Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft vs. Slashdot Update
But, sadly, I can't really tell you much more right now than "we're still working on it" for two reasons:
- We're exploring a lot of angles and doing a lot of research, and in order to maintain attorney-client privilege we must keep all discussions with our lawyer *extremely* private.
- Microsoft's legal people (obviously) read Slashdot.
Meanwhile, Andover.net's management has been totally supportive. Our President, Bruce Twickler, deserves special thanks for his staunch backing and general coolheadedness. And our VP of Corporate Communications, Janet Holian, has done an excellent job of getting information out to other media while letting us work (comparatively) undisturbed.
There are also rays of light from the other end. I've gotten a small but steady trickle of e-mailed support messages from Microsoft workers who are embarrassed by their employer's actions both in rudely extending Kerberos and their attempt to "publish" their proprietary Kerberos extensions while still trying to keep them hidden behind a non-disclosure agreement.
Please bear in mind that many Microsoft employees are perfectly nice people. For all we know, the nice people at Microsoft may yet persuade the not-so-nice ones that there are times when it's better to work with others to establish industry-wide standards than it is to act as if the freedom to innovate belongs only to Microsoft.
(Special message to nice Microsoft people: Here's a quote you may wish to call to your bosses' attention: "...Kerberos is a multivendor standard, so it allows secure interoperability and the potential for single sign-on between the Microsoft world and other vendor environments." If they ask where you got these words, please refer them to this Microsoft.com page.)
Anyway, once again, please accept my personal apology for not being able to share more information with you right now. This is an uncomfortable situation for everyone involved, and we hope that Microsoft chooses to give this story a happy ending as soon as possible.
- Robin "roblimo" Miller
That's a poor excuse for a troll. Please read the Slashdot Troll Howto.
Freenet keys listed on the net:
- ms-kerberos-specification.pdf
- microsoft/kerberos.pdf
- Microsoft Kerberos Specifications
- microsoft/kerberos
It's too late to be claiming trade secret now. The cat is out of the proverbial bag, never to be put back in.Sorry, Bill. No matter what the courts say, at best this battle will be a Pyrrhic one.
Chances are, you see, that MS published their spec in this form so that they could start a costly legal battle against any reverse engineers within the USA - since the reverse engineers would have to prove they didn't see the spec.
Please bear in mind that many Microsoft employees are perfectly nice people. For all we know, the nice people at Microsoft may yet persuade the not-so-nice ones that there are times when it's better to work with others to establish industry-wide standards than it is to act as if the freedom to innovate belongs only to Microsoft."
If those people believed in free speech and were "nice" (which, to me, includes being ethical), they would leave Microsoft; to work there is to tacitly agree with what they do. To take an extreme example (and I'm not implyinf they're in the same class), you might say that there were many "nice" people among the Nazis. They weren't out there killing jews, they were just cooking food which the soldiers ended up eating. However, if they had taken a principled stance and decided not to participate, the who thing would have collapsed.
This is even more true in the case of Microsoft. A software firm has only one resource: People. If you refuse to collude, they can no longer keep up this sort of behavior. The day 1,000 top programmers walk in to Balmer's office and resign is the day we can speak freely, without fear of reprisal from Microsoft.
I often hear MS folks saying that "I just want to build quality software." Microsoft's behavior isn't your fault but it is within your power to change it. If you have a telent for that, you can do it without Microsoft. Join or start a firm that builds quality software but builds it ethically.
-d
It's also good to know that you have the ethical and legal support from on high that you need to follow this through to the end.
Thank you for the info.
Thanks to the people of Andover net for the support.
Thanks to the Lawyers for 'getting it'.
Thanks even (or expecially) to the good people that work for Microsoft for having the good grace and backbone to voice their opinions, however uncomfortable they may be for them at the moment.
Be Well. - Pug
Well, its not going to be the first time they lose big legal battles... anyone remember not so long ago their previous court appearance? Heck, they seem to be having a hay-day just embarassing themselves
their hidden secret for success is unleashed:
http://www.userfr iendly.org/cartoons/archives/99nov/19991107.html
-goon(ty)
I've recently constructed a site for the purpose of having a center for resources on this battle. There's links to the articles that have come out as well as links to major publications and congressional representatives. If anyone can lend anything else on it, I'd appreciate knowing about. The site can be found here: http://www.theassassin.com
Microsoft is trying the equivalent of broadcasting programs with a little note in the corner that you can't use the information therein for any purpose other than to numb your brain. By viewing you agree.
Their idea is to 'taint' information this way so anyone reverse engineering their stuff can be tied up in endless legal battles about it.
Note that it also means you can't e.g. publicly discuss any security flaws you've found in their extensions with others, since you'd need to tell them about how it works.
Slashdot can fight M$ to its last dollar, it will do open source, linux, /., and free speech no good. And then /. will be broke, which will suck. The issue here is really a published, but closed spec. If the samba team cannot write open source code to the M$ kerberos spec for fear of being sued, we have lost, even if the /. posts can remain online through legal wrangling or the "grace" of M$. This is about open standards, not about posts to /.. Let's not push /. to be a martyr. Keep the debate on open standards, particularly to the media, which seems to not understand this issue. Just my 2 cents, Bryce E. Kimmel, Programmer and bad speller.
It's illegal because Microsoft is claiming it is the open kerberos standard. It is not.
Sadly, MS seems to believe it can market a product however it wants -- that its claims do not have to be true. They do. Under the law, Microsoft is misrepresenting its product and causing customers great harm in doing so.
Well to really play the devil's advocate you need to suggest something that I'm sure many have thought of but so far I can't find suggested anywhere.
/" or the vbs equivalent.
---> Attack!!!
Problem:
1) MS has published (with a licence that prevents implementation) an extension of a previously open protocol. They are clearly trying to embrace, extend, extinguish an open protocol. What would happen if they did this to TCP/IP or http (as they are trying to do IE5.0)
2)At this stage the damage has already been done to the Samba team. It would now be hard for them to claim they have never seen MSkerberos. Hence furthur dissemination of the code merely shows the court that with the way MS protect their "Trade Secret" that a Samba developer could not avoid seeing MSkerberos, even if they never see the licence.
3) Open source is very good at technical solutions. Not very good at other problems.
4) Publicity would be good for slashdot in this case.
Solution:
Write a *.vbs script to disseminate the code. ie. Cut and paste the love bug.
This script should:
1) In the email body:
a) Have a brief summary of what MS has done to kerberos standard.
b) Suggest that by clicking on the attachment below you can show your displeasure with MS
c) Point out that this script does nothing that win32/outlook was not designed to do.
d) On non-MS machines you can simply forward the email to all your friends.
2) Not damage the person's files. ie no "rm -fR
3) Contain within the script the MSkerberos code, licence free. I think someone on slashdot posted it without the licence so the author of the script can genuinely say they never saw the MS licence.
Such an approach is definitely playing the devil's advocate.
It uses a technical approach to the problem.
Given that the script would do nothing more than what it said, and in no way exploits a bug in windows/outlook, is it a worm/virus/trojan?
MS could not possible sue thousands/millions of users.
Demonstrates MS weakness in software design.
Mostly avoid collateral damage to MS users. No files damaged.
--> It would sure get publicity.
If you wrote such a script please post below so I can read it...
You wouldn't understand.
l amondonComesBackatM.html
Microsoft employees, by and large, like their job, their company, and the Windows-related software and hardware industries they helped birth. They love going to parties and meeting somebody's 4-year old kid or their 75-year old grandma, both of whom can do all manner of extraordinary things with a $500 computer.
Like any big enterprise, they agree with some things and disagree with others, but overall they feel its net effects are very very positive. Otherwise, rich with stock, they'd leave. But they don't. To the despair of competitors, they keep working their butts off.
Plamondon has a good perspective on what makes Microsoft and its employees tick:
http://www.scripting.com/davenet/stories/JamesP
-- former Microsoft software developer
Microsoft stole the Kerberos spec, modified it, and now claims to have a copyright on a slightly modified version. That's cheap and shameful.
Then creeps like you - who preach about rights (the Weavers and Luther King, eh?) but believe in nothing more than the corporate big bucks - come along and try to defend Microsoft's supposed right to keep their Kerberos extensions secret even though they made them available to the public themselves. The oh-so-good and mature Microsoft engineers just failed to come up with a way to protect a document with an EULA that actually works, so live with it. People like you should grow up to a broader value system than your capitalist way of thinking allows. Just consider that in many countries, it's perfectly legal to copy, implement, extend the Microsoft Bastardization-of-Kerberos specification - and what difference does it make whether patches for some other OS are written there or in the US?
Microsoft's tactics simply won't work anymore and vermin like you will have to realize that.
How about taking a publicly available protocol (Kerberos) designed for multi-vendor inter-operability (and was developed with the help of U.S. taxpayer dollars), adding a tiny extension to Kerberos and calling on the same government whose taxpayers helped pay for its development to punish anyone who has the nerve to reverse-engineer and use it without shelling out big bucks for a Win2000 server license? Do you think that's OK?
I was ambivalent about breaking up M$, but after learning more details about the Kerberos fiasco, I'm leaning in favor of breaking up M$ into tiny little bits.
It is often easier to villify an entire organization and all those associated with it rather than take the time to reason out the inner divisions that most likely exist. Thank you for acknowledging those that are trying to take the empire down from the inside :)
The solution? Let's hope it never comes to a money issue, but if it is, I say we form a Slashdot Defense Fund. Money could be generated in many ways.
The more people that aware of what is going on, the better. A highly moderated post earlier stated something to the effect that if people were to become more aware of Microsoft and it's shifty doings, say a Mutual Fund Manager, they might just backoff their investments with MSFT and might just create pressure on how much they have to spend on their uber-expensive lawyers.
Fuck Ajit Pai
Not just I, but rather we. If the readers of slashdot that were to care enough about what is going on, we should form a slashdot advocacy group. The issues of freedom of speech are at hand. Why is it we have to worry about certain posts on here but yet I could legally go down to my neighborhood WAL-MART and buy a shotgun?
I don't think it should take a genius to decide which one is more dangerous. (Note to NRA advocates, please don't take this the right way, I am equally aware of the right to bear arms and it is not in my interests to starts flame thread about why firearms are needed)
If wish to read more on my ideas for defending slashdot, then feel free to read this post.
Fuck Ajit Pai
Right.. Most people just don't question what they get when they pull their computer out of the box. They are happy to just use what comes with the system, and don't even question what else might have come with it. Computers are much different than cars, where you are stuck with many options from the time you buy the car until it is dead and buried (well, unless you are a skilled metal worker..) I imagine most people see computers the same way, which is very wrong.
I think I'm going to try and contact Best Buy and some other `consumer' computer vendors. I'd like to induce them to question whether they should only be selling boxes with Windows on them, or if it would be an option for them to pre-load anything else. My opinion is that Microsoft has taken actions that are not in the best interest of consumers, and that Best Buy (a conduit for many different computer products, including boxed versions of Linux) has an important role to take in helping consumers make the best choice when they buy computers and computer products. *shrug* it's a fairly complicated issue, and I hope they can come to a good decision..
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
We all know something like this was eventually going to happen. As such, we have to admire your courage, and thank your supporters on the corporate side.
Good luck and may The Force be with you!
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
I jumped on my mountain bike this morning, rode out my front door, crossed the street, and was immediately in the midst of a mountain biker's wonderland of twisty single-track and everything from modest whoop-de-whoops to crazed insane climbs/downhills for the next three hours -- in the middle of the city! For 360 days a year! (It's raining the other five days, grin). Gosh, aren't you tired of spending all that time indoors in the rainy northwest?
We need a NT/W2K God, someone who knows NT/W2K internals on an intimate basis, and we need a GUI designer. And if Microsoft fired you for sending information to slashdot, that's a +5 on the algorithm used to score your resume :-).
Send me mail if you're interested!
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Remember the whole reason for Slot 1: Because AMD had come out with processors that fit in Intel's Socket 7 spec, and Intel needed a patented processor socket to keep AMD from doing that again.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
> it has no choice but to exercise that power
Oh puh-LEEZE. Having power does not mean you have to use it. Else we'd all be radioactive dust -- both the United States and the Soviet Union had the power to nuke us all until we glowed in the dark, and never used it.
Presumably the powers that be at Microsoft are human beings. (Unless Microsoft Research has in fact created an AI that is simulating the Bill'n'Balmer show for us!). If they are human beings, then they possess free will. If they possess free will, then they have a choice as to whether they use what power they possess. To say that they do not is to put human beings into the same class as sheep dogs, who are victims of their genetics (they have no choice as to whether they will herd sheep -- put a city-bred sheep dog into a pasture full of sheep, and he will herd them!).
Frankly, I have no respect for those who claim that they're not responsible for their own actions because "something else made me do it". I have no respect for the murderer who claims "my abusive mom and dad made me do it", and I have no respect for corporate executives who claim that acting ethically is not an option because "the corporate environment doesn't work like that." Are you a human being? Or are you a sheep dog? Sheesh.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Thats a great letter, I also wrote on myself. However I couldn't easily find the authors email address, so I just sent it to webmaster@washingtonpost.com
;)
Could you please post the authors email address so that I can send my message to him directly (to be sure he gets it
Thanks!
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Something about some license agreement you have to agree to in order to view the MS Kerberos spec. I'm not sure what they are talking about since I just downloaded the file from MS's web site, opened it up in Winzip (for some stupid reason it was a zipped executable and I certainly don't go running executables from untrusted sources! Ever hear of trojans!?) and then extracted the pdf file within. I don't see what the big deal is.
Now that AMD has the upper hand in the market they have no problem changing around specs so Intel chips wont work with their motherboards.
I would hardly say that AMD has the upper hand. They were (and still are really) barely surviving. Just because they aren't cloning intel processors doesn't mean they are deliberately trying to shut intel out. They don't have the market power to do anything of the sort. Besides, by making intel chips not work on their motherboards, they also guarantee that their chips don't work on intel motherboards. It doesn't have anything to do with the kinds of tactics that Microsoft uses.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Was that really a copyright issue though? Can the US government even own a copyright? I may be wrong on this, but I thought the government wasn't allowed to hold copyright on anything. They're allowed to have secrets, but that's a different issue than copyright.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Of course software companies disclaim all responsibility, if they didn't everyone and their dog would sue them these days.
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
Err, isn't this the other way around? Since unix clients don't require the extended info, they can authenticate against an nt server just fine, but not the other way around (because they _do_ need the extra info).
MS actually touts this feature saying everything _is_ standards compliant; just run nt on your auth servers!
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
>Nothing would please me more to see some MS lawyers beat the righteous
>indignation out of slashdot.
Are you talking about the same lawyers we saw in Jackson's Court? Those guys couldn't beat the fleas out of the Taco Bell Rat, err dog. {That thing *IS* a dog isn't it?}
>Sorry, Bill. No matter what the courts say, at best this battle will
>be a Pyrrhic one.
Especially by the time the case actually make it to the courts. Just look at turover rate of the subjects discussed on Slashdot.
>taking on Microsoft and perhaps Microsoft miscalculated that VA mgmt
>would cave and pull the posts rather than risk an expensive and
>disruptive legal battle.
This is exactly what most likely happened. Remember when Mircosoft basically went around stealing the WWW addresses of Windows users web pages? Since nearly all these guys caved in to Mircosoft, Microsoft most likely thought they could pull similar stunts on the non-microsoft user base.
Yes, we know that you can't really comment, but taking the time to explain the situation is incredibly beneficial to your audience, even if you couldn't say anything we really didn't know before hand.
I wish more companies would do that.
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
Not evil enough.
.
He's - quasi-evil. .
I just remembered this old Metallica song. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Or more scientifically:
Information has a natural tendency towards freeness.
I just remembered this old Metallica song. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
usenet has had distributed decentralized-server forums since before TCP/IP was widespread... the more things change, the more people seem to forget.
NetBSD: the cathedral vs the bizzare.
Why's that? Because if I was in charge of a major computer company found guilty of hostile, dominating abuse of the computer market, and if my major critic had gone public with a legal notice they would probably ignore, and if that same critic had suffered a devastating DDOS attack shortly afterwards, I'd want to get some distance between myself and them.
Microsoft's amazing and eerie silence is suspicious. In the DVD case, the MPAA has placed web page upon web page, documenting their argument and why they should win. In the DOJ case, Microsoft did the same. In the Slashdot case? ...Nothing.
This isn't natural for a major corporation. Corporations thrive on publicity, Microsoft more than most. Trampling their enemies into the ground should be good for a few column inches, or at least a headline on MSNBC. At the very least, some kind of official dissociation with the DDOS, lest suspicions be raised.
But, no. That Slashdot has lawyers involved in the DDOS case (at least, that's how I would interpret the article) reinforces my suspicion that there is a string possibility that the attack COULD have come from Microsoft or a subsidury. Probably not on direct orders - too easily traced - but more likely by an unspoken agreement and suitable compensation or, at the very least, a blind eye and some accidental deletions from the system logs.
In short, Slashdot might never make it to court. If I'm not just being paranoid & overly imaginative, Microsoft may have turned militant. And that may spell trouble. An organisation with more loose change than the US Government has reserves is a tough opponent at the best of times. If it has decided to play rough and turn to dirtier tactics, we could see some "leaning" on Slashdot's provider, "accidents" causing cable breaks, or other unfortunate events.
(I'm glad Microsoft isn't an Israeli company. Otherwise, I'd advise CT and Rob to avoid anyone carrying an umbrella, for a while. Some tactics are definitely dirtier than others.)
As for a "distributed" Slashdot, that might not be such a bad idea. If all the databases could be kept in sync, with delays Since the Slash code is now open, I'm going to have a sit-down to see if I can think how this could be done. I'm sure others will be, too. The sooner load-balancing exists, regardless, the better. It'll keep equiptment costs down, and allow CT to make use of older servers, rather than having to retire them.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Another thing: I can't speak for the rest of Slashdot's readership, but I won't fault you if you back down from this legal challenge. What Microsoft is doing is reprehensible, but Microsoft's actions will not be the subject of this trial. The subject will be copyright violation by Andover, and I don't think the courts will be sympathetic. It would be far better to settle in this case, and then sue Microsoft for this hypocritical attempt to strangle open standards, than to bring up all those issues on the defensive. I hope you can find legal grounds to do the former.
Good luck. Are greatest hopes are with you. Just please don't do anything rash; don't go down in a flame of glory. We want Slashdot to be around for a long, long time, and we don't want to see VA in financial trouble for funding this legal battle. Slashdot is of more use as a living advocate than as a dead martyr.
