Re: This will only end when the case is ruled on

> I never fully understood where Novell's IP went to when SuSE got bought.

Novell's copyrights - if any existed - went to Attachmate with the rest of the company.

> consolidating SCO's claim with the ex-Novell's IP could prove more than an annoyance

It won't even be that much.

If Novell had no copyrights, there is nothing to sue over.

If Novell had some Unix copyrights, it licensed them under the GPL to all recipients of Linux. So still nothing to sue over.

Vic.

Re: Killing Linux

> Still, we have the BSD's. Don't we?

SCO has already claimed ownership of BSD code...

Vic.

Re: Hurrumph

> Novell won proving they own UNIX.

Not quite...

Novell proved that they didn't transfer any ownership to SCO. Whether they ever owned anything in the first place was not addressed.

Vic.

Re: Answer me a question...

> a textbook example for other lawyers on how to totally milk a case for maximum reputational damage

Indeed. But that damage appears to have happened to BSF...

> it's about creating uncertainty in the minds of the clueless (read: managers) about using Linux

I think that boat has sailed.

Vic.

Re: Not in the US

> There are time limits to file and respond to civil cases.

Doesn't apply here.

The SCO v. IBM case was filed in plenty of time - but was stayed because of the bankruptcy[1].

Vic.

[1] SCO wasn't actually bankrupt when it filed that - it just expected to become so when it lost its case. And the judge allowed it...

Re: Oh you gotta be kidding....

> Yes, but who owns Novell these days?

Doesn't matter.

Novell knowingly and deliberately released code under the GPL, and has been very open about that.

Should Novell actually own any Unix copyrights - if there are any to own - everything they have released under the GPL is properly licensed as such. Anyone who subsequently owns these putative copyrights cannot rescind that license; it is permanent.

Vic.

> Wonder when he's going to sell MariaDB for another fortune to some company

He won't. He can't.

When he sold MySQL to Sun, he owned the copyrights. That's what he sold.

Those copyrights - or at least the bulk of them - now belong to Oracle. If they get sold, it won't be Widenius getting the cash...

Vic.

Re: Re. RE. Gizmo

> the good old "Hi we are xxx computer company here to fix that desktop" scam.

Many years ago, I worked in field service for a Health Authority.

I went to a site one afternoon to replace a failed terminal[1]. The manager was apoplectic and demanded ID.

"I don't carry any", I told him truthfully.

"Well I'm not going to give you access to our equipment" he retorted.

"Suit yourself", says I, "it's your terminal that's broken. I'll just take this new one back to the depot".

At which point, he suddenly changed his mind and gave me all the access I needed...

Vic.

[1] Yes, it was a terminal, not a PC. The network was a serial net running on statistical multiplexers, with all the end-user kit appearing to connect to the mainframe over a simple serial link. It was a long time ago...

Re: Please, blighty, take these tea partiers back.

> in the USofA we are being annoyed by a small group of tea drinkers

I doubt it.

I've spent quite a bit of time in the US. It was *very* rare for me to find any tea there - just some pale brown liquid that was almost entirely unlike tea in every respect...

Vic.

Re: Unstable system

> the eternal lie "temporary"

The Romans had the right idea about temporary powers.

In times of crisis, they would choose a dictator. Said dictator had *absolute* power, including life or death.

The position lasted 6 months, after which the dictator would be tried for everything he had done.

Vic.

Re: @Don JEfe 13-Jun 11:35 GMT

These days they tend to start the pilot training in the simulator and only let them fly the real thing after they reach a certain skill level.

That is most assuredly not true in any EASA country. Nor, I suspect, is it true in any country covered by the Chicago Convention (which is pretty much all of them).

Simulators have a huge part to play in teaching pilots to fly expensive equipment, but each and every ATPL minor deity began his or her career in a single-engine piston aircraft and had to demonstrate adequate capability in that before being allowed to progress to the bigger stuff.

Vic.

Re: We're not all the same!

> or sometimes (oft-time) to the lowest cost.

Bell Motorcycle Helmets used to have an excellent slogan:

"If you have a $10 head, buy a $10 helmet"

It's applicable in so many circumstances...

Vic.

> Which three summers?

More than just three. Most summers over a period of three *decades*.

See http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/thick-melt.html for details.

Vic.

Re: I am not a climatologist but....

> if 1% of doctors think treatment A is good but 99% of doctors think treatment B is good, I will pick treatment B.

How many doctors thought Thalidomide was a good treatment?

Appeal to Authority is a fallacy.

