Sorry to be a skeptic, but I can't find the licensing language to validate your claims. Here's a paragraph from the
JRE License:
2. License to Distribute Software. Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, including, but not limited to Section 4 (Java (TM) Technology Restrictions) of these Supplemental Terms, Sun grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, limited license to reproduce and distribute the Software in binary code form only, provided that (i) you distribute the Software complete and unmodified and only bundled as part of, and for the sole purpose of running, your Programs, (ii) the Programs add significant and primary functionality to the Software, (iii) you do not distribute additional software intended to replace any component(s) of the Software, (iv) you do not remove or alter any proprietary legends or notices contained in the Software, (v) you only distribute the Software subject to a license agreement that protects Sun's interests consistent with the terms contained in this Agreement, and (vi) you agree to defend and indemnify Sun and its licensors from and against any damages, costs, liabilities, settlement amounts and/or expenses (including attorneys' fees) incurred in connection with any claim, lawsuit or action by any third party that arises or results from the use or distribution of any and all Programs and/or Software.
Now, I can see by looking at your product that it compiles Java programs, and last time I looked there were no classes in the JRE to compile Java programs - you needed the *JDK* for that, which has a much more restrictive license. This was how Sun planned to make money - Java tools vendors were supposed to pay to license the compiler technology.
Furthermore, I don't think that your experience means much when it comes to a Compaq, Dell, or Gateway. I think Sun would jump at the chance to get the JRE pre-installed on those vendors' systems.
Just a couple of quick points to consider. Yes, they could have attempted to achieve a high degree of Windows integration, but:
1. They certainly would have risked the moving target API that Microsoft has so successfully employed in the past, where every service pack breaks their code.
2. None of those changes would have been cross-platform. Netscape seemed fairly committed to delivering a single development platform that worked the same whether on Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, etc.
Show a hardcore smoker a friend who is dying because he is drowning in the fluids of his own depleted lungs, and I'll show you a person who finally decides he needs help kicking the habit.
WTF? Isn't that what the ad was doing? The ad you were complaining about? Showing what could happen to you if you smoke?
My sincere apologies if I'm wrong, but wasn't Timpanogas formed by some former Novell employees who had been working on Novell clustering technology? Didn't they leave Novell, form a new company, and then immediately announce their own clustering software? Didn't Novell sue the hell out of them, search their homes, and essentially prove that they had stolen code that Novell paid them to produce?
If so, is there any risk that they may still have some proprietary code that they intend to use for this project? Has any GPL'ed code ever been found to be in violation of someone else's copyrighted proprietary code?
Again, maybe it was another company, and if so I apologize profusely.
If the first one is bigger than the second one, skip to page two. Otherwise, continue with the instructions below.
Dear Mr. Parrot,
I am writing to inform you that you are in violation of my client's copyright, and have published trade secrets of their proprietary product, "CobolOS 2000".
Please be advised that my client is prepared to take any legal action necessary to prevent this from occurring again.
Sue D'Helloutayou
Senior Partner
Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe, P.A.
The three biggest Linux companies are Red Hat (partially owned by Intel), Slackware, and VA/Linux
Now I stand to be corrected on this one, but Slackware - a company? And waht about SuSE or the makers of TurboLinux? Do I detect classic signs of Yankocentricism in this great American institution?
What do you expect from the American Broadcast Company? Heck, they wouldn't even think to mention Corel - after all, Canada isn't part of America, you know.
She was sooooo hot! I was really disappointed when you two split up - like so many others I'd been living vicariously through you. Do you know if she's seeing anybody?
Your point is valid - that's why you can't look at this processor card as adding SMP capabilities to the system you're adding it to. It's more appropriate to use this card in a C/S architecture, using shared memory only for parameter passing. The card's CPUs then use their own local memory (up to 512MB, according to the spec) for all of the processing.
The short answer is that there are now a lot of departments that serve the whole company that would have to be duplicated: HR, R&D, marketing, executive management, distribution, building maintenance, information systems, accounting, legal, and so on.
Well, they wouldn't actually have to be duplicated, would they? I mean, if you split the company in half, each half doesn't need the same size HR department as the original.
Sure, there are some added costs, but they should be fairly minor - maybe a 10-20% increase in administrative costs - but there's no reason this has to be passed on to consumers, because Microsoft has been so incredibly profitable that even with these additional costs, they'd still be the most profitable 2 companies on the planet!
if Microsoft splits up a lot of businesses will be spending even more money on software that works less well and that doesn't interface that great.
Why is this a foregone conclusion? I've heard a lot of people bring this up as an argument against breaking up Microsoft, but I honestly don't get it.
Why would Windows cost more if the company is split up?
Why would Office cost more if the company is split up?
Why would having one standard published Windows API that's equally accessible to everybody result in software "that works less well and that doesn't interface that great"?