Well, there are my words of advice (legally uninformed, I'm afraid) and encouragement. I figure you can use all the encouragement you can get. Good luck. I trust you to do the right thing.
Vovida, OS VoIP
Beer recipe: free! #Source
Cold pints: $2 #Product
GPL = EULA... They are both license agreements which put restrictions upon you.
And if you think the GPL is not also evil, go read the section that says... NO WARRANTY
This is the part where the GPL says the program can be bug ridden and defective...doing anything it wants to your files, and you have no recourse.
It appears as though the editors of slashdot feel that license agreements in general are ridiculous.
I assume this also includes the GPL.
I can remember when none of this mattered in the old slashdot days, when you said what you wanted when you wanted. Now lawyers are involved and the whole works, it's a lot different.
--
Scott Miga
suprax@linux.com
Insightful?
Who the hell's moderating today?
t_t_b
--
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
- Post the M$ Kerberos implementation spec so M$ will appear conciliatory
- Post it in such a way that everyone has to agree to a highly-restrictive EULA, or hack around it
- Nail to the wall any open-source activist site that, by it's very nature:
- is bound to disagree with the original M$ prostitution of Kerberos;
- the sham way in which the spec for the implementation was posted;
- and quickly post not only the content of the spec, in violation of the EULA, but for good measure post ways to hack around the EULA!
It was a setup right from the start, although I feel no particular shame forRemember the Nixon administration, and "Dirty Tricks"?
Same kind of people at M$; same mentality:
M$ has shown itself to be absolutely unprincipled in all its practices; those people are True Believers® for whom any means justify the One True End®
Don't trust 'em for a second, and screw 'em, sez I...
t_t_b
--
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
So you can discuss "..where were you on the night in question.." and stuff like that.
When any specifics of a conversation between attorney and client becomes part of the public record, (ie: posted on /.) then not only has that specific thought become public, but it's possible to then demand to know what discussion lead up to that specific statement, and demand to know where the conversation went from that point...
"So you were talking about where your client was on the night in question. What did you talk about next?"
Note: IANAL, I just spent the night in a Holiday Inn...
t_t_b
--
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
Microsoft not only wants the full document taken down, they also want all posts which excerpt the document taken down, as well as all posts which link to copies of the full document. The last two demands are what scare the shit out of people.
Last I checked, excerpting copyrighted documents is sometimes protected under fair use and any claims of copyright violation would have to be contested in court on a case by case basis. As for linking, posting a link is in no way a violation of any law; if Microsoft has objections to the contents of the link, they should take it up with the server hosting the contents, and not Slashdot.
Microsoft may have been masters of spin in the past, but the past has caught up with them. Nowadays you can't look at an online news site without seeing details of Microsoft's dirty tricks and shabby dealings. Microsoft's PR ability stemmed from their control of the market and their ability to destroy anyone who slighted them. In the wake of the antitrust case, it's going to be hard for anybody to trust a word of what Microsoft says.
Look at the press on this incident so far; most, if not all, of it recognises what a thuggish dirty trick this is. There is very little sympathy left for Microsoft.
The other arguments, while sound under current law, would probably never stand up to a constitutional challenge. Considering how valuable DMCA coverage is to MS, I doubt they would ever do to much to risk a real challenge to it.
Though, if it came to that, there'd be a lot of other parties joining forces with Microsoft. Our old friends the MPAA and RIAA, to name two, would definitely want to defend the DMCA. You might even see bitter enemies of Microsoft from the software industry putting their differences aside and join the effort.
I think what you're quoting is patent law, not copyright law. The two are quite different.
Don't worry too much about that. To many Americans the idea is absolutely crazy too. Hell, the founding fathers probably would have thought that anyone who told them that was joking.
Now the trick is, to get things back the way they were, wrt to the status of corporations.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Why so generous? There were UI's that tried to strech real world metaphors as far as Bob did. They also crashed and burned is why you don't remember them. The UI for some *really* early IBM stuff (like late 70's early 80's) was basically like that. It never got far. Graphically simpler b/c of less advanced computers, but the same basic ideas. And let's not forget the much-touted but rather forgettable MagicCap UI that General Magic developed for PDAs a little before Bob. (Very similar, grey scale and somewhat better looking)
Also IE was (I've been told) originally just a licensed and rebranded copy of Spyglass Mosiac (which means that it was basically NCSA Mosaic). Rumor also has it that Spyglass got utterly shafted on the deal, not expecting MS to give it away for free.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
AFAIK, noone "censors" OOG -- unless you're calling peer-moderation censorship (which it's not). You can still see all posts by setting your threshold lower.
I could be wrong.
Slashdot is the worst pile of a web site I have ever seen.
Don't web surf much, do you?
There are tens of millions of web sites out there, most of which have much lower quality, smaller audiences, and less content than Slashdot.
Oh... but you didn't mean "worst" == "lowest quality", did you? You mean "worst" == "most thousands of readers who think you trolls are childish idiots, and tell you so."
Anyone want to speculate what damages Microsoft will ask for?
Sure: Slashdot will remove the one or two posts that were verbatim copies of the pseudo-kerberos spec, will stand firm on the rest, and Microsoft will back down rather than incur more horrible PR.
Wow, you guys lost a lot of money in the past few months eh?
No, they didn't. Anyone with any sense knew that the RHAT, LNUX, and ANDN stock prices were a bubble, and sold what they could at the top of the bubble to fad speculators. As for those principal shareholders who couldn't sell without losing control of the company, their stock prices are still trading higher than their first indicated IPO price.
Microsoft is valued at 100 times you losers.
And by emotionally attaching yourself to their financial success you somehow shield your ego from your own personal and social failures?
That's just my theory; otherwise I don't see how that sentence was relevant. In theory the judge doesn't ask both parties how much their market value is before making a decision.
MSFT could aquire LNUX 100 times over if they wanted to but they dont.
No, they couldn't. They could afford to acquire LNUX, and could make a private offer the same way they tried to buy linux.com. They could not acquire VA Linux for the same reason they couldn't acquire linux.com: because the owners wouldn't sell to Microsoft.
BECAUSE LINUX SUCKS AND SO DOES SLASHDOT!
I know in my heart that you're just trolling and trying to bait people like me... but part of me fears you're serious. If so, I would suggest that you step away from the computer, and attempt a long period of social interaction. Try to make a friend, or even a girlfriend (but don't tell her that you are a "troll" or that your name is "Dr Kool"). Try to avoid screaming angrily about things that don't concern you, and instead avoid things like "Linux" that seem to be stress factors for you. You'll be happier, and live longer.
Oh, and if you moderate this down, it will be proof that you nazis are trying to stop the flow of information.
You seem to be unclear on the concept of "moderation", the English language, or both. First of all, you continue to use the pronoun "you" even though the audience you are apparantly addressing has changed from the Slashdot employees to the moderators (current moderators? all past moderators? do you understand the difference?). Secondly, you seem to be unaware that "moderating down" a post does not stop any information; even posts moderated to -1, or even those that the Slashdot employees have moderated lower in the past, are still accessable by anyone who desires to read them. Ironically, that universal accessibility is what Microsoft wants to prevent, not Slashdot.
I really hope some trained psychologist takes a look through Slashdot archives someday. There are a plethora of angry, immature individuals like yourself here with a long record of antisocial behavior that is analogous to the real juvenile delinquency increasing around the nation.
But enough feeding the trolls. I suspect you've already been moderated down as you should have been (and as I probably should be, unless "Funny" or "Insightful" cancels out "Offtopic"), and nobody will ever read this. There's just something about that combination of stupidity and arrogance that tweaks a nerve in me.
A large bureaucracy is hurting many people because no-one within the bureaucracy is willing to take responsibility for the actions of the whole. Just because Nazi Germany is the example that the poster happened to pick doesn't invalidate the argument. Although the scale of harm there was much greater, the causes are, in many ways, identical.
Even if the bureaucracy were doing good, you could still make a legitimate comparison to Nazi Germany if the individuals tried to evade responsibility. However, it seems that there are few instances of people trying to evade praise.
Actually, that might be a good metric for when a company should be dissolved: when people start saying that they're not responsible for the company's actions.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
Freenet is what you want...
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Microsoft is complaining about someone distributing a document that themselves are already distributing at large, for free. That legalese bullshit is meaningless. Yeah, yeah, that's supposedly forbidden. Sheeeesh ... I can't believe some of you are so keen on licking legality's butt.
Look at it this way. What is Microsoft's greatest asset other than its brand? Its people. The engineers who work there.
How does Microsoft keep them there? Stock options, mostly. The pay is decent, but the main draw is a chunk of the company that is always going up.
What happens when the stock is wounded? People leave. As simple as that. There are tons of other companies out there who would love to have Microsoft's talent (and yes, even though they make a lot of shitty products, the engineers are usually not to blame in the end). By wounding their stock price, you deal a blow far greater than a perceived drop in faith in Microsoft's stock.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
So obvious I didn't think about it. What, *precisely*, are the relevent terms of the DMCA? Do they have to wait for an order from the court to use this as protection that way?
Cheers,
-- jra
-----
> If it removes the copyrighted post but not the
others it could lose any claim to common carrier status, thus making it legally responsible for anything posted.
I keep seeing this meme, and I disagree with it.
I'm reasonably familiar with the terms of Cubby v. Compuserve, and Stratton-Oakmont v. Prodigy, the two cases usually cited in this vein, and I don't believe that either of them could be used as precedent in an action against Slashdot for removing the posting of MS' copyrighted data.
"Responding to a court order" != "exercising editorial control", which was the issue on point in those two cases. Even more importantly, neither of those cases made it past district court, so while notice of them might be taken by a judge in the West, they are not controlling precedent, anyway.
Oh, and one other thing: it is my understanding that to claim trade secret status for information, you have to take *vigorous steps* to protect them, like signed contracts with the people you release them to. The click-through license Microsoft used, especially since it is so easily circumventable, almost certainly would not qualify.
That's what I think, but maybe it's just me.
So many things are just me.
Cheers,
-- jra
-----
Maybe the answer is for a few people to read the spec, remember it, and write a new version *in their own words*. This wouldn't violate Microsoft's copyright (AFAIK; IANAL) and I don't imagine it would be possible for MS to get it banned on the grounds of being a 'trade secret'.
If somebody who has never seen Microsoft's original document nor even read the EULA they imposed on it wrote an extension to Samba (or whatever) to handle the new protocols, that would be a clean-room implementation and I imagine they'd be in the clear legally.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
give the software away for FREE, but MAKE the person sign a two-year service contract. (50.00 per year).
So, in order to get your software, I have to agree to give you $100?
Hmm... Doesn't sound all that free to me. I'd much prefer that you just tell me the software costs $100, I'd feel I had meen treated much more fairly and honestly. Your plan sounds very similar to me to the big "FREE PC" signs I've seen, but when you go to pick up your machine you find out you have to sign a $20/mo. contract for MSN Internet access via dialup (even though you've already got a cable modem).
Maybe it's just me, but I don't have a problem with coughing up a little cash for a product I find useful. But when I'm told I can have something for free, then informed of the "catch" once I'm interested, it feels like a scam.
Of course, this is all just my opinion.
I don't know. I'm not claiming to have all the answers, I'm just saying I don't think the answer he came up with is the right one.
Personally, I don't think all software needs to be free. If I have a use for a piece of software, it's only fair that the person who wrote it get some sort of compensation. If that person decides, on their own, to make it free, great. But if they want a little cash for their effort, I don't have a problem with that, either.
All I'm saying is if you want money from me for your product, tell me up front. Don't give me some bullshit story about the product being free, and then charge me money for a mandatory support contract. Chances are your competitor is charging for the software and offering free support. The only difference is one person is trying to bullshit me.
If you want to make your software free and charge for support, that's fine. But if that support fee is a mandatory condition for getting the software, then the software isn't free and you're lying to me when you tell me it is.
Hmm... I think we're basically trying to make the same point.
I'll quit arguing now...
Okay, god know's I'm all for /. here - in particular, if this case forces them to suppress material, it'll open a landslide of potential suits against /. for the material contained in the comments, which they've claimed time and again they aren't responsible for.
Now, if Kerberos is an open standard, they should be open and forthcoming in devulging details to they're extentions. Just put aside issues of vendor interoperability for a moment - let's grant that Microsoft will do everything in their power to control 100% of the OS market (pardon me while I laugh). Now even if they don't play nice with others, I still want the details of their Kerberos extentions published because security through obsurity doesn't work.
Microsoft seems to finally have accepted this. So they've put out their spec. Sure, they've put all sorts of agreements on it because we all know that Windows is the "one true OS" <blech> and they've copyrighted it. Why? It would seem that the wide dissemination of that information (which has been in such high demand) would be in their best interest. But what if someone modified the document? Someone bases an implementation off the falsified document and the resulting system is insecure in some manner. Someone breaks into the (not really) protected system and who is everyone going to blame? Not some AC on /., I'll tell you that.
So instead of just slaming MS for being an evil monopolistic beast (not that they aren't) just because they're covering their own hides, let's be expending our energy on how to one-up them.
Just my $.02
#include <stddisclaim.h>
-"Zow"
This whole issue stinks. M$ posts a "trade secret" to the web. They supposely "make" you agree to a NDA, which is very easily not to agree to and still see the "trade secret". Then they let their lawyers loose on the first person who does this(/.). Doesn't this sound like a set-up. Courts all ready ruled you can not entrap someone(ie. stick a $100 bill on the sidewalk and prosecute the first peson who grabs it for robery). Why would this be different
Steve
Third, should slashdot decide the odds are legally against them on this and back down, I won't fault you for it - you gave it a good, hard look. Last, while you are fighting censorship against you, don't forget that it is a two-sided sword - do not censor people here on slashdot, lest ye be considered hypocritical.
There are several answers. First, as you've already seen, Kerberos provides several features that aren't available in NTLM. Delegation and mutual authentication are both available with Kerberos, but neither is possible with NTLM today. Also, Kerberos is typically faster than NTLM, since each NTLM client authentication requires a server to contact a domain controller. In Kerberos, by contrast, a client can supply the same ticket over and over, and the server can use just that ticket to authenticate the user. There's no need for the server to contact a domain controller each time a user needs to be authenticated. And finally, Kerberos is a multivendor standard, so it allows secure interoperability and the potential for single sign-on between the Microsoft world and other vendor environments.
Any way you look it, Kerberos qualifies as progress. It's nice to see this powerful, secure, but long-neglected protocol move into the limelight. After years of languishing in relative obscurity, Kerberos is about to go mainstream.
This is from the above referenced URL at http://www.microsoft.com/msj/defaulttop.asp?page=
Kerberos is a multivendor standard, so it allows secure interoperability and the potential for single sign-on between the Microsoft world and other vendor environments.
Actually, from what I've seen, The Microsoft 'version' of Kerberos doesn't allow interoperability "between" Microsoft and other vendors....it only allows operability from Microsoft OUT to other vendors, and not IN. (This was plugged into their crappy 'enhancements' to Kerberos.)
After years of languishing in relative obscurity, Kerberos is about to go mainstream.
What? There are two points to be made here. 1.) Kerberos was never really in obscurity. It was a widely used protocol, and was CREATED for the purpose of authentication. NTLM was a piece of crap, and Microsoft admits that now. 2.) Because Kerberos is being woven into Windows, THAT makes it mainstream? Oh please, give me a break. What's funny, is that Microsoft states that "Any way you look at it, Kerberos qualifies as progress.", yet their implementation (If you can call it that) takes a step backward by locking out functionality. Progress? Nah...
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
It's probably more accurate to say that the government is an agent of the companies. Certainly, using dollars to buy votes is the most effective way to win elections in America, so money is power over politics, and the only entities able to give virtually unlimited monies to candidates are corporate bodies or the interest groups funded by them.
Incidentally, anyone who doesn't like the above paragraph can help change its truth value by
phil
Ever the rabble-rowser...
Slashdot has also been the recipient of multiple DDoS attacks in the last few days. THis is the main reason for the problems.
Do you relaize that only a very few of allll of the comments posted have anything to do with the full code for the specification?? eveything else is simply in regards to it, or how to get it...
And that is the scary part, because to even think of forcing the removal of content like that is a broad overinterpretation fo the DMCA and a blatant attack on free speach.
Read the comments they listed.. then see if you feel the same.
Richard Stallman had some good things to say about copyrights in general in the May issue of Technogloy Reveiw.
The article is on page 32 title Freedom - or Copyright?
Some good quotes:
"Once upon a time, in the age of the printing press, an industrial regulation was established for the business of writing and publishing. It was called copyright. Copyright's purpose was to encourage the publication of a diversity of written works. Copyrights method was to make publishers get permission from authors to reprint recent writings."
Times have changed, and now copyright is the bludgening tool used by large corporations to control information in a way most profitable and advantageous to them. Microsoft has taken this to an art.
With new powers to enforce and further restrict users of copyrioghted works and not the intedned publishers of copyright we are now entering a new era of repression and control by these large greedy entities.
Take a deep breath and look at the changes over the last 100 years or so.. Microsoft is undeniably abusing the DMCA and copyright to prevent the dissemination of information they would prefer to keep secret for technical advantage over competitors.
Period.
This should not be tolerated, and the DMCA should be challenged, perhaps even to the supreme court, as it has proven to be the most powerful threat to freedom in recent years...
just my 0.02$
Amen brother! I cant beleive microsoft would censor their 'extensions' to kerberos and encroach on such a standard protocol and attempt to censor with legal abuses.
Uh.. That is what you meant, right?
Hopefully, in the meanwhile, someone will send them a few love letters!!!!
--
Here's my mirror
Untrue. That would be a "derivative work" and would be still protected by the original copyright.
I doubt it would be infringement if you took the plot and completely rewrote it, but it depends on how much you took from the original. Probably a better example to my point would be if an accounting method was described in a book, I could write my own book describing the same accounting method, and anyone would be free to use the method. I believe this was an actual case around 1900. Copyright cannot protect anything other than specific expression, not ideas.
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
Err, isn't this the other way around? Since unix clients don't require the extended info, they can authenticate against an nt server just fine, but not the other way around (because they _do_ need the extra info).
You're right, there's a blurb about it here
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
Someboyd copied the text out of MS's PDF file and pasted into the Slashdot comment field. You really think that's 'fair use'?
So you didn't read my original post at all, did you? No one is arguing that there was one post that was a copyright violation. The question of fair use didn't even come up. It is not a simple issue, and slashdot shouldn't do anything without taking time to get legal advice.
