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O'Reilly Sez Ask Craig Mundie
There's a news article up at O'Reilly that hypes their upcoming Open Source Convention and also sets up a forum to submit questions to potentially be asked to Mundie when he gives a keynote at the convention. Should be an interesting, perhaps vitriol-filled morning there.
Answer 1.
.Net is like smoking lots of pot while snorting Classic coke from a Playboy model's clitoris while mainlining to the mainframe while being sucked off by everyone you ever looked at while listening to all of the Velvet Underground, Bill Hicks, Kraftwerk, KLF, Radiohead & Yello jamming while completing the original Jet Set Willy & Jet Set Radio while walking in space while knowing everything that ever happened or will happen simultaneously while playing Civ, but with a real planet. In your toilet. Twice.
Answer 2.
To draw an analogy,
Open Source is like this - %
Free Software is like this - ^
Linux is like this - *
GPL is like this - !
Hope that clears it up.
Answer 3.
You're thinking of Craig Shergold. Or Clint Eastwood. Or maybe Clint Mansell. Or Colin Powell. Or maybe the man page for Tom Cruise. Or Captain Hemos. Or Skullkid. Or Shueboy. Or Cyborg Monkee. Or Bojay. Or Spork. Or Bismallah. Or the registry entry for HKEY\Longpig.
Choose Liff.
Why are you asking here?
Do you get pissed off at the fact that these very same linux bitches who never let up actually use Microsoft products most of the time and actually use IE to pen half of their anti-MS rants?
Berkeley TCP/IP was a government funded project intended to benefit the computer industry as a whole by providing a standard protocol reference.
Trying to associate the TCP/IP developers with the "OSS" types such as Alan Cox or Eric Raymond is silly. At no time did the Berkeley developers have any doubt that their work would be used by commercial companies - in fact that's exactly what they wanted. The lead programmer, Bill Joy, even went off and started his own "The Network Is The Computer" company and became very, very rich largely from his "OSS" work at Berkeley.
MS has already used BSD software. Most of the network command line utilities and much of the internal networking is based on BSD.
Several people have run strings on the ftp command and it reveals the BSD copyright. You should work that into your question since it points out that MS has benefitd from OSS.
When large groups of Microsoft employees at pep rallies chant, "Microsoft, kill them!", who is 'them'? Is there a defined 'them' that, once killed, will make this attitude unnecessary, or does 'them' expand with Microsoft's own growth?
At the very least, it means being able to have instant rebuttal to whatever he says, instead of having to wait a few days :)
And most of all- how many times can you get a Microsoft guy to cause 'open source' to be mentioned in the news? Apparently quite a few times... apparently he can be made to keep those words in the news day after day as Microsoft's sketchy reputation continues to slooooowly erode...
heh, Irony list..
1) Microsoft does use Open Source yet they call it a cancer.
explanation: Misunderstanding of what Open Source defines, however it is the same misunderstanding that most people have. Thank ESR. But even from RMS's comments one isn't too sure if Open Source is a subset of Free Software, or vice versa.
2) Microsoft get their message out riding on Open Source waves.
caveat: Open Source gets their message out riding on Microsoft's waves. This is a classic brawl that attracts much publicity and media for both sides. As with most debates, not one will win with a sound bite. Nor will anyone be able to trump with the name calling and self aggrandizing that goes on with Slashdot. In fact, it most likely going to be a cool, corporate version of a political debate. Plenty of light hearted laughter mingled with frontal assaults and slippery linguistic undermining.
3) Microsoft has a good point about the GPL.
explanation: A truely cunning "good point" is agreed to by both sides, yet interpreted very different by both sides. Their good point is one of those, and I'll go further in depth.
"Using Open Source will make you have to release all your Intelectual property," they say. "Good point" some say, because to them use means "use the code". However on the other side, they see Open Source portrayed licking its perverbial lips, with a napkin around their neck and a fork and knife in both hands like Wile E. Coyote watching the road runner pass by. Use means the same thing as "Using Microsoft Office 2000, a tutorial for dummies" And this restriction is obsurd and unfair. This brings us to the last point of Irony...
4) Microsoft wants freedom, the GPL is too restrictive.
caveat: Freedom is gained through sharing or by taking it from others. In some metaphysical sence, one can twist freedom to mean the right to restrict others freedom. After all, freedom means ability to act, and that is an action. But as a recurcive programer knows, you don't survive long when you refer to yourself by destroying yourself.
Conclusion:
Now Microsoft has been guilty of many things in the past. So far their battles have been corporate, and we all know that in such a dogfight we expect to see some bloody combat. Some may even excuse them of their crimes for the nature of the conflict, their enemies were no more ethical than they were. But now they are picking on something more rooted in the freedoms that we desire for ourselves. The freedom to create our own lifestyle and the pursuit of our own happiness.
They looked like they would do this for years, and now they are. And those who haven't learned the meaning of their freedom or its value will be like the one guy in the Matrix, seduced back to a world where freedom is a piece of wool being pulled over their eyes.
So, no they do not have a good point, not through Open Source or other eyes.
~^~~^~^^~~^
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"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
What is O'Reilly thinking? Why should people attending an Open Source conference spend time listen to Microsoft? Get Open Source developers to be educated by Microsoft, or the other way around?
Everything that needs to be said has been said. Can there be anything new from Microsoft?
O'Reilly may as well get Bill Gates in there to re-issue his Open Letter to Hobbyists, to the Open Source hobbyists.
Free Software: the software by the people, of the people and for the people. Develop! Share! Enhance! Enjoy!
Question for Mundie,
You claim that the proprietary software business model is a successful business model that creates innovation and wealth. If that's the case, how can you explain that there are no viable competitors to Microsoft in the major software categories, i.e., office suites and operating systems, that follow the same business model? How come the number one threat to Microsoft, as state by the Microsoft CEO, is Linux, a freely distributed piece of software developed by non-profit community volunteers? How can the main beneficiary of this business model be just one company, Microsoft?
Don't you think this business model imposes significant cost in society, which concentrates wealth in a few people, i.e., Bill Gates? How can this business model be successful if only few, not many, commercial enterprises enjoy its fruits?
Isn't the proprietary software business model cancerous to the well-being of our society?
Free Software: the software by the people, of the people and for the people. Develop! Share! Enhance! Enjoy!
Under the .Net CLR, int is 32-bit and long is 64-bit.
:)
Just might want to keep that in mind.
As I recall, Rational or some similar company intends to offer Java compiler for the .Net platform.
