Yes. You're correct. I still have the early Computer Languages (or was it Dr. Dobbs?) magazine article where they interviewed Stallman about the newly released Free Software Manifesto. The tone of the article portrayed Stallman as being a Don Quixote-like idealists that had little chance of succeeding (after all, everything was proprietary and the moment you make something free like in the 60s someone will come along and make it proprietary again). But he was looked at favourably in the same way that kindly and generous old grandfather that's out of touch with reality is.
Things have definitely changed since that day, but the threat of finding loopholes in the GPL to lock it up again and return us to the 1980s still remains. It remains to be seen of the GPLv3 helps or hinders free software (it has to maintain a fine balance between pragmatism and idealism). But at least the "additional permissions" feature of getting the GPL to be more compatible with other licenses (and reduce license fragmentation) and the Novell-Microsoft patent feature are definite improvements.
> That is completely reasonable. The script readers doing the trouble shooting at HP wouldn't be able to trouble shoot a system that didn't have the OS on it that HP originally installed.
No it isn't. You're basically saying, if you upgrade your OS or add a single service pack, HP is off the hook. Since other hardware may also cause a keyboard malfunction, you're also implying that the box is closed to any other hardware upgrades.
You're also implying that it's completely reasonable to request that you wipe out your system and install another operating system in order to diagnose a *minor* problem that could be diagnosed simply by going into the BIOS and having the person type something or booting a bootable CD that they're familiar with.
Sorry, but this is BS. If HP is an appliance manufacturer they should advertise and weld the case shut and prevent any non-HP vetted updates. If not, they're lying.
I've had similar sorts of issues with inflexible script monkeys that don't know how to diagnose the simplest problem. I used the Sympatico ISP since they lauched and have had no problems with Linux. A few months back, I was unable to receive mail (although I could send it). I did the usual telneting SMTP tests and found the the SMTP server was no longer accessible but the POP server was. Basically, the problem was on their end. When I explained the problem, they ignored me and asked to to enter the information in Outlook Express. When I said I ran Linux, they told me that Linux wasn't supported and refused to go further or test their own equipment. They said my only solution was that I install Windows and run Outlook Express. I asked to be transfered to someone more knowledgeable, but they refused. I mentioned that their web site stated Mac and other configuration but they refused. I phoned back several times and got the same answer from several other people.
The only way I could get any help was to pretend that I was running Outlook and mentally do the translation to Thunderbird settings. They eventually found the problem on their end and fixed it. My mail worked without me having to change a thing.
Such behavior support not acceptable and should be called out whenever it is found.
That being said, "Music as a service" isn't the first use of music. People sang, just because they liked to. It's a simple as that. It makes hard work (e.g. chain gangs) pass quicker and helps catch small birds (if you're good at immitating them).
The whole concept of "selling music" either as a product or service isn't that old in comparison.
Not really. Ubuntu piggy-backs off of Debian's SID packaging and would be nowhere without Debian. Of course, Ubuntu regularly gives back to Debian, so it's a two way street that benefits both.
What would be good, however, is if Ubuntu and Debian could co-ordinate their releases better. I see absolutely no reason why Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) shouldn't be based off or synced to Debian stable, other than the fact that Debian and Ubuntu don't co-ordinate their releases. If Debian could make regular releases and actually have slushy freezes, soft freezes, and hard freezes months before the expected release date, there's really no reason why Debian stable couldn't be both stable and released regularly. It just requires good project management. With this in place, syncing Debian stable and Ubuntu LTS would just be a matter of mutual agreement.
GM foods aren't necessarily bad. After all, people have been crossbreeding various species of plants and animals for millennia. Crossbreeding is a poor man's GM.
The key thing that distinguishes GM foods from crossbreed foods is that when you crossbreed non-poisonous plant A with non-poisonous plant B, you almost never get poisonous children (although it is possible).
With GM foods, all bets are off. You can do almost anything and if you're not careful, you can produce foods that have significant problems. Worse than that people tend to turn a blind eye to "naturally occurring hormones", so it's not okay if a cow is injected with growth hormone and it's not okay if an Olympic runner injects steroids, but it is okay if the cow naturally produces an elevated amount of growth hormone or the Olympic runner naturally has elevated steroids. (It makes no sense, but that's life). The key problem with GM foods is that they allows us to redefine what is natural and thus sidestep the issue.
Ultimately, the safest way to handle GM foods is to handle them the same way they handle new species of plants/animals. If someone tried to sell a new species of plant that was recently found in the Brazilian rain forest, the FDA would be on their case in a heartbeat. The excuse "it looks like spinach and might actually have evolved from spinach, but includes 100 times more nutrients" wouldn't fly and they certainly couldn't market this thing as spinach (even if it turns out to be perfectly safe and has no undesirable side effects).
> And until a company can determine that there's a big enough audience who would buy a specific distro of linux on a computer they won't make efforts to support them.
Why? You're missing something basic. Let's look at that list: (I've added one item so that Ubuntu has the same options as the others)
Commercial: Novell/SuSE Linux Desktop
Commercial: Red Hat Enterprise Desktop
Community Supported: Fedora
Community Supported: OpenSUSE
Community Supported: Ubuntu
Commercial: Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) Since RHEL, SUSE, Ubuntu LTS have are more conservative than Fedora or OpenSUSE or Ubuntu (no nLTS), then if your hardware supports RHEL or SUSE or Ubuntu LTS, it'll automatically support Fedora or OpenSUSE or Ubuntu (no nLTS). Okay, so we have three items on our list.
So far, so good. Since the Linux kernel version number determines what hardware is supported, then if your hardware supports the oldest kernel of RHEL, SUSE, and Ubuntu LTS, there's a very good chance it supports them all.
So out of the list of 6 or so distributions, Dell have a single number to work with (call it kernel 2.6.x). Look at the hardware their selling. If it's supported by 2.6.x, then fine. If not, then they need to replace (or drop) the hardware in favour of something that 2.6.x does support. They could then say "Works with Linux 2.6.x". It's not that difficult, is it?
