Slashback: Bankruptcy, SUVdiving, Singalongs 508
Not like that un-American GPL. agentZ writes "The first Microsoft government customer to buy access to the Windows source code is Russia according to this CNet story. Interesting to note FAPSI, one of their intelligence agencies, authorized the purchase. Perhaps they're looking for vulnerabilities in the U.S. Government's dependence on Microsoft?"
The difference between Chapter 11 and The End. prostoalex writes "In regards to a recent heated discussion on whether tech companies can make it out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, XO Communications, the telecom company of the dot-com era, seems to be doing quite well after filing Chapter 11. The article on Internet.com also mentions another company, Covad Communications, picking up customers and more business after filing for Chapter 11."
There's hope in PCI Land. Regarding the Slashdot post of a few days ago about the PCI-SIG ("The End of the Free PCI Device List"), PCI-SIG Chairman Tony Pierce writes
"YourVote.com Supporters:Thank you for making us aware of your concerns regarding Jim Boemler's online Vendor and Device Lists for the PCI technology.
There has been a misunderstanding between PCI-SIG and Jim - PCI-SIG officers are currently working with Jim to resolve the issues as quickly as possible. We respect Jim Boemler's work and are committed to support the PCI specification efforts industry-wide. We are confident that we will come to an amicable resolution.
We are pleased to see the strong industry support for PCI technologies and value your response to the issues. We understand this site has been a very valuable tool and are working together to find a solution to make sure that the tool is available to the public in some way.
Thank you for your support over the years. We will be sure to keep you informed as we come to resolution in this situation."
This lowers Finland on my list of vacation spots. E-Tray writes "It seems that Finnish equivalents of American RIAA, Teosto, which represents songwriters and publishers, and Gramex, which represents music producers and artists, want to force Finnish day nurseries to pay royalties every time nursery staff sings along with kids. Previously Teosto enforced a law that taxi drivers have to pay royalties if they play music while a customer is in the backseat."
Would still rather see a statement signed in blood. Error27 writes "Earlier this week, Slashdot linked to a Maureen O'Gara article that claimed SCO was probably going to try charge Linux users $96 per CPU. More than one person thought SCO's denial was, "Awfully ambiguous". Hopefully this article clears up any doubts. Essentially, SCO will continue to charge IBM but not RedHat or SCO's UnitedLinux partners."
Perhaps I can volunteer my dad's Suburbans? Finally, joe jennings writes
"A few months ago you ran a story about the cars my team and I skydived with and crashed into the desert. This is a bit of an update.Next month, we're going to blow up my Nissan Pathfinder. Its twisted remains will be welded to a steel beam and planted on a plot of land in the mojave desert. We're starting "suv ranch," a tribute to gas guzzlers, a dying trend (we hope).
I intend to thoroughly document the project and will post images and quicktime videos on gaspig.com."
Wnblows source code... To RUSSIA??? (Score:3, Interesting)
That's awfully Microsoft of them. (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't that called being discriminatory? Charging different people different amounts for the same thing? (Actually The entire Linux pricing issue skirts legality, but that's a different topic)
Besides, their "word" on that convinces who? If/when Linux actually does take off on the desktop, and Red Hat starts raking in the billions, SCO will just stick to their word then? "United Linux" vs Red Hat? You don't think this won't heat up in the future?
When monkeys fly out of my...
dumping suvs out of planes to protest gas hogs? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parachuting cars is saving the enviroment? (Score:5, Interesting)
1. You need to gas the planes to get the cars up into the wild blue yonder. MORE POLLUTION.
2. Crashing theme into the desert. I am sure that this does wonders for the native wildlife and natural look of the desert. Just cause it is empty space doesn't mean we have to throw trashed cars into it. Even if you remove all the hydrocarbons and glass, it's still junk.
3. Then blowing up a Nissan Pathfinder. Hmmm, releasing smoke and debris and further polluting the enviroment. Could have recycled the metal into something else.
I am all about making a statement about SUV's and pollution. But you doing things like driving a small car, riding a bike, using the bus. But spending money, resources, and then further polluting the air with a Jack Ass like stunt. Just don't make much sense to me.
Put0
How does the MS code license work? (Score:5, Interesting)
And also is it access to ALL the source code, or just the security-related bits?
Windows is now less secure (Score:5, Interesting)
The old argument that Linux is less secure because evil hackers can see the source code now also applies to Windows. Except that the good guys can't see the Windows source code. I wonder what they're hiding.
Lars Dybdahl.
SUVs (Score:2, Interesting)
I carry a family, go camping, and occasionally pull a trailer with my Explorer. I guarantee you that I can't do some of these things in a Geo Metro.
