The million dollar question here is what the hell is David Boies doing backing these con artists? Not having an answer to that question is the only thing stopping me from shorting SCO's stock.
Regrettably it is not possible to short SCO's stock. Many have tried. It seems that Stock Brokers are not complete idiots and none are willing to take the other side of that particular bet.
How about some rationality (and consistency) here guys. If simply being in the same room as a copy of the windows source code is sufficient to contaminate everything you write from that point on, then SCO is gonna win its court case for sure. After all the IBM AIX code it contributed to linux was written by people who had seen the SYS V source code. Yes?
Sadly NZ already has its own version of the DMCA. Fortunately it is the `low nicotine' brand, not as extreme and without the drastic penalties. But bad enough.
Nice point, except that most windows users don't look at the actual layout of the directory structure
The person you've got to worry about is not `granny', but granny's helpful grandson Bob who looks after all the technical stuff for her and fixes things up for her when they go wrong (such a helpful boy!). Granny will likely use whatever Bob sets up for her.
Bob has five networked computers in his room which he uses to play network games with his friends. He isn't a programmer, but is a pretty savvy user, and fiddles with his various windows setups almost constantly. Consequently he knows his way around windows very well indeed.
Bob has heard good things about linux. He aquires a copy of some distribution and installs it on one of his machines. The sound card won't work on install. He can't get his linux box to talk to the rest of his network. The fonts look absolutely terrible. The mouse action is awful and gives him RSI (whoever thought up mouse acceleration should be shot!). The asteroids game he tries out runs frustratingly slowly and seems to get slower and slower as there are more asteroids on the screen until it freezes up completely. Bob knows this machine will handle quake arena just fine as it has a reasonable graphics card with good 3D support - now it looks like it can't handle a 2D shooter game. Overall not an auspicious start.
Bobs initial experience in linux is going to be shaped by his attempts to fix these problems. Bob is no quitter. He is used to tinkering around with things until he gets them to work. Somewhere in there are a few configuration settings that just need a bit of adjusting or something. He lifts up the hood to have a look at engine. !@#! The directory structure is a maze of twisty little tunnels all alike.
By only stating "started to sign up", he is avoiding stating that any have actually completed and paid. As soon as SCO publishes any number greater than zero that have paid, they open themselves up for copyright infringement by other Linux contributors
It is no secret that they have sold at least one license to Microsoft. And anyway SCO is already so far out on so many legal limbs that this is probably the least of his worries.
More likely Darl is concerned that the real number of licenses sold is quite pathetic. He'd probably love to make a number up, but then the SEC is gonna nail his balls to the wall for misleading stockholders as to the true financial position of his company.
For lessons in how to take over the world you can't go past Bill Gates. Embrace - Extend - Extinguish OK. Apply this to the linux desktop?
Embrace: - Linux with a windows `personality'. Technically easy enough to do. The trick is avoiding the continual temptation to `do things better'. If the difference between Linux and Windows to the user is like the difference between Coke and Pepsi then switching is not a problem and people WILL switch purely because linux is free.
Extend: - Do it better than windows. Piece of cake! yes?
Extinguish: - "Sorry, this software will not install because your windows operating system sucks". GAME OVER.
The biggest problem is people being too eager to extend (naturally the fun part!) without embracing first. The linux system that will beat windows isn't have to be all that flash. It just has to be a problem free `windows substitute'. People are probably less likely to switch to a flash system because the learning curve is too steep.
I don't think it's about usability and all that stuff, I think it's people are just too stubborn to use anything else.
When switching to any new system the advantages become apparent only slowly. The disadvantages on the other hand are instantly apparent. If you want to find out what is wrong with a country don't ask a native inhabitant - ask a recent immigrant.
There are things about linux that someone switching from windows finds annoying, but to a linux user they don't seem like problems and might seem trivial or even silly. If you want to encourage people to switch to linux however, you have to understand their point of view.
