Novell owns all the copyrights. Ballmer just wishes they owned the copyrights - just think how much money they could make on copyright infringement. Have you ever heard of companies having copyright cross licensing agreements? Didn't think so. MS could keep all the money for themselves!!!
While that's a good point, is it a guarantee that Dell isn't charging anything for the FOSS being on the system?
Just where do you get the idea that FOSS software must not be charged for? Really - can you give us any reference that says "Thou Shalt NOT Charge Any Gratuities For Free/Open Source Software"?
Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money?
Yes, the GPL allows everyone to do this. The right to sell copies is part of the definition of free software. Except in one special situation, there is no limit on what price you can charge. (The one exception is the required written offer to provide source code that must accompany binary-only release.)
My point is - what would happen if suddenly a whole slew of Server 2008 servers went tits-up because Microsoft's phone-home software couldn't contact homebase? Any large MS-centric IT shop - including ASP/SAS sites - would be toast. Can you imagine if the DoD's SIPRNet was running this kind of software? SIPRNet can't access the Internet - by design. Would the DoD have to host Microsoft's WGA servers inside?
After reading the entire article, it seems the interview took place well before GPLv3 was released in its final form, since it's well known that Linus tempered his objections to the second draft of GPLv3 once he saw the final version. He may not move the kernel to v3 anytime soon, but he's said - and I almost quote - "GPLv3 is a good license, I just don't think it's good for me." It looks like the interview was published now simply to cash in on all the negative press about MS' OOXML standardization efforts going down in a ball of flame.
I doubt there will be any production SQL Servers running on a desktop OS...
But that brings up a good point - does/will WGA run on MS server platforms? One major screwup there, and you'd see mass migrations to Linux in the data center. Definitely have to watch for flying chairs from Redmond, then, huh?
Microsoft has admitted to stacking the Sweden's Institute of Standards (their representative body to the ISO) recent vote on approving OOXML as an ISO standard. Just weeks prior to the vote, SIS was going to vote NO, but Microsoft offered financial incentives to Gold Partners in Sweden to join the SIS and vote yes.
And it looks like they tried the same thing in Denmark.
The US DoJ report just shows that the current administration is still awarding favors to its friends by saying that anti-competitive measures have worked. Any rational person would think that MS is the same old leopard which hasn't changed its spots.
Isn't it ironic that OSS - in the form of Linux and OpenOffice.org - are starting to show that they are capable of something the US Govt is not - namely, making Microsoft run scared.
Microsoft is using fraud and bribery to make sure that the only company that can be interoperable with Microsoft products is Microsoft itself.
That would be two millenia, not centuries. And remember that the Protestant Reformation was a result of the protection money^H^H^H^H^H^H^H - err, demands for "graces" that Martin Luther was fed up with...
And celibacy is a direct result of greed, also. The Church was purportedly tired of seeing married priests' widows get all the assets of local churches when the old priests croaked.
And the study said that none of the alleged infringements in Linux were against a validated patent. Most of the patents were deemed to be very suspect and would probably be invalidated in court if challenged.
The Ravicher Study funded by OSRM actually undermines Microsoft's position. But Microsoft apologists cite it repeatedly because they know that most people won't take the time to see what the study actually said.
Actually, like any myth there's more than an element of truth to it. There's a strict review process for the Linux kernel, and many people are aware of the brutal hashing of OpenBSD code by Theo de Raadt and friends.
I knew in the past of several commercial developments processes where virtually no one but the module developer actually looks at the code. Testing involves invoking test scripts against the binary only...
Granted, that was back in the 90's, but I'd bet way too large a percentage of commercial software is still developed that way, as is internally developed code (Java, PHP, etc) for numerous commercial and private websites...
So much for the FUD trotted out daily by Microsoft and their fans: "Which software would you rather trust? Proprietary software developed by paid professionals, or open source software developed by un-paid amateurs at home?"
We've always known that Linux and most of the popular OSS projects are developed by professionals.
And what law makes it illegal to circumvent CSS encryption? Why, it's the DMCA (as in copyright, not copywrite). Any CD with copy protection is not a legal CD. Philip's original license under which true music Compact Discs are made does not allow extentions implement copy protection. To legally carry the "CD" logo, you can't put copy protection on it...
Let's say Bush's daughters had some music video DVD's, and they ripped them and put them on Dad's video iPod. That's the same as a mix tape, right?
Not according to proposed legislation making the rounds of Congress right now. A consortium of vendors and content providers is trying to make it illegal to copy any DVD, regardless if it's even a backup copy so your 4-year old won't damage your only copy of Shrek2...
For all you that feel making a mix CD is piracy, by all means, proceed to bash.
