While it's perfectly possible, there is very little evidence to go on - a few teeth and jaw bones. Without a find of much more than this, I'd suggest this is case not proven/wishful thinking and would not be surprised if the fossils turned out to belong to a giant panda or perhaps even a sheep. The article does not inspire confidence with stuff like "This was known as the Pleistocene period, by which time humans had already existed for a million years." For "humans" perhaps one should say "the forerunners of modern man" since my understanding is that homo sapiens did not show up until 900,000 years or so later. In addition, given its diet and the huge quantities required to sustain 600 kg of body mass, I should imagine the alleged creature probably farted itself to death.
Kudos to the developers. I guess this is more for experimenters and early adopters but it's great to see. There are surely going to be a great many experiments along these lines in the next few years. Whover gets the paradigm right is going to be making billions, most likely: intelligent key -> dumb terminal -> network -> master server running back the apps, with everything just the way you like it from your preferences data. As with mobile phones, I guess the keys/thumb drives would end up being almost given away to secure a monthly network subscription. Hmmn, tasty. Flash memory will need to change and improve first, though. We'll need masses of it, and cheap.
All they really needed was one word: Sorry. No one really needs reams of technobabble instead from which there does not emerge an undertaking to supply a removal tool, nb. Perhaps they aren't sorry then, just sony. Sigh.
What's all the fuss about? Apple have spent years laboriously building themselves up as a premium brand. Why should they throw that away now by selling their OS separately or licensing clones? They'd have almost nothing to gain and everything to lose. Besides, the clone route was tried a few years ago and it was a total disaster.
Apple doesn't have to become huge. Even a few more percentage points in the desktop market would still make them a very large and fabulously profitable company. Movies? No problem. Issue really good multiplatform iMovie software tied into Intel's hardware DRM. Ten times easier than faffling around with the whole OS.
Besides, there are many other things that Apple might want to do in the next few years as computing moves off the PC and into embedded devices, and, possibly, a client-server system using broadband emerges. Apple is far more than just a computer company these days. Joining the bargain-bin crowd in CompUSA is the last thing they need.
This sounded like one of those "fishing" measures beloved of the UK police whereby they gain a power so vague they can use it to pursue just about anything. Granny not paid her TV licence? Ooh, there might be compromising evidence on a PC in her house.
The notion that terrorists stroll around with all their details encrypted on a laptop PC is completely false anyway. A good terrorist cell would have been trained ruthlessly to avoid such an obvious compromise and organized so that it had no information to retain or pass on anway. What they need to know would be a few fleeting instructions on a job by job basis. The most successful terrorist outfit of modern times, the Irish Republic Army, did not become viciously successful by using computers, FFS. Computers weren't even around for most of its active history. And such evidence as there is suggests that many terrorist operations have been coordinated on the basis of using throw-away mobile phones on a one-off basis.
Perhaps it isn't very important why Hubert Mantell has left SuSE, only that he has. Much more important is a big vote of thanks to someone whose dedication and hard work have done an immense amount for SuSE and most likely for anyone who uses Linux (at lot of them will have started out with SuSE). He helped found the company, after all. Here's wishing him all the very best in life and whatever he decides to do next. Sometime soon, Novell's loss will be our gain.
Really, this could be the mafia talking - "nothing personal, it's just business", etc. You threaten, you cheat, you BS and just in case there is any comeback you libel the guy by claiming that had you not done any of those things, he would have blackmailed you. Oh, and everyone else behaves like this, you claim, so that's OK too. Another day, another guy pushed through the wood-chipper.
And people wonder why Microsoft isn't trusted and is fast ending up with negative brand value.
Unfortunately the article doesn't dilate on exactly what Micrososft mean by "This coming 'services wave' will be very disruptive". But broadly it does suggest that a Google/Sun combo or similar outfit offering office apps on a client/server basis would really turn over the applecart, maybe not right now but sometime soon when the technology is robust enough.
I guess two other things emerge from the article. First, Microsoft is getting sucked deeper into an impossible dilemma. They know they must become more and more friendly both to developers and to open source. But smooching with open source appears to shaft their lucrative closed-source licensing model. If there is a way out, they don't seem to have figured it yet.
