There is a genuine bias and propaganda going on against Microsoft, the RIAA, and so forth. Any inkling of a worm, no matter how minor and ineffective, gets breathlessly reported the minute it's submitted. Meanwhile, you never hear a thing about the faults of Linux security, except when they're forced to, like with the breaches of GNU/FSF, GNOME, Debian, and Gentoo, all within the span of six months or so.
'Scuse me, but M$ has rightfully earned every drop of venom hurled their way for the last frigging decade! And the RIAA isn't far behind with their 1960's business model, adjusted for inflation of course.
We get 8 or 10 machines hacked in the space of 6 months, and we're justifiably public about it so the problem gets fixed, usually within a few hours and you M$ shills grab the announcement, which is usually accompanied by a link to the fix, and come unfscking wrapped screaming about how insecure linux is.
You M$ users get a viri that has infected half a million machines typically, taking M$ 3 to 6 months to release a fix that sometime isn't, requires you to commit your firstborn to the evil service with a brand new EULA to be signed before you can install the fix, and whose traffic virtually brings the network to a halt, and its to be swept under the rug because it embarrases you and M$?
Not bloody likely. At least put things into perspective and get your priorities straight. Swen has been out for at least 6 months now, and I'm still getting 15-40 copies a gawddamned day. So when are you going to fix it?
Yeah, I'm a linux zealot, and damned proud of it. And I haven't logged even an attempt to access my machines from the outside world in well over 6 months, its simply not open to the network, not even on port 80. But its there, 24/7/365... I'll give you the exersize of finding it.
No mention of the musical genra that was in the competition. To me, its obvious anything that won an award on a tv program covering anyplace in popular music field was excluded.
In other words, the basic premise of the list is flawed and therefore useless.
To further add to your point - the radio telescope at Stanford (which joined in the search last night) is theoretically able to detect the radio emissions from Beagle's CPU, not just it's on board transmitter.
Which brings up the question: Has the new dish at Green Bank been asked to donate an hour or 2?
This dish is now, AFAIK, the second largest dish on the planet, and the only one sufficiently steerable to hold mars within its beam for the full nominally 12 hours mars is in view each day from earth. There is over 1 square kilometer of dish surface, accurately enough located focuswise, to be able to see anyplace on this side of the planet mars and distinguish which area of the planet a detected signal was coming from. I'm not sure of its operational bandwidth, but I'd assume that from what I've read, about anything above 300 mhz would be usable.
Its forte is of course at higher frequencies as the surfaces are adjusted in real time to compensate for flex as its tilted this way and that while following a target, and for near instant corrections for wind caused deflections, and it does it to near optical accuracies.
It seems to me that would be the ideal instrument to use if one wanted to know if Beagle2's cpu was running.
Just a random question maybe, but I'm interested enough in the answer that I may call an acquaintance who works there later today and ask him.
"they" say there's panthers around too, but "they" are usually full of crap.
Don't bet the farm on it my friend. Here in WV, we have, because of the hills, a mixture of urban and wild country thats about as homogenized as you can imagine. And the border blend is often less than 50 feet wide!
The game biolgists all claim we have no mountain lions, aka puma, panther, and several other local names for them.
But I've had the pleasure (well so far its been pleasurable because it hasn't been life threatening, but it could very well be) of running into one just this past year as I was walking up the back trails to the local city water tank located on a north end of a long finger of forested hill, and in fact about 300 fet above and east of the local kmart! I was carrying a smallish case with my GPS, undercover and camera in it, doing some surverying for 802-11 stuffs.
About 500 yards from the top of the trail, a big cat with a black tail stepped out of the brush on the left side of the trail and glanced my way, this from about 50 yards up the trail in front of me. A big (for WV, a short 2 feet long not counting tail) and probably 18" high, and 2 feet of black tipped tail, otherwise tawny colored, instantly says mountain lion to me, possibly immature. The cat watched me for maybe 5 seconds, the turned and vanished back into the brush.
I in turn made sure my undercover wasn't undercover any more as I paced my ancient body on up the hill and did my work. And yes, I have a CWP.
So yes, there are big cats about, at least in this neck of the woods.
That isn't the closest I've been to one however. I damned near stepped on one about 35 years ago while hunting deer in the black hills. The cat, a full grown one, could have taken me down in a heartbeat, but instead left using all the traction it could muster with 4 legged drive. We weren't more than 4 feet apart when I inadvertantly made a noise that made it look around the rock at me, till then all I could see was the ragged end of the tail and didn't recognize it for what it was at the time.
I'm all for having them around, until one turns maneater. Then find that one and destroy it. See a story about them in the readers digest recently about how not to handle them until its too late.
We can geneticly modify the behaviour of things wild eventually. And I use the pheasant as an example.
