| Friday, May
4, 2001
First, Roland sends me a lot of
recommendations on places to look. Here are a few I think everyone ought
to see:
From Roland under the heading "Microsoft's
Komsomol"
http://www.aaxnet.com/news/M010425.html
Once you have read that, think about it. Ye gods.
Next, also from Roland
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/opinions/3297/1/
and when you have read that, go see:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/craig/05-03sharedsource.asp
I know this is a lot of work, and it's not
strictly mail, but these themes are important and related. Then there is
more on Mundle's speech
http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/svfront/063168.htm
It all adds up to something I would comment
on if my head were working better (I see it still works well enough to use
subjunctive mood so all is not lost, but I am not thinking clearly this
morning).
I expect this will all become a discussion page,
depending on how many comments I get that add to the discussion. (I often
get a lot of mail on a subject but most of it says the same thing in
different ways.)
On that, from Bob Thompson:
You might also want to add to the list Eric S.
Raymond's "presponse" to Craig Mundie's comments. You can read
it at http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-05-02-019-20-NW-CY-MS
-- Robert Bruce Thompson
And there is more on this below.
While we're on that, also from Bob
Thompson:
You've often commented on the Internet as a font of
knowledge, so I thought you might be interested to read my contrarian take
on that issue. It's on my page for today http://www.ttgnet.com/rbt/daynotes/2001/20010430.html#Friday
I've also commented yet again on why I prefer
Windows NT 4 to Windows 2000.
-- Robert Bruce Thompson thompson@ttgnet.com http://www.ttgnet.com/rbt/thisweek.html
Once again I'll comment when I feel better.
Now for something completely different:
A curious coincidence........
"The Army and the other military
services also plan to eventually replace the 9 mm pistol round, the 7.62
machine gun round and the .50-caliber round with lead-free versions."
"Several military installations are
opening small-arms ranges, he added, and some of these installations
eagerly await the release of the green bullets within the next year or so,
to avoid firing lead-based rounds on their new ranges. "
-----------Army Produces Green Bullets
"The U.S. Army is running out of
bullets. A memo sent this week by Fort Hood, Texas, the Army installation
with the largest population, says soldiers are suffering a worldwide
shortage of 9 mm ammunition."
------------Washington Times, 7-Feb-2001
Karl
Indeed. Indeed.
Calvin Coolidge Says January 5, 1931
"The government has never shown much
aptitude for real business. The Congress will not permit it to be
conducted by a competent executive, but constantly intervenes. The most
free, progressive and satisfactory method ever devised for the equitable
distribution of property is to permit the people to care for themselves by
conducting their own business. They have more wisdom than any
government."
I particularly like the last sentence.
Here's the web link
http://www.calvin-coolidge.org/pages/history/research/quotations/quotesb.html
cheers,
Mike.
Silent Cal wasn't all that dumb, was he? If there
is a "surplus" Congress will spend it. Whether they'd spend it
better than I would if it were left to me is another story.
And Francis says:
At least socks are still made in America.
Cheers
You wrote: >but I am not dead sure it is
quite that good a deal to have cheaper underwear but >lose the ability
to make underwear, and dislocate a number of workers who thought >they
were middle class but find they are wage slaves after all
May 3, The Wall Street Journal: The U.S.
imports almost all its television sets, about two-thirds of its apparel
and about one-quarter of its cars. But roughly 90% of its socks are still
made in America.
Which we may suppose is a comfort...
Jerry,
You posted in mail:
"> The last U.S diesel boat was the USS Blueback (SS-581),
launched in > 1959. She also happened to be the last diesel boat
decommissioned > in 1990."
We called these boats the "B-Girls" since
all of them started with B(Barbel, Bluefish, Bonefish). They had some
notoriety from over-lapping with the nukes, and they and the nukes to come
shared the Albacore hull design. They were much quieter than a nuke, until
they had to charge batteries.
DBF
Jim Dodd
submarines &; destroyers driven for food
DBF = diesel boats forever!
B-girls. Well, why not... August Dvorak, inventor
of the Dvorak keyboard and one of my professors (Sociology, but not of the
usual variety) when I was at the University of Washington commanded a Gato
sub in WW II. Got into the Bungo Strait at one point.
Hi, Jerry - this is a renewal, from the same email
address you've been sending me things at already.
