When our youth are storing away $50 to purchase video games, something is wrong here. As a parent, I am genuinely disturbed by the violence of the games that are being produced today and that our youth are so addicted to these games. No child wants to do homework when there's video games to play. It's troubling that our youth are willing to store away money for video games which promote questionable ideas instead of spending the money for more appropriate uses.
I'd like to know how parents here can accept their children storing away money from weeks of allowance to purchase a video game, especially a game that has promotes so many things that we feel out children ought to not be exposed to in the glorified way video games promote them.
What's stopping Linux vendors from providing some sort of protection to their clients from IP issues in Linux and the associated software with it? This could be achieved by agreeing to pay legal fees for any client sued over software included with their Linux distribution, including the kernel. Also, it would be necessary for the vendors to pay any licensing fees demanded of their clients over IP issues. While it's easy to say this isn't necessary because SCO has little case against Linux, there's no way to know that someone else doesn't have a legitimate claim about IP being improperly in the kernel or software distributed with Linux. It seems like this "insurance policy" would go a long way toward counteracting SCO's FUD and would reassure clients that they can implement and use Linux without fear. Are the Linux vendors just being niggardly, and don't want to pay any fees that might be demanded from their clients, or is there a more legitimate reason for not providing protection to their clients from IP disputes?
When I first used Linux and I ran X, my thought was "damn, this is slow." This feeling is echoed by a lot of other people. It's nice to see that a replacement is on the way. Hopefully, in addition to reducing latency, an effort will be made to improve some other areas in X. Copy&paste is still inconsistent in X and just annoying. Nonetheless, fixing the problems with X is a BIG step toward Linux being viewed as acceptable on the desktop. That is the one thing that particularly caught my eye.
The inclusion of two desktop environments, no matter how good they might be, will be confusing to ordinary end users. There might be some argument for including KDE and leaving GNOME out, but I feel that GNOME is less CPU-intensive and the included applications are a little better. The best argument for KDE would be that it would make the transition from Windows easier because it is so similar. That shouldn't be an issue, though. Nobody worries about users switching from Windows to the Mac being confused.
It's a good call.
If the open source community is so confident that it's correct, why are IBM and others refusing to pay the expenses should any of their users be sued over intellectual property violations? Microsoft recently extended full protection to its users, should they be sued for using Windows. Why are the large vendors of the Linux community such as IBM, Redhat, and SuSe being so niggardly?
I'd like to believe the open source community is right, but the vendors would do themselves a huge PR favor by extending the protection I've discussed to their users.
What's stopping this from happening? And even if it isn't necessary because SCO has no IP rights in the kernel, someone else could easily come along, make a similar claim, but have a much stronger case.
This is one of the few things that bugs me about open source and Linux. I'd feel much more confident if the vendors weren't so niggardly and would provide protection to anyone sued for using Linux.
What I'm saying is IDE is a mess. And what good is that machine? It works just fine without that drive. Note, it's not a floppy drive, but a CD-ROM drive that was bad and causing the problem. I didn't know it at the time, but the drive was borked.
If you don't know, IDE was only supposed to have one device per channel, and it's just a hack to have a secondary device on each channel. Furthermore, if you put two drives on one channel, and you start copying from one drive to the other, you'll notice a significant loss in performance. SCSI doesn't correct for ignorant users, but it's not as much of a mess as IDE is.
In my experience, IDE is nothing but a mess. For example, I had removed power to an IDE drive in my machine, but left the IDE cable connected. The result was a machine that simply didn't want to boot.
Another big problem with IDE is that it's limited on the number of devices it supports without purchasing seperate IDE controllers that use up PCI slots. SCSI is much better on this.
On the other hand, I will be very curious about the performance of SATA, which is somewhat based off IDE, but with significant performance improvements. The future is still based off IDE because SCSI hardware is just too expensive to go in most machines. At a time when cost is a bigger factor in hardware than performance, SCSI just won't win.
Surely your ISP will have an interest in that you're abusing proxies. Remember, unauthorized use of open proxies is a felony. And we sure wouldn't want you immature GNAA morons behind bars, now would we? I suggest you leave Slashdot and never come back, or I will complain to Roadrunner, and we'll see what they have to say about it.
