The case I'm thinking of was about reselling shrink-wrap software, and IIRC the judge entirely sidestepped the validity of the EULA which prohibited it by ruling that even if valid it wouldn't apply in this case. Wish I could remember the details, can't seem to find the case searching for it now.
Keep in mind, of course, that with larger organisations and site licenses there are valid contracts, signed sealed and delivered, this is only an issue when you go to the store and buy a copy yourself.
They don't own any of the patents that could apply here though, and even if they do succeed in their mail-fraud plan, that doesn't prove anything to a judge.
You're assuming that there actually is code belonging to SCO there. That doesn't seem to be the case - certainly all evidence is negative, and this latest paper from their lawyers seems to confirm it. They now appear to be claiming that the code in question is not SysV code at all, it's AIX code that by their selective reading of the contracts is still supposed to be kept confidential by IBM, even though they own it. Which, of course, contradicts completely a lot of their past public statements, but those haven't been consistent from day one either.
The case is in discovery and IBM had asked for exactly what lines of code SCO is saying they stole from SysV and put into Linux. When SCO wouldn't show the code IBM filed a motion to force them to submit it. This is SCO's reponse to that motion saying the motion needs to be denied because they are waiting for IBM to show them what parts of Linux came from SysV.
Actually, if you read the thing carefully, I think what they're really saying is that it's not a matter of anything copied from SysV, but rather of copying of code and 'ways of doing things' from AIX and the AIX development team that didn't come from SysV. It seems their new theory (their theory of this case does seem to change every other statement) is that what IBM did wrong was to bring stuff from AIX to Linux, and that even though they don't have a copy of AIX to check, they nonetheless legally control all of AIX as a derivative work of SysV.
The original contract actually does seem to read that way, but IBM has long had amendments that clearly say that what they've added on their own is theres and, more importantly, they can do anything they want to with it. (It would be possible for them to own it but still have contractual limitations on how they use it, without the amendments that would probably be the case.) Now this line of argument has long been anticipated, but the amendments clearly KO that line of argument so no one really expected them to have a chance with it - all they can do is stall a bit more while they sell off stock and try to get McBride his bonus. But the interesting thing here is that they're now saying the Sequent contracts are important - those contracts don't have the same amendments and it looks like they're going to try and hold IBM to those, rather than to IBMs own contract. Still quite loopy, really, I can't imagine a Judge ruling that because IBM paid for the license twice they have less right over their own technology than they would have if they'd only paid once, but so far it does seem to be their best line of attack, and if you read the memorandum closely that does seem to be where they're going.
Of course you're right. A ruling that the GPL was unenforceable would be as legally absurd as... a ruling that shrink-wrap EULAs are binding contracts, for instance. It's silly, and frivolous, and unfortunately the way the US Justice system seems to be going it just might happen if someone with enough money and connections wanted it to happen.
Which is why the guy you're responding to is right as well. It wouldn't be a good thing for this case to just be dismissed. All signs are pointing to that being exactly what SCO is trying to do in fact. If the case is dismissed they can keep slinging FUD and drag this circus out even longer. Which is why IBM won't let that happen. The countersuit should prevent it, and they're countersuing on several issues, including the GPL. Even though there is clearly no legitimate grounds to suspect the legal enforceability of the GPL, I still think getting a good solid ruling here that can be cited as precedent could be a great thing, a hedge against a possible future where all the money is lined up against it, where there is no longer anyone like IBM with deep pockets and hordes of lawyers to make the case and spare no expense doing it.
If you're 'somewhat new' to Linux, then you should probably ignore it. Upgrading your kernel to a release candidate ("test") version isn't recommended unless you know what you're doing and you want to help test it.
Just wait for your distro to pick it up in a few months, after the testing is done.
Re:Does adding every ingredient make it better?
on
C# 2.0 Spec Released
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· Score: 1
C is a low level language and makes no bones about it being such.
/me rolls on the floor laughing, beer spurting from my nostrils.
Java is almost as bad. The only reason it's not as bad is because Sun is more afraid of pissing developers off than MS is, and has made quite a few concessions as a result.