It's not Microsoft who is trying to kill Java, that privilege belongs to Sun who wishes to keep it proprietary at all costs.
Your absolutely right!
:)
"It's the economy stupid!"
Microsoft fuels the economy, the GPL does not.
Consider this example:
:)
Microsoft sells GM 40,000 copies of Windows 2000 for several million dollars.
Microsoft in turn takes this money and gives salaries to many of it's employees.
Employees take money home and decide to buy Chevy Tahoe trucks.
It's a big cylical thing, the economy.
I realize that's overly simplistic, but it ought to help you on the path to enlightenment.
Ahh, but now you want to argue efficiency.
What is more efficient, spending $1 million rolling your own software.
Or buying it from someone else for $1,000.
That's the problem with the Linux paradigm, it's a belief by some people that commercial software is evil and it is much better to write your own than succumb to their evilness.
Again, the GPL does not cater towards efficiency, nor does it fuel the economic spending.
Jack
One place .NET shines over Java is that you are not forced to do all your development in Java but instead can use the right tool for the job
.NET does) is just as bad as forcing someone to always use it (which Java doesn't BTW -- long before MS "innovated" .NET, Java had JNI)
But what if one of the right tools is Java? Forcing someone *not* use Java (as
Have you ever looked at their developer materials? They are very good at documenting and encouraging you to use their extensions. Asking him if they plan to open up their proprietary extensions is kind of silly.
You don't need to have the original CD around to apply service packs, etc. Copy the source CD to your hard drive and install from that, or update the registry afterwards to point to wherever you've put the original files.
This will help boost attendence to that convention.
"Attention Citizens, 2+2 now equals 3.947547175. Please recalibrate your equipment now" --The Computer
This is funny?
Whatever.
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Ian Peters
The company just launched their new embedded project and units are now on their way from the manufacturing center in Singapore. The software is free and comes with source code. The software is not upset or consumed with low self-esteem because of its free-ness. Always stable and open to inspection.
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
round covers use a minimum of steel
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
No, no. That doesn't go with existing 'standard' convention. You need something like 'MyInt' or 'MSintOLE-2.013'.
In what way does Microsoft sucking $26 billion out of the pockets of comsumers and businesses each year fuel the economy? Given that the GPL allows these customers to get the same benefits in terms of productivity as Microsoft products do but without the costs, don't you think that fuels the econonmy? To put it more bluntly, imagine how 'fueled' the economy would be with an extra $26 billion in it doing real work instead of just building castles for Bill Gates. Oh, and how does rebooting twice a day fuel the economy?
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Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
How many times do we have to go over this?
Until you astroturfers understand it.
Your taxes paid for the original software to be written, not whatever Microsoft writes. If you want their program over the free version that is still available from the government, then obviously Microsoft has ADDED VALUE to the software ... and thus you should pay for it.
You *should* only pay you for the added value but Microsoft will make you pay for the whole thing, including the part you already paid for. Moreover, Microsoft will attempt to "add value" in such a way that you are forced to use only their modified version. In fact, such "added value" may consist of nothing more than a proprietary lock-in. What kind of value is that?
The original poster was correct.
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Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
No, you are only ensuring that no profit will be made through secret modifications to taxpayer funded software.
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Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
The same millions of dollars would have been spent better spent by companies operating efficiently, trying to do the best thing for their customers, instead of by Microsoft, which just spends it trying to defend its monopoly.
It's a big cylical thing, the economy.
Common misconception. Some people believe that an economy will expand by the mere act of having money circulate in it. Nope, sorry, if you believe that I have this here perpetual motion machine to sell you. An economy is fueled by efficiently carrying out the work that needs to be done and generates luxury as a dividend. The act of rebooting a computer does not fuel an economy, it drags it down, and paying a 10-times inflated price for the privilege drags it down further. That's money that Joe could have spent on a new truck ;-)
Think of two countries, in all respects equal, but in one of them all businesses are monopolies, in the other, all businesses compete freely with each other. Both arrangements sound pretty good don't they? All the usual arguments we are used to hearing from you and other Microsoft employees apply to why monopoly-land should outperform competition-land, but guess what? History tells us that competition-land will win in the end. Yes, you know what I'm talking about, think about how America finally won the cold war.
I realize that's overly simplistic, but it ought to help you on the path to enlightenment. :)
Quit your job at microsoft and feel like a man again. :)
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Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Getting it for free.
That's the problem with the Linux paradigm, it's a belief by some people that commercial software is evil and it is much better to write your own than succumb to their evilness.
That's the problem with Microsoft astroturfers, 1) tell a lie 2) draw several conclusions from their own lie. Again, the GPL does not cater towards efficiency, nor does it fuel the economic spending.
See? I knew you were going to do that. Why do you bother, haven't you learned yet that every time you FUD the open source movement you just create an opportunity for one of us to get up on the soapbox and tell the truth. This always backfires - the more you do it, the sooner you are going extinct. So, see, your best strategy is to sit down and shut up. Heh, especially on slashdot, where the only person you will impress is your boss, and that's only if he doesn't read *this* comment.
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Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Well, Apple didn't invent the WIMP itself. But they did invent pull-down menus, the file/folder file system viewer, and many other things which made the GUI workable.
And above all, they sold it for a couple thousand bucks -- Most of Microsoft's innovations fall into that category too: Existing ideas refined for mass consumption and priced accordingly.
Which is why MS's defense of "innovation" is so silly. Historically, their vision was "A personal computer on every desk and in every home" -- meaning they were commodizing technology for the everyman, ergo they were the cheapest vendor (and with the exception of open source and Office, they still are). This did them quite well until they felt they needed some intellectual argument against the government. I'd much rather have them point at the installed base of PCs in 2001 versus 1981 and their original mission statement than this BS innovation PR crap.
But then again, when I hear the word innovation, I reach for my pistol.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I saw a Nader speech from American University on C-Span one day and when they panned the audience, there was some kid wearing a corvair tshirt. I laughed for a good 5 minutes on that. Then I made a sandwich.
Taos
1. When the people of Microsoft claimed that the GPL prevented innovation, what did they mean? Since everything is required by the GPL to be open and available for public scrutny to make a product better, then where is the stifling?
2. How does Microsoft foster innovation?
Thanks, and cheers
Smart tags, wheel/optical mouse, modularizing the web browser engine as just another system component, intelligent menus or whatever they're called, SOAP/UDDI. Well, that was easy.
Of course, now people will whine that those aren't really innovations since they were based on previous work. Well, too bad, everything is based on previous work, and if anyone should know that, it's the typical Slashdot user.
