This strikes me as pretty ridiculous. The lyrics are only part of the song so I'm at a bit of a loss to understand why the music companies should be allowed to control them in this way.
Does this mean that you shouldn't sing a song out loud in a public place as this could be considered 'publishing' the lyrics such that other 'unlicensed' individuals could collect this information in some way...?
Obviously corporations will try to squeeze the last cent from any asset but shouldn't some judge with a bit of common sense just tell them to go away and stop wasting everybody's time and money ?
Modern DASD architecture is almost completely hidden from the user. In the (good?) old days system software needed to interface closely with the DASD and needed to understand the hardware architecture to gain maximum performance from the devices (I know because I work on such systems within an IBM mainframe environment on airline systems which require extremely high speed data access).
Nowadays the disk 'address' of where the data actually resides is still couched in terms that appear to refer to the hardware itself but in 'serious' DASD subsystems (e.g. the IBM DS8000 enterprise storage systems )the actual way in which the hardware handles the data is masked from the operating system. Data for the same file is spread across many physical devices and some version of RAID is used for integrity.
The 4096 value for data 'chunks' has to do with the most efficient amount of data that can be transmitted down a DASD channel (between a host and storage in large systems or the bus in self-contained systems)
The idea of a 'file address' would cease to exist and it would be replaced by a generic 'data address' if it weren't for the in-built assumptions about data retrieval within all current Operating Systems.
My Alienware laptop has been doing stirling service for more than two years. They use high grade components with good build quality and the highest performance in a laptop at the time, just what I was looking for.
I've been an IT professional since well before it was 'trendy'.
My question is why would someone NOT buy a laptop because it had an alien head on it ?
In this case the company is being trusted with someone else's stuff (or 'gun') and as such has a responsibility to take whatever precautions would be considered 'reasonable'. If you were keeping firearms in a building then it is reasonable to require that the 'locks' and other 'security' be sufficient to prevent them falling into the wrong hands. In the case of this data there does not seem to have been sufficient diligence on the part of the company to protect the information entrusted to them.
Bearing in mind the damage that can be done with information like this when used for criminal purposes the penalties for careless handling of such data should be commensurate. This seems another case of the legal framework lagging significantly behind the actual situation in the wild. Hopefully cases such as this will provoke the necessary debate in the media and within the judiciary so that sensible treatment of such cases will be achieved. It is a sad fact that human/corporate nature dictates that if there is no incentive to do the 'right thing' then it is fairly unlikely to be done, if it is inconvenient or costs something.
I don't know about the poster but I live with a few other people, a wife who's an osteopath, working from home and two teenage kids (one of each). This means that my 'home setup' does need to be more than a single box running VMWare (handy though VMWare is)
Having a working machine each is essential (i.e. 4 x PCs) since teenagers don't seem to be able to function without constant access to some form of instant messaging and/or MMORPGs and/or Limewire etc.
Being able to share other resources such as printers, scanners, storage etc. can introduce more hardware. I also have various switches, KVMs, WAPs etc.
The simple facts are that although currently we put this sort of environment together ourselves at the moment this sort of thing will be built-in in future apartments and houses. The best bet for reduced energy consumption is lower power devices, improved buildings, better use of renewable sources and all the other commonly quoted ideas. I'm afraid the technological genie is out of the bottle and I don't see a reduction in the use of devices or facilities within my lifetime (or the lifetime of my two teenegers either).
Perhaps the poster should modify his ideas about classifying people like me without asking a few more questions, should I ever wash up in front of him for an interview....
Researchers should do research and leave the politics to the politicians
Out of the mouths of babes.... Does this poster think that 'politicians' have some higher calling ? I would guess that 90% (or more) of people inside politics view it as simply a career. This implies that most of them would do whatever it took to advance their career, with little thought for consequences beyond anything obviously detrimental to themselves.
This is a difficult topic and certainly not something that should be left to politicians. Regardless of opinions individuals ('researchers') are going to continue to make value judgements on their own in given situations, if they uncover hot/explosive information.
Just please keep the politicians away from such serious issues until we have a consensus and a suitable framework that the politicians can simply implement...
"...Everyone is under the impression that global warming is real and back up their claims with a data sample that is less then 200 years, which is an insanely small sample when you consider the age of the Earth. Climate changes, especially RADICAL climate changes occur over periods of time far greater then 200 years, and to say otherwise is ignorant. I really hope eventually the media stops ushering in the concept that the planet is in distress due to something as stupid as global warming."