Considered unsporting to shoot unless in flight, we have gradually shot all the flyers so that now they sneak off on foot to live again. Any bird that flies, gets shot and taken out of the gene pool. So now we have had for the last couple of decades, pheasants that run and hide. We can, and should, use those same principles in managing what is otherwise scarce wildlife.
Why should it not work? After all, management pays us to give them usable, accurate advice so thatthey can make what seem to them to be good decisions. And if we don't do that by a high enough percentage of the time to beat crystal balls all to hell, they may as well buy one of them and fire us.
The bottom line is they don't fire us. Our management is at least intelligent, and can be reasoned with, although its sometimes rather loudly behind closed doors. However, that has never endangered the working relationship, its just clearing the air and making sure we understand each other. Each of tries to understand the chair the other must occupy.
In the end, management is still management, and will make the decisions and we will go with them. We've done our part to make sure that the decision was made with full knowledge of the facts as BOTH of us see them.
If you don't have that kind of a relationship with your management, then I submit that you simply don't have the decades of experience it takes to build up a reputation that precedes you, or you have your own axe to grind. Don't ever forget that the axe you keep the sharpest shouldn't be yours, but the one that makes your company compete better and be more profitable. Do that, and your axe will self sharpen without further attention.
Of course there is always the chance that your management can't see past the monthly P&L report either. Recent MBA graduates have that tendency. However, the owners will eventually see that and fix it because most owners ARE in it for the long haul. But if thats the case, and the owner hasn't acted, why did you stop looking for a job when you found this one? Get those resumes out.
Speaking as an observer of, and formerly employed at but now retired, a tv station. The SCO thingy hasn't had an effect one way or the other that I can tell. Generally speaking, OpenOffice is slowly replaceing MS Office on the desk, and there will come a day when everybody is running OO. At that point its just barely noticed if the OS gets switched to linux. At worst we teach the grunts how to use a real email agent, not something that has all sorts of viri receptors builtin like the M$ things do.
All the server stuffs have been annointed with a red hat long ago.
Those apps used that require windows have been put on notice that no more updates will be purchased until it works on a recent linux box. 2 years ago they were laughing us off the phone. Today they're asking when, and it includes some fairly big names in broadcast software. In another 2 years I predict linux will be considered commonplace, with the windows versions on life support only.
Thats my $0.50 worth. That was originally $0.02, but inflation has taken its toll you know.
-- Cheers, and have a merry Christmas everybody, Gene
Ladies and gentlemen, you too Taco. This has already been done, a decade plus ago.
By whom you ask? By a dedicated group of amiga programmers who got together and wrote Thor a long time back now.
Thor so well integrated newgroups and email handling that in fact you had to check the headers before you could tell if you were replying to an email, or to a usenet posting.
And since I'm still on that mailing list, those people will be made aware of somebody mucking with their copyrights before the evening is over.
But the list has been published, Linus has read it. It appears he had to get help getting back up off the floor because he was laughing so hard.
Those files have, with minor modifications, been part of the linux kernel since 0.01! He wrote them, and in some cases later edited them in order to conform with the established, published standards like for ERRNOS etc.
There is a fairly lengthy rebuttal from Linus on the lkml if anyone cares to read it. For those who think SCO has managed to balance the one leg they have left on this lawsuits bannana peel, you should read the thread on lkml.
I took a look, at the first page. That was enough to make me hit the back button.
Any questionaire that starts out with a legal header is up to no good. Now, if Bill were to knock on my front door, and was willing to actually talk about it without getting bent cause I said his eula's were a work of the devil (the fact that they are isn't open for discussion IMO), then maybe we could have an informative discussion.
Wow, you're 69 and not retired yet? That sucks! You're supposed to retire at 65:)
Ah, but I am, about 90% of the time. The problem is that after all these years, I am the "grand old man", the one that walks in and fixes things while others are scratching their collective heads. Or whatever:-)
The 5 to 10% of the time that I chose to work now, is to "keep my hand in" so I don't get rusty and useless. That of course is based on the use it or lose it theory. It also pays for a quite decent medical policy & gives me a bit more pocket money than straight S.S. would.
Its cost will not ever balance out with the 4wd pickup I had to buy in order to keep on doing it, but hey, loseing the company supplied and maintained 4wd when I did officially go to part time and had to pass the keys on to my successor, coupled with the fact that this is WV, and I also hunt some yet, meant I would have bought it anyway just for hauling materials for a couple of projects around the home place. I don't regret it, and thats what counts at the end of the show.
I could get on an airplane and go spend a few months putting another place together in a heartbeat, I was asked to do it again tonight. But somehow, the thought of MI in the wintertime doesn't really appeal to me. My feet get cold just thinking about it. The missus wouldn't go, not well enough really, emphsema and such, and needs some help from time to time, so I will probably sit this one out & let somebody else get the glory.
