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At least Microsoft has given us a way to prove how unstable our systems are... whenever Windows Vista is finally released.

So, maybe Vista will fit this model better, and having developers using user accounts won't be all that ridiculous...

Well, actually it looks like it will get even worse.

But then again, the article itself is a pita. The Irony.

Full story on how onerous the license agreement is can be found here. An excerpt:

"For example, we shall (and you agree we are permitted) to transmit and arrange for automatic installation of any and all updates, modifications, and/or even full re-installations of the Software to address security, digital rights management, interoperability, and/or performance issues.....

The Software also includes automated features that collect information that uniquely allows the Software to automatically identify your computer and your system, the version of the Software in use and to manage some or all of the digital rights associated with Content. These features may be remotely activated in order to update security components used by the Software, including, without limitation, portions of the Windows Media Player associated with your use of Urge. These updates, modifications, re-installations and other modifications to the Software can occur periodically or when necessary and without any notice to you....

We may use your Personal Information to tailor your experience on Urge, review your content libraries and files to better understand your preferences and make recommendations, to display Content, Promotions, information or offers we think may be of interest to you...

he Software is also capable of monitoring itself to detect tampering or other security-related activities and has the ability to automatically transmit and communicate information about attempted tampering and other security incidents. "

Note that according to this story, using Microsoft Defender's own definitions for Spyware, URGE is considered Spyware.

Full story on how onerous the license agreement is can be found here. An excerpt:

"For example, we shall (and you agree we are permitted) to transmit and arrange for automatic installation of any and all updates, modifications, and/or even full re-installations of the Software to address security, digital rights management, interoperability, and/or performance issues.....

The Software also includes automated features that collect information that uniquely allows the Software to automatically identify your computer and your system, the version of the Software in use and to manage some or all of the digital rights associated with Content. These features may be remotely activated in order to update security components used by the Software, including, without limitation, portions of the Windows Media Player associated with your use of Urge. These updates, modifications, re-installations and other modifications to the Software can occur periodically or when necessary and without any notice to you....

We may use your Personal Information to tailor your experience on Urge, review your content libraries and files to better understand your preferences and make recommendations, to display Content, Promotions, information or offers we think may be of interest to you...

he Software is also capable of monitoring itself to detect tampering or other security-related activities and has the ability to automatically transmit and communicate information about attempted tampering and other security incidents. "

Note that according to this story, using Microsoft Defender's own definitions for Spyware, URGE is considered Spyware.

The issue is that the Chinese know where the computers are headed, and they are willing to do WHATEVER they can to get information on the US. Lets face it, any "nice" relationships between China and the US are merely a front for undercover relations. Lets see http://government.zdnet.com/?p=1665 And it's pretty easy to find dozens more links like that. The US is merely trying to avoid obvious problems with computers trying to screw up sensitive information.

"In Google We Trust", by Lee Shaker, is a scholarly look at why Google has become a trusted brand in so little time, the implications of such trust and the need for greater critical analysis of Google. The paper discusses "Information integrity in the digital age" and is available at FirstMonday.org. Highlights of the article are posted here: http://blogs.zdnet.com/micro-markets/?p=23

A senior Microsoft executive told a BBC documentary that people should use commercial software if they're looking for stability. Read all about it here: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6074237.html?ta g=nl.e589

I can't think of any other reason the surgeon in the linked photo (who is described as being far away from his patients) in the additional details and pictures link is wearing scrubs and a hairnet.

Microsoft: Open source 'not reliable or dependable'

As the parent poster stated "if you run malicious software, then your computer is a zombie." I won't hazard to state the proportions but last I checked the number of Apache servers hacked in a given year outnumber IIS hacks. Of course there are far more Apache servers out there so that's really not saying that much.

...FireWire is present, as it is on all new Intel-based Macs to date, proving that FireWire isn't going anywhere (anytime soon, anyway) on Apple's computer products. It also totally shatters Jason O'Grady's ridiculous predictions that "FireWire is gone completely from the new Intel iBooks", which were widely accepted as fact. Of course, it made zero sense at that time, too, but that didn't stop it from spreading around the net like wildfire.

Note also that the MacBook features the Core Duo, not Core Solo, and the screen resolution has increased from 1024x768 on the old 12" iBook and PowerBook to 1280x800.

