A win by a highly prominent company like Microsoft will send a HUGE message about overly broad patents
In the US, a highly prominent (and rich) company winning a lawsuit is what people expect to happen. It will create no kind of expectation that a smaller organisation could do the same.
I also enjoyed reading the article. It may also have some real practical importance. SCO with a laughable case can create enough FUD to affect enterprise IT strategy. What about the risks of a Microsoft solution when InterTrust actually has preliminary court rulings in its favour?
I agree with other posters that patent law is a mess, but I cannot think of more poetic justice than Microsoft on the wrong end of a FUD campaign over something like this!
Most Linux installs allow you to boot into single user mode by default without even needing a password. Isn't that a little more insecure than the above scenario?
This allows people who steal your computer to easily access your files, granted. But it is not an issue with respect to remote cracking which is what I thought most of us were focussing on. Anyway, Windows does not stop you using a boot diskette to get access without a password if someone has physical access.
Making a ton of money for myself and keeping it all is not a crime. It is my right.
Agreed except for paying a reasonable amount of tax. I was not claiming, in my example, that the NFL player should not make money. I was saying he should be rewarded for his football abilities, but not be allowed to bully others. To transfer this to the corporate realm, I think it is wonderful when businesses make large profits via ethical business practices. I think the ability of some companies to dispossess others by indiscriminate use of their size or monopoly position must be controlled. I fear that most conservatives are reluctant to accept this basic tenet. Until they do, it is difficult to have what I think is the real discussion about where to draw the line.
I don't consider Einstein to be a keyframe on the timeline of human societies. He changed science, not society.
We disagree about the importance of scientific progress on how society needs to organise itself. I agree with the poster who said that the Constitution is the law. Absolutely correct. But, most people have no problem with discussing possible changes in 18th century laws. The Constitution seems to be different. In some way, it is considered that those who wrote it were omnipotent and could foresee the needs of all societies into the indefinite future.
You are clearly, while a staunch conservative, both intelligent and honest. I am curious about whether you see any limits on a rewards an organisation should be allowed to receive as a result of their superior manipulation of the system. I see a parallel with the physical strength of an individual. It is appropriate that an unusually big and powerful man should be signed as an NFL player and receive financial rewards accordingly. It is his good fortune. I draw limits, however, on how he should be permitted to use his size and strength. If he covets goods of mine, he should not be able to use his greater strength to dispossess me. In the same way, I see appropriate rewards for successful companies. But, I think society has a duty to ensure that these rewards are kept in proportion.
I should also mention that we agree totally that copyright should not be regarded as property. However, I am out of sympathy with your justification. Why is it that the US Constitution, written long before Davy Crockett was even born, is seen as an infallible oracle for the running of society half a century after Albert Einstein's death?
Re:Interview with Howard Dean
on
Saving the Net
·
· Score: 1
I also think this is a great idea. If it comes off, I think we should also try to spread news of the interview and its responses as widely as possible. Some letters to the press along the lines of "democracy in action: direct contact between the candidate and the people" could have a real impact.
The whole point is that you probably cannot. Control over comunications is destined to be concentrated in a very few hands (especially in the US) who will control the hardware they allow connected to the web. You will be able to use open office and read older MS Office format files, but Microsoft will do its utmost to prevent you reading newer format files (and remember MS licensing will force businesses who stay with MS Office to upgrade). Microsoft's move to replace Intel PCs with one of their own design will eventually make it very difficult to cirumvent their controls. Further, if things continue in the current direction, your Chinese PC will not be able to use the Internet in the US (even if the US allowed its import which they might not).
Perhaps we should ignore the spammers and target the 0.1% of idiots who actually reply
It seems logical, but the economics of spam are such that even one sale per million e-mails gives them a big profit. No matter how many idiots you can reach to discourage from replying, there are still going to be some who fall through the cracks.
I do not think spam will ever be eliminated entirely. Eventually, though, mechanisms will be put in place to allow the situation to be brought under control. Perhaps something along the lines of...
