especially in the American democratic system, to sway the masses
You're confusing the American democratic system with a different one. In the US you only need to sway the interest groups, not the masses. The interest groups are full of people who vote and so, sway them, win election.
Fortunately I live in a country with compulsary voting so things happen more slowly but we don't have the crazy stuff happening either.
And before the loonie tunes step and and yell "that's not freedom!", the definition of compulsary vote is you must get your name ticked off the list and you must dispose of the ballot paper properly by putting it in the ballot box. You don't have to vote for anyone but you must make the decision. Just not turning up is not an option.
The letters in typewriter are all in the top row so that the Remington salemen could show the client how fast the typewriter was by typing "typewriter" quickly.
A good portion of the people who write for tech magazines have so little experience outside of the one thing they write about, their perspective on the industry is fatally skewed. They've only ever seen things done one way so "not the same" equals "hard to use". Having used a Mac 20 years ago and a morbid OS for a while does not count towards being widely versed in OSs
It's also the reason why most of the people who argue for windows are so bad at it. Whereas most linux people have to suffer windows at some point and so have a much wider perspective (and are better able to pick it's faults).
A patent is a legal entitlement just like copyright, property ownership etc. Basically it is (or was originally) a government sanctioned monopoly on your invention. By patenting your idea the government gives you exclusive rights to work said invention. In exchange you or somebody else at your discretion has to work the invention or the patent lapses (in theory anyway, this doesn't happen very much) and you agree to release the invention into the public domain after a period of time so anybody can make it. This protects you from somebody seeing your invention and copying it and gives the public the advantage of your invention.
Governments drew a line in the sand at what can and can't be patented. Discoveries can't (ie you can't patent Newtons laws) and algorithms can't either (which is why up until recently it was required to discribe software as an invention comprising of a computer with said computer having of display unit, random access memory, etc etc and then start talking about your software as part of this computer invention).
The reason to not allow software patents follows in the same theme. Is it or is it not in the best interest of the public to allow patenting of software? Most software people would probably say no but unfortunately what's in the public interest and what makes money generally don't coincide.
Rather than focus its legal efforts on the open source community and Linux distributors, SCO is working to identify the issues and come up with solutions in consultation with customers and other parties, said Sontag.
Most likely scenario is:
You tell the community what is copyright SCO and you want removed (proving that you own it along the way).
The community removes said code.
The community replaces said code with a reimplementation
The community expresses it's love of SCO by going out of it's way to destroy the remaining SCO user base
There's an optional final step where IBM buys the tattered remains of SCO at a fire sale.
The values in the article were quoted against processors of equal clock speed. Rumour has it the PPC 970 is capable of much higher clock speeds than the G4.
For More Info on Australian broadband news you can go to http://whirlpool.net.au/
Oh please. That site is a forum for all the children to bitch and moan about how crap Telstra's service is. Also the moderators ban you for dissenting opinion. It is considered "disruptive" (well duh).
Case in point. The owner and a bunch of his friends got together and formed the "Australian Broadband Users Group" and proceeded to appoint themselves the "voice of Australian broadband users". They then showed their mettle when download caps were introduced by doing absolutely nothing. I think their crowning achievement was to have a BBQ once.
There is no point for a company to test the GPL in court. If they lose then they have to release their source and pay infringement. If they win and the GPL is declared uninforceable then standard copyright law takes precedence which means they can't modify, redistribute or do any of the other stuff they wanted to anyway.
Challenging the GPL in court is on a hiding to nothing.
Article is here (shamelessly stolen from somebody elses post. You know who you are, pat yourself on the back).
The most interesting line from it:
"It doesn't make sense. How would you transfer the product but not have the copyright attached? That would be like transferring a book but only getting the cover," McBride said.
Maybe the same way you buy software and not be allowed to sell it again?
BSD had the jump on Linux way back in the day but has less marketshare now because of the same BS that happened with the AT&T suit oh so long ago - and we ended up winning that suit!
The difference between then and now is that then it was AT&T vs a university and there was an absolutely undeniable history of code sharing (even if it was a long time ago). This time it's a dying company against IBM and there has been no evidence presented of any code sharing (or anything except nebulous IP infringement).
as an European taxpayer i find disgusting this continuing tendency of certain European Governments (always the same Gang : French, Germany and Belgium) of copycatting the US instead of cooperating for the global good...
Cooperating for the common good only works if both sides are playing the game. The US have shown quite regularily that they don't give a shit what anyone else thinks.
but no, those Americans are the menace, and yet those Americans saved Democracy in Europe twice in the 20th Century !
And neither time did they leap to "Democracy's" defence. They did it only when they were either pushed or it was in their best interest and they made a lot of money off the people who were fighting for democracy in the process.
