So what version of Red Hat are you using? Severn. Seven? No, Severn. You need 9. I am using 9. You said Seven! No, I said Severn. Severn is a version of Nine. Click.
What's the next version going to be called - Sicks? Hey chaps, here are some more great ideas for names: Fayiv, Fower, Thur-hee, Tahoo, Wun, Zilch, Miner Swan.
Sounds like you're looking at the text but not reading/understanding it. There are some ambiguities, but not nearly as many as your post makes out. Taking the numbers one by one:
100+ concurrent requests: that's fairly clear, except for "what exactly is meant by request?" - query, transaction, update etc? But your complaint is about the numbers, not the words. This number doesn't need a unit.
2-4 CPU box: A box with between 2 and 4 CPUs in it (inclusive).
10 dual CPU systems: 10 boxes with 2 CPUs in each. Perhaps a beowulf cluster?!!!
20K budgeted for the year: First genuine ambiguity. Perhaps he has been reading H2G2 and means leaves. Or maybe this company uses bananas for currency? If we assume a currency, it's not likely to be lira, that would be about $5. Generally Americans who post to a world-wide system assume only Americans will read it, so this probably means dollars.
50K on a server for small companies is a huge investment: Again this could be lira but any company that considers $11 a huge investment for a computer has larger problems to solve before it starts thinking about computers. 50,000 bananas would take some shifting/scoffing though...
5 cheap systems for 3K each: Context suggests this means 5 computers for $3000 each. If you think this is ambiguous, what other possibilities are there? 5 computers for 15000 bananas, possibly.
7 months: the unit is "months."
60 concurrent requests: again 60 is a scalar value here and needs no units.
200 concurrent requests: ditto.
spend 6 million on a 64 CPU box: 6,000,000 bananas, wow. 64 looks like a scalar again.
spend more than 30-50K on a server: Probably currency again. The clue is in the word "spend." Ok, you can spend time as well, so perhaps that's 30-50k minutes, and the server is connected to/., which might explain why they can only afford $5 for a new computer.
static ASP/HTML...throughput...150-200: yes, possible ambiguity here. The OP could mean 150-200 simultaneous pages, or 150-200 pages per time period. Webserver performance is usually measured in pages/time though rather than concurrency. Regardless of what he actually means though he is comparing the performance of static ASP/HTML pages with webservice pages and notes a 90% drop in throughput. I presume you know what a 2.6GHz system is (if you don't, what are you doing here?).
Yes, but don't forget according to the USPTO anything obvious, well known for decades etc, when augmented with the text "with a computer" makes an entirely new invention that is worthy of a patent and not at all obvious to anybody. I'm surprised they haven't already got a patent on it.
Foreign friend: (something foreign) Me, to translator: what'd he say? Translator: (something foreign, in English)
With me so far? Just about everyone who's met anyone foreign will have been through this process.
Now here's the magic. Add the words "on a computer", and there you have a patent!
Time for an "Obvious prior art" site, where we can all submit really obvious ideas, plus "on a computer", then next time someone tries to patent a method to scratch your butt using a computer or something we can LART the USPTO with it.
Here are some more ideas:
Automatic translation of email using a computer. Automatic translation of ICQ messages using a computer. Automatic translation of chatroom using a computer. Farting using a computer. Driving a fucking car using a computer. Typing in stupid patent ideas comprising obvious idea plus "on a computer" on a computer. LARTing the USPTO with a computer. Using a computer with a computer. Watching the goggle box with a computer. Blowing your nose with a computer. Rewinding a video tape using a computer. Putting a Trinity poster on the fireplace using a computer.
No idea. Alice is admittedly fairly universal, so perhaps I should know. But I don't.
- Who's the boss of the strip of land south of Canada?
Took me a while to realise you meant the USA. It's a bit big to be called a "strip of land." Theoretically it's a democracy, so the answer is "the people", right? Or were you looking for "George 'Duh-bleyou' Bush"?
- To gain access to this site,
please identify,
the type of verse this text is.
Not something I knew until recently. Common knowledge to/.ers possibly, but not everyone.