This is just one person's opinion on trusted computing. Nobody really knows where it's going, but there's a lot of people trying to push their various interests into it.
My feeling is the idea of trusted computing isn't in itself bad. As a matter of fact, there's probably a lot of very good uses for it to go along with a larger system of security. Some of the ideas in Palladium, if used correctly, really could enhance and improve security. It, in itself, may not provide security, but as part of a larger system with other security geatures, it may well be useful.
The problem is not trusted computing, but some of these rogue interests. The government, Microsoft, the recording industry, the motion picture industry, and just about everyone else wants a say in where it's going. Hopefully, between the various interests will cancel each other out and we'll end up with the good that comes from trusted computing, but without most of the bad.
Groups fighting against trusted computing shouldn't fight the technology, in my opinion, but some of the uses of it. This means they should fight some of the DRM aspects of it, not the technology in general. Remember, an extra layer of security isn't a bad thing to have.
Perhaps universally accepted was a bad choice of words. But the fact is, it's a code of laws. Everyone knows what it is, and everyone's heard them one place or another. It's an early form of a code of laws, and has a historical value in addition to its religion value. This is what I meant. It has a legitimate place there.
Second, I'd like to point out that 9/11 was not directly about religion. The "justification" given for the attack was in retaliation for the presence of troops in Saudi Arabia and the Muslim holy lands in the Gulf War. I suppose it might have been about the United States' support of Israel, too.
Third, as for saying the pledge of allegiance in school being voluntary, I can say for a fact I was never forced to say it. Never. I get the idea from my own personal experiences.
Fourth, I'd like to remind you that there are many symbols of other religions present in things such as currency. There's Masonic symbols on there in addition to the "In God We Trust" that's present.
Fifth, and I know it's not quite the same, but how many people feel offended because at some parks, God Bless America is sung during the seventh inning stretch? I have yet to see anyone complaining to Major League Baseball that it offends them. I have yet to hear any fans or players complain about it. You know why? Because it's in honor of the country, not of a religious deity.
Sixth, there's a nasty slippery slope that nobody's paying attention to. In the process of asserting this seperation of church and state, we've infringed on the freedom of religion. Consider this for a moment, and it's actually true in some places. If I'm a teacher and I display a religious symbol at all, I am taking a risk of serious trouble. This means if I wear a crucifix on a chain, if I have a Bible sitting on my desk, or if I make the Sign of the Cross in view of any student, I could be fired. I'm not forcing my religion on anyone, just expressing my religion. This is silly. We're eroding out civil liberties in the name of removing all mention of God and religion.
Seventh, consider the context of the freedom of religion. In England, there was the Anglican Church and it was forced on everyone. I see the argument that the pledge of allegiance might be in some way forcing religion, even though I don't think so. On the other hand, the slippery slope involved is far more dangerous. It's already starting to infringe on freedoms of religion and speech.
I think at some point, the seperation of church and state goes a bit too far. Take the pledge as a whole, not word by word. It's not religious in nature; it's about the country and what it stands for. And what it stands are isn't forcing religion on people, but about freedom, liberty, and justice. Sometimes it gets a big silly, just like forcing the Ten Commandments out of the courtroom. Remember, the Ten Commandments is a very early and almost universally understood code of laws. Nobody would object if Hammurabi's Code was in the courtroom. Just because it mentions religion or God doesn't mean it's forcing religion on people. And remember, saying the pledge is voluntary, and after the first grade, I don't ever remember reciting it in class.
I definitely enjoyed coding for the c64 more than for any modern platform. It only really compares to old school DOS programming, and the limitations of that environment means even that really didn't compare.
1) The C64 hardware was pretty much the same for every machine. This means that whatever neat hack you'd come up with, and believe me, there's a lot of them, it would work on just about any machine.
2) The system was relatively simple, so you could understand it without thousands of pages of reading.
3) If you didn't like something, be it BASIC, the Kernal, or anything else, it was a simple job to flip out the ROM and replace it in the underlying RAM with whatever you'd want.
4) While the graphics weren't great, it's better than most other systems at the time. The sound was almost certainly a cut above, too.