Speaking philosophicly(sp), I need 2 more just like me, but 40 years younger. The number of people who actually go in and fix something instead of just saying "get a new one" are a dying breed.
I've watched the broadcast engineering business go from being well respected to just another expense in the accounts payable column to most of todays managers. So they 'cut expenses' till the knowledgeable people go on down the road looking for some way to make the mortgage payments on the house. Then, when they can't put bandaids on the machinery anymore, they claim the business was a loser anyway instead of taking the blame for poor management. Be wary, very wary, of someone who tries to make a profit by cutting expenses rather than improving the product so it sells itself.
I've been fortunate to work for someone who did understand it for the last 19 years. Unforch, too many who claim to be engineers today, are paper engineers only, too good to get their hands dirty doing what needs to be done in person. I'm not, if I want it done right, I do it myself, but always trying to teach because it will still need done when I'm gone for good. Either that, or the country will be so wired that over the air broadcasters will be run off because that spectrum is needed for the LAPD/NYPD/xxxx, where xxxx is wherever you might be.
That last scenario is the only way I can interpret the commissions actions over the last decade. Over the air is the only way you are going to get truely local news instead of the programmed pablum being dished out today by the big 5 where the capture of Saddam is the only story for a week at a time. Give me a break! Yet somehow, this consolidation is being seen as a public service by the commission. Bah, humbug.
With all due respect (not much), thats bull bisquits.
One of the things I did during my later 20's and early 30's (back in the '60's & '70's) was a bit of go kart racing, with an outboard motor, water cooled and all, choice of fuels, you name it, running in what was then called the C Super class, which was for engines from 12.2 cm3 to 15.something or other. This cart was clocked at over 120 mph on a county road once.
All this in an old Gopher frame, not the lightest by far. Fueled and watered and ready to go it weighed about 180 lbs without me.
But that puppy taught me more about driving at the very edge of what a vehicle is capable of doing, and I still, today, at age 69, exercize those skills as often as I can just to keep me from getting rusty, something thats becomeing ever more difficult as the reflexes slow down with age.
Oh, I might point out that I have not remodeled a vehicle, on or off the road, for more than 10 dollars worth of scratched paint in nearly 30 years. We won't count the air dams on the late model stuff sliding over a concrete parking blockade, those things they have in every lot.
I've also covered half a million miles on 2 wheels, down twice, one cracked ankle, one broken rib. Yes, I like to "push the envelope" even at my age, but because of that early experience, I haven't punctured it and hurt anyone but myself.
My wife, I drive crazy because I drive ballisticly looking as far down the road as I can. As I aproach a slower vehicle, her "safety zone" kicks in and she is standing on the imaginary brake pedal on her side of the car, while I'm slowly oozing out into a hole in the left lanes traffic and slideing on by, all with nothing but a slight adjustment of the throttle to synchronize things.
She gives me hell for not using my turn signals, but if I'm moving 5 mph faster than the vehicle in the mirror, he quite frankly doesn't have the horsepower to accelerate into me. My turn signals are worthless to him because he cannot do anything about it anyway.
Now if that same vehicle is approaching, and I'm planning on using a gap in that traffic to effect my pass, then they get plenty of notice that I'm coming over, hopefully with enough throttle applied that I'll have completed my pass and pulled back in before I actually get in their way.
She took drivers ed, and let me tell you, her driving bothers me even worse than mine bothers her. She also remodels the van occasionally, with $500 or more damages, although the last 2 or 3 times really haven't been her fault. Maybe, after 15 years, some of my style is rubbing off on her. I'd like that, a lot!:-)
So take yer attitude that one shouldn't ever explore the limits and go use it for what it is, fertilizer. That, and 30 inches of rain will raise 180 bushels to the acre where I come from.
Now let the hemming and hawwing and wiggling begin...
Thats the wiggling to see if there can be any good reason not to pay the reward monies, now 26 million that I know of, 25 from our government, and another 1 mill from Bruce Willis just the other day.
You can bet the farm that with that much money involved, there will be reason after reason after reason not to pay it, not a cent, ever.
So make me wrong GWB, just do it! Write the check, or checks, dividing it appropriately, if you think there were more than one person deserving to be 'made whole' over this. But I'm not sure I'd trust GWB's definition of "deserving" either.
After all, as an american citizen, it is my money, and a mere drop in the bucket compared to the spending rate of Wash, DC.
One advertising agency so the story goes had this take on a Billion dollars:
A billion seconds ago it was 1959
A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive
A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the stone age.
A billion dollars ago was 8 hours and 20 minutes at the rate Washington spends money.
