As with some of the other posters in this thread, you seem to have misunderstood my origonal post...I do not argue that spam is a problem, but I would also argue that it is also not a threat to the infrastructure of the network...
The problem is that we shouldn't blow this out of proportion. We need to look at this from both a social and technical angle. From what I've seen in the past, many companies have not even taken some of the most basic counter-measures against spam. Spam filters and block lists should be standard for almost any mail server installation.
Before you buy more bandwidth, I'ld look at your mail servers...you can block spammer's IPs...if you are seeing a large number of spam mails coming from a single ip or segment, this can be helpful...
Another possibility would be to use a spam filter...some filters can be configured to block an IP for x amount of time if a message has been marked as spam...this would delay mail that came from a server with a single hit, but would help to eliminate traffic from spammers...spam apps tend to only try and send to a user once...delay/deny/etc will throw it out of at least that list...
You probably don't need more bandwidth, just better administration...
Yes, I know that, and I'm not saying it makes spam any better, just that the story seems to be misinformed about the effect of all of the spams on the infrastructure of the network...
I think the quote about spam being a major threat to the stability of the internet is taking it a little far. It might be more than a minor annoyance, but I don't think it's actually going to cause major outages/delays in service. All the traffic genrated by one one spam message is less than the amount it generally takes to display 1 web page...
Spam is a problem, but it's not going to bring the internet to its knees anytime soon...
Kermit...I used that as a download protocol over our campus network back in college...it was an old system, only active for a couple of semesters while I was there...but the network was "8-bit unclean" and would garble characters and such over anything but kermit...then kermit decided it wouldn't work, so I had to use UUEncode...even devised a little script to resend only the packets I needed...but then again, that was back when I had my Amiga and 14.4Kbps was something great...
Why hasn't someone put together a MythTV/Freevo distro??? It could be based on debian or something and would guide the user through the installation and setup of a stand alone setup. In reality, this should be one of the options in a distro that could have support for a PVR, MP3/OGG Jukebox, Arcade Emulator, etc...this seems like a no-brainer and would certainly allow for more ppl to participate in the community.
Even better, why not a live CD which could be used to test hardware and tweak settings with an option to install...much like knoppix...
Not really...as it stands, there's zero cost (besides bandwidth) for them to send out these e-mails...Imposing these fines increases the costs for them to continue this behaviour. Yes, they COULD do it again, but there are continuously diminishing returns for this behaviour...just wait and see what happens if they do it again...there will probably be jail time involved if it happens again...
Yes, but with 6MP cameras (higher resolution than 35mm)...for those that don't know, 35mm is equivalent to 3000x2000 in digital terms (or ~5MP)...and 16MP cameras are available in the high-end professional market (better than Medium Format), it's only a matter of time before all of that technology comes down to a reasonable price...
I think if you have to ask, digital is the only way to go...there really should be no question between Digital and 35mm right now, the question should be Medium Format or Digital...for right now the Digital cameras are cost prohibitive...but give it a few years.
If you buy a decent 3MP snapshot camera right now, by the time you are taking pictures good enough to want a higher MP resolution, Digital SLR cameras will be cheaper.
The other advantage to going with a Digital Snapshot camera is that, if you buy the right one you can add lenses for SLR cameras using a converter...this allows you to rent/buy new lenses that could be used on a SLR camera when you want to upgrade...Not to mention that if you use the LCD to do your framing in digital, you don't need SLR...
Or one of the similar cameras. These are perfect. Not much to go wrong with em. Tons of cheap lenses available...made like a tank...
If you want a new camera, the sucessor of the K1000 is supposed to be the Pentax ZX-M, but Pentax stopped making their own lenses years ago...
I know you say you want to stick with 35mm, but you will find that the cost of film, chemicals (they go bad), time, under/overdeveloped film (if you're doing color), etc can add up and be a pain...