With the array of connectivity (mini DVI also supports VGA, S-Video, and composite), built-in Bluetooth and 802.11a/b/g (yes, a is included and supported by the OS), the ability to boot Windows natively or use Windows (or other x86 OSes) in virtualization, for just over $1000, this looks to be a great deal.

It appears that some of the traditional differences between the "iBook" and "PowerBook" line are shrinking even more; I wouldn't be surprised if there was no 12" MacBook Pro based on the new MacBook's specifications.

One hopes that Apple is applying a reasonable amount of thermal paste on the new MacBooks. ;-)

Actually, Skype is more secure. It uses 256 bit AES end-end encryption. See here for more details: http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/index.php?p=91 9

From Skype's FAQ [LINK: http://www.skype.com/help/faq/privacy.html ]

http://www.skype.com/help/faq/privacy.html

Is Skype secure?
        Yes. When you call another Skype user your call is encrypted with strong encryption algorithms ensuring you privacy. In some cases your Skype communication may be routed via other users in the peer-to-peer network. Skype encryption protects you from potential eavesdropping from malicious users.
Why are Skype calls encrypted?

        Skype is encrypted end-to-end because it uses the public Internet to transport your voice calls and text messages and sometimes these calls are routed through other peers. Skype encryption ensures that no other party can eavesdrop on your call or read your instant messages.
What type of encryption is used?

        Skype uses AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) - also known as Rijndael - which is also used by U.S. Government organizations to protect sensitive, information. Skype uses 256-bit encryption, which has a total of 1.1 x 1077 possible keys, in order to actively encrypt the data in each Skype call or instant message. Skype uses 1024 bit RSA to negotiate symmetric AES keys. User public keys are certified by the Skype server at login using 1536 or 2048-bit RSA certificates.

Sony IS losing money

really?

and when i do a google search, the 3rd result states that " Sony's profit jumps 68 percent ".

Slashdot away: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-6072047.html

And new boom officially began when the "dot com" search trend crossed the Web 2.0 search trend. (Brought to you by (who else?) Google.

ZDNet blog on why the email/phone pitch is a wrong strategy: http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=1086

This news story totally ignores the fact that Word can read and write ODT files with a converter. Microsoft refused to write such a converter, so others wrote it for them.

If Microsoft Word is good enough for the disabled folks today, Microsoft Word with the ODT converter is still good enough for them.

Adoption of ODT will be good for everyone in the whole world (except for Microsoft) in the long run. In the short run, there will be some annoyance with changing over to the new format, but I think the words "Screwed again" in TFA are a very harsh overstatement.

The Bush regime is currently trying to suffocate any movements that are active against it's highly inhuman and dirty practices to keep holding power in America yet are trying to fool the world about their support for democracy and free speech.

Really? An American president is trying to eliminate discourse? That's totally a new concept. Surely the Bush Administration is biggest threat to the constitution in American history.

Well at least we can get rid of this problem by voting Democrat, right? After all, they call themselves The Party Of Free Speech. They wouldn't lie, would they?

Rehovot, Israel, September 22, 2005 - Mirage Innovations, an innovator in the field of personal display technologies, today announced that it has concluded a $7.5 million round of financing from Gemini Israel Funds, Benchmark Capital and existing investor Landa Ventures.

The patented NanoPrism(TM) technology developed by Mirage Innovations is based on diffractive optics.

NanoPrism(TM) enables the creation of ultra-lightweight, compact, affordable and cyberstress- free personal display devices. Binocular displays based on this technology, such as the Mirage Innovations LiteVuT personal display, are the only cyber-stress-free personal display devices on the market.

"The rapid convergence of video content and media-capable portable devices has created a very exciting market for Mirage Innovations. The company's focus on innovative, enabling technology, combined with a seasoned management team, was very attractive to the investors" said Yossi Sela, managing partner of Gemini Israel Funds.

Mirage Innovations will continue to focus its product and business development strategy on this promising opportunity and will use the proceeds of the financing to complete the development and accelerate the commercial deployment of the technology.

