Good work O'Reilly. You might say that it has taken a long time from the initial outcry over Amazon's one-click shopping to O'Reilly doing anything, but it's not only great that he's responded, but that he has responded the way he has.
Everyone take note.
First of all, he noted that there was a community feeling of disgust over the software patent in question. Now, while O'Reilly makes a lot of cash from Amazon's business (a fact freely admitted to by O'Reilly), instead of refusing to "bite the hand" that at least partially feeds him and his company, O'Reilly chose to chase up the issue.
i.e. O'Reilly is putting his money (and influence) where his mouth is. It has been a long time claim that O'Reilly supports Open Source, and here is definitely doing the right thing [tm].
But not only that; how did he respond? First of all he wrote a private e-mail to Bezos, which wasn't necessarily a "you guys are evil! wtf do you think you are doing?!?!?", but a well-worded even-handed explanation of his situation. When that met with unsatisfactory results he has upped the pressure, with the petition mail, and public responses.
Sure, you might say, he's just protecting his own interests by mollifying the community and not abusing Amazon. But I would disagree with that. Not only has he made it clear on a personal level that he is not happy with Amazon's policies, but he's willing to step into the public space to state so, while not taking to anyone with a blowtorch.
And lets face it, if all Linux advocates, or any advocates whatsoever were so careful, and measured about their approach, there would be a lot fewer holy wars, and probably fewer lawsuits.
First of all, the idea of Ebay aquiring Sotheby's strikes me as almost the epitome of the e-commerce age conquering the old commerce age (yeah, yeah, cornyy but you get the idea). Sotheby's and Ebay stand at oppposite ends of the auction spectrum, and I can only see that Ebay grabbing Sotheby's as being great for Ebay. For Sotheby's? I'm not so sure.
I'm guessing that Ebay would run Sotheby's as a semi-separate entity, maybe running Sotheby's as the "elite end" of the Ebay site. Ebay could either run Sotheby's exclusively as it is now, could attempt to integrate the two (ie. having net bidding on items for auction at Sotheby's and using this as a "reserve price" for the item), or running Sotheby's as the high-end part of the Ebay site.
Whichever way they go, if Sotheby's is aquired, Ebay will profit. It will be interesting to see what Christie's (Sotheby's 'rival') does if this happens. Will it stay off-line, or enter into a mad rush to try and find a high-profile on-line partner (hello Amazon.com!!).
Just a quick question, is there any word on any more stringent policy for what is or isn't a valid Open Source project? It seems fair enough that they are saying a) If we give you a domain we aren't going to rip it off you except for damn good reasons and b) we are trying to help out Open Source projects, but I'm just a little wary that it's a little open to abuse (Hello LinuxOne!), as it's at least a by default endorsement that you are running a legit Open Source project.
I know I sound paranoid (please! It's late where I live!), and this is a nice idea, I just don't want the cons to out way the pros here.
Would an explicit mention on the website with regards to what license your software is under (ie. GPL, BSD etc.) be enough?
There have been a number of articles on Slashdot recently about the plight of RAMBUS, specifically how it isn't really delivering, poor yields, problems with chipsets etc. This article seemed to reference RAMBUS almost in passing; does anyone out there in the trenches have the real deal on what's going on? It seems Intel have really thrown their weight behind this, but is it a case of "If we don't follow through on this then our credibility in the marketplace is screwed?"
It just seems that every time I here about RAMBUS the ante has been upped, and sooner or later something's going to hit the fan....
I'm sorry, but I seem to remember a TV reference a while ago taking the mickey out of Demi Moore for how she wants her name pronounced - "Remember, it's De-mi, not Demmy..." Sheesh. Will-am-ette, not Willa-met?? I bet everyone's feelings will be really hurt if I mispronounce it.
I propose calling the Willamette by an alternative name, maybe the Death AMD Killer 10000. At least that has style.
First of all, I think the Gates comment shouldn't be taken at face value. It strikes me as just being a flip comment, "off the record", so-to-speak.