If you aren't quite sure how far you want to go with the whole photography thing, you might look into a digital camera. And may be smart looking below the SLR range. Canon has a new model out this year, the PowerShot A70 that gets 3MP and has options for an underwater body, filter, and extra lenses. You can operate them in fully automatic or manual mode. I have suggested them to more than one person and am expecting one this Christmas to replace my slightly damaged K1000 (sports photography back in high school)...
I used to be 100% 35mm ("just scan your images if you want em in digital")...but the cost of 35mm and film equipment just got out of hand...sold my dark room equipment (kodak color lab) and I'm very excited about getting into digital.
I'll belive it when I can go down to my local Wal-Mart/Office Depot and buy a Sun branded desktop...right now it's all just a bunch of talk...talk is cheap...
We'll probably see the AmigaOne hit the market before we see this in a Wal-Mart...
Don't think so...I've seen nothing happening within Sun (from a tech support angle) that makes me think otherwise. Sun is perfectly happy developing Solaris and charging outrageous fees for hardware upgrades that they could care less what Linux is doing...
Don't get me wrong, I think Sun will slowly see its proprietary *NIX market slip away as customers switch to Linux,,,I just think Sun will do as it has in the past and turn a blind eye to Linux...
The reason most of these companies develop binary-only modules is to keep a leg up on their competition. Put simply, companies like nVidia don't want ATI or Matrox getting hold of their improvements. Some drivers include proprietary technology and speed or quality improvements that either can't or (in the interest of profit) shouldn't be open.
Hardware manufacturers have very little that sets them apart from each other. Their biggest concern is that the driver source code would give away how the hardware works and therefore would show their competitors how to implement their technologies.
Let the hardware manufacturers develop their binary only modules. It's better than what we've seen with the wireless market...which is what we would likely see if we started spouting "show us your source code" to all of the hardware manufacturers that choose to make binary only modules...
And of course the other reason for a binary module is to charge for it (like is being done with Linuxant's DriverLoader) but...just like anything else worthwhile, there is already an open sourced equivalent under development.
Every town has a local cobbler...they ALL sell shoes. Sure, they may be more expensive than Nike or Converse, but they are also generally better quality.
The current libraries might not use DeCSS, but they are derivative works of it and would have never existed without the initial work of DeCSS...and interestingly enough, the law makes very little distinction between a student ripping a DVD and mass-piracy...
The wording here is misleading. He's not really being tried in the same court...if I had to compare it to something most of us would know, it would be the US Supreme Court. You can start small and work your way up through the system, this is what has happened with his case.
What we have now, that we didn't have much of before was derivative works. Just who is using DeCSS? There are certainly a lot of DVD players for Linux that use the libraries to play encrypted DVDs...But on the other hand, every DVD ripper that uses DeCSS code is going to hurt his case.
There may still be a place for proprietary *NIX. We have yet to see any of the major *NIX companies go under. I think what is a more accurate statement is that Open *NIX OSes (primarily Linux and BSD) are changing the face of UNIX.
What we must look at is how companies have dealt with Linux/BSD. SGI is a prime example. SGI and IRIX were huge in Hollywood...production companies started using commodity (x86) hardware w/ Linux for render farms. Time went along, their staff became more comfortable with Linux and at some point in time, someone decided to replace a workstation with a Linux box. It's cheaper and in some cases it's actually better. So what did SGI do? They decided to make their primary focus x86 machines running Linux. They had to change with their customers to keep their business.
The same thing is happening with IBM...one day in the future, AIX will be a thing of the past. This is a fact that has been stated or hinted at by more than one IBM exec.
And then we have Sun. Solaris will probably go down as the last of the proprietary Unicies. Sun has problems both with support and coding. Solaris is still playing catch-up with features AIX had 10 years ago...and their OS still isn't there.
And last and certainly least, we have SCO...we know how they are dealing with Linux. Of course, when SCO is no more and the "authority" on all things on UNIX is gone, who will pick up the pieces...maybe Sun...
Can I download the game, or is it on a CD? Rubies Of Eventide is no longer being offered on CD during open beta. Any updates are automatically downloaded after the installation of the game. All updates are mandatory to run Rubies Of Eventide.
