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Could .NET Render An MS Breakup Verdict Irrelevant?
AntiFreeze writes: "The Economist has a very interesting article about Microsoft's plans for .NET and how it would effectively remove most damage caused by a government orderred breakup. The article is written towards the layman, but is very clear and sort of scary." He cites this excerpt from the article, as well: "Even so, it is remarkable how effectively .NET could insulate the firm in the event of its being divided into an operating-system company (which would own Windows) and an applications company (owning Office)."
SOAP ties together Bonobo, CORBA, DCOM, and any other object type you want.
So does TCP. Without information about meaning of the data in XML it's as proprietary as any binary, and DTDs or schemas do nothing to describe how to operate on the data. Also "remote objects" without objects mirroring mechanism and transparent transfer, are only good as a recipe for network congestion -- if you think, X is slow, try to imagine how bad that thing will be.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Installed base rules.
Live by the installed base: die by the installed base.
Sorry- I don't think you're aware of political realities. Neither is Microsoft, for that matter. How many times do people have to say 'FoF cannot be so easily overturned' before it is heard?
Cross platform support to Microsoft means Win[9.|ME] and [nt|2k]. I'd like to say the M$ does not care in the slightest about any other platform but that would be dead wrong. They fear all other platforms and .NET will be yet another weapon that they are designing to lock all other platforms out.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
It has about as much chance of success. Take a good look at Microsofts attempts to do anything different or branch out in new directions. Anything they have tried (msn, windows ce, event nt) have only survived and verly slowly been accepted because Microsoft has the deep pockets to keep trying and pushing and using their existing monopolies to slowly force their products into the main stream. Sure .NET will probably be accepted but it's going to take them 5-10 years to force it onto most peoples computers. Microsoft is the IBM of the new decade they are more strongly shackled by their legacy software than any company has ever been, it will not be easy for them to make any changes, and they may just find that once they get people to move off the windows platform, those people may decide that it is time to find a better solution altogether.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
I can only say, if MS is always successful at what they put their minds to, then they must have been putting their minds towards creating extremely lousy software designed with the single purpose of pissing me off.
Yes, sometimes they do attract bright people... but they appear to not really do anything with them. They have the guy who made the Newton, but they have yet to make anything like the Newton. They're too constricted by their own concepts of backwards compatibility to really innovate.
(currently testing something about signatures here)
The following is one of their sample C++ applications:
OK, there was going to be a bastard-variant-of-C++ code excerpt here, but... (Dammit Taco, the lameness filter sucks...)
Anyway, the example I linked to above uses three proprietary extensions that Microsoft has introduced to the C++ language.
Programmers can now directly include .NET DLL's into their program. (God forbid they have to run some external tool that generates a C++ header file from an DLL or IDL description and then include that, I mean, think of all the extra typing they would have to do...)
So you want to declare a .NET managed (created and garbage collected by the runtime) class. As everyone knows, you have to introduce a new keyword to do this. There is absolutely no way you can make this class be derived from the NetManagedObject base class, that would (once again) require way too much typing if you were to require that the developers do it that way...
Once again, a new keyword was absolutely necessary to allow developers to declare properties in their classes. An external file that says that StringComponent::get_Count() is the get method for a read-only property called Count would be an incredible burden on the developers. (As would a /* %NET property Count(get_Count,NULL)% */ comment next the the declaration of get_Count(), and then running the source file through a preprocessor..)
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The Hotmail addres is my decoy account. I read it approximately once per year.
Software AG ported DCOM to Linux and, IIRC, several other Unixen some years ago. I haven't heard anything else about this, so I don't think it took off (why use DCOM when you can use CORBA?).
DCOM wasn't that hard for them to port, however not much would actually work using it because many COM interfaces use Windows APIs internally to do graphics or networking or whatever. So, yes, DCOM runs on other platforms, but it is basically useless because almost none of the COM components run on other platforms or ever will be able to run on other platforms without some one porting the entire Win32 API to those platforms. (Which is what Wine is doing, but it isn't finished yet...)
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The Hotmail addres is my decoy account. I read it approximately once per year.
No, 19.
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Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Scanning through Gregory Pomerantzs' paper just makes me wonder why 'we', the general computer using population, would need .NET.
It sounds to me like .NET is an MS 'replacement' of the Internet.
What I mean is that currently what we call the net is made up of many things, and MS is looking to replace them all.
Hence .NET is about languages, scripting, search engines, protocols, services, customer data, servers, clients etc. Hence .NET is really MS replacing all net related technologies with .NET versions.
So my question is, if .NET is mostly a huge technology swap (net for .NET), and only marginally a functionality provision (unless you call digital copy prevention a function 'enhancement'), why do we need it? Why would we want it? Is the net really in need of a retooling for the sake of rebranding?
Is MS so peeved that the net was built on *nix that they want to rebuild it on MS tech??
Are you complaining because you're a Luddite or because you merely dislike Microsoft? You're picking out a great evil from a business plan. Most business plans include in them somewhere "we WILL take over the world or at least our market niche for the sake of our shareholders". Who cares if Microsoft buys broadband and owns rights to the Xbox, you don't have to buy the fucking thing if you don't want it. Many of your assumptions are pretty bad ones anyways. According to the market statistics, most people who will buy one already have PCs and a good portion of those have DVD players. You're also misconstruing the whole .NET initiative. It is a label for a set of technologies most of which are merely standards for sharing information. Labeling .NET as bad and evil because it has a Microsoft logo is stupid. Sun has a similar set-up, they've got a whole suite of tools that lets Java apps communicate objects back and forth and runtimes that run Java apps anywhere. Oh my gosh I must be kidding! How the fuck do you think PepsiCo gets those quaint little commercials to show up in front of you anyways? TV stations are using your patronage to make money; will the capitalism never cease?
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
There's a dozen states involved here, so the federal government can only drop THEIR part of the suit. The states still individually have the ability to keep it going...
---------------------------------------------
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
If XML is being produced according to standard by a program, why is testing it for correctness needed?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
WOW!
