You know, it seems ironic to me that MS is about to be attacked by its own software. They made the poor design decisions and let people open executable files directly, and now they (may) have to deal with the consequences.
At my university, the email server has been brought to a grinding halt. Some idiotic administrator with access to the email distribution list (that goes to all the students) opened the virus, and so every student on campus got several emails with the virus.
It's taken them over a day to start blocking it. Of course, this is the same IT "Services" that has every single incoming port either ghosted or blocked at an enormous firewall. File sharing is blocked in any direction, and the only outgoing ports open are 80, 21, and a few others.
It's interesting to note that while areas of the campus-wide network were clogged by MSBlaster last year, the engineering department didn't even feel it. In fact, one of the sysadmins said, "We sat back and laughed." The CS and IT guys, on the other hand, were running around like headless chickens because they were totally unprepared.
Q: Have you had direct talks with customers yet?
A: Very carefully over the last quarter, instead of sending out mass invoices, we stepped very carefully and really had a lot of direct one-on-one meetings with 15 or so companies. In the process of doing that, we learned a lot. We listened. We talked. And we went back and forth. About 20% of those companies signed licenses with us.
That means 3 companies signed licenses. MS, and who else? That's not a stellar record.
And now, something from the article I didn't know before:
Q: Do you think that any copyright or patent-protected Unix code has actually found its way into Linux?
A: Unlikely. There are now a number of people who have access to both Unix sources and Linux code, and literally written automated tools to find similarities. They found something like 30 lines from [Silicon Graphics, SGI ] that were dubious and that had been removed already.
I hadn't known that there were people with access to Unix source that were working on this. I guess now we know that there isn't unix code in Linux, contributed by IBM or otherwise. We don't have to wait for SCO to 'produce' (read: falsify) evidence. As far as I'm concerned, case closed.
I see this as a huge opportunity for AMD. They rate their processors based on how many times faster than a Duron 1 GHz runs. Thus, an AthlonXP3000+ runs three times as fast.
However, Intel rates their chips by clockspeed, and with the less-efficient pipeline, a 3 GHz P4 is not three times as fast as a 1GHz P3.
Thus, as chips get faster, AMD's chips will get better performance, not only cycle-for-cycle, but even rating-for-rating!
SCO can't find any code from SysV in Linux. If there were any SysV code in Linux, they would have been able to find it, since they have the source code to both. There would have been no need to ask IBM for Sequent/Dynix code, since they would have found 'their' (SCO's) code in both SysV and Linux.
In other words, no SysV code in Linux
So they asked IBM for all the code that IBM has written, trying to find out exactly what code from IBM made it into both Unix and Linux. This leads me to the conclusion that they consider all code written by IBM for Unix to belong to SCO as a 'derivative work'. However, they (and we) don't know whether IBM developed the code specifically for Unix (and later contributed it to Linux), or whether IBM wrote it for both Unix and Linux at the same time.
If IBM originally wrote the code for both, I can't see how SCO can claim ownership/copyright/patent/IP rights/whatever. However, even if IBM did write it for Unix and later contributed it to Linux, SCO still have to prove that the code IBM wrote belongs to them(SCO). I find that doubtful at best.
As a Mormon, let me make a minor correction. There has never been any teaching, policy, or doctrine in this church that allows for, let alone encourages, spilling the blood of an enemy to redeem them (also known as "blood atonement"). That rumor is often spread by people opposed to our church who take fragments of sentences out of context to make us look silly. The church does support capital punishment, but leaves such affairs to the proper authority--the justice system.
Popularity is not a problem in an of itself. It merely multiplies the liability of buggy code.
If M$ had actually written decent code, encouraging bug-free and secure design (ie firing anyone responsible for a buffer overflow bug), Joe sixpack-type people would have no reason to upgrade to 2k or XP.
Of course, that may have been M$'s intention from the beginning...
I see one glaring problem with this kind of product. In order to have a screen large enough for video, it has to be too large to make easily portable. I can see a children's toy this size, but I can't imagine a businessman taking it on the plane with him.
The release schedule is the *only* reason I can see for region encoding. And since everyone and their dog can strip their DVD player of region restrictions, it's a useless 'feature' anyway.
Can somebody please enlighten me as to the benefits of region encoding? I simply cannot see how the movie industry makes more money by selling to certain people earlier.
People are using Win2k now, in a less-secure state than it will have a few years from now when it gets EOL'ed. I would not be the least surprised if, 5 years from now, as many people are still using Win2k (instead of XP or Longhorn), as are using Win98 today.
I use Win98 (since lots of games won't run on Win2k and I refuse to go to XP), and even though it's not secure, I know that if something dies, I can *just* reinstall. I can use a boot floppy and be able to see everything on all my partitions. I don't want to have to deal with jumping through all of MS's hoops to reinstall because their sofware is buggy and unreliable.
Maybe they think stealing music is like driving seventy mph on the freeway -- it's over the speed limit, but what's the big deal?
This has got to be the most insightful observation I have heard anyone "in the industry" make about people downloading music/movies/whatever over P2P for free.