1. Most regular e-mail using encryption.
2. Spam detection of unencrypted e-mails built into the Internet infrastructure itself at various levels The objective would be to identify spam attacks as soon as (and as close to the original source) as possible. Methods analogous to those used today for control of DDOS attacks would then be employed.
I found the whole article quite a laugh. Surely it cannot have been intended seriously. We should have a contest to see if anyone can find more absurd examples of inappropriate searches. My entry: using the search 'bugs' to try to track down the reason for a Windows BSOD.
the new MSN Search won't be any challenge to Google anytime soon. But, then, technically speaking, neither was IE to Netscape
Quite: a very good analogy, especially when you consider that default setup of all modern versions of IE (that Microsoft forces you to install) is already setup to route all searches (even those eventually destined for other search engines) via a Microsoft site. Note that Google is not even an option for address bar searches (one must know to download the google bar). I wonder what machinations Microsoft can come up with to make it even harder for the average user to communicate with Google.
Actually, I do not hold the opinions expressed in this post, but I want to try and play devil's (appropriate) advocate. The code to be compared is AIX and Sequent code. As such, even though major portions are in open source, SCO must refrain from freely sharing the full sources since the rights are shared with IBM and some portions are not in open source.
Actually, one of the questions I have had for a while is related to SCO's consistent public statements that they own 'UNIX' and all derivatives. Have they been formally told that they do not have the right to imply ownership of the 'UNIX' name? If they have not, why not? If they have been told, and are ignoring it, what are the implications?
You should have your golden handcuffs removed and become a public relations consultant. Any lawyer who can become wildly popular as a result of a single post on the Internet is a PR genius!
The reason for the stock rise is that, for the time being, more people expect the price to continue to increase than expect it to fall. Actually, I think that is a reasonable assessment. Until the lawsuit reaches court, in perhaps two years or so, it is hard to see what can happen to completely debunk SCO's claims. In the meantime, some organisations are going to be dumn enough to cave in to SCO's demand for protection money.
Personally, I think the chance of a buyout by a wealthy company is very unlikely. SCO has made some outrageous claims. Eventually, there are going to be counterclaims by numerous organisations and individuals that have been directly damaged as a result of those claims. If SCO were actually to win, then a buyout would make sense. With SCO likely (nearly certain?) to lose, any buyout by a rich suiter at this stage would be pure folly. Actually, if SCO had a real case, Microsoft would have snapped SCO up before SCO started making these claims when the risks would have been much lower.
The importance of release dates varies according to individual perspectives:
* A company developing a scheduling system for use in a new factory needs that system working correctly by a particular date or the factory will not run.
* A company delivering a commercial software product may need to promise release dates for certain features in order to attract business. The importance of meeting these dates may vary from avoiding a minor credibility hit to avoiding the company being bankrupted, depending on the way these promises may have been worked into contracts.
* For most typical open source projects, it is neither necessary nor desirable to make delivery promises. Even where the software is being used as a part of major contracts, the companies making delivery are typically not the primary developers of the open source components. If they are at all savvy (and most organisations today supplying solutions based on open source are) then they know better than to commit to dates over which they have no control. Even if there were published target release dates, this would make no difference to the contracts being written with customers.
I find it surprising that they don't move the legacy Windows stuff (that has a nice ring to it) onto a pool of rdesktop servers.
The Gartner article suggests that many of the desktops are based on Windows 3.1. It may well be easiest just to have a VMWare window with an old Windows 3.1 app or two rather than try to host this old stuff through servers.
SCO has a worldwide network of more than... 8,000 developers
The last reliable reference I could find for the totalnumber of SCO employees was 375, as of last August. Of course, not all these were developers. SCO will claim that this figure of 8,000 includes everyone who works for their resellers and has ever touched SCO code. But, in reality, this is just deliberately misleading.
A typical sniper gun needs to have a kill range of at least 1km. This would need a major power increase. As the author suggests, however, this could be a great hunting weapon. Fire at the quary; if you miss, wait a few seconds and fire again -- the target has not been spooked because of the lack of noise.
