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'it'll sit unsupported for 10 years before IBM admits that it's a dead product (OS/2 case in point)'

OS/2 was technologically superior to Windows and would have succeeded if MS hadn't have gone round trashing it in public, while still contracted to develop and support it.

'I was super enthusiast that we shipped OS/2'

OS/2 "Crush" plan

The demos of OS/2 were excellent, crashing the system had the intended effect'

When was this?

The Microsoft threat to kill Office for the Mac happened during negotiations leading up to 1997 as outlined in some court documents. Microsoft was in negotiations with Apple over patent disputes and considered abandoning Office for Mac, understanding it would do "a great deal of harm immediately" to Apple. There are a few other stories outlining the questioning of Bill Gates about this and the ultimate outcome of the settlement - the famous $150 million investment Microsoft made in Apple. Some said immediately that "Microsoft saved Apple" (and still say it), except Apple had $1.7billion in the bank at the time and could have operated for quite a while without selling another product. Doing the math, Microsoft profited quite handsomely from the sale of Apple stock in 2003.

I'd rather say that Standards were developing at the time - and there were certainly guidelines emanating from CERN and W3C. It really was the age of discovery with Netscape (and Sun and others including Microsoft) slowly adding functions to "the browser". The browser and server were designed to be stateless and uniform, but development and imagination were happening too slowly. I'll credit Microsoft with lighting a fire under everyone's butt. They showed the world how bad it could get if everyone sat back and waited for development to just happen. They threw a lot of resources at the Internet, but I believe the primary goal was to lock down ownership, not necessarily to improve the way things worked. The Internet as invented by Microsoft self destructed under the weight of 150,000 Windows specific viruses, irresponsible exploit vectors, the resulting spam and a host of other things that has made the Internet a dangerous place to be.

The gloves came off when Microsoft transformed their browser to be part of a client-server relationship. They provided the browser (IE), the authoring tools (Front Page) and the server technology (Server Extensions) from which to launch their proprietary communication system masquerading as an ordinary browser. Eventually, they tied all of that to their OS to make an inseparable monolithic system which nobody could really share in. They did release an SDK to build server extensions, but they certainly didn't interoperate with anything else nor reveal what was going on inside. Interoperability was not in Microsoft's interest and it left anyone not using IE on Windows trying to reverse engineer the flaming bag of shit that was handed them.

It seemed, to everyone else, that this ecosystem was designed to make competing systems look illiterate. It succeeded to such an extent that most of the corporate world believed that Microsoft was the only source for software. They had already trounced the document creation world and intended to do the same with the Internet. The Internet meant delivering commerce and private data (Passport), locking down media (Palladium), sourcing the news (MS-NBC) along with other related initiatives. The roadmap was being followed by those who understood that Microsoft wanted control of all these items in order to erect a toll booth for everyone - described in the most draconian, unflattering terms. I think the pundits were right. Microsoft wanted to gather your news, entertainment, banking and anything else they could grab, mark it up and sell it back to you. In turn, they could resell whatever they gathered back to businesses trying to reach you in the most invasive way possible.

They almost got away with it. Using a money=survival hammer on the rest of the industry didn't work so well with a shrinking group of radical, old school hackers. They gave birth to the OSS as we know it and are now thundering at the walls of Jericho.

Microsoft spent considerable effort over the years corrupting interoperability standards to favor themselves. I've got a list of things Microsoft "killed", or damaged so badly that nobody else could use it but I stumbled upon this page which really sums it up for me. It's got most of my list plus a few new ones (and I haven't even read all the chapters yet). It doesn't include things like Intel's NSP effort, which would have dramatically accelerated video on desktops (interesting to me since I'm in the Television Broadcast business). Microsoft objected to NSP, called every video hardware vendor and told them not to support it and threatened to cut anyone off who did. Details of that and a hundred similar unfriendly things are in the court transcripts somewhere.

I also recall all the "Made for Windows" stickers on everything which really meant "Incompatible with Anything Else". Some of the agreement terms included not supporting anything Microsoft deemed a competitor to t

"Actually, Sun essentially forced MS to fight against Java by not letting MS devs take the idea and run with it"

The historical record paints a different picture:

"Microsoft has no choice, we must seize control [of] the Java platform", Sep 4 1995

"I think the path we were going down of building on AWT was a sure disaster - It was creating a situation where pure 100% Java applications would look just as good as pure Windows applications which we have to avoid", Bill Gates Jan 1997

"How do we wrest control of Java away from Sun?", Ben Slivka April 1997

"I am hard core about NOT supporting JDK 1.2", Bill Gates May 1997

"Actually, Sun essentially forced MS to fight against Java by not letting MS devs take the idea and run with it"

The historical record paints a different picture:

"Microsoft has no choice, we must seize control [of] the Java platform", Sep 4 1995

"I think the path we were going down of building on AWT was a sure disaster - It was creating a situation where pure 100% Java applications would look just as good as pure Windows applications which we have to avoid", Bill Gates Jan 1997

"How do we wrest control of Java away from Sun?", Ben Slivka April 1997

"I am hard core about NOT supporting JDK 1.2", Bill Gates May 1997

"The number of bugs in technical documentation for Microsoft communication protocols continues to grow"

Why don't they use the original specs the programmers used to implement the communication protocols on Microsofts' own server product?