Personally, I feel just as bad about downloading songs as I do about going 5 or 10 mph over the limit--not bad at all.
This is just an off-the-wall idea that just occured to me. I use Mozilla T-bird with Bayesian filtering. If a spammer 'circumvents' the 'security measure' that prevents his junk from getting in my mailbox, can I take him to court?
The RIAA also claims that its tactics are actually working -- to increase awareness and reduce online piracy.
But if their sales/revenue continues to decline, what's the point of "increasing awareness and reducing online piracy"? They are no better off (except for the settlement money), and possibly even worse!
It's interesting--most people don't realize that lightning rods are put in place in order to decrease the chance of lightning hitting there. The pointed tip 'leaks' out the electric charge of the earth, decreasing the voltage and the resulting chance of arcing.
So does that mean that the fact that Hollywood uses lots of Linux mean that they have a lower chance of being sued?
There's a wonderfully effective and simple way to block cookies, banner ads, flash, and any other junk. Go to Kazaalite.com and download the latest hosts file. Copy it into the appropriate directory, and *poof* no more ads. I have yet to find anything more effective or easy to use.
AMEN! I run Win98. It does everything that WinXP does, with exceptions such as stability and security, which don't bother me all that much (I use it for games, etc). It also uses far fewer resources, leaving more for my games. Why should I pay my hard-earned money for an OS that requires more resources for the same functionality? It's like buying a new car because it has a prettier coat of paint, even though it gets worse gas mileage.
You can't tell me that I need to get a new hard drive just because Longhorn will take 3GB on my hard drive for all those pretty backgrounds and pictures for your MP3 player.
The funny thing is that the greek, as it was, was almost readable--a lot of the letters are very close to, if not the same as, their english counterparts. Throw in a basic knowledge of any eastern-European language or alphabet (Russian worked for me), and you can read almost every single word--without changing it back to english letters!
Amen. I have a Thinkpad 600 (PII 266 MHz) that is rock-solid stable, very sturdily built, and performs plenty well. Now, if only I could get Warcraft II to run on it...
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You know, it seems ironic to me that MS is about to be attacked by its own software. They made the poor design decisions and let people open executable files directly, and now they (may) have to deal with the consequences.
We may not remember his name, but when(/if) he ever applies for another directing job, the "people who count" will know.
At my university, the email server has been brought to a grinding halt. Some idiotic administrator with access to the email distribution list (that goes to all the students) opened the virus, and so every student on campus got several emails with the virus.
It's taken them over a day to start blocking it. Of course, this is the same IT "Services" that has every single incoming port either ghosted or blocked at an enormous firewall. File sharing is blocked in any direction, and the only outgoing ports open are 80, 21, and a few others.
It's interesting to note that while areas of the campus-wide network were clogged by MSBlaster last year, the engineering department didn't even feel it. In fact, one of the sysadmins said, "We sat back and laughed." The CS and IT guys, on the other hand, were running around like headless chickens because they were totally unprepared.
Q: Have you had direct talks with customers yet?
A: Very carefully over the last quarter, instead of sending out mass invoices, we stepped very carefully and really had a lot of direct one-on-one meetings with 15 or so companies. In the process of doing that, we learned a lot. We listened. We talked. And we went back and forth. About 20% of those companies signed licenses with us.
That means 3 companies signed licenses. MS, and who else? That's not a stellar record.
And now, something from the article I didn't know before:
Q: Do you think that any copyright or patent-protected Unix code has actually found its way into Linux?
A: Unlikely. There are now a number of people who have access to both Unix sources and Linux code, and literally written automated tools to find similarities. They found something like 30 lines from [Silicon Graphics, SGI ] that were dubious and that had been removed already.
I hadn't known that there were people with access to Unix source that were working on this. I guess now we know that there isn't unix code in Linux, contributed by IBM or otherwise. We don't have to wait for SCO to 'produce' (read: falsify) evidence. As far as I'm concerned, case closed.
I see this as a huge opportunity for AMD. They rate their processors based on how many times faster than a Duron 1 GHz runs. Thus, an AthlonXP3000+ runs three times as fast.
However, Intel rates their chips by clockspeed, and with the less-efficient pipeline, a 3 GHz P4 is not three times as fast as a 1GHz P3.
Thus, as chips get faster, AMD's chips will get better performance, not only cycle-for-cycle, but even rating-for-rating!
Here's the way I see it:
SCO can't find any code from SysV in Linux. If there were any SysV code in Linux, they would have been able to find it, since they have the source code to both. There would have been no need to ask IBM for Sequent/Dynix code, since they would have found 'their' (SCO's) code in both SysV and Linux.
In other words, no SysV code in Linux
So they asked IBM for all the code that IBM has written, trying to find out exactly what code from IBM made it into both Unix and Linux. This leads me to the conclusion that they consider all code written by IBM for Unix to belong to SCO as a 'derivative work'. However, they (and we) don't know whether IBM developed the code specifically for Unix (and later contributed it to Linux), or whether IBM wrote it for both Unix and Linux at the same time.
