Second of all, from my reading anyway, Microsoft is not patenting RSS, but RSS within Vista/IE7. Of course I'm not a patent lawyer, I could be wrong about that.
You couldn't patent "RSS within Vista/IE7" if you tried. This patent looks like it's trying to cover broadly RSS syndication, RSS aggregation, RSS feed conversion, and object-oriented libraries for working with RSS feeds. The fact that it's beating around the bush and not patenting the RSS format itself is simply patent strategy: Microsoft's lawyers are trying to "build a fence" around RSS, leaving the open core open, but patenting everything around it so that you can't use RSS without infringing on their patents.
Make no mistake: if this patent gets granted, most RSS software will be infringing.
There is no such thing as "patenting RSS for IE only". This patent is trying to cover a lot more, and you can bet that they are going to use this patent, if granted, to go after competitors.
Microsoft isn't patenting RSS, they are patenting RSS aggregation and conversion, and they are also trying to cover alternative formats like Atom. That doesn't make the patent less outrageous, it makes it more outrageous. Why are we talking about Microsoft? Because it is Microsoft that filed this patent.
Microsoft doesn't have to sue, they merely have to threaten to sue. In practice, they tend to settle for things like "if you commit to licensing Microsoft Windows and Office, then all your patent worries will go away". Because every large corporation has a significant number of Microsoft zealots inside anyway, such a settlement isn't difficult to achieve. Usually, such settlements are covered by non-disclosures, so you never find out about them.
Make no mistake about it: Microsoft is using their patents offensively, but they are evidently smart about it by keeping it low profile and negotiating carefully.
Apple has an excellent kernel available to them that already runs on numerous embedded systems, has lots of drivers, and is compatible with their userland: Linux. Instead, they pour lots of resources into doing their own port of OS X. What are they hoping to accomplish? The whole thing looks like a serious case of "NIH".
What if they just chose the one that was best for what they where looking for?
Obviously, it is. That is, they choose a few extra features (useless ones, as far as I'm concerned) over Linux compatibility.
Relating this to some kind of slight on linux is just plain stupid,
Companies don't "slight" open source software, they attempt to compete with it.
and seems like a sad way of almost searching for a reason to draw the conversation away from two other companies ( SUN and Apple ) back to Linux.
What's there to "draw away"? In the long term, there are going to be two operating systems: Windows and Linux. What Apple and Sun do is relevant only to the degree that they are compatible with those two operating systems. That's why I'm looking at how Apple's choices relate to Linux. Going with ZFS was a stupid mistake on their part.
that Novell would need to do its own support and updates under GPL2 'cause they couldn't distribute anything under GPL3 and still offer the "patent protection."
Well, that statement is misleading. In fact, Novell has a choice: either they fork and offer patent protection, or they simply ship under the GPL v3 and don't offer patent protection. So, statements like "Novell [...] would have to fork the project and do all the work without the help of Team Samba." are incorrect, since such statements already assume that Novell would not choose to go with the GPL v3.
In fact, Novell keeps saying that they don't think the FOSS they are shipping is infringing. So, most likely, when GPL v3 software comes out, they'll simply ship that under GPL v3 and live with the fact that there will be no patent protection from Microsoft claims. At that point, Novell will be in the same boat as all other Linux vendors again, except that they have gotten some money out of the deal.
In any case, the sooner the GPL v3 gets out and adopted, the better for everybody, including Novell, because the GPL v3 will clarify these issues and let us focus on important questions again.
What Novell and Microsoft are claiming is that they CAN incorporate patent encumbered IP into GPL v2 software. I believe that that claim is being examined by a FOSS lawyers. If the GPL v2 license doesn't prevent that (as Novell and Microsoft assert) then we have a real problem using that license.
In a limited sense, they probably can, and that's why the GPL is being clarified.
And yes, any corporation that uses GPL'd software but does not abide by the intent of the GPL needs to pay a heavy price.