"Microsoft officials have also suggested that the number of bugs will rise as the company devotes more resources to identifying and fixing them"

How does documentation get 'bugs', with access to the source and the developers it would be straight forward to get each programmer to write up a high-level description of what each function does, gather that into a spec, and voilà, there's your documentation already.

. If the company had a history of hiding information, I would suspect this as yet more Microsoft undocumentation

'The LDS Church .. are considering Mandrake, Debian, Red Hat and Open Office'

'each subsidiary should have a method to track Linux threats and that these should be reported back to Redmond'

link
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'each subsidiary should have a method to track Linux threats and that these should be reported back to Redmond'

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'each subsidiary should have a method to track Linux threats and that these should be reported back to Redmond'

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EDGI is a customer-focused program that is for circumstances (like the one you reference) where an education and/or government customer is going to purchase naked PC'S or PC'S w/Linux ..

under NO circumstances lose against Linux .. "

If you have a nice small laptop with Linux pre-installed (so that everything works ... "reduced hardware support" in Linux is a complete myth anyway), you need just one CD (and maybe a second one as a backup) to keep any number of laptops working. You install from that one CD to as many amchines as you want. No need to keep track of licenses. Huge cost savings, right there.

You can even make up your own master CD, with whatever application set you desire, and customisations such as a school backgrounnd wallpapaer, etc. (Google for Linux, LiveCD and "re-mastering").

No need to run anti-virus, or to make sure that anti-virus databases are up to date.

You can set up (a) Linux server(s) (no CALs fees either) and put software update repositories on your server, and point all of the laptops to accept updates from your server, so that all laptops were updated together. Easy maintenance.

You also have a huge software base to choose from, all available at zero cost, and all able to be installed on all machines overnight, at no cost, with no need to try to keep track of licenses.

Enormous savings.

Finally ... from an education perspective ... with open source you are actually allowed to study the source, and find out how it works. Make your own as well ... the tools are all provided.

Google for "squeak" and "sugar" in an education software context ... I'm sure there are lots of others as well.

Finally, read this:
http://edge-op.org/grouch/schools.html

It has some prfound things to say about software and eductaion.

Here's the actual document I found by Googling "Comes v Microsoft", and following a link on the top of the Groklaw page for the case. The Groklaw page has an incomplete set of exhibits, but if you follow the link at the top of the page you can get everything.

as mentioned earlier... The email is real. It's in the court documents from the Comes vs Microsoft case. You can find it in PX07199.pdf from http://edge-op.org/iowa/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/7000/

Here, Knock yourself out

The specific exhibit (7199) is found near here

And if you doubt me (after all, who is this xtracto guy), the page is linked from groklaw. Maybe they are more thrustworthy than myself?

Here, Knock yourself out

The specific exhibit (7199) is found near here

And if you doubt me (after all, who is this xtracto guy), the page is linked from groklaw. Maybe they are more thrustworthy than myself?

"Netscape gave Microsoft the browser market because Communicator was a steaming pile of dog shit compared to IE4 and IE5"

"I think we should have to do even more cloning of Netscape .. Clone their client technology early and often (full embrace strategy)"

"In worst case scenario, Netscape will .. explicit sabotaging of any protocol extensions we make"

"Java didn't take off because Sun didn't focus anywhere near enough effort early on into getting a fast interpreter"

"it becomes clear to me that the Java OS will try to conquer the embedded marketplace .. while infesting all other computing devices with it's programming language"

"We also talked about slowing down and coordinating modifications to the Java language - I proposed a "Java Language Council" made up of key tools vendors - MS, Borland, Symantec" .. But Sun don't get invited to the party .. :)

"With Windows Vista, the DOJ should have laid off. It was a total debacle for Microsoft and signaled that they are in decline"

The DOJ never did squat to reign in Microsoft. Vista isn't a problem for Microsoft as they have decided their key strategy is getting control of the Internet, through litigation threats and re-innovating the protocols. Billy boy is always ten steps ahead his partners .. er partners. Is there a differece .. :)

"If there is anyone who merits a look for anti-competitive, restrictive behavior it's Apple"

How many times has Apple been in court as often as Microsoft and for doing the same things.

