You articulate the argument well, but I think it's a flawed argument. How often does artillery come into play in a coup? There are lots of reasons a government might hesitate to shell its own towns.
By the time there is a serious enough divide to cause an uprising, the government and military will also be somewhat divided.
Look at the Vietnam war. Weren't normal rifles more useful to the Vietnamese than artillery?
If the citizens need parity with the military, it's not in artillery but in c3i - encrypted radios, mapping and map-sharing systems, etc. But these systems would need a complete rethink to become more peer-to-peer and less dependant on centralized command.
As for your point about training, I think it applies even more strongly to ordinary military rifles. I think a small group of trained soldiers can win over a large group of untrained people with the same equipment. That was probably equally true in 1776.
OK, I'll have a shot. Honest Views:"I believe in America, in keeping America great, and it standing up for the core beliefs of this great nation. I believe that America is for every American, and nobody should be left behind. I believe that we must work harder than ever to preserve our freedom, build the economy, and defend America." Voting Record:Voted YES on the WARMFUZZYBUNNY act, a law that will defend Americans from evildoers. Voted YES on the PROTECTOURECONOMY act, a splendid law that will give $1000 to every American. Voted YES on the STOPTHEIF act, which will defend America's vital intellectual property from cyberthieves so future generations can enjoy our vibrant cultural heritage. This is not the place for rhetoric or flag-waving, but I must point out the simple fact that my opponent, while holding the same views and voting for the same bills, is a bad choice because either (a) He has no experience in government at this level or (b) He is a Washington Insider, with more allegiance to lobbyists and special interests than to voters. Amen.
I'm almost at a loss to begin answering, because to me it's obvious that none of Linux's protections help here at all. The main problem is that the user can be fooled into pressing whatever buttons are needeed.
It's really a two part question: how will the malicious code get run initially, and how will it insert it's back doors. There are many ways - here are some of the more obvious.
Initial Running: probably by the same mechanism that spyware uses today. Offer a "free download" with the spyware bundled. The same people that run it on Windows will run it on Linux. And don't say they won't have root - they will have to have root if Linux replaces Windows. Anyhow, root is not really needed, as I'll show.
Creating Backdoors:If the malware is installed by root, anything goes. Daemons added to the rc scripts, possibly a rootkit to cover up, possibly kernel modules that add all sorts of nasty advertising hooks. Imagine if every time text is read from a file or a socket, a brief ad is prefixed. Yuck! If the user merely runs the malware once under his own ID, many tricks are still possible. Immediately launch a background process that continues the malware installation after the "bait" app exits. Hide malware executables in densely populated directories like the browser cache, and modify.bashrc, etc., to launch them on login. Copy an app like Mozilla to a hidden file, apply a binary malware patch, and change the desktop menu/icon to point to the hacked copy. Download a hacked glibc to a hidden locatin and set LD_LIBRARY_PATH in.bashrc to point there - then any kind of horror is possible.
Of course, you can cheat and use a buffer overflow for the initial install, but to stay congruent with Windows spyware we should assume tricking the user into running a "bait" application.
While you're taking advice, consider this idea from an old issue of Inc. magazine. Hire an assistant that complements your way of thinking, rather than a clone. Most entrepreneurs are dreamers, more focused on the next big deal than on reordering toilet paper. If you're like that, hire a neat, orderly, punctual person, even though you'll never fully "mesh" with such a person. The best indicator, according to that article, is the applicant's car. A car that's fairly clean and free of garbage inside indicates an orderly, disciplined mind.
My impression of Mike's document is that he's gotten some angry reactions from people on the net, and is feeling a little hurt and surprised. He probably sees himself as an ambassador, one who moves freely through the Linux, Unix and Microsoft worlds, as well as navigating the murkier waters of "channels" and secretive financing. So to some extent, I guess he sees himself as a member of the "geek tribe".
I think his conscience may be troubling him a little now that he's forced to look back on the Microsoft deal. At the time, it was probably so exciting that he rode past such considerations, as many people have done. After all, it wasn't illegal or clearly wrong - the wrongness is more visible now that SCO has become such a high profile enemy of Linux. But now that the angry mob is after him, Mike can't afford reflection. He has to dig in his heels and affirm his SCO ideology.
Mike mentions being harrassed by an individual with five online handles, all registered as underage for extra legal protection. To what forum is he referring? Does slashdot have this underage checkbox? Did he sue the harrasser and get a subpoena, or was he forestalled by the underage status?