5) The C64 was extremely well documented, by amateurs, for amateurs. The documentation you'd find on it, and there was plenty, was easy to understand and chances are, if you wanted to know how to do something, someone had wrote an article or a few on exactly that. I still have well over a hundred books on C64 programming on a shelf. I haven't used them in awhile, but they're there. They cover just about every topic in programming you'd ever want. Oh, and the development tools for the C64 were inepensive. Just copy one of the free assemblers from someone else. Many flavors of development tools were freely available.
For the work that goes on in the shuttle, it's probably the least expensive way to fly circles around the Earth. A lot of experiments are conducted in zero-gravity and a lot of worthwhile inventions and discoveries have come out of research conducted for and by the space program.
I think that NASA should have probably made sure to be better prepared for repairs to be conducted on the space shuttle. On the other hand, sometimes it takes a catastrophe like this to bring it to the attention of the rest of the government and the public. And that's about the only way to secure the funding that's needed to make improvements and reforms to the space program.
It's too bad that it takes the lives of seven astronauts to get government officials and Congress to wake up and figure out that they can't keep cutting funding to the space program and still expect it to still be successful.
Not really. The courts have decided there's legitimate uses for P2P and therefore they actually have to catch you in the act of violating the law to sue you.
One concern here, though, is the Gnutella network doesn't, by itself, detect your IP. You can put whatever IP in you want and it'll appear that way to the rest of the network. Often, you'll see people with IPs in the 192.168/16 block on there. I could see how they could get your IP wrong this way and falsely accuse you because someone on the network claimed to have your IP. And this sort of thing scares me away from Gnutella.
And requiring software to be distributed under the GPL in ordered to be considered for government contracts is going to either force some vendors to sit on the sidelines or to GPL their software.
There is no advantage to Microsoft to releasing Windows XP under the GPL. The reason for this is simple. While Microsoft can still charge for the software, anyone who requests the source from them can then go release the source freely and Microsoft can't do anything about it. That's what the GPL does. And, of course, they have to be able to produce the binaries from the source. This means that once someone decides to release the source, then anyone and everyone can have Windows without paying Microsoft. This isn't conducive to commercial success from selling software. It's not a viable option for most companies. So that's a moronic statement to make.
And if you read what the government of Massachusetts is saying, then they can't have a few Windows machines.
And it's not about choosing the platform of choice for state employees. It's about getting the job done at the lowest cost. And if it's cheaper to use Windows than Linux, then by all means, run Linux. It's about studying bids provided by competitors and picking the one that offers the services you need at the lowest cost. I'm guessing you don't know anything about government, because that's how government contracts are given out. The wishes of the state employees here to play Solitaire would not be taken into consideration.
This, in effect, forces vendors of closed source operating systems and closed source software to sit on the sidelines, and doesn't necessarily provided the lowest cost solution to the state. And that's why this group has an objection to the law.
It's a legitimate objection. If you're not blinded by zealotry, you'll see their argument.
As dictionary.com defines monopoly: A right granted by a government giving exclusive control over a specified commercial activity to a single party.
The commercial activity here is competing for government contracts and selling software to the government. While you argue there are different Linux vendors, it is, in effect, correct. It is restricting it to one operating system and this bars a lot of vendors who provide closed source software from competing for government contracts.
I'll probably get modded down for comments that aren't pro-Linux. But this needs to be said.
And what you don't realize is that many government workers are trained to use the Windows operating system and the software for it. The cost to switch everything over to Linux is pretty high compared to the cost of upgrading the existing systems.
From dictionary.com:
Law. A right granted by a government giving exclusive control over a specified commercial activity to a single party.
In fact, them referring to the Massachusetts decision as a monopoly is quite correct.
Many companies provide software for Windows. Remember, when you're switching operating systems, you're not only switching the operating system, but switching the software you use for your tasks.
All they're asking is to evaluate the costs in each situation and not exclude other solutions (including Mac OS X, *BSD, Linux, Windows, BeOS, etc..) from the process. That's only fair. If Linux turns out to have the lowest cost to provide a certain service, this group would have no problem with it.
The problem here isn't the CCAGW. The problem here is the Linux zealots who think that Linux is ALWAYS the best solution and that Microsoft is ALWAYS the problem.
I'm sure I'll get modded down for what I'm about to say. But I may as well burn the karma I have to set the record straight.
Think about it. If a state decided it would only consider closed source operating systems for use in government computer, Slashdot would be up in arms about it. And rightly so.