Re:Who gives a shit about the ECMA?
on
C# 2.0 Spec Released
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Have things changed so much that we can trust Microsoft and its "standards body" largely consisting of companies dependent on Microsoft to keep all extensions to this "standard" in the open and available to all players?
Of course not.
But those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it.
Not a lawyer, a psycho-linguist actually. I've always found law fascinating though, and pay a lot of attention to it.
What in particular are the precedents you are worried about? I am not aware of any precedent that really says they are legit, the closest I can think of is one that sidestepped that issue almost entirely.
It doesn't matter. The only thing that says that clicking the button that says 'agree' on it to get the software you bought and paid for to work means you agree to the EULA is the EULA itself. If you don't agree, it means nothing. Even if you do agree, it doesn't look like a valid contract anyway - what consideration is there in it? You lose, lose, lose, you gain nothing. So it's simple. Don't agree. End of story.
In order to form a contract, there are several necessary elements that are lacking here. There must be an agreement. From reading the link, and the links beyond that, there seems to be no agreement, only a unilateral statement from the company posing as one. Also consideration - this means that there has to be an exchange of goods or services, both parties must receive something or it is not a contract. In this case, there is no consideration. The person supposedly accepting the contract has already bought the jig, and the contract gives him nothing new - it only takes away things he already had.
To make a contract of this, at minimum the customer would have to indicate assent in some way, after having read the terms of the 'agreement' (and no, keeping and using the item he already paid for does not suffice to show assent) and also to receive some consideration for such assent. They could, for instance, offer a rebate to those who signed the contract and returned it, and then they would have a contract (and also be open to a deceptive advertising charge if they were not clear on the terms upfront.) But this? This is nothing but a piece of paper which makes a lot of unsupported claims. Use it as toiletpaper.
You are deluding yourself if you think that the European Parliament gets to make any serious decision. That's the job of the Council of Ministers and the Commission.
I'll readily admit I'm a newbie on how all this EU archism is supposed to work, can you explain it, or point me to a decent explanation?
I recently moved to an EU nation, and noone here seems to understand it any better than me. Do you think that this might be a problem?
But I really think this needs to be up top of the thread. The instructions on the linked pages assume you're a UK citizen. Many of us are in other european countries, and even if we aren't citizens we know and have influence with those who are. Time is short. Any help with what a Swede, a German, a French, an Italian, etc. should be doing today?
I like skinning - to a point. I certainly don't want to be stuck with the UI that is popular - they're almost always horrid. For instance I skin Aqua - to tone it down. Default aqua is just hideous - not as bad as XP, but I still don't like it at all, way too much flashy nonsense. Because it can be skinned, though, I managed to get an interface that isn't obtrusive and distracting.
But I really think it's best to do that at the system level, rather than having individual programs skin. The latter can turn into a horrible mess very easily. Ironically, it's the worst issue on X, because it's toolkit agnostic there isn't any native toolkit to skin the whole system through - unless you can get all the programs you need using one toolkit at least, and sometimes that's not possible.
I still think the advantages of the X approach outweigh that negative, but it is a negative nonetheless.
I think you've taken this way to far. I have a 2 AMD computers, an intel one and a G4 and they all work just fine for me, and have never had a heat problem.
Two points.
1. This is hardly enough data to generalise from. By way of counter-anecdote, I've maintained hundreds of computers at a time, and seen many IBM clones from bigname manufacturers die in the first year, from critical component failure. And anyone that understands the physics of semiconductors will tell you the common proximate cause of those component failures are thermal issues.
2. Even if you had problems with heat, you probably wouldn't know it. There's no visible sign - your components just wind up dying before they should. Everything from the solder on the board to the packaging and contents of your ICs are affected badly both by high temperature, and by temperature swings even if no dangerously high temperatures are reached. Joints loosen up, packaging expands and contracts, pretty soon you have tiny cracks that let outside air, bearing moisture, into places that should be sealed. Very rarely will anything immediately die - although it may cause occasional faults that are nearly impossible to track down - but in the end your equipment fails much sooner than it should.