Mike gives an overview of his accomplishments - the numerous companies founded and patents granted. I think the message here is that he is not simply a shady dealmaker, but a technologist who has helped to move the industry forward. So clearly, his "geek cred" is important to him. Unlike Darl, Mike isn't playing to the Wall Street Journal readers. He'd like slashdotters to, if not forgive, at least understand.
So you propose that businesses pay for innovation in order to get a brief leg up on the competition, which will last until the competition can clone the innovation. That works for some things, not others. You mentioned the problem of monopoly, but there is often a degree of economic coercion. If you come up with an improved can opener, and show it to WalMart, they will call their preferred maker of can openers and tell them to start making it. A patent would give you the leverage to break into that cozy relationship. And no, WalMart probably wouldn't sign an NDA to see your can opener.
It's nice to know there's innovation coming from Taiwan, but I was thinking of mainland China. And no, I don't associate that country with innovation. And don't drag gunpowder and spaghetti into it.
It is kind of appealling to think of a more aggressive marketplace, with less cloud of fear from patents. If everyone were reverse-engineering the competitiors and cloning them three weeks later we might get a rapid stream of tiny improvements. But I'm afraid the big improvements wouldn't happen at all. And many times the valuable invention is in the brain of someone who has nothing to do with the industry. Greed is a good motivator to make him write it down and get it into production.
Let's make sure we're talking about the same patent. I skimmed patent 5,016,107, which I believe is the one being discussed.
The patent seems to be the result of someone thinking of a digital camera,...
The patent clearly recognizes that digital cameras already exist. It points out a drawback in the existing art, and proposes a solution. Problem: Photographers want to fit a lot of pictures on limited storage, but good compression algorithms are slow. If the camera compresses an image after taking a picture, it will seem to freeze up. Fast compression algorithms don't compress well.
Solution: Compress the images asynchronously from the image-capture process.
It'll have, like, a CCD, and an ADC, and removable media. Or maybe it'll have an indicator saying how much space is left on the removable media.
This is called enablement. The PTO requires that patent applications contain a detailed enough description to let someone skilled in the art build the invention. It is natural that part of this description will appear obvious to one skilled in the art.
All this is converted into legalese. They don't describe how the parts will be combined, or how the parts work.
The specification is not written in legalese. Maybe you are not used to reading formal, carefully written English. Remember that this document must be understandable not only for the 20-year life of the patent, but a thousand years from now when it will be part of the prior art. The claims are written in legalese. They have to be. Patent claims become, in effect, a patch to our national law. They have to unambiguously describe the exact limits of what is claimed as novel here. Nobody on slashdot can understand them, but every judge can understand them. If you call the patent "stupid" because its claims are legalese, then you must call every patent "stupid" on the same grounds.
They don't describe how the parts will be combined, or how the parts work.
The patent doesn't need to re-describe the existing prior art. It refers to existing known cameras and proposes an improvement. Are you saying that the patent doesn't contain enough information for one skilled in the art to create such a camera?
And if you had asked me, in 1991, to describe how to make a digital camera, I could have brainstormed those things.
Ah, but you would not be granted a patent on "those things" because they were prior art.
The point is: every patent attorney and patent examiner, the people slashdot likes to bash as ignorant, could probably read this patent and accurately summarize it in ten minutes. It's a patent on asynchronous image compression in a digital still camera. I didn't see a single slashdot poster get it right - the closest was a guy who thought it was a patent on a particular kind of compression algorithm. I think people with such a ludicrously poor understanding of a field should refrain from criticizing decisions in that field until they learn a bit more.
No, the funny part is that what you think is the idea isn't, you haven't even skimmed the patent and you feel free to join a chorus of blind sheep bleating in meaningless complaint.
The sad part is that you don't realize that even if the patent were as simple as you think, there had to be a time when it was non-obvious.
I realize one of the crack-mods may get a hold of this, but I'm really sick of the ignorant commentary on patents on slashdot. The average slashdotter has as much qualification for such discussions as the average AOL user has to debate the differences between ksh and bash.
Yours would be a world of excellent execution but minimal innovation. The prize would go to the fastest, cheapest, most efficient manufacturer. R&D would be a weekend hobby for manufacturing engineers - nobody would pay to develop new technology.