Apologies for not giving credits, I got it at least 3rd hand, and the src didn't actually name the agency. IMO it is deserving of a credit line, unlike mastercard, it is priceless.:-)
In that regard, I like many others, have sent that question to the FTC and the SEC. I suspect they felt it was a form letter and ignored it because they sure as hell haven't made any public comments that I have seen in the media/news.
Coverup? Damned if I know, but it sure smells that way to me.
I find it a bit odd that in all the pix on the so-called construction page, not one of them shows a closeup of the pumps or any containers for the ingredients.
Any judge who believes a company that suddenly claims ignorance after years of marketing Linux under the GPL, unlimited access to Linux source-code, and now proof of Linux code submissions, should have his financials investigated just to be sure his rulings don't return a profit.
In this I wholeheartedly agree. Not to mention that if this goes to court, which it presumably eventually will, killing as much time as possible so the perps can liquidate as much of their holdings as they think the SEC will ignore.
I hope the judge explains the penalties for perjury very carefully to the members of both legal teams while stareing straight at the SCO side of the table. Including Darl McBride if he has what it takes to show up without dipping his face in liquid nitrogen to keep it straight while he testifies.
Bah, bunch of losers, and I'm damned if I can understand why the VC and market analyst people cannot see that. There must be some kind of a soundproof barrier between reality and the guys bidding this crap on the marketplace floor...
But like P. T. Barnum said, there is one born every minute.
The only one here that must follow the rules is Sigma, everyone else is just a reseller selling the product.
'scuse me? AIUI, and I'm not even in the same precinct as a lawyer, this chain of distribution has no stopping point in its path to the end user.
Not only that, but you can probably make some mooney betting that each of these individual makers is also doing something to the code in order to differentiate his product from the next carbon copy on the shelf beside his product.
In either event, it seems to me that since Sigma has already been caught, and caved in once in fairly recent history, there is grounds to quote in court the fact that they seem to be a habitual violator of copyrights. And that might not be so impressive to the court, hearing them claim a lack of knowledge about the terms of the GPL. Many times its been said in court, ignorance of the law is not a valid excuse.
Unfortunately our company went insolvent so it's quite easy to say that we would have released the offending sources;-) But the point is we worked with Linux and thus knew we had to deal with the GPL. I think anyone who professionally works with Linux has to know the GPL.
Unforch, when such a situation occurs, and the money folks pick up the pieces and try to liquidate and recover whatever investment they made, its been the courts that have not been friendly to the GPL crowd, basicly telling them to get in line and see if there is anything left when everybody else has been paid. Of course when everyone else gets 5 cents on the dollar, by the time we get to the GPL teat, theres nothing left and further beating of the cow is a waste of time and services from the legal beagle crowd.
I can't cite the exact case in which that occured, but I expect the the real Bruce Perens can. I believe it was even made mention of here on/. at one time.
So why aren't we, with the resources spent by the FSF, and the profits if any split 50/50 with the authors of the code and the FSF? Heck, I can't think of a quicker way to refresh the FSF's coffers.
Yes, the 50% split the authors would get, divided among those in a ratio according to their contributions, would be a bookkeepers worst nightmare what with trying to run down the authors of every piece of code in the kernel thats being used in the violation. And no doubt some of those miriad authors would get a check for $0.01 because they only wrote 1 line of real code in a patch someplace.
OTOH, winning such a case would IMO establish the GPL as a valid, got lots of teeth in it, enforcable license. And frankly Bruce, I like the flavor of that, a lot.
Then the question becomes: How do we arrive at a figure for the damages? 10 dollars and other consideration plus 1 million punitive would probably not make it into the water of the courts "lets see if this will float" lake.
Is this purceived lack of real monetary damages in fact one of the real holdups to bringing an enforcement action into the civil courts?
Bruce, I get the impression from a quick scan of your replies to this thread, that you in fact think this situation isn't worth further exploration or the use of the FSF's resources to pursue the release of their (Sigma or their manufactureing assigns) srcs under the terms of the GPL?
I don't want to believe what I'm reading here so:
Please clarify for us unwashed and minor supporters of the FSF your exact view of where they are, which side of the GPL violation fence they are currently on.
I hadn't looked at it that way. But on thinking it through, you are probably somewhere around 125% right, the greedyness of human nature being what is now taught to MBA's in lieu of anything honesty related.
Slashdot Mirror
There is a genuine bias and propaganda going on against Microsoft, the RIAA, and so forth. Any inkling of a worm, no matter how minor and ineffective, gets breathlessly reported the minute it's submitted. Meanwhile, you never hear a thing about the faults of Linux security, except when they're forced to, like with the breaches of GNU/FSF, GNOME, Debian, and Gentoo, all within the span of six months or so.
'Scuse me, but M$ has rightfully earned every drop of venom hurled their way for the last frigging decade! And the RIAA isn't far behind with their 1960's business model, adjusted for inflation of course.