- What would be an appropriate response to "Knock, knock"?
"Get stuffed."
- What's the air speed velocity of a coconut-laden swallow?
The term is irrelevant to such a swallow that is not already airborne. Therefore the answer depends on how it was launched and whether or not it's wearing a parachute.
Even better would be questions without fixed answers:
- What's your name spelled backwards?
Eman ruoy. Sorry, did I misunderstand the question? Perhaps you meant namzaj. Or Evad. What do you mean by "name?" What if my name is J. Michael? Would you be looking for "leahciM.J"?
- Who won yesterday's baseball match between the Mariners and the Mets?
I'll answer this if you can tell me who won the last match between Queens Park Rangers and Bolton Wanderers.
- How many points did NASDAQ rise or fall yesterday?
Ditto the above answer for FTSE.
- What's tomorrow's date? Please reply in the form "February 13, 2003"?
Right-to-left languages, anyone? What about Chinese?
None of these questions prove you are human, only that you have specific knowledge and can second guess what the automatic answer checking routine is looking for. If my answers prove I'm human, how is a computer ever going to grade me?
Well, standard, default, whatever. As I said it's a long time since I did any SCSI, but I do remember the installer couldn't find the hard drive without being told exactly where it was.
(Likewise: I'm not saying I'm right about the SCSI stuff, only about the shitty installer piece of crap:-)
I used it in 1996. I had just installed Linux on one PC and it all went in ok, and I was configuring the network etc without really thinking about it.
Then I had the misfortune to install SCO on a SCSI equipped PC. The hard disk was at the standard SCSI location (2? can't remember - don't do much SCSI stuff.) and the SCO installer couldn't find it without being explicitly told where it was. Then it couldn't find the tape drive, which again was at the standard SCSI location for tape drives.
Remember, Linux had just autodetected everything without even a fuss. "What's this shit?" was my impression of SCO Unix.
Actually this doesn't seem like such a bad idea. The *AA suck, ok, so let's all patent just about anything you can do with anything they produce (don't forget the key phrase "implemented on a computer" to stop people going "huh? that's just a business process").
Then when they try to do anything with anything they produce, they can be sued out of existence.
Never mind that stuff about decaffeinated coffee. What about weaning people onto deSCOffeinated Slashdot once this is all over? There'll be millions of geeks worldwide going "need..... SCO...... news......." and shaking.
The ISC strongly supports the development and adoption of all kinds of software â" OSS, hybrid and proprietary. All models have a place in the highly competitive software market. Only in this manner, through vibrant and open competition, does the whole of the market thrive, and consumers â" both public and private â" reap tremendous benefits.
Standing in stark contrast to open competition are state-mandated software preferences. These âoepreferenceâ policies strip merit out of the process by using access to source code as a proxy for ICT project success.
End quote. So all they're saying is: don't limit your choices to OSS. What they're saying is no different from what we'd say if Oz.Gov decided only to buy MS software.
Oz.Gov could easily comply with this, and simultaneously come up with a fairer method of choosing software, by simply requiring projects that need software to evaluate the cost/benefit ratio of all (or at least several) possibilities. They could require this to include at least one OSS alternative, or to balance the number of OSS solutions with the number of CSS solutions considered, with no loss of fairness. Cost of OSS is not zero, and the cost of the specialist Linux admin you have to hire needs to be considered against the easier to use Windows box that just about anyone can use. Hiring a programmer to implement the changes you need also needs to be considered against negotiation of a support deal that gets the features needed implemented by the closed source vendor. Then there's the risk factor - a support contract is perpetual, but if your specialist Linux/OSS techie quits or encounters the proverbial bus you're in a big hole.
Not everyone is a wannabe Linux hacker; those with business goals rather than tech goals need to make business decisions, not tech decisions.
Unless you're in 4 wheel drive mode you should be ok. Your drive wheels will show you doing 95. The other two wheels, if connected to the EDR, will show you doing 55 if going in a straight line, less (55*cos(angle)?) if you're not. This would prove your drive wheels have lost grip and are spinning uselessly, and that your car couldn't in fact have been doing 95. Tyre temperature sensors and wheel position indicators would also show that you were in a skid as opposed, for instance, to doing a rolling burnout.
