Mozilla in SL!!!

Are you selling software? I'm assuming the case is that your programmer took GPL licensed source and used it in something the company was developing. There are two possible cases here:

1. It's a strictly internal project, and isn't sold or distributed. In that case, you don't need to do anything, as the GPL only applies to distribution.

2. Programmer used GPLd source in a closed source product you're going to sell or distribute. In that case, programmer is a moron. The effects of using GPL licensed source in this case are exactly the same as if you used say, source from Microsoft (you can get it, "shared source" and such). Use any source you're not allowed to use in your product, and you have problems. Nothing to do with the GPL specifically.

So, out of curiosity, does your company sell software? And which case it was?

Google'ing for "secondlife" inside Second Life.

http://www.sluniverse.com/pics/pic.aspx?id=74000&sort=PictureID+desc&Name=Chrischun+Fassbinder

Well, from my experience, it's very rare for a Windows box to get patched with anything that doesn't require rebooting. Even better, Windows "helpfully" pops up that "I want to reboot" dialog every few minutes, in such a way that one day the "Ok" button will appear right in the place I was going to click. That day, the SQL server is going to reboot, and it'll be a really fun day as everything will grind to a halt.

Is there any way to disable that thing?

In any case, that's just bad design really. On my Linux box, installing a patch often doesn't mean any downtime at all (you can update and restart sshd without killing existing connections), or a couple seconds at most. Nothing comparable to a full reboot.



Responsible how? Even if the user gets blammed for installing some crap, you're still going to be the one who has to fix it. It's even more fun when the user happens to be the company's owner.

The former is clearly dangerous, but will at least provide for delicious forum drama. The latter makes me want to cut off my male pieces, so destitute is it of redeeming entertainment value.

Oh, I´m gonna love that

I'm not going to bother quoting your post, but Maklin, if you have that kind of zealous hatred of OS software, you might as well stop using SL now, since the whole GRID runs on a full set of OS poster child software (Linux, MySQL, OpenGL, etc.) - I certainly see zealotry running around this thread, but I'd say the lions share of it is coming from you (who brought up the subject in the first place). Sounds like you've had some bad experiences with an individual, who didn't have any sense of professional judgement, but it's a bit bigoted to paint the entire universe of people who use OS (more properly F/OSS) with the broad brush of zealot, just because you encountered one example. I've seen plenty of just as zealous MS fanboys, but I do not make the mental leap to believe that all of them are that blindly ignorant. Just realize, that as a corporate culture Linden Labs have embraced F/OSS and it has done a great deal for them, I don't see that trend going the other way any time soon.

This adds at least 5MB to the SL installer. Will this extra crap be mindlessly redownloaded on EACH SL update too? When will SL get a patching system already and only download what has actually changed??

Stop it! I almost spat rice on my screen!!

Well, I just edited my hosts file to temporarily point secondlife.com to a yahoo.com server. It results in a 404, but unlike Google, Yahoo helpfully provides a link to yahoo.com. So now I can browse from inside SL

Not sure if it qualifies as clever or novel, but there you have it

You didn't read, did you? I don't care what YOU or anyone else uses, I merely do not wish to be made to use it myself. All I ask is for LL to let me continue to use my default browser outside of SL instead of forcing me to use Mozilla in SL. And it has been more than one of these kind (albeit not personally). Ever read slashdot.org? Those jokers scare the hell out of me!

As far as corporate culture....you do realize the 'embracing' of OS has far less to do with quality and stability than it does senior PHB's seeing 'free as in beer'. AKA, corporate greed.

If MS was more affordable, you'd see less OS deployment (yes, you would still see some by companies run by die-hard techies for who the supposed superiority means something and cash-strapped startups) as execs weigh their risk aversion at something new against savings. Right now, the savings side of the equation overrides their risk adversion. I take quite a few of the it journals, and the first thing company execs that switched seem to mention is 'savings' or 'cost reduction'. Technical merits come in WAY later in the discussion.

FYI, not only has MSIE not been updated for Mac for several years, Microsoft has officially stated that they will not be developing it anymore. All Mac users have had Safari built-in to the OS for years; I prefer Firefox myself.

And BTW if you dislike open source so much you had better close your IE web browser right now, because the majority of the world's web servers are Apache - including, I believe, these forums.

Tapping F1 brings up a nice popup window with the title "NetscapeDispatchWnd: Secondlife.exe - Unable to Locate Component" with the text "This application has failed to start becase MSVCP71.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem" in it. The browser then pops up after that, and seems to work fine, but the popups just annoying and steals the window priority.

XP-pro install, and caught up on updates. I doubt a majority of players will bother to search and install the dll manually. Its a C++ .Net component, and probably should be downloaded and installed by the sl updater if its absent. Could also probably drop the dependancy if you switched to a non .net compiler if possible... emphysis on "if possible".

All I will say is, it was software intended for a product we manufactured. Set the new release back a bit. Had it been internal, we'd have said fuck it and ran with it since we legally could do that.