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding on this topic on both sides. I've read responses on several weblogs and many Here's my take on what happened: MS makes a legal change to a publicly useable standard. MS clients can log in using standard Kerberos servers, but standard clients cannot get MS authentification. People get pissed and accuse MS of monopolistic practices. MS gets a ton of heat from press and public, so it decides to release the spec, but as a trade secret. Anyone with a clue about what a trade secret is would have to suspect that either MS's lawyers are incompetent, or they were trying to taint the field so no one could legally implement MS's version without breaking the law. I believe IBM did the same with the PC BIOS standard and Compaq looked long and hard to find untainted engineers.
Now the spec was posted ONCE on slashdot, along with several posts explaining a standard way of opening self-extracting exe's. MS demands the removal of the copyrighted post, as well as the ones explaining how to open the exe and some that only refer to legal consequences of the spec's release.
Now slashdot must decide what to do. If it removes the copyrighted post but not the others it could lose any claim to common carrier status, thus making it legally responsible for anything posted. If it removes the other posts it would open the floodgates for other companies to have any post removed that they don't like.
Trade secrets are meant to protect companies from employees giving away internal documents or signing an NDA and then blabbing. It does not stop reverse engineering. MS has tried to manipulate a trade secret into a patent: "We'll tell everyone about it but not let anyone implement it!" It doesn't work that way. Trade secrets must be vigorously guarded to remain trade secrets. It is getting a bit fuzzy with the Internet because judges don't want people stealing secrets and posting it on a newsgroup in order to instantly invalidate the trade secret status, although that did happen in a Scientology case.
For corporate apologists out there, MS's EULA is fundamentally different than the GPL. The GPL gives the licensee certain rights & responsibilities regarding redistribution of a work. MS's EULA tries to stop you from discussing the facts of the contents. Copyright only covers a specific expression. I could rewrite a book, copying the plot, and it would be legal. The GPL doesn't stop you from discussing the algorithms contained, or even from implementing said algorithms. MS tried to overstep copyright law and trade secret law, and now it's getting what it deserves.
If I was MS I would have just sat on the spec and not released it at all. The small clamor was nothing like this and it would have died down. I think the Samba guys are skilled enough to reverse engineer without MS's document.
Thanks for reading, I could go on a bit about the DMCA and IP law, but I won't.
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
No.
But the flaimbait preceeding your caustic remark was. There is a difference, obvious to nearly every causual observer.
Are you, perhaps, wearing Microsoft Glasses(tm)?
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Your reasoning about intellectual property is wrong in the sense that without the state, or to be more precise, without the law there is no such thing as property period.
I think you misunderstood the original comment. In the post to which you reply the poster said that without the state there would be no such thing as intellectual property. In a completely lawless society you could still guard your plot of land, your chache of food (or weapons) and thus maintain it as your property. No such possiblity exists within the realm of ideas or thought, nor should it.
I agree with some of what you say, but must express both disdain and lack of empathy with respect to your ability, grudging or otherwise, to admire those policy makers at MS and elsewhere who pervert the law and the democratic institutions of our country in order to establish their own little feifdoms. These people are mounting an active assault on nearly all of our basic rights, and doing so quite successfully. In so doing they are tearing at the basic fiber and social contract which holds our society and our democratic institutions together. This threatens all of us, whether or not we have a particular interest in the subject at hand (Microsoft's unwarrent attempt to silence criticism on slashdot).
I would go further and offer another point with respect intellectual property priveleges: Just as communism could not flurish in a world of scarcity, so to will capitalism fail in a world of natural abundance (which is a perfect description of both the intellectual and digital worlds). I suspect that ongoing attempts to extend the capitalist paradigm beyond its functional parameters and create synthetic scarcity at the point of a gun in areas such as ideas and digital information will result in laws and public policy which will make communist Russia appear liberal in comparison. It is an ugly future, and we are sprinting in its direction with nary a critical thought.
To feel anything other than the greatest contempt and antithapy for those who actively orchastrate such trends in this direction is IMHO both appalling and indefensible.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
"Responding to a court order" != "exercising editorial control", which was the issue on point in those two cases.
This is very true. However, a threatening letter from Microsoft Legal Thugs does not equal a court order either. For this reason, it is critical that slashdot not remove any posts until and unless so ordered by a court of law! Contrary to Microsoft's opinion of itself, it is not a court of law. Such power still resides, for the moment, in the Judicial, not the Corporate, branch of government.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Bill Gates has often dismissed his wealth, calling it infinite in practical terms since he'd never be able to spend it all... While I think Microsoft or any other company needs to be taken back a notch whenever the company transgresses the larger good, I do not think that stock price is a good target.
What you're forgetting is that Bill Gates no longer holds an absolute majority of Microsoft shares - in fact he's dropped down to somewhere around 15%. This would make it quite easy for an organized group of irate shareholders to remove him. That might be a very wise thing to do from the point of view of preserving shareholder value, since Bill is obviously doing his level best to drive the company into the ground right now, with a monumental set of strategic, legal, and public relations blunders. So, yes, the value of Microsoft's stock does matter a lot to people how are in a position to take effective action, and for this reason anything that hurts the stock price hurts Bill Gates too.
Let's face it - who is the real bad actor here? It's not Microsoft per se - it's Bill himself, and a small cabal of top managers. How many here would be prepared to bury the hatchet if Bill and his henchmen were really-gone, and not just pretend-gone?
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
It's not (most of the time) our managers who do nasty things like send out cease-and-desist letters or require massive EULAs. It's the lawyers...
Bill Neukom is a top executive at Microsoft. Bill Gate's dad is a lawyer, and I could swear Bill Gates thinks he's a lawyer from the way he acts. These are the guys that are doing the damage.
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
"Oh yes they do, if their use of the field and non-disclosure of relevant technical details... "
Well, yes, the DOJ may force them to release it. But that's a special case; exempting direct government involvement under the Sherman Act, what they've done is not illegal.
Illegal is illegal, whether the government takes specific action or not. You're confusing "illegal" with "getting caught".
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
The Kerberos spec includes empty fields for vendor use. Microsoft used one of these fields; they have no obligation to make info on their use of it public.
Oh yes they do, if their use of the field and non-disclosure of relevant technical details could be seen as part of an illegal product tie, or an attempt by a monopoly to extend its monopoly into a new market, or a strategem motivated more by a wish to harm competition rather than to benefit customers.
Yes, it's against the spirit of cooperation...
It's against more than that: it's also against ethics, against the interests of their customers, against the interests of consumers in general and finally, against the law (my opinion).
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
It's worth fighting because before the DMCA, only a Court could go around ordering people to remove stuff.
/. to court and force them to remove the posts.
/. charging to view the comments. Neither side is losing any money over this. Before the DMCA, a Court (and only a Court) could have ordered the posts removed, and only after due process. Now, thanks to the DMCA, /. can be held financially liable and is presumed guilty simply because MS said so.
/. should fight this in court. They should expect to lose and have to remove the copyrighted material (but not the links or WinZip suggestions), but they also stand a chance to strike down the DMCA and its chilling effects on freedom of speech and perversion of burden of proof.
Before the DMCA, the worst-case scenario would be that MS would take
The whole *point* of copyright law is to protect the financial interests of the owner. If I write a book, only I am have a *right* to profit off of it. MicroSoft isn't selling their specs, they're giving them away. Nor is
I think
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
But others do.
Since you're willing to give it, why not give it to the EFF so they have it available when someone without the funds needs support in this kind of situation?
(I have no affiliation with the EFF aside from being a member and noting (sadly) that there is a need for such an organization)
--
--
The Internet is the Suppository of All Knowledge. You get it in the end.
Huh? Nothing's been censored until there is a court order. Besides, posting (c)Microsoft documentation on a web discussion board would be also be a no-no under conventional pre-DMCA copyright law.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Nice conspiricy theory, but referencing the "Samba" comment (#86), was just a screw-up on the MS Lawyer's part. Comment #87 had the full text of the MS document.
Standard disclaimer, but I don't think a judge would throw out the case because of a minor error like that.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
"...I strongly support the idea of moderators not being able to see who posted a message. Imagine the difference that would occur if moderators moderated based soley on the content of a post."
This is how moderation should occur. That way people get fair moderation, no bitchslappings will occur, and life is generally made a lot better for everyone.
Please take the time to consider this. Thank you.
Earlier today, when I had trouble with accessing slashdot, I killed my cookie and remade it... Fixed my problems...
What does this button d$#%* NO CARRIER
What case? You haven't made one.
I'm sorry about your stock prices, but you knew the risk when you signed up with that marketing and litigation company that occationally puts out poor software on the side.
Cheer up, man. It'll get better. I'm sure your company will get through this PR nightmare it created.
Finkployd
Actually, one of the posts very blatantly violates Microsoft's copyright.
While most of the posts in question just quote portions, or don't quote the documents at all.. one of the posts reproduces a whole document verbatim, including Microsoft's copyright notice!
Here's what I was replying to:
If you think real hard now, you can see that the posts that Microsoft are asking to be removed do not infringe on Microsofts copyright. The other posts are in fact covered by the freedom of speech and freedom of expresion. Microsoft have no right to challenge the legality of these posts.
When you said "The posts", I parsed it as "all the posts", for some reason.
Anyway, ss for the ZIP posts, DMCA may in fact prohibit such things, as they can be considered hacking a copy-protection technology, for purposes other than interoperability, thus violating Microsoft's rights.
Interoperability is Focus at CIFS Developers Conference
Humm, I wonder if the samba crowd did a bit of slashPR for the MaY 22 conference
The samba crowd has a few speaking slots in the Conference Agenda. With topics like "SMB Interoperability Validation Issues" and "NT Domain Interoperability " Do you think that this will be worked out next week.
Consider that if Microsoft prevails here, /. will have to monitor all postings and censor them.
Actually, the strategy implied by Microsoft's letter would ensure that Slashdot does not need to monitor posts.
Microsoft's letter presumes that /. is a "service provider" under the DMCA. The point of Section 512(c) is to strike a compromise between two alternatives:
- Service providers have to constantly monitor all content on their sites and recognize copyright violation when they see it.
- Service providers are not responsible at all for copyright violations hosted on their sites.
So the deal is, ifIf it weren't for this section of the DMCA, internet message boards like /. probably would have to monitor all content for copyright violation, which would make it prohibitively difficult for anyone to run one, as you suggest.
I do know that the legal department at my employer is rather insistent: never give out confidential information until after you have a signed non-disclosure agreement from the recipient in hand specifically because without it we wouldn't have legal grounds to keep them from disclosing what they were given without it.
The question is whether, legally, if you are given something in readable and usable form before you are told any license applies, you can use it whether or not you agree to the license. It would take a lawyer to answer that one.
Slashdot is (for good reasons) the biggest and most populare forum on-line.
:(
:).
However if Microsoft and the like think taking down Slashdot would kill the open source movement, or even drive it under ground they are sadly mistaken.
Slashdots very own Slashboxes are stuffed with content from other forums.
There are sevral forum programs out, Slashcode Blade Squishdot Scoop and of course my own ZenToe
Of course there are many I missed...
In any case...
Each of thies represents a Slashdot like web forum. Slashcode itself is Slashdot, Squishdot is Technocrats, Blade is made by and for "The Stuff" and of course my own ZenToe is by me for me and my own forum.
All of thies are open source as such any given open source web forum can pick and chouse the best for his or her needs [ZenToe being easy but would crash and burn in any sort of attack].
It might be posable to develup some sort of commen post arrangment between forums and forum programs. Just a standard handoff system implented in Perl, PHP and Zobe so it could be easy to pass posts between forums. As such a distributed Slashdot.
(Starts scribbling stuff down) Hay if anyone wants to work on this just drop me e-mail I'm sure at least CmdrTaco of Slashdot and Bob of TheStuff would consider this and I can say I Felinoid of Meowpawjects love the idea (of course it's mine so I have to)
Anyway however things come down... Slashdot is certenly importent and losing it would hurt the community very badly but it wouldn't have anywhere near the impact Microsoft and the like might be expecting....
I don't actually exist.
If not, does any power which Congress has under the Constitution enable such protection?
Um...do you seriously believe that any attention is paid to the Constitution by Congress? They simply don't care. They have repeatedly violated every single one of the Bill of Rights, and pretty much ignore the rest whenever they feel like it.
Property law should use #'EQ, not #'EQUAL.
Microsoft says that it is using Kerberos, which is a PUBLISHED standard - open. By nature, an Open Standard means that your implementation works with my implementation - if not, somethings not open. Thus:
1. As an implementation of an open standard, thier Kerberos will work with anyone elses standard implementation. Since they've called it Kerberos, if it doesn't work, we can do what's necessary to fix it, no?
2. If this is not the case, then it's not really Kerberos, and Microsoft has all those packages of Win2k out there with little white lies on them - grounds for charging them with false or misleading advertising.
Either way, they're sunk. They should just shut up, submit thier extentions to the IEEE, and move on.
They should also take an anti-arrogance course. Putzes.
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
I am sorely disappointed that many of you are mad at Microsoft for breaking the rules, and then you break a rule and try to say it's the right thing. Right or wrong, that spec *was* released under an NDA. If you don't believe in it, don't read it. Especially if you don't believe in it, don't post parts of it to people saying why you don't believe in it. If you agree with it and think microsoft is great, don't post parts of the spec and say that you think it's great. If you believe in something, you have to follow it through, no matter what. (I.E. you can't be anti-abortion and pro-death penalty). Inconsistency is really bad. A society is judged by the way it treats its prisoners. And a person is judged by the way he treats those he despises. Please note that this is utterly independent of whether or not Microsoft's Kerberos sucks, or is wrong, or whether or not it's right or wrong that it can be under an NDA. You may certainly have that opinion, and you may discuss it all you wish. But you cannot post parts of the material!
I don't know which Bill's heavy handed tactics I'm sicker of, but the one that lives in Redmond has just hit somebody close to home.... and lives within an hour's driving distance of me. And doesn't have Secret Service agents guarding his body. Elian was an outrage. Waco even more so. But I read Slashdot every day. If this site is "stuff that matters", if it matters to us... this cause is uniquely ours.
Remember, folks, Roblimo specifically said, anything short of a tac nuke. Let the legal system have its say.... but if what it says is against the cause of free speech, that which is an unalienable right which neither man nor Borg can take, then I say we, the people, use whatever means is necessary to defend that right, and take it back.
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My LAN is Microsoft and Intel-free.
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> I've always felt very strongly about this: Sending any kind of legal communication over an insecure medium such as email is intolerable, and there is no reason at all for the receiver to acknowledge its existence
/. should make a big PR issue out of it in hopes of kicking MS in the yarbles.
/. crew and their advisors probably figured that out the first day. Their post of the exchange was probably a sincere attempt at the "open source legal defence" we have discussed here before, but it was undoubtedly also a PR move. And it seems to be working very well, to the extent that the geek nation is up in arms over it and several mainstream tech sites have also been covering it, and not always with a spin that puts MS in a good light. (Even if they don't support /. on the copyright issues, they can hardly avoid mentioning what a crock MS's extension and packaging of the information was.)
/. has done incalculable harm to MS over the past couple of years. Every move MS makes, every statement they make to justify themselves, is ripped to shreds here, and the media are watching. Gone are the days when you could publish rigged benchmarketing, lie in your press releases, claim 'innovation' for recycling an ancient idea, or deliberately break a protocol, and hope that none but the elite of the technical elite would know about it. Now that EotTE only has to come here and make a single explanatory post, and the whole world finds out about the mendacity. The paid-by-advertising print media are no longer the gatekeepers of the truth.
/.. Rather, they are probably running ripper scripts that alert them when their domain of expertise comes up for discussion on /., and when it does, they zoom in "like yellowjackets on dog exhaust" to dispel the bullshit and send the MS spin itself spinning out of control in unplanned directions. (Figure 1: Insert image of Dizzy Darth spinning away in his fighter.)
/., that have changed MS from being the master of FUD and the god of PR into a bumbling oaf that alternates between stepping in it and shooting off the stinky foot. The media has, by and large, turned against them, and you, cousins, deserve part of the credit. Every time your MS-niggling post gets moderated up to (Score: 5, Funny), you've pushed another pin in.
.sig:
I agree, at least in general principle.
> But Roblimo could have bought himself a couple days to cool heads at Slashdot and talk to the lawyers
Someone in another thread suggested that
Actually, I think the
Frankly, I think
I suspect that Jeremy and the other domain gurus who so often show up here at precisely the right moment do not spend all their time browsing
It's the internet, and not least the sites like
As I hope to do with my new
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> I have to admit, I also wonder about the intelligence involved in putting up confidential material on the Web and then getting their knickers in a twist when it's spilled to the masses.
I suspect that, among other motives, MS is hoping to establish a precedent for "clickwrap" to be a valid mechanism for a binding NDA, in addition to being a mere EULA.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Do you think Microsoft is going to hesitate for a nanosecond thinking about all the nice people who work for Slashdot (or the DOJ or Stac Electronics or Digital Research or Sun or whoever they happen to be trying to destroy today) if it improves their bottom line? Look, people who own Microsoft stock have a moral dilemma on their hands. If they think MS is doing Bad Things, they need to sell. If they don't, well and good. That's up to each individual stockholder. If you don't want to take risks with your money (namely, buying stock in a shady company), don't do it. Don't whine about how mean ol' Slashdot was talking to the Wall Street Journal (or whatever). Microsoft has shown no quarter, EVER, to any of its opponents. Why should Slashdot have to play nice with them? As General Patton said, hold 'em by the nose and kick 'em in the ass. Turn Microsoft's stockholders against them. That is the ONLY way that company will listen...period.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I know I'm probably not the first person to think of this, but I want to post it anyway:
Even thought Slashdot/Andover is obviously on the side of right here, you may well lose a long and protracted legal battle. Andover IPO money is great, but Microsoft has misplaced more cash than that. Lawyers cost money and good lawyers cost a LOT of money.
My suggestion- kick them in the PR department. MS has been hit with a tsunami of bad press lately with DOJ rulings, security holes, and general bastardness. Reporters would love to follow those stories up with "Microsoft subverts standards and strongarms little guys". What Roblimo and the crew need to do is run to every media outlet that will listen to them. Also, strike while the iron is hot. The top of the list needs to be The Wall Street Journal. If Monday's front page includes a story about this situation, it would be very damaging. If one mutual fund manager reads about this and says to himself "These are the actions of a company grasping at straws to keep themselves on top of an industry" and sells a ton of MSFT, it's going to put a dent into the net worth of every honcho in Redmond.
