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Hailstorm: Open Web Services Controlled by Microsoft
richard writes: "Clay Shirky has an interesting article on Hailstorm on OpenP2P.com. He looks especially at how MS mixes decentralization with strong control of third party development and user data. Think of it as an authentication-centric, rather than hardware-centric system." A very nice analysis, neatly mapping out Microsoft's plans and how they intend to control the system. Well worth the read.
Seems like Microsoft is just begging us to knock that chip off their shoulder... Anyway, here's my favorite quote about Hailstorm so far, from someone who ought to know:
--Anonymous cowards are not sucking up.
As long as you have to use SOAP, you are tied to COM or very COM-like model, so in the end you will have to use COM even if your application's processing model has nothing to do with it. The only platform where people ever bothered to create something large over COM is Windows, so in the end most of things will only work more or less well on Windows, or on some very close "emulation".
But another problem is, SOAP's flaws aren't limited to poor design that it brings with COM -- in itself it's a very limited RPC-ish model that is now tolerated in "web applications" only because most of them are obscenely primitive (yes, including Slashdot posting system). No objects replication between applications. No infrastructure to handle inheritance. No asynchronous transfer of data. So in the end we have a multiplication of two flaws -- and being tied to proprietary platform is merely a cherry on the top of the icing on the top of the cake.
The truth is, the current level of technology isn't high enough to produce an infrastructure to handle network-transparent objects even in half-usable manner. Any attempt to "standardize" them now is just as stupid as if a bunch of people in 17th century managed to get a hold of some pieces of nuclear physics knowledge and tried to make a nuclear power plant by attempting to extract and purify uranium from granite in distilling apparatus in their laboratory, and if anything came out of that, piling the blocks of uranium into a coal mine between rocks and flooding it with water. Sure, one can describe a theory that rocks will slow down neutrons, coal will reflect them back into "reactor", water will get heated and boiled, and steam will be used to power a windmill-like turbine. One can even make a primitive safety system that will dump coal into a mine if reaction will get out of hand, etc. It is however obvious that most likely 17th century laboratory will not produce anything suitable for fission, but if (a very, very big if) by any chance it will, and if they will be presistent to make enough of it, the result would certainly cause not-so-local peasants to develop a very creative folklore that would revolve around some very interesting kinds of witches and demons. And it would be "not-so-local peasants" because local peasants would be evaporated along with "nuclear alchemists".
What brings up a thing that, I think, Microsoft and SOAP/XML/.NET/... "enthusiasts" fail to understand -- the devil is in the details.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Nope. Generation of code in runtime is an unrelated thing, brought under (very wide) .NET umbrella, however regular COM components are supposed to be used in .NET with its interface, and SOAP (and other things included in ".NET") design is specifically made to be tied to COM design. Microsoft can claim that it's a replacement and not extension, however it is merely a play of words. If something will be really replaced, it's DCOM, but DCOM is nothing but an earlier, pretty much unsuccessful, attempt of RPC-ish wrapper to COM.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
But they made the jump from 8 to 16 to 32 relatively easily, and with technically superior competition above them at every step of the way.
They'll make the jump to 64-bit.
Does this mean we're fucked? Hardly, it just means that we actively work to get around them, rather than relying on the architechure change to do it for us.
Biometrics are scary, they make people nervous. No one wants a retial scan to read their email. We just need to make sure that we build and support open components for competing implementations and services. If anything saves us, it'll be that. The open standard almost always wins, because the
Don Negro
Don Negro
Perl 6 will give you the big knob. -- Larry Wall
- because the economics of competition are so powerful.
Don Negro
Don Negro
Perl 6 will give you the big knob. -- Larry Wall
And if Microsoft's "business" was burning down houses and breaking kneecaps for the mob, I suppose that would be all right too.
Microsoft is trying to make the biggest land grab in history with it's .Net program, with the eventual goal of making sure that all transactions flow through them. This doesn't make them evil, but it does mean that it puts them at odds with nearly the rest of the industry, and with computer users in general. If the Hailstorm platform was open it would be a huge benefit to computer users. They would have all of the same benefits as a Microsoft controlled Hailstorm, but the competition would guarantee that the service would be price competitive, and that customer service was timely. With Microsoft controlling Hailstorm you are stuck with the level of service that Microsoft provides, and you will pay the price that Microsoft feels is appropriate.