"Mirage Innovations is poised to provide a real solution to meet the demand for alternative portable display systems" said Tal Cohen, the CEO of Mirage Innovations. "The demand for media-capable portable devices is being fueled by the enormous increase in content for MobileTV and Personal Media Players, which has become available only in the last couple of years." He concluded by stating that the management team at Mirage Innovations is "delighted to have such an influential and innovative group of investors backing the company."

About Mirage Innovations

Mirage Innovations offers its breakthrough NanoPrism(TM) technolog

This project was born from an engineering approach to the problem of what is consciousness. This is with this problem in mind that the European engineers designed BabyBot. And their experiments, while promising, don't solve entirely the problem of the definition of what is consciousness. So they're now designing new robots like the iCub. Read more for additional details and pictures of BabyBot and its successor, the iCub robot.

Quick fix for the annoying article. Change the page id in the URL to "all" as in http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?page_id=all

ODF is 5 to 100 slower that Microsoft Office. http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=196

which it clearly didn't "invent."

"Microsoft patents Tab button use
Time: 14:26 EST/19:26 GMT | News Source: Geek.com | Posted By: Robert Stein

A patent for which Microsoft applied on March 6, 1997, has been granted: "Discoverability and navigation of hyperlinks via tabs." In other words, when a computer user uses the Tab key to move the focus from one hyperlink to another on a webpage opened in a browser, the use of that function is now owned by Microsoft. The Tab patent, number 6,785,865, was granted on August 31st, just one among multiple patents granted to the software giant on that day. Another interesting grant is number 6,784,354, with an application date of March 13, 2003: "Generating a music snippet." Yes, you read that right. Now dividing a music stream into portions is Microsoft's domain."

http://www.activewin.com/awin/comments.asp?ThreadI ndex=29479&Group=2

Or how about this:

"Microsoft and invention

We've been inspired by the comment that Microsoft's anti-spyware software is "the best product they've ever invented". Unfortunately, Microsoft didn't invent their anti-spyware product. They bought it. Just like most of their best products. And those they didn't buy, they copied. Well, possibly not all of them. But when we put our mind to it, we couldn't think of any of their "best products" that hadn't been either bought or copied.

There have to be some, surely. Put your thinking caps on. What has Microsoft actually invented?"

http://www.bleedingedge.com.au/blog/archives/2005/ 08/microsoft_and_i.html

And this about some patent piracy with Micro$oft claiming to own something it didn't:

"Microsoft Was Found To Be A Patent Pirate
"The user experience is far from ideal but Microsoft has no choice as a result of the defeat it was handed in a patent infringement suit that was filed against the company by Eolas."

Is the above statement true? Microsoft does have a choice. They could have licensed the technology years ago but chose to steal instead. Now they have an inferior product.

Last week Microsoft and Research in Motion (RIM) were whining at a hearing they had bought with money they made on others inventions to members of congress about patent trolls. A patent troll is someone who owns rights to an invention and kicks the crap out of patent pirates who dare to steal.

Microsoft is infamous for having a huge appetite for other's technological property. Eolas is a good example of this. Mike Doyle produced a real invention and has been subjected to years abuse at the hands of a patent pirate.

Microsoft whines about forty or so pending litigations. Most of those inventor's cases probably have considerable merit and that is why Microsoft and other patent pirates are desperate to reform (or is it deform) the patent system into one where they can avoid the consequences of pirating others inventions.

Society functions because of the rule of law. Microsoft has been found to be a patent pirate and in the process they were caught committing fraud on the court. In fact RIM was also caught committing fraud. Gateway was caught destroying evidence. There is an epidemic of technology companies lying, cheating, and stealing others property. They abuse the process of law to bankrupt and brutalize inventors and compound the sin with public relations campaigns which try to paint their victims as the bad players."

http://www.zdnet.com/5208-10532-0.html?forumID=1&t hreadID=19810&messageID=381579&start=-1

I am the winner, do I get a prize?

I'm getting 504s on TFA and Google News' link to the ZDNet article covering it. Is it very different from what Reuters is repoting on what Zimbabwe's doing?

Some Internet phone services let scam artists make it appear that they're calling from another phone number--a useful trick that enables them to drain credit accounts and pose as banks or other trusted authorities, online fraud experts say.

... there may be too few open source developers in those regions.

I would not worry about China. With nearly 200 millon students, say 1% goes to I/T and technology. Then say pesemistically say that 1% of that become open source developers. This would be 20,000 additional open source developers.

