No, that's not a very good comparison of the situation. It would be more akin to a McDonalds worker wearing a Burger King uniform and using a Wendy's burger flipper while working at McDonalds.
I would expect the execs and secretaries to not necessarily run UnixWare. However, I would expect a SCO developer such as Michael Davidson[1] to use UnixWare rather than Windows 98 (especially in 2002).
References: [1] I assume the "Michael Davidson" referred to in the email is a developer as per: http://www.ossl.nl/opensource.org/halloween/hallow een9.php "Shortly thereafter, a SCO developer named Michael Davidson wrote the utility lxrun, which allowed Linux utilities to run on OpenServer and UnixWare."
Ah, Coherent. What a glorious PC UNIX. Indeed, before the days of Linux and the BSDs, it was one of the greats. Along with SCO OpenServer and SCO OpenDesktop, oddly enough. I have many fond memories of running Coherent on 386s back in the early 1990s. Fantastic systems, I must say. Even the SCO systems were quite fun to use. The power of a minicomputer UNIX all in an affordable PC.
But how would he prove that they were actively participating in such peer-to-peer/ad-hoc wireless networking? It'll be his word against theirs. And the accused can always claim harassment (ie. sexual if it's a woman) or racism or whatever card they wish to play.
Indeed, it would be interesting if IBM ended up purchasing from whoever the source code and distribution rights, and then proceeded to turn them over to the community. At the very least it would further help ensure that they (the source base) would not be abused again in the future against the open source community. It could potentially gain IBM many fans, not to mention make a very positive contribution back to the community. This could work out very well to their advantage.
Err, you mean Bernie Ebbers. But the real question is: will he actually spend 25 years in jail? That's doubtful. It wouldn't be surprising if he was actually out within 2 or 3 years, and back at the helm of some corporation within half a decade from now. CEOs are never held truly accountable for their actions. It won't happen with Ebbers, and it won't happen with McBridge. That is just a flaw with the system.
Now that it looks like their case is beyond salvation, and suppose they were to lose their lawsuit and become financially void, what would happen to the UnixWare and OpenServer codebases? Would they be transferred to one of TSG's debitors?
Indeed, if IBM did happen to acquire the rights to UnixWare and OpenServer via such means, then it would be very helpful to the community if they released the source code to both products. Of course, Novell's involvement may sticky things up a bit. But it would be great to have the systems available to the community.
Being a former sysadmin of SCO systems, I remember them fondly from the late 1980s and early 1990s. With some community-based work, they could easily be made useful again today. On older systems they would fly, thus making obsolete hardware usable again.
It sounds as if these are the users own computers. If they were company computers, for instance, you could most likey remove such hardware. But since you're asking these questions, then that probably isn't the case.
As such, what exactly would you plan to do if you did happen to locate the individuals involved? Do you really think they'd let you mutilate their systems to prevent them from using wireless connectivity? I sure don't think they would. Would you yell at them? I'm sure they'd nod, and later on while having coffee call you a cockfool and then continue to use their wireless connectivity. Perhaps you could tell their manager, but then they could always deny it and claim that you're just harassing them.
Maybe you need to take another look at what the actual problem is, and what you can actually do about it. It sounds like your hands may very well be tied in this instance. This problem may be outside your jurisdiction as an IT manager.
But what's to say that those programmers have the skills necessary to write code that promotes security? Using money to hire shitty programmers who write shitty, insecure code will not improve security at all! Indeed, you just have to look at Microsoft for an example of that.
Most parliamentarians, be they Brits or Canadians, or Congressionals or Senators, will ignore emails. A true paper letter will have a far greater impact. Anyone, even an automated digital computer, can throw together and send an email. But a personaly letter requires a greater involvement by an individual. They will see that you care enough about the issue to write and print the letter, to address the envelope, and to mail it. And they may even listen to you, golly enough!
What sort of a hassle is it to get one of these prepaid credit cards? Do they pull the common credit card shenanigans of requiring a credit check and all that, or do they treat it more like a money order and give it to you no-questions-asked?
How can a Brit purchase one of these keyboards? Considering the recent trend of credit card data being "misplaced" or outright stolen, I will not purchase items online from foreign sellers. But you cannot find these speciality keyboards in most large retail stores like Maxwell Technology or Circuits Domain. So while I would like to purchase them, I fear I cannot.
Pkgsrc is truly an amazing piece of technology. It has succeeded in merging the packaging systems of the Big Four BSDs: NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and DragonflyBSD. Indeed, its seamless integration with any of those systems shows its true merit. And with the work of package maintenance shared by the projects, there is now more time to focus on improving the main aspects of the operating systems: the kernel, filesystem, virtual memory subsystem, drivers, networking and so on.