If the GPL is unclear or contains loopholes, then the GPL needs to be clarified; if we start ostracizing companies that comply with the letter of the GPL just because we don't like how they're complying, then free software will be perceived as untrustworthy. (And, in any case, I think there are bigger violations of the spirit of the GPL than Novell.) Since we have the mechanisms for fixing the GPL, I don't see the problem. This year, projects are going to start moving to the GPL v3, and, no matter what ambiguities may exist now, then Novell needs to make a decision.
No, the real problem with the reaction to the Novell/Microsoft patent deal is that people are losing sight of the core problem: Microsoft's patent portfolio and their threats of asserting it against open source distributors and users. Nothing Novell does or doesn't do changes that threat.
I really hope that Novell realizes their mistake and comes back to the community but until then I won't use their products. It really hurt to wipe Suse off my PC. It was one of the best distros I have ever used but I'm adjusting to Ubuntu.
Personally, I have always found SuSE's excessive fondness of proprietary software irritating and I made the switch away from SuSE a few years ago. The MS/Novell deal doesn't particularly surprise me, it's in character, but I also don't think it changes a lot. Perhaps the reason why many people react to this deal so strongly is because they had an unrealistic notion of what kind of company Novell/SuSE actually is.
so just to be clear: Novell will not be able to ship any GPLv3 versions of anything under the terms of their deal with MS, because
Where does the GPL v3 say "you can't ship this code if you have have an agreement like the MS/Novell" agreement? In fact, it doesn't. Novell can ship the code under the GPL v3 all they like, despite having whatever agreements they have with Microsoft.
Richard Stallman has promised that the GPLv3 will forbid them from doing so.
No, what Stallman has "promised" is that the GPL v3 will make agreements like the MS/Novell agreement ineffective. It will, and that's a good thing.
But making those agreements ineffective is not the same as prohibiting Novell from shipping the software; Novell will likely choose to continue to ship the software under the GPL v3 and live with the fact that their agreement with MS then doesn't mean anything. That puts the ball back in Microsoft's court, and Microsoft's actions are then limited to suing or shutting up.
The standard GPL boilerplate would still give Novell the option of distributing the last GPLv2 version, but as the GP points out, that would leave them with a fork.
Novell also has the option of distributing the code under the GPL v3 and living with the consequence that they are then back to having the same legal status wrt Microsoft patents as any other Linux vendor. Most likely, that's exactly what's going to happen.
I don't know
You obviously don't know a lot of things, and your thinking is fuzzy. That's why you should shut up and stop spreading hearsay and innuendo, instead of facts and sound analysis.
In the meantime, the competition has not exactly been standing still. Apple has continuously been improving its Mac OS X operating system. Microsoft has not been resting on its laurels either. Windows Vista is already available. Many anti-MS fanboys complain that Vista is nothing more than XP with a new coat, but anyone with an open mind realizes this is absolutely not the case."
OS X's major new pieces of functionality, Dashboard, Spotlight, Time Machine, translucency, hardware acceleration, scalable icons, and new themes, have simply been rip-offs of smaller competitors, open source, and research. Vista indeed hasn't been "standing still", but its major new features,.NET and Avalon are rip-offs of Java and XUL; the rest are rip-offs of OS X. So, you're right, OS X and Vista haven't been standing still, they have been catching up and ripping off other systems.
Gnome and KDE are cutting edge desktop systems, in many areas significantly ahead of OS X and Vista. The fact that both of them are trying to stay close to OS X and Windows even when they are innovating has a simple reason: it's what the market demands. Gnome and KDE's ability to realize a vision are limited by market realities. But within those limits, Gnome and KDE are quite innovative.
If you disagree, I challenge you to name some features that you think OS X or Vista innovated compared to Gnome and KDE.
Novell has always maintained that it hasn't infringed on Microsoft's patents but Microsoft has openly stated that Samba and Mono and other software does infringe.
Yeah, and so what? Lots of companies are making lots of outrageous patent claims. Are you going to stop any sort of open source software development whenever Microsoft claims it infringes on their patents?
