"I read Cory Doctorow's response. It was very insightful, intelligent and on point. There was a slight caustic edge to it but I think that's understandable in this case..."
Yeah I had pretty much the same reaction. That caustic edge left me wondering if maybe he was a nut case. I decided to look up his credentials on Wikipedia. Here is the last paragraph of the 'Fiction' section of the entry for him:
He won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2000, the Locus Award for Best First Novel for Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom in 2003, and in 2004 he won the Sunburst award for best Canadian Science Fiction Book for his short story collection, A Place So Foreign and Eight More. This collection also contained his short story "0wnz0red", which was nominated for the 2003 Nebula Award.
I even when through the last months worth of edits to make sure he had not doctored his biography recently to make himself seem more credible. Personally I think he has decent credentials.
"Really, why are authorities even promising monopoly wifi to companies anyway?
Yeah I never liked the idea of government run internet access. First it is anti-competitive, and second I do not like the government censor^H^H^H^H^H^H providing my access to information.
"Section 11 How do the new terms of section 11 affect the Microsoft-Novell deal? We attack the Microsoft-Novell deal from two angles. First, in the sixth paragraph of section 11, the draft says that if you arrange to provide patent protection to some of the people who get the software from you, that protection is automatically extended to everyone who receives the software, no matter how they get it. This means that the patent protection Microsoft has extended to Novell's customers would be extended to everyone who uses any software Novell distributes under GPLv3. Second, in the seventh paragraph, the draft says that you are prohibited from distributing software under GPLv3 if you make an agreement like the Microsoft-Novell deal in the future. This will prevent other distributors from trying to make other deals like it."
How is using copyrights to attack a competitor any different from using patents to do the same thing?
"If you contracted for someone else to distribute bootleg copies of Britneyz new hit, do you think you would have much chance of convincing the court you aren't a party to her label's copyright license or otherwise an infringer?"
OK, but what if I distribute vouchers to purchase legitimate copies of Britneyz new hit, and the distributor decides instead to distribute bootleg copies? Am I in violation of the copyright? I entered into a contract with my distributor in good faith. They changed the rules after the fact.
I have a lot of family living in rural areas. They are all using wireless internet (read internet via cell phone.) It is not the best, but it blows dial up out of the water, and at $49.00 a month it beats any other high speed option.
"There are looming possibilities of "patent claims" and "copyright infringement" against linux and the components that various distributions include. As a Linux OEM, I would think that fact poses significant risk to your business."
If you are that concerned about the patent issues, you can always sell one of the distributions that have signed a deal the Microsoft. I installed Suse 10.02 last night and I have to admit I would be comfortable installing it on my 78 year old mother's machine. It has come that far in usability.
I agree with Dave Gutteridge when he says the real problem is that Windows is free. Think about it. How many people do you know who have walked into a store and paid $200 for a copy of Windows?
"In addition, any single bidder wishing to purchase the entirety of the spectrum must front a minimum of $10 billion. 'According to the FCC, nearly all of that C block aggregate reserve price will go toward a package of U.S. national licenses."
What is a 'package of U.S. national licenses?' Does anyone know where the money from this auction goes?
"Einstein died thinking his theory was the "dumbest thing since...I do remember his "God does not play dice" statement."
Actually that quote is from a letter he wrote to Max Born about his distrust of the theory of quantum mechanics, not his own theory of relativity. Here is the actual quote:
Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the Old One. I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice.
"it must be so thankless being a cop. you're there to protect people, and all they can do is reflexively depart negativity at you"
My Father was a police officer for ten years before he became a judge. I appreciate the police. I grew up with them in my house. I actually walk up to them in public and thank them for their service to the community.
It amazes me the way the police are treated. Most people see them as the enemy, when the truth of the matter they are just like you and me.
What's the whole point of openSUSE again. If the GPL is such an onerous license then why don't Novell strip all GPL licensed code from SUSE Linux, after all, what's only valuable is the kernel, right 'elsewhere'...