Second, sure, the memo was probably meant to be leaked. Why? Well, it suggests that Microsoft see the next few years as a serious and testing challenge for them. Since about 2000, they've had it easy because nothing fundamental has changed in the industry. But now the plates are shifting...
I think you've missed the point I was trying to make which is that folks like Gates or Jobs would focus on end-user needs and do their best to introduce some sanity to the building site and rubble side of Linux. That has nothing to do with making something closed source. It has all to do with making tough decisions that some main lights of the open source movement seem unable or unwilling to make. Sooner or later, I think they will have to face them, or face having those decisions made for them. That might well include forking the kernel if - hypothetically - a cabal of nutty Utopians was felt to be holding the Linux project to ransom.
As an ordinary end-user (Debian, Ubuntu and SUSE) I feel ground down by all the rowing and politics in and around Linux. Most of it is utterly immature and some of it is Utopian enough to make an anticapitalist rioter look like Gordon Gecko. You can be as open source as you like, but unless you produce an operating system that does what people want, in a way that suits them, then no one will use it and they'd be mugs if they did.
Most of us want something that "Just Works" and have no wish to live in a permanent building site because developers are so blinded by politics and squabbles they cannot ever see the finished building. I guess there isn't much hope for desktop Linux unless a fairly powerful outfit moves in, forks the kernel if necessary and focuses ruthlessly on delivering what the end user wants, not what a clutch of devs decide an end-user "should" want or must be made to want in a politically correct world. And if that means a very different model of kernel development and a binary driver api, so be it. Ironcially, if either Steve Jobs or Bill Gates were running a big Linux distro this is very likely the approach they would take, I would guess, and no one can accuse either of being unsuccessful.
Running a Mac is great so long as nothing goes wrong. If or when something does go foobar, total vendor lock-in on both hardware and software can spell hell. I had a really bad experience of this with Apple a few years ago afer running Macs for more than a decade and I won't be using them again. Yes, Apple have a great OS and some nice machines, no question. But there is too high a ticket attached to it all for me. Once you've handed over the cash, they have you by the balls and the fantasies of California cool are replaced by the harsh realities of dealing with a baboon in warranty repairs and hanging around entirely at their leisure.
Windows may be a nightmare but at least you're not tied down with the hardware. And with Linux, if your needs are fairly simple, you can avoid the worst of the OS nightmares anyway. Quite a few comments on this thread suggest that a lot of folks are beginning to lose patience with the prospects of desktop Linux, though, so perhaps the opportunities for desktop Linux to get a hold on the market are closing down scarily fast.
Well golly, good for him, but why should I care? Last year he was all for Gnome and perhaps next year he'll be all for Xfce. Fine. Great. But are Ubuntu's users going to make some nice, rational choices of their own or is that the sound of stampeding hooves I hear as the herd swerves off after new horizons?
There's an opportunistic streak to Ubuntu and, imho, they've yet to show they've got what it takes for the long haul. To some extent they've taken advantage of disarray within Debian and now it looks as if they are taking advantage of disarray in the desktop environment sphere as the more established, kitchen-sink distros realign a little. However, announcing that you are up for something just after a putative rival has canned it doesn't really amount to much. I use Ubuntu on my laptop. Excellent distro, though I confess it still isn't a rival to the full Debian I use on my desktop. Maybe in a couple of years it will be, but not now.
Wait a couple of weeks for the dust to settle. There have been all sorts of changes announced at Novell and all sorts of rumors swirling around as well. The publicity side of things hasn't been very competently handled by Novell and it's hard to know exactly what's going on at the moment.
In any case, from the sound of this, Novell's commercial Linux products will now focus on Gnome, but it's free products - i.e., OpenSUSE - will continue to offer both Gnome and KDE as they do now. If this is true, it really doesn't make much of a difference. Products intended for corporate desktops and "special situations" are always going to be tightly focused subsets of what's available. It's long been clear that Gnome is more suitable for that market. Common sense really on Novell's part. SUSE 10 shows that they can put a Gnome DE together with the best of them anyway.