It has its upside and downside. I think China is becoming your world.
But is it truly a GUI at that point? You pressed F3 and entered a mini-program in a simple language. How would a true GUI do it? Would it be fast or convenient?
A person who has sought out the public limelight thereby sacrifices some expectation of privacy. This is a principle well understood by society and by the courts. Mr. McBride has worked very hard to remain in the limelight.
Also, society sanctions those who break rules. While Mr. McBride hasn't been legally convicted of wrongdoing, he is visibly seeking to take wrongfully from others in order to enrich himself. Inevitably, he suffers societal backlash, ranging from the Utah reporters who no longer give him positive press to the angry teenagers calling him up at home.
An individual's rights can be narrowed by society if he commits wrongdoing. This narrowing can occur formally, as in criminal sentencing, or informally, as in the shunning and hostile attention directed at a pariah.
It's unfortunate that your comment was modded down merely for disagreeing with the mainstream belief here.
You're right; I forgot that argument. It's so odd that it causes cognitive dissonance. I'm very curious to know if they have real arguments behind it, or if it's just a smokescreen.
The basic problem is that the invalidity of the license isn't a defense against copyright infringement. No, I was thinking more that based on SCO's offensive claims to own part of Linux, the judge might accept that SCO has some right to control Linux. And yes, I know that's a long shot, but it makes more sense than that defensive claim.
Since, as you say, we're talking past each other, I'll skip those points. But, you say:
I believe the judge would be forced to either strike the entire license down because of any invalidities in the license or none of it.
I don't think any of SCO's claims actually pertain to the GPL - it's just FUD. If the courts find for SCO, that doesn't strike down any part of the GPL. If the courts upheld the Eolas decision, that Internet Explorer infringed a patent, everyone could be barred from distributing IE, regardless of what license Microsoft had distributed it under.
Well, first you thought they couldn't have a sustainable business model, but now you say they'd be a parasite. That's the most sustainable business model - it's what every software company aspires to. More politely called a gatekeeper. Such a company has large revenues and minimal costs.
You're still getting my goat with a certain slashdot naivete. You doubt anyone wants to buy from them? Of course! SCO was already dead - that's why the current crew could snap up their name cheaply. Quit acting like McBride is some merchant who will be disappointed when nobody goes into his store. He is a warrior, planning to terrify merchants with legal weapons until they pay him off. Now, he might disguise some of these payoffs as software purchases, but in essence he knows that trying to sell a PC Unix is completely pointless, even if it were much better than SCO's product.
I'd bet the only thing they can do is continue the lawsuits, buying up patents and copyrights they believe they can sue over.
My belief exactly. It could be an insanely profitable business model. Look at the crazy tangle of Unix licensing they've uncovered. How many other such situations are out there waiting for a McBride to exploit them?
No one can add the terms that SCO would need...
A judge can. Besides, SCO doesn't need to distribute Linux, merely sell protection against lawsuits.
None of which implies that I think SCO will win - just that their thinking isn't as weird as some believe.
First, that argument applies to anyone who holds an exclusive right, whether patent, copyright or contract. If you demand too much, you kill the goose that laid the golden eggs. The art is in demanding the right toll. If SCO is just a puppet for Microsoft, they might want to kill Linux. But if they're in it for the money, they might want to set their "tax" at a level that won't kill Linux, but will make them insanely rich. That is a very sustainable business model.
Shareholder's lawsuit? Most of the shares are held by insiders. And McBride is doing extremely well for the shareholders. If he gets $5 billion from IBM, SCOX will be one of the best investments ever. Doesn't sound like a reasonable lawsuit.
I see this idea way to often, and it's nonsense. You act as if SCO wants to go back to being a tiny software vendor. If they win, in the big sense, they will leverage their position to acquire more intellectual property and contract rights. They may acquire these as part of settlements. Then they can attack more companies with more claims.
SCO's Unix business was dead anyway. How can you possibly think that after winning five billion dollars they would go back to their old Unix business?
More importantly, I get irritated by this implication that businesses would buy or not buy based on the "niceness" of the vendor. Way more important than niceness is the legal shotgun said vendor is aiming at your midriff. SCO with 5 billion and hundreds of small acquisitions giving them patents and contracts would wield a big scary shotgun. They would certainly not be irrelevant.
