But if it's related to stopping Linux/Open Source AV software, I'm sure that someone like IBM will just start giving one away on Linux.
If it's to have their own AV embedded, fine, but most people I know will buy Norton or whatever. I partly run Norton to stop all the crud from getting through the colander that is Microsoft's security.
Which has nothing to do with this - I'd certainly like to see a case which was prosecuted in a similar way.
S15 is mostly used in cases where people do things like telling a restauranteur that they've already paid another member of staff, or getting a credit card in someone else's name.
As far as I can tell from cases I've read under S15, it has nothing to do with making a different use of a product you have legitimately paid for.
In addition, courts typically ignore things like "license agreements" in software as non-binding. That if you sell something to someone, that it is there's to do with as they see fit (copyright etc. withstanding).
Of course, if you want to shop me for that OEM copy of Office that was sold to me 2nd hand, go ahead.
I don't know much about Lindows, but surely anything which takes people away from closed, monopolised file formats and into people using open standards (which means that you can communicate with more people directly) is a step in the right direction.
The way I see it, the only way that Linux and Open Source are going get larger on the desktop (and shut out closed standards) is to have people making Linux distros that are easy to install, and easy to use.
And once they are comfortable with Linux, they will have a better perception, lose some of the FUD and may more elsewhere.
No-one needs to handwrite anymore beyond the odd note written on a cigarette packet, birthday cards or romantic notes.
When I started work about 15 years ago, we had to give a handwritten spec to a typist who would enter it into a word processor, print it, return it and I would proof read it and then return it with corrections. She would then photocopy it and distribute it to everyone on the list.
Making an amendment was a similar process. Now, I can change the spec myself and circulate it by email.
I think I spent longer proofreading than it takes me to make the changes now.
Once I've paid out for stuff I need, the rest falls into 'disposable income'.
I have until now spent some of my disposable income on CDs. I also spend money on Books, DVDs, going to see football etc.
I'm going to be spending a lot more money on Books, DVDs and going to the football, and nothing on CDs from any companies that pay you.
I've spent as much as £300 ($500) a year on CDs. Last year, I spent about £100 ($150). That's about 1/100th of what you took from Jesse Jordan. And looking around today on the slashdot.org website, I imagine there's plenty more than 100 others looking around.
So, by your action, you've pissed off enough people that you're getting less money into the music industry than you took from Jesse Jordan.
And by the time I've told my friends, who've told their friends, who knows how much you'll be out.
Would it be legal to post shit ratings of those artists most supportive of the RIAA, like Madonna and Metallica? Say how crap their current albums are compared to old ones.
Wait a second, you don't have to make those up!
Learn how the music industry works.
No, perhaps you should.
The main thing that Artists make money from is the publishing rights, in other words songwriting. Sometimes people have a cut on performance as well, sometimes they are simply paid a fixed fee (or else why would bands do cover versions).
It's not true to say that artists don't make money from every CD sold. Do you think Dolly Parton made nothing from that Whitney Houston single?
Don't read this as pro-MS, but as far as programmers are concerned, yeah, it generally works as 'we pay you a salary and we keep the IP'. You can of course set up your own software company, put in the investment of time and money and develop something, and you then can either keep or sell the copyright (when I consulted, I gave people a choice - generally if I thought the IP was too specific, and useless to me later, I sold it).
Sorry that they maybe recorded with artists who are on the for instance the BMG label who are now selling Corrupt Audio Discs.
I was going to buy a CD by Spiritualized, but after I found out that it was a CAD, and unable to be digitally extracted to my PC, I'm not going to bother. I'm not going to rip it, either, though.
But, if record companies continue to flog CADs which don't play properly on PCs or sometimes car audio system, and people can instead get hacked MP3s off a P2P service (using various techniques), is it any surprise they aren't buying?
Once the momentum gets going, it could be unstoppable. I wonder if MS is really scared of it. Get some organisations using OO (say 10% of all), and word (pun unintended) will spread. "Hey, you tried this Open Office? It's like Office, but costs nothing."
Also, the issue of compatible formats will stop being an issue - enough folks will be using OO formats that people will start interchanging with each other in that.
One reason I'm considering swtiching to OO is that I can see the document as defined XML.
A few times in Word, I've had corruptions and been completely unable to open the document. I figure with the XML files under OO, that I can always have a look at the text, maybe patch it up and get going again.
Once, the file was corrupt and it was obviously an old corruption, and was on all the server backups we tried. Two days typing later....