Yes, the entire x86 world, and AMD in particular, has a very poor track record at dealing with temperature issues. It's a good bet that the new AMD will be approximately at the same level as the old ones on this - if not worse, but of course we don't really know. Which is exactly why I expressed disappointment that this issue wasn't mentioned at all in the article - it would be good to know, not speculate.
Now, that out of the way, regardless of the properties of the chip itself, those of us that pay attention to such things do know that the AMD systems will have such problems. Pay attention now - we don't know the properties of the chip itself, but there is another element here, and that's the horrible engineering that the companies that actually make computers with them consider SOP. Inadequate and badly designed cooling is just a standard feature in the x86 world, whether you're talking about Dell or HPaq or whoever. Start with barely sufficient air movement, then add in the bad designs featuring such things as intakes next to outlets and even if the chip is actually wonderful on this issue itself you're going to have problems.
Look at the Macintosh designs, on the other hand, and you'll see very quickly that this is one of the things they usually get right. The G5s have a fan in the top compartment with the hard drive, and it runs at variable speeds based on a sensor reading the exhaust temperature. The fan that cools the main compartment reads how much juice the devices there are pulling and cools appropriately. Four more fans on the CPUs themselves (2 each) are controlled based on the core temperature of each processor. Finally, the air intake is on the front of the case, and the outlet on the back, avoiding the common situation on x86 boxes that blow out hot air and suck it right back in to recirculate it because this simple bit of engineering was overlooked or considered unimportant for some reason. As a result they run the fans more and achieve less by doing it, burning extra electricity and producing extra heat in the process, only exacerbating the situation.
The end result of the Apple design is a box that not only has adequate cooling for the heaviest loads, but also makes very little noise under normal operation. It operates the fans only when, where, and to the degree actually needed, without wasted effort. This means higher reliability, longer life, quieter operation, and lower electricity usage as well.
Now if, as I suspect, the G5 is actually a more reliable chip to begin with, that's just gravy.
Yes, they always claim the Macs are expensive, and it always turns out to be exageration at best, straight out nonsense at worst.
They also like to print a bunch of marginally meaningful numbers to woo the masses, while leaving out the most important ones - like MTBF for instance. Can't have anyone getting the idea that they could keep a working computer in place instead of buying a new one every year, can we? Who cares if the G5 will still be working after the AMD chip has burned itself to a crisp? You're supposed to buy a new computer every year and send the old one to a dump, to keep the economy strong, right? But a fraction of a second difference in loading a program, now that is important.
I'm really starting to tune out on this type of article, it's rare for them to have even a couple of sentences worth reading these days.
Frankly, I use OSX every day on my main work machine, and while I'm happy I don't have to deal with XP, it's actually not nearly as nice as my Linux box was for usability.
The edge it has in the market, I suppose, is just that it took a lot of work for me to get my linux box setup right, and the default setups I've seen from linux vendors are atrocious. Plus there are no tutorials. Hrmm... I might just have a business idea here.
From reading the articles, it seems it is indeed designed to be a math coprocessor. Since the Pentium came out, those have been out of style. The Pentium effectively included a 80487 on the same die, and on other architectures that was done even earlier. But now it comes back - only now the idea is a far more powerful coprocessor for scientific functions.
No, it's not going to be very helpful to the average users. But for those of us that spend a lot of time using our computers to do complex mathematical calculations, it could be damn helpful, if it turns out to be anywhere near as powerful as they claim it will be.
If you are asking IT then you are probably not in the IT dept. If you are in IT, then perhaps you should be asking why you can't do it yourself?
It's a figure of speech. Perhaps you've heard of such a thing?
I was IT back when most people hadn't a clue what that was. I did it for years. I have a better job now.
But I would have said the same thing if I was still doing it. The phrase I used expresses a general observation, not a specific self-evalutation.
1. I work in R&D, we don't allow people to bring stuff onto our network at their will. Our IP is too important. They could easily take a copy of it on their machine and walk out.
If your precious 'IP' is so poorly protected that simply hooking into your network is sufficient to copy it, you are in serious need of a security consultant.
2. They could have viruses on their machines.
Ditto.
I'm not going to care whatever problems are occuring with people's various stuff.
