Re: Isolationism is history.
On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 07:58:55PM -0500, Al Davis wrote: > On Friday 30 January 2004 04:11 pm, Colin Watson wrote: > > But be very careful about doing that; you may well end up "tainted" > > if you sign source licence agreements, and writing free software > > thereafter could be difficult. > > This is the original basis for the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit. > > Writing any software that is in any way similar thereafter could be > different. Using this line of reasoning you could argue that no one planning on writing literature for a living should ever read existing copyrighted literature for fear of being tainted. No musician should listen to a copyrighted work. After reading GNU software you are "tainted". I would think that a deep-pocketed entity with source-code products might be a bit fearful these days since they might have to prove that they did not harvest something from the open source community. As the open-source library grows there might well a requirement on copyrighters and patenters to prove they did not steal their ideas from the open. In the future there might be a stigma of "stolen code" attached to closed source products and be rejected for fear of losing the investment through forced elimination as a legal remedy to infringment. This is a rambling thread so I don't feel too bad about sending it down yet another path. It seems that open-source is like gunpowder - it's a powerful force that is going to change society. -- Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Isolationism is history.
On Sat, Jan 31, 2004 at 02:51:14AM +0100, Arnt Karlsen wrote: > ..the good side of this AFAICT, is my wee linux business will survive > another coupla years, before the big landslide of ex-MSCE etc hits. ;-) I was a MCSD thank you :-) I got mine in 1995 on the NT 3.51, VB 3.0, and Access 2.0 route. woot! I'm so leet! I took the blue pill in College when my professor explained to me that one line of Matlab equalled 100 lines of Fortran. He said as long as you write an O(n) algorithm it doesn't matter how bloated it is. Microsoft changed. I didn't. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Isolationism is history.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2004 21:11:37 +, Colin Watson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 11:45:49AM -0800, Nano Nano wrote: > > > You can probably read the Windows code by looking at the Windows > > CE.NET source which is freely available. It's a fork. You can get > > a flavor of it. If you try real hard, you can probably via a > > University take a look at the source -- Microsoft is handing out > > read-access grudgingly. Work within the system and you can > > accomplish that goal. > > But be very careful about doing that; you may well end up "tainted" if > you sign source licence agreements, and writing free software > thereafter could be difficult. ..uhoh, another wintendo lock-in trap: Schoolboy takes computer class, signs license, sees source, compares with gpl and sees truth, becomes linux guru, graduates, is hired on his guru track record, does what gurus do, Microsoft sues. ..ok, thanks for the warning. ..myself, I'll ask anyone working for me, to certify they have never ever seen Microsoft source code, before I consider hiring them. ..the good side of this AFAICT, is my wee linux business will survive another coupla years, before the big landslide of ex-MSCE etc hits. ;-) -- ..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt... ;-) ...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry... Scenarios always come in sets of three: best case, worst case, and just in case. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Isolationism is history.
Colin Watson wrote: > > You can probably read the Windows code by looking at the Windows CE.NET > > source which is freely available. It's a fork. You can get a flavor of > > it. If you try real hard, you can probably via a University take a look > > at the source -- Microsoft is handing out read-access grudgingly. Work > > within the system and you can accomplish that goal. > > But be very careful about doing that; you may well end up "tainted" if > you sign source licence agreements, and writing free software thereafter > could be difficult. There's also the problem, that if you do craft anything truely useful, Microsoft lawyers will take it away from you. Has a programmer ever won a case against Microsoft? I've read more cases of programmers screwed within the system they tried to work within. But I dunno, never tried it. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Isolationism is history.
On Friday 30 January 2004 07:58 pm, Al Davis wrote: > On Friday 30 January 2004 04:11 pm, Colin Watson wrote: > > But be very careful about doing that; you may well end up "tainted" > > if you sign source licence agreements, and writing free software > > thereafter could be difficult. > > This is the original basis for the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit. > > Writing any software that is in any way similar thereafter could be > different. difficult.I hate it when the typos correctly spell a different word. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Isolationism is history.