Bottom line: Roblimo needs to make this into a battle that Microsoft has no interest in continuing.
Keep fighting the good fight.
-B
I can't understand why MS is doing this. Lets assume the the most likely scenerio happens, and Slashdot is forced to remove the actual copyrighted material but is allowed to keep the "How to get the specs without seeing the licence agreement" posts.
What has MS achieved? Copyright isn't like a trademark - it can't be dilluted by not defending it (At least, I don't think so).
Unless this really is an anti-SAMBA thing, I can't see why MS would do this. The SAMBA consipiracy theory (for those who haven't heard it) goes, briefly: MS make the specs freely available, but forbid implementation from them. Then, even if the SAMBA team implements the MS Kerboes protocol, they can't prove that it was clean room reverse-engineered because the specs were so freely available.
If this theory is correct (which I'm not sure I believe), then we must consider the possibility that agents of MS posted at least some of those posts. They would have known the the SAMBA team would have read it. Of course, it would have been much simpler to post the specs anonymously on the SAMBA mailing list saying somethign like "I'm a k00l hacker who got these specs from MS". The they could have claimed that all the SAMBA team had seen the (illegaly obtained) specs and therefor could not clean-room reverse engineer them.
No, I don't really believe this, but I honestly can't see any other even sligtly rational explaination for why MS would do this. All it is going to achieve for them is a lot of attention being focused on their "Embrace & Extend" policies, which I would not have thought they would want right now.
If anyone else has any other rational explainations, please post them. (And no, I don't believe the "Their lawyers thought it was a good idea" story either.)
Maybe it really is an "Anti Open-Source" tactic. Perhaps soon we will see those supposed "Hidden-API's" that IIS uses to perform so well posted with a similar licence, so the MS can guarantee that Apache will never be able to use them.
I guess it could be called the old Poison Api-le trick. (Okay, it's not funny, but it would be a great headline, wouldn't it?)
The flipside is that sometimes the poster is relevant. For example, if we had another thread about Quake 1 GPL fun, a post from a genuine John Carmack explaining life would be worth rather more than one from me seeing how well I could start a rumour - not that I do such things, honest ;)
Normally, moderation shouldn't be affected by the poster. But every now and then, it's relevant. I understand the sentiment but I'd rather see it reflected in moderator guidelines and pulled out more by M2.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
A cream Pie isn't a gun, the security there probably didn't really have a problem with it, since you can't kill anyone with it. They also didn't exspect it to be used on gates, I'd guess.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Windows isn't that bad. And in fact Most Microsoft products are pretty good. Espesialy in the User-interface department.
However, all you have to do is read the articals about this very topic, to see why we dislike them. Closed standards, etc, embrace-extend. I have no problem with Windows, but I don't like Microsoft.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Well, there is no way that bill gates could get all of that money, if he quit, the value of the stock would probably go down quite a bit. And of course, trying to sell %10 of the company or whatever would increase the supply, without increasing the demand, thereby lowering the stock even more.
Currently, Gates can't sell stock without getting the sale approved by the SEC.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
It's that sort of elitist crap that keeps the money rolling in for Microsoft.
I'm sorry, that statement makes no sense to me
Anyway, yes, the Internet sucks now. Its not the users so much, as the 'net itself. It just isn't the same as it was back when I got online. And I'd imagine that it isn't the same for a lot of people. The fact that there are uninformed, computer illiterate people on the internet doesn't effect me in anyway, except for the fact that everything has been dumbed down.
But that isn't the real problem, that I have with the 'online information super-web' anyway. It's the crass commercialism. About how almost all available webspace is going to bare adds whether you want them on the page or not. About how IRC has been replaced by ICQ, even though ICQ is terrible, and IRC is fine. The fact, that the Internet is quickly becoming just another conduit for people to contend over 'eyeballs'. I don't think that there really is a way to stop it, or even if it should be.
But that doesn't mean I can't say it sucks
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
It is often easier to vilify an entire organization and all those associated with it rather than take the time to reason out the inner divisions that most likely exist.
It's an interesting question, actually as to whether you should do that or not. On the one hand, a lot of the people there have only a small responsibility for what there doing, unfortunately, that is still a small responsibility. Vilifying an entire organization may be an overstep, but on the other hand it isn't.
The reason is that people in the organization do the same thing. Everyone in Microsoft can say, "I'm not responsible, I'm just doing a little, I'm just following directions" A person in an evil organization feels no guilt, no one there does. So the organization itself doesn't.
Take as example Nazi Germany (not that I'm comparing M$ to The Nazi party, or BillG to Hitler). Everyone there was able to slug off personal responsibility for there actions, it was the organization, not them. But in the end, their efforts led to the death of millions of people. Similarly, everyone at M$ must have some culpability. Ether that, or no one does, and the organization can continue to operate without a conscious.
Everyone at microsoft bares some responsiblity for this, wether they agree with it or not.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Nonsense. MS went after /. because they assumed that they would immediately cave in & remove the offending articles. MS never made a "public stand". On the other hand, /. & Andover did make a public stand. They know that MS has far more to lose in this case then they have to gain. Once MS realizes this simple fact, expect this suit to rapidly go away.
The devil's advocate reply to this is if it were not for slash being acquired by Andover/VA Linux, Microsoft may not have cared. Why? Figure that since a recently-gone-public corp might be queasy about taking on Microsoft and perhaps Microsoft miscalculated that VA mgmt would cave and pull the posts rather than risk an expensive and disruptive legal battle.
:( )
I submit that it might be exactly because slashdot is now owned by a public company that Microsoft chose to make a public stand by demanding that the 'infringing' material and posts be removed.
What real benefit does Microsoft hope to gain? They can't really think that getting a few posts removed is really going to hide their spec, or stop anyone from finding out how to get around the EULA? No, I figure that they wanted to make a public point, and were counting on VA rolling over.
(too bad my posts default to -1; no one will ever see this
In simple terms, if I have a Linux server and Windows 2000 desktops, I cannot authenticate myself by logging into the Linux server using kerberos. To be authenticated to access resources on the Windows 2000 desktops, I must go through a Windows 2000 server. Microsoft embraced and extended the kerberos protocol specifically to force people to buy a Windows 2000 server.
Authentication is such a small, small part of the Windows 2000 Professional/Server relationship. Without Windows 2000 Server and Active Directory, you lose a HUGE amount of corporate managability such as Group Policies and the likes. Simply being able to authenticate to a Linux box is a fairly small bonus.
Don't get me wrong, Microsoft's implementation of Kerberos should allow your scenario to work but I don't think it was done this way explictly to prevent 3rd party authentication mechanisms.
What is Godwins law?
Hey Rob, Thanks for that tarball!
"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." - Jed Babbin
I don't think anyone forces you to read any particular article on Slashdot.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
That is not the point. I for one am pissed that they SPENT my TAX MONEY at MIT making Kerberos and MSFT takes OUR STUFF that WE FUNDED,CHANGED IT and called it their own. THIS IS TOTAL BULLSHIT. If nothing less the FEDS should MANDATE that MSFT stop calling it Kerberos or Pay back the grant and release the specs.
Actually, it would matter. He wouldn't go broke, but think about it. If M$ goes to $1.50/share, somebody's going to scoop them up right quick, if only to dismantle them.
I doubt that Bill Gates wants to be working for Microsoft, a subsidiary of IBM...
--The basis of all love is respect
Windows scares me. Windows in the Navy scares me even more. Destroyers are fine, but I don't want to step foot on a minesweeper anymore. If it crashes, the Blue Screen of Death has sharks in it.
--The basis of all love is respect
I'm afraid I don't see your point. Criticism is not the only type of speech that's protected under the First Amendment...
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
Silly, the entire point of this discussion is that copyright does NOT override free speech.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
here
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
Or look at it this way: if I had the infinitely-more-valuable HTML skill I could make one of those HREF links to an online dictionary.
For now you'll have to cut and paste: www.m-w.com
-jpowers
-jpowers
On trade secret law their position is much less firm. A judge might allow their claim that something can be made public to anyone who bothers to look but still be called "secret", but I rather doubt it. Therefore this is not the place where the software industry is going to make a stand for UCITA. Too much risk of losing. If you want a test case you make it out of cast iron, with yourselves unambiguously in the role of goodies. Make it a software pirate with stacks of copied CDs in a police raid, and have the evidence for wrongdoing rest on a clickthrough license. Don't do a David vs Goliath act, because the judge is apt to side with David.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
Just a thought,
Apart from the fact that posting Micro.. specs on this web site and anonymously is cowardly at best, I think that it is a perfect example of how Microsoft uses its monopoly to pervert open standards and ultimately crush them, hence closing the door to any sane competition.
What these Anonymous Cowards should have done was to send the specs and detailed analysis of the situation to the Judge ruling Micro case, and maybe adding suggestion that not only should Micro be blown into pieces. Those pieces must small enough to ensure no portion would ever be able to do that again for the next century at least.
And sorry to add this, but people like Bill Gates and the full Micro senior staff must be targeted more specifically. They are probably worse than any WACO, because they have the monetary power, and have shown no remorse whatsoever regarding the whole thing which essentially means they either are dumb or think the Judge is.
As for all those who tell us about the end of computing if Microsoft fell, remind them of ATT and how the same crap was said about its fall and how calling Paris, London, Wherever is much cheaper today and how everybody is happy about it.
Thanks for reading all the way down here and CIAO
Kill Microsoft? No! Just hire their GUI guys!
I guess, you'd really make a miserable day for some moderators/reviewers. /. rather unattractive then.
/. maybe cannot keep up in deleting them fast enough (think DoS here). What would be the consequences? /. would either face more of those *%!? lawsuits or it has to shutdown discussion-boards.
Sure, they could review every post before it goes online. I don't know how many moderators there are, but it sure would be a rather big thing to review every post before it goes online. Considering that people want to discuss articles, a certain lag until a post goes online would make
If posts would be put online immediately (as is now) and some AC keeps posting the offending(?) posts over and over,
And that's something I really don't want to see happen.
--- If OS were buildings, then the first woodpecker to come around would erase 95 % of civilization.
I officailly endorse this post!
/_____\. .......|
vvvvvvv../|__/|
...I../O,O....|
...I./
..J|/^.^.^ \..|.._//|
...|^.^.^.^.|W|./oo.|
EULA != GPL. have you bothered reading a EULA lately ? it allows the company to do virtually *anthing* to your machine, your data and whatever files are on your harddrive. EULAs *are* ridiculous and should be shot down. any other industry trying to pull this sort of thing would get hit with class action lawsuits in a day.
I suspect that, among other motives, MS is hoping to establish a precedent for "clickwrap" to be a valid mechanism for a binding NDA, in addition to being a mere EULA. Hardly likely. There are so many other, far less invidious, ways for Microsoft to accomplish this, and there is little question (and ample precedent) as to whether one can create a "binding NDA" merely by including a document indicating the matter is, in fact, a secret. There is ample precedent that a EULA is a binding agreement. If true, there would be no question under the contract law of most states that NDA-like provisions would be enforceable. Even if they were not enforceable as contracts, the trade secret law of most states (particularly those that follow the Restatement or the Uniform Trade Secret Act) do not require an agreement or even a written agreement to create enforceable obligations not to use or disclose. In short,
Time to learn some new tricks, Old Wolf.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
I'd like to suggest that DrEldarion read up up on the McLibel case, where a couple of unemployed British anarchists stood up to McDonalds, who sued them over the contents of a flyer. The two technically lost, but the case dragged on for over two years, making the company look bad and costing McDonalds over $14 million in lawyer" fees. Not only that, but the McSpotlight website was visited by millions of people, who were exposed to radical anti-golden arches ads that they wouldn't have, if McD's had simply told it's intellectul property lawyers to shut up.
<p>The McLibel two "won" because they had literally nothing to lose, being poor working class people. If they had been able to afford standard lawyers, they would have been told to settle out fo court. Most lawyers are pretty conservative and urge people to play along with the "justice" system. Slashdot appears to be fortunate in that its lawyers seem willing to make a stand.
<p>So, what I'm saying here is that you don't have to have access to fancy lawyers to make a good stand against corporate bullies like Microsoft.
"Affecting their net worth by 80% downward means that ramen noodles and broth is for dinner."
Well I suppose there would be idiots who would hold on to a sliding stock long enough to go broke but I don't think that would be the majority of stock holders. Most fund managers are already slowly getting out MS and tech stocks in general. A companies Stock price is the only legitemate target. After all a corporation exists only if it makes money. Besides which Bill G. Could slaughter babies in front of the white house and nobody would arrest him let alone prosecute him. He committed perjury and nobody even raised an eyebrow. Anybody who flaunts the law like that is immune from the law of land. If the laws of the US don't apply to corporate executives what else can you go after?
War is necrophilia.
Anyway, yes, the Internet sucks now. Its not the users so much, as the 'net itself. It just isn't the same as it was back when I got online.
Back in my day, we had to WALK to school, UPHILL both ways, BAREFOOT in the snow, climbing BARBED-WIRE fences, leaving bits of CLOTH on the barbs and BLOODY TRAILS in the snow until FROSTBITE would set in, and we had to come home for LUNCH, where all we got was a piece of STALE BREAD and WATER we made from holding snow under your ARMPIT, and not even your OWN armpit because we were shivering too much to keep from spilling the water, it had to be from your BROTHER'S armpit....
This is such a marketing gimmick! I read the front page.. I think cool! update! I click ... I wait .. wait .. wait and the page says 'sorry I can't tell you more'!!
OK; can you talk about the alleged DDOS?
The concerns of Microsoft employees about the behavior of the company illustrates an important point. We (open source community etc.) should stop trying to attack microsoft from the outside but from the inside. Win more employees over. More will happen if we can get the Microsoft employees to do their little bit to change the behavior of the company than to stand outside banging on the doors.
There are several things we can do to help. 1) Clearly deliminate between the organization and individual empolyees. Granted some indiviudals are, for want of a better phrase, the organization but many aren't. 2) Be eloquent and pervausive. We are working against a very strong organizational culture. 3) Be helpful. Speaks for itself I think.
Remember many microsoft employees are shareholders.
I hate to say it, but Microsoft are absolutely correct that it is illegal to republish their entire spec. Those posts which do so should be taken down.
Female Prison Rape in NY
Interesting point, but the difference is, Microsoft is bad and open source is good. ;)
Female Prison Rape in NY
Microsoft's general strategy is to bind all users to Windows. To some extent, this happens even without any evil intent. Microsoft products will tend to have that property naturally because Microsoft has no incentive to perform the kind of interoperability testing that would prevent it, and does not make true interoperability a requirement. This is one reason Microsoft needs to be broken up -- to keep the negative effects of that tendency under control.
So I'm open to suggestions as to what else I could do to show my support. -jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I understand your difficulty acknowledging contributions, and how this pains you. Post rating points, posted comments or email are obviously out.
But maybe your lawyers will let you say "thank you" by dropping a some unexpected karma points on useful posters. I presume most of them are not AC's. AFAIK, only the poster sees karma when they go to their user page. I go there to check follow-ups to my posts.
I say you answered your own question.
Yes, Microsoft does the job for an incredibly large number of people, and for them, it does it well. I've had to tell my mother far too many times, though, that the innumerable flukes on her computer are because "that's just the way it is" to give MS any respect.
--
"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
Innovative doesn't just mean inventing a new product genre from scratch.
Of course there were word processors around before MS came about! MS just went and made a word processor that was innovative in that it was flexible and easy to use for the average user (not to mention having powerful features for advanced users). How many word processors allow you to control their behaviour with script language code (VBA), and display, modify and control the document from another application (OLE Automation) , and embed documents within your own applications? (OLE)
If you are going to say that Windows was "stolen/copied", then you have to admit that Linux was stolen/copied from Unix, BSD was stolen/copied from SCO, etc. etc.
The innovation is that the "stealer/copiers" took an existing product and greatly enhanced it.
To make the rest of the world realise that MS isn't that great, in a sane and un-ranty way? You will have to come up with something better.
This kind of FUD is typical of Slashdot posters.
Because you don't understand how MSIE stores cookies, you call it lame?
Are you telling me you've never encountered some problem on your Linux machine and not immediately known how to solve it?
What's even worse, you seem to blame IE because Slashdot's server has put invalid information in its cookie that is making the server's output stuff up.
The browser isn't broken at all - if you had bothered to check the page source, you would have seen that it is displaying things exactly as they were being sent from Slashdot's server.
FYI - to delete cookies, first close MSIE. Then delete the cookie file for the site you want, from the cookies directory. Then reopen MSIE.
When you refresh a page, it will reload the page text - but use cache for items on a page (pictures etc.)
To reload the whole page, hold down Ctrl as you click Refresh (alternatively, press Ctrl-F5).
Admittedly I only found this out when someone told me. I will agree with you that MSIE and other MS apps have a shortage of built-in documentation, and a lack of options for advanced users to configure.
(Note - this is not to be confused with the Windows API, which is superbly documented, as is MSIE customisation and extensions for programmers. It's a beautiful environment for programmers, but not so for end-users of MSIE who want to configure options and know how to do non-trivial things.)
Good point. IANAL and I don't think the LinuxJournal author is either...
article argued. US law allows that free speech can override
copyright. In the words of that article:
rights of copyright holders are not absolute, and that occasionally
they must take a back seat to broader considerations of public
welfare. This is precisely the line of thinking that holds the
publishers of the Pentagon Papers, secret U.S. Defense Department
papers regarding the Vietnam conflict, immune to prosecution under
U.S. copyright law. Had the publication of the Pentagon Papers been
suppressed, the U.S. presence in Vietnam may have been prolonged, and
thousands more would have died in a war that, the Papers conceded,
could not possibly be won.
Are you crazy?
Slashdot is infamous for moderating up comments that flame Microsoft. Absolutely no one on Slashdot takes a devil's advocate position, and when anything positive is posted, there are twenty replies saying, "You must work for Microsoft!"
Would you like me to prove this for you with URLs?
>Working for MS but disagreeing with their
>policy? That's bein hypocritic, or spineless, or
>both, not "nice".
I've worked for several organizations, and I've never had a job yet where I agreed with "everything" that my organization did. Life isn't that simple, and it isn't that simple for people to just walk away from a good career either.
Jonathan
You're an idiot. A software programmer for Microsoft is no different to a software programmer for any other company. THEY didn't write an entire product, they contributed to it. A programmer writing database functions into a Microsoft app will be writing something very similar to someone working for any other company developing on the Windows platform using database functions. Why the fuck should they quit a job in which they get good pay, great benefits and job security because some other wing of their HUGE corporation is doing something they don't agree with. Fuck, if I did that every time I didn't agree with a management decision I would be collecting your tax dollars on welfare for life. Maybe you should consider that with the power and money they have, Microsoft would probabely be THE BEST environment in which to work in.