I said that she was a writer, my implication being that she wasn't a coder. From the information I read on the Giga website, I can see nothing that suggested that she has done anything except be a writer on this issue. Now, that may mean that she's really studied networks hard, but that's not the same as either managing networks, or managing people managing networks. If you are standing on the sidelines, it's not the same as playing.
What do you mean by
I'd say it takes brains and knowledge to analyze network management systems the way she did.
What "network management systems", and in what "way she did"?
I don't know how much this thing of document interchange is an issue, particularly for a council.
The key thing is that once you've got the document out of a locked standard and into your nice open standard, you can interchange it within the organisation. It's a one-off job.
For a council, it's probably quite easy. I imagine that their suppliers can be told "send us PDFs" and they will, their customers (tax payers) won't generally send Office documents, but emails and printed documents.
Personally, I don't take word documents if I can avoid it. I try and get people to send me PDFs or plain text (not many friends have OO yet).
What 'network management systems' are we talking about? And how did she analyze them? Did she work in a company with them for a couple of years and find the strengths and weaknesses? Maybe I've been tainted by idiot journalists making pronouncements with no real experience of what does and does not work in the real world.
I've been through Google looking at articles/reports/interviews with her, and it's lots of stuff about Linux vs Windows TCO, Licensing etc.
Most Analysts for groups (and I'll add most writers in computer journals) know nothing about the practicalities of delivering software in a real environment, and have never worked in a development team.
Is Didio a coder? Nope. Ex software project manager? Nope? Maybe ex-tech support engineer? Nope. She's a writer.
To review code IMO it helps to have once written a program or two.
I think in the NDA that SCO can edit the comments.
So let's say that those other analysts said something like "look, they do look similar, but the answer reached could easily be the same by two different programmers" (one example is something like a sort routine where the method is well known).
Are SCO going to publish criticism/Non FUD. And are the other 6 analysts independent people rather than Pro-Microsoft whores?
What, trying to beat up the whole open source community on behalf of their new masters by a campaign of FUD? You think that's morally OK do you?
If SCO had come forward on day 1, approached IBM and said "Look, there's these 80 lines of code that are ours, pay up motherfuckers or we'll sue" in a closed meeting with IBM, and it had any justification, that IBM would gladly have handed over a few thousand dollars and settled out of court. Having this shit damage them in a law suit wouldn't be worth it.
That is the honest and reasonable way to proceed.
However, SCO have not behaved honestly or reasonably, and so deserve the wrath of everyone who holds liberty sacred. If SCO prevail, open source will suffer, and Microsoft will strengthen.
Just don't come crying when you have even less choice than you have now.
BTW What would you suggest as 'doing something positive' about SCO?
I think the way you put the transition thing was good. A lot of folks are talking about the "costs of transistion", but forget that once you have made that transition, a lot of other costs go away.
And more than that, I believe that the treadmill that software developers are on will be broken. MS are likely to dump support for old VB and ASP sometime soon, so sometime soon, you are going to have to rewrite everything to ASP.NET or VB.NET. Why? Does it help you to do so?
I think with Opensource languages like PHP, there's much more chance of commands remaining, or only being replaced where it really makes sense, and not because of some marketing drive.
We are now at the 'good enough' stage of PCs. Most users who are running Windows 98/2000 with Office 97/2000 are probably happy enough with what they have. They can surf the net, check email, do word processing, listen to MP3s etc. Why will they upgrade?
To get a new version of IE? I don't forsee it. There's not much more that can be added to a browser (although Mozilla and Opera have a few nice things).
This may be unrelated, but I'm tired of rewriting and re-engineering with MS and looking for an alternative, and think that maybe Linux delivers that.
I'm fed up that every release of MS software tries to get me to change what I'm doing, or expects me to spend money. They want all ASP developers to move to ASP.NET. And I imagine in 3-5 years, we'll be expected to do the same.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mind product improvements, but I don't want to spend my life retraining and reengineering. PHP looks promising, as new things get added, and not much taken away - and if it is, it's for good reason.
a) Exposure in a crowded marketplace. Probably the hardest thing that companies have to deal with is getting people to try/use their software. Make it free, and open source, and maybe people will use it. Other people will install it for others.
You can get known as a hotshot company for development. The people who take your software may well come to you for other software (sometimes unrelated).
b) People want solutions, not software. Sure, they could set up a piece of software they downloaded themselves, but what if there's some weird settings, or they just don't want to deal with the hassles? They could go to someone else, but they're likely to go to the original vendor.
Anyway, I guess my question is, what's the definition of a "curb"? If you hire a dumpster, does that mean the stuff in the dumpster is PD? Or does it belong to the dumpster owner?
Things go in a dumpster because people want to get rid of them. For people to then try and stop people taking their property (that they were willing to destroy) seems ridiculous.
