Microsoft's Worst Enemy: Themselves

KobyBoy writes "Saw this story posted on OSnews this morning. "Microsoft's biggest threat isn't Linux, OpenOffice, or any piece of software at all--its themselves. Over the last eighteen months two distinctly different Microsoft cultures have emerged, often in opposition to each other." You can get the full article at Sudhian Media."

Comments

Control

[deanj]

This all comes down to control. What Bill wants, Bill gets, at least within his own company. You can bet your life that if Gates wanted to do something within the company, they'd turn on a dime, just the way they did back in 1995 to support Internet stuff

Re:Control

[KaiKaitheKai]

Yeah, that darned "Internet stuff." Too bad it never got off the ground, it could have been big...

Re:Control

[sql*kitten]

This all comes down to control. What Bill wants, Bill gets, at least within his own company. You can bet your life that if Gates wanted to do something within the company, they'd turn on a dime, just the way they did back in 1995 to support Internet stuff

Yes and no. The dissonance between the two cultures could be a sign that the "cult of Bill" is waning. An autocratic leader can only be effective if everyone "drinks the koolaid". It's very hard to fight an entrenched culture, and many CEOs have failed because they couldn't get buy-in from the rank and file. I've seen this first hand, when ordinary staffers made no secret of their contempt for senior management... it's the death knell for a company.

Perhaps Microsoft are running out of the old-skool staff and the new blood they're hiring doesn't automatically defer to Bill on every decision. I'd imagine that Microsoft people are very poor at playing the sort of corporate political games that are taken for granted elsewhere, the old Microsoft culture actively discouraged it. If they've hired a bunch of people who are politically adept, they will be very difficult to control.

Re:Control

[ramirez]

I tend to agree with the original poster, however I fail to see how differing ideas within a company would signal its decline.

I think that, if anything, differing points of view would make the company stronger if the differences are channeled in a constructive way.

Possibly one of their biggest strengths (other than their monopoly) would be differing ideas among upper management.

Re:Control

[Jason Earl]

Microsoft's problems do not stem from some sort of corporate culture clash, and I can guarantee you that when Bill speaks people working at Microsoft still jump.

The problem at Microsoft is that the people running the show (and that includes most Microsoft developers) are more concerned about Microsoft's stock price than the long term survival of the company. Microsoft stock is still priced for rapid growth, and so Microsoft has to come up with a way to provide that growth or Microsoft shares will eventually lose a significant portion of their present value. If you think that Microsoft's $40 Billion is an impressive number calculate what Bill Gates would lose personally if Microsoft's stock lost half of its value.

The question then becomes where does Microsoft hope to gain its future growth. Linux is cutting deeply into Microsoft on the server side, and there is fierce competition (and very low margins) on the embedded front. That leaves Windows and MS Office, as all of Microsoft's other business units are actually losing money. The XBox is Microsoft's best bet for a new significant revenue stream, but Sony appears to be taking Microsof to lunch on this front.

That's not all of Microsoft's problems either. The PC market continues to be soft, and MS Office is being replaced on the low-end models of nearly every major manufacturer with Corel's PerfectOffice.

So what does Microsoft do to keep growing their revenue? They raise prices, that's what. Microsoft knows that their existing customers have large investments in their Microsoft software. Replacing this software would be very difficult, and so Microsoft is making these customers pay the price of their misplaced loyalty.

Re:Control

[sql*kitten]

I tend to agree with the original poster, however I fail to see how differing ideas within a company would signal its decline.

Differing ideas are one thing, differing cultures are something else. Traditionally, Microsoft have had a reputation for being very adademic and meritocratic in their decision making. Ideas are exchanged and debated, and eventually the best one wins (in theory at least). That assumes that everyone is basically moving towards the same goal, and while they have their own ideas on how to get there, their egos aren't tied up in having their personal idea be the chosen one. What matters is the goal.

But what if some people aren't so much interested in the goal per se, as they are in building their own little empire on the way to the goal? An old-skool Microserf will fully expect to argue the case, then sit back, and let the idea be considered on its merits. They won't be able to cope with a senior manager who does not have the best interests of the organization as a whole in mind. That's what I mean by a culture clash.

Possibly one of their biggest strengths (other than their monopoly) would be differing ideas among upper management.

It was when the senior management was largely comprised of Microsoft lifers who joined in the early days of the company and had worked their way up. But it's very different when those people find themselves competing with professional managers brought in as lateral hires.

Re:Control

[mugnyte]

I read it differently. MS sees an opportunity to finally get all content digital and controlled. Movies, banking, games, education, etc, could all be managed securely if everyone played by the rules. Shaping up the OS, as the author sees, is part of it.

MS's "business side" realizes that Content Is King when all the gizmos are installed. Content providers are holding off until security is in place (draconian as it is). So we'll have crazy licensing schemes, Palladium, etc.

I think we're going to see a much bigger walk into the AOL-with-key-and-lock (fubar as it may be) items from MS. Media Player may just be evolving into the next Tivo that tries to please everyone.

So this side bunches together with the salepitchers to hold our hands and walk us into The New Way. It's gonna be scary.

The "strong" OS of XP and stable round of versions coming out now are an effort to woo the business world into getting MS in the server room, the media room, the bank, etc. Remember, besides Linux there are a lot of AS/400-esqe boxes still running that it would like to replace. MS could care less that you have dual boot on your PC. It wants those juicy corporate licenses, and now it wants to build a world for new licences where it doesn exist: Media Management.

Would you be surprised if MS announced it will be hosting and delivering first-run movies online through MSN, in a partnership with studio XYZ? If you look into MSN's portal, you'll see this is the obvious evolutionary step about to take place. That's big FU money, IMO. They're not going to rush, but I expect it soon.

mug

Re:Control

[sheldon]

Linux is cutting deeply into Microsoft on the server side

Not really, Microsoft marketshare is still growing. In 2001 it grew by 3%.

The PC market continues to be soft, and MS Office is being replaced on the low-end models of nearly every major manufacturer with Corel's PerfectOffice.

Again, this isn't all that critical either.

Like you said, the problem is that in order for Microsoft to show rapid growth they need to be able to expand markets. That's difficult to do, Linux isn't cutting into Microsoft's server market, it's cutting into Microsoft's server growth potential markets by replacing Unix. If not for Linux, those Unix servers would be replaced by Win2k servers.

Similarly with the low priced machines. If not for Corel, chances are those machines would sell with no bundled software in order to keep prices down. It just cuts into the potential sales.

This isn't just a problem for Microsoft, it's a problem for many companies. One of the challenges the stock market gives is that there is an expectation for growth. Companies that hit a plataeu usually get hammered in the markets.

Re:Control

[michael_cain]

If I may summarize, MS faces enormous problems in the not-so-distant future in transforming themselves from a hot-shot growth company into a mature firm. Their share price will not continue to double, so they won't be able to use options as currency (how would you like to be a relatively new hire with MS options at $120?). Some of their newer ventures may end up being profitable -- I would bet on MSN, particularly if AOL continues to screw up -- but the profit margins will not be nearly as good as those for Windows or Office. They have been unsuccessful, so far, in finding the next big thing in software that everyone wants.

MS is not the only firm with this problem. I would also add Intel and Cisco to the list of large successful tech companies whose share price is way too high for their realistic growth prospects. I have a friend at Intel who reported a rumor that Intel's upper management was shocked at a recent meeting with investment bankers who told them that they were a mature firm, not a growth company, and their share price would adjust downwards drastically as the stock market realized that fact.

Re:Control

[Asprin]

Hey, does anybody else out there think that this has less to do with Bill and more to do with Monkeyboy? AFAIK, Bill hasn't been involved in the daily operations since we wandered off into the woods to meditate about the interenet in '97. Steve's the guy that's really been running things.

...or am I extremely deluded?

Re:Control

[juan2074]

If not for Linux, those Unix servers would be replaced by Win2k servers.

Bad assumption.

Win2K is not a good replacement for UNIX in too many cases. And if Linux did not exist, those systems could have been kept in place (not replaced at all) or replaced with one of the free BSD variants (which would exist whether Linux was out there or not).

Your argument that those UNIX servers would have been replaced by Win2K servers is much like the claim by the RIAA that every time someone downloads a song for free, that represents a lost sale.

Maybe in a few cases, but not in every case.

Re:Control

[acroyear]

Well, Cringley always said (he repeats it with at least 3 examples throughout his book) that M$ is one of those companies that always tries to do things the way IBM does, unless it can do it better. IBM, according to him, isn't (or wasn't in 1992) in the business of making computers or software, it was mostly in the business of making managers -- personal empires meant everything, regardless of how much or who did the work. The designer of the PC was kicked out of his own division and moved to some "safe" place, because his job wasn't really to build the PC, it was to build the infrastructure (the "empire") needed to actually build a PC.

So now, M$ is in the same position -- it happens when you have divisions compared to and fighting themselves, which always happens when you run out of serious outside competition. Office competes internally for resources with Windows, competing with XBox, competing with the languages and Visual Studio, competing with .NET (until .NET gets eaten up by libraries, which results in it being divided up between Windows, Office, and VS). You aren't really judged within M$ by how well you do against the competition (outside of XBox, there really still isn't any -- M$'s press department, marketting, and legal teams and the board take care of that issue which isn't a technical issue to them, its a PR issue, and their PR is again IBM's -- nobody got fired for buying IBM, so now nobody gets fired for buying Microsoft).

Yes, M$ is competing within itself, because to them there's no other competition. And its been like that within the company for almost a decade now. And like IBM in the 70s and 80s, each division is in that tricky position of competing with other divisions in size, market share, and profit share, while at the same time doing nothing that potentially damages another core business (e.g., the Visual Studio team can't do anything that might break .NET or .NET integration, or come up with a better .NET than .NET does). Just like IBM crippled their PCs with no networking or terminal emulation, because doing so would have hurt their cash cow of a mainframe terminal business.

Re:Control

[Melantha_Bacchae]

Microsoft's DRM empire will be a bust. The only way they could have succeeded would have been with the Hollings bill mandating their DRMOS as law. Hollings has lost his position as head of the commerce committee, and no longer can use that post as a platform from which to launch his bill.

Without a legal mandate, DRM will fail due to customer rejection. Customers will not like DRM raking up charges on their credit card quietly like Microsoft believes it should. They will not like loosing all their licenses in a computer malfunction and having to obtain or buy new ones.

The next few years are going to be a bit messy, with Microsoft and the media sharks trying all sorts of stunts. But unless they can somehow hook into the "War on Terror", Microsoft won't be getting their kingdom, and they and the media sharks may not survive the wrath of their customers.

Windows: "Go talk to my friend, an 800 pound monopoly-abusing gorilla!"
Mac: "And here's my good buddy, the 66,000 ton Godzilla!"
Godzilla: Stomp! ;)

Re:Control

[elemental23]

The internet? Is that thing still around?

(AABF20)

Re:Control

[AvantLegion]

> The XBox is Microsoft's best bet for a new significant revenue stream, but Sony appears to be taking Microsof to lunch on this front.

Actually, Microsoft's penetration in the very closed, Japanese-centric market of consoles has been impressive. The PS2 rode the wave of the original PS, and entered the market with basically no competition. Neither the Xbox nor the GameCube were going to overthrow the PS2 in those market conditions.

However, this first effort by Microsoft is beating Nintendo's GameCube on many sales fronts. The Xbox also experienced an overwhelmingly successful launch of its online component, Xbox Live.

It's an interesting time, as all three consoles on the market are quite healthy in the US market. There's no Sega Saturn or even Dreamcast in this bunch (ignoring, for a moment, that the Dreamcast was a damn fine piece of hardware, just not a sales monster). The Xbox has been slow but steady in gaining a foothold in the market. Internet Explorer didn't become the most used browser overnight, ya know. ;)

Re:Control

[Anonymous Coward]

Hired? IIRC, Micro$oft is the PermaTemp Empire.

Loyalty is Irrelevant.

Re:Control

[sheldon]

You appear to be making a number of really bad assumptions in your own analysis.

The first being that Unix is somehow a superior OS for certain solutions. That's been proven to be wrong numerous times over. I'd appreciate it if you could back up that implied claim with some examples.

The primary reason for migrating from say a Sun Sparc box to a x86 box is one of hardware cost. The other mitigating factor in this equation is the cost of work to rewrite the solution to work in the new environment.

It is far less work to port the solution from Solaris to Linux.

However, this claim "Win2K is not a good replacement for UNIX in too many cases." is simply not a factor in this equation. Any situation where Win2k is not a good replacement for UNIX is also going to be true for Linux, mainly limited by the x86 architecture.

Re:Control

[Jason Earl]

I agree with you completely about your Linux server comment. While there obviously are some cases where Linux replaces Windows on the server (I know of some cases first hand :), Linux is primarily damaging to Microsoft because it is keeping UNIX shops from switching to Windows 2000. Marketshare would be great for Microsoft, but their stock price reflects growth and 3% simply isn't going to cut it. Aside from that Linux really limits how much Microsoft can charge for their server OS (which is why their profit margin is so much lower in their Server business unit).

My point was really that Microsoft could not only make their customers happy, but they could bury the threat of Free Software in one fell swoop by simply lowering their prices dramatically. The reason that Linux, OpenOffice and and the rest of Free Software is still a threat to Microsoft is that Microsoft's customers are tired of being treatedly so badly. The reason that Microsoft hasn't done this has nothing to do with protecting its business long term. Instead it has everything to do with protecting Microsoft's stock price for the short term.

Corporate management should focus on the business (profits, revenues, margins, marketshare, etc.), and not on the stock price. As we all know the stock price can have little or nothing to do with the long term viability of the company. When management starts making decisions based on how Wall Street will react (as opposed to how the decision will effect the bottom line), then the company is in serious trouble.

Re:Control

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has a very young staff base. They higher almost exclusvely from the fresh-graduate pool. I personally know at least three people who work in the Mac division who hate the everything about the windows division. I can only imagine there are many more people who detest microsoft (judging by my observations of how people smart enough to be getting a job at microsoft have about a 50% chance of disliking Microsoft products simply on technical merits).

Re:Control

[Jason Earl]

Yes, the difference is that Microsoft is losing money on the XBox, and the more the console sells, the more money they lose.

Microsoft spent too much money on hardware, and the fact that they can't integrate their chipset (since they bought major components from several manufacturers) means that they aren't really ever going to be able to lower the price of their hardware. Just because Microsoft can afford to give away XBoxes at the same price as a PS2 does not mean that this is a smart business practice.

Gaining marketshare is neat, but if you have to lose money doing it then you had better make sure that you are driving your competitor out of business.

Re:Control

[The Phantom Buffalo]

Doesn't the fact it is far less work to port from Solaris to Linux (or a BSD) make it factor in the equation?

It just sounds to me like you are contradicting yourself. If neither Win2K or Linux is a good replacement, then Linux would seem to be the better of the two.

Re:Control

[Citizen of Earth]

Microsoft stock is still priced for rapid growth, and so Microsoft has to come up with a way to provide that growth or Microsoft shares will eventually lose a significant portion of their present value.

I'm sure that they will when their monopolized software categories become more commoditized.

But for a stock poised for rapid growth, it has been completely flat for the past two years, and is still trading at less than half of its all-time high of $120. Their rapid-growth stock hasn't been growing at all, but many of their salary and business strategies require rapid growth, and this is why they are aggressively pissing off their customers to try to re-inflate their stock price.