That's an interesting take. Of course, it doesn't account for the fact that Apache is far and away the leading web server, and that Linux runs on more web servers than anything else. It's hard to blame the infrastructure companies for the success of these critical software components. It also doesn't explain why Microsoft's proprietary service never took off.
The difference between the Internet and the hosts of (sometimes superior) proprietary technologies that it has left in the dust is the open nature of the Internet protocols. Anyone could join in the fun without paying a big fee or signing an NDA, and because of this we have a wide array of interoperable software from which to build solutions and a common set of protocols for getting disparate systems to communicate.
Microsoft and most of the commercial software houses were busy building competing networks chuck full of their own proprietary software. But these proprietary works simply couldn't compete with the Internet. They were more expensive, and were limited to smaller audiences. The Internet lowered the requirements for entry (you needed a web browser), and allowed everyone to communicate. Despite differences in hardware and software and service provider everyone was playing on the same field.
I think of this as directly analagous to the DNS system. Once upon a time, NSI owned the identity information for all top-level domains under .com, .net, .org, .edu, etc. They
were forced to share the registration privileges
over these domains with other registrars in
a competitive framework. Hailstorm type
services need EXACTLY the same approach, where a user's identity could be a token like <xpp:id ref="jonabbey@burrow.org" reg="soap://microsoft.com/user/registry"> to indicate
a user registered at microsoft, where another,
equally valid identity token could be <xpp:id ref="jonabbey@burrow.org" reg="soap://aol.com/registry">.
The question is, who is going to bell the cat, and create the sort of ambitious web services that Microsoft is proposing, except without the Microsoft lock-in? Where is AOL and Sun and IBM on this?
- jon
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Compare and contrast:
"an Internet user without a Passport will not exist within the system, and will not be able to access or use Passport services. Because users pay to participate in the HailStorm system, in practice this means that Microsoft will control a user's identity, leasing it to them for use within HailStorm for a recurring fee."
with
"And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name."
Hmmmmmm. I think the Gates-as-Borg icon needs replacing with Gates-with-666-tattoo icon. Reckon John meant 'the IP number of his name'?
Baz
I don't know if Hailstorm will work. It seems like a longshot to me, but I'm a pauper and Bill Gates has an impressive track record with world domination.
.NET and Hailstorm don't fly, they're screwed. Of course they're so big it would take them decades to waste away. The plan offers vast rewards, potentially, but it has enormous risks, as well.
But this does illustrate one of the big differneces between Linux and MS. MS has a master plan. They're building server software, server farms, development tools, business alliances and strategic partnerships. They have a business plan and a technological plan, and they both seem to fit together. Even though the word is going to come off as a joke after all that's happened, this stuff is innovative, in kind of an Orwellian sense. Especially as a business plan.
They looked at the future and decided it was going to be objects running out in the cloud, talking to each other in complicated ways, and they tried to figure out the best places to build the toll booths.
We don't have a plan. We've yet to come up with a really good business model. We've been making incremental improvements to a 70's operating system. Individuals or small groups have ideas and they make it better in a small way. The result is a lot better than anything they had in the 70's. But it's a gradual process of accumulation. No one comes down from the mountain with the new direction.
The first time I realized that Linux had super powers was when SLS dropped the ball. They were an old distribution. For whatever reason they just stopped doing it. And Slackware stepped up to the plate and took over. If Linux had been commercial, SLS would have killed it in its cradle. But you can't kill Linux. Debian will be moving along long after VA Linux and Red Hat have succomed to financial reality.
MS has a plan. Gates says he's "betting the company" on it. I don't think he's kidding, or that he's wrong. If
This is not a clash between rival technical systems. It's about world views.
I've got to be honest, I love the megalomaniacal scope of MS's plan. They're thinking the way the the guys who built the pyramids thought. Part of me wants to email Bill and say, "God speed, you magnificent bastard!"