You should have read the next paragraph:
The Software is a modular operating system. Most of the components
are open source packages, developed independently, and accompanied by
separate license terms. Your license rights with respect to
individual components accompanied by separate license terms are
defined by those terms; nothing in this Agreement (including, for
example, the "Other License Terms and Restrictions," below) shall
restrict, limit, or otherwise affect any rights or obligations You may
have, or conditions to which You may be subject, under such license
terms.
The paragraph you quoted only applies to any proprietary Novel code. Novel actually has a good record of releasing anything of value to the opensource community. This is however a beta not a release. Let's see what happens in the full release.
"As long as it fucking works and gives me 3D hardware acceleration under Linux on my laptop, I'll be happy (Radeon xpress 200m)..."
I was happy to see that once AMD bought ATI, one of the first thing they began doing was releasing proprietary closed source Linux drivers. Prior to that ATI just referred you to a link to the open source third party versions. I will be honest, I do not run ATI hardware, so I cannot comment on the quality of the driver, but here it is.
"This includes the Apple iPhone, imitations of which are rolling off the assembly line already."
It looks to me like Apple has raised the bar of what we expect from a hand held device. The fact that someone is making a better(?) one is no surprise. No one could run a four minute mile until Roger Bannister did it. then suddenly everyone was doing it.
"...uses GPS, Bluetooth, or RFID on your mobile devices to track your travels to see if you wander into a place of business that appeared in an ad shown earlier on your cellphone, PDA, or laptop.
Wow! I thought big brother was a problem. Now we have to watch out for big business too.
"They have to protect it, true, but they can do something trivial..."
I know this is an unpopular point of view, but I have to side with J&J. The Red Cross is licensing the symbol to companies selling products that directly compete with J&J products. If they were licensing it to companies who make hand tools it would be one thing, but they are licensing it to ones that make health and safety products. The whole point of a trademark is to make your product identifiable in the marketplace. If you see two brands of hand sanitizer side by side and both have a J&J trademark on them, you could easily grab one thinking it was the other.
It gets worse because J&J has no control over the quality of the products being sold. It is entirely possible that their own brand will suffer because a licensee of the Red Cross will sell a substandard product.
When I took my law class in college, the single most important point the professor stressed was "The law is not fair. It is not just. It is simply the law."
"Isn't this basically what that whole "survival of the fittest" thing does?"
Their conclusions are not valid for all of humanity anyway. How does Western Europe equal humanity? It is already known that there is less genetic diversity in two Europeans from different countries than there is in two Africans from the same village. What a Eurocentric point of view.
"5) The kids have internet access in their rooms, where their parents have far less control."
I don't have kids myself, but I met a woman recently that was very tech savvy. She and her husband had everything in the home network going through a proxy server and everything being logged. Then they actually read the logs. I thought that was a great idea.
"If you are obese, you are at an increased risk for hypertension, diabetes, coronary artery disease etc. Doesn't matter if it was your fault or not."
I really want to call you an insensitive clod, but I want to make a real point. I am a diabetic. It runs on both sides of my family. I have severe hypertension; 230 / 150 untreated. I get that from my Dad's family. Everyone in his family has died of a stroke. My mothers family all die of heart attacks, but my cholesterol levels are good. Still, I stand a good chance of developing heart disease at some point. My BMI is 21. I weigh the same thing I did when I got out of High School 25 years ago. I do not smoke. Still, these diseases that I have due to genetic predisposition will shorten my life by 10 to 20 years. In addition I spend a considerable part of my budget on medication and doctor visits to manage these chronic conditions. Isn't that punishment enough?
"Ubuntu will go on. SuSE will go on. Redhat will go on. Microsoft will go on."
I tend to agree. If the Linux community is worried about Microsoft trying to fracture them, the simple solution is to not attack each other for dealing with Microsoft.
The Microsoft deal IMHO is a good one for Novel. Their target market is the enterprise. They know that Microsoft is not going to be driven from that market any time soon. Partnering with Microsoft to guarantee interoperability just makes it easier for a suit to decide it is OK to install Suse Linux. I think that anything that results in a greater installed base of any Linux distribution is a win for the Linux community. Ultimately it should lead to greater adoption and acceptance of Linux as a mainstream OS.