It's another of those things that's different just because it's the internet. Would we even be having this discussion about the local sex shop visiting the infant school to sell penis pumps and breast enlargers? No - because it wouldn't even happen. And if it did you could bet the sellers would do jail time. So why should it be different just because it's the internet? Dear ima2yearold@kids.com, get a bigger penis! Dear spammer, goto jail, do not pass Go, do not collect £200.
Um, so what you're saying is that when America does space stuff, it's good for the world, but when Europe does space stuff, that's "conflict across the Atlantic?" How's that work then?
Not intending to troll but that "conflict" thing does seem like an odd conclusion. Are Europeans now terrorists? How about a bit more reasoning, rather than just saying "Europe? Space? WAR!!!!!"
> It is many different sections of code ranging from five to 10 to 15 lines of code in multiple places that are of issue
Cool. Anyone got any Windows source code, or BeOS, or in fact *anything* that was developed indepedently from Linux? Can that be compared with the Linux kernel code, so see if "sections of code ranging from 5 to 10 to 15 lines of code in multiple places" match? Can anyone suggest a tool (no, not SCO) that can do that sort of comparison? I have a couple of >10KSLOC projects kicking around somewhere...
Their rapidly plummeting share price is most amusing. Can anyone else say "Neeeowww, SPLAT!"
I propose a new standard of weight, called the Freedom-ogram, which is the weight of a French president's head on a silver platter. Which would of course be stored in New York. That'd show those cheese-eating surrender monkeys!
My system is much less technologically advanced. Since Sky insist on padding all the advert breaks out to the maximum 5 minutes (three per hour exceeds their legal maximum of 9 minutes per hour but despite a direct complaint to the watchdog they did nothing) and my video fast forwards at a very predictable rate, all I do is record everything I want to watch, then when the ads come on, hit FF, look away, count 20, then hit Play just as the program starts, with a very high degree of accuracy. Plus I get the health benefits of focussing on something else for 60 seconds per hour!
This may be a bit simplistic, but since SCO and IBM both release Linux under the GPL, and assuming the code claimed as SCO IP is in the IBM source and not in the SCO source, then a diff between the source trees should reveal the IP code?
Ok, potentially this is a huge job. But it should be worth trying. It would be most amusing if there is a version of SCO and a version of IBM for which diff says "no difference." Files not related to the suit can be dismissed - there's no need to diff the versions, for instance, of gcc, the scsi module, etc, so the scope of this job can be reduced significantly.
Finally for each potentially infringing source file just split the job out to all slashdotters (IBM might even lend a hand), SETI-style. With suitable checks and balances, the existence or otherwise of the IP code can be established whether or not SCO wish to release details.
Let me see, I had been programming for about a year or so when I wrote an interest-generating bank account program for my C64 for use during a game of Monopoly (heh). Each time you wanted to select an account, you press the first letter of the name, and if it was unique you got the full account name. If not, it just waited until it had a unique string. If a 15 year old programmer can sort out autocompletion, for himself, without prompting from anybody, after only a few months of programming, how can anybody possibly argue this is non-obvious to a practitioner (a requirement for a patent)?
Yes, I confess, it was a deliberate mistake. I'm glad it had the required effect:-) Um, aren't you supposed to snort coke the other way? Oh hang on, you're probably talking about cola... Tried looking at your website but it seems to have croaked.
Slashdot Mirror
yep, i totally missed the obvious joke on Severn of Nine. Must watch more Voyager...hmm...tight grey jumpsuits...drool...
So what version of Red Hat are you using?
Severn.
Seven?
No, Severn.
You need 9.
I am using 9.
You said Seven!
No, I said Severn. Severn is a version of Nine.
Click.
What's the next version going to be called - Sicks? Hey chaps, here are some more great ideas for names: Fayiv, Fower, Thur-hee, Tahoo, Wun, Zilch, Miner Swan.
Sounds like you're looking at the text but not reading/understanding it. There are some ambiguities, but not nearly as many as your post makes out. Taking the numbers one by one:
/., which might explain why they can only afford $5 for a new computer.