So what you have is Microsoft offering.NET to the world as an "Open Standard" and then claiming that whoever implements it are using Microsoft's IP that are protected by the patent laws.
Probably. But they could make just the same assertions about GNU g++, "D" or Python or Perl or Ruby. There is simply no way of running away from Microsoft's IP claims: Microsoft is going to assert patent claims (bogus or real) against any innovative open source software. And it's not only Microsoft--other companies are going to do the same. That's the way the real world works.
The only way of dealing with such patent claims is to know about the patents that Microsoft and other companies actually have, write software in such a way that it doesn't infringe, and defend against patent claims in court if they make them.
Trying to avoid patents by listening to claims or trying to second guess legal agreements simply is not going to work.
You miss the point. Novell and Microsoft are saying that they can release code under GPL v2 that is encumbered by patents
I don't get your point. How has anything changed?
Microsoft has been asserting for years that Linux infringes on their patents. The Novell deal doesn't change that.
Nor does the Novell deal protect Novell's users. Microsoft can promise not to sue Novell users, but the second Microsoft actually attempts to assert any of their patents against a piece of software, everybody, including Novell, has to stop distributing that software, no matter what deal Microsoft and Novell have. Furthermore, if Novell knowingly distributed software that was patent encumbered, then they are violating the GPL and may be sued by the authors of the software in question.
I just don't see how anything has changed.
I didn't support GPL v3 in the past but I do now. Let's close this loophole and shun Novell until they straighten up and fly right!
I think the GPL v3 will do some good in terms of clarifying these issues further. Still, I don't see a significant problem even under GPL v2.
In terms of "shunning Novell", come on, are you buying any of their stuff anyway? I'm not. If this deal gets more open source software into corporations by giving them a warm and fuzzy feeling, all the better. The more Linux gets its foot in the door, the better. If Microsoft thinks this deal will help them in any way, they are sadly mistaken.
Microsoft either derives code from something that's GPL'ed or they don't.
In the first case, they have to provide source code to their stuff under the GPL, plus transferable licenses for all necessary patents.
In the second case, they are effectively simply releasing a piece of proprietary software--no different from lots of other proprietary software that SuSE, RedHat, and other distros are already shipping.
Either way, I don't see what the big deal is. Microsoft could always distribute proprietary stuff, and Microsoft could always sue people of patent infringement. Nothing has really changed, other than that they are a couple of hundred million dollars poorer.
If the legendary Jeremy Allison moves to Red Hat or Canonical, he'll probably still be working on Samba. And when the GPL v3 comes out, it will probably be adopted by Team Samba. [...] So in that specific case, it would be Novell who would have to fork the project and do all the work without the help of Team Samba.
There is no rational reason anybody has demonstrated why SuSE shouldn't be able to ship Samba under GPL v3. So, please, stop spreading FUD.
This is what I predicted from the beginning. The goal here was fragmentation of the Linux development community.
It makes no difference whether the Samba team likes Novell or SuSE; the software is released under an open source license. The ability by people you don't like to use software that you release under an open source license is an essential part of open source.
Many Linux distros are doing exactly that and that's why taking Linux down a few pegs is a necessity to MS. MS doesn't want Linux dead. They just want it to smell funny. Probably something like pee. (I keep doing that)
That's what Microsoft does. So what? Whining about it isn't going to change it.
Apple has a choice between lots of file systems to succeed HFS+, among them ext3 and ZFS, and they chose ZFS, a file system that has no good Linux implementation and a Linux-incompatible license. That tells you how much they value Linux interoperability. How hard is that to understand?
I would hate for companies to start releasing general-use apps for OSX using X11, as, like you mentioned, they don't play well with regular OSX-native apps.
They "don't play well with" other OS X apps because Apple doesn't invest time to make things work together well. With a modest amount of work, Apple could make X11 and Gtk+ apps better integrated into OS X than Carbon apps are.
