And he's STILL wrong. There's about as much similarity between the Linux and Windows kernels as there are between the win32 and glibc APIs: only from an altitude of fifty thousand feet do they appear similar...
I can definitely remember people calling me up and asking me if they should buy that Linux or Redhat stock offering they heard about. It made the evening news and popular magazine covers.
People who don't know what an OS is, or even care which one is on their computer, probably don't know what Linux is. But people who are concerned about the Microsoft monopoly certainly do.
Like I said, Microsoft still has a monopoly on home desktop. But I dare you to find one system or network administrator ANYWHERE who has not heard of Linux. Microsoft is not a monopoly for those who have to maintain computers for other people. And that's every other market outside of the home. Even on the corporate desktop, in which they still retains a huge market share, Microsoft does not have a monopoly, because they only way Microsoft gets installed is through a deliberate conscious company choice of Windows over the competition.
p.s. Actually, Microsoft does not have a monopoly on the home desktop either, because people can always choose a Macintosh instead. But Microsoft bashers refuse to accept this, and insist upon excluding all non-x86 platforms from from their definition of the home desktop market.
Maybe another reason the DOJ "rolled over" was because Microsoft had already been defanged.
At the start of the trial the common wisdom was that the Microsoft monopoly prevented competition. It was generally believed that Microsoft would simply purchase, aquire or destroy any who stood in their way, and that they would use every illegal means to do it.
But the impossible happened. Along came Linux. From some perspectives this was inevitable. Despite Slashdot myths to the contrary, Linux was not written to be a Windows competitor. It didn't have to be Linux, it didn't even have to be Open Source. The evolution of the personal computer created a vacumn for a cheap powerful and customizable operating system, and Linux managed to be there at the right time and place.
Now come to the end of the trial. Linux had become a household word. It had sucessfully prevented Microsoft's domination of the server market, and even managed to score higher market penetration in certain areas. Microsoft still retained its monopoly on the desktop, but it was slowly but surely being eroded. Beyond Linux, Apple was back from the dead in an time when people said no one could compete with Microsoft.
In short, the Microsoft threat had been dulled. The primary purpose of the trial was not to punish Microsoft, but to correct a problem in the market. The situation was being corrected by market forces.
There a rich [sic] irony in Kerry complaining that the Republicans should take the splinter out of their eye before trying to take the plank out of his:-)
Consider the Democrat's continual harping on the Bush administration's ties to Haliburton and some other corporations. Now remind me again who Kerry is married to? If Bush is evil because of Haliburton which is evil because it's a godless corporation, then why isn't Kerry equally evil because of Heinz which is evil because it's a godless corporation?
Now before you respond that Mrs. Kerry is no longer involved in the management of Heinz, the same can be said of Bush and Cheney with regards to Haliburton.
p.s. The Republicans complaining that a Democrat candidate is rich? Of course! Democrats have traditionally fielded wealthier politicians than the Republicans. Just rank the current members of congress by personal net worth to see the proof of it.
But what about the review stations attached to CT and MRI? And are these systems GE's most recent products? And were they development by GE itself? I work for another of the big three, and while we have some non-Windows products, all new systems must use Windows, even if it's only in the UI.
As near as I can tell, every medical diagnostic system currently manufactured by GE, Philips and Siemens runs Windows. The only exceptions are for systems developed by other companies (such as Agilent) before being aquired by one of those big three.
That's not because Windows is an appropriate operating system for those devices, but rather because GE, Philips and Siemens have grown so large and process-bound that they can no longer make appropriate technical decisions. In the product I previously talked about, the decision to use Windows was made by people outside of engineering.
My company is using WXPe for an upcoming realtime embedded medical diagnostic system. We're solving this by basically rolling our own MSI/Installshield bundles for each and every patch, vulnerability and virus definition. We're in the third round of estimating this product and I made a note to the VP that the product WILL REQUIRE a full time employee to handle rolling out patches.
My company really doesn't know what it's getting into. Our old product was LynxOS based, and we NEVER once had to issue an OS related patch, and I think we had a total of three critical patches for the ten year lifetime of the product.
neither is it likely that they suddenly formed their opinion about Ashcroft from this single incident.