100+ concurrent requests: that's fairly clear, except for "what exactly is meant by request?" - query, transaction, update etc? But your complaint is about the numbers, not the words. This number doesn't need a unit.
2-4 CPU box: A box with between 2 and 4 CPUs in it (inclusive).
10 dual CPU systems: 10 boxes with 2 CPUs in each. Perhaps a beowulf cluster?!!!
20K budgeted for the year: First genuine ambiguity. Perhaps he has been reading H2G2 and means leaves. Or maybe this company uses bananas for currency? If we assume a currency, it's not likely to be lira, that would be about $5. Generally Americans who post to a world-wide system assume only Americans will read it, so this probably means dollars.
50K on a server for small companies is a huge investment: Again this could be lira but any company that considers $11 a huge investment for a computer has larger problems to solve before it starts thinking about computers. 50,000 bananas would take some shifting/scoffing though...
5 cheap systems for 3K each: Context suggests this means 5 computers for $3000 each. If you think this is ambiguous, what other possibilities are there? 5 computers for 15000 bananas, possibly.
7 months: the unit is "months."
60 concurrent requests: again 60 is a scalar value here and needs no units.
200 concurrent requests: ditto.
spend 6 million on a 64 CPU box: 6,000,000 bananas, wow. 64 looks like a scalar again.
spend more than 30-50K on a server: Probably currency again. The clue is in the word "spend." Ok, you can spend time as well, so perhaps that's 30-50k minutes, and the server is connected to
static ASP/HTML...throughput...150-200: yes, possible ambiguity here. The OP could mean 150-200 simultaneous pages, or 150-200 pages per time period. Webserver performance is usually measured in pages/time though rather than concurrency. Regardless of what he actually means though he is comparing the performance of static ASP/HTML pages with webservice pages and notes a 90% drop in throughput. I presume you know what a 2.6GHz system is (if you don't, what are you doing here?).
Yes, but don't forget according to the USPTO anything obvious, well known for decades etc, when augmented with the text "with a computer" makes an entirely new invention that is worthy of a patent and not at all obvious to anybody. I'm surprised they haven't already got a patent on it.
This seems to be what people are doing now.
Foreign friend: (something foreign)
Me, to translator: what'd he say?
Translator: (something foreign, in English)
With me so far? Just about everyone who's met anyone foreign will have been through this process.
Now here's the magic. Add the words "on a computer", and there you have a patent!
Time for an "Obvious prior art" site, where we can all submit really obvious ideas, plus "on a computer", then next time someone tries to patent a method to scratch your butt using a computer or something we can LART the USPTO with it.
Here are some more ideas:
Automatic translation of email using a computer.
Automatic translation of ICQ messages using a computer.
Automatic translation of chatroom using a computer.
Farting using a computer.
Driving a fucking car using a computer.
Typing in stupid patent ideas comprising obvious idea plus "on a computer" on a computer.
LARTing the USPTO with a computer.
Using a computer with a computer.
Watching the goggle box with a computer.
Blowing your nose with a computer.
Rewinding a video tape using a computer.
Putting a Trinity poster on the fireplace using a computer.
- In Alice in Wonderland, Alice fell down into a?
/.ers possibly, but not everyone.
.J"?
No idea. Alice is admittedly fairly universal, so perhaps I should know. But I don't.
- Who's the boss of the strip of land south of Canada?
Took me a while to realise you meant the USA. It's a bit big to be called a "strip of land." Theoretically it's a democracy, so the answer is "the people", right? Or were you looking for "George 'Duh-bleyou' Bush"?
- To gain access to this site,
please identify,
the type of verse this text is.
Not something I knew until recently. Common knowledge to
- What would be an appropriate response to "Knock, knock"?
"Get stuffed."
- What's the air speed velocity of a coconut-laden swallow?
The term is irrelevant to such a swallow that is not already airborne. Therefore the answer depends on how it was launched and whether or not it's wearing a parachute.
Even better would be questions without fixed answers:
- What's your name spelled backwards?
