here's an even more entertaining Sun related article.
my favourite bit "For one thing, McNealy notes, Sun's versions of open source software do not violate SCO patents; and, are more reliable than "unwrapped" software taken straight from the source code open to all developers.
I am not going to pay for something you may not even own.
If a company were to claim SCO stole code and that every SCO user should pay $699.. would you be satisfied if they didnt show what the alleged stolen code was?
Vampires Vs Werewolves is probably the biggest. I have no idea if anyone thought of that idea before White Wolf did, at least I had never come across it before I started playing the White Wolf games (many years ago), therefore I've always associated the idea with White Wolf. Personally, I always thought the Vampires Vs Werewolves concept to be a bit lame so maybe nobody thought of it before (or thought of it and quickly dismissed it;-)
As for the other 59 points of similarity, I'll have to wait untill I see the film to see what they are.
From the WW press release: "The volume of confusion in our marketplace is amazing," observes Tinney, "our fans think they're going to be seeing our film. Of course, if the movie gets released, in a way they will be."
When I first heard about the plot of the film, my first thought was that it was based on the White Wolf world, after all there was that short lived adaptation of VTM, maybe they decided to try the movies instead. I was a bit disappointed when I found out it was a 'clone'.
Wait Sun is going to release a version of Linux SCO says SUN in not indanger of a law suite since they have the rights to redistribute Unix. So if SUN which is safe releases a Linux Distro under GPL then... 1. All the Linux code that SUN releases is now SCO safe under GPL with SCO's blessing OR 2. SUN is breaking their agreement with SCO and releasing SCO's IP under GPL with full knowlage that they are doing so. So they should be added to the law suite ASAP. In fact if SCO does not add them then they could be considered to be giving permison to release the code as GPL. OR 3. Sun is breaking the GPL and needs to be sued.
I thought SCO are argueing that the GPL is invalid and that all GPL code is public domain (I think to try to get around the fact they've been distributing linux after the dispute started) so it won't matter to SCO that Sun are distributing Linux
Given that SCO insiders recently sold stock for the first time in ages, why isn't the SEC investigating to see if the only purpose of SCO's lawsuit was to manipulate the stock price?
I would bet that the SEC are going to have to wait untill the lawsuits gone through the courts and all the dust has settled before they start investigating. Otherwise, they'd look stupid if they start investigating/prosecuting and somehow SCO win. Should SCO loose then the SEC might find some justification if during the course of the SCO/IBM it becomes obvious that SCO have no case at all - ie the only reason for the lawsuit was for the pump and dump scheme.
The SEC should behave just like the way IBM have - keep silent as much as possible, gather evidence, keep records of McBride & co's insanity and when the time is right (and that's not going to be for awhile as far as the SEC is concerend) slap the relevant SCO execs hard.
Or else everybody could just except that just as objects in English can have different names, even in the same dialect (eg the tens if not hundreds of different terms for a long roll sandwich - grinder/subway etc) that English can also allow multiple 'correct' spellings.
The article wasn't saying a lawsuit is good, but that a lawsuit with this plaintiff is relatively good. A relatively bad one would be with Microsoft.
Saying that, I'd still love to see a big MS vs IBM legal grudge match at somepoint. Just think of the hours of entertainment - there'd probably 10x the amount of articles on/. compared to the SCO case. Plus items on TV, a few books, maybe even a TV miniseries.
Is there a reason that./ is giving front page coverage to SCO's press release spinning an IBM counterclaim, rather than reporting on the counterclaim itself?
I wouldn't call that socialism and I wouldn't call that capitalism either - both of those economic systems do fundamentaly rely on the majority of people having jobs. I'd call it Sustainable Hedonism - the few people with 'jobs' are doing so because they enjoy them, not because they need them and everybody else will be watching tv/getting wasted/ living out lives in theme parks/seeking out new life and new civilizations etc because all need for work will have ended.
The main problem with getting Hedonism to be sustainable won't be getting robots to take over jobs - it will be working out how to either fairly distribute scarce resources or a way of making scarce resources abundant. Nanotech will probably go a long way here, but there is still only so much planet.
Nothing can replace a really great waiter/waitress that you have interaction with.
Yeah, but we're talking about McDonalds and other fast food resteraunts here, where I would welcome ATM style ordering if only for accuracy. Not only that, but I live in the UK where 'customer service' is a joke - especially at fast food places.