I once took some monitors from a skip and someone said "better check with the owners". I went to the office in question, and the guy looked at me like I was nuts when I asked.
Personally, I'm glad if anyone takes something from a dumpster. Better they use it than it goes into landfill.
Slashdot Mirror
If it's to have their own AV embedded, fine, but most people I know will buy Norton or whatever. I partly run Norton to stop all the crud from getting through the colander that is Microsoft's security.
Which has nothing to do with this - I'd certainly like to see a case which was prosecuted in a similar way.
S15 is mostly used in cases where people do things like telling a restauranteur that they've already paid another member of staff, or getting a credit card in someone else's name.
As far as I can tell from cases I've read under S15, it has nothing to do with making a different use of a product you have legitimately paid for.
In addition, courts typically ignore things like "license agreements" in software as non-binding. That if you sell something to someone, that it is there's to do with as they see fit (copyright etc. withstanding).
Of course, if you want to shop me for that OEM copy of Office that was sold to me 2nd hand, go ahead.
The way I see it, the only way that Linux and Open Source are going get larger on the desktop (and shut out closed standards) is to have people making Linux distros that are easy to install, and easy to use.
And once they are comfortable with Linux, they will have a better perception, lose some of the FUD and may more elsewhere.
In the UK, I've seen Windows XP Home (OEM) licenses for sale for about $99.
PS Not disputing your general view that people are buying Lindows on price rather that security/philosophy basis.
When I started work about 15 years ago, we had to give a handwritten spec to a typist who would enter it into a word processor, print it, return it and I would proof read it and then return it with corrections. She would then photocopy it and distribute it to everyone on the list.
Making an amendment was a similar process. Now, I can change the spec myself and circulate it by email.
I think I spent longer proofreading than it takes me to make the changes now.
I need food, shelter, electricity and gas money.
Once I've paid out for stuff I need, the rest falls into 'disposable income'.
I have until now spent some of my disposable income on CDs. I also spend money on Books, DVDs, going to see football etc.
I'm going to be spending a lot more money on Books, DVDs and going to the football, and nothing on CDs from any companies that pay you.
I've spent as much as £300 ($500) a year on CDs. Last year, I spent about £100 ($150). That's about 1/100th of what you took from Jesse Jordan. And looking around today on the slashdot.org website, I imagine there's plenty more than 100 others looking around.
So, by your action, you've pissed off enough people that you're getting less money into the music industry than you took from Jesse Jordan.
And by the time I've told my friends, who've told their friends, who knows how much you'll be out.
Would it be legal to post shit ratings of those artists most supportive of the RIAA, like Madonna and Metallica? Say how crap their current albums are compared to old ones. Wait a second, you don't have to make those up!
The main thing that Artists make money from is the publishing rights, in other words songwriting. Sometimes people have a cut on performance as well, sometimes they are simply paid a fixed fee (or else why would bands do cover versions).
It's not true to say that artists don't make money from every CD sold. Do you think Dolly Parton made nothing from that Whitney Houston single?
Don't read this as pro-MS, but as far as programmers are concerned, yeah, it generally works as 'we pay you a salary and we keep the IP'. You can of course set up your own software company, put in the investment of time and money and develop something, and you then can either keep or sell the copyright (when I consulted, I gave people a choice - generally if I thought the IP was too specific, and useless to me later, I sold it).
Sorry that they maybe recorded with artists who are on the for instance the BMG label who are now selling Corrupt Audio Discs.
I was going to buy a CD by Spiritualized, but after I found out that it was a CAD, and unable to be digitally extracted to my PC, I'm not going to bother. I'm not going to rip it, either, though.
But, if record companies continue to flog CADs which don't play properly on PCs or sometimes car audio system, and people can instead get hacked MP3s off a P2P service (using various techniques), is it any surprise they aren't buying?
Once the momentum gets going, it could be unstoppable. I wonder if MS is really scared of it. Get some organisations using OO (say 10% of all), and word (pun unintended) will spread. "Hey, you tried this Open Office? It's like Office, but costs nothing."
Also, the issue of compatible formats will stop being an issue - enough folks will be using OO formats that people will start interchanging with each other in that.
A few times in Word, I've had corruptions and been completely unable to open the document. I figure with the XML files under OO, that I can always have a look at the text, maybe patch it up and get going again.
Once, the file was corrupt and it was obviously an old corruption, and was on all the server backups we tried. Two days typing later....
