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I believe you're referring to the Microsoft/Claria Tryst.

(Related Slashdot article here.)

Other issues:

Hamachi setup: The setup time for Hamachi is exactly what they say: A few minutes. The interface is a bit quirky, and the documentaton is limited.

Anyone using Hamachi may want to run it as a service; see this explanation from Cyberonica.

Insecurity: Hamachi uses a very sensible technique for getting around firewalls and NAT. So does Skype VOIP. Of course, that means firewalls and NAT are not really protecting us.

In no way am I saying that Hamachi itself is insecure. I don't think that. They say all traffic is encrypted, and normally none passes through their servers. I am only saying that these techniques show the insecurity of our present protections.

ZoneAlarm Security Suite: We use ZoneAlarm Security Suite, a software firewall that notifies users every time something happens that might be an indication of a security breach.

If the users don't cooperate, and don't call us every time they see a notification, there is no security. ZoneAlarm's notifications are written in pure Geek, an unusual language which is used not to communicate but to pretend to communicate, while actually trying to avoid providing any useful information. Geek is a job security language, not a language for communication.

The real answer, of course, is to have a secure operating system, not one in which there is a lot of profit to be made selling the next version by criticizing the present version. We need an OS that is designed to be secure, not one that is allowed to be sloppy so that it is insecure.

Router VPN -- Netgear: We have had an enormous amount of trouble with Netgear router VPNs. We've had a lot of trouble with Netgear technical support. The Netgear products don't seem finished. Once they are working, our experience is that they stay working, with some quirks.

(Interestingly, Netgear is the worst company for avoiding sending rebates. We almost always have to go to the management of the store from which we bought Netgear equipment and have them get our rebates for us.)

While waiting to determine why Microsoft is going to such trouble to advertise the insecurity of its present operating systems, you can use the free RootKit Revealer from SysInternals.

My guess is that Microsoft's effort is an attempt to create a demand for some future operating system that will be hardened against rootkits.

While waiting to determine why Microsoft is going to such trouble to advertise the insecurity of its present operating systems, you can use the free RootKit Revealer from SysInternals.

My guess is that Microsoft's effort is an attempt to create a demand for some future operating system that will be hardened against rootkits.

Even today, Microsoft has been revealed to cover up insecurity problems. But I don't see any backlash. Except by people like me who already know better than to trust Microsoft.

• Darrow, Barbara. "Microsoft, The New IBM." CRN 7 Jun 2004
• Goldberg, Aaron. "Microsoft Hits Downslope." eWeek 19 May 2003
• Kanellos, Michael. "The Rise and Fall of the Wintel Empire." ZDNet 5 Aug 2004
• Reifman, Jeff. "Microsoft's Sacred Cash Cow." Seattle Weekly 2 Jun 2004

• Darrow, Barbara. "Microsoft, The New IBM." CRN 7 Jun 2004
• Goldberg, Aaron. "Microsoft Hits Downslope." eWeek 19 May 2003
• Kanellos, Michael. "The Rise and Fall of the Wintel Empire." ZDNet 5 Aug 2004
• Reifman, Jeff. "Microsoft's Sacred Cash Cow." Seattle Weekly 2 Jun 2004

Well Newtons haven't been updated in 8 years and we're still waiting for something different...

FT link

eweek.com link

Primary reason is that it's a ploy by Microsoft to discredit open source (Google for "Baystar" to learn more). Even though the case has no merit, they want to plant a bug in the ear of every PHB out there. "Doesn't Linux have some kinda legal trouble?" In that light, they have been successful somewhat.

Secondary reason, it's a stock scam. The longer they keep the company going, the longer they can bilk the shareholders for more cash. It's probably one of the most blatant examples of insider trading ever, but since it's small potatoes it has somehow flown under the radar. Here's hoping that changes soon.

Jane Walker == TechTarget

Seriously, just two minutes on Google led to MUCH better articles, e.g. CMPNet, eWeek, and Virtualization.info

"Microsoft relies on the fact that its communication protocols are technologically innovative and are covered by intellectual-property rights"

"Linux can win as long as services / protocols are commodities .. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market"

Blunk pointed out that Microsoft is claiming some form of IP rights over "a total of 130 protocols which Microsoft is offering for license." "Many of the listed protocols are [IETF] RFC [request for comment] documents, including but not limited to the core TCP/IP v4 and TCP/IP v6 protocol specifications," he said in his note.

