Good work Microsoft. The first company you turned into your puppet in the war on free software is close to self-destruction. How comfortable.
I'd rather like to see an executive-cleaned-up SCO to continue selling Linux products, perhaps in a partnership with other open source oriented companies. One Linux company less is not a day to party, no matter what it was done in its name.
"Merely" and "just" (you used one of it) are good ways to subtract potential emotional value from a valid neutral point of view. Those prepositions allow to turn any kind of information into a shoddy shallow shadow of itself.
Furthermore, whether his intentions are "true" is irrelevant. He gave his written word (on Slashdot, mind you) for it, that should suffice. In case somebody would be able to raise some funding, I'm sure he wouldn't want to ruin his reputation by not standing up to what he's been proposing. However, his announcement lacks numbers.
Nevertheless, I'm a little pissed off that he considers open sourcing only as an act of desperation, but I guess that's the old-school spirit (hello Netscape!). In my opinion, open sourcing is not an option, it's a mandatory step to be taken seriously.
It's not like we don't have that situation already. The people with the strongest urge to be fruitful and multiply and the persuasive power to convince their children to follow in their paths control the elections.
I think, the point wasn't that Windows would be replaced by the Internet, but that a certain brand operating system is no longer indispensable. It hints that there are chances people will be able to change operating systems, and still experience now big difference in the way their work since most of the stuff they work with and they consume is on the net.
Of course, using traditional tactics, MS might thwart those attempts.
It's not that easy. First of all, the BIOS will not hibernate. The graphics card has internal states it won't be able to write back as well (content of the videobuffer, renderstates in 3d cards, texture memory, current resolution). The harddisk cache will be empty. A lot of high level hardware will be required to reinitialize.
Usually, it is the drivers job to "pretend" that a true hibernation took place by serializing the data that it wants to maintain, and on wakeup deserializing that data again to the hardware, if applicable.
The trouble is that every application has to implement hibernation support properly, not only drivers. If only one (essential) application fails to handle a wakeup properly, the system presents itself as unstable to the user, although all the other parts went just fine. Hence it is a bug that requires to be fixed in Metacity and Beryl.
With drivers which run in kernel mode, support should be much better. HAL and ndiswrapper are both usermode applications, and not managed by the kernel team.
With Windows however, all components constitute an indifferent mass for which one company is responsible for, so in theory, Microsoft should be able to fix those issues - if Windows' drivers had not been largely developed somewhere else: the thing that is most crucial to a flawless wakeup routine has not been developed inhouse. Now try to go through all these customer support systems finding a person which a.) can understand your problem ("what do you want? just shut it off properly!") and b.) is able to provide you with a fixed driver.
On Ubuntu, Launchpad is the system which requires these reports, bugs are sent upstream, then fixed by the kernel/app team or admins, and a few weeks later, magically, with a new update, the problem is gone. I've seen it happen(tm)! THIS is customer service.
What about just "flaw"? If it wasn't new and a patch was available for it, it certainly wouldn't be on Slashdot. If Slashdot reports about a flaw, it _has_ to be new and unknown. Otherwise, I'd really wonder why I'm subscribing to the RSS feed;)
Most of the time, the articles might just run fine without any "Zero Day" at all.
I'm feeling a bit offended by the frequent mentioning of recent tech gadgets. It comes across as advertising, especially when the "news" article is as meaningless as this one. It seems it doesn't matter what the story is about, as long as "iPod", "Wii", "BlackBerry" or "Zune" (even when constantly booing) are mentioned.
How about this suggestion, Slashdot Admins: instead of being afraid you're not getting enough news for the day, why don't you prevent this site from becoming a hive for viral marketing campaigns? Thank you very much.
Slashdot Mirror
Ever noticed that their stock exchange symbol MSFT sounds like "misfit" when pronounced?
You forget that you can expect modern tools only from a modern company. Duh.
...so broadcasts could be marketed to planets like ours later on, perhaps for BFD-DVD players with an appropriate planet code.
Good work Microsoft. The first company you turned into your puppet in the war on free software is close to self-destruction. How comfortable.
I'd rather like to see an executive-cleaned-up SCO to continue selling Linux products, perhaps in a partnership with other open source oriented companies. One Linux company less is not a day to party, no matter what it was done in its name.
"Merely" and "just" (you used one of it) are good ways to subtract potential emotional value from a valid neutral point of view. Those prepositions allow to turn any kind of information into a shoddy shallow shadow of itself.