They will never have all the niceties of a native Aqua app, and so Apple is right to force developers to code for Aqua if they want to release a Mac app.
Aqua is just the UI; there are many toolkits and APIs implementing Aqua. Apple themselves has Cocoa and Carbon, two completely different APIs and libraries. Making an Aqua-integrated version of Gtk+ is fairly straightforward, in particular given Cairo and the existing work on KDE/Gnome integration. Even non-Gtk+ X11 apps could integrate much better with the Apple desktop than they do, through improvements to Apple's X11 server implementation.
The fact that Apple keeps choosing to maintain proprietary APIs, and that X11 apps are so poorly integrated on Macintosh, is a business and marketing choice, not a technical one; Apple deliberately keeps it that way. And that brings me back to my original point: ZFS is an analogous choice. It's not that it's technically better in any meaningful sense, Apple just doesn't want too much Linux compatibility.
You get to choose whether to install it when you install the OS.
No, you don't "get to choose it", you have to track it down on the install CD. Furthermore, it gets blown away on upgrades. What does this mean? Nobody can actually ship a mass-market product for OS X that's based on X11. Apple treats X11 purely as a compatibility product for UNIX geeks.
Oh dear. Open up the System Preferences panel, click on the Accounts icon, click the Login Items tab, add X11 to the list of apps installed on login. Problem solved. Why would they *not* use the standard way to start apps on login ? It's not as though it's the default window server or anything...
Yes, and that's a problem: X11 should just "be there". You don't start up Quartz in System Preferences, it's just there and runs.
Consistent with what ?
Consistent with Macintosh.
Apple's way is simply to make an X11 app respond just like a native window AFAICT. Works just fine for me.
Apple's way is to treat all of X11 as a single app; that's not consistent.
Since I've never had any problems with keyboard layout (I can type Option-3 to get a £ symbol in nedit, for example, even on my US keyboard, which is usually a problem for me in Linux) I don't know what you're talking about...
When you change keyboard layouts in OS X, the X11 layouts don't change.
It's a package that 99% of the user-base won't need or want, but it's a choice.
Yes, and Apple's policies are working towards keeping it that way by setting up things such that X11 apps always remain foreign to OS X. It would be easy for Apple to put X11 on equal footing with Classic, Carbon, and Quartz/Cocoa and to ship Gtk+ (and maybe even Qt) with the system. Thousands of high quality Linux desktop apps would instantly run on OS X with a native look and feel. The fact that that isn't happening is Apple's choice. Apple, instead, wants to ensure that X11 remains a special-purpose tool for workstation users "switching" to OS X. That's not my guess, Apple employees have told me so.
Look at some of the posts under this story - you will find stories of people moving from Linux to Solaris, really just because they want the features of ZFS
There are always some. The question is whether the mainstream needs or wants ZFS features, and I don't see it; that's not where storage is heading.
Yes, they chose to use a better graphics library than X11, and a better (also open-source!) filesystem than ext3 -- and good riddance on both counts, I say. Why all the hostility?
Typical: when someone points out that Apple keeps pursuing proprietary solutions and when someone disagrees with your view that Apple has the best of everything, you call them "hostile". It's you who is hostile, not me.
Desktop integration, pre-installation, automatic on-demand launching, consistent window management, keyboard layout integration, to name just a few. Performance could also be improved further.
Apple needs X11 to get people building scientific apps on Linux and Solaris. Its actually one of the best X implementations I've used (X.org, XFree86, Irix X Server)
Yes, and that's pretty much all they are supporting: scientific apps. If you want to use X11 desktop apps, you're out in the cold because they don't integrate well with the rest of OSX.
Slashdot Mirror
Successful projects need to be well-packaged in order to succeed, particularly complicated ones like Evergreen.
I don't see any RPM or Debian packages. Do they exist? Is there a ready-to-install image?
Second of all, from my reading anyway, Microsoft is not patenting RSS, but RSS within Vista/IE7. Of course I'm not a patent lawyer, I could be wrong about that.