Oh, so this never got out of beta...yet...in the same FAQ...
What do I need to play this game? What are the system requirements? You will need an Internet connection to play Rubies Of Eventide. There is no single player version planned at this time.
Minimum System requirements are:
Pentium 4 or faster Processor 256 MB of RAM (512MB recommended)
Yet the screen shots look real bad (like something from the '90s)...and I'm certain this has to be their best screenshots...
And the whole try before you buy thing seems to have eluded them...as in the same FAQ...
Rubies of Eventide Pricing for 2003 1 month - $14.95 $35.85 for 3 months ($11.95/m) Save 20% off the standard rate!! $65.70 for 6 months ($10.95/m) Look, over 25% off!! $119.40 for a year ($9.95/m)Best deal for almost 35% off at $9.95 a month!!
Ok, so for a recap...
You want me to pay $15/mo to play a beta of a game that I've never heard of and obviously never played with high system requirements that looks like it's about 5 years too late with the graphics...
Ok, I can't tell why this company is having problems selling their beta game to everyone...must be the start of another games crash...
I don't know why, but I have a gut feeling that the "independent" studios will be among the first to utilize the internet as a distribution medium.
The problem is the MPAA is not looking at the big picture (pun intended). There's a reason that ppl are willing to go out of their way to find the movies online. And I'ld argue that a good bit would probably pay to get a good quality online viewing.
I think the MPAA is being forced to change its distribution model...I wouldn't be so harsh as to say that "theaters are dead" (the audience plays a major role here). But certainly one of the major contributors to this is that it will soon cost $10 to see a single showing of a movie at any half-way decent theater (almost the cost of the DeeVeeDee)!!!
While I understand that the theaters have to make money, the technology has not changed signifigantly for almost 10 years.
For those of you saying "this shows Linux is just as insecure as Windoze", look before you speak...
It's obvious that M$ knows just how secure linux is...
However, I'ld just like to point out that this is a result of social engineering. The only thing this proves is that someone on the debian project doesn't know how to keep their passwords safe...
As for those who are asking for answers...just wait...they are dealing with the problem at hand (cleaning their servers)...you can bet that there will be more than one interview/article on this topic as soon as everything is restored...at least they took time out from what I'm sure has become a pretty eventful day to inform everyone what was going on...
I don't think it's hurting Linux to make this wrapper available. Look at the windoze 3DFX wrappers written for OpenGL a while back...did this make ppl suddenly stop developing OpenGL games?
What about Wine? Has the availability and stability of Wine stopped ppl from porting apps to Linux?
For right now, it looks like the wrapper is the only way to go...an I'ld personally rather see a well done, GPLed wrapper than a half-a$$ closed source driver from a company that was "forced" into it...
It's well known that BroadCom has Wireless drivers for Linux (they're even in the firmware for the Linksys WRT54g) and could probably release them tomorrow if it werent for the FCC concerns. They wouldn't have been able to see this wrapper coming months ago.
We have to realize, wireless connectivity is generally reserved for end users...there's security issues with running a server over a wireless link and their main customer base own laptops...and most laptops are not running Linux...
Before I will belive the argument that "this will keep companies from developing Linux drivers", I want to see a company currently developing a Linux driver for their hardware stop, stating this wrapper as the reason ("no need to anymore") or something to that effect...
So, if this is what it takes to get a usable driver under Linux, so be it...
Umh, actually M$ Linux (or more likely BSD) can't actually be ruled out.
It's well known that M$ uses BSD within its own walls...you don't actually think the whole of M$.com is running on IIS do you? Gee, who'd have thunk it? M$'s primary backends look to be Linux.
And what would make them do this? They would simply write proprietary apps that work seemlessly with Windoze systems (M$ SQL Server for M$ Linux, etc) which would make managers who bought new servers feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
The most likely method of imlementing this would be to come out with a new version of Windoze that was Linux/BSD under the hood and market it as Linux compatible (M$ Windoze Advanced Linux Server) or something similar...
