Because the consultant charged $2M for that advice.
In most corporates you leave the machine on because everytime you boot it spends 10mins connecting to various corporate fileshares, 10mins syncing profiles, 10mins downloading updates etc.
And you can't set it to hibernate/sleep because you don't have admin rights.
If you are feeling really green you turn off the monitor.
If companies really cared about the environment they would question why they needed 100,000s of people to drive to a downtown office block to sit in front of computers doing the electronic equivalent of pushing forms around the company.
This was at the corporate IT level, so they can control when the machines are powered on and off. Presumably, they could have them power on 30 minutes before staff arrived in the morning.
I think that you went off on a little too much of a green tangent there.
The question is if they are telling Office software to save and close documents, why aren't they just hibernating the machines to save the entire state? The only time I can think of them needing to restart would be for some updates, but I'm not familiar with how a machine handles file shares when hibernating..
If you never reboot on Windows, these things never happen, and all the automated copy-to-the-server backups, profile syncing and updates are for naught.
You can't sue FOSS authors for infringing patents (source code) -- you can only sue the distributors of executable implementations (binaries)
The text of an ideal software patent is (or has a direct mapping to) the source code of an implementation, just as an ideal steam engine patent would be blueprints and schematics. The text of patents must always be publicly available to be enforceable -- it's the whole point, absolutely central to "the promotion of the useful arts and sciences".
You license the production of artifacts, not the spread of ideas.
If I supply you with tailored parts necessary to perform/make a patented invention then that's contributory infringement.
In the US Findlaw says:
"Contributory infringement occurs when a party supplies a direct infringer with a part that has no substantial non-infringing use. Literal infringement exists if there is a direct correspondence between the words in the patent claims and the infringing device."
You could argue that the source code is an implementation.
Anyway the point is rather irrelevent, you aren't going to sue anonymous contributer100. You are going to sue, or threaten to sue, companies who propose using opensource platforms for their new website rather than buying from one of your members.
It's the only part of an interview with Dropbox that would be interesting.
I have a business plan where I send out a dollar free to anyone who logs onto my site. With $5M of funding from YC I think I could also get 4million 'customers'
As it stands I use dropbox for free. When they/or their vc decides to start charging me I will switch to the next free competitor, this is not a business model.
No one is saying it IS real. What's wrong with using fiction to explore facets of reality? It's an idea that the entire category of "the arts" is based upon.
I think the startup visa is an excellent piece of legislation.
I know of several startups now based here, and lots of budding entrepreneurs moving to town - just because of the Visa requirements.
And with this city's links to China and India I'm confident this will be the home of the next big thing.
Of course I'm in Vancouver (BC) and these are guys being frustrated by the US process. Some of them hope to eventually open branch offices in Silicon valley so you will pick up some of the outsourced work.
You unix kiddies finally got a versioning filesystem now I hear ?