You couldn't patent "RSS within Vista/IE7" if you tried. This patent looks like it's trying to cover broadly RSS syndication, RSS aggregation, RSS feed conversion, and object-oriented libraries for working with RSS feeds. The fact that it's beating around the bush and not patenting the RSS format itself is simply patent strategy: Microsoft's lawyers are trying to "build a fence" around RSS, leaving the open core open, but patenting everything around it so that you can't use RSS without infringing on their patents.
Make no mistake: if this patent gets granted, most RSS software will be infringing.
There is no such thing as "patenting RSS for IE only". This patent is trying to cover a lot more, and you can bet that they are going to use this patent, if granted, to go after competitors.
Microsoft isn't patenting RSS, they are patenting RSS aggregation and conversion, and they are also trying to cover alternative formats like Atom. That doesn't make the patent less outrageous, it makes it more outrageous. Why are we talking about Microsoft? Because it is Microsoft that filed this patent.
Microsoft doesn't have to sue, they merely have to threaten to sue. In practice, they tend to settle for things like "if you commit to licensing Microsoft Windows and Office, then all your patent worries will go away". Because every large corporation has a significant number of Microsoft zealots inside anyway, such a settlement isn't difficult to achieve. Usually, such settlements are covered by non-disclosures, so you never find out about them.
Make no mistake about it: Microsoft is using their patents offensively, but they are evidently smart about it by keeping it low profile and negotiating carefully.
Apple has an excellent kernel available to them that already runs on numerous embedded systems, has lots of drivers, and is compatible with their userland: Linux. Instead, they pour lots of resources into doing their own port of OS X. What are they hoping to accomplish? The whole thing looks like a serious case of "NIH".
What if they just chose the one that was best for what they where looking for?
Obviously, it is. That is, they choose a few extra features (useless ones, as far as I'm concerned) over Linux compatibility.
Relating this to some kind of slight on linux is just plain stupid,
Companies don't "slight" open source software, they attempt to compete with it.
and seems like a sad way of almost searching for a reason to draw the conversation away from
two other companies ( SUN and Apple ) back to Linux.
What's there to "draw away"? In the long term, there are going to be two operating systems: Windows and Linux. What Apple and Sun do is relevant only to the degree that they are compatible with those two operating systems. That's why I'm looking at how Apple's choices relate to Linux. Going with ZFS was a stupid mistake on their part.
that Novell would need to do its own support and updates under GPL2 'cause they couldn't distribute anything under GPL3 and still offer the "patent protection."
Well, that statement is misleading. In fact, Novell has a choice: either they fork and offer patent protection, or they simply ship under the GPL v3 and don't offer patent protection. So, statements like "Novell [...] would have to fork the project and do all the work without the help of Team Samba." are incorrect, since such statements already assume that Novell would not choose to go with the GPL v3.
In fact, Novell keeps saying that they don't think the FOSS they are shipping is infringing. So, most likely, when GPL v3 software comes out, they'll simply ship that under GPL v3 and live with the fact that there will be no patent protection from Microsoft claims. At that point, Novell will be in the same boat as all other Linux vendors again, except that they have gotten some money out of the deal.
In any case, the sooner the GPL v3 gets out and adopted, the better for everybody, including Novell, because the GPL v3 will clarify these issues and let us focus on important questions again.
What Novell and Microsoft are claiming is that they CAN incorporate patent encumbered IP into GPL v2 software. I believe that that claim is being examined by a FOSS lawyers. If the GPL v2 license doesn't prevent that (as Novell and Microsoft assert) then we have a real problem using that license.
In a limited sense, they probably can, and that's why the GPL is being clarified.
And yes, any corporation that uses GPL'd software but does not abide by the intent of the GPL needs to pay a heavy price.
