Microsoft made a very interesting argument in court in their Java case with Sun today. It seems like one, that if accepted by the court, could really blow up in their face as the biggest seller of software in the world. Their attorney argued that just because the source code to software can be protected by copyright law, that doesn’t mean that the actual compiled code is also protected by copyright. For one thing, that doesn’t make any sense … you can’t create the same object code as someone else without compiling the same source code. If you have the same object code, at some point you violated their copyright. If there is some bizarre scenario where this isn’t the case, does that mean that I can create the same object code as Windows 2000 and distribute it without violating Microsoft’s copyright?
In the big case, attorneys unearthed a nasty spat between Bill Gates and Andy Grove. Hee hee hee.
Nicholas Petreley continues to bang the open source drum at InfoWorld. Recently, he seems to have discovered PHP. Interestingly, I tried to sell a book on PHP about a year ago, and I couldn’t generate any interest among publishers. Now, I’ve gotten several queries about doing the book. I’m not going to do one though, because I know that there are going to be a lot of them, and I’m taking a hiatus from the world of publishing once my latest book is finished.
The Industry Standard has a really good “Where are they now?” article about the junk bond kings of the 1980’s. As it turns out, they’ve turned their attention to the highly speculative investment of choice in the late 1990’s … Internet stocks.
I guess one of the cool things about being a columnist is that when the crap that happens to everyone happens to you, you get to bitch to an audience of thousands.
The results of the PC Week Linux vs. NT benchmark are in, and the bad news is that NT won handily in all tests. The good news is that both operating systems are fast enough for anyone.