For instance, I usualy want an extra drink with my meal (large isn't that large, and 'super' size isn't available everywhere). What happens when I ask for "A large nugget meal with a coke and another large coke"? Pretty simple you would think. Surely the staff will blindly take my order as I say it and then repeat it back to me for confirmation. More often than not they don't. As such, confusion often results as they seem to need to interperate what I'm asking for and when they do they often get it wrong (the usual outcomes are no second drink or a second meal gets ordered), which wouldn't be too bad, but since they don't bother with the confirmation bit I often end up in arguments about what I ordered.
Or even better, one time I asked for a hamburger meal. The guy taking my order said "we don't do hambuger meals". "Ok", I said, "give me a cheeseburger meal, but give me hamburgers instead of cheesburgers" (why McDonalds don't have a hamburger meal is beyond me). "I can't do that, I'll have to order you a special cheesburger meal without cheese" was the reply. As soon as the 'special' order flashed up in the cooking area the mangager came rushing round and shouted at the guy "What's a cheese burger without cheese"? Order guy went into 'duh' mode and the manager (after looking at me apologetically) said "it's called a hamburger".
And here's another one - one day I walked into a place and asked for a hamburger. The guy said "We don't sell hamburgers". "Since when?" I asked, "I had one yesterday". A quick glance at the menu solved the confusion, they were selling beefburgers. I'm not sure how I avoided going into a blind fit of rage.
I would quite gladly forgo the human contact if it means getting my order right. It's why I love dominos pizza's online ordering (www.dominos.co.uk), when I want a pepperoni I get a pepperoni, not a meat feast, not a pepperoni plus, not whatever the guy thought I was asking for, I get a pepperoni. If McDonalds, Burger King, KFC (especially KFC, they're worse than McDonalds - they have difficulty with a bog standard no extras order) et al were to have ATM style ordering my life would less stressful (I go to these places a lot) and would enhance my 'meal experience'.
You ever notice that with the exception of hardware, most people only use Microsoft products as they are forced to?
Actually, I like some of MS's games (I can't remember how many nights I lost to Age of Empires) and their Picture It Digital Image Pro (which came with my latest printer) is really easy to use (it's designed for people who know nothing about image editing - like me).
I have to wonder though why businesses are willing to run data centre, even thier entire organizations with software from what really is a games/home productivity company. Anyone for Electronic Arts Enterprise Server 2003 or ID Software Office XP? No, I didn't think so.
That won't happen unless Microsoft drops IE and starts shipping Mozilla.
Here are my thoughts as to why MS might be thinking of getting out of the browser business (at least as much as they can)
First off, what good has it done Microsoft to fight and win the browser wars? How much cash have they spent on a product they can never sell? A product that they are going to have to maintain for between now and forever and that will never bring in a cent. While at the time of the war I can see how they were probably frightened that the browser was somehow going to make the OS completely irrelevant (though I could never understand that one) and they felt it was necessary to do whatever was necessary to make sure that didn't happen, what is IE (or whetever you want to call the internet components being built into the next OS) going to give them now? How much revenue is it going to generate?
If rumours are to be believed one of the reasons why they're not updateing IE for a while is that it's in as bad a need of a rewrite as Mozilla was and that's probably going to be expensive. Whether or not that's true, they are still going to have to maintain thier internet code and that's going to cost money. While 'improved internet abilities' will look nice on the marketing materials for the next Windows I doubt it would be a real driving force for people to upgrade, especially when the older OSes can get the same if not better functionality from a free download.
Look at how they've stopped IE for the Mac, even on windows IE will no longer exist as such - it will just be a part of the OS. So in some ways, they've already dropped the browser. As such maybe instead of developing the bits that made up IE they might source the internet technology they need from outside. There's nothing to really stop them using Gecko or KHTML ala Safari - after all they do use open source software (like bits of Interix) they just don't make a song and dance about it. Alternativly they could license Opera technology, a bit more expensive but they'd be less likely to loose face from all thier anti-open source efforts.
I don't think Sun's invovlment with SCO is particularly surprising - just as the MS marketing department are getting more fodder for thier battle against linux and the gpl, Sun's marketing department are getting fodder for thier battle with IBM/AIX.
As for the share options, that's like playing the lottery except that you only have buy your ticket if your numbers come up - it's highly unlikely that you're going win, but if you do you'll win big and it doesn't cost anything to play. This was probably just a little sweetener from SCO to get some extra cash in the war chest - enough to make Sun go from "That's a bit expensive for the marketing value" to "What the hell, have some cash"
I would buy one today except that I am a professional programmer and MUST use the same platform my compiler targets: Intel.