"Netscape gave Microsoft the browser market because Communicator was a steaming pile of dog shit compared to IE4 and IE5"

"I think we should have to do even more cloning of Netscape .. Clone their client technology early and often (full embrace strategy)"

"In worst case scenario, Netscape will .. explicit sabotaging of any protocol extensions we make"

"Java didn't take off because Sun didn't focus anywhere near enough effort early on into getting a fast interpreter"

"it becomes clear to me that the Java OS will try to conquer the embedded marketplace .. while infesting all other computing devices with it's programming language"

"We also talked about slowing down and coordinating modifications to the Java language - I proposed a "Java Language Council" made up of key tools vendors - MS, Borland, Symantec" .. But Sun don't get invited to the party .. :)

"With Windows Vista, the DOJ should have laid off. It was a total debacle for Microsoft and signaled that they are in decline"

The DOJ never did squat to reign in Microsoft. Vista isn't a problem for Microsoft as they have decided their key strategy is getting control of the Internet, through litigation threats and re-innovating the protocols. Billy boy is always ten steps ahead his partners .. er partners. Is there a differece .. :)

"If there is anyone who merits a look for anti-competitive, restrictive behavior it's Apple"

How many times has Apple been in court as often as Microsoft and for doing the same things.

"Netscape gave Microsoft the browser market because Communicator was a steaming pile of dog shit compared to IE4 and IE5"

"I think we should have to do even more cloning of Netscape .. Clone their client technology early and often (full embrace strategy)"

"In worst case scenario, Netscape will .. explicit sabotaging of any protocol extensions we make"

"Java didn't take off because Sun didn't focus anywhere near enough effort early on into getting a fast interpreter"

"it becomes clear to me that the Java OS will try to conquer the embedded marketplace .. while infesting all other computing devices with it's programming language"

"We also talked about slowing down and coordinating modifications to the Java language - I proposed a "Java Language Council" made up of key tools vendors - MS, Borland, Symantec" .. But Sun don't get invited to the party .. :)

"With Windows Vista, the DOJ should have laid off. It was a total debacle for Microsoft and signaled that they are in decline"

The DOJ never did squat to reign in Microsoft. Vista isn't a problem for Microsoft as they have decided their key strategy is getting control of the Internet, through litigation threats and re-innovating the protocols. Billy boy is always ten steps ahead his partners .. er partners. Is there a differece .. :)

"If there is anyone who merits a look for anti-competitive, restrictive behavior it's Apple"

How many times has Apple been in court as often as Microsoft and for doing the same things.

"Netscape gave Microsoft the browser market because Communicator was a steaming pile of dog shit compared to IE4 and IE5"

"I think we should have to do even more cloning of Netscape .. Clone their client technology early and often (full embrace strategy)"

"In worst case scenario, Netscape will .. explicit sabotaging of any protocol extensions we make"

"Java didn't take off because Sun didn't focus anywhere near enough effort early on into getting a fast interpreter"

"it becomes clear to me that the Java OS will try to conquer the embedded marketplace .. while infesting all other computing devices with it's programming language"

"We also talked about slowing down and coordinating modifications to the Java language - I proposed a "Java Language Council" made up of key tools vendors - MS, Borland, Symantec" .. But Sun don't get invited to the party .. :)

"With Windows Vista, the DOJ should have laid off. It was a total debacle for Microsoft and signaled that they are in decline"

The DOJ never did squat to reign in Microsoft. Vista isn't a problem for Microsoft as they have decided their key strategy is getting control of the Internet, through litigation threats and re-innovating the protocols. Billy boy is always ten steps ahead his partners .. er partners. Is there a differece .. :)

"If there is anyone who merits a look for anti-competitive, restrictive behavior it's Apple"

How many times has Apple been in court as often as Microsoft and for doing the same things.

"1. CP/M, ultimately crushed by DOS"

No they crushed DR-DOS by ultimatly putting fake error messages in Windows 3.1, witholding technical information and intimidating DRIs own customers.

"Bradsi asked us to come up with a better message for when the MS-DOS detection doesn't find MS-DOS"

"hey, hey, hey .... my proposal is to have bambi refuse to run on this alien OS, comments? "

"DR-DOS. I doubt they will be able to clone Windows. It is very difficult to do technically. we have made it a moving target"

"DRI is agressing big time, in our accounts"

"After Debbie and I made clear to Sears DR-DOS and Windows compatibility would always be a major issue"

"1. CP/M, ultimately crushed by DOS"

No they crushed DR-DOS by ultimatly putting fake error messages in Windows 3.1, witholding technical information and intimidating DRIs own customers.