They are not saying that Linux is a monopoly. They are saying that the government is preventing open competition at all. Requiring a use of a certain operating system, whether it's Linux or Windows, is blocking competition. All they want is in any case to consider all the options, be it open source or closed source.
It's nice to know that Slashdot so grossly misrepresents what's stated in the article.
They're not asking to kick out Linux or anything. All they're asking for is that all the options, open and closed source, be considered. That's not too much to ask.
Remember, it's the job of the courts to interpret the laws and determine what is constitutional and what isn't. Congress granted these broad new powers to the FBI, and you can't really blame the FBI for using what's given to them. What we can hope to come from this, though, is that eventually the provisions of the PATRIOT Act will be challenged in court cases and will be ruled unconstitutional. Blame Congress if you want. Blame the counrts. But don't blame the FBI for using the powers legally granted to them.
If you read their comments, there are some serious legal issues with this. If Lindows can't verify that each and every one of the claims submitted through the site is valid, then it really is unfair to Microsoft. On the other hand, I think the argument that claimants must submit their own claims is invalid. If you grant the power of attorney to Lindows to make the claim for you and then you give them what you receive in the settlement in a private transaction for goods in return, then it would seem to be perfectly valid. I'm not a lawyer, but I believe that's correct. I don't believe that the argument that it encourages fraudalent claims is correct, though. In any settlement such is this, it's in the interest of the claimants to maximize the value of their claims. It's no different than any other lawsuit.
There are some potential problems with this, and MS is right on some of their claims.
It was a nice marketing strategy by Lindows, though. Does anyone know if they'd profit off of this or lose money? It seems like a good marketing strategy and such a program would be more effective than any advertising could hope to be.
Slashdot Mirror
When do we get to use this law against the trolls who disguise goatse and tubgirl links? :)
It's not like anyone paid attention ever to the FBI warnings at the beginning or end of VHS tapes.
Can we expect Solaris 10 to be released to run on the x86 as well as Sparc hardware?
It's nice to have a real UNIX (Linux and BSD aren't really UNIX) that is relatively cheap will run on inexpensive x86 hardware.
When our youth are storing away $50 to purchase video games, something is wrong here. As a parent, I am genuinely disturbed by the violence of the games that are being produced today and that our youth are so addicted to these games. No child wants to do homework when there's video games to play. It's troubling that our youth are willing to store away money for video games which promote questionable ideas instead of spending the money for more appropriate uses.
I'd like to know how parents here can accept their children storing away money from weeks of allowance to purchase a video game, especially a game that has promotes so many things that we feel out children ought to not be exposed to in the glorified way video games promote them.
What's stopping Linux vendors from providing some sort of protection to their clients from IP issues in Linux and the associated software with it? This could be achieved by agreeing to pay legal fees for any client sued over software included with their Linux distribution, including the kernel. Also, it would be necessary for the vendors to pay any licensing fees demanded of their clients over IP issues. While it's easy to say this isn't necessary because SCO has little case against Linux, there's no way to know that someone else doesn't have a legitimate claim about IP being improperly in the kernel or software distributed with Linux. It seems like this "insurance policy" would go a long way toward counteracting SCO's FUD and would reassure clients that they can implement and use Linux without fear. Are the Linux vendors just being niggardly, and don't want to pay any fees that might be demanded from their clients, or is there a more legitimate reason for not providing protection to their clients from IP disputes?
When I first used Linux and I ran X, my thought was "damn, this is slow." This feeling is echoed by a lot of other people. It's nice to see that a replacement is on the way. Hopefully, in addition to reducing latency, an effort will be made to improve some other areas in X. Copy&paste is still inconsistent in X and just annoying. Nonetheless, fixing the problems with X is a BIG step toward Linux being viewed as acceptable on the desktop. That is the one thing that particularly caught my eye.
The inclusion of two desktop environments, no matter how good they might be, will be confusing to ordinary end users. There might be some argument for including KDE and leaving GNOME out, but I feel that GNOME is less CPU-intensive and the included applications are a little better. The best argument for KDE would be that it would make the transition from Windows easier because it is so similar. That shouldn't be an issue, though. Nobody worries about users switching from Windows to the Mac being confused. It's a good call.
