one of the reasons why there will never be a true Democracy. The elite in every society tells the commoner and new initiate what to think, and for the most part they fall in line.
I think you're confusing "democracy" with "aristocracy". Ultimately, however, "democracy" is "mob rule", where the voting majority gets to dictate to the voting minority (which I think you're actually driving at). In contrast, the US is a "democratic republic", where the "mob's" voted representatives do the dictating (*cough* presumably in line with wishes of their constituency *cough*).
"Is this like Microsoft asserting control over what programmers may code for Windows?"
Absolutely not! Windows is an operating system whose principal purpose, like all other operating systems, is to provide a platform on which applications can run without having to control hardware directly. Who writes the applications is largely irrelevant, just as it is not in the operating system writer's interest to restrict who can write those applications or under which terms (that's not say they can't do so, just that it's not in their best interest).
The simularity between WoW's "engine hooks" and and Windows' APIs is merely that -- a simularity. WoW is itself an application written with Windows' APIs. WoW/needs/ the operating system in order to run, just as WoW's players need Windows to be able to play the game (Mac version and Wine notwithstanding). Windows, however, does not/need/ WoW in order to exist (though it certainly doesn't hurt Microsoft's bottom line).
One can, of course, state the parallel with WoW addons -- that they/need/ WoW's "engine hooks" to function, but WoW does not need user addons to provide a playable game experience. The principal difference, however, is a commercial one...
Applications, not operating systems, are what sell PCs (and its hardly deniable that a large percentage of WoW players likely have PC's in the first place just to play WoW:-p ). Yet, the applications need the operating system (nevermind that an application/could/ be written to talk to the hardware directly), thus it is in Microsoft's interest to make their operating system APIs available "without restriction" to application writers -- in order for the operating system to sell, there must be applications written for it.
Contrast this to whether WoW needs third-party addons written for it for WoW to sell... it does not. If you, a WoW player, bought WoW (and pay monthly fees to Blizzard), simply for the sake being able to use, say, QuestHelper or Auctioneer then you, "sir" are... well, let's just say among a great minority of players from whom the addon writers are also justified in charging fees and claiming the right to do so...
Yet, were this case, then I'd argue that Blizzard would be equally justified in charging additional "license fees" to the addon writers as well. They do not, of course, since though addons might make the game more "enjoyable" for some players, without them Blizzard would probably still have the most successful MMO currently running.
Don't replace anything and you have World of Warcraft.
Technically, WoW, as with most other MMOs like it, is a [computer] role-playing game (CRPG), not an adventure game.
Adventure games are distinguished by their puzzle-solving and exploratory aspects, where exploration is a fundamental component of the puzzle solving.
CRPGs, on the other hand, are distinguished by the player taking on some "bad-ass killing dude" persona and performing "quests" (aka "missions") -- which typically means playing the part of a "bad-ass killing dude" on behalf of a beleaguered NPC. Puzzle-solving has no part in it -- "bad-ass killing dudes", after all, don't want to think and solve problems, they want to kill and become increasingly "bad-ass" (aka "level up"). Likewise, "exploration" is merely a necessary side-effect -- often a despised one -- of finding the target(s) of the NPC's anguish, if not the NPCs themselves. This is most recently exemplified in Blizzard's decision to limit flying mounts in Northrend (site of the Wrath expansion), to level 77+. Their reasoning for this: to ensure players have the opportunity to "explore" their new land, rather than merely passing over most of it from above. An understandable desire considering the amount of work they put into creating it. Yet, this one decision has arguably received more criticism than any other from their many millions of beleaguered "bad-asses" who just want to home in on and kill the latest targets.
As before, no puzzles here... move along all you thinkers.
Privilege against "self-incrimination" means you can't be forced to give testimony, make statements, or generally divulge information about all the naughty little things you've done when suspected of wrong-doing (or not). In most circumstances, this also includes in written form. Iow, you can't be forced to "confess". However, if you willingly provide such information -- even if unwittingly so during a police "interview", on your tax forms, etc. -- then your "privilege" is not violated...
Note that this has nothing to do with having your papers and personal effects seized and searched -- which is what this person was actually arguing against in the wrong context, even if he thought he was doing otherwise. If you've already committed the information to a form which can be seized, then you've already done the harm to yourself... and your "privilege", which you've already 'waived', is not in danger of being violated when they do seize the information. To use the judge's analogy, the police were not forcing him to confess anything, they were merely demanding access to his "house" so they could search it for evidence which they believe is already there! This is something different and, apparently, this person made no objections to that. Did they have a warrant for the search? Did they need a warrant for the search? Those are the questions this person needed to argue.