But ultimately, I think he's going to fall on his ass.
Why?
The OS monopoly was achieved in an environment when no one understood the dynamics of the business. There's the famous story about Bill trying to sell out to IBM for a relative song, and IBM turning him down. That suggests that neither side knew what MS had.
Translation: the lucky SOB *stumbled* into it. And he was helped along by the fact that no one else understood how big the prize was either, or even that it existed at all.
There's another famous story about Lotus dissing Bill, rudely pointing up the difference in the bottom lines. People didn't understand the dynamics of lock in back then, that the person who controlled the OS had leverage over the application market. These were smart guys, the best and the brightest in the industry.
The article at the top of this thread is first class. People are thinking like chess players when they look at the business now. Which squares on the board do you need to control if you want to win? The word is out, the guard towers are fully manned, and no one is going to be stumbling into anything this time around.
No one is going to create a strategic dependence on MS if they can help it. Especially now, when the XP license server shock waves are about to hit. These guys are lining up their ducks to do the same to thing to their customers that OPEC did to the West in the 70's.
It's going to be an intersting thing to watch, though.
Sand supplies available here.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Have you actually tried this? If you had you'd know that the frog jumps out if the water is too hot. The boiling frog story is an urban legend.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Actually, M$ is writing its own death warrant.
.NET strategy will require that their customers move off of the x86 platform and leave M$ behind.
.NET. And slice M$'s throat while you're at it.
Trust-worthy security is based on biometric authentication. That needs large chunks of processing and 64-bit architectures are barely enough.
M$ exists on x86 (32-bit) platforms ONLY. They are a one-trick OS pony. Unix & Linux are on all larger machines and available at a lower TCO.
Biometric security requirements of M$'s own
God speed
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
If they got greedy and tried to do it all in a year or so, then they would never get agreeement.
In my observation of Microsoft, they have the tendancy to say they've done something before it actually has been done (meaning shipped). They have a wonderful ability to talk about their grand product plans as if they were real products.
The point is that they are greedy, and if they could somehow migrate the world over to a software-as-services infrastructure by Tuesday, they would. But the problem is that when you radically change the model of software sales (not to mention the entire technical infrastructure your company has built over the last 12 years), it takes time.
Which is not to say you shouldn't listen to them. In 1995, Bill Gates stood up and made the public announcement that they were going to integrate IE into the Windows shell and steal the market from Netscape. From then on, MS treated IE as an integrated product when it wasn't, but nobody should have been shocked 3 years later when it finally started to happened.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
The Microsoft developers might be silly enough to hard code the links to their own private UDDI server, but that would be a relatively easy crack to redirect to an open UDDI server.
Um. Wasn't that the whole point of things like the UCITA and DMCA? They'll put "no redirection" in their EULA. Done. Now, of course, that won't stop me from doing it at home, but it will sure as hell stop my company from doing it. Right? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong.
--
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Nobody can deny that MS has some very savvy managers. After cheery picking the high volume desktop applications (despite adobe/PDF, MP3), they are now seeking other high growth markets. The question is will it justify the risks? Plumbing is safe because it is boring plus you need it for every single house plus you don't have the high labor costs of support/maintenance. Copyright (90 year protection) is much better than patent (20 years) and they've already got the distribution channels in place (OEM + Hotmail). The alternative (Enterprise Java Beans) is supported by its competitors but given that destop sales are slowing and MS are pushing C# and consumer toys, it is debateable whether it will enter consumer mainstream (lockout from XBox + control of cable head). In short, with enough control points, MS is in the position of raining on everyone else's parade. LL
M$ is already a reverse plumber of sorts. See, I usually need to do plumbing work to get shit out of my house. M$ keeps trying to pump it in... (Thank the maker that NeverWinter Nights is supposed to have a Linux client. If only I can finish BGII, BGII add on, and Icewind Dale before then (yeah, I know they've been out forever, but I'm a cheap bastard most of the time))
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Wasn't there something about this in revelations. Go re-read it sometime.
War is necrophilia.