If the GPL is unclear or contains loopholes, then the GPL needs to be clarified; if we start ostracizing companies that comply with the letter of the GPL just because we don't like how they're complying, then free software will be perceived as untrustworthy. (And, in any case, I think there are bigger violations of the spirit of the GPL than Novell.) Since we have the mechanisms for fixing the GPL, I don't see the problem. This year, projects are going to start moving to the GPL v3, and, no matter what ambiguities may exist now, then Novell needs to make a decision.
No, the real problem with the reaction to the Novell/Microsoft patent deal is that people are losing sight of the core problem: Microsoft's patent portfolio and their threats of asserting it against open source distributors and users. Nothing Novell does or doesn't do changes that threat.
I really hope that Novell realizes their mistake and comes back to the community but until then I won't use their products. It really hurt to wipe Suse off my PC. It was one of the best distros I have ever used but I'm adjusting to Ubuntu.
Personally, I have always found SuSE's excessive fondness of proprietary software irritating and I made the switch away from SuSE a few years ago. The MS/Novell deal doesn't particularly surprise me, it's in character, but I also don't think it changes a lot. Perhaps the reason why many people react to this deal so strongly is because they had an unrealistic notion of what kind of company Novell/SuSE actually is.
This doesn't seem to have sunk in from last time
Yes, because you're wrong.
so just to be clear: Novell will not be able to ship any GPLv3 versions of anything under the terms of their deal with MS, because
Where does the GPL v3 say "you can't ship this code if you have have an agreement like the MS/Novell" agreement? In fact, it doesn't. Novell can ship the code under the GPL v3 all they like, despite having whatever agreements they have with Microsoft.
Richard Stallman has promised that the GPLv3 will forbid them from doing so.
No, what Stallman has "promised" is that the GPL v3 will make agreements like the MS/Novell agreement ineffective. It will, and that's a good thing.
But making those agreements ineffective is not the same as prohibiting Novell from shipping the software; Novell will likely choose to continue to ship the software under the GPL v3 and live with the fact that their agreement with MS then doesn't mean anything. That puts the ball back in Microsoft's court, and Microsoft's actions are then limited to suing or shutting up.
The standard GPL boilerplate would still give Novell the option of distributing the last GPLv2 version, but as the GP points out, that would leave them with a fork.
Novell also has the option of distributing the code under the GPL v3 and living with the consequence that they are then back to having the same legal status wrt Microsoft patents as any other Linux vendor. Most likely, that's exactly what's going to happen.
I don't know
You obviously don't know a lot of things, and your thinking is fuzzy. That's why you should shut up and stop spreading hearsay and innuendo, instead of facts and sound analysis.
In the meantime, the competition has not exactly been standing still. Apple has continuously been improving its Mac OS X operating system. Microsoft has not been resting on its laurels either. Windows Vista is already available. Many anti-MS fanboys complain that Vista is nothing more than XP with a new coat, but anyone with an open mind realizes this is absolutely not the case."
.NET and Avalon are rip-offs of Java and XUL; the rest are rip-offs of OS X. So, you're right, OS X and Vista haven't been standing still, they have been catching up and ripping off other systems.
OS X's major new pieces of functionality, Dashboard, Spotlight, Time Machine, translucency, hardware acceleration, scalable icons, and new themes, have simply been rip-offs of smaller competitors, open source, and research. Vista indeed hasn't been "standing still", but its major new features,
Gnome and KDE are cutting edge desktop systems, in many areas significantly ahead of OS X and Vista. The fact that both of them are trying to stay close to OS X and Windows even when they are innovating has a simple reason: it's what the market demands. Gnome and KDE's ability to realize a vision are limited by market realities. But within those limits, Gnome and KDE are quite innovative.
If you disagree, I challenge you to name some features that you think OS X or Vista innovated compared to Gnome and KDE.
Novell has always maintained that it hasn't infringed on Microsoft's patents but Microsoft has openly stated that Samba and Mono and other software does infringe.
.NET to the world as an "Open Standard" and then claiming that whoever implements it are using Microsoft's IP that are protected by the patent laws.
