After having seen one decision after another AGAINST SCO, how anything resembling investment money still flowing to SCO
What a lot of people don't understand is the amount of wealth the wealthy now have. Seriously, it is sickening how rich the rich have become.
$10 million, $100 million, is nothing to some of the people with a vested interest in eliminating Linux.
There is no ROI from SCO's software, but the on-going court battle drains money from Novell, BM, and still creates fear.
While no one seriously thinks that SCO has a valid case, Microsoft can point to the on-going very expensive litigation as an example of what will happen if a company dares go against Microsoft and support Linux.
Microsoft's billions of dollars are an evil corruptive force, every penny spent on a Microsoft product funds the sort of crap we've seen over and over and over again with the ISO, SCO, and I guess the OLPC, and so on.
I challenge the submitter to find one instance where a computer controlling a heart monitor has a worm infection. They are not even networked and they do not run Windows.
Well, maybe not the primary machine, that may be true, but there are monitor "stations" on the patient floor at the nurses desk area that run networked windows using monitor applications to display heart data.
I guess no one ever pulled you aside and told you that this is just software we're talking about. Not freedom vs slavery or the right to free speech or anything like that.
I guess you are not paying attention. It *IS* about freedom. It *IS* about fighting slavery.
It is not the iron chains sort of freedom and slavery, of course, it is the freedom to have control of your information. The freedom not to be enslaved by a monopoly. In the "information age" this counts as a serious freedom.
Even if Microsoft produces a DRM-encumbered operating system for the XO-1, what makes you think a country will choose it over the freely-available Sugar-on-Fedora that the XO currently runs?
Answer your question with a question: Why is OOXML an ISO standard?
Microsoft has billions of dollars it actively uses to corrupt whom ever they can. Allowing XP to run on OLPC allows Microsoft leverage to corrupt even more.
If XP does not run on the OLPC, Microsoft's corruptive influence is shut out of the discussions. If XP runs on the OLPC, then Microsoft can bribe some number of officials into choosing the XP version.
Unfair? Hell NO! Just look at what happened with OOXML and the ISO and you tell me it isn't absolutely going to happen with the OLPC.
And if Microsoft was to outright give away licenses to an OLPC build of Windows, running Sugar? This is still a bad thing, correct?
Absolutely. What benefit is Windows? It uses more resources, it is slower and it costs money to put on the OLPC. Why would Microsoft do that? They have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits for their shareholders.
The only purpose is to reap money from them later. Linux is a truly altruistic gift that will empower the children with freedom and will not demand anything from them down the road.
So it was really never about providing affordable tools/technology to children who could not afford it, but simply FOSS indoctrination?
If phrased differently, I may actually agree with this statement. The problem is the poverty. I repeat "poverty." Open Source / Free Software will help the poor and ask nothing in return.
Windows, on the other hand, is a "for profit" enterprise and will ultimately make the poor even more poor.
And really how is anyone trapped anywhere?
Have you not been paying attention to the U.S. and european anti-trust trials? Did you not see what happened to ISO?
So it really is about pushing an agenda, not helping children.
It is absolutely about the agenda of helping children, it is just the philosophy of how that is best accomplished.
I don't believe, for one minute, that giving laptops running Windows to children will benefit them in the long run. Microsoft's purpose is to sell Windows licenses. That means extracting money from those who can't afford it.
It is better to give them Linux. It may even be better to *not* give them computers if the choice is Windows, as the alternatives may be cheaper.
No good can come from the OLPC that run Windows or any other proprietary system.
There are many "pragmatists" who say that it doesn't matter what runs on the device. To those people I submit, you are mistaken.
Linux, or FreeBSD, or NetBSD, I don't really care, is free. Windows is not. If you give them a laptop for education with free software, you have given them a "gift."
If you give them an OLPC with Windows, you've waisted everybody's time and energy and simply acted as a Microsoft marketing shill. Trapping even more of the world in Microsoft's monopoly.
My ex-wife was a technical writer at Lotus which is now IBM. She worked on the Notes team. I have had a lot of exposure to Notes. In short I love the architecture of Notes, but I don't very much like the applications it has. The big joke is that Notes has every mediocre program ever written.
That being said, if IBM REALY REALLY wants to compete with M$, outlook, and exchange it would make sense to fully document the server API so that an open source server project could duplicate the server functionality. I know that sounds counter intuitive, but it makes sense. It would be a while before any open source competition would come out and also make the case for no vendor lock-in.
