Slashdot Mirror

Time to put the /. effect to good use?

Time to put the /. effect to good use?

http://forums.infoworld.com/thre ads/get.cgi?115803

I'm sorry. I find your argument somewhat shallow and obtuse. Saying that Bill Gates is a businessman hardly excuses him for violating federal anti-trust laws, no matter how vague you might think they are. I'll leave it to those more knowledgable of the law to argue the issue. Here's a couple of links which put Microsoft's actions in perspective of the law.

• ProCompetition
• Daily Wrap and Flow
• Consumer Project on Technology

May I give you one rhetorical question to ponder?

If Windows were really the most technically advanced and innovative operating system on the planet, would Microsoft be in court against the DOJ at this time? Somehow, I doubt it.

It's the fact that monopolies stifle innovation as well as competition which has brought these issues to the forefront. This is why Microsoft has to resort to proprietorization of protocols--what Bill Gates calls innovation--to assure that their monopoly survives. See the oft-quoted Halloween Document for clear evidence of Microsoft intentions. See any account of the Sun/Java Case for an example where Microsoft exercised these proprietorization techniques.

I find the DOJ evidence against Microsoft compelling. Even Microsoft's own defense was a great embarassment. Don't take my word for it. Look for yourself. There are sufficient sites on the Web covering the trial. Check out CNN, ZDNet, Business Week, InfoWorld, etc.

Bork 'em, Danno.

Arne W. Flones Long Ship Software

Pay no mind to the chaos you are seeing. It is merely the shifting of paradigms.

The topic of NT's C2 certification comes up on InfoWorld from time to time. Nick Petreley wrote an editorial and hosted a discussion forum about this in July 1998.

To summarize, MS obtained a C2 certification for NT3.5 SP3 on a stand alone system (no network connection) running specifically on a Compaq Proliant 2000 or 4000, or a DECpc AXP/150. They did this using the services of a security specialist named Ed Curry, who was a regular poster to the InfoWorld forums. Afterwards he contended that they misrepresented the status of the certification and tried to get him to do the same. He refused and they allegedly forced him out of business.

He posted regularly about his ongoing fight with MS until his death a month ago.

The topic of NT's C2 certification comes up on InfoWorld from time to time. Nick Petreley wrote an editorial and hosted a discussion forum about this in July 1998.

To summarize, MS obtained a C2 certification for NT3.5 SP3 on a stand alone system (no network connection) running specifically on a Compaq Proliant 2000 or 4000, or a DECpc AXP/150. They did this using the services of a security specialist named Ed Curry, who was a regular poster to the InfoWorld forums. Afterwards he contended that they misrepresented the status of the certification and tried to get him to do the same. He refused and they allegedly forced him out of business.

He posted regularly about his ongoing fight with MS until his death a month ago.

The topic of NT's C2 certification comes up on InfoWorld from time to time. Nick Petreley wrote an editorial and hosted a discussion forum about this in July 1998.

To summarize, MS obtained a C2 certification for NT3.5 SP3 on a stand alone system (no network connection) running specifically on a Compaq Proliant 2000 or 4000, or a DECpc AXP/150. They did this using the services of a security specialist named Ed Curry, who was a regular poster to the InfoWorld forums. Afterwards he contended that they misrepresented the status of the certification and tried to get him to do the same. He refused and they allegedly forced him out of business.

He posted regularly about his ongoing fight with MS until his death a month ago.

The topic of NT's C2 certification comes up on InfoWorld from time to time. Nick Petreley wrote an editorial and hosted a discussion forum about this in July 1998.

To summarize, MS obtained a C2 certification for NT3.5 SP3 on a stand alone system (no network connection) running specifically on a Compaq Proliant 2000 or 4000, or a DECpc AXP/150. They did this using the services of a security specialist named Ed Curry, who was a regular poster to the InfoWorld forums. Afterwards he contended that they misrepresented the status of the certification and tried to get him to do the same. He refused and they allegedly forced him out of business.

He posted regularly about his ongoing fight with MS until his death a month ago.

I think you're referring to C2 certification. This is something that is supposed to be required of government machines. It doesn't just certify the software, but the "platform", meaning the software on a particular hardware setup. There were 3 platforms that were certified using NT 3.51. I don't remember what hardware. You are correct though that they were only certified as non-networked machines. If you connect them to a network, then they do not meet the security criteria.