If they win (and I'm not sure they expect or want to win) they can collect vast damages and back royalties. Why would they care about the future of Linux or their own products? Those products were merely a means to make money, and they'll have more money than they ever dreamed of.
If the X10 modules can't handle the current, you could connect the output of an X10 module to the coil of a contactor. I couldn't tell from your question whether you want to switch all the high-power lights together, or have individual control. If individually, you need contactors with at least 8.3 amps (1000/120) which is very small. The smallest contactors are probably 20A. If you want to combine the lights, add the total wattage and divide by 120 to get the minimum contactor ampacity. The coil of the contactor will be driven by the output of the X10 module. House the contactor in a metal box cut a heavy duty extension cord a few feet from one end, terminating the ends inside the box.
I skimmed one of his books in the store, and if I'm thinking of the right one, "two minutes hate" is a pretty good description. The book was a compilation of mini-tirades against the perceived inaccuracies of the author's political adversaries, none of which were terribly compelling to someone not on the author's wavelength to start.
Just to clarify - anyone wanting to call you should get your permission first, before they come into your home on the telephone line you're paying for. Is that it?
It could be, or not. If the open source program respects the flag, the vast majority of people won't modify and recompile it. Look at xpdf, which respects the anti-copying flags of Adobe. If it's illegal to distribute the "hacked" version, a vanishingly small percentage of users will have it.
So it could be used as an argument against open source, but it's a disingenuous argument. A few people might hack their TV app, just like a few people might rip out their catalytic converter to get more performance.
I notice that Adobe has not claimed that xpdf violates the DMCA. You can modify xpdf into a circumvention device, but it isn't a circumvention device as shipped.
No, totally wrong. The Eurion Constellation detection works equally well no matter how rotated. Do you think they're idiots? The detection is based on distance between circles.
Anyhow, I don't think Photoshop uses Eurion, but rather an image of the Treasury seal. I don't know if that's rotation-resistant, but if it's not they're idiots!
The method I described isn't to stop smearing - rather it's to stop the app from spazzing out and using 100% CPU during dragging/resizing. That would be the natural consequence of an app redrawing a complex window for each Expose event.
It looks like Mozilla took the easier approach, to postpone the redraw completely until the Expose events stop coming. That works fine with profile (non opaque) window dragging, but in combination with opaque dragging it causes smearing. On each Expose event, the app should at least fill the window with its background color, which is almost instantaneous. That will override the smearing.
Using the method described in my previoius comment will draw as much of the display list as the app has time for, improving the realism of the drag metaphor at some expense in CPU utilization.
But we don't really need a screen buffer to eliminate the massive smearing. We just need applications smart enough not to continue their redraw function after getting another Expose event. Then you get a partially painted window while dragging, which is not nearly as offensive as the smearing.
Slashdot Mirror
You articulate the argument well, but I think it's a flawed argument. How often does artillery come into play in a coup? There are lots of reasons a government might hesitate to shell its own towns.
By the time there is a serious enough divide to cause an uprising, the government and military will also be somewhat divided.
Look at the Vietnam war. Weren't normal rifles more useful to the Vietnamese than artillery?
If the citizens need parity with the military, it's not in artillery but in c3i - encrypted radios, mapping and map-sharing systems, etc. But these systems would need a complete rethink to become more peer-to-peer and less dependant on centralized command.
As for your point about training, I think it applies even more strongly to ordinary military rifles. I think a small group of trained soldiers can win over a large group of untrained people with the same equipment. That was probably equally true in 1776.
OK, I'll have a shot.
Honest Views:"I believe in America, in keeping America great, and it standing up for the core beliefs of this great nation. I believe that America is for every American, and nobody should be left behind. I believe that we must work harder than ever to preserve our freedom, build the economy, and defend America."
Voting Record:Voted YES on the WARMFUZZYBUNNY act, a law that will defend Americans from evildoers. Voted YES on the PROTECTOURECONOMY act, a splendid law that will give $1000 to every American. Voted YES on the STOPTHEIF act, which will defend America's vital intellectual property from cyberthieves so future generations can enjoy our vibrant cultural heritage.
This is not the place for rhetoric or flag-waving, but I must point out the simple fact that my opponent, while holding the same views and voting for the same bills, is a bad choice because either (a) He has no experience in government at this level or (b) He is a Washington Insider, with more allegiance to lobbyists and special interests than to voters. Amen.