It would provide a platform for 3rd party and free software applications that could be developed without requiring an official Notes server, which a lot of open source people wouldn't use. Hell, maybe IBM could even release a GPL reference server.
Letting loose the open source community with an "open standard" for Notes will put a lot of pressure on Microsoft, and if OpenOffice, KOffice, Gnome Office, thunderbird, evolution all support an open standard Notes server API, then IBM has a real win for sales: "We published the API and there are a lot of third party applications, there's even an open source, free, implementation of the server, but our implementation is by far the most mature and secure."
In the last few years it has become more and more clear to me that the software business is not really a business. Sure, there are a few software vendors that make a lot of money selling software, Like Microsoft, but most do not.
Most big vendors make money off initial deployment and support contracts. Selling boxes of bits only works if there is some sort of leverage, like a monopoly, "buzz" about a game, etc.
For someone to compete with Microsoft's monopoly, they need real value. The Notes architecture is rich and powerful, but too "big" for a company to really exploit. Making it basically available as open source will allow every guy with a funky idea to add value to Notes. Most of these ideas will, of course, be crap and would never even have been tried in a corporation. However, a few ideas may come out of the open source environment which will be interesting and new which could make a huge difference.
I had a Timex Datalink and it was kind of a cool idea. The real issue I had with it was lack of real choice. It wasn't a generic device capable of fitting my needs, but a device made only to be used with a specific product, microsoft's mail package. It.
I don't know much about the SPOT, but I'm assuming it is a pseudo successor to the datalink.
Now, if they could make a cell phone you wear on a watch band, with no built in headset, and designed to use a bluetooth headset, that would be cool.
If they designed a watch band device with an open API and programmability, that would be pretty cool. You could make it do just about anything. Hell, you could put a pretty powerful computer on your wrist and use bluetooth keyboards and the X Window system for display over wireless. You wouldn't be able to play games, but you could do everything else.
FSF and Stallman (with GPL), would create a commodity of all software. I'm not sure thats a good thing.
It doesn't matter what FSF and Stallman want. While I agree with the philosophy of free software, I believe in freedom more.
People should be able to do what they want with their work, with the caveat that if they build on "property" that they don't own, then they must abide by the owner's wishes. If they do not, then don't use other people's work.
If you build on GPL software then you must be willing to live by the GPL. If this is a problem, then the solution is perfectly clear and easy, don't use GPL code, it isn't yours.
How would they make money from something that is a free download away?
LOL, have you not been attention the last 10 years?
Businesses certainly wouldn't buy it. VMWare would clearly disagree with you.
GPL Office would come pre-installed with their Dell computers and Dell would flip the finger to Microsoft and keep the savings for themselves. So where would the 'tons of money' come from?
Selling "new" versions, selling support, etc. Again, haven't you been paying attention the last 10 years?
So, Bill Gates says you can't improve open source software. Well, we know this to be a lie.
What you can't do is take someone else's work, make additions (I'll leave the subjective "improvement" classification to the gentle reader) and create a new product with your additions without also making your additions as available as the original work.
Bill Gate's and Microsoft sell boxes of crap. Lots and lots of boxes of crap. They don't care whats in them, nor do they care about the poor customers stuck with it. Witness Vista.
Their business model is the monopolization of commodity computer software that forces customers to buy boxes of crap from them.
Operating systems are a commodity. They all could easily be handled by a non-profit foundation.
Office packages, same thing, what else can you do to a smart typewriter? Spreadsheet? Drawing package?
Sure you can make incremental improvements, but innovation is over. Its done, we did it, lets move on. Set up a foundation to manage "Office Software" (This is sort of what ISO ODF should have accomplished.)
Microsoft doesn't want that of course, they can't compete on a fair basis without their monopoly because, lets face it, they suck. Their software sucks, their quality sucks, their tech support sucks, they completely suck. The only reason why people buy their boxes of crap is because they need to use it to communicate with other people who have Microsoft boxes of crap. As long as they have proprietary standards their monopoly is safe.
GPL would prevent their proprietary standards and would undermine their monopoly. Once people could use something other than a Microsoft Box of Crap (MBOC) they will. A lot of people I know have switch to Apple in the last two years because they are fed up with the Microsoft boxes of crap that they have been stuck with. Companies I work with have recently started using "OpenOffice" for contractors and employees without a demonstrated need for Microsoft office.