If the open source community is so confident that it's correct, why are IBM and others refusing to pay the expenses should any of their users be sued over intellectual property violations? Microsoft recently extended full protection to its users, should they be sued for using Windows. Why are the large vendors of the Linux community such as IBM, Redhat, and SuSe being so niggardly? I'd like to believe the open source community is right, but the vendors would do themselves a huge PR favor by extending the protection I've discussed to their users. What's stopping this from happening? And even if it isn't necessary because SCO has no IP rights in the kernel, someone else could easily come along, make a similar claim, but have a much stronger case. This is one of the few things that bugs me about open source and Linux. I'd feel much more confident if the vendors weren't so niggardly and would provide protection to anyone sued for using Linux.
What I'm saying is IDE is a mess. And what good is that machine? It works just fine without that drive. Note, it's not a floppy drive, but a CD-ROM drive that was bad and causing the problem. I didn't know it at the time, but the drive was borked.
If you don't know, IDE was only supposed to have one device per channel, and it's just a hack to have a secondary device on each channel. Furthermore, if you put two drives on one channel, and you start copying from one drive to the other, you'll notice a significant loss in performance. SCSI doesn't correct for ignorant users, but it's not as much of a mess as IDE is.
In my experience, IDE is nothing but a mess. For example, I had removed power to an IDE drive in my machine, but left the IDE cable connected. The result was a machine that simply didn't want to boot.
Another big problem with IDE is that it's limited on the number of devices it supports without purchasing seperate IDE controllers that use up PCI slots. SCSI is much better on this.
On the other hand, I will be very curious about the performance of SATA, which is somewhat based off IDE, but with significant performance improvements. The future is still based off IDE because SCSI hardware is just too expensive to go in most machines. At a time when cost is a bigger factor in hardware than performance, SCSI just won't win.
Surely your ISP will have an interest in that you're abusing proxies. Remember, unauthorized use of open proxies is a felony. And we sure wouldn't want you immature GNAA morons behind bars, now would we? I suggest you leave Slashdot and never come back, or I will complain to Roadrunner, and we'll see what they have to say about it.
- CmdrTaco
pants are still optional
This is just one person's opinion on trusted computing. Nobody really knows where it's going, but there's a lot of people trying to push their various interests into it.
My feeling is the idea of trusted computing isn't in itself bad. As a matter of fact, there's probably a lot of very good uses for it to go along with a larger system of security. Some of the ideas in Palladium, if used correctly, really could enhance and improve security. It, in itself, may not provide security, but as part of a larger system with other security geatures, it may well be useful.
The problem is not trusted computing, but some of these rogue interests. The government, Microsoft, the recording industry, the motion picture industry, and just about everyone else wants a say in where it's going. Hopefully, between the various interests will cancel each other out and we'll end up with the good that comes from trusted computing, but without most of the bad.
Groups fighting against trusted computing shouldn't fight the technology, in my opinion, but some of the uses of it. This means they should fight some of the DRM aspects of it, not the technology in general. Remember, an extra layer of security isn't a bad thing to have.
Perhaps universally accepted was a bad choice of words. But the fact is, it's a code of laws. Everyone knows what it is, and everyone's heard them one place or another. It's an early form of a code of laws, and has a historical value in addition to its religion value. This is what I meant. It has a legitimate place there.
Second, I'd like to point out that 9/11 was not directly about religion. The "justification" given for the attack was in retaliation for the presence of troops in Saudi Arabia and the Muslim holy lands in the Gulf War. I suppose it might have been about the United States' support of Israel, too.
Third, as for saying the pledge of allegiance in school being voluntary, I can say for a fact I was never forced to say it. Never. I get the idea from my own personal experiences.
Fourth, I'd like to remind you that there are many symbols of other religions present in things such as currency. There's Masonic symbols on there in addition to the "In God We Trust" that's present.
Fifth, and I know it's not quite the same, but how many people feel offended because at some parks, God Bless America is sung during the seventh inning stretch? I have yet to see anyone complaining to Major League Baseball that it offends them. I have yet to hear any fans or players complain about it. You know why? Because it's in honor of the country, not of a religious deity.