I said that she was a writer, my implication being that she wasn't a coder. From the information I read on the Giga website, I can see nothing that suggested that she has done anything except be a writer on this issue. Now, that may mean that she's really studied networks hard, but that's not the same as either managing networks, or managing people managing networks. If you are standing on the sidelines, it's not the same as playing.
What do you mean by I'd say it takes brains and knowledge to analyze network management systems the way she did.
What "network management systems", and in what "way she did"?
The key thing is that once you've got the document out of a locked standard and into your nice open standard, you can interchange it within the organisation. It's a one-off job.
For a council, it's probably quite easy. I imagine that their suppliers can be told "send us PDFs" and they will, their customers (tax payers) won't generally send Office documents, but emails and printed documents.
Personally, I don't take word documents if I can avoid it. I try and get people to send me PDFs or plain text (not many friends have OO yet).
I've been through Google looking at articles/reports/interviews with her, and it's lots of stuff about Linux vs Windows TCO, Licensing etc.
Her BA is in Communications and French.
12 years a reporter.
Where's the coding or practical experience?
Is Didio a coder? Nope. Ex software project manager? Nope? Maybe ex-tech support engineer? Nope. She's a writer.
To review code IMO it helps to have once written a program or two.
So let's say that those other analysts said something like "look, they do look similar, but the answer reached could easily be the same by two different programmers" (one example is something like a sort routine where the method is well known).
Are SCO going to publish criticism/Non FUD. And are the other 6 analysts independent people rather than Pro-Microsoft whores?
A poker dice game I wrote as a kid was more than 80 lines. Anyone want to start the bidding at $500 million?
What, trying to beat up the whole open source community on behalf of their new masters by a campaign of FUD? You think that's morally OK do you?
If SCO had come forward on day 1, approached IBM and said "Look, there's these 80 lines of code that are ours, pay up motherfuckers or we'll sue" in a closed meeting with IBM, and it had any justification, that IBM would gladly have handed over a few thousand dollars and settled out of court. Having this shit damage them in a law suit wouldn't be worth it.
That is the honest and reasonable way to proceed.
However, SCO have not behaved honestly or reasonably, and so deserve the wrath of everyone who holds liberty sacred. If SCO prevail, open source will suffer, and Microsoft will strengthen.
Just don't come crying when you have even less choice than you have now.
BTW What would you suggest as 'doing something positive' about SCO?
You either need someone to testify to doing it, or some form of sealed or logged proof.
If what SCO had done had been revolutionary, they would have patented it.
Even if it's an infringement, it isn't worth the claim SCO are making. If I was on a jury I'd offer $100,000 to the plaintiff max.
I think the way you put the transition thing was good. A lot of folks are talking about the "costs of transistion", but forget that once you have made that transition, a lot of other costs go away.
And more than that, I believe that the treadmill that software developers are on will be broken. MS are likely to dump support for old VB and ASP sometime soon, so sometime soon, you are going to have to rewrite everything to ASP.NET or VB.NET. Why? Does it help you to do so?
I think with Opensource languages like PHP, there's much more chance of commands remaining, or only being replaced where it really makes sense, and not because of some marketing drive.
We are now at the 'good enough' stage of PCs. Most users who are running Windows 98/2000 with Office 97/2000 are probably happy enough with what they have. They can surf the net, check email, do word processing, listen to MP3s etc. Why will they upgrade?
To get a new version of IE? I don't forsee it. There's not much more that can be added to a browser (although Mozilla and Opera have a few nice things).
I'm fed up that every release of MS software tries to get me to change what I'm doing, or expects me to spend money. They want all ASP developers to move to ASP.NET. And I imagine in 3-5 years, we'll be expected to do the same.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mind product improvements, but I don't want to spend my life retraining and reengineering. PHP looks promising, as new things get added, and not much taken away - and if it is, it's for good reason.
Open Source makes sense for many businesses.
Here are my reasons...
a) Exposure in a crowded marketplace. Probably the hardest thing that companies have to deal with is getting people to try/use their software. Make it free, and open source, and maybe people will use it. Other people will install it for others.
You can get known as a hotshot company for development. The people who take your software may well come to you for other software (sometimes unrelated).
b) People want solutions, not software. Sure, they could set up a piece of software they downloaded themselves, but what if there's some weird settings, or they just don't want to deal with the hassles? They could go to someone else, but they're likely to go to the original vendor.
Things go in a dumpster because people want to get rid of them. For people to then try and stop people taking their property (that they were willing to destroy) seems ridiculous.
I once took some monitors from a skip and someone said "better check with the owners". I went to the office in question, and the guy looked at me like I was nuts when I asked.
Personally, I'm glad if anyone takes something from a dumpster. Better they use it than it goes into landfill.