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Comment Re:oh jeez (Score 2, Insightful) 250

by redbeard55 (#32691636) Attached to: Open Source Complaint Against IBM Gets Support

Hey Mueller you seem to think IBM has to allow more choice on the use of their products. So, I think I deserve more choice also when it comes to the use money. I want the choice to take money out of your bank account to use in a way I see fit. Is that OK with you? Please forward the appropriate info to me so I can do that, OK?

The anti-trust issue has nothing to do with this. Even if IBM WAS convicted of abusing a monopoly position in the mainframe area they would not be required to give away (license) their product to whoever asked, and in the manor the requester wanted. Was MS required to give away their products after they were convicted of abusing their OS monopoly?

If IBM doesn't want to make z/OS available for use on non-IBM hardware they are under no legal or moral requirement to do so. You are talking non-sense or have other agenda you wish to pursue.

Comment Re:Yeah. Now we see the truth. (Score 2, Insightful) 123

by redbeard55 (#32666034) Attached to: Is the CodePlex Foundation Truly Independent Now?

Again, look at the history of MS's dealing with their partners with which they have had contracts with. How many times have they been in court and lost. Of course you need deep pockets to take MS to court even if you are right. MS is no friend to open-source and if they can screw a software developer they will, based on past history. They are not happy with a slice of the pie if they can take the whole pie. They still have not come close to changing their spots . . .

Comment Re:Yeah. Now we see the truth. (Score 5, Insightful) 123

by redbeard55 (#32664848) Attached to: Is the CodePlex Foundation Truly Independent Now?

In other words MS fanboys are ignorant of MS's history of backstabbing any competitor including one they have partnered with. Actually, especially the ones they have partnered with. CodePlex Foundation should be ignored by the open source community until MS has absolutely no possible influence within the organization.
Earth

DR Congo Ring May Be Giant Impact Crater 96

Posted by Soulskill from the leaving-a-mark dept.
Phrogman writes "The BBC is reporting that deforestation has 'revealed what could be a giant impact crater in Central Africa, scientists say. The 36-46km-wide feature, identified in DR Congo, may be one of the largest such structures discovered in the last decade.' If you search Google Maps for 'Omeonga Democratic Republic of the Congo,' you will be right in the middle of the suspected crater."
Earth

Officials Sue Couple Who Removed Their Lawn 819

Posted by kdawson from the revenge-of-the-lawn dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The LA Times reports that Orange County officials are locked in a legal battle with a couple accused of violating city ordinances for replacing the grass on their lawn with wood chips and drought-tolerant plants, reducing their water usage from 299,221 gallons in 2007 to 58,348 gallons in 2009. The dispute began two years ago, when Quan and Angelina Ha tore out the grass in their front yard. In drought-plagued Southern California, the couple said, the lush grass had been soaking up tens of thousands of gallons of water — and hundreds of dollars — each year. 'We've got a newborn, so we want to start worrying about her future,' said Quan Ha, an information technology manager for Kelley Blue Book. But city officials told the Has they were violating several city laws that require that 40% of residential yards to be landscaped predominantly with live plants. Last summer, the couple tried to appease the city by building a fence around the yard and planting drought-tolerant greenery — lavender, rosemary, horsetail, and pittosporum, among others. But according to the city, their landscaping still did not comply with city standards. At the end of January, the Has received a letter saying they had been charged with a misdemeanor violation and must appear in court. The couple could face a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine for their grass-free, eco-friendly landscaping scheme. 'It's just funny that we pay our taxes to the city and the city is now prosecuting us with our own money,' says Quan Ha."

Comment Monopolies minimize jobs & inovation (Score 3, Insightful) 106

by redbeard55 (#30614332) Attached to: Codeplex 100 Day Deadline Passes Unremarked

Ummm . . . have you considered how many jobs, and how many innovative projects (companies) the MS MONOPOLY has killed . . .

I think we have seen how much MS innovates when they don't have competition, all one has to do is to look at how much R&D they put in to internet explorer prior to Firefox presenting a threat to IE. Look at the history, MS has been convicted of innovating by taking/stealing others work, and copying good ideals of other. I don't have a problem with them copying others within the law . . . Apple, Linux ect. all take something from the other as far as general concepts go. MS does have some good products and I use them everyday, but I would not call them innovative.

Monopolies by their nature minimize the number of jobs produced and the number of advances they make. Advancements aren't necessary until something else threatens the monopoly's monopoly.