Actually, they're taxing the sale of virtual goods for real money, not the money itself. "Income tax" is not a tax on "income", but a tax on the/source/ of income (or activity which produced it), for which "income" serves only as the measuring stick for the tax.
Obsidian screwed up KoToR2 (neither did the only patch ever released for it help much), now they've screwed up NWN2... and both in many of the same ways. That's it, I've learned my lesson... never again will Obsidian have any of my money. Unforunately, this debacle lowers my trust in Bioware, as well... while Bioware creates winning franchises, their "judgement" in entrusting them to a screw-it-up "developer" like Obsidian leaves much to be questioned. "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."
As I write this, my process stack (ps) lists 181 processes and KDE's window list contains 50 entries, many of which are Konqueror and Konsole each with multiple tabs open. Among the "bloatier" apps currently running are OpenOffice, Acroread, VMWare Workstation (though, a VM is not currently running), Tomcat 5/JWSDP 1.3, Umbrello (KDE's UML modeller), jEdit, and 2 database systems (Firebird and IBM U2). This, incidentally, represents a typical "snapshot" of my two workstations (both AMD XP 2200+, w/1GB), at most times. Despite all of this, my current memory usage is 990MB w/ 180MB in buffers/cache, and only 320MB in swap (which is mostly holding my WinXPPro dormant VM!).
The bottom line: "swapping" got you down? By some more RAM! Prices may be on the rise, but it's still likely cheaper than your time.:-p
Wow, it even supports "up to four desktops"! Four!?! Give me a break! I regularly use 12 VDTs in KDE (and some times think about adding a couple more)!
Of the 1% left, 99% of them only read the abstract and not the claims, the claims being what is considered enforceable/infringeable.
Actually, it would seem in this case they do not even read the abstract, which clearly identifies the "invention" as being a method for presenting multiple virtual desktops for easier identification and selection. Not, rather, as a method for "switching among" VDTs as the majority of posters seem to think!
unless you are a Fortune 1000 company, you can't buy a Linux license.
It seems the gist of this is being largely misunderstood... First SCO says "all your code is ours... and you must have a license to use it." Now they're following that up with "only Fortune 1000 companies can buy a license." IOW, "personal users and small companies excluded - from being able to use (y)our code". What nerve! Sounds like more M$ bedsharing to me...
McBride: "Okay, Bill, look... everyone knows Windows sucks in large datacenter-like deployments... so, how about this: you let us have those (we'll just call them "Fortune 1000" installs;), and we'll help you eliminate Linux in... oh, say... everything else! Okay? Please, please, PLEASE, let's do that..."
Gates: "Okay Daryl..." ((heh, heh, heh - but when Longhorn is ready... mwahahahaha!))
This whole topic seems like a non-issue to me. It's a well known adage, "ignorance of the law, is no excuse for disobeying it". That's because everyone is responsible for knowing the laws that apply to him or her and, consequently, the law ("is for all" and it), is readily accessible to all regardless of the public accessibility of private companies performing custom indexing and publishing services. It's called a "law library" and there's one in practically every courthouse in the country - all are publicly accessible and for "free" (er, one's taxes have already paid for it;). Anyone who would strive for self-representation should already be familiar with it and, more importantly, how to use (i.e. research the laws and case materials relevant to a particular matter). The tools for quickly finding and researching laws are also there in the LL - one just needs to know where to be looking and, for those who don't, most LLs have staff (usually with access to the aforementioned services), who can help one get started.
Lawmakers are trying to walk a very fine line between overtechnical impenetrable detail and ambiguous generalities, with lawyers there to help people when they the lawmakers stray too far to one side or the other. If a law is too detailed, no one who is not trained in the area really understands it. If it isn't detailed enough, you need lawyers to explain how the courts have interpreted the ambiguity.
