It cannot be subverted. It is entirely under the control of its founders; the "members" are merely names on a list that will be used to argue that n concerned people are firmly opposed to the breakup.
There's no point in joining it, except to give more weight to this prime example of astroturfing. --
you're dead wrong, and the guy you replied to was right on. Linux is useless without a support contract.
No. Your evidence does not support your argument.
Your first point is that your PHB won't approve use of Linux without a support contract. That goes to show that your boss is an idiot, but it says nothing about the utility of Linux.
Your other point is (or at least appears to be) that the system won't work if the only Linux-knowledgeable employee leaves. That also doesn't show that Linux is "useless without a support contract". A boss less idiotic than yours would insist that the system is documented and handed over properly in the event that you depart.
I sympathize with anyone who works for a PHB, but "Linux is useless without a support contract" remains complete BS that shouldn't be seen outside the M$ FUD file whence it came.
Linux is free but useless without a good support contract
Excuse me, but this statement is absolute BS. (and I won't even get started on how nonsense like this gets moderated as "informative").
I've never paid a penny on Linux support, much less "100K$/year" to hire a sysadmin. The few problems I had that couldn't be solved by RTFM'ing and checking HOWTOs were quickly fixed by asking questions of Linux users, whether in person, on newsgroups or in IRC.
"Total cost of ownership" for a small network providing basic (and a few other) services over the net and a LAN: ZERO.
Cost if I'd had to pay M$ prices, plus hire some M$CE to figure it our for me: several thousand dollars more.
I'm pretty shure it would be illegal if you tricked a person into a contract which said "we can change the congract later."
If you tricked someone, yes, it would be. But if it was printed right there in the contract, in black and white, and the bozo chooses to sign it anyway, he's got no one but himself to blame.
Can anyone else provide a succinct summary of the document, in plain English, that explains just what the fuck the Judge is trying to say
That's a real chore, but I'll offer two cents worth on this part:
how he figures he's still qualified to preside over this case, given that he's done work for Time/Warner?
The Judge hasn't done work for Time Warner -- and in fact, the motion to recuse him never says that he did.
The point of the defendants' motion to DQ the judge was that the Judge was once a lawyer at a law firm called Paul Weiss. The defendants claimed that another lawyer at Paul Weiss, named Stuart Robinowitz, had done work for Time Warner on DVD issues. (This comes from the affidavit that's quoted on page 21 of the opinion.)
The Judge decided that he's not required to recuse himself from the case because Rabinowitz only advised Time Warner on antitrust issues, not on encryption or copy protection. (This is the discussion from the bottom of page 37 through the top of page 41.)
At least not until VR technology can realistically simulate a screen three stories high. I've got a DVD player and a big-screen tv, and it's good, but it's nothing at all like seeing a film at a really good theater.
Theaters annoy the hell out of me. They're crowded, people talk during the films, they show commercials before the films, they're too expensive. But the experience they deliver is like nothing you can get at home, and until that changes, I'll keep going to the theater.
I'm don't expect anyone to sue Tuvalu, all they've done is sell the.tv tld, which they have every right to do.
I expect that DotTV will be sued. They're not a sovereign nation; they're part of Idealab, which is located in California.
And I don't personally care to stop DotTV; they're not trying to squeeze $1MM/yr out of me. I do find them annoying, so I won't shed any tears when they do get sued.
This list of prices makes it pretty clear that DotTV is out to profit from other peoples' trademarks. I think it's much more likely that they're going to receive a raft of angry letters from companies' lawyers.
For example, I'd be surprised if NBC doesn't write to these clowns, saying "if you sell nbc.tv to anyone other than us we're going to sue you for at least twenty times the sale price and get the court to order you to stop it."
Similarly, there's no way that CNet would pay $1MM a year for cnet.tv; they've already got their own domain name and they can easily prevent anyone else from using cnet.tv.
I'm mostly opposed to the use of intellectual property laws concerning domain names, but this is so clearly a scam that I'd be happy to see the lawyers sweep in. This is just domain squatting on a larger and greedier scale.
. . . "I didn't get to be the richest guy in the world by writing a bunch of big checks to people". (Granted, he only said it in an episode of the Simpsons).
Someone needs to just open a Strong Encryption company outside the US (Mexico? That's where I'd put the factory anyhow) and start mass-shipping crypto-enabled software and phones to the US.
It's called www.kerneli.org. They have a pretty good ftp site, too:)
IBM actually won all of the 1970's era antitrust suits against it. The biggest of those suits, brought by the Feds, was filed in 1968 or so, and still hadn't been decided by 1981, when the government dropped the case and agreed that its position was "without merit".
There was also a horde of private antitrust suits against IBM (analogous to Caldera v. MSFT) at the same time. IIRC, in one of those cases, a competitor got a ruling that IBM had a monopoly. Even so, IBM won the case because there was no finding that it had abused its monopoly.