This all rather begs the question of whether Novell really know what they are doing at the moment. Their chairman is very reminiscent of the swivel-eyed "Dr Gil" of Apple fame and we know what happened to him.
Novell's make or break is in the enterprise, just as Red Hat's is. This sphere has absolutely nothing to do with some promising free desktops like K/Ubuntu or the merits of amarok or k3b. Sorry if this disappoints the Ubuntu-fanciers on here but that's business for you.
Isn't this a cheap stunt? It's not as if there's the remotest chance of South Korea accepting the offer. And if they really want Linux, there are plenty of other flavas to choose with no license fees attached at all. I guess I'm just surprised that this guy didn't throw in a bearded lady, a two-headed cow and Rocky the giant raccoon. I guess the South Koreans are too well mannered to have suggested to him where to go.
After all, Microsoft is a bully. If they are going to beat up a country, it will be an impoverished and obscure one where there is minimal loss involved, not an important one in a part of the world that supplies a large chunk of high tech and helps to underwrite the US budget deficit.
Jeez, not this subject again. It's been done to death already, and puffing it up into a "Monroe Doctrine" is just so grandiose. BS. Much better to wait until after the Tunis internet governance meeting in a few weeks' time. All that putting it on Slashdot produces is a ding-dong with a whole lot of rednecks. If the subject shows anything, then it is the extent to which the present US Administration has angered even America's most moderate good friends around the world in too many ways. I guess many Americans might be surprised at this but it's happened and it's not good news.
AMD comes out on top quite rightfully but actually neither of these processors offers good value for, perhaps, the majority of all computer buyers. A great deal of what folks do - word processing, surfing, email, etc - can be done very well on a p3, a Mac Mini or even a Via Epia combo. The trend to bigger is better has simply landed people with behemoth-sized machines that are expensive to buy and run and messy to maintain.
It's also allowed free rein to OS bloat. And 1001 WinDel reviewers who'll gladly tell us that we really must have that 5-litre SUV to run the kids a couple of miles to school. That said, if you do need this kind of power then imho AMD's current chips offer a superb solution, but it's not for everyone.
It's all flim-flam. This quote from the article sums it up:
It could be just as likely that the police are looking at the controversial extension measures simply because the lack of resources mean terrorist hard drives could be part of a wider queuing system.
In other words, in most cases deciphering Osama bin Kebab's hard drive would take far less than 90 days, but lack of manpower means it doesn't happen. This is the UK after all. If a shortage of tea ladies meant that tea and biscuits in police stations took longer to be served, the police would be pushing for the incarceration of suspects for six months or more in order to reflect this catastrohpic state of affairs. Besides, if the police want your computer, they just turn up and take it away anyway. Unless you're lucky enough to be categorized as a major terrorist you'd be unlikely to see it again inside twelve months, let alone three.
These days they mess up old bones in old cathedrals in order to put somewhere on the map and provide an attraction for thousands of credulous visitors from all over the world.
In the Middle Ages they messed up old bones in old cathedrals in order to put somewhere on the map and provide an attraction for thousands of credulous vistors from all over the world.
Let the old guy rest in peace. Why should he want a thousand cheap busts and other trinkets knocked out in his name in the local tourist shops? Modern scientists: the religious relic traders of yesterday had nothing on them.
A fair guess is that Microsoft has seen which way the wind is blowing and decided to put forward a proposition that's essentially on behalf of business before someone else puts forward a proposition that's a lot more tilted towards Joe Citizen or other business models.
A difficulty with any law of this kind is that essentially if it's going to have teeth then it's going to be anti-business, in the sense that business will always push for a greater invasion of privacy than legislators or citizens are going to feel comfortable with. It's rather hard to believe that a convicted monopoly is the best arbiter of this unavoidable clash of interests, though to be fair it's an issue that exists in every country in the Western world.
Of course, one can't help noticing that the requirements over "secondary" uses of information would be problematic for a company with a lot of alliances with third-parties and an interest in personal data, like erm Google, and less problematic for a company where more of it is kept in house, like erm MSN or Windows Live, and where the information is much less personal. And various hints that regulatory compliance might cost big bucks could knock out a lot of small guys. By amazing coincidence, a federal law would then knock out some perhaps tougher state laws, too.