You can be certain that if M$ were to develop their own *NIX distro (Xenix doesn't count, it was too early) they would be at the top of the market. It's the whole idea of "if you can't beat em, join em"...
So they can track when I buy a bar of soap...You know what...I'd not actually mind that someone knows that I bought some Irish Spring...maybe I actually want them to know that I like the product.
Ppl are always spinning this RFID thing the wrong way. It's called a live inventory and it is already being done with the bar codes that they scan when you buy your bars of soap (or maybe you don't buy soap...I'm not one to judge). This is the biggest reason they want to do this. Besides serving as a replacement for a bar code, these things could also be used instead of those magnetic security scanners at the doors...you know, the ones that always go off because the cashier forgot to demagnetize the strip or didn't do it properly???
I don't know what ppl are so concerned about. The only ppl that should have these things are stores and maybe your kitchen if you want to know about everything you have...
Anything the store will know about you can already be gained by combining information from an ATM/Credit Card and the bar code scanner...
I really like the fact that they are comparing an end user OS (RHL) to a server/enterprise OS. I would much rather have seen a comparison between RHAS. But even then, it's RedHat 6!!! Maybe someone should mention to them that RHL 6 is so old it isn't even supported any more.
I also like the fact how they are clumping "Linux" in with all open source...I would love to see how they reached these figures...and how would Windoze compare if we started including all of M$'s own software in with their figures...
But exaclty who are they targeting with this? I mean, any sysadmin worth his salt will be able to see right through this and any manager that sees this will surely have a laugh once his Linux ppl tell him how it is...
I'm going to guess that their poor attempt at FUD is a response to Novell's merger with SUSE and IBM's subsequent investment.
What impresses me even further is that this is obviously the best they can do right now...which means that the Linux community is really doing its job when it comes to fixing bugs...
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As with some of the other posters in this thread, you seem to have misunderstood my origonal post...I do not argue that spam is a problem, but I would also argue that it is also not a threat to the infrastructure of the network...
The problem is that we shouldn't blow this out of proportion. We need to look at this from both a social and technical angle. From what I've seen in the past, many companies have not even taken some of the most basic counter-measures against spam. Spam filters and block lists should be standard for almost any mail server installation.
Before you buy more bandwidth, I'ld look at your mail servers...you can block spammer's IPs...if you are seeing a large number of spam mails coming from a single ip or segment, this can be helpful...
Another possibility would be to use a spam filter...some filters can be configured to block an IP for x amount of time if a message has been marked as spam...this would delay mail that came from a server with a single hit, but would help to eliminate traffic from spammers...spam apps tend to only try and send to a user once...delay/deny/etc will throw it out of at least that list...
You probably don't need more bandwidth, just better administration...
Yes, I know that, and I'm not saying it makes spam any better, just that the story seems to be misinformed about the effect of all of the spams on the infrastructure of the network...
I think the quote about spam being a major threat to the stability of the internet is taking it a little far. It might be more than a minor annoyance, but I don't think it's actually going to cause major outages/delays in service. All the traffic genrated by one one spam message is less than the amount it generally takes to display 1 web page...
Spam is a problem, but it's not going to bring the internet to its knees anytime soon...
Kermit...I used that as a download protocol over our campus network back in college...it was an old system, only active for a couple of semesters while I was there...but the network was "8-bit unclean" and would garble characters and such over anything but kermit...then kermit decided it wouldn't work, so I had to use UUEncode...even devised a little script to resend only the packets I needed...but then again, that was back when I had my Amiga and 14.4Kbps was something great...
Why hasn't someone put together a MythTV/Freevo distro??? It could be based on debian or something and would guide the user through the installation and setup of a stand alone setup. In reality, this should be one of the options in a distro that could have support for a PVR, MP3/OGG Jukebox, Arcade Emulator, etc...this seems like a no-brainer and would certainly allow for more ppl to participate in the community.
Even better, why not a live CD which could be used to test hardware and tweak settings with an option to install...much like knoppix...