So today's ruling goes far beyond anything that happened in those cases against IBM: the Judge has ruled that Microsoft has a monopoly, and has abused its monopoly in a way that has harmed competitors and consumers.
What that means is that it's almost certain that Microsoft will be found to be liable under the antitrust laws. A breakup of the company is probably more likely than not, as of now.
Yeah, but the Phantom Menace parody was better...
on
Quickie Fu
·
· Score: 1
I found a copy of it here; I don't know if there's an "official" site for it or not.
Very soon after the KAL airliner was shot down in 1983, the news outlets here in the U.S. were playing audio tapes of the Soviet jet fighter pilot's communications with his superiors. Well, how do you suppose we got the audio tape of the pilot?
Nothing to do with Echelon, satellites or anything remotely as sexy. The radio transmissions were monitored by a USAF RC-135V/W "Rivet Joint" SIGINT (i.e., SIGnals INTelligence) plane--a glorified 707 covered with antennae and stuffed with computers. The U.S. sent SIGINT planes snooping along the boundaries of Soviet airspace on a regular (well, frequent) basis during the cold war, where they listened in on all sorts of RF transmissions and made (from the Soviet point of view) a serious nuisance of themselves. The theory that floated around at the time was that the Sovs were gunning for the RC-135, hoping it would stray into their airspace where they could shoot it down. They shot down the KAL instead, and the rest, as they say, is history.
The problem with relying on deterrance to prevent another country from launching a nuke at us is that it assumes rationality on the part of the other country. That's not an assumption that you can make in the case of countries like North Korea or Iraq, where the leaders don't particularly care if there's a retaliatory launch or not.
You also assume that it's easy to move nukes into a country covertly, but if that's the case, why are Saddam, Kim et al spending so frantically on ballistic missiles? They might just know something you don't.
Ditto for countermeasures; going from a simple ballistic missile to one that's stealthy, manueverable or carries swarms of decoys is not a trivial matter, and since the technology isn't on the market it will likely take a third-world designer quite a while to implement.
The possibility that some other threat might emerge is not an argument in favor of ignoring the threat that does exist.
broad or narrow. For example, some companies build up big libraries of patents just to deter other companies from suing them. Just the threat of a retaliatory suit scares would-be plaintiffs away. This is one way that big companies protect themselves against the patent office's willingness to allow a patent on essentially anything.
The problem with that is that it turns the patent system into a sort of arms race, where small companies are at a huge disadvantage. The system is badly broken.
all it takes (in most systems) is a few minutes to fill out some forms, and a few dollars for a filing fee. You could sue someone for thinking about MP3's if you feel like it, there's absolutely nothing to stop you.
So the fact that this suit has been filed means nothing at all. The question is what happens to the suit. AFAIK, no one's been successful with this kind of theory yet, but that doesn't mean they never will.
Slashdot Mirror
It cannot be subverted. It is entirely under the control of its founders; the "members" are merely names on a list that will be used to argue that n concerned people are firmly opposed to the breakup.
There's no point in joining it, except to give more weight to this prime example of astroturfing.
--
you're dead wrong, and the guy you replied to was right on. Linux is useless without a support contract.
.
No. Your evidence does not support your argument.
Your first point is that your PHB won't approve use of Linux without a support contract. That goes to show that your boss is an idiot, but it says nothing about the utility of Linux
Your other point is (or at least appears to be) that the system won't work if the only Linux-knowledgeable employee leaves. That also doesn't show that Linux is "useless without a support contract". A boss less idiotic than yours would insist that the system is documented and handed over properly in the event that you depart.
I sympathize with anyone who works for a PHB, but "Linux is useless without a support contract" remains complete BS that shouldn't be seen outside the M$ FUD file whence it came.
Linux is free but useless without a good support contract
Excuse me, but this statement is absolute BS. (and I won't even get started on how nonsense like this gets moderated as "informative").
I've never paid a penny on Linux support, much less "100K$/year" to hire a sysadmin. The few problems I had that couldn't be solved by RTFM'ing and checking HOWTOs were quickly fixed by asking questions of Linux users, whether in person, on newsgroups or in IRC.
"Total cost of ownership" for a small network providing basic (and a few other) services over the net and a LAN: ZERO.
Cost if I'd had to pay M$ prices, plus hire some M$CE to figure it our for me: several thousand dollars more.
If you tricked someone, yes, it would be. But if it was printed right there in the contract, in black and white, and the bozo chooses to sign it anyway, he's got no one but himself to blame.
That's a real chore, but I'll offer two cents worth on this part:
The Judge hasn't done work for Time Warner -- and in fact, the motion to recuse him never says that he did.
The point of the defendants' motion to DQ the judge was that the Judge was once a lawyer at a law firm called Paul Weiss. The defendants claimed that another lawyer at Paul Weiss, named Stuart Robinowitz, had done work for Time Warner on DVD issues. (This comes from the affidavit that's quoted on page 21 of the opinion.)