"Bradsi asked us to come up with a better message for when the MS-DOS detection doesn't find MS-DOS"

"hey, hey, hey .... my proposal is to have bambi refuse to run on this alien OS, comments? "

"DR-DOS. I doubt they will be able to clone Windows. It is very difficult to do technically. we have made it a moving target"

"DRI is agressing big time, in our accounts"

"After Debbie and I made clear to Sears DR-DOS and Windows compatibility would always be a major issue"

"1. CP/M, ultimately crushed by DOS"

No they crushed DR-DOS by ultimatly putting fake error messages in Windows 3.1, witholding technical information and intimidating DRIs own customers.

"Bradsi asked us to come up with a better message for when the MS-DOS detection doesn't find MS-DOS"

"hey, hey, hey .... my proposal is to have bambi refuse to run on this alien OS, comments? "

"DR-DOS. I doubt they will be able to clone Windows. It is very difficult to do technically. we have made it a moving target"

"DRI is agressing big time, in our accounts"

"After Debbie and I made clear to Sears DR-DOS and Windows compatibility would always be a major issue"

"1. CP/M, ultimately crushed by DOS"

No they crushed DR-DOS by ultimatly putting fake error messages in Windows 3.1, witholding technical information and intimidating DRIs own customers.

"Bradsi asked us to come up with a better message for when the MS-DOS detection doesn't find MS-DOS"

"hey, hey, hey .... my proposal is to have bambi refuse to run on this alien OS, comments? "

"DR-DOS. I doubt they will be able to clone Windows. It is very difficult to do technically. we have made it a moving target"

"DRI is agressing big time, in our accounts"

"After Debbie and I made clear to Sears DR-DOS and Windows compatibility would always be a major issue"

"1. CP/M, ultimately crushed by DOS"

No they crushed DR-DOS by ultimatly putting fake error messages in Windows 3.1, witholding technical information and intimidating DRIs own customers.

"Bradsi asked us to come up with a better message for when the MS-DOS detection doesn't find MS-DOS"

"hey, hey, hey .... my proposal is to have bambi refuse to run on this alien OS, comments? "

"DR-DOS. I doubt they will be able to clone Windows. It is very difficult to do technically. we have made it a moving target"

"DRI is agressing big time, in our accounts"

"After Debbie and I made clear to Sears DR-DOS and Windows compatibility would always be a major issue"

"I was a consultant at Lotus at the time Microsoft started winning in desktop applications"

Yea and I was a consultant at IBM and helped out the developers on VLSI architecture .. ;)

"Bill Gates is essentially correct"

Other people remember it differently. MS wilfully acted to sabotage Lotus on winDOS and also withheld technical information.

"I believe that Microsoft application developers have been given earlier and more detailed access to OCX specifications than we have had here at Lotus"

"I have decided that we should not publish these extensions .. We can't compete with Lotus and Wordperfect/Novell without this"

"I'd be glad to help tilt lotus into into the death spiral"

"I was a consultant at Lotus at the time Microsoft started winning in desktop applications"

Yea and I was a consultant at IBM and helped out the developers on VLSI architecture .. ;)

"Bill Gates is essentially correct"

Other people remember it differently. MS wilfully acted to sabotage Lotus on winDOS and also withheld technical information.

"I believe that Microsoft application developers have been given earlier and more detailed access to OCX specifications than we have had here at Lotus"

"I have decided that we should not publish these extensions .. We can't compete with Lotus and Wordperfect/Novell without this"

"I'd be glad to help tilt lotus into into the death spiral"

"I was a consultant at Lotus at the time Microsoft started winning in desktop applications"

Yea and I was a consultant at IBM and helped out the developers on VLSI architecture .. ;)

"Bill Gates is essentially correct"

Other people remember it differently. MS wilfully acted to sabotage Lotus on winDOS and also withheld technical information.

"I believe that Microsoft application developers have been given earlier and more detailed access to OCX specifications than we have had here at Lotus"

"I have decided that we should not publish these extensions .. We can't compete with Lotus and Wordperfect/Novell without this"

"I'd be glad to help tilt lotus into into the death spiral"

There are many signs that M$ is in trouble and that Vista is a failure. This is going to be a list of those signs. This is what Vista looks like to me. It is such a flop it can take M$ down, which would put an end to their attacks on free software, free software advocates and reasonable standards. Vista's failure is the predicted, practical result of a business model that tries to keep customers helpless and divided.

The six year development was troubled and expensive. There were signs that nothing important had changed. Promissed features evaporated and those that came through were downright creepy.

• January 1, 2004 - Jim Allichin sees the future and does not like it.
• July 9, 2004 - Vista troubles go public, rebuild is promissed but never delivered as is clear from legacy bugs.
• March 26, 2006 - M$ Employees Revolt over delays.
• A buggy launch was insured and hardware doomed because XP driver compatibility was intentionally broken just before RTM.
• January 30, 2007 - Vista is officially released. Jim Allchin retires.