There is the old story about how to boil/cook a frog. For the purposes of this story it is important to remem ber that frogs are amphibians. :)
Now, If you just toss a frog straight into a pot of boiling water, this is not going to to anything but upset the frog and make the frog jump out of the pot. BUT, if you put the frog into the pot when tha water is cool, the frog will like it. If you then very gradually raise the temperature of the water the frog will not notice it. You can eventually raise the temperature of the water until it is boiling, and you now have one cooked frog dinner. NOTE, California bullfrogs, weighing in at about 3 or 4 pounds, have enough meat to make a decent meal.
How does this relate? Simple.
The long term strategy of MS is to slowly increment changes in the way things worked so that in the end, everything works they way they want, and they can dictate how it goes together. If they got greedy and tried to do it all in a year or so, then they would never get agreeement. But by implementing it bit and piece, they can continue to carve a large and larger section of the pie for themselves. All they have to do is think longer term than their opponents.
Actually, I am sure they have on a wall someplace their equivalent of a 5 or 10 year plan to conquer the known (software) world, subject to revision and new discoveries, etc. They likely planned killing off Windows about 3 to 5 years ago when it became obvious that the legal suites were beginning to be a real pain. They are not there yet, but they needed an escape plan. Part of the move to taking over the Internet was part of this escape plan, which is why Gates made sure it was the equivalent of a oceanliner coming to a halt and turning on a dime.
How to we handle this?
We need as far reaching an effort and long range vision as they do. A competitive Argument that resonates. Microsofts's sells to the inherently lazy streak in people, even if the PR is twisted. They sell to "we make it easier for you".
... and start saying "What Microsoft is trying to do is cool, but what we can do is *better*."
/. readers regularly complain about these restrictive laws, but are mostly powerless to do anything about them. Money buys votes, so most western democracies are for sale, which is why large crowds protest in Davos and Seattle and any place else. The protests are getting so costly, the world banque is meeting in cyberspace to avoid physical risks.
... the OSS community was already there.
:-) I'd love to get 24/7/365 support services for free, but then I'd be out of a job. :-(
You are missing the point. micro~1.oft has realised they can't compete with OSS on a technical playing field, because the OSS community will eventually win. So M$ is changing the playing field while they still have a monopoly.
The new playing field is using the law (copyrights and patents) to give them exclusive control over who gets to play with their authentication schema. The open source community can come up with a working alternative, but in doing so will become a criminal group, breaking copyright laws and violating patents. M$, and many of the leading IT/computer/software/networking/services companies have realised that playing in a free and open commodity market spreads the profits too thin. So there has been a major push for the last 5-8 years to craft laws to support the new playing field, where free and open competitors are outlawed.
You've no doubt heard of the american UCITA laws, passed in some states, proposed in all the rest. There are initiatives here in Europe to provide the same protections to large companies, but the progress is slower due to socialist leaning countries. Years ago companies who saw the service model and copyright as a potential new area to limit free and open competition created the WIPO, and neatly folded it under the protection of the UN.
a protocol (http) which was just plain better
For the next 5 to 10 years, M$ and a handful of other companies are going to completely dominate all the greatness the OSS community created. The GPL isn't going to stop them, free and open isn't going to stop them either. Many smart people getting paid large salaries have looked at many ways to continue to earn money when there is a free product running your industry. They know, now, how to defeat the advantages of OSS and free and open. That is what the article is about. The best hope for the Next Great Thing lies where it has always lain, in academia and government assisted research. That is why M$ bought MIT and dozens of other universities in the US and Europe, and why they just bought the UK government.
The OSS community creates free software. I agree with RMS, software should be free. But the big and steady money is in services, always has been, always will be(until the trek universe occurs) There are no free alternatives to services. Maybe there should be an Open Services Alliance
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
No shit. I work at a Fortune-100 company that has very stringent rules about leaving department phone lists laying around for the maintainance people to see, because the recruiting wolves will snap 'em up from afar. Apparently, a full company phonebook will go for at least $100 each, and a manager was caught trying to smuggle out a large box of them.
Given this level of attention, I would think that there would be many concents about a concerted effort to catalouge all people connecting from wwwproxy.bigcompany.com.