Larry J. Blunk, Merit Network Inc. Nov 2004

Looks like RedHat is trying to do Novell one better. And maybe now that Novell-JBoss partnership arrangement won't get renewed?

http://www.novell.com/products/support/jboss/
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1843829,00.as p

According to the Foundation page at the Fedora wiki, the Foundation was supposed to do more than that. The first bullet point at the Fedora Project wiki describes the Foundation as "a non-profit entity to organize and manage volunteers." Correct me if I'm wrong, but the OIN wasn't designed to organize and manage Fedora volunteers, so there isn't that much redundancy. In one of the articles about the creation of the Foundation, Red Hat general counsel Mark Webbink says that the Foundation was intended to maintain autonomous control of the distribution: "We feel that we are now at a point where we need to give up absolute control. We built our company on the competence of the open-source community and it's time for us to continue to manifest that." Red Hat is getting rid of the Foundation because no longer feels that it can reasonably "give up absolute control" and OIN is only partially relevant. The truth of the matter is that giving up control would be financially detrimental to the Fedora project as well as Red Hat itself, and Red Hat has realized that non-profit status would limit their potential for contribution. Despite that, Red Hat could still create a board that favors the community rather than their own interests without having to create a foundation at all. In my opinion, Red Hat has dealt with this poorly not because they gave up on the idea of a foundation, but because they revoked the autonomy of the community at the same time. Some people came to the Fedora project after the creation of the Foundation was announced because they thought that they would have the opportunity to determine the course of development. By taking autonomy away from the community now, Red Hat has taken advantage of those people.

I have come to a conclusion that every new release of software is distinctly worse than the other. Why? It's because the fat lady can't sing. There's a natural tendency to add stuff," Negroponte said. "Suddenly it [becomes] like a very fat person--uses most of their energy to move the fat. We've gotten to the point where we have to completely rethink." (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1945967,00.a sp)

"So, while someone with your needs obviously gains little from running OS X, I think the average computer user gains a lot from OS X."

I totally agree. I still advise friends to try Apple computers (PLEASE! PLEASE! I'M so sick to death of helping them with their Windows machines!!)

But I no longer have quite the confidence in Apple (and maybe it is particularly in Steve) that I did for a while there.

The term "roadmap" gets used a lot as an explanation for why they suddenly switched to Intel. But everyone knows that Intel's roadmap has been a work of science fiction for several years. It is a marketing document, not a planning document. Like Microsoft did (and still does) for years, the idea is to scare off competition by saying "See what WE are going to be doing next year! You can't possibly keep up with us!" But AMD HAS kept up, and passed them in every area, while at the same time cutting costs.

What, in fact, Apple lacks is a road map of their own. Apple users don't have a clue what Apple might do next, which is why there are so many rumors and rumor sites about them. Just yesterday I read a long long article about why Apple hasn't penetrated the business market. The article had it all wrong in my opinion with which I can save you a lot of reading: Businesses like certainty. If they can't know everything about what you are planning they at least like to have a general idea, and with Apple that simply isn't the case.

The switch to Intel make zero sense, nada, zip, zilch, unless you start coming up (as some have) with really far-fetched notions such as Apple abandoning OS X or Hardware, or both. Besides, I think the cell based PowerPC processors that are the guts of the new Xbox and Playstation systems are fascinating. They have low power potential, multiprocessor potential, they are used in ruggedized military equipment, are the heart of some of the new supercomputers being built, and on and on. There is nothing bold and daring about the switch to Intel. Just the opposite, it is a capitulation to Windows: "We can never get the driver-writers on-board, so lets just look so much like Windows that Windows drivers will work for OS X". You can bet that's where this road is leading you, and the next step will be running Windows APs under OS X, and the next step after that is "Oh heck, Windows isn't that bad after all, lets just run Windows." Been there, done that with OS/2 and I ain't gonna go there again.

Read what Microsoft says about malware:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1945808,00.as p

Essentially: Be prepared to re-frmat and re-install as often as something sneaks through.

And I think that is what Apple users are in store for in the long run. But as long as OS X is around (I'm not making any bets) it certainly IS an easier OS to use than Windows or Linux, I'm just not so sure it will remain as stable and virus-free as it is today for every long.