I've occaisionally seen posts I'd love to give all 5 moderation points at once, but this one is also worth clipping and saving!, too.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Obviously, XML is more than just a comma-separated list. It also includes additional redundancies to make it even harder for humans to read under the guise of being able to verify correctness of data generated by another program. XML is a waste!
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
If they weren't using it, I'd call XML as irrelevant and pointless. Since they are using it, I call it a waste. The only reason they are using it is because it is the format du jour. Since a lot of development has gone on around XML, as opposed to anything better, it's not their fault they have to choose something that's a waste.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
An unreadable replacement for XML? That would be just like ... XML
HDF is hierarchical and has syntax. But it doesn't have the redundancy of XML since it doesn't give the same item name again to close it (just a closing brace). It's more readable by humans than XML. It can be parsed faster by computers than XML. It can be typed in by humans in a shorter time (should a human ever need to, which should be rare for either).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Well, genius, all programming languages have exactly the same power; they are all Turing-complete.
C# has some nice syntactic sugar, actually. I don't know if it offers enough of a difference from Java to make it worthwhile to switch for non-Win32 programmers, but we'll see. Win32 C++ programmers will probably jump on the C# bandwagon relatively quickly.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
I'm glad you realized that.
Have you considered a TWR.com where we could all benefit from your genius? Oh wait, that was last year. never mind.
Well, I'm hoping that my acolytes, such as yourself, will fund such a site as a tribute to me. You can also sit in airports, tell people about my genius, sell flowers and turn over the proceeds to me.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
What is .NET exactly (in laymans terms heh)? Is it limited to Microsofts Office style applications?
Windows 95 = 4.00.950, 4.00.950a
Windows 95 OSR2 = 4.00.950 B (4.00.1111, 4.00.1212), 4.00.950 C (4.00.1214)
Windows 98 = 4.10.1998
Windows 98 SE = 4.10.2222
Windows ME = 4.90.3000
* don't ask why the Windows 95 OSR2 releases have two version numbers (one in Control Panel|System, one in ver on the command line). I think there was a 1212b release too, but who cares. I'm rambling.
Windows NT 4 = NT 4.00.1381
Windows 2000 = NT 5.00.2195
Hands in my pocket
Do you think with .NET coming up that more and more people would be telecommuting? If so, i won't have to drive through snow to get to my QA work!
Which they couldn't do if they wren't broken up without very obviously being an anti-competitive cartel. The Economist article is just plain wrong: breaking up Microsoft cripples its `Embrace and Extend' strategy, with or without .NET.
byte-code like language), C# and some other technologies are being
submitted to the ECMA standards organization (Note: This is more than
Sun ever did with Java).
The submission of c# to a standards body is old news: I hadn't
heard about MSIL. Which are the other technologies? Any APIs?
While you're at it, why don't you dispense with the ad-hominem attacks and answer the question?
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Obfuscated e-mail addresses won't stop sadistic 12-year-old ACs.
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
Me?
Look back at the poster's name. And consider thinking for more than 5 seconds when you type a comment.
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Obfuscated e-mail addresses won't stop sadistic 12-year-old ACs.
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
The aim of justice is not merely to be corrective (i.e. stop MS from doing any further damage). Indeed, that would mean that they can get off scott-free with what they already did to the economy, to their competitors and to the consumer. Letting them off this way would send the wrong message to future, would-be monopolists: "it's ok to do predatory trade practices, until the anti-trust division wakes up. And when they finally wake up, you only have to stop doing further harm, you won't be made accountable for what you will already have done". This is not the goal of justice. Justice should also be a deterrent. Microsoft is neither the first monopolist nor probably the last. In this case we must think as much about what signals we send to future would-be monopolists than about merely "corrective" action.
Say no to software patents.
MS has always bet on the future and made smart moves to be in the right place at the right time. I think however, this time they are shooting themselves in the foot.
.NET the new "standard" platform to write software for they are going to kill themselves. Here is why:
.NET is just an updated set of dictated rules to programmers. No programmer is going to wilfully move to a new platform that has no market share, just so they can be dictated in how to write their software. Even so, Sun is way ahead with Java and net based applications, with the promise of openning it [java] to the world, something MS has never said they would do with .NET
IF they try to make
-Everyone is tired of programming for them, and
-Companies will NOT pay for subscription based applications. There is no way that if most of the world would not pay to upgrade to Office 97, that they are going to decide that monthly charges are better. I know accountants, they will NEVER buy into this idea.
-.NET based apps (services) will be totally dependent on your connection to the network (internet). You think your company is effected now when you can't get email or surf the web? Imagine all the sales, accounting, etc, depts. sitting around without any apps because the DSL/FRAME/etc is down.
So what does this all mean...
Open source software will still be based on applications, on computers. The software will continue to get better and will become the only software availble that is not a "service"
Someone will right a replacement for X windows, throwing away all the compatibilty of past Unix to make a new PC platform. In fact if Apple were smart (and they are not) they would open Mac OS X to PC hardware and watch the world move to them, as open source software will run freely on it, as well as commercial apps.
IHMO, this is the future...
Microsoft just jumped off a cliff.
VANBO
Microsoft was a very very very late player in the net software. In fact it almost sunk them in late 80s/early 90s. Gates originaly thought the WWW was an interesting side technology. It took a bunch from NCSA making truck loads of money to change his tune. I hate to sound trite but Microsoft's past actions don't sound very enlightened.
You are correct: Pushing repackaged technology every few years is super expensive for consumers and people might have to stopped buying at the outragous rate Microsoft wants them too. Why upgrade to Windows ME when my Win98 works great? Why upgrade to Office 2K when Office 97 works great except that it doesn't open Office 2K files? Why write new code for a platform that is only supported on one hardware configuration which could be accomplished by other cheaper and more flexible hardware and software?
The adage goes, "the net sees censorship as damage, and routes around it." Is this Microsoft's scheme to route around it? The .net project was started when the courts told Microsoft to quit messing with someone else's standards on JVMs.
Microsoft's putting C# in front of standards committees strikes me to be similar to their attempt to standardize NT. It's not Microsoft who made NT/Alpha and NT/MIPS fail, it's the Alpha and Mips people who licensed, ported, and gave up on those platforms. At least, that's how Microsoft sees it.