Another alternative is that it's just Gates performing a little media manipulation (after all, it's what he's good at). Bear in mind that all the buzz has been about breaking up Microsoft, not open sourcing Windows.
And which Windows? And the entire code base? Or just part of it? Which part?
I can't see Windows 2000 being open-sourced in a hurry.
On a lighter note, can you imagine running lint (or your favourite code checker) on Windows source? *shudder*
This may seem a trifle contrived, but as I see it, there won't be a feature film now, simply because it hasn't happened yet, ie. if it was ever going to happen it would have happened _way_ earlier.
What makes me say this? Well, first of all I would have thought the pressure to do a Simpsons movie would have been pretty massive earlier in it's history, when the hype etc. about it was MASSIVE, say after season 3 maybe. That's when everybody, and their dog, and their dog's friends, would have gone to see it.
I'm not saying lots wouldn't go see it now, I'm just saying that it seems a little late in the day for a full-length feature to come out.
To generalize a little (and open myself up to flaming), other cartoon feature films, such as Beavis and Butthead, and South Park, have been released pretty early on as well. This could be related to the fact that they don't have the staying power and broad appeal of The Simpsons, but is still related.
And yes, I know it's early days for South Park (compared to The Simpsons), and it may still be around in 10 years, but it definitely doesn't have the whole from 4 year olds to grandparents appeal of The Simpsons.
"Equality, not Androgyny" is the best equal-rights slogan I have come across. Men and women should be equal, but it doesn't mean they should be exactly the same.
I agree that if girls show interest in engineering pursuits at an early age they should be encouraged. This is important, and really hasn't been successful in the past. Females should _not_ be "moulded" into aggressive engineer types, in the same way the _no one_ should.
Keylabs here is presented with a clear problem: having to work with a client(s) who wish to (ab)use their standing in the industry to the inflated benefit of the client.
If Keylabs jumps up and down, stating "These were the given parameters of the tests required, which implies that they are not as realistic as benchmarks should be". or some such, would they suffer client backlash?
Maybe. But I think it would present a clear case of the organisation receiving better credit for presenting clear, unbiased reports. Which can only give you more business, not less.
Companies will not cease in their quest to get 3rd party endorsement of their product (however implicit), but it is important that all the circumstances are states, in bold, underlined, and maybe even restated in the conclusions of the report.
Well, sort of similar to the above comment, I think it's fairly easy to find parallels in the formation and arrangement of Earth's land mass, as well as the "continents" of the internet.
'In the beginning' we had a "supercontinent", most sites were closely bound, and similar in size. Slowly these drift apart, and smaller "information" masses were formed. This continued slowly until the great explosion (circa. 1994), which has ended up with large different "continents", some more closely bound then others, but still leaving people with the ability to easily travel from "continent" to "continent" with relative ease.
It may be noted that it _is_ possible to be snarled in the geographic complexity of some regions (Pr0n pop-up consoles anyone?), and people still tend to favour one major area over another, while perhaps having a few other "holiday" destinations in other regions.
And I think that's stretching that construct far enough, don't you?
This sounds like one of my existentialist arguments; I've never been to Brisbane so you can't prove to me it exists, etc.
My second point is that though I intellectually accept such arguments, I choose to ignore them, and believe that Brisbane exists. That other people exist, that this isn't some dream.
Which, of course, could all be incorrect. But I choose to accept these things, so I at least have some point of reference.
I was brought up Roman Catholic, but rebelled from an early age. I currently call myself an Agnostic, probably because I'm a wuss. I have no qualms about other people's religions - though I find some beliefs questionable morally (not necessarily talking Christianity btw!), I am prepared to discuss. My grandparents and I have awesome involved theological discussions, they are great people, and fervent Christians. They are not Mutually Exclusive.
Anyway I believe that the golden rule "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is like it. The real deal. If this was accepted and practiced by everyone, the world would truly be a wonderful place. Not trying to stamp on anyone's toes, but I also feel that everything else gets in the way. I believe in the golden rule NOT because it will get me into heaven, but because I believe it is RIGHT.
Very, very cool. I was also intrigued when I noticed a link to a poem he had written about a python. Sure enough, there was a poem dedicated to "the python grows, and thinks of you".