They formed their opinion of him because he's a <gasp> conservative. Not only that, he is a <gasp> Christian! Those two wouldn't be so bad, but he isn't a moderate conservative or a stay-home-on-Sunday Christian. He actually <gasp> believes in something. That's simply unacceptable for most liberals.
When people have been taught all their lives that conservatives are evil thugs wanting to starve old ladies to get at their pensions, they won't blink when you tell them that Ashcroft is a Nazi.
Why does annointing himself with oil make him a "jesus-psycho"? This is normal practice for many Pentecostal Christians. They were common in my home town so this practice doesn't strike me as unusual. If you've never encountered Pentecostals before, it might seem weird. But from my perspective it's no more unusual than Catholics not eating meat on Fridays or Amish growing beards.
Ashcroft is not asking anyone else to annoint themselves. It is not a requirement for anyone in the Justice department. It is his own personal decision. It affects no one else.
The "foreseeable harm" rule was under Reno. The "sound legal basis" rule is under Ashcroft. Did Ashcroft tighten or loosen the rules? I would say he tightened them, because under Reno you could withhold information on a legally unsound basis just because it might cause foreseeable harm to her boss.
Of course both rules suck, "our computer might crash" isn't a sound legal basis to deny this information.
The answer was given in a link in the article summary. Let me repeat, there was a >>>LINK in the summary that answered the question. Maybe it should have been between tags! This question could have been answered by merely cut-n-pasting from the link.
I'm on a BSD mailing list where the FAQ is sent once a week. And invariably within hours after the posting of the FAQ some numbnut asks the first question on it. It's especially galling when they start their question with "I've read the FAQ but I can't find the answer to..." I've even seen one guy told to RTFFAQ, his apology that he would RTFFAQ before asking, then proceeding to ask yet another question answered by the FAQ. At some point even the saintliest BSD advocate blows his top.
Of course, maybe the question was misworded. Perhaps it should have said, "I read the links but it was too technical for me, could someone provide a laymen's description of DragonFly's benefits?" That would have been a good and apropos question.
You're right. When micropayments are less than a penny, I'm not going to pay attention to how much I'm spending until drop from a heart attack when the bill comes at the end of the month.
Dad: "Billy! What's the $389 bill from Slashdot?!?!"
Billy: "Huh? No way it can be that big! They only charge 0.005 post!"
While I can definitely understand why software developers want to disclaim liability, it has always puzzled me as to why they want to also disclaim something so basic as merchantibility.
Disclaiming merchantibility is nothing more than giving yourself a license to lie. If you can't even stoop to giving the customer's money back for a defective product you shouldn't be in business.
All commercial software should be merchantable. That's the very definition of "commercial" for pete's sake!
When I said GLib was controlled by GNOME, I meant that GLib resides in GNOME CVS and developed by GNOME developers.
I have nothing against GLib, I just don't think it should be a requirement for Qt-based applications. To give an analogy, GLib was a part of GTK before it got split off to for the benefit of non-GUI applications. Qt is going to be similarly split up in 4.0. Now imagine how loud GNOME users would scream if GNOME we're released with a QTL dependency...
As a OO fanboy, I must protest your mischaracterizatoin of us. Unlike the DB fanboys, we never claimed that OO is suitable for every problem domain.
What drives me nuts aobut the DB fanboys is that they have to use DB for everything. For example, I maintain an embedded system where some nitwit ex-web-developer decided to implement the process table with MySQL. Huh?
DB is suitable when you have massive amounts of uniform data. OO is suitable when you have heterogenous structured data. Often these two areas overlap, so you can choose whichever you prefer. You can even mix the two if you like. But where they don't overlap, stick with the appropriate paradigm.
Slashdot Mirror
And he's STILL wrong. There's about as much similarity between the Linux and Windows kernels as there are between the win32 and glibc APIs: only from an altitude of fifty thousand feet do they appear similar...
I know we've all been practicing massive civil disobedience for years now when it comes to copyrights on music, so why not?
I'm pretty sure Enlightenment did it before then. And it didn't come out of thin air then, so I suspect fvwm before that.
He messes around with my laptop's configuration and he'll be eating a fist at high velocity.