Similarly, if Linux makes a half-hearted implementation of .NET or C#, and it doesn't take off, it's still not Microsoft's fault: they can focus on the Wintel hegemony in comfort.
[
If that was the case they'd document their extensions and try to get as many third parties as possible to use their extensions.
Generally they modify and extend without documenting, or in a way that is not "better" but incompatible. An extended set of options is always nice, but trying to cause a rift between standard Kerberos and Win2k Kerberos, there's just no excuse.
You can innovate and still play nice with standards, or at least try to make your innovations into standards.
How many of you seriously think the Micro$oft suit will continue past Shrub's inauguration? The Justice Department, under the corporatist John Ashcroft's direction, will most likely quietly drop the case. Some states may choose to continue their cases, but any breakup remedy will be dead in the water.
If ever there were a case for a corporate death penalty, this is it. We all know they've murdered enough innocent technologies and companies...
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
.NET is the name for Microsoft's next range of projects. First there was '95, then '98, then 2000, and now .NET:
Visual Studio 7 = Visual Studio.NET
Windows 7 = Windows.NET
Office 11 = Office.NET
etc, etc..
I don't know enough about the law to really comment on this, but if the federal lawsuit is killed by either the court of appeals or the supreme court (which after their election ruling would be unsurprising; unfortunately the court seems to have become totally politicized), the states' chances would probably be weakened.
This is a different issue. If the courts destroy the case it is no longer an issue of Bush affecting it.
But still, the states will press onward. Bush's best bet if he wants the case dropped is to do a poor job in court (it will be tough to do worse than Microsoft though based on the first trial), and try to lose or convince the states to back off.
In all likelihood he will let the case run its course, since he doesn't have a strong hand in guiding it anyway.
Render a MS-Breakup irrelevant? Is there anybody out there who thinks that the prosecution of MS is going to continue under Bush?
It is really simple.
Orrin Hatch (R) is head of the Senate Judiciary committee. Caldera is from his home state of Utah, and they just won a lawsuit about DrDOS, and view themselves as competitors in software with Microsoft. Orrin Hatch is one of the most outspoken persons in the nation against Microsoft as a monopolist.
Now, what are the odds that a Senate Judiciary Committee can block ANY appointment Bush tries to make if it is 50% Democrat and the Chairman takes an anti-Bush stance because of his actions against Microsoft ??
Also, the other party in the antitrust action is the states, and they will continue anyway. Really, Bush has nothing to do with it. Microsoft is going to have to fight their own fight in court.
No, the point was deeper than that.
First, Bush would risk looking like a complete idiot. The justice department scored a resounding victory. How does it look if he stops the prosecution when he is three touchdowns ahead at halftime ?? He looks the fool.
Second, there is the Orrin Hatch factor. Don't forget the judiciary committee's power in judicial appointments. Jesse Helms has blocked appointments of black justices on racial grounds over and over again, not to be overridden during Clinton's tenure. It is a farce. Bush cannot risk losing a Republican on the Judicary Committee, especially the chair. Come to think of it, Bush cannot risk losing any Senate Republicans for two years (until the Democrats take over).
Third, even if Ashcroft (another racist, BTW) offers a deal after the appeal, the states do not have to agree. The federal government has only the power of suggestion to the state's attorney generals, and many of them are pursuing the case as is their duty - to win, and to win as big as possible, and then to consider whatever punishment/settlement is in the public's (and in this case the consumer's) best interests.
For all these reasons the case will ride unperturbed through the appeal. At that point expect Ashcroft to try to soften the settlement. In doing so he HAS to keep the states on board, so he cannot go too far.
Bush as President means almost nothing to the Microsoft case.
While the author makes a good point about MS's .NET strategy, he seems to be so caught up with the idea that ".NET becomes the center of Microsoft" and this is not the case. .NET is the way that Microsoft wants user to deploy so that people will buy WIndows. From the lack of Microsoft Office 2000 upgrade to disappointing rate of adoption of Windows 2000, I think it's clear that people think they don't need all that stuff and now Microsoft wants people to buy Windows again. And I think the author hints that Microsoft doesn't tie itself to Windows. I think he's plain WRONG in that regard: Microsoft==Windows. Period. Listen to what Steve Ballmer, BG, and other people at MS said and believe in what they said. The last thing Microsoft will do is writing a Linux version of .NET Visual Studio. Furthermore, the author really doesn't understand why Microsoft needs to develop .NET: It's a way of making money. All they want is to use the subscription services and selling of powerful W2k data center edition to generate new revenue. And .NET provides the incentives. .NET is basically Visual Basic for Internet. So you can build highly intereactive and communicate with clients easily without writing Winsock, or DCOM that drive people nuts. But really the question becomes will .NET services talk a common protocol. My answer is a definite no because .NET drives revenue for Win2K, and Win2K is the bread and butter of M$. If Joe and Jane can run a .NET services on a linux box, then BillG is helping everyone making money but himself. Really the point for .NET is to provides services that only "Windows" server can provide so Microsoft can again lock everyone in their wonderful M$ land. .NET's stuff might be open-standard, but M$ can treak their services to make it non-openstandard. There's nothing stop them from doing that. Finally, the author seems so ignorant about Microsoft's direction. He thinks that legal battle accerlate Microsoft's determination to develop the .NET platform and this is just WRONG. Microsoft develops .NET platform because of the lack of developer commit to M$ tools and the declining revenue. Nowadays you are lucky to make half of what a java programmer makes if you are writing Visual Basic (I am a Java programmer ;-) the deal is that Microsoft understands if their platform is not the platform for Internet, like Solaris or Linux, then basically people really won't care about what kind of friggin ActiveX control you are making. Again, declining revenue comes from the fact that no serious web site runs on Win2k platform (our company tried and nothing but shit happens, we switched back to Sun in 3 days after spending millions of dollars in writing a bunch of useless DCOM services). And Microsoft needs to whip something out so that people will use easy ways to create Internet App.
This is my 2 cents and my latest IE 5.5 128-bit browser is going to crash in a minute. FYI I am running Win2k and I got so many problems it's just scary.