Sounds like "lawyer-speak" to me... since the majority of "lawmakers" are themselves "lawyers" - most, actually, are judges, since case law makes up the majority of "law" - this is just really saying "you need a lawyer to explain what a lawyer explained while trodding the line between ambiguity and obfuscation..." Come on! The job of the judiciary is to transform (i.e. "interpret") the gobbledy-gook (i.e. "legalese") of the legislature into intelligible language with meaning understandable by "all". Ok, so that's not exactly what it says "on the record" (i.e. the Constitution(s)), but it must be close enough "for government work" since, in my experience (i.e. "legal research"), that's what most "lawmaker/judges" apparently try to do. Writing for myself, at least, the law is not so difficult to research, nor is finding how the courts have interpreted it - though this can be more... er, "tricky" (as in Nixon) - afterall, there are plenty of "indexed finding aids" in that aforementioned place (hint, "law library"). In any case, the "law" is one thing, "Rules of Procedure", however, are another matter entirely and, unlike the "law" which is intended to be "of the People, for the People, and by the People", tend to be written, instead, strictly "by the lawyers, for the lawyers, and because of the lawyers"...
unless you have very litigant friendly small claims court rules, you need a lawyer.
True... for assistance, not for "representation"! I've yet to meet a lawyer who ever really "represents" anyone but himself. The "Founding Fathers" (of the USA) - many of whom were themselves "lawyers" - apparently understood this quite well when they chose the wording for the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution for the U.S., for it acknowledges the right of the citizen to not only be "self-represented" but to have "assistance of counsel" - not "representation by counsel" - while so being. Obviously, a revolution can change only so much: the inevitable voluminous growth of "bodies of law", and the need for rules in their arbitration not being among them (er, even "arbitration by war" has its rules of governance:-p ). The average "self-representing" citizen has more that enough to deal with in the former. Lawyers are indeed "needed"... to advise on and assist the litigant with the latter.
--- "I don't 'practice', I do this for real." - Irwin Schiff
XTest must be compiled into X as an extension and appears only to allow "fake key presses" which will probably not be very useful in this context. Expect allows for "automating interactive processes" (and is VERY good at it - IMHO), where such processes are CLI-driven (e.g. telnet, ftp, etc.), and so is also not useful in this context.
It is possible with the latest kernels to redirect the console to a tty at boot time. It can be made to do this manually or automatically. See "CONFIG_SERIAL_CONSOLE" in/usr/src/linux/Documentation/Configure.help for information. You will have to install and configure your boxes normally, but after that you can set them up to do what you want with this option. Also, make sure that your boxes have a BIOS that allows you to disable keyboard checking at power up.
Look in/usr/src/linux/Documentation/cdrom at the file ide-cd. In the end of this text document you will find a small program you can clip and compile that will allow you to manually change the drives on a multi-CD drive. I currently use this on my own system to control a 4x4 drive. It does require that the drive be unmounted before use and then remounted again, however it is a trivial matter to write an interface script to do this for you. You can provide some kind of cataloging and drive locking scheme that will allow your users to access the data they need on demand.
It is unlikely that the kernel's IDE-SCSI emulation driver will work as this driver is intended for ATAPI devices that do not have native drivers in the kernel. Furthermore, you will have to leave ATAPI support out of the kernel when using this option as the ATAPI support will overrule when both are copiled in. Refer to section "SCSI emulation support" in/usr/src/linux/Documentation/Configure.help.
In the wake of mounting "corroboration", it may now, more than ever, behoove the Linux Industry to respond to the Mindcraft challenge. "False", "rigged", "FUD" - these are the cries of the outraged knowing, but where corporate IS is concerned they fall on deaf (or "endeafened") ears. We must remember that up until narely a couple years ago, Linux had practically no coverage in mainstream media and was principally the purvue of relatively small group dedicated Internet hackers and computer enthusiasts. Linux did not make its way into the hallowed halls of big business by atrition the way Microcrap did. Rather, Linux found its way into corporate IS by way of covert installs and closed-door set-ups thanks to the efforts of IS geeks and tech-heads. Unfortunately, however, these are not the people that dictate corporate computer-systems policies... IT management does. If it weren't for the graces and virtues of Linux (stability, availability, cost-of-ownership, etc.), IT management would likely have mandated its removal long ago, relegating Linux's hope of survival back to the domain of devoted hackers and geeks. Now, with the claims produced by Mindcraft and their corroborators, and the direct challenge by Microcrap, IT management can be expected to watch closely the Linux Industry's response to these claims and challenges. An outraged and snorting response is not likely to engender sympathy, but rather apathy! This can not and will not be good for the future of Linux in the eyes of corporate IT management. Big vendor applications will not be enough, big vendor investments will not be enough, user support will not be enough, media support will not be enough, the voices of evangelism will not be enough! These things and more are already on the side of the corporate IS O/S's Linux is climbing up against. In the end, it will be the non-geeky, non-technical IT management force that will decide whether Linux lives or dies in their venue. They do not read Slashdot, they read the Wall Street Journal, they read the New York Times, they read PC WEEK and PC Magazine, but most of all, they listen to the BS of Microcrap! Win or lose, meeting the Mindcraft challenge can only be in the best interests of the Linux Industry.