Then came real use and real problems for users: security problems, devices not working, features dropped, competitors run off and high costs.

• An objective study of the Vista UI shows the changes have made things worse, not better for users who make it past install, broken software and hardware.
• Basic operations are broken. File copy, for example, takes forever and may fail because it can consume all of your memory. Memory used this way is not released until reboot. IPv6 does not work.
• M$ considers network degradation for media protection normal, so network performance is about 10% of what you get from XP or anything else.
• Insane anti-piracy harms the innocent. An anti-piracy server accidently disabled the nicer parts and required all XP and Vista users to "reauthenticate". Just a few weeks later, M$ made things even worse with a new BSoD for "pirates". They backpedaled a little and now Vista is nagware instead of deadware. The system remains a booby trap. So much as changing a video card will disable your system without warning. People with cracked coppies laugh but M$ can pull the plug for anyone else anytime for any reason.
• Business as usual has not improved security. New problems have been added to the seemingly endless supply of legacy bugs. There are reports of double extensio

There are many signs that M$ is in trouble and that Vista is a failure. This is going to be a list of those signs. This is what Vista looks like to me. It is such a flop it can take M$ down, which would put an end to their attacks on free software, free software advocates and reasonable standards. Vista's failure is the predicted, practical result of a business model that tries to keep customers helpless and divided.

The six year development was troubled and expensive. There were signs that nothing important had changed. Promissed features evaporated and those that came through were downright creepy.

• January 1, 2004 - Jim Allichin sees the future and does not like it.
• July 9, 2004 - Vista troubles go public, rebuild is promissed but never delivered as is clear from legacy bugs.
• March 26, 2006 - M$ Employees Revolt over delays.
• A buggy launch was insured and hardware doomed because XP driver compatibility was intentionally broken just before RTM.
• January 30, 2007 - Vista is officially released. Jim Allchin retires.

Then came real use and real problems for users: security problems, devices not working, features dropped, competitors run off and high costs.

• An objective study of the Vista UI shows the changes have made things worse, not better for users who make it past install, broken software and hardware.
• Basic operations are broken. File copy, for example, takes forever and may fail because it can consume all of your memory. Memory used this way is not released until reboot. IPv6 does not work.
• M$ considers network degradation for media protection normal, so network performance is about 10% of what you get from XP or anything else.
• Insane anti-piracy harms the innocent. An anti-piracy server accidently disabled the nicer parts and required all XP and Vista users to "reauthenticate". Just a few weeks later, M$ made things even worse with a new BSoD for "pirates". They backpedaled a little and now Vista is nagware instead of deadware. The system remains a booby trap. So much as changing a video card will disable your system without warning. People with cracked coppies laugh but M$ can pull the plug for anyone else anytime for any reason.
• Business as usual has not improved security. New problems have been added to the seemingly endless supply of legacy bugs. There are reports of double extensio

"at least we might have a decent amount of cross-browser standards in a few years time, as opposed to none if Microsoft simply hadn't bothered"

Well , they could have bothered while they were about cloning Netscape and making running any other browser a jolting experience and preventing Netscale from sabotaging their protocol extensions. Or in english, making web pages not render correctly in other peoples browsers .. :)

"at least we might have a decent amount of cross-browser standards in a few years time, as opposed to none if Microsoft simply hadn't bothered"

Well , they could have bothered while they were about cloning Netscape and making running any other browser a jolting experience and preventing Netscale from sabotaging their protocol extensions. Or in english, making web pages not render correctly in other peoples browsers .. :)

"at least we might have a decent amount of cross-browser standards in a few years time, as opposed to none if Microsoft simply hadn't bothered"

Well , they could have bothered while they were about cloning Netscape and making running any other browser a jolting experience and preventing Netscale from sabotaging their protocol extensions. Or in english, making web pages not render correctly in other peoples browsers .. :)

Until recently they didn't pay dividends.

I would stay far away from psychopaths like Bill Gates.

According to this Linux Kernel Timeline, 2.6.17 was released in June of 2006. So I'd assume, as someone else pointed out, that the author re-worked an older exploit payload to work with this new vulnerability. I can't imagine code written in 2006 would be considered "too old to compile". Though that doesn't help when you consider that the exploit could have been around for almost 2 years now.