If Microsoft were actually a competent software company, they would be able to embrace GPL and create some very cool software and improve the public infrastructure (GPL). They could make tons of money selling boxes of MS GPL Office (people wouldn't care), really be open, and make money on support.
I guess being a monopoly, with all the suits, bribes, manipulation of governments, payouts, still pays better than ethical business.
There is a lot of speculation about what is and what is not legal in manipulating share value.
If craigslist is a private corporation, which is not publicly traded, then they do not have to abide by the rules that a publicly traded company does.
In fact, as a private corp, the majority of the share holders can vote for anything they like. They can vote to be non-profit, and as long as the ownership of the company decides this, it is done.
"Going public" is a process of accepting certain rules that a corporation does not need to do in order that their stock has some measurable value.
Cheap "Comparatively Speaking." The cost of the hardware is sometimes insignificant to the the cost of deployment. I did not intend to imply the units were a unit/dollar bargain, but that the techsupport, installation, etc. bring the costs to a predictable sum which is cheaper than the estimated cost of a "roll your own" deployment of Linux/FreeBSD
Making an additional copy of the music is a right that only EMI can give.
Copyright is NOT absolute. There is still a "Fair use" doctrine. Courts have upheld that it is perfectly legal to make a copy for the purpose of backup.
Also, for other purposes, such as education, I may copy files, not for profit and which doesn't decrease the value of the work.
The way I look at it, as long as my rights are respected, all I have to do to stay out of jail is obey the law.
Let's hope you are not on the "terrorist watch list" by accident. Let's hope your house's address is not a transposition of some criminals. Lets hope you understand law well enough to know what is and what is not illegal.
Are you a sexually active heterosexual male? Do you know in how many or which states that fellatio is illegal?
There is no way to "trust" software, unless you've hand-assembled an assembler, used that assembler to create a better assembler, used that assembler to create a basic C compiler, and use that C compiler to build your real C compiler. And, additionally, audited all the code.
Then, you have to look at ever line of every tool source as well as all the source of everything. Even then, you need to verify hardware, BIOS, etc.
It is a hard job. Maybe impossible.
The first step, however, is to STOP buying aggregate devices based on software. A Cisco router may be cheap, comparatively speaking, but an audited and verified version of Linux/FreeBSD running on a commodity P.C. with tested hardware would be a lot more trustworthy.
I mean, there is a lot of sci-fi threat out there, bogus CPUs that run their own programs, hacked network cards, hacked hard disks, etc. These things can be checked and while possible are implausible at the moment. A hacked Router? Come on, I can't believe it DOESN'T send information someplace. It would be just a few lines of code. With even more code, it could analyze the packets and be more selective, and possibly even encrypt and compress data sent.
However, because alien life might not have DNA like us, Hawking warned: "Watch out if you would meet an alien. You could be infected with a disease with which you have no resistance.
I am surprised by this quote, and maybe a bit elevated that Hawking is not perfect and doesn't know everything.
It is unlikely that any truly alien life can infect or even eat us. Viruses work because they evolved to work on earth-bound DNA structures. Few viruses can infect multiple species. Chimps are 98%~99% exactly the same as human and few viruses can infect both. A truly alien virus infecting us would be like one of our viruses infecting gasoline or some other organic compound. (Assuming aliens are organic)
Similarly, the "chain of life" where compatible proteins and compounds are consumed by predators (yes we prey on plants, they just don't defend themselves all that often.) is more narrow than you would think as many plants and parts of animals are poisonous. The notion that an alien biology would have any sort of compatibility is, on the surface, absurd.
All that being said, if an alien species was able to eat us or vice versa, or infect us, it would probably support the notion that life on earth was caused by cosmic panspermia.
As a card carrying member of the ACLU, I regret this sort of case, but it is never the less the proper outcome. For all the people who hate the ACLU because the defend the "guilty" because of a technicality of law, remember this sort of case.
Sometimes the question of an individual's guilt is secondary to the precedent which would be formed. It is absolutely the space between the rock and the hard place. Do you let a criminal go free or do you let an abuse of power go unchecked?