He has very cogent definitions in his findings of fact of OS, middleware, and application.
.net infrastructure AND the applications software.
I can't imagien him lettign one peice walk away with ownership of both the
As long as the infrastructure group is forced to deal with other development groups in exactly the same way that they must deal with the ex-MS applciatiosn groups, the split up will have doen its job by fully opening up the platform in an equal way to other developers.
Yet another thing to consider - since Microsoft is providing the software over a digital link for a subscription of whatever kind (which means you REALLY don't own your software anymore), what does that let them do? Especially in light of the DMCA and the (now seemingly mostly dead) UCITA. At the very least, it gives them most of the powers they were pushing for in the UCITA with little or no overhead.
-RickHunter
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
There are many things you can call Microsoft: cocky, criminal, ruthless. But there are a few things Microsoft isn't: They're not stupid, and they're not a company that's going to release products that aren't attractive to conusumers. Yes, there will be Microsoft Bobs, but the fact is MS got where they are by offering people what they want, not by shoving things down people's throats.
Not that they haven't tried. They tried to shove IE and WindowsMedia down people's throats, but they didn't catch on until they were truly better than their competitors. Look at AOL IM, Quicken, and Apache. It's not like Microsoft isn't trying to compete with these pieces of software, and they still have their big ol' operating system to tie things to. But they're not gaining ground because their software can't really compete.
So accuse Microsoft of breaking the law, but Microsoft knows people won't buy something they don't want--they know that *very* well.
-Erik
I've heard statements like this quite frequently (Bush will stop the MS trial), but I haven't heard any reason why. I'm not saying that he will leave it alone, but I haven't heard anything to say that he will do anything one way or another. Has he or his campaign spoken out against the trial? Are his appointees "pro-Microsoft" or "anti-antitrust?"
I dunno really, and I don't want to turn this into a political thing, I just haven't heard anything about this.
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There is a long-term harm to customers, both in higher costs associated with using products with poor interoperatibility (conformance with open standards). Consider the sorry state of affairs that web page authors must deal with, as one small example.
Because MS is in a monopoly position, there is also a clear harm to consumers when intentional interoperability crosses the line into anti-competitive practice. They have been found guilty, you know. The FTC and DoJ overlook much and usually just warn (witness the recent "just don't do it again" to the RIAA over nearly 10 years of price fixing). If the findings of fact in this case don't spell out the harm to you, probably nothing will.
If you can't see the harm that MS has done, you certainly haven't looked... or perhaps you have a value system, saddly, which leads you to believe that nearly any behaviour is acceptable in persuit of the almighty dollar.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
That's probably the case.
If they in fact has a massive stockpile of cash as a result of monopoly overcharging (windows/office price remaining fixed when everything else about a new PC because 1/5th the price), morally, it's similar to having stolen property. The ill-gotten money should be returned and they should be prevented from doing it again. The other extreme should certainly be prevented.... allowing them to leverage their very strong position and massive cahce of cash to overtake other industrties and extract even more monopoly power and excessing monopoly overcharges.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
The problem is I don't think Orrin Hatch would oppose judicial appointments (such as Ashcroft) simply because they're pro-Microsoft; he has substantial clout in the Republican party, and I don't think he'd risk it in a fight like that, especially considering there are a fair number of Democrats who seem to support MS. On the other hand, I doubt Bush would end the prosecution, but he'd definitely have them ease up on it I think.
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How does it look if he stops the prosecution when he is three touchdowns ahead at halftime ?? He looks the fool.
The question is just how far to the right the Bush administration will go. The Reagan administration was sufficiently reactionary that they didn't even seem to care how their actions looked.
Second, there is the Orrin Hatch factor. Don't forget the judiciary committee's power in judicial appointments. Jesse Helms has blocked appointments of black justices on racial grounds over and over again, not to be overridden during Clinton's tenure. It is a farce.
Normally I would agree, but the new power sharing rules they've worked out might mean an end to this; tie votes in committee now apparently bring the matter to the Senate floor, so it should be much harder to block. Which in a lot of ways is a good thing, especially in the case of Helms, who (in addition to the blocking of judicial/diplomatic appointments) has been allowed to set U.S. foreign policy this way.
Third, even if Ashcroft (another racist, BTW) offers a deal after the appeal, the states do not have to agree. The federal government has only the power of suggestion to the state's attorney generals, and many of them are pursuing the case as is their duty - to win, and to win as big as possible, and then to consider whatever punishment/settlement is in the public's (and in this case the consumer's) best interests.
I don't know enough about the law to really comment on this, but if the federal lawsuit is killed by either the court of appeals or the supreme court (which after their election ruling would be unsurprising; unfortunately the court seems to have become totally politicized), the states' chances would probably be weakened. Bush cannot risk losing a Republican on the Judicary Committee, especially the chair. Come to think of it, Bush cannot risk losing any Senate Republicans for two years
On the other hand, Hatch can't risk losing influence in the new administration, so I don't know how far his loyalty to Caldera will stretch...
(until the Democrats take over).
Amen.
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It should be noted that K5 is mostly a discussion site. Slashdot & K5 are not in direct competition with each other, and I browse both sites regularly. Those who just want the news (and additional facts that are usually supplied by the readers) should go to Slashdot.
Whether the discussions on K5 are of any value, everyone must decide for themselves. They are certainly not for close-minded people.
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Readmond, WA, 02.02.02;Microsoft CEO Bill Gates has announced to the World that his firm has won their suit heard by the World Trade Organization & World Intellectual Property Organization to trademark and copywrite the term ".NET". This recent move by Microsoft would see the Redmonton giant gain control of over 12312312 domain names presently on the internet.
.COM -- after all we did put the 'dot' in the 'dot' COM you know - what the @#*&@*# do you think that meant biatch? Move aside asshole, that shits is ours!" added giddy Mr. McNally.
"We are clearly the rightfull owners of the ".NET" trademark -- all current users of the ".NET" TLD are obviously infringing on our rightfull property." said Mr. Gates in a recent interview. "At Microsoft, our IP is our most valuable asset. This is the reason we have seen a shift from sales revenue to licenses occur so dramatically in the last few years. No longer will our company sell products, we now find our innovative ".NET" infrastructure to be much more suited to the 'service' type model." he continued.