Yeah, and so what? Lots of companies are making lots of outrageous patent claims. Are you going to stop any sort of open source software development whenever Microsoft claims it infringes on their patents?
So what you have is Microsoft offering
Probably. But they could make just the same assertions about GNU g++, "D" or Python or Perl or Ruby. There is simply no way of running away from Microsoft's IP claims: Microsoft is going to assert patent claims (bogus or real) against any innovative open source software. And it's not only Microsoft--other companies are going to do the same. That's the way the real world works.
The only way of dealing with such patent claims is to know about the patents that Microsoft and other companies actually have, write software in such a way that it doesn't infringe, and defend against patent claims in court if they make them.
Trying to avoid patents by listening to claims or trying to second guess legal agreements simply is not going to work.
You miss the point. Novell and Microsoft are saying that they can release code under GPL v2 that is encumbered by patents
I don't get your point. How has anything changed?
Microsoft has been asserting for years that Linux infringes on their patents. The Novell deal doesn't change that.
Nor does the Novell deal protect Novell's users. Microsoft can promise not to sue Novell users, but the second Microsoft actually attempts to assert any of their patents against a piece of software, everybody, including Novell, has to stop distributing that software, no matter what deal Microsoft and Novell have. Furthermore, if Novell knowingly distributed software that was patent encumbered, then they are violating the GPL and may be sued by the authors of the software in question.
I just don't see how anything has changed.
I didn't support GPL v3 in the past but I do now. Let's close this loophole and shun Novell until they straighten up and fly right!
I think the GPL v3 will do some good in terms of clarifying these issues further. Still, I don't see a significant problem even under GPL v2.
In terms of "shunning Novell", come on, are you buying any of their stuff anyway? I'm not. If this deal gets more open source software into corporations by giving them a warm and fuzzy feeling, all the better. The more Linux gets its foot in the door, the better. If Microsoft thinks this deal will help them in any way, they are sadly mistaken.
Microsoft either derives code from something that's GPL'ed or they don't.
In the first case, they have to provide source code to their stuff under the GPL, plus transferable licenses for all necessary patents.
In the second case, they are effectively simply releasing a piece of proprietary software--no different from lots of other proprietary software that SuSE, RedHat, and other distros are already shipping.
Either way, I don't see what the big deal is. Microsoft could always distribute proprietary stuff, and Microsoft could always sue people of patent infringement. Nothing has really changed, other than that they are a couple of hundred million dollars poorer.
If the legendary Jeremy Allison moves to Red Hat or Canonical, he'll probably still be working on Samba. And when the GPL v3 comes out, it will probably be adopted by Team Samba. [...] So in that specific case, it would be Novell who would have to fork the project and do all the work without the help of Team Samba.
There is no rational reason anybody has demonstrated why SuSE shouldn't be able to ship Samba under GPL v3. So, please, stop spreading FUD.
This is what I predicted from the beginning. The goal here was fragmentation of the Linux development community.
It makes no difference whether the Samba team likes Novell or SuSE; the software is released under an open source license. The ability by people you don't like to use software that you release under an open source license is an essential part of open source.
Many Linux distros are doing exactly that and that's why taking Linux down a few pegs is a necessity to MS. MS doesn't want Linux dead. They just want it to smell funny. Probably something like pee. (I keep doing that)
That's what Microsoft does. So what? Whining about it isn't going to change it.
Given Microsoft's history on intellectual property, the complaints of the OCA would be a lot more credible if Microsoft weren't a part of it.
Apple has a choice between lots of file systems to succeed HFS+, among them ext3 and ZFS, and they chose ZFS, a file system that has no good Linux implementation and a Linux-incompatible license. That tells you how much they value Linux interoperability. How hard is that to understand?
I would hate for companies to start releasing general-use apps for OSX using X11, as, like you mentioned, they don't play well with regular OSX-native apps.
They "don't play well with" other OS X apps because Apple doesn't invest time to make things work together well. With a modest amount of work, Apple could make X11 and Gtk+ apps better integrated into OS X than Carbon apps are.