If IBM originally wrote the code for both, I can't see how SCO can claim ownership/copyright/patent/IP rights/whatever. However, even if IBM did write it for Unix and later contributed it to Linux, SCO still have to prove that the code IBM wrote belongs to them(SCO). I find that doubtful at best.
As a Mormon, let me make a minor correction. There has never been any teaching, policy, or doctrine in this church that allows for, let alone encourages, spilling the blood of an enemy to redeem them (also known as "blood atonement"). That rumor is often spread by people opposed to our church who take fragments of sentences out of context to make us look silly. The church does support capital punishment, but leaves such affairs to the proper authority--the justice system.
Since this is very public...
I hope you're referring to his outrageous statements, not the interview with the Bishop. Those interviews are entirely confidential
Popularity is not a problem in an of itself. It merely multiplies the liability of buggy code.
If M$ had actually written decent code, encouraging bug-free and secure design (ie firing anyone responsible for a buffer overflow bug), Joe sixpack-type people would have no reason to upgrade to 2k or XP.
Of course, that may have been M$'s intention from the beginning...
Do we know that McBride is a Mormon?
I hope not. If he is, he is a disgrace to everything that we Mormons stand for.
I see one glaring problem with this kind of product. In order to have a screen large enough for video, it has to be too large to make easily portable. I can see a children's toy this size, but I can't imagine a businessman taking it on the plane with him.
The release schedule is the *only* reason I can see for region encoding. And since everyone and their dog can strip their DVD player of region restrictions, it's a useless 'feature' anyway.
Can somebody please enlighten me as to the benefits of region encoding? I simply cannot see how the movie industry makes more money by selling to certain people earlier.
People are using Win2k now, in a less-secure state than it will have a few years from now when it gets EOL'ed. I would not be the least surprised if, 5 years from now, as many people are still using Win2k (instead of XP or Longhorn), as are using Win98 today.
I use Win98 (since lots of games won't run on Win2k and I refuse to go to XP), and even though it's not secure, I know that if something dies, I can *just* reinstall. I can use a boot floppy and be able to see everything on all my partitions. I don't want to have to deal with jumping through all of MS's hoops to reinstall because their sofware is buggy and unreliable.
Maybe they think stealing music is like driving seventy mph on the freeway -- it's over the speed limit, but what's the big deal?
This has got to be the most insightful observation I have heard anyone "in the industry" make about people downloading music/movies/whatever over P2P for free.
Personally, I feel just as bad about downloading songs as I do about going 5 or 10 mph over the limit--not bad at all.
This is just an off-the-wall idea that just occured to me. I use Mozilla T-bird with Bayesian filtering. If a spammer 'circumvents' the 'security measure' that prevents his junk from getting in my mailbox, can I take him to court?
The RIAA also claims that its tactics are actually working -- to increase awareness and reduce online piracy.
But if their sales/revenue continues to decline, what's the point of "increasing awareness and reducing online piracy"? They are no better off (except for the settlement money), and possibly even worse!
It's interesting--most people don't realize that lightning rods are put in place in order to decrease the chance of lightning hitting there. The pointed tip 'leaks' out the electric charge of the earth, decreasing the voltage and the resulting chance of arcing.
So does that mean that the fact that Hollywood uses lots of Linux mean that they have a lower chance of being sued?
There's a wonderfully effective and simple way to block cookies, banner ads, flash, and any other junk. Go to Kazaalite.com and download the latest hosts file. Copy it into the appropriate directory, and *poof* no more ads. I have yet to find anything more effective or easy to use.
PHB = Pointy-haired boss. A reference to Dilbert.
for all those dormant BOFH's to spring into action! After all, nothing is more dangerous than a PHB with a little information!
Get US-encoded DVD's? Does the submitter mean getting those DVD's in Australia, or does he mean getting them to legally play in Australia.
If the first, well....fat chance. The guys running those publishing companies have their heads in a tight, dark place.
If the second, just ax the region encoding on your DVD player.
AMEN! I run Win98. It does everything that WinXP does, with exceptions such as stability and security, which don't bother me all that much (I use it for games, etc). It also uses far fewer resources, leaving more for my games. Why should I pay my hard-earned money for an OS that requires more resources for the same functionality? It's like buying a new car because it has a prettier coat of paint, even though it gets worse gas mileage.
You can't tell me that I need to get a new hard drive just because Longhorn will take 3GB on my hard drive for all those pretty backgrounds and pictures for your MP3 player.
I'll just stick with my OS that takes 200 MB...before I strip it down under 5 MB
...unless I don't know, IBM decides to appeal the decision ...
IBM will win. If they don't, they'll appeal. Their case is solid enough that the next-highest judge probably wouldn't refuse to hear the case.
The only question I have is this: when SCO lose, will they appeal?
The funny thing is that the greek, as it was, was almost readable--a lot of the letters are very close to, if not the same as, their english counterparts. Throw in a basic knowledge of any eastern-European language or alphabet (Russian worked for me), and you can read almost every single word--without changing it back to english letters!
Amen. I have a Thinkpad 600 (PII 266 MHz) that is rock-solid stable, very sturdily built, and performs plenty well. Now, if only I could get Warcraft II to run on it...