I suspect that someone in the Open Source world might just do it out of spite and a big legal staff...
Of course, the more likely case is that everyone moves to PostgreSQL (which I use anyway) and MySQL withers away. That's what happens to FOSS projects when someone gets greedy; the community routes around the damage.
Of course, if the MySQL folks try to attack PostgreSQL on patent grounds, the case is MUCH more likely to go to The Nine...
Small problem for that strategy: IBM sees Open Source as a strategic tool of some importance, and they have, shall we say, rather a lot of money to purue that strategy with. It will be hard to categorize Linux as a hobbyist OS with IBM giving it the kind of support they are currently providing.
The software-patent side is more problematic, but IBM can be of some help there as well, and it's likely they will do so.
I suspect that the reason for going with this apparent overkill in hardware and operating system is ease of development for their prototype. While it's true that a much smaller embedded system would likely be chosen if light weight and low power (and ultimately, efficiency and hardware cost in a "finished" system) were at issue, the choice of a development system with a GUI, a high-level programming language and all those useful things like an IDE with a debugger makes a lot of sense from the standpoint of quick development. My tastes run more toward SDCC and microcontrollers, but the cost of that approach is less high-level software support. It's a big task whichever route you choose, and all that overhead does provide some ease-of-development benefits. (Much as I dislike XP...)
Regarding some of the other posts on this story claiming that this is no big deal, I think those folks should try this for themselves before declaring it easy.
Pumps pump by volume, not mass, so the changing density of the gasoline over temperature will mean that a volumetric measurement is the only really accurate way to check pump calibration.
If you want to do it by mass, you must know 1) the density-vs-volume curve of your blend of gasoline, and 2) the (gasoline) temperature at which the pump was calibrated, and 3) the present temperature of the gasoline pumped to your container. Tricky and error-prone, when a simple volume measurement will do.
Of course, the temperature effects may not be enough to be significant in any case; the truly interested should do some calculations to see, I guess.
Do I think we'd be better off, if anyone started patenting software algorithms since 1950? Damn right. We'd have had more people actually paying from research, instead of just hordes of people copy-and-pasting the same code over and over again.
I fully disagree. Locking up computing concepts in a royalty vault would SLOW progress in The Art (remember, THAT is the purpose of patents; fostering overall progress, NOT enriching inventors). Look at the Open Source vs closed-source paradigms for how it REALLY works.
First, consider the phone system. Until Ma Bell was broken up and local phone companies were encouraged to innovate to survive, and third-party manufacturers were allowed to make phone gizmos that could be freely connected to the POTS network, progress in that field was glacial. Caller ID, 3-way calling, cheap wireless phones, fax machines in a computer printer (hell, even just having MORE than one phone on your line)... Consider the point made.
NOW look at software. Compare the rate of progress of open systems (Linux, the Unices, Apache, Mozilla) with that of closed systems (Windows, IE, any number of others). The rate of improvement AND innovation in open efforts far exceeds closed efforts. Lock out all those "hordes of people copy-and-pasting the same code over and over again", and you'll get glacial progress there, as well. A big part of this is that the size of the developer comnmunity is not limited by pay-as-you-go royalty tollgates of the type patents promote. Tight royalty control would totally kill the open development in its areas of coverage.
Because of its infinite reproducibility and network synergies in development, software is fundamentally different from hardware or industrial processes, and needs a fundamentally different IP paradigm. Maybe it needs a patent model, maybe it doesn't. If, for the sake of argument, it does, that model must be vastly different from the 18th-century physical-device patent model now in use; at an absolute minimum, it would need MUCH shorter patent coverage to avoid stifling development.
I guess the news that Mandrake is planning to join the massive shift to X.org with the next Cooker version is more recent than this interview. Guess there's not much of an issue there any more.
I've seen it fly out of Friedricshafen, Germany, and I even managed to buy a plastic model kit for it (made by Revell, curiously) in a hobby shop in Friedrichshafen. It's a neat looking machine, and I hope the firm succeeds in doing interesting things with them. There's certainly room for zeppelins in the world of aviation.