Nope. The idea that a convicted monopoly should "help" politicians decide what's in my interest strikes me as gross. Even grosser, perhaps, is that the politicians should think it's a good idea to accept this generous offer.
I thought Vista was meant to be a whole new operating built from the ground up with dependability - not to mention security - in mind? Oh well. I guess I'll just have to pretend that's what Vista is all about while waiting 20 years for Singularity. Actually sounds an extremely interesting idea but perhaps it won't see the light of day till Gates and co have gone.
Hmmn, a completely new operating system from Microsoft: "It's a complete lie, of course. But you can't afford to be too scrupulous when you have world domination in mind." E.L. Wisty
It can be helpful to look at the bigger picture and think for yourself from time to time. Choice is not an absolute virtue and computer users have already shown in 1001 different ways that they prefer one app that just works to half a dozen that don't regardless of where they come from. And if these guys want to do GNU/Solaris, then kudos and every success to them. But as an ordinary end-user I'll stick with Debian Sid. Don't fancy investing hundreds or thousands of hours in a project that turns out to be a cul de sac with parking space for as many as 15 users. There's already been enough of that on Linux, at least, to last a lifetime. The best folks to take an open version of Solaris forward are Sun and if they can't be shagged then keep clear imho.
What is the point of this project? To show it can be done, like the Debian/BSD stuff? I thought Debian were trying to deliver more consistent quality on a smaller number of architectures rather than spread themselves too thinly. This endless scooting off in new directions isn't necessarily A Good Thing. After all, Sun have opened up Solaris and then done precious little to foster a community around it, a hint that they may just be playing games and chasing publicity as usual rather than showing a serious commitment to f/oss.
Hmmn, this is Linux. I thought the first thing you did with Linux was have a beer (or six) and a few roll-ups while surveying the damage. Sad there's no room for these. I think I'd also take a pack of Trojans as well. You never know. You might strike lucky while waiting long hours for machines to re-establish themselves in a large office full of rather bored people. Finally, an IRC client. This would enable me to cobble together a solution from the experts on one of the distro channels while passing it all off as my own work, plus keep up to speed with the footie results.
Slashdot Mirror
While it's perfectly possible, there is very little evidence to go on - a few teeth and jaw bones. Without a find of much more than this, I'd suggest this is case not proven/wishful thinking and would not be surprised if the fossils turned out to belong to a giant panda or perhaps even a sheep. The article does not inspire confidence with stuff like "This was known as the Pleistocene period, by which time humans had already existed for a million years." For "humans" perhaps one should say "the forerunners of modern man" since my understanding is that homo sapiens did not show up until 900,000 years or so later. In addition, given its diet and the huge quantities required to sustain 600 kg of body mass, I should imagine the alleged creature probably farted itself to death.
Kudos to the developers. I guess this is more for experimenters and early adopters but it's great to see. There are surely going to be a great many experiments along these lines in the next few years. Whover gets the paradigm right is going to be making billions, most likely: intelligent key -> dumb terminal -> network -> master server running back the apps, with everything just the way you like it from your preferences data. As with mobile phones, I guess the keys/thumb drives would end up being almost given away to secure a monthly network subscription. Hmmn, tasty. Flash memory will need to change and improve first, though. We'll need masses of it, and cheap.
Quack quack quack. It's that ruddy duck again.
Quack quack
Who's there?
Dapper
Dapper who?
Da person you are calling knows you are waiting
All they really needed was one word: Sorry. No one really needs reams of technobabble instead from which there does not emerge an undertaking to supply a removal tool, nb. Perhaps they aren't sorry then, just sony. Sigh.
What's all the fuss about? Apple have spent years laboriously building themselves up as a premium brand. Why should they throw that away now by selling their OS separately or licensing clones? They'd have almost nothing to gain and everything to lose. Besides, the clone route was tried a few years ago and it was a total disaster.