We get 8 or 10 machines hacked in the space of 6 months, and we're justifiably public about it so the problem gets fixed, usually within a few hours and you M$ shills grab the announcement, which is usually accompanied by a link to the fix, and come unfscking wrapped screaming about how insecure linux is.
You M$ users get a viri that has infected half a million machines typically, taking M$ 3 to 6 months to release a fix that sometime isn't, requires you to commit your firstborn to the evil service with a brand new EULA to be signed before you can install the fix, and whose traffic virtually brings the network to a halt, and its to be swept under the rug because it embarrases you and M$?
Not bloody likely. At least put things into perspective and get your priorities straight. Swen has been out for at least 6 months now, and I'm still getting 15-40 copies a gawddamned day. So when are you going to fix it?
Yeah, I'm a linux zealot, and damned proud of it. And I haven't logged even an attempt to access my machines from the outside world in well over 6 months, its simply not open to the network, not even on port 80. But its there, 24/7/365... I'll give you the exersize of finding it.
Whats your excuse now?
--
Cheers, Gene
A mostly retired old fart.
No mention of the musical genra that was in the competition. To me, its obvious anything that won an award on a tv program covering anyplace in popular music field was excluded.
In other words, the basic premise of the list is flawed and therefore useless.
--
Cheers, Gene
To further add to your point - the radio telescope at Stanford (which joined in the search last night) is theoretically able to detect the radio emissions from Beagle's CPU, not just it's on board transmitter.
Which brings up the question: Has the new dish at Green Bank been asked to donate an hour or 2?
This dish is now, AFAIK, the second largest dish on the planet, and the only one sufficiently steerable to hold mars within its beam for the full nominally 12 hours mars is in view each day from earth. There is over 1 square kilometer of dish surface, accurately enough located focuswise, to be able to see anyplace on this side of the planet mars and distinguish which area of the planet a detected signal was coming from. I'm not sure of its operational bandwidth, but I'd assume that from what I've read, about anything above 300 mhz would be usable.
Its forte is of course at higher frequencies as the surfaces are adjusted in real time to compensate for flex as its tilted this way and that while following a target, and for near instant corrections for wind caused deflections, and it does it to near optical accuracies.
It seems to me that would be the ideal instrument to use if one wanted to know if Beagle2's cpu was running.
Just a random question maybe, but I'm interested enough in the answer that I may call an acquaintance who works there later today and ask him.
--
Cheers, Gene
"they" say there's panthers around too, but "they" are usually full of crap.
Don't bet the farm on it my friend. Here in WV, we have, because of the hills, a mixture of urban and wild country thats about as homogenized as you can imagine. And the border blend is often less than 50 feet wide!
The game biolgists all claim we have no mountain lions, aka puma, panther, and several other local names for them.
But I've had the pleasure (well so far its been pleasurable because it hasn't been life threatening, but it could very well be) of running into one just this past year as I was walking up the back trails to the local city water tank located on a north end of a long finger of forested hill, and in fact about 300 fet above and east of the local kmart! I was carrying a smallish case with my GPS, undercover and camera in it, doing some surverying for 802-11 stuffs.
About 500 yards from the top of the trail, a big cat with a black tail stepped out of the brush on the left side of the trail and glanced my way, this from about 50 yards up the trail in front of me. A big (for WV, a short 2 feet long not counting tail) and probably 18" high, and 2 feet of black tipped tail, otherwise tawny colored, instantly says mountain lion to me, possibly immature. The cat watched me for maybe 5 seconds, the turned and vanished back into the brush.
I in turn made sure my undercover wasn't undercover any more as I paced my ancient body on up the hill and did my work. And yes, I have a CWP.
So yes, there are big cats about, at least in this neck of the woods.
That isn't the closest I've been to one however. I damned near stepped on one about 35 years ago while hunting deer in the black hills. The cat, a full grown one, could have taken me down in a heartbeat, but instead left using all the traction it could muster with 4 legged drive. We weren't more than 4 feet apart when I inadvertantly made a noise that made it look around the rock at me, till then all I could see was the ragged end of the tail and didn't recognize it for what it was at the time.
I'm all for having them around, until one turns maneater. Then find that one and destroy it. See a story about them in the readers digest recently about how not to handle them until its too late.
We can geneticly modify the behaviour of things wild eventually. And I use the pheasant as an example.
Considered unsporting to shoot unless in flight, we have gradually shot all the flyers so that now they sneak off on foot to live again. Any bird that flies, gets shot and taken out of the gene pool. So now we have had for the last couple of decades, pheasants that run and hide. We can, and should, use those same principles in managing what is otherwise scarce wildlife.