I take it there must be some good reason why you can't use a cross compiler (like you're using Microsoft Dev Studio and you don't want to admit it to the/. crowd - which is understandable). Have you thought about getting a mac and using Virtual PC? Performance would suck a bit, but surely it would be worth it so that you'd have a Mac?:-)
I'm now over 40 and still have to think about how to write those checks out - where you have to -write- the amount of the check in cursive;-) weird to think that's the only reason for me to still know cursive
I never even have to write cheques in cursive - even on the inside cover of my cheque book there's a little sample of how to write the cheque out - and it's done in print. As for my signature, that's an illegible squiggle more than any form of writing (no one could figure out what my name is from my signature - no one), so that doesn't even count. In fact, I think I've almost entirely forgotten how to do proper handwriting, not that I was ever any good at it - even at school in the mid 80's my handwriting was so bad I was encourged by my teachers to use a computer for my assignments whenever possible (they could barely read my print writing). At university anything that needed to be done with a pen, which meant only exams, I always wrote in print (which had at least improved enough to be a readable by then) and nobody cared.
I think handwriting in cursive has been on the way out for at least 20 years and I for one will not mourn it's passing.
Slashdot Mirror
here's an even more entertaining Sun related article.
my favourite bit "For one thing, McNealy notes, Sun's versions of open source software do not violate SCO patents; and, are more reliable than "unwrapped" software taken straight from the source code open to all developers.
Search on google for Xenix.
Tk
Dear Darl
.. would you be satisfied if they didnt show what the alleged stolen code was?
I am not going to pay for something you may not even own.
If a company were to claim SCO stole code and that every SCO user should pay $699
I'd add "Would you indemnify you users?"
Tk
Well, apperently there was a film titled Werewolf vs the Vampire Woman made in 1971.
What exactly are the similarities?
;-)
Vampires Vs Werewolves is probably the biggest. I have no idea if anyone thought of that idea before White Wolf did, at least I had never come across it before I started playing the White Wolf games (many years ago), therefore I've always associated the idea with White Wolf. Personally, I always thought the Vampires Vs Werewolves concept to be a bit lame so maybe nobody thought of it before (or thought of it and quickly dismissed it
As for the other 59 points of similarity, I'll have to wait untill I see the film to see what they are.
From the WW press release:
"The volume of confusion in our marketplace is amazing," observes Tinney, "our fans think they're going to be seeing our film. Of course, if the movie gets released, in a way they will be."
When I first heard about the plot of the film, my first thought was that it was based on the White Wolf world, after all there was that short lived adaptation of VTM, maybe they decided to try the movies instead. I was a bit disappointed when I found out it was a 'clone'.
Tk
Not to mention that if they send it thru the USPS and you don't actually owe the bill it is considered a federal offense
But what if they send it via FedEx or UPS?
Tk
Wait Sun is going to release a version of Linux SCO says SUN in not indanger of a law suite since they have the rights to redistribute Unix. So if SUN which is safe releases a Linux Distro under GPL then...
1. All the Linux code that SUN releases is now SCO safe under GPL with SCO's blessing
OR
2. SUN is breaking their agreement with SCO and releasing SCO's IP under GPL with full knowlage that they are doing so. So they should be added to the law suite ASAP. In fact if SCO does not add them then they could be considered to be giving permison to release the code as GPL.
OR
3. Sun is breaking the GPL and needs to be sued.
I thought SCO are argueing that the GPL is invalid and that all GPL code is public domain (I think to try to get around the fact they've been distributing linux after the dispute started) so it won't matter to SCO that Sun are distributing Linux
Tk
A bill comes in, it gets routed to A/P, it comes from someone the company has paid before, and it ends up getting payed.
SCO will make some money off this
But if the company has already paid SCO before then why would SCO invoice them? I doubt they're going to be going after what few customers they have.
Also, an invoice without a purchase order usually rings alarm bells in finance departments, no matter who from.
Tk
Us Canadians enjoy english.
:-)
Even in Quebec?
Tk
Given that SCO insiders recently sold stock for the first time in ages, why isn't the SEC investigating to see if the only purpose of SCO's lawsuit was to manipulate the stock price?