Now let's take it to the next level. Suppose Dell gave pre-release versions of their hardware to RedHat, Novell, and Canonical in exchange for *their* work in validating the hardware and their certification mark. The only thing Dell would need to do is receive their "hardware compatibility" reports, do the necessary hardware replacements (if any), and offer *certified* RHEL, SUSE, or Ubuntu LTS CDs along with the hardware (that contains no operating system). I'm sure that RedHat, Novell, and Canonical would jump at the offer, especially since if they don't, their competitors will and they'd be locked out of a juicy market. It's good for RedHat, Novell, and Canonical who get better hardware support, and it's good for Dell which gets to tag "Works with Linux 2.6.x", "RHEL Certified", "SUSE Certified", and "Ubuntu LTS Certified" to their product with minimal work.
Now let's take it to the next level -- preinstallation. They could tack on a $20 fee for anyone who wanted "Certified Linux" preinstalled. No tech user would accept this option, but many newbies would. They've just generated an additional source of revenue for something that could be easily automated through imaging. There are tonnes of these value added services that can be used to generate revenue. Dell just needs to spend a few minutes looking at what people need.
> Use how? What if one of the engineers needs a snippet of code, copies it from Spring, and incorporates it into their product without attribution?
This is a valid concern, but it goes deeper than you think. It's been a few years since I programmed for Win32 and MFC, but back then, it was quite common for Windows programmer to google for hacks^H^H^H^H^H solutions to problems or copy code from book CDs to solve problems and to cut and paste them into code. In web programming, it's even more common to look for libraries or snippets that solve a problem rather than reinvent the wheel.
Years of blindly clicking book-long EULAs or online EULAs that change silently on you without your notice have taught people that licenses don't matter and are things to be ignored. Most developers who do this don't seem to be aware of licensing issue and assume that if it's on the internet or if it came with or on a book, then it must be public domain and fair game. In a large number of case, this is not the case, and a stricter license ("you may use this code in non commercial code" or "you may use this code but not modify it" or even "this code is for demonstration purposes only, do not use it") is attached. Shared source muddles the issue further since it leaves you to SCO-like "you looked at the code so anything you write is contaminated" type lawsuits.
This is what managers are really afraid of.
What many managers haven't clued in on is that open source makes managing this concern easier because most open source software falls into 10 or so licenses that can be divided into three or so categories "share quid pro quo" (e.g. GPL), "library quid pro quo alike" (e.g. LGPL), "attribution" (e.g. BSD, MIT). So it should be easy to define a policy for them and provide a mechanism for new licenses to be added. If you enforce the policy to make your developers actually *look* at the license and *care*, there's little reason to fear and reason to be more confident than you aren't accidentally setting yourself for IP lawsuits from *non-open source* publishers since your developers will be avoiding those like the plague in favour of open source software of the appropriate type.
Also, being a translator instead of an exporter means that a double save will have to happen which has it's own set of issues.
> Win-win.
Actually, it's win-lose since it's the appearance of openness without actual openness, so MS Office devotes will be able to claim that no change in status quo is required (after all competition exists so there's no vendor lockin) but no-one will trust ODF translations into OOXML since they will look bad. Another side effect is that people will move away from DOC which has better support universally (through years of reverse engineering) in favour of OOXML (which has poorer universal support) since "XML is the future". Not good.
But if you're going to support OOXML in OpenOffice despite this last comment, a better approach would be an OOXML *exporter*. The key difference between an exporter and a translator is that an exporter has access to a lot more information about the document (the internal application representation of document) and so the exporter can be more accurate than the translator (which could in theory rebuild those data structures, but in practice won't unless OpenOffice and MS Office are refactored so that the creation of the internal data structures from the file system is available through a library) and an exporter will be faster (no double-save, no external tool, no recreation of even minimal internal data structures).
Yes, it is illegal in many countries to leverage your monopoly to gain advantage in other markets, but not in all cases. The anti-competitive laws aren't there to allow companies to make a profit. They're their to ensure that vendor lock-in doesn't happen. That would be very bad for consumers (the "invisible hand" would be tied), and for governments (which would end up having to take orders from companies who could cut them off at any time) and ultimately citizens (since governments would no longer be able to listen to them).
In "ye olden days of some versions of Unix", when you bought a Unix system, everything was unbundled. You'd get Unix which wouldn't do anything. If you wanted a compiler, you'd better make sure that you specified that you wanted a linker too because that wasn't included. If you specified you wanted a linker, you'd better say you wanted an assembler too because that wasn't included. Ditto for debuggers, common libraries, TCP/IP, etc. Each unbundled part would cost extra and you'd be nickle and dimed to death. But even if the cost didn't bother you, the whole "build your system from the ground up and find out what you need after you need it" was maddening. Believe me you don't want to go back to those days and this is one reason why both Linux and Windows have succeeded. They bundle "essential" technology.
Let's look at if from the other perspective, imagine the roles were reversed and Debian were a monopoly and MS Windows was the underdog. Would it be wrong to bundle OpenOffice with Debian? Of course not. OpenOffice doesn't lock you in in any way and gives you choice. If you don't like OpenOffice, you can go for KOffice or Abiword or IBM's office suite or an office suite that specializes in disabilities. You could go to the Mac and open your documents without flinching. The same is true with any other bundled app in Debian. If "Debian became evil", you could switch away from it in a heart-beat or just fork the thing. Consumers have a choice. Governments have a choice. Citizens have a choice. Basically, there isn't a problem with bundling if it's done the right way. As it stands now, bundling MS Office and IE is not the right way since it violates the "no lockin" rule mentioned in my previous post.
Okay, I agree that it's just common courtesy/ethics that that monopolists have to abide by stricter rule, in much the same way that battleships have to abide by stricter navigation rule than kayaks (e.g. a kayak can make a sudden turn with little impact, but a sudden battleship turn would have a wake that could cause serious damage).
However, word processing is considered essential technology these days, in much the same way that TCP/IP and CD burning and desktop searches, and I don't hear many complains about bundling those.
