Your question is answered with another question: Why would IBM bother to sue you, the small-fry programmer releasing a free product? You can't get blood from a stone. IBM has zero incentive to waste thousands of dollars suing you, an essentially asset-free programmer, just to stop distribution of a free product.
Ah, but IBM need not sue. They only have to *threaten* to sue. All that costs is a phone call. Besides, I don't like to depend on the benevolence of large corporations.:^)
Plus, patents also protect the little guy. Remember Stac. v. Microsoft. The big company tried to steal a key product from the little company. However, the little company had a patent and was able to get huge damages from the big company.
That's good to know the little guy wins occasionally, but for every Stac. v. Microsoft, there are a thousand cases where the opposite is true. Big corporations amass patents (a la IBM). Big corporations have more money to spend on lawsuits. Bad combination.
I'll probably throw some letters to various peoples who (theoretically) represent me in my gov't. It just might work; stranger things have happened.
Suppose I, as an independent software developer, release a free software project under the GPL. How do I insure that my ass doesn't get sued into oblivion (with my income that wouldn't take much) if some algorithm I use infringes on, for example, one of IBM's patents. Am I even capable of even defending myself even if the patent was easily proven as invalid? What happens when the patent is enforcable?
While this document was enlightening, I get the wary feeling that I'm going to eventually get screwed over sooner or later, thanks to our government's brain-dead patent policies. What are the solutions? Can I cover myself for liability purposes, or am I going to have to depend on the whims of some faceless corporation and the supposed expertise of patent lawyers? Hell, what if I can't even afford a lawyer?
This is troubling for me, because to me it says "Say goodbye to your hacking days; everywhere you'll turn you're gonna run into a patent and get screwed". What can be done to keep the hacking culture alive and keep it from stifling because of the paranoia induced by potential lawsuits for something you didn't even know was a problem the day before? Can anything be done at all?
Actually, I have read pretty much all of ESR's papers relating to Open Source and Free Software. Dude.:^)
Pauses quietly as he scans his previous post for any evidence of "taking some big name's words for truth". Finding none, he raises an eyebrow in confusion, shrugs, and changes the subject.
I don't take ESR or RMS or LBT or anybody too seriously. We're all right, or wrong, sometimes. ESR might be guilty of presenting an "idealized" view of how open source works, but this guy's critique strikes me as not-well-researched (I should know, I've been guilty of a few not-well-researched papers in my time [thanks to procrastination]).
At any rate, I had to respond ot someone who thought I was a little mushy minded. I *am* a little mushy minded, but that comes with the territory of being a math major (Eeeek!)
I tried to read the criticism. I really did. It was painful.
The Cathedral and the Bazaar was one of the first papers on open source development I had ever read. Believe me it was an eye opener and I go back to read every now and then if I feel bored.
The funny thing is that I didn't even come close to the same conclusions that Nikolai Bezroukov did. Marxist?!?!? The Red Scare is starting to become popular again I guess. Unfortunately most people are a little more clued in these days than they were in the 50's. Otherwise we'd all be screwed over if someone whispered "Commie" and pointed at us while our backs were turned (happened a lot I guess in the McCarthy years).
Nikolai Bezroukov also over-generalizes. Hell I knew that not all open source projects operate Bazaar style. That's just the tendency, not a rule set down in stone.
I have one serious problem with one argument that he makes rather loudly: Authoritarian methods will kill any given Open Source project more effectively than anything else. Woah there, that's a broad blanket statement if I ever saw one. Linux itself operates under a "benevolent dictatorship" model, where one guy says "Okay this is it: Here's our release". GNOME does not (or at least it didn't when 1.0 was released... I hear they've gotten their act together though:^). Guess which software package is stable and fast? Okay, maybe that's comparing apples and bananas, but you see my point.:^)
You *need* authoritarianism for *any* software package to work, OSS or not. Someone has to be the boss. Otherwise you get the problem of "too many chefs spoil the broth" a la GNOME 1.0.
