I would love to be able to use GMail in one window and search Google in another, yet not have my searches associated with my gmail user id.
If Google went ahead and implemented this feature in its own browser, my hat is really off to them! I thought they very much liked the current situation where everyone's activity relentlessly ends up being yoked to their google user id.
The author has spent may years of his practice (he is a pediatrician) to study in detail how each vaccine is made, what variants are available, which ingredients are present, what are the side effects, and when does the vaccine need to be administered. For each vaccine, he summarizes the reasons to take it, reasons to avoid it, and then gives his own recommendation.
Overall, I feel he provides a great overview of the available information to allow parents to make an informed choice.
This is a very good resources that presents both sides of the issue without assuming that either one of the crazy or criminal a priori:
http://www.amazon.com/Vaccine-Book-Decision-Parenting-Library/dp/0316017507
And for the "science is great" camp out here - believe it or not, but not all of the people who may disagree with you on this issue are uneducated ignorant morons. In fact, if take your head out of your textbooks and look around, you might find the world is not quite as black and white as the letters on those pages lead you to believe.
To be fair, there was a lot of "shareware" and "freeware" hobbyist momentum around windows in late 80s / early 90s. However, by now, it's mostly been twisted by the spamware and adware and all cool things tend to become open source instead.
In fact, there was a cult of sorts around Microsoft, before it became mainstream. Heck, even now there are people who think having Windows Mobile on their cell phone is "cool". Not the sort of people who'd actually write programs, by and large, but still that is a cult in a way. Just not a cult in the slashdot demographic.
Interesting. I think it's actually an instance of the prisoner's dilemma. Advertisers would be better off if they all scaled back, but they don't think the other guy will do it and they don't want to be the only ones who do because then they will clearly lose. So the equilibrium is that they both hurt each other.
It seems the only way out of the PD situation is to provide a forcing function that gives players assurance of the other player's cooperation (see wikipedia's examples with GPL and tobacco companies being for laws limiting cigarette advertising). For example, making annoying advertising illegal should do the trick.
IANAL, but from what I understand there is a reason people don't read patents, at least in the US. If you violate a patent knowingly, you are liable for triple damages, whereas is you violate it unknowingly, only single damages.
It will be great for opensource if licensing UI features becomes prevalent. GPL and all of the other licenses will work just as well for design elements as it does for functions and libraries. If you create an original UI element, you just attach a license to it that requires any other UI element in the same program to be freely licensable under the same terms.
Unfortunately, you won't even know. It won't even come as a patch from Microsoft. You will just be working on some great GPLed project, like Mono, or Samba, or something totally unrelated to any Microsoft technology even. But it will turn out later that Microsoft happens to own a patent that covers something in this project. Or perhaps Microsoft will *later* acquire a patent that covers something in this project.
All it's going to take is a few highly publicized cases where Microsoft sues some high profile customers of other distros for infinging their patents, and the court agrees. Even if the court doesn't agree, this can go on for years and cause great harm.
Could this happen without the Novell + Microsoft agreement? Sure. But the agreement gives Microsoft a nice foot in the door and gives Novell management incentive not to care about possible infringement, as long as there is this nebulous 'interoperability'. Speaking of which, as others have pointed out, Microsoft could ensure 100% interoperability simply by publishing the specs and giving a wide not-to-sue covenant to everyone. They don't do this. Why? Because "there must be a price to free".
What they *are* doing, is attempting to make linux into a corporations-only playground, because then they will be able to kill (or "manage") it using their traditional tacktics.
Look, the only interesting reason for this whole thing was always Mono. But this was on shaky grounds all alone and now that Java is GPLed (with good patent not-to-sue covenants), the need for Mono is just not there. My advice - don't walk, run from Novell. There's just nothing good that come from this deal. It's a trap.
Tell me, what's the best case outcome? Perhaps for Novell, the best case is that SUSE becomes the only "safe-for-business" distribution and Red Hat and Ubuntu go away. Is that the best case? Not for anyone outside Novell management. Or maybe Red Hat and Ubuntu also enter into these kinds of deals and then there will be three "safe-for-business" distributions. This amounts to a Microsoft tax on Linux, plus ability to choose who is allowed to play and what they are allowed to do.
