Isn't this as much about the license of Eclipse (which is generally similar to the Apache license) than it is about the platform?
Actually the Eclipse (EPL) license is more like LGPL. You cannot take the Eclipse code and modified it into a closed source version. You can, however, build closed source plugins and run them in Eclipse (e.g. IBMs closed source IDE).
DNS is over 20 years old. The Net has obviously changed radically in those 20 years. I'm not saying throw all the ideas in DNS out the window, but either we, the geeks, work out an alternative in the spirit of RFCs, or some patent-wielding corporation or UN bozo committee will do it.
Heck, just imagine a system where people didn't have to think "www.some-name-hope-you-hyphoned-it.com" when looking up an address, and instead can use a more human-friendly system. I mean, I know it is fun watching the non-geeks suffer under concepts we find second-nature, but...
Look at IP vs. IPv6; times change; requirements change.
Any experts who are up to date with stuff like: http://www.dns.net/dnsrd/rfc/ want to comment on what is underway? (Yes I did peek around Google a bit.)
I'm sure this thread has already gotten into a "right vs. left", "dem vs. repub" flamewar.
I am confident, though, that the majority of Slashdot readers are intelligent enough to see how that debate keeps both parties in power. It is an unholy doupoly that has paralyzed this country.
Both parties are corrupt. Before you pick a banner to stand under, look at the entire party platform, not just the few issues that drew your attention. They polarize you on hot button issues, the things you care most about, but look deeper and you will see that there are huge portions of each parties platform that are ideologically inconsistent. Chances are you personally, yes you, are neither a republican nor a democrat. You are probably something else, a party that doesn't even exist, with issues that fall on "both" sides of the "political spectrum" (ha, what a concept.)
The problem is that neither party represents a progressive, mainstream coalition of Americans that DOES EXIST and could actually be MOVING THIS COUNTRY FORWARD. Chances are, you are in that progressive, mainstream coalition, even if you are a gay stock broker who has a complex viewpoint on abortion. WE ARE MORE ALIKE THAN THEY LET US THINK.
So please, think about whether its about choosing sides, or in fact, getting rid of the people who force you to choose.
This case is, in my opinion, a huge bit of theatrics. Microsoft wants to lose this case, and here is why:
This patent, if enforced, would provide Microsoft a $500 million penalty for the ENFORCEMENT of plugins not being a possibility for browsers unless licensing is paid.
What would this mean? Well, you could kiss your Flash, Java VM, etc. goodbye! Not only that, but Firefox would have to block plugins like that as well!
Yes, as you can see, that would be a wet dream for Microsoft. The ability to dictate exactly what functionality is in IE, with the excuse of patents as an excuse.
So if Microsoft totally botches this case and sets up legal precident for Eolas to have this patent, you'll know why. They WANT It there. It's all part of their IP war against Linux, Firefox, and all things good and holy. (tm).
Microsoft: always playing the system. Never innovating. Might makes right!
As someone who played WoW extensively for months after its launch... wtf are people still playing for? It really isn't that interesting a game. Really. It's definately not worth having some program sit on your computer and sniff what you're doing, to report back to the mothership.
Vote with your feet. There have GOT to be better things to do with your time than playing a game which is simply "EQ done right."
As a long time EQ player, and a former end-game WoW player, THIS GAME HAS NOTHING WORTHWHILE TO OFFER. It is crap. It is far less original than many of the MUDs out there; it simply has a (dated) 3d interface.
Walk away from the game; walk away. Don't log in for a week. YOU CAN BREAK THE HABIT.
Your life will thank you. And blame it on "The Warden" if it helps.
Linux Desktop may make huge inroads when CPUs that support "Pacifica" and "Vanderpol" virtualization technology go mainstream. The choice won't be "Windows vs. Linux" anymore; it can be both. And you can bet companies will quickly be asking their employees to do all the INTERNET related activity on the Linux "side". Heck, they could probably sandbox the Windows half very heavily, if all its going to do is run Office.