Ultimately, I think that MS itself will be the force that breaks its own monopoly (with an assist from Linux, OpenOffice & Mozilla), which will precipitate its downfall because the monopolized areas provide the funding for the whole operation (save the big piggy bank).

Re:Control

[alfredw]

Blockquoth the poster:

So what does Microsoft do to keep growing their revenue? They raise prices, that's what. Microsoft knows that their existing customers have large investments in their Microsoft software. Replacing this software would be very difficult, and so Microsoft is making these customers pay the price of their misplaced loyalty.

An excellent point, but not entirely correct. Microsoft has one other option available to it: increase revenue by increasing volume. The market is already saturated, so the only way they can hope to accomplish this is by making people actually want to buy into the next upgrade.

MS's latest move is .NET, which is, as I'm sure many MS developers would agree, is actually a big step forward. It certainly isn't perfect, but it is undoubtedly superior to COM and COM+ from the development perspective. So what? Well, if MS can get application developers onto .NET (perhaps by slashing/eliminating prices on Visual Studio and MSDN?) then they can get real leverage over their customer base to pay for the upgrades.

After all, if the 2004 version of your tax software or your image processor with cool new feature X, or your spanky new 3D game won't run on Win 98, you have a positive incentive to upgrade. (Keep in mind that Win 95 + 98 + NT4 still make up a larger install base than 2000 + XP, and ME sucks too much to matter) If MS can triple its upgrade rate, it can triple revenue without touching the price for the end-user. The catch, of course, is that all of these (except 95) are .NET compatible. Will MS poison the architecture for their own gain?

Time will tell :)

Re:Control

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember seeing a television commercial featuring Bill Gates with a stack of CD's. No mention of Internet, just get your information on these CD's. Now, most folks use CD's for music, or to download and play music. Imagine getting a Dell for Christmas, with all the bells and whistles, and using it for a jukebox, I have seen this happen. Packard Bell's Navigator was part of their multimedia setup, no internet, as the OS was Windows 3.1, which had no built-in internet, as did the turn-on-a-dime Windows 95.
We have the internet now, but still most just want a fancy, expensive jukebox. Fill up your 100 GB hdd with lots of songs and movies, and put all the entertainers out of business for lack of royalties. Reminds me of the story about Afgans digging up vcr's buried in the backyard after the Taliban left, and watching cheesy Indian soap operas.
Tons of American productivity goes down the drain every day while soap operas air. As if anyone needed a daily reminder of how to conduct one's self in the presence of the opposite sex. So much for using the internet for the exchange of scientific information. That just isn't going to happen for the general population, of which 60% are online now in the USA. No? Let's hear anyone give us the top ten "search" keywords. Anyone?

Re:Control

[Jason Earl]

Microsoft has always been a nifty development platform. Heck, I believe that is the reason that Windows won out over OS/2. Microsoft courted developers much harder than IBM did.

However, upgrade cycles are going to continue to be a difficult problem for Microsoft. Even if they do get massive uptake of Windows XP and Office XP they still will have several years before they will have something else to sell, and this time they won't be competing with crappy Windows 98, but a very decent Windows XP. Unless Microsoft comes up with something stunning people are going to be even more likely to stay where they are at. The fact of the matter is that the PC industry is past its growth stage, and the software that Microsoft specializes in (OSes and Office suites) are becoming commodities. Say what you want about Linux or OpenOffice, but Microsoft is not going to be able to get away with 85% profit margins for too much longer.

Re:Control

[sheldon]

I agree with everything you said.

"My point was really that Microsoft could not only make their customers happy, but they could bury the threat of Free Software in one fell swoop by simply lowering their prices dramatically. "

It's interesting to note that had BSDI, Coherent, Dell Unix, whatever been available back in 1992 for about $100, chances are Linux would never have come to fruition. Many of the GNU tools would then not have seen widespread use, even gcc if the compiler had only been $50 or so.

Many years later, after these Unix companies were already losing marketshare, they turned around and started offering it for cheap. But by then it was too late, the mindshare had been lost.

Re:Control

[Jason Earl]

Excellent examples, and an excellent discussion. This is precisely why I keep coming back to /.

Re:Control

[Newcastle22]

Agreed. Bill doesn't care about money any more; its all about the game.

Dan

Re:Control

[Anonymous Coward]

For running unix programs, unix is a superior OS. Just as "Linux sucks, it doesn't run MS Office as wewll as windows" is a patently stupid argument, so yours is. I guarantee you, my HPF CFD codes run better on Solaris than on WinNT.

And your other argument is rubbish too - the primary cost in this day and age is NOT hardware, it's people. And they're an ongoing operational cost, not just capital expenditure. And since a linux solution of n x86 boxes takes less people than a WinNT solution of n x86 boxes, while simultaneously being more reliable and doing more per box, the linux solution is cheaper (are MS still recommending "one service per box and lots of failover clustering" - yes, they are...)

This has now been tested in a number of enterprise (>5000 people) companies.

Basically, all you Windoze d00ds are on your way out, unless you can retrain pretty sharpish.

Re:Control

[Gleef]

sheldon wrote:

It's interesting to note that had BSDI, Coherent, Dell Unix, whatever been available back in 1992 for about $100, chances are Linux would never have come to fruition.

It would still have been written, but it probably wouldn't have been as popular among developers as quickly; so it wouldn't have gotten as good as it has.

Also, don't forget SCO, almost certainly the most popular x86 unix in 1992. If they had made cheap or free student and developer versions, and had lower prices for production versions, the x86 unix market could look very different today. Not that I'm complaining, I much prefer Linux (or even BSDI) to SCO ;-).

Many of the GNU tools would then not have seen widespread use, even gcc if the compiler had only been $50 or so.

Emacs and gcc had widespread use on commercial Unixes (including BSDI) in 1992. The BSDI boxes that I have used all had both programs installed.

Re:Control

[Gropo]

It was when the senior management was largely comprised of Microsoft lifers who joined in the early days of the company and had worked their way up. But it's very different when those people find themselves competing with professional managers brought in as lateral hires.

Graig Mundie was one of the first royal a-holes to join these ranks. You'll recall Mr. Mundie was the M$ VP a couple years back that decided to go on that major 'LINUX SUCKS' FUD crusade. My pappa was hired by the guy into Alliant Computer Systems back in the gay-80's - at which time he displayed extreme arrogance in the fact that pappa was able to summize (due to it coming from a submarine) that the "director" he needed to take a call with (cutting in to the interview time) was XxXx, a weekend naval sub warrior.

A little research on the company by a prospective employee and Mr. Mundie takes it as an ego-blow. The 'vendetta vibe' over this event haunted my pa until he wisely left that sinking ship for another 2 years later...

Court order not needed

[KaiKaitheKai]

Well, it didn't take a supreme court order to split Microsoft in two.

Re:Court order not needed

[Soko]

As funny as that statement is, I'd rather it be modded as insightful, rather than funny.

Imagine, if you will, that CmdrTaco's little icon joke about the Borg is indeed correct. OK, now, imagine that we manage to insert a little bit of autonomy (by college education, for example) into one of the drones. Remember Hugh? Seems OSS has hurt Microsoft in ways that can't be measured quite yet on the balance sheet.

I've always thought that the best way to dismantle a machine is from the inside. Here's more credence to that thought, IMHO. Actually, my first thought when I read the article was "Merry Christmas, Soko - there really is a Windows user with a clue."

Soko

Re:Court order not needed

[h2odragon]

The borg icon was very nearly the last worthwhile creative effort to come from the lamented "Boardwatch" magazine...

You Need Only Consider IIS...

[BigBlockMopar]

Of course Microsoft is their own worst enemy. Who else would allow IIS or Outlook - a security hole which masquerades as an e-mail client - to be some of their flagship products?

The security holes are even more annoying than the damned animated paperclip.

Re:You Need Only Consider IIS...

[DalTech]

My animated paperclip went on a bender and refuses to speak to me.

Re:You Need Only Consider IIS...

[BigBlockMopar]

My animated paperclip went on a bender and refuses to speak to me.

The last time I heard mine was a dying scream as I mounted my FAT32 partition, navigated to it, and typed the magic letters:

# rm -rf *

It was high, blood-curdling, but strangely satisfying. Like the sound of the welds in a Honda's body popping as the car crusher takes it down to 3 apples tall, then the wet thunk of a cast-aluminum engine block cracking like a flowerpot in a vise.

Mercifully, when I had to install Excel on Wine because OpenOffice doesn't do something as fscking simple as a polynomial regression, the damned paperclip didn't work.

Re:You Need Only Consider IIS...

[Anonymous Coward]

All I have to say to you is RTFA.

and then, go RTFM for outlook.

Re:You Need Only Consider IIS...

[Anonymous Coward]

If polynomial regression is so "fscking simple", why don't you implement it yourself? You're staring at a spreadsheet, for pity's sake. You could even give something back by sharing the OO macros when youre done. Not only that, but it would probably be faster than getting Excel on Wine including the paperclip to work...

Re:You Need Only Consider IIS...

[joib]

Mercifully, when I had to install Excel on Wine because OpenOffice doesn't do something as fscking simple as a polynomial regression, the damned paperclip didn't work.


Well, when you need math there's for example R and Octave instead of that excel crap.

Re:You Need Only Consider IIS...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Mercifully, when I had to install Excel on Wine because OpenOffice doesn't do something as fscking simple as a polynomial regression, the damned paperclip didn't work."

If polynomial regression is so fscking simple for you then why do you need a spreed sheet? Just whip up some perl and use GNUPlot and you are good to go.

Re:You Need Only Consider IIS...

[inode_buddha]

for the nth time.... the last I saw Clippy, I unbent him to clean some body parts...

Re:You Need Only Consider IIS...

[Yokaze]

> because OpenOffice doesn't do something as fscking simple as a polynomial regression

Grace would be a less drastic solution. :)

Not to mention Octave, which might be a little bit too complex for this matter. Here, the function for squares polynomial regression polyfit

Re:You Need Only Consider IIS...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now ya did it! I'll be fantasising about rice burners filled with MS CDs going into the crusker. Plate-style crushers are so satisfying to watch. :P

Re:You Need Only Consider IIS...

[Selfbain]

The paperclip talks to me. It tells me to do things.

Re:You Need Only Consider IIS...

[yeschat]

Maybe I am just lucky, but I have *never* had a security hole due to Outlook or Outlook Express or IE. I have used Office since Office 2K and I do get a good amount of e mail. I would also say that I am not a hardcore geek. My family uses Outlook Express as well (also for many years)and they know basic internet things only IF that. So what the hell is the problem with sysadmins and those security holes? I know it's a different enviornment but sheesh if my numbskull family can use Outlook and Outlook Express without virus or whatever problems it seems to me sysadmins just don't get over themselves enough at the job to secure things right or whatever needs to be done. I may sound ignorant but that is my point of view. Just maybe share the blame of security holes between MS and the goof sysadmins instead of taking any chance to bash an MS office or server. True MS has screwed themselves a lot but let's try to be progressive with comments instead of always bashing.Thanks!

Re:You Need Only Consider IIS...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is Poly Nomial and why do you want to regress her ?

Re:You Need Only Consider IIS...

[Anonymous Coward]

I may sound ignorant

leave out the "may", and you're all set.

Re:You Need Only Consider IIS...

[Anonymous Coward]

No no no it is REDRESS her

Don't worry about it

[TerryAtWork]

At Microsoft, There is No Will But Bill.

Bill will handle this and woe unto the heratics!

Re:Don't worry about it

[Anonymous Coward]

He'll choke the rivers with his dead!

well,

[kingofnopants]

Well, this proves it. Microsoft is everyone's worst enemy

Re:well,

[Nasheer]

What are the chances that all MS employees shot their own head?

What

[BigGar']

You're saying that Microsoft has developed a split personality?

Eugenia

[Illuminati Member]

Watch out poster, you may feel the wrath of Eugenia (head of osnews.org). She claims to be all about free OS's and such, but the moment you directly quote the site (like in a comment to avoid slashdotting), she immediately gets angry and lashes out. You directly quoted the article!
Be wary!

Re:Eugenia

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't she really fat too? Probably has no life other than plopping her obese self in front of the computer 24x7 to protect her site... Inside of every fat chick is an ugly mind screaming at everything!

Re:Eugenia

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch out poster, you may feel the wrath of Eugenia (head of osnews.org). She claims to be all about free OS's and such

1) She no longer runs OSNews.
2) OSNews NEVER claimed to be "all about free OS's." They claim to cover whatever is happening on the OS front, whether the OS is free or not.

Re:Eugenia

[mstefan]

Personally, I just find it humorous that the "editor in chief" is someone who effectively tells readers to STFU if there's spelling or grammatical errors.

Re:Eugenia

[Anonymous Coward]

That's probrably why she quit (I am assuming it was her decision). She was losing it.

Re:Eugenia

[Anonymous Coward]

...STFU if there's spelling or grammatical errors.

...if there are spelling or grammatical errors.

Re:Eugenia

[mstefan]

Touché :)

Re:Eugenia

[Joey7F]

What does STFU mean? A google search only yields results that say "What does STFU mean?"

--Joey

Re:Eugenia

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut The Fuck Up

Re:Eugenia

[Darkninja666]

it means:Shut The F**k Up

Re:Eugenia

[pyrrho]

it means: "please be quiet".

Re:Eugenia

[Anonymous Coward]

She quit? hey.. might be time to check that place out again then.

Re:Eugenia

[Anonymous Coward]

Umnm... ya that's it...

Reminds me of another company

[TWX_the_Linux_Zealot]

Microsoft's biggest threat isn't Linux, OpenOffice, or any piece of software at all--its themselves

When a Time Warner executive stated that using PVR technology was stealing, right as AOL Time Warner dumped tons of money into Tivo, should indicate a lot about corporate culture these days.

That Time Warner executive should have been fired. He could have even faced lawsuits by AOL Time Warner stockholders, for directly going against (and possibly reducing value) of the parent company.

Re:Reminds me of another company

[rlowe69]

That Time Warner executive should have been fired ... for directly going against (and possibly reducing value) of the parent company.

Let's be rhetorical for a minute:

What's more valuable to AOL/Time Warner and its shareholders? A billion dollar entertainment industry or a million dollar PVR industry that may be dead in a few years?

Re:Reminds me of another company

[Viqsi]

Well, that's what you tend to get with Really Big Companies; when you start getting to that scale, having a Single Corporate Vision is just that much more difficult because of the number of people involved. The same sort of thing was occuring at Worldcom; it'd become a giant Frankenstein's monster - pretty darn big, but lumbering so slowly it couldn't really hurt people easily.

The middle finger doesn't know what the pointer finger's doing in companies like that.

Re:Reminds me of another company

[afidel]

How about both? The entertainment industry will not fall to Tivo, or just about any other technology. Remember that the industry has called this death knell with every major technology advancement, from the vcr, DAT, CD's, online direct distribution etc. And yet every year the industries post larger and larger profits. Technology and ease of access to their products helps the industry so long as they take the bull by the horns and controll it, when they try to quench a technology (with the exception of DAT) they lose a market.

Re:Reminds me of another company

[TWX_the_Linux_Zealot]

What happens when that million dollar technology booms into something huge, and surpasses that currently billion dollar industry? Remember, the RIAA got on the bandwagon too late, and mp3s, streaming, and high bandwidth are causing them lots of headaches now. Had they been in it from the beginning, this wouldn't be nearly so big of a problem, in their eyes, as it is now.