As these other countries emerge into volume commerce and are more economically developed they will produce open source developers in numbers far larger than we see today. And they do not need to fight for the source code. A world view of OSS is inevitable.

WinTel will have a time of it too, remember in this article they consider this a "start". In China's Linux market, enter the V-Dragon

At the moment, 32GB of NAND flash is about $580.

http://www.dramexchange.com/

A 40GB hard disk is about $58. Which is a pretty bad price differential.

But the cost of NAND flash should drop 43% per year over the next 5 years

http://blogs.zdnet.com/ITFacts/index.php?blogthis= 1&p=9615

So that 32GB NAND flash device should be $580 * ( 0.57 ^ 5 ) = $34. That's less than a small hard disk, and you can probably charge a premium based on the low power consumption / small form factor. My guess is that people will pay $100-$200 premium for a NAND flash laptop, so I'd expect to see 32GB NAND flash ultraportables in the next couple of years.

I checked the write rate to the Physical Disk on Windows in perfmon (this counts writes to the block device driver) on my work machine, and it's not too bad, about 100K/sec averaged over an hour of building a massive chunk of software. Mainstream desktop use should have a much lower rate. E.g the laptop I'm writing this on is writing at 3K-20K/sec average at the moment. Most of that is short 40K spikes, with a small duty cycle too, so an daily average should be lower.

This paper has a formula for disk lifetime
http://www.st.com/stonline/products/literature/an/ 10122.pdf

i.e. lifetime in days is

Size of flash * Number of erase cycles * FS overhead
/
Bytes written per day.

Let's assume that the 32GB array is 8*32Gbit chips. Each chip is then 4GByte

Plugging in the figures, we get

4GB * 100,000 * 0.7
/
100KB * 24 * 60 * 60

I get 33981 days, or 93 years. This is mostly because with wear levelling, the lifetime is proportional to NAND flash array size, since wear levelling should spread erases evenly. If you could wear level over the whole 32GB, it would be 744 years!

It's actually pessimistic, since the fs overhead is lower on Inode based filesystem like NTFS or ext2/3. E.g in their example, the file needs 5000 clusters in the FAT, or 20K. On NTFS, file extents are stored as runs - i.e. a contiguous file will be one extent in the 1K Inode. Most of the time, file extents are not growing too.

At the moment, the fastest NAND has a per chip write speed of 10MB/sec, and reads about 100MB/sec. I think you could do some kind of RAID like approach, especially for reads. And since we're talking about a 8*32Gbit chips for this device the read speed should be 800MB/sec, neglecting speed ups from new interfaces and process shrinks. And bad blocks could be tracked on a finer granularity too, so you could continue to use a erase unit until all the blocks went bad. And 1 million erase cycles is probably not impossible to achieve in 5 years, since some NAND devices do that as you say.

People often quote pagefile writes as a reason for NAND being unusable, but I'm not really convinced. Even with a completely unmodified system, a worst case filesystem choice (FAT32 with small clusters), and an application which constantly grows files, and a NAND chip where every block has a 100% fail rate after 100K erases, the lifetime of a large NAND disk is still orders of magnitude greater than a hard disk, which is likely to die in 5-10 years or so at this level of usage, since it wears from both read and write.

Someone mod parent down. Its pure fantasy and a troll.

Please note: the above sentance was not a quote from the parent of this post, I just happen to have used the same wording because I have the same feelings.

"Microsoft 'has become known for' providing timely patches for their software like no-one else. "

Microsoft's patches are coming quicker than they used to, which is probably why more of them seem to be causing problems.

Timely patches like no-one else? I don't think so. I know Microsoft has left critical flaws unpatched for longer than others...

"I can't say I ever noticed a patch screwing up a machine."