Microsoft has touted NT 4 as being C2 certified as well. See this story about Ed Curry, a Microsoft consultant who tried to blow the whistle on them for this lie. Here is where you can read the summary of the NT certification. Note these lines:

Because the evaluated configuration does not include a network environment, both products are considered stand-alone workstations.

A network configuration of the Windows NT platform is currently pending evaluation agreement.

This implies that NT was supposed to undergo testing in a networked environment. Since certification was never granted in this case, one can assume that either the testing was never done, or NT did not pass the tests.

Unfortunately, the C2 certification requirement has not been enforced. It's kind of sickening to watch the government wring its hands and rant about the coming "digital Pearl Harbor" when they have screwed themselves and the rest of us through their own corruption. They pay Microsoft (and various OEMs) for machines that don't meet their own security standards. How insane is that? As far as I'm concerned, the idiots who chose Microsoft software for the servers should be tossed in jail for treason. They knowingly, or through their own incompetence compromised the security of our country's computer systems. Even though most of the most secure servers are probably not running Windows, there are enough that crackers can break into all sorts of government installations. If the government is so concerned about security, you'd think they'd start purchasing only securable machines. Just another symptom of a government that can't find its ass with both hands.

The butt hinge? From one of my home pages:

Microsoft has recently innovated and patented the door hinge as part of its runnaway embrace and extend strategy. This is no joke! One step closer towards Gates' promised and detailed World Domination.

But they do make decent mice. Software, on the other hand...

Another review at InfoWorld

Okay, this is rubbish. Sponsored by MS, eh. Weeelll, then it must be true! Here are some other points of view:

1. This article in InfoWorld about MS's own concern about NT server system crashes, along with a few choice quotes from other consultants.

2. This article by Novell pointing out Mindcraft's lack of, uh, a reality check.

3. This survey by Netcraft showing Apache whopping the sh*t out of NT/IIS.

Preaching to the choir, I know, but I just had to do it. I just wish we had a central, big-name pr channel to counter the MS FUD. Any ideas?

This is obviousy pure FUD.....
Every study shown on thier page is pro MS

read this story at infoworld;
http://www.infowor ld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?990413.ecnt.htm

Looks like MS past the denial stage and finally telling the truth.

Choice excerpts:

Such measures are needed because Unix-based platforms have proven to be much more robust than NT.

"Unix systems are generally a lot more solid and don't tend to go down as often," Thomas said. "Some haven't been cycled for years."

The two biggest complaints about Windows NT -- the need to constantly reboot servers and systems failures that lead to the blue screen of death

Microsoft hopes to restore some of NT's tarnished reputation in the enterprise

"I'm astonished that people run their business on a system [Windows NT] that may not be awake for the week," said Anne Thomas, analyst at the Patricia Seybold Group in Boston. "It can take up to 30 minutes to reboot the servers, databases, and applications."

look at this InfoWorld article. Microsoft is working with Intel to create a Windows dependant motherboard.

Go to this Infoworld article for a clearer version of the story. (Yes, they are talking about journaled filesystems.)

Here's what Infoworld has to say on the matter:

"To say you're suddenly reorganizing around customer-focused units is one thing, but if you look behind the curtain it's still Jim Allchin over Windows 2000 and Windows 98," said Dwight Davis, a Kirkland, Wash.-based analyst at Summit Strategies. "It's not quite that dramatic reorg in my mind. There's some realignment, but there's still really the same product groups."

Never forget that MS got where they are today because they are MASTERS of marketing and PR. At least most of the time they are masters.
--
Michael Dillon - E-mail: michael@memra.com

The original post to which he is (presumably) referring is most likely http://forums.infoworld.com/threa ds/get.cgi?74142. A number of people have pointed out that he won't actually argue his point; he just restates his views repeatedly without supporting them. I just figured that it'd be better for you interested slashdotters to go read the original thread. It's enough to convince me that the guy's a schmuck (although I shouldn't say that, since it will just give him more ammo to use in his fight against the arrogance of the Linux community).


-mike kania

Hopefully this will find both Rob and the other moderators.

The Moderator's Dilemma is that, as moderators, we are unable to discuss aspects of the moderation system without also violating the rules under which we are allowed to moderate. I've been thinking all evening of whether I want to post this under my own ID or as an AC, and I'm taking the Coward's way out for now, but I'm not happy about it.

The other two alternatives are for the moderators to post under their /. login (and lose their moderator status as we've seen), or for Rob to set up a private chat area for moderators to discuss issues. I really dislike the second suggestion -- it turns moderation into some sort of a star chamber. For the 75k - 407 of you who aren't moderators, realize that those of us who are don't know who the other mods are (other than Taco & Co.) either.

