Software Patents latest
In Europe, Poland's intervention stopped the European Union fast-tracking legislation that would allow us to have a software patent system as broken as the American one, much to the annoyance of a couple of big companies (*cough* Microsoft). Thank you, Poland!
The other side of the pond, Linux's biggest gunning friend IBM has decided that, whilst continuing to amass software patents that it can licence to companies wanting them for proprietary ends, it's going to start offering free licences to open source developers. Thank you, IBM!
Meanwhile, Microsoft have decided that the best way to continue lining their pockets from the use of flakey code is to continue bleating on about Digital Rights Management and getting into bed with other companies refusing to grasp the future with both hands - erm, record companies then, and movie studios - so that they can dictate to us precisely what we can do with what we buy. In the meantime, they plant seeds of doubt in minds by throwing in words like "communist" to anyone who disagrees with their plans, but this isn't really surprising from a company whose chief exec has previously provided media good-taste by likening Linux to cancer. If you're happy to continue using an operating system peddled by a company like this, what's your problem? =)
3 Comments:
It's all interesting stuff.
Me, I've more or less diteched Windows after one too many malware attacks. I've now turned my main PC from a Win98 box into a dual-boot Mandrake10/Win98 box, only booting into Windows to use two or three apps. It's a hassle to have to re-install, but as I now use an Xbox for games (the only console I've ever used that freezes every now and then...) I've no real need for Windows to be my default OS.
NickH
Yeah - it is quite worrying. Software patents suck big style. I've been playing around with Amiga OS4 - its PPC native and quite nice, lacks software though. Linux I find to steep - once set up its fine, its just setting it up is hastle. My Dad fed up with windows viri, and spyware has just bought himself a Mac Mini - this is nice: Free BSD but in a nice idiot proof wrapper :-D
M$ are capitalising on fear, uncertainty and doubt. The world is going to be a lot more dangerous should this stuff come about.
Mandrake 10 makes life a lot easier when installing it, but there's still the problem of unsupported hardware, and not-so-good support of supported hardware, but then that's the same of most operating systems.
Dual boot systems are now a lot easier to set up, providing you understand what the install program is telling you. Up until a couple of days ago I didn't understand the important difference between /dev/hda and /dev/hda1, for instance.
Linux is coming a long nicely though - Mandrake 10 is easier to install than Mandrake 9, and definitely easier than RedHat 9 was.
Now all I have to do is bulk up the memory (if only Linux had a utility bundled in which would tell you precisely the make and model of your mobo...) and replace the soundcard as the current one sounds scratchy under Mandrake, and the dual boot box is complete.
/ramble
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