If the media industries that are still 'safe' invest in technology that will do some of the neat things that we as consumers want, but still leave them in ultimate control, they'll be happy. They won't go away. AOL Time Warner investing in Tivo gives AOL Time Warner some input into the future functionality of the device. This lets them shape what happens, before everyone and their brother has 1,000 movies in divx format on their hard drives.

Re:Reminds me of another company

[91degrees]

The current relative value of different sectors is largely irrelevent. The corporate view of a company with a diverse range of divisiuons sees each division in terms of two perpendicular components - Market share and growth of sector. Ideally we would like to have a large market share of a fast growing sector (so called Star businesses). The PVR market is a potentially fast growing sector, so they need to get their market share as high as possible.

A large market share of a slow growth industry is simply a cash cow. Time Warner own a large chunk of the media industry. The size of this chunk is unlikely to change in the near future, but it does provide them with a steady stream of revenue that they can invest in the fast moving technologies to maximise their own market share.

If the PVR market dies, then that's not too much of a problem. An expensive disappointment perhaps, but business is all about risks. It's no longer a threat to the exisiting business model, so they know they can invest the money in other potential growth areas. Businesses do not succeed by resting on their laurels.

This is a gross oversimplification, but the basic rules apply.

Re:Reminds me of another company

[andrewski]

You haven't considered that AOL/TW may be buying Tivo so they can KILL it! We've never seen that kind of behavior from large corporations before, have we?

Re:Reminds me of another company

[arknrbn]

I know this is offtopic, but here goes nothing... My father worked on the Space Shuttle program, and one of his tasks was converting a program from PL/1 to F77. That program calculated how much fuel was needed based upon the planned flight path. He couldn't tell me much else he worked on, 'cause he'd have to kill me. :)

Re:Reminds me of another company

[kawika]

>> That Time Warner executive should have been fired.

Great plan, if you want to see Time Warner die. Once employees know the penalty for thinking outside the corporate party line is immediate dismissal, you'll get a company full of managers who are too timid to challenge any decision regardless of how stupid it seems to be.

Well-reasoned dissent and debate is important to any decision making process. The site is slashdotted so I can't read the original article, but is it just possible that MS is encouraging such debate internally to see whose arguments hold water?

Re:Reminds me of another company

[afidel]

Wow you just described the way GE operates. They have large market share in a number of old economy large revenue industries but keep up near double digit growth by constantly getting into, or buying into growth areas that they believe they can controll a large enough piece of to not be marginalize out of.

Re:Reminds me of another company

[RedX]

What's more valuable to AOL/Time Warner and its shareholders? A billion dollar entertainment industry or a million dollar PVR industry that may be dead in a few years?

Funny, wonder if TW shareholders had similar thoughts a few years back when AOL (the same AOL that *bought* TW) was just a part of the million dollar online service industry?

Re:Reminds me of another company

[angle_slam]

Some organizations are so large that one part doesn't know what they other part is doing. You think AOL Time Warner has it bad as an information provider that is somewhat invested in technology? How about Sony which is not only a huge information provider, but is also a huge technology provider. What Sony Music wants is not necessarily what Sony Consumer Electronics wants.

Re:Reminds me of another company

[rlowe69]

How about both? The entertainment industry will not fall to Tivo, or just about any other technology.

Of course that statement is true, but let's not dilute ourselves. The truth of the matter is that without entertainment to record, the PVR is useless, not the other way around.

The point I was trying to make is that AOL/TW shooting themselves in the foot over a PVR isn't even CLOSE to shooting themselves in the foot over their entertainment business to protect the PVR business. If it came down to it, it would be an easy decision.

That AOL/TW exec simply has his priorities straight, whether we agree with him or not.

Re:Reminds me of another company

[RickHunter]

Yes, and do you know why their profits keep going up? Because they keep crying wolf. That makes politicians fear for the economy and thus, their jobs. Which means that the entertainment industry gets to virtually dictate legislation. Ever wonder how the "blank recordable media" tax came to be?

They get the best of both worlds. The technology adds value to their business (after, of course, the original innovators are crushed and the tech is in the hands of safe companies) and they get legislation to "protect" them from the technology by strengthening their monopoly.

Re:Reminds me of another company

[Issue9mm]

I'm not necessarily disagreeing, however, I think that there's a huge difference between private dissent and public.

For said exec to announce publicly any comments negative to any portion of his business was irresponsible, however true he might have believed it to be. Still, that's a completely different matter than challenging the opinions of his peers and superiors behind closed doors.

or perhaps I've got the situation all wrong. Admittedly, I don't know anything about it.

-9mm-

Re:Reminds me of another company

[jedidiah]

Well reasoned dissent is fine inside the company. As soon as sedition leaves the office and becomes public, the perpetrators should rightly get the axe. This is especially true when such "dissent" is better characterized as slandering the customer.

Public disagreement != private disagreement.

Re:Reminds me of another company

[Anonymous Coward]

He couldn't tell me much else he worked on, 'cause he'd have to kill me.:)

Pretty much everything that's wrong with the government, summarized in a single sentence.

Re:Reminds me of another company

[nelsonal]

While GE would like investors to believe that their cool new businesses are the reason for their growth rate, it isn't. They maintain a double digit growth rate because of financial alchemy and their finance arm, banks and finance companies let you do things that no business would ever be allowed to do. They would probably be destroyed by a modest reduction in their credit rating. At its heart Enron was a bank that had a run on it. They just hid the bank part behind a "profitable electronic trading operation."
Most businesses that have existed for any decent period of time strive to balance their profitable cash cows with their faster growing stars, its one of the first things you learn about in business school. HP is trying to do this by focusing their efforts on servers, software, and services as their growing areas while maintaining the cash cow printer business. Ditto for Microsoft and the X-Box, Great Planes, and MSN vs Windows and Office.
Sometimes I think if shareholders really saw the very few product lines that hold up most of the current companies out there, the S&P 500 would fall to a few hundred points.

Re:Reminds me of another company

[Anonymous Coward]

When a Time Warner executive stated that using PVR technology was stealing, right as AOL Time Warner dumped tons of money into Tivo, should indicate a lot about corporate culture these days.

The only recent major cable exec I know of that came out against PVR technology was a fellow at Comcast.

There was a slashdot article about it
here.

More importantly, it's AT&T and some of the satellite companies that are buying up Tivo units. Time Warner is using the (in many ways superior) Explorer 8000 unit from Scientific Atlanta.

Can you provide any data that shows either a quote from an AOLTW exec or something that shows AOLTW owns a percentage of Tivo? Yahoo doesn't think so... And neither do I.

The only conflict left at AOLTW is between the Time Warner folks and the AOL folks. There isn't much left of the AOL senior staff, so you can guess who's "winning".

Re:Reminds me of another company

[plague3106]

Ever wonder how the "blank recordable media" tax came to be?

Ever notice that the tax is only on discs labled for use with audio? Do you think that makes plain old blank cdrs useless for making audio cds?

Re:Reminds me of another company

[ppanon]

Of course that statement is true, but let's not dilute ourselves.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

Re:Reminds me of another company

[RickHunter]

Its supposed to. Very few CD-R companies follow the law in this respect. (At least in Canada) I seem to remember that there are also taxes on VCRs or VHS tapes, but I can't remember.

Re:Reminds me of another company

[plague3106]

Its supposed to. Very few CD-R companies follow the law in this respect. (At least in Canada)

I don't see how they could. If its not good enough to hold audio data, it probably isn't good enough to hold other kinds of data.

I seem to remember that there are also taxes on VCRs or VHS tapes, but I can't remember.

Yes, but they have a specific purpose. The arguement that held up here in the US is that blank cdrs have OTHER purposes besides holding music data, so are exempt from the tax. The RIAA lost that when they tried to tack on thier tax to hard drives. the courts rules that a hard drive is a general data storage instrument, and thus they couldn't add on this tax, which is really just another revenue stream; assuming all media made for audio storage WILL be used for piracy.

Since we're already paying for piracy on blank audio media, then we should be allowed to pirate.

Re:Reminds me of another company

[jafuser]

I think the word "stealing" (with the quotes) is the latest buzzword to get your product to sell more units to the 18-30 crowd. Therefore, the statement could have been deliberate to increase sales.

Re:Reminds me of another company

[RickHunter]

Since we're already paying for piracy on blank audio media, then we should be allowed to pirate.

Exactly. And in Canada, you are. I can lend a CD to a friend and that friend can use their CD burner and their (taxed) audio CD-R to burn a copy of it. Someone in the Canadian Copyright office snuck that in after the record companies pushed the tax through, and I seem to recall that they've spent the past few years quietly trying to get rid of it or increase the tax.

As for the audio-VS-data thing, the difference is that data CDs are supposed to have some sectors "burned out" that audio CD players need to work. So you can record data on them, but can't record audio in a way that allows them to be played on ordinary CD players. Fortunately, few CD-R companies follow this practice (I don't remember the exact loophole - something to do with importing the discs, I think) and so you can use most "data" CDs to burn "audio" discs.

And open source's demon?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the open source community/representatives should stop bitching about MS and make some more quality software.

Re:And open source's demon?

[Space Coyote]

Perhaps the open source community/representatives should stop bitching about MS and make some more quality software.

What if we can do both? Everybdy's got to hvae a hoby after all.

Re:And open source's demon?

[Anonymous Coward]

I suggest that you kill yourself.

Mac vs Apple ][

[zanderredux]

Sounds like the Mac vs Apple ][ fights that took place at Apple.

Creative destruction anyone?

Re:Mac vs Apple ][

[Lt Razak]

Time to watch "Pirates of Silicon Valley" again!!

Excellent article

[billmaly]

It puts into words my own feelings about MS that I have not been able to articulate so eloquently. I like Windows 2000, it works and works well (for me). I totally agree that the marketing dweebs will ruin MS's dominance, and drive users to Linux. Linux is still not ready for everyone's PC.....but the day is coming, maybe in Red Hat 10 or Mandrake 11....MS needs to wake up and realize that we don't like being spied on.

Re:Excellent article

[Alien Being]

"ruin MS's dominance"

And Jonas Salk ruined polio.

Re:Excellent article

[Anonymous Coward]

you misspelled "spied", it's "peed".

Re:Excellent article

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't curing polio go against the DMCA?

Send in John Stossel

[thefinite]

I love seeing a collection of Microsoft's misdeeds in one article. It makes for a fun read. What is really needed is a big expose kind of article a la John Stossel's recent show on the drug companies. Stossel would have a lot more interesting stuff for a show on MS. Unfortunately, he would also have to face a legion of MS lawyers, even if none of what would be broadcast would be libel.

Re:Send in John Stossel

[Dalcius]

"I love seeing a collection of Microsoft's misdeeds in one article."

I wish he would have mentioned the issue regarding Microsoft threatening to revoke Compaq's license if they removed icons from their default desktop. I'm too lazy to get a link, I think zdnet still has one in the archives.

This point falls under what he was saying about "dominating the look... and other corporations", or some such quote from the article. I didn't feel that he backed that up well enough (well, the look part), but if you're familiar with history, you'd know he was right.

It amazes me that one company can single-handedly put Compaq [nearly?] out of business. Not an abusive monopoly indeed.

Re:Send in John Stossel

[Anonymous Coward]

He 'aint been right in the head since Hulk Hogan put the slap down on him...

So open source isn't good enough...

[anarchima]

That's basically what the author of that article is saying. As of yet, the open source community is not putting out software, or indeed an operating system, that can compete with Microsoft Windows. Until it can do this, it shouldn't expect more users to come flocking to their programs. End of discussion?

Re:So open source isn't good enough...

[Bilbo]

> Until it can do this, it shouldn't expect more users to come flocking to their programs.

Did you read the same article as I did???

The point of the article had very little to do with the merits of OS software. He was merely stating the fact that he himself had very little experience with Linux.

The point of the article was that, no matter how good or bad your product is, or how firmly entrenched you monopoly may be, if you piss off your customers long enough, you will eventually strangle yourself to death.

Or, to put it another way, "The bigger they are, the harder they fall..."

Re:So open source isn't good enough...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, such insight. No wonder this got posted on the front page of $la$hdot.*

*$la$hdot is owned by the O$DN.

Re:So open source isn't good enough...

[Jugalator]

I find that a bad way to put it, and it doesn't reflect his opinions very well either. I'd put his thoughts this way:

As *soon* as Linux give him a reason to go through the hassle of installing and learning a new OS environment, he'd easily do that and (quote) "unlike two years ago, I can see it potentially occuring today".

So he's definitely not telling us open source operating systems aren't "worthy competitors", but more like closer to make the Windows user base switch than ever due to the "attidue, lying and marketing BS" of Microsoft.

Re:So open source isn't good enough...

[Bilbo]

> Wow, such insight. No wonder this got posted on the front page of $la$hdot.

Ummmm.... yea. The other point of the article, interestingly enough, is that Microsoft doesn't seem to get it. In fact, it seems to be a pretty common trait among large corporations that a large fraction of their top level executives seem to get so wrapped up in themselves that they don't seem to be able to comprehend simple relationships like this. They have been so successful wringing every last cent out of their customers that they don't even notice when they start to flee in droves, and when they do notice, they respond by simply turning up the pressure, which in turn, accelerates the hemoraging

Re:So open source isn't good enough...

[pod]

Essentially, the point is not that Linux is not good enough or unworthy, but that, as bad as Windows and spyware and licensing is, it's not THAT bad, not bad enough to switch to and learn something completely different. It's not compelling enough. But if trends continue, that day will come. It's just inertia and path of least resistance.

Re:So open source isn't good enough...

[anarchima]

But he does show that open source isn't stealing customers from Microsoft, thereby implying that it can't compete, yes?

Re:So open source isn't good enough...

[pod]

And to continue the great tradition of replying to my own posts...

It's not compelling enough.

...not even to people like me, who see what is going on.

Every couple of years when I get a new Linux mahine for my server, I buckle and install X with Gnome and KDE and all the doodads, only to spend an hour removing them a month later. And as flameworthy and downmodworthy as this is, I have to say, Linux desktops uniformly suck. For my purposes anyways. I love my Windows desktop. Period. Even with all its quirks. And say what you will, but clicking Start to shut down a computer is no less intuitive or inappropriate than clicking on a giant foot icon to do the same.

Gnome/KDE do absolutely nothing I expect a desktop to do for me. They do nothing in a way I expect a desktop to behave. I'm not exaggerating. There is nothing 'nice' I have to say about Gnome/KDE. The biggest obvious problem is the stupid Gnome/KDE/window manager 'multality' (as opposed to duality?). Just pick one and stick with it damnit. I know the popular view here is that is a 'good' thing, but to the 99% of us outside the 'community' it's just, well, retarded.

Which is why Windows will have to get much much worse before the likes of me start to switch to something else (not necessarily LInux either).

Re:So open source isn't good enough...

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

"The biggest obvious problem is the stupid Gnome/KDE/window manager 'multality' (as opposed to duality?). Just pick one and stick with it damnit. I know the popular view here is that is a 'good' thing, but to the 99% of us outside the 'community' it's just, well, retarded."
Picking one is your job, young padawan.
No one says you have to learn and use both on a daily basis, just find which one works for you.
Personaly, I prefer just running a window manager(fvwm2) and keeping my only 'desktop' as the thing that my monitor is sitting on.

People complaining about kde/gnome should also complain about windowsXP's styles, them disapearing in .net, hen coming back in longhorn (with much differences).

Re:So open source isn't good enough...