Monopolies are not good for anyone but the monopoly itself.
Databases

PostgreSQL 8.4 Out 191

Posted by timothy from the would-you-name-your-daughter-postgres? dept.
TheFuzzy writes "PostgreSQL version 8.4 is now out and available for download. The main cool features in this version are: recursive queries (for doing trees etc.), windowing functions (for doing reports) column-level permissions, parallel database restore, a beta in-place upgrade tool, and a host of administrative improvements. And, of course, better performance, mainly on reporting queries. Some of the over 200 new or enhanced features are listed here."
Microsoft

The Hidden Cost of Using Microsoft Software 691

Posted by kdawson from the badware-tax dept.
Glyn Moody writes "Detractors of free software like to point out it's not really 'free,' and claim that its Total Cost of Ownership is often comparable with closed-source solutions if you take everything into account. And yet, despite their enthusiasm for including all the costs, they never include a very real extra that users of Microsoft's products frequently have to pay: the cost of cleaning up malware infections. For example, the UK city of Manchester has just paid out nearly $2.5 million to clean up the Conficker worm, most of which was 'a £1.2m [$2million] bill in the IT department, including £600,000 [$1 million] getting "consultancy support" to fix the problems, which including drafting in experts from Microsoft.' To make the comparisons fair, isn't it about time these often massive costs were included in TCO calculations?"
GNU is Not Unix

Richard Stallman Says No To Mono 1008

Posted by timothy from the therefore-not-a-monomaniac dept.
twitter writes "There's been a lot of fuss about mono lately. After SCO and MS suing over FAT patents, you would think avoiding anything MS would be a matter of common sense. RMS now steps into the fray to warn against a serious mistake: 'Debian's decision to include Mono in the default installation, for the sake of Tomboy which is an application written in C#, leads the community in a risky direction. It is dangerous to depend on C#, so we need to discourage its use. .... This is not to say that implementing C# is a bad thing. ... [writing and using applications in mono] is taking a gratuitous risk.'" Update: 06/27 20:22 GMT by T : Read on below for one Mono-eschewing attempt at getting the (excellent) Tomboy's functionality, via a similar program called Gnote. Update: 06/27 21:07 GMT by T: On the other side of the coin, reader im_thatoneguy writes "Jo Shields, a Mono Developer, has published an article on 'Why Mono Doesn't Suck,' why it is not a threat to FOSS, why it is desirable to developers and why it should be included in Ubuntu by default."
Portables

The Truth Behind the Death of Linux On the Netbook 406

Posted by Soulskill from the it's-a-horse-analogy dept.
eldavojohn writes "Groklaw brings us news of Microsoft holding the smoking gun in regards to the death of Linux on netbooks. You see, the question of Linux on netbooks in Taiwan was put forth to the Taiwan Trade Authority director, who replied, 'In our association we operate as a consortium, like the open source consortium. They want to promote open source and Linux. But if you begin from the PC you are afraid of Microsoft. They try to go to the smart phone or PDA to start again.' It's simple; fear will keep them in line. PJ points out, 'So next time you hear Microsoft bragging that people prefer their software to Linux on netbooks, you'll know better. If they really believed that, they'd let the market speak, on a level playing field. If I say my horse is faster than yours, and you says yours is faster, and we let our horses race around the track, that establishes the point. But if you shoot my horse, that leaves questions in the air. Is your horse really faster? If so, why shoot my horse?'"
Data Storage

What Data Recovery Tools Do the Pros Use? 399

Posted by timothy from the besides-waterboarding dept.
Life2Death writes "I've been working with computers for a long time, and every once and a while someone close to me has a drive go belly up on them. I know there are big, expensive recovery houses that specialize in mission-critical data recovery, like if your house blew up and you have millions of files you need or something, but for the local IT group, what do you guys use? Given that most people are on NTFS (Windows XP) by the numbers, what would you use? I found a ton of tools when I googled, and everyone and their brother suggests something else, so I want to know what software 'just works' on most recoveries of bad, but partially working hard drives. Free software always has a warm spot in my heart."
Space

Colliding Galaxies Reveal Colossal Black Holes 134

Posted by CmdrTaco from the duck-and-cover dept.
Matt_dk writes "New observations made with the Submillimeter Array of telescopes in Hawaii suggest that black holes — thought to exist in many, if not all, galaxies — were common even in the early Universe, when galaxies were just beginning to form. Astronomers have found two very different galaxies in the distant Universe, both with colossal black holes at their hearts, involved in a spectacular collision."
Portables (Apple)

Hands-On With the New MacBooks 128

Posted by timothy from the nice-look-see dept.
Paige Philuer writes "Macworld has a hands-on article examining the new MacBook and MacBook Pro — not a quickie look from Tuesday's event, but a lengthy, in-depth look with laptops they actually have in their offices. Some interesting observations: No FireWire on the MacBook; the TrackPad doesn't feel like you're running your finger across a pane of glass, though that's what it is; and switching between graphics cards in the MacBook Pro requires you to log out." Reader Bourbon contributes three links at CNET related to the new models, too: a positive written review (giving a score of 8/10 to the new MacBook), a video review, and a behind-the-scenes look at how the new models are machined.

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