I should stop ranting now while I have the chance. I do feel better though.:^)
If yer a member of the church of the sub-genius, yer diety is "Bob". I think you can see him by executing "xscreensaver -mode bob" or something like that (my xscreensaver is borken, so I cannot check:^( )
The last time I tried to compile it I wasn't very knowledgeable in how server/client programs work, and got frustrated in figuring it out. Thus I forgot about it until now...
I think it's time to rev up gcc and see if I can't get the darned thing to work this time around, now that I not only know how to get client/server programs working, I can code them, too (though not too well:^).
This type of negligence is, unfortunately, widespread throughout the worldwide industries. Not just the software industry.
Lessons learned here: 1) Get everything in writing and 2) Provide in your contract that allows you, the payee, to terminate services with extreme prejudice in case of non-payment. That way if they decide to sue you for, oh, removing a website that they never paid for, you can counter-sue. Contractual obligations, and such.:^)
Unfortunately, I think that these new terms will have as much success in gaining widespread success as the term "cracker" versus "hacker" Magabyte and gigabyte are just far too entrenched.
This isn't to say that this isn't a good idea. But good luck in transforming the mutilating power of the English language.:^)
Re:Just some news from someone who worked on it...
on
CrackThisBox Updates
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· Score: 1
So you know, i'm of them 4,000+ programmers turned linux and quit guys.
Holy cow, I didn't realize the brain drain from MS was *that* bad.
If i was you I would feer MS, but be smart and fight back. Microsoft is only learning from this. They don't care what you think, your only helping them.
And they're helping us.
FYI there was a time when I had to explain Linux to practically everyone I knew. Nowadays, everyone's at least heard of it. I've already managed to convert one non-geek type over, and another is on the way (and yes the non-geek type really likes Linux... he didn't go crazy like some of the astroturfers here would like to have you think:^).
Look up in this thread a little bit. Someone mentioned $189 for a "telnet tool". I assumed he was talking about the server, since all telnet clients I've ever run across (Win95/NT or Linux) have been free, or considerably less expensive than $189.
Or perhaps that's just the "per-user" license he's talking about.:^)
Man, and I thought the Linux advocates on this site were rabid.
Let's face it, though. If you're the same Anonymous Coward that's been posting the recent diatribes in this thread, then by your own admission you've made one glaring admission: Cost.
200 bucks for a lousy telnet server? Ye gods! Well, if I had my company buy these tools for me I'd be glowing about them too, but let's face it. A telnet server has no reason to cost 200 clams. It's almost rediculous as the some-hundreds-of-dollars-per-seat that W2K charges you. It's a scam. I don't buy it.
For that amount of money, W2K had *better* be secure. So far Linux managed to beat W2k, even though the bulk of the attacks have been DoS.
Your rant has done nothing to convince me to go the way of NT. If anything, it just convinces me that MS has less and less a leg to stand on, since your emotional responses have been less than completely logical.
These three concepts were originated by the Greeks because they were the first to dabble in what we call today Democracy. The main focus of Democracy is speech-giving, and the concepts they discovered still hold true today.
Nothing about today's discourse really differs from that of the Greeks. Back then, they talked on podiums to large crowds. Today they talk on the internet to large numbers of web surfers. The underlying concepts aren't any different, merely the medium is.
I'd suggest taking a public speaking course to gain a better understanding of the issues here. Trite, indeed.;^)
There are three aspect of any public discourse that are worth consideration:
ethos: The personality of the speaker, although this could be extended to mean his/her reptation and so forth. Bob here has a reputation of being aa blowhard among geeks, but who knows about the "suits"? After all, he *is* the inventor of ethernet. His opinion carries weight because of that fact.
logos: The logic of the argument. It used to be argued that logos was the most important aspect of any public discourse, but not so much any longer (one has only to look at advertisements one sees on TV and their effectiveness on their viewer to see this). After all, it's widely known among technical folk that a homogenous NT network environment is only asking for trouble (viruses, cost of ownership, security, and so on). But that doesn't stop the army of MSCE's out there from convincing CTO's nationwide to deploy them. Bob's logos is weak here. We know it, but not many others do. This is a problem
pathos: The emotional appeal of an argument. This is the ringer here. Bob is appealing to the emotional tug strings of its readers (his use of the words "communist", "anti-American", and other examples are strong indicators of Bob's emotional appeal... he knows what buttons to push). This is why Bob's arguments against Linux are far more dangerous than the FUD from days past we've seen. Emotional arguments carry far more weight than logical ones.