Of all the possible problems with the system (and I've been bumping up many of the posts pointing out issues as I find them), the most pernicious one is that a person aquires two moderator IDs and creates a cabal for themselves. A bot programmed to be reasonable and interesting might be able to pull this off. For an example of what bots can do, start here and follow the links.

It's not clear to me why Rob is insisting on moderator anonymity. This isn't a job I asked for, though it is somewhat interesting. I don't spend as much time on Slashdot as I had in the past, partly because of the AC issue, partly because there are alternate sites (LinuxToday, LWN, the revived RedHat, and SVLUG to name a few), and, well, I've got a real paying job.

There's also the fact that /. discussions are very short lived -- once off the front page, a day at most, they're effectively dead. It makes meaningful discussion very difficult. Despite the flameage, it is possible to carry on a real discussion for days or weeks in Usenet or mailing lists. This just isn't possible with the current /. setup, and contributes IMO to the fractured, opinionated, rash, nature of many posts here. It's not that there aren't pearls, it's just very hard to cultivate them.

I'm past the age where I'd score a lot of points bragging about my /. moderator status. Most of the people I know don't know what /. is. It's not going to impress my clients or my girlfriend, and Mom & Dad never understand all this computer junk anyway. If it's the threat of being mailbombed, well, my address has been posted here anyway, and if I wanted to disable its display, I could.

Why do I think moderators ought to be able to identify themselves?

1. Accountability. As a moderator, I'm making decisions that reflect how Slashdot appears. I think the fact that I am doing so should be public knowledge. Maybe not my phone and street address, but at least my /. login. Barring this, if I want to mention I am a moderator, I don't see why I shoud be barred from doing so. Frankly, the fact that I cannot do so makes me question the whole system.

2. Feedback. As moderators we get to see both sides of the system. FWIW, it's a set of radio buttons, (-)(0)(+)(++), and an article ID, next to each post. There's a 'Moderate' button at the bottom of the page. I'd like to be able to discuss what is good or bad about the system, and I don't particularly think this ought to be a private conversation between myself and Rob. I think that dropping Roy's status was inappropriate for what were some legitimate, well reasoned, and real issues with the moderation system. This is my protest vote, as a fellow moderator.

3. I can't quit. There's no 'I resign' button on the user accounts screen (where the basic "you're a moderator" info is). I suppose Rob would be able to deactivate me (there's a pleasent thought) if I sent an email request -- which would promptly get lost with the 500 other messages he gets daily.... I'm not criticising Rob, I'm just saying he gets a lot of mail. My other alternative is to say, "My user id is xxx and I'm a moderator", and hope that the Taco is feeling mean that day.

4. Living in fear. I've sent email to the wrong person, left my resume in the printer (or worse: copier <g>), had that girl sent the cutest reply back to me...and everyone else on the distribution list, shot my mouth (fingers) off in USENET and other fora. I've done a lot of things I've regretted. Cruising through this page, scoring and commenting, I've had to weigh very carefully what I've said for fear of losing my status. While it's possible to log out and post AC, you have to remember to do so, and as an AC, there is no credibility or authentication. I've already seen one challenge "how do we know you're a Moderator". It's a Catch-22. I really don't like living this way. It cramps my style.

With that off my chest, the system looks pretty good. I set prefs low (you can edit the threshhold value directly in the URL to some rediculous value). In this first forum, there are only 9 posts with negative values, the lowest is -2 (my threshhold is -10000). Searching for "(Score:-" will turn up all "underwater" posts. There are two possibly relevent posts which are thwacked, two gibberish posts, three '...sucks', and the rest are way off topic (taxes, skiing ??). It's working OK.

It would be nice to have a way of quickly reviewing negative posts. A 'max score' filter would do this. Several non-moderators have requested this as well. It would be a useful feature.

The highest ranked post has a score of 6. It's recommending an NNTP server. I've got my own arguments in favor of this as well. The second most favorably scored post calls into question the whole moderation concept. This is also healthy -- the system is not only tolerating criticism, it considers it important.

There's a real issue surrounding controversial posts. These would have low aggregate scores, but a large number of moderators. I would like to see a secondary moderation attribute on posts indicating the number of times a post has been moderated.

WRT losing threads under thwacked posts (I refer to positive scores as "bumps" and negatives as "thwacks" or "drops"), this tends to happen if you read in flat mode. If you are reading threaded, you'll tend to see threads beneath posts, and if you open threads in a new window (my MO), you'll get all posts at your default threshhold underneath.