[BigBir3d]

As *soon* as Linux give him a reason to go through the hassle of installing and learning a new OS environment

When was the last time you installed a major distro? They all are easy to do now. A few require more input that say, installing Windows 2000, but then again it is easy.

Please stop spreading the FUD that it is hard to install/setup a linux machine. It just isn't true anymore.

And your reference of "learning a new OS environment" is weak also. Gnome/KDE are very close copies of Windows 98. Instead of it being the "Start" button it is called something else. It still acts the same, producing the same results (more or less).

Whether they should emulate win98 some much or not is for a different discussion...

Re:So open source isn't good enough...

[fataugie]

Or, to put it another way, "The bigger they are, the harder they fall..."



Or, as Randall put it in Clerks "This job would be great if it wasn't for the fuckin' customers"

Lic. ver 6.0 anyone? Talk about forced upgrades, we passed. God damn this gun to the head upgrading shit. I am testing OpenOffice right now as a replacement. Love W2K though, doing everything I need it to do.

Re:So open source isn't good enough...

[Bilbo]

I haven't gone back to read the article a second time, but as I remember, he is saying that people are beginning to leave Microsoft. His specific examples include numerous Open Source initiatives at various governmental levels (both inside and outside the US), and in the schools.

The author himself admits that he hasn't gotten off his duff and tried Linux, but the general tone of the article was that he was quickly approaching that point.

Again: You can piss people off for a little while and they will forgive you, but continued displays of arrogance are eventually met with your customers dumping you.

Re:So open source isn't good enough...

[Bug-Y2K]

The point of the article was that, no matter how good or bad your product is, or how firmly entrenched you monopoly may be, if you piss off your customers long enough, you will eventually strangle yourself to death.

So, how does that explain Quark, Inc.?

Re:So open source isn't good enough...

[elemental23]

Installing any new operating system is a hassle. Not just because $new_os might be difficult to install/set up, but because you've got to backup your data, find replacements for all your commonly used software, get used to doing things differently, and so on. I would find it a hassle to move from Win2000 to OS X, and no one is going to claim OS X is difficult to use. I don't even like reinstalling Windows because it means I'll have to reinstall all my applications and take the time to configure everything the way I like it all over again.

Most people are very comfortable in the computing environments they nomally use. This makes them naturally resistant to change and makes them uncomfortable with an unfamiliar system.

Note to self

[CodeShark]

...email this article to Judge Kollar-Kotelly.

Oh, wait, I forgot. The good judge's decision has assured us that Microsoft doesn't really need to change the way the do business all that much because they've promised to be good from now on, cross their crooked little hearts...

...sigh...

Yay! More long-winded wishful thinking!

[stratjakt]

MSFT will declare bankruptcy any day now!

Re:Yay! More long-winded wishful thinking!

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope to God not...not because I like Microsoft, but because of what that would do to the stock market.

preach to the choir

[kin_korn_karn]

articles about Microsoft = Bad mean nothing when they're posted on OSS/Linux advocacy sites. When the Wall Street Journal has an editorial from the editor in chief saying that Microsoft is going to destroy the world, that'll mean something

Re:preach to the choir

[mark_lybarger]

like this one? http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-519911.html?legacy=zd nn

there's been plenty of bad press about Microsoft all over all the news palces. and it keeps coming on over and over and over again. somehow their stock continues to prevail and is extremely strong even in these economicly weak times. i think it works something like this:

1) write extremely buggy and non-origional Operating System.
2) force all hardware manufactures into exclusive contracts. our OS or no OS!
3) ?????
4) Profit!!!

Re:preach to the choir

[_Sprocket_]

articles about Microsoft = Bad mean nothing when they're posted on OSS/Linux advocacy sites.

Sure. But times have changed.

It used to be a small group of advocates would compare notes and bitch in their own little confines, well seperated from the mainstream business and tech press. Slashdot is a prime example of one such enclave. And whatever message preached to the choir would stop at the confines of that site... or at least the advocate community if some linking happened.

And then Linux and Microsoft's bad behavior both became big news. Slashdot started showing up more and more in spurious mainstream articles. And its not just Slashdot. Other sources for various advocate groups are more common in an increasing number of non-Microsoft (or Microsoft-critical) articles.

Once an idea, or a particularly well-written article (and even some not-so-well-written), make it in to the advocacy community there's now a good chance some reporter for the mainstream business and tech press will pick it up. Granted - its not the same article. And sometimes the message gets garbled going through that filter. But the idea is still making it where those outside the advocacy group are exposed to it - and with any luck, they get a link to the origional article and the unfiltered message.

Yes. This is no Wall Street Journal expose on why Microsoft is bad for your business. But then, its note entirely a message doomed to obscurity either.

Re:preach to the choir

[kin_korn_karn]

See, that's just it. #2 makes #1 irrelevant to everyone but us.

When will you all get it? WE (meaning the tech/IT industry and community) are the ONLY people that care about our OS being buggy. The fact that #2 has happened makes it irrelevant to complain about the lack of reliability in Windows. And we are DEFINITELY the only people that care about it not being original (don't bring up the Apple/Xerox lawsuits, those have been settled now meaning that we are the only people that ever bring it up). My mom doesn't give a shit if the concept Windows was stolen from a Xerox PARC prototype or a mac or from Bill Gates' college roommate or whoever, she cares about whether her email works or not, and guess what? it does. Not the way you'd like it to, but it's email and it works. Who gives a fuck. The world is not made up of sysadmins.

The way you beat microsoft is to make a superior product, and market it better. The government has shown that they won't help level the playing field for any competitors to MS, so that's the world anyone taking them on has to work in.

Linux is not superior to Windows yet. It's more reliable, on the right hardware. It's got that cool CLI geek cred going for it. So does OSX. The GUIs for Linux plainly suck.

The legal remedy in the DOJ case should have involved abolishing all copyrights MS has to their interface so that KDE or (god forbid) the GNOME folks could clone the Chicago GUI. People would be comfortable with using Linux if it looked just like Windows.

This is around the point in this discussion where someone whines that "we can't take on microsoft, they have [insert ridiculously huge corporate asset here]!!!" If you feel that way, then stop bitching about what you've got. The glory is in the fight, anyway.

Which brings me to my next point. Once the fight is won, then you have to manage what you win. The OSS community couldn't handle being in control of the #1 OS in the world. It's too fragmented and too immature. To handle something with the market share and pervasiveness of Windows would take an infrastructure the size of Microsoft. So, build one. Stop whining about losing and go make yourself into a winner.

Re:preach to the choir

[Anonymous Coward]

Evidently, like most M$lop users, you do not know how to read. What advocacy site?

PS: If you read more, maybe your reading comprehension would augment, unless of course, you use Windows because you are "genetically challenged"....

Re:preach to the choir

[jeffy124]

2) force all hardware manufactures into exclusive contracts. our OS or no OS!

They dont even want OEMs providing the no OS option these days. For a while, it was even "our OS, and only our OS"

Re:preach to the choir

[wind]

WE (meaning the tech/IT industry and community) are the ONLY people that care about our OS being buggy.

This is simply untrue. Anybody who has ever lost a half-hour's work on a project, has had their system hosed by a virus, or worse - had porn spam sent out to their coworkers in their name, they care, believe me. The list goes on and on.

The problem is that the people I talk to don't understand that it can be different. They think it's the computer in some vague, "all computers need to be rebooted every few hours" sort of way. They don't seem to really believe me when I tell them to use a different operating system with different programs that aren't so buggy or virus prone.

I think anyone who uses a computer to do something that they either care about or are paid by someone else who cares, DO care about buggy code. They just don't know it. They think computers are just like that.

Re:preach to the choir

[runderwo]

Heh, more preaching to the choir, but I happen to like it. :) You talk some good sense, my man.

Re:preach to the choir

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's the South Park joke about the Internet economy, but unfortunately, it doesn't really hold water.

I know we'd all like to pretend that Microsoft has no idea what it's doing, but ultimately, if we're going to bash Microsoft's business strategy, Linux's is more questionable than the worst of Microsoft's.

Microsoft:
1) write extremely buggy and non-original Operating System based on MacOS.
2) force all hardware manufactures into exclusive contracts. Our OS! That's it! Nothing else!
3) Profit!!!

Linux:
1) Write much less buggy and non-original operating system based on SYSV UNIX.
2) Rely on the open source community to reverse engineer drivers that manufacturers refuse to help with, and/or wait until 2010 for a 'real' Exchange server replacement from same.
3) ??????
4) Profit!!!

This is not a troll. This is reality. I commend every step of the way Linux's efforts to make headway. I think Microsoft will take itself down notches all by its lonesome, but it is going to take one MASSIVE set of screwups on their part to really take them out of the number 1 spot in OS marketshare.

1) There will have to be compelling reason for OEMs to openly challenge Microsoft's insistence on putting Windows on PCs bound for home or business. Those OEMs will risk serious financial repercussions for doing it, since the U.S. Government has looked the other way at this behavior. In this recession?
2) Consumers will have to care enough about being 'spied on', etc., to actually demand an alternative operating system. Not complain about it, DEMAND A DIFFERENT ONE _AND_ be willing to learn it. We're far from that point right now.
3) Office will need to decline in popularity so its use is 'less forced', or there will have to be 99.44% compatibility with some other system like Staroffice first. That is, first Office documents must be able to be opened and saved intelligently and compatibly with some Linux/etc. alternative - or Office must magically cease to be the standard.

Seriously now. If half the effort spent bitching about Microsoft's marketing tactics (which are nasty, don't get me wrong) were put into creating a calendaring/email/collaboration setup on Linux based on a server database with Evolution clients, we'd HAVE something to point at as an Exchange alternative, rather than just griping about how Exchange is the only thing that does what it does well.

Re:preach to the choir

[m0nkyman]

The legal remedy in the DOJ case should have involved abolishing all copyrights MS has to their interface so that KDE or (god forbid) the GNOME folks could clone the Chicago GUI. People would be comfortable with using Linux if it looked just like Windows.

I couldn't diagree more vehemently. What we need is a standard set of UI guidelines completely different from Mac and Windows. It works differently, and nothing will drive people nuts faster than things looking identical and working differently. From a UI perspective, that's nuts.

What I've always thought would have been the ideal solution would have been to force them to open up the specs to the document formats. We've got competitive products, what we need is the ability to say that "you will be able to access your last ten years of word documents, up to and including the one you finished today"

Re:preach to the choir

[po8]

To handle something with the market share and pervasiveness of Windows would take an infrastructure the size of Microsoft.

By many measures, the OSS infrastructure is already far larger than Microsoft. Number of developers, or developer FTEs? Not even close. Number of lines of source? Again, not close.

The fair comparison, of course, isn't Microsoft and OSS: it's OSS and the Microsoft community. What even MS seems not to understand is that their monopoly-producing asset is the result of maybe the largest first-mover advantage in the history of the world. The biggest advantage of the first mover is that the community tends to form around them. As someone who bought one of the first IBM PCs off the line, I recall perfectly well the reasons why I bought PC-DOS for it rather than the obviously technically superior CPM/86: one of them was that it was clear that PC-DOS would win, and I wanted to be part of the PC community.

(The other was price. folks forget that while both CPM/86 and PC-DOS were available for PCs in retail computer stores, CPM/86 was a lot more expensive. If DR hadn't priced themselves out of the market, they still might have won.)

In short, OSS vs MS is first and foremost a contest in community building and maintenance. The MS community began with an enormous headstart, but so far seem to have done a good job of squandering it. It will be interesting to see whether this trend continues to hold.

Re:preach to the choir

[Zhe Mappel]

Pffft. If you want to talk "preaching to the choir," you'll find no louder-mouthed priest than the Wall Street Journal and no altar boys more bent-over than its readers.

Re:preach to the choir

[Anonymous Coward]

I tend to agree.
It seems to me that it's easier for people to complain about something and talk about how great the world would be without that thing (whaterver thing you're talking about) than actually organize and make a difference. I think it's because people mean well, but alas... it is easier to pick up a keyboard and type and e-mail than it is to pick up a brick and build a house.

One day maybe
-Sam Mz

Re:preach to the choir

[__fastcall]

Bravo!
It's about time someone around here with more than 2 IQ points to rub together came up with an idea based on reality and not IDEAOLOGY...

Lots of people on Slasdot (and other OSS/GNU sites) like to kick up their feet, open a beer and take pot shots at Uncle Bill's evil empire. Unfortunately, no amount of bitching is going to give Linux or anything else greater market share.


STOP BITCHING AND GET BACK TO DEBUGGING!

Re:preach to the choir

[jimboid]

Point well made. I've forgotten who said it but "light a candle, don't yell into the darkness" seems fitting. Also, it seems to me that your proposed direction would align nicely with the strategies employed by companies such as Red Hat.

Re:preach to the choir

[kin_korn_karn]

OK, the docs, too. I missed that point, but I disclaim it by saying "it should INVOLVE" that, not be comprised solely of that.

The idea is not for the OS not to work much differently. At least, not that the user can tell. Users are comfortable with the Chicago GUI and don't want to change, and honestly, why should they be forced to use something different because a few geeks on a weblog-type site think the Chicago GUI sucks? I'm no nazi.

Re:preach to the choir

[kin_korn_karn]

The fan base (i.e. the community) is separate from the marketeers. Case in point: Star Wars. If the fan base had any say in the prequels, they would be totally different. But we don't.

Corporations don't give a shit about their products' community when it comes to evaluating profitability. They look at things like gross revenue, net earnings, units sold, focus group surveys, market projections, all that business-oriented stuff that nobody in OSS seems to want to care about. Even Red Hat just sells the products that OSS creates (+ support), they don't listen to the community any more than to make sure they're getting a relatively stable version of a package.

Throwing up the community as an example of why OSS will win is a crock. You don't win in business by having fans, you win by making the most money with the best product. OSS has too many idealistic commie types working for it to ever be 100% trusted in the business world.

Re:preach to the choir

[Derek S]

I think normal people do care about bugginess in general, but they don't care about the specific details. Consider that, while the core of a Linux distribution is typically very stable, one will still typically find flakiness with X, the desktop environment or the applications themselves. I am aware that the operating system has not crashed when X locks up, but what difference does that make when restarting X kills all of my desktkop apps? Many open-source apps are less stable than their proprietary cousins, and UI inconsistencies can be just as bad as instability to a normal user.

While I agree that Linux does provide a more reliable foundation than Windows (though 2000 comes close), that simply will not matter to consumers until the entire open-source computing experience is brought up to the same standard.

Re:preach to the choir

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody who has ever lost a half-hour's work on a project, has had their system hosed by a virus, or worse - had porn spam sent out to their coworkers in their name, they care, believe me.

Well, there's a sense in which that is true: they care enough to complain. The previous poster was using another sense: they don't care enough to do anything about the problem. They don't, you know...

Re:preach to the choir

[Oliver Defacszio]

The problem is this; "buggy" is a relative term and, at present, there isn't any other product that allows for a quantification. Watch --

"Chevies are pieces of crap." "Oh, in comparison to what?" "A Toyota."

"Windows is a piece of crap." "Oh, in comparison to what" "???"

Now, despite the default Slashdot response to everything, there really is no alternative and it's not the fault of Microsoft. OSX could be an alternative, but it requires hardware that is three times the cost. That's Apple's choice. Linux could be an alternative, but those in charge refuse to target the lowest common denominator that is an absolute requirement in anything mainstream. It is Linux' choice (as a collective) to operate this way.

So, what's left? Nothing, and that's why Windows' past bugginess (no longer a real concern in Win2000) is essentially a moot point.