Cheers,
Except that they don't use the BSD stack.
Cheers,
Damn, you guys are so clueless, it's hilarious. NT/Win2K's TCP/IP stack is multi-threaded (*BSD's isn't) and actually scales well with multiple processors (*BSD's doesn't, because as a result, it ends up putting a big lock around the entire stack). The *BSD folks might have fixed this problem by now, because the core developers admitted in the past that this is a problem. However, since they were discussing this as recently as just last year, they sure didn't have this capability before Windows did. But hey, you just keep believing that NT/Win2K uses the BSD stack if it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy. Just don't expect anyone to think that you have half a clue.
Cheers,
Microsoft didn't badmouth all open source efforts, and specifically said that the BSD license was just fine, because it doesn't impose nutty restrictions on developers. It was the GPL virus that they badmouthed.
Oh, and if you think that the billions that Microsoft has made has anything whatsoever to do with their inclusion of BSD-derived finger and nslookup clients, you're even dumber than you usually sound.
Cheers,
I hope someone videotapes or broadcasts this thing (realvideo please) so we can all enjoy the event! Hopefully oreilly will do it themselfs!
Geoff
It looks to me (from some of the memos brought into evidence at the DOJ .vs. MicroSoft anti-trust suit) like Microsoft's employees are generally crude and impolite, as well as being fond of violent metaphors ("let's cut off their air supply" and "we're going to kill [insert competitor name here]"). Not that it's unusual for computer geeks to have poor social skills ;^).
Mundie will probably be ready and willing to deal with the types of questions people are posting here (yes, I understand you're just venting, the real questions are on the O'Reilly site) so let's use a little akido on him and be nice.
He'll come in all combative and we'll show the world how reasonable and well-spoken we are. You can't buy publicity like that. Well, OK, you can, but it's out of Tim O'Reilly's price range.
--Charlie
It's more effective to fight fire with water. Yes, I know this sounds weird coming from me, but consider it strategy.
I think that'd be a no-win situation for Microsoft. On the one hand, if Microsoft doesn't port Office (ie, the status quo), they're blamed for tightly integrating it into the OS, and using their OS muscle to move Office units (neither of which are true, as witnessed by the fact that Office runs natively on the Macintosh, and runs well, and sells well even though Microsoft doesn't own the Mac). On the other hand, if Microsoft does port Office, they'll get called down for "trying to expand their monopoly". Not to mention not being able to recoup their developement costs due to the fact that lots and lots of Linux users are of the mind that everything for Linux should be free (wouldn't surprise me if some thought the hardware should be free as well) (note that's free, not Free, which is another can of worms, and I'll leave that for some other time).
That said, Microsoft's spokespeople have said more than a few times that whether or not they port applications to other platforms is a function of the demand for that application (coupled with profit potential, obviously, but that's why they're a business and not a non-profit organization). If you really want to see Office on Linux, start a letter-writing campaign. Rally everybody you possibly can, give them a well-written form letter expressing the desire to see Office on Linux and the willingness to pay reasonable prices, and bury Redmond under a deluge of requests to see Office/IE/Money/whatever on Linux. I'm sure you'll see some results.
Stuff released under GPL is NOT public domain.
Right; and stuff released into the public domain is not GPL (though derivatives can be).
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Mr. Mundy, you talked about how horrible it would be if software whose development was funded by the U.S. govenment was "Open Source" (presumably GPL'ed). Such software is always public domain, which means there are no restrictions on how Microsoft or anyone else can use it.
Were you just being disingenuous, or did you actually have a point?
(I'd have posted this to ora.com, but it wouldn't accept a request from behind a proxy server.)-:
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
[ignore this text, it's to override the moronic "lameness filter]
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Microsoft bought that.
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
A large part of why free software is "better" is because i *know* i can fix things that annoy me. Case point: i thought XMMs playlist handling sucked for a playlist of a few thousand songs, so i implemented playlist filtering (start typing in the playlist area and it filters out all songs that doesnt match). The XMMS maintainers weren't interested in accepting the patch, because it broke the keyboard shortcuts in the playlist. That's fine with me, they wrote it and can accept or reject patches as they please - but i never use those shortcuts so i didn't care about breaking them.
End result: I'm running a version of XMMS that works the way *I* want, and the maintainers are distributing a version they like. *That* is the power of free software. (and if you happen to be interested in the playlist filtering patch, just mail me)
-henrik
What do you think you're doing? It can only be a good thing of the knee-jerk, mindless flames / trolls masquerading as questions get posted here, rather than in the other forum where they might actually be submitted. Do we really want the questions of people too clueless even to read the /. blurb before posting to go there?
While Closed source apps for Open Source OS's is a nice idea, and a viable buisness model, there is a proviso:
It only works, if your product is worth someone paying good money for.
In the case of MS, they definately make products that are considered the de-facto standard. You'd think this would encourage them to make it available on other platforms, however their dominance of the platform AND the app market ("Office Suites") translates into complete control of the industry.
If they released Office for Linux (or BSD) then they wouldn't have the same "tightly integrated development relationship" with the OS developers. They would be forced to compete with others on a much more equal playing field. Plus, I'm not sure if even WINE could make Office compile on Linux, since so many of the "standard" DLLs are incorporated within the product (note that I'm not talking about running MS apps with the DLLs available, but rather compiling a Linux native version of the app).
Lastly, they wouldn't be able to force the upgrade cycle as much, since you could always upgrade the OS, without necessarily upgrading the Office Suite, and vice-versa. That alone is reason it will probably never happen.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Whatever else your feelings, the potential of debate and discusion from those Keynote speeches and that panel should be enough to draw a decent size crowd. That should sell conferance tickets/media/etc.
::grin::)
Should make O'reily a few dollars (not that I wouldn't go if I could
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Constant diameter does not imply round.
I think the best one I've seen is a wagon with square wheels, rolling smoothly on a roadbed of matching round logs. This was in some TV show with eliptical and other strange shaped gears. Fascinating.
That's the power of free software. Libre.
Only one out of one hundred million users of a particular piece of software would have any interest in making it do what she wanted it to do? Very precisely stated numbers should have some degree of plausibility.
If noone care about the source code, then why does Microsoft want to keep its code to itself? Or is Microsoft "noone"?
So you think he's got a better product? I don't, and I doubt that he does either. What he has is a worse product that is worse where he does not care, and better where he does care.
This is a very small example of what IBM is promoting and Microsoft is fighting. Power to the users!