"Hmm, nope. Linux is only a tiny little part of a typical system."
While it is true that GNU is the largest part of a typical distribution, technically the OS is the layer that runs between the hardware and the system software. I quote the Wikipedia article referenced above:
"Operating Systems themselves have no user interfaces; the user of an OS is an application, not a person. The operating system forms a platform for other system software and for application software. Windows, Linux, and Mac OS are some of the most popular OSes."
As such, the Linux OS is the kernel. The kernel has nothing to do with GNU. If you want to run a GNU OS, run the HURD kernel.
"It really shouldn't be this hard. Of course if I switch to Ubuntu/Red Hat/Debian etc I have to learn a completely different way of doing it."
I get your point. I am used to YAST, and therefore it is intuitive to me. Also when I am working with software installs, I just use the search to find the package I want.
I have had to learn to use YUM, because I manage a Fedora server on the internet. I find it extremely confusing. Also all the packages have names that I may or may not recognize. For example I wanted to install a simple X editor. I had no need of a full blown X implementation, because it is a headless box. So, is it in xorg.utils.i386 or is it in xorg.core.i386 or is it in xorg.bas.i386? If you are used to Fedora, that is probably sounds like a dumb question. Oh well, that is one of the great things about Linux. There are plenty of utilities out there, so you can run whatever you like. Come to think of it, I think I'll just install YAST on my Fedora server.
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Yeah I had pretty much the same reaction. That caustic edge left me wondering if maybe he was a nut case. I decided to look up his credentials on Wikipedia. Here is the last paragraph of the 'Fiction' section of the entry for him:
I even when through the last months worth of edits to make sure he had not doctored his biography recently to make himself seem more credible. Personally I think he has decent credentials.
Yeah I never liked the idea of government run internet access. First it is anti-competitive, and second I do not like the government censor^H^H^H^H^H^H providing my access to information.
I call Shenanigans!
How is using copyrights to attack a competitor any different from using patents to do the same thing?
OK, but what if I distribute vouchers to purchase legitimate copies of Britneyz new hit, and the distributor decides instead to distribute bootleg copies? Am I in violation of the copyright? I entered into a contract with my distributor in good faith. They changed the rules after the fact.
I have a lot of family living in rural areas. They are all using wireless internet (read internet via cell phone.) It is not the best, but it blows dial up out of the water, and at $49.00 a month it beats any other high speed option.
If you are that concerned about the patent issues, you can always sell one of the distributions that have signed a deal the Microsoft. I installed Suse 10.02 last night and I have to admit I would be comfortable installing it on my 78 year old mother's machine. It has come that far in usability.
I agree with Dave Gutteridge when he says the real problem is that Windows is free. Think about it. How many people do you know who have walked into a store and paid $200 for a copy of Windows?
Does that mean my data can travel back and forth through time, but only within my own lifetime?
What is a 'package of U.S. national licenses?' Does anyone know where the money from this auction goes?
Actually that quote is from a letter he wrote to Max Born about his distrust of the theory of quantum mechanics, not his own theory of relativity. Here is the actual quote:
It is being eaten up by all the money they are losing because people are downloading their songs instead of buying them.
Yeah, and it is not just Microsoft. It is a coalition of Dell, Earthlink, Google, HP, Intel, Microsoft and Philips.
My Father was a police officer for ten years before he became a judge. I appreciate the police. I grew up with them in my house. I actually walk up to them in public and thank them for their service to the community.
It amazes me the way the police are treated. Most people see them as the enemy, when the truth of the matter they are just like you and me.
Yeah I see that. One of the things I do to reduce it is to point the IE icon on the desktop and tool bar at Firefox. Some of them never even notice.
You should have read the next paragraph:
The paragraph you quoted only applies to any proprietary Novel code. Novel actually has a good record of releasing anything of value to the opensource community. This is however a beta not a release. Let's see what happens in the full release.