Apple doesn't have to become huge. Even a few more percentage points in the desktop market would still make them a very large and fabulously profitable company. Movies? No problem. Issue really good multiplatform iMovie software tied into Intel's hardware DRM. Ten times easier than faffling around with the whole OS.
Besides, there are many other things that Apple might want to do in the next few years as computing moves off the PC and into embedded devices, and, possibly, a client-server system using broadband emerges. Apple is far more than just a computer company these days. Joining the bargain-bin crowd in CompUSA is the last thing they need.
This sounded like one of those "fishing" measures beloved of the UK police whereby they gain a power so vague they can use it to pursue just about anything. Granny not paid her TV licence? Ooh, there might be compromising evidence on a PC in her house.
The notion that terrorists stroll around with all their details encrypted on a laptop PC is completely false anyway. A good terrorist cell would have been trained ruthlessly to avoid such an obvious compromise and organized so that it had no information to retain or pass on anway. What they need to know would be a few fleeting instructions on a job by job basis. The most successful terrorist outfit of modern times, the Irish Republic Army, did not become viciously successful by using computers, FFS. Computers weren't even around for most of its active history. And such evidence as there is suggests that many terrorist operations have been coordinated on the basis of using throw-away mobile phones on a one-off basis.
Please, Santa, I'd like a Sony RootMan to go with my Sony Vaiorus, my Sony TrojanTron monitor and my Sony WormCam video.
Perhaps it isn't very important why Hubert Mantell has left SuSE, only that he has. Much more important is a big vote of thanks to someone whose dedication and hard work have done an immense amount for SuSE and most likely for anyone who uses Linux (at lot of them will have started out with SuSE). He helped found the company, after all. Here's wishing him all the very best in life and whatever he decides to do next. Sometime soon, Novell's loss will be our gain.
Really, this could be the mafia talking - "nothing personal, it's just business", etc. You threaten, you cheat, you BS and just in case there is any comeback you libel the guy by claiming that had you not done any of those things, he would have blackmailed you. Oh, and everyone else behaves like this, you claim, so that's OK too. Another day, another guy pushed through the wood-chipper.
And people wonder why Microsoft isn't trusted and is fast ending up with negative brand value.
Unfortunately the article doesn't dilate on exactly what Micrososft mean by "This coming 'services wave' will be very disruptive". But broadly it does suggest that a Google/Sun combo or similar outfit offering office apps on a client/server basis would really turn over the applecart, maybe not right now but sometime soon when the technology is robust enough.
...
I guess two other things emerge from the article. First, Microsoft is getting sucked deeper into an impossible dilemma. They know they must become more and more friendly both to developers and to open source. But smooching with open source appears to shaft their lucrative closed-source licensing model. If there is a way out, they don't seem to have figured it yet.
Second, sure, the memo was probably meant to be leaked. Why? Well, it suggests that Microsoft see the next few years as a serious and testing challenge for them. Since about 2000, they've had it easy because nothing fundamental has changed in the industry. But now the plates are shifting
I think you've missed the point I was trying to make which is that folks like Gates or Jobs would focus on end-user needs and do their best to introduce some sanity to the building site and rubble side of Linux. That has nothing to do with making something closed source. It has all to do with making tough decisions that some main lights of the open source movement seem unable or unwilling to make. Sooner or later, I think they will have to face them, or face having those decisions made for them. That might well include forking the kernel if - hypothetically - a cabal of nutty Utopians was felt to be holding the Linux project to ransom.
As an ordinary end-user (Debian, Ubuntu and SUSE) I feel ground down by all the rowing and politics in and around Linux. Most of it is utterly immature and some of it is Utopian enough to make an anticapitalist rioter look like Gordon Gecko. You can be as open source as you like, but unless you produce an operating system that does what people want, in a way that suits them, then no one will use it and they'd be mugs if they did.
Most of us want something that "Just Works" and have no wish to live in a permanent building site because developers are so blinded by politics and squabbles they cannot ever see the finished building. I guess there isn't much hope for desktop Linux unless a fairly powerful outfit moves in, forks the kernel if necessary and focuses ruthlessly on delivering what the end user wants, not what a clutch of devs decide an end-user "should" want or must be made to want in a politically correct world. And if that means a very different model of kernel development and a binary driver api, so be it. Ironcially, if either Steve Jobs or Bill Gates were running a big Linux distro this is very likely the approach they would take, I would guess, and no one can accuse either of being unsuccessful.