The most likely outcome? I think everyone will shun Novell like they now shun SCO. But not before there is a lot of damage. It will take many years to recover.
I also think their intentions are crystal clear, yet I disagree with your view. Odd how this can happen.
I think what they are after is this: they want to consolidate the business use of Linux into a few corporate hands and then control those hands.
How? Like this:
* create an impression that only one (or N) Linux vendors are legitimate and that the rest carry potential patent risks
* in case the risks do not seem real enough, at the same time provide an incentive to incorporate MS-patented code into Linux (by Novel and by the "non-commercial" developers)
Or look at it like this. MS can't just take the GPLed code and run with it, like they could with BSD. But instead, they can pay Novel to develop code on their behalf that they can then redistribute via simple bundling. So far so good. Linus would say it's fine as long as we get the contributions back. But not really - those contributions will likely be tainted by MS's patents. This is because Novel has no incentive to avoid this and MS has a strong incentive to steer Novel towards their patents. So if Linus takes the code, he will risk dramatically raising risks of infringing MS patents, thus making Linux into a Novel-only property for business use. If he does not, MS has effectively stolen the GPLed code without contributing changes back. Nice work.
Sure they will be happy to strike this kind of deal with other distros. The more of them are involved, the more patented code will tend to get into Linux, and the more control MS will have. I'm hesitant to use the Tolkien analogy, but it is still true - the 9 kings no doubt also thought they were getting a good deal when they got their magical rings.
I regularly try to hover Treo stylus over a link
on
A GUI For Books
·
· Score: 1
on the screen and expect a url to showup somewhere like it does in the browser status bar.
By the same token it should be ok to fire a rifle into a crowed. As long as it is not an automatic rifle, there is very little chance of any single person getting shot!
In fact, if this ever happens, it is not even necessary to report it on the news. After all, it would only needlessly alarm the public.
He probably just doesn't have the code to run as a non-root user without requiring password. While his developers are working on it, he's blowing smoke and waving hands. "these are not the droids you are looking for" "who needs to run as non-root anyway".
Meanwhile Windows is moving to a Least Priveleged User model, and for a good reason. I bet Linspire will shortly as well.
Slashdot Mirror
I would love to be able to use GMail in one window and search Google in another, yet not have my searches associated with my gmail user id. If Google went ahead and implemented this feature in its own browser, my hat is really off to them! I thought they very much liked the current situation where everyone's activity relentlessly ends up being yoked to their google user id.
Also, see Dr. Sears' blog with a lot of current information http://www.askdrsears.com/thevaccinebook/
The author has spent may years of his practice (he is a pediatrician) to study in detail how each vaccine is made, what variants are available, which ingredients are present, what are the side effects, and when does the vaccine need to be administered. For each vaccine, he summarizes the reasons to take it, reasons to avoid it, and then gives his own recommendation.
Overall, I feel he provides a great overview of the available information to allow parents to make an informed choice.
This is a very good resources that presents both sides of the issue without assuming that either one of the crazy or criminal a priori: http://www.amazon.com/Vaccine-Book-Decision-Parenting-Library/dp/0316017507
And for the "science is great" camp out here - believe it or not, but not all of the people who may disagree with you on this issue are uneducated ignorant morons. In fact, if take your head out of your textbooks and look around, you might find the world is not quite as black and white as the letters on those pages lead you to believe.
In fact, there was a cult of sorts around Microsoft, before it became mainstream. Heck, even now there are people who think having Windows Mobile on their cell phone is "cool". Not the sort of people who'd actually write programs, by and large, but still that is a cult in a way. Just not a cult in the slashdot demographic.
It seems the only way out of the PD situation is to provide a forcing function that gives players assurance of the other player's cooperation (see wikipedia's examples with GPL and tobacco companies being for laws limiting cigarette advertising). For example, making annoying advertising illegal should do the trick.