Do you have a clue what you are talking about? Yes Microsoft Engineers did encode a string into a file saying that Netscape engineers are weenies, similar to the text imprinted on Intel CPUs about Bill Gates. In both cases they were fired. This was not a backdoor to the product.
The ILOVEYOU virus was not written by an MS engineer and is irrelevant here. The virus exploits tools made available by the software. They were not put there for that purpose and if anyone is to blame he's in the phillipines so go bitch to him.
This is really a side issue to much more important topic, but I've always felt very strongly about this: Sending any kind of legal communication over an insecure medium such as email is intolerable, and there is no reason at all for the receiver to acknowledge its existence. If you send an email, it may or may not arrive on the other end; how can you ever know that it hasn't fallen into the bit bucket? Only if the recipient sends a reply (and even then, you can't be sure if it was really from the recipient).
Moreover, how can you know that an email is really from somebody in someone's legal department? Just because they say so? How many Slashdotter's know how to forge an email so that it looks like it came from a M$ lawyer?
My advice is: Set up your email client so that it does not honor requests for receipts, at least not automatically; and if you receive a legal threat by email, delete it securely, using something like the PGP wipe feature, and forget about it. Of course, you might be tempted to save a copy, but if you're ever asked about that under oath, you'll have to admit you have it and produce it, or risk an obstruction charge. Proceed at your own risk.
(I suppose you are obstructing if you claim never to have received the mail, but if you're really careful about secure deletion, such a charge can never be proved.)
If your antagonists really want to sue you that badly, they'll get around to certified snail mail soon enough. But let 'em sweat it out waiting for a reply and wondering what the hell's taking so long.
To be sure, Slashdot's confrontation with M$ would have proceeded on the dead tree medium sooner or later, and the exchange of paper wouldn't have changed very much about the essential issues. But Roblimo could have bought himself a couple days to cool heads at Slashdot and talk to the lawyers, while the M$ lawyers would have been essentially idle, sitting expectantly in front of their Outlook clients and gradually losing their patience.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
Thanks for the update guys....we (the majority of the /. readers) appreciate it. We wish you the best in fighting the (soon-to-be-separated) Evil Empire. Keep up the good work!
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." [ http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/leg ends/godwin/ ]
Ah, crap! I think we are going to have to adapt this to slashdot, before it's too late!
Well, that's the conspiricy theory in a nutshell. The fact that Samba team members signed the original posting that made it clear they had at least read the EULA makes it that much more plausable,
Like most conspiricy theories, this one gathers seemingly contradictory facts together in a framework that seems to resolve the contradictions. The punchline of this theory is that Microsoft has devised a fiendishly clever plan to legally sabotage one of the leading open source projects in order to ensure the hegemony of Windows. It goes without saying that this coda plays well with the
Over the past several days I've had a chance to read more about this melodrama and think a bit about what I've read. One thing in particular bothers me about the tidy theory of Microsoft's evil machinations. As a earlier comment in this thread points out, Microsoft is not assured of prevailing in any court case that might result from this brouhaha. This would surely have occured to a nameless evil redmondian puppet master smart enough to predict the reaction to the "release" of the Kerberos extensions. What's at stake for Microsoft if it loses a court case over this issue? Control of the Kerberos extensions that the whole conspiricy was supposed to ensure.
On the other hand, the comments of nice Microsoft employee #1 and nice Microsoft employee #2 ring true with my experience of large organizations. They tend to work at cross-purposes and to speak with more than one voice. Now, I am not a Microsoft lackey, and I personally hope the antitrust case gets fast-tracked to the Supreme Court where every iota of the USDOJ's proposed remedies gets implemented. Nonetheless, I now think something like the following scenario may be closer to the truth:
Both theories are speculative, and ultimatly irrelevant to
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll
get run over if you just sit there." Will Rogers
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there" - Will Rogers
You know the story.... IANAL
This seems like a bad idea. Everyone should get themselves a copy, but do not post it! Andover.net had a big enough problem right now dealing with Microsoft, and this might be taken as a hostile move if this goes to court. Let the Andover.net lawyers work without outside complications. If MS wins, then it might be a good idea, although posting it on Slashdot could show a willful disregard for the ruling by the Judge. Maybe it could be posted to relevant news groups. Let's wait while professionals think this through, MS may still back down.
treke
So apparently "nice" means "agree with everything I do and say." I've spent my time at Microsoft. I won't use the term "nice," since it apparently means something different to you than it does to me, but the people I worked with there were honest, hard-working, well-intentioned and good at what they did. They did not set policy. They honestly felt that what they were doing was good for Joe Computer User, good for the company, good for their families and good for themselves. None of the people I worked with had anything to do with the MS Kerberos authentication, but if they did, it probably never would have occurred to them that they were doing anything bad or even out of the ordinary. They just don't think the same way you do.
As for your not working for Microsoft because you think they're Evil, good for you. I admire people who stand up for their principles. But please don't be too surprised if there are those who don't share your principles, don't live by them, and don't understand why you do.
--
Someone you trust is one of us.
Sounds good but just one correction: It wasn't encrypted, it was in a .cab format in an .exe file. You didn't need anything to open it aside from Winzip.
I would agree that your rather silly post was insightful (some moderator thought so) if it weren't for the avoidance of truth:
This isn't an issue about "software" its an issue about an implementation (via software, yes) of an <em>open protocol</em>. The open protocol in question is Kerberos. Feel free to visit the <a href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc.html>IETF</a> and look up the RFCs on Kerberos.
Because Microsoft made non-standard extensions to it, they have caused it to "not be Kerberos" as one poster so kindly said. They thus should either change the name to "NT authentication that looks a lot like Kerberos but isn't" or release the specs to their extension for free re-use, just like the spec they took 99% of in the first place.
Yes, if Microsoft had invented this (like NT authentication), they would retain Copyright on it and I would agree to that. This is not the case.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Let's hope you are one of a LOT of people. But it's pretty hard to have much sympathy with the theory that "there are probably nice people there too" when you live near enough MS to see every day just how deleterious MS culture has been for the last ten years. It has virally infected the value systems, judgments and attitudes towards genuine creativity held by almost every 'nice-type' person who was associated with them....plus it has leached into the surrounding community (and, to a large degree, the whole country) a sense of free-floating greed and envy which just isn't very attractive.
/.
Outside of this, of course, there are all the bad THINGS they've DONE. Rock on, DOJ! And...Give 'em PR hell,
Seems the MS "grassroots campaign" is still alive and well
I realize that Slashdot/Andover have a lot of legal issues here, and it is a position that I would hate to be in.
However, if things work out it could lead to some very eye opening experiences.
First off from a technical stand point. I am very excited that the Kerberos issue is now a public issue. I realize that there is a lot of smart people within Microsoft (I know a lot of nice MS people). There are also a lot of *evil* people that seem to get promoted and talk about their freedom to "innovate" (which up until now they have failed to do.
The issue with Kerberos is important because they broke an *Open* standard and made the diff proprietary. It might be interesting to add a licensing clause to Open Standard licensing agreements, "if you break it, you must republish the diff and a reason why you wanted to break it". This would be a GPL clause for an Open Standard.
The second is UCITA and the freedom of speech issue. Obviously if Microsoft wanted the freedom to innovate they would have published the diff to their changes to Kerberos so that we could help them improve the code and give them *public* feedback. But no. They would rather take away our freedoms so that they can maintain their monopoly based on the *old* rules.
The other issue is that companies in general can just be really *thick* headed and need public exposure when they do stupid evil things. There are *nice* people within every company, fighting against the stupid/evil ones. I do this in my day job some times. This type of public information helps give the nice/smart ones ammunition against the evil ones.
Anyway. In general I think that MS is an evil company and deserve everything they get.
- burtonator
There's not alot Microsoft can do to make you guys remove "comments" from other people. Comments are just a way of communication. If people were talking about Kerberos in a cafe, Microsoft wouldnt ask them to be quiet(or would they? hehe). The only difference is that these conversations are logged so people can still read them. If microsoft won, and slashdot removed the comments, that would be going against the freedom to speak and think. I do not understand how they can do this, since slashdot is not responsible for any of the readers' actions.
Seems to me that the devil's works have been pretty busy actually.
I see two issues here.
1. Microsoft owns the copyright on the single comment posted
I agree that they should have the right to request that a web site take down the copyrighted material.
and
2. Does Microsoft actually own the copyright on the document?
I don't believe they have the right to copyright a slight modification of an industry standard protocall, especially when they limit functionality and don't extend it, and just handing it out on the web is not anyway to keep a trade secret.
Now, by releasing the source in a "protected" form, they prevent any one from reverse-engineering it legally and have the option to prosecute when somebody comes out with a product that can hook into it, such as Samba.
seems like a load of shit to me
-----
please don't feed the monkey
Up until now I was silent on this issue, and quite frankly, admired the insightfulness of the majority of those ~1500 posts.
However, now I am a bit pissed off at the statement that there are "nice" people at Microsoft. What does "nice" mean? Working for MS but disagreeing with their policy? That's bein hypocritic, or spineless, or both, not "nice".
And to hear there are nice people at MS, I am really surprised, since my experience was (so far) that they are all self-righteous, presumptuous bullies.
And don't give me the shit that doing it for the money is OK: I could have had a job at MS, but I declined. And I know of other, very talented programmers (girls, too!) who just didn't feel like working in such an immoral company. Yep, sometimes you do things because of principles...
To Rob and the others: put up a good fight boys, don't let us down, for God's sake! THis realy IS stuff that matters!
Sigged!
Yes, but let's say that Linux became a mainstream alternative, commonly found on home desktop boxes and used in businesses. How fast would updates get propagated then?
Most of the people running & using Linux now have some interest in the technology, and stay on top of things. Most competent & aware NT admins keep their servers safe & patched as well. MS's insecurity is largely the result of widespread distribution, and of being the OS of choice with people who just want something that works most of the time and doesn't require lots of diddling. Making Linux a mainstream option would require lots of changes to how it operates, and that would open up major security holes.
As this post (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/05/13/2038 233&cid=31) said: "...kick them in the PR department..." ...That, of course, means that we don't use a Microsoft product. The other two we must lobby against, and write our congresspeople about. Informing the masses is the only way to win this fight. I don't mean we should drag Microsoft through the mud, as a community we are accused as being fanatics and zealots frequently. I do mean we should make sure that everyone is made aware of the situation.
UCITA, DMCA, EULA...they all do the same thing: limit users rights. Though in the case of the EULA there is one thing we as users can do: Just Click No.
I'm unsure what the motivation is for Microsoft to have to extend a standard that has been established practice for rather a long time. If they acknowledge that their own NTLM design was poor in comparison to Kerberos, why did they have to alter it to suit their needs? So that they could integrate with the rest of the world...yet the rest of the world cannot integrate with them? This makes no sense, honestly I think that they should be forced to comply with the standard or remove it from W2K entirely. That amounts to false advertising, and that is bad PR.
To get to the point, many people who read newspapers with national exposure are not necessarily geeks or nerds. They may be people who don't use computers at all. What would bind us to that reader is this: First Amendment rights.
There is a disclaimer at the bottom of every single bit of HTML that comes through the pipe to my browser from Slashdot, it reads as follows: "All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2000 Andover.Net." That explains it all. Slashdot should not be held accountable for the posts made by someone else. Microsoft should read the fine print that they hold so dear in their EULA and contact the people directly.
You can hide behind clickable EULAs all you want to protect your rights. The fact of the matter is that once something is available on the internet, you have lost all control over it. This is freedom of speech to the nth degree, word of mouth carries fast, but the ether medium is much faster. If you don't want people to see what you're up to, don't make it available to 'preview'.
Maybe Microsoft would get the idea if the next 'standard' meant all but Microsoft products could work together.
zerodvyd
All these years, I've read from these hardware sites saying "We can't discuss 3dfx's new hardware because we're under a Non-Disclosure Agreement."
It sounded so cool, so mysterious.
Now, after reading the Kerberos specs, I'm finally under an NDA. Don't ask me about what I read. I can't tell you.
I apologize if this doesn't sound very coherent, as I'm having a bad day.
With strict copyright laws, congress is indirectly legislating censorship of the people. By strengthening copyright, companies are able to use legal means to censor anyone they wish, be it other companies, competitors, or consumers. While congress wasn't actively attempting to legislate censorship, inadvertantly they have, to the advantage of corporations who it can now be argued are agents of the government.
That last statement might seem a little strange, so bear with me. It is in the best interests of the government for its companies to do well, to strengthen the economy and keep it strong. They are essentially employing the companies to remain profitable, which they do by censoring others using copyright laws.
Anyway, I'm not against intellectual property; what I *AM* against is congress' obsession with 'protecting' the rights of corporations regardless of the consequences on people's rights. I don't have a problem with copyright per se, but excessive protection of intellectual property is in my opinion unconstitutional: laws passed for a purpose that is not censorhip, and inadvertantly cause censorhip, *are* unconstitutional. The courts have ruled this way before. Government mandated "ratings" on speech are a form of censorship, and aren't tolerated, so it shouldn't be much of a stretch to say government delegated protections on property that promote censorhip are too unconstitutional.
72656B636148206C72655020726568746F6E41207473754A
The Indian government mandates that the managers of foreign plants often be Indian nationals. In the case of the Union Carbide plant at Bhopal, this manager did not properly maintain the cooling system of the methyl isocyanate tank, nor was the flare stack (which is used for burning off dangerous gases) kept in a ready condition. When the cooling coils for the methyl isocyanate tank leaked water into the tank, the heat from the reaction of the chemical and the water caused it to heat and boil. The tank did not explode; it vented through its relief valves into a manifold routed to the flare stack. Had the flare stack been properly maintained, the chemical would have been burned off and little or no harm would have resulted. Because the flare stack was not operational, the chemical went up the stack, fell back to earth (as it is heavier than air), and the rest is history.
Why couldn't Union Carbide fire the incompetent manager who failed to insure that safety equipment was properly maintained? He was protected by the Indian government's mandatory hiring laws. Union Carbide was equally disadvantaged by other laws mandating that producers who fail to produce their products inside India lose patent and other protections; they had no choice but to build and operate a plant there, or face competition from their own products produced by unlicensed competitors given free rein by India's "home rule" laws. If anyone is to blame for the disaster at Bhopal, it is the Indian government.
--
This post made from 100% post-consumer recycled magnetic
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
I'd like to thank all the ones who support the idea of open standards. I assume that we've all seen how much they have changed the world with, DNS, TCP/IP, HTTP, SSL, SMTP, POP, IMAP, and much much more.
Open source and standards have help many many companies. Microsoft is one of them. Thanks to all the commonly used Internet standards, every house is going to be rigged with a PC. Such a need did not exist before. As far as I see it MS has nearly doubled in size thanks to open standards.
I'd like the Microsoft employees who enjoy the Internet and those who work on open stanards, that I am thankful.
I know it can be embarassing to work for a company which might be thankless and bite the hand that feeds right after meal time. I see past the massive greed engine, and see the hard working employees, as I'm sure others do. You are just like us. You didn't do anything. Don't worry most people can tell the difference between you and your boss.
Personally, if my boss did that I'd try to change his or her mind. I'd help them understand. If they did not want to, or worse yet, understood and did not care...well I'd start looking around. I can understand quite well if others don't quit over these things though. People have childern, house payments, and so on.
Good luck to all who are fighing Micrsoft on this, after all open standards are a major source of MS bread and butter.
-- James Dornan AKA TigerSmile
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
Knock these guys down, knock them down hard...
The thought of a world where one can take an open API like OpenGL, change the syntax of a couple procedure calls, and retitle the thing a proprietary trade secret is a dangerous and destructive concept. Only a lawyer could come up with something that clueless. Unfortunately, it's going to take more lawyers can clean up the mess.
In my dealings with Microsoft, I have never met anyone braindead enough to agree with the concept.
Quite the contrary in fact. This incident tops even Intel's threatening antics towards Thomas Pabst a few year's back over his Pentium II benchmarks.
Suits, gotta love 'em, no wait, no you don't...
When I get back to work tomorrow, I'm going to move to make sure that the company I'm the Network Admin for *never* upgrades to Win2000. We were planning on doing so at some future date on the servers.
:-) )
But if MS won't let people discuss the issues around their proprietary extensions to Kerberos, which is supposed to be so fundamental to 2k's security, what are they hiding?
Security through obscurity simply doesn't work, and so long as they want to support it like this, I'm done with buying anything from them.
(granted, this is only a couple thousand dollars of revenue for them, but its a start.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Of course it's a monopolistic ploy! Never argued against that -- it's designed to prevent third parties from being able to use their extensions.
However, monopolistic ploy or not, you still can't claim that reproducing copyright documents (their copyright here isn't in any sort of doubt) is freedom of speech.
I doubt that this would be considered perjury; perjury is deliberately lying when under oath.
If, for instance, you're asked for your phone number in court and you transpose a couple of digits, you're not going to be accused of perjury. To be accused of perjury, you'll have to do something like claim that you were with someone at a particular time when you weren't and you knew very well that you weren't.
Well, yes, the DOJ may force them to release it. But that's a special case; exempting direct government involvement under the Sherman Act, what they've done is not illegal. After all, closing the source of software is a decision made in order to harm competition and benefit themselves, not to benefit customers.
It's against more than that: it's also against ethics, against the interests of their customers, against the interests of consumers in general and finally, against the law (my opinion).
I agree that it's against the interests of consumers. But how is it against the law? They've created a spec (actually, an extension to an existing spec) and kept it closed. A proprietary protocol is not illegal.
Requesting that your copyrighted work isn't copied and posted all over a public forum without your permission is "manipulation of questionable legality"? Being banned from selling bootlegs of a movie outside the theater is "of questionable legality"?
OK, asking that the posts about using Winzip to open the file be removed is questionable. But many of their claims make perfect sense.
The Kerberos spec includes empty fields for vendor use. Microsoft used one of these fields; they have no obligation to make info on their use of it public. Yes, it's against the spirit of cooperation, but did you honestly think that Microsoft was a believer in cooperation? I don't think that it's a good or smart move by Microsoft, but in comparison it's not all that evil. It's similar to taking BSD-licensed software and releasing a proprietary modified binary of it. Not great, but not satanic.