--
Cheers, Gene
Why should it not work? After all, management pays us to give them usable, accurate advice so thatthey can make what seem to them to be good decisions. And if we don't do that by a high enough percentage of the time to beat crystal balls all to hell, they may as well buy one of them and fire us.
The bottom line is they don't fire us. Our management is at least intelligent, and can be reasoned with, although its sometimes rather loudly behind closed doors. However, that has never endangered the working relationship, its just clearing the air and making sure we understand each other. Each of tries to understand the chair the other must occupy.
In the end, management is still management, and will make the decisions and we will go with them. We've done our part to make sure that the decision was made with full knowledge of the facts as BOTH of us see them.
If you don't have that kind of a relationship with your management, then I submit that you simply don't have the decades of experience it takes to build up a reputation that precedes you, or you have your own axe to grind. Don't ever forget that the axe you keep the sharpest shouldn't be yours, but the one that makes your company compete better and be more profitable. Do that, and your axe will self sharpen without further attention.
Of course there is always the chance that your management can't see past the monthly P&L report either. Recent MBA graduates have that tendency. However, the owners will eventually see that and fix it because most owners ARE in it for the long haul. But if thats the case, and the owner hasn't acted, why did you stop looking for a job when you found this one? Get those resumes out.
--
Cheers & have a merry Christmas, Gene
Speaking as an observer of, and formerly employed at but now retired, a tv station. The SCO thingy hasn't had an effect one way or the other that I can tell. Generally speaking, OpenOffice is slowly replaceing MS Office on the desk, and there will come a day when everybody is running OO. At that point its just barely noticed if the OS gets switched to linux. At worst we teach the grunts how to use a real email agent, not something that has all sorts of viri receptors builtin like the M$ things do.
All the server stuffs have been annointed with a red hat long ago.
Those apps used that require windows have been put on notice that no more updates will be purchased until it works on a recent linux box. 2 years ago they were laughing us off the phone. Today they're asking when, and it includes some fairly big names in broadcast software. In another 2 years I predict linux will be considered commonplace, with the windows versions on life support only.
Thats my $0.50 worth. That was originally $0.02, but inflation has taken its toll you know.
--
Cheers, and have a merry Christmas everybody, Gene
Ladies and gentlemen, you too Taco. This has already been done, a decade plus ago.
By whom you ask? By a dedicated group of amiga programmers who got together and wrote Thor a long time back now.
Thor so well integrated newgroups and email handling that in fact you had to check the headers before you could tell if you were replying to an email, or to a usenet posting.
And since I'm still on that mailing list, those people will be made aware of somebody mucking with their copyrights before the evening is over.
--
Cheers, Gene
Well, I ain't a lawyer either.
But the list has been published, Linus has read it. It appears he had to get help getting back up off the floor because he was laughing so hard.
Those files have, with minor modifications, been part of the linux kernel since 0.01! He wrote them, and in some cases later edited them in order to conform with the established, published standards like for ERRNOS etc.
There is a fairly lengthy rebuttal from Linus on the lkml if anyone cares to read it. For those who think SCO has managed to balance the one leg they have left on this lawsuits bannana peel, you should read the thread on lkml.
--
Cheers, Gene
Chuckle, thats a good one. Touche`
I took a look, at the first page. That was enough to make me hit the back button.
Any questionaire that starts out with a legal header is up to no good. Now, if Bill were to knock on my front door, and was willing to actually talk about it without getting bent cause I said his eula's were a work of the devil (the fact that they are isn't open for discussion IMO), then maybe we could have an informative discussion.
But you *know* what the chances of that are...
First, we kill all the lawyers.
--
Cheers, Gene
Wow, you're 69 and not retired yet? That sucks! You're supposed to retire at 65 :)
:-)
Ah, but I am, about 90% of the time. The problem is that after all these years, I am the "grand old man", the one that walks in and fixes things while others are scratching their collective heads. Or whatever
The 5 to 10% of the time that I chose to work now, is to "keep my hand in" so I don't get rusty and useless. That of course is based on the use it or lose it theory. It also pays for a quite decent medical policy & gives me a bit more pocket money than straight S.S. would.
Its cost will not ever balance out with the 4wd pickup I had to buy in order to keep on doing it, but hey, loseing the company supplied and maintained 4wd when I did officially go to part time and had to pass the keys on to my successor, coupled with the fact that this is WV, and I also hunt some yet, meant I would have bought it anyway just for hauling materials for a couple of projects around the home place. I don't regret it, and thats what counts at the end of the show.
I could get on an airplane and go spend a few months putting another place together in a heartbeat, I was asked to do it again tonight. But somehow, the thought of MI in the wintertime doesn't really appeal to me. My feet get cold just thinking about it. The missus wouldn't go, not well enough really, emphsema and such, and needs some help from time to time, so I will probably sit this one out & let somebody else get the glory.