I can definitely remember people calling me up and asking me if they should buy that Linux or Redhat stock offering they heard about. It made the evening news and popular magazine covers.
People who don't know what an OS is, or even care which one is on their computer, probably don't know what Linux is. But people who are concerned about the Microsoft monopoly certainly do.
Like I said, Microsoft still has a monopoly on home desktop. But I dare you to find one system or network administrator ANYWHERE who has not heard of Linux. Microsoft is not a monopoly for those who have to maintain computers for other people. And that's every other market outside of the home. Even on the corporate desktop, in which they still retains a huge market share, Microsoft does not have a monopoly, because they only way Microsoft gets installed is through a deliberate conscious company choice of Windows over the competition.
p.s. Actually, Microsoft does not have a monopoly on the home desktop either, because people can always choose a Macintosh instead. But Microsoft bashers refuse to accept this, and insist upon excluding all non-x86 platforms from from their definition of the home desktop market.
Maybe another reason the DOJ "rolled over" was because Microsoft had already been defanged.
At the start of the trial the common wisdom was that the Microsoft monopoly prevented competition. It was generally believed that Microsoft would simply purchase, aquire or destroy any who stood in their way, and that they would use every illegal means to do it.
But the impossible happened. Along came Linux. From some perspectives this was inevitable. Despite Slashdot myths to the contrary, Linux was not written to be a Windows competitor. It didn't have to be Linux, it didn't even have to be Open Source. The evolution of the personal computer created a vacumn for a cheap powerful and customizable operating system, and Linux managed to be there at the right time and place.
Now come to the end of the trial. Linux had become a household word. It had sucessfully prevented Microsoft's domination of the server market, and even managed to score higher market penetration in certain areas. Microsoft still retained its monopoly on the desktop, but it was slowly but surely being eroded. Beyond Linux, Apple was back from the dead in an time when people said no one could compete with Microsoft.
In short, the Microsoft threat had been dulled. The primary purpose of the trial was not to punish Microsoft, but to correct a problem in the market. The situation was being corrected by market forces.
There a rich [sic] irony in Kerry complaining that the Republicans should take the splinter out of their eye before trying to take the plank out of his :-)
Consider the Democrat's continual harping on the Bush administration's ties to Haliburton and some other corporations. Now remind me again who Kerry is married to? If Bush is evil because of Haliburton which is evil because it's a godless corporation, then why isn't Kerry equally evil because of Heinz which is evil because it's a godless corporation?
Now before you respond that Mrs. Kerry is no longer involved in the management of Heinz, the same can be said of Bush and Cheney with regards to Haliburton.
p.s. The Republicans complaining that a Democrat candidate is rich? Of course! Democrats have traditionally fielded wealthier politicians than the Republicans. Just rank the current members of congress by personal net worth to see the proof of it.
But of course! We will always have people who will want to hand their responsibilities over to those willing to accept them.
But what about the review stations attached to CT and MRI? And are these systems GE's most recent products? And were they development by GE itself? I work for another of the big three, and while we have some non-Windows products, all new systems must use Windows, even if it's only in the UI.
As near as I can tell, every medical diagnostic system currently manufactured by GE, Philips and Siemens runs Windows. The only exceptions are for systems developed by other companies (such as Agilent) before being aquired by one of those big three.
That's not because Windows is an appropriate operating system for those devices, but rather because GE, Philips and Siemens have grown so large and process-bound that they can no longer make appropriate technical decisions. In the product I previously talked about, the decision to use Windows was made by people outside of engineering.
The Bin Ladens and the bushes have always enjoyed a close relationship.
But the point is... how the fsck cares? This isn't evidence of a conspiracy. This isn't evidence of malfeasance. This isn't evidence of shenanigans.
My company is using WXPe for an upcoming realtime embedded medical diagnostic system. We're solving this by basically rolling our own MSI/Installshield bundles for each and every patch, vulnerability and virus definition. We're in the third round of estimating this product and I made a note to the VP that the product WILL REQUIRE a full time employee to handle rolling out patches.
My company really doesn't know what it's getting into. Our old product was LynxOS based, and we NEVER once had to issue an OS related patch, and I think we had a total of three critical patches for the ten year lifetime of the product.
neither is it likely that they suddenly formed their opinion about Ashcroft from this single incident.