In the past the Linux community has been very good at fighting logos-based FUD. We've fought back with logos-based counter-FUD. It worked. Linux is pretty popular now, and the technical arguments against it are starting to look weak. Now the emotional arguments are starting to rear their ugly heads.
How to counter this? I hate to say it, but logos-based counter-FUD probably won't work here anymore. It's like trying to fight a rapidly spreading forest fire with a garden hose. We could watch with helplessness as the flames start igniting, or we can bring out the big guns...
Marketting, marketting, marketting. Expos (we got those already), Local User Groups (got those, too), and small to medium sized businesses (three for three) are key here. Organization is key here. Linux is already well-equipped to handle the flames with a few sparks of its own.
And ignore Bob. Inventor of the stuff I use in my home network he may be, but his reputation has soured with me. I don't care about his opinions anymore, since they've long left the pasture and headed to the hills once he started shooting his mouth off. Though that won't stop me from spouting off on him every once in a while.;^)
Gates did start out with a dream... He tried very hard to impliment it. And in the process he very nearly destroyed the very industry he helped create. But then again, it seems as though his contemporaries (Ellison, McNealy, etc) are hell-bent on self-destruction. Their single-minded focus on one man distracted them from the real issues: making money, building market share, and so forth. Microsoft was always on the offensive, and everyone else was on the defensive (with the possible exception of Sun). Anyone who's watched a football or baseball or soccer or chess game knows who's more likely to win in a scenario like that.
I think that Gates deserves his fortune, but not the rest of the world's, too. I don't want MS to control our basic telecommunications infrastructure (hell I don't want any one organization to do that... power corrupts and all that). Look at the last major organization that controlled our thoughts and speech the way MS does now: The Roman Catholic Church. No more Tower of Babel of competing standards (religions). A CEO (pope) controls a corporation (church), and maintains his stranglehold over the consumers (peasants) by keeping control over his proprietary protocols (Latin Text Bibles), and by charging a small amount of money for upgrades (tithes) every once in a while. Competitors (heretics) are driven out of business (excommunicated), or bought up (forced to "confess" their sins). The executives (Bishops) grow fat with the excesses of wealth from stock options (church properties).
But then comes along Linus Torvalds (Martin Luther), a sometimes unwilling crusader for freedom.
Ok, that reference has been made before, but it bears repeating. After all, the Catholic Church in it's height of power was very nearly responsible for the Dark Ages (illiteracy was promoted and encouraged to prevent people from asking too many questions about their center of power, the Bible, among other things; therefore not a whole lot was written about that 1000 year epoch). Compare this to growing trends promoted by Microsoft to "make things easier" for you. Who needs literacy (computer or otherwise)? All you need to do is point and click! It's that simple! Oh don't pay attention to how proprietary our formats are... We're the One True (Microsoft) Way!
Comments were made about how proprietary formats are changing so fast that information stored today is lost a year from now. The storage mediums are slightly to blame, but that may become less of an issue as technology becomes sturdier (hopefully). The real issues are the data formats. When a software package is only partially compatible with previous versions of itself, data is lost. Imagine how much literature written only 10 years ago is lost today because the data formats are no longer supported! Probably not a whole lot now, but if these proprietary protocols continue their long march towards converting the masses, stuff like Jon Katz's review above (I caught the smart quotes, Jon... use Demoronizer:^) might not be readable in 15 years. Oh sorry, we don't support that old format, why don't you buy our new product instead!
Yea verily, we are in a Dark Ages of sorts. Our hope? Universal standardized formats. ASCII is still used everywhere; it probably won't go away. HTML and XML may probably also be what will be used for long-term storage. The reasons? The formats are simple, yet extensible and useful enough for a long time.