Free Software advocates, the communist, anarchistsic, anti-American users of the GNU/Linux software were heard speaking various grumbles at one of their recent Cult-Gatherings; known as "LUGS". Some of the self proclaimed "Hackers" (Ed. A hacker is someone who uses his mastery of computer skills to devestate American infrastructure.) interviewed for comment.
"You cant trademark a TLD -- their are 123123123 sites displaying prior art. This is absurd." said one Hacker. "VV1N|>0WW$ suX0R$ d00d - |_1NuX i$ 31337" added another Hacker. (Ed. We are not sure what drugs these cultists take -- we only hope that man finds help.)
The legal world made comment at the decision. Law Professor from a local University added "This is not necessarily a precendent. It is the first of its kind in the Auto-Matic Tabulating (Computer Ed.) industry. We find it interesting that they have succesfully made a trademark of commonly used terms and general language. It is not surprising though; the recent victories by McDonalds to tradmark the word "Food" and "Meal" and Ford Motor Company to trademark the word "Car" and "Travel" show the direction of IP law. It is an exciting prospect for my profession - it will surely gaurantee great amounts of spending as industry leaders claim their rightfull IP. As none of these terms were previously Trademarked there is no reason they should not be, belonging to the 'Public Domain' is a death sentance because this 'Public' does not have any lawyers.. maybe they should hire some. Id be willing to represent their 'best interests' also for the proper fee."
In related news; Sun Microsystems sent shockwaves through the internet as they filed there own suit to claim ".COM" as their Intellectual Property. "We obviously own
.. put every MSFT employee under house arrest, and block Internet access. That would really put these evil devils in their place!
Java is the blue pill
Choose the red pill
Where in my post does it say anything about people "flocking to open source stuff"? Now given, I'm a Linux user, and I think that Linux rocks, but that doesn't meant people will go running to Linux to save them. Same goes for Apple, FreeBSD, and anything else you want to throw in. The point is not that people will go running to a certain area, the point is that people will have to find something else to use when (and if) MS shoots itself in the foot with this strategy. What they'll find, however, I won't venture to say...
CAP THAT KARMA!
Moderators: -1, nested, oldest first!
SIG: HUP
Now, I'll most certainly agree with your second paragraph. People, sadly enough, need Windows - it will become hard to move away from and take much time so it might as well stay because it suits the purpose it fills. It'd be much better to let MS continue as-is, but have to come up with their own future ideas. They'll phase themselves out that way without the catastrophe associated with a split.
CAP THAT KARMA!
Moderators: -1, nested, oldest first!
SIG: HUP
Finally someone that sees through all the Slashdot bullsh*t, and tells it like it is.
Kudos...
I agree that any attempt to talk maturely regarding any issue about Microsoft vs. Linux turns into an immature "My OS is better than your OS" junior high school bashfest.
I like and use both Linux(Slackware) and Windows(2000 Pro). Both have their uses, and it makes no sense to me to be that narrowminded to advocate something so blindly without actually having an honest opinion based on real world experience.
I am a programmer by trade, and I choose to use Microsoft technologies purely for the fact that I get more done in less code, and less time. And the performance is comparable. I don't expect anyone to agree with me...
This is MY opinion... NOT YOURS!!!
puh-LEASE yourself, Mr. Devil's advocate. Having a different opinion from the majority of slashdot folks doesn't make you erudite.
:|
If you have to ask why people are afraid of Microsoft, you simply haven't been paying attention. MS would attract about the same level of animosity as Apple, except for one thing: when Microsoft sets its sights on a market, there's a strong chance that they'll try to destroy everything else in it. Consumer choice goes down. Choice about what we get to use to do our jobs disappears. This isn't alarmism -- this was the world that I worked in for a couple of years.
I'm really happy to say that Microsoft products and technology hardly matter at all to me right now. I work with technologies of MY choice right now, and the people I work for actually listen to me instead of MS marketeering. This is largely because I work in the Web App development world and I choose employers who don't list Visual Basic as a required skill.
But I have no illusions about Microsoft being in their death throes -- the amount of market power they have is incredible, and the amount of money they can just throw at things is equally incredible, and they've demonstrated they're not shy about using it to stomp out alternatives. So when I see them trying to "embrace and extend" the internet, I'm a little afraid, yes. And you think we're overreacting?
Cut the crap, already. You know that both yourselves and the majority of your readers are scrappy Linux-hacker wannabes. Why not post stories about things they can have intellgent discussions? Here are a few suggesstions:
* "Ask Slashdot: What is the l337est GNOME skin?"
* "Interview: A Non-virgin"
* "The coolest TI-83 games to play during English class"
* "Science: Stealth masturbation"
* "BSD: Not as l337 as LUN1X!!"
* "Book review: O'Reilly's Acne Prevention in a Nutshell"
Oh, boy, NOW you've really raised the level of dialogue on slashdot. Good work.
--
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
It's a refreshing feeling knowing that I can do a search of my hard disk and know that the string "Microsoft" will not appear in any of my files. It's also a refreshing feeling knowing that Microsoft can huff and puff all they want about .NET or Win2K but it has no relevance to my life or chance of ever showing up on a machine I own.
'Subscribe to Office.NET? No thanks, no need for the stuff.'
Microsoft -- Just Say No.
________________
________________
Private Essayist
Of course, you as a vendor, you will want to add additional functionality that you think will differentiate you from your competitors and increase sales. People here seem to forget that it is business that drive technology, not vice-versa. As a public traded company, they have the fudicial responsibility to generate returns on shareholders investment. Modifying standards and adding their own extensions is one way of doing it. As long as they don't go and rewrite the standards, I don't see any harm in it.
Why have so many distros of Linux. Why can't all the distro companies come together and work towards 1 standard way of distributing Linux?
People, there is a choice. You don't want to use Windows, install Linux/BSD/SolarisX86. Use apache. Use XPCOM. Use CORBA. Use LaTeX/StarOffice. Use Netscape instead of IE. Make your choice and stop bashing Microsoft.