Re:preach to the choir

[po8]

Nice troll. But hey, I'll bite.

Star Wars is a reasonable example of a franchise that probably killed itself by ignoring its community. There's a reason why it is unlikely that there will be eps 7-9: it isn't that no one would like to make money off of them.

Red Hat participates quite actively in the OSS community: they fund OSS development projects and pay OSS developers, paricipate in OSS standards-setting, and provide leadership to the community through publicity, conference sponsorship, etc. Precisely the activities, in fact, that Microsoft participates in on behalf of the MS community. As you point out, companies don't do these things entirely because they are benevolent: they believe that in the long run, they will benefit the corporate bottom line.

What you don't seem to understand is that in the software business, one reasonable definition of the "best" product is the one that has the biggest "market share". By "community", I mean far more than juvenile "fans": I mean the full range of participants in the software; those that make money with it, use it as a tool, develop it, deploy it, etc.

But at any rate, your definition of the winning conditions is exactly that: many folks, including myself, define winning differently. I think that I win when my computer software is cheap, reliable, and useful. That's a pretty non-"commie" definition, and for me, it's one that leads to an OSS win.

Right now, MS is undoubtedly the market share leader, and cases can be made for the price/performance, reliability, and usability of its software. My point is that MS has been resting on these laurels for a long time: it will be interesting to see whether the relative growth of OSS in all of these areas continues.

Re:preach to the choir

[Doc Hopper]

I used to think I was at least somewhat in touch with what users wanted at my work and at my home. I thought I was responsive to their needs.

Then I sat down with a regular computer user. He asked why I had "Don't use this" underneath the "E" on my desktop (Crossover Office, Internet Explorer icon on Windows desktop). I explained that the browser was insecure due to some recent security exploits, and that I only had that particular browser installed so my wife would be able to do online ordering for one particular business she runs.

"So, you mean, you don't use the Internet?" he asked.

"No, we just don't use Internet Explorer here due to security problems." I responded.

"But when I click on the Internet, it still works," replied he.

I shortly thereafter realized, this kid thought the "e" on the desktop WAS THE INTERNET. He had no idea that it is a network of high-speed fibre circumnavigating the globe, carrying terabytes of information. He had no clue what a web browser or email reader was. He had no idea what a protocol was, or even the concept of security beyond it being what those guys in uniforms in the mall do.

This is the state of the average computer user. We either educate them, or dumb the computer down enough that they can use it. So I have to agree that it seems that only the "geekier" chunk of society even understands what a computer bug is, much less why we'd want few of them...

Re:preach to the choir

[Shelled]

Where do you think the Wall Street Journal checks for tech news? It's common where I live to hear a story on the news that Slashdot posted the day before. Articles on Slashdot generate articles in the mainstream press.

Re:preach to the choir

[Eric Damron]

You make a few good points but most of your rant does not. Sorry, but I call them as I see them.

In the US most of the people don't care if Linux is superior (and btw it is superior) to Windows. However, We (the geeks of the world) are not the only ones who care. The leaders of foreign countries like China, Denmark, India and others are passing pro-OSS laws because they clearly do care about finding the best overall solution to their needs.

Security is a BIG issue. I'm not talking about the plethora of viruses, worms and trojans that can be found for Microsoft platforms, although that is also an issue. I'm talking about the fear of deliberate planting of backdoors in Microsoft's products.

Remember that presidential aircraft that Boeing sold to China? The Boeing 767-300ER with all the trimmings? Well the trimmings included numerous spying devices.

It would be foolish for a foreign leader to believe that the US government would not insist that Microsoft provide ways to spy using Microsoft products sold overseas just as they insisted that Boeing include those spying devices in the 767-300ER. And remember we don't just spy on countries that we don't like. We spy on our allies too.

I think that as other countries wake up to this realization we will see mandatory open source software in foreign government use. Any leader who can't see the danger of closed source software in government use needs to wake up and smell the coffee; buy a vowel or something....

Re:preach to the choir

[HiThere]

For a data point: Two years ago I felt the same way. If X crashed, I rebooted my system. But I knew that this shouldn't be necessary. Now I rarely have these "rebooting is the simplest way to fix things" occurances. Now I open a shell via ctrl-alt-F1, kill the run-away process (or take othe appropriate action), and then return to X via ctrl-alt-F7. So. On Linux over time I learned tricks to gain control. During the same period of time I used Win95/98 at work. I have never figured out anyway out of the various obnoxious problems. (Well, with Win98, PySol usually doesn't garbage the card images if you have Mozilla open in the background. Better yet, have both Mozilla and and IDE open [not visual studio].)

I don't agree that any version of MSWindows comes close to the Linux experience. If a problem happens, the only solution is to reboot. Sometimes reinstall. You can't step sideways and fix things. Not even if you can determine what's wrong.

Re:preach to the choir

[miffo.swe]

"The GUIs for Linux plainly suck."

I would disagree with you on that. I find the Gnome GUI very good, stable and very easy to use. There are others that are even better. The foundation GUI is very nice, all that is left is the glue ie. the wizards and push buttons that does the simple commands.

Re:preach to the choir

[Blikkie]

Articles on Slashdot generate articles in the mainstream press.

I agree, it happens quite a few times that I read my paper, a dutch paper, called the Volkskrant (in Dutch) that features /. articles some 4 days after they are posted on slashdot, okay, it is not fast, but still I like to think 'I read it first'...

Re:preach to the choir

[ffub]

When will you all get it? WE (meaning the tech/IT industry and community) are the ONLY people that care about our OS being buggy. The fact that #2 has happened makes it irrelevant to complain about the lack of reliability in Windows. And we are DEFINITELY the only people that care about it not being original (don't bring up the Apple/Xerox lawsuits, those have been settled now meaning that we are the only people that ever bring it up). My mom doesn't give a shit if the concept Windows was stolen from a Xerox PARC prototype or a mac or from Bill Gates' college roommate or whoever, she cares about whether her email works or not, and guess what? it does. Not the way you'd like it to, but it's email and it works. Who gives a fuck. The world is not made up of sysadmins.

I think you're half right here. But I would say that the problem is not that average users don't care about software being buggy and unreliable and but that they think these are deficiencies of the PC rather than the software - most don't know there's an alternative. Also, that alternative is simply not ready yet for them, but this I will touch on below.

I'm not sure exactly why you bring up the Xerox PARC / Apple / Microsoft originality arguments, I'm not myself aware of these ever being used as a serious excuse for OSS not having beaten Microsoft at their own game, I think you're trying to score points against a minority of OSS people here.

The way you beat microsoft is to make a superior product, and market it better.

No shit; thanks for the help

Linux is not superior to Windows yet. It's more reliable, on the right hardware. It's got that cool CLI geek cred going for it. So does OSX. The GUIs for Linux plainly suck.

The GUIs for Linux do not `plainly suck'. GNOME 2 for example is easier to use than windows by a long way for non-adminastrative desktop use; GNOME's faults lie in it's shitty defaults, the fact that it has to be set up by someone that knows what they are doing first, and that it doesn't have a large enough range of applications, &c. These are, believe it or not, the simple but lengthy problems. The harder problems of designing the UI and it's infrastructure are already ones we've far excelled Microsoft at solving.

The legal remedy in the DOJ case should have involved abolishing all copyrights MS has to their interface so that KDE or (god forbid) the GNOME folks could clone the Chicago GUI. People would be comfortable with using Linux if it looked just like Windows.

But I thought you said, "The way you beat microsoft is to make a superior product", so why are you now suggesting that we forget building a superior product and instead clone theirs by way of legal (or rather `illegal') bias. Cloning windows GUI would be foolish, we already have far better GUI designs - they are just not extensive enough yet. GNOME is far easier to use than the Windows GUI but I can't configure my whole Linux OS with it yet so as a whole it does not make my computer as easy to use as a winbox. Copying their GUI would leave us with the same problem, and a shitty UI design. No thanks.

This is around the point in this discussion where someone whines that "we can't take on microsoft, they have [insert ridiculously huge corporate asset here]!!!" If you feel that way, then stop bitching about what you've got. The glory is in the fight, anyway.

You're bitching about what we've got.

Which brings me to my next point. Once the fight is won, then you have to manage what you win. The OSS community couldn't handle being in control of the #1 OS in the world. It's too fragmented and too immature. To handle something with the market share and pervasiveness of Windows would take an infrastructure the size of Microsoft. So, build one. Stop whining about losing and go make yourself into a winner.

This is unsubstatiated FUD. The OSS community excels at both centralised and decentralised management of projects - somtimes it works (Linux, Debian) sometimes it doesn't (Mozilla.org's numerous problems) but on the whole I'd say we're pretty good in that we don't have a management budget, singular parent organisation or any of the norms holding a business together. And we quite blatantly have an infrastructure far larger than that of microsoft.

Re:preach to the choir

[Currawong]

The way you beat microsoft is to make a superior product, and market it better. The government has shown that they won't help level the playing field for any competitors to MS, so that's the world anyone taking them on has to work in.

No, the way to chip away at Microsoft is to make a straightforward, cheap product that competes adequately, flog it to as many people as possible and market it brilliantly. Ensuring it's bundled with another popular product will help immensely.

Re:preach to the choir

[cookd]

You're comparing Windows 98 to Mac OS X? Then you say "any version of MSWindows..."? Methinks you need to check the argument over a bit. Not very solid, not very convincing.

Please compare Mac OS 9 to Windows 95/98, and Mac OS X to Windows NT/2000/XP. You'll have a much more convincing story if you do that. The differences between them are analogous (though there are some good reasons to say that 95/98 was technically superior). In Win NT/2k/XP, right click on the task bar, click "Task Manager" and kill the offending process...

An up-to-date XP installation is pretty darn solid. Crashes pretty much seem to come from the drivers. Not as solid as my FreeBSD box, but then I don't even have a video card on my FreeBSD box, so there aren't many drivers to crash...

Re:preach to the choir

[humster66]

True. Users care about what they are trying to do, not how they are doing it. OSS has to keep improving usability to be viable on the desktop.

Users expect to be let down by software and hardware, as for years, since long before M$ existed it's always been a case of 'Oh, the computer has got it wrong'. All of us that work in IT have to change that perception by building better product (and by getting away from Windoze).

Back to the original topic, M$ and lots of other tech companies have yet to adapt to the idea that the growth rates that they used to achieve are no longer realistic. Its happened as well with the Telecoms companies, but so far M$ haven't had the stock price shakeout happen to the same extent. Markets for PC's are pretty much mature, and the same with cellphones in Europe.

Re:preach to the choir

[MrResistor]

Users care about what they are trying to do, not how they are doing it.

I don't think that's true at all. Users do care how they are doing it.

Have you ever tried to sell OpenOffice to a business? (I mean sell as in convince them to use, not as in charge money for it) I have.

It was a small sheet metal company. They had a couple of old Macs (pre-PPC) and an old windows box for running AutoCAD. They wanted a network with 7 PCs (2 for the shop, 4 for the office, 1 CAD station) and a file server. This was a very small company and very price conscious, but when I mentioned they could save over $1000 (about 15%) by using OpenOffice instead of MS Office they looked like deer caught in headlights, despite all my assurances that OpenOffice would easily fill all their needs (and yes, it really would have. I was moonlighting and my company worked very close with the company in question, and I took the project on as a favor to my boss, who was very good friends with the owner of said company).

This company didn't have any vested interest in MS Office, yet they couldn't imagine not using it, since that's what everybody else was using.

Never underestimate the power of Brand. Yeah, people care mostly about what they are doing, but god forbid they should be doing it a different way than everyone else.

Re:preach to the choir

[mranchovy]

Not just brand. Try convincing people who have complicated Excel spreadsheets (with macros and fancy formulas and stuff) or Access databases that OpenOffice will do everything they need and that it's worth the process of switching over. Even on my Mac at home, I'm having a tough time convincing myself that an $89 copy of AppleWorks is good enough when I'm used to working with Mac Office 98 (even though I hardly use any of the Mac Office features on my home computer). It's like MS Office is the software equivalent of crack.

Re:preach to the choir

[HiThere]

You are missing my point. On Linux I could learn how to cope with my problems, and fix them. On Windows I could learn how to do new things, but if a problem happened there was no fix. You had to reboot. This is a significant difference.

Windows is designed for people who don't want to understand, and don't want to learn. This is a sizable majority, and until Linux became easy enough for those people it was appropriately consigned to a small group. This is less the case, now. Windows may (I don't know) have fixed the problems that it had. Linux has improved enough that I've been able to start using it at work. And it's a far better environment for me to work in. The problems that it had were talking to MS and Novell networks and applications. These are disappearing, partially because I have learned more, but largely because it has improved. But it is still possible to learn to work around the problems that exist. Unlike Windows, where the sole answer appears to be reboot and try again.

P.S.: I'm not claiming that I can yet solve every Linux problem I encounter. They have become unimportant enough that I attend to other things. But I know that I could if I choose to.

Re:preach to the choir

[cookd]

I don't think I'm missing your point, but I'm saying that your point is very pointless. What you say sounds to me like somebody saying "Boy, that Nissan Sentra really sucks rocks trying to compete offroad against the Hummer and the Land Rover Defender." You go to any Nissan enthusiast and say something like that, they're going to either think you are crazy or leave you with an immaculate timepiece.

[I suppose this is flamebait, but I'm not in a very good mood, so you'll have to forgive me for not pulling my punches and couching my statements in more forgiving language.]

Anybody who compares Windows 95 or Windows 98 to Mac OS X and Linux and complains about the reliability/stability of 95/98 is up a tree. And anybody who accepts those comparisons is equally deluded. Every OS has problems that can and cannot be dealt with, because every OS design has compromises. Windows 95 and Windows 98 were designed with certain compatibility and performance compromises that made it impossible to provide complete inter-process stability. Guess what -- so was Mac OS v (where v is any number smaller than 10). Linux and Mac OS X do not make the same compromises. Guess what -- neither do Windows NT/2k/XP.

I would like to see you solve the same problem that you "can cope with on Linux" (and in the previous post on Mac OS X) on Mac OS 9. Can't do it? Then leave Mac OS X out of your comments about Windows 98, since they aren't in the same generation. And I would leave Linux out, too, since it really comes in a separate category.

Ok, next you mention something that confuses me a bit. Windows is designed for people... Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I can't tell, but since you seem to say that Linux needs to get to this point someday, I guess it is a good thing. So Windows is already there, and therefore better? And you had to work hard to get Linux to work with Novell and MS networks -- this makes Linux better, when Windows works with them more readily? Ah, with Linux it is possible to learn to work around the problems that exist, and with Win 95/98 it isn't, since rebooting doesn't count as a proper workaround. Ok, I can see that.

But didn't it take time and progress before Linux could deal with those problems? Well, then Windows must get the opportunity for time and progress as well. And with Windows, if you are doing things that seem to always require you to reboot and try again, you need to quit mucking around with that Sentra. I tried Windows NT 3.51 back in 1995, it didn't crash like Windows 3.11, and I've been making heavy use of NT for programming ever since. If crashing is your problem, then fix it. You did things to fix your Linux problems, right? Well, if Linux gets the benefit of a bit of work to solve the problems, why don't you give the same bit of work to Windows? I bet you've upgraded a kernel to solve a problem with Linux. You can switch to NT to fix your problem with Windows.

The key here is in "Windows may (I don't know) have fixed..." If you don't know, SHUT UP! Before you say "Windows sucks, cuz it crash lotz," please determine whether your statements are true and up to date (they aren't).