Typical attitude of the newer generation of IT folk, and exactly the kind of nonsense I got sick of having to work with every day. You aren't the grand poobah that gets to tell everyone in the company what they can do. The engineers, programmers, and even the salespeople and marketers are the ones that make money for your company - not IT. IT is there to provide services so they can work better. If they need a Mac - or a BeOS box or an Amiga or whatever - to do their job, then that's what they should have. Not some IT doughhead with an MSCE and an inflated ego attacking them to avoid admitting he doesn't even know how to setup DHCP properly.
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The case I'm thinking of was about reselling shrink-wrap software, and IIRC the judge entirely sidestepped the validity of the EULA which prohibited it by ruling that even if valid it wouldn't apply in this case. Wish I could remember the details, can't seem to find the case searching for it now.
Keep in mind, of course, that with larger organisations and site licenses there are valid contracts, signed sealed and delivered, this is only an issue when you go to the store and buy a copy yourself.
They don't own any of the patents that could apply here though, and even if they do succeed in their mail-fraud plan, that doesn't prove anything to a judge.
You're assuming that there actually is code belonging to SCO there. That doesn't seem to be the case - certainly all evidence is negative, and this latest paper from their lawyers seems to confirm it. They now appear to be claiming that the code in question is not SysV code at all, it's AIX code that by their selective reading of the contracts is still supposed to be kept confidential by IBM, even though they own it. Which, of course, contradicts completely a lot of their past public statements, but those haven't been consistent from day one either.
Actually, if you read the thing carefully, I think what they're really saying is that it's not a matter of anything copied from SysV, but rather of copying of code and 'ways of doing things' from AIX and the AIX development team that didn't come from SysV. It seems their new theory (their theory of this case does seem to change every other statement) is that what IBM did wrong was to bring stuff from AIX to Linux, and that even though they don't have a copy of AIX to check, they nonetheless legally control all of AIX as a derivative work of SysV.
The original contract actually does seem to read that way, but IBM has long had amendments that clearly say that what they've added on their own is theres and, more importantly, they can do anything they want to with it. (It would be possible for them to own it but still have contractual limitations on how they use it, without the amendments that would probably be the case.) Now this line of argument has long been anticipated, but the amendments clearly KO that line of argument so no one really expected them to have a chance with it - all they can do is stall a bit more while they sell off stock and try to get McBride his bonus. But the interesting thing here is that they're now saying the Sequent contracts are important - those contracts don't have the same amendments and it looks like they're going to try and hold IBM to those, rather than to IBMs own contract. Still quite loopy, really, I can't imagine a Judge ruling that because IBM paid for the license twice they have less right over their own technology than they would have if they'd only paid once, but so far it does seem to be their best line of attack, and if you read the memorandum closely that does seem to be where they're going.
Of course you're right. A ruling that the GPL was unenforceable would be as legally absurd as... a ruling that shrink-wrap EULAs are binding contracts, for instance. It's silly, and frivolous, and unfortunately the way the US Justice system seems to be going it just might happen if someone with enough money and connections wanted it to happen.
Which is why the guy you're responding to is right as well. It wouldn't be a good thing for this case to just be dismissed. All signs are pointing to that being exactly what SCO is trying to do in fact. If the case is dismissed they can keep slinging FUD and drag this circus out even longer. Which is why IBM won't let that happen. The countersuit should prevent it, and they're countersuing on several issues, including the GPL. Even though there is clearly no legitimate grounds to suspect the legal enforceability of the GPL, I still think getting a good solid ruling here that can be cited as precedent could be a great thing, a hedge against a possible future where all the money is lined up against it, where there is no longer anyone like IBM with deep pockets and hordes of lawyers to make the case and spare no expense doing it.
If you're 'somewhat new' to Linux, then you should probably ignore it. Upgrading your kernel to a release candidate ("test") version isn't recommended unless you know what you're doing and you want to help test it.
Just wait for your distro to pick it up in a few months, after the testing is done.
/me rolls on the floor laughing, beer spurting from my nostrils.
Java is almost as bad. The only reason it's not as bad is because Sun is more afraid of pissing developers off than MS is, and has made quite a few concessions as a result.
Of course not.
But those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it.