Hmmm I appeared to go off on a rant. I'll stop now. Maybe I needed to vent after listening to a Microsoft guy spout out "Global Market" and "At Your Fingertips" one too many times. Gods, I hate buzzwords.:^)
The OpenSource movement has the advantage. While promising and delivering, the product does not have to have a cash flow to survive, unlike the commerical world.
Paradigm shifts are kinda funny that way... detractors always say "There's no money!" Well duh... there wasn't a lot of money in the desktop market nor the internet when they started out either. Now they're two of the world's most lucrative technologies.
As Open Source matures, Bill will worry. Oh wait, he already is...;^)
It's sorta sad seeing CEO's get whipped up in a tizzy like that. It does remind me that technology is most definitely an immature market (in more ways than one). It also reminds me that in the world we live in today, it's the weidos with obsessive-compulsive "issues" that grab all the power and money (I'll consider myself comfortably wealthy when I break the 100K a year barrier [or will I?;^} ]).
At any rate I've stopped complaining about Microsoft a while back and settled down to complaining about Windows. Well, okay, I'll really lay it on thick when I have to sit through one of those Microsoft training (propaganda?) videos. But other than that, I pretty much consider MS to be a big giant on its way to slowly falling asleep. Millionaire syndrome, I think.
- Dave (currently sitting through a MS training [DOH! propaganda!] class).
I suddest people keep a cool head about this. Redhat's IPO ain't the beginning nor the end of Linux. And it's certainly not the beginning nor end of your careers either. An IPO is just that. An Initial Public Offering. A way for businesses to raise money through selling portions of itself to the public. It's *not* the ultimate solution to redeem yourself for years of selfless work. Hey, that's what selfless work is. Sometimes it's thankless too.
Red Hat is taking steps to do damage control here. Let's let them work this out. I suspect that in the end this will work out for most people who got "the letter". If we let it. You decide.
I'd also like to suggest that there might have been a slight, um, overreaction on the part of, oh, everybody.:^) Whether this was by tetosterone-laden teenagers or disgruntled programmers or corporate marketting agents spreading their FUD through covert channels, I think that, well, we need to keep this from escalating. Despite not getting the letter, I might want to invest in this company in the future. Actually, I might want to use Linux at whatever jobs I get in the future, too. This IPO will help. Screaming holy hell about being denied an opprotunity and writing angry letters to Wired and Yahoo! and Salon won't. I mean, it really really won't.
Well, I hope the best for Red Hat and all parties involved. Here's to a successful IPO, and World Domination(TM).:^)
I've been told that, in several places across the US, having a Bob Marley or Grateful Dead sticker on your vehicle is considered 'probable cause'.
If anyone could confirm/deny these claims, I'd apprecate it.
Oh that's just the tip of the iceberg. Being black in most areas is "probable cause". Long hair, ditto. Under the age of 18? Ooo, guaranteed criminal there. Heck, if you don't look like Ozzy and Hariette, then that is grounds for probable cause.
Feh. It's the kind of thing that scares the suits into supporting Linux. Try to imagine, for instance, this scenario:
Company: Hey we just released this nifty server software for Linux! Hoorah! Sysadmin: Um, we've alreay invested in this GNU solution. You were a bit slow on the draw, there, guys. Sorry. Company: Doh!
Linux users owe nothing to Sun. They've made it clear they owe nothing to us, so why do 'em any favors?
Wisely? Bah. Use it for world domination and grooming your pets.
I will definitely have to check that out at work today, however.:^)
How to solve the "fonts too small problem"
on
Return of The Onion
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· Score: 1
Ever since my 1024x786 on a 14" monitor days I would increase the size of the fonts by two points (in the preferences dialogue). That should solve problems concerning the readability of the Onion, and about half of all other websites in existence.
Slashdot Mirror
Your question is answered with another question: Why would IBM bother to sue you, the small-fry programmer releasing a free product? You can't get blood from a stone. IBM has zero incentive to waste thousands of dollars suing you, an essentially asset-free programmer, just to stop distribution of a free product.