Wow, can anyone say "obsessed"?:)
I was also going to make some snide comment about the poem itself, but realised that my best effort was something like this:
There one was a remote controlled snake, Who's appearance was so hard to take. The people, they'd scream "A Snake! How obsecene" Don't worry, it's only a fake.
What is it with Australia and technology, particularly internet-related tech, these days? As an Australian I am forced to throw up my hands in despair over such ludicrous occurrences such as this latest Telstra debacle, and not forgetting gems such as the Net Censorship bill.
These proclamations and poor business decisions merely result in the local Internet community being shafted. The Australian government periodically exorts their new initiatives to spark local invention and innovation, yet short-sighted and knee-jerk actions such as these effectively torpedo such initiatives.
I do realise that the Aussie govt really has nothing to do with Telstra's latest action, but hell, they pushed the privatisation of 'em;)
OK the way I think about time travelling into the past is this:
At any point in time, where a different action could take place, a "time thread" (or whatever) is taken. In it's grossest sense, I decide to ditch work to go to the beach, work blows up the next day: in the alternate thread I went to work, and died, etc.
Now when you go back in time, your impact creates a thread that is now disassociated from the one you came from - it is now impossible to get back to exactly where you came from. Depending on what the impact you create (remember the Butterfly effect - who knows the possible outcomes of your actions, and the greater the time distance, the greater the effect), things may be more or less the same as the other thread, but it WILL NOT BE THE SAME THREAD.
Time travelling forward presents no problems for me. After all, all you are doing is being "absent" for the amount of time you travel. The "absent" part I've glossed over, but hopefully you get my drift.
I think there is a difference between the kind of mob action you describe and action such as that being taken by groups such as the Electro-Hippies. One is (as you describe) creepy and bordering on violent, while the other is thoughtful.
This excerpt you quote actually sounds very similar to some powerful passages in George Orwell's 1984, primarily those passages describing the "2 Minutes Hate". This is where the corporate drones are brought together to participate in a group hysteria and hatred session, by displaying images of enemy soldiers and the "enemy of the people", Goldstein.
I'll try and quote from memory, but will be way off...
"The anger and hatred flowed like an electrical current. After 20 seconds you didn't need to pretend to be involved, it was almost impossible not to participate. Winston found himself screaming and yelling despite himself."
Anyway, you get the gist. The angry mob is something to be feared, as it represents all instinct, and no "intelligence" if you like. This is the vital difference between such primal outbursts and measured 'sit-ins' such as the Electro-Hippies. They aren't rioting in the streets, they are taking measured, conscious action.
This is interesting, after all Linux on a mainframe grabs my attention, but IBM have already been supplying Unix-type facilities on their machines with OS/390 System Services and OpenEdition OS/390.
Unix system services provides base UNIX services, a Unix shell interface and support for the dbx debugger.
OpenEdition was introduced in OS/390/ESA SP V4.3 and originally supported only some of the Posix standards (1003.1, 1003.1a, 1003.1c, 1003.2). The latest version (V5.2.2) supports around about 90% of the functions required for XPG4.2 (X/Open Portability Guide).
OpenEdition includes a C Run-time library, a compiler etc. It includes access to telnet, ftp etc.
Basically IBM has (finally) realised things like TCP/IP is nicer than SNA (a.k.a Blue Glue) - which I personally can vouch for. They have changed their SNA and APPC protocols to try and emulate peerless comms instead of a hierarchical model.
Of course they also realised they need for a nice TCP/IP stack etc. Not jumping on the Internet bandwagon would have flushed a lot down the toilet.
So in fact IBM have themselvs been moving their S/390 environments towards absorbing some aspects of *nix, so I can't really see people putting Linux on the 'bare metal' instead of making use of the inbuilt Unix services.
Of course you might be trying to avoid hefty licensing fees (and who could blame you!), but I can't really see an advantage to using an S/390 in this way.
But hey! You can't deny putting Linux on a beasty mainframe wouldn't be cool....be the first on your block to own one!