BTW, I also visited the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen; they have a 1:1 mockup of the boarding gangway, some passenger cabins and a dining area from the Hindenburg. That was an awesome experience, and I recommend it if you ever go to the Bodensee region of Germany.
The one thing that remains to be seen is whether IBM is willing to use its patent portfolio to pressure Microsoft not to suffocate F/OSS with its patents. If this is the case then full-blown OS competition may be right around the corner.
One can never be sure with corporations, but it sure LOOKS like IBM, as a part of their business plan, wants F/OSS to succeed, and plans to ride that wave. (Farsighted of them if they do, 'cause F/OSS is already a major player in software, and it ain't going away.) It's certainly a better plan than trying to stop the wave (see SCO vs. world+dog).
SCO doesn't want to win in court they don't even want to go to court, they just want to scare IBM into buying them out.
Indeed, that is a likely explanation for how this started; it's even possible that Darth McBride actually *did* think there was some of their IP improperly in Linux (though this would have required some severe cognitive deficiency given the totality of the facts, and that bubble cannot have lasted too long in any case).
However, as soon as Big Blue sensibly failed to take the bait and reach for their checkbook, THAT game was well and truly over. That SCO persisted and still persists in this mad course indicates that the game has changed to either MS-funded FUD or a pump-and-dump scam. They cannot possibly hold any remaining hope of getting IBM to buy them out now.
The firmware for this box (or at least some of it) is offered for download on Netgear's site. I'm looking through the source, but I haven't seen anything relevant yet.
Has anyone seen where the backdoor is coded into the system? (Hint: if it's NOT in the source anywhere, Netgear is violating GPL here).
Presumably, Mercora will pay some sort of royalties on the Webcasts. Even if they get a free ride somehow, they will still have to administer the network (there *does* seem to be some form of central admin for the system) and pay for bandwidth and hosting. What's their business model for supporting the project? I see no visible source of revenue there. If there is no business model, will it all be run from a residential DSL account somewhere, with attendant performance and scaling problems?
I've done a VERY SIMPLE Word 2000 document containing one (1) text box and one (1) resized monochrome bitmap from Paint. Nothing else at all. Looks OK, prints well, but save it and try to reopen it later? BANG, the bitmap goes away with a bull**** message about something scaled too large or too small. It doesn't seem to take much to reach the performance limits of Office if you try something the least bit unusual. I look forward to the day when Corporate Policy no longer requires me to use that steaming pile of poo.
Another good translation for "Besteck" is "tableware", which bypasses the question of whether it's actually made of/plated with/has not a trace of silver...
http://www.bynari.net This product (not free, but cheaper than Exchange) which, by an odd coincidence, I'm evaluating for purchase in an upcoming IT changeover, replaces an Exchange server and supports both standard and Outlook/Exchange clients with all the calendaring bullhockey PHBs can't seem to do without. They have a separate for-cost Webmail product as well, about which I know little.
Insight Server *looks* very good, and the independent info I've seen also likes it. (If anyone has direct experience good or bad, I'm interested in hearing of it.) I'm looking forward with glee to a MS-free server room...
Also, once upon a time, Bynari was making a free Exchange client, but something happened to that plan and they don't mention it on their site any more.
First, note that Linux and OSS *will* be the dominant market paradigm in software very soon; arguably we're almost there already. Those who stand in its way, be they companies or nation states, will fall behind the rest.
OK, why do I make that absurd, starry-eyed visionary statement? 'Cause China, India, Brazil and others will continue OSS development as their escape from American/Microsoft domination, and software patents be damned. There *will* be lots of people developing OSS even if the US and EU suffer patent constipation. Our loss, their gain if we don't keep up.
Back to our story: IBM has apparently recognized the oncoming OSS locomotive, and is using it to their advantage. This rests to a significant degree on their being trusted by the the OSS community -- all those grunting golden geese out there building this wonderful stuff. IBM gets great benefit from being a respected OSS player and user. There's *no way* IBM can benefit from bucking this trend and trying to damage OSS, or by attacking OSS projects and thereby losing the trust of the community. The SCO example should show them this if they haven't already learned it, which I think they have.