Slashdot Mirror
one of the reasons why there will never be a true Democracy. The elite in every society tells the commoner and new initiate what to think, and for the most part they fall in line.
I think you're confusing "democracy" with "aristocracy". Ultimately, however, "democracy" is "mob rule", where the voting majority gets to dictate to the voting minority (which I think you're actually driving at). In contrast, the US is a "democratic republic", where the "mob's" voted representatives do the dictating (*cough* presumably in line with wishes of their constituency *cough*).
"Is this like Microsoft asserting control over what programmers may code for Windows?"
Absolutely not! Windows is an operating system whose principal purpose, like all other operating systems, is to provide a platform on which applications can run without having to control hardware directly. Who writes the applications is largely irrelevant, just as it is not in the operating system writer's interest to restrict who can write those applications or under which terms (that's not say they can't do so, just that it's not in their best interest).
The simularity between WoW's "engine hooks" and and Windows' APIs is merely that -- a simularity. WoW is itself an application written with Windows' APIs. WoW /needs/ the operating system in order to run, just as WoW's players need Windows to be able to play the game (Mac version and Wine notwithstanding). Windows, however, does not /need/ WoW in order to exist (though it certainly doesn't hurt Microsoft's bottom line).
One can, of course, state the parallel with WoW addons -- that they /need/ WoW's "engine hooks" to function, but WoW does not need user addons to provide a playable game experience. The principal difference, however, is a commercial one...
Applications, not operating systems, are what sell PCs (and its hardly deniable that a large percentage of WoW players likely have PC's in the first place just to play WoW :-p ). Yet, the applications need the operating system (nevermind that an application /could/ be written to talk to the hardware directly), thus it is in Microsoft's interest to make their operating system APIs available "without restriction" to application writers -- in order for the operating system to sell, there must be applications written for it.
Contrast this to whether WoW needs third-party addons written for it for WoW to sell... it does not. If you, a WoW player, bought WoW (and pay monthly fees to Blizzard), simply for the sake being able to use, say, QuestHelper or Auctioneer then you, "sir" are... well, let's just say among a great minority of players from whom the addon writers are also justified in charging fees and claiming the right to do so...
Yet, were this case, then I'd argue that Blizzard would be equally justified in charging additional "license fees" to the addon writers as well. They do not, of course, since though addons might make the game more "enjoyable" for some players, without them Blizzard would probably still have the most successful MMO currently running.
Nope, I got it immediately, and laughed, too. :-p
Don't replace anything and you have World of Warcraft.
Technically, WoW, as with most other MMOs like it, is a [computer] role-playing game (CRPG), not an adventure game.
Adventure games are distinguished by their puzzle-solving and exploratory aspects, where exploration is a fundamental component of the puzzle solving.
CRPGs, on the other hand, are distinguished by the player taking on some "bad-ass killing dude" persona and performing "quests" (aka "missions") -- which typically means playing the part of a "bad-ass killing dude" on behalf of a beleaguered NPC. Puzzle-solving has no part in it -- "bad-ass killing dudes", after all, don't want to think and solve problems, they want to kill and become increasingly "bad-ass" (aka "level up"). Likewise, "exploration" is merely a necessary side-effect -- often a despised one -- of finding the target(s) of the NPC's anguish, if not the NPCs themselves. This is most recently exemplified in Blizzard's decision to limit flying mounts in Northrend (site of the Wrath expansion), to level 77+. Their reasoning for this: to ensure players have the opportunity to "explore" their new land, rather than merely passing over most of it from above. An understandable desire considering the amount of work they put into creating it. Yet, this one decision has arguably received more criticism than any other from their many millions of beleaguered "bad-asses" who just want to home in on and kill the latest targets.
As before, no puzzles here... move along all you thinkers.
Privilege against "self-incrimination" means you can't be forced to give testimony, make statements, or generally divulge information about all the naughty little things you've done when suspected of wrong-doing (or not). In most circumstances, this also includes in written form. Iow, you can't be forced to "confess". However, if you willingly provide such information -- even if unwittingly so during a police "interview", on your tax forms, etc. -- then your "privilege" is not violated...