I'm almost at a loss to begin answering, because to me it's obvious that none of Linux's protections help here at all. The main problem is that the user can be fooled into pressing whatever buttons are needeed.
.bashrc, etc., to launch them on login. Copy an app like Mozilla to a hidden file, apply a binary malware patch, and change the desktop menu/icon to point to the hacked copy. Download a hacked glibc to a hidden locatin and set LD_LIBRARY_PATH in .bashrc to point there - then any kind of horror is possible.
It's really a two part question: how will the malicious code get run initially, and how will it insert it's back doors. There are many ways - here are some of the more obvious.
Initial Running: probably by the same mechanism that spyware uses today. Offer a "free download" with the spyware bundled. The same people that run it on Windows will run it on Linux. And don't say they won't have root - they will have to have root if Linux replaces Windows. Anyhow, root is not really needed, as I'll show.
Creating Backdoors:If the malware is installed by root, anything goes. Daemons added to the rc scripts, possibly a rootkit to cover up, possibly kernel modules that add all sorts of nasty advertising hooks. Imagine if every time text is read from a file or a socket, a brief ad is prefixed. Yuck!
If the user merely runs the malware once under his own ID, many tricks are still possible. Immediately launch a background process that continues the malware installation after the "bait" app exits. Hide malware executables in densely populated directories like the browser cache, and modify
Of course, you can cheat and use a buffer overflow for the initial install, but to stay congruent with Windows spyware we should assume tricking the user into running a "bait" application.
While you're taking advice, consider this idea from an old issue of Inc. magazine. Hire an assistant that complements your way of thinking, rather than a clone. Most entrepreneurs are dreamers, more focused on the next big deal than on reordering toilet paper. If you're like that, hire a neat, orderly, punctual person, even though you'll never fully "mesh" with such a person. The best indicator, according to that article, is the applicant's car. A car that's fairly clean and free of garbage inside indicates an orderly, disciplined mind.
My impression of Mike's document is that he's gotten some angry reactions from people on the net, and is feeling a little hurt and surprised. He probably sees himself as an ambassador, one who moves freely through the Linux, Unix and Microsoft worlds, as well as navigating the murkier waters of "channels" and secretive financing. So to some extent, I guess he sees himself as a member of the "geek tribe".
I think his conscience may be troubling him a little now that he's forced to look back on the Microsoft deal. At the time, it was probably so exciting that he rode past such considerations, as many people have done. After all, it wasn't illegal or clearly wrong - the wrongness is more visible now that SCO has become such a high profile enemy of Linux. But now that the angry mob is after him, Mike can't afford reflection. He has to dig in his heels and affirm his SCO ideology.
Mike mentions being harrassed by an individual with five online handles, all registered as underage for extra legal protection. To what forum is he referring? Does slashdot have this underage checkbox? Did he sue the harrasser and get a subpoena, or was he forestalled by the underage status?
Mike gives an overview of his accomplishments - the numerous companies founded and patents granted. I think the message here is that he is not simply a shady dealmaker, but a technologist who has helped to move the industry forward. So clearly, his "geek cred" is important to him. Unlike Darl, Mike isn't playing to the Wall Street Journal readers. He'd like slashdotters to, if not forgive, at least understand.
So you propose that businesses pay for innovation in order to get a brief leg up on the competition, which will last until the competition can clone the innovation. That works for some things, not others. You mentioned the problem of monopoly, but there is often a degree of economic coercion. If you come up with an improved can opener, and show it to WalMart, they will call their preferred maker of can openers and tell them to start making it. A patent would give you the leverage to break into that cozy relationship. And no, WalMart probably wouldn't sign an NDA to see your can opener.
It's nice to know there's innovation coming from Taiwan, but I was thinking of mainland China. And no, I don't associate that country with innovation. And don't drag gunpowder and spaghetti into it.
It is kind of appealling to think of a more aggressive marketplace, with less cloud of fear from patents. If everyone were reverse-engineering the competitiors and cloning them three weeks later we might get a rapid stream of tiny improvements. But I'm afraid the big improvements wouldn't happen at all. And many times the valuable invention is in the brain of someone who has nothing to do with the industry. Greed is a good motivator to make him write it down and get it into production.
Problem: Photographers want to fit a lot of pictures on limited storage, but good compression algorithms are slow. If the camera compresses an image after taking a picture, it will seem to freeze up. Fast compression algorithms don't compress well.