Ergo, I believe that IBM, for purely self-interested reasons, will continue to be an important friend of OSS, or at minimum a friendly neutral party. If anything, I think we can expect IBM to use their patent portfolio to defend OSS efforts, not to attack them, again for purely self-interested reasons that just happen to benefit the OSS community at large.
Consider, as point of interest, that the phone system itself is responsible for some misdials. The original analog phone system design requirement was for high availability, i.e. the system is always up and running. The error rate in connecting calls was (quite reasonably) a lower priority, as that's a minor nuisance at best (1% of dialed calls going astray will be little noticed nor long remembered; 1% no-dialtone in a year is 3.65 days, which is VERY objectionable).
As a consequence, the classic phone system's inherent misdial rate is nontrivial, and is likely to be a significant fraction of misdialed calls, after user error. I suspect this trend continues to be the case with the mostly-digital systems now in use (anyone know the DTMF mis-recognition rate?). Soooo, not ALL of those wrong numbers are the fault of the caller...
Yes, a turned-off cell phone DOES give off detectable radiation. Reason is, there are parts of the phone circuit that are still powered so the phone can recognize the "soft" power button in the keyboard (unlike a hard power switch that actually disconnects the power, this one's just a keyboard switch.) Sooo, there's at least a minimal amount of circuitry with a crystal clock oscillator running and radiating a small amount of RF. That is, in a conventional phone. Probably the manufacturer of this specialized gadget did a true hard power switch to ensure that the battery is live when it's needed, but possibly not. Of course, the task of DETECTING that RF emission may well be impossible given the EMI environment of a warehouse or store, and not knowing exactly what frquency to sniff for.
Seems that many of the Diebold TSx have built-in printers already, Diebold just doesn't tell anyone and is reluctant to set the system up for printing receipts. They even participated in a voting-machine-trade-group effort to obstruct and prevent verifiable receipt use. Their motives are VERY suspect.
I believe it was in Florida, there was a smartcard stuck in the GEMS totalizer in one county in the middle of election night that SUBTRACTED several thousand Gore votes. They detected it afterward, but never DID find out who or why. Wanna bet that's not gonna happen gain? I sure don't.
The system is fundamentally insecure and must be scrapped.
The whole system is very simple. Even if they just used an ATM style of security (printing to an internal paper log) they would be far superior to Diebold. But using logic is difficult in this case, because Diebold is clearly making absurd claims, and it's difficult to refute absurdity.
It appears that at least some of the Diebold machines DO have internal printers, but Diebold has been notably coy about mentioning that, and indeed has been strangely resistant to the whole idea of verifiability. Makes me stop wondering. (tinfoil hat = ON)
BayStar doesn't see the SCO UNIX business as viable (no surprise there), and wants SCO to become an IP lawsuit mill. Wazzup with that? There's *no chance* SCO can survive that way, 'cause they don't HAVE the IP to win their current cases, let alone any new ones. So either:
1) BayStar got into this "sure thing" by bad judgement, is blowing smoke about their present motivations, and actually want some money out now, quick, before "the plane hits the terrain", or
2) BayStar is shilling for soMeone elSe and doesn't give a soaring adlunar coition about SCO's prospects for survival or monetary return, or
3) they are in some altered reality where they still think SCO *can* win. In that case I don't want any of what they're smoking, it impairs judgement too much.
I have serious objections to letting any government snoop my mail, e-mail (if I encrypt it), or peer into my home. I *don't* have any such objection to the government knowing how fast I'm driving. They can measure my speed externally with a radar unit or light-beam-breaker or inductive loops in the road. The presence of a black box in my car, as they are presently embodied, is just fine with me. The way I drive (cautiously and paranoid as hell), it is more likely to save my butt from a negligent-but-litigious driver.
A black box that tracks where I drive all day, now that would be cause to bring out the logic probe and pliers, but the present amount of data collection is not enough to permit significant governmental abuse, as far as I can see.
Don't forget, every driver is operating a deadly weapon; in my book, that calls for some accountability.
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I suspect that someone in the Open Source world might just do it out of spite and a big legal staff...