Quake runs plenty fast on Windows and Linux as well. IMHO, Quake could never run too fast.
Now, if BeOS were open <snip> maybe it would be more interesting.
Yeah, I have to agree here. I really would have liked to see Be take a different approach - give away the OS as open source, and then develop and sell applications for it.
Now, if BeOS <snip> had some compelling technical features, maybe it would be more interesting.
Huh? Have you ever used BeOS? Have you ever even seen it? Sure doesn't sound like you have. I've never seen Windows or Linux map live video to an animated surface in real time. I first saw BeOS do it over 3 years ago - back when the average Windows PC couldn't even play a single AVI at a decent frame rate. In the demo I saw, the guy dragged several video clips to faces of a cube, and then rotated the cube while the videos played smoothly. And there was no 3D card helping - the OS was doing all the work.
But merely doing what everybody else is doing a little faster and more cleanly isn't good enough for me.
Maybe you should do a little more research on BeOS's capabilities. I think if you saw what it can do, you'd change your mind.
If you have a shitty soundcard, you're not going to care about doing those things.
But with BeOS, you can't tell you have a shitty soundcard! As long as your card produces good sound, it doesn't need any bells and whistles, because BeOS is quite capable of providing those.
$45 for an MX300 shipped, jesus..
Yeah, and then you discover a hardware limitation of the soundcard, and you're screwed. So if there's a type of sound processing you desire and your MX300 doesn't support it, you throw it out and buy another sound card. Then you find something you want to do that the new card doesn't support, and you're screwed again.
Whereas with BeOS, everything's done in software, so if you want to create a filter that does real time sound processing, you just do it. If you want to take two incoming streams and merge them, then split the result 3 ways, sending one directly to disk, another through a filter and then to disk, and still another through a series of filters and then out to speakers, you can do that.
It doesn't have to be supported by the sound card. You don't need any special sound hardware, and you don't need any special drivers.
Admitedly, this moves a lot of the processing load off of the sound card and onto the CPU. Luckily, BeOS is very efficient, and scales to multiple CPUs very well.
...ever since 32-bit operating systems came around, I have pretty much assumed that int == 32-bits.
That is a foolish assumption to make. What happens when you work on a small embedded 8- or 16-bit processor? What happens when you work on a 64-bit system?
The C language spec makes no guarantee for the exact range of an int. It is only specified relative to the size of short and long. Sorry, but if you're going to be pedantic, you should be pedantic eveywhere and not assume type sizes that aren't specified exactly.
That's a pretty harsh statement. I mean, speaking of foolish assumptions, aren't you assuming that they were using C? Most of what I've read implies they were using Delphi/Object Pascal.
Public companies, unlike people, have no moral stance, only a financial one - a legal obligation to make as much money as possible.
Hmmmmm, could you point us to this law? I'm not familiar with it.
We should support/deride individual actions of companies which are good/bad for the community. But we should *never* make the mistake of believing a public company is for, or against, our community - indeed it would be illegal for them to take either stance in the face of profitability.
That's simply not true. While it's true that there have been a number of shareholder lawsuits in recent years, there's certainly no law that requires public companies to maximize profits.
Heck, look at Ben & Jerry's. They're publicly traded (BJICB). Here's a quote from their latest Form 10-K found at edgar.sec.gov:
Ben & Jerry's Homemade, Inc. ("Ben & Jerry's" or the "Company") is a leading manufacturer of super premium ice cream, frozen yogurt and sorbet in unique and regular flavors. The Company also manufactures ice cream novelty products. The Company is committed to using milk and cream that have not been treated with the synthetic hormone, rBGH. The Company uses natural ingredients in its products. The Company embraces a philosophy that manifests itself in these attributes: being real and "down to earth," being humorous and having fun, being non-traditional and alternative and, at times, being activists around our progressive values.
Does that sound like their goal is to maximize profit at any cost? No. They could almost certainly increase profits by using cheaper ingredients, such as hormone-containing dairy products.
It's up to each individual corporation to define its own corporate charter. Maximizing profit is basically a given, but most charters contain language describing their overall conduct as well - conduct which is understood to sometimes constrain profits.
If an investor doesn't like Ben & Jerry's corporate philosophy, he's free to buy Phillip Morris instead.
What a lot of posters are missing is that this "innovation" doesn't have the flexibility of Unix links (hard or symbolic).
In typical Microsoft fashion, they've written software that tries to do the job of an intelligent administrator, without giving the administrator the ability to manually create links. That's great that they're creating the links automatically, but all it really accomplishes is saving diskspace by removing unwanted duplicates. That's a nice use of symbolic links, but it's certainly not the most powerful use of them. For instance, you may want to create a single document, and then create a symlink for each user to that document. In a Unix environment, you can update that central document, and the user symlinks continue to access the updated document, so each user now sees the updated version. With Microsoft's solution, the updated version now justs sits there, while all the users still see the old version, which isn't what the administrator was trying to accomplish.