For example the directory structure in linux is just plain awful. All those three letter abbreviated names - usr lib var etc - etc - WTF is all that about! And whose bright idea was it to reuse the same names over and over/etc/etc - etc! It isn't `usr' friendly - at all! If you are new to linux you tend to find it just about impossible to find anything at first!
The first thing a windows user wants to do is rename all those stupid directories to something comprehensible - and why not? In windows you can do it. You can change directory names to just about anything you like and with a little bit of tweaking in the registry perhaps, it'll run just fine. You can even install windows in the C:\bloatware directory if that is what runs your motor. It'll work.
These are the kinds of issues that stop people from switching.
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How about some rationality (and consistency) here guys. If simply being in the same room as a copy of the windows source code is sufficient to contaminate everything you write from that point on, then SCO is gonna win its court case for sure. After all the IBM AIX code it contributed to linux was written by people who had seen the SYS V source code. Yes?
Sadly NZ already has its own version of the DMCA. Fortunately it is the `low nicotine' brand, not as extreme and without the drastic penalties. But bad enough.
Bob has five networked computers in his room which he uses to play network games with his friends. He isn't a programmer, but is a pretty savvy user, and fiddles with his various windows setups almost constantly. Consequently he knows his way around windows very well indeed.
Bob has heard good things about linux. He aquires a copy of some distribution and installs it on one of his machines. The sound card won't work on install. He can't get his linux box to talk to the rest of his network. The fonts look absolutely terrible. The mouse action is awful and gives him RSI (whoever thought up mouse acceleration should be shot!). The asteroids game he tries out runs frustratingly slowly and seems to get slower and slower as there are more asteroids on the screen until it freezes up completely. Bob knows this machine will handle quake arena just fine as it has a reasonable graphics card with good 3D support - now it looks like it can't handle a 2D shooter game. Overall not an auspicious start.
Bobs initial experience in linux is going to be shaped by his attempts to fix these problems. Bob is no quitter. He is used to tinkering around with things until he gets them to work. Somewhere in there are a few configuration settings that just need a bit of adjusting or something. He lifts up the hood to have a look at engine. !@#! The directory structure is a maze of twisty little tunnels all alike.
It is the little things that infuriate the most.
For lessons in how to take over the world you can't go past Bill Gates. Embrace - Extend - Extinguish OK. Apply this to the linux desktop?
Embrace: - Linux with a windows `personality'. Technically easy enough to do. The trick is avoiding the continual temptation to `do things better'. If the difference between Linux and Windows to the user is like the difference between Coke and Pepsi then switching is not a problem and people WILL switch purely because linux is free.
Extend: - Do it better than windows. Piece of cake! yes?
Extinguish: - "Sorry, this software will not install because your windows operating system sucks". GAME OVER.
The biggest problem is people being too eager to extend (naturally the fun part!) without embracing first. The linux system that will beat windows isn't have to be all that flash. It just has to be a problem free `windows substitute'. People are probably less likely to switch to a flash system because the learning curve is too steep.
When switching to any new system the advantages become apparent only slowly. The disadvantages on the other hand are instantly apparent. If you want to find out what is wrong with a country don't ask a native inhabitant - ask a recent immigrant.
There are things about linux that someone switching from windows finds annoying, but to a linux user they don't seem like problems and might seem trivial or even silly. If you want to encourage people to switch to linux however, you have to understand their point of view.
For example the directory structure in linux is just plain awful. All those three letter abbreviated names - usr lib var etc - etc - WTF is all that about! And whose bright idea was it to reuse the same names over and over /etc/etc - etc! It isn't `usr' friendly - at all! If you are new to linux you tend to find it just about impossible to find anything at first!
The first thing a windows user wants to do is rename all those stupid directories to something comprehensible - and why not? In windows you can do it. You can change directory names to just about anything you like and with a little bit of tweaking in the registry perhaps, it'll run just fine. You can even install windows in the C:\bloatware directory if that is what runs your motor. It'll work.
These are the kinds of issues that stop people from switching.