-metric

"Excel was another really innovative product. It was so much better than Lotus123 that it made your head hurt"

Yes, it was so much better that MS had to copy it in the earlier versions of Excell and withold Windows API specs from Lotus. Lotus concentrating on OS/2 probably didn't help either. Promoting switcher messages to disrupt the SmartSuite launch. Not publishing extension as they can't with compete with Lotus and Wordperfect, Yea lots of 'innovation' going on here .. :)

"Q+E 2.5 will use some fresh product news to talk about in June, but is a parity feature with Lotus"

Not that bad. (Score:5, BS)

"Excel was another really innovative product. It was so much better than Lotus123 that it made your head hurt"

Yes, it was so much better that MS had to copy it in the earlier versions of Excell and withold Windows API specs from Lotus. Lotus concentrating on OS/2 probably didn't help either. Promoting switcher messages to disrupt the SmartSuite launch. Not publishing extension as they can't with compete with Lotus and Wordperfect, Yea lots of 'innovation' going on here .. :)

"Q+E 2.5 will use some fresh product news to talk about in June, but is a parity feature with Lotus"

Not that bad. (Score:5, BS)

"Excel was another really innovative product. It was so much better than Lotus123 that it made your head hurt"

Yes, it was so much better that MS had to copy it in the earlier versions of Excell and withold Windows API specs from Lotus. Lotus concentrating on OS/2 probably didn't help either. Promoting switcher messages to disrupt the SmartSuite launch. Not publishing extension as they can't with compete with Lotus and Wordperfect, Yea lots of 'innovation' going on here .. :)

"Q+E 2.5 will use some fresh product news to talk about in June, but is a parity feature with Lotus"

Not that bad. (Score:5, BS)

The man responsible for IE is in no position to lecture anyone about compatibility and security. Wilson telling the inventor of javascript to shut up and do as M$ says reminds me of this:

Question 5) True Story? by travisd (travisd_no_spam@tubas.net)

Was the story about you embarrassing a Microsoftie at a conference true? Specifically, that he was insisting that their implementation of ksh in their unix compatibility kit was true to the "real" thing and trying to argue the point with you. The argument ended when someone else finally stood up and informed the speaker who he was arguing with. Just curious ...

Korn: This story is true. It was at a USENIX Windows NT conference and Microsoft was presenting their future directions for NT. One of their speakers said that they would release a UNIX integration package for NT that would contain the Korn Shell. I knew that Microsoft had licensed a number of tools from MKS so I came to the microphone to tell the speaker that this was not the "real" Korn Shell and that MKS was not even compatible with ksh88. I had no intention of embarrassing him and thought that he would explain the compromises that Microsoft had to make in choosing MKS Korn Shell. Instead, he insisted that I was wrong and that Microsoft had indeed chosen a "real" Korn Shell. After a couple of exchanges, I shut up and let him dig himself in deeper. Finally someone in the audience stood up and told him what almost everyone in the audience knew, that I had written the 'real' Korn Shell. I think that this is symbolic about the way the company works.

We can see where that effort went. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

Albatross is a fine name for a blog run by anyone at M$. Everyone who works there has made a deal with the devil and the entire company history hung around their necks. If Wilson wants credit for, "enough intelligence to make my own lies up," he can have it. If he wonders why the world might be hostile, instead of the hotbed of helpful, fuckable pawns his company likes, we can always remind him of what his group did to Netscape.

"What I'd like to see Dell offer .. Ubuntu and Windows .. as a dual-boot system"

Not till hell freezes over, you see it's against the OEM license which only allows minimum commitment payments per-system on a single Operating System machine. Unless any of the MS monitors here know any different .. :)

Re:What about dual boot?

Power management is one of the biggest examples of why non free software sucks. The programs you list are nice but they all depend on a working ACPI implementation, something Bill Gates personally forbade. Free software always does what users want and does it better than non free, but it's hit and miss as long as M$ is around to screw the hardware itself up. When you don't have software freedom, what you are left with is lousy choices like "degrade".

Because of this and many other problems, it's a good thing Vista is a failure.

"Microsoft's marketing budget is larger than the marketing budgets of all its competitors combined. This is what made MS-DOS the instant success it was over the much better (at the time) CP-M. It's what made MS Windows more successful than the better Apple and unix (X-Windows) offerings"

Actually, at the time Micro-soft didn't have a marketing budget. In fact they didn't pay Seattle Computer Products until after they got paid by IBM for MS-DOS. What really made Microsoft the success it is, was the ability of third party's to clone the IBM PC without paying IBM a royalty. Because IBM didn't own DOS, MS was free to license it to these third party's.

'Payment if the initial fee described in Paragraph 2(c) above, and royalty's called for under this Agreement shall be due within 45 days of the date MS invoices their customer for the product'

'IBM recognizes thet MS will be licensing the MS Product Offering 1.1 to third parties'

"Microsoft has understood from the start the lesson that IBM (their initial funder) pioneered in the 1960s and 70s:"

Actually what Microsoft understood was that IBM, the PC company and the OEMs were just the delivery people. But never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

"If you have a big enough marketing budget, it doesn't matter whether you have a quality product"

No, if you have a restrictive locked-in license with the OEMs, then you don't have to have a 'quality product'

"Consider the piece of crap that were Windows ME and Windows 2000. They did just fine, despite the long list of quality problems reported in the tech media"

Well, if you can't go into a computer shop and buy anything but Windows on a PC, then of course it's GOING TO SELL!