After reading this poster's tag-line I did wonder, but then I re-read what he's saying and it does seem he wants this comment taken at face value.
Is it possible that he could have overlooked that climate change in our planet's history did not involve quite the same situation as we have today with the human levels of interference in the natural eco-systems ?
Leaving aside the tendency for the media to over-state, over-dramatise and over-simplify all issues surely when large numbers of far more sobre, intelligent and conscientious members of the global scientific community consider a problem is serious enough for research, debate and recommendations for global action, surely we should listen to them ?
Perhaps the poster has already studied the scientific data and drawn his own conclusions but since science is built on small advances in knowledge (with occasional larger ones) it is surely naive to totally dismiss a field of study that is still so active ?
I could hazard a guess that the poster is from the US, which would be based on a suspicion that information circulating in mainstream media in that part of the world might be unduly influenced by interested parties in energy or government, but I don't want to personalise this in any way. I just think it is naive, dangerous and frankly irresponsible to dismiss this debate while we're still collecting scientific data
"I can't come up with anything else in the entire marketing world where marketers knowingly introduce a flawed or inadequate product [and] it helps grow your user base."
Spoken like a true 'marketer' I would say. Surely most manufacturers would admit that they have not 'perfected' their product before taking it to market. In fact I believe it is those very same 'marketers' that apply the pressure on the manufacturing part of the business to release a product to take advantage of 'time to market' when that product may well be far from perfect.
It is also true, as many have said already, that software is somewhat unique in that modifications can be fairly easily distributed, so people still working on the product can improve something that people already have.
The wide use of a 'beta' also provides far better user testing than could be performed in-house and provided the beta phase proves responsive to user feedback then the overall confidence in the company, from its customers, benefits as well.
Don't marketing types call this stuff 'win-win' or something ?
This seems to make sense for now that the US-based organisations remain in 'control' of key elements of internet naming/configuration. But it seems inevitable that one day (probably sooner than some people, and govenrments think) the net will have significant new power blocks among the developing nations/economies.
China, India and the EU will not always be willing to allow the US to control fundamental elements of the network. Also it seems sensible not to have gone further down the UN route, particularly at the moment, with the UN having difficulties demonstrating its organisational efficiency in other areas.
However we should start to consider how net governance (whatever form that should take) will develop in the future, before the future arrives. Just as China, India et al are in a hurry to explode economically they will also be in a hurry to move forward technologically too and if the US or others appear to be moving too slowly they may well 'go it alone' and develop competing networks.
However there are a number of problems with this obvious idea. Say, I want to go to the main Perl site. Which address should I type into my browser? Is it perl.org.us? Why? Am I supposed to know who Larry Wall is and that he is an American?
There may be some problems with this idea but this isn't one of them. It just happens in the case of Perl that the TLD version of the name/domain is the one you want to see, or the 'main' site. Why is that necessarily true ?
The internet will eventually either be run by an international body (which may or may not be a good thing) or else the developing technology nations like China (Pacific Rim) and India will establish rival networks with possible 'border' connectivity issues and probably content-language differences. What we know as the internet today may well become a portion of a truly global network that caters primarily for English speakers. This could put many of us in the West at a disadvantage since while many Asians and Indians learn English not so many of us learn the various Asian or Indian languages.
I have a feeling the influence of the US over worldwide communications will mirror their prevailing economic power, which is currently declining relative to other economic blocks.
I agree with the sentiments here, that bootstrap code, or any code within reason, is easier to maintain and generally to understand if written in a high level language (such as C). But I come from a mainframe background where bootstrap (or IPL) code has to use machine-specific instructions. Perhaps one day we'll get to the stage of 'standardising' on hardware level controls so that all functionality could be controlled without the need to 'resort' to assembler.
Until then I'm keeping my assembler reference books handy.
While I do understand the US reticence to permit the UN to 'control' aspects of the Internet, particularly as the UN does not come across as particularly efficient/pro-active/effective, it is surely inevitable that either a global body is created to administer dispute resolution etc or one day the network will fracture.
When China, India etc become fully connected and their economies overtake that of the US, which they inevitably will, probably within our lifetimes, they will have little need to allow the US to control such a key resource.
I hope that a middle way can be found before then otherwise I can imagine rival networks emerging.
I certainly agree that a mainframe solution is required for this size of job and brings with it the reliability and operability necessary to provide decent service.
The choice of OS should be Transaction Processing Facility (TPF) however, as this is much faster than VM, or any other mainframe OS.