Anyway, whether or not what Microsoft did is compatible with open-source ideals has nothing to do with reproducing it illegally. If I believe in open source and get my hands on the MS Office source code, I can't distribute the source code openly. Or, conversely, if I believe in closed source, I can't sell binary-only copies of modified GPL software.
I think it'd be much wiser and beneficial to the world to have someone working for Microsoft, then not working at all. If a 'geek' wasn't working for MS, he'd have more spare time on his hands... time that could be used to do malicious things. Didn't you ever hear the phrase - "idle hands are the devil's work?" Having someone, anyone, working is better than having them unemployed on the street or clogging our already pathetic welfare system.
On behalf of all Slashdot readers, I wish you good luck, and I hope that you beat those a$$holes.
:)
If you lose, I'll boycott Microsoft for eternity. And, if you win... I think I will anyway.
Please keep us updated!
No comment at this time
"When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood."
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
That's a good idea. The only modification needed shd be that within a single thread, there shd be
a way to identify same posters. poster A might be replying to poster B's response to poster A, and it probably helps to know that the two posts by A are actually posted by the same person.
They've been working on this exact concept for text since 1960, it's called Xanadu.
www.xanadu.com
If you have a look at all it's features, you'll notice that it is pretty much what the WWW should have been. (Tim Berners-Lee has said as much).
life is a canvas/and the paint is hope and promise/the world is ours/no one can ever take it from us.
And blacks steal jobs from whites. Tell mne another one asshole.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
While I think Microsoft or any other company needs to be taken back a notch whenever the company transgresses the larger good, I do not think that stock price is a good target.
I've worked for several good companies. I've worked for several bad companies. I know that there are hundreds, thousands, even millions of people who are working, ethically, in companies of all flavors. Affecting their net worth by 80% downward means that ramen noodles and broth is for dinner.
Everyone who invests knows that there's a time to leave a stock. If I thought that the majority of Microsoft was doing the wrong thing, I'd sell, not sell out. Those who invest their paychecks into their employers' ESPPs and 401k's, well, they want their company to succeed. "Roblimo" was right, there are a lot of very good people at Microsoft. They pay local taxes, they start non-profit organizations to support their communities, they spend NASDAQ:MSFT short-term and long-term capital gains on their fellow Seattlite and American friends and families.
Lastly, many current advice-givers see NASDAQ:MSFT as a "buy," because it's got lots of products coming up, it's a political, financial and technical leader (whether you like it or not), and it's near its 52-week low.
[
LOL yeah, ok, I'll see you back using windows in lets say, 3 days?
You're moving to Linux partly because of the IE cookies bug? Gee what browser are you going to use in Linux?
Yeah, go ahead and use Linux, I hear it has no bugs *giggle*
Yes, lets break up Sun cause they want to bind everyone to Java. Lets break up coke cause they want to bind everyone to coke. Lets break up amerca cause they want to bind everyone to democracy.
The world is not black and white.
Um, bugs in the Linux kernel may sometimes get fixed in weeks. But bugs in other software aren't fixed that quickly. Hell some software (which is still in use) is totally ignored by the developers for like a year.
BTW, service packs aren't the only way to get fixes. Major problems are fixed with hotfixes from microsoft.
Anyway, the decision to use Linux over Windows because of a (fixed) bug in IE was funny. Considering the alternatives you'd have in Linux.
Slashdot announces FBCN, the Freedom To Break Copyrights Network.
It is a network of people and rich open source companies who are going to fight all common sense and insist that law is not law if it applies to anything related to software. Members have been overheard saying "free speech" and "first post".
To quote from the FBCN website:
"The FBCN is a non-partisan, grassroots network of citizens and businesses who have a stake in the success of breaking copyrights and the true way. The FBCN will help you stay up to date on critical developments in RMS law. Sign up for a free (as in speech not beer) e-newsletter, tell us your thoughts, take action and stay informed. It's how you can make a difference! Fight the law!"
The FBCN can be found at www.slashdot.org/freedomtobreakcopyrights
Stop trying to copy that damn specification to create the same effect that with DeCSS! We will never solve this problem that way.
/. and the OSS community as a whole) don't confront those law, we always will have to run away! On the other hand, if we stand up, get legal and get that problem solved, we will have peace of mind and no more lawyers running for us (at least for that subject).
Stop hiding behind your keyboard, running away and spreading the info away without confronting those damned stupid copyright laws once and for all!
If we (the
#DEFINE QUESTION (2b)||(!2b) -- William Shakespeare
Microsoft sucks.
No really. A reasonable person would assume that there's a way to kill off or reset a cookie somewhere within a browser's menu system, but not only is that not the case with MSIE, they put a faker option in there that makes you THINK you killed off the cookie, when in fact all you have killed is the temporary copy of the cookie the browser happens to be using at the time. The cookie remains safe in it's little cookie folder.
I finally figured it out when multiple copies of the slashdot cookie started appearing, since the browser would make a new temp copy of the cookie, and since it was changed, would put the new copy neatly in place next to the original in the real cookie folder. After manually deleting every single cookie in the real honest to god cookie folder, things finally started working.
It still amazes me how a "simple" messed up cookie can cause the utterly corrupted web page displays I was seeing. I'd get a few pictures, sometimes most of the page would load, but then a table would be sized grossly wrong and random halves of html code lines would be interspersed around the display. Very very odd behavior, you'd think the browser wouldn't be so easily broken.
Then again, I AM using msie, so I shouldn't expect much.
Thanks for the help, I really never suspected that a bad cookie would cause such a bad virtual bellyache.
Well, it's still happening. All cookies deleted, and it still happens.
I set MSIE to always refresh, set cache size to the min allowable, and STILL msie refuses to reload pages each time I visit them. This results in very odd and unpredictable results when reading through slashdot posts.
I'm not sure if it's helping, but holding down the ctrl key when clicking links here seems to help a lot.
I'm not a typical slashdot user. I simply find msie to be poorly documented, missing features, and rather buggy in some respects. Slashdot is not the only web site that msie refuses to refresh properly. Some UBBS sites also will not refresh properly using MSIE. I've had this problem ever since MSIE 4.0 came out, and it has been a problem with every MSIE release since then.
Even after all the hot water the boys in Redmond have been in recently, why do they STILL persist in engaging in various types of manipulation of questionable legality? One would think they would think twice and three times about any moves they would make at this point.
I have to admit, I also wonder about the intelligence involved in putting up confidential material on the Web and then getting their knickers in a twist when it's spilled to the masses. Besides, this is basic 'trade secret' law. If you don't want it on the front page of the Sunday paper, DON'T put it on the Web, encrypted or not! If this was really a 'trade secret' (as opposed to simple 'intellectual property'), then don't they have the responsibility not to hang it out in the wind for all and sundry? Seems to me, they were setting themselves up for this one.
--TC
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
The mass shooting of the employees behind this screw up won't happen, so, sorry, no happy endings here.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
No, I clearly indicated what I was quoting: the Constitution. As far as I can tell, this one little snippet is the part that authorizes Congress to write both patent and copyright laws. Note that the text refers to both 'authors' (hey, those are writers...y'know, the meaning of the word before some moron started using it as a verb) and 'inventors' (fortunately, not 'innovators' :-).
Further, I'd conclude that copyright is for the authors, and patents are for the inventors.
It would be interesting to see a late-18th century definition of the term "useful arts." I suspect they meant plays, novels, music, and the like; or any form of secondhand speech which can be held to add value to some aspect of life.
The point, then, is that Microsoft's subversion of an open standard subtracts value...
Think long and hard. Does the Microsoft "extension" to Kerberos merit such coverage?
Does a change to an open, public standard which benefits only its pervertor, merit any protection whatsoever by this clause? If not, does any power which Congress has under the Constitution enable such protection? Do the laws even apply?
I'm not a lawyer, but I'd love to see an answer from one :-)
... it's really not an issue of free speech since the situation is dealing with copyrighted material, which seems to override free speech issues.
/. is an ISP. Really, think about it: even though "comments are owned by the poster" they are still hosted by Andover.net -- just like any ISP.
Slashdot's best hope here is to overturn the DMCA -- but eventually they will have to take down the posts that display copyrighted material because
Obviously, Microsoft is being stupid by this (why not build the license into the executable?, why try to semi-publish the specs?) but in the end, hosting copyrighted material will never stand up in the courts. I'd say they have a good chance of maintaining posts with links tho... the EFF would likely be able to help with that.
-rt-
-rt-
** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
If a 'geek' wasn't working for MS, he'd have more spare time on his hands... time that could be used to do malicious things
Malicious things such as writing free software thereby contributing to the good of the community you mean?
Abashed the Devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is
There's no way you can have that happen when you have of board of director and thousands of investors involved. Family matters are very, very bad ...
Looking for a great online backup: Green Backup
It is now quite clear to me that the arrogance of this company knows absolutely no bounds, and deserves whatever it gets.
-cwk.
Here on the other side of the atlantic we have a nice little commercial for some internet-job-finding-site and it goes something like this:
Two babies lying next to each other in hospital cribs.
I was personally quite amused by the commercial and it has some truth in it, too, I think.
But just for the record: I don't agree with you, by the way. I think BG thinks he's genuinly doing a great job.
Somebody tell me how to spell genuinly, because I think this ain't the way to...
xchg
xchg
jmp emailMe
To quote from Roblimo's post: "We're exploring a lot of angles and doing a lot of research, and inorder to maintain attorney-client privilege we must keep all discussions with our lawyer *extremely* private."
Well... I'm not a lawyer, and I really don't like lawyers too much, but I want to know why you must be "*extremely* private"? What exactly is "attorney-client privilege"? I mean, aren't these guys getting paid for their services? If you're paying them, then please, tell me why in the world you must be private about what they tell you? After all, it's on your dime...
I'm confused, and a bit upset. Please, explain why this is so, if you have a moment?
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Amen, comrade! The problem which I have had with the Post's two recent articles about Slashdot are these sweeping generalizations. These range from words like "Slashdotters" and "geekerati" to the example cited by KiboMaster.
Okay, I read and post to Slashdot. But if "Slashdotter" is someone who is constantly advocating universal open source and who is militantly opposed to Microsoft, as the Post portrays it to be, then I want no part of that classification.
And "geekerati" sounds like a bizarre form of unarmed combat.
I kind of like Microsoft. They may not be nice. They may have done some incredibly nasty and illegal things. They may be attempting to censor us. That part of Microsoft I dislike with a passion. I also dislike the part that makes Windows 95 crash all the time.
But at the same time, they have done some great things. I'm a big DOS fan. Microsoft's Qbasic and Visual Basic programs got me interested in programming. I use IE for much of my browsing.
What was my point? Um...oh yeah: don't generalize me. I really like you, Washington Post. You're one of my favorite newspapers. But don't generalize me.
===
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
Your reasoning about intellectual property is wrong in the sense that without the state, or to be more precise, without the law there is no such thing as property period. All property would belong to the strongest and only to the extent to where that strength can extend. When someone stronger comes along, there is no mechanism to stop him/her from taking your posessions.
This is where rights comes in. The law gives rights to the weak and lowly but your argument is correct in that it is a double edged sword. It also allows the opportunity for the strong to persecute the weak AND protect themselves against other juggernauts.
We have merely substituted anarchy with lawful oppression. The time tested method of keeping the populance ignorant while persecuting the fringe will always be the way... u can argue about public education and the like but we are painted as lunatics and villains by the powers that be.
We had a great chance with the internet to educate the populance and maybe there still is but the law is slowly turning the screws on free speech on the internet.
I have a grudging admiration for the ppl who can look at a situation and understand all its ramifications and also know how it can be prevented. The policy makers of big corporations such as MS deserve their high salaries in this regard. They may screw up with business decisions occationally but they got their politics dead on.
Only when living standards deteriorate substantially or when there is a great injustice perceived by the ppl do they wake up and smell the stench they have been rolling around in for all this time. Hence revolutions.
They shall hail their new king not realizing that he is merely their old master hiding behind a new mask.
hehe... sorry, got carried away there but u get my drift~~~
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# exoduz : escape while you can.
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--
# I have no brain
Your reasoning about intellectual property is wrong in the sense that without the state, or to be more precise, without the law there is no such thing as property period. All property would belong to the strongest and only to the extent to where that strength can extend. When someone stronger comes along, there is no mechanism to stop him/her from taking your posessions.
This is where rights comes in. The law gives rights to the weak and lowly but your argument is correct in that it is a double edged sword. It also allows the opportunity for the strong to persecute the weak AND protect themselves against other juggernauts.
We have merely substituted anarchy with lawful oppression. The time tested method of keeping the populance ignorant while persecuting the fringe will always be the way... u can argue about public education and the like but we are painted as lunatics and villains by the powers that be.
We had a great chance with the internet to educate the populance and maybe there still is but the law is slowly turning the screws on free speech on the internet.
I have a grudging admiration for the ppl who can look at a situation and understand all its ramifications and also know how it can be prevented. The policy makers of big corporations such as MS deserve their high salaries in this regard. They may screw up with business decisions occationally but they got their politics dead on.
Only when living standards deteriorate substantially or when there is a great injustice perceived by the ppl do they wake up and smell the stench they have been rolling around in for all this time. Hence revolutions.
They shall hail their new king not realizing that he is merely their old master hiding behind a new mask.
hehe... sorry, got carried away there but u get my drift~~~
#############################################
# exoduz : escape while you can.
#############################################
--
# I have no brain
"I assume this also includes the GPL."
It does, at least IMHO. If the world were a perfect place, the GPL would be redundant.
The GPL is copyright turned against itself - copyleft. The GPL attempts to insure freedoms to the users, the exact opposite of copyright. The GPL is a defense against companies that would censor programmers. If we lived in a free world, the GPL would be silly, paranoid, obselete.
Don't get me wrong - I believe there are times when the GPL shouldn't be used. Otoh, it might be one of the greatest ideas ever to help open source and free software. Might.
Well, it looks like you violated point 2.
Free Manning, jail Obama.
Obviously you're right. I thought about mentioning the contradiction Microsoft makes, but I the irony in that pseudo-legalise talk is so apparent, I just left it as an exercise to the reader. In fact, the copyright and terms of use statements on Microsoft's web page closely resemble their "trade secret"-policy
Free Manning, jail Obama.
A thought. You may wish to get in touch with the American Civil Liberties Union, if you haven't already; also, possibly the EFF. Both are excellent organizations who spend a lot of time dealing with this sort of stuff, and can also probably recommend additional routes and options (while you're thinking)
We're all behind you, guys. Keep us posted.
Nicholas
disclaimer: opinions contained therein are not neccessarily those of my employer.
Gee, Microsoft is so evil.
Why is this such a surprise? Just because someone is personable doesn't mean they're good.
If I install a fancy alarm on my front door, but leave the back door wide open, can I sue you for "bypassing" my security when you walk in the back?
In this case, they released the spec in a common compression format that is easily opened in several ways. If you open the self-extracting archive, you see the EULA. But if you open it with any of dozens of common compression programs, you can read the document without ever seeing the EULA. How can they claim that this is a secret when it's released without any reasonable security?
Yup. I would quiet happily donate a weeks wages (~£270) to a defence fund, if one were needed....
:)
However I have a feeling VA have plenty of cash for a good lawyer, and Slashdot have a good defence
Syllable : It's an Operating System
Um, i seem to remember saying exactly that in my original post. Like i said, the breach of copyright is not an issue at all.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
Oh, and if you moderate this down, it will be proof that you nazis...
I'm invoking Godwins law. Discusion over.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
O.K, i want people to understand whats happening before i see any more posts that state "The posts contained copyright information so Microsoft are right"
Yes, some of the posts did contain information copied directly from the Microsoft document. This is wrong, it clearly violates copyright law. This is also not the problem.
The list of posts Microsoft suplied included a number of posts that gave some simple instructions that basically said you could avoid the EULA by using a standard ZIP utility such as WinZIP. Other posts gave links to sites where the document could be downloaded without having to go throught the EULA.
If you think real hard now, you can see that the posts that Microsoft are asking to be removed do not infringe on Microsofts copyright. The other posts are in fact covered by the freedom of speech and freedom of expresion. Microsoft have no right to challenge the legality of these posts.
This is why Microsoft is so utterly morally wrong in it's request to censor Slashdot.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
Why in the heck does this need to become such a holy war? Much like the RIAA problems, is this something I'm gonna have to read "features" on for the next four months as they try to keep slashdot readers all riled up and angry?
Yes, some of M$'s requests were unreasonable. But not all of them. On slashdot.org, in that original thread, someone posted the source code M$ has a copyright for.
The license agreement, whether someone didn't read it due to using Winzip, or read it and ignored it, is still there. You can't get around that.
Just remove the source code, and you're in the clear. I don't see why this requires lawyers to understand.
But then, there always is that clause about human behavior that says we're required to make as much noise as we can about anything, whenever we can. Controversy is fun!
Being no longer able to rely on a stock price which doubles every year, MSFT won't be able to profit as much from these loopholes. Furthermore, they will probably need to offer either higher salaries or a better options package if they want to retain employees.
What happens when the stock is wounded? Profits fall. What happens when profits fall?
uh-oh.
Use the following ping script to tell everyone out on the net: #!/bin/bash # # # Pete de Zwart: 03/05/2000 ping -p 4D696372736F66742053757820417373 $*
Eek, you've figured me out!
No, I'm not a Dr... it's just part of the handle. It used to be just 'Eldarion' but... I'm sure you don't care why, just someone called me Dr. once, and the name stuck.
I'm actually just some college kid out in suburbia, Illinois.
-- (not actually a) Dr. Eldarion --
It's not what it is, it's something else.
... who complained when /. got bought by Andover, this should go to show you that it's not necessarily a bad thing. Had they not been, the resources most likely wouldn't be there to fight MS, and we'd probably have to just give in.
Way to go, guys. Keep fighting this.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
It's not what it is, it's something else.
- The internet was created for the free exchange of scientific papers (read ideas).
- Newgroups, UseNet, and Slashdot type public forum sites are the lifeblood of the internet.
- Quashing a public site for posting comments (read ideas) is an abomination.
- I owe my career to the information on the internet. Programming languages, Help!, and Tutorials.
- Microsoft should go after the posters instead of slashdot (or any other site).
- I have worked for some of the most influential companies in the world.
- I have had to sign many non-disclosure agreements.
- I have never broken one of those agreements. (not even as a AC).
- Richard Stallman is right about freedom in computing.
- I want to choose.
- I choose to post.
- I choose to give my opinion.
- I choose freedom.