Running a Mac is great so long as nothing goes wrong. If or when something does go foobar, total vendor lock-in on both hardware and software can spell hell. I had a really bad experience of this with Apple a few years ago afer running Macs for more than a decade and I won't be using them again. Yes, Apple have a great OS and some nice machines, no question. But there is too high a ticket attached to it all for me. Once you've handed over the cash, they have you by the balls and the fantasies of California cool are replaced by the harsh realities of dealing with a baboon in warranty repairs and hanging around entirely at their leisure.
Windows may be a nightmare but at least you're not tied down with the hardware. And with Linux, if your needs are fairly simple, you can avoid the worst of the OS nightmares anyway. Quite a few comments on this thread suggest that a lot of folks are beginning to lose patience with the prospects of desktop Linux, though, so perhaps the opportunities for desktop Linux to get a hold on the market are closing down scarily fast.
Well golly, good for him, but why should I care? Last year he was all for Gnome and perhaps next year he'll be all for Xfce. Fine. Great. But are Ubuntu's users going to make some nice, rational choices of their own or is that the sound of stampeding hooves I hear as the herd swerves off after new horizons?
There's an opportunistic streak to Ubuntu and, imho, they've yet to show they've got what it takes for the long haul. To some extent they've taken advantage of disarray within Debian and now it looks as if they are taking advantage of disarray in the desktop environment sphere as the more established, kitchen-sink distros realign a little. However, announcing that you are up for something just after a putative rival has canned it doesn't really amount to much. I use Ubuntu on my laptop. Excellent distro, though I confess it still isn't a rival to the full Debian I use on my desktop. Maybe in a couple of years it will be, but not now.
Wait a couple of weeks for the dust to settle. There have been all sorts of changes announced at Novell and all sorts of rumors swirling around as well. The publicity side of things hasn't been very competently handled by Novell and it's hard to know exactly what's going on at the moment.
In any case, from the sound of this, Novell's commercial Linux products will now focus on Gnome, but it's free products - i.e., OpenSUSE - will continue to offer both Gnome and KDE as they do now. If this is true, it really doesn't make much of a difference. Products intended for corporate desktops and "special situations" are always going to be tightly focused subsets of what's available. It's long been clear that Gnome is more suitable for that market. Common sense really on Novell's part. SUSE 10 shows that they can put a Gnome DE together with the best of them anyway.
This all rather begs the question of whether Novell really know what they are doing at the moment. Their chairman is very reminiscent of the swivel-eyed "Dr Gil" of Apple fame and we know what happened to him. Novell's make or break is in the enterprise, just as Red Hat's is. This sphere has absolutely nothing to do with some promising free desktops like K/Ubuntu or the merits of amarok or k3b. Sorry if this disappoints the Ubuntu-fanciers on here but that's business for you.
Isn't this a cheap stunt? It's not as if there's the remotest chance of South Korea accepting the offer. And if they really want Linux, there are plenty of other flavas to choose with no license fees attached at all. I guess I'm just surprised that this guy didn't throw in a bearded lady, a two-headed cow and Rocky the giant raccoon. I guess the South Koreans are too well mannered to have suggested to him where to go.
After all, Microsoft is a bully. If they are going to beat up a country, it will be an impoverished and obscure one where there is minimal loss involved, not an important one in a part of the world that supplies a large chunk of high tech and helps to underwrite the US budget deficit.
Jeez, not this subject again. It's been done to death already, and puffing it up into a "Monroe Doctrine" is just so grandiose. BS. Much better to wait until after the Tunis internet governance meeting in a few weeks' time. All that putting it on Slashdot produces is a ding-dong with a whole lot of rednecks. If the subject shows anything, then it is the extent to which the present US Administration has angered even America's most moderate good friends around the world in too many ways. I guess many Americans might be surprised at this but it's happened and it's not good news.