IBM have already proclaimed that a TPF system was capable of supporting at least 250,000,000 email addresses (approximately one for each US citizen) when they developed their mail server for TPF.
People that understand TPF have been saying for some time that many heavy internet sites would probably be more manageable if they used TPF, which now supports Apache as well.
For those unaware of TPF it is the software that has powered the huge airline computer systems for years.
In fact the biggest handicap TPF has is IBM's internal politics that have historically relegated it to a poor relation behind CICs/IMS, which it outperforms as a TP system comfortably.
This falls in nicely with the overall MS strategy. They no doubt hope to integrate learning about MS software and applications into infants school right there alongside the three R's as part of a basic preparation for adult life....(a bit like they integrate other people's 'applications' into Windows)
Joking aside, how long before some enterprising MSerf makes a serious suggestion along those lines ? Am I alone in being a little worried about that ?
I thought we were past this "My country's better than your country" stuff. "My country invented XXXXX so it's ours !". The US has really only been in the inventing business for a short time. It has done quite well, but how does this square with 'open source' and the spirit of sharing ideas ? I know that someone needs to coordinate efforts of large groups but the US has by no means a monopoly on ideas, intellect, integrity etc.
Eventually, as the 'global community' matures most truly global issues, which will probably include the internet (or whatever name it goes by then) will be corodinated by global bodies, not a provincial, self-appointed group that claims some form of 'ownership' or 'divine right' of administration and control.
Apologies up front as I'm a bit of a dinosaur but I have been in the business for over 25 years. Starting in IBM Assembler, which I still use today, I have since branched out across C, C++, Perl & Rexx to name a few languages but the question was about OSs....
My main job is working on IBM's TPF (Transaction Processing Facility) but that requires knowledge of MVS and VM (because they run support systems for TPF. But nowadays we all use Windoze (either 2000 or XP) on our workstations and are expected to be pretty handy with those as well. Then there is the new integration of Linux as the new support system for TPF to (eventually) replace MVS and VM. Still with me ?
So, over the years people in my line of work have had to pick up necessary knowledge and skills on TPF, MVS, VM, Win2k, WinXP and Linux. Although in half these cases we are no more than 'power users' for at least three of these we need to be comfortable at the lowest levels of operation, configuration and management.
As systems evolve there is definitely a need for those people that are comfortable in multiple environments. Best just get used to it I suppose.
IBM are often depicted as having tremendous product marketing but they don't always apply it. The Transaction Processing Facility (TPF) operating system is a case in point. Powering most of the large, high transaction processing Travel, Transportation and Credit Card sites (e.g. SABRE, Amadeus, Visa, American Express etc.) it has rapidly moved from an older, proprietary architecture to being POSIX-compliant (it runs Apache, has a mail server, supports Perl etc. and this on a mainframe) yet is the fastest transaction processing system available. (It also has a similarity to Linux in that it is distributed with the source and has historically accepted contributions from users to the base product. Yes, I know it is still IBM's product that they charge a lot of money for, but the collaborative mindset was active all the same.)
IBM have singularly failed to spot that TPF and the early airline systems were effective forerunners of e-commerce websites (well before 'website' was a word) and that TPF could/should have been marketed as a truly 'Enterprise' class server.
Having said all that I think it is good that IBM champion Linux in the way they do. They have always tried to offer a 'soup to nuts' solution for business and a robust, scalable OS that can run on almost all the machine architectures they offer must be a godsend. They should be applauded for standing behind Linux and demonstrating that it is sound for corporate use and with IBM supporting it will also be around for several budget cycles making it legitimate to spend the corporate dollars on.
I get the impression they don't understand the legislation. I don't see how else they can think its a good idea.
I think it really implies that not only might they not understand the legislation itself but they also don't appear to understand the underlying technical subject matter or how the software development process works (and works best). It seems clear with many of the US Patents granted to software over the past 10 years that not much is being learned from the global discussion on this matter either.
It must be hard for the Patent Offices to work with so many different technologies but they continue to plough on making dubious judgements. Undoing the mess already created could take years. Of course by that time the large software companies, with a vested interest in maintaining the 'mess', will have benefited hugely.
Bearing in mind the business the NSA is in how reliable is any claim they make, about anything ? Surely the key thing here is that nobody (neither NSA, nor GCHQ, nor any other security service) can be sure that others have not either penetrated their current secure communications or are not communicating themselves in new and presently undetectable ways. No country has cornered the market in great minds and I would further venture that more brilliant mathematicians live, work and are being born outside the US than inside, and many of them would not wish to work for a clandestine US organisation, however much money (or coffee) was on offer.
