.)
This has the added advantage of zeroing out the slack space in most files which should improve compression a bit.
BTW.. if you want to use this for privacy, you probably *don't* want to use the All Zeros overwriting option. If you son't know why, read this interesting article.
What ever happend to the good old days where entire ISPs got blacklisted when they didn't do their job and where incorrectly configured mail servers with open relays were blocked as well? Yeah, it sucks to get blacklisted, but it sure does get you to fix the problem and fast at that.
So if blocking a big store is like hacking.. and hackers are terrorists... All those grocery store employees striking here in California are terrorists!?
No, the hackers are preventing the companies from doing business and the... oh. Wait, I got it.. the hackers are doing this to get more money and the strikes are to... oh nevermind.:(
it was lots of fun to watch them leave and set off the alarm and confuse everyone as they tried to figure out what was setting off the alarm
Last year a new wallet from Target had one of those "security" tags stuck way inside one of the linings. The checkout gal "disabled" it, but I later learned that it would enable itself again after you sat on it or otherwise stressed it a few times. I never knew if the damn thing was going to set off alarms when I tried to leave the store.
Eventually I just about ripped the wallet apart and found the stupid thing. But I still tense up a little walking through the "detectors" on my way out of Target now.
Slashdot Mirror
If you are sincere, I would recommend sending a quick e-mail to the FSF and just ask. My experience is that they are very quick to respond. They seem to be quite willing to work with you to help you understand your rights and what is required of you based on your particular situation.
Of course, I'm sure everybody (especially the FSF) would appreciate it if you read the license itself and all the FAQs FIRST before taking up someone's time with your e-mail.
Actually I e-mailed asking about this specifically and I'm 99.9% sure the answer was that you CAN simply provide a link to the source like kernel.org.
Thank you. I was going to post some of that info but now I don't have to. Also, it's important to note that Netcraft also does an MD5 for the "tag structure" of a page and compares the results to all other results from the same IP. At least for "active sites" as described here (look half way down in the methodology section.)
I don't claim Netcraft has perfect sampling methods, however, they don't appear to be as brain dead as other posters would like to claim. Based on their published methodology I would expect templated park pages and "user hasn't yet set up a site" pages to be consolidated. Even the "example" of counting www.yahoo.com and yahoo.com as seperate servers doesn't seem likely to be true.
This is where my disclaimer (Unless I'm reading the data... wrong) comes in. :)
The little label of "All numbers in thousands" on the chart and the fact it was annual and not quarterly data kind of changes the math a bit doesn't it? :)
Yeah, you're right. Unless I'm reading the data your link points to wrong they'll burn through that $5b in just over 350 years! Yikes! lol
Dear Solaris customer:
Yes, all RAID levels other than 1 (due to lack of striping) are supported. I am happy to inform you that RAID-1 will also be supported in our next release (code named albino.)
Thank you for your interest in our products, Sun.
The last time I talked to someone from AT&T they had a "southern" accent that was so thick it was almost impossible to converse with them. By the time the call was over we had each probably had to repeat ourselves nearly a dozen times.
So I have to agree with "- Good English skills - must understand and speak WELL". As far as scripting goes... I don't care if they are scripted as long as they can either answer my call quickly or hand me AND EVERYTHING I ALREADY TOLD THEM over to someone higher up. I don't mind talking to a 2nd or higher level tech but I don't want to answer the same questions or repeat 30 minutes of info to each person I talk to.
Back around 1993, when I was still doing a lot with FoxPro and VFP, I regularly attended a monthly developers group meeting. At one, a visiting programmer from the Philipeans was talking about the advantages of sending at least some of the programming work to non US countries.
At this time a good FP programmer could probably command $100-$150/hr as a contractor. As we listened to the pitch, many were imagining their jobs evaporating overseas. They were understandably releaved to learn that the going rate for FP programing in the Philipeans was $125.
Soon, however, one of the developers asked why we would want to send work overseas for $125/hr. The visitor quickly corrected him. It was $125/week. Needless to say you could have heard a pin drop for the next few moments.
I really don't know how that was possible, but that's not the point. I wasn't worried about my job, but you can see where some MBA might start seeing dancing dollar signs and visions of the CEO congratulating them at the next big company meeting. How do you compete on merit in a case like that?
Disclaimer: My main experience with overseas development is open source stuff. Based on that I would say that the US doesn't have any kind of monopoly on skill, ability or quality programming. After all, some Finnish guy his a little project that's pretty cool. His name is Linus or something like that. ;-)
Man, that's amazing. I can think of a a few employees where I work that I'd like to replace with OO as well. I'm sure a couple could even be replaced with a very small shell script.
Here.
Take a look at Magnatune. Albums for $5, no DRM, listen before you buy, and most important (to me anyhow) 50% of all sales go directly to the artist. I generally buy albums at $8+ (albums are actually $5-$18 but you choose what to pay) because the artist gets 50% and I only buy albums that I like a lot.
Disclaimer: I use Gentoo at home on my PC and my son's. I use it at work on 2 servers (soon to be 10 as I convert from RH.) I use it at a customer to my Linux support business.
Gentoo, however, is not what you would call *easy* or *desktop ready*. Yeah, it can run just great as a desktop OS (I do it all the time.) But Joe Average would absolutely freak if faced with installing/maintaining it. I don't even install it on customer computers unless they have told me they want me to do all the support/maint for them (basically an outsourced admin.)