Not really...as it stands, there's zero cost (besides bandwidth) for them to send out these e-mails...Imposing these fines increases the costs for them to continue this behaviour. Yes, they COULD do it again, but there are continuously diminishing returns for this behaviour...just wait and see what happens if they do it again...there will probably be jail time involved if it happens again...
Yes, but with 6MP cameras (higher resolution than 35mm)...for those that don't know, 35mm is equivalent to 3000x2000 in digital terms (or ~5MP)...and 16MP cameras are available in the high-end professional market (better than Medium Format), it's only a matter of time before all of that technology comes down to a reasonable price...
I think if you have to ask, digital is the only way to go...there really should be no question between Digital and 35mm right now, the question should be Medium Format or Digital...for right now the Digital cameras are cost prohibitive...but give it a few years.
If you buy a decent 3MP snapshot camera right now, by the time you are taking pictures good enough to want a higher MP resolution, Digital SLR cameras will be cheaper.
The other advantage to going with a Digital Snapshot camera is that, if you buy the right one you can add lenses for SLR cameras using a converter...this allows you to rent/buy new lenses that could be used on a SLR camera when you want to upgrade...Not to mention that if you use the LCD to do your framing in digital, you don't need SLR...
Or one of the similar cameras. These are perfect. Not much to go wrong with em. Tons of cheap lenses available...made like a tank...
If you want a new camera, the sucessor of the K1000 is supposed to be the Pentax ZX-M, but Pentax stopped making their own lenses years ago...
I know you say you want to stick with 35mm, but you will find that the cost of film, chemicals (they go bad), time, under/overdeveloped film (if you're doing color), etc can add up and be a pain...
If you aren't quite sure how far you want to go with the whole photography thing, you might look into a digital camera. And may be smart looking below the SLR range. Canon has a new model out this year, the PowerShot A70 that gets 3MP and has options for an underwater body, filter, and extra lenses. You can operate them in fully automatic or manual mode. I have suggested them to more than one person and am expecting one this Christmas to replace my slightly damaged K1000 (sports photography back in high school)...
I used to be 100% 35mm ("just scan your images if you want em in digital")...but the cost of 35mm and film equipment just got out of hand...sold my dark room equipment (kodak color lab) and I'm very excited about getting into digital.
I'll belive it when I can go down to my local Wal-Mart/Office Depot and buy a Sun branded desktop...right now it's all just a bunch of talk...talk is cheap...
We'll probably see the AmigaOne hit the market before we see this in a Wal-Mart...
Don't think so...I've seen nothing happening within Sun (from a tech support angle) that makes me think otherwise. Sun is perfectly happy developing Solaris and charging outrageous fees for hardware upgrades that they could care less what Linux is doing...
Don't get me wrong, I think Sun will slowly see its proprietary *NIX market slip away as customers switch to Linux,,,I just think Sun will do as it has in the past and turn a blind eye to Linux...
The reason most of these companies develop binary-only modules is to keep a leg up on their competition. Put simply, companies like nVidia don't want ATI or Matrox getting hold of their improvements. Some drivers include proprietary technology and speed or quality improvements that either can't or (in the interest of profit) shouldn't be open.
Hardware manufacturers have very little that sets them apart from each other. Their biggest concern is that the driver source code would give away how the hardware works and therefore would show their competitors how to implement their technologies.
Let the hardware manufacturers develop their binary only modules. It's better than what we've seen with the wireless market...which is what we would likely see if we started spouting "show us your source code" to all of the hardware manufacturers that choose to make binary only modules...
And of course the other reason for a binary module is to charge for it (like is being done with Linuxant's DriverLoader) but...just like anything else worthwhile, there is already an open sourced equivalent under development.
Every town has a local cobbler...they ALL sell shoes. Sure, they may be more expensive than Nike or Converse, but they are also generally better quality.
I hardly doubt they didn't at least look at DeCSS code to see how it worked.