The only way to block a GPS signal is to overpower the satellite's signal with a stronger one. By doing this you could not scream "shoot at me" any louder to a anti-radar missile. Hell I'd imagine it would be difficult to target anything else while a GPS blocker is in operation. The US versions (if they even exist considering the US can just turn it off) would suffer the same fate.
In most juristicitons (and how it is in Australia) there's a seperation between civil copyright violation and criminal copyright violation. Here, once somebody starts selling material they don't have legal right to sell it becomes a criminal matter with jail time and fines with a large number of zeros.
I'm sure most corporations would change their tune quick smart when threatened with becoming special friends with Bubba.
But what happens when, say zonelabs decides that it should let the police crack your computer in their search for child por nography?
In which case you deserve to get caught. Having "Joe Sixpack" being considered the equivelent of "barely able to function in the modern society" is bad enough. If you are stupid enough to commit a crime while being that stupid then you should be put in jail for poluting the gene pool.
Unlawfully searching computers for child pornography is one thing. Getting infected with the windows virus of the week is another.
Windows NT is fading away. Win2003 is a good piece of work from what I've seen/heard - I wouldn't be so fast to declare Linux superior, not any more.
This has been said by MS apologists about every major release of a server operating system since NT. I've just read the Unix haters handbook and it raves about how Unix is going to be killed off by the messiah from MS. And just like every version since it doesn't get close to the stability or usefulness of unix
Don't get me started on the people who use "accountability" in the same sentence as "MS software"...
20,000 on a population of 31 million? Pfft. Australia managed 70,000 on a population of 18 million. Which proves either:
1. There's more freaky people with no life in Australia.
2. Australians are more likely to take the piss out of something they think is stupid or pointless.
Slashdot Mirror
... just to get first post. Now that's dedication.
Fortunately I live in a country with compulsary voting so things happen more slowly but we don't have the crazy stuff happening either.
And before the loonie tunes step and and yell "that's not freedom!", the definition of compulsary vote is you must get your name ticked off the list and you must dispose of the ballot paper properly by putting it in the ballot box. You don't have to vote for anyone but you must make the decision. Just not turning up is not an option.
The letters in typewriter are all in the top row so that the Remington salemen could show the client how fast the typewriter was by typing "typewriter" quickly.
It's also the reason why most of the people who argue for windows are so bad at it. Whereas most linux people have to suffer windows at some point and so have a much wider perspective (and are better able to pick it's faults).
Governments drew a line in the sand at what can and can't be patented. Discoveries can't (ie you can't patent Newtons laws) and algorithms can't either (which is why up until recently it was required to discribe software as an invention comprising of a computer with said computer having of display unit, random access memory, etc etc and then start talking about your software as part of this computer invention).
The reason to not allow software patents follows in the same theme. Is it or is it not in the best interest of the public to allow patenting of software? Most software people would probably say no but unfortunately what's in the public interest and what makes money generally don't coincide.
They're just a bunch of whingers that can't even organise a bbq.
- You tell the community what is copyright SCO and you want removed (proving that you own it along the way).
- The community removes said code.
- The community replaces said code with a reimplementation
- The community expresses it's love of SCO by going out of it's way to destroy the remaining SCO user base
There's an optional final step where IBM buys the tattered remains of SCO at a fire sale.It's every slashdotters dream to get a "Score:5 Troll" post.
There's nothing worse than finding half a worm in an Apple.
Case in point. The owner and a bunch of his friends got together and formed the "Australian Broadband Users Group" and proceeded to appoint themselves the "voice of Australian broadband users". They then showed their mettle when download caps were introduced by doing absolutely nothing. I think their crowning achievement was to have a BBQ once.
Challenging the GPL in court is on a hiding to nothing.
The most interesting line from it:
Maybe the same way you buy software and not be allowed to sell it again?Happy?
The only way to block a GPS signal is to overpower the satellite's signal with a stronger one. By doing this you could not scream "shoot at me" any louder to a anti-radar missile. Hell I'd imagine it would be difficult to target anything else while a GPS blocker is in operation. The US versions (if they even exist considering the US can just turn it off) would suffer the same fate.
Um ... Bugger.
Have the /. editors taken up proofreading other people's work now?
I'm sure most corporations would change their tune quick smart when threatened with becoming special friends with Bubba.
Unlawfully searching computers for child pornography is one thing. Getting infected with the windows virus of the week is another.
Don't get me started on the people who use "accountability" in the same sentence as "MS software" ...
1. There's more freaky people with no life in Australia.
2. Australians are more likely to take the piss out of something they think is stupid or pointless.