I would bet that the SEC are going to have to wait untill the lawsuits gone through the courts and all the dust has settled before they start investigating. Otherwise, they'd look stupid if they start investigating/prosecuting and somehow SCO win. Should SCO loose then the SEC might find some justification if during the course of the SCO/IBM it becomes obvious that SCO have no case at all - ie the only reason for the lawsuit was for the pump and dump scheme.
The SEC should behave just like the way IBM have - keep silent as much as possible, gather evidence, keep records of McBride & co's insanity and when the time is right (and that's not going to be for awhile as far as the SEC is concerend) slap the relevant SCO execs hard.
Tk
Flavor
eg. "These FREEDOM FRIES have a great flavor!"
Wrong, it's Flavour
eg. "These CHIPS have a great flavour!"
Or else everybody could just except that just as objects in English can have different names, even in the same dialect (eg the tens if not hundreds of different terms for a long roll sandwich - grinder/subway etc) that English can also allow multiple 'correct' spellings.
Tk.
The article wasn't saying a lawsuit is good, but that a lawsuit with this plaintiff is relatively good. A relatively bad one would be with Microsoft.
/. compared to the SCO case. Plus items on TV, a few books, maybe even a TV miniseries.
Saying that, I'd still love to see a big MS vs IBM legal grudge match at somepoint. Just think of the hours of entertainment - there'd probably 10x the amount of articles on
Tk
Not only that, but the whole 'indemnification' issue seems to be straight out of the current MS play book.
Tk
Is there a reason that ./ is giving front page coverage to SCO's press release spinning an IBM counterclaim, rather than reporting on the counterclaim itself?
umm, because it was on
yesterdays?
I wouldn't call that socialism and I wouldn't call that capitalism either - both of those economic systems do fundamentaly rely on the majority of people having jobs. I'd call it Sustainable Hedonism - the few people with 'jobs' are doing so because they enjoy them, not because they need them and everybody else will be watching tv/getting wasted/ living out lives in theme parks/seeking out new life and new civilizations etc because all need for work will have ended.
The main problem with getting Hedonism to be sustainable won't be getting robots to take over jobs - it will be working out how to either fairly distribute scarce resources or a way of making scarce resources abundant. Nanotech will probably go a long way here, but there is still only so much planet.
Tk
Nothing can replace a really great waiter/waitress that you have interaction with.
Yeah, but we're talking about McDonalds and other fast food resteraunts here, where I would welcome ATM style ordering if only for accuracy. Not only that, but I live in the UK where 'customer service' is a joke - especially at fast food places.
For instance, I usualy want an extra drink with my meal (large isn't that large, and 'super' size isn't available everywhere). What happens when I ask for "A large nugget meal with a coke and another large coke"? Pretty simple you would think. Surely the staff will blindly take my order as I say it and then repeat it back to me for confirmation. More often than not they don't. As such, confusion often results as they seem to need to interperate what I'm asking for and when they do they often get it wrong (the usual outcomes are no second drink or a second meal gets ordered), which wouldn't be too bad, but since they don't bother with the confirmation bit I often end up in arguments about what I ordered.
Or even better, one time I asked for a hamburger meal. The guy taking my order said "we don't do hambuger meals". "Ok", I said, "give me a cheeseburger meal, but give me hamburgers instead of cheesburgers" (why McDonalds don't have a hamburger meal is beyond me). "I can't do that, I'll have to order you a special cheesburger meal without cheese" was the reply. As soon as the 'special' order flashed up in the cooking area the mangager came rushing round and shouted at the guy "What's a cheese burger without cheese"? Order guy went into 'duh' mode and the manager (after looking at me apologetically) said "it's called a hamburger".
And here's another one - one day I walked into a place and asked for a hamburger. The guy said "We don't sell hamburgers". "Since when?" I asked, "I had one yesterday". A quick glance at the menu solved the confusion, they were selling beefburgers. I'm not sure how I avoided going into a blind fit of rage.
I would quite gladly forgo the human contact if it means getting my order right. It's why I love dominos pizza's online ordering (www.dominos.co.uk), when I want a pepperoni I get a pepperoni, not a meat feast, not a pepperoni plus, not whatever the guy thought I was asking for, I get a pepperoni. If McDonalds, Burger King, KFC (especially KFC, they're worse than McDonalds - they have difficulty with a bog standard no extras order) et al were to have ATM style ordering my life would less stressful (I go to these places a lot) and would enhance my 'meal experience'.