More often than not, it is a "guilty" person who is on the receiving end of injustice such as invasion of privacy or violation of the 4th amendment. It is unfortunate that we don't have more clearly innocent people to protect. Generally speaking, police believe the "criminal" to be guilty. More often than not, they are, but this does not excuse a violation of constitutional rights to get a conviction.
Our rights are in place to prevent the innocent from being falsely convicted by creating a system of checks and balances that is supposed to prevent abuse by police, prosecutors, etc. Inherent in the system is the acknowledgment that people are corrupt and corruptible but the hope that not all people are in the same pockets.
My favorite example is O.J. Simpson. I am as confident that he killed his wife as I am that police planted evidence to get a conviction.
It is about "magical thinking" and fundamental control.
When all is said and done, it is about the "authority" losing a tool of control. As long as there is ingrained a perception of an unknowable unseeable god, enforced in science, "authority" will use that god as a whip.
It is no different than parents saying to their kids: "Be good or santa won't bring toys." At least parents follow through with santa. The current authority has a great deal, you get it after you die. Brilliant!
I becomes hard to sustain a "god" delusion if we can explain how we came to be without one.
I am a huge fan of Dilbert, probably like most everyone else on this site.
Either he is a genius and so well versed in irony that his site represents everything Dilbert is about, or getting the ability to speak back in turn stopped his ability to think.
Do your own freaking research, I'm not your professor, I have enough people that I teach and have to worry about 'getting it'.
Because I disagree with you does not mean I am wrong or that I haven't done the research.
Go Computer was less function than Grid, and that was less functional than Pen Windows.
That is where we have seriously differing opinions. "Go Computing" worked, PenWindows did not. I used both, and with a little practice, Penpoint could read my writing and gestures. PenWindows was a joke.
Companies like Dell and Gateway, etc. all took advantage of 'excusivity' contracts to get OEM copies of Windows Cheaper.
This is absolutely 100% true, but you neglect that if they did not enter into these contracts, Windows would be more expensive and give their competition who did sign the agreements an advantage. This is the carrot and stick approach that I spoke of and is documented in court documents in the anti-trust trials.
We had the same OEM relationship that Dell or any other OEM had, and could call on Microsoft at any time.
I find it hard to believe that you say that with confidence because, as was evidenced in the anti-trust trial, that the OEM contracts were under NDA. How could you know?
So I am tired of the fairy tale that MS forced exclusive contracts, or did anything outside the NORM.
"NORM" in a competitive environment is different than when you have a monopoly player involved. The undue influence and pressure makes a huge difference, there is no competitor to turn to if you are being treated poorly, you shut up and take it. That's why exclusivity contracts are illegal for a monopoly. Also evidenced in the anti-trust trial.
I'm sure they were hurt and bitter, but it was ultimately Toshiba's decision, and MS didn't have enough of a Market share even in the general OS market at the time to do any type of 'pressuring'.
I'm not sure *when* you think the monopoly happened, but it wasn't merely the date of the anti-trust conviction, it was a long period of time leading up to it.
In my recollection, I think it was evident around the time that IBM AT came out. When the 386 came out, it was clear that no other ISV could compete, with profitability, against Microsoft's anti-competitive actions.
The whole reason free software competes is that there is no requirement of profitability for a large number of the system components. Most of the development is done by foundations and shared.
I'm pretty disgusted with Ben Stein. I used to see him as an example of an intelligent conservative, and yet now, he blows all his credibility.
The problem with evolution is that it requires an amount of critical thinking to understand, and while subtle, the nuances are easily exploited by the cynical against the theory itself.
The "Ben Steins" of the world mystify me. I can't believe someone is so evil to purposefully make an argument they know to be false against science. I can't also believe that he is so stupid as to believe ID.
And yes, ID supporters, ID is stupid. It isn't science. It is religion, and "god did it" is not a valid scientific theory. ID is to biological science what "circle squaring" is to mathematics.
Evolution is a proven fact. Organisms change with their environment. This is irrefutable. The "Theory" of evolution is the hows, whys, and over all path that organism A has taken to become what it is.
In science, we seek to understand the hows, whys, and path better.
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After having seen one decision after another AGAINST SCO, how anything resembling investment money still flowing to SCO
What a lot of people don't understand is the amount of wealth the wealthy now have. Seriously, it is sickening how rich the rich have become.
$10 million, $100 million, is nothing to some of the people with a vested interest in eliminating Linux.