Ah, but IBM need not sue. They only have to *threaten* to sue. All that costs is a phone call. Besides, I don't like to depend on the benevolence of large corporations. :^)
Plus, patents also protect the little guy. Remember Stac. v. Microsoft. The big company tried to steal a key product from the little company. However, the little company had a patent and was able to get huge damages from the big company.
That's good to know the little guy wins occasionally, but for every Stac. v. Microsoft, there are a thousand cases where the opposite is true. Big corporations amass patents (a la IBM). Big corporations have more money to spend on lawsuits. Bad combination.
I'll probably throw some letters to various peoples who (theoretically) represent me in my gov't. It just might work; stranger things have happened.
Suppose I, as an independent software developer, release a free software project under the GPL. How do I insure that my ass doesn't get sued into oblivion (with my income that wouldn't take much) if some algorithm I use infringes on, for example, one of IBM's patents. Am I even capable of even defending myself even if the patent was easily proven as invalid? What happens when the patent is enforcable?
While this document was enlightening, I get the wary feeling that I'm going to eventually get screwed over sooner or later, thanks to our government's brain-dead patent policies. What are the solutions? Can I cover myself for liability purposes, or am I going to have to depend on the whims of some faceless corporation and the supposed expertise of patent lawyers? Hell, what if I can't even afford a lawyer?
This is troubling for me, because to me it says "Say goodbye to your hacking days; everywhere you'll turn you're gonna run into a patent and get screwed". What can be done to keep the hacking culture alive and keep it from stifling because of the paranoia induced by potential lawsuits for something you didn't even know was a problem the day before? Can anything be done at all?
Linus Benedict Torvalds
Actually, I have read pretty much all of ESR's papers relating to Open Source and Free Software. Dude. :^)
Pauses quietly as he scans his previous post for any evidence of "taking some big name's words for truth". Finding none, he raises an eyebrow in confusion, shrugs, and changes the subject.
I don't take ESR or RMS or LBT or anybody too seriously. We're all right, or wrong, sometimes. ESR might be guilty of presenting an "idealized" view of how open source works, but this guy's critique strikes me as not-well-researched (I should know, I've been guilty of a few not-well-researched papers in my time [thanks to procrastination]).
At any rate, I had to respond ot someone who thought I was a little mushy minded. I *am* a little mushy minded, but that comes with the territory of being a math major (Eeeek!)
Okay now I'm getting silly. I'll stop now. :^)
-peace
Been there. :^)
I tried to read the criticism. I really did. It was painful.
The Cathedral and the Bazaar was one of the first papers on open source development I had ever read. Believe me it was an eye opener and I go back to read every now and then if I feel bored.
The funny thing is that I didn't even come close to the same conclusions that Nikolai Bezroukov did. Marxist?!?!? The Red Scare is starting to become popular again I guess. Unfortunately most people are a little more clued in these days than they were in the 50's. Otherwise we'd all be screwed over if someone whispered "Commie" and pointed at us while our backs were turned (happened a lot I guess in the McCarthy years).
Nikolai Bezroukov also over-generalizes. Hell I knew that not all open source projects operate Bazaar style. That's just the tendency, not a rule set down in stone.
I have one serious problem with one argument that he makes rather loudly: Authoritarian methods will kill any given Open Source project more effectively than anything else. Woah there, that's a broad blanket statement if I ever saw one. Linux itself operates under a "benevolent dictatorship" model, where one guy says "Okay this is it: Here's our release". GNOME does not (or at least it didn't when 1.0 was released... I hear they've gotten their act together though :^). Guess which software package is stable and fast? Okay, maybe that's comparing apples and bananas, but you see my point. :^)
You *need* authoritarianism for *any* software package to work, OSS or not. Someone has to be the boss. Otherwise you get the problem of "too many chefs spoil the broth" a la GNOME 1.0.
I should stop ranting now while I have the chance. I do feel better though. :^)
*Gets out the clue stick*
Uh, dude, yer thinking of Richard Stallman. We're talking about Eric Raymond.