Makes sense. Further, a lot of server-side stuff will have embarassingly long lifetimes and need to keep working, unmodified, as the hardware platform is switched to a different vendor.
of course.
Actually, a square cover whose edges are each 2^0.5 feet long will fit the hole (assuming there's a lip) and not fall in, though it won't necessarily cover the whole hole -- that wasn't a precondition though since the statement was that a round cover was the only shape that won't fall in. This is undeniably cheaper than a circular cover, but I suppose there's always the annoyance of public safety.
Nahh.. more like having David Duke as keynote speaker at an NAACP meeting.
An equilateral triangle 2' on a side uses less material than a circle 2' in diameter.
:o)
Yeah, but there's no way you'd get a 250 pound drainage worker to fit through it
Minor point. O'Reilly uses groff to do their layout. Nifty, eh? :)
You *do* realize that 100$ a year, plus the automatic upgrade, is *cheaper* than the current price?
Depends what price you currently pay.
My employers recently upgraded from Office 95 to Office 2000, I doubt we'll upgrade to Office XP any time soon and I don't doubt there are any number of businesses still using Office 95 (or earlier versions for that matter). What are you using as the current price per annum?
Why would you think people want an automatic upgrade? If we'd automatically been upgraded to Office 97 we would have had to carry out extensive testing for compatibility between that and our templates and other applications across all our offices. What exactly would have been so great about that when it didn't have any features attractive enough to us to want to buy it?
There is irony here, but not like you think.
The irony is that Microsoft is able to use an Open Source conference to further their message. You guys should just go ahead and take some ads out in the NY Times for them and save yourselves the hassle.
Whether you want to admit it or not, they have a good point on the GPL. The best you can hope for is to clarify that their point only relates to the GPL and not Open Source in general. Unfortunetly for you, the Open Source poster child, Linux, get's screwed regardless.
Mr. Mundie, given that Microsoft is so fearful of the GPL yet has the option of maintaining it's own "shared source" business model, does this mean that:
a) Microsoft is considering GPLing Windows, but is worried about the outcome
OR
b) Microsoft realizes it is being out-competed by GPL'd software
P.S. Which swear word does Bill Gates most commonly use when referring to Linux?
"As for SOAP, java can support that as well."
A good tool for doing this, as well as UDDI and WSDL, easily is GLUE from http://www.themindelectric.com.
Usually when I see someone demonstrating how SOAP works, they always show how the XML messages are composed and parsed. ITS JUST A PROTOCOL, just like JRMP (RMI) and CORBA. I shouldn't have to manually compose the message to send over the wire, just like I don't do this in RMI or CORBA. I should be able to call something like RMIC to build the stubs and skeletons, and make simple method calls. GLUE provides tools to do that.
I am not affiliated with the company, I just think that this is a necessary tool, and I'm glad to see it.
And here is another tool:p /j brokerweb.jsp
http://extend.silverstream.com/workbench/app/js
It has an RMI-like programming environment:
- If starting with Java RMI, the rmi2soap compiler generates SOAP stubs and skeletons, and the rmi2wsdl compiler generates WSDL
- If starting from WSDL, the wsdl2java compiler generates the Java RMI interface and SOAP stubs and skeletons
- The stubs are looked up by the client using standard Java JNDI APIs
- The Java XML type mapping allows users to do custom serialization, as well as exchanging raw XML documents if required by the application
innovate, vb.: 1. To appropriate third-party technology through purchase, immitation, or theft and to integrate it into a de-facto, monopoly-position product. 2. To increase in size or complexity but not in utility; to reduce compatibility or interoperability. 3. To lock out competitors or to lock in users. 4. To charge more money; to increase prices or costs. 5. To acquire profits from investments in other companies but not from direct product or service sales. 6. To stifle or manipulate a free market; to extend monopoly powers into new markets. 7. To evade liability for wrong doings; to get off. 8. To purchase legislation, legistators, legislatures, or chiefs of state. 9. To mediate all transactions in a global economy; to embezzle; to co-opt power (coup d'état). Cf. innovate, English usage (antonym).
If all you say is true then why is MS badmouthing OSS. Looks like companies can make billions from OSS.
War is necrophilia.
From revelation chapter 13
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 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.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
Does this sound like hailstorm to you?
War is necrophilia.
The OSS is a license spec. It says nothing about how something is developed only about how something can be distributed.
War is necrophilia.
Hi,
the only excuse to be working for Microsoft is sabotage.
You could be putting your everlasting soul in JEOPARDY.
Juln
Huh? I thought it was their $20,000,000,000 in cash and ruthless marketing.
Juln
you couldn't pay me enough.
How we know is more important than what we know.
well they did offer to rodger me up the ass but, unlike your Mom, I kindly refused.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Ah, true. But you could measure the the profits of Sun(tm) using a short.
In any case, I'm gonna be quoting that movie to myself all weekend now. Too bad I don't have a copy of it.
Heh heh heh...
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Every time Ballmer opens his damn mouth, every other word seems to be "innovate". The more he says it, the less I believe it. If he was so busy innovating, where does he find the time to draw attention to it so much?
It reminds me of so many things, none flattering.
And so it is with Microsoft's "innovation" campaign. It just seems like you're more "laterally" innovative than anything else. You embrace open source, kinda, but in a way that carefully distances you from the whole "open" part of the equation, thus defeating the whole point.
For a huge, powerful company, there are a lot of ways to go about things, as you well know. For the /. crowd, true innovation could nicely start with really & honestly opening up your source code, but I doubt you'll ever relinquish that much control over what you have worked so hard for, and I won't begrudge you for that. And I do realize that there's a marketing role to be played, and that the perception of being an innovator can be just as useful -- and much cheaper -- than actually being one. Maybe there is something to be said for putting all your efforts into such "lateral" innovations -- getting people to think you're pushing the frontiers, and giving the public enough (profitable!) little shiny chrome frills and vaporware for the claim to be at least plausible, while not actually providing anything that is truly, fundamentally new.
But could I suggest trying to meet halfway here? Is it not the case that Microsoft earns more from support contracts than actual product licenses? (I don't know, this is just my impression, but I'd be interested in more concrete information). Do you *really* think people can be talked into going to a subscription model, benefits be damned, if it's going to mean having to pay a software bill every month? I think there's a lot to be said for it (I like Windows Update, Mac OSX's Software Update, and Debian's apt-get features, and these are all embryonic versions of the same idea), but I also think that people will strongly resist the idea of having to pay a recurring fee for something that they were allowed to use outright & in perpetuity in the past.