Sixth, there's a nasty slippery slope that nobody's paying attention to. In the process of asserting this seperation of church and state, we've infringed on the freedom of religion. Consider this for a moment, and it's actually true in some places. If I'm a teacher and I display a religious symbol at all, I am taking a risk of serious trouble. This means if I wear a crucifix on a chain, if I have a Bible sitting on my desk, or if I make the Sign of the Cross in view of any student, I could be fired. I'm not forcing my religion on anyone, just expressing my religion. This is silly. We're eroding out civil liberties in the name of removing all mention of God and religion.
Seventh, consider the context of the freedom of religion. In England, there was the Anglican Church and it was forced on everyone. I see the argument that the pledge of allegiance might be in some way forcing religion, even though I don't think so. On the other hand, the slippery slope involved is far more dangerous. It's already starting to infringe on freedoms of religion and speech.
Where will it end?
I think at some point, the seperation of church and state goes a bit too far. Take the pledge as a whole, not word by word. It's not religious in nature; it's about the country and what it stands for. And what it stands are isn't forcing religion on people, but about freedom, liberty, and justice. Sometimes it gets a big silly, just like forcing the Ten Commandments out of the courtroom. Remember, the Ten Commandments is a very early and almost universally understood code of laws. Nobody would object if Hammurabi's Code was in the courtroom. Just because it mentions religion or God doesn't mean it's forcing religion on people. And remember, saying the pledge is voluntary, and after the first grade, I don't ever remember reciting it in class.
I definitely enjoyed coding for the c64 more than for any modern platform. It only really compares to old school DOS programming, and the limitations of that environment means even that really didn't compare.
1) The C64 hardware was pretty much the same for every machine. This means that whatever neat hack you'd come up with, and believe me, there's a lot of them, it would work on just about any machine.
2) The system was relatively simple, so you could understand it without thousands of pages of reading.
3) If you didn't like something, be it BASIC, the Kernal, or anything else, it was a simple job to flip out the ROM and replace it in the underlying RAM with whatever you'd want.
4) While the graphics weren't great, it's better than most other systems at the time. The sound was almost certainly a cut above, too.
5) The C64 was extremely well documented, by amateurs, for amateurs. The documentation you'd find on it, and there was plenty, was easy to understand and chances are, if you wanted to know how to do something, someone had wrote an article or a few on exactly that. I still have well over a hundred books on C64 programming on a shelf. I haven't used them in awhile, but they're there. They cover just about every topic in programming you'd ever want. Oh, and the development tools for the C64 were inepensive. Just copy one of the free assemblers from someone else. Many flavors of development tools were freely available.
Simply put, it's a programmer's dream.
For the work that goes on in the shuttle, it's probably the least expensive way to fly circles around the Earth. A lot of experiments are conducted in zero-gravity and a lot of worthwhile inventions and discoveries have come out of research conducted for and by the space program.
I think that NASA should have probably made sure to be better prepared for repairs to be conducted on the space shuttle. On the other hand, sometimes it takes a catastrophe like this to bring it to the attention of the rest of the government and the public. And that's about the only way to secure the funding that's needed to make improvements and reforms to the space program.
It's too bad that it takes the lives of seven astronauts to get government officials and Congress to wake up and figure out that they can't keep cutting funding to the space program and still expect it to still be successful.
Not really. The courts have decided there's legitimate uses for P2P and therefore they actually have to catch you in the act of violating the law to sue you. One concern here, though, is the Gnutella network doesn't, by itself, detect your IP. You can put whatever IP in you want and it'll appear that way to the rest of the network. Often, you'll see people with IPs in the 192.168/16 block on there. I could see how they could get your IP wrong this way and falsely accuse you because someone on the network claimed to have your IP. And this sort of thing scares me away from Gnutella.