Not a lawyer, a psycho-linguist actually. I've always found law fascinating though, and pay a lot of attention to it.
What in particular are the precedents you are worried about? I am not aware of any precedent that really says they are legit, the closest I can think of is one that sidestepped that issue almost entirely.
It doesn't matter. The only thing that says that clicking the button that says 'agree' on it to get the software you bought and paid for to work means you agree to the EULA is the EULA itself. If you don't agree, it means nothing. Even if you do agree, it doesn't look like a valid contract anyway - what consideration is there in it? You lose, lose, lose, you gain nothing. So it's simple. Don't agree. End of story.
Obviously you don't know what a contract is.
In order to form a contract, there are several necessary elements that are lacking here. There must be an agreement. From reading the link, and the links beyond that, there seems to be no agreement, only a unilateral statement from the company posing as one. Also consideration - this means that there has to be an exchange of goods or services, both parties must receive something or it is not a contract. In this case, there is no consideration. The person supposedly accepting the contract has already bought the jig, and the contract gives him nothing new - it only takes away things he already had.
To make a contract of this, at minimum the customer would have to indicate assent in some way, after having read the terms of the 'agreement' (and no, keeping and using the item he already paid for does not suffice to show assent) and also to receive some consideration for such assent. They could, for instance, offer a rebate to those who signed the contract and returned it, and then they would have a contract (and also be open to a deceptive advertising charge if they were not clear on the terms upfront.) But this? This is nothing but a piece of paper which makes a lot of unsupported claims. Use it as toiletpaper.
Virtual terminals are your friend.
A gui is fine if you're processing videos or something, but for a lot of work, it's really just a waste of time. And resources.
Quite the opposite, sounds like a fed-up anarchist to me.
I'll readily admit I'm a newbie on how all this EU archism is supposed to work, can you explain it, or point me to a decent explanation?
I recently moved to an EU nation, and noone here seems to understand it any better than me. Do you think that this might be a problem?
But I really think this needs to be up top of the thread. The instructions on the linked pages assume you're a UK citizen. Many of us are in other european countries, and even if we aren't citizens we know and have influence with those who are. Time is short. Any help with what a Swede, a German, a French, an Italian, etc. should be doing today?
Hmm, if you can't jog with one brick attached to your belt... I guess you REALLY need to be jogging huh?
I like skinning - to a point. I certainly don't want to be stuck with the UI that is popular - they're almost always horrid. For instance I skin Aqua - to tone it down. Default aqua is just hideous - not as bad as XP, but I still don't like it at all, way too much flashy nonsense. Because it can be skinned, though, I managed to get an interface that isn't obtrusive and distracting.
But I really think it's best to do that at the system level, rather than having individual programs skin. The latter can turn into a horrible mess very easily. Ironically, it's the worst issue on X, because it's toolkit agnostic there isn't any native toolkit to skin the whole system through - unless you can get all the programs you need using one toolkit at least, and sometimes that's not possible.
I still think the advantages of the X approach outweigh that negative, but it is a negative nonetheless.
Why waste bandwidth with it in the first place?
The hell I can't.
Two points.
1. This is hardly enough data to generalise from. By way of counter-anecdote, I've maintained hundreds of computers at a time, and seen many IBM clones from bigname manufacturers die in the first year, from critical component failure. And anyone that understands the physics of semiconductors will tell you the common proximate cause of those component failures are thermal issues.
2. Even if you had problems with heat, you probably wouldn't know it. There's no visible sign - your components just wind up dying before they should. Everything from the solder on the board to the packaging and contents of your ICs are affected badly both by high temperature, and by temperature swings even if no dangerously high temperatures are reached. Joints loosen up, packaging expands and contracts, pretty soon you have tiny cracks that let outside air, bearing moisture, into places that should be sealed. Very rarely will anything immediately die - although it may cause occasional faults that are nearly impossible to track down - but in the end your equipment fails much sooner than it should.
Yes, the entire x86 world, and AMD in particular, has a very poor track record at dealing with temperature issues. It's a good bet that the new AMD will be approximately at the same level as the old ones on this - if not worse, but of course we don't really know. Which is exactly why I expressed disappointment that this issue wasn't mentioned at all in the article - it would be good to know, not speculate.