Speaking philosophicly(sp), I need 2 more just like me, but 40 years younger. The number of people who actually go in and fix something instead of just saying "get a new one" are a dying breed.
I've watched the broadcast engineering business go from being well respected to just another expense in the accounts payable column to most of todays managers. So they 'cut expenses' till the knowledgeable people go on down the road looking for some way to make the mortgage payments on the house. Then, when they can't put bandaids on the machinery anymore, they claim the business was a loser anyway instead of taking the blame for poor management. Be wary, very wary, of someone who tries to make a profit by cutting expenses rather than improving the product so it sells itself.
I've been fortunate to work for someone who did understand it for the last 19 years. Unforch, too many who claim to be engineers today, are paper engineers only, too good to get their hands dirty doing what needs to be done in person. I'm not, if I want it done right, I do it myself, but always trying to teach because it will still need done when I'm gone for good. Either that, or the country will be so wired that over the air broadcasters will be run off because that spectrum is needed for the LAPD/NYPD/xxxx, where xxxx is wherever you might be.
That last scenario is the only way I can interpret the commissions actions over the last decade. Over the air is the only way you are going to get truely local news instead of the programmed pablum being dished out today by the big 5 where the capture of Saddam is the only story for a week at a time. Give me a break! Yet somehow, this consolidation is being seen as a public service by the commission. Bah, humbug.
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No Cheers this time, Gene
With all due respect (not much), thats bull bisquits.
:-)
One of the things I did during my later 20's and early 30's (back in the '60's & '70's) was a bit of go kart racing, with an outboard motor, water cooled and all, choice of fuels, you name it, running in what was then called the C Super class, which was for engines from 12.2 cm3 to 15.something or other. This cart was clocked at over 120 mph on a county road once.
All this in an old Gopher frame, not the lightest by far. Fueled and watered and ready to go it weighed about 180 lbs without me.
But that puppy taught me more about driving at the very edge of what a vehicle is capable of doing, and I still, today, at age 69, exercize those skills as often as I can just to keep me from getting rusty, something thats becomeing ever more difficult as the reflexes slow down with age.
Oh, I might point out that I have not remodeled a vehicle, on or off the road, for more than 10 dollars worth of scratched paint in nearly 30 years. We won't count the air dams on the late model stuff sliding over a concrete parking blockade, those things they have in every lot.
I've also covered half a million miles on 2 wheels, down twice, one cracked ankle, one broken rib. Yes, I like to "push the envelope" even at my age, but because of that early experience, I haven't punctured it and hurt anyone but myself.
My wife, I drive crazy because I drive ballisticly looking as far down the road as I can. As I aproach a slower vehicle, her "safety zone" kicks in and she is standing on the imaginary brake pedal on her side of the car, while I'm slowly oozing out into a hole in the left lanes traffic and slideing on by, all with nothing but a slight adjustment of the throttle to synchronize things.
She gives me hell for not using my turn signals, but if I'm moving 5 mph faster than the vehicle in the mirror, he quite frankly doesn't have the horsepower to accelerate into me. My turn signals are worthless to him because he cannot do anything about it anyway.
Now if that same vehicle is approaching, and I'm planning on using a gap in that traffic to effect my pass, then they get plenty of notice that I'm coming over, hopefully with enough throttle applied that I'll have completed my pass and pulled back in before I actually get in their way.
She took drivers ed, and let me tell you, her driving bothers me even worse than mine bothers her. She also remodels the van occasionally, with $500 or more damages, although the last 2 or 3 times really haven't been her fault. Maybe, after 15 years, some of my style is rubbing off on her. I'd like that, a lot!
So take yer attitude that one shouldn't ever explore the limits and go use it for what it is, fertilizer. That, and 30 inches of rain will raise 180 bushels to the acre where I come from.
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Cheers, Gene
You're just a young punk yet. I was 53 in '87, so take that!
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Cheers, Gene
Humphh. The reward may have been paid. In that event, whyinhell hasn't the media made note of it, or am I not watching the right newschannel?
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Cheers, Gene
And its slashdotted so easliy
Now let the hemming and hawwing and wiggling begin...
:-)
Thats the wiggling to see if there can be any good reason not to pay the reward monies, now 26 million that I know of, 25 from our government, and another 1 mill from Bruce Willis just the other day.
You can bet the farm that with that much money involved, there will be reason after reason after reason not to pay it, not a cent, ever.
So make me wrong GWB, just do it! Write the check, or checks, dividing it appropriately, if you think there were more than one person deserving to be 'made whole' over this. But I'm not sure I'd trust GWB's definition of "deserving" either.
After all, as an american citizen, it is my money, and a mere drop in the bucket compared to the spending rate of Wash, DC.
One advertising agency so the story goes had this take on a Billion dollars:
A billion seconds ago it was 1959
A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive
A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the stone age.