Tk
You ever notice that with the exception of hardware, most people only use Microsoft products as they are forced to?
Actually, I like some of MS's games (I can't remember how many nights I lost to Age of Empires) and their Picture It Digital Image Pro (which came with my latest printer) is really easy to use (it's designed for people who know nothing about image editing - like me).
I have to wonder though why businesses are willing to run data centre, even thier entire organizations with software from what really is a games/home productivity company. Anyone for Electronic Arts Enterprise Server 2003 or ID Software Office XP? No, I didn't think so.
Tk
when you see IP in the headline and think intellectual property instead of internet protocol
Tk
That won't happen unless Microsoft drops IE and starts shipping Mozilla.
Here are my thoughts as to why MS might be thinking of getting out of the browser business (at least as much as they can)
First off, what good has it done Microsoft to fight and win the browser wars? How much cash have they spent on a product they can never sell? A product that they are going to have to maintain for between now and forever and that will never bring in a cent. While at the time of the war I can see how they were probably frightened that the browser was somehow going to make the OS completely irrelevant (though I could never understand that one) and they felt it was necessary to do whatever was necessary to make sure that didn't happen, what is IE (or whetever you want to call the internet components being built into the next OS) going to give them now? How much revenue is it going to generate?
If rumours are to be believed one of the reasons why they're not updateing IE for a while is that it's in as bad a need of a rewrite as Mozilla was and that's probably going to be expensive. Whether or not that's true, they are still going to have to maintain thier internet code and that's going to cost money. While 'improved internet abilities' will look nice on the marketing materials for the next Windows I doubt it would be a real driving force for people to upgrade, especially when the older OSes can get the same if not better functionality from a free download.
Look at how they've stopped IE for the Mac, even on windows IE will no longer exist as such - it will just be a part of the OS. So in some ways, they've already dropped the browser. As such maybe instead of developing the bits that made up IE they might source the internet technology they need from outside. There's nothing to really stop them using Gecko or KHTML ala Safari - after all they do use open source software (like bits of Interix) they just don't make a song and dance about it. Alternativly they could license Opera technology, a bit more expensive but they'd be less likely to loose face from all thier anti-open source efforts.
Tk
If Sun are as bad as Microsoft, both buying junk SCO licences to fund their "kill Linux" crusade
I think it's more Sun are on a hurt IBM/AIX campaign, MS are on a hurt Linux campaign and SCO gets to benefit from both.
Tk
I don't think Sun's invovlment with SCO is particularly surprising - just as the MS marketing department are getting more fodder for thier battle against linux and the gpl, Sun's marketing department are getting fodder for thier battle with IBM/AIX.
As for the share options, that's like playing the lottery except that you only have buy your ticket if your numbers come up - it's highly unlikely that you're going win, but if you do you'll win big and it doesn't cost anything to play. This was probably just a little sweetener from SCO to get some extra cash in the war chest - enough to make Sun go from "That's a bit expensive for the marketing value" to "What the hell, have some cash"
Tk
imagine a beowulf cluster of those!!!
Wouldn't it act a bit like a tesla coil?
Tk
I would buy one today except that I am a professional programmer and MUST use the same platform my compiler targets: Intel.
/. crowd - which is understandable). Have you thought about getting a mac and using Virtual PC? Performance would suck a bit, but surely it would be worth it so that you'd have a Mac? :-)
I take it there must be some good reason why you can't use a cross compiler (like you're using Microsoft Dev Studio and you don't want to admit it to the
Tk
I'm now over 40 and still have to think about how to write those checks out - where you have to -write- the amount of the check in cursive ;-) weird to think that's the only reason for me to still know cursive
I never even have to write cheques in cursive - even on the inside cover of my cheque book there's a little sample of how to write the cheque out - and it's done in print. As for my signature, that's an illegible squiggle more than any form of writing (no one could figure out what my name is from my signature - no one), so that doesn't even count. In fact, I think I've almost entirely forgotten how to do proper handwriting, not that I was ever any good at it - even at school in the mid 80's my handwriting was so bad I was encourged by my teachers to use a computer for my assignments whenever possible (they could barely read my print writing). At university anything that needed to be done with a pen, which meant only exams, I always wrote in print (which had at least improved enough to be a readable by then) and nobody cared.
I think handwriting in cursive has been on the way out for at least 20 years and I for one will not mourn it's passing.
Tk