Paranoia must be the watchword I would imagine...
Slashdot Mirror
This strikes me as pretty ridiculous. The lyrics are only part of the song so I'm at a bit of a loss to understand why the music companies should be allowed to control them in this way.
Does this mean that you shouldn't sing a song out loud in a public place as this could be considered 'publishing' the lyrics such that other 'unlicensed' individuals could collect this information in some way...?
Obviously corporations will try to squeeze the last cent from any asset but shouldn't some judge with a bit of common sense just tell them to go away and stop wasting everybody's time and money ?
Modern DASD architecture is almost completely hidden from the user. In the (good?) old days system software needed to interface closely with the DASD and needed to understand the hardware architecture to gain maximum performance from the devices (I know because I work on such systems within an IBM mainframe environment on airline systems which require extremely high speed data access).
Nowadays the disk 'address' of where the data actually resides is still couched in terms that appear to refer to the hardware itself but in 'serious' DASD subsystems (e.g. the IBM DS8000 enterprise storage systems )the actual way in which the hardware handles the data is masked from the operating system. Data for the same file is spread across many physical devices and some version of RAID is used for integrity.
The 4096 value for data 'chunks' has to do with the most efficient amount of data that can be transmitted down a DASD channel (between a host and storage in large systems or the bus in self-contained systems)
The idea of a 'file address' would cease to exist and it would be replaced by a generic 'data address' if it weren't for the in-built assumptions about data retrieval within all current Operating Systems.
My Alienware laptop has been doing stirling service for more than two years. They use high grade components with good build quality and the highest performance in a laptop at the time, just what I was looking for.
I've been an IT professional since well before it was 'trendy'.
My question is why would someone NOT buy a laptop because it had an alien head on it ?
This is not quite the same situation.
In this case the company is being trusted with someone else's stuff (or 'gun') and as such has a responsibility to take whatever precautions would be considered 'reasonable'. If you were keeping firearms in a building then it is reasonable to require that the 'locks' and other 'security' be sufficient to prevent them falling into the wrong hands. In the case of this data there does not seem to have been sufficient diligence on the part of the company to protect the information entrusted to them.
Bearing in mind the damage that can be done with information like this when used for criminal purposes the penalties for careless handling of such data should be commensurate. This seems another case of the legal framework lagging significantly behind the actual situation in the wild. Hopefully cases such as this will provoke the necessary debate in the media and within the judiciary so that sensible treatment of such cases will be achieved. It is a sad fact that human/corporate nature dictates that if there is no incentive to do the 'right thing' then it is fairly unlikely to be done, if it is inconvenient or costs something.
I don't know about the poster but I live with a few other people, a wife who's an osteopath, working from home and two teenage kids (one of each). This means that my 'home setup' does need to be more than a single box running VMWare (handy though VMWare is)
Having a working machine each is essential (i.e. 4 x PCs) since teenagers don't seem to be able to function without constant access to some form of instant messaging and/or MMORPGs and/or Limewire etc.
Being able to share other resources such as printers, scanners, storage etc. can introduce more hardware. I also have various switches, KVMs, WAPs etc.
The simple facts are that although currently we put this sort of environment together ourselves at the moment this sort of thing will be built-in in future apartments and houses. The best bet for reduced energy consumption is lower power devices, improved buildings, better use of renewable sources and all the other commonly quoted ideas. I'm afraid the technological genie is out of the bottle and I don't see a reduction in the use of devices or facilities within my lifetime (or the lifetime of my two teenegers either).
Perhaps the poster should modify his ideas about classifying people like me without asking a few more questions, should I ever wash up in front of him for an interview....
Out of the mouths of babes.... Does this poster think that 'politicians' have some higher calling ? I would guess that 90% (or more) of people inside politics view it as simply a career. This implies that most of them would do whatever it took to advance their career, with little thought for consequences beyond anything obviously detrimental to themselves.
This is a difficult topic and certainly not something that should be left to politicians. Regardless of opinions individuals ('researchers') are going to continue to make value judgements on their own in given situations, if they uncover hot/explosive information.
Just please keep the politicians away from such serious issues until we have a consensus and a suitable framework that the politicians can simply implement...
After reading this poster's tag-line I did wonder, but then I re-read what he's saying and it does seem he wants this comment taken at face value.
Is it possible that he could have overlooked that climate change in our planet's history did not involve quite the same situation as we have today with the human levels of interference in the natural eco-systems ?