I appologize, since your original comment doesn't really deserve this. I just get very frustrated with SlashDot comments in general, and every once in a while I see a logical fallacy to pound on just as my frustration is boiling over. Some interesting issues get brought up, but the only responses are "yah, Windoze is for luzers and Bill Gate$ is ev!l." An occasional good comment comes up, but it usually gets drowned out. There are certainly things that could be improved in Windows (although recent improvements are very encouraging), and there are certainly things that Microsoft does that can be annoying, but Microsofties are people too.

Re:preach to the choir

[HiThere]

Umnh...
You are responding to comments I have heard made frequenly, but not to mine.

The reason that I switched to Linux from MSWindows was because of the licensing. I was merely reporting on ancillary advantages. And MSWindows is designed so that you can't know what is going on. This is an intentional design decision. I really doubt that the more recent versions have changed this, but due to the license issue, I must admit that I will never find out. That's fine with me. The MSWindows license is so bad that the OS couldn't be good enough to justify it.

Re:preach to the choir

[cookd]

No, I'm responding to the comment you made about Windows crashing (though in doing so I'm also taking out my frustrations from other comments). "Windows always requiring a reboot" was an issue that you brought up and the issue to which I responded.

perspectives

[neildogg]

What I find terribly funny, as a non-American, is that similar things are taking place in American society as a whole, the Patriot Act for example, denying people civil rights in order to exercise freedom. I don't understand the complaint that a company is doing things that impose on privacy when it's a common thread in the entire society around it. Linux is counter-culture; I don't think many people would deny that. Once I see America embracing the freedom it so adamantly preaches, I'll understand complaints such as this one.

Re:perspectives

[airrage]

I really think it's all about the pendulum swinging the other way. Microsoft, for most of us, has been around since we first started putting together our IBM-Clones, I mean that's all there was. The industry has had MS for so long that maybe the pendulum will swing the other way now -- what that future means, I'm not sure.

This is typified, in a similar vein, in the Patriot Act. For many decades, immigrants and foriegners, were granted carte-blanche access to the US, and citizens, likewise were finding that we were unable to find a middle ground on the appropriate amount of inalienable rights -- letting therefore the courts to define what that really is (for anyone who cared to sue somebody). Now I think the pendulum has swung the other way.

Now as I step down from my soap box, I leave you with this: your rights end where the rights of the next person's start. It ends up being a small circle.

The answer to the article as to MS's greatest threat: nothing (with a GDP of a small country, they can buy away any threat).

Happy New Year

Re:perspectives

[Jahf]

It's obvious you're judging the attitude of the every day US citizen by the bogus crap that has been put into law here lately.

I for one can not think of a single non-politician that I have met who has supported the Patriot Act or it's relatives. Most people are neutral pending seeing it's results and more than a few are actively against it.

It will take awhile, the voting public still seems to be in shell shock, but when enough people become active again the Patriot Act will be fixed/removed. I wouldn't be surprised to see it essentially nullified within 5-10 years, and probably the same with the DMCA. I wish it would take less time, but that's the way things work. The population mass has reached a point where turn-on-a-dime democracy is very hard to do.

As for you ignoring people's opinions based on the laws that their government enacts, well, that seems rather ignorant.

Re:perspectives

[da_Den_man]

WAR is Peace FREEDOM is Slavery IGNORANCE is Strength

Re:perspectives

[neildogg]

Ignoring is ignorant? Wow

I was merely pointing out that this specific opinion parallels problems in society as a whole, or at least with the government. I completely agree with this guy's opinions.

Re:perspectives

[haa...jesus christ]

Once I see America embracing the freedom it so adamantly preaches, I'll understand complaints such as this one.

Normally I don't agree with foreign nationals, but I think this gentle(wo)man is right. What the hell have we been doing to ourselves lately? Consider that a rhetorical question, as I have no answers. But on the other hand, the beauty of freedom is that you can contradict yourself - that may not make total sense, but it's an inherent advantage of our system, even though it might be seen as a flaw. okay, now i'm not making any sense. end communication.

Re:perspectives

[hackwrench]

your rights end where the rights of the next person's start.

So, um where do the other person's rights start? I keep running into people that try to lay claim to rights I have no interest in, that interfere with rights I want.

I remember in Dragonball where Goku asked a policeman where Bulma lived and the policeman could call up a picture for every person named Bulma in the city and helped him find her. Impossible with the rights some people want. But then, some people want to be afraid of their government.

Re:perspectives

[Anonymous Coward]

your rights end where the rights of the next person's start. It ends up being a small circle.
Nice to say, but few politicians are practicing. The last year has been about removing all our rights to have oversight of our government. Many things that required full public access is now conducted behind doors. The funny thing is that W. started all that Before 9/11.
How fortutious for Bush that 9/11 happened when it did. I have always that it strange that Clinton could protect our shores with the CIA/FBI while Bush blames them.

Re:perspectives

[Mark_Uplanguage]

The interesting thing is that MS has been working on strangling the marketplace for years, while the US needed a terrorist attack as the reason to strangle itself. Is this a case of society following the corporations?

Re:perspectives

[Henry V .009]

Shouldn't there be some corollary to Godwin's Law, but involving Dragonball instead of Nazis?

Here is my formulation: As the number of idiots posting in a thread increases, the chance of a Dragonball reference increases accordingly. In case of said event, the person who made the comment will have everything he has said or ever will say forever invalidated.

Re:perspectives

[jackbox]

Indeed, switch a few words around on page 2:

Add it all up and what you have is a company (country) that, at the least, displays a profound level of arrogance coupled with the unshakable belief that they have not only the ability, but the right to dictate to the rest of the world, from charities to corporations, (to governments) how the world should look....

Guess Microsoft is succeeding in the American Way. (sigh)

Re:perspectives

[Anonymous Coward]

That isn't funny. The only reason that the USA patriot act passed was because of the Anthrax psyop directed at the lawmakers in Washington. Don't laugh at us, feel sorry for us. The people here are so complacent and blinded that the pResident could go on TV and take a shit on the constitution and it wouldn't even make the papers the next day.

It will probably happen in your country in a year or two, also. Won't be so funny then.

Re:perspectives

[orthogonal]

I remember in Dragonball where Goku asked a policeman where Bulma lived and the policeman could call up a picture for every person named Bulma in the city and helped him find her.

What, did the Dragonball universe pass the "Stalker Support Act of 2003"? Or is having everybody's picture in a database just a side-effect of the "Blackshirt Employment Act of 1937"?

Yeah, let's make a "Freshman Face Book" for the entire country. I'll sleep a lot more soundly at night, I'm sure.

Re:perspectives

[mbbac]

The same thing you find funny as a non-American, I find tragic as an American.

Re:perspectives

[Anonymous Coward]

With the exception of the occasional rampaging space being, the Earth of DBZ doesn't seem to be too bad a place to live. Low population, so that means plenty of space and from the looks of thing, little pollution. Reletivaly high level of technology; come on, you know you want to carry a car, plane, and house around in your wallet too.

Not to say that it doesn't have it's problems like the afore mentions space monsters and terrorist armies (Red Ribbon or whatever), but you know for sure there is an after life if something nasty happens.

Re: perspectives

[Antity]

WAR is Peace FREEDOM is Slavery IGNORANCE is Strength

"Join the Mobile Infantry and save the Galaxy.
Service guarantees citizenship.
Would you like to know more?"

Damn, for some reason, they seem to have something in common... People, always keep an open eye on what you get presented as your "freedom".

Re:perspectives

[stephanruby]

How fortutious for Bush that 9/11 happened when it did. I have always that it strange that Clinton could protect our shores with the CIA/FBI while Bush blames them.

Give me a break. I don't like Bush, but Clinton was just lucky this didn't happen under his watch. The security of this country doesn't change overnight simply because a new administration takes over. The screeners didn't change and they certainly didn't care about the new administration. Plus, the hijackers probably didn't care either since most of them were probably already in the US under the Clinton administration.

The only thing, that might have changed, is that the Bin Laden family could have been forbidden to fly out of the United States. That would have been nice. Under Bush and because of Bush, the Bin Laden plane was the only plane allowed to fly out of the United States when every other plane was grounded. Personally, I don't care if the Bin Laden family was innocent, I would still have liked to see them squirm a little bit under our intense scrutiny.

Re:perspectives

[pyrrho]

would you like a little Nuclear War with that sir?

As a New American I'm forced to ask you the following questions:

(1) why do you hate america so much? that is, what is it that you despise about freedom?

(2) if other countries are so great, why is America the only democracy in the world?

(3) how do YOU know what's going on in American society... are you some sort of SPY!?!?!?!

Have a nice day.

PS: satire+cynicism+sarcasm

Re:perspectives

[quax]

I was always wondering if Al Quaida was especially provoked by the collapse of the Israel/Palestine peace that accelerated when Bush took over.

At the beginning of his term Bush did not offer any leadership for this most volatile of all Middle East hot spots. It came somewhat into focus after 9/11 just to be quickly pushed into the background again. Clinton's administration maintained much more control there.

From my point of view the Isreal/Palestine conflict is the main source for Arab contempt of the US. Therefore it may not be by chance that 9/11 happened during Bush's term. Not because security changed, but rather because Al Quaida felt more provoked than ever by the administration's stance on the Palestine/Israel issue.

Irony is 9/11 transformed Bush from a laughing stock into the most popular president ever.

Re:perspectives

[Anonymous Coward]

The bin Laden family are close to the Bushes.

Re:perspectives

[Anonymous Coward]

PPS: America is not one country. It is a big place composed of two continents with 35 countries. It has also been called the New World.

Re:perspectives

[Anonymous Coward]

4)??????

5)Profit!!!

Re:perspectives

[Anonymous Coward]

On the news here in NZ last night, I saw attempts at the same fear-mongering that goes on re: terrorism in the USA.

The only thing is, that tactic wont work in this country to make people give up their rights. Why? Because NZ'ers don't have the superiority complex that Usonians do. We don't harbour any illusions of being "the world police" or "the world-leading nation" or any such poppycock, and as such, we would not let our Government abuse us for the sake of stopping imaginary terrorists.

Looking at it from a terrorists point of view - what point would there be in terrorising NZ? It's not like we could go to the United Nations and yell "Hey! W! Cut your nosey world-policing shit out and behave yourselves so we'll stop getting bombed". NZ is a complete waste-of-time target for REAL terrorists, to the point where I'd suspect my own Government of bombing buildings before I'd suspect Al'Qaeda or Saddam or whoever the USA's Demon-of-the-week is.

Re:perspectives

[Anonymous Coward]

34 countries are about to get sued for Trademark Infringement!

We're America dammit!

Re:perspectives

[Anonymous Coward]

point where turn-on-a-dime democracy is very hard to do.
but isn't that EXACTLY what the patriot act is?
we will give up this for (our belief that we are safer.)? I would feel SO much safer if everybody that disagreed with me or held a different opinion of me would quit "bothering me" with their incessant rant about whatever I disagree with. "For the children rings a bell. I am a father and I DON'T NEED A STEENKEN VILLAGE" to raise my child. What I need are the "chicken littles" to shut the fsck up and let me and my child deal with life's problems and how best to deal with them.

Yes there are pedophiles,child molesters,drunk drivers out there. What is NEW? there have always been these elements out there. The fscking problem is that we let Ann Landers/Dear Abby raise our child instead of us. Our/Your parents/grandparents didn't have an instruction manual to raise their children and albeit if you can cope with the outside world then by diety[sorry for being so politically correct that I stink] you have done a commendable job.

PARENTS just ask yourself what were the "rules" when I was growing up..... If don't talk or take candy from strangers was towards the top then relax and raise your child AS YOU SEE FIT not wgat some village,book,talk show host/hostess,newspaper columnist says. You are your best example/teacher for YOUR offspring... no need to bring someone else into the fray.

Re:perspectives

[FireBreathingDog]

Don't forget that in 1996 the Sudanese government offered three separate times to hand over bin Laden to the U.S. and Clinton refused. Ironically, Clinton, who could find a legal excuse to explain away ANY of his OWN behavior--including quibbling over the meaning of the word "is"--said that there was no legal justification for the U.S. to take custody of bin Laden.

Oh, if only Boy Clinton had put his legalistic mind towards something USEFUL (like protecting our country against bin Laden) as opposed to using it only to get himself out of his own self-made messes...who knows how different the world might be right now?

Re:perspectives

[canadian_right]

Lets pretend you are serious:
1] You preach freedom, but practice intolerance of any economic system other than capitalism. You are so free, that you made it illegal to vote communist. (As a Canadian, I enjoy federal and provincial elections featuring "commies" who get just slightly fewer votes than the lunatic right wing). You are also so "free" that you think its ok to tell other countries how much they should spend on their military.
2] You are not a democracy, you are a representative republic. There have been very few direct democracies since the times of the Ancient Athens.
3] CNN, Time mag, etc... tell me what is going on. In fact, it takes abit of effort to get good local news as we are swamped by USA news.
The most annoying things about the USA is its complete inability to understand why anyone would not want to instantly make their country over in the image of the USA.

Re:perspectives

[Darby]

The security of this country doesn't change overnight simply because a new administration takes over. The screeners didn't change and they certainly didn't care about the new administration. Plus, the hijackers probably didn't care either since most of them were probably already in the US under the Clinton administration.

The only thing, that might have changed, is that the Bin Laden family could have been forbidden to fly out of the United States. That would have been nice. Under Bush and because of Bush, the Bin Laden plane was the only plane allowed to fly out of the United States when every other plane was grounded.

Well, Clinton might not have *ordered* the FBI to stop investigating the bin Ladens.
John Ashcroft wouldn't have been there to *order* the FBI not to examine "the 20th hijacker's" laptop.
Clinton might have gotten up off of his ass and put down the kiddy book before a half an hour passed after a fucking plane blew up the WTC.
Maybe he would have scrambled a few fucking fighters rather than grounding them which could have prevented the rest of the attacks.

Don't get me wrong though, maybe Clinton would have done all this too. Democrats and Republicans are equally slimy scum.
But to say Bush's presence at the controls didn't have a very serious affect in helping the attacks is just crazy.

Seriously, he blocks all attempts at investigating what went wrong for as long as he can, and then when trillion dollar lawsuits are coming up, he tries to appoint Henry Fucking Kissinger to do the investigation. That scrap of garbage is known primarily for crimes against humanity and covering up treacherous illegal actions. How is that different from screaming out "I'm hiding shit that I did"
Look at the piece of work he's putting up now. He's in business with Osama bin Laden's wife for fuck's sake.

Can you even name one thing that Bush has done since he usurped power through his brother's treason in Florida by disenfranchising 10s of thousands of voters that doesn't show hatred and contempt for the freedom we claim to stand for?

Raping the FOIA, Patriot Act, Homeland Security, WTC attacks.

Sure, Clinton was a fuckwad too, but they're not even in the same league.

Re:perspectives

[Darby]

It will take awhile, the voting public still seems to be in shell shock, but when enough people become active again the Patriot Act will be fixed/removed

It's more difficult for something like this to happen when anyone who speaks out against it can be labeled a terrorist and taken away and executed without a trial. Especially since anyone promoting an alternative viewpoint can now legally be spied upon and harassed. This was already happening illegally. Now that the FBI etc. can legally do what they were already doing do you really think they won't step over the line again?
I really don't think you understand the gravity of the situation.

Re:perspectives

[RasputinAXP]

1. We can still vote for the Communists or the Socialists or whatever, they're just less represented. I voted for Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys during the last presidential election.