What good is 45 mpg if you have to make four round trips to get your stuff there, that you can do in one with an Explorer?
Back-Slashback (Score:2, Interesting)
PCI spec - Translation - "BOY OH BOY did we step in it! Jeez who'd'a thunk that this would piss so many people off! OK, we are making nice now, stop flaming our servers!"
Finnish Nannys Question - if they sing a song for which copyright has expired, do they have to pay? "All right kids, from the top: There's a nice wee lass, her name's Mary Mack..."
SCO charges IBM, not RH or others... OK, so screwing some people is OK, so long as it isn't me?!?! It would be funny if IBM bought SCO and then freed the IP...
Crashing cars into the desert So, we are going to protest wastefulness by wasting vehicles.... ???
Re:That's awfully Microsoft of them. (Score:4, Interesting)
Discrimination is legal, as long as
Re:What a load of crap... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Windows is now less secure (Score:3, Interesting)
Expand a little bit further. I am not sure what MS' source code license says in this case but, how can Microsoft enforce the agreement?
1. Russia is, obviously, a huge country with huge political power. Why can't they, one day, break their license agreement and, say, release their own version of Windows and sell it in Russia? Or sell or release source code to others? What remedy does MS have, other than UN and some meaningless treaties?
2. What happens if or when political power shifts within Russia? In a lot of these cases, new government may bail out, or simply ignore some of their previous agreements. And I don't think they will promptly erase all the source code that was provided to them.
3. How long until at least some of the code is leaked, and what can MS do in that case?
Save this article for the next time MS brings in National Security when courts ask them to show some of their source code.
Re:Parachuting cars is saving the enviroment? (Score:3, Interesting)
Emphasis mine. So he's basically protesting his own SUV, maybe even after putting 100k miles on it in just three years. Talk about hypocrisy.
The people protesting gas guzzlers should also protest people that don't move closer to work to reduce their long daily commutes. The "M" in MPG stands for miles you know...
Plus why all the focus on SUVs as a whole? Let's look at the facts: Sure, there are some SUVs out there that are plain rediculous, but there are a lot of Sport sedans [edmunds.com], minivans [edmunds.com] and pickup trucks too [edmunds.com] that are bigger gas guzzlers than many compact [edmunds.com] SUVs [edmunds.com].
That is just shortsightedness.
Finnish RIAA? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is absolutely ridiculous and non-enforcable. It even screams for civil disobedience, if something like this gets passed. Nobody will take the law serious anymore, if too many crazy laws are made. Even people I know who don't know anything about mp3s and P-t-P software, are becoming more and more pissed off at things like copyright protection and excessive prices for music that tends to get worse (cfr. bland, faceless, uninspired, synthethical pre-fab pop 'sensations' that are pushed and hyped everywhere these days).
It also goes to show (again) that many people involved in the music business are in it rather for the love of money than the love of music.
(Which is -in a horrible way- understandable when you make and sell 'artists' as 'products').
Sourcecode: Novell did something similar in '99 (Score:3, Interesting)
Hunger and hotdog eating contest (Score:3, Interesting)
This friend of a friend from church was telling us what a great guy he was helping the hungry, poor, and homeless in distant lands, and his most recent project was organizing relief for Bosnia. While he was saying all this, my (then girlfriend, now wife) pointed at her plate and indicated she couldn't finish the other half of her hot dog. I already had 2 brats, but I was still a little bit hungry and I scarfed up that half a hot dog.
Anyway, this grossed by friend out, which I thought was funny in light of all what he was saying. I mean part of helping the hungry is like not throwing out food?
On the other hand, eating off someone's plate in public is traditionally a way of signalling that one is in a somewhat intimate relationship. My friend was both a geek-like person and a perhaps somewhat sexually-repressed Catholic-like person, and perhaps this was too much, but maybe what you eat off your girlfriend's plate are fries and not a half-eaten hot dog. But parents routinely eat half-eaten food left behind by children so I don't know what the big deal was about the hot dog, but I thought Mr. Helping the Hungry was making too much fuss.
Giving Out Source (Score:5, Interesting)
I know some fairly well-placed programmers who have worked on XP and Win2k, and even they didn't have access to the complete source code the way governments will.
So we should ask ourselves what Microsoft gains from an unofficial general release of their code. I think there's a lot of speculation that can be done here, and it becomes very paranoid very quickly. In the reasonable realm, I think two things are possible:
1) Microsoft cries "uncle" when their source is plastered all over the net. They start lawyers and a few bots looking through thousands of lines of GPLed code looking for similarities. They then sue the writers of the code for stealing MS code and using it in GPL software (which would be very, very clearly against the law).