There was one line in particular which I totally agree with in this article - about how Gold "always shakes things up in a useful way"
No matter how correct people may think his theories are, the effect these theories have upon researchers etc. in the particular field is what is important. If Gold manages to inspire someone to prove him WRONG, by working at the problem from a different angle, then everyone wins.
Too often in academic circles, certain views can be taken as correct, without being proven. This is counter-productive; it is important that researchers disagree and argue - this is how important theories can arise, and how discoveries can be made.
Whether it's stable-state Universe versus big-bang, or the exact value of Hubbles's constant, or whatever, these arguments can drive great discoveries.
What appealed to me in the review was the fact that the author explicitly mentions that what is occurring in Linux land at a business level is still allowing the ideals of the free software movement to continue : business types may be able to set up an infrastructure to allow easy mainstream access to Linux, while making a buck; but the hackers can continue to expand and improve the code base at the foundation of it all.
As long as this continues to happen, the success of organisations like Red Hat, TurboLinux or whomever can only be a good thing, not only for the organisations themselves, but for everyone.
For those interested in mathematical history, and a very readable explanation of various fields of information theory, I can strongly recommend, Fermat's Enigma, one of Singh's previous works. In addition, there are several appendices to "flesh out" some mathematical explanations.
One of my favourites was a brief proof which was an example of the faulty logic used by people to attempt to get the bounty for solving Fermat's riddle, which proves that 2=1....:
a = b a*a = a*b a(a) = ab a(a) + a(a) = a(a) + ab 2a(a) = a(a) + ab 2a(a) - 2ab = a(a) + ab - 2ab 2a(a) - 2a(b) = a(a) - ab 2{a(a) - ab} = a(a) - ab 2 = 1
Slashdot Mirror
To all those people who are wondering, yes I made a typo in the above comment. It should have read:
African fo European.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Cheers,
SuperG
I noticed the SANE 2000 totally InSane quiz sample questions, one of which is the following:
What is the maximum airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
To which I can only reply:
African of European?
Cheers,
SuperG
Good work O'Reilly. You might say that it has taken a long time from the initial outcry over Amazon's one-click shopping to O'Reilly doing anything, but it's not only great that he's responded, but that he has responded the way he has.
Everyone take note.
First of all, he noted that there was a community feeling of disgust over the software patent in question. Now, while O'Reilly makes a lot of cash from Amazon's business (a fact freely admitted to by O'Reilly), instead of refusing to "bite the hand" that at least partially feeds him and his company, O'Reilly chose to chase up the issue.
i.e. O'Reilly is putting his money (and influence) where his mouth is. It has been a long time claim that O'Reilly supports Open Source, and here is definitely doing the right thing [tm].
But not only that; how did he respond? First of all he wrote a private e-mail to Bezos, which wasn't necessarily a "you guys are evil! wtf do you think you are doing?!?!?", but a well-worded even-handed explanation of his situation. When that met with unsatisfactory results he has upped the pressure, with the petition mail, and public responses.
Sure, you might say, he's just protecting his own interests by mollifying the community and not abusing Amazon. But I would disagree with that. Not only has he made it clear on a personal level that he is not happy with Amazon's policies, but he's willing to step into the public space to state so, while not taking to anyone with a blowtorch.
And lets face it, if all Linux advocates, or any advocates whatsoever were so careful, and measured about their approach, there would be a lot fewer holy wars, and probably fewer lawsuits.
Cheers,
SuperG
First of all, the idea of Ebay aquiring Sotheby's strikes me as almost the epitome of the e-commerce age conquering the old commerce age (yeah, yeah, cornyy but you get the idea). Sotheby's and Ebay stand at oppposite ends of the auction spectrum, and I can only see that Ebay grabbing Sotheby's as being great for Ebay. For Sotheby's? I'm not so sure.
I'm guessing that Ebay would run Sotheby's as a semi-separate entity, maybe running Sotheby's as the "elite end" of the Ebay site. Ebay could either run Sotheby's exclusively as it is now, could attempt to integrate the two (ie. having net bidding on items for auction at Sotheby's and using this as a "reserve price" for the item), or running Sotheby's as the high-end part of the Ebay site.