Mark my words: the biggest threat to Microsoft is having the "either-or" argument disappear. (And I acknowledge that VMWare and others can do this today, but they 1) aren't free, 2) are already growing in use.)
Isn't it wonderful that 20 years later, those low res, obsolete games which many of would want to play as a trip down memory lane are STILL COPYRIGHTED, and will be for another 100 years or so?
Intellectual property laws: they work so you don't have to.
There are different requirements for business devices as compared to consumer devices.
For example, at one time I had difficulty purchasing a workstation from Dell because they intended it for the office and hadn't bothered to get it FCC certified for home use.
Eric's comments in the op-ed are insightful, but he appears to have missed the point of the lawsuit.
Lawsuits like the ones facing Google aren't intended to win on their merit. They are designed as bargaining tools. They create fear, uncertainty and doubt. And in the unlikely case that they actually end up going all the way to a verdict (which, through some miracle, might go the way of the plantifs), there are always rounds of appeals.
The US needs tort reform immediately, to put an end to the abuse of our legal system for PR campaigns, intimidation, stock market manipulation, delaying of the inevitable, etc.
Sadly, it will take the majority of *corporations* complaining for those reforms to happen.
Don't you know, it's the new bubble!!... it's once again all about packaging up a bunch of ideas other people thought were better left seperated, putting lipstick on it, and then selling out to a corporation in acquisition mode.
You and I can look and say: firefox with skin and plugins? wtf? But they look and say: "omg!!111!!! must buy this!!111!"
This suggests a great Linux-boosting strategy
on
Quake 4 Linux
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
Hypothetically, what if a heavyweight like Id released the Linux version of their game for free, but made the Windows version cost the regular price?
If the game was in hot enough demand, it might encourage a large number of gamers to install Linux in some form. It would also create quite a buzz about Linux among people who might otherwise not install it because "they play games".
Obviously this would cut into retail sales, so it would be a sacrificial move of sorts, but for a game company sufficiently already rolling in the dough, with an established franchise, it might not be too hard to take the hit of losing a chunk of sales.
Again the plan is:
1. Release game for free on Linux, regular price for Windows.
2. Create buzz, get people installing Linux, make your game company less dependent on Microsoft.
3. Profit (*)
(*) At least in karma, definitely in publicity, and over the long haul, probably in $ too.
So now he's claiming if someone writes a complaint to the Florida bar association about his behavior, the complainer is opening themself up to a SLAPP lawsuit?
If you complain to the bar about harassment by a lawyer, you open yourself to further harassment by said lawyer? wtf.
Will someone with some legal insight respond. I'd hate to see Mr. Thompson succeed in scaring away people from complaining about him to the very folks who give him his power to pull all this.
Then let's get active and do something about this. If thousands of geeks can't manage to communicate to the millions of Americans how REDICULOUS this crap is, how it enslaves them financially, the injustice of it all.. if we can't communicate that with the INTERNET available, well then we deserve what we have.
Oh wait. I got to go play World of Warcraft. Nevermind.
What, you say two established monopolies (cable/phone) don't truly "compete" when you put them against each other in a doupoly?
The next things you'll tell me is that: 1. Pepsi and Coke are behind fizzy water costing 50 cents for 12 ounces, 2. Republicans and Democrats collude to keep everything "right vs. left", 3. Management vs. labor is an illusion, and 4. Good vs. evil is too black and white!
How un-american! Two competitors makes a market or you support terrorism. AND AT A TIME OF WAR!!
(Hey, what are those free market regulators we pay to work in Washington up to anyways?)
Clippy: I see you are trying to apply logic to the patent system. Would you like to: 1. Take bong hits until this makes sense 2. Shoot self to save time 3. Hey look over there, a shiny pebble!