2. No kidding? Tell me something I didn't know. There ARE no direct democracies in today's world. If there are, please enlighten me.

3. You think WE want all of this crap-ass news? Please. Take it. Of course, I read the NY Post on a regular basis so I'm probably not the best person to be commenting on news outlets. Thing is, American media's got the world by the balls and when that's happening, you dance.

I don't know what that last metaphor meant but I'm going to stop now. It's late.

Re:perspectives

[matrix29]

Don't forget that in 1996 the Sudanese government offered three separate times to hand over bin Laden to the U.S. and Clinton refused. Ironically, Clinton, who could find a legal excuse to explain away ANY of his OWN behavior--including quibbling over the meaning of the word "is"--said that there was no legal justification for the U.S. to take custody of bin Laden.
Oh, if only Boy Clinton had put his legalistic mind towards something USEFUL (like protecting our country against bin Laden) as opposed to using it only to get himself out of his own self-made messes...who knows how different the world might be right now? SLURP SLURP SLURP says the whore

U.S. missiles pound targets in Afghanistan

U.S. missiles pound targets in Afghanistan, Sudan
Clinton: 'Our target was terror'
August 21, 1998
Web posted at: 5:10 a.m. EDT (0910 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- American cruise missiles pounded sites in Afghanistan and Sudan Thursday in retaliation for the deadly bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on August 7.

"Let our actions today send this message loud and clear -- there are no expendable American targets," U.S. President Clinton said in a televised address to the American people Thursday evening. "There will be no sanctuary for terrorists. We will defend our people, our interests and our values."

U.S. officials say the six sites attacked in Afghanistan were part of a network of terrorist compounds near the Pakistani border that housed supporters of millionaire Osama bin Laden.

An official of the Taliban, Afgahanistan's Islamic rulers, reported 21 were killed and 30 were injured in the missile strikes in eastern Afghanistan.

In the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, the El Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries factory -- which U.S. officials say also has ties to bin Laden and produces chemicals that can be used to make deadly VX nerve gas -- was heavily damaged.

In response, an angry crowd of demonstrators, chanting "Down, Down, U.S.A." took over the U.S. embassy building in Khartoum, which had been closed after the August bombings, Sudanese television reported. U.S. diplomats had been pulled out of Sudan in 1996, after the State Department decided it could no longer ensure their safety.

U.S.: Bin Laden's network planning new attacks
Clinton said that information gathered by American intelligence showed that a network of terrorists affiliated with bin Laden was responsible for the bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, which killed 257 people, including 12 Americans.

"Our mission was clear -- to strike at the network of radical groups affiliated with, and funded by, Osama bin Laden, the pre-eminent organizer and financier of international terrorism in the world today," Clinton said.

National Security Adviser Sandy Berger said that American intelligence had also turned up "very specific" information that the bin Laden network was planning additional attacks, which Thursday's missile launches were designed to prevent.

In addition, the United States had information that top leaders of bin Laden's network were to meet in Afghanistan Thursday. Berger said that "influenced our planning" for the attack, which was authorized by the president last Friday.

Bin Laden has been given shelter by Afghanistan's Islamic rulers, the Taliban, and may have been in the area targeted by U.S. missiles. Taliban officials said bin Laden survived the attack, but U.S. officials said they did not know if he survived.

Pentagon sources confirmed to CNN that the attacks were made with Tomahawk cruise missiles, not aircraft. The missiles were fired from U.S. Navy ships in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea. The simultaneous attacks took place about 1:30 p.m. EDT (1730 GMT).

Rubble, fire in Khartoum
Sudanese television showed piles of rubble at the Khartoum factory and fire raging in the distance. People were seen walking through the damage, wearing masks.

Sudanese officials reacted angrily to the attacks. Interior Minister Abdul Rahim told CNN in a telephone interview that the privately owned pharmaceutical firm had "nothing to do with chemical weapons."

"We have no chemical weapons factory in our country," he said.

A statement read on Sudanese television about an hour after the attack said "the wrongful American air force launched air attacks on Sudan tonight which aimed at strategic and vital areas."
[ more at web page ]

Oh, I'm sorry... I forgot to call them MONICA MISSILES as was choreographed by Newt Gingrich.

Who Killed John O'Neill?
If you believe the media, John P. O'Neill was simply another innocent victim killed in the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. But you don't need much imagination to suspect something deeper was at work.
Clearly, O'Neill was a man Osama bin Laden wanted dead. O'Neill had been a Deputy Director of the FBI, and Osama bin Laden's main pursuer in the US government. O'Neill had investigated the bombings of the World Trade Center in 1993, a US base in Saudi Arabia in 1996, the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-Es-Salaam in 1998, and the USS Cole last year.

But once the first plane hit the North Tower, Osama bin Laden wouldn't be the only man to profit from O'Neill's death. At the moment of impact, O'Neill became the man who knew too much.

Just two weeks, TWO WEEKS, prior to the attack, O'Neill had left his job with the FBI. O'Neill had quit because he believed that the Bush administration had stymied the intelligence agency's investigations on terrorism. O'Neill charged that it had done so even as it bargained with the Taliban on handing over of Osama bin Laden in exchange for political recognition and economic aid. In the ultimate irony, O'Neill had gone public with these charges at the same time that he was leaving the FBI to become the head of security at the World Trade Center.

"The main obstacles to investigate Islamic terrorism were US oil corporate interests, and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it," O'Neill reportedly told the authors of an explosive new book, Hidden Truth (Forbidden Truth in the US), by intelligence analysts Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie. Brisard met O'Neill several times last summer and reports that O'Neill complained bitterly that the US State Department - and behind it the oil lobby who make up President Bush's entourage - blocked attempts to prove bin Laden's guilt.

Released just last November, Brisard and Dasquie's book was mostly ignored by the US media. But it is beginning to cause a stir. Just two days ago, the story aired for the first time on US television when CNN's Paula Zahn interviewed former Iraqi chief U.N. weapons inspector Richard Bulter. (Read CNN transcript) "The most explosive charge, Paula, is that the Bush administration -- the present one, just shortly after assuming office slowed down FBI investigations of al Qaeda and terrorism in Afghanistan in order to do a deal with the Taliban on oil -- an oil pipeline across Afghanistan" Butler said.

[ more at web page ]

New WTC Evidence Raises Questions Of Evidence Destruction

The evidence that the destruction of the WTC was to destroy evidence contained on the 23rd and 24th floors of the North Tower is now incontrovertable. This message is the first revelation of the evidence that makes this conclusion a certainty. As yet no one has contacted any authorities with this information. (I want to make sure it is well in the public sphere before I show up at the FBI office here in Yakima.)

Dick Eastman 223 S. 64th Ave Yakima, Washington

I want you to provide me with lists of names I can contact in government and elsewhere around the world. I also want you to work by your own avenues to get to any officials or law enforcement agencies with jurisdiction in this case. A war and the greatest crime in history are involved, and many of the people responsible are standing in the way of justice.

Here is evidence supplied by the Head of Security of the WTC on network television indicating that the FBI floors (the 22nd, 23rd and 24th floors) of the North Tower -- 70 floors below the crash-bombing impact -- had been devastated and reduced to debris that this same Head of Security himself dug through to get to trapped persons (whom he saved).

But it was on these floors that the entire accumulation of evidence and investigation briefs on two highly important cases were being stored:

(1) The case against Mobil Oil and James Giffen on illegal oil swaps between Iran and Kazakhstan (at that time before a New York grand jury as described in great detail by Seymore Hersh in the July 9 New Yorker magazine);

(2)And even more important, the evidence in the investigation of GOLD PRICE FIXING stemming from charges brought against Alan Greenspan, Morgan & Company, Goldman Sachs.
(see below [truth.htm] for full reconstruction of this crime -- that is now all but confirmed by this revelation of a bomb devastating the FBI floors of the North Tower before the tower collapsed.)

The secrets one will try to keep
It is long past due to impeach and execute the thief that stole the Presidency for High Crimes, Bribery, and Treason

Re:perspectives

[stephanruby]

Can you even name one thing that Bush has done since he usurped power through his brother's treason in Florida by disenfranchising 10s of thousands of voters that doesn't show hatred and contempt for the freedom we claim to stand for?

Again, I don't like Bush and I certainly don't appreciate him appointing Kissinger as his chief investigator, but I believe he won Florida fair and square. The democrats had no business asking for a recount only in the democratic Counties and they had no business criticizing the ballots when their party designed and approved the ballots.

Re:perspectives

[Darby]

Again, I don't like Bush and I certainly don't appreciate him appointing Kissinger as his chief investigator, but I believe he won Florida fair and square. The democrats had no business asking for a recount only in the democratic Counties and they had no business criticizing the ballots when their party designed and approved the ballots.

The recounts and the ballots have nothing to do with what I'm talking about. Jeb Bush had his secretary of state throw 10s of thousands of legitimate voters off of the voter roles. I'm sure it was completely coincidental that a large percentage of these voters were black ( who as a group typically vote democrat). There is no more fundamental right of a citizen of a free society than the right to vote (rights basic to all people aside). In deciding that some people who were likely to vote against his brother should not be allowed those rights, Jeb and everyone else involved committed acts of *treason*. The only reason that the election was even close in Florida was due to *treason*.

The election itself was a clusterfuck on both sides, but it has nothing to do with the reason Jeb, and GW are both traitors to this country and everything it stands for.

Straddling the Fence

[Flamesplash]

The problem is that MS is trying to give different customers what they want in the same package. People want security, bam there you go, oh but wait we want flexibility, bam there you go, but oh wait we had to remove some of the security so you could be flexible. vice versa and repeat

While ppl will argue linux gives you both, if you are a computer geek, this isn't a valid solution for the average home user. While linux may be secure enough for them, if purely because linux isn't a target platform for widescale hackers and virus writters, the average person will never make use of the flexibility in linux.

"And you can make kernel modifications as you want them"

"What's a kernel?"

"err well you can download other peoples kernel mods off the internet, compile them and add them to your kernel"

"Uhh What's a compile"?

MS is in the unfortunate position of catering to a large diverse market, and I don't really think there is a unified theory of doing so. I run w2k because it is stable. It may not be as flexible as say XP, but it suffices for me and what I want to do. And I have a win98 parition if a game won't work under 2k.

Re:Straddling the Fence

[Dalcius]

"The problem is that MS is trying to give different customers what they want in the same package. People want security, bam there you go, oh but wait we want flexibility, bam there you go, but oh wait we had to remove some of the security so you could be flexible. vice versa and repeat"

Ahh, the fun old philosophy that nothing can achieve perfect balance for everyone, applied to the extreme.

The problem with this argument is that Microsoft CAN put in TONS of features, more than they ever have. But it can still be secure. How? Defaults. Turn everything off by default, and offer to take the user on a "tour" of these options where s/he will be allowed to turn them on.

The problem is that not only do they produce software with holes, which is a declining habit of theirs, they now put in tons of 'features' such as the Windows Help Desk which are insecure by default.

---
"While ppl will argue linux gives you both, if you are a computer geek, this isn't a valid solution for the average home user."

Yes, Linux gives you both -- on most distros, services that are insecure and need to be admin'ed by default, are turned off. But there are plenty of them, if you want them. Plenty of choice and good defaults are what I love in a good OS/distro.

Regarding "a valid solution for the avg. home user", it actually is. The average home user chats on IM, emails, writes docs, listens to music and surfs the web. I won't argue points here, but many distros do this out of the box (RH 7.3), and they're as difficult to install as Windows.

Regarding the smaller group of "average users" who play games, do presentations, complex excel stuff, etc., Linux is not the solution, at least without the user learning to poke around. But, if you'll pay attention to the history of Linux, you'll notice that not only has this area come a long way in the last two years, it's almost there. Give it another year and I'll bet you can take RH's latest version, give it to an average computer user, and they'll be doing everyting out of the box.

But, I could be wrong.

Re:Straddling the Fence

[BalkanBoy]

They are catering to a diverse market by adding features to existing applications or adding new applications. You are right, most people, are not concerned with recompiling kernels. And I haven't recompiled the stock one w/Redhat 7.3 myself either. I just _wish_ there were more apps for Linux, so that I can diss Windows altogether. It is interesting that you cannot separate applications from the operating system. Linux can be made almost moron-proof. That's hardly an issue. The issue is the _lack of applications_ for Linux. I don't know when everyone is going to get this through their thick skulls, and it's been going on for a while now, this moot argument about users not wanting to understand Linux or what not.. It already has a sophisticated enough GUI, which was simplified in Redhat 8.0. Now add the apps, and quit bitching (and charge for them too, on Linux!)

Re:Straddling the Fence

[Danse]

Heh. I can't remember the last time I heard anyone refer to Microsoft's market position as "unfortunate." :)

Re:Straddling the Fence

[bninja_penguin]

You should read "The Command Line" by Neal Stevenson(sp?). I for one am really tired of people who say " '____' is okay for techies, but not the average user." If a person wants everything spoonfed to them, and not have to learn anything, or expand their horizons at all, buy them a TV, set them in a corner, and let them rot. Corporations view human beings as merely 'consumers'. No longer is a person a person, or even a customer. Merely a 'consumer'. A conveyance for money to transfer from the person's wallet to the corporation's coffers. All the efforts of advertising, adding features, etc. are merely fluff to speed up the money flow. Governments view people as merely votes. They no longer even attempt to represent people. ALL politicians have their own adgenda to push, which differs in method only from the corporations. All they want is money (and power) from the people. It is sick and wrong, and by saying " '___' is only for those geeks, or gearheads, or whatever, but not for the average person" you perpetuate the great lie, and demean, devalue, and debase your fellow humans. If being average means a person cannot learn, then maybe it is time to have an asteroid knock us into the sun.

Re:Straddling the Fence

[_Donut_Troll]

He who straddles fences may soon get splinters in very personal and tender places.

Split Indeed

[Cokelee]

MS has not just been a software company for a while. It is a monstrous thing. Not for its software, but for its policies. It has become a sort of governmental figure in the Software industry. They create policies and exist under a huge bureaucracy wherein Billie boy is the the ruler in pertuity.

People are fearful of and distrustful of MS the same way they have been of the government since the LBJ days (I'm thinking Vietnam here)-- and many before then (I'm thinking Ralph Waldo Emerson types here).

Re:Split Indeed

[Martigan80]

Come on! A (Score: 3) is all you give the guy/gal? This is one of the best analogies on this thread, quit intelligently put too! Hell how many people here remember those days, or even where born then?

Now if only....

[nizo]

If we can get one half to sue the other half, we will have something.

Re:Now if only....

[csnydermvpsoft]

Even better, if they decide to go their own separate ways.

I can just here Judge Jackson saying, "Ha! told-ya-so! It was for your own good!"

Re:Now if only....

[Lord Omlette]

At the height of the Pokémon frenzy, Nintendo sued itself. The law firm responsible was let go the next day.

The point? Hey, if it could happen to one big company, it could happen again anywhere!

This guy has no point

[bmetz]

This guy's arguments, listed at the bottom of the article, are asinine. To quickly address some of them:

- Microsoft put little more than a CDDB lookup into their player. Since everyone freaked out they've made it very very obvious during the install what gets sent. Take a look at everyone else's player and you'll see they are not trying to take over the world in some sinister plot. And product activation sucks but so does having perhaps the most pirated piece of software in the world so you really can't blame them.

- Microsoft lobbies. Welcome to the united states of america.