Of course, the more likely case is that everyone moves to PostgreSQL (which I use anyway) and MySQL withers away. That's what happens to FOSS projects when someone gets greedy; the community routes around the damage.
Of course, if the MySQL folks try to attack PostgreSQL on patent grounds, the case is MUCH more likely to go to The Nine...
Small problem for that strategy: IBM sees Open Source as a strategic tool of some importance, and they have, shall we say, rather a lot of money to purue that strategy with. It will be hard to categorize Linux as a hobbyist OS with IBM giving it the kind of support they are currently providing.
The software-patent side is more problematic, but IBM can be of some help there as well, and it's likely they will do so.
I suspect that the reason for going with this apparent overkill in hardware and operating system is ease of development for their prototype. While it's true that a much smaller embedded system would likely be chosen if light weight and low power (and ultimately, efficiency and hardware cost in a "finished" system) were at issue, the choice of a development system with a GUI, a high-level programming language and all those useful things like an IDE with a debugger makes a lot of sense from the standpoint of quick development. My tastes run more toward SDCC and microcontrollers, but the cost of that approach is less high-level software support. It's a big task whichever route you choose, and all that overhead does provide some ease-of-development benefits. (Much as I dislike XP...)
Regarding some of the other posts on this story claiming that this is no big deal, I think those folks should try this for themselves before declaring it easy.
It's obvious. They were wiped out by a crowd of Zerglings... ;-)
Linux is a Kernel!
Pumps pump by volume, not mass, so the changing density of the gasoline over temperature will mean that a volumetric measurement is the only really accurate way to check pump calibration.
If you want to do it by mass, you must know 1) the density-vs-volume curve of your blend of gasoline, and 2) the (gasoline) temperature at which the pump was calibrated, and 3) the present temperature of the gasoline pumped to your container. Tricky and error-prone, when a simple volume measurement will do.
Of course, the temperature effects may not be enough to be significant in any case; the truly interested should do some calculations to see, I guess.
Do I think we'd be better off, if anyone started patenting software algorithms since 1950? Damn right. We'd have had more people actually paying from research, instead of just hordes of people copy-and-pasting the same code over and over again.
I fully disagree. Locking up computing concepts in a royalty vault would SLOW progress in The Art (remember, THAT is the purpose of patents; fostering overall progress, NOT enriching inventors). Look at the Open Source vs closed-source paradigms for how it REALLY works.
First, consider the phone system. Until Ma Bell was broken up and local phone companies were encouraged to innovate to survive, and third-party manufacturers were allowed to make phone gizmos that could be freely connected to the POTS network, progress in that field was glacial. Caller ID, 3-way calling, cheap wireless phones, fax machines in a computer printer (hell, even just having MORE than one phone on your line)... Consider the point made.
NOW look at software. Compare the rate of progress of open systems (Linux, the Unices, Apache, Mozilla) with that of closed systems (Windows, IE, any number of others). The rate of improvement AND innovation in open efforts far exceeds closed efforts. Lock out all those "hordes of people copy-and-pasting the same code over and over again", and you'll get glacial progress there, as well. A big part of this is that the size of the developer comnmunity is not limited by pay-as-you-go royalty tollgates of the type patents promote. Tight royalty control would totally kill the open development in its areas of coverage.
Because of its infinite reproducibility and network synergies in development, software is fundamentally different from hardware or industrial processes, and needs a fundamentally different IP paradigm. Maybe it needs a patent model, maybe it doesn't. If, for the sake of argument, it does, that model must be vastly different from the 18th-century physical-device patent model now in use; at an absolute minimum, it would need MUCH shorter patent coverage to avoid stifling development.
I guess the news that Mandrake is planning to join the massive shift to X.org with the next Cooker version is more recent than this interview. Guess there's not much of an issue there any more.
I've seen it fly out of Friedricshafen, Germany, and I even managed to buy a plastic model kit for it (made by Revell, curiously) in a hobby shop in Friedrichshafen. It's a neat looking machine, and I hope the firm succeeds in doing interesting things with them. There's certainly room for zeppelins in the world of aviation.