The key difference between MS Windows XP's bundling CD burning/desktop search and bundling MS Office is: the former relies on open technologies (anyone can build a replacement) whereas the latter does not (e.g. DOC/OOXML, VB, OLE, etc) and so competitors need to make a significant investment to reverse engineer them (especially on non Microsoft platforms).
It's that simple.
If the version of MS Office that were bundled with MS Windows: (1) saved using ODF by default (2) used open standards for all technologies in preference to Microsoft home grown technologies. (3) used open languages like Python or an ISO standard like Object Oriented Pascal for scripting instead of Visual Basic (4) did not include any operating system specific features (e.g. DRM keys that are only known by Microsoft to tie documents to computers)
Then the bundling would *not* be locking anyone into MS Windows and would not prevent competition (e.g. OpenOffice, WordPerfect) from offering word processors that targets audiences that Microsoft doesn't.
The reason Ballmer doesn't say anything is simple. If he did, one or more of three things would happen: * The code would be immediately rewritten. * The patent would be challenged and they would likely lose it * Patent wars between Linux supporters and Microsoft would begin, with the end result that either all the patents would be invalidated or no software would be able to ship or patents would be so massively cross-licensed that they would effectively be meaningless.
By playing coy, Ballmer is actually hurting his case. If he's bluffing, he's basically running a protection racket. He's basically saying we know there's a problem but we're not going to tell you what it is because we want to ambush you in the future.
Neither of these two options are looked too kindly by judges.
And since all Linux projects are done out in the open with full disclosure and most have the policy that "if there is a dispute, we'll rewrite the code" (even Mono has this provision), and is often done by volunteers who want to fill a need (e.g. schools, 3rd world, etc), it would be easy to portray Linux in a favourable light to the judge.
Unfortunately, Novell handed them a source of SCO-like FUD that obscures these issues.
So Novell, here's my request to you. Even if you can't get out of the MS deal, could you cut the knees off of the MS FUD by writing a legal document that states categorically that: 1) The deal is not about patents and if Microsoft believes that the deal is, then it now hereby waves any protection from Microsoft 2) That to the best of Novell's knowledge, Linux is not in violation of any patents. 3) That unless Ballmer states what Linux IP is in place, Novell will have no choice but to file a sue Microsoft on Liable and/or extortion charges.
If Novell did this, and followed through on (3) with the help of other Linux distros if Ballmer doesn't shut up, then the Novell-MS deal FUD would vanish and Novell would regain much of it's previous respect.
Basically, Linus wants to have fine grained control over what the mouse buttons do.
Sounds like a simple request, but he doesn't reveal it until *after* he submits a patch and in that same email goes on to rant about how no-one listens to him and how GNOME developers make excuses instead of just doing whatever he wants. In a later email he comments that he sent the patches to a developer's only email address (that he admits may or may not have been able to see his patches) because he doesn't like bugzilla and says that the patches must be accepted or GNOME developers are a bunch of hypocrites even though an API freeze is in effect for about a month ( http://live.gnome.org/TwoPointSeventeen ).
Personally, I find it a bit interesting that Linus has repeatedly flamed (or sidelined) people on the Linux kernel mailing list for acting like he is now, not following the kernel submission procedure, assuming that freezes don't count, and assuming that if the core architects of the Linux kernel think that a feature (done in a certain way) is a bad idea then they must be a bunch of hypocrites.
I personally don't know if the patches are any good or in keeping with GNOME's design or need changes or.... But I do think that Linus needs to chill and let the GNOME core developers run the way they want to and accept or postpone (if there's a freeze) or reject his patches as they deem appropriate. If Linus want to contribute to GNOME (I hope he does), he has to do it by GNOME's rules or fork, or pass it on to someone who *is* willing to play by GNOME's rules (I'd be surprised if there weren't are more than a few developers and distros who would be willing to work as intermediary between Linus and GNOME). That's the way open source works.
It's not unreasonable to expect this. GNOME core developers don't go on the Linux kernel thread and whine and submit attitude patches to Linus, 'tho if they did, they would (and should) be flamed. Linus has said repeatedly on the kernel mailing lists that submitters must either follow the kernel rules, or fork (e.g. if you don't like the license), or pass on your patches to someone who is willing to do things that kernel developer's way (none of Reiser's patches would have gone if it weren't for this later option).
Are there problems with the GNOME way of doing things? Sure. Linus brought up a good point about the ease of submitting patches. But all projects have issues. There was a time, not too long ago, when the submission process for the Linux kernel was "send Linus your patches and if he doesn't respond then keep resending them because the patches might have gotten lost". But the issues won't get better if you complain to the wrong people.
Here's two ideas that's more important than any of those suggestions. Either one should help get rid of the patent troll problem.
1) If I *independently* came up with a software/business patent, then I don't have to pay the patent fees.
2) If I *independently* came up with a software/business patent, then the patent should be revoked since it is either obvious or derivable by an expert in the field without the help of the patent.
Personally, I prefer option (2) since it ensures that a patent is alive only as long as it's valuable.
If an idea is so revolutionary that no-one else would be able to re-invent it for 100 years, so people *have* to look at your patent, then perhaps the idea *should* be patentable.
If however, you come up with a revolutionary idea but it's quickly independently rediscovered elsewhere (e.g. quantum mechanics, the air plane, the phone, etc) then you don't deserve the patent. The time was simply right for the idea and you were just the one to take credit first.
For all patent supporters, here's a simple question: - *How* would software and business patents encourage innovation?
Seriously. How many of you try to get ideas by looking at a patent database?
*crickets chirping*
Okay. I'm sure some of you have tried looking at published patent applications, just for kicks or because it's your job. Of the people who have, how would you describe the software/business patent application?
1) It's easy to understand and provides enough details to implement the patent. 2) It's ambigious and/or overly broad and/or obvious and/or incomprehensible?
Did anyone pick (1)?
*three hands out of a googleplex*
Okay. How many of you have *independently* come up with an idea that you later (by accident or because a patent lawyer told you) found out was patented? (e.g. 1-click patent, multimedia patent, etc).