For all you that feel making a mix music DVD is piracy, by all means, proceed to bash. The only difference between the two is a bit of misguided legislation called the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. I see a slippery slope here...
they rip off just about everyones proprietory tech wholesale via their codec stealing tech.
Care to enlighten us to how they rip off everyone's proprietary technology? I know mplayer can use native Windows codecs, but I don't think they actually incorporated that code into their product. Is it illegal to point my copy of mplayer to a legally licensed copy of Windows on an NTFS partition on my PC's hard drive?
Cell towers are just the tip of the iceberg. If the central switching infrastructure is down, your cell towers are just boat anchors. Or if the infrastructure is overwhelmed with traffic. Or if your cell towers batteries run down. Or your cell towers' emergency generators which charge the batteries run out of fuel.
When all else fails, amateur radio still works. Yeah, it's slow when running data (like Winlink e-mail). But power requirements are low. And there's no infrastructure to rely on - unless the attacking aliens ionize the atmosphere to such a degree that even radio won't work!
You guys are reading this as if I were an Evangelical Christian, which I am most certainly not.
The religious right were wielding way more influence than they should, and now it's apparent that the neo-cons hitched their wagon to a team of horses they can't control.
I'm beginning to think that I should move from annoyance at Evangelicals to downright disdain such as Richard Dawkins does, but that may be a little too extreme.
The point of my posting is that we shouldn't just ignore Evangelicals thinking they'll just go away.
Perhaps I should have pointed out that during the 60's and 70's, religious influence was waning in the US, but came back with a vengeance in the late Reagan era.
Of course, it couldn't have been simply a reaction to hot pants, platform shoes and polyester shirts:)
If you're from New York, I can understand how you can somehow ignore the rise of the Christian Right in American politics ever since the Reagan era. You need to get out and see the "Heartland" of the country. Try Dallas, or Oklahoma City, or Baton Rouge, or Jackson. How about that Crystal Cathedral in California?
We now have a President who is "Born Again", and recognizes Christ as his personal saviour. His old Attorney General, John Ashcroft, a devout Assemblies of God member, used to anoint himself with oil. We have many members of Congress, both in the Senate and the House, who are ordained ministers in their churches. Some are LDS Bishops. I would venture to say that the percentage of devout Christians holding office in various levels of government in the US exceeds that of the general population. Which oath do they hold to? Their duty to country, or to a church?
You've got people who firmly believe that the US Constitution states that the USA is a Christian nation. I've got in-laws who used to believe that I was damned to Hell because I was raised Catholic and not a member of the Church of Christ.
We have a member of the Texas House who firmly believes that the Earth is the center of the Universe, and that we never landed a man on the moon, and that satellites are held in orbit by magnetism, not gravity - because Newton's Laws are wrong and he can prove it. http://www.fixedearth.com/geosynchronous_sa.htm (I had to post that link because it's a hoot. His proof is that a LaGrange point is where gravity stops because it's where it balances out. Give the man a Nobel!)
We had an Army General (2 star?) who fervently believed we would win in Iraq because his God is greater than their God, Allah. Someone forgot to tell him they're one and the same. Jehovah, too.
These are the people who've been running this nation for the last dozen years or so. Their's are the people who backed a "Crusade" in the Middle East, thinking we'd set them "free".
Oh. And that CUNY study? Does it take into account that many black Southern Baptists are becoming Muslims? And the biggest immigrant groups in the US today are Hispanic Catholics (and Protestants) and Muslims from the Middle East and SE Asia?
Just because the percentage of people identifying themselves as Christians has gone down (how accurate is that study) does not mean that the number of people who identify themselves as religious has gone down. Or that the percentage who identify themselves as Born Again has gone down.
I don't need to cite references. All you need to do is get out of your ivory tower (sorry, that actually sounds religious!) and look around. Wake up. You're missing an entire country out there!
Doesn't the agreement call for Microsoft to distribute coupons redeemable for SuSE licenses? If so, then they're legally not distributing GPL software.
I'm a Linux fan myself, but your reasoning here doesn't make sense. TCO means Total Cost of Ownership. It should take into account monetary benefits. How do you think it could be "worth it" if TCO is higher? A warm feeling in your tummy?
That said, the only way to really interpret the article is that HSBC finds that running a mix of various distros to be more costly than a homogeneous Windows, and that standardizing Linux on Novell will bring the TCO in line with - or perhaps below - the TCO of Windows.
Up until very recently, rural cablecos still received local broadcasters signals - get this - over the air using tuned antennas for the best quality analog reception, but it was still analog. They got all their premium channels like Discovery, SciFi, History and subscription channels like HBO/Showtime via digital satellite links, but local channel 3, 6, and 10 were using the same technology your parents used in the 50's and 60's.
