I thought the author pretty much nailed it, surprising for the mainstream press. The immediate cause of the Blaster virus was a buffer overflow bug (which also occurs sometimes in other operating systems) but the reason it was so devastating was because the default configurations of Windows are so permissive. For example, it's crazy for XP Home Edition to be listening for connections on TCP port 135 by default. Microsoft's marketing strategy for the past 15 years has been to put features and usability first, so it's not surprising that security and robustness lag behind.
They have to recognize that not every user is sufficiently aware or motivated to download every security patch as soon as it is announced. Many of their customers are novice computer users. There has to be some regard for security built into the OS so that every buffer overflow bug doesn't throw every desktop on the Internet wide open to assault.
Yes, it looks like an oversight. SCO probably should have sent Linus an email: "Hey, we noticed the following two routines which look like they are adapted directly from Unix 6th edition. You guys need to either put our copyright notice on the files or recode them". It would have taken less than a day for the kernel guys to do either one. That's assuming Caldera/SCO actually cared, and they apparently didn't until McBride came along and reoriented the company's direction towards IP.
Stepping back, it looks like SCO is using this for PR purposes (the code count for the two routines in my copy of Lions' book is about 80 lines, so it sounds like this is the piece they showed analysts back in June). As you say, the claimable damages are probably nil. But the bulk of their case centers around their legal theory of ownership of derivative works of UNIX and how that applies to NUMA, SMP, JFS, etc. The fact that they are advertising this seemingly irrelevant sideshow makes you wonder how much confidence SCO and Boies have in their real case.
Enterprise customers want a choice and it's about more than just price or TCO, so they realize it is in their interest to have at least one strong competitor to Microsoft.
On a different subject. Since Novell is hitching its star to Linux, maybe they can help by doing automated comparisons of the Linux code base against System V (similar to what SCO claims to have done) and reporting its findings so any problems can be cleared up and/or SCO's FUD can be countered with facts. They have access to both code bases so it should be feasible for them. IBM and Red Hat are probably doing this already, but their lawsuits with SCO may place limits on what they can do with it.
Opening scene: fishermen relaxing on their trawler after a hard day's work. A tune from Metallica blares from their boom box, which triggers a curious phenomena miles below the ocean surface...
I've always been under the impression that 'M$' is some sort of global string variable in Visual Basic that nobody can figure out how to use. I doubt that power plants have much use for VB, though.
I've always thought the title of the GOTO paper was a master stroke. Anyone else would have called it "Why GOTO statements are bad" or "Structural problems caused by GOTO", and your reaction would be "That's his opinion" or "Gee, everyone knows that". He made it sound like it came from absolute authority, and if you disagreed, you were setting programming back.
O'Reilly has a book on Rotor written by David Stutz, its former architect. Stutz resigned from Microsoft several months ago and published an open letter to his former bosses about the challenge MS faces from OSS:
http://www.synthesist.net/writing/onleavingms.html
So now email advertisements must be flagged with ADV: subject line, or something similar, and people will be able to configure their mailboxes to reject those messages. But suppose you buy stuff on a regular basis from Amazon - how can you give them permission to email you recommendations for new books? You won't even see their emails because they're deleted automatically. Maybe the law can be worded in such a way to exempt businesses with whom you have a relationship. But that means AOL Time Warner can email me stuff about People magazine because I subscribe of HBO. Suddenly, deals and mergers between junk mailers and on-line retailers might become attractive just to game this sort of law.
Will a consultant have to use this header to solicit business? That might mean most of his emails will never get read. What about a contractor trying to hire himself out to employers? What about someone notifying a mailing list about a special-interest web site he just set up, which incidentally sells merchandise on the side? We all might know spam when we see it, but once you start down this path you can get entangled in the law.
Massive grid computing currently isn't economical for crunching the daily workload of insurance claims... not that it ever occurred to any of us that it would be, but it's nice to hear it from the world's leading expert on TP.
Maybe some entrepreneur will come out with a "Patch Mouse" to wean users from their addiction. Each time you click, a mellifluous voice says "Please hold for the next available story..."
And sometimes the hit songs were written by external songwriters, like "Last Kiss" from Pearl Jam, while the so-called album cuts are often written by the band. So there's a bigger royalty split, percentage wise, when the hits are sold as singles.
I'm not a big fan and I only saw Federer once (against Roddick this week) but he looks like a big server to me. Of course Philoppoussis' serve is legendary. That's your men's final. Other than that, I agree that the men's game has been that fast, or close to it, for a long time. If you want to see long rallies, check out the women's matches.
I agree it's hard argue with technology that lets an advanced beginner extend his/her rallies using an oversized racket, or a high handicapper to straighten out his ball flight with more forgiving clubhead design. The tour pros usually stay away from this stuff anyway as it detracts from their performance. What's bad is when you have "hot" balls, drivers, or rackets that turn these sports into an arms race. This is where the governing bodies need to take a stand, and it's tough when there's so much money at stake.
- He sounds a bit stressed out. Maybe it's the new job + trying to get 2.6 out the door + SCO and possible depositions + the usual stuff he has to deal with. Or I'm imagining things.