BTW, I also visited the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen; they have a 1:1 mockup of the boarding gangway, some passenger cabins and a dining area from the Hindenburg. That was an awesome experience, and I recommend it if you ever go to the Bodensee region of Germany.
With some modifications, electronic voting could be more secure than paper ballots.
Hmm, I'm afraid I don't believe that. Unless the modifications include physical printed records that are actually checked.
The one thing that remains to be seen is whether IBM is willing to use its patent portfolio to pressure Microsoft not to suffocate F/OSS with its patents. If this is the case then full-blown OS competition may be right around the corner.
One can never be sure with corporations, but it sure LOOKS like IBM, as a part of their business plan, wants F/OSS to succeed, and plans to ride that wave. (Farsighted of them if they do, 'cause F/OSS is already a major player in software, and it ain't going away.) It's certainly a better plan than trying to stop the wave (see SCO vs. world+dog).
SCO doesn't want to win in court they don't even want to go to court, they just want to scare IBM into buying them out.
Indeed, that is a likely explanation for how this started; it's even possible that Darth McBride actually *did* think there was some of their IP improperly in Linux (though this would have required some severe cognitive deficiency given the totality of the facts, and that bubble cannot have lasted too long in any case).
However, as soon as Big Blue sensibly failed to take the bait and reach for their checkbook, THAT game was well and truly over. That SCO persisted and still persists in this mad course indicates that the game has changed to either MS-funded FUD or a pump-and-dump scam. They cannot possibly hold any remaining hope of getting IBM to buy them out now.
The firmware for this box (or at least some of it) is offered for download on Netgear's site. I'm looking through the source, but I haven't seen anything relevant yet.
Has anyone seen where the backdoor is coded into the system? (Hint: if it's NOT in the source anywhere, Netgear is violating GPL here).
Presumably, Mercora will pay some sort of royalties on the Webcasts. Even if they get a free ride somehow, they will still have to administer the network (there *does* seem to be some form of central admin for the system) and pay for bandwidth and hosting. What's their business model for supporting the project? I see no visible source of revenue there. If there is no business model, will it all be run from a residential DSL account somewhere, with attendant performance and scaling problems?
I've done a VERY SIMPLE Word 2000 document containing one (1) text box and one (1) resized monochrome bitmap from Paint. Nothing else at all. Looks OK, prints well, but save it and try to reopen it later? BANG, the bitmap goes away with a bull**** message about something scaled too large or too small. It doesn't seem to take much to reach the performance limits of Office if you try something the least bit unusual. I look forward to the day when Corporate Policy no longer requires me to use that steaming pile of poo.
Another good translation for "Besteck" is "tableware", which bypasses the question of whether it's actually made of/plated with/has not a trace of silver...
http://www.bynari.net
This product (not free, but cheaper than Exchange) which, by an odd coincidence, I'm evaluating for purchase in an upcoming IT changeover, replaces an Exchange server and supports both standard and Outlook/Exchange clients with all the calendaring bullhockey PHBs can't seem to do without. They have a separate for-cost Webmail product as well, about which I know little.
Insight Server *looks* very good, and the independent info I've seen also likes it. (If anyone has direct experience good or bad, I'm interested in hearing of it.) I'm looking forward with glee to a MS-free server room...
Also, once upon a time, Bynari was making a free Exchange client, but something happened to that plan and they don't mention it on their site any more.
First, note that Linux and OSS *will* be the dominant market paradigm in software very soon; arguably we're almost there already. Those who stand in its way, be they companies or nation states, will fall behind the rest.
OK, why do I make that absurd, starry-eyed visionary statement? 'Cause China, India, Brazil and others will continue OSS development as their escape from American/Microsoft domination, and software patents be damned. There *will* be lots of people developing OSS even if the US and EU suffer patent constipation. Our loss, their gain if we don't keep up.
Back to our story: IBM has apparently recognized the oncoming OSS locomotive, and is using it to their advantage. This rests to a significant degree on their being trusted by the the OSS community -- all those grunting golden geese out there building this wonderful stuff. IBM gets great benefit from being a respected OSS player and user. There's *no way* IBM can benefit from bucking this trend and trying to damage OSS, or by attacking OSS projects and thereby losing the trust of the community. The SCO example should show them this if they haven't already learned it, which I think they have.