The current libraries might not use DeCSS, but they are derivative works of it and would have never existed without the initial work of DeCSS...and interestingly enough, the law makes very little distinction between a student ripping a DVD and mass-piracy...
The wording here is misleading. He's not really being tried in the same court...if I had to compare it to something most of us would know, it would be the US Supreme Court. You can start small and work your way up through the system, this is what has happened with his case.
What we have now, that we didn't have much of before was derivative works. Just who is using DeCSS? There are certainly a lot of DVD players for Linux that use the libraries to play encrypted DVDs...But on the other hand, every DVD ripper that uses DeCSS code is going to hurt his case.
There may still be a place for proprietary *NIX. We have yet to see any of the major *NIX companies go under. I think what is a more accurate statement is that Open *NIX OSes (primarily Linux and BSD) are changing the face of UNIX.
What we must look at is how companies have dealt with Linux/BSD. SGI is a prime example. SGI and IRIX were huge in Hollywood...production companies started using commodity (x86) hardware w/ Linux for render farms. Time went along, their staff became more comfortable with Linux and at some point in time, someone decided to replace a workstation with a Linux box. It's cheaper and in some cases it's actually better. So what did SGI do? They decided to make their primary focus x86 machines running Linux. They had to change with their customers to keep their business.
The same thing is happening with IBM...one day in the future, AIX will be a thing of the past. This is a fact that has been stated or hinted at by more than one IBM exec.
And then we have Sun. Solaris will probably go down as the last of the proprietary Unicies. Sun has problems both with support and coding. Solaris is still playing catch-up with features AIX had 10 years ago...and their OS still isn't there.
And last and certainly least, we have SCO...we know how they are dealing with Linux. Of course, when SCO is no more and the "authority" on all things on UNIX is gone, who will pick up the pieces...maybe Sun...
Lets see...from the FAQ:
Can I download the game, or is it on a CD?
Rubies Of Eventide is no longer being offered on CD during open beta. Any updates are automatically downloaded after the installation of the game. All updates are mandatory to run Rubies Of Eventide.
Oh, so this never got out of beta...yet...in the same FAQ...
What do I need to play this game? What are the system requirements?
You will need an Internet connection to play Rubies Of Eventide. There is no single player version planned at this time.
Minimum System requirements are:
Pentium 4 or faster Processor
256 MB of RAM (512MB recommended)
Yet the screen shots look real bad (like something from the '90s)...and I'm certain this has to be their best screenshots...
And the whole try before you buy thing seems to have eluded them...as in the same FAQ...
Rubies of Eventide Pricing for 2003
1 month - $14.95
$35.85 for 3 months ($11.95/m) Save 20% off the standard rate!!
$65.70 for 6 months ($10.95/m) Look, over 25% off!!
$119.40 for a year ($9.95/m)Best deal for almost 35% off at $9.95 a month!!
Ok, so for a recap...
You want me to pay $15/mo to play a beta of a game that I've never heard of and obviously never played with high system requirements that looks like it's about 5 years too late with the graphics...
Ok, I can't tell why this company is having problems selling their beta game to everyone...must be the start of another games crash...
I don't know why, but I have a gut feeling that the "independent" studios will be among the first to utilize the internet as a distribution medium.
The problem is the MPAA is not looking at the big picture (pun intended). There's a reason that ppl are willing to go out of their way to find the movies online. And I'ld argue that a good bit would probably pay to get a good quality online viewing.
I think the MPAA is being forced to change its distribution model...I wouldn't be so harsh as to say that "theaters are dead" (the audience plays a major role here). But certainly one of the major contributors to this is that it will soon cost $10 to see a single showing of a movie at any half-way decent theater (almost the cost of the DeeVeeDee)!!!
While I understand that the theaters have to make money, the technology has not changed signifigantly for almost 10 years.
Some (read most) theaters will only run movies if the distributing company is a member of the MPAA...
Same goes for DVD sales and the like. I'm surprised that, being a member of NATO, you hadn't heard of this...