At least you qualified it by saying "pretty much all"...
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Novell owns all the copyrights. Ballmer just wishes they owned the copyrights - just think how much money they could make on copyright infringement. Have you ever heard of companies having copyright cross licensing agreements? Didn't think so. MS could keep all the money for themselves!!!
Just where do you get the idea that FOSS software must not be charged for? Really - can you give us any reference that says "Thou Shalt NOT Charge Any Gratuities For Free/Open Source Software"?
We're waiting...
And I quote (from the GPL FAQ over at the FSF):
Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money?
Yes, the GPL allows everyone to do this. The right to sell copies is part of the definition of free software. Except in one special situation, there is no limit on what price you can charge. (The one exception is the required written offer to provide source code that must accompany binary-only release.)
My point is - what would happen if suddenly a whole slew of Server 2008 servers went tits-up because Microsoft's phone-home software couldn't contact homebase? Any large MS-centric IT shop - including ASP/SAS sites - would be toast. Can you imagine if the DoD's SIPRNet was running this kind of software? SIPRNet can't access the Internet - by design. Would the DoD have to host Microsoft's WGA servers inside?
After reading the entire article, it seems the interview took place well before GPLv3 was released in its final form, since it's well known that Linus tempered his objections to the second draft of GPLv3 once he saw the final version. He may not move the kernel to v3 anytime soon, but he's said - and I almost quote - "GPLv3 is a good license, I just don't think it's good for me." It looks like the interview was published now simply to cash in on all the negative press about MS' OOXML standardization efforts going down in a ball of flame.
I doubt there will be any production SQL Servers running on a desktop OS...
But that brings up a good point - does/will WGA run on MS server platforms? One major screwup there, and you'd see mass migrations to Linux in the data center. Definitely have to watch for flying chairs from Redmond, then, huh?
And it looks like they tried the same thing in Denmark.
The US DoJ report just shows that the current administration is still awarding favors to its friends by saying that anti-competitive measures have worked. Any rational person would think that MS is the same old leopard which hasn't changed its spots.
Isn't it ironic that OSS - in the form of Linux and OpenOffice.org - are starting to show that they are capable of something the US Govt is not - namely, making Microsoft run scared.
Microsoft is using fraud and bribery to make sure that the only company that can be interoperable with Microsoft products is Microsoft itself.
That would be two millenia, not centuries. And remember that the Protestant Reformation was a result of the protection money^H^H^H^H^H^H^H - err, demands for "graces" that Martin Luther was fed up with...
And celibacy is a direct result of greed, also. The Church was purportedly tired of seeing married priests' widows get all the assets of local churches when the old priests croaked.
Well, there's always "never even evolved".
Actually, according to Creationists, that's pretty damn near everything - so I guess for them it's "well done"!
Man, did you ever miss that one. Or else I did (was that sarcasm in your response).
Believe me - rms has read the study cover to cover...
The Ravicher Study funded by OSRM actually undermines Microsoft's position. But Microsoft apologists cite it repeatedly because they know that most people won't take the time to see what the study actually said.
Actually, like any myth there's more than an element of truth to it. There's a strict review process for the Linux kernel, and many people are aware of the brutal hashing of OpenBSD code by Theo de Raadt and friends. I knew in the past of several commercial developments processes where virtually no one but the module developer actually looks at the code. Testing involves invoking test scripts against the binary only... Granted, that was back in the 90's, but I'd bet way too large a percentage of commercial software is still developed that way, as is internally developed code (Java, PHP, etc) for numerous commercial and private websites...
You're forgetting the vast majority of the receiving end of Microsoft's R&D dollars: it's development, not only research.
Didn't we learn from all the EU probing that Microsoft begins a project by coding, not by engineering, design, and documentation?
I'd bet the vast majority of Microsoft's development dollars go into iterative coding - i.e., code, compile, fix errors, rinse and repeat...
OK - maybe I'm being a little harsh, and Microsoft has grown up over the years, but when they were young, that was exactly how things worked.
So much for the FUD trotted out daily by Microsoft and their fans: "Which software would you rather trust? Proprietary software developed by paid professionals, or open source software developed by un-paid amateurs at home?"
We've always known that Linux and most of the popular OSS projects are developed by professionals.
And what law makes it illegal to circumvent CSS encryption? Why, it's the DMCA (as in copyright, not copywrite). Any CD with copy protection is not a legal CD. Philip's original license under which true music Compact Discs are made does not allow extentions implement copy protection. To legally carry the "CD" logo, you can't put copy protection on it...
Let's say Bush's daughters had some music video DVD's, and they ripped them and put them on Dad's video iPod. That's the same as a mix tape, right?