One approach to speeding up Java applications involves drawing a prudent line between what will be done in Java vs. native code. Java purists may claim that anything less than 100% pure Java is evil, and there are trade-offs, particularly in the area of security. If you're pragmatic, and use the right tool for the right job, don't be afraid to use native libraries where appropriate. You don't have to go all or nothing.
For example, to speed up Java apps running on the client (not in a browser, full applications), use Eclipse's SWT. SWT is a UI toolkit that (mostly) uses the underlying Windowing system's widgets, rather than trying to draw everything in Java. As you might expect, this leads to some nice behavior from a performance standpoint. For example, try resizing windows in Eclipse on Windows XP. You'll notice very smooth redraws of the underlying components while the window resizes, just like a C++ app. Now try the same thing in Netbeans.
Similar solutions exist for accessing OpenGL natively, rather than using a more "Java heavy" library like "Java 3d."
Using Postgresql as a database makes a lot of sense for Sun. Its BSD license makes it easier to use licensing terms that fit Sun's needs, it's desiged for transaction-heavy applications, and it has a solid codebase with a growing community.
True, it is not written in Java, but neither is Solaris. Sun uses Java pragmatically, as everyone should, and since there are JDBC drivers for Postgresql, it really doesn't need the database written in Java.
I think it's a smart move, and this news combined with the Google collaboration is giving me hope that Sun's management has suddenly woke up and smelled the coff... er I mean java.
Domain specific languages are actually very useful, and (with a simpler syntax than Lisp or Python), may be tailored for people on the periphery of programming.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't this as much about the license of Eclipse (which is generally similar to the Apache license) than it is about the platform?
Actually the Eclipse (EPL) license is more like LGPL. You cannot take the Eclipse code and modified it into a closed source version. You can, however, build closed source plugins and run them in Eclipse (e.g. IBMs closed source IDE).
(IANAL)
DNS is over 20 years old. The Net has obviously changed radically in those 20 years. I'm not saying throw all the ideas in DNS out the window, but either we, the geeks, work out an alternative in the spirit of RFCs, or some patent-wielding corporation or UN bozo committee will do it.
...
Heck, just imagine a system where people didn't have to think "www.some-name-hope-you-hyphoned-it.com" when looking up an address, and instead can use a more human-friendly system. I mean, I know it is fun watching the non-geeks suffer under concepts we find second-nature, but
Look at IP vs. IPv6; times change; requirements change.
Any experts who are up to date with stuff like:
http://www.dns.net/dnsrd/rfc/
want to comment on what is underway? (Yes I did peek around Google a bit.)
I'm sure this thread has already gotten into a "right vs. left", "dem vs. repub" flamewar.
I am confident, though, that the majority of Slashdot readers are intelligent enough to see how that debate keeps both parties in power. It is an unholy doupoly that has paralyzed this country.
Both parties are corrupt. Before you pick a banner to stand under, look at the entire party platform, not just the few issues that drew your attention. They polarize you on hot button issues, the things you care most about, but look deeper and you will see that there are huge portions of each parties platform that are ideologically inconsistent. Chances are you personally, yes you, are neither a republican nor a democrat. You are probably something else, a party that doesn't even exist, with issues that fall on "both" sides of the "political spectrum" (ha, what a concept.)
The problem is that neither party represents a progressive, mainstream coalition of Americans that DOES EXIST and could actually be MOVING THIS COUNTRY FORWARD. Chances are, you are in that progressive, mainstream coalition, even if you are a gay stock broker who has a complex viewpoint on abortion. WE ARE MORE ALIKE THAN THEY LET US THINK.
So please, think about whether its about choosing sides, or in fact, getting rid of the people who force you to choose.
Fool me once (game launch), shame on you Raph ... ...
Fool me twice (combat expansion), shame on me
A third chance there will not be.
This case is, in my opinion, a huge bit of theatrics. Microsoft wants to lose this case, and here is why:
This patent, if enforced, would provide Microsoft a $500 million penalty for the ENFORCEMENT of plugins not being a possibility for browsers unless licensing is paid.