-- Andy Wergedal* "Uncle this droid is malfunctioning" -- Luke Skywalker
Is there any legal reason an OSS Kerberos implementor simply couldn't implement the M$ extensions? That isn't a republication of the spec as far as I can tell...
Can anybody prove me right or wrong?
There goes any pretense of "constitutionality" in that bill.
(Here's a hint, Kongre$$: any bill prompted by a vocal minority lobby, and containing a four-letter acronym (COPA, DMCA), probably is gonna get thrown out by the Supreme Court. Know why? Because you're 535 of the country's most stupid, ignorant, greedy, hypocritical and unethical people, that's why!
I suggest that we of the /. community look into exactly which legislators passed these despicable bills and do everything we can to prevent their re-election.
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
Your sig, "Plagiarism is necessary. Progress demands it.", is quite appropriate for this thread. Did you pick it out for this occasion or is it just a lucky coincidence? :)
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
Here it is:
I am a Microsoft employee, and more than that, I am a shareholder in said corporation. I stongly support the actions that the corporation has taken to protect our intellectual property.
You, and Emmett, and that rest of the creeps here, are acting like a bunch of spoiled and petulant children. There is no issue of free speech here; there is merely an issue of gross theft and corporate malfeasance.
You don't own Kerberos. My tax dollars payed for it, too, you know, under a set of rules that were in force at the time. If you want to change those rules, fine; you may have a public case in support of that, and I am prepared to listen to it. That doesn't matter for Kerberos, though; those rules are well established.
A Microsoft architect, acting within those established rules, designed an extension to that protocol. A Microsoft employee (probably a program manager) wrote that spec. A group of other employees (probably developers) wrote the W2K code that implements that spec. That extension, that spec, that code -- it isn't yours. It's theirs, and, by assignment, Microsoft's.
If you want to write software and distribute it under GPL, that's fine, and it is your right. If Taco believes that he should distribute Slahs for others to use, more power to him. I disagree. I will not live by those rules.
Live with it.
And stop posturing. What you're arguing about is not all that important. It is not a first amendment issue. You are not being censored. Nobody has tried to blacklist you. Go look at what happened to the Weavers, or to other Communists who were blacklisted during the McCarthy era -- you don't have a clue what they really faced, and it is disgusting to see spoiled little children like you trying to pretend you are going through the same thing. Go look at what Martin Luther King did and faced. Hell -- have crosses burned on your own front yard, as I HAVE, and then come back and tell me about how you're being "censored".
I have broken the law in acts of civil disobedience in the past, and I fully expect to do it again in the future. I have faced down the Man, and I know why and where and what for. But the consequence of that is this, Robin: I know what is worth fighting for, because I have genuinely fought for those things.
The right to steal other people's work, whether Microsoft does it or you do it -- that's not worth fighting for. That's worth spitting on.
Grow up.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/opinion/
"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."
-- Ernest Hemingway
I read the Washington Post article a few minutes ago and e-mailed this letter to the editor:
I am writing this in response to your recent article Microsoft, Slashdot exchange volleys
As a very active Slashdot user I take offense to your calling Slashdot a "online clubhouse for Microsoft haters" I do think that the majority of Slashdot users dislike Microsoft however, I'd like to believe that most of Slashdot's user base don't go around spouting anti-Microsoft sentiment. There are a few users who do go around spreading Microsoft hatred, but most of those are moderated down because of flamebait. Most people take up a devil's advocate position on anything Microsoft related.
Even though I think Microsoft is a Monopoly and has set the computer industry back several years. I still believe they have the right to exist. We cannot deny them that right.
A quote that I see quite often in Slashdotter's posts is: "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend you till death for your right to say it."
Slashdot is a diverse on-line community, made up of people from many different backgrounds. Every user has his or her own opinion on Microsoft or any number of subjects discussed on Slashdot.
"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."
-- Ernest Hemingway
OK...since you seem to want to demonize all Microsoft employees as Destroyers of the Free World(tm), should I categorize all Open Source / Free Software programmers and advocates as overtly zealous, non-compromising people who make RMS and ESR seem normal?
So maybe you think all Microsoft employees are out to destroy the free world as we know it. And you know what, I'm not going to try to convert you, as you're obviously steadfast in your moronic views. But I doubt you've ever met a Microsoft employee, have you?
And you know what "bubba?" You may not like my tone regarding the DMCA, but as I've said before, no matter how much it does suck, it's law. So kwitcherbitchin' and deal with it.
raunchola (at) hushmail (dot) com
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
"I am so thankful for your patronizing tone.. NOT! Will you please fuck off back to Redmond, you whore?"
:)
Sorry, too long a flight from here
"Oh, and this other post of yours makes me puke, too. It clearly shows on who's paylist you are."
Oh! So sorry! I'm not on anyone's paylist, but thanks so much for jumping to conclusions anyway!
raunchola (at) hushmail (dot) com
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
You know, maybe it would be nice if we could all quit our jobs because we didn't agree with their said principles and go work in the name of freedom. But we're all not Richard Stallman (ducks to avoid flames).
If you ask me, the one reason people go to work for Microsoft is because of the money. I know one such fellow who started work out there three years ago, and on paper, he's now worth about $700,000 or so. No matter how much of a case you make for RMS-like freedom, it's not going to tear him, and probably everyone else, away from their jobs at Microsoft. You can't just walk away from a good-paying job and say "Screw you" to all of your bills, especially for those in Seattle, where the cost of living isn't exactly what you'd find in Smalltown USA.
I'd be willing to bet that a lot of Microsoft employees want to make decent software. But it's not that easy to leave a job that can make you a millionaire by the time you're thirty, and move to a smaller company or some startup that can't match what Microsoft paid.
raunchola (at) hushmail (dot) com
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
"Please bear in mind that many Microsoft employees are perfectly nice people. For all we know, the nice people at Microsoft may yet persuade the not-so-nice ones that there are times when it's better to work with others to establish industry-wide standards than it is to act as if the freedom to innovate belongs only to Microsoft."
:)
I particularly enjoyed this statement. It's nice to see that Microsoft's employees aren't being demonized here. Yes kids, all Microsoft employees aren't evil. I went to the Redmond campus last summer when I was visiting a relative who works for Microsoft, and the employees there are indeed down-to-earth nice people. A lot of the employees there do have opinions which differ from Microsoft's corporate opinions (I saw one guy with a stuffed Tux in his office!). Hell, a few of their engineers even invited me to play some Midtown Madness with them.
As for the Microsoft v. Slashdot madness, I do agree that Microsoft is going a bit overboard with this lawsuit, but hopefully it will let Slashdot know that they should be more careful in the future with such posts. Like it or not kids, there's laws we have to follow, no matter how much they suck.
Me? I just hope Emmett doesn't turn himself into Jon Katz II. The last thing we need is another Jon Katz
raunchola (at) hushmail (dot) com
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
It is not always the easiest thing to do, but a moral rather than expedient stand is time well spent.
Please Robin, I beg of you, don't give into Microsoft. I realize that this is probably just a bit redundnet, but I just wanted to give you my support and say that I'm behind you (like most everyone else) in defending freedom on slashdot.
I know, it's really just a sensationalist media listening to some people on slashdot and other places saying that microsoft is evil. I'm no microsoft fan by any measure, but I don't really think that anyone there are really bad people. Everytime I've seen our friend billy he's seemed like a very nice person. Even when he's hanging around inner-city schools with people he's nothing like he's laughing and smiling, goofily albeit, but he seems like a nice enough guy to me. And so are the several Microsoft employees that I know and are friends with.
btw, larger audience doesn't necessarily mean it's a good site. Seventh Heaven anyone?
Isn't that exactly what happened with the publishing of Voices From the Hellmouth? Is there going to be a stream of class action law suits from Anonymous Coward, LLP or what? (I should point out that I'm not against the publishing of comments from the Hellmouth posts and am eagerly awaiting my copy from thinkgeek)
Mass-Boycotts of major corporations usually get quite a bit of media coverage, possibly kicking the pr dept. of microsoft. and there are several slashdot readers who do use windows, and by choice (I recall someone on GiS saying they used windows and never crashed it). But the sensationalistic media would take the fact that 90 % of slashdot's 150k users use Linux or BSD or some unix and turn it into 'all of slashdot is made up of linux users that hate microsoft.' So: it probably wouldn't be taken seriously.
How could he sell it? He could easily. We have this thing in america, its called the stock market. Here people buy and sell stock. He would sell his stock here. Or, we also have something here in america called a corporate buyout. I am sure the are a ton of companies out there that would love to be the primary shareholder in MS. In a world where one can sell a empty box on ebay, saying no one would buy bill's MS stock is one of the most idiotic things I have heard in quite some time.
roche
roche
Bah Humbug!
Because it's part of the corporate culture. It is so much a part of the way Microsoft does business that they are incapable of thinking of a better way of doing it, as a collective. This way of thinking has been supported by years and years of profitability as a result of this model.
Now, Microsoft finds themselves in a position where, though they are yet a leader, they are no longer a corporation that dominates computing, and they really are grasping at straws.
If I download the linux kernel source, add some code, then repost it to the net with my own copyrights and EULA plastered all over it, I still do not own the code.
Perhaps you skipped the posts concerning the origins of the document M$ claims to own?
The remainder of M$'s allegations are obvious bullshit [see: freedom of speech, and united states of america].
In this instance, M$ are thieves trying use the law against their victims to cover up their crime.
"How many assertions does it take to make a fact?"
"The Internet is made of cats."
Reasons to quit prostituting your ethics to M$ (by your own admission above, that's what you are doing):
because if you don't you are every bit as morally repugnant as the filth that employs you?
Becuase your are prostituting yourself and your ethics?
Because helping M$ screw the consumer out of their hard-earned cash is not less morally repugnant than drawing a welfare check (it's coming out of my pocket either way)?
Because you are afraid that serving the M$ Reich in any way could ultimately lead to your porosecution and conviction?
Because if you're worth a shit at whatever it is you do, you don't have to put up with that shit and can get a job anywhere?
Because your attitude of riding the gravy train could get you fired since it's M$ yuo're talking about and not the federal government? I could go on...
So you admit that that you are pathetic at what you do and couldn't possibly be employed in a position of your own choosing? That's why you're a whore? Well, I guess you've answered your own questions... Money and power to not equate to quality of life or a good work environment. Perhaps you should consider that, at some point in the near future, you will probably lose your job to a software engineer on the Indian sub-continent who is willing to work for one-third of what you are."The Internet is made of cats."
"The Internet is made of cats."
"Be afraid. Be very afraid"
"The Internet is made of cats."
"The first one is always free"
"The Internet is made of cats."
I would point out that I object your characterization of the battle against M$ as a 'jihad'. The implication of an association (real or spiritual) with a bunch of nut-case fundies out do destroy the world is onerous. People like you continue to attempt to relegate this very serious matter to the 'fringe'....
I don't recall the source of that quote, but I think it is especially apt in the case of M$. M$ seems to demand that 'rights' be a one way street. They want to have protection for themselves, yet expect everyone to remain silent as they trample the rights of others. They also seem to think that "might makes right", which is usually only true in the short term for any given evil....
So we've established that the Gnus are not anarchists. That's good, because anarhist beliefs are probably illegal in the US under the current regime. My ilk? LOL. Okay, maybe there are some others like me... Thanks for the link, btw. "Fuck the skull of Microsoft!"... I love it. I was thinking more along the lines of "Mutilate the corpse", but it doesn't have the same ring to it... Sorry if I gave that impression. Actually, attempts by M$ to suppress "freedom of expression" and "right to choice" are exactly the types of accusations I would bring against M$, so these issues are very germaine. Actually, no, I never wondered about that. I have known from the beginning. In fact, it's interesting that you would admit to the phenomena, since M$ has repeatedly denied targetting anyone, let alone open source.Can you supply specifics? I'm sure the DOJ would be interested.
Well, I resent that your accuse me of preaching. And I have never advocated conviction based on association. Let me be clear: M$ could not do what they do without employees, therefor, the employees are in the position of accomplices to a crime, which is prosecutable. As in war crimes trials, the common foot soldier is generally not formally tried, but certainly exceptions are made in the cases of atrocities, etc.And yes, I will continue to cast M$ as a hostile, totalitarian nation. I consider it an apt analogy, since M$ has declared what amounts to economic war on the IT world.
You are falling for the M$ propaganda if you allow them to convince you to view their threats against slashdot as an isolated, unimportant incident.
M$'s assault on slashdot, has been well organized, and is part of a much broader strategy for control of the net at large...
Nah. I didn't claim to be better than m$. I am absolutely antagonistic to them. I am the anti-Gates. Sure. No problem. You can tell him I said so... Fight fire with fire, you know? If it's true, it's not an 'excuse'. And I hardly need to take your judgement of validity, under the circumstances. And contend them I will. uh-huh. M$ doesn't agree. If you don't fight them, you will obey them, eventually. They are seeing to it. You don't see the reasons yet. You'll get over it. Give it time. Sorry, bub, this one was a no-brainer. Okay. Whatever. Good luck devin. You should probably apply to M$. You can get paid writing stuff like that, and for taking this kind of abuse, you know? I mean, as long as you're willing to spout the M$ party line....Was cyberturfing usenet a M$ innovation, or had it been done before?
"The Internet is made of cats."
Rather that it should be are irreedom of speedom, Microsoft should give up going Microsoft should but those who do talk about methods of do it KNOW that that it should bedience is arguy who posted that posting the law, and freedom of speech, criming thing thods of dom of doing things; it should be up going aft should be should expect repercussions?
Therefore percussions.
Therefore, rather the law, and that posting Microsoft it should be are irrelevane. And they should expectivities, criminalism and freedom
And I mean it!
"The Internet is made of cats."
AFAIK, there was only _one_ copy of the ACTUAL document posted. Correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway, if the user who posted the document _did not_ use the executable, but rather extracted the document in the manner described in other posts, he or she _never_ consented to the ridiculous EULA in the first place, and as such, should _not_ be bound by it. He or she therefore never violated any license or NDA, correct? IANAL, obviously, but I find this possible loophole an interesting idea.
There are two major products that come out of Berkel
First of all, there's a big PR factor here. Conventional news sources are reporting this story, so a lot of non-technical people will hear about it. Non-technical people are a big chunk of MS's customer base, so maybe MS will try to play nice.
As much as we rant and rave here, even when we're completely in the right (has that ever happened?), we end up preaching to the choir. With a little attention from mainstream media, we can get our message(s) out.
And perhaps a few "normal" people will visit Slashdot and see that the "evil hackers" have a few good points after all...
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
Quick, somebody adapt the gnutella serverless network to a Slashdot-esque forum, just in case MS takes this to court and wins.
We could even have a wall-of-shame with the IP #s of trolls...
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
As for Kerberos, I don't know the details, but I'd guess it's very unlikely that Gates and Ballmer sat in a room cackling somewhere and decided to make a non-interoperable version. MS is too big and -- gasp -- has too many autonomous units doing their own thing for that image of complete totalitarian control to have all that much truth to it.
Personally, I work for a pretty damn ethical group. Where there are standards or standards drafts, we adhere to them. It's only where there aren't standards already coming along in the pipeline that we go our own way.
...since over here it seems that ISPs and other service providers (as in this respect Slashdot is, obviously, an information service provider or something) are responsible for libellous or other illegal content as soon as they are notified of its presence and are asked to remove it, and since now MS have told you they feel it breaks the law, and if its found that it does break the law, a UK judge would find in their favour. Note it doesn't matter if Slashdot is morally in the right by not removing these posts right away (which, for what its worth, I don't think they are, but thats another story) - the law is the law, even if its a crappy and unfair law. Courts are there to uphold the letter and spirit of the law, not to comment on its 'rightness'...
Game dev and music blog
If only IT people had that sort of power. Microsoft would be nothing and this whole discussion would be irrelevant. Maybe in a hundred years our professional opinion won't be ignored by the PHBs.
Bill Gates reminds me of the Farmer who said he wasn't greedy; he just wanted all the land that bordered his farm. The serious problem with Microsoft and Mr. Gates is that he has his fingers in everything. If he is not stopped soon he will be the first dictator of the world.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darueber muss man schweigen. Ludwig Wittgenstein
I just had an interesting thought. What if this is what Micrsoft wants? Think about it, a bunch of opensource fanatics all riled up, ranting, raving and trolling can, if twisted properly (something that Microsoft is good at), give the opensource community some bad press and/or something to make the public eye look a little bit away from them. Hell, just posting the damn code wasn't exactally the smartest thing one could have done!
Personally, I think that Microsoft needs have a babysitter for a while. Sure they may have innovated 5-10 years ago, but they haven't done a whole lot lately.
I personally don't count bugs as "innovation".
Thus I post again.
I just wanted to say 'Thank You' to Roblimo and everyone at Slashdot for giving us the feedback, even if its 'things are being done, we have support from Andover and the lawyers, and we can't say more than that for legal reasons.'
I appreciate that.
I would also like to say thank you to the Management of Andover net for backing up Slashdot when it would be easy not to do so.
Thank you to the Lawyers for 'Getting It' and realizing the ethical issues involved.
And even (or even especially) Thank you to the good people that work for Microsoft that had the good grace and backbone to speak out when it is obviously a very uncomfortable time for them to take a position at odds with the people they work for. I wish all those people the best,
Thanks - Pug
This has been a test of the Slashdot Broadcast Network . . .
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Whether we like it or not, this case will almost certainly be played out under the existing rules, not under a new philosophical regime.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
(PS: Did you notice that, per usual format, the license is all in caps?)
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
You know, you are right. I am still willing to give money and or help for the Micro$oft /. situation. I think I will do the same for the EFF. Life has been good to me and it is only right to give some back. It is time to put money where my mouth is. I hope others will do the same. Good call Thanks Sun Tsu
If you need a defence fund for lawer cost I will be willing to pitch in what I can and I hope others will as well. I know you all have a legal department and may not need money but I feel that I really would like to suport you all in any way possable Money or other wise. please do not hesatate to ask. GOOD LUCK Sun Tsu
Microsoft will simply offer to replace these "legacy unix systems" with modern Win2K systems for a nominal fee. Didn't they try that already with the Navy? IIRC the destroyer on which the system was being tested experienced slight problems...
Or better yet make GeekWars into a tv-movie for NBC. You could also it spin off into an open-ended "GeekWars - The Dark Source" serie. Just imagine all the possibilities...
If you seem to think Slashdot sucks so much, then why do you continue visiting it? I personally think Slashdot is one of (if not the best) site on the web.