I was happy to see that once AMD bought ATI, one of the first thing they began doing was releasing proprietary closed source Linux drivers. Prior to that ATI just referred you to a link to the open source third party versions. I will be honest, I do not run ATI hardware, so I cannot comment on the quality of the driver, but here it is.
It looks to me like Apple has raised the bar of what we expect from a hand held device. The fact that someone is making a better(?) one is no surprise. No one could run a four minute mile until Roger Bannister did it. then suddenly everyone was doing it.
Wow! I thought big brother was a problem. Now we have to watch out for big business too.
I know this is an unpopular point of view, but I have to side with J&J. The Red Cross is licensing the symbol to companies selling products that directly compete with J&J products. If they were licensing it to companies who make hand tools it would be one thing, but they are licensing it to ones that make health and safety products. The whole point of a trademark is to make your product identifiable in the marketplace. If you see two brands of hand sanitizer side by side and both have a J&J trademark on them, you could easily grab one thinking it was the other.
It gets worse because J&J has no control over the quality of the products being sold. It is entirely possible that their own brand will suffer because a licensee of the Red Cross will sell a substandard product.
When I took my law class in college, the single most important point the professor stressed was "The law is not fair. It is not just. It is simply the law."
Their conclusions are not valid for all of humanity anyway. How does Western Europe equal humanity? It is already known that there is less genetic diversity in two Europeans from different countries than there is in two Africans from the same village. What a Eurocentric point of view.
I don't have kids myself, but I met a woman recently that was very tech savvy. She and her husband had everything in the home network going through a proxy server and everything being logged. Then they actually read the logs. I thought that was a great idea.
I really want to call you an insensitive clod, but I want to make a real point. I am a diabetic. It runs on both sides of my family. I have severe hypertension; 230 / 150 untreated. I get that from my Dad's family. Everyone in his family has died of a stroke. My mothers family all die of heart attacks, but my cholesterol levels are good. Still, I stand a good chance of developing heart disease at some point. My BMI is 21. I weigh the same thing I did when I got out of High School 25 years ago. I do not smoke. Still, these diseases that I have due to genetic predisposition will shorten my life by 10 to 20 years. In addition I spend a considerable part of my budget on medication and doctor visits to manage these chronic conditions. Isn't that punishment enough?
I tend to agree. If the Linux community is worried about Microsoft trying to fracture them, the simple solution is to not attack each other for dealing with Microsoft.
The Microsoft deal IMHO is a good one for Novel. Their target market is the enterprise. They know that Microsoft is not going to be driven from that market any time soon. Partnering with Microsoft to guarantee interoperability just makes it easier for a suit to decide it is OK to install Suse Linux. I think that anything that results in a greater installed base of any Linux distribution is a win for the Linux community. Ultimately it should lead to greater adoption and acceptance of Linux as a mainstream OS.
While it is true that GNU is the largest part of a typical distribution, technically the OS is the layer that runs between the hardware and the system software. I quote the Wikipedia article referenced above:
"Operating Systems themselves have no user interfaces; the user of an OS is an application, not a person. The operating system forms a platform for other system software and for application software. Windows, Linux, and Mac OS are some of the most popular OSes."
As such, the Linux OS is the kernel. The kernel has nothing to do with GNU. If you want to run a GNU OS, run the HURD kernel.
I get your point. I am used to YAST, and therefore it is intuitive to me. Also when I am working with software installs, I just use the search to find the package I want.
I have had to learn to use YUM, because I manage a Fedora server on the internet. I find it extremely confusing. Also all the packages have names that I may or may not recognize. For example I wanted to install a simple X editor. I had no need of a full blown X implementation, because it is a headless box. So, is it in xorg.utils.i386 or is it in xorg.core.i386 or is it in xorg.bas.i386? If you are used to Fedora, that is probably sounds like a dumb question. Oh well, that is one of the great things about Linux. There are plenty of utilities out there, so you can run whatever you like. Come to think of it, I think I'll just install YAST on my Fedora server.