Re:Maybe, maybe not (Score:4, MS.Revisionism)

"Microsoft's marketing budget is larger than the marketing budgets of all its competitors combined. This is what made MS-DOS the instant success it was over the much better (at the time) CP-M. It's what made MS Windows more successful than the better Apple and unix (X-Windows) offerings"

Actually, at the time Micro-soft didn't have a marketing budget. In fact they didn't pay Seattle Computer Products until after they got paid by IBM for MS-DOS. What really made Microsoft the success it is, was the ability of third party's to clone the IBM PC without paying IBM a royalty. Because IBM didn't own DOS, MS was free to license it to these third party's.

'Payment if the initial fee described in Paragraph 2(c) above, and royalty's called for under this Agreement shall be due within 45 days of the date MS invoices their customer for the product'

'IBM recognizes thet MS will be licensing the MS Product Offering 1.1 to third parties'

"Microsoft has understood from the start the lesson that IBM (their initial funder) pioneered in the 1960s and 70s:"

Actually what Microsoft understood was that IBM, the PC company and the OEMs were just the delivery people. But never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

"If you have a big enough marketing budget, it doesn't matter whether you have a quality product"

No, if you have a restrictive locked-in license with the OEMs, then you don't have to have a 'quality product'

"Consider the piece of crap that were Windows ME and Windows 2000. They did just fine, despite the long list of quality problems reported in the tech media"

Well, if you can't go into a computer shop and buy anything but Windows on a PC, then of course it's GOING TO SELL!

Re:Maybe, maybe not (Score:4, MS.Revisionism)

"Microsoft's marketing budget is larger than the marketing budgets of all its competitors combined. This is what made MS-DOS the instant success it was over the much better (at the time) CP-M. It's what made MS Windows more successful than the better Apple and unix (X-Windows) offerings"

Actually, at the time Micro-soft didn't have a marketing budget. In fact they didn't pay Seattle Computer Products until after they got paid by IBM for MS-DOS. What really made Microsoft the success it is, was the ability of third party's to clone the IBM PC without paying IBM a royalty. Because IBM didn't own DOS, MS was free to license it to these third party's.

'Payment if the initial fee described in Paragraph 2(c) above, and royalty's called for under this Agreement shall be due within 45 days of the date MS invoices their customer for the product'

'IBM recognizes thet MS will be licensing the MS Product Offering 1.1 to third parties'

"Microsoft has understood from the start the lesson that IBM (their initial funder) pioneered in the 1960s and 70s:"

Actually what Microsoft understood was that IBM, the PC company and the OEMs were just the delivery people. But never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

"If you have a big enough marketing budget, it doesn't matter whether you have a quality product"

No, if you have a restrictive locked-in license with the OEMs, then you don't have to have a 'quality product'

"Consider the piece of crap that were Windows ME and Windows 2000. They did just fine, despite the long list of quality problems reported in the tech media"

Well, if you can't go into a computer shop and buy anything but Windows on a PC, then of course it's GOING TO SELL!

Re:Maybe, maybe not (Score:4, MS.Revisionism)

"Microsoft's marketing budget is larger than the marketing budgets of all its competitors combined. This is what made MS-DOS the instant success it was over the much better (at the time) CP-M. It's what made MS Windows more successful than the better Apple and unix (X-Windows) offerings"

Actually, at the time Micro-soft didn't have a marketing budget. In fact they didn't pay Seattle Computer Products until after they got paid by IBM for MS-DOS. What really made Microsoft the success it is, was the ability of third party's to clone the IBM PC without paying IBM a royalty. Because IBM didn't own DOS, MS was free to license it to these third party's.

'Payment if the initial fee described in Paragraph 2(c) above, and royalty's called for under this Agreement shall be due within 45 days of the date MS invoices their customer for the product'

'IBM recognizes thet MS will be licensing the MS Product Offering 1.1 to third parties'

"Microsoft has understood from the start the lesson that IBM (their initial funder) pioneered in the 1960s and 70s:"

Actually what Microsoft understood was that IBM, the PC company and the OEMs were just the delivery people. But never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

"If you have a big enough marketing budget, it doesn't matter whether you have a quality product"

No, if you have a restrictive locked-in license with the OEMs, then you don't have to have a 'quality product'

"Consider the piece of crap that were Windows ME and Windows 2000. They did just fine, despite the long list of quality problems reported in the tech media"

Well, if you can't go into a computer shop and buy anything but Windows on a PC, then of course it's GOING TO SELL!