If you are not willing to spend the time learning about Linux and your hardware (and you will have to) then Gentoo is probably not for you. Running etc-update and merging config changes alone are far beyond most user's ability.
Personally I love Gentoo. I have not once been trapped in "dependancy hell" while using it. As a desktop, it is blowing RH9 away. Everything is WAY more responsive and just "feels" faster over all. I also have learned a lot after switching since it *forces* you to get even deeper into how Linux works. It's also great to be able to install on a live server without needing to take it down until everything is installed and ready to go.
Having said all that, I wouldn't call it desktop ready in the least. Instead, let's call it "geek desktop ready." The phrase "the three days it took me to set up my system" goes a long way in backing that up.
It's a publicly traded business at that. Don't think that investors would just sit around and watch their $$$ vanish. If MS pulled out of the EU, you could expect a whole new board of directors immediately after an emergency shareholder's meeting. Which would soon be followed by MS playing nice in the EU and hoping nobody else noticed what just happened.
If their software were proprietary to the local government they could at least bring legal pressure to bear on them. But that would require an OS and software vendor in each country. OSS would give the advantage of gauranteed access to software and updates. Even if a project goes under local programmers can step in and offer per-fee support and improvments.
Look at how things are going in India. An OSS project doesn't want to bother with internationalization/language suport? No problem; local programmers can (and do) tack it on themselves... sometimes as a paid service for local businesses.
Actually it would cause a business to more accurately price things appropriately to demand. But that's not what they want is it? They want to be able to price things above what demand would dictate so they can have higher profits. In this case they don't even want to do that.. they want to force people into the stores to find loss-leader items so they can sell them the high-profit items along with or instead of the low priced items.
From what I remember in civics (history/government) class long ago there were no items in the Constitution or Bill of Rights which guarantee businesses high margins at the expense of other citizens. Funny how things which hurt margins (not destroy sales.. but hurt margins) in favor of the rest of society are suddenly becomming illegal in the U.S.
I own a small business. Current US policies (even legitimate use of DMCA) don't appear to do one bit of good for small business. They only seem to help big business... which already has tons of tax breaks and other benefits none of the rest of us get.
Fortunately we are nowhere near that point right now. The work needed to design a virus which actually can do something beyond reproduce is likely many magnatudes more difficult.
I'm not a scientist, but I suspect that the virus would have to generate it's own protiens to be able to infect cells. It probably would have to generate other protines to do other types of damage to the host. It likely would have to have a balance between incubation time and killing power (less the first infect person drop dead before infecting someone else.) And it would probably have to be very complex so that our immune system or a simple vacine wouldn't eradicate it immediately.
I have a feeling that this is about as close to making an evil super-virus as filling a pipe with black powder is to building a nuclear ICBM.
I'm less worried about terrorists making their own killer viruses than I am about an unintended virus which might get released. I'm the most concerned that it's structure could be so different from natural viruses that other organisms might have no immune defense at all. But in a list of things to worry about I have to admit I don't this one rank very high.
I'm not a luddite and not really affraid this new virus is going to do something horrible like download copyright music from the RIAA. But what makes this new man-made virus any less capable of mutating or evolving than any other virus?
Pretty much for the same reason businesses shouldn't pay extortion money. If SCO gets ground to dust by this it'll deter others from doing the same. If they get a big buy-out (which appears to be their goal) then what is to stop the next guy with some IP (or who buys some IP) from following SCO's example?
It seems pretty telling that SCO's Lawyers are promised 20% of the buy-out if one happens, doesn't it?
Or, if you don't want to mess with scripts and installing cygwin:
- Download Eraser from here. (A very nice privacy tool for Windows, BTW.)
- Install
- Go to erasing prefs (Ctrl+E) and click New
- Enter description: All Zeros
- Click Add
- Click Save
- Select new "All Zeros", go to Unused Disk Space tab and do the same.
- Click Ok
- File - New Task (Ctrl+N)
- Set up tasks for the drive(s) you want to zero out and then run them.
- Profit! (Sorry.. couldn't resist.)
This has the added advantage of zeroing out the slack space in most files which should improve compression a bit.BTW.. if you want to use this for privacy, you probably *don't* want to use the All Zeros overwriting option. If you son't know why, read this interesting article.
Don't forget SCO... $3 billion makes what these gangs ask for look like spare change.
What ever happend to the good old days where entire ISPs got blacklisted when they didn't do their job and where incorrectly configured mail servers with open relays were blocked as well? Yeah, it sucks to get blacklisted, but it sure does get you to fix the problem and fast at that.
No, the hackers are preventing the companies from doing business and the... oh. Wait, I got it.. the hackers are doing this to get more money and the strikes are to... oh nevermind. :(
Or from walking through the isles with a stronger version and destroying all traces of automated inventory control in the store?
Last year a new wallet from Target had one of those "security" tags stuck way inside one of the linings. The checkout gal "disabled" it, but I later learned that it would enable itself again after you sat on it or otherwise stressed it a few times. I never knew if the damn thing was going to set off alarms when I tried to leave the store.
Eventually I just about ripped the wallet apart and found the stupid thing. But I still tense up a little walking through the "detectors" on my way out of Target now.