Ergo, I believe that IBM, for purely self-interested reasons, will continue to be an important friend of OSS, or at minimum a friendly neutral party. If anything, I think we can expect IBM to use their patent portfolio to defend OSS efforts, not to attack them, again for purely self-interested reasons that just happen to benefit the OSS community at large.
Consider, as point of interest, that the phone system itself is responsible for some misdials. The original analog phone system design requirement was for high availability, i.e. the system is always up and running. The error rate in connecting calls was (quite reasonably) a lower priority, as that's a minor nuisance at best (1% of dialed calls going astray will be little noticed nor long remembered; 1% no-dialtone in a year is 3.65 days, which is VERY objectionable).
As a consequence, the classic phone system's inherent misdial rate is nontrivial, and is likely to be a significant fraction of misdialed calls, after user error. I suspect this trend continues to be the case with the mostly-digital systems now in use (anyone know the DTMF mis-recognition rate?). Soooo, not ALL of those wrong numbers are the fault of the caller...
Yes, a turned-off cell phone DOES give off detectable radiation. Reason is, there are parts of the phone circuit that are still powered so the phone can recognize the "soft" power button in the keyboard (unlike a hard power switch that actually disconnects the power, this one's just a keyboard switch.) Sooo, there's at least a minimal amount of circuitry with a crystal clock oscillator running and radiating a small amount of RF. That is, in a conventional phone. Probably the manufacturer of this specialized gadget did a true hard power switch to ensure that the battery is live when it's needed, but possibly not. Of course, the task of DETECTING that RF emission may well be impossible given the EMI environment of a warehouse or store, and not knowing exactly what frquency to sniff for.
Seems that many of the Diebold TSx have built-in printers already, Diebold just doesn't tell anyone and is reluctant to set the system up for printing receipts. They even participated in a voting-machine-trade-group effort to obstruct and prevent verifiable receipt use. Their motives are VERY suspect.
I believe it was in Florida, there was a smartcard stuck in the GEMS totalizer in one county in the middle of election night that SUBTRACTED several thousand Gore votes. They detected it afterward, but never DID find out who or why. Wanna bet that's not gonna happen gain? I sure don't.
The system is fundamentally insecure and must be scrapped.
The whole system is very simple. Even if they just used an ATM style of security (printing to an internal paper log) they would be far superior to Diebold. But using logic is difficult in this case, because Diebold is clearly making absurd claims, and it's difficult to refute absurdity.
It appears that at least some of the Diebold machines DO have internal printers, but Diebold has been notably coy about mentioning that, and indeed has been strangely resistant to the whole idea of verifiability. Makes me stop wondering. (tinfoil hat = ON)
BayStar doesn't see the SCO UNIX business as viable (no surprise there), and wants SCO to become an IP lawsuit mill. Wazzup with that? There's *no chance* SCO can survive that way, 'cause they don't HAVE the IP to win their current cases, let alone any new ones. So either:
1) BayStar got into this "sure thing" by bad judgement, is blowing smoke about their present motivations, and actually want some money out now, quick, before "the plane hits the terrain", or
2) BayStar is shilling for soMeone elSe and doesn't give a soaring adlunar coition about SCO's prospects for survival or monetary return, or
3) they are in some altered reality where they still think SCO *can* win. In that case I don't want any of what they're smoking, it impairs judgement too much.
I have serious objections to letting any government snoop my mail, e-mail (if I encrypt it), or peer into my home. I *don't* have any such objection to the government knowing how fast I'm driving. They can measure my speed externally with a radar unit or light-beam-breaker or inductive loops in the road. The presence of a black box in my car, as they are presently embodied, is just fine with me. The way I drive (cautiously and paranoid as hell), it is more likely to save my butt from a negligent-but-litigious driver.
A black box that tracks where I drive all day, now that would be cause to bring out the logic probe and pliers, but the present amount of data collection is not enough to permit significant governmental abuse, as far as I can see.
Don't forget, every driver is operating a deadly weapon; in my book, that calls for some accountability.