One year after sealing their surprise alliance, Novell and Microsoft have announced an expansion of their technical collaboration to 'link together the existing Windows and Linux frameworks'. The firms will extend their existing collaboration to focus on virtualisation, standards-based management, directory and identity federation and document format compatibility. As part of this process, Microsoft said that both companies are 'now working closely' at the Microsoft and Novell Interoperability Lab in Massachusetts.
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Member since:2007-06-07
"The trouble with this is if it turns out they are NOT unsubstantiated then linux in the business world would crumble overnight."
I believe this is incorrect. The BSDs went through something similar in the early 90s. The infriginging lines were removed and BSD carried on. I think the same would apply to GNU/Linux, however, companies such as Suse and RedHat may have to pay some some sort of damages. The code is out there, it's easy to remove and create new open implementations, but the user base would suffer throughout the transition.
Of course, all this is purely on the speculations of Microsoft stating GNU/Linux is infringing without ponying up the proof.
Member since:2005-07-24
"""
I believe this is incorrect. The BSDs went through something similar in the early 90s.
"""
No. And this is an *extremely* important point to understand. The BSD lawsuit was about copyrights. The threats OSS faces today are about patents. That is a *completely* different scenario. One cannot simply rewrite sections of code to avoid infrindements. Whereas copyrights are about copying lines of code, patents are about implementing *ideas*. If we are found to be infringing, for the sake of argument, upon a patent which covers having a pointing indicator on the screen which one can control with ones hand, we cannot simply rewrite the code. We must stop using mouse pointers altogether and find a completely different way of interacting with the desktop.
Being called into question on copyrights is, at worst, a major inconvenience. Being found to violate certain patents could be absolutely *devastating*.
What is protecting us now is not necessarily that we are not infringing upon any patents, but that for various reasons, few actual players in the industry, short of pure-play patent trolls, dare to use their patents offensively.
If patent armageddon were, in fact, unleashed some day, OSS would be just a devastated as the closed source companies. Worse, perhaps, since other than Novell, we don't have much, if any, in the way of cross-licensing deals, and are not in a position to make them in order to save our skins.
Member since:2005-12-31
Member since:2005-07-06
They may not be unsubstantiated, thats my point! until they produce anything we don't KNOW. (as a mere laymen I am sadly not privi to the details)
You are correct if you intend that to say 'unproven' at this point in time.
To say you can't wait for patent wars is worryingly naive! Imageine for a second everybody and their dog enforced the patents they held. There are patents for sending email, storing them in a folder, having a web interface to view them.There is even a patent held for additional functionality for a web browser via plugins!! Basically in the worst case scenario it could make almost EVERY program you currently run ILLIGAL in some way or another, leaving you potentially liable for the costs
Patent wars have the potential to destroy the industry from which I take home a wage. Call it selfish but if the odd 'deal' here and there keeps it together then fine by me
Member since:2006-03-12
"To say you can't wait for patent wars is worryingly naive! Imageine for a second everybody and their dog enforced the patents they held. There are patents for sending email, storing them in a folder, having a web interface to view them.There is even a patent held for additional functionality for a web browser via plugins!! Basically in the worst case scenario it could make almost EVERY program you currently run ILLIGAL in some way or another, leaving you potentially liable for the costs
Patent wars have the potential to destroy the industry from which I take home a wage. Call it selfish but if the odd 'deal' here and there keeps it together then fine by me"
No I am absolutely perfect in saying unsubstantiated, in not Give me a the list Microsoft has produced. I'd love to see it.
The reason you call me naive is *exactly* the reason I want the patent wars to start. Microsoft are painted all over the place as being *computing*. I *know* they are not. I cannot think of a single thing they did first...I'm not talking the fringe stuff. I'm talking File-system, Word Processor, Spreadsheet; Calculator, Chat Client, Dialog Boxes everything, Toolbars, 3 buttons on the mouse, animated Icons, Browser the list is endless. Ignoring the stuff owned by IBM, SUN etc we have thousands of little companies...and Microsoft are a more attractive target than Red Hat Simply because the risks are the same with the rewards being less. With potential Billions at stake...I'd be tempted for going for a "No Win, No Fee"
There will only be two possible outcomes Patent Reform, or the end of computing in America...both seem very attractive options
The *great* thing about the Microsoft/Novell agreement is it doesn't cover *clone* technologies which I suspect covers *everything* that Microsoft have done...but I suspect its more about formats. Oddly everything Novell is working on is a clone technology, can't wait till the knives come out on that one.
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces."But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
Member since:
2006-03-12
"with regards to the threats, we do not know if they ARE unsubstantiated and this is where the FUD comes into play. What needs to happen is for someone to call their bluff.
The trouble with this is if it turns out they are NOT unsubstantiated then linux in the business world would crumble overnight."
They are unsubstantiated...until they produce anything thats the point. What is interesting is that I can remember a time when there was a awful lot of other Os's around and Office applications. Microsoft is *very* late to the game Thats ignoring a whole host of things like API's or even networking. Microsoft has more to lose than *anyone*, its gonna make computers unusable. I personally cannot wait for the patent wars to start.