With regard to your Ubuntu test, after running Debian on my iBook for a couple of years I decided to try a recent PPC version of Ubuntu as well. Since I was familiar with Debian (and Ubuntu is based on Debian) I figured I'd have no trouble with it at all. But I hated it. It WAS slow. I have no idea why. At one point I put a normal DVD in there to see if it would play it (it didn't) and the machine practically ground to a halt. It was doing disk I/O like crazy with no feedback to me about what it was doing. Long after I had removed the DVD and gone on to other things the machine was mostly useless, being preoccupied with something other than me. After only a few hours I concluded that Ubuntu wasn't doing anything for me that I didn't already have with my Debian install, so I went back to Debian where there seems to be much less mysterious behavior.

I DO expect Ubuntu to continue to improve though (I think the PPC version is relatively new) and end-user improvements made in

Exactly true. The responses on this page show they've not read the Interview with Eoalas founder Michael Doyle. The 500 million may sound like a lot, but it's not money in the pocket by a long shot, and the lawsuit was intended to stop Microsoft dominance.

I guess Doyle really didn't expect to get a pile of cash. Perhaps he wanted to use the patent system to show how screwed up the patent system really is.

I don't know where this myth comes from, but you only need to look at Microsoft's own security bulletins to see that this just isn't the case. Unchecked buffers resulting in buffer overflows mean that a cracker can install and run any code he likes, without you ever knowing about it.

Here is an excerpt:

Worse than that, the bad guy doesn't need to install a virus, so your virus checker probably won't notice. And even spyware scanners will only work if the bad guy uses code that the AdAware guys and their friends know about.

--------
Hey, who needs a sig? Not me!! Oh wait...

...tell me this whole thing doesn't stink like the deepest abyss of Hell.

Actually, a quick read of this nauseating interview with Eolas Thug-in-Chief Michael Doyle confirms that it does, in fact, stink like the deepest abyss of hell.

He touts himself as some heroic champion of the "small players", while complaining because MS is 'clearly...trying to solidify their control over Web technologies.' Puh-fucking-leeze. This guy is exploring new frontiers in hypocrisy. Takes a bully to know one, I guess.

"We're in discussions with major players in the Linux world and are working on a plan to resolve the '906 patent issue with the entire Linux community," Eolas Founder Michael Doyle told eWEEK.com, referring in short hand to the patent's full number. "The solution will be supportive of the open-source community."

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1437469,00.as p

I haven't heard anything more on this in the intervening time.

While I'm link-whoring, here's some more stuff if you want insight on the guy: Doyle's homepage, another eWeek interview "Browser Victory Shouldn't Alter HTML", and an article from I, Cringely that was one of the first media pieces on the whole issue. More can be found on Google and Wikipedia, of course.

Regardless of Doyle's intentions, I'm against the whole software and business-method patenting regimes. It's been said many times before, but patenting software or business-methods is as ludicrous as patenting story ideas in literature.

While I'm link-whoring, here's some more stuff if you want insight on the guy: Doyle's homepage, another eWeek interview "Browser Victory Shouldn't Alter HTML", and an article from I, Cringely that was one of the first media pieces on the whole issue. More can be found on Google and Wikipedia, of course.

Regardless of Doyle's intentions, I'm against the whole software and business-method patenting regimes. It's been said many times before, but patenting software or business-methods is as ludicrous as patenting story ideas in literature.

Quite a few Window 95 apps break on XP. Especially XP SP2. And this list doesn't include weird obscure things.

Classic runs in virtualization, but that's actually a better solution. Application isolation means a malfunctioning classic app won't bring down the whole system, and the fact that classic is a complete OS 9 environment means no obscure bugs will get in the way of running applications.

There's really only a minor performance impact on the apps, anyways, and this is more than made up for by the vast increases in processor speed since OS 9.

Microsoft would do well to rely upon virtualization for backwards compatibility. Make a clean break with the past, wrap XP/Vista up in a virtual machine, and start fresh. The minor performance impact is worth the security/compatibility and code maintainability benefits.

http://web.archive.org/web/20020321092752/http:/ /www.eweek.com/article/0,3658,s=1884&a=24242,00.as p

http://www.eweek.com/article/0,3658,s=1884&a=24242 ,00.asp">link

MS has serious pressure from businesses to get Vista out in 2006. In 2002, they started the Software Assurance Program that allowed all updates to their software for three years. Many companies signed up in 2003 since they assumed the next generation OS and another Office update would be released by then. Here's an article explaining more about it: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1619960,00.as p

It's coming close to the end of 2006 and if Vista is not shipped before, these businesses are going to be quite angry. MS has major pressure to get Vista out this year and as such, quality is quite possibly going to be lacking at time runs out.....