Whichever way they go, if Sotheby's is aquired, Ebay will profit. It will be interesting to see what Christie's (Sotheby's 'rival') does if this happens. Will it stay off-line, or enter into a mad rush to try and find a high-profile on-line partner (hello Amazon.com!!).
Cheers,
SuperG
Just a quick question, is there any word on any more stringent policy for what is or isn't a valid Open Source project? It seems fair enough that they are saying a) If we give you a domain we aren't going to rip it off you except for damn good reasons and b) we are trying to help out Open Source projects, but I'm just a little wary that it's a little open to abuse (Hello LinuxOne!), as it's at least a by default endorsement that you are running a legit Open Source project.
I know I sound paranoid (please! It's late where I live!), and this is a nice idea, I just don't want the cons to out way the pros here.
Would an explicit mention on the website with regards to what license your software is under (ie. GPL, BSD etc.) be enough?
Just wondering.....
There have been a number of articles on Slashdot recently about the plight of RAMBUS, specifically how it isn't really delivering, poor yields, problems with chipsets etc. This article seemed to reference RAMBUS almost in passing; does anyone out there in the trenches have the real deal on what's going on? It seems Intel have really thrown their weight behind this, but is it a case of "If we don't follow through on this then our credibility in the marketplace is screwed?"
It just seems that every time I here about RAMBUS the ante has been upped, and sooner or later something's going to hit the fan....
I propose calling the Willamette by an alternative name, maybe the Death AMD Killer 10000. At least that has style.
And don't get me started on Itanium....
First of all, I think the Gates comment shouldn't be taken at face value. It strikes me as just being a flip comment, "off the record", so-to-speak.
Another alternative is that it's just Gates performing a little media manipulation (after all, it's what he's good at). Bear in mind that all the buzz has been about breaking up Microsoft, not open sourcing Windows.
And which Windows? And the entire code base? Or just part of it? Which part?
I can't see Windows 2000 being open-sourced in a hurry.
On a lighter note, can you imagine running lint (or your favourite code checker) on Windows source? *shudder*
Cheers.
This may seem a trifle contrived, but as I see it, there won't be a feature film now, simply because it hasn't happened yet, ie. if it was ever going to happen it would have happened _way_ earlier.
What makes me say this? Well, first of all I would have thought the pressure to do a Simpsons movie would have been pretty massive earlier in it's history, when the hype etc. about it was MASSIVE, say after season 3 maybe. That's when everybody, and their dog, and their dog's friends, would have gone to see it.
I'm not saying lots wouldn't go see it now, I'm just saying that it seems a little late in the day for a full-length feature to come out.
To generalize a little (and open myself up to flaming), other cartoon feature films, such as Beavis and Butthead, and South Park, have been released pretty early on as well. This could be related to the fact that they don't have the staying power and broad appeal of The Simpsons, but is still related.
And yes, I know it's early days for South Park (compared to The Simpsons), and it may still be around in 10 years, but it definitely doesn't have the whole from 4 year olds to grandparents appeal of The Simpsons.
Cheers.
"Equality, not Androgyny" is the best equal-rights slogan I have come across. Men and women should be equal, but it doesn't mean they should be exactly the same.
I agree that if girls show interest in engineering pursuits at an early age they should be encouraged. This is important, and really hasn't been successful in the past. Females should _not_ be "moulded" into aggressive engineer types, in the same way the _no one_ should.
Keylabs here is presented with a clear problem: having to work with a client(s) who wish to (ab)use their standing in the industry to the inflated benefit of the client.
If Keylabs jumps up and down, stating "These were the given parameters of the tests required, which implies that they are not as realistic as benchmarks should be". or some such, would they suffer client backlash?
Maybe. But I think it would present a clear case of the organisation receiving better credit for presenting clear, unbiased reports. Which can only give you more business, not less.
Companies will not cease in their quest to get 3rd party endorsement of their product (however implicit), but it is important that all the circumstances are states, in bold, underlined, and maybe even restated in the conclusions of the report.