They formed their opinion of him because he's a <gasp> conservative. Not only that, he is a <gasp> Christian! Those two wouldn't be so bad, but he isn't a moderate conservative or a stay-home-on-Sunday Christian. He actually <gasp> believes in something. That's simply unacceptable for most liberals.
When people have been taught all their lives that conservatives are evil thugs wanting to starve old ladies to get at their pensions, they won't blink when you tell them that Ashcroft is a Nazi.
Why does annointing himself with oil make him a "jesus-psycho"? This is normal practice for many Pentecostal Christians. They were common in my home town so this practice doesn't strike me as unusual. If you've never encountered Pentecostals before, it might seem weird. But from my perspective it's no more unusual than Catholics not eating meat on Fridays or Amish growing beards.
Ashcroft is not asking anyone else to annoint themselves. It is not a requirement for anyone in the Justice department. It is his own personal decision. It affects no one else.
He's finally down to "-1 Troll". Good...
Wow, you got modded up to "informative" with that litte tantrum. I'm amazed. I'm now seriously considering a permanent retirement from Slashdot...
The "foreseeable harm" rule was under Reno. The "sound legal basis" rule is under Ashcroft. Did Ashcroft tighten or loosen the rules? I would say he tightened them, because under Reno you could withhold information on a legally unsound basis just because it might cause foreseeable harm to her boss.
Of course both rules suck, "our computer might crash" isn't a sound legal basis to deny this information.
That's still a darn sight better than http colon slash slash slash dot dot org...
It used to be "better living through chemistry". Back in the 50's chemistry was the answer to all our problems. Now it's "better living through XML".
This story title reads like it came from Disney's World of Tomorrow!
The answer was given in a link in the article summary. Let me repeat, there was a >>>LINK in the summary that answered the question. Maybe it should have been between tags! This question could have been answered by merely cut-n-pasting from the link.
I'm on a BSD mailing list where the FAQ is sent once a week. And invariably within hours after the posting of the FAQ some numbnut asks the first question on it. It's especially galling when they start their question with "I've read the FAQ but I can't find the answer to..." I've even seen one guy told to RTFFAQ, his apology that he would RTFFAQ before asking, then proceeding to ask yet another question answered by the FAQ. At some point even the saintliest BSD advocate blows his top.
Of course, maybe the question was misworded. Perhaps it should have said, "I read the links but it was too technical for me, could someone provide a laymen's description of DragonFly's benefits?" That would have been a good and apropos question.
You're right. When micropayments are less than a penny, I'm not going to pay attention to how much I'm spending until drop from a heart attack when the bill comes at the end of the month.
Dad: "Billy! What's the $389 bill from Slashdot?!?!"
Billy: "Huh? No way it can be that big! They only charge 0.005 post!"
While I can definitely understand why software developers want to disclaim liability, it has always puzzled me as to why they want to also disclaim something so basic as merchantibility.
Disclaiming merchantibility is nothing more than giving yourself a license to lie. If you can't even stoop to giving the customer's money back for a defective product you shouldn't be in business.
All commercial software should be merchantable. That's the very definition of "commercial" for pete's sake!
Actually the manager who hired this web developer to do low level systems programming was himself a web developer.
When I said GLib was controlled by GNOME, I meant that GLib resides in GNOME CVS and developed by GNOME developers.
I have nothing against GLib, I just don't think it should be a requirement for Qt-based applications. To give an analogy, GLib was a part of GTK before it got split off to for the benefit of non-GUI applications. Qt is going to be similarly split up in 4.0. Now imagine how loud GNOME users would scream if GNOME we're released with a QTL dependency...
As a OO fanboy, I must protest your mischaracterizatoin of us. Unlike the DB fanboys, we never claimed that OO is suitable for every problem domain.
What drives me nuts aobut the DB fanboys is that they have to use DB for everything. For example, I maintain an embedded system where some nitwit ex-web-developer decided to implement the process table with MySQL. Huh?
DB is suitable when you have massive amounts of uniform data. OO is suitable when you have heterogenous structured data. Often these two areas overlap, so you can choose whichever you prefer. You can even mix the two if you like. But where they don't overlap, stick with the appropriate paradigm.