This is just another example of Microsoft's programmers thinking they know more about system administration than system administrators do.
Slashdot Mirror
2. License to Distribute Software. Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, including, but not limited to Section 4 (Java (TM) Technology Restrictions) of these Supplemental Terms, Sun grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, limited license to reproduce and distribute the Software in binary code form only, provided that (i) you distribute the Software complete and unmodified and only bundled as part of, and for the sole purpose of running, your Programs, (ii) the Programs add significant and primary functionality to the Software, (iii) you do not distribute additional software intended to replace any component(s) of the Software, (iv) you do not remove or alter any proprietary legends or notices contained in the Software, (v) you only distribute the Software subject to a license agreement that protects Sun's interests consistent with the terms contained in this Agreement, and (vi) you agree to defend and indemnify Sun and its licensors from and against any damages, costs, liabilities, settlement amounts and/or expenses (including attorneys' fees) incurred in connection with any claim, lawsuit or action by any third party that arises or results from the use or distribution of any and all Programs and/or Software.
Now, I can see by looking at your product that it compiles Java programs, and last time I looked there were no classes in the JRE to compile Java programs - you needed the *JDK* for that, which has a much more restrictive license. This was how Sun planned to make money - Java tools vendors were supposed to pay to license the compiler technology.
Furthermore, I don't think that your experience means much when it comes to a Compaq, Dell, or Gateway. I think Sun would jump at the chance to get the JRE pre-installed on those vendors' systems.
Just a couple of quick points to consider. Yes, they could have attempted to achieve a high degree of Windows integration, but:
1. They certainly would have risked the moving target API that Microsoft has so successfully employed in the past, where every service pack breaks their code.
2. None of those changes would have been cross-platform. Netscape seemed fairly committed to delivering a single development platform that worked the same whether on Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, etc.
Type "EXIT" (without the quotes) to return to Windows$G
Type "EXIT" to return to Windows$G
Instead of KIllustrator, they could rename it to KillUstrator, or Kill-U-Strator, or even better, Kill-U-Greedy-Corporate-Sons-of-Bitches.
Hmmm, I guess that last one doesn't really sound much like a graphics package though.
. . . from a company named "Zero Knowledge"?
WTF? Isn't that what the ad was doing? The ad you were complaining about? Showing what could happen to you if you smoke?
My sincere apologies if I'm wrong, but wasn't Timpanogas formed by some former Novell employees who had been working on Novell clustering technology? Didn't they leave Novell, form a new company, and then immediately announce their own clustering software? Didn't Novell sue the hell out of them, search their homes, and essentially prove that they had stolen code that Novell paid them to produce?
If so, is there any risk that they may still have some proprietary code that they intend to use for this project? Has any GPL'ed code ever been found to be in violation of someone else's copyrighted proprietary code?
Again, maybe it was another company, and if so I apologize profusely.
To guy with one in his pants pocket:
So, do you have a hidden Agenda (or are you just glad to see me?)
Dear Mr. Parrot, I am writing to inform you that you are in violation of my client's copyright, and have published trade secrets of their proprietary product, "CobolOS 2000".
Please be advised that my client is prepared to take any legal action necessary to prevent this from occurring again.
Sue D'Helloutayou
Senior Partner
Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe, P.A.
Now I stand to be corrected on this one, but Slackware - a company? And waht about SuSE or the makers of TurboLinux? Do I detect classic signs of Yankocentricism in this great American institution?
What do you expect from the American Broadcast Company? Heck, they wouldn't even think to mention Corel - after all, Canada isn't part of America, you know.
She was sooooo hot! I was really disappointed when you two split up - like so many others I'd been living vicariously through you. Do you know if she's seeing anybody?
Wouldn't it be fun to see Sun, Oracle, IBM, RedHat, Corel, Caldera, Novell, etc., hijack the spec?
Well, they wouldn't actually have to be duplicated, would they? I mean, if you split the company in half, each half doesn't need the same size HR department as the original.
Sure, there are some added costs, but they should be fairly minor - maybe a 10-20% increase in administrative costs - but there's no reason this has to be passed on to consumers, because Microsoft has been so incredibly profitable that even with these additional costs, they'd still be the most profitable 2 companies on the planet!
Why is this a foregone conclusion? I've heard a lot of people bring this up as an argument against breaking up Microsoft, but I honestly don't get it.
Why would Windows cost more if the company is split up?
Why would Office cost more if the company is split up?
Why would having one standard published Windows API that's equally accessible to everybody result in software "that works less well and that doesn't interface that great"?
Somebody please explain it to me.
Now, if BeOS were open <snip> maybe it would be more interesting.
Yeah, I have to agree here. I really would have liked to see Be take a different approach - give away the OS as open source, and then develop and sell applications for it.