"However, now I see how many malicious files tied to major botnets remain undetected" by the most popular anti-virus programs.

Sounds like a golden opportunity for ingenious programmers to design something to seek out and destroy these botnets, and then sell it to Microsoft for a fortune.
Another botnet hunter article from eWeek.

This is like Ford getting together with Peugot to trademark the word "car" and prevent other car manufacturers from using it.

Or Microsoft preventing others using the term "operating system".

BTW: "Windows" was used by others before Microsoft to develop a windowed interface.

Quote: Lindows.com on Tuesday won an important early tactical victory against Microsoft in their ongoing trademark dispute. The judge ruled that 'windows' must be considered in its historical user-interface context.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1524941,00.as p

Microsoft paid $20 million so that Lindows give up the Lindows name and assign related Web domains to them.

Garry Anderson - skilful.com - wipo.org.uk

from eWeek.com's article "Will Your PC Run Windows Vista?" http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1843945,00.as p "Thus even for PC owners who have purchased new machines in the last year, hardware upgrades of one type or another--either a new graphics card or, if a machine's graphics can not be upgraded, possibly a new system--may be necessary to run Windows Vista's Aero Glass effects."

I think google is still trying to do the right thing. But I trust the government to do what governments the world over do - spy on its citizens, reduce our rights, be more invasive in our lives and so on. Hey if you've got nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear... right?

So I think that no matter what google tries to do or be - they are a gold mine of data. The government tried to get some data in the public eye, and got rebuffed. I believe that they will get whatever they want from google soon, but you wont know. How can you stop a government that can enact a law that means you can be
a) held without trial
b) that libraries can be forced to hand over your data, and gagged be gagged (sorry about the lame PDF)
c) that search and seizure can be enacted without judicial review

And dont forget good ol torture (but hey - it didn't happen on our soil, so its ok. Even if we organised and supported it.

So - I trust google to be as good as they can. But you can't fight the government that makes the rules.

If I were in to conspiracy theories - I'd suspect that this was just a front, and the govt already has plans to use existing laws to simply retrieve the data in the name of anti-terrorism, for the safety of the fatherland (I mean the homeland)...

>Why not just shred it using a cross cut shredder. thats what i do . I would like to see somebody put something that has been through one of those back together.

Churchstreet Technologies will scan the debris in a shredder's output bin and their software will reconstruct it in RAM. They claim to be able to piece together even crosscut documents as long as you haven't mixed several bags together. Seems to be that columns of number would be an intractable problem, I don't know whether they can manage those.

Hate to tell you, but this is alreay at critical mass. Look at the number of big-time patent fights that are going on now:

• Lawyer insists Microsoft infringed antipiracy patent
• RIM, NTP and Patent Madness
• SCO Heading For The Edge?

The list continues to grow. Somewhere, someone is writing code in the warm little cocoon of ignorance and once they have released it into the wild, they will be set upon by flocks of hungry vultures^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hlawyers and will eventually be sued into backruptcy and destitution. Ah, it's a great time to be a programmer!

Unless your software is Free. And you are talking about the Office 2007 formats, due to be out in 6 - 12 months. How does this help me today? (The XML file formats in O2003 have a different license and are also useless because a tiny minority of even O2003 users use them)

Because we're talking about Intel boxes, and not PPC, which 99% of Macs are currently using, right?

Novell seems to be making deals with SuSE.

Swiss Government
Novell is leading linux in china

I mean come on I don't think the Swiss Gov't is going to pick a company that doesn't know what they are doing.

Redhat is a great example of how a linux company can be successful. Novell is backed by IBM, and has partnerships all over the place like Redhat. I think Novell is going to surprise a lot of people.

Hey even their old CEO is now the CEO of Google. They have too many ties to too many power players for them not to be a success.

Really?

"Every part of memory is executable by default," Grenier said. "Just about every place you can stick data into memory, you can get it to execute."

Such a charmer you are... you must work in Apple's PR department.