And I will answer your next one here. Nope, no way to turn off that goddamn reboot yes/no message (oh how I wish there was! ). The engineer that came up with that should be hung by parts of his anatomy!

And as far as managers / owners...*shrug* I'll never be higher than a senior administrator because I don't play the politics game. I'll politely tell them exactly how it happened, and how to prevent reoccurance and have done so in the past. Never been fired for being honest yet, but I sure won't become a manager either (and don't want to be).

I may be misunderstanding what you say above, but open-source software is specifically "free as in freedom", not "free as in beer". It is permissible to charge to distribute the software on CDs, for example.

You are indeed misunderstanding. Having seen a few companies go OS, and had friends at places that went OS, it generally goes like this.

PHB's decide to go OS for cost savings even though it may be risky in their minds...free wins out over expensive licenses and they take the risk.
PHB's do NOT buy Red Hat enterprise or other commercial Linux suites (they are trying to get away from paying).
They tell the IT folks to use X brand cause its free and its what their golfing buddies company went to and they saved on all that licensing.
Free version of Linux gets installed, all support is by the IT folks.
Company may or may not save money in the long run when user and IT retraining / IT replacement is factored in.
PHB sings the praises of OS saving money for the company on licensing.

It may be different with the amazons and ebays who use commercial linuxes or unix, I am using small and midsized companies as an example. Pin Headed Bosses see OS strictly as a cost savings first and foremost (Free as in beer) and do not give a damn about the ideology (free as in freedom) aspect of it, or the technical merits.

If MS was cheaper by a good 2/3, many companies going OS because of the cost savings would stay MS due to risk avoidance ( some cost and low risk is better than no cost and lots of risk...change being risky in management's eyes. Plus they have someone to bitch to if it fails) and lack of interest in retraining workers/hiring new IT to deal with it.


Free as in freedom...in reference to the OS movement that has always seemed an example of Orwellian Newspeak to me. Free as in freedom means to me its 100% free to use as I wish without strings (give it away, refuse to give it away, hide it, burn it, sell it, use it in my product...anything I want do with it...that is truly free software). The GPL is one huge set of strings on how you can use it....and that is hardly freedom. Public domain is free as in freedom, but not Linux under the GPL.

Maklin , please log from the forum and go get some sleep

Don't see any problems here



Nor should they. Bosses care about costs. In fact, I'd even say that ideally, a boss doesn't give a damn how a problem gets solved, so long it's solved satisfactorily. My boss didn't tell me "We need MS Exchange". He told me "we need email". Then I think about it for a while, and decide what hardware and software works for that. So if Linux works best, Linux it is.




You can bitch at MS exactly the same way you can bitch at Debian. And with exactly the same effect. For instance, MS dropped support for VB6. It's all dead now, there's no future for it. Now the company will need to eventually pay me to rewrite all that in something else for no other reason that MS said "screw you". Where's the compensation? Nowhere. If it was Linux at least I could maintain it myself, but with MS that's not possible. Eventually an old version of Windows won't boot on new hardware, more recent Windows versions won't run my VB stuff. If you don't think that happens, try installing Windows 1.0, it doesn't work on disks larger than 32MB.

You probably don't need to hire new IT though, as Linux usually comes right from there. Some user retraining might be needed however. Linux is easier to administrate though. I could easily manage 100 Linux boxes myself, while 20 Windows ones can be serious trouble at times. So some retraining could be compensated by only needing one admin instead of two or three.



It's not that hard to understand. For example, America likes to call itself the "land of the free". Yet at all times, killing people has been illegal. Your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins, etc. Under the GPL everything is allowed, except taking somebody else's freedom away. That doesn't seem unfair to me.

Taking the political analogy further, under complete anarchy you'd be free to kill whoever you wished, but you wouldn't be completely free to act, as you'd be afraid for your life.

new world record

Oh God.

I wish this stuff would stay confined to Slashdot.

Here I was looking forward to some awesome overreaction to a completely benign new feature. That would have been rockin'.

Instead we have nattering about arcane software subjects that are of no interest to anyone who gets even a modicum of sun. Way to ruin what could have been a really fun thread.

Why? What's there to say about it? So it's a browser in SL, yay. Nothing new really, ActiveWorlds had that for ages. I was more expecting 20 posts along the lines of "Cool, now I can read the forum from inside SL".



Eh, you got what you wanted. Lewis did the "awesome overreaction", and that quickly brought the discussion towards the technical stuff.

Looks cool thanks for the Pic.

Using Dale Glass' hack we have:

<awesome overreaction>
YEEEEHAWOOHOOOOOMG! I'm gonna be the first to make a skyscraper covered in banner ads and get loadsofcashIloveitIloveitmmm from advertisers as everyone who passes by causes tons of hits!
</awesome overreaction>



</insane>
</insane>

Here is another hack thread.

perhaps you should quit trolling then? Or troll the polysci forum, That always good for a quick laugh.