Look at an analogous set of protocols: In filesharing we have NFS (UNIX, Linux, etc) and SMB (OS/2, WfW, Win '9x, NT, W2K, Samba, etc). Clearly SMB is the more "mainstream" protocol. Add to that the fact that NFS is far more widespread that Kerberos.
So, sadly, the support for M$ bastardized Kerberos extensions are likely to be necessary in the near future. Even if M$ only sells half of the W2K and WME (millenium edition ~~ consumer release of W2K) that will still be about twice as many seats supporting this protocol by mid next year as we have total Linux seats world wide.
BTW, I'm not ignoring the other forms of *nix and the *BSDs. The aggregate of all of those seems to represent about a quarter of the total Linux installations. Like it or not Linux is currently the most mainstream UNIX.
As for the broader issue, I wonder whether it is M$ or us that is more out of touch with the real mainstream (outside of the computing industry). I've been living in Silicon Valley for several years now. I've been a computing fanatic for a couple of decades. Most of my social contacts are computer geeks or science fiction fans (with considerable overlap, of course).
Obviously most of the public doesn't care about any of this. They've heard that M$ was involved in some long legal battle that had something to do with what icons show up on their computer screens at work or school, and maybe at home. (I guess that almost half of the people in the U.S American public don't have a general purpose computing system at home, and a fairly significant percentage don't work with them regularly). Probably many of them have heard that M$ was found guilty. The opiniontheir own personal political leanings and economic situations (I imagine that most republicans, particularly well-to-do replublicans think that M$ is "being picked on" and that most democrats tend to think that M$ is getting only a bit of what it, deserves).
One problem I have with all of the anti-MS hype is that it ignores the bigger hegemonies we face. M$ is not the worst company in the world. They didn't kill 16,000 people in Bhopal. They haven't been involved in the practical enslavement of millions of people around the world. They haven't engaged in strip mining, released billions of tons of pollutants and toxic waste into our ecosphere, etc. I don't like their products, and they have illegally stifled competition and innovation. But they aren't even on the top ten list of "worst corporations" in my book.
Indeed, compared to the injustices perpetrated by our own governments just in the "war on drugs" M$ is a shining bastion of morality. What is the current percentage? Over half of the incarcerated population is there on non-violent drug related charges? According to a reference at Human Rights, 60% of the 2 million inmates in the U.S. prison system are there are drug related charges --- and "over half" of those are "first time non-violent offenders "(sic I'd say victims).
I don't mean to say that M$ deserves leniency or that they aren't wrong. However, I must say that as I look over the greater socio-political landscape at our governments and the behemoth multi-national corporations that control them; I do think we have bigger problems! of most people about the justice of that ruling is probably related to
Ill be honest i'm not really sure how this would be done, and most likely not how to do it..But lets say someone were to in some way manipulate this Microsoft *.exe that u had to download to view the agreement, and had altered the Disagree button to allow the person to view the document and the Agree button to quit the program. (Im guessing the end of the liscense agreement says By clicking the agree button u agree to the terms listed above and vice versa) Then legally you,by hitting the aggree button,wouldn't be aggreeing to comply with their "limitations" and therefore everything they were requesting would not have to be met?..Or by manipulating the program you are responsible, ..?..maybe for allowing this to occur they would be considered ignorant,and they are responsible?
and yet slashdot censors oog. who the hell am i supposed to stick up for here?
Don't be mean or my friend Oog will smash your head
The posts that M$ wants removed can easily be copied into a small text file and mirrored all over diffrent sites (like DeCSS)! I say start a movement to do this, and put up a page of links where people can enter the URL of their mirror and eventually there would be thousands of copies spread all around the internet. It seems to be working for 2600 and the DeCSS movement.
...and if nothing else, atleast Bill Gates will lose some money paying lawyers to individually go to each website and threaten the admin. Just a thought.
--
#nohup cat
This is a little radical, but I think that avery admin of a Unix / Linux / BSD or even MAC servers should boot out any MSIE browsers that show up for a day. If Joe average user found out one day that a great majority of their favourite web sites are not powered by Microsoft and are now unaccessable because they are using Microsoft products. Even better would be to redirect them to a site that expalins why they can't go where they want to today. (I know that this is not practical, but I can dream. Can't I?)
/. another perfect shining 24-carat example of F.U.D. the way M$ would like it to be. Every other A.C. or logged in Person attacking their fellow man on some word or interpretation. Just like the first paragraph of this reaction.
/. says they do not want to discuss legal matter on a public channel: Fine! It is thinking with your head straight on. In WW2 there were posters that read "Walls Have Ears" and "The Enemy Is Listening". It is still true, especially n /. /. or Andover.
/. Otherwise if you approve of the ratings a lot (like 95% of the time) just think of the moderators "As Human As You" are and yes, everybody is entitled to mistackes.
Uhmmmm, well what if the boot was on the other foot? Suppose all M$-addicts decided to let only M$IE-browsers enter and reject all others (i.e. Netscape, Opera, HomeBrew, to name a few) or those browsing on platforms != M$ ?
Hmmm?
Even now it is not easy to make a very good looking and attractive website without having to take into account the difference between browsers because all have their quircks (excuse the spelling).
Furthermore I find this whole thread on
As I write this I get a sense of drowning in subterfuge and non-issues, recalling to mind a comic called "Asterix and Obelix: The Intrigue" -I do not know if I used the correct word but it is about one person lighting everyone's fire and at the end they are all against everyone.
This whole discussion about what M$ will do, would like to do and what they dream of doing is OK; it keeps everyone on their toes and everyone can have his/her/it's voice in a public way. Much like 'Speakers Corner' in Hyde Park, London, UK.
It just does not mean we have to turn against one another and start an electronic infight or feud so the matter becomes less important than shouting about it.
Arguing about something does have a limit: The Noise To Reason Level. The more Noise/Volume/Emotion get's into the argument, the less Reason/Fact/Clarity there is. It leads to an emotional deadlock that has no sane solution.
If
Anyone in their right mind and having knowledge on the legal matter at hand would not offer his/her/it's advice or councelling here in public. They most probably offer their P.O.V. in a discrete E-Mail to
My last point is this: Some posts get rated "Flamebait", others "Informative". It is just an indication (like PG on rental movies) and it is up to YOU the reader to approve of the label or not. If you disapprove of a lot of the ratings, make your case to
[/SOAPBOX]
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Free ?! Does that mean I can't get a Discount ?!
Free ?! Does that mean I can't get a Discount ?!
This message was
I hate Microsoft as much as anyone, but that "never give an inch" bit sounds more like Bill Gates than Slashdot.
Bill Gates only has that "never give an inch" policy because he doesn't have an inch to give. What do you think "Microsoft" means?
Seriously, though, I think this is right. While I think even the outright posting of the entire spec is somewhat defensible, it's best to pick your fights. I think the issue of links to infringing material is probably more likely to lead to interesting case law, and showing flexibility on the issue of wholesale infringement while still choosing to fight the hyperlink issue will look better to a judge than complete recalcitrance.
This ugly bastard. What's with these teeth? Ballmer's teeth suck.
As unlikely as it seems, what if someone wrote "secrets" about Kerberos on the bathroom wall of a movie theater? Is the management liable for not removing it? What about walls of abondoned buildings or sides of city buses? Will a city be sued for not removing those items which are business secrets? What about unsolicited email that contains such content? Am I liable if I forward it to my pals? Where does all this nonsense stop?
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I am encouraged by your silence on this issue. It lets me know that you are listening to your lawyers. This is an important issue and as a law student I have been distressed by comments made by others on the front lines that clearly endanger their legal position.
This issue is important to all of us, and I would hate to see it decided in ways that affect all of us by having the front line person blow it. I'll support you in any way I can
Among the news sources refraining so far from comment is The New York Times.
I'm sorry to see The Times and The Washington Post failing to jump to the defense of a news publisher such as /. and informing their readers that this is a First Amendment issue where a large corporation is attempting to use copyright law to protect alleged trade secrets, promote a monopoly in network servers, and suppress free discussion online in /. and other fora of what is happening.
When can we expect to see some front-page news on this First Amendment issue? (I assume it is not because they didn't hear about it or don't know who to ask to learn the facts.)
Recently The New York Times reported that because of the Visio acquisition, Microsoft has been unable to buy up stock in its pyramid-like scheme of leveraging stock options--that practice has led to great gains in the stock, but now that the stock is going down it goes down faster, even without the antitrust suit.
It is quite possible that the poor management of Microsoft by corporate insiders will lead to shareholder rebellions at the shareholder meetings--even if the company is not split.
Gates at Networld touted Microsoft Kerberos and indicated that Microsoft would try to extend its monopoly into servers. Consider what might happen if corporate customers (including the U.S. government!) fully realize that their Unix servers will not be able to interoperate properly with Microsoft Windows machines. It might be a disaster. And in a normal corporate environment somebody has to take the blame for when bad things happen to the stock price.
will not be copied or posted on any network computer or broadcast in any media
There is no way that such a statement can override my fair use of the quote from the web page (which, by the way, bears a Microsoft copyright notice just as much as the document that describes the Microsoft Kerberos protocol).
Microsoft is setting itself up for disaster here with these pseudo-lawyerly clauses. At the same time it (1) requires the copyright notice and terms of use to accompany the quote; (2) it prohibits posting of the terms of use as well as the quote. Catch-22. Since there is no way that anyone can comply with these terms and use any document, the terms of use are invalid. Otherwise even the Microsoft web page author violated the terms of use by posting it on the web.
So sue me instead of answering my legitimate questions. It appears that Microsoft can be innovative in no other way now.
I have seen some posts from some who claim to be from Microsoft. I invite comments on the original the "publish" link (I trust I am not violating anyone's copyright by quoting here--see the footnote). I quote:
"Microsoft To Publish Details of Kerberos Authorization Data in Windows 2000
"Rich Authorization Infrastructure To Be Available for Security Review and Analysis
"Following public commitments to industry leadership in security made at the RSA Conference in January of this year by Brian Valentine, senior vice-president, Windows Platform, Microsoft Corp. has published the details of its use of the authorization data field of Kerberos v5 authentication protocol. Kerberos v5 is an industry-standard network authentication protocol, designed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to provide 'proof of identity' on a computer network. Microsoft is publishing this information to enable third party validation of the Windows 2000 security model to benefit enterprise customers, developers and the industry. ...
"The specification available for download from this web page details the use the [sic] authorization data field. Microsoft invites third party review and validation of this implementation so that Microsoft's customers and development partners can be assured that the implementation of Kerberos in Windows 2000 is within the letter and spirit of the specification."
Mr Valentine, how do you expect "third party review and validation of this implementation" of the "security model" if Samba implementors of Kerberos will be excluded from the review, because if they read it they will not be able to agree to follow the EULA? Do you really consider this to be "publishing" the spec? Why don't you mention the EULA on this page that proclaims the spec is being "published"? And how is it that you are "publishing" this spec, but at the same time you claim to hold it as a trade secret--don't you see any conflict here?
Isn't Microsoft's letter to Slashdot an effort to suppress discussion of this spec, in conflict with the objective you state here?
Mr. Valentine or any Microsoft person who wishes to speak for him, please answer for us concerned citizens. We are confused about what Microsoft is trying to say and do.
Footnote: at the bottom of the page with the above quote is this notice: Copyright 2000 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. And a link to a separate page with Terms of Use, including this information: "NOTICE SPECIFIC TO DOCUMENTS AVAILABLE ON THIS WEBSITE Permission to use Documents (such as white papers, press releases, datasheets and FAQs) from this server ("Server") is granted, provided that (1) the below copyright notice appears in all copies and that both the copyright notice and this permission notice appear, (2) use of such Documents from this Server is for informational and non-commercial or personal use only and will not be copied or posted on any network computer or broadcast in any media, and (3) no modifications of any Documents are made. Educational institutions ( specifically K-12, universities and state community colleges) may download and reproduce the Documents for distribution in the classroom. Distribution outside the classroom requires express written permission. Use for any other purpose is expressly prohibited by law, and may result in severe civil and criminal penalties. Violators will be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible."
There, I have tried to comply with the law in this rather silly posting. Warning: if Google or Alexa caches it, I have no control over that and won't be able to delete it.
think of this:
OSS doesn't pay the bills. Don't complain. Just because you hate money, doesn't mean working for microsoft is Morally wrong.
-------Freedom isn't a one-way street
here is how I will make money off of open-source: give the software away for free, but make the person sign a two-year service contract. (50.00 per year).
it's either on service or product, money can still be made
true, but this is what will happen if all software is "free", like the FSF and slashdot wants!
what im saying, is that if what slashdotters want to happen comes true (all software becomes free/part of the GPL), the only way to make money will be on services contracts. Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.
They don't have copyright in this case.
GO READ THE DMCA. GO READ THE EULA. THEN DECIDE WHO IS RIGHT AND WRONG HERE.
The DMCA and the EULA are irrelevent to this debate since M$ don't have copyright on this product. The main issue is can M$ claim copyright on a product called Kerberos. Well, they can't any more than I can change the last chapter of "Gone with the Wind" and then claim copyright protection.
If they'd called it "Cerberos" and advertised it as "based on Kerberos" they might have been on firmer ground (typically immoral but firmer). But they didn't - they claim the product is Kerberos and they just don't have copyright on that. End of story, take it to court and serve it up for tea.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
heh- from what I understand, MICROS~1 only added a few 'extensions' to code that was originally published and written with the BSD license, by somebody other then MICROS~1.
So mostly, they hijacked it.
New names - MICROS~1 and MICROS~2.
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
With regard to stock price, you are right. It wouldn't really matter to Bill Gates if MS' stock price dropped to $1.50 per share on Monday. He's got accountants diversifying his wealth, making sure that he won't go broke.
However, I don't think that means that this shouldn't be a media battle. (Not that I think you were insinuating that it shouldn't...I totally understand that you were just pointing out that stock value isn't going to do a thing in this case.) I think that MS is very sensitive to bad PR right now. A lot of people are considering jumping ship at good ole MS. They have had to step up their benefit package to protect their "intellectual capital" (fancy word for smart people who make their software). In that respect, stock price could become an issue here since a lot of the benefits being extended to employees are related to stock price of the company; but, by and large, the way we'll get Microsoft to drop this whole thing is to make the media pick it up as an issue.
Stop and think about the slamming MS has received in the press of late. They have been ruled against in a court of law. The parties in that case are still trying to figure out exactly what form of punishment is suitable. Microsoft's stock value has plunged, taking much of the NASDAQ with it. Every time an issue comes up, it seems like MS is on the shady end of it. They are really having to watch negative press right now.
We have to make the media believe that this is an issue. Maybe MS will drop the whole thing to save face. Let's let Andover fight on the legal front while we help wage the PR war.
How many people post here each day? How many of us are angry/uncomfortable about Microsoft's request? How many of us could take time out to e-mail MS and/or a press agency to express our displeasure? How many of us are considered "computer experts" in our workplace/classroom? How many people ask us for computer advice each day? We have a lot of influence here. We just have to be willing to use it.
"The further I get from the things that I care about, the less I care about how much further away I get." -Robert Smith
I'm totally behind you guys. If there's anything that we as readers can do, just post it.
I think that we readers can certainly help by calling attention to this. I'm begging everyone to send e-mail to Microsoft, the press, and representation in Congress. While the folks at Andover are waging the war on the legal front, we can get a lot accomplished using our power as consumers. Let people know that you're angry. Don't just sit there and stew about it.
Here are some great places to start:
contact@microsoft.com
Reuter's News Agency
Associated Press
ZDNet
New York Times
Tech Section of MSNBC
Also find out who your representatives in Congress are and tell them what you think about Microsoft's bending of the law.
"The further I get from the things that I care about, the less I care about how much further away I get." -Robert Smith
After readinga lot of comments and having a moderate understanding of the laws, I do have something to share. First off, I do think Microsoft is *right* in asking for any removal of comments that contained pastings from their documentation. After all, they do own it. Like someone else said, would you be happy if someone took a peice you wrote, pasted it, and didn't ask for permission? Probably not, so I think you can agree they have a right to feel the way they do.
Those "Nice" people at Microsoft are probably geeks at heart and have probably tweeked Linix and *BSD. If changes are to take place at Microsoft what would be the most optimal way to change the current culture? Change can occur from internal and external influence. What would occur if Linus or Roblimo were on the Board at Microsoft? Compare this to what changes will occur with the current situation?
Granted if 1000 of the top programmers quit it may cause a change. But we live in the real world where things are not so black and white. If Ballmer wanted to keep these people and threw tons of money their way, how many of these techies would chnage thier minds? How many that have families to support and bills to pay would change their minds? And would leaving Microsoft Corp. be enough? Would the *NIX world hire someone who has Microsoft Corp. listed as the last place on their resume?
How many "geeks at heart" got into Microsoft not because it was the "best" product but because it was the only thing that was around when they were given an opportunity to satisfy the geek within them? How many of those Microsoft techies would switch to *NIX given an opportunity? All the true geeks would. On the flip side would the *nix world accept them? Mr AC would you(if you were a hiring manager)hire someone that has nothing but experiance in the Microsoft world?
Ummm.. I think you're wrong here. It's a fallacy that if you get kicked out of M$ you would have trouble finding a job. It's also a bit of a cowardly thing to say.
The job market is great in the tech industry. Believe me. Microsoft has very rigorous hiring standards and they hire only the best and the brightest. If you are a M$ employee, and you quit tomorrow, chances are you can find another job pretty quickly. The industry is starved of very bright people.. and it is especially willing to hire ex-M$ employees. (Believe me, I know a few that have had no trouble getting another job).
Those who work at Microsoft are just trying to make ends meet. They do what their employer tells them, so they'll get a paycheck.
That may seem morally wrong to some of you, but I've found it's actually the way life is for most people (outside of the radical anti-MS / pro-Linux people).
Many people hate their employers, and Microsoft employees have even more reason to hate theirs. But that doesn't mean they can do anything about it. And that doesn't mean they can just quit their job and say to hell with their families and bills.
And they certainly shouldn't be punished for doing what's best for themselves and their families.
// Spunkee
I'm afraid you overstate the value of the personnel at the borg. Since the beginning, the borg has been run from the top. The so-called 'talent pool' has always consisted of kids right out of college who don't know any better than to join the borg which receives them with open arms knowing full well that they will have complete control over their lives. People who've been in the IT world for any length of time are generally smart enough to avoid the stultifying and humiliating atmosphere of the borg. You can deploy strategies inducing an exodus from the borg until you're blue in the face and still there will be that reserve army of labor coming out of the 2 and 4-year institutions of 'hire' learning from which the borg can assimilate new recruits with little or no effort.