This would also be great concept on a firing range. Imagine being able to have a bunch of people firing away and not even need ear muffs.
Under existing US laws, I do not see there would be any problem with owning one of these. It is not an automatic weapon and does not have an add on silencer.
Evgenij Vasiljev does not claim this is a new concept. What he claims (and I do not know enough to validate this from his data) is that his prototype is the most efficient (by which I think he means velocity relative to power input) yet developed. It is dangerous to judge a book by its cover but, based on his site, it looks like a very interesting project.
is it worth building a totally seperate network? For the military, I'd say yes
This assumes that, just by making it separate, it will fail to be vulnerable. With a small, highly restricted network this would likely be true. The military network is huge and I think it is naive to assume that it could not be compromised by a determined attacker.
Slashdot Mirror
In the US, a highly prominent (and rich) company winning a lawsuit is what people expect to happen. It will create no kind of expectation that a smaller organisation could do the same.
I agree with other posters that patent law is a mess, but I cannot think of more poetic justice than Microsoft on the wrong end of a FUD campaign over something like this!
This allows people who steal your computer to easily access your files, granted. But it is not an issue with respect to remote cracking which is what I thought most of us were focussing on. Anyway, Windows does not stop you using a boot diskette to get access without a password if someone has physical access.
In other news, as of 15:07EST, this thread is one of the top stories on Google news.
Agreed except for paying a reasonable amount of tax. I was not claiming, in my example, that the NFL player should not make money. I was saying he should be rewarded for his football abilities, but not be allowed to bully others. To transfer this to the corporate realm, I think it is wonderful when businesses make large profits via ethical business practices. I think the ability of some companies to dispossess others by indiscriminate use of their size or monopoly position must be controlled. I fear that most conservatives are reluctant to accept this basic tenet. Until they do, it is difficult to have what I think is the real discussion about where to draw the line.
I don't consider Einstein to be a keyframe on the timeline of human societies. He changed science, not society.
We disagree about the importance of scientific progress on how society needs to organise itself. I agree with the poster who said that the Constitution is the law. Absolutely correct. But, most people have no problem with discussing possible changes in 18th century laws. The Constitution seems to be different. In some way, it is considered that those who wrote it were omnipotent and could foresee the needs of all societies into the indefinite future.
Mindless Microsoft bashing
Is it "mindless Microsoft bashing" to point out that the "default" Windows setup does not disable LM hash or NT hash?
I should also mention that we agree totally that copyright should not be regarded as property. However, I am out of sympathy with your justification. Why is it that the US Constitution, written long before Davy Crockett was even born, is seen as an infallible oracle for the running of society half a century after Albert Einstein's death?
I also think this is a great idea. If it comes off, I think we should also try to spread news of the interview and its responses as widely as possible. Some letters to the press along the lines of "democracy in action: direct contact between the candidate and the people" could have a real impact.
The whole point is that you probably cannot. Control over comunications is destined to be concentrated in a very few hands (especially in the US) who will control the hardware they allow connected to the web. You will be able to use open office and read older MS Office format files, but Microsoft will do its utmost to prevent you reading newer format files (and remember MS licensing will force businesses who stay with MS Office to upgrade). Microsoft's move to replace Intel PCs with one of their own design will eventually make it very difficult to cirumvent their controls. Further, if things continue in the current direction, your Chinese PC will not be able to use the Internet in the US (even if the US allowed its import which they might not).
It seems logical, but the economics of spam are such that even one sale per million e-mails gives them a big profit. No matter how many idiots you can reach to discourage from replying, there are still going to be some who fall through the cracks.
I do not think spam will ever be eliminated entirely. Eventually, though, mechanisms will be put in place to allow the situation to be brought under control. Perhaps something along the lines of ...
1. Most regular e-mail using encryption.
2. Spam detection of unencrypted e-mails built into the Internet infrastructure itself at various levels The objective would be to identify spam attacks as soon as (and as close to the original source) as possible. Methods analogous to those used today for control of DDOS attacks would then be employed.