They will never have all the niceties of a native Aqua app, and so Apple is right to force developers to code for Aqua if they want to release a Mac app.
Aqua is just the UI; there are many toolkits and APIs implementing Aqua. Apple themselves has Cocoa and Carbon, two completely different APIs and libraries. Making an Aqua-integrated version of Gtk+ is fairly straightforward, in particular given Cairo and the existing work on KDE/Gnome integration. Even non-Gtk+ X11 apps could integrate much better with the Apple desktop than they do, through improvements to Apple's X11 server implementation.
The fact that Apple keeps choosing to maintain proprietary APIs, and that X11 apps are so poorly integrated on Macintosh, is a business and marketing choice, not a technical one; Apple deliberately keeps it that way. And that brings me back to my original point: ZFS is an analogous choice. It's not that it's technically better in any meaningful sense, Apple just doesn't want too much Linux compatibility.
Getting Chlamydia requires intimage physical contact; I don't think there is much risk there for Slashdot members.
You get to choose whether to install it when you install the OS.
No, you don't "get to choose it", you have to track it down on the install CD. Furthermore, it gets blown away on upgrades. What does this mean? Nobody can actually ship a mass-market product for OS X that's based on X11. Apple treats X11 purely as a compatibility product for UNIX geeks.
Oh dear. Open up the System Preferences panel, click on the Accounts icon, click the Login Items tab, add X11 to the list of apps installed on login. Problem solved. Why would they *not* use the standard way to start apps on login ? It's not as though it's the default window server or anything...
Yes, and that's a problem: X11 should just "be there". You don't start up Quartz in System Preferences, it's just there and runs.
Consistent with what ?
Consistent with Macintosh.
Apple's way is simply to make an X11 app respond just like a native window AFAICT. Works just fine for me.
Apple's way is to treat all of X11 as a single app; that's not consistent.
Since I've never had any problems with keyboard layout (I can type Option-3 to get a £ symbol in nedit, for example, even on my US keyboard, which is usually a problem for me in Linux) I don't know what you're talking about...
When you change keyboard layouts in OS X, the X11 layouts don't change.
It's a package that 99% of the user-base won't need or want, but it's a choice.
Yes, and Apple's policies are working towards keeping it that way by setting up things such that X11 apps always remain foreign to OS X. It would be easy for Apple to put X11 on equal footing with Classic, Carbon, and Quartz/Cocoa and to ship Gtk+ (and maybe even Qt) with the system. Thousands of high quality Linux desktop apps would instantly run on OS X with a native look and feel. The fact that that isn't happening is Apple's choice. Apple, instead, wants to ensure that X11 remains a special-purpose tool for workstation users "switching" to OS X. That's not my guess, Apple employees have told me so.
Good. Now, if they could just start creating negative mass objects, then we'd be getting somewhere in terms of space travel.
Look at some of the posts under this story - you will find stories of people moving from Linux to Solaris, really just because they want the features of ZFS
There are always some. The question is whether the mainstream needs or wants ZFS features, and I don't see it; that's not where storage is heading.
Yes, they chose to use a better graphics library than X11, and a better (also open-source!) filesystem than ext3 -- and good riddance on both counts, I say. Why all the hostility?
Typical: when someone points out that Apple keeps pursuing proprietary solutions and when someone disagrees with your view that Apple has the best of everything, you call them "hostile". It's you who is hostile, not me.
what is apple's X server missing?
Desktop integration, pre-installation, automatic on-demand launching, consistent window management, keyboard layout integration, to name just a few. Performance could also be improved further.
Apple needs X11 to get people building scientific apps on Linux and Solaris. Its actually one of the best X implementations I've used (X.org, XFree86, Irix X Server)
Yes, and that's pretty much all they are supporting: scientific apps. If you want to use X11 desktop apps, you're out in the cold because they don't integrate well with the rest of OSX.