Well, sort of similar to the above comment, I think it's fairly easy to find parallels in the formation and arrangement of Earth's land mass, as well as the "continents" of the internet.
'In the beginning' we had a "supercontinent", most sites were closely bound, and similar in size. Slowly these drift apart, and smaller "information" masses were formed. This continued slowly until the great explosion (circa. 1994), which has ended up with large different "continents", some more closely bound then others, but still leaving people with the ability to easily travel from "continent" to "continent" with relative ease.
It may be noted that it _is_ possible to be snarled in the geographic complexity of some regions (Pr0n pop-up consoles anyone?), and people still tend to favour one major area over another, while perhaps having a few other "holiday" destinations in other regions.
And I think that's stretching that construct far enough, don't you?
Emmanuel Goldstein??
Wasn't he the head of the underground rebellion in '1984', by George Orwell?
Just thought that if it's a pseudonym, it's great, but if it's the guy's actual name, it's a wonderful coincidence.
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
This sounds like one of my existentialist arguments; I've never been to Brisbane so you can't prove to me it exists, etc.
My second point is that though I intellectually accept such arguments, I choose to ignore them, and believe that Brisbane exists. That other people exist, that this isn't some dream.
Which, of course, could all be incorrect. But I choose to accept these things, so I at least have some point of reference.
I was brought up Roman Catholic, but rebelled from an early age. I currently call myself an Agnostic, probably because I'm a wuss. I have no qualms about other people's religions - though I find some beliefs questionable morally (not necessarily talking Christianity btw!), I am prepared to discuss. My grandparents and I have awesome involved theological discussions, they are great people, and fervent Christians. They are not Mutually Exclusive.
Anyway I believe that the golden rule "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is like it. The real deal. If this was accepted and practiced by everyone, the world would truly be a wonderful place. Not trying to stamp on anyone's toes, but I also feel that everything else gets in the way. I believe in the golden rule NOT because it will get me into heaven, but because I believe it is RIGHT.
Very, very cool. I was also intrigued when I noticed a link to a poem he had written about a python. Sure enough, there was a poem dedicated to "the python grows, and thinks of you".
:)
Wow, can anyone say "obsessed"?
I was also going to make some snide comment about the poem itself, but realised that my best effort was something like this:
There one was a remote controlled snake,
Who's appearance was so hard to take.
The people, they'd scream
"A Snake! How obsecene"
Don't worry, it's only a fake.
What is it with Australia and technology, particularly internet-related tech, these days? As an Australian I am forced to throw up my hands in despair over such ludicrous occurrences such as this latest Telstra debacle, and not forgetting gems such as the Net Censorship bill.
;)
These proclamations and poor business decisions merely result in the local Internet community being shafted. The Australian government periodically exorts their new initiatives to spark local invention and innovation, yet short-sighted and knee-jerk actions such as these effectively torpedo such initiatives.
I do realise that the Aussie govt really has nothing to do with Telstra's latest action, but hell, they pushed the privatisation of 'em
OK the way I think about time travelling into the past is this:
At any point in time, where a different action could take place, a "time thread" (or whatever) is taken. In it's grossest sense, I decide to ditch work to go to the beach, work blows up the next day: in the alternate thread I went to work, and died, etc.
Now when you go back in time, your impact creates a thread that is now disassociated from the one you came from - it is now impossible to get back to exactly where you came from. Depending on what the impact you create (remember the Butterfly effect - who knows the possible outcomes of your actions, and the greater the time distance, the greater the effect), things may be more or less the same as the other thread, but it WILL NOT BE THE SAME THREAD.
Time travelling forward presents no problems for me. After all, all you are doing is being "absent" for the amount of time you travel. The "absent" part I've glossed over, but hopefully you get my drift.
I think there is a difference between the kind of mob action you describe and action such as that being taken by groups such as the Electro-Hippies. One is (as you describe) creepy and bordering on violent, while the other is thoughtful.