*THWAP!*
If yer a member of the church of the sub-genius, yer diety is "Bob". I think you can see him by executing "xscreensaver -mode bob" or something like that (my xscreensaver is borken, so I cannot check :^( )
The last time I tried to compile it I wasn't very knowledgeable in how server/client programs work, and got frustrated in figuring it out. Thus I forgot about it until now...
I think it's time to rev up gcc and see if I can't get the darned thing to work this time around, now that I not only know how to get client/server programs working, I can code them, too (though not too well :^).
We'll see how it goes.
This type of negligence is, unfortunately, widespread throughout the worldwide industries. Not just the software industry.
Lessons learned here: 1) Get everything in writing and 2) Provide in your contract that allows you, the payee, to terminate services with extreme prejudice in case of non-payment. That way if they decide to sue you for, oh, removing a website that they never paid for, you can counter-sue. Contractual obligations, and such. :^)
Otherwise, common-sense cover-your-ass rules apply.
Unfortunately, I think that these new terms will have as much success in gaining widespread success as the term "cracker" versus "hacker" Magabyte and gigabyte are just far too entrenched.
This isn't to say that this isn't a good idea. But good luck in transforming the mutilating power of the English language. :^)
So you know, i'm of them 4,000+ programmers turned linux and quit guys.
Holy cow, I didn't realize the brain drain from MS was *that* bad.
If i was you I would feer MS, but be smart and fight back. Microsoft is only learning from this. They don't care what you think, your only helping them.
And they're helping us.
FYI there was a time when I had to explain Linux to practically everyone I knew. Nowadays, everyone's at least heard of it. I've already managed to convert one non-geek type over, and another is on the way (and yes the non-geek type really likes Linux... he didn't go crazy like some of the astroturfers here would like to have you think :^).
Viva la revolution. ;^)
Look up in this thread a little bit. Someone mentioned $189 for a "telnet tool". I assumed he was talking about the server, since all telnet clients I've ever run across (Win95/NT or Linux) have been free, or considerably less expensive than $189.
Or perhaps that's just the "per-user" license he's talking about. :^)
Man, and I thought the Linux advocates on this site were rabid.
Let's face it, though. If you're the same Anonymous Coward that's been posting the recent diatribes in this thread, then by your own admission you've made one glaring admission: Cost.
200 bucks for a lousy telnet server? Ye gods! Well, if I had my company buy these tools for me I'd be glowing about them too, but let's face it. A telnet server has no reason to cost 200 clams. It's almost rediculous as the some-hundreds-of-dollars-per-seat that W2K charges you. It's a scam. I don't buy it.
For that amount of money, W2K had *better* be secure. So far Linux managed to beat W2k, even though the bulk of the attacks have been DoS.
Your rant has done nothing to convince me to go the way of NT. If anything, it just convinces me that MS has less and less a leg to stand on, since your emotional responses have been less than completely logical.
Just my 2 cents.
These three concepts were originated by the Greeks because they were the first to dabble in what we call today Democracy. The main focus of Democracy is speech-giving, and the concepts they discovered still hold true today.
Nothing about today's discourse really differs from that of the Greeks. Back then, they talked on podiums to large crowds. Today they talk on the internet to large numbers of web surfers. The underlying concepts aren't any different, merely the medium is.
I'd suggest taking a public speaking course to gain a better understanding of the issues here. Trite, indeed. ;^)
There are three aspect of any public discourse that are worth consideration:
ethos: The personality of the speaker, although this could be extended to mean his/her reptation and so forth. Bob here has a reputation of being aa blowhard among geeks, but who knows about the "suits"? After all, he *is* the inventor of ethernet. His opinion carries weight because of that fact.
logos: The logic of the argument. It used to be argued that logos was the most important aspect of any public discourse, but not so much any longer (one has only to look at advertisements one sees on TV and their effectiveness on their viewer to see this). After all, it's widely known among technical folk that a homogenous NT network environment is only asking for trouble (viruses, cost of ownership, security, and so on). But that doesn't stop the army of MSCE's out there from convincing CTO's nationwide to deploy them. Bob's logos is weak here. We know it, but not many others do. This is a problem
pathos: The emotional appeal of an argument. This is the ringer here. Bob is appealing to the emotional tug strings of its readers (his use of the words "communist", "anti-American", and other examples are strong indicators of Bob's emotional appeal... he knows what buttons to push). This is why Bob's arguments against Linux are far more dangerous than the FUD from days past we've seen. Emotional arguments carry far more weight than logical ones.