Solution: Compress the images asynchronously from the image-capture process. This is called enablement. The PTO requires that patent applications contain a detailed enough description to let someone skilled in the art build the invention. It is natural that part of this description will appear obvious to one skilled in the art. The specification is not written in legalese. Maybe you are not used to reading formal, carefully written English. Remember that this document must be understandable not only for the 20-year life of the patent, but a thousand years from now when it will be part of the prior art.
The claims are written in legalese. They have to be. Patent claims
become, in effect, a patch to our national law. They have to unambiguously describe the exact limits of what is claimed as novel here. Nobody on slashdot can understand them, but every judge can understand them. If you call the patent "stupid" because its claims are legalese, then you must call every patent "stupid" on the same grounds.
The patent doesn't need to re-describe the existing prior art. It refers to existing known cameras and proposes an improvement. Are you saying that the patent doesn't contain enough information for one skilled
in the art to create such a camera?Ah, but you would not be granted a patent on "those things" because they were prior art.
The point is: every patent attorney and patent examiner, the people slashdot likes to bash as ignorant, could probably read this patent and accurately summarize it in ten minutes. It's a patent on asynchronous image compression in a digital still camera. I didn't see a single slashdot poster get it right - the closest was a guy who thought it was a patent on a particular kind of compression algorithm. I think people with such a ludicrously poor understanding of a field should refrain from criticizing decisions in that field until they learn a bit more.
No, the funny part is that what you think is the idea isn't, you haven't even skimmed the patent and you feel free to join a chorus of blind sheep bleating in meaningless complaint.
The sad part is that you don't realize that even if the patent were as simple as you think, there had to be a time when it was non-obvious.
I realize one of the crack-mods may get a hold of this, but I'm really sick of the ignorant commentary on patents on slashdot. The average slashdotter has as much qualification for such discussions as the average AOL user has to debate the differences between ksh and bash.
Yours would be a world of excellent execution but minimal innovation. The prize would go to the fastest, cheapest, most efficient manufacturer. R&D would be a weekend hobby for manufacturing engineers - nobody would pay to develop new technology.
It has its upside and downside. I think China is becoming your world.
But is it truly a GUI at that point? You pressed F3 and entered a mini-program in a simple language. How would a true GUI do it? Would it be fast or convenient?
A person who has sought out the public limelight thereby sacrifices some expectation of privacy. This is a principle well understood by society and by the courts. Mr. McBride has worked very hard to remain in the limelight.
Also, society sanctions those who break rules. While Mr. McBride hasn't been legally convicted of wrongdoing, he is visibly seeking to take wrongfully from others in order to enrich himself.
Inevitably, he suffers societal backlash, ranging from the Utah reporters who no longer give him positive press to the angry teenagers calling him up at home.
An individual's rights can be narrowed by society if he commits wrongdoing. This narrowing can occur formally, as in criminal sentencing, or informally, as in the shunning and hostile attention directed at a pariah.
It's unfortunate that your comment was modded down merely for disagreeing with the mainstream belief here.
You're right; I forgot that argument. It's so odd that it causes cognitive dissonance. I'm very curious to know if they have real arguments behind it, or if it's just a smokescreen.
The basic problem is that the invalidity of the license isn't a defense against copyright infringement. No, I was thinking more that based on SCO's offensive claims to own part of Linux, the judge might accept that SCO has some right to control Linux. And yes, I know that's a long shot, but it makes more sense than that defensive claim.
I don't think any of SCO's claims actually pertain to the GPL - it's just FUD. If the courts find for SCO, that doesn't strike down any part of the GPL. If the courts upheld the Eolas decision, that Internet Explorer infringed a patent, everyone could be barred from distributing IE, regardless of what license Microsoft had distributed it under.
You're still getting my goat with a certain slashdot naivete. You doubt anyone wants to buy from them? Of course! SCO was already dead - that's why the current crew could snap up their name cheaply. Quit acting like McBride is some merchant who will be disappointed when nobody goes into his store. He is a warrior, planning to terrify merchants with legal weapons until they pay him off. Now, he might disguise some of these payoffs as software purchases, but in essence he knows that trying to sell a PC Unix is completely pointless, even if it were much better than SCO's product.
My belief exactly. It could be an insanely profitable business model. Look at the crazy tangle of Unix licensing they've uncovered. How many other such situations are out there waiting for a McBride to exploit them?