What would this mean? Well, you could kiss your Flash, Java VM, etc. goodbye! Not only that, but Firefox would have to block plugins like that as well!
Yes, as you can see, that would be a wet dream for Microsoft. The ability to dictate exactly what functionality is in IE, with the excuse of patents as an excuse.
So if Microsoft totally botches this case and sets up legal precident for Eolas to have this patent, you'll know why. They WANT It there. It's all part of their IP war against Linux, Firefox, and all things good and holy. (tm).
Microsoft: always playing the system. Never innovating. Might makes right!
As someone who played WoW extensively for months after its launch... wtf are people still playing for? It really isn't that interesting a game. Really. It's definately not worth having some program sit on your computer and sniff what you're doing, to report back to the mothership.
Vote with your feet. There have GOT to be better things to do with your time than playing a game which is simply "EQ done right."
As a long time EQ player, and a former end-game WoW player, THIS GAME HAS NOTHING WORTHWHILE TO OFFER. It is crap. It is far less original than many of the MUDs out there; it simply has a (dated) 3d interface.
Walk away from the game; walk away. Don't log in for a week. YOU CAN BREAK THE HABIT.
Your life will thank you. And blame it on "The Warden" if it helps.
Immigration to UK website soon to be slashdotted.
Linux Desktop may make huge inroads when CPUs that support "Pacifica" and "Vanderpol" virtualization technology go mainstream. The choice won't be "Windows vs. Linux" anymore; it can be both. And you can bet companies will quickly be asking their employees to do all the INTERNET related activity on the Linux "side". Heck, they could probably sandbox the Windows half very heavily, if all its going to do is run Office.
Mark my words: the biggest threat to Microsoft is having the "either-or" argument disappear. (And I acknowledge that VMWare and others can do this today, but they 1) aren't free, 2) are already growing in use.)
Fantastic ... Would same judge please slap Microsoft silly for the BS it is currently pulling in regards to the OpenDocument format?
Isn't it wonderful that 20 years later, those low res, obsolete games which many of would want to play as a trip down memory lane are STILL COPYRIGHTED, and will be for another 100 years or so?
Intellectual property laws: they work so you don't have to.
There are different requirements for business devices as compared to consumer devices.
For example, at one time I had difficulty purchasing a workstation from Dell because they intended it for the office and hadn't bothered to get it FCC certified for home use.
I should have ended my post with:
Eric needs to focus on the root cause of the problem. Google needs to be a corporation pushing for tort reform.
I agree with you otherwise.
Eric's comments in the op-ed are insightful, but he appears to have missed the point of the lawsuit.
Lawsuits like the ones facing Google aren't intended to win on their merit. They are designed as bargaining tools. They create fear, uncertainty and doubt. And in the unlikely case that they actually end up going all the way to a verdict (which, through some miracle, might go the way of the plantifs), there are always rounds of appeals.
The US needs tort reform immediately, to put an end to the abuse of our legal system for PR campaigns, intimidation, stock market manipulation, delaying of the inevitable, etc.
Sadly, it will take the majority of *corporations* complaining for those reforms to happen.
Don't you know, it's the new bubble!! ... it's once again all about packaging up a bunch of ideas other people thought were better left seperated, putting lipstick on it, and then selling out to a corporation in acquisition mode.
You and I can look and say: firefox with skin and plugins? wtf? But they look and say: "omg!!111!!! must buy this!!111!"
Hypothetically, what if a heavyweight like Id released the Linux version of their game for free, but made the Windows version cost the regular price? If the game was in hot enough demand, it might encourage a large number of gamers to install Linux in some form. It would also create quite a buzz about Linux among people who might otherwise not install it because "they play games". Obviously this would cut into retail sales, so it would be a sacrificial move of sorts, but for a game company sufficiently already rolling in the dough, with an established franchise, it might not be too hard to take the hit of losing a chunk of sales. Again the plan is: 1. Release game for free on Linux, regular price for Windows. 2. Create buzz, get people installing Linux, make your game company less dependent on Microsoft. 3. Profit (*) (*) At least in karma, definitely in publicity, and over the long haul, probably in $ too.