If you're going to plow ahead with this "innovation", can we at least ask for someting in return? I think I could actually deal with having to subscribe to a .NET system that allowed me to look at & modify the code I was receiving. Allowing others to share & modify it as well would be even better -- that's why they call it open & free software -- but if you at least agreed to publicize what it is that you're trying to get people to do, you might encounter a bit less resistance than you're begging for now. As it is, you're just singling out this particular demographic of clued up, tech savvy devlopers and saying we want nothing to do with your or your freaky hippie ways. The resulting "yeah well fuck you too" should come as little surprise. Maybe a truce can be reached? I'd be happy to see it, but the ball is in your court...
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Dude,
See "Windows NT/2000 Native API Reference", by Gary Nebbett.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
And I just want to say -- why not?
One need not love the GPL or Linux to appreciate and advocate open source or free software.
I cannot believe this is happening. First O'Reilly embraces .NET. Now Craig Mundie, that lying utter ass of an Open Source opponent, is giving the keynote at the Open Source Conference???
Goodbye O'Reiley. You won't see me sanctioning this farce by attending this conference. Nor will I condone such fundamental hypocrisy by EVER buying anything you have a hand in again.
You almost were cool for a little while. But now you show your true colors. This is a GROSS INSULT to the Open Source community.
No, this is NOT what we want. We want to bury closed source software under its own inefficiency. And most especially we do not want to embrace enemies of software freedom as if they have respectable opinions and we are lucky to have them address us in *our* conference.
Do people really not get that this is not a step forward?
COM is a particular distributed messaging protocol like CORBA. When the rest of the world went with CORBA, which is multi-platform and multi-language, Microsoft went with a version of a DEC protocol that only worked on its OS and with a handful of MS specific language implementations. To this day, talking to D/COM is not open. To get to do this if you are not on a MS platform you need to pay thousands of dollars in licensing to MS. There is are half-assed unix implementations but only (AFAIK) for talking client-server with a MS box.
.NET is braced on COM then that is a major blow against it.
If
CORBA has been used with Smalltalk, C, C++, CLOS, Python, Perl, Scheme, Pascal, Fortran, COBOL and so on on about every OS imaginable. It sits underneath RMI for Java as well as being directly supported on Java.
Don't fall for MS hype. These people are not your friend and their code is not cool.
Maybe I've just been around too long to appreciate the "oh wow" of seeing things invented many years ago in the non-MS world dressed up in MS bullshit and trotted out on the stage.
Does anyone else find it quite odd that Mundie is giving a speech at an Open Source conference? It seems to me that's like having Louis Farrakhan as the keynote speaker for a conference on Judiasm.
Still, I suppose they'll get some good press out of it. Hopefully they'll be able to show the PHBs why putting up with a company that rapes you with forced upgrades isn't necessary or wise.
9) Why are manhole covers round?
It's the only shape that won't fall through the hole.
--WooooHoooo--
Still could fall in. granted, it would take some actually effort, but could be done.
--WooooHoooo--
You said in one of your previous speeches that Microsoft is opposed to governments releasing source code under the GNU GPL Free Software license. I beg to differ.
Surely if the government has been funded by the taxpayer to develop this software, then it should be placed under a license that requires that it remains free to the funders? If the source code is placed under a less restrictive license such as the BSD license where the code can be integrated into proprietary products such as Microsoft Windows, then the customer will be forced to pay the vendor of the proprietary software for something they have in fact already paid for when they paid their tax to the government. Do you think that this secondary "Microsoft tax" is fair on customers?
Someone please mod this down - it's got a goatsex link.
--
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
So Mr. Mundie...
... what are your super powers?
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Come on, don't spew the company line. Talk in plain English.
.NET will require Microsoft name resolution, Microsoft SMTP, and just about anything else from Microsoft as well. The internet will be a COMPLETELY different world if you are running Windows than if you are not.
.NET Microsoft hopes to do to the internet what they did to the desktop in the early and mid 90s - own it and leverage it. It will promise benefits to the consumer but provide none.
.NET is several things to Microsoft. First and foremost it is intended to kill Java and any other competition for internet based apps. Secondly, it is designed to interoperate with Microsoft's new revenue model in which each person pays $100 each year for the privilege of using Office, and varying amounts for other Microsoft apps. Thirdly, it is meant to give Microsoft a stranglehold on all internet based communications.
In short, with
Sir:
Much controversy has surrounded Microsoft's Shared Source initiative, particularly given the differences between the licensing terms that apply to MS Shared Source and the licensing terms that apply according to the GNU Public License.
Hypothetically, suppose I am a programmer with MS Shared Source in front of me on one hand, and a different GPL source in front of me on the other hand.
Suppose, further, that in both cases I have a brilliant idea, an idea that will substantially increase the feature set, reduce bugs, and increase performance.
For both application programs, each under its own license, describe exactly
- the costs (money, time, opportunity)
- the benefits (same)
that would pertain to each of three important parties- myself, the programmer
- Microsoft corporation
- everyone else (public users, other companies, other programmers, etc.)
both in the short term and in the long term if I were to improve the code for the respective application program.I would most appreciate a ranking of those costs and benefits.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
It wasn't that it won't fall in. It's that it can't fall in. the 2x2 can't fall into the 2' dm circle. Any rectangle with one side less than 2' can possiblly fall in.
-no broken link
It is the cheapest shape with that property.
-no broken link
Otherwise, the round cover is arguably more useful because you can open it in any direction (after rotating the pivot point), and it's marginally easier to close (you don't have to get position and rotation correct). But it's probably more of a case of "round hole, round cover" logic that isn't actually a good reason why, just the reason why.
-no broken link
"...best of both worlds by giving you all the
.Net has all the disadvantages of Java but none of its advantages.
.Net is that instead of restricting myself to one good language, I can have my team of programmers writing the project in a half-dozen bad languages, none of which is comprehensible to more than one of them. Woohoo!
functionality you have come to expect from the Java platform with the added benefit of using languages other than Java (C++, C#, VB, Javascript, VBScript, Perl and a few others)..."
Or rather, it gives me all of the functionality I have come to expect, other than the ability to run on non-Windows platforms, a fantastic component library, a far more capable graphics library, incredible ease of loading and linking new code, and a million other things.
But, the advantage of
Seriously, though, I truly don't consider that an advantage. Try working on a two million line program, chunks of which are written in dead languages nobody around understands, and which only compile in specific old versions of their respective compilers, and *then* tell me that giving a team of fifty people the ability to each use absolutely any language they please is a Good Thing.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
You say this as someone who has never used Java2D.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
"Java is write once, run anywhere. This is a major advantage if you are running lots of client Java code on varying platforms. But since most Java development is server based then the fact that a program is WORA loses its charm"
... you don't develop server code, do you? You have this backwards. And I say this as a professional server-side Java developer.