--
Can we imagine Oracle without Ellison? How about Sun without McNealy? But is there really a Microsoft without Gates and Ballmer?
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Microsofts idea of cross platform is win9x/win2k/NT/ME... so they arent lying.. its just marketing..
Attempt to access an instance method via a Java reference which has not been initialized (or for C++ programmers, a pointer which has not been allocated memory). The result is a run-time NullPointerException. The "Java has not pointers" complaint is bunk. Usually what is meant is, "Java doesn't let me access memory direclty", which in a garbage-collected environment such as Java's, is an exceedingly stupid thing to do. So bitch about garbage collection, but not about pointers.
The unpleasant side effect is that programmers whose first language is Java never learn proper memory management, and when they start working on large projects, write leaky code (it's harder in Java, but is possible) because of a fundamental misunderstanding about how Java works. I disagree with Java being used as a teaching language because of this. I feel it should be seen more as a "power tool" for those of us who know what we're doing but work in rapid-development environments where C++ work really is too slow. It's a happy coincidence that Java is especially well-suited for server-side WWW work, which is often extremely rapidly developed.
I am upset with Sun for not supporting a Java standard, but if you do any WWW work on UNIX, you know that the industry Java infrastructure is pervasive. C# will not change this, and I predict it will remain a language used by Microsofties. Why? Well, even though IBM competes with Sun in the high-end UNIX server market, they would be more likely to support Java than C#, because C# is being seen as a .NET language, and AIX of course will not support .NET as well as NT. Sun (obviously), IBM, HP, Oracle, and countless other industry giants have a lot invested in Java, and aren't going to switch to a new C++-Lite language just because Redmond says so.
All of you ranting about how much Java "sucks" should open your eyes. Java has become the language for enterprise-level UNIX Internet work, because of its excellent design, enhanced programmer productivity, portability, countless "real world" features, et cetera. Anyone doubting Java's power obviously knows nothing about is RMI, database interfaces, or networking API. You may think that Java "sucks" because Java applets are slow and crash your crappy Netscape browser, but for the e-commerce backends on our RS/6000 farms, nothing else is really an option.
While I do yearn for a standardized Java, I understand that Sun's complete control is what has allowed Java to evolve so quickly. Standardization, sadly, stagnates language development, and Java is not yet mature enough to be hinered so.
Two more points about standardization, then I'm done... first, look at how long it took C and C++ to obtain ISO standards; Java is still very young... secondly, is there a Perl ISO standard? How come I never hear Perl usage discouraged because its controlled soley by Larry Wall?
Perhaps I'm posting out of character. Er, I agree, C# rocks.
See you in hell,
Bill Fuckin' Gates®.
See you in hell,
Bill Fuckin' Gates®.
(This post is ©2001 Microsoft(TM) Corporation.)
Well, the problem is that as of right now nobody is sure of how Microsoft is going to make this move. It is clear that Microsoft plans to get into the 'ASP' application business in a big way, and that they are also creating a set of standards for others to get into this space along-side them, but its not clear what their exact plans for, say, Office .Net are and what kind of upgrade path their might be, etc, etc.
Its not just Microsoft who is salivating at this subscription-based software model, just about every other big software company is chomping at the bit for this as well...And most industry analysts (for whatever their opinion is worth...) agree that this will be the model for software in the future...
It will be interesting to see how it all plays out, especially in light of other subscription-type service plays (like DIVX -- the DVD-based format, not the MPEG4 beta codec) which consumers totally rejected.
With .NET, what Microsoft means is that their MSIL (their Java byte-code like language), C# and some other technologies are being submitted to the ECMA standards organization (Note: This is more than Sun ever did with Java).
It is very unlikely that Microsoft will release a Linux version of the .Net platform in the future..But, since it will be standardized, nothing is stopping another company or Open Source developers from doing it.
Oh, this is cute. Show me anything that doesn't have some kind of predecessors that old.
Bush needs to woo tech people (who can be gullible) by _talking_ big, but there is no chance he is going to blow vital political capital interceding for Microsoft. It's ridiculous to expect that- he stands to benefit more by interceding for AOL/Time Warner, or Texas oil billionaires etc. Interceding for Microsoft would be political suicide.
He can, and will, _talk_ all he likes- expect to see the word 'tragic'. "This tragic and senseless destruction of America's great technological resource." Here's the deal: Microsoft is worth more to Bush dead than alive. If they are seriously damaged by the court's actions started _before_ Bush was 'running the show' (note: riiiight. Dubya? Figurehead), then it is a very effective example. It's a way to marshal public opinion and soften them up for _other_ big-business friendly moves, and it's a way to put a big scare into the businesses and make them willing to bribe Bush's government hugely so they don't suffer the same fate. Win/win situation for the Bush camp. No-brainer.
In fact it could be tougher for MS with Bush than if Gore had won. Ever heard the saying, "Only Nixon could go to China"? Only Gore could intercede for MS without _seriously_ blowing political capital in the process. Bush just has way too much to gain from making sure Microsoft ends up being the bad example of what happens when those commie socialist antitrust weenies get their way. Watch for the backstab. Bush will say many things supportive of Microsoft, but watch for the backstab. He'll quietly make sure Microsoft go _down_. They're worth more dead.
Render a MS-Breakup irrelevant? Is there anybody out there who thinks that the prosecution of MS is going to continue under Bush?
Of course they're hedging their bets, but as of inauguration day, I doubt they have much to worry about.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
It's like Java - when you critize Java, what are you critizing? The bytecode? The language? The virtual machine?
.NET is basically the sequel to Win32).
.NET name.
.NET is a lot of things. It's a bytecode interpreter as well, and a a language, and a class library, and a bunch of other stuff. It's a replacement for Win32 (Microsoft makes that statement in one of their MSDN articles - that
It's not about renting software online - it makes renting software easier, but hey so does Java. I wish they'd given each piece a name and not chosen to wrap the whole bundle with the
DirectX is an example of where a bunch of technologies are living under one name fairly happily... but ActiveX is another Microsoft example of a name that, well, nobody really knows what it means (COM? OCX? OLE? JavaScript? They're all part of ActiveX).