AMD comes out on top quite rightfully but actually neither of these processors offers good value for, perhaps, the majority of all computer buyers. A great deal of what folks do - word processing, surfing, email, etc - can be done very well on a p3, a Mac Mini or even a Via Epia combo. The trend to bigger is better has simply landed people with behemoth-sized machines that are expensive to buy and run and messy to maintain.
It's also allowed free rein to OS bloat. And 1001 WinDel reviewers who'll gladly tell us that we really must have that 5-litre SUV to run the kids a couple of miles to school. That said, if you do need this kind of power then imho AMD's current chips offer a superb solution, but it's not for everyone.
These days they mess up old bones in old cathedrals in order to put somewhere on the map and provide an attraction for thousands of credulous visitors from all over the world.
In the Middle Ages they messed up old bones in old cathedrals in order to put somewhere on the map and provide an attraction for thousands of credulous vistors from all over the world.
Let the old guy rest in peace. Why should he want a thousand cheap busts and other trinkets knocked out in his name in the local tourist shops? Modern scientists: the religious relic traders of yesterday had nothing on them.
A fair guess is that Microsoft has seen which way the wind is blowing and decided to put forward a proposition that's essentially on behalf of business before someone else puts forward a proposition that's a lot more tilted towards Joe Citizen or other business models.
A difficulty with any law of this kind is that essentially if it's going to have teeth then it's going to be anti-business, in the sense that business will always push for a greater invasion of privacy than legislators or citizens are going to feel comfortable with. It's rather hard to believe that a convicted monopoly is the best arbiter of this unavoidable clash of interests, though to be fair it's an issue that exists in every country in the Western world.
Of course, one can't help noticing that the requirements over "secondary" uses of information would be problematic for a company with a lot of alliances with third-parties and an interest in personal data, like erm Google, and less problematic for a company where more of it is kept in house, like erm MSN or Windows Live, and where the information is much less personal. And various hints that regulatory compliance might cost big bucks could knock out a lot of small guys. By amazing coincidence, a federal law would then knock out some perhaps tougher state laws, too.
Nope. The idea that a convicted monopoly should "help" politicians decide what's in my interest strikes me as gross. Even grosser, perhaps, is that the politicians should think it's a good idea to accept this generous offer.
I thought Vista was meant to be a whole new operating built from the ground up with dependability - not to mention security - in mind? Oh well. I guess I'll just have to pretend that's what Vista is all about while waiting 20 years for Singularity. Actually sounds an extremely interesting idea but perhaps it won't see the light of day till Gates and co have gone.
Hmmn, a completely new operating system from Microsoft: "It's a complete lie, of course. But you can't afford to be too scrupulous when you have world domination in mind." E.L. Wisty
It can be helpful to look at the bigger picture and think for yourself from time to time. Choice is not an absolute virtue and computer users have already shown in 1001 different ways that they prefer one app that just works to half a dozen that don't regardless of where they come from. And if these guys want to do GNU/Solaris, then kudos and every success to them. But as an ordinary end-user I'll stick with Debian Sid. Don't fancy investing hundreds or thousands of hours in a project that turns out to be a cul de sac with parking space for as many as 15 users. There's already been enough of that on Linux, at least, to last a lifetime. The best folks to take an open version of Solaris forward are Sun and if they can't be shagged then keep clear imho.
What is the point of this project? To show it can be done, like the Debian/BSD stuff? I thought Debian were trying to deliver more consistent quality on a smaller number of architectures rather than spread themselves too thinly. This endless scooting off in new directions isn't necessarily A Good Thing. After all, Sun have opened up Solaris and then done precious little to foster a community around it, a hint that they may just be playing games and chasing publicity as usual rather than showing a serious commitment to f/oss.
Hmmn, this is Linux. I thought the first thing you did with Linux was have a beer (or six) and a few roll-ups while surveying the damage. Sad there's no room for these. I think I'd also take a pack of Trojans as well. You never know. You might strike lucky while waiting long hours for machines to re-establish themselves in a large office full of rather bored people. Finally, an IRC client. This would enable me to cobble together a solution from the experts on one of the distro channels while passing it all off as my own work, plus keep up to speed with the footie results.