The productivity of the BSD projects is sure to increase vastly over the next few years as the true power of pkgsrc is recognized and taken into account. I think we may even see the next big computing revolution take place within the BSD community, yet again.
Since you are so obviously willing to denounce this author's article, and claim that you know meaningful data when you see it, could you please write us a more informative article? Rather than launch an "ad hominem"-style attack on the article, write us an article using all your glorious expertise.
Who would fund this "independent" research study? IBM? Apple? The FreeBSD Project? Pixar? George Lucas? No matter who you choose, they will either not have the expertise to perform such a study, or they will have a financial interest in either of the two systems being used (or not used at all).
The bazaar model fails to take into account the talents of the bazaarers. In practice what happens is that the numer of developers does increase, but the overall talent of those developers decreases. So while more code is output, it is not necessarily quality code. And secure code is often high quality code.
Better security comes from better coding practices, the use of languages that are not as vulnerable to exploits, and the use of technology to avoid such exploits.
Now, the fact still remains that such a model fairs far better than that used by Microsoft, for various reasons. But your model of the bazaar is too simplified. It fails to take into account some very important factors, like code and coder quality.
Perhaps that is just because deceit pays in Corporate America (if not the entire Corporate World). The whole attitude to profits before morality and social duty will of course lead to that. Those who are the best at deceivery will profit the most. Why be honest when you'll benefit far more from misleading people? And when they point out that you have mislead them, just ignore them or deny the deception. It has worked well for the American and British governments concerning their boondoggles in Iraq and Afghanistan, so it no doubt works for corporations too.
As a Canadian who claims to be "terrified" by this legislation, what exactly are you doing to prevent it from passing? The least you could do, of course, is write letters to your MP. You could even meet with them concerning this matter, and show them first hand the terror you feel. What are you prepared to do then? Will you picket? Will you organize rallies against this legislation?
That's because these particular effects were not the point nor purpose of the law. They are side effects due to the fact that the legislation is so horribly flawed at its very deepest levels.
Slashdot Mirror
No, that's not a very good comparison of the situation. It would be more akin to a McDonalds worker wearing a Burger King uniform and using a Wendy's burger flipper while working at McDonalds.
I would expect the execs and secretaries to not necessarily run UnixWare. However, I would expect a SCO developer such as Michael Davidson[1] to use UnixWare rather than Windows 98 (especially in 2002).
w een9.php
References:
[1] I assume the "Michael Davidson" referred to in the email is a developer as per:
http://www.ossl.nl/opensource.org/halloween/hallo
"Shortly thereafter, a SCO developer named Michael Davidson wrote the utility lxrun, which allowed Linux utilities to run on OpenServer and UnixWare."
Ah, Coherent. What a glorious PC UNIX. Indeed, before the days of Linux and the BSDs, it was one of the greats. Along with SCO OpenServer and SCO OpenDesktop, oddly enough. I have many fond memories of running Coherent on 386s back in the early 1990s. Fantastic systems, I must say. Even the SCO systems were quite fun to use. The power of a minicomputer UNIX all in an affordable PC.
But how would he prove that they were actively participating in such peer-to-peer/ad-hoc wireless networking? It'll be his word against theirs. And the accused can always claim harassment (ie. sexual if it's a woman) or racism or whatever card they wish to play.
I meant to type "McBride" rather than "McBridge", pardon my soul.
Notice the forwarded email from Michael Davidson to Reg Broughton contains the email header
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.6 [en] (Win98; I).
That is very interesting, indeed. Why would SCO be using Windows 98 machines internally? Indeed, one would expect them to be using SCO UnixWare.
Indeed, it would be interesting if IBM ended up purchasing from whoever the source code and distribution rights, and then proceeded to turn them over to the community. At the very least it would further help ensure that they (the source base) would not be abused again in the future against the open source community. It could potentially gain IBM many fans, not to mention make a very positive contribution back to the community. This could work out very well to their advantage.
Err, you mean Bernie Ebbers. But the real question is: will he actually spend 25 years in jail? That's doubtful. It wouldn't be surprising if he was actually out within 2 or 3 years, and back at the helm of some corporation within half a decade from now. CEOs are never held truly accountable for their actions. It won't happen with Ebbers, and it won't happen with McBridge. That is just a flaw with the system.
Now that it looks like their case is beyond salvation, and suppose they were to lose their lawsuit and become financially void, what would happen to the UnixWare and OpenServer codebases? Would they be transferred to one of TSG's debitors?
Indeed, if IBM did happen to acquire the rights to UnixWare and OpenServer via such means, then it would be very helpful to the community if they released the source code to both products. Of course, Novell's involvement may sticky things up a bit. But it would be great to have the systems available to the community.