If you've written code and heard *any* patent news, the answer is probably 100%.
How many of you actively try to *avoid* looking at the patent database since "ignorance is bliss" and "if you claim ignorance, the judge might be merciful"?
*all kernel developers, Mono Developers, etc raise their hands*
If I *independently* coming up with an idea, is there any fair reason why I could pay someone else because they paid to document (however vaguely) the idea?
*crickets chirping*
So how again do patents help spur innovation instead of bury it in legal red tape?
"Dr. Plunkett was under contract with the DuPont Company and was doing research on methods of creating non-toxic refrigerants that would have very specialized uses; however, upon beginning his original experiment he realized that he had a problem . When he went to open the tank of gaseous tetrafluoroethylene, no gas came out of the cylinder; instead the only thing that came from this was a great curiosity . What perplexed Plunkett was that the weight of the tank indicated that there should be a given amount of the fluorocarbon present in the tank, and that it simply hadn't leaked out. This puzzled Plunkett and caused him to investigate what was actually still in the "empty" tank; however, it was not until he sawed the tank open that he realized what had taken place. Inside the tank he found a white, waxy powder and concluded that these individual gas molecules had bonded together to form this incredible solid, teflon, that had some very promising chemical properties."
> You have web applications that rely on IE in order to work. This solution will NEVER solve that problem.
What you don't mention is that many of those apps have to be recorded to work with IE 7. If your depends on idiosyncrasies that exist in (undocumented, but widely used) IE6 instead of (documented) WW3 standards, don't be surprised when things don't work quite as you expect in succeeding versions of IE. If you don't follow good practices and use a good platform independent web API (both HTML and Javascript) for all your web apps, there's nothing anyone can do for you. Supporting WW3 HTML and Javascript isn't that hard.
In this case, blaming Microsoft for this (assuming the claims are real) is not shooting the messenger.
Microsoft refuses to reveal which code is infringing so that it could either be rewritten or (more likely) have the patent struck down due to prior art.
They're basically saying "You did something wrong but I'm not telling you what you did and you have to make up for it or else.". This is just plain extortion and should be dealt with as such.
As the old saying goes, when messenger is the message it's okay to shoot the messenger.
I agree that reading books are a lot easier than reading on the screen and bound books have a tangible and practical quality that you just don't get from ebooks.
That being said, electronic ink had made quite a number of advances and flash memory and electronics continues to get smaller and smaller.
I'd be surprised if, within a decade, we didn't have some form of electronic book that resembled a physical book except that you could download any contents you wanted to on the pages. This would give you the convenience and lightness of a regular book but provide you with the ability to carry a whole library in your pocket.
I don't know if Edubuntu follows Ubuntu lead, but Ubuntu includes a subset of "The Open CD" set of utilities that's visible when you load the CD from Windows. (try it)
This gives you the best of both worlds -- Windows versions of open source programs plus a good education-oriented Linux distro if one decides to experiment with Linux.
If they don't want to promote Linux, they should likely stick to theOpenCD (http://www.theopencd.org/) since it's already done the hard work of picking a good set of Windows compatible open source that's actually useful.
Personally, I'd be surprised if someone didn't write a "make your software appear pirated and put a pop-up that says 'you won't be in this mess if you used product X'" virus that forces all crippleware to go into reduced functionality mode and endorses a product.
Agreed, I don't think this feature will become too popular. It's just too tempting a target for the black hats if it does.
But you're missing a key point. Most of FSG standards are implemented on BSD, MacOSX/Darwin, and Solaris too and many can be migrated to Windows too. By labeling this as "Linux", it's essentially saying that all others need not apply unless they do things the Linux way.
Personally, I hoped that FSG as going to involve into "POSIX Next Generation". I'm not sure this merger helps this or hurts this yet, but at the very least, I suspect it weakens the trademark of Linux to mean "Linux compatible technology" instead of the "Linux OS".
You're missing something subtle. Ubuntu-studio is a metapackage, just like Kubuntu and Xubuntu. You can install Kubuntu *after* installing ubuntu by installing "kubuntu-desktop" and you can do this for Xubuntu too. If Ubuntu-studio is planned properly, it should be just as easy to install the Ubuntu-studio desktop.
The problem is, both these groups have shortcut support (and some basic accessibility support for some disabilities) support when they use Windows (and to some extend Ubuntu) out of the box *without special tailoring*.
And because, keyboard binds are hidden off to the side, they're generally an afterthought (tacked on the last minute without rhyme or reason) -- the way usability is an afterthought on the Windows platform (or Linux 5 years ago).
I also disagree that for a *general purpose PC* the expectation should be that if you have a disability you must spend a lot of time tailoring -- if something can be done by the distribution (NB: I consider Windows and Mac to be OS distributions too). Nothing yet can be done about requiring training for voice recognition ("Dear Aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all."), but out of the box easy support for keyboard shortcuts, magnifying classes, and ready made themes that have been tested is just too basic to ignore. I don't know about Vista, but Ubuntu at least supports all of these out of the box including 6 pre-installed accessibility themes (High Contrast, High Contrast Inverse, High Contrast Large Print, High Contrast Inverse Large Print, Low Contrast, Low Contrast Large Print).
> If you're the sort of person who wants to use keyboard shortcuts then you're the sort of person who's able to go to the preferences and activate them.
Are you sure about? How about people who are blind or have mobility problems? And how about touch typist secretaries?
Keyboard shortcuts aren't some "guru feature", their a natural part of a well designed accessible interface.
I'm really surprised by this. I thought Apple learned its lessons years ago when they added "Apple key short cuts" to their menus by default. At least I thought they were on by default (I don't own a Mac, I've just occasionally used one for testing for cross platform support at work).
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Yes. You're correct. I still have the early Computer Languages (or was it Dr. Dobbs?) magazine article where they interviewed Stallman about the newly released Free Software Manifesto. The tone of the article portrayed Stallman as being a Don Quixote-like idealists that had little chance of succeeding (after all, everything was proprietary and the moment you make something free like in the 60s someone will come along and make it proprietary again). But he was looked at favourably in the same way that kindly and generous old grandfather that's out of touch with reality is.