A billion dollars ago was 8 hours and 20 minutes at the rate Washington spends money.
Apologies for not giving credits, I got it at least 3rd hand, and the src didn't actually name the agency. IMO it is deserving of a credit line, unlike mastercard, it is priceless.
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Cheers, Gene
In that regard, I like many others, have sent that question to the FTC and the SEC. I suspect they felt it was a form letter and ignored it because they sure as hell haven't made any public comments that I have seen in the media/news.
Coverup? Damned if I know, but it sure smells that way to me.
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Cheers, Gene
I find it a bit odd that in all the pix on the so-called construction page, not one of them shows a closeup of the pumps or any containers for the ingredients.
Methings we've been trolled.
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Cheers, Gene
Any judge who believes a company that suddenly claims ignorance after years of marketing Linux under the GPL, unlimited access to Linux source-code, and now proof of Linux code submissions, should have his financials investigated just to be sure his rulings don't return a profit.
In this I wholeheartedly agree. Not to mention that if this goes to court, which it presumably eventually will, killing as much time as possible so the perps can liquidate as much of their holdings as they think the SEC will ignore.
I hope the judge explains the penalties for perjury very carefully to the members of both legal teams while stareing straight at the SCO side of the table. Including Darl McBride if he has what it takes to show up without dipping his face in liquid nitrogen to keep it straight while he testifies.
Bah, bunch of losers, and I'm damned if I can understand why the VC and market analyst people cannot see that. There must be some kind of a soundproof barrier between reality and the guys bidding this crap on the marketplace floor...
But like P. T. Barnum said, there is one born every minute.
Cheers, Gene
The only one here that must follow the rules is Sigma, everyone else is just a reseller selling the product.
'scuse me? AIUI, and I'm not even in the same precinct as a lawyer, this chain of distribution has no stopping point in its path to the end user.
Not only that, but you can probably make some mooney betting that each of these individual makers is also doing something to the code in order to differentiate his product from the next carbon copy on the shelf beside his product.
In either event, it seems to me that since Sigma has already been caught, and caved in once in fairly recent history, there is grounds to quote in court the fact that they seem to be a habitual violator of copyrights. And that might not be so impressive to the court, hearing them claim a lack of knowledge about the terms of the GPL. Many times its been said in court, ignorance of the law is not a valid excuse.
Cheers, Gene
Unfortunately our company went insolvent so it's quite easy to say that we would have released the offending sources ;-) But the point is we worked with Linux and thus knew we had to deal with the GPL. I think anyone who professionally works with Linux has to know the GPL.
/. at one time.
Unforch, when such a situation occurs, and the money folks pick up the pieces and try to liquidate and recover whatever investment they made, its been the courts that have not been friendly to the GPL crowd, basicly telling them to get in line and see if there is anything left when everybody else has been paid. Of course when everyone else gets 5 cents on the dollar, by the time we get to the GPL teat, theres nothing left and further beating of the cow is a waste of time and services from the legal beagle crowd.
I can't cite the exact case in which that occured, but I expect the the real Bruce Perens can. I believe it was even made mention of here on
Cheers, Gene
So why aren't we, with the resources spent by the FSF, and the profits if any split 50/50 with the authors of the code and the FSF? Heck, I can't think of a quicker way to refresh the FSF's coffers.
Yes, the 50% split the authors would get, divided among those in a ratio according to their contributions, would be a bookkeepers worst nightmare what with trying to run down the authors of every piece of code in the kernel thats being used in the violation. And no doubt some of those miriad authors would get a check for $0.01 because they only wrote 1 line of real code in a patch someplace.
OTOH, winning such a case would IMO establish the GPL as a valid, got lots of teeth in it, enforcable license. And frankly Bruce, I like the flavor of that, a lot.
Then the question becomes: How do we arrive at a figure for the damages? 10 dollars and other consideration plus 1 million punitive would probably not make it into the water of the courts "lets see if this will float" lake.
Is this purceived lack of real monetary damages in fact one of the real holdups to bringing an enforcement action into the civil courts?
Cheers, Gene
Thats what I wanted to read, Bruce, thanks.
Cheers, Gene
Bruce, I get the impression from a quick scan of your replies to this thread, that you in fact think this situation isn't worth further exploration or the use of the FSF's resources to pursue the release of their (Sigma or their manufactureing assigns) srcs under the terms of the GPL?
I don't want to believe what I'm reading here so:
Please clarify for us unwashed and minor supporters of the FSF your exact view of where they are, which side of the GPL violation fence they are currently on.
Cheers, Gene
I hadn't looked at it that way. But on thinking it through, you are probably somewhere around 125% right, the greedyness of human nature being what is now taught to MBA's in lieu of anything honesty related.
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Cheers, Gene