Re:Maybe, maybe not (Score:4, MS.Revisionism)

"Microsoft's marketing budget is larger than the marketing budgets of all its competitors combined. This is what made MS-DOS the instant success it was over the much better (at the time) CP-M. It's what made MS Windows more successful than the better Apple and unix (X-Windows) offerings"

Actually, at the time Micro-soft didn't have a marketing budget. In fact they didn't pay Seattle Computer Products until after they got paid by IBM for MS-DOS. What really made Microsoft the success it is, was the ability of third party's to clone the IBM PC without paying IBM a royalty. Because IBM didn't own DOS, MS was free to license it to these third party's.

'Payment if the initial fee described in Paragraph 2(c) above, and royalty's called for under this Agreement shall be due within 45 days of the date MS invoices their customer for the product'

'IBM recognizes thet MS will be licensing the MS Product Offering 1.1 to third parties'

"Microsoft has understood from the start the lesson that IBM (their initial funder) pioneered in the 1960s and 70s:"

Actually what Microsoft understood was that IBM, the PC company and the OEMs were just the delivery people. But never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

"If you have a big enough marketing budget, it doesn't matter whether you have a quality product"

No, if you have a restrictive locked-in license with the OEMs, then you don't have to have a 'quality product'

"Consider the piece of crap that were Windows ME and Windows 2000. They did just fine, despite the long list of quality problems reported in the tech media"

Well, if you can't go into a computer shop and buy anything but Windows on a PC, then of course it's GOING TO SELL!

Re:Maybe, maybe not (Score:4, MS.Revisionism)

If you want a particular function, app, service, etc to be completely GPL, WRITE THE FUCKING THING YOURSELF!

That might not be so hard with free code sitting in front of you. That's the beauty of free software. As easy as it may be, it's a duplication of effort and it kind of makes the dual licensing look silly.

What exactly is a dual license if the GPL provisions don't apply or have force because of the BSD portion? There's a fundamental difference in licensing philosophy that can't be ironed out by using both. People who strongly believe in the gpl don't want people using their code the way bsd allows and will never be able to "give back" in any other way than with gpl'd code of their own.

At the same time, what's the big deal with people stripping out the bsd portion? If the bsd people are really OK with the software being distributed as binaries by people who will NEVER give back anything, why would they be so angry at people who will only give them gpl'd code?

It all looks like a tempest in a teapot from lists that have have been played by the usual suspects in Redmond. When someone is an implacable ass, there's often a reason.

GPL and BSD people can live and let live. While it might be argued that BSD code can be used directly by the enemies of software freedom, no one would seriously propose that either the BSD or GPL camp would like to eradicate or subjugate the other.

it's generally drivers and hardware that cause Windows to fail to suspend/resume, I'd be surprised if Linux running on the same hardware could.

Does the cause really matter if it's a universal problem?

At the same time, I've never met a laptop that would not work with either APM or ACPI power management under gnu/linux. The worst I've seen has been some buggy graphics, which are resolved by either an /etc/powersaved/events modification or switching to VT1 and back to X with ctrl-alt-F1, ctrl-alt-F7.

The irony of all this is that Bill Gates tried to make ACPI Windoze only. Free software had the manpower to overcome the insanely complicated and poorly implemented specification M$ came out with but non free software failed. Eventually, all of M$'s dirty tricks bite M$ harder than anyone else and the user always loses.

You're not kidding. Take a look at this internal document taken from Comes v. Microsoft:

Evangelism is War

You can stop trying to imply that this is some sort of sabotage by Microsoft, considering they'd be sabotaging themselves in the process. No different to your dumb claim that they "sabotaged" ACPI.

It's nice of you to concede the destructive effects of this kind of competition. I would never argue that it's anything but self defeating for M$ but that does not keep them from doing it again and again.

A company that's been convicted of anti-competitive practices in several lawsuits has earned reasonable suspicion when things break. It was Bill Gate's dumb idea to sabotage ACPI, and that came out in the Iowa Consumer Case. The DRDOS case, (also see p36 here), is a good early example of the overall behavior. They sabotaged a competitor then filled BBSs with astroturf that blamed the victim. Just for you, dedazo, I've made a nice list of more recent sabotages here. The victims include iPod, Firefox, Google Desktop and anti-virus makers and the FUD hate machine is cranked up to full blast in all of those cases.

The big suck of software sabotage is that it always degrades the user experience. The obvious result is that the user loses their choice of software and is forced to use something second rate. Less obvious results are performance hits in what's left. Sabotage demands extra branching and checks that take time and introduce errors of their own. The legacy of this kind of "competition" is complex file formats, insane APIs, and a system that's feature poor, expensive, unreliable and lacks real choices. Even when M$ wins this game without shooting themselves in the foot, they lose.