Vic.

Re: Breaking EU law?

> EU law prohibits this and admitting it would most likely see them hauled up

I'd like to see this situation cause the "Safe Harbor" (sic) provisions to be cancelled. The US very clearly does not have the same standard of data protection required by the DPA (and equivalents), so it seems a bit odd just to pretend it does...

Vic.

> We live in a country where it's supposed to be "Innocent until proven guilty"

No, we live in a country where it's supposed to be "Innocent unless proven guilty". But ISTM that certain individuals would rather it be as you said...

Vic.

> I said this sort of snooping was going on last year.

You got one right.

> I also said SSL and AES was insecure

You got plenty wrong.

One success does not preclude you being a cock...

Vic.

Re: Windows 95

> Is being able to type into 'beneath' windows that useful?

Yes. Massively so.

It allows you to control machines without having to dedicate much screen real estate to the control window (which, at that point, you're not that interested in, so long as you can get a command to it). That leaves your screen displaying other bits of the system that you *do* need to monitor closely.

> it's easy to see what window will get my keystrokes - it's the one on top

If that's the way you want to work, then that's just fine. Choice is good. Imposing decisions on other people is bad...

Vic.

Re: Canadians are viewed by the world as timid and weak?

> They started a war

*Who* started a war?

Vic.

Re: books

> Can anyone recommend a good book for learning more about RH and related distros?

There is no substitute for just doing it...

Grab a copy of a Fedora LiveCD and boot it. You'll find pretty much everything where you expect it to be.

Vic.

Re: Isn't this by design?

> CRT TVs still have the BEST contract ratio of any display technology!

My main TV is a CRT. I got an LCD to replace it a few weeks back.

I put the pair of them side-by-side. The difference was stunning.

The LCD is now powered off. I'm mighty glad I didn't pay for it...

Vic.

Re: main issue with smart TVs

> At the very least, the a smart TV should have a slot-in "Smart Unit"

All it actually needs is a USB slave port that implements a HID model. You can then plug in any PC-type kit you like, and it sees the telly (with remote control etc.) as a keyboard. Not massively integrated, but good enough for rock and roll...

Vic.

Re: @Joseph Lord

All the video and audio decoding will be in hardware but processing all the DVB tables, setting tuning parameters, controlling the demux is all done in software

*Partly* done in software.

Typically, the demux will all happen in hardware, with various fragments pushed out to the CPU to deal with in software - so, for example, PCR recovery is a software task. but none of that really taxes the processor.

There are inherent ptoblems with rapid-retuning of digital TV; primarily, the various SI and PSI tables are only transmitted periodically, so you need to wait for that to come around. It should be possible to retune within a TS fairly rapidly - but that doesn't get you very far, as that typically will only give you a handful of channels at most (and often only one).

As soon as you start trying to cache all the info across all streams in the mutiplex, your workload goes up significantly, and almost certainly needs new hardware. And you've still only got a handful of transport streams in a single multiplex.

As soon as you start wanting to fast-tune between multiplexes, you're SOL. You need a physically separate tuner for each one. That simply doesn't scale...

And all of the above is before you get near the tendency of dev teams to write application code in nice easy, abstracted high-level languages without worrying about the run-time impact of their decisions...

Vic.

Re: Far from the centre

> we are still about 30,000 light years from the centre of the Milky Way

Not flown RyanAir, have you?

Vic.

Re: Er..umm

> Apple is entitled to a FRAND license deal

Apple *was* entitled to a FRAND license deal.

The fact that they refused the deal probably[1] means that they no longer have such an entitlement.

Vic.

[1] I'm not sure this has been thrashed out in court, but any other reading means that there is no downside to refusing to pay for FRAND patent licences, and I can't see that flying in court...

Re: Bruce Campbell

Bruce Dickinson would be better...

Vic.

> dimmer than the sidelights on an Austin Cambridge

I'm nicking that. That's excellent.

Vic.

Re: dr normal

> BBC need to steer people away from the worship of larger

For reasons I can't explain, I read that as "lager", and very nearly upvoted you...

Vic.

Re: "There never will be a year when Linux conquers the desktop" - WRONG

> Do explain to me exactly when Android became a desktop OS?

If you want blow-by-blow detail, try this;

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/22665/run-android-on-your-netbook-or-desktop/

> Because here I was thinking that it was a handheld/phone one, almost exclusively for touch-driven devices.

Indeed.

> I don't think I've seen a single Android desktop computer ever.