There is no ROI from SCO's software, but the on-going court battle drains money from Novell, BM, and still creates fear.
While no one seriously thinks that SCO has a valid case, Microsoft can point to the on-going very expensive litigation as an example of what will happen if a company dares go against Microsoft and support Linux.
Microsoft's billions of dollars are an evil corruptive force, every penny spent on a Microsoft product funds the sort of crap we've seen over and over and over again with the ISO, SCO, and I guess the OLPC, and so on.
I challenge the submitter to find one instance where a computer controlling a heart monitor has a worm infection. They are not even networked and they do not run Windows.
Well, maybe not the primary machine, that may be true, but there are monitor "stations" on the patient floor at the nurses desk area that run networked windows using monitor applications to display heart data.
I guess no one ever pulled you aside and told you that this is just software we're talking about. Not freedom vs slavery or the right to free speech or anything like that.
I guess you are not paying attention. It *IS* about freedom. It *IS* about fighting slavery.
It is not the iron chains sort of freedom and slavery, of course, it is the freedom to have control of your information. The freedom not to be enslaved by a monopoly. In the "information age" this counts as a serious freedom.
Even if Microsoft produces a DRM-encumbered operating system for the XO-1, what makes you think a country will choose it over the freely-available Sugar-on-Fedora that the XO currently runs?
Answer your question with a question: Why is OOXML an ISO standard?
Microsoft has billions of dollars it actively uses to corrupt whom ever they can. Allowing XP to run on OLPC allows Microsoft leverage to corrupt even more.
If XP does not run on the OLPC, Microsoft's corruptive influence is shut out of the discussions. If XP runs on the OLPC, then Microsoft can bribe some number of officials into choosing the XP version.
Unfair? Hell NO! Just look at what happened with OOXML and the ISO and you tell me it isn't absolutely going to happen with the OLPC.
And if Microsoft was to outright give away licenses to an OLPC build of Windows, running Sugar? This is still a bad thing, correct?
Absolutely. What benefit is Windows? It uses more resources, it is slower and it costs money to put on the OLPC. Why would Microsoft do that? They have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits for their shareholders.
The only purpose is to reap money from them later. Linux is a truly altruistic gift that will empower the children with freedom and will not demand anything from them down the road.
So it was really never about providing affordable tools/technology to children who could not afford it, but simply FOSS indoctrination?
If phrased differently, I may actually agree with this statement. The problem is the poverty. I repeat "poverty." Open Source / Free Software will help the poor and ask nothing in return.
Windows, on the other hand, is a "for profit" enterprise and will ultimately make the poor even more poor.
And really how is anyone trapped anywhere?
Have you not been paying attention to the U.S. and european anti-trust trials? Did you not see what happened to ISO?
So it really is about pushing an agenda, not helping children.
It is absolutely about the agenda of helping children, it is just the philosophy of how that is best accomplished.
I don't believe, for one minute, that giving laptops running Windows to children will benefit them in the long run. Microsoft's purpose is to sell Windows licenses. That means extracting money from those who can't afford it.
It is better to give them Linux. It may even be better to *not* give them computers if the choice is Windows, as the alternatives may be cheaper.
Why should it matter to some poor kid, just needing a way to afford schoolbooks, what OS his laptop is running?
It may not "matter," per se' but why is "freedom" worth fighting for? Why would people rather be free than in a gilded cage?
An OLPC running Windows is nothing more than an attempt to trap even more people in Microsoft's monopoly and drain money from the poor.
This belief is the cancer that is killing OLPC. If Windows works as well for the same total cost, what is the difference?
Who own's the computer? Who owns the information on it? Who benefits from the children using the computer?
In the case of Linux: The child.
In the case of Windows: Microsoft.
If this attitude kills the OLPC, then it needs to die.
No good can come from the OLPC that run Windows or any other proprietary system.
There are many "pragmatists" who say that it doesn't matter what runs on the device. To those people I submit, you are mistaken.
Linux, or FreeBSD, or NetBSD, I don't really care, is free. Windows is not. If you give them a laptop for education with free software, you have given them a "gift."
If you give them an OLPC with Windows, you've waisted everybody's time and energy and simply acted as a Microsoft marketing shill. Trapping even more of the world in Microsoft's monopoly.
It is reprehensible.
