It isn't the heat, it is the cost of electricity. I've heard that NetApp moved its server farm from Sunnydale to RTP, NC because the cost of electricity was lower. That savings of millions per year justified a huge long term shift. And that was RTP rates, I could easily believe that the mountains have cheaper still rates.

- doug

Actually, there is quite a lot of hydro electric out there, and the McGuire nuclear plant is in the Charlotte area. I'm not saying that there isn't any coal burning plants in Western NC, just that I think that much of the power comes from other sources.

- doug

SCCS is a decade older than anything else on this chart. Perhaps it was left off to avoid stretching it out too much.

- doug

I've never used it, but if you set up a zimbra server, then you can use the connectors available for the 'droids. That should give you the services you need on a box that you control.

- doug

And I bet that no one made a backup of that tablet.

Actually, there was talk of that back in the 1970s. I don't remember if there was any serious science behind it or not. It could have just been a general cultural concern because of all of the fears of a Nuclear Winter.

- doug

Most of my career has been in telecom/datacom companies, and perl is the preferred language for testing and infrastructure. The last stint I did at a true startup ended in 2003 (I got the hell out) and they used tcl for testing. Since then I've only seen perl. Perl certainly is less popular in CGI and LAMP than it used to be, but that is the only major pull back I've noticed. But it isn't new and sexy, which is fine by me, and that is what many people seem to notice.

That said, I'm not sure if/when I'll adopt perl6. I like much of what I've seen, but I've got an install base to worry about. I either need a killer reason to switch, or a lot of dead time in my schedule. I jumped on perl4 -> perl5 back in the winter of 94/95, but that was such a huge step forward that it could not be ignored.

- doug

Under the GPL, if it has been distributed internally, then only those local users have the right to demand the source. The fact that one set of users has access to the product (and also the source) in no way affects any users not in that set. There is nothing in the GPL that says you have to make the product available to the whole world. It just says that if you do make it available, then the source has to be made available too.

I have no idea if "making available" is to the individual or to the company for whom that individual works. But I'm not sure it matters. If they are using it as part of their job, then just put your foot down and say that they are not allowed to touch the source on company time. Since it was never distributed to them as individuals outside of work, just as employees, then I think you're safe.

But this all begs the question: What are you trying to gain from this? Just grant them access and be done with it. Prohibit them from touching the source while on the clock, but let them do whatever they want outside of work. Who knows, one of them just might make the product better for everyone.

- doug

AC,
you are basically right that the French have fought for centuries, and they've done well in most of those wars. With Napoleon they took on the whole world and nearly won. But since 1870 France has pretty much lost every war it has been in. In WWI the French did do most of the fighting, but it wasn't until the Brittish and Americans showed up in numbers that they started winning. France was simply a battleground and a footnote in WWII: France was a Major Power in May 1940, and before the end of June it had surrendered. The wars in Indochine (Vietnam) and Algiera weren't been any better. After a 140 years without a major victory, France's reputation as a nation of warriors is tarnished, and so it will remain until France wins something on its own.

BTW: I said as much when I lived in France. Yes, I'm perfectly capable of being an ugly American when I feel like it. This point of view wasn't popular, but what could they say?

- doug

PS: The French did win a battle with Greenpeace in 1985, but I don't think that counts as winning a war.

Meh. It happens to every army. Didn't some German Peacekeepers in Afghanistan waste a truckload of local soldiers? It isn't good, but every soldier everywhere lives in a Kill or Be Killed situation. And nearly everyone decides to err on the side of self preservation. This is human nature, and as long as we have wars, we will have senseless killing of civilians.

- doug

What is unexpected about MS doing this? The only thing unexpected is Brown saying this publicly. From what I saw a few years ago, I figured that he was Microsoft's play thing forever and ever.

That is true for some of the lawyers, but David Boies's company took a one time fee up front and that is all that they get. They bet that SCO would win early (basically IBM caving in) and lost that bet.

I agree. I used to live in Paris, and I can tell you that I've seen people going way too fast in very dense/congested places. There might be a slow down at first, and it might even be 10%. But once the drivers become accustomed to denser conditions, they'll speed right back up. This just increases the risk with little/no long term reduction in bad driving habits.

The only way this will actually make a long term dent would be via gridlock.