- It's funny how many evolution/ecosystem type metaphors he made - maybe he's been reading the complete works of S. J. Gould or something
I have a cousin working for a company that sells, among other things, a mainframe based spreadsheet app. He claims that the market for applications is drying up, and I have to agree.
I heard there's this commodity-priced competitor called "VisiCalc".
That would be a radical change to the GPL, to say that distributing products created by the software amounts to distributing the software. I doubt Linux will buy into that and many customers won't either - they'll take their software from forked codebases if they have to.
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Offer a discount of $2/CD on rock, pop, and hip-hop titles for those 24 or younger.
I bookmarked that, thanks. Wish I had seen that a few years ago.
They have to recognize that not every user is sufficiently aware or motivated to download every security patch as soon as it is announced. Many of their customers are novice computer users. There has to be some regard for security built into the OS so that every buffer overflow bug doesn't throw every desktop on the Internet wide open to assault.
Stepping back, it looks like SCO is using this for PR purposes (the code count for the two routines in my copy of Lions' book is about 80 lines, so it sounds like this is the piece they showed analysts back in June). As you say, the claimable damages are probably nil. But the bulk of their case centers around their legal theory of ownership of derivative works of UNIX and how that applies to NUMA, SMP, JFS, etc. The fact that they are advertising this seemingly irrelevant sideshow makes you wonder how much confidence SCO and Boies have in their real case.
On a different subject. Since Novell is hitching its star to Linux, maybe they can help by doing automated comparisons of the Linux code base against System V (similar to what SCO claims to have done) and reporting its findings so any problems can be cleared up and/or SCO's FUD can be countered with facts. They have access to both code bases so it should be feasible for them. IBM and Red Hat are probably doing this already, but their lawsuits with SCO may place limits on what they can do with it.
Opening scene: fishermen relaxing on their trawler after a hard day's work. A tune from Metallica blares from their boom box, which triggers a curious phenomena miles below the ocean surface...
I've always been under the impression that 'M$' is some sort of global string variable in Visual Basic that nobody can figure out how to use. I doubt that power plants have much use for VB, though.
You call that genius? Fermat beat him by 300 years and couldn't even be bothered to find a clean sheet of paper to write it down. That's genius.
"Thank you all for coming. The bombing begins in five minutes."
I've always thought the title of the GOTO paper was a master stroke. Anyone else would have called it "Why GOTO statements are bad" or "Structural problems caused by GOTO", and your reaction would be "That's his opinion" or "Gee, everyone knows that". He made it sound like it came from absolute authority, and if you disagreed, you were setting programming back.
O'Reilly has a book on Rotor written by David Stutz, its former architect. Stutz resigned from Microsoft several months ago and published an open letter to his former bosses about the challenge MS faces from OSS: http://www.synthesist.net/writing/onleavingms.html
Yes, you have IT skills, but Joe User isn't going bother with a sequence of instructions. It's going to be allow/don't allow ads for the majority.
Will a consultant have to use this header to solicit business? That might mean most of his emails will never get read. What about a contractor trying to hire himself out to employers? What about someone notifying a mailing list about a special-interest web site he just set up, which incidentally sells merchandise on the side? We all might know spam when we see it, but once you start down this path you can get entangled in the law.
Massive grid computing currently isn't economical for crunching the daily workload of insurance claims... not that it ever occurred to any of us that it would be, but it's nice to hear it from the world's leading expert on TP.
Fair enough. I'm a pretty casual fan so I didn't catch some of the fine points.
With comments this lame, I probably won't even bother reading the article.
"What do you mean, you didn't know about the header page?"
Maybe some entrepreneur will come out with a "Patch Mouse" to wean users from their addiction. Each time you click, a mellifluous voice says "Please hold for the next available story..."
And sometimes the hit songs were written by external songwriters, like "Last Kiss" from Pearl Jam, while the so-called album cuts are often written by the band. So there's a bigger royalty split, percentage wise, when the hits are sold as singles.
I'm not a big fan and I only saw Federer once (against Roddick this week) but he looks like a big server to me. Of course Philoppoussis' serve is legendary. That's your men's final. Other than that, I agree that the men's game has been that fast, or close to it, for a long time. If you want to see long rallies, check out the women's matches.
I agree it's hard argue with technology that lets an advanced beginner extend his/her rallies using an oversized racket, or a high handicapper to straighten out his ball flight with more forgiving clubhead design. The tour pros usually stay away from this stuff anyway as it detracts from their performance. What's bad is when you have "hot" balls, drivers, or rackets that turn these sports into an arms race. This is where the governing bodies need to take a stand, and it's tough when there's so much money at stake.
- He sounds a bit stressed out. Maybe it's the new job + trying to get 2.6 out the door + SCO and possible depositions + the usual stuff he has to deal with. Or I'm imagining things.
- It's funny how many evolution/ecosystem type metaphors he made - maybe he's been reading the complete works of S. J. Gould or something
I heard there's this commodity-priced competitor called "VisiCalc".
That would be a radical change to the GPL, to say that distributing products created by the software amounts to distributing the software. I doubt Linux will buy into that and many customers won't either - they'll take their software from forked codebases if they have to.