My ex-wife was a technical writer at Lotus which is now IBM. She worked on the Notes team. I have had a lot of exposure to Notes. In short I love the architecture of Notes, but I don't very much like the applications it has. The big joke is that Notes has every mediocre program ever written.
That being said, if IBM REALY REALLY wants to compete with M$, outlook, and exchange it would make sense to fully document the server API so that an open source server project could duplicate the server functionality. I know that sounds counter intuitive, but it makes sense. It would be a while before any open source competition would come out and also make the case for no vendor lock-in.
It would provide a platform for 3rd party and free software applications that could be developed without requiring an official Notes server, which a lot of open source people wouldn't use. Hell, maybe IBM could even release a GPL reference server.
Letting loose the open source community with an "open standard" for Notes will put a lot of pressure on Microsoft, and if OpenOffice, KOffice, Gnome Office, thunderbird, evolution all support an open standard Notes server API, then IBM has a real win for sales: "We published the API and there are a lot of third party applications, there's even an open source, free, implementation of the server, but our implementation is by far the most mature and secure."
In the last few years it has become more and more clear to me that the software business is not really a business. Sure, there are a few software vendors that make a lot of money selling software, Like Microsoft, but most do not.
Most big vendors make money off initial deployment and support contracts. Selling boxes of bits only works if there is some sort of leverage, like a monopoly, "buzz" about a game, etc.
For someone to compete with Microsoft's monopoly, they need real value. The Notes architecture is rich and powerful, but too "big" for a company to really exploit. Making it basically available as open source will allow every guy with a funky idea to add value to Notes. Most of these ideas will, of course, be crap and would never even have been tried in a corporation. However, a few ideas may come out of the open source environment which will be interesting and new which could make a huge difference.
I had a Timex Datalink and it was kind of a cool idea. The real issue I had with it was lack of real choice. It wasn't a generic device capable of fitting my needs, but a device made only to be used with a specific product, microsoft's mail package. It.
I don't know much about the SPOT, but I'm assuming it is a pseudo successor to the datalink.
Now, if they could make a cell phone you wear on a watch band, with no built in headset, and designed to use a bluetooth headset, that would be cool.
If they designed a watch band device with an open API and programmability, that would be pretty cool. You could make it do just about anything. Hell, you could put a pretty powerful computer on your wrist and use bluetooth keyboards and the X Window system for display over wireless. You wouldn't be able to play games, but you could do everything else.
FSF and Stallman (with GPL), would create a commodity of all software. I'm not sure thats a good thing.
It doesn't matter what FSF and Stallman want. While I agree with the philosophy of free software, I believe in freedom more.
People should be able to do what they want with their work, with the caveat that if they build on "property" that they don't own, then they must abide by the owner's wishes. If they do not, then don't use other people's work.
If you build on GPL software then you must be willing to live by the GPL. If this is a problem, then the solution is perfectly clear and easy, don't use GPL code, it isn't yours.
How would they make money from something that is a free download away?
LOL, have you not been attention the last 10 years?
Businesses certainly wouldn't buy it.
VMWare would clearly disagree with you.
GPL Office would come pre-installed with their Dell computers and Dell would flip the finger to Microsoft and keep the savings for themselves. So where would the 'tons of money' come from?
Selling "new" versions, selling support, etc. Again, haven't you been paying attention the last 10 years?
So, Bill Gates says you can't improve open source software. Well, we know this to be a lie.
What you can't do is take someone else's work, make additions (I'll leave the subjective "improvement" classification to the gentle reader) and create a new product with your additions without also making your additions as available as the original work.
Bill Gate's and Microsoft sell boxes of crap. Lots and lots of boxes of crap. They don't care whats in them, nor do they care about the poor customers stuck with it. Witness Vista.
Their business model is the monopolization of commodity computer software that forces customers to buy boxes of crap from them.
Operating systems are a commodity. They all could easily be handled by a non-profit foundation.
Office packages, same thing, what else can you do to a smart typewriter? Spreadsheet? Drawing package?
Sure you can make incremental improvements, but innovation is over. Its done, we did it, lets move on. Set up a foundation to manage "Office Software" (This is sort of what ISO ODF should have accomplished.)
Microsoft doesn't want that of course, they can't compete on a fair basis without their monopoly because, lets face it, they suck. Their software sucks, their quality sucks, their tech support sucks, they completely suck. The only reason why people buy their boxes of crap is because they need to use it to communicate with other people who have Microsoft boxes of crap. As long as they have proprietary standards their monopoly is safe.