Leaving aside the tendency for the media to over-state, over-dramatise and over-simplify all issues surely when large numbers of far more sobre, intelligent and conscientious members of the global scientific community consider a problem is serious enough for research, debate and recommendations for global action, surely we should listen to them ?
Perhaps the poster has already studied the scientific data and drawn his own conclusions but since science is built on small advances in knowledge (with occasional larger ones) it is surely naive to totally dismiss a field of study that is still so active ?
I could hazard a guess that the poster is from the US, which would be based on a suspicion that information circulating in mainstream media in that part of the world might be unduly influenced by interested parties in energy or government, but I don't want to personalise this in any way. I just think it is naive, dangerous and frankly irresponsible to dismiss this debate while we're still collecting scientific data
"I can't come up with anything else in the entire marketing world where marketers knowingly introduce a flawed or inadequate product [and] it helps grow your user base."
Spoken like a true 'marketer' I would say. Surely most manufacturers would admit that they have not 'perfected' their product before taking it to market. In fact I believe it is those very same 'marketers' that apply the pressure on the manufacturing part of the business to release a product to take advantage of 'time to market' when that product may well be far from perfect.
It is also true, as many have said already, that software is somewhat unique in that modifications can be fairly easily distributed, so people still working on the product can improve something that people already have.
The wide use of a 'beta' also provides far better user testing than could be performed in-house and provided the beta phase proves responsive to user feedback then the overall confidence in the company, from its customers, benefits as well.
Don't marketing types call this stuff 'win-win' or something ?
This seems to make sense for now that the US-based organisations remain in 'control' of key elements of internet naming/configuration. But it seems inevitable that one day (probably sooner than some people, and govenrments think) the net will have significant new power blocks among the developing nations/economies.
China, India and the EU will not always be willing to allow the US to control fundamental elements of the network. Also it seems sensible not to have gone further down the UN route, particularly at the moment, with the UN having difficulties demonstrating its organisational efficiency in other areas.
However we should start to consider how net governance (whatever form that should take) will develop in the future, before the future arrives. Just as China, India et al are in a hurry to explode economically they will also be in a hurry to move forward technologically too and if the US or others appear to be moving too slowly they may well 'go it alone' and develop competing networks.
However there are a number of problems with this obvious idea. Say, I want to go to the main Perl site. Which address should I type into my browser? Is it perl.org.us? Why? Am I supposed to know who Larry Wall is and that he is an American?
There may be some problems with this idea but this isn't one of them. It just happens in the case of Perl that the TLD version of the name/domain is the one you want to see, or the 'main' site. Why is that necessarily true ?
The internet will eventually either be run by an international body (which may or may not be a good thing) or else the developing technology nations like China (Pacific Rim) and India will establish rival networks with possible 'border' connectivity issues and probably content-language differences. What we know as the internet today may well become a portion of a truly global network that caters primarily for English speakers. This could put many of us in the West at a disadvantage since while many Asians and Indians learn English not so many of us learn the various Asian or Indian languages.
I have a feeling the influence of the US over worldwide communications will mirror their prevailing economic power, which is currently declining relative to other economic blocks.
I agree with the sentiments here, that bootstrap code, or any code within reason, is easier to maintain and generally to understand if written in a high level language (such as C). But I come from a mainframe background where bootstrap (or IPL) code has to use machine-specific instructions. Perhaps one day we'll get to the stage of 'standardising' on hardware level controls so that all functionality could be controlled without the need to 'resort' to assembler.
Until then I'm keeping my assembler reference books handy.
While I do understand the US reticence to permit the UN to 'control' aspects of the Internet, particularly as the UN does not come across as particularly efficient/pro-active/effective, it is surely inevitable that either a global body is created to administer dispute resolution etc or one day the network will fracture.
When China, India etc become fully connected and their economies overtake that of the US, which they inevitably will, probably within our lifetimes, they will have little need to allow the US to control such a key resource.
I hope that a middle way can be found before then otherwise I can imagine rival networks emerging.
The choice of OS should be Transaction Processing Facility (TPF) however, as this is much faster than VM, or any other mainframe OS.
IBM have already proclaimed that a TPF system was capable of supporting at least 250,000,000 email addresses (approximately one for each US citizen) when they developed their mail server for TPF.
People that understand TPF have been saying for some time that many heavy internet sites would probably be more manageable if they used TPF, which now supports Apache as well.
For those unaware of TPF it is the software that has powered the huge airline computer systems for years.
In fact the biggest handicap TPF has is IBM's internal politics that have historically relegated it to a poor relation behind CICs/IMS, which it outperforms as a TP system comfortably.