A judge can. Besides, SCO doesn't need to distribute Linux, merely sell protection against lawsuits.
None of which implies that I think SCO will win - just that their thinking isn't as weird as some believe.
First, that argument applies to anyone who holds an exclusive right, whether patent, copyright or contract. If you demand too much, you kill the goose that laid the golden eggs. The art is in demanding the right toll. If SCO is just a puppet for Microsoft, they might want to kill Linux. But if they're in it for the money, they might want to set their "tax" at a level that won't kill Linux, but will make them insanely rich. That is a very sustainable business model.
Shareholder's lawsuit? Most of the shares are held by insiders. And McBride is doing extremely well for the shareholders. If he gets $5 billion from IBM, SCOX will be one of the best investments ever. Doesn't sound like a reasonable lawsuit.
I see this idea way to often, and it's nonsense. You act as if SCO wants to go back to being a tiny software vendor. If they win, in the big sense, they will leverage their position to acquire more intellectual property and contract rights. They may acquire these as part of settlements. Then they can attack more companies with more claims.
SCO's Unix business was dead anyway. How can you possibly think that after winning five billion dollars they would go back to their old Unix business?
More importantly, I get irritated by this implication that businesses would buy or not buy based on the "niceness" of the vendor. Way more important than niceness is the legal shotgun said vendor is aiming at your midriff. SCO with 5 billion and hundreds of small acquisitions giving them patents and contracts would wield a big scary shotgun. They would certainly not be irrelevant.
If they win (and I'm not sure they expect or want to win) they can collect vast damages and back royalties. Why would they care about the future of Linux or their own products? Those products were merely a means to make money, and they'll have more money than they ever dreamed of.
If the X10 modules can't handle the current, you could connect the output of an X10 module to the coil of a contactor. I couldn't tell from your question whether you want to switch all the high-power lights together, or have individual control. If individually, you need contactors with at least 8.3 amps (1000/120) which is very small. The smallest contactors are probably 20A. If you want to combine the lights, add the total wattage and divide by 120 to get the minimum contactor ampacity. The coil of the contactor will be driven by the output of the X10 module. House the contactor in a metal box cut a heavy duty extension cord a few feet from one end, terminating the ends inside the box.
Whoever modded that down is an utter fool. That was brilliant.
I skimmed one of his books in the store, and if I'm thinking of the right one, "two minutes hate" is a pretty good description. The book was a compilation of mini-tirades against the perceived inaccuracies of the author's political adversaries, none of which were terribly compelling to someone not on the author's wavelength to start.
Of course, I may be thinking of someone else.
Just to clarify - anyone wanting to call you should get your permission first, before they come into your home on the telephone line you're paying for. Is that it?
It could be, or not. If the open source program respects the flag, the vast majority of people won't modify and recompile it. Look at xpdf, which respects the anti-copying flags of Adobe. If it's illegal to distribute the "hacked" version, a vanishingly small percentage of users will have it.
So it could be used as an argument against open source, but it's a disingenuous argument. A few people might hack their TV app, just like a few people might rip out their catalytic converter to get more performance.
I notice that Adobe has not claimed that xpdf violates the DMCA. You can modify xpdf into a circumvention device, but it isn't a circumvention device as shipped.
No, totally wrong. The Eurion Constellation detection works equally well no matter how rotated. Do you think they're idiots? The detection is based on distance between circles.
Anyhow, I don't think Photoshop uses Eurion, but rather an image of the Treasury seal. I don't know if that's rotation-resistant, but if it's not they're idiots!
The method I described isn't to stop smearing - rather it's to stop the app from spazzing out and using 100% CPU during dragging/resizing. That would be the natural consequence of an app redrawing a complex window for each Expose event.
It looks like Mozilla took the easier approach, to postpone the redraw completely until the Expose events stop coming. That works fine with profile (non opaque) window dragging, but in combination with opaque dragging it causes smearing. On each Expose event, the app should at least fill the window with its background color, which is almost instantaneous. That will override the smearing.
Using the method described in my previoius comment will draw as much of the display list as the app has time for, improving the realism of the drag metaphor at some expense in CPU utilization.
But we don't really need a screen buffer to eliminate the massive smearing. We just need applications smart enough not to continue their redraw function after getting another Expose event. Then you get a partially painted window while dragging, which is not nearly as offensive as the smearing.
This is simply an application or toolkit bug.