In the past the Linux community has been very good at fighting logos-based FUD. We've fought back with logos-based counter-FUD. It worked. Linux is pretty popular now, and the technical arguments against it are starting to look weak. Now the emotional arguments are starting to rear their ugly heads.
How to counter this? I hate to say it, but logos-based counter-FUD probably won't work here anymore. It's like trying to fight a rapidly spreading forest fire with a garden hose. We could watch with helplessness as the flames start igniting, or we can bring out the big guns...
Marketting, marketting, marketting. Expos (we got those already), Local User Groups (got those, too), and small to medium sized businesses (three for three) are key here. Organization is key here. Linux is already well-equipped to handle the flames with a few sparks of its own.
And ignore Bob. Inventor of the stuff I use in my home network he may be, but his reputation has soured with me. I don't care about his opinions anymore, since they've long left the pasture and headed to the hills once he started shooting his mouth off. Though that won't stop me from spouting off on him every once in a while. ;^)
He's only as controversial as we make him.
Gates did start out with a dream... He tried very hard to impliment it. And in the process he very nearly destroyed the very industry he helped create. But then again, it seems as though his contemporaries (Ellison, McNealy, etc) are hell-bent on self-destruction. Their single-minded focus on one man distracted them from the real issues: making money, building market share, and so forth. Microsoft was always on the offensive, and everyone else was on the defensive (with the possible exception of Sun). Anyone who's watched a football or baseball or soccer or chess game knows who's more likely to win in a scenario like that.
I think that Gates deserves his fortune, but not the rest of the world's, too. I don't want MS to control our basic telecommunications infrastructure (hell I don't want any one organization to do that... power corrupts and all that). Look at the last major organization that controlled our thoughts and speech the way MS does now: The Roman Catholic Church. No more Tower of Babel of competing standards (religions). A CEO (pope) controls a corporation (church), and maintains his stranglehold over the consumers (peasants) by keeping control over his proprietary protocols (Latin Text Bibles), and by charging a small amount of money for upgrades (tithes) every once in a while. Competitors (heretics) are driven out of business (excommunicated), or bought up (forced to "confess" their sins). The executives (Bishops) grow fat with the excesses of wealth from stock options (church properties).
But then comes along Linus Torvalds (Martin Luther), a sometimes unwilling crusader for freedom.
Ok, that reference has been made before, but it bears repeating. After all, the Catholic Church in it's height of power was very nearly responsible for the Dark Ages (illiteracy was promoted and encouraged to prevent people from asking too many questions about their center of power, the Bible, among other things; therefore not a whole lot was written about that 1000 year epoch). Compare this to growing trends promoted by Microsoft to "make things easier" for you. Who needs literacy (computer or otherwise)? All you need to do is point and click! It's that simple! Oh don't pay attention to how proprietary our formats are... We're the One True (Microsoft) Way!
Comments were made about how proprietary formats are changing so fast that information stored today is lost a year from now. The storage mediums are slightly to blame, but that may become less of an issue as technology becomes sturdier (hopefully). The real issues are the data formats. When a software package is only partially compatible with previous versions of itself, data is lost. Imagine how much literature written only 10 years ago is lost today because the data formats are no longer supported! Probably not a whole lot now, but if these proprietary protocols continue their long march towards converting the masses, stuff like Jon Katz's review above (I caught the smart quotes, Jon... use Demoronizer :^) might not be readable in 15 years. Oh sorry, we don't support that old format, why don't you buy our new product instead!
Yea verily, we are in a Dark Ages of sorts. Our hope? Universal standardized formats. ASCII is still used everywhere; it probably won't go away. HTML and XML may probably also be what will be used for long-term storage. The reasons? The formats are simple, yet extensible and useful enough for a long time.