Now, that out of the way, regardless of the properties of the chip itself, those of us that pay attention to such things do know that the AMD systems will have such problems. Pay attention now - we don't know the properties of the chip itself, but there is another element here, and that's the horrible engineering that the companies that actually make computers with them consider SOP. Inadequate and badly designed cooling is just a standard feature in the x86 world, whether you're talking about Dell or HPaq or whoever. Start with barely sufficient air movement, then add in the bad designs featuring such things as intakes next to outlets and even if the chip is actually wonderful on this issue itself you're going to have problems.
Look at the Macintosh designs, on the other hand, and you'll see very quickly that this is one of the things they usually get right. The G5s have a fan in the top compartment with the hard drive, and it runs at variable speeds based on a sensor reading the exhaust temperature. The fan that cools the main compartment reads how much juice the devices there are pulling and cools appropriately. Four more fans on the CPUs themselves (2 each) are controlled based on the core temperature of each processor. Finally, the air intake is on the front of the case, and the outlet on the back, avoiding the common situation on x86 boxes that blow out hot air and suck it right back in to recirculate it because this simple bit of engineering was overlooked or considered unimportant for some reason. As a result they run the fans more and achieve less by doing it, burning extra electricity and producing extra heat in the process, only exacerbating the situation.
The end result of the Apple design is a box that not only has adequate cooling for the heaviest loads, but also makes very little noise under normal operation. It operates the fans only when, where, and to the degree actually needed, without wasted effort. This means higher reliability, longer life, quieter operation, and lower electricity usage as well.
Now if, as I suspect, the G5 is actually a more reliable chip to begin with, that's just gravy.
Yes, they always claim the Macs are expensive, and it always turns out to be exageration at best, straight out nonsense at worst.
They also like to print a bunch of marginally meaningful numbers to woo the masses, while leaving out the most important ones - like MTBF for instance. Can't have anyone getting the idea that they could keep a working computer in place instead of buying a new one every year, can we? Who cares if the G5 will still be working after the AMD chip has burned itself to a crisp? You're supposed to buy a new computer every year and send the old one to a dump, to keep the economy strong, right? But a fraction of a second difference in loading a program, now that is important.
I'm really starting to tune out on this type of article, it's rare for them to have even a couple of sentences worth reading these days.
Frankly, I use OSX every day on my main work machine, and while I'm happy I don't have to deal with XP, it's actually not nearly as nice as my Linux box was for usability.
The edge it has in the market, I suppose, is just that it took a lot of work for me to get my linux box setup right, and the default setups I've seen from linux vendors are atrocious. Plus there are no tutorials. Hrmm... I might just have a business idea here.
Everything old is new again... eventually.
From reading the articles, it seems it is indeed designed to be a math coprocessor. Since the Pentium came out, those have been out of style. The Pentium effectively included a 80487 on the same die, and on other architectures that was done even earlier. But now it comes back - only now the idea is a far more powerful coprocessor for scientific functions.
No, it's not going to be very helpful to the average users. But for those of us that spend a lot of time using our computers to do complex mathematical calculations, it could be damn helpful, if it turns out to be anywhere near as powerful as they claim it will be.
It's a figure of speech. Perhaps you've heard of such a thing?
I was IT back when most people hadn't a clue what that was. I did it for years. I have a better job now.
But I would have said the same thing if I was still doing it. The phrase I used expresses a general observation, not a specific self-evalutation.
If your precious 'IP' is so poorly protected that simply hooking into your network is sufficient to copy it, you are in serious need of a security consultant.
Ditto.
Typical attitude of the newer generation of IT folk, and exactly the kind of nonsense I got sick of having to work with every day. You aren't the grand poobah that gets to tell everyone in the company what they can do. The engineers, programmers, and even the salespeople and marketers are the ones that make money for your company - not IT. IT is there to provide services so they can work better. If they need a Mac - or a BeOS box or an Amiga or whatever - to do their job, then that's what they should have. Not some IT doughhead with an MSCE and an inflated ego attacking them to avoid admitting he doesn't even know how to setup DHCP properly.