Things have definitely changed since that day, but the threat of finding loopholes in the GPL to lock it up again and return us to the 1980s still remains. It remains to be seen of the GPLv3 helps or hinders free software (it has to maintain a fine balance between pragmatism and idealism). But at least the "additional permissions" feature of getting the GPL to be more compatible with other licenses (and reduce license fragmentation) and the Novell-Microsoft patent feature are definite improvements.
> That is completely reasonable. The script readers doing the trouble shooting at HP wouldn't be able to trouble shoot a system that didn't have the OS on it that HP originally installed.
No it isn't. You're basically saying, if you upgrade your OS or add a single service pack, HP is off the hook. Since other hardware may also cause a keyboard malfunction, you're also implying that the box is closed to any other hardware upgrades.
You're also implying that it's completely reasonable to request that you wipe out your system and install another operating system in order to diagnose a *minor* problem that could be diagnosed simply by going into the BIOS and having the person type something or booting a bootable CD that they're familiar with.
Sorry, but this is BS. If HP is an appliance manufacturer they should advertise and weld the case shut and prevent any non-HP vetted updates. If not, they're lying.
I've had similar sorts of issues with inflexible script monkeys that don't know how to diagnose the simplest problem. I used the Sympatico ISP since they lauched and have had no problems with Linux. A few months back, I was unable to receive mail (although I could send it). I did the usual telneting SMTP tests and found the the SMTP server was no longer accessible but the POP server was. Basically, the problem was on their end. When I explained the problem, they ignored me and asked to to enter the information in Outlook Express. When I said I ran Linux, they told me that Linux wasn't supported and refused to go further or test their own equipment. They said my only solution was that I install Windows and run Outlook Express. I asked to be transfered to someone more knowledgeable, but they refused. I mentioned that their web site stated Mac and other configuration but they refused. I phoned back several times and got the same answer from several other people.
The only way I could get any help was to pretend that I was running Outlook and mentally do the translation to Thunderbird settings. They eventually found the problem on their end and fixed it. My mail worked without me having to change a thing.
Such behavior support not acceptable and should be called out whenever it is found.
Two things. You forgot about the Greek chorus which was tied to theatre, not religion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_chorus
And you've also forgot noneuropean cultures:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_music
That being said, "Music as a service" isn't the first use of music. People sang, just because they liked to. It's a simple as that. It makes hard work (e.g. chain gangs) pass quicker and helps catch small birds (if you're good at immitating them).
The whole concept of "selling music" either as a product or service isn't that old in comparison.
Not really. Ubuntu piggy-backs off of Debian's SID packaging and would be nowhere without Debian. Of course, Ubuntu regularly gives back to Debian, so it's a two way street that benefits both.
What would be good, however, is if Ubuntu and Debian could co-ordinate their releases better. I see absolutely no reason why Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) shouldn't be based off or synced to Debian stable, other than the fact that Debian and Ubuntu don't co-ordinate their releases. If Debian could make regular releases and actually have slushy freezes, soft freezes, and hard freezes months before the expected release date, there's really no reason why Debian stable couldn't be both stable and released regularly. It just requires good project management. With this in place, syncing Debian stable and Ubuntu LTS would just be a matter of mutual agreement.
GM foods aren't necessarily bad. After all, people have been crossbreeding various species of plants and animals for millennia. Crossbreeding is a poor man's GM.
The key thing that distinguishes GM foods from crossbreed foods is that when you crossbreed non-poisonous plant A with non-poisonous plant B, you almost never get poisonous children (although it is possible).
With GM foods, all bets are off. You can do almost anything and if you're not careful, you can produce foods that have significant problems. Worse than that people tend to turn a blind eye to "naturally occurring hormones", so it's not okay if a cow is injected with growth hormone and it's not okay if an Olympic runner injects steroids, but it is okay if the cow naturally produces an elevated amount of growth hormone or the Olympic runner naturally has elevated steroids. (It makes no sense, but that's life). The key problem with GM foods is that they allows us to redefine what is natural and thus sidestep the issue.
Ultimately, the safest way to handle GM foods is to handle them the same way they handle new species of plants/animals. If someone tried to sell a new species of plant that was recently found in the Brazilian rain forest, the FDA would be on their case in a heartbeat. The excuse "it looks like spinach and might actually have evolved from spinach, but includes 100 times more nutrients" wouldn't fly and they certainly couldn't market this thing as spinach (even if it turns out to be perfectly safe and has no undesirable side effects).
> And until a company can determine that there's a big enough audience who would buy a specific distro of linux on a computer they won't make efforts to support them.
Why? You're missing something basic. Let's look at that list: (I've added one item so that Ubuntu has the same options as the others)
Commercial: Novell/SuSE Linux Desktop
Commercial: Red Hat Enterprise Desktop
Community Supported: Fedora
Community Supported: OpenSUSE
Community Supported: Ubuntu
Commercial: Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support)
Since RHEL, SUSE, Ubuntu LTS have are more conservative than Fedora or OpenSUSE or Ubuntu (no nLTS), then if your hardware supports RHEL or SUSE or Ubuntu LTS, it'll automatically support Fedora or OpenSUSE or Ubuntu (no nLTS). Okay, so we have three items on our list.
So far, so good. Since the Linux kernel version number determines what hardware is supported, then if your hardware supports the oldest kernel of RHEL, SUSE, and Ubuntu LTS, there's a very good chance it supports them all.
So out of the list of 6 or so distributions, Dell have a single number to work with (call it kernel 2.6.x). Look at the hardware their selling. If it's supported by 2.6.x, then fine. If not, then they need to replace (or drop) the hardware in favour of something that 2.6.x does support. They could then say "Works with Linux 2.6.x". It's not that difficult, is it?