Not according to proposed legislation making the rounds of Congress right now. A consortium of vendors and content providers is trying to make it illegal to copy any DVD, regardless if it's even a backup copy so your 4-year old won't damage your only copy of Shrek2...
For all you that feel making a mix CD is piracy, by all means, proceed to bash.
For all you that feel making a mix music DVD is piracy, by all means, proceed to bash. The only difference between the two is a bit of misguided legislation called the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. I see a slippery slope here...
Microsoft does that way better than OSS. They skip the software engineering step entirely and just begin coding! :)
Care to enlighten us to how they rip off everyone's proprietary technology? I know mplayer can use native Windows codecs, but I don't think they actually incorporated that code into their product. Is it illegal to point my copy of mplayer to a legally licensed copy of Windows on an NTFS partition on my PC's hard drive?
This sounds just like a patent application. So circuitous, non-obvious, just plain confusing that no one knows what the he11 they're talking about.
When all else fails, amateur radio still works. Yeah, it's slow when running data (like Winlink e-mail). But power requirements are low. And there's no infrastructure to rely on - unless the attacking aliens ionize the atmosphere to such a degree that even radio won't work!
You guys are reading this as if I were an Evangelical Christian, which I am most certainly not.
The religious right were wielding way more influence than they should, and now it's apparent that the neo-cons hitched their wagon to a team of horses they can't control.
I'm beginning to think that I should move from annoyance at Evangelicals to downright disdain such as Richard Dawkins does, but that may be a little too extreme.
The point of my posting is that we shouldn't just ignore Evangelicals thinking they'll just go away.
Were any of you of age in the 70's?
:)
Perhaps I should have pointed out that during the 60's and 70's, religious influence was waning in the US, but came back with a vengeance in the late Reagan era.
Of course, it couldn't have been simply a reaction to hot pants, platform shoes and polyester shirts
We now have a President who is "Born Again", and recognizes Christ as his personal saviour. His old Attorney General, John Ashcroft, a devout Assemblies of God member, used to anoint himself with oil. We have many members of Congress, both in the Senate and the House, who are ordained ministers in their churches. Some are LDS Bishops. I would venture to say that the percentage of devout Christians holding office in various levels of government in the US exceeds that of the general population. Which oath do they hold to? Their duty to country, or to a church?
You've got people who firmly believe that the US Constitution states that the USA is a Christian nation. I've got in-laws who used to believe that I was damned to Hell because I was raised Catholic and not a member of the Church of Christ.
We have a member of the Texas House who firmly believes that the Earth is the center of the Universe, and that we never landed a man on the moon, and that satellites are held in orbit by magnetism, not gravity - because Newton's Laws are wrong and he can prove it. http://www.fixedearth.com/geosynchronous_sa.htm (I had to post that link because it's a hoot. His proof is that a LaGrange point is where gravity stops because it's where it balances out. Give the man a Nobel!)
We had an Army General (2 star?) who fervently believed we would win in Iraq because his God is greater than their God, Allah. Someone forgot to tell him they're one and the same. Jehovah, too.
These are the people who've been running this nation for the last dozen years or so. Their's are the people who backed a "Crusade" in the Middle East, thinking we'd set them "free".
Oh. And that CUNY study? Does it take into account that many black Southern Baptists are becoming Muslims? And the biggest immigrant groups in the US today are Hispanic Catholics (and Protestants) and Muslims from the Middle East and SE Asia?
Just because the percentage of people identifying themselves as Christians has gone down (how accurate is that study) does not mean that the number of people who identify themselves as religious has gone down. Or that the percentage who identify themselves as Born Again has gone down.
I don't need to cite references. All you need to do is get out of your ivory tower (sorry, that actually sounds religious!) and look around. Wake up. You're missing an entire country out there!
Doesn't the agreement call for Microsoft to distribute coupons redeemable for SuSE licenses? If so, then they're legally not distributing GPL software.
IANAL, etc...
I'm a Linux fan myself, but your reasoning here doesn't make sense. TCO means Total Cost of Ownership. It should take into account monetary benefits. How do you think it could be "worth it" if TCO is higher? A warm feeling in your tummy?
That said, the only way to really interpret the article is that HSBC finds that running a mix of various distros to be more costly than a homogeneous Windows, and that standardizing Linux on Novell will bring the TCO in line with - or perhaps below - the TCO of Windows.
Up until very recently, rural cablecos still received local broadcasters signals - get this - over the air using tuned antennas for the best quality analog reception, but it was still analog. They got all their premium channels like Discovery, SciFi, History and subscription channels like HBO/Showtime via digital satellite links, but local channel 3, 6, and 10 were using the same technology your parents used in the 50's and 60's. At least you qualified it by saying "pretty much all"...