Care to elaborate?
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1829355,00.as p
http://www.betanews.com/article/Analyst_MS_Office_ Formats_Not_Open/1107211516
http://www.microsoftmonitor.com/archives/006232.ht ml

the report have a better coverage on this page: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1909946,00.as p

from this TFA:
"Anti-virus vendor Symantec Corp. is providing guidance as to where security gaps might be in certain open-source projects."

PS:i am not sure if it has been published on /. or not

Amazing someone would say something so stupid, isn't it? They pretended that distributions made for older hardware don't exist and removed XP's built in hardware install blocks to discover that, "If Linux was installed on an older system, such as an average PC of 1997, then the desktop performance falls below what is typically acceptable for a common user" and, "that Windows performed as well as Linux on legacy hardware when installed and run out-of-the-box." That looks like an admission that XP won't run on older hardware, even if you can get around the blocks they built in. Nothing new there. Everyone knows you need at least 128MB of memory just to boot XP and run one or two nondemanding applications. Because there are plenty of distributions that do run well with much less, me thinks they proved the Linux runs well perception valid without realizing what they were doing.

The perception has gained steam as Vista's specs leak out. What you have to remember while M$ touts XP as so light and cute is that it's fiver years old. At the time, XP obsoleted whole classes of computer hardware. It outright refused to install on PII and lead people to throw out lesser hardware. Considering what most people did with XP, this was a huge waste of money. Vista promisses much of the same.

This message typed using Debian Sarge and a PII laptop. Specifically, Konqueror 3.3.2 on Enlightenment 16 and a 233 MHz PII with 196 MB RAM and a 6 GB hard drive. 802.11b works just fine, thank you, and I had two sessions of Inkscape scalar vector drawing opened, 12 spare virtual desktops and I listened to music using Juk while I wrote. There's no version of Windoze that does all of that on any hardware.

This is a plain example of why the GPL version 3 is such a good idea. Just as it would require a company like Tivo to remove its DRM (or provide a back door), so it would open up the Intel Apple machines (with their similar DRM chips). I'm sure there are many companies that have broken open source licenses - maybe Apple is one such and should be prosecuted to release all code connected to any GPL license? Who goes after license offenders?

At least the Sun commitment to Open Source is total - they are even GPL'ing their SPARC chips.

Looks like a court will be considering an injunction tomorrow!

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1930775,00.as p

1. Security, security, security
This has never be a paramount feature of Windows V.anything. In fact, it's been anything but the 3 s's. We are still waiting for the IE fix as well as the grandiose top priority on security.

2. Internet Explorer 7: IE gets a much-needed, Firefox-inspired makeover
See #1 .. we are still waiting. Can we cut the shit and focus on a more secure browser instead of glitz and tabs?

3. Righteous eye candy:
See #2.. Could we get something to nip that little spyware problem please? Enough with the froof.

4. Desktop search:
hot tip: [START] -> right click -> explore -> F3 (above the #4 key). if your 1eet, dir /s

5. Better updates:
Can we get that XP patch first? Maybe if you weren't dicking with the eye-candy, we could have this before 2007.

6. More media:
Ok, this looks like a good fix. Oh, wait.. no mention of fixing it I guess. How long has this been a problem?

7-10.. add your own

First they bought out InnoBase, now SleepyCat, and it looks like probably JBoss soon..

Is Oracle/Ellison attemping to simply buy out a good sized chunk of the mature open source offerings? For what purpose I wonder? To stop (or slow down) their competition with Oracle's own products? To use them against Microsoft and/or IBM?

At any rate, I don't like it, not one bit

I'm pretty worried about the JBoss move. I can't imagine Oracle has more than two motives here:

1) Compete with IBM in the smaller, free application server market.

2) Get rid of their open source competition.

I have a hunch that #2 is much more likely. Jboss doesn't just have a competing applicaion server, it also has a competing ORM framekwork (Toplink vs Hibernate).

What if they would require an MRI later in life?

According to this article, http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1756587,00.as p
removal is minor surgery which to me means scar tissue.

So next, you quit or get fired, you have this invasive RFID chip in your person and your next company requires the same BS implant.
Does one keep accumulating RFID's or scar tissue?

What's wrong with retinal scans?

You don't. Removal requires (minor) surgery. Yum. See http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1756587,00.as p

If you fork, you must contribute your code back to the main base.

If you fork, Marc will sue your ass.

I'd suggest collecting magazine clippings and/or URL's about other major companies that have successfully switched to Linux and Open Source. Here's a few links to get you started.