For the curious: http://www-306.ibm.com/software/htp/tpf/
or http://www.blackbeard.com/tpf
This falls in nicely with the overall MS strategy. They no doubt hope to integrate learning about MS software and applications into infants school right there alongside the three R's as part of a basic preparation for adult life....(a bit like they integrate other people's 'applications' into Windows)
Joking aside, how long before some enterprising MSerf makes a serious suggestion along those lines ? Am I alone in being a little worried about that ?
I thought we were past this "My country's better than your country" stuff. "My country invented XXXXX so it's ours !". The US has really only been in the inventing business for a short time. It has done quite well, but how does this square with 'open source' and the spirit of sharing ideas ? I know that someone needs to coordinate efforts of large groups but the US has by no means a monopoly on ideas, intellect, integrity etc.
Eventually, as the 'global community' matures most truly global issues, which will probably include the internet (or whatever name it goes by then) will be corodinated by global bodies, not a provincial, self-appointed group that claims some form of 'ownership' or 'divine right' of administration and control.
This looks great but can some people please think of better applications than advertising...
Surely Fujitsu have more exotic plans for this technology than curved posters ?
Apologies up front as I'm a bit of a dinosaur but I have been in the business for over 25 years. Starting in IBM Assembler, which I still use today, I have since branched out across C, C++, Perl & Rexx to name a few languages but the question was about OSs....
My main job is working on IBM's TPF (Transaction Processing Facility) but that requires knowledge of MVS and VM (because they run support systems for TPF. But nowadays we all use Windoze (either 2000 or XP) on our workstations and are expected to be pretty handy with those as well. Then there is the new integration of Linux as the new support system for TPF to (eventually) replace MVS and VM. Still with me ?
So, over the years people in my line of work have had to pick up necessary knowledge and skills on TPF, MVS, VM, Win2k, WinXP and Linux. Although in half these cases we are no more than 'power users' for at least three of these we need to be comfortable at the lowest levels of operation, configuration and management.
As systems evolve there is definitely a need for those people that are comfortable in multiple environments. Best just get used to it I suppose.
Fascinating, the article is even dated July 2005, obviously a quantum effect.
IBM are often depicted as having tremendous product marketing but they don't always apply it. The Transaction Processing Facility (TPF) operating system is a case in point. Powering most of the large, high transaction processing Travel, Transportation and Credit Card sites (e.g. SABRE, Amadeus, Visa, American Express etc.) it has rapidly moved from an older, proprietary architecture to being POSIX-compliant (it runs Apache, has a mail server, supports Perl etc. and this on a mainframe) yet is the fastest transaction processing system available. (It also has a similarity to Linux in that it is distributed with the source and has historically accepted contributions from users to the base product. Yes, I know it is still IBM's product that they charge a lot of money for, but the collaborative mindset was active all the same.)
IBM have singularly failed to spot that TPF and the early airline systems were effective forerunners of e-commerce websites (well before 'website' was a word) and that TPF could/should have been marketed as a truly 'Enterprise' class server.
Having said all that I think it is good that IBM champion Linux in the way they do. They have always tried to offer a 'soup to nuts' solution for business and a robust, scalable OS that can run on almost all the machine architectures they offer must be a godsend. They should be applauded for standing behind Linux and demonstrating that it is sound for corporate use and with IBM supporting it will also be around for several budget cycles making it legitimate to spend the corporate dollars on.
I get the impression they don't understand the legislation. I don't see how else they can think its a good idea.
I think it really implies that not only might they not understand the legislation itself but they also don't appear to understand the underlying technical subject matter or how the software development process works (and works best). It seems clear with many of the US Patents granted to software over the past 10 years that not much is being learned from the global discussion on this matter either.
It must be hard for the Patent Offices to work with so many different technologies but they continue to plough on making dubious judgements. Undoing the mess already created could take years. Of course by that time the large software companies, with a vested interest in maintaining the 'mess', will have benefited hugely.
Bearing in mind the business the NSA is in how reliable is any claim they make, about anything ? Surely the key thing here is that nobody (neither NSA, nor GCHQ, nor any other security service) can be sure that others have not either penetrated their current secure communications or are not communicating themselves in new and presently undetectable ways. No country has cornered the market in great minds and I would further venture that more brilliant mathematicians live, work and are being born outside the US than inside, and many of them would not wish to work for a clandestine US organisation, however much money (or coffee) was on offer. Paranoia must be the watchword I would imagine...