And requiring software to be distributed under the GPL in ordered to be considered for government contracts is going to either force some vendors to sit on the sidelines or to GPL their software. There is no advantage to Microsoft to releasing Windows XP under the GPL. The reason for this is simple. While Microsoft can still charge for the software, anyone who requests the source from them can then go release the source freely and Microsoft can't do anything about it. That's what the GPL does. And, of course, they have to be able to produce the binaries from the source. This means that once someone decides to release the source, then anyone and everyone can have Windows without paying Microsoft. This isn't conducive to commercial success from selling software. It's not a viable option for most companies. So that's a moronic statement to make. And if you read what the government of Massachusetts is saying, then they can't have a few Windows machines. And it's not about choosing the platform of choice for state employees. It's about getting the job done at the lowest cost. And if it's cheaper to use Windows than Linux, then by all means, run Linux. It's about studying bids provided by competitors and picking the one that offers the services you need at the lowest cost. I'm guessing you don't know anything about government, because that's how government contracts are given out. The wishes of the state employees here to play Solitaire would not be taken into consideration. This, in effect, forces vendors of closed source operating systems and closed source software to sit on the sidelines, and doesn't necessarily provided the lowest cost solution to the state. And that's why this group has an objection to the law. It's a legitimate objection. If you're not blinded by zealotry, you'll see their argument.
You couldn't be more wrong in what you've said.
As dictionary.com defines monopoly:
A right granted by a government giving exclusive control over a specified commercial activity to a single party.
The commercial activity here is competing for government contracts and selling software to the government. While you argue there are different Linux vendors, it is, in effect, correct. It is restricting it to one operating system and this bars a lot of vendors who provide closed source software from competing for government contracts.
You couldn't be more wrong in what you said.
If you actually knew what the word monopoly means, you'd know that it was actually used correctly.
From dictionary.com:
# Law. A right granted by a government giving exclusive control over a specified commercial activity to a single party.
So, in fact, they used the word correctly.
I'll probably get modded down for comments that aren't pro-Linux. But this needs to be said. And what you don't realize is that many government workers are trained to use the Windows operating system and the software for it. The cost to switch everything over to Linux is pretty high compared to the cost of upgrading the existing systems. From dictionary.com: Law. A right granted by a government giving exclusive control over a specified commercial activity to a single party. In fact, them referring to the Massachusetts decision as a monopoly is quite correct. Many companies provide software for Windows. Remember, when you're switching operating systems, you're not only switching the operating system, but switching the software you use for your tasks. All they're asking is to evaluate the costs in each situation and not exclude other solutions (including Mac OS X, *BSD, Linux, Windows, BeOS, etc..) from the process. That's only fair. If Linux turns out to have the lowest cost to provide a certain service, this group would have no problem with it. The problem here isn't the CCAGW. The problem here is the Linux zealots who think that Linux is ALWAYS the best solution and that Microsoft is ALWAYS the problem.
I'm sure I'll get modded down for what I'm about to say. But I may as well burn the karma I have to set the record straight. Think about it. If a state decided it would only consider closed source operating systems for use in government computer, Slashdot would be up in arms about it. And rightly so. They are not saying that Linux is a monopoly. They are saying that the government is preventing open competition at all. Requiring a use of a certain operating system, whether it's Linux or Windows, is blocking competition. All they want is in any case to consider all the options, be it open source or closed source. It's nice to know that Slashdot so grossly misrepresents what's stated in the article. They're not asking to kick out Linux or anything. All they're asking for is that all the options, open and closed source, be considered. That's not too much to ask.
Why not run a server? Because it'd suck to be late for a meeting with a client due to your PDA being Slashdotted. :)
Remember, it's the job of the courts to interpret the laws and determine what is constitutional and what isn't. Congress granted these broad new powers to the FBI, and you can't really blame the FBI for using what's given to them. What we can hope to come from this, though, is that eventually the provisions of the PATRIOT Act will be challenged in court cases and will be ruled unconstitutional. Blame Congress if you want. Blame the counrts. But don't blame the FBI for using the powers legally granted to them.
If you read their comments, there are some serious legal issues with this. If Lindows can't verify that each and every one of the claims submitted through the site is valid, then it really is unfair to Microsoft. On the other hand, I think the argument that claimants must submit their own claims is invalid. If you grant the power of attorney to Lindows to make the claim for you and then you give them what you receive in the settlement in a private transaction for goods in return, then it would seem to be perfectly valid. I'm not a lawyer, but I believe that's correct. I don't believe that the argument that it encourages fraudalent claims is correct, though. In any settlement such is this, it's in the interest of the claimants to maximize the value of their claims. It's no different than any other lawsuit. There are some potential problems with this, and MS is right on some of their claims. It was a nice marketing strategy by Lindows, though. Does anyone know if they'd profit off of this or lose money? It seems like a good marketing strategy and such a program would be more effective than any advertising could hope to be.