--
What's wrong with HTTP? I thought it was pretty effective. Connect, send request, receive response, end transmission.
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I disagree. I don't think what they are doing is cool at all. Because what they are doing is defining an infrastructure, and making sure that they control it. This is bad, and should be boo'd.
The web took off because no one owned the protocol, any one could create an HTTP server, anyone could write the services behind the server and anyone could write a browser, and any user could jump on a browser and start using it. Now microsoft wants to own the protocol, the server, the services, brand users with their passport branding iron, and heh, the only thing open about this monstrosity is that anyone can build a browser.
On the other hand, I see your point. What _would_ be cool would be an open platform that provided some of the things that hailstorm provides in a decentralized, open way. And hopefully some things that would not appeal to microsoft's executives, but would to users. Like anonymity. Or privacy. Or choice.
Don't think "operating system". Think "platform". .NET is the new platform, and Microsoft is surely going to tie its apps to a single platform. It's just that the platform now is more than just an OS.
- adam
I agree with you, and I think I've got some precedent for why it won't work: AOL.
/. just go on to prove this fact.
AOL is really all about centralization. The whole family unit can share an account, you use their email system located in their gigantic email/chat/web/IM/news/info/etc program that's really very pretty and friendly. You can centrally do everything you want from AOL itself, much like what Hailstorm is promising, and you never really have to leave it if you don't want.
And AOL is really popular. Fantastically so.
But relatively few people actually use all that centralization. They use AOL for email, web, chat, and IM, and that's mainly it. I've never met anyone (and I've known quite a few AOL users) who's actually used AOL itself to buy anything. People like to chat and build a community, and that's why AOL , and the internet is really successful, not for the ability to buy airline tickets right alongside a crockpot. Sites like
Microsoft isn't looking to build a community at all, they're looking to make things more convenient and ubiquitous. While people do like convenience (and the convenience of having email, web, chat, etc. in one place helps make AOL so popular) I don't think people are really looking for the kind of convenience that Hailstorm will offer. Granted, a lot of people will sign up for it, but I don't think it'll be that critical mass that'll make it ubiquitous. It's the same thing with Microsoft's instant messenger client. No one really uses it, because AOL was there first and everyone uses AIM because their friends use AIM. It'll be the same thing with Hailstorm, no one will use it because AOL was there first with all the convenient, one place info/shop-o-rama system, plus you get to use the chat rooms too!
Aside from AOL, portal sites like excite offer centralized calendar, customized news, portfolio, email accounts, and a thousand other features already. All from a central location. All available through any web browser. And when was the last time you heard someone hyping a portal site?
Not that Hailstorm wouldn't improve on the portal concept at all, but without something really good that takes it above and beyond (and storing your credit card numbers online is not enough of a bonus) it's just not going to go anywhere.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
So Microsoft wants to use open standards like XML, UDDI and WSDL. Presumably, Microsoft will have to open the public interface to calling their services. If they don't open the interface, Palm, Mac, and Linux couldn't invoke these services.
So with an open interface to the service, what is to stop me from creating my own gnuPassport service with the exact same well defined interface? I could then openly authenticate users just as Microsoft authenticates users in their closed service.
Every time Microsoft creates a new service, that they will presumably charge money for, we would create an open interface that is freely available.
The Microsoft developers might be silly enough to hard code the links to their own private UDDI server, but that would be a relatively easy crack to redirect to an open UDDI server.
The article states that the Kerberos authentication might be required to use Microsoft's proprietary extensions, but a simple Samba server would fix this.
So when I read this article, I don't see it as Microsoft moving to dominate the Internet. I see this as Microsoft relinquishing full control of the Windows desktop to services on the Internet. There doesn't seem to me to be any way for Microsoft to stop an open implementation of all of their services.
-- Freedom means letting other people do things you don't like.
Hailstorm user-licence: 50
:)
Internet connection: 20/month
Skript kiddie tools and software: 5000
The look on Bill Gates face when 10,000,000 credit cards numbers are compromised to the approx credit limit of 20,000 each -- PRICELESS.