Q: Some people are concerned with [LARGE
ISSUE W] after [INCIDENT X]. What do you have to say about this
criticism?
A: [INCIDENT X] was unfortunate, but we quickly came up with [QUICK FIX Y]
and since then there have been no further issues. We'll be doing great
things in the future, as evidenced by [DISTRACTING SHINY THING Z]. - from http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=01/04/04/1345213&;cid=583
Dan Becker
Jerry,
You'll probably see too much response to Mr.
Mundie's comments on free software from Linux-folk who are neither
accomplished nor responsible. ("No movement is so noble that it won't
attract waterheads.") But here are two responses from serious Linux
programmers. They don't mince words.
"Whoever wishes to copy parts of our
software into his program must let us use parts of that program in our
programs. Nobody is forced to join our club, but those who wish to
participate must offer us the same cooperation they receive from us. That
makes the system fair.
"Microsoft surely would like to have the
benefit of our code without the responsibilities. But it has another, more
specific purpose in attacking the GNU GPL. Microsoft is known generally
for imitation rather than innovation. Its purpose is strategic--not to
improve computing for its users, but to close off alternatives for them.
"Hence their campaign to persuade us to
abandon the license that protects our community, the license that won't
let them say, 'What's yours is mine, and what's mine is mine.' They want
us to let them take whatever they want, without ever giving anything back.
They want us to abandon our defenses." --Richard Stallman
http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-05-04-013-20-PR-CY-MS
"I'd rather listen to Newton than to
Mundie. He may have been dead for almost three hundred years, but despite
that he stinks up the room less." --Linus Torvalds
http://web.siliconvalley.com/content/sv/2001/05/03/opinion/dgillmor/weblog/torvalds.htm
--Erich
This promises to become lively.
And this press release came; usually I don't
include press releases but it's appropriate:
For Immediate Release May 4, 2001
Media Alert: Tim O'Reilly Responds to Microsoft
"Shared Source" Initiative
Yesterday, in a speech defending Microsoft's
business model at the Stern School of Business at New York University,
Craig Mundie, a senior vice president at Microsoft, suggested that
companies embracing open source software are putting their intellectual
property at risk.
Here's Tim O'Reilly's response:
"Microsoft SVP Craig Mundie is dead right when
he says that the next generation of Internet applications can only come
about through development efforts from a wide-ranging group of companies
and developers. And Microsoft's 'Shared Source Philosophy' is a clear
vindication of open source--they're lining up to embrace and extend the
open source development model.
"But Mundie's contention that open source
encourages code forking is a red herring. Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, and Me
provide a more compelling example of 'unhealthy forking of a code base'
than any open source project.
"Further, Mundie's focus on the evils of the
GPL is somewhat of a smokescreen. While he raises legitimate issues, he
ignores the widespread business adoption of other open source technologies
like Apache and Perl that use more flexible, IP-friendly licenses. And
although a significant chunk of any Linux distribution is covered by the
GPL, business use has soared in the past few years with no notable IP
tragedies to date.
"The world of computing has changed, and the
smart people at Microsoft are trying hard to figure out how to stay ahead
of the pack. They're doing a lot of things right--they've got a big story
in .NET. I invite Craig Mundie to be my guest at our Open Source
Convention in San Diego this July. If he wants to bring along some
colleagues, I'll welcome them, too. After a few days immersed in the
bleeding edge of open source development, I think he'll have an even
bigger story to tell."
----------------------------
For the text of Mundie's speech: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/craig/05-03sharedsource.asp
For more information on O'Reilly's Open Source
Convention: http://conferences.oreilly.com/oscon/
To see Tim's response online: http://www.oreillynet.com/weblogs/author/27
On the Natividad Virus (see
view):
Got the following URLS from Symantec's website.
For info about W32Natividad:
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.navidad.html
General info including latest date of NAV downloads:
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/
BTW, they have a new signature file posted today!
FWIW, it takes 1&;1/2 hours to scan my system,
since I have it set to scan all files...... NAV checks something on start
up, but doesn't do a complete scan at that time... I think it just checks
for changes to boot records but am not sure.
Warmest regards,
Jim Whitlock
Yes, when I installed Norton AV on Roberta's new
machine it went out to the web and brought in nearly a megabyte of stuff.
I am quite pleased with it so far. I used to use it, got in the habit of
something else, and may go back to it. Norton brand products work pretty
well.
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