Now, if BeOS <snip> had some compelling technical features, maybe it would be more interesting.
Huh? Have you ever used BeOS? Have you ever even seen it? Sure doesn't sound like you have. I've never seen Windows or Linux map live video to an animated surface in real time. I first saw BeOS do it over 3 years ago - back when the average Windows PC couldn't even play a single AVI at a decent frame rate. In the demo I saw, the guy dragged several video clips to faces of a cube, and then rotated the cube while the videos played smoothly. And there was no 3D card helping - the OS was doing all the work.
But merely doing what everybody else is doing a little faster and more cleanly isn't good enough for me.
Maybe you should do a little more research on BeOS's capabilities. I think if you saw what it can do, you'd change your mind.
But with BeOS, you can't tell you have a shitty soundcard! As long as your card produces good sound, it doesn't need any bells and whistles, because BeOS is quite capable of providing those.
$45 for an MX300 shipped, jesus..
Yeah, and then you discover a hardware limitation of the soundcard, and you're screwed. So if there's a type of sound processing you desire and your MX300 doesn't support it, you throw it out and buy another sound card. Then you find something you want to do that the new card doesn't support, and you're screwed again.
Whereas with BeOS, everything's done in software, so if you want to create a filter that does real time sound processing, you just do it. If you want to take two incoming streams and merge them, then split the result 3 ways, sending one directly to disk, another through a filter and then to disk, and still another through a series of filters and then out to speakers, you can do that.
It doesn't have to be supported by the sound card. You don't need any special sound hardware, and you don't need any special drivers.
Admitedly, this moves a lot of the processing load off of the sound card and onto the CPU. Luckily, BeOS is very efficient, and scales to multiple CPUs very well.
The point is that BeOS could do those things even if you have a shitty sound card.
After following that link, I went to http://search.ebay.com to do a different search, and stumbled upon the default Apache home page.
Very handy. Now I can delete all that Apache documentation from my own server, and just link to http://search.ebay.com/manual/index.html instead!
Boy, with this level of sophisticated system administration, it's hard to believe eBay has a history of downtime.
That is a foolish assumption to make. What happens when you work on a small embedded 8- or 16-bit processor? What happens when you work on a 64-bit system?
The C language spec makes no guarantee for the exact range of an int. It is only specified relative to the size of short and long. Sorry, but if you're going to be pedantic, you should be pedantic eveywhere and not assume type sizes that aren't specified exactly.
That's a pretty harsh statement. I mean, speaking of foolish assumptions, aren't you assuming that they were using C? Most of what I've read implies they were using Delphi/Object Pascal.
Hmmmmm, could you point us to this law? I'm not familiar with it.
We should support/deride individual actions of companies which are good/bad for the community. But we should *never* make the mistake of believing a public company is for, or against, our community - indeed it would be illegal for them to take either stance in the face of profitability.
That's simply not true. While it's true that there have been a number of shareholder lawsuits in recent years, there's certainly no law that requires public companies to maximize profits.
Heck, look at Ben & Jerry's. They're publicly traded (BJICB). Here's a quote from their latest Form 10-K found at edgar.sec.gov:
Ben & Jerry's Homemade, Inc. ("Ben & Jerry's" or the "Company") is a leading manufacturer of super premium ice cream, frozen yogurt and sorbet in unique and regular flavors. The Company also manufactures ice cream novelty products. The Company is committed to using milk and cream that have not been treated with the synthetic hormone, rBGH. The Company uses natural ingredients in its products. The Company embraces a philosophy that manifests itself in these attributes: being real and "down to earth," being humorous and having fun, being non-traditional and alternative and, at times, being activists around our progressive values.
Does that sound like their goal is to maximize profit at any cost? No. They could almost certainly increase profits by using cheaper ingredients, such as hormone-containing dairy products.
It's up to each individual corporation to define its own corporate charter. Maximizing profit is basically a given, but most charters contain language describing their overall conduct as well - conduct which is understood to sometimes constrain profits.
If an investor doesn't like Ben & Jerry's corporate philosophy, he's free to buy Phillip Morris instead.
In typical Microsoft fashion, they've written software that tries to do the job of an intelligent administrator, without giving the administrator the ability to manually create links. That's great that they're creating the links automatically, but all it really accomplishes is saving diskspace by removing unwanted duplicates. That's a nice use of symbolic links, but it's certainly not the most powerful use of them. For instance, you may want to create a single document, and then create a symlink for each user to that document. In a Unix environment, you can update that central document, and the user symlinks continue to access the updated document, so each user now sees the updated version. With Microsoft's solution, the updated version now justs sits there, while all the users still see the old version, which isn't what the administrator was trying to accomplish.
This is just another example of Microsoft's programmers thinking they know more about system administration than system administrators do.