Being a former sysadmin of SCO systems, I remember them fondly from the late 1980s and early 1990s. With some community-based work, they could easily be made useful again today. On older systems they would fly, thus making obsolete hardware usable again.
It sounds as if these are the users own computers. If they were company computers, for instance, you could most likey remove such hardware. But since you're asking these questions, then that probably isn't the case.
As such, what exactly would you plan to do if you did happen to locate the individuals involved? Do you really think they'd let you mutilate their systems to prevent them from using wireless connectivity? I sure don't think they would. Would you yell at them? I'm sure they'd nod, and later on while having coffee call you a cockfool and then continue to use their wireless connectivity. Perhaps you could tell their manager, but then they could always deny it and claim that you're just harassing them.
Maybe you need to take another look at what the actual problem is, and what you can actually do about it. It sounds like your hands may very well be tied in this instance. This problem may be outside your jurisdiction as an IT manager.
But what's to say that those programmers have the skills necessary to write code that promotes security? Using money to hire shitty programmers who write shitty, insecure code will not improve security at all! Indeed, you just have to look at Microsoft for an example of that.
Most parliamentarians, be they Brits or Canadians, or Congressionals or Senators, will ignore emails. A true paper letter will have a far greater impact. Anyone, even an automated digital computer, can throw together and send an email. But a personaly letter requires a greater involvement by an individual. They will see that you care enough about the issue to write and print the letter, to address the envelope, and to mail it. And they may even listen to you, golly enough!
What sort of a hassle is it to get one of these prepaid credit cards? Do they pull the common credit card shenanigans of requiring a credit check and all that, or do they treat it more like a money order and give it to you no-questions-asked?
My good man, why do you not just purchase traditional French and German keyboards?
How can a Brit purchase one of these keyboards? Considering the recent trend of credit card data being "misplaced" or outright stolen, I will not purchase items online from foreign sellers. But you cannot find these speciality keyboards in most large retail stores like Maxwell Technology or Circuits Domain. So while I would like to purchase them, I fear I cannot.
Pkgsrc is truly an amazing piece of technology. It has succeeded in merging the packaging systems of the Big Four BSDs: NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and DragonflyBSD. Indeed, its seamless integration with any of those systems shows its true merit. And with the work of package maintenance shared by the projects, there is now more time to focus on improving the main aspects of the operating systems: the kernel, filesystem, virtual memory subsystem, drivers, networking and so on.
The productivity of the BSD projects is sure to increase vastly over the next few years as the true power of pkgsrc is recognized and taken into account. I think we may even see the next big computing revolution take place within the BSD community, yet again.
Since you are so obviously willing to denounce this author's article, and claim that you know meaningful data when you see it, could you please write us a more informative article? Rather than launch an "ad hominem"-style attack on the article, write us an article using all your glorious expertise.
Who would fund this "independent" research study? IBM? Apple? The FreeBSD Project? Pixar? George Lucas? No matter who you choose, they will either not have the expertise to perform such a study, or they will have a financial interest in either of the two systems being used (or not used at all).
How is a public outburst of faggotry the most appropriate response to this article?
The bazaar model fails to take into account the talents of the bazaarers. In practice what happens is that the numer of developers does increase, but the overall talent of those developers decreases. So while more code is output, it is not necessarily quality code. And secure code is often high quality code.
Better security comes from better coding practices, the use of languages that are not as vulnerable to exploits, and the use of technology to avoid such exploits.
Now, the fact still remains that such a model fairs far better than that used by Microsoft, for various reasons. But your model of the bazaar is too simplified. It fails to take into account some very important factors, like code and coder quality.
Perhaps that is just because deceit pays in Corporate America (if not the entire Corporate World). The whole attitude to profits before morality and social duty will of course lead to that. Those who are the best at deceivery will profit the most. Why be honest when you'll benefit far more from misleading people? And when they point out that you have mislead them, just ignore them or deny the deception. It has worked well for the American and British governments concerning their boondoggles in Iraq and Afghanistan, so it no doubt works for corporations too.
I did some research (using Google, oddly enough) and found a petition against most of what is in this bill.
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/
Indeed, that is something that all Canadians who are against this bill should sign, no doubt.
As a Canadian who claims to be "terrified" by this legislation, what exactly are you doing to prevent it from passing? The least you could do, of course, is write letters to your MP. You could even meet with them concerning this matter, and show them first hand the terror you feel. What are you prepared to do then? Will you picket? Will you organize rallies against this legislation?
That's because these particular effects were not the point nor purpose of the law. They are side effects due to the fact that the legislation is so horribly flawed at its very deepest levels.
But if it is worded so ambiguously that it would illegitimize completely separate services, then there is a severe problem with it, no?