On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 05:51:13PM -0800, Paul Johnson wrote: > And a bit friendlier to those who get dumped on their ass due to > unforseen circumstances. The whole idea of credit ratings tends to > cause a lot of false positives for people who intend to pay but lose > their job or get screwed by roommates, etc. Well, I agree with that but lets not get the issues confused: I was how poorly the Credit bureaus manage the data that, rightly or wrongly, they possess. I have credit trouble too but I'm enough of a hardass on myself to know that nobody pointed a gun at my head and made me make the choices I made. However, I do get quite upset at how carelessly and irresponsibly private organizations make life-affecting decisions about me *and* manage that responsibility so poorly and with such little security. My phrase for the situation is: "faithless stewardship". He who has power has responsibilty to manage that power well. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Isolationism is history.
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 11:45:49AM -0800, Nano Nano wrote: > We need to tear down the entire internet and start over with proper > encryption from the ground up. That's what ipv6 is. Bug your ISP for it. > We need to tear down the entire credit > system (imagine!) and start over with proper authentication and > encryption. And a bit friendlier to those who get dumped on their ass due to unforseen circumstances. The whole idea of credit ratings tends to cause a lot of false positives for people who intend to pay but lose their job or get screwed by roommates, etc. - -- .''`. Paul Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> : :' : `. `'` proud Debian admin and user `- Debian - when you have better things to do than fix a system -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFAGwoQUzgNqloQMwcRApFvAJwJg/oaDjfzCu+kvfiqPP6MLJPVAgCfSSV6 K6j/Q5fexuV5pDD4hxUCHdw= =VvDM -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Isolationism is history.
> On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 11:45:49AM -0800, Nano Nano wrote: > > ... Microsoft > > does tend to use gotos for error exits. Nothing wrong with this. It is called "throwing an exception". C++ and java have keywords "try", "catch", "throw" to make it official. > On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 11:45:49AM -0800, Nano Nano wrote: > > You can probably read the Windows code by looking at the Windows > > CE.NET source which is freely available. It's a fork. You can get > > a flavor of it. If you try real hard, you can probably via a > > University take a look at the source -- Microsoft is handing out > > read-access grudgingly. Work within the system and you can > > accomplish that goal. > On Friday 30 January 2004 04:11 pm, Colin Watson wrote: > But be very careful about doing that; you may well end up "tainted" > if you sign source licence agreements, and writing free software > thereafter could be difficult. This is the original basis for the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit. Writing any software that is in any way similar thereafter could be different. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Isolationism is history.
Incoming from Colin Watson: > > But be very careful about doing that; you may well end up "tainted" if > you sign source licence agreements, and writing free software thereafter Besides, considering their record so far, what (of any value) could possibly be learned from them? From what I've seen over the years, ideas have been going in the other direction (to their credit). -- Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. (*) http://www.spots.ab.ca/~keeling - - -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Isolationism is history.
On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 11:45:49AM -0800, Nano Nano wrote: > I used to have read-only access to that codebase. The code is actually > pretty clean and maintainable (what I read). Microsoft does tend to use > gotos for error exits. Good-oh. The Linux kernel does that too. :) "GOTO considered harmful" has a valid point, but it can be used correctly to make certain kinds of code a lot more readable and in fact make it easier to demonstrate correctness. > You can probably read the Windows code by looking at the Windows CE.NET > source which is freely available. It's a fork. You can get a flavor of > it. If you try real hard, you can probably via a University take a look > at the source -- Microsoft is handing out read-access grudgingly. Work > within the system and you can accomplish that goal. But be very careful about doing that; you may well end up "tainted" if you sign source licence agreements, and writing free software thereafter could be difficult. Cheers, -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Isolationism is history.
On Thu, Jan 29, 2004 at 08:05:36PM -0800, Day Brown wrote: > women barefoot and pregnant. The only thing they want, they only thing > they have always wanted, is more sons to go into battle to steal more > women for the alpha male warrior class leaders. That's what they been > doing, in Iraq and elsewhere, for 5000 years. Aw, you'll probably get the chance to stick it in eventually. Keep trying. > but- from your modem on, *they* own all the rest of the hardware and > software. I dont trust the bastards. I Know they dont have the They may own it, but you every pimply-faced teenager working at an ISP can get their hands on the bits midstream. And you'd be shocked the sorts of people who have access to your Credit report data. It's absolutely scandalous how poor the access controls are on things. As I have said many times, its the unregulated private operatives who make my life hell. We need to tear down the entire internet and start over with proper encryption from the ground up. We need to tear down the entire credit system (imagine!) and start over with proper authentication and encryption. I have my own ideas about *how* to do this (hint, it starts with a planetwide DNA database and assigning each of us a 128-bit number) -- you will undoubtedly have your own. > the problem, consider ATTRIB.EXE, which is used to mark files with > A)rchived, S)ystem, H)idden, R)ead only. Pretty simple. The usual MS > version runs about 25-30,000 bytes. But if you go to the dos hacker tool > lists, you can find ATTR.COM ... all 627 bytes of it. What does > Micky$loth do with the other 25,000 bytes? Nobody knows. I used to have read-only access to that codebase. The code is actually pretty clean and maintainable (what I read). Microsoft does tend to use gotos for error exits. There are a couple of famously trapped exceptions (such as a floating point GPF in Visual Basic) which are "normal." You can probably read the Windows code by looking at the Windows CE.NET source which is freely available. It's a fork. You can get a flavor of it. If you try real hard, you can probably via a University take a look at the source -- Microsoft is handing out read-access grudgingly. Work within the system and you can accomplish that goal. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Isolationism is history.