Ummm
Client code is precisely where WORA is irrelevant, because Windows might as well be the only game in town. This is one of the big reasons why Java hasn't exactly taken the desktop by storm -- any sensible person, even a Java fan like myself, will tell you that Java has a number of disadvantages (primarily WRT to the GUI), and the ability to move to non-Windows platforms doesn't generally hold enough attraction to outweigh the disadvantages.
The situation is completely different on the server, where there are tons of different architectures (Solaris, Linux, BSD, Win NT & 2000, AIX, etc.), and clients don't like having to buy and support new servers just to run your software.
So if you want to deal with an AIX shop, you either write highly portable Unix code (a chore in itself) and rule out the Windows/etc. market, or you write Java code. A lot of people have been taking the latter option (and of course on a server there is no concern about Java's poor GUI performance). Java absolutely kicks ass on the server precisely because of its portability.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
Depends on what you mean by the "advantages of Java". The primary advantages of Java are a.) ease of development and b.) cross platform support.
- C# is primarily a Java based language that fixes a couple of things Java got wrong (there is now a const keyword, there are out parameters, there is a foreach construct, there are enums, etc) and also has some annoying holdovers from C++ (what's the deal with the virtual keyword?).
- Java is write once, run anywhere. This is a major advantage if you are running lots of client Java code on varying platforms. But since most Java development is server based then the fact that a program is WORA loses its charm. Secondly most Java communication between various platforms is done via RPC mechanisms (CORBA or RMI) and
.NET supports an XML based RPC format called SOAP which is as cross platform as you can get since all the other platform needs is an HTTP server.
One placeFor ease of development I'd rank them about equal. If the development is Windows based then C# beats the pants off of Java since it has access to certain APIs directly instead of having to go through JNI as would be done in Java.
--
What, exactly, is .Net?
.NET is the next generation of Microsoft's component technologies (COM, COM+, DCOM) which incorporates lessons learned from Java. COM is a technology that allows you to interact with components written in different languages transparently and is descended from OLE (Object Linking and Embedding which is the technology that was developed to allow being able to drag an Excel spreadsheet into a Word document) and . The languages that support COM are the Visual Studio languages as well as Object Pascal (Delphi). COM has its own binary format and while works almost transparently from Javascript, VB, and VBScript is a bitch to work with from C++. DCOM is the same as COM but it adds being able to do RPC (remote method invokation for the Java heads) from components irrespective of what language they are written in, kinda like CORBA without the ORBs.
.NET simplifies this by having a Common Language Runtime which is analogous to the Java JVM. COMable languages simply compile to the CLR format instead of to assembly code or a weird binary format. So this should lead to the best of both worlds by giving you all the functionality you have come to expect from the Java platform with the added benefit of using languages other than Java (C++, C#, VB, Javascript, VBScript, Perl and a few others) and transparently interact with objects written in these languages. Because all .NET languages have access to the CLR they can utilize it to extend themselves, e.g. Visual C++ has "managed extensions" that allows for garbage collection via the CLR.
.NET is Microsoft's XML Web services platform. This is the next generation of Internet computing, using XML to communicate among loosely coupled XML Web services that are collaborating to perform a particular task. Microsoft's .NET strategy delivers a software platform to build new .NET experiences, a programming model and tools to build and integrate XML Web services, and a set of programmable Web interfaces.
Developer View:
The major goal is then to use this technology to build XML based web services.
Marketting View:
Microsoft
PS: Please do not take this as some official MSFT response, I'm merely an intern and in fact this is a reprint of a post I made before I got to Redmond.
--
On Sun, we have long long :)
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
I think the reason that MS wouldn't write office for Linux is just that it would require a new code base (porting is not an option because like 1/2 the OS would need to be ported as well since there are so many COM dlls in the OS that are used by the windows apps not to mention that Office uses OLE to render many of the objects in a word file or other type of file). The revenue necessary to warrent a new code base has to be immense and with the mindset of Linux users/promoters being that software should be free(as in beer) would seem to not support a large revenue stream.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
Better yet, enclose $80 with every letter and demand a copy for linux. Money talks and if you get enough of it one place things happen.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
Ahh..... (is enlightened)
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
How come nobody even defends the right to life of tumors?
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
9) Why are manhole covers round?
It's the only shape that won't fall through the hole.Surprisingly, given how commonplace the question is, this answer is wrong!
There are shapes other than the circle that can't fall through a slightly-smaller hole of the same shape. Here is how to construct one of them. Take three equidistant points. (Like the corners of an equilateral triangle.) Place the needle of a compass on one point and run the pencil from the second point to the the third. Repeat for the other two points. The result is an equilateral triangle with bowed-out sides.
Not only can this shape function as a delightful manhole cover, but also you can roll a platform on top of logs with this cross section without it bouncing up and down-- just as if the logs had a circular cross section.
(Martin Gardner wrote about this in one of his books.)
To save you the time Ill tell you how he would answer:
Q:What, exactly, is .Net?
A: .Net is Innovation.
Q: And what is the difference between Open Source, Free Software, Linux and GPL.
A: They are all the same
Q: Do you have cancer?
A: No, I do not use open source products.
Until then, either set your HTTP client to send Referer:http://oreilly.com/news/mundie_0601. html or simply go here first (the originating page) and follow the link that reads "Post your questions to Craig Mundie here, or read what others have to say!" that's on the very bottom of the page.
--
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Given that 95% of the questions posted here and on Oreilly.com are uneducated and highly biased flamebait, given that no matter how intelligently you answer your questions to the open-source community you will be spat on and tarred and feathered like the enemy you are to these people, I have just one question?
Why bother?
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Isn't this what we want? Engaging Mr. Mundie in a controlled debate of the issue definately favors Free Software, IMO. What better way to confront the FUD than face to face.
I also believe that as a community we need to stay focused on what is important and avoid falling into the same headline chasing FUD tactics that Microsoft uses. Competing with MS on their terms is foolish. Remember when Clinton's '92 campaign reverberated 'It's the economy, stupid!'? We need to stick to that same sort of level, but substitute economy with technology and freedom.
Two sticks, just over 2' long, tied together in the middle to form a cross, would be even cheaper.
But completely pointless. (unless you whittled the ends of the sticks).