There are some things that anyone can cock-up, but for everything else, there's Microsoft
Even if it is possible to copyright a schema, that doesn't prevent someone else from creating documents that conform to the schema. Heck, if you build your Hailstorm clone using non-validating parsers, you won't even need MS's schemas.
He did'nt say, "lets implement Hailstorm only OSS", he said, "lets implement Hailstorm, only better". What would be better? Well, control over your info would be better, for one.
Should we be spending all this time trying to stop Microsoft? I don't think so. We should treat MS like any thing else, a source of inspiration. Take what is good and leave the rest. I have heard it said that it is importaint to have an enemy (see anals of war: Apple vs. IBM, Netscape vs. MS). Well, again, I'm not so sure. There is a tendency to become more like your enemy during war then most people would like to admit. ( doh! I said, "Most people", but then I also said, "I have heard", but I tried to back that up with lame refs. ).
We are creating a vision for our own future here. Lets take the ideas that are good. Ideas don't come from Microsoft, nor Sun or anybodies head. They are just ideas, thoughts of the possible. The rest is just ego.
Some of the confusion may be that we are also learning ( or not ) to live some of our lives in anarchy. Maybe it's a phase, but I like that.
Cheers
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
this comment is strangely similar to the comment someone else posted here
God and Commander Taco help me find it in the archives, but I DO recognize the writing from sometime in the past six months or so. (I don't think the archives go back quite that far.)
That said, Hailstorm is going in the direction of a Microsoft Planet.
This is what they want. They envision a service oriented Internet where they are the toll takers.
And they will take a toll. But they will not nickel and dime us to death. more like a buck fifty, and more.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I'm sympathetic to your point, but this is a problem I see in ip arguments a lot: you have asserted the harm without justifying it.
What is wrong exactly with copyrighting a data structure? You seem to imply (but do not state) that even very simple data structures could be copyrighted if moderately complex ones could, and that this would be bad (inefficient?).
The CDDB example is one which provides a pleasantly evil comparison, but it's not perfect- most people's beef isn't so much that they are copyrighting their database structure (although that's a problem), but that they stole community labor for the content of that database.
I propose the following, and perhaps others can add to it: copyrighting data structures is unreasonable both because it creates the possibility of accidentally misusing someone else's data structure if it's too simple (such accidental duplication is vanishingly unlikely with a book or song length work), and because the metadata itself is not original content in the appropriate sense of the term- it is more like an algorithm (it's a rule-based system of organization) and thus more appropriate for patent consideration than for copyright.
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Common sense says no, but what does the law say?
Usually companies dont let it come down to that and ensure that there is no way to implement an interface without infringing on a patent instead... but even if that doesnt cover it they can first try to use trade secret (by NDA'ing through shrinkwrap all development information, like 3dfx tried with Glide) and in the end even if it comes down to copyright even if they dont have a real case now who says what a couple of billions worth of lawyers and lobbying can get them.
Did anyone else see the irony in this, at the bottom of the article?
How will Hailstorm and Passport change the face of P2P, web services, and the Net itself?
(* You must be a member of the O'Reilly Network to use this feature)
Apperently they don't get golf ball, baseball, and softball sized hail in Redmond. Here in Minnesota we duck and cover when we hear hailstorm.
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
Beyond that - what the heck will they use it for? Pay per use software - oh please. Why is it that the IT media has swallowed this concept hook line and sinker? Any IT mgr I've talked with thinks its a bad idea that'll just cost more money in fees and mgmt.
Beyond that - who cares if MS copyrights their schema? So MS uses their schema to validate stupid users who pay by the month for the WIndows ZZ OS. Whats to stop AOL from setting up a SIMILAR system for their users to use for their services? Unlss MS gets a overly broad patent (ie they get a patent on pay per use software licensing) I just don't see how this flys.
Sure the existing MS zealot developers will jump on the bandwagon. But I don't see ow this will GROW their market share. I mean why would a cellphoen service want to tie into Hailstorm?
So yes - we all know Micro$oft wants to own every inch of the Internet and skim $$ off every transaction, but I just don't think Hailstorm is gonan do it for them though I know Bill got a woodie reading these white papers and dreaming all about what COULD be. Problem is it ain't gonna happen.