Now let's take it to the next level. Suppose Dell gave pre-release versions of their hardware to RedHat, Novell, and Canonical in exchange for *their* work in validating the hardware and their certification mark. The only thing Dell would need to do is receive their "hardware compatibility" reports, do the necessary hardware replacements (if any), and offer *certified* RHEL, SUSE, or Ubuntu LTS CDs along with the hardware (that contains no operating system). I'm sure that RedHat, Novell, and Canonical would jump at the offer, especially since if they don't, their competitors will and they'd be locked out of a juicy market. It's good for RedHat, Novell, and Canonical who get better hardware support, and it's good for Dell which gets to tag "Works with Linux 2.6.x", "RHEL Certified", "SUSE Certified", and "Ubuntu LTS Certified" to their product with minimal work.
Now let's take it to the next level -- preinstallation. They could tack on a $20 fee for anyone who wanted "Certified Linux" preinstalled. No tech user would accept this option, but many newbies would. They've just generated an additional source of revenue for something that could be easily automated through imaging. There are tonnes of these value added services that can be used to generate revenue. Dell just needs to spend a few minutes looking at what people need.
> Use how? What if one of the engineers needs a snippet of code, copies it from Spring, and incorporates it into their product without attribution?
This is a valid concern, but it goes deeper than you think. It's been a few years since I programmed for Win32 and MFC, but back then, it was quite common for Windows programmer to google for hacks^H^H^H^H^H solutions to problems or copy code from book CDs to solve problems and to cut and paste them into code. In web programming, it's even more common to look for libraries or snippets that solve a problem rather than reinvent the wheel.
Years of blindly clicking book-long EULAs or online EULAs that change silently on you without your notice have taught people that licenses don't matter and are things to be ignored. Most developers who do this don't seem to be aware of licensing issue and assume that if it's on the internet or if it came with or on a book, then it must be public domain and fair game. In a large number of case, this is not the case, and a stricter license ("you may use this code in non commercial code" or "you may use this code but not modify it" or even "this code is for demonstration purposes only, do not use it") is attached. Shared source muddles the issue further since it leaves you to SCO-like "you looked at the code so anything you write is contaminated" type lawsuits.
This is what managers are really afraid of.
What many managers haven't clued in on is that open source makes managing this concern easier because most open source software falls into 10 or so licenses that can be divided into three or so categories "share quid pro quo" (e.g. GPL), "library quid pro quo alike" (e.g. LGPL), "attribution" (e.g. BSD, MIT). So it should be easy to define a policy for them and provide a mechanism for new licenses to be added. If you enforce the policy to make your developers actually *look* at the license and *care*, there's little reason to fear and reason to be more confident than you aren't accidentally setting yourself for IP lawsuits from *non-open source* publishers since your developers will be avoiding those like the plague in favour of open source software of the appropriate type.
> OpenOffice.org users get interopability with MS Office.
l
The problem is, this translator is "lossy", meaning that any translation will lose information *both ways*:
http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/features.htm
Also, being a translator instead of an exporter means that a double save will have to happen which has it's own set of issues.
> Win-win.
Actually, it's win-lose since it's the appearance of openness without actual openness, so MS Office devotes will be able to claim that no change in status quo is required (after all competition exists so there's no vendor lockin) but no-one will trust ODF translations into OOXML since they will look bad. Another side effect is that people will move away from DOC which has better support universally (through years of reverse engineering) in favour of OOXML (which has poorer universal support) since "XML is the future". Not good.
But if you're going to support OOXML in OpenOffice despite this last comment, a better approach would be an OOXML *exporter*. The key difference between an exporter and a translator is that an exporter has access to a lot more information about the document (the internal application representation of document) and so the exporter can be more accurate than the translator (which could in theory rebuild those data structures, but in practice won't unless OpenOffice and MS Office are refactored so that the creation of the internal data structures from the file system is available through a library) and an exporter will be faster (no double-save, no external tool, no recreation of even minimal internal data structures).
Yes, it is illegal in many countries to leverage your monopoly to gain advantage in other markets, but not in all cases. The anti-competitive laws aren't there to allow companies to make a profit. They're their to ensure that vendor lock-in doesn't happen. That would be very bad for consumers (the "invisible hand" would be tied), and for governments (which would end up having to take orders from companies who could cut them off at any time) and ultimately citizens (since governments would no longer be able to listen to them).
In "ye olden days of some versions of Unix", when you bought a Unix system, everything was unbundled. You'd get Unix which wouldn't do anything. If you wanted a compiler, you'd better make sure that you specified that you wanted a linker too because that wasn't included. If you specified you wanted a linker, you'd better say you wanted an assembler too because that wasn't included. Ditto for debuggers, common libraries, TCP/IP, etc. Each unbundled part would cost extra and you'd be nickle and dimed to death. But even if the cost didn't bother you, the whole "build your system from the ground up and find out what you need after you need it" was maddening. Believe me you don't want to go back to those days and this is one reason why both Linux and Windows have succeeded. They bundle "essential" technology.
Let's look at if from the other perspective, imagine the roles were reversed and Debian were a monopoly and MS Windows was the underdog. Would it be wrong to bundle OpenOffice with Debian? Of course not. OpenOffice doesn't lock you in in any way and gives you choice. If you don't like OpenOffice, you can go for KOffice or Abiword or IBM's office suite or an office suite that specializes in disabilities. You could go to the Mac and open your documents without flinching. The same is true with any other bundled app in Debian. If "Debian became evil", you could switch away from it in a heart-beat or just fork the thing. Consumers have a choice. Governments have a choice. Citizens have a choice. Basically, there isn't a problem with bundling if it's done the right way. As it stands now, bundling MS Office and IE is not the right way since it violates the "no lockin" rule mentioned in my previous post.
Okay, I agree that it's just common courtesy/ethics that that monopolists have to abide by stricter rule, in much the same way that battleships have to abide by stricter navigation rule than kayaks (e.g. a kayak can make a sudden turn with little impact, but a sudden battleship turn would have a wake that could cause serious damage).
However, word processing is considered essential technology these days, in much the same way that TCP/IP and CD burning and desktop searches, and I don't hear many complains about bundling those.