Eman ruoy. Sorry, did I misunderstand the question? Perhaps you meant namzaj. Or Evad. What do you mean by "name?" What if my name is J. Michael? Would you be looking for "leahciM
- Who won yesterday's baseball match between the Mariners and the Mets?
I'll answer this if you can tell me who won the last match between Queens Park Rangers and Bolton Wanderers.
- How many points did NASDAQ rise or fall yesterday?
Ditto the above answer for FTSE.
- What's tomorrow's date? Please reply in the form "February 13, 2003"?
Right-to-left languages, anyone? What about Chinese?
None of these questions prove you are human, only that you have specific knowledge and can second guess what the automatic answer checking routine is looking for. If my answers prove I'm human, how is a computer ever going to grade me?
Well, standard, default, whatever. As I said it's a long time since I did any SCSI, but I do remember the installer couldn't find the hard drive without being told exactly where it was.
:-)
(Likewise: I'm not saying I'm right about the SCSI stuff, only about the shitty installer piece of crap
0, 1, 2, lazy-8.
Roots of the equation x(x-1)(x-2)/e^x.
"Software Images' account manager Dean Baker...backtracked, saying there may be an issue due to a "replication agreement" with Microsoft."
So they're in bed with MS, that's why they don't want to promote Linux. The SCO FUD is just an excuse; they just don't want to upset MS.
Still, we all know what happens to companies that get in bed with MS. Eventually MS f**ks them.
I used it in 1996. I had just installed Linux on one PC and it all went in ok, and I was configuring the network etc without really thinking about it.
Then I had the misfortune to install SCO on a SCSI equipped PC. The hard disk was at the standard SCSI location (2? can't remember - don't do much SCSI stuff.) and the SCO installer couldn't find it without being explicitly told where it was. Then it couldn't find the tape drive, which again was at the standard SCSI location for tape drives.
Remember, Linux had just autodetected everything without even a fuss. "What's this shit?" was my impression of SCO Unix.
Actually this doesn't seem like such a bad idea.
The *AA suck, ok, so let's all patent just about anything you can do with anything they produce (don't forget the key phrase "implemented on a computer" to stop people going "huh? that's just a business process").
Then when they try to do anything with anything they produce, they can be sued out of existence.
heh. The other thought I had after posting was that I should change my sig to:
My God! It's full of SCO!
The current:
Never mind that stuff about decaffeinated coffee. What about weaning people onto deSCOffeinated Slashdot once this is all over? There'll be millions of geeks worldwide going "need..... SCO...... news......." and shaking.
From DearSouthAustraliaRann.pdf:
The ISC strongly supports the development and adoption of all kinds of software â" OSS, hybrid and proprietary. All models have a place in the highly competitive software market. Only in this manner, through vibrant and open competition, does the whole of the market thrive, and consumers â" both public and private â" reap tremendous benefits.
Standing in stark contrast to open competition are state-mandated software preferences. These âoepreferenceâ policies strip merit out of the process by using access to source code as a proxy for ICT project success.
End quote. So all they're saying is: don't limit your choices to OSS. What they're saying is no different from what we'd say if Oz.Gov decided only to buy MS software.
Oz.Gov could easily comply with this, and simultaneously come up with a fairer method of choosing software, by simply requiring projects that need software to evaluate the cost/benefit ratio of all (or at least several) possibilities. They could require this to include at least one OSS alternative, or to balance the number of OSS solutions with the number of CSS solutions considered, with no loss of fairness. Cost of OSS is not zero, and the cost of the specialist Linux admin you have to hire needs to be considered against the easier to use Windows box that just about anyone can use. Hiring a programmer to implement the changes you need also needs to be considered against negotiation of a support deal that gets the features needed implemented by the closed source vendor. Then there's the risk factor - a support contract is perpetual, but if your specialist Linux/OSS techie quits or encounters the proverbial bus you're in a big hole.
Not everyone is a wannabe Linux hacker; those with business goals rather than tech goals need to make business decisions, not tech decisions.