Etrade:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1916119,00.as p

Amazon, Ebay, Wal-Mart, Dell, American Greetings:
http://www.forbes.com/2002/10/08/1008linux.html

Cendant:
http://www.cio.com/archive/070105/cendant.html

Merril Lynch and Credit Suisse First Boston:
http://www.forbes.com/2002/03/27/0327linux.html

Boscov's
http://www.forbes.com/2002/07/17/0717casestudy.htm l

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange:
http://www.baselinemag.com/article2/0,1397,1828002 ,00.asp

There is an increasing demand for cell phone applications, and Opera (being multi-platform) seems well-positioned to take advantage of that. Widgets, therefore, appear to be part of Opera's cross-platform strategy.

Selected quotes from a recent eWeek article ( http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1920351,00.as p ):

"Opera first began encouraging people to build widgets within its software late last year with the introduction of its Opera Mobile Platform, a system meant for developers creating wireless applications to run in the company's mobile device browser."

"Ford said that Opera is hoping to make the widgets capable of working across many different types of devices, from PCs to mobiles and even consumer electronics."

"Opera Mobile Platform, for instance, allows developers to build widgets that can work on wireless devices running completely different operating systems, which could help push development across other types of machines, Ford said."

(Thomas Ford is an Opera spokesman)

Unfortunately, AVG came across rather poorly in the recent WMF exploits.

Already tried - a little while ago someone tried to slip a backdoor into the linux kernel.

Fortunately, the backdoor was caught via exactly the kind of peer review that open source allows.

see http://kerneltrap.org/node/1584

with open source, it's easier to get trojaned code in, but harder for it to stay there. on the reverse, who knows what could be lurking in MS code? I quote:

"A senior Microsoft Corp. executive told a federal court last week that sharing information with competitors could damage national security and even threaten the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. He later acknowledged that some Microsoft code was so flawed it could not be safely disclosed."
(http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,5264,00.asp)

Can I call BS on that? Rhetoric, all of it and I quote from your above post on the MS IE Blog, "I wanted to make it clear that we know Beta 1 makes little progress for web developers in improving our standards support, particularly in our CSS implementation. I feel badly about this, but we have been focused on how to get the most done overall for IE7, so due to our lead time for locking down beta releases and ramping up our team, we could not get a whole lot done in the platform in beta 1. However, I know this will be better in Beta 2 "

I would like to point out that the above post is dated July 29th, 2005.

Half of the problems with IE's implementation of CSS (from a designers POV) is that they insist on sticking us with defaults other than 0, none, or off. As far as they're concerned they're not bugs - they're features.

The comments you pointed out only highlight MS's opinion that the situation with CSS has very low priority. A very low priority indeed.

According to eWeek.com, "Sources claiming familiarity with Microsoft's IE 7.0 plans said the company will add some additional CSS2 support to its new standalone browser. But Microsoft isn't planning to go the whole way and make IE 7.0 fully CSS2 compliant, sources said."

Of course, one site, 465BeraStreet.com can even wag a finger @ MS for fixing bugs at all, "When Internet Explorer 7 is released, probably later this year, it looks like one long-standing CSS selector bug in IE will be fixed: the Star html Selector Bug, also known as the Tan hack. Since the bug has been used by many web developers to target specific CSS rules at Internet Explorer as a way of working around various CSS bugs in the browser, some are worried that Microsoft fixing the bug in IE 7 may cause developers a lot of extra work."

And to highlight my point that M$ just doesn't care at all about CSS standards or compliancy thereof, CNet quotes Greg Sullivan, of the Windows client group as saying, "While it is true that our implementation is not fully, 100 percent W3C-compliant, our development investments are driven by our customer requirements and not necessarily by standards"

If they can't get around to it until after Alpha/Beta releases to fix issues they've known about for years now and because they themselves say that it isn't a priority to even try to meet the standards, No, I don't expect M$ to give any priority to the problems with CSS where I.E. 7.0 is concerned.

The worst, however, as highlighted above, Microsoft's utter lack of response to the issues in the past has now lead to a situation where any action to do anything positive would swamp designers with so much back-peddling to remove all their I.E. 5.5 hacks that new hacks would have to be implemented to cover up old hacks that are covering up old hacks... all because they didn't do anything earlier and still refuse to do anything about it now.

No my friends, CSS and IE will not be reconcicled - not now, not ever. They missed the boat.

IMHO.