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
science is a religion
Does Microsoft have any plans to release binary versions of some of their more popular office applications for Linux or other open operating systems?
After all, apparently Microsoft makes the lion's share of its profits from applications rather than windows. I'm sure there's a decent-sided market for Office for Linux. I use Linux, and I'd certainly like to be able to use Word and Excell nativly - if nothing else then because their formats are the "defacto" standard these days.
Currently Corel's WordPerfect is the (more or less) standard office product for the Linux world, and I sort of wonder if Microsoft would be willing to challange that dominance, and perhaps gain a (little) bit of good will from a community that it has otherwise sorely alienated (to say the least).
credo quia absurdum
OK I can see why you mighn't like the GPL, since it doesn't do corporations any good, but why don't you try releasing software, or using software under the BSD license, much as Apple did with Mac OS X? Perhaps that would allow programmers to have a deeper understanding of the workings of your software.
credo quia absurdum
If I take a public Domain work (oh, let's say a work of Shakesphere) and make a derivitive work, I don't have to make my work public domain.
If I were to take a GPL's copy of King's work, I would have to use the GPL.
Or in other words, *you trade the ability to not use the GPL in your work when you utilize GPL code in your project!*
Every time there's a headline here with the words "interview" or "ask" people start frantically posting questions. I confess I've been guilty of that a couple of times myself... ;-)
(Original subject: First "This Is Not A /. Interview!" Post! Apparently that trips the lameness filter.)
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
or long int?
We are talking billions and billions here.
Or would you use a real number for the decimal accuracy?
I'm only replying to this one to correct a blatant falsehood, to get the correction into the slashdot record.
Anonymous Coward wrote: Executive Software write part of the Windows NT/2000/XP OS, so naturally they use the NT APIs for certain things below the Win32 level, but for applications developers, there's no advantage to using the native NT API.
It's just stupid to say that. Emulation layers like Win32 always add time to any system call. The Unix world has lots of experience with Mach, an OS similar in some aspects to NT. Emulations of Unix, Linux, VMS or Sprite on top of Mach always cost an unacceptable amount of time. From Sprite on Mach: "Unfortunately, the Sprite server runs the Andrew benchmark at only 38% of the speed of native Sprite."
From Linux on the OSF Mach3 microkernel: "Often, as much as a 40% performance cost has been reported."
The reasons an application programmer might want to use the "native" API amount to two very important things:
There's a huge advantage to using the "native" API, even for a mere application programmer. That's what I loathe the most about you MS-shills: you think you know better than I do what I want to do. It's the very height of arrogance to say that any programmer shouldn't use a particular API that offers more functionality, faster.
Windows NT, Windows 2000 and presumably Windows XP had a "native" API that Microsoft never bothered to document publicly. Microsoft has used this on various occasions to aid favored 3rd party vendors (Exececutive Software received access to the native API for "Diskeeper") and to hobble despised 3rd party vendors (Netscape's web server was much slower than IIS, because IIS used the native API, and Netscape used Win32).
Once Microsoft lets people view NT/2000/XP operating system code, the "native" API will be out of the bag. Microsoft won't have semi-secret "native" APIs to barter with.
How much of a force *against* the "shared source" approach was the existance of the "native" API?
No fair answering the question for him!
;)
Unless coca-cola owns that as well...
Goddamn it.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
As for the linux advocacy FAQ, I read it a long time ago back when I was a regular on the advocacy newsgroup. It applied then as much as it applies now. There's no sense trying to appeal to someone's better nature when they don't have one, so might as well toss out some gladiatorial dramatics for the crowd's pleasure. At least some amongst them have a sense of humour.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Furthermore, the only parallel that MS products and GPLed applications have in common is from the point of view of end-use, NOT further development on the core product, and this does not involve the GPL at all. On the surface it appears that MS is using the GPL, which is a distinguishing feature of one of its major competitors, the Linux Operating System, as a focal point for criticism to gain an edge in the general public's eye, despite the fact that the general public will probably have no need to explore those areas of the competing product which will actually involve the GPL. Given this, once more, how is this information campaign relevent, and how is it ethical?
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
is this.....is this for REAL?
great comedy company.
Since MSFT has announced it no longer will support Win95 and other prior code bases, when will MSFT provide the source code under an open source license, so that the legitimate "purchased for life" software users can maintain their own code?
...]
[yeah, I know, but OReilly won't let me post since I'm behind a firewall
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Why do Microsoft's operating systems do not attempt to cooperate with any other bootloaders, FreeBSD's, LILO, etc... when all of the other boot loaders go to great pains to make sure that all of the information for any operating system is left intact.
It is not impossible to recover from installing a Window's after other operating systems, but it is inconvenient.
This should be will within Microsoft's ability to do, so why hasn't it been done? And I will not accept any cheesy arguments like ours is better than theirs or the others won't work. They work well, and we all know it.
Either give it away or get top dollar, but never sell yourself cheap.
Duh.
But masters, remember that I am an ass: though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass.
Mr. Mundie, If you released the source code to Office, you would probably get at least the basic functionality ported to other OS's... for free. You would also get a huge amount of free QA. I would like to have Office available for Linux, and would be willing to work on porting it on my own time, and I would imagine I am not the only person that feels that way.
IMO there are no great innovations in Office that aren't available in other suites, so I don't think there is really all that much to lose on Microsoft's part. Office for Mac cannot possibly change the total sales of Microsoft OS's very much. Office for Linux wouldn't have a very significant impact either, unless it turns out that Linux as a desktop OS matures to be a better OS than MS Windows, and the market makes a choice to use it.
If Open Source is such a detriment to innovation, there is no way Linux could ever become the desktop OS of choice over MS Windows, so all you would be doing is expanding your Office user base, with no expense.
Whatcha doooo with those rollin' papers?
Make doooooobieees?
Microsoft appears to believe that the GNU Public License (GPL) presents some kind of danger to "intellectual property" rights, and that in particular Microsoft is trying to warn other companies [and not just software companies] of the danger.
With the exception of software companies, what danger does the use of the GPL really pose to most businesses, given that for them software is means to end and not the thing which defines them as a company? And how does Microsoft shared source offer GPL like benefits without the "IP Liability"?