So now he's claiming if someone writes a complaint to the Florida bar association about his behavior, the complainer is opening themself up to a SLAPP lawsuit?
If you complain to the bar about harassment by a lawyer, you open yourself to further harassment by said lawyer? wtf.
Will someone with some legal insight respond. I'd hate to see Mr. Thompson succeed in scaring away people from complaining about him to the very folks who give him his power to pull all this.
And naturally, your insightful and interesting reply was modded offtopic, and I got a lot of replies for mispelling ridiculous.
Yes, let's hang our heads in shame. For a moment.
.. if we can't communicate that with the INTERNET available, well then we deserve what we have.
Then let's get active and do something about this. If thousands of geeks can't manage to communicate to the millions of Americans how REDICULOUS this crap is, how it enslaves them financially, the injustice of it all
Oh wait. I got to go play World of Warcraft. Nevermind.
I think the upper end of the blind-zealotry scale is:
9.0 - Scientologist
8.0 - Jihadist
7.8 - SCO lawyer
7.0 - Wikipedia twidler
6.5 - Mac evangelist
And of course, it is logarithmic.
What, you say two established monopolies (cable/phone) don't truly "compete" when you put them against each other in a doupoly?
The next things you'll tell me is that:
1. Pepsi and Coke are behind fizzy water costing 50 cents for 12 ounces,
2. Republicans and Democrats collude to keep everything "right vs. left",
3. Management vs. labor is an illusion, and
4. Good vs. evil is too black and white!
How un-american! Two competitors makes a market or you support terrorism. AND AT A TIME OF WAR!!
(Hey, what are those free market regulators we pay to work in Washington up to anyways?)
Clippy: I see you are trying to apply logic to the patent system.
Would you like to:
1. Take bong hits until this makes sense
2. Shoot self to save time
3. Hey look over there, a shiny pebble!
One approach to speeding up Java applications involves drawing a prudent line between what will be done in Java vs. native code. Java purists may claim that anything less than 100% pure Java is evil, and there are trade-offs, particularly in the area of security. If you're pragmatic, and use the right tool for the right job, don't be afraid to use native libraries where appropriate. You don't have to go all or nothing.
For example, to speed up Java apps running on the client (not in a browser, full applications), use Eclipse's SWT. SWT is a UI toolkit that (mostly) uses the underlying Windowing system's widgets, rather than trying to draw everything in Java. As you might expect, this leads to some nice behavior from a performance standpoint. For example, try resizing windows in Eclipse on Windows XP. You'll notice very smooth redraws of the underlying components while the window resizes, just like a C++ app. Now try the same thing in Netbeans.
Similar solutions exist for accessing OpenGL natively, rather than using a more "Java heavy" library like "Java 3d."
Using Postgresql as a database makes a lot of sense for Sun. Its BSD license makes it easier to use licensing terms that fit Sun's needs, it's desiged for transaction-heavy applications, and it has a solid codebase with a growing community.
True, it is not written in Java, but neither is Solaris. Sun uses Java pragmatically, as everyone should, and since there are JDBC drivers for Postgresql, it really doesn't need the database written in Java.
I think it's a smart move, and this news combined with the Google collaboration is giving me hope that Sun's management has suddenly woke up and smelled the coff... er I mean java.
> What was she supposed to argue? "My client is guilty."?
So lawyers are allowed to use the "just following orders" defense? Are they not able to choose whom they work for?
Domain specific languages are actually very useful, and (with a simpler syntax than Lisp or Python), may be tailored for people on the periphery of programming.