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Microsoft Responds to Leaked Memo
AbbeyRoad writes "CNN, has a
story on Microsoft's response the
internal memo previous leaked:
"Microsoft believes many of its efforts to market its products against Linux and open source are backfiring, according to a memo posted on the Internet. ... Microsoft declined to comment on the authenticity of the memo, and did not answer when asked if it believes its marketing against Linux and open source has been effective. ... Microsoft spokesman Jon Murchinson said: ''The document in question seems to suggest that the basis for evaluating products has been long-term customer value, and that's something we agree with. I think our marketing is geared toward that issue, toward long-term customer value.'' ""
LOL, I was thinking along that lines myself...
Long term customer value = how much money we can squeeze from a customer in their lifetime.
Long term value != a product that the customer derives value from for an extended period.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
The link in the summary seems to point to the wrong memo. Here's the correct one.
Huh?
Apple's history of using lawsuits is scary. Note that they're more than happy to sue open source vendors.
Let me answer this with another question:
Which of those listed have the most money?
>> 1. Linus.
>> 2. Developers who wrote IP violating code.
>> 3. Red Hat / SuSE / Debian / Mandrake / other distros.
>> 4. Companies selling Linux-based devices e.g. Tivo.
>> 5. Companies deploying Linux in their workplaces.
>> 6. Cowboyneal.
1 and 6 are out - unless they want to make an example of someone. Even then, CBN is the lesser likely of the two.
#2 - More likely than 1 or 6.
#3 - Most likely of all - they're directly profiting from the sale
#5 - Likely, but less so than 3.
Surely you jest. Given that the software controlling a box can be trusted to do the vendor's bidding, they could do anything, including stopping cut-n-paste.
If a document, say, Haloween XI, is available only in Word 2005 Palladium Edition, and the document is marked, "only allow copy/paste if License XY288273JJw8999 is in place", then you can bet they darn well will stop cut & paste. In fact, they could allow copy, and selectively enable paste. Even in non-Palladium applications. The "untrusted" app must make system service calls to obtain the contents of the clipboard, which would come back as:
Heck, they could even stop screen snapshots. Certian rectangular regions of the screen could just be blacked out in the screen snapshot. Only a trusted signed app could gain access to the raw unblocked pixels. The app would not be signed as trusted unless it withstood scrutiny to ensure that it didn't leak protected content. (i.e. a hypothetical Photoshop Palladium Edition might be able to edit a raw screen snapshot, but only if it preserved the licensing conditions of those raw pixels, and didn't allow viewing, copy, paste, etc. unless the condition "only allow copy/paste if License XY288273JJw8999 is in place". If Phosothop saved protected content, then only another "trusted" application could open it. That application could edit it, but would still enforce the license restriction of the content, now in the form of pixels. A non-trusted OCR program, for instance, could not open the document. The OS simply wouldn't allow it. But a trusted OCR program, duley signed, would enforce the digital rights restrictions and transfer them to the saved OCR'ed text file. (If it didn't then the OCR program would never have gotten "trusted" status under Palladium.)
I hope this information is useful and answers your original doubts that Palladium could stop cut & paste.
Basically there is a trusted and untrusted side of the fence. Once data exists on the trusted side, only trusted applications can manipulate that data. The data itself carries tags (or scripts?) that enforce the digital rights restrictions. If Microsoft were to develop a really flexible design for expressing the digital rights restrictions, then a piece of data could be tagged such as: "do not allow people with green hair to read this content.".
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
Comparing an equivalent commercial product, I would say Visual Slickedit would be a nice counter to that argument, it's available for a few platforms too:
.NET release for a long time.
Windows Platforms
Windows NT/2000/XP/Me/98
Unix Platforms
Linux x86 Linux Kernel 2.2 and above
(Red Hat 6.x and above, SuSE 6.x and above) FreeBSD x864.3 and above Solaris SPARC2.6 and above AIX4.3.3.10 and above HP-UX10.20 and above IRIX6.5.x and above
It's had autocomplete and many other things that Visual Studio finally got with the
I imagine that's about as often or less often than a typical Linux user upgrades their machine.
:)
... oh, nevermind :p
One of the differences here is that I can upgrade any part of my Linux systems that I want. My main Linux box is running RedHat 6.2, but with a 2.4.19 kernel, many many upgraded user-space tools, ext3 filesystem, updated glibc, rpm 4.x, etc...
With Windows you get all or nothing. If I want remote desktop on my Windows box, I have to upgrade all of Windows. I'm sure there are a few things in XP I wouldn't mind having, but I am sticking with Win2k until I see a reason to upgrade (so we agree for the most part
Another poster mentioned that Office 11 will not support Windows 98. If this is true (this is the first I'd heard of it myself), then this extends even further than the OS.
Unless a business did the upgrading by themselves (that is, without purchasing from RedHat), then I don't really see why it's so much cheaper.
Linux kernel and software upgrades can be rolled out pretty easily if you have a standardized base. A web host I used to work for runs a few dozen Linux servers, and most updates are scripted and automated. It takes the SysAdmin a day or three to fully test a major upgrade on his dev boxes, and once he's sure it's all going to work, he rolls them out to all of the servers in an hour or so.
This goes for kernel updates, library updates, Apache/other major software packages, etc. I believe they are running a RedHat 6.2 base as well, but again with most everything updated; it's practially a custom distro at this point.
While this isn't an "OS Upgrade" in the normal sense, updating the kernel and most major software tools accomplishes the same job, but can be better because you know exactly what is changing. How many times have you had to hunt for an option because the latest Windows version changed it's name or location yet again?
Anyway, granted server updates and desktop OS updates are two different things. There will be no user re-training with the server updates (for the most part)...
A Linux-savy IT crew isn't very cheap.
Neither is a competent Windows admin or team. Not just an MCSE, but one who really truly knows how to properly and securely run a Windows server. I think in the end, for the same level of competence, you come out about even here in either case.
Unless you count all the overtime the Windows admins spend fixing BSOD errors and
NGWave - Fast Sound Editor for Windows