The Judge decided that he's not required to recuse himself from the case because Rabinowitz only advised Time Warner on antitrust issues, not on encryption or copy protection. (This is the discussion from the bottom of page 37 through the top of page 41.)
At least not until VR technology can realistically simulate a screen three stories high. I've got a DVD player and a big-screen tv, and it's good, but it's nothing at all like seeing a film at a really good theater.
Theaters annoy the hell out of me. They're crowded, people talk during the films, they show commercials before the films, they're too expensive. But the experience they deliver is like nothing you can get at home, and until that changes, I'll keep going to the theater.
The universe is donut-shaped!
I'm don't expect anyone to sue Tuvalu, all they've done is sell the .tv tld, which they have every right to do.
I expect that DotTV will be sued. They're not a sovereign nation; they're part of Idealab, which is located in California.
And I don't personally care to stop DotTV; they're not trying to squeeze $1MM/yr out of me. I do find them annoying, so I won't shed any tears when they do get sued.
This list of prices makes it pretty clear that DotTV is out to profit from other peoples' trademarks. I think it's much more likely that they're going to receive a raft of angry letters from companies' lawyers.
For example, I'd be surprised if NBC doesn't write to these clowns, saying "if you sell nbc.tv to anyone other than us we're going to sue you for at least twenty times the sale price and get the court to order you to stop it."
Similarly, there's no way that CNet would pay $1MM a year for cnet.tv; they've already got their own domain name and they can easily prevent anyone else from using cnet.tv.
I'm mostly opposed to the use of intellectual property laws concerning domain names, but this is so clearly a scam that I'd be happy to see the lawyers sweep in. This is just domain squatting on a larger and greedier scale.
. . . "I didn't get to be the richest guy in the world by writing a bunch of big checks to people". (Granted, he only said it in an episode of the Simpsons).
Or is it now "news" when a company's PR flacks put out a puff piece like this?
It's called www.kerneli.org. They have a pretty good ftp site, too
:)
It's a lot bigger than that. The "O.J. equivalent" of the findings that the Judge released today would be:
"1. On the night of [whatever], O.J. Simpson stabbed his ex-wife multiple times.
"2. By stabbing his ex-wife, O.J. Simpson caused her death."
All that would be left for the findings of law phase would be "O.J. Simpson is guilty of murder."
IBM actually won all of the 1970's era antitrust suits against it. The biggest of those suits, brought by the Feds, was filed in 1968 or so, and still hadn't been decided by 1981, when the government dropped the case and agreed that its position was "without merit".
There was also a horde of private antitrust suits against IBM (analogous to Caldera v. MSFT) at the same time. IIRC, in one of those cases, a competitor got a ruling that IBM had a monopoly. Even so, IBM won the case because there was no finding that it had abused its monopoly.
So today's ruling goes far beyond anything that happened in those cases against IBM: the Judge has ruled that Microsoft has a monopoly, and has abused its monopoly in a way that has harmed competitors and consumers.
What that means is that it's almost certain that Microsoft will be found to be liable under the antitrust laws. A breakup of the company is probably more likely than not, as of now.
I found a copy of it here; I don't know if there's an "official" site for it or not.
Oh, uh, dude.
No one was surprised when Pakistan tested a nuke; the surprise came a month earlier when India did so.
And even that surprise was rather limited, given that India had detonated something that it called a "peaceful nuclear explosive" 25 years before.
The problem with relying on deterrance to prevent another country from launching a nuke at us is that it assumes rationality on the part of the other country. That's not an assumption that you can make in the case of countries like North Korea or Iraq, where the leaders don't particularly care if there's a retaliatory launch or not.
You also assume that it's easy to move nukes into a country covertly, but if that's the case, why are Saddam, Kim et al spending so frantically on ballistic missiles? They might just know something you don't.
Ditto for countermeasures; going from a simple ballistic missile to one that's stealthy, manueverable or carries swarms of decoys is not a trivial matter, and since the technology isn't on the market it will likely take a third-world designer quite a while to implement.
The possibility that some other threat might emerge is not an argument in favor of ignoring the threat that does exist.
broad or narrow. For example, some companies build up big libraries of patents just to deter other companies from suing them. Just the threat of a retaliatory suit scares would-be plaintiffs away. This is one way that big companies protect themselves against the patent office's willingness to allow a patent on essentially anything.
The problem with that is that it turns the patent system into a sort of arms race, where small companies are at a huge disadvantage. The system is badly broken.
all it takes (in most systems) is a few minutes to fill out some forms, and a few dollars for a filing fee. You could sue someone for thinking about MP3's if you feel like it, there's absolutely nothing to stop you.
So the fact that this suit has been filed means nothing at all. The question is what happens to the suit. AFAIK, no one's been successful with this kind of theory yet, but that doesn't mean they never will.