- Steve
The article seems to focus and dwindle on summing up whats been happening in a more digestable format. I would have liked to see more about how Microsoft will convert shrink-wrap into on-tap delivery and how, since it controls the tap, buisness could be crippled if Microsoft decides that they should be (rasing the level of entry bar).
;)
What I don't like is the attitude of Microsoft of embracing and extending the _standard_ internet protocols into their own proprietary formats. This is already happening with IE, Kerbos, and Java and soon they will ensure that the "Internet" only works with Windows clients.
I think it is a good summation about what the current situation is but I would like a bit more of an editorial from this person. Especially with that hint at the end about it helping projects like Linux (how? why? etc).
Oh well.
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
> But it's getting more and more difficult to come here expecting anything intelligent, when there are so many more mature, interesting webboards out there
IMO, Kuro5hin is lame. I keep the K5 Slashbox up, and still read the titles semi-regularly. Most of them are drivel. Now and then an interesting one comes up, but if I decide to drop by I almost always find that the discussion is drivel too.
Sure, there's lots of trolls and clubies on Slashdot. And lots of martyrs like you, who pretend to be a tiny minority with penetrating insight, whereas in fact you're a large plurality who pretty much conform to the caricature you accuse others of.
But if you browse at 1 most of the time, and mentally tune out the remaining drek, you can still actually learn a lot on Slashdot. A lot about technology, and a lot about what's going on in the social world too.
And sometimes you'll hear opinions that you don't agree with, and people will bring you around to their side if you participate in the discussion intelligently.
Forgive my rant; I just get tired of all the self-righteous bashers of Linux and Slashdot. If you don't like an article, don't read it. If you don't like Linux, don't use it. But don't pretend to be a clearsighted sage who rises above the ambient bullshit, when you're just bitching the same bitch that dozens of other morons post in response to every fuckin' article we get here.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
One, MSFT has been tooting the standards horn for a LONG time. It's been at least two years since I heard them use the carefully-constructed, meaningless term "open, standards-based". Open means that you don't unnecessarily constrain data semantics, and standards-based could imply any number of closed standards.
Two, the term "open API's" does not imply that MSFT will not, as is "standard" operating procedure, attempt to gain control of the platform by using secret, undocumented API's in its own code and by "tumbling" wire protocols as frequently as they can get away with (see Samba and Windows NT service packs).
Chirped like a professional marketer who apparently can't look at a system and recognize a "core", unless they're talking about "core products". I'll save the design discussions for another day."High degree of interoperability" is another meaningless statement, at least without context. To a manager type, this might mean that people can use JavaStations to read their email. To a coder type, this might mean that I could write once and run anywhere. To a user type, this could mean that I can send email to virtually anyone. Without defining "high degree" and "interoperability", this says nothing.
Once again, what's more interesting is what's left unsaid. It's almost a certainty that the barriers against duplication or reimplementation of the .NET infrastructure are high (some or all of: patents, trade secrets, cryptography, binding EULA's, obfuscated code). One should not expect to run Office.NET on a free reimplementation of the .NET foundation, even if the intellectual property censors didn't find it first.
"Better experience" is crodocile tears, a standard trick of besieged organizations. Being a besieged organization, MSFT's motives are nowhere near so pristine. The basic idea really is to control ("standardize") distributed IPC and ensure that the largest possible part of that infrastructure is MSFT intellectual property, in order to create a better experience for MSFT shareholders.XML and its predecessors has been around for double-digit years
So, buried in this handwaving is much feeble misdirection that Microsoft is interested in providing anything at all to the computing community besides another epoxy-potted, magnesium-encased "solution" to a problem already solved.
-jhp
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
The end result is probably something like:
- AOL Quality with Microsoft ethics
- MS Quality with MS Ethics
Waitaminute. We have the second one already.The only counter I can imagine to this right now comes out of those occasional rumors of AOL developing their own OS. I am sure everyone is just thrilled by that prospect.
We seem to be walking in a directions where the internet is being divided into large areas of fenced in territory owned by large corporations and other entities, with small time operators getting the left overs.
What makes this all the more believable are little details like this AP news story about mainland China's announcement that they are building their own information superhighway. To quote from the story:
We are walking in the direction of fragmented segmented internet. The glacial slow destruction of the internet as we know it for profit.The .net as proposed by Microsoft is selling this to us. But maybe it is still only one fence on the wild frontier. Or maybe Microsoft is the fence company, selling us the barbed wire.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
There is NO room for reason in how one looks at the Microsoft probelm. WIth that said, I would do what Larry Ellison reccomends. Don't split up Microsoft and instead not allow them to EVER purchase a SINGLE piece of technology, company, patent, software code, from anyone else and force them to develop it in house. Let them have their "right to innovate" and watch them fall on their face.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Is the court's action meant to be a 'corrective action' to even the playing field, or a 'punishment'?
.NET initiative corrects the things the court is pursuing to the point where it nullifies the court's action, haven't they taken the 'corrective action' themselves?
If Microsoft's
Or are we hellbent on 'punishing' Microsoft?
Hay thar.
*disclaimer: I apologise for what was without doubt the crappest attempt of humour ever ventured on /. *
GiraffeSville, a place anyone can call home
Really, all that ".NET" is a marketing campaign for DCOM, with protocol changed from whatever bullshit it used before to SOAP. What basically is yet another RPC. So far all technologies incorporated into .NET except COM and XML, are complete failures - RPC in all of its incarnations is most hated protocol ever, DCOM is a bitch to write for, and ActiveX never took off (except as calling anything that uses COM "ActiveX"). COM wasn't a complete failure because Microsoft was pushing it for more than a decade, and XML is a "technology" in the same way as comma-separated list is a "technology".
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Microsoft likes to bundle mostly unrelated technologies under a single banner in order to "simplify the message."
.NET bytecodes are not tied to any particular hardware so in a few years shrinkwrapped software may not be specific to Intel or Alpha.