GPL would prevent their proprietary standards and would undermine their monopoly. Once people could use something other than a Microsoft Box of Crap (MBOC) they will. A lot of people I know have switch to Apple in the last two years because they are fed up with the Microsoft boxes of crap that they have been stuck with. Companies I work with have recently started using "OpenOffice" for contractors and employees without a demonstrated need for Microsoft office.
If Microsoft were actually a competent software company, they would be able to embrace GPL and create some very cool software and improve the public infrastructure (GPL). They could make tons of money selling boxes of MS GPL Office (people wouldn't care), really be open, and make money on support.
I guess being a monopoly, with all the suits, bribes, manipulation of governments, payouts, still pays better than ethical business.
There is a lot of speculation about what is and what is not legal in manipulating share value.
If craigslist is a private corporation, which is not publicly traded, then they do not have to abide by the rules that a publicly traded company does.
In fact, as a private corp, the majority of the share holders can vote for anything they like. They can vote to be non-profit, and as long as the ownership of the company decides this, it is done.
"Going public" is a process of accepting certain rules that a corporation does not need to do in order that their stock has some measurable value.
Cheap "Comparatively Speaking." The cost of the hardware is sometimes insignificant to the the cost of deployment. I did not intend to imply the units were a unit/dollar bargain, but that the techsupport, installation, etc. bring the costs to a predictable sum which is cheaper than the estimated cost of a "roll your own" deployment of Linux/FreeBSD
Making an additional copy of the music is a right that only EMI can give.
Copyright is NOT absolute. There is still a "Fair use" doctrine. Courts have upheld that it is perfectly legal to make a copy for the purpose of backup.
Also, for other purposes, such as education, I may copy files, not for profit and which doesn't decrease the value of the work.
The way I look at it, as long as my rights are respected, all I have to do to stay out of jail is obey the law.
Let's hope you are not on the "terrorist watch list" by accident. Let's hope your house's address is not a transposition of some criminals. Lets hope you understand law well enough to know what is and what is not illegal.
Are you a sexually active heterosexual male? Do you know in how many or which states that fellatio is illegal?
There is no way to "trust" software, unless you've hand-assembled an assembler, used that assembler to create a better assembler, used that assembler to create a basic C compiler, and use that C compiler to build your real C compiler. And, additionally, audited all the code.
Then, you have to look at ever line of every tool source as well as all the source of everything. Even then, you need to verify hardware, BIOS, etc.
It is a hard job. Maybe impossible.
The first step, however, is to STOP buying aggregate devices based on software. A Cisco router may be cheap, comparatively speaking, but an audited and verified version of Linux/FreeBSD running on a commodity P.C. with tested hardware would be a lot more trustworthy.
I mean, there is a lot of sci-fi threat out there, bogus CPUs that run their own programs, hacked network cards, hacked hard disks, etc. These things can be checked and while possible are implausible at the moment. A hacked Router? Come on, I can't believe it DOESN'T send information someplace. It would be just a few lines of code. With even more code, it could analyze the packets and be more selective, and possibly even encrypt and compress data sent.
However, because alien life might not have DNA like us, Hawking warned: "Watch out if you would meet an alien. You could be infected with a disease with which you have no resistance.
I am surprised by this quote, and maybe a bit elevated that Hawking is not perfect and doesn't know everything.
It is unlikely that any truly alien life can infect or even eat us. Viruses work because they evolved to work on earth-bound DNA structures. Few viruses can infect multiple species. Chimps are 98%~99% exactly the same as human and few viruses can infect both. A truly alien virus infecting us would be like one of our viruses infecting gasoline or some other organic compound. (Assuming aliens are organic)
Similarly, the "chain of life" where compatible proteins and compounds are consumed by predators (yes we prey on plants, they just don't defend themselves all that often.) is more narrow than you would think as many plants and parts of animals are poisonous. The notion that an alien biology would have any sort of compatibility is, on the surface, absurd.
All that being said, if an alien species was able to eat us or vice versa, or infect us, it would probably support the notion that life on earth was caused by cosmic panspermia.
As a card carrying member of the ACLU, I regret this sort of case, but it is never the less the proper outcome. For all the people who hate the ACLU because the defend the "guilty" because of a technicality of law, remember this sort of case.