I have one. It doesn't really fit my way of working, so it doesn't get used often, but that doesn't mean it can't exist...

Vic.

Re: I switched to KDE back in 2008

> The 4.0 series were a little rocky

KDE 4.0 was *utte shite*. Really, it was. As a long-term KDE user, I could not believe how bad it was.

I stopped using KDE regularly at 4.0. I think it's time to give it another go...

Vic.

Re: Usability

> My colleague was saying the other day that Linux is a hobby

My colleague was saying the other day that he's a really good driver.

He was talking bollocks.

Vic.

Re: Usability

> You clearly haven't had the pleasure to support a totally computer-illiterate user

I have. Quite a number of them.

> Either way, you would be doomed to fail as soon as you utter your first sentence

...Which is why you wouldn't use that sort of approach with them. You'd give them a system and say "have a play - you're not going to break anything".

IME, those who are told something is going to be scary will find it so[1]. Those who are told they have the ability to do something will generally be able to.

Vic.

[1] I've taught a number of people to dive over the years; the exact same thing applies. If the instructor believes something is difficult, the students will find it so.

Re: Legally wrong

> we shouldn't forget about copyright, which doesn't have such a limited life.

No code was copied, so copyright doesn't come into it.

You can't copyright ideas, however often Oracle tries to...

Vic.

Re: To be fair to MS... @Eadon

Of course there are commercial options available too: for example Red Hat. They offer great support, but that doesn't come cheap either.

So you've shown us two ends of the spectrum - what about all the space in-between?

There are *many* of us offering support for Linux systems. We're much, much cheaper that RH. You don't get the same SLA - if you want it, you can buy it.

Support in Linux is a simple trade-off between what you get and what you pay. If you don't want to pay anyhing, you take your chance with volunteers. If you want paid support, you get out your cheque book. Same as anything in business.

Add to that the training for your staff who have never used Linux, and it's often not worth switching.

That's very old, very stinky bait.

Vic.

Re: To be fair to MS...

> Look at me, happily running GTK apps in KDE.

...And I happily run Qt apps in Gnome.

All this "I don't want to choose a desktop" thing confuses me - if you don't want to choose one, then don't. Accept whatever is the default and it will be good[1]. If it stops being what you want, install another one and carry on regardless. Your choice of desktop does not dictate what you can do with it, just how it presents your tools to you.

Vic.

[1] Except Unity, natch.

Re: Applying the USAs gun ownership arguement to this

> "Who are the bad guys?"

That, lot obviously. 'Cos it couldn't be us...

Durr.

Vic.

Re: I though Senator Conroy

> The brainchild of "the man without a brain"

Given the disdain with which most Australians treat us Pommies, it never ceases to amaze me that they keep dancing to his tune...

Vic.

Re: Government

> Better ban the government quick. It regularly incites hate of "terrorists"

It incites me to hatred of politicians. Is that enough?

Vic.

> you're NOT ALLOWED to protest there without a Police/Government permit

The permits aren't too tricky to come by[1] as long as you do a bit of preparation.

Mark Thomas has an excellent story about having a Police escort through another demonstration so that he could have his own demos[2], just because he had all his permits.

Vic.

[1] No, of course they shouldn't be necessary. But they are.

[2] He held many demonstrations that day - got a Guinness World Record for it. I'm not sure if he still holds that one or not...

Re: Standardised off-the-shelf tools?

> It says here on page 16 *, that they were using commodity hardware and Open Source software.

If you follow the link on that page, it's clear that they actually open-sourced their proprietary solution...

Vic.

Re: The email spells DOOM from the start

> it was written by someone with no firm grasp (or even a single clue)

It was written by Ashley Highfield. The bloke that insisted there were no more than 600 Linux users in the country. Just before he hopped off to work for Microsoft...

Vic.

Re: Google and Apple must be worried

> They would not sell one fueled up, with a functioning warhead

It would be simple enough to make up the fuel - it's a water/ethanol mix, and the proportions are well-known.

As for a warhead - well, if you can afford to buy one of the last remaining V2s, I can't see that being a major problem...

Vic.

Re: A few important points to note:

> Who decides where that line is?

The Jury.

Vic.

> Is Lord Reid a fucking idiot?

Yes.

HTH, HAND, etc.

Vic.

Re: Right.

> Would it concern you if your monthly ISP bill went up by 5% to cover the costs

If this snooping were actually to prevent such atrocities, I wouldn't bat an eyelid at a 500% increase.

But it won't. It's just yet more security theatre.

Vic.