.NET framework and the JVM is that .NET is supposed to be multi-language whereas Sun unashamedly promotes Java as the "One True Programming Language." Multi-language applications written for .NET can be a lot more integrated than COM or CORBA. There is a single exception architecture, a well-defined debugging architecture etc.
.NET that points to "a future where people rent rather than buy applications." Obviously applications have been moving to the desktop to the Web for years and .NET has additional features that will allow developers to take that a few steps farther. But the new .NET features are useful in traditional applications also.
The ".NET Framework" is a virtual machine and standard library similar to the JVM.
The primary difference between the
ASP.NET is Microsoft's Web development platform. It has a concept of "web services" which is basically distributed computing re-invented based on Web-ish technologies.
The win32 GUI APIs have been replaced with "Windows Forms".
There isn't really a lot in
"Rent" versus "buy" is basically a marketing and distribution decision. You could do the same thing with Java bytecodes or even Active-X controls.
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The Web is the Ultimate Copy Protection
Even with a proprietary closed-source program, you at least still have the distribution media so you can still reinstall your application if the original publisher stops selling the program.But with a web-based application, the publisher keeps the executable binary, and even with copylefted code, the GPL's source code distribution requirement does not come into play because the binary is never distributed.
This will ultimately lead to disaster for ordinary users as web applications make the move from news, shopping and entertainment to functions that people depend on in their daily lives or businesses.
Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
It is ported to other platforms (Unix, GNU/Linux).
Software AG did it, IIRC.
It's just a multi-megabyte download
I don't know if many people acutally use it... cheers, Rainer
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
There certainly are plusses to .NET -- indeed, I honestly wish it were developed and controlled by an open project or standards body (or a vendor with more of an interest in cross-platform support). It standardizes calling conventions and data types (removing issues such as the binary compatibility problems between G++ 2.95 and 3.0), permits debugging tools to work with support only for the platform in general rather than the specific language (a great thing for those who happen to like coding in Eiffel or something else off the wall but are interested in using our other debugging tools). And no, it doesn't require its own language.
.net has a future of some sort. Whether it becomes the new win32 API that everyone else is incompatible with (except for via some rather dodgy ports/reimplimentations), a competitor for Java bytecode or even universally ubiquitous I don't know, though.
I really think
Howdy. As a software developer (professionally) and sysadmin (on the side) with both win32 and *nix experience, I've got to dispute what you're saying. (Note that my win32 experience is getting increasingly dated; I'd be happy to know if any of my statements are outdated -- for instance, if Windows actually has logical volume management or online filesystem resizing support now).
Command line OSes are harder to learn than GUI-based administrative systems -- I'll agree with you there. The thing is that us Unix folks distinguish between "hard to learn" and "hard to use". If after scaling that steep learning curve we can then get our work done faster -- and we can -- then by our definition Unix is easier to use. Furthermore, because we've mastered all that (hard to learn) control, we can do our jobs better.
The current effort is on getting the best of both worlds by putting together GUI-based administrative tools, so that folks can use whatever they choose. For those of us who've already finished the learning curve thing, though, there's no more need; we're there.
Let me rephrase one of your earlier sentences. MS software is centered around making learning my job easier and saving training time. I'll agree that it does both of those. However, once I'm done with the learning, I can do a better job on a Unix-based system than on Windows. Why? The same reason it's hard to learn -- I've got more control. Can *you* add another hard drive with your machine still running and resize your filesystem online, with all your software still running? As long as my box has hardware and BIOS support (thanks 3ware!), I can. Furthermore, because more of the 'guts' of a Unix system are available for inspection, debugging and postmortem analysis is much easier. Trust me, when you're trying to figure out why your VPN isn't working, it sure helps if you can add a few lines of code to dump the keys on each side out to the syslog for comparison. We also have better filesystems -- ever seen reiserfs and NTFS side-by-side trying to access lots of small files? It's lots of fun.
While a Windows-based system was initially designed to be controlled by an individual at the console clicking with a mouse, *nix-based systems are controlled in manners more condusive to automation. A skilled sysadmin can automate nearly every task he needs to do with greater ease than on Windows (yes, I know automation support is available there, but it sucks -- I've ported perl scripts for Apache user administration to work on IIS; they got a whoole lot more complicated and slower in the meantime).
Finally, the documentation depends on what you're trying to do. Frequently the man pages aren't the best source -- that's why there are info pages, HOWTOs, mailing lists and (of course) the actual code. Having to go to the source sucks, of course (it's happened to me very rarely), but it's better than not having any source to go to at all, no?
"Where is the standardization in their IDE"? Since when were Windows IDEs standardized? As for the windowing API, X is about as much a standard as one can get. The widget sets on top of it are admittedly quite varied, but many of them are much (much!) more fun to code for than either MFC or the win32 API.
Anyhow, if you want to continue ranting, just email me. The address given is real.
The article talks about the possibility of cross-platform support for .NET. Didn't Microsoft also say that DCOM was a cross-platform standard? It was supposed to be ported to other operating systems. I've never seen it running on anything other than Windows.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
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gmp
Now, I am treating the software like something physical (a typewriter), but it's essentially physical anyway (or at least tangible - you've got it or you don't). Tell me, do you want to have to rent a typewriter everytime you want to make a letter? I'm pretty sure your don't. I think that you can figure out the rest from here...
Now here's where the REAL fun begins: Microsoft has to not only convince consumers to use .NET software, but it's got to convince programmers to write .NET software - which has its own programming language.
The article that this story is in reference to also states that Microsoft is planning to use the .NET server software to boost Win 2K sales. The infers that .NET server software will only be made for the Win 2K platform. That leaves some people on the other side of the wall.
Frankly, I can't find any real pluses to this strategy, either for Microsoft or consumers. And despite what the article says about this move helping to preserve Microsoft in the face of a breakup, I doubt it. If the person heading up the application side of the newly broken empire is business-minded, they won't restrict the .NET system to the Windows OS, thus shooting the whole plan to sell the Win 2K OS for .NET server software in the heart. And of course, .NET won't work out for the reason's mentioned above. I guess the question now is what will be the next dominant Desktop OS? Will it be Linux, a BSD, or perhaps Mac OS X? We'll see...
CAP THAT KARMA!
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