I would like to offer a simple but specific example to clarify the context of the question: a small widget manufacturer has a production line, which he wishes to automate to stamp the logo of his customer on each widget. He has a database of customers, and a program developed by a large software company which controls the stamping press. He wants to connect the database and the stamping press program to change the stamp pattern according to his purchase orders in the database. This is a very simple adjustment. He cannot however modify the program, because the company which developed it has gone out of business, and he has no access to the source code. GPL software exists which he could use, but at the price of [potentially] sharing the that change with his competitors, but Microsoft also has a stamp press controller which he could buy, and get a Shared Source license for, enabling him to make the change. The question is, why should he choose MS and Shared Source over the GPL code? Is this ability really the core competency of his business, or merely a tool to help him in his real compentency which is making the best widgets? Presumably, if all that distinguished this manufacturer was his ability to stamp logos, how would the MS shared source license accomplish his goal of obscurity? Would MS not be privy to incorporate changes he made, and sell it at later date to his competitors or to make it a feature of MS StampPress? Would the low cost and low overhead of using GPL outweigh his concerns about IP competition? Furthermore, even supposing his competitors did end up using the "custom" code, does the fact that he can now benefit from any improvements THEY make change his decision - and can he benefit from changes other's make if he goes with MS Shared Source?
"Perfect numbers like perfect men are rare." -Descartes
Mod this one up! This argument is *right on*.
The Free desktop that Just Works
Question number 1: If you can't educate your own CEO, who can you educate?
Recent comments by Steve Ballmer, MS CEO, have made it very apparent that he has either (1) little or no understanding of the GPL/Open Source community, or (2) his is a big fat LIAR. What exactly is the point of the Microsoft Shared Source campaign, if leaders of Microsoft fail to grasp the basics of the issues at hand?
Question number 2: How does it feel to be a Shill?
If your Shared Source argument and position is, in fact, a farce, a marketing ploy, a pile of bald faced lies, good old fashioned FUD, how does this make you feel as individual and your own personal worth as a human being. From reading your resume, you seemed to have had a one point in time an geniune interest in technology. You seem to be nothing more than a stuffed shirt spokesman who mindlessly utters whatever FUD that Ballmer and company tell you to.
Question number 3: Are the limited credibility resources of Microsoft better spent elsewhere?
If Microsoft wants to embrace open standards and be accepted in the broader (non-desktop) computing market, then why is it wasting its credibility in putting out so much baseless FUD as the Shared Source/anti-Open Source campaign?
Equilateral triangular lids won't fall into holes either.
Why aren't manhole covers triangular?
Dancin Santa
1) Do you pronounce "Monday" and "Mundie" the same, or do you emphasize the "day" in "Monday"?
/. ID, or do you troll anonymously?
2) Before you came to Microsoft, what special talents did you possess?
3) If I were to grep the Windows source code, how many "We'd be totally fucked if our customers knew we did this" comments would I find?
4) Are you wearing a hairpiece?
5) What's your
6) When Bill or Steve makes a joke, does everyone laugh? Is it a fearful laughter?
7) How much Linux code is actually in Windows? Haha, just joking. Windows would be a lot stabler if it had any.
8) If you were a Hostess snack cake, which one would you be and why?
9) Why are manhole covers round?
10) Have you thought about suing tobacco companies and making a quick billion or two?
Dancin Santa
The most effective way to deal with this little publicity stunt (Daniel in the lion's den?) is to not show up, period. Microsoft is doing this just for PR. Mundie in an empty room would be a more powerful statement than any question.
What, exactly, is .Net?
And what is the difference between Open Source, Free Software, Linux and GPL.
Do you have cancer?
--
Two witches watch two watches.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
Right on. Get rid of Mundie and instead have a session on how to do the open version of HailStorm.
Galactic Geek
* * * Free programmers? Why not? http://www.Geeks4Free.com * * *
Did Microsoft purchase O'Reilly and Associates? If so, will they continue to use *TeX or switch to doing layouts using Word? Also, please leave the 18th century woodcuts alone, we like their distinctive look. Thank you.
--
Background: Politicians passed the Freedom of Information Act, after a LOT of pressure from news organizations, because people wanted to know what their government, which they are paying for, is up to. The government doesn't know who will request what information, but the general consensus is that if anything bad is happening, someone will request the right information and expose it.
Open Source code provides for the same thing to happen with computer programs. Closed source is like a closed government in that people we don't really know or trust are able to do things that we would rather they not with impunity and on our dime.
Again with open source, not everyone will look at the source code, in fact, very few will, but the code is open to review by whoever would request it. If there is something underhanded going on, someone who has not signed a NDA will discover it and proclaim what is found from the mountain tops.
Mr. Mundie, how can the public be assured that Microsoft is not doing underhanded things if no one is allowed to review the code except for Microsoft employees and those hand picked by Microsoft.
If the GPL is described as a "cancer", what malignant term does that leave to describe Microsoft's behavior? Microsoft bills itself as "software for the agile business". How does having the XP software force customers to call Microsoft when they change hardware contribute to agility? Similarly, how does having the XP software require the exact same CD that was used for installation be on hand for verification, applying service packs, etc. contribute to agility? Where do you get your drugs, and do you have any to share with the rest of the class? Seeing as how the linux faithful already view Bill Gates as the antichrist, do you have a particular character from Revelations that you would like to be viewed as?
I posted this on the O'reilly site (I really would like to hear an answer to this one!)
"Recent remark by Microsoft managers (among others, yourself and Steve Ballmer)regarding Linux, GPL and Open Source have been full of errors. Regarding that fact, which of the two suggestions is correct:
1. The managers of Microsoft are extremely un-informed when it comes to their "biggest threat" (as said by Steve Ballmer). In which case we can seriously question their expertise regarding matters conserning the software industry.
2. Or that the managers of Microsoft have deliberatly lied and spread misinformation regarding their competitors (which of course is completely un-ethical)."
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
I know it's a foreign concept to Linux companies, but see, Microsoft actually has money to pay their employees. VA Linux might soon be reduced to paying their employees with sexual favors
You are missing the point. Open Source developers don't do it for the money, they do it because they like it ;)
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Well, I guess some people don't get a joke even when it hits them in the head. Aww, bummer, maybe my sense of humor is just too complex/weird. damn, it's 2.40am in here, maybe I'm just not thinking straight.... I guess.... I don't know... Have to go to bed... zzzzzz
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
cnet has an article about the same subject. according to them, Red Hat's Michael Tiemann is going to be in a debate w/Craig Mundie... http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-6218716.html? tag=st.lx.1491268.today.1003-200-6218716
your comments are so laughable that i'd like to ask the following:
1 - you either believe what you're saying
or
2 - you have a good ol' time dumbing down ideas and take great pride in selling to complete idiots
so
1 - are you that stupid
or
2 - are you that much of a shill to stupidity?
followup...
have you ever wet yourself from laughing too hard?