Unless you're in 4 wheel drive mode you should be ok. Your drive wheels will show you doing 95. The other two wheels, if connected to the EDR, will show you doing 55 if going in a straight line, less (55*cos(angle)?) if you're not. This would prove your drive wheels have lost grip and are spinning uselessly, and that your car couldn't in fact have been doing 95. Tyre temperature sensors and wheel position indicators would also show that you were in a skid as opposed, for instance, to doing a rolling burnout.
It's another of those things that's different just because it's the internet. Would we even be having this discussion about the local sex shop visiting the infant school to sell penis pumps and breast enlargers? No - because it wouldn't even happen. And if it did you could bet the sellers would do jail time. So why should it be different just because it's the internet? Dear ima2yearold@kids.com, get a bigger penis! Dear spammer, goto jail, do not pass Go, do not collect £200.
Um, so what you're saying is that when America does space stuff, it's good for the world, but when Europe does space stuff, that's "conflict across the Atlantic?" How's that work then?
Not intending to troll but that "conflict" thing does seem like an odd conclusion. Are Europeans now terrorists? How about a bit more reasoning, rather than just saying "Europe? Space? WAR!!!!!"
> It is many different sections of code ranging from five to 10 to 15 lines of code in multiple places that are of issue
Cool. Anyone got any Windows source code, or BeOS, or in fact *anything* that was developed indepedently from Linux? Can that be compared with the Linux kernel code, so see if "sections of code ranging from 5 to 10 to 15 lines of code in multiple places" match? Can anyone suggest a tool (no, not SCO) that can do that sort of comparison? I have a couple of >10KSLOC projects kicking around somewhere...
Their rapidly plummeting share price is most amusing. Can anyone else say "Neeeowww, SPLAT!"
I propose a new standard of weight, called the Freedom-ogram, which is the weight of a French president's head on a silver platter. Which would of course be stored in New York. That'd show those cheese-eating surrender monkeys!
My system is much less technologically advanced. Since Sky insist on padding all the advert breaks out to the maximum 5 minutes (three per hour exceeds their legal maximum of 9 minutes per hour but despite a direct complaint to the watchdog they did nothing) and my video fast forwards at a very predictable rate, all I do is record everything I want to watch, then when the ads come on, hit FF, look away, count 20, then hit Play just as the program starts, with a very high degree of accuracy. Plus I get the health benefits of focussing on something else for 60 seconds per hour!
This may be a bit simplistic, but since SCO and IBM both release Linux under the GPL, and assuming the code claimed as SCO IP is in the IBM source and not in the SCO source, then a diff between the source trees should reveal the IP code?
Ok, potentially this is a huge job. But it should be worth trying. It would be most amusing if there is a version of SCO and a version of IBM for which diff says "no difference." Files not related to the suit can be dismissed - there's no need to diff the versions, for instance, of gcc, the scsi module, etc, so the scope of this job can be reduced significantly.
Finally for each potentially infringing source file just split the job out to all slashdotters (IBM might even lend a hand), SETI-style. With suitable checks and balances, the existence or otherwise of the IP code can be established whether or not SCO wish to release details.
...for those at work who open it, think "can't be bothered to try that one", then go off and get a coffee.
:-(
Guess who else that just happenned to
> Sure, the spam ads are pesky and take time to DL and delete, but they really aren't that intrustive or obnoxious.
Good for you! It's cool not to get shitty spams.
I got a worrying pair of spams the other day:
- It's Mother's Day soon!
- Give Her Something Bigger
Now say what you will about spam, but my name's definitely not Ed...
Let me see, I had been programming for about a year or so when I wrote an interest-generating bank account program for my C64 for use during a game of Monopoly (heh). Each time you wanted to select an account, you press the first letter of the name, and if it was unique you got the full account name. If not, it just waited until it had a unique string. If a 15 year old programmer can sort out autocompletion, for himself, without prompting from anybody, after only a few months of programming, how can anybody possibly argue this is non-obvious to a practitioner (a requirement for a patent)?
Yes, I confess, it was a deliberate mistake. I'm glad it had the required effect :-) Um, aren't you supposed to snort coke the other way? Oh hang on, you're probably talking about cola...
Tried looking at your website but it seems to have croaked.