You and me are a pretty small percentage of the world's Windows users, so I don't think it really matters. Here are a few articles pointing to problems with Microsoft's patches:

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2154155/users-fe el-pain-latest
http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/breakingn ews.jhtml?articleId=185302749
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jh tml?articleID=180202426
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/17/ms_patch_g litch/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/12/ms_pulls_s ecurity_patch/
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.j html?articleID=168600620
http://tech.monstersandcritics.com/news/article_79 92.php/Faulty_Microsoft_patches_highlight_quality_ concerns
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5648595.html
http://www.itnews.com.au/newsstory.aspx?CIaNCID=43 &CIaNID=18362

Sure. But Microsoft Patents are defensive patents.
They have never sued anyone for patent infringement.

how is MS trying to patent parts of the iPod in anyway defensive?

iPods were shipping before the MS patent was even filed.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/threatchaos/?p=311

What app made the graphics in the above story. They display all the systems calls in a graphical map like format that are used during the process of serving a web page.

• 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

If the kernel were pure GPL in its license terms, the answer...would be: You couldn't link proprietary video drivers into it whether dynamically or statically, and you couldn't link drivers which were proprietary in their license terms.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Spyware/?p=710 Cool New Resource for EULAs November 28, 2005 Posted by Suzi Turner @ 9:27 pm

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Spyware/index.php?p=657 Demystifying EULAs September 15, 2005 Posted by Suzi Turner @ 11:23 pm

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Spyware/?p=710 Cool New Resource for EULAs November 28, 2005 Posted by Suzi Turner @ 9:27 pm

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Spyware/index.php?p=657 Demystifying EULAs September 15, 2005 Posted by Suzi Turner @ 11:23 pm

This is true, however it seems as though Lenovo is slowly cutting those people and moving the design jobs over to China as well.

The short story is in this article, Lenovo cuts jobs in restructuring push: In short, they've dumped the US design teams for their desktop line, but retained the Thinkpad people (based in N.C.). However if I was working there, I think I'd be either polishing my resume or taking a Berlitz course in Cantonese.

If their marketshare in the US continues to slip, it's not hard to imagine that they'll cut the design teams here (which are probably expensive to operate, versus having a few people on the payroll in an office they already own in Hong Kong) and retreat to the Chinese domestic market. That's pretty much what they've already done with the desktop lineup; if, given a year or so, they don't make up the lost ground to Dell and HP with notebooks, I could see it happening there as well.

Now I may be wrong....but this link (http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=620) in the story above seems to be an article of some sorts....

I wonder what would happen if you clicked on the link?

Might it go to an article?

FTA

But does it? After all, Solid is in that enterprise market, albeit a niche within it. Solid is not going away, and this is supposed to be a complementary deal.

So I talked to Paola Lubet, vice president of marketing for Solid, She told me her 14-year old company had been looking for a way into the broader enterprise market for some time, and sees open source as a "go to market" opportunity.

I take it mean that mySQL is going to become a major player in the sql world and now with backing of a big company even more powerful...and still free.

I told you not to respond unless you had something to back you up this time but it seams you can only repeat the same dead rhetoric you have been using.
  And still you ignore the whole rest of my posts and pick out one line to respond back with your tired dead claim.

    I don't need to provide you with a Quote form the constitution I have provided you with several (repeatably I might add once again) examples as well as pointed to a current I repeat current court case (which this article is about as I have told you) that shows you are wrong. You don't like it go argue it with the Judge or apples lawyers or even the EFF's lawyers and stop listening to first year law students who haven't even taken the bar exam yet!

    God are you that brain dead that you can't get that through your thick skull none of them are argueming that this isn't a first amendment issue the article linked to on the main post points this out if you had taken the time to read it yourself.

    Here's the link to the article in question from the front page I suggest you take the time to read it and stop wasting my time with your stupid silly fantasies.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=170

    I have repeatedly provided proof that it does but you haven't provided anything other than a Quote of the first amendment and your radical interpretation flying in the face of the courts and lawyers not only in the current apple case but other prior cases saying that you're the one who's wrong not me!

    And I haven't provided my interpretations of what the article says thoughs were direct Quotes verbatim from the article which if you had read it you'd have known. And I don't know how much more reputable you can get than the court case and lawyers as well as the judge hearing as I have said this case (a case as I have stated repeatably wouldn't even be in the courts if it didn't).

    So the Onis is on you not me to provide proof and this time make it something more substantial than that which you have provided to date. Because that dog not only won't hunt but can't hunt because it doesn't have a leg to stand on.

    And if you can't come up with a more intelligent argument than what you have I won't even bother to respond to you again with your idiotic ranting fantasies.