This excerpt you quote actually sounds very similar to some powerful passages in George Orwell's 1984, primarily those passages describing the "2 Minutes Hate". This is where the corporate drones are brought together to participate in a group hysteria and hatred session, by displaying images of enemy soldiers and the "enemy of the people", Goldstein.
I'll try and quote from memory, but will be way off...
"The anger and hatred flowed like an electrical current. After 20 seconds you didn't need to pretend to be involved, it was almost impossible not to participate. Winston found himself screaming and yelling despite himself."
Anyway, you get the gist. The angry mob is something to be feared, as it represents all instinct, and no "intelligence" if you like. This is the vital difference between such primal outbursts and measured 'sit-ins' such as the Electro-Hippies. They aren't rioting in the streets, they are taking measured, conscious action.
This is interesting, after all Linux on a mainframe grabs my attention, but IBM have already been supplying Unix-type facilities on their machines with OS/390 System Services and OpenEdition OS/390.
Unix system services provides base UNIX services, a Unix shell interface and support for the dbx debugger.
OpenEdition was introduced in OS/390/ESA SP V4.3 and originally supported only some of the Posix standards (1003.1, 1003.1a, 1003.1c, 1003.2).
The latest version (V5.2.2) supports around about 90% of the functions required for XPG4.2 (X/Open Portability Guide).
OpenEdition includes a C Run-time library, a compiler etc. It includes access to telnet, ftp etc.
Basically IBM has (finally) realised things like TCP/IP is nicer than SNA (a.k.a Blue Glue) - which I personally can vouch for. They have changed their SNA and APPC protocols to try and emulate peerless comms instead of a hierarchical model.
Of course they also realised they need for a nice TCP/IP stack etc. Not jumping on the Internet bandwagon would have flushed a lot down the toilet.
So in fact IBM have themselvs been moving their S/390 environments towards absorbing some aspects of *nix, so I can't really see people putting Linux on the 'bare metal' instead of making use of the inbuilt Unix services.
Of course you might be trying to avoid hefty licensing fees (and who could blame you!), but I can't really see an advantage to using an S/390 in this way.
But hey! You can't deny putting Linux on a beasty mainframe wouldn't be cool....be the first on your block to own one!
I'd just like to thank Kryotech for naming it after me. I'll even let them buy my url www.SuperG.com for a cool million.
This is a joke, albeit a poor one. Do NOT send any death threats, or intellectual property/copyright infringement lawyers.
There was one line in particular which I totally agree with in this article - about how Gold "always shakes things up in a useful way"
No matter how correct people may think his theories are, the effect these theories have upon researchers etc. in the particular field is what is important. If Gold manages to inspire someone to prove him WRONG, by working at the problem from a different angle, then everyone wins.
Too often in academic circles, certain views can be taken as correct, without being proven. This is counter-productive; it is important that researchers disagree and argue - this is how important theories can arise, and how discoveries
can be made.
Whether it's stable-state Universe versus big-bang, or the exact value of Hubbles's constant, or whatever, these arguments can drive great discoveries.
What appealed to me in the review was the fact that the author explicitly mentions that what is occurring in Linux land at a business level is still allowing the ideals of the free software movement to continue : business types may be able to set up an infrastructure to allow easy mainstream access to Linux, while making a buck; but the hackers can continue to expand and improve the code base at the foundation of it all.
As long as this continues to happen, the success of organisations like Red Hat, TurboLinux or whomever can only be a good thing, not only for the organisations themselves, but for everyone.
Except maybe Microsoft.
For those interested in mathematical history, and a very readable explanation of various fields of information theory, I can strongly recommend, Fermat's Enigma, one of Singh's previous works. In addition, there are several appendices to "flesh out" some mathematical explanations.
One of my favourites was a brief proof which was an example of the faulty logic used by people to attempt to get the bounty for solving Fermat's riddle, which proves that 2=1....:
a = b
a*a = a*b
a(a) = ab
a(a) + a(a) = a(a) + ab
2a(a) = a(a) + ab
2a(a) - 2ab = a(a) + ab - 2ab
2a(a) - 2a(b) = a(a) - ab
2{a(a) - ab} = a(a) - ab
2 = 1
So now you know.....