IANAL, but from what I understand there is a reason people don't read patents, at least in the US. If you violate a patent knowingly, you are liable for triple damages, whereas is you violate it unknowingly, only single damages.
It will be great for opensource if licensing UI features becomes prevalent. GPL and all of the other licenses will work just as well for design elements as it does for functions and libraries. If you create an original UI element, you just attach a license to it that requires any other UI element in the same program to be freely licensable under the same terms.
Unfortunately, you won't even know. It won't even come as a patch from Microsoft. You will just be working on some great GPLed project, like Mono, or Samba, or something totally unrelated to any Microsoft technology even. But it will turn out later that Microsoft happens to own a patent that covers something in this project. Or perhaps Microsoft will *later* acquire a patent that covers something in this project.
All it's going to take is a few highly publicized cases where Microsoft sues some high profile customers of other distros for infinging their patents, and the court agrees. Even if the court doesn't agree, this can go on for years and cause great harm.
Could this happen without the Novell + Microsoft agreement? Sure. But the agreement gives Microsoft a nice foot in the door and gives Novell management incentive not to care about possible infringement, as long as there is this nebulous 'interoperability'. Speaking of which, as others have pointed out, Microsoft could ensure 100% interoperability simply by publishing the specs and giving a wide not-to-sue covenant to everyone. They don't do this. Why? Because "there must be a price to free".
What they *are* doing, is attempting to make linux into a corporations-only playground, because then they will be able to kill (or "manage") it using their traditional tacktics.
Look, the only interesting reason for this whole thing was always Mono. But this was on shaky grounds all alone and now that Java is GPLed (with good patent not-to-sue covenants), the need for Mono is just not there. My advice - don't walk, run from Novell. There's just nothing good that come from this deal. It's a trap.
Tell me, what's the best case outcome? Perhaps for Novell, the best case is that SUSE becomes the only "safe-for-business" distribution and Red Hat and Ubuntu go away. Is that the best case? Not for anyone outside Novell management. Or maybe Red Hat and Ubuntu also enter into these kinds of deals and then there will be three "safe-for-business" distributions. This amounts to a Microsoft tax on Linux, plus ability to choose who is allowed to play and what they are allowed to do.
The most likely outcome? I think everyone will shun Novell like they now shun SCO. But not before there is a lot of damage. It will take many years to recover.
Lay off the Sauron's ring. No good come from it.
I think what they are after is this: they want to consolidate the business use of Linux into a few corporate hands and then control those hands. How? Like this:
* create an impression that only one (or N) Linux vendors are legitimate and that the rest carry potential patent risks
* in case the risks do not seem real enough, at the same time provide an incentive to incorporate MS-patented code into Linux (by Novel and by the "non-commercial" developers)
Or look at it like this. MS can't just take the GPLed code and run with it, like they could with BSD. But instead, they can pay Novel to develop code on their behalf that they can then redistribute via simple bundling. So far so good. Linus would say it's fine as long as we get the contributions back. But not really - those contributions will likely be tainted by MS's patents. This is because Novel has no incentive to avoid this and MS has a strong incentive to steer Novel towards their patents. So if Linus takes the code, he will risk dramatically raising risks of infringing MS patents, thus making Linux into a Novel-only property for business use. If he does not, MS has effectively stolen the GPLed code without contributing changes back. Nice work.
Sure they will be happy to strike this kind of deal with other distros. The more of them are involved, the more patented code will tend to get into Linux, and the more control MS will have. I'm hesitant to use the Tolkien analogy, but it is still true - the 9 kings no doubt also thought they were getting a good deal when they got their magical rings.
on the screen and expect a url to showup somewhere like it does in the browser status bar.
In fact, if this ever happens, it is not even necessary to report it on the news. After all, it would only needlessly alarm the public.
He probably just doesn't have the code to run as a non-root user without requiring password. While his developers are working on it, he's blowing smoke and waving hands. "these are not the droids you are looking for" "who needs to run as non-root anyway". Meanwhile Windows is moving to a Least Priveleged User model, and for a good reason. I bet Linspire will shortly as well.