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
When we asked them why they wanted to do this, there were some common answers that we kept hearing. "Your priorities are not our priorities", "you don't understand our requirements", "it takes you guys too long to implement changes", "your chargebacks are inconsistent and make it difficult to budget", "your support staff doesn't work on the same schedule we do", and my all time favorite... "we just want local control over our data".
When I read about .NET and Hailstorm, all I see is the central data processing center of the 1970s carried to its illogical extreme. Except now there will only be one "glass house" to serve millions, and it will be in Redmond.
I expect we'll have to repeat history once again, 'cause it looks like nobody learned anything from the last time.
"has shifted", past tense? When did this happen? Have I been blacking out again?
The last time I was awake, this is where Microsoft was trying to take things.
Oh well. Glad I hopped off the MS treadmill 3 years ago.
Ryan T. Sammartino
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"
Well, I mean HTTP/HTML/etc - the whole "web" thing. Mosiac was just a much more flexible and capable solution for viewing information and communicating with servers (ie. web-like functionality) than its commercial competitors at the time - say, CompuServe.
[That's probably a good point, though, how HTTP is technically a fairly crappy protocol. Nearly ubiquitous despite it's technical flaws... somewhat like Windows. There's something profound in there somewhere...]
--
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
- Nietzsche
It's amazing how the overwhelming impression someone would get from all these slashot discussions is that your typical /.er is a technophobe.
This kind of thing is *cool*.
Should Microsoft control it? Of course not. But there should be a lot more enthusiasm on these boards for the capabilities these things represent; it's this sort of universal capability which is the future.
Is there a security risk? Of course... but you could say the same thing about the postal service, the telephone, credit cards, etc etc. It's *going* to happen.
But the OSS has to stop saying "Boo. Stop Microsoft. They're evil." and start saying "What Microsoft is trying to do is cool, but what we can do is *better*."
That's (partly, anyway) why *nix dominates the web... Apache (and its predecessors) used a protocol (http) which was just plain better than all the commercial alternatives for information dissemmination, and when the commercial companies turned around and came to see how great the whole web concept was, the OSS community was already there.
--
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
- Nietzsche
Microsoft... is trying to make a central repository of personal information... stored in redundant Microsoft controlled datacenters... including credit card numbers...
So all I need to do is SE a domain admin password from *one* microsoft employee, with a *crapload* of them to choose from, and I get *millions and millions* of credit card numbers, addresses, perhaps even bank accounts?
OK. I'm up for that.
-Jade E.
Well, we have to admit that software as service revolution is inevitable. This change will really revolutionize our world. The work *has* already begun since P2P "discovery" by Napster and such. It was then intensified by the invention of Java as "universal" programming language and XML as the "universal" data format. Naturally, if we have world-wide connections, universal programming language and universal data, we'd like to unify the framework, right?
Recall in the OSI network layer we have "presentation layer". You can see that this layer has never emerge as a solid standard eventhough there were some attempts. Thus, this becomes the biggest stumbling block in the unification. However, after *the* invention, this should not be problem any longer.
But, there is another problem: Control. With software as service, the service-provider company will exercise control over your data. Basically, your data is belong to us. Eventhough the provider does respect privacy, it won't let you get away without signing ToS which is basically make you agree to for a "responsible disclosure" from it. Even worse, the company seems to take the privacy pretty lightly
Now, this has a serious implication: Government agents can pin down those service providers and possibly giving them monopoly access to ease them "keeping track of malicious citizens". Is this an indication? If so, then your privacy agreement is "useless" basically. Unless...
If we agree on universal programming language, data, and protocols and decentralized P2P connection like Freenet does. This case, our privacy will remain and we can defend it to our best. Just my 2 cents, though.
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Error 500: Internal sig error
They actually want to copyright a DATA STRUCTURE so that no one else can use it. That's just insane.
I'm going to copyright the following data structure immediately:
If I come across ANYONE using ANYTHING even REMOTELY like this, I'm gonna sue you and you will be owned.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Actually, soap is not the best lubricant to enter through a backdoor ;-)