2) They use the illicitly released code as an experiment. They know it can't start showing up in applications, because they haven't released it legally, and nobody wants to be sued (for an essentially legitimate reason) by a company with billions and billions in the bank. So they see how often code like it shows up. How much people mimic their code. How people try to stretch the limits of the law to use some of MS's techniques. Or if people are simply uninterested. Letting it be released illegally seems to be a great way to test the waters for a legal release of protected source code, Apple-style.
3) The third possibility is that Microsoft knows that their code will be stolen, but that doesn't scare them quite as much as the prospect of losing tens of thousands of government computers to OSS.
For our sake, I hope that it's 2 or 3...
~Shylock0
Comments and questions welcome. Flames ignored.
Pre-emptive note to RIAA (Score:5, Interesting)
Music is an Art form, not a business. It comes from and belongs to the people. Your greed is one step less than that of the money-changers that Christ threw out of the temple. I am not alone. Our numbers are growing. Enjoy your yachts and cocaine now, because we have you in our sights and mark my words, we will take you down.
Re:dumping suvs out of planes to protest gas hogs? (Score:4, Interesting)
then there's the basic stuff like oil dependence, global warming, smog, rollovers...
we'll probably dump some suvs from planes cause ultimately it's art, and impact at terminal velocity will give us some great shapes to plant out in the desert! but next month, most likely, we'll use dynamite to blow up the gaspig mobile. just got a letter about maybe shooting some holes in it first. fun!
i don't have an account yet so i'm an anonymous coward but please feel free to write to me: info@gaspig.com or come check out the website at http://www.gaspig.com !
joe jennings
the Pig
Re:Giving Out Source (Score:3, Interesting)
4. Sections of stolen uncredited GPL & BSD & SCO IP are found in the Microsoft source code...SCO, Stallman & the Regents of University of California Berkely sues Microsoft & make $$$$.
big cars (Score:3, Interesting)
I was given a car for my 16th birthday because I commute to school 54 miles/day round trip. My parents were tired of driving me there and didn't want me to take the bus, so it was worth $15,000 to get rid of that responsibility.
I was told I could pick any car I wanted from what was available used...Choices ranging from civics, mustangs, escourts, kias, some light pickups and smaller SUVs.
I opted for the Honda Civic sedan. It gets 22/29 MPG; about double what most SUVs get and about 1.4 what my friend's mustang gets. I spend $25/week on gas and I'm good to go; my best friend probably spends $30-40.
I would *much* prefer something like a Dodge Durango to the Civic. It's bigger, it sits higher above ground so I feel more "in control", it has a bigger engine, and it's got a decent stock sound system. And it's *not* one of the gas guzzlers (although it's not anything like my civic.)
Big cars are just nicer for people to have...you can fit more friends, more stuff, stretch your legs, have more room with a girl, whatever it is you're doing, you have more room for it.
Economy cars cost less; bigger cars cost more. It's a tradeoff.
Re:That's awfully Microsoft of them. (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't it nice not being a monopoly?
Seriously. I can charge one customer $5 and another $50 for the same thing. It's ok. Really!
It's only when you have a monopoly, where discriminatory pricing can lead to dumping - that's when it becomes illegal.
Of course, you do that too much and you piss off the guy paying $50...
(IANAL, etc)
-Ben
Re:Giving Out Source (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems to me that if pieces of my GPL'd code show up in Microsoft applications, when I've had no access to their source, the obvious inference is that they've stolen my code. If they don't give me credit, they've violated the GPL.
Unless they've bribed the judge, any court will see this as much more likely than the possibility that I copied code which I had no access to.
I wonder if I could get venture funding to challenge MS's infringement of my IP?
Re:Windows is now less secure (Score:2, Interesting)
Russia can see the code.
US Gov. must buy code and analyze, but wait, MSFT licensed rebuilds to Russia (say 2 billion rubels), but wants $3 Trillion for US (This is the gov't that convicted them of being a monopoly after all, now it's time to pay the piper and prove the force that a monopoly can exert.)
US gov't coders find holes, aren't allowed to fix them, must turn over code improvements to MSFT.
MSFT claims their 'open source' initiative now has a large body of community developers contributing to the security and stability of Windows without financial reward.
Re:Wnblows source code... To RUSSIA??? (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, under those conditions, you can't be sure that the code that MS compiles is the same as the code that Russia is seeing / submitting.
Re:Hunger and hotdog eating contest (Score:3, Interesting)
Depends on the culture. I have shared food with Mexican girls who have boyfriends; I think, since hunger is more visible in their culture, they do not consider sharing food as intimate as they do over here.
Or maybe I was just more popular with the girls there than I thought.
- Sam
Re:dumping suvs out of planes to protest gas hogs? (Score:3, Interesting)