Hmmm I appeared to go off on a rant. I'll stop now. Maybe I needed to vent after listening to a Microsoft guy spout out "Global Market" and "At Your Fingertips" one too many times. Gods, I hate buzzwords. :^)
Best comment I've heard all day... Damn, wish I had moderator status right now (I've already posted to this forum... Doh!)
The OpenSource movement has the advantage. While promising and delivering, the product does not have to have a cash flow to survive, unlike the commerical world.
Paradigm shifts are kinda funny that way... detractors always say "There's no money!" Well duh... there wasn't a lot of money in the desktop market nor the internet when they started out either. Now they're two of the world's most lucrative technologies.
As Open Source matures, Bill will worry. Oh wait, he already is... ;^)
It's sorta sad seeing CEO's get whipped up in a tizzy like that. It does remind me that technology is most definitely an immature market (in more ways than one). It also reminds me that in the world we live in today, it's the weidos with obsessive-compulsive "issues" that grab all the power and money (I'll consider myself comfortably wealthy when I break the 100K a year barrier [or will I? ;^} ]).
At any rate I've stopped complaining about Microsoft a while back and settled down to complaining about Windows. Well, okay, I'll really lay it on thick when I have to sit through one of those Microsoft training (propaganda?) videos. But other than that, I pretty much consider MS to be a big giant on its way to slowly falling asleep. Millionaire syndrome, I think.
- Dave (currently sitting through a MS training [DOH! propaganda!] class).
Hmmm can't spell today...
Suddest is supposed to say "suggest". :^)
Well this turned out to be a fine mess!
I suddest people keep a cool head about this. Redhat's IPO ain't the beginning nor the end of Linux. And it's certainly not the beginning nor end of your careers either. An IPO is just that. An Initial Public Offering. A way for businesses to raise money through selling portions of itself to the public. It's *not* the ultimate solution to redeem yourself for years of selfless work. Hey, that's what selfless work is. Sometimes it's thankless too.
Red Hat is taking steps to do damage control here. Let's let them work this out. I suspect that in the end this will work out for most people who got "the letter". If we let it. You decide.
I'd also like to suggest that there might have been a slight, um, overreaction on the part of, oh, everybody. :^) Whether this was by tetosterone-laden teenagers or disgruntled programmers or corporate marketting agents spreading their FUD through covert channels, I think that, well, we need to keep this from escalating. Despite not getting the letter, I might want to invest in this company in the future. Actually, I might want to use Linux at whatever jobs I get in the future, too. This IPO will help. Screaming holy hell about being denied an opprotunity and writing angry letters to Wired and Yahoo! and Salon won't. I mean, it really really won't.
Well, I hope the best for Red Hat and all parties involved. Here's to a successful IPO, and World Domination(TM). :^)
I've been told that, in several places across the US, having a Bob Marley or Grateful Dead sticker on your vehicle is considered 'probable cause'.
If anyone could confirm/deny these claims, I'd apprecate it.
Oh that's just the tip of the iceberg. Being black in most areas is "probable cause". Long hair, ditto. Under the age of 18? Ooo, guaranteed criminal there. Heck, if you don't look like Ozzy and Hariette, then that is grounds for probable cause.
Unofficially, of course.
Feh. It's the kind of thing that scares the suits into supporting Linux. Try to imagine, for instance, this scenario:
Company: Hey we just released this nifty server software for Linux! Hoorah!
Sysadmin: Um, we've alreay invested in this GNU solution. You were a bit slow on the draw, there, guys. Sorry.
Company: Doh!
Linux users owe nothing to Sun. They've made it clear they owe nothing to us, so why do 'em any favors?
Use this knowledge wisely
Wisely? Bah. Use it for world domination and grooming your pets.
I will definitely have to check that out at work today, however. :^)
Ever since my 1024x786 on a 14" monitor days I would increase the size of the fonts by two points (in the preferences dialogue). That should solve problems concerning the readability of the Onion, and about half of all other websites in existence.