The key difference between MS Windows XP's bundling CD burning/desktop search and bundling MS Office is: the former relies on open technologies (anyone can build a replacement) whereas the latter does not (e.g. DOC/OOXML, VB, OLE, etc) and so competitors need to make a significant investment to reverse engineer them (especially on non Microsoft platforms).
It's that simple.
If the version of MS Office that were bundled with MS Windows:
(1) saved using ODF by default
(2) used open standards for all technologies in preference to Microsoft home grown technologies.
(3) used open languages like Python or an ISO standard like Object Oriented Pascal for scripting instead of Visual Basic
(4) did not include any operating system specific features (e.g. DRM keys that are only known by Microsoft to tie documents to computers)
Then the bundling would *not* be locking anyone into MS Windows and would not prevent competition (e.g. OpenOffice, WordPerfect) from offering word processors that targets audiences that Microsoft doesn't.
The reason Ballmer doesn't say anything is simple. If he did, one or more of three things would happen:
* The code would be immediately rewritten.
* The patent would be challenged and they would likely lose it
* Patent wars between Linux supporters and Microsoft would begin, with the end result that either all the patents would be invalidated or no software would be able to ship or patents would be so massively cross-licensed that they would effectively be meaningless.
By playing coy, Ballmer is actually hurting his case. If he's bluffing, he's basically running a protection racket. He's basically saying we know there's a problem but we're not going to tell you what it is because we want to ambush you in the future.
Neither of these two options are looked too kindly by judges.
And since all Linux projects are done out in the open with full disclosure and most have the policy that "if there is a dispute, we'll rewrite the code" (even Mono has this provision), and is often done by volunteers who want to fill a need (e.g. schools, 3rd world, etc), it would be easy to portray Linux in a favourable light to the judge.
Unfortunately, Novell handed them a source of SCO-like FUD that obscures these issues.
So Novell, here's my request to you. Even if you can't get out of the MS deal, could you cut the knees off of the MS FUD by writing a legal document that states categorically that:
1) The deal is not about patents and if Microsoft believes that the deal is, then it now hereby waves any protection from Microsoft
2) That to the best of Novell's knowledge, Linux is not in violation of any patents.
3) That unless Ballmer states what Linux IP is in place, Novell will have no choice but to file a sue Microsoft on Liable and/or extortion charges.
If Novell did this, and followed through on (3) with the help of other Linux distros if Ballmer doesn't shut up, then the Novell-MS deal FUD would vanish and Novell would regain much of it's previous respect.
Here's the link: (it was posted a bit earlier)o p_architects/2007-February/thread.html
.... But I do think that Linus needs to chill and let the GNOME core developers run the way they want to and accept or postpone (if there's a freeze) or reject his patches as they deem appropriate. If Linus want to contribute to GNOME (I hope he does), he has to do it by GNOME's rules or fork, or pass it on to someone who *is* willing to play by GNOME's rules (I'd be surprised if there weren't are more than a few developers and distros who would be willing to work as intermediary between Linus and GNOME). That's the way open source works.
http://lists.linux-foundation.org/pipermail/deskt
Basically, Linus wants to have fine grained control over what the mouse buttons do.
Sounds like a simple request, but he doesn't reveal it until *after* he submits a patch and in that same email goes on to rant about how no-one listens to him and how GNOME developers make excuses instead of just doing whatever he wants. In a later email he comments that he sent the patches to a developer's only email address (that he admits may or may not have been able to see his patches) because he doesn't like bugzilla and says that the patches must be accepted or GNOME developers are a bunch of hypocrites even though an API freeze is in effect for about a month ( http://live.gnome.org/TwoPointSeventeen ).
Personally, I find it a bit interesting that Linus has repeatedly flamed (or sidelined) people on the Linux kernel mailing list for acting like he is now, not following the kernel submission procedure, assuming that freezes don't count, and assuming that if the core architects of the Linux kernel think that a feature (done in a certain way) is a bad idea then they must be a bunch of hypocrites.
I personally don't know if the patches are any good or in keeping with GNOME's design or need changes or
It's not unreasonable to expect this. GNOME core developers don't go on the Linux kernel thread and whine and submit attitude patches to Linus, 'tho if they did, they would (and should) be flamed. Linus has said repeatedly on the kernel mailing lists that submitters must either follow the kernel rules, or fork (e.g. if you don't like the license), or pass on your patches to someone who is willing to do things that kernel developer's way (none of Reiser's patches would have gone if it weren't for this later option).
Are there problems with the GNOME way of doing things? Sure. Linus brought up a good point about the ease of submitting patches. But all projects have issues. There was a time, not too long ago, when the submission process for the Linux kernel was "send Linus your patches and if he doesn't respond then keep resending them because the patches might have gotten lost". But the issues won't get better if you complain to the wrong people.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Here's two ideas that's more important than any of those suggestions. Either one should help get rid of the patent troll problem.
1) If I *independently* came up with a software/business patent, then I don't have to pay the patent fees.
2) If I *independently* came up with a software/business patent, then the patent should be revoked since it is either obvious or derivable by an expert in the field without the help of the patent.
Personally, I prefer option (2) since it ensures that a patent is alive only as long as it's valuable.
If an idea is so revolutionary that no-one else would be able to re-invent it for 100 years, so people *have* to look at your patent, then perhaps the idea *should* be patentable.
If however, you come up with a revolutionary idea but it's quickly independently rediscovered elsewhere (e.g. quantum mechanics, the air plane, the phone, etc) then you don't deserve the patent. The time was simply right for the idea and you were just the one to take credit first.
For all patent supporters, here's a simple question:
- *How* would software and business patents encourage innovation?
Seriously. How many of you try to get ideas by looking at a patent database?
*crickets chirping*
Okay. I'm sure some of you have tried looking at published patent applications, just for kicks or because it's your job. Of the people who have, how would you describe the software/business patent application?
1) It's easy to understand and provides enough details to implement the patent.
2) It's ambigious and/or overly broad and/or obvious and/or incomprehensible?
Did anyone pick (1)?
*three hands out of a googleplex*
Okay. How many of you have *independently* come up with an idea that you later (by accident or because a patent lawyer told you) found out was patented? (e.g. 1-click patent, multimedia patent, etc).