Sometimes the question of an individual's guilt is secondary to the precedent which would be formed. It is absolutely the space between the rock and the hard place. Do you let a criminal go free or do you let an abuse of power go unchecked?
More often than not, it is a "guilty" person who is on the receiving end of injustice such as invasion of privacy or violation of the 4th amendment. It is unfortunate that we don't have more clearly innocent people to protect. Generally speaking, police believe the "criminal" to be guilty. More often than not, they are, but this does not excuse a violation of constitutional rights to get a conviction.
Our rights are in place to prevent the innocent from being falsely convicted by creating a system of checks and balances that is supposed to prevent abuse by police, prosecutors, etc. Inherent in the system is the acknowledgment that people are corrupt and corruptible but the hope that not all people are in the same pockets.
My favorite example is O.J. Simpson. I am as confident that he killed his wife as I am that police planted evidence to get a conviction.
It is about "magical thinking" and fundamental control.
When all is said and done, it is about the "authority" losing a tool of control. As long as there is ingrained a perception of an unknowable unseeable god, enforced in science, "authority" will use that god as a whip.
It is no different than parents saying to their kids: "Be good or santa won't bring toys." At least parents follow through with santa. The current authority has a great deal, you get it after you die. Brilliant!
I becomes hard to sustain a "god" delusion if we can explain how we came to be without one.
I am a huge fan of Dilbert, probably like most everyone else on this site.
Either he is a genius and so well versed in irony that his site represents everything Dilbert is about, or getting the ability to speak back in turn stopped his ability to think.
Scott, I'm a huge fan, but the site sucks.
Do your own freaking research, I'm not your professor, I have enough people that I teach and have to worry about 'getting it'.
Because I disagree with you does not mean I am wrong or that I haven't done the research.
Go Computer was less function than Grid, and that was less functional than Pen Windows.
That is where we have seriously differing opinions. "Go Computing" worked, PenWindows did not. I used both, and with a little practice, Penpoint could read my writing and gestures. PenWindows was a joke.
Companies like Dell and Gateway, etc. all took advantage of 'excusivity' contracts to get OEM copies of Windows Cheaper.
This is absolutely 100% true, but you neglect that if they did not enter into these contracts, Windows would be more expensive and give their competition who did sign the agreements an advantage. This is the carrot and stick approach that I spoke of and is documented in court documents in the anti-trust trials.
We had the same OEM relationship that Dell or any other OEM had, and could call on Microsoft at any time.
I find it hard to believe that you say that with confidence because, as was evidenced in the anti-trust trial, that the OEM contracts were under NDA. How could you know?
So I am tired of the fairy tale that MS forced exclusive contracts, or did anything outside the NORM.
"NORM" in a competitive environment is different than when you have a monopoly player involved. The undue influence and pressure makes a huge difference, there is no competitor to turn to if you are being treated poorly, you shut up and take it. That's why exclusivity contracts are illegal for a monopoly. Also evidenced in the anti-trust trial.
I'm sure they were hurt and bitter, but it was ultimately Toshiba's decision, and MS didn't have enough of a Market share even in the general OS market at the time to do any type of 'pressuring'.
I'm not sure *when* you think the monopoly happened, but it wasn't merely the date of the anti-trust conviction, it was a long period of time leading up to it.
In my recollection, I think it was evident around the time that IBM AT came out. When the 386 came out, it was clear that no other ISV could compete, with profitability, against Microsoft's anti-competitive actions.
The whole reason free software competes is that there is no requirement of profitability for a large number of the system components. Most of the development is done by foundations and shared.
I'm pretty disgusted with Ben Stein. I used to see him as an example of an intelligent conservative, and yet now, he blows all his credibility.
The problem with evolution is that it requires an amount of critical thinking to understand, and while subtle, the nuances are easily exploited by the cynical against the theory itself.
The "Ben Steins" of the world mystify me. I can't believe someone is so evil to purposefully make an argument they know to be false against science. I can't also believe that he is so stupid as to believe ID.
And yes, ID supporters, ID is stupid. It isn't science. It is religion, and "god did it" is not a valid scientific theory. ID is to biological science what "circle squaring" is to mathematics.
Evolution is a proven fact. Organisms change with their environment. This is irrefutable. The "Theory" of evolution is the hows, whys, and over all path that organism A has taken to become what it is.
In science, we seek to understand the hows, whys, and path better.