Get over it. Just as we here hope for the improvement of a global system and the global tools like debian to use it, so the entire government and economy is wrapped up in it. Whether we like it or not, capitalism demonstrates that it's lots cheaper that way, and the market rules. What worries me, is that there are large organizations which try to manipulate the rules. The main reason the open source movement is taking off, is that the programmers like myself have realized that whatever you craft, they have enuf lawyers and enuf judges to keep you in court forever, and that it is *they* who will get the patent, (and the profit) and not the artist who created it. And just as the USA has tried to manipulate the rules, others in other regions have realized this, and as a result have adapted, and quit investing so much in a game which they cannot win. One of the things we could do, is offer a minimal setup that would fit on a floppy, which was able to get online, and from that bootstrap, download the connectivity to post on this list. One of the problems we have, is that the communication which people receive has been limited to the transnational media and/or the traditional received authority. The former reflects the priorities of the governments and transnational corporations which are terribly short sighted, threatening ecological disaster. The latter tries to keep the women barefoot and pregnant. The only thing they want, they only thing they have always wanted, is more sons to go into battle to steal more women for the alpha male warrior class leaders. That's what they been doing, in Iraq and elsewhere, for 5000 years. If you have the time to read this, you are not likely in either set above. But to increase the numbers, and therefore the power, of those who can read this list, we would do well to examine the entire setup, not just the operating system. You can go into the gray/surplus computer hardware market and buy all the parts for a computer (case,mthbd,dram,kybd,mouse,monitor) for less than 200$- *retail*. Right now, the 20$ mthbds and 20$ cpus are good for 300-600 mhz, which will run debian just fine. but- from your modem on, *they* own all the rest of the hardware and software. I dont trust the bastards. I Know they dont have the competence they claim, and I see the sabotage software take hits on them all the time. The last report I saw said that windoz has 95 *million* lines of code. Neither Gates, nor anyone else, has a handle on it. It includes software which has been stolen, and I already know of one case where a programmer, fearing he'd be screwed, inserted sabotage code in his work in that event. For the near term, ASAP, we should setup a VPN with a way for debian users and servers to communicate with each other which has virtually *NO* windoz servers inbetween. Ironically, such a system already exists in parts of rural India and the developing world. They dont have phone lines. each village put up a pc hooked to a radio transceiver, and went long range wireless. Each village is solar powered. It dont matter what happens to the government, dont matter what happens to the telephone system, dont matter what happens to the interent, the villagers can still contact friends and family in the region. Villagers are way ahead of us. Which is why Isolationism is History. If the net takes a serious hit from sabotage or just plain simple stupid greed cutting corners, and it goes down, the police and law enforcement can go down, banking and credit card servers will quit, the economy will tank, and we'll see a crash that makes the 1929 debacle look like a fender bender. I have hacked into the binary of Microsoft code. It is like a house that, as soon as it was built, the carpenters walked out, and left their tools in the hallway for the new owners to trip over. Breakpoints and error traps are all over the place. These code snippets can be deliberately, or inadvertantly triggered. To get an idea of the scale of the problem, consider ATTRIB.EXE, which is used to mark files with A)rchived, S)ystem, H)idden, R)ead only. Pretty simple. The usual MS version runs about 25-30,000 bytes. But if you go to the dos hacker tool lists, you can find ATTR.COM ... all 627 bytes of it. What does Micky$loth do with the other 25,000 bytes? Nobody knows. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