If you've written code and heard *any* patent news, the answer is probably 100%.
How many of you actively try to *avoid* looking at the patent database since "ignorance is bliss" and "if you claim ignorance, the judge might be merciful"?
*all kernel developers, Mono Developers, etc raise their hands*
If I *independently* coming up with an idea, is there any fair reason why I could pay someone else because they paid to document (however vaguely) the idea?
*crickets chirping*
So how again do patents help spur innovation instead of bury it in legal red tape?
"Dr. Plunkett was under contract with the DuPont Company and was doing research on methods of creating non-toxic refrigerants that would have very specialized uses; however, upon beginning his original experiment he realized that he had a problem . When he went to open the tank of gaseous tetrafluoroethylene, no gas came out of the cylinder; instead the only thing that came from this was a great curiosity . What perplexed Plunkett was that the weight of the tank indicated that there should be a given amount of the fluorocarbon present in the tank, and that it simply hadn't leaked out. This puzzled Plunkett and caused him to investigate what was actually still in the "empty" tank; however, it was not until he sawed the tank open that he realized what had taken place. Inside the tank he found a white, waxy powder and concluded that these individual gas molecules had bonded together to form this incredible solid, teflon, that had some very promising chemical properties."
t /website/Serendipity.htm
Source: http://users.wfu.edu/starbt5/Serendipity%20Projec
> You have web applications that rely on IE in order to work. This solution will NEVER solve that problem.
What you don't mention is that many of those apps have to be recorded to work with IE 7. If your depends on idiosyncrasies that exist in (undocumented, but widely used) IE6 instead of (documented) WW3 standards, don't be surprised when things don't work quite as you expect in succeeding versions of IE. If you don't follow good practices and use a good platform independent web API (both HTML and Javascript) for all your web apps, there's nothing anyone can do for you. Supporting WW3 HTML and Javascript isn't that hard.
In this case, blaming Microsoft for this (assuming the claims are real) is not shooting the messenger.
Microsoft refuses to reveal which code is infringing so that it could either be rewritten or (more likely) have the patent struck down due to prior art.
They're basically saying "You did something wrong but I'm not telling you what you did and you have to make up for it or else.". This is just plain extortion and should be dealt with as such.
As the old saying goes, when messenger is the message it's okay to shoot the messenger.
It's not always possible. Sometimes websites use IE-specific features like VBScript or ActiveX or other IE-specific features (or bugs) as a test.
I agree that reading books are a lot easier than reading on the screen and bound books have a tangible and practical quality that you just don't get from ebooks.
That being said, electronic ink had made quite a number of advances and flash memory and electronics continues to get smaller and smaller.
I'd be surprised if, within a decade, we didn't have some form of electronic book that resembled a physical book except that you could download any contents you wanted to on the pages. This would give you the convenience and lightness of a regular book but provide you with the ability to carry a whole library in your pocket.
I don't know if Edubuntu follows Ubuntu lead, but Ubuntu includes a subset of "The Open CD" set of utilities that's visible when you load the CD from Windows. (try it)
This gives you the best of both worlds -- Windows versions of open source programs plus a good education-oriented Linux distro if one decides to experiment with Linux.
If they don't want to promote Linux, they should likely stick to theOpenCD (http://www.theopencd.org/) since it's already done the hard work of picking a good set of Windows compatible open source that's actually useful.
Personally, I'd be surprised if someone didn't write a "make your software appear pirated and put a pop-up that says 'you won't be in this mess if you used product X'" virus that forces all crippleware to go into reduced functionality mode and endorses a product.
Agreed, I don't think this feature will become too popular. It's just too tempting a target for the black hats if it does.
But you're missing a key point. Most of FSG standards are implemented on BSD, MacOSX/Darwin, and Solaris too and many can be migrated to Windows too. By labeling this as "Linux", it's essentially saying that all others need not apply unless they do things the Linux way.
Personally, I hoped that FSG as going to involve into "POSIX Next Generation". I'm not sure this merger helps this or hurts this yet, but at the very least, I suspect it weakens the trademark of Linux to mean "Linux compatible technology" instead of the "Linux OS".
You're missing something subtle. Ubuntu-studio is a metapackage, just like Kubuntu and Xubuntu. You can install Kubuntu *after* installing ubuntu by installing "kubuntu-desktop" and you can do this for Xubuntu too. If Ubuntu-studio is planned properly, it should be just as easy to install the Ubuntu-studio desktop.
Basically, it's the best of both world.
The problem is, both these groups have shortcut support (and some basic accessibility support for some disabilities) support when they use Windows (and to some extend Ubuntu) out of the box *without special tailoring*.
And because, keyboard binds are hidden off to the side, they're generally an afterthought (tacked on the last minute without rhyme or reason) -- the way usability is an afterthought on the Windows platform (or Linux 5 years ago).
I also disagree that for a *general purpose PC* the expectation should be that if you have a disability you must spend a lot of time tailoring -- if something can be done by the distribution (NB: I consider Windows and Mac to be OS distributions too). Nothing yet can be done about requiring training for voice recognition ("Dear Aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all."), but out of the box easy support for keyboard shortcuts, magnifying classes, and ready made themes that have been tested is just too basic to ignore. I don't know about Vista, but Ubuntu at least supports all of these out of the box including 6 pre-installed accessibility themes (High Contrast, High Contrast Inverse, High Contrast Large Print, High Contrast Inverse Large Print, Low Contrast, Low Contrast Large Print).
> If you're the sort of person who wants to use keyboard shortcuts then you're the sort of person who's able to go to the preferences and activate them.
Are you sure about? How about people who are blind or have mobility problems? And how about touch typist secretaries?
Keyboard shortcuts aren't some "guru feature", their a natural part of a well designed accessible interface.
I'm really surprised by this. I thought Apple learned its lessons years ago when they added "Apple key short cuts" to their menus by default. At least I thought they were on by default (I don't own a Mac, I've just occasionally used one for testing for cross platform support at work).