Just like how Google is unveiling Writely, the Web Word Processor, which is speculated to be a cool and different from our routine MS-Word, so also, for the Mobile space it will be a totally different app. My experience suggests that its not just "e-", "v-", or "m-" nabling of technologies, it has to undergo some kind of transformation to be cool to use which ultimately makes it HOT in the market.
Finally, I don't think US is the best market for m-search & commerce. With just 207 Million subscribers in the US at the end of 2005, it is way behind the number subscribers in the East(Japan, China, Malaysia and India). The East and the Europe have worldclass 3G & 4G infrastructure with highly affordable subscription rates for the mobile savvy consumers. While for the internet era, it was the opposite. I guess Mobile 1.0/2.0 is a whole different game than Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.

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.

AT&T was implicated in placing taps into Russia's undersea copper cables, wasn't it?

On the fiber optic cable front:

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-529826.html

(from the Wall Street Journal in 2001)

The story mentions that a submarine is being equipped for the job of tapping into undersea fiber optic cables by 2004 - the USS Jimmy Carter. The irony of that is priceless.

I've viewed the phone company and banks as agents of the government, not independent businesses. Maybe that scene from WKRP that the Phone Police are coming to arrest Johnny Fever weren't so paranoid after all.

Is there any surprise that the US Government antitrust department and the FCC are sitting on their hands as the entire telcom industry reconsolidates back into one single company?

Pay no attention to that - Cynthia McKinney has a new hair style, and Barbra Streisand is going to have another farewell tour. Now that's news that matters!

No shit ?

From a ZDNet Aug.1, 2005 Declan McCullagh article titled , Copyright lobbyists strike again
The Central American nations participating in CAFTA must also:
- Permit software patents
- Extend copyright protection to "70 years after the author's death"
- Ban the "manufacture" or "export" of any hardware or software that could decode encrypted satellite TV signals
- Offer "online public access to a reliable and accurate" WhoIs database of domain name registration details

It's true that these may be ideas beloved by the Bush administration and business lobbyists, but they have far more to do with special-interest lobbying than traditional notions of free trade.

In reality, they're simply the latest in a string of victories that copyright lobbyists have managed to accumulate in the last decade--under both Democratic and Republican presidents--through adept work at influencing the arcane process of treaty drafting.

Negotiating below the radar "We push for that in trade agreements and treaties and bilateral" agreements, Robert Cresanti, vice president for public policy at the Business Software Alliance, told me last week. Members of his group include Adobe Systems, Cisco Systems, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel and Microsoft.

Ed Burnette did a great job of documenting the talk at http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=41

My post to the Yahoo Finance boards
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mb?s=LNUX
Looking at this from an economical standpoint.

Yes.... it is probably a trap.

Okay guys, before you freak out learn what the difference between LNUX, and Linux is.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6058196.html

That being said there is a few things to note here that are long term going to be.... "odd"

"an effort to sample feedback from customers who combine Microsoft and open-source software."

They just described a large chunk of OSDN (a LNUX asset), who are, however, rabidly loyal to OSDN and often very anti-MS, even the ones who use windows. If MS wants to avoid drawing a perpetual line in the sand, and quite frankly, having its open source ass kicked by a bunch of weekend OSDN hackers and geeks, then it will need to improve relations.

Now, improving relations can be as easy as letting off some pressure from the OS community, or just trying to make a full scale bridge alliance.

Trust me, right now if MS goes headstrong solo and stays that way you will end up with nothing but an MS network of broken ass open source .Net and asp projects that no one uses. Whereas the projects on OSDN already drive the web, literally.

"The software giant--and fierce Linux foe--runs a 300-server Linux installation at its Redmond, Wash., headquarters to do competitive analysis and test how open-source products, including Linux, work with Microsoft software."

Now this brings me to expansions for Windows Vista. To increase Linux usability years ago Wine was created, as was Windows. Could this be a clue that MS is doing the same reverse engineering to allow Linux aps and code to run on future microsoft operating systems?

Would mean, once again, OSDN (LNUX) growth and profit.

"However, the company has made efforts to make its software work better with open source. Hilf said Microsoft's product groups use the Linux labs to test how well upcoming Microsoft software, such as Windows Vista, will work with Linux and other open-source wares."

That just backed up that theory.