Furthermore, whether his intentions are "true" is irrelevant. He gave his written word (on Slashdot, mind you) for it, that should suffice. In case somebody would be able to raise some funding, I'm sure he wouldn't want to ruin his reputation by not standing up to what he's been proposing. However, his announcement lacks numbers.
Nevertheless, I'm a little pissed off that he considers open sourcing only as an act of desperation, but I guess that's the old-school spirit (hello Netscape!). In my opinion, open sourcing is not an option, it's a mandatory step to be taken seriously.
Merely my opinion.
What are the odds NASA brings some bacteria to Mars instead?
Haha, and nobody asks why this is on Slashdot, I love you guys :D
I like your style of serving a stream of thoughts as a poem. Nicely done.
I just read "Schwarzchild anus" :(
is that you bill?
simple: advertise stuff to you that you actually want.
In Soviet Russia, UFO watches you.
Huh? Their site is full of Windows Vista icons? They care about a legal status of Linux and use Microsofts intellectual property on a website?
Seriously, wtf?
"LOL -- /. nerds w/ the upper body strength for 18 hours of waving their hands about!"
Where are you living? Nintendo Wii, anyone?
So can the Wii, just tried it.
...Cool where I am? I'm surrounded by fundamental Christians, of course. Mindless robots, demanding their rights.
It's not like we don't have that situation already. The people with the strongest urge to be fruitful and multiply and the persuasive power to convince their children to follow in their paths control the elections.
Fundamental christians, anyone?
manah manah!
Cool, then I can migrate to Windows!
I think, the point wasn't that Windows would be replaced by the Internet, but that a certain brand operating system is no longer indispensable. It hints that there are chances people will be able to change operating systems, and still experience now big difference in the way their work since most of the stuff they work with and they consume is on the net.
Of course, using traditional tactics, MS might thwart those attempts.
This does not only target the hardcore internet gamer, but also the hardcore internet wannabe-gamer, namely your average 15 year old.
Oh yes, this network card is used by progamers, hence using it will make you a progamer! It's that simple!
It's not that easy. First of all, the BIOS will not hibernate. The graphics card has internal states it won't be able to write back as well (content of the videobuffer, renderstates in 3d cards, texture memory, current resolution). The harddisk cache will be empty. A lot of high level hardware will be required to reinitialize.
Usually, it is the drivers job to "pretend" that a true hibernation took place by serializing the data that it wants to maintain, and on wakeup deserializing that data again to the hardware, if applicable.
The trouble is that every application has to implement hibernation support properly, not only drivers. If only one (essential) application fails to handle a wakeup properly, the system presents itself as unstable to the user, although all the other parts went just fine. Hence it is a bug that requires to be fixed in Metacity and Beryl.
With drivers which run in kernel mode, support should be much better. HAL and ndiswrapper are both usermode applications, and not managed by the kernel team.
With Windows however, all components constitute an indifferent mass for which one company is responsible for, so in theory, Microsoft should be able to fix those issues - if Windows' drivers had not been largely developed somewhere else: the thing that is most crucial to a flawless wakeup routine has not been developed inhouse. Now try to go through all these customer support systems finding a person which a.) can understand your problem ("what do you want? just shut it off properly!") and b.) is able to provide you with a fixed driver.
On Ubuntu, Launchpad is the system which requires these reports, bugs are sent upstream, then fixed by the kernel/app team or admins, and a few weeks later, magically, with a new update, the problem is gone. I've seen it happen(tm)! THIS is customer service.
What about just "flaw"? If it wasn't new and a patch was available for it, it certainly wouldn't be on Slashdot. If Slashdot reports about a flaw, it _has_ to be new and unknown. Otherwise, I'd really wonder why I'm subscribing to the RSS feed ;)
Most of the time, the articles might just run fine without any "Zero Day" at all.
I'm feeling a bit offended by the frequent mentioning of recent tech gadgets. It comes across as advertising, especially when the "news" article is as meaningless as this one. It seems it doesn't matter what the story is about, as long as "iPod", "Wii", "BlackBerry" or "Zune" (even when constantly booing) are mentioned.
How about this suggestion, Slashdot Admins: instead of being afraid you're not getting enough news for the day, why don't you prevent this site from becoming a hive for viral marketing campaigns? Thank you very much.