I found the whole article quite a laugh. Surely it cannot have been intended seriously. We should have a contest to see if anyone can find more absurd examples of inappropriate searches. My entry: using the search 'bugs' to try to track down the reason for a Windows BSOD.
Quite: a very good analogy, especially when you consider that default setup of all modern versions of IE (that Microsoft forces you to install) is already setup to route all searches (even those eventually destined for other search engines) via a Microsoft site. Note that Google is not even an option for address bar searches (one must know to download the google bar). I wonder what machinations Microsoft can come up with to make it even harder for the average user to communicate with Google.
Actually, I do not hold the opinions expressed in this post, but I want to try and play devil's (appropriate) advocate. The code to be compared is AIX and Sequent code. As such, even though major portions are in open source, SCO must refrain from freely sharing the full sources since the rights are shared with IBM and some portions are not in open source.
Actually, one of the questions I have had for a while is related to SCO's consistent public statements that they own 'UNIX' and all derivatives. Have they been formally told that they do not have the right to imply ownership of the 'UNIX' name? If they have not, why not? If they have been told, and are ignoring it, what are the implications?
You should have your golden handcuffs removed and become a public relations consultant. Any lawyer who can become wildly popular as a result of a single post on the Internet is a PR genius!
Personally, I think the chance of a buyout by a wealthy company is very unlikely. SCO has made some outrageous claims. Eventually, there are going to be counterclaims by numerous organisations and individuals that have been directly damaged as a result of those claims. If SCO were actually to win, then a buyout would make sense. With SCO likely (nearly certain?) to lose, any buyout by a rich suiter at this stage would be pure folly. Actually, if SCO had a real case, Microsoft would have snapped SCO up before SCO started making these claims when the risks would have been much lower.
At a first glance, this looks mighty interesting. I cannot believe I have not come across this material before.
Reliable, on-time, pick one IMHO :)
* A company developing a scheduling system for use in a new factory needs that system working correctly by a particular date or the factory will not run.
* A company delivering a commercial software product may need to promise release dates for certain features in order to attract business. The importance of meeting these dates may vary from avoiding a minor credibility hit to avoiding the company being bankrupted, depending on the way these promises may have been worked into contracts.
* For most typical open source projects, it is neither necessary nor desirable to make delivery promises. Even where the software is being used as a part of major contracts, the companies making delivery are typically not the primary developers of the open source components. If they are at all savvy (and most organisations today supplying solutions based on open source are) then they know better than to commit to dates over which they have no control. Even if there were published target release dates, this would make no difference to the contracts being written with customers.
It should be Dilbert, but it is actually Douglas Adams.
The Gartner article suggests that many of the desktops are based on Windows 3.1. It may well be easiest just to have a VMWare window with an old Windows 3.1 app or two rather than try to host this old stuff through servers.
SCO has a worldwide network of more than ... 8,000 developers
The last reliable reference I could find for the total number of SCO employees was 375, as of last August. Of course, not all these were developers. SCO will claim that this figure of 8,000 includes everyone who works for their resellers and has ever touched SCO code. But, in reality, this is just deliberately misleading.
A typical sniper gun needs to have a kill range of at least 1km. This would need a major power increase. As the author suggests, however, this could be a great hunting weapon. Fire at the quary; if you miss, wait a few seconds and fire again -- the target has not been spooked because of the lack of noise.
This would also be great concept on a firing range. Imagine being able to have a bunch of people firing away and not even need ear muffs.
Under existing US laws, I do not see there would be any problem with owning one of these. It is not an automatic weapon and does not have an add on silencer.
Evgenij Vasiljev does not claim this is a new concept. What he claims (and I do not know enough to validate this from his data) is that his prototype is the most efficient (by which I think he means velocity relative to power input) yet developed. It is dangerous to judge a book by its cover but, based on his site, it looks like a very interesting project.
This assumes that, just by making it separate, it will fail to be vulnerable. With a small, highly restricted network this would likely be true. The military network is huge and I think it is naive to assume that it could not be compromised by a determined attacker.