Note that this has nothing to do with having your papers and personal effects seized and searched -- which is what this person was actually arguing against in the wrong context, even if he thought he was doing otherwise. If you've already committed the information to a form which can be seized, then you've already done the harm to yourself... and your "privilege", which you've already 'waived', is not in danger of being violated when they do seize the information. To use the judge's analogy, the police were not forcing him to confess anything, they were merely demanding access to his "house" so they could search it for evidence which they believe is already there! This is something different and, apparently, this person made no objections to that. Did they have a warrant for the search? Did they need a warrant for the search? Those are the questions this person needed to argue.
Did you forget to mention that John Titor visited you and gave you the computer (which, of course, he brought back with as a relic from the future)?
It's so complex, in fact, that the solvers don't know how to set the board correctly. :-p
Actually, they're taxing the sale of virtual goods for real money, not the money itself. "Income tax" is not a tax on "income", but a tax on the /source/ of income (or activity which produced it), for which "income" serves only as the measuring stick for the tax.
Obsidian screwed up KoToR2 (neither did the only patch ever released for it help much), now they've screwed up NWN2... and both in many of the same ways. That's it, I've learned my lesson... never again will Obsidian have any of my money. Unforunately, this debacle lowers my trust in Bioware, as well... while Bioware creates winning franchises, their "judgement" in entrusting them to a screw-it-up "developer" like Obsidian leaves much to be questioned. "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."
As I write this, my process stack (ps) lists 181 processes and KDE's window list contains 50 entries, many of which are Konqueror and Konsole each with multiple tabs open. Among the "bloatier" apps currently running are OpenOffice, Acroread, VMWare Workstation (though, a VM is not currently running), Tomcat 5/JWSDP 1.3, Umbrello (KDE's UML modeller), jEdit, and 2 database systems (Firebird and IBM U2). This, incidentally, represents a typical "snapshot" of my two workstations (both AMD XP 2200+, w/1GB), at most times. Despite all of this, my current memory usage is 990MB w/ 180MB in buffers/cache, and only 320MB in swap (which is mostly holding my WinXPPro dormant VM!).
:-p
The bottom line: "swapping" got you down? By some more RAM! Prices may be on the rise, but it's still likely cheaper than your time.
one of their XP Powertoys.
Wow, it even supports "up to four desktops"! Four!?! Give me a break! I regularly use 12 VDTs in KDE (and some times think about adding a couple more)!
Of the 1% left, 99% of them only read the abstract and not the claims, the claims being what is considered enforceable/infringeable.
Actually, it would seem in this case they do not even read the abstract, which clearly identifies the "invention" as being a method for presenting multiple virtual desktops for easier identification and selection. Not, rather, as a method for "switching among" VDTs as the majority of posters seem to think!
current Windows uptime: 11 days, 3 hours, 18 minutes
You forgot to mention that 11 days, 3 hours, 13 minutes of that time is time "sitting untouched and idle".
Wouldn't automount / autofs fall under the same shadow?
:-(
No... those two respond to filesystem accesses, not to "media insertions". However, the 'supermount' patch probably would fall.
unless you are a Fortune 1000 company, you can't buy a Linux license.
;), and we'll help you eliminate Linux in... oh, say... everything else! Okay? Please, please, PLEASE, let's do that..."
It seems the gist of this is being largely misunderstood... First SCO says "all your code is ours... and you must have a license to use it." Now they're following that up with "only Fortune 1000 companies can buy a license." IOW, "personal users and small companies excluded - from being able to use (y)our code". What nerve! Sounds like more M$ bedsharing to me...
McBride: "Okay, Bill, look... everyone knows Windows sucks in large datacenter-like deployments... so, how about this: you let us have those (we'll just call them "Fortune 1000" installs
Gates: "Okay Daryl..." ((heh, heh, heh - but when Longhorn is ready... mwahahahaha!))
Sounds like "lawyer-speak" to me... since the majority of "lawmakers" are themselves "lawyers" - most, actually, are judges, since case law makes up the majority of "law" - this is just really saying "you need a lawyer to explain what a lawyer explained while trodding the line between ambiguity and obfuscation..." Come on! The job of the judiciary is to transform (i.e. "interpret") the gobbledy-gook (i.e. "legalese") of the legislature into intelligible language with meaning understandable by "all". Ok, so that's not exactly what it says "on the record" (i.e. the Constitution(s)), but it must be close enough "for government work" since, in my experience (i.e. "legal research"), that's what most "lawmaker/judges" apparently try to do. Writing for myself, at least, the law is not so difficult to research, nor is finding how the courts have interpreted it - though this can be more... er, "tricky" (as in Nixon) - afterall, there are plenty of "indexed finding aids" in that aforementioned place (hint, "law library"). In any case, the "law" is one thing, "Rules of Procedure", however, are another matter entirely and, unlike the "law" which is intended to be "of the People, for the People, and by the People", tend to be written, instead, strictly "by the lawyers, for the lawyers, and because of the lawyers"...