I'm spending my points really quickly. Down to 2 left. All but one were bumps. I don't know if I ought to have more points to grant or if I should be more sparing in how I rate stuff, I'll have to see how this plays out and how quickly points refresh.

The concept behind moderation, and on the selecting of moderators, is good. It's a lot like Google. Though the definition is circular -- good sites are sites that good sites point to -- good posters are posters that good posters like -- it bootstraps well. I think it also avoids cliquishness. You just won't get one mindset. This is one of the better systems I've seen. It's not perfect but it's a damned good start. I think it's got everything in it it needs to be great.

The moderator guidelines are posted. (Rob: is this the same page Mods see -- I think it is but I can't check right now without logging in, which I can't do until I finish this post. Another Catch-22. Mods and Plebes should see the exact same guidelines -- the rules should be open).

Note among other things the math: there are four points granted per post (one point to each of 400 moderators per 100 posts). Your average article will see four votes cast if all points are spent. This is unlikely at best.

Signed, Anonymous Moderator :-(

I don't see what's the problem...

Brett Glass, please go back to the InfoWorld forum. The people there still worry about you.

I must admit though, even I'm getting tired of this stuff. Pretty sad. Sort of like the Y2K bug - I just wish we could get it over with and get on with our lives.

• A Networking 'black box' that is built on top of FreeBSD (Kinda like how Cobalt Qube is with Linux.)
• O'Rielly and "collaborative software" get Achievement award.
• Databases win Enterprise development award for progress with Linux.

• A Networking 'black box' that is built on top of FreeBSD (Kinda like how Cobalt Qube is with Linux.)
• O'Rielly and "collaborative software" get Achievement award.
• Databases win Enterprise development award for progress with Linux.

• A Networking 'black box' that is built on top of FreeBSD (Kinda like how Cobalt Qube is with Linux.)
• O'Rielly and "collaborative software" get Achievement award.
• Databases win Enterprise development award for progress with Linux.

Their Editor-in-Chief, Sandy Reed, is on record claiming "NT clearly is the future of computing". Just check their "Web-based voting" forum from March/April 1997; especially "Take a look at this Sandy Reed post". For some reason, the post mr Joswig refers to gives a 404 error... But then, IWE's forum software has a habit of crashing now and then, mysteriously mangling posts which make good points againt M$ and IW's pro-M$ bias (I know, it's happened to me too). Anyway, when mr Joswig wrote that, it was still there to be checked, so I don't think he made it up. Another goodie is her post Why should I apologize? -- Her unsubstantiated allegation that "OS/2 Zealots stuffed the ballot" (on the front page of the print edition) has not yet been retracted; all she did was a lame, half-hearted "apology" for calling them "zealots", buried inside her column a few weeks later.

Christian R. Conrad

Their Editor-in-Chief, Sandy Reed, is on record claiming "NT clearly is the future of computing". Just check their "Web-based voting" forum from March/April 1997; especially "Take a look at this Sandy Reed post". For some reason, the post mr Joswig refers to gives a 404 error... But then, IWE's forum software has a habit of crashing now and then, mysteriously mangling posts which make good points againt M$ and IW's pro-M$ bias (I know, it's happened to me too). Anyway, when mr Joswig wrote that, it was still there to be checked, so I don't think he made it up. Another goodie is her post Why should I apologize? -- Her unsubstantiated allegation that "OS/2 Zealots stuffed the ballot" (on the front page of the print edition) has not yet been retracted; all she did was a lame, half-hearted "apology" for calling them "zealots", buried inside her column a few weeks later.

Christian R. Conrad

Their Editor-in-Chief, Sandy Reed, is on record claiming "NT clearly is the future of computing". Just check their "Web-based voting" forum from March/April 1997; especially "Take a look at this Sandy Reed post". For some reason, the post mr Joswig refers to gives a 404 error... But then, IWE's forum software has a habit of crashing now and then, mysteriously mangling posts which make good points againt M$ and IW's pro-M$ bias (I know, it's happened to me too). Anyway, when mr Joswig wrote that, it was still there to be checked, so I don't think he made it up. Another goodie is her post Why should I apologize? -- Her unsubstantiated allegation that "OS/2 Zealots stuffed the ballot" (on the front page of the print edition) has not yet been retracted; all she did was a lame, half-hearted "apology" for calling them "zealots", buried inside her column a few weeks later.

Christian R. Conrad