For those of you saying "this shows Linux is just as insecure as Windoze", look before you speak...
It's obvious that M$ knows just how secure linux is...
However, I'ld just like to point out that this is a result of social engineering. The only thing this proves is that someone on the debian project doesn't know how to keep their passwords safe...
As for those who are asking for answers...just wait...they are dealing with the problem at hand (cleaning their servers)...you can bet that there will be more than one interview/article on this topic as soon as everything is restored...at least they took time out from what I'm sure has become a pretty eventful day to inform everyone what was going on...
I don't think it's hurting Linux to make this wrapper available. Look at the windoze 3DFX wrappers written for OpenGL a while back...did this make ppl suddenly stop developing OpenGL games?
What about Wine? Has the availability and stability of Wine stopped ppl from porting apps to Linux?
For right now, it looks like the wrapper is the only way to go...an I'ld personally rather see a well done, GPLed wrapper than a half-a$$ closed source driver from a company that was "forced" into it...
It's well known that BroadCom has Wireless drivers for Linux (they're even in the firmware for the Linksys WRT54g) and could probably release them tomorrow if it werent for the FCC concerns. They wouldn't have been able to see this wrapper coming months ago.
We have to realize, wireless connectivity is generally reserved for end users...there's security issues with running a server over a wireless link and their main customer base own laptops...and most laptops are not running Linux...
Before I will belive the argument that "this will keep companies from developing Linux drivers", I want to see a company currently developing a Linux driver for their hardware stop, stating this wrapper as the reason ("no need to anymore") or something to that effect...
So, if this is what it takes to get a usable driver under Linux, so be it...
Umh, actually M$ Linux (or more likely BSD) can't actually be ruled out.
It's well known that M$ uses BSD within its own walls...you don't actually think the whole of M$.com is running on IIS do you? Gee, who'd have thunk it? M$'s primary backends look to be Linux.
And what would make them do this? They would simply write proprietary apps that work seemlessly with Windoze systems (M$ SQL Server for M$ Linux, etc) which would make managers who bought new servers feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
The most likely method of imlementing this would be to come out with a new version of Windoze that was Linux/BSD under the hood and market it as Linux compatible (M$ Windoze Advanced Linux Server) or something similar...
You can be certain that if M$ were to develop their own *NIX distro (Xenix doesn't count, it was too early) they would be at the top of the market. It's the whole idea of "if you can't beat em, join em"...
So they can track when I buy a bar of soap...You know what...I'd not actually mind that someone knows that I bought some Irish Spring...maybe I actually want them to know that I like the product.
Ppl are always spinning this RFID thing the wrong way. It's called a live inventory and it is already being done with the bar codes that they scan when you buy your bars of soap (or maybe you don't buy soap...I'm not one to judge). This is the biggest reason they want to do this. Besides serving as a replacement for a bar code, these things could also be used instead of those magnetic security scanners at the doors...you know, the ones that always go off because the cashier forgot to demagnetize the strip or didn't do it properly???
I don't know what ppl are so concerned about. The only ppl that should have these things are stores and maybe your kitchen if you want to know about everything you have...
Anything the store will know about you can already be gained by combining information from an ATM/Credit Card and the bar code scanner...
I really like the fact that they are comparing an end user OS (RHL) to a server/enterprise OS. I would much rather have seen a comparison between RHAS. But even then, it's RedHat 6!!! Maybe someone should mention to them that RHL 6 is so old it isn't even supported any more.
I also like the fact how they are clumping "Linux" in with all open source...I would love to see how they reached these figures...and how would Windoze compare if we started including all of M$'s own software in with their figures...
But exaclty who are they targeting with this? I mean, any sysadmin worth his salt will be able to see right through this and any manager that sees this will surely have a laugh once his Linux ppl tell him how it is...
I'm going to guess that their poor attempt at FUD is a response to Novell's merger with SUSE and IBM's subsequent investment.
What impresses me even further is that this is obviously the best they can do right now...which means that the Linux community is really doing its job when it comes to fixing bugs...