True... for assistance, not for "representation"! I've yet to meet a lawyer who ever really "represents" anyone but himself. The "Founding Fathers" (of the USA) - many of whom were themselves "lawyers" - apparently understood this quite well when they chose the wording for the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution for the U.S., for it acknowledges the right of the citizen to not only be "self-represented" but to have " assistance of counsel" - not "representation by counsel" - while so being. Obviously, a revolution can change only so much: the inevitable voluminous growth of "bodies of law", and the need for rules in their arbitration not being among them (er, even "arbitration by war" has its rules of governance
---
"I don't 'practice', I do this for real." - Irwin Schiff
XTest must be compiled into X as an extension and appears only to allow "fake key presses" which will probably not be very useful in this context. Expect allows for "automating interactive processes" (and is VERY good at it - IMHO), where such processes are CLI-driven (e.g. telnet, ftp, etc.), and so is also not useful in this context.
It is possible with the latest kernels to redirect the console to a tty at boot time. It can be made to do this manually or automatically. See "CONFIG_SERIAL_CONSOLE" in /usr/src/linux/Documentation/Configure.help for information. You will have to install and configure your boxes normally, but after that you can set them up to do what you want with this option. Also, make sure that your boxes have a BIOS that allows you to disable keyboard checking at power up.
Look in /usr/src/linux/Documentation/cdrom at the file ide-cd. In the end of this text document you will find a small program you can clip and compile that will allow you to manually change the drives on a multi-CD drive. I currently use this on my own system to control a 4x4 drive. It does require that the drive be unmounted before use and then remounted again, however it is a trivial matter to write an interface script to do this for you. You can provide some kind of cataloging and drive locking scheme that will allow your users to access the data they need on demand.
/usr/src/linux/Documentation/Configure.help.
It is unlikely that the kernel's IDE-SCSI emulation driver will work as this driver is intended for ATAPI devices that do not have native drivers in the kernel. Furthermore, you will have to leave ATAPI support out of the kernel when using this option as the ATAPI support will overrule when both are copiled in. Refer to section "SCSI emulation support" in
Regards,
In the wake of mounting "corroboration", it may now, more than ever, behoove the Linux Industry to respond to the Mindcraft challenge. "False", "rigged", "FUD" - these are the cries of the outraged knowing, but where corporate IS is concerned they fall on deaf (or "endeafened") ears. We must remember that up until narely a couple years ago, Linux had practically no coverage in mainstream media and was principally the purvue of relatively small group dedicated Internet hackers and computer enthusiasts. Linux did not make its way into the hallowed halls of big business by atrition the way Microcrap did. Rather, Linux found its way into corporate IS by way of covert installs and closed-door set-ups thanks to the efforts of IS geeks and tech-heads. Unfortunately, however, these are not the people that dictate corporate computer-systems policies... IT management does. If it weren't for the graces and virtues of Linux (stability, availability, cost-of-ownership, etc.), IT management would likely have mandated its removal long ago, relegating Linux's hope of survival back to the domain of devoted hackers and geeks. Now, with the claims produced by Mindcraft and their corroborators, and the direct challenge by Microcrap, IT management can be expected to watch closely the Linux Industry's response to these claims and challenges. An outraged and snorting response is not likely to engender sympathy, but rather apathy! This can not and will not be good for the future of Linux in the eyes of corporate IT management. Big vendor applications will not be enough, big vendor investments will not be enough, user support will not be enough, media support will not be enough, the voices of evangelism will not be enough! These things and more are already on the side of the corporate IS O/S's Linux is climbing up against. In the end, it will be the non-geeky, non-technical IT management force that will decide whether Linux lives or dies in their venue. They do not read Slashdot, they read the Wall Street Journal, they read the New York Times, they read PC WEEK and PC Magazine, but most of all, they listen to the BS of Microcrap! Win or lose, meeting the Mindcraft challenge can only be in the best interests of the Linux Industry.