MS is still very against linux, and has been trying other things, such as the godaddy domain parking switch, to look better. However, this is showing a lack of momentum in the offensive fight and more of a mutually benificial move to a truce, which would increase the abilities of windows users to obtain OS solutions, and would increase the exposure of OS solutions to windows only users.

Remember geeks
OSDN = LNUX != LINUX

Hope I turn out to be long term right about this one. I just wish I had a real job and could afford more.

I agree with you overall, but I do take issue with this point. In the beginning it wasn't certain that there would be a clearly defined court case. Most Linux supporters felt that since development was done in the open it would be difficult if not impossible to get improper code accepted into the Linux kernel. However, there were those who felt that since there wasn't a central authority vetting the code it would be easy for someone to misappropriate code and have it accepted.

Another interesting connection is that intellectual property issues are frequently presented as a reason to go with Windows on Microsoft's Get the Facts website. For example, Radio Shack's case study mentions reducing "exposure to the risk of intellectual property infringement claims" as a reason to go with Windows over Linux. Before SCO starting suing their customers for using Linux, who was worried about a lawsuit over their choice of operating system?

I think Microsoft is responsible to some degree for SCO's suit. I think someone didn't fully understand the way Linux development happens and badly miscalculated the effect of the lawsuit on IBM. If IBM had quickly settled then there would be plenty of room for "no smoke without fire" FUD about the risk of improper code in Linux. Because the suit has gone on for so long and there have been so many people with enough stake in vindicating Linux there have been multiple opportunities for demonstrating that there is no infringing code.

Well, for anyone who actually cares I find these links interesting:

What happened to Sun software on Intel:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Murphy/?p=566

What the possible future might hold for the Apple - MS feud:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/05/apple_wind ows_timeline/

Considering the rumors that the foundation makes something close to $72 million? (http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6048377.html)
Quoting Chris Blizzard, a board member "I won't comment on the dollar amount, except to say that ($72 million) is not correct, though not off by an order of magnitude...."
Guess any amount is fine...but 10K seems too low, IMHO

"My girlfriend's Gmail account has been hacked into twice and had all of her contacts and emails deleted and we've never had a response from Gmail other than automated ones," he said.

Since they started dumping money into political campaigns and hired their own lobbying group about ten years ago Microsoft has become one of the most generous contributors to politicians in the country:


LXer: How Microsoft wastes its money on anything but software
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/55497/index.h tml


Election 2004: How to Excel in DC
http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/0438/040922_news _microsoft.php


A Bug in Windows GOP (Seattle Weekly)
http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/0522/050601_news _microsoft.php


Microsoft And The G.O.P.: Antitrust Insurance?
http://www.time.com/time/reports/gatesbook/lobbyin g.html


Microsoft's lobbying efforts eclipse Enron
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-835267.html


Redmond | Feature Article: Following Microsoft's Money
http://redmondmag.com/features/article.asp?Editori alsID=440


News Alert 9/6/01: Microsoft
http://www.opensecrets.org/alerts/v6/alertv6_26.as p


Commentary: It's Back to Charm School for Microsoft
http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_45/b3654183.ht m


"The Think Tank As Flack" by David Callahan
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/1999/991 1.callahan.think.html

The Netware article indicates 3.8 million server licenses in use as of Q3 1997. A conservative estimate would place half of those as running NDS(Meaning pre Netware 4.11 versions, as you can't run Netware 4.11 and later without NDS/eDirectory). The other article says, according to Microsoft's own numbers, that Windows 2000 server sales reached 1 million by March, 2001. Even if Netware sales were 0 in this time period (and I worked for a fairly typical VAR at the time... sales were about even, though Windows2000 definitely began to pull ahead during 2001) this would have the number of AD networks at about half the number of NDS networks. But even that estimate is high, because the article also states:

"...survey data from 1,200 information technology customers worldwide. Of these, 30 percent have installed Windows 2000 Server. But only 10 to 15 percent of those have deployed Active Directory..."

You might want to rethink your statement of "If you ran a Windows 2000 domain, you used the Active Directory "

Yeah, AD eventually overtook NDS in sales and installations, much the way that IE eventually killed Netscape. But that doesn't mean that IE was there first, and neither was AD. I would guess that there were very few large businesses at the time that didn't start with NDS before moving to AD.