- Attacking microsoft because the PCs it donates aren't good enough? Come on! Donations are voluntary and should be welcomed no matter what they are. Don't forget Gates does some serious giving-back. Funny how he forgets to mention this..

I'm tired of reading this poorly thought out crap. People will find any excuse to rag on Microsoft. News flash: it's 2002, not 1992. Microsoft-bashing is getting a little old.

Re:This guy has no point

[Anonymous Coward]

//Microsoft-bashing is getting a little old.//

NO! Microsoft bashing will NEVER get old!!!

Re:This guy has no point

[Bilbo]

> - Attacking microsoft because the PCs it donates aren't good enough?...

No, because the donated PC's are simply blatant attempt to supplant Apple's dominance in the educational market, and to generate more license revenue for Microsoft. Who do you think pays to upgrade those PCs when people realize that Windows 3.1 doesn't run any real software?

(Also, when another independent company tried to do the same thing, MS took them to court because they couldn't prove they had valid licenses for all the copies of Windows 95 that the used computers were running. They ended up having to trash several thousand used computers because they didn't have enough money to buy all brand new licenses for them.)

Re:This guy has no point

[Anonymous Coward]

<i>Don't forget Gates does some serious giving-back.</i>
<p>
what a subtle way to say <b>even adjusting for inflation, Gates has given more money away than anyone else in the history of money</b>.

Re:This guy has no point

[FearUncertaintyDoubt]

I agree that some of his arguments are weak. Microsoft's poor committment to security isn't even mentioned, which I think is going to be very damatging to them in the long-term.

However, I do think he is on target with businesses being frustrated with the licensing model. Microsoft has tightened the noose with every release, and it's pretty obvious to every CTO that they are exploiting their lock-in.

Re:This guy has no point

[Anonymous Coward]

People will find any excuse to rag on Microsoft. News flash: it's 2002, not 1992. Microsoft-bashing is getting a little old.

But d00d! If it ever got old, then you couldn't suck up the mod points playing devil's advocate. Nothing says +1 insightful like calling legitimate criticism anti-Microsoft zealotry.

Re:This guy has no point

[Dr.Zong]

Microsoft Lobbies, yes. Cause they got billions of ill-begotten dollars from their original system put in place (buy a pc, you pay us regardless of what OS if any is on it), lest we all not forget that the MS OS was a blatant "ripoff" of the company that licensed them the OS in the first place. They also got their coin from using this dominance in the marketplace, so any attempts to justify their "lobbying" efforts would make even Adam Smith turn in his grave.

As for the donations... Just what is good about seriously outdated computing equiptment being donated to our schools? It's like giving the students a slide rule and telling them they can't use calculators anymore (they *should* be doing it in their head, but thats another topic). The donations would wind up being a tax writeoff at the expense of the taxpayers of America, and would do nothing more than undermine the solid and fairly stable alternative OS base that already exists (be it *nix or Apple). Seriously, just what good is 95' anymore? Expecially since most new hardware doesn't even come with drivers for that OS anymore, again, just WHERE is the point in donating outdated equiptment if none other than to infiltrate yet another market at the students' and parents' expense.

It's a win-win for MS.

Everything is a win-win for Microsoft. Even protracted court battles turn out to be a win-win for Microsoft as we have recently seen.

Re:This guy has no point

[theLOUDroom]

Microsoft put little more than a CDDB lookup into their player.

Too bad you have no idea what you're talking about.
You should read more about what media player really does:

• Here
• Or here
• Or even here

Media Player sends a unique id number along with the info about what you're watching.

Are you an astroturfer or something or are you just clueless/insane? I don't need to even get into your other points as they're just ridiculous.
News flash: MS is worse now than they've even been.
Why exactly should I pretend they aren't?

Re:This guy has no point

[gli]

I remember reading somewhere that by donation MS gets huge cut in taxes.

Re:This guy has no point

[jamesmrankinjr]

Attacking microsoft because the PCs it donates aren't good enough? Come on! Donations are voluntary and should be welcomed no matter what they are.

No, because the donations were proposed as a settlement for a case in which MS was being sued for monopilistic practices (which was left out of the article). The judge rejected the settlement.

-jimbo

Re:This guy has no point

[mugnyte]

I disagree strongly. Those PC donations are better left in the garbage, guy.

News flash: MS's tactics haven't changed since 1992. There are plenty of new excuses to criticize MS. If you worked for a company it squashed illegally, you may think differently.

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

Re:This guy has no point

[Danse]

Which is part of the reason that MS hasn't paid a penny in taxes for years.

Re:This guy has no point

[afidel]

umm since when did CDDB send usage information about how many times a track/album/whatever has been played, oh yeah thats right it never has. MS's WMP does on the other hand send this info, not only that but it uses a unique ID to do it, that ID may not be related to your personal info in that DB, but someone adapt at data mining could probably do so. Sorry but I don't want my habits tracked, anonymously or not, and especially not with a unique ID that I have no proof will remain unlinked to my personal information.

Re:This guy has no point

[andrewski]

Microsoft put little more than a CDDB lookup into their player.

Why not just put a plain old CDDB lookup into their player? It's the 'little more' part that scares me.

Shit, that camera that was in everyone's house in the great book 1984 is little more than a webcam! Why freak out about that?

If anything is poorly thought-out it is your refutation. Everyone else's player doesn't 'phone home to Momma' like MS's does. iTunes contacts a CDDB server, not Apple.

There's a difference between Microsoft bashing and simply stating facts. It gives one pause when the facts are all scary and Orwellian enough that simply stating them amounts to Microsoft bashing.

It's 2002. Wake up!

Re:This guy has no point

[markov_chain]

Can't they install something else on those machines? Why is it that they have to install another Windows version?

And even if they do install windows, aren't they at least getting the machines for free? There is at least $\epsilon$ benefit there.

Why did they trash computers? Were they too old? If so, they wouldn't run new Windows anyway. If not, they could use them for some other OS or at least sell them on Ebay.

--
You owe the Oracle a LaTex comment filter

Re:This guy has no point

[cheezedawg]

Privacy experts said they feared the log file could be used by investigators, divorce lawyers, snooping family members, marketing companies or others interested in learning about a person's entertainment habits.

NO! Anything but that! People can know what my entertainment habits are? What is this world coming to!!!

If you are so worried about people knowing your entertainment habits, then maybe you are watching some stuff that you shouldn't be watching...

Re:This guy has no point

[Cyno]

Yeah, c'mon people, stop bashing poor Microsoft. Its not like they are a monopoly or anything.

Re:This guy has no point

[Darkninja666]

The problem is not what your watching, but what conclusions other people will draw from it!

For example: What if during a divorce proceeding your ex-wife shows evidence that you play GTA: Vice City, and therefore(sp?) shouldn't have custody (partial custody, whatever) of your child? The conclusion MIGHT be drawn that since you play a violent (well can be) video game, you must have violent tendencies! And that means you might endanger your child....scary but certainly could happen.

Re:This guy has no point

[pod]

Look, the argument that you have nothing to hide == you have nothing to fear has long been established as bullshit. It's just like library records. Your parents or loan officer or insurance agent should not be able to find out you've been looking up books on cancer or aids or syphilis, or bomb making for that matter. What you do is by default private (unless done in public) and no amount of disclaimers and click-through licenses change this situation and expectation.

Re:This guy has no point

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, she deserved it -- she was dressed like a slut!

Re:This guy has no point

[Bilbo]

Well, I actually did some hunting and found some hard references. I won't repeat all the details here, since it would be better to read the original article. Please see the CNN article on this.

Also, you can find information on "safe" donations of computers (and why it is dangerous to donate computers running old copies of Windows) on the SchoolForge site.

Saying "thousands of computers" is an overstatement for this particular incident, but if you count the number of "illegally" donated computers (i.e., ones donated to schools where they have not paid the $100 to $200 each for new licenses), then the number probably pretty close. Microsoft has shown repeatedly that they are ready, willing and able to drag school systems through the courts to prevent them from using these systems.

Re:This guy has no point

[Chris Mattern]

> If you are so worried about people knowing your entertainment habits, then maybe you are watching
> some stuff that you shouldn't be watching...

"If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear." Right?

Chris Mattern

Re:This guy has no point

[AndroidCat]

The damned thing tries to access the Internet when I play a local wav file. *Splat* against the firewall.

Re:This guy has no point

[pyrrho]

>And product activation sucks but so does having perhaps the most pirated piece of software in the world so you really can't blame them.

I disagree. It rocks. And if you don't agree show me a software product so popular that it was this widely pirated that did not also make tons of cash. Quake is another example. And as for MS, they are on my side of the argument and in the age when they had competition they always had the weakest copy protection.

>People will find any excuse to rag on Microsoft. News flash: it's 2002, not 1992. Microsoft-bashing is getting a little old.

roflmao. I see, so the longer we complain about putting up with them, the more we should just shut up an put up with them? No, you give in.

Re:This guy has no point

[Anonymous Coward]

...no, this is like "donating" tons of corn instead of rice to Thailand. What the heck are they going to do with corn?

Re:This guy has no point

[StuffYourReligion]

Are you kidding?

Give me a break! MS is always devious and nasty. I mean, just look at this recent advert. Such a sneaky, underhanded attempt to make more lusers _appreciate_ the BSOD!

tsk, tsk, tsk...
http://www.bastardidentro.com/misc/bastard identro/ data/images/f/fatalerror.jpg

Re:This guy has no point

[betaray]

If you are so worried about people knowing your entertainment habits, then maybe you are watching some stuff that you shouldn't be watching...

YOU ARE AN IDIOT!

I hate to come out flaming, but you understand that is one of the stupidest statements a person can make, and it seems to be getting more popular.

Don't you understand that people do things in the privacy of their own home that the government or businesses need not know about. People have the right to enjoy whatever entertainment they want without having to worry about the social stigmas it might place upon them.

What limits do we place upon companies who sneak a peek at your CD tray? What happens when the data collected become secretly subpoenaed by the FBI*? Do we want people to go into internment camps for listening to anti-American music?

Hell, whatever happened to common decency? Would you mind me inventorying your house surreptitiously? Don't think there's anything that I shouldn't?

*I implore you to read this link. The FBI can already issue search warrants to for libraries to turn over your reading list, and the library is prohibited by law from telling you this happened. Again, this isn't some Orwellian gloom and doom future. This is our law.

Re:This guy has no point

[sheldon]

Oh no! Windows Media Player sends a GUID that uniquely identifies the bundle of requests, but is in no way able to link back to your machine.

Oh no! Oh my God!

I don't need to even get into your other points as they're just ridiculous.

Uh huh.

News flash: MS is worse now than they've even been.

No, you've just proven the anything-but-Microsoft astroturfers are more insane than they've ever been.

Christ, next you'll be claiming the government puts flouride in our water supply for mind control.

Re:This guy has no point

[markov_chain]

Yep, that's exactly what I meant :) Thanks for the schoolforge link.

I suppose it's easy to leave whatever OS comes with the donated machines. But it seems like a short-sighted move on part of MS to squeeze for licensing fees, since it gets them to switch away to something else. Maybe they worked out the statistics and expect some large fraction of the donees to pay up.

Re:This guy has no point

[Timothy Brownawell]

Media Player sends a unique id number along with the info about what you're watching.

Pardon me if I'm being an idiot, but what danger is an ID number that doesn't have a name attached to it?

Besides, if you're actually paranoid enough to care about this, you can find a way to disable it -- the Microsoft page you linked to even says how.

Are you an astroturfer or something or are you just clueless/insane?

I could well ask the same of you.

Tim

Re:This guy has no point

[Anonymous Coward]

- Attacking microsoft because the PCs it donates aren't good enough? Come on! Donations are voluntary and should be welcomed no matter what they are.

I can voluntarily donate a cute pile of shit for you in a daily basis. Good to hear you won't blame me for doing that.

Re:This guy has no point

[Anonymous Coward]

And you're going to a 'public' library, built and operated with MY tax dollars.

Re:This guy has no point

[Anonymous Coward]

That's OUR tax dollars, you fucking egotist.

Re:This guy has no point

[tshak]

Microsoft lobbies. Welcome to the united states of america.


Or better yet, "Don't blame the player, blame the game".

Re:This guy has no point

[tshak]

All of these features that you mentioned are DISABLED BY DEFAULT (at least on WMP9) and you are prompted during install with a VERY CLEAR explanation of what each feature is, and how it relates to information being sent back to MS, and the privacy issues that surround it.

Re:This guy has no point

[Anonymous Coward]

umm since when did CDDB send usage information about how many times a track/album/whatever has been played

For that matter, since when did CDDB not WORK?

I don't know what the Win2k CD-player is checking, but it's sure as fuck not CDDB, as it has never once identified any CD I've put in.

Re:This guy has no point

[kcbrown]

If you are so worried about people knowing your entertainment habits, then maybe you are watching some stuff that you shouldn't be watching...

Sounds to me like you're volunteering to have government-monitored cameras installed in your home. Right?

No? Then maybe you finally understand the point. And if you don't, then go ahead and get those cameras installed. After that, I can't wait until they throw you into a hole for doing something you thought was okay but that they thought was unacceptable. Maybe then you'll understand.

Re:This guy has no point

[NullProg]

Windows Media Player sends a GUID that uniquely identifies the bundle of requests, but is in no way able to link back to your machine.

If I remember correctly, a segment of the GUID is your MAC address. That is the link back to your machine (especially if your using on-board ethernet ). Do a registry search on your MAC id (hex). I think you will be suprised by the results. :)

Enjoy,

Re:This guy has no point

[pod]

The 'public' in 'public library' has a different meaning than the 'public' in 'out in public'. One means freely accessible to the people, the other refers to openness and public display.

Re:This guy has no point

[sheldon]

If I remember correctly, a segment of the GUID is your MAC address.

Yes, you should look at the DCE documentation to better understand this as that is where Microsoft took the GUID concept from.

That is the link back to your machine (especially if your using on-board ethernet ).

Unless of course you don't have ethernet on board, which is the case for most home computers.

But again, even if this is the case, someone would have to go through the effort it takes to track you down. Oddly enough the IP address provides better information for that purpose than the GUID, and this is recorded not just by Microsoft's CDDB solution but by every web server you ever connect to.

Again, how's that flouride treating you?

Re:This guy has no point

[Anonymous Coward]

The unique ID is attached to your IP address, you fscking moron. Your ISP can then easily link your dynamic IP + timestamp to your account with YOUR name attached.

And remember, in the name of "fighting terrorism" ISPs will be force to give this info up more easily.

Re:This guy has no point

[theLOUDroom]

Wrong.
The id# is unique to your machine.
Read the damn links I posted.

Do you even know what an astroturfer is?

How can such an uninformed post get marked informative?

Re:This guy has no point

[sheldon]

"Do you even know what an astroturfer is?"

Someone who posts crap to web forums to stir up anti-Microsoft sentiments, so as to convince people to use her favorite product instead is an astroturfer.

Did you ever see Clerks? The Chewy Gum salesman was an astroturfer.

You are an astroturfer.

"How can such an uninformed post get marked informative?"

Because it's more informative than your flouride conspiracy theory.

Re:This guy has no point

[irix]

Funny how you make fun of the original poster, but the only piece of information in your post is complete bullshit...

Oh no! Windows Media Player sends a GUID that uniquely identifies the bundle of requests, but is in no way able to link back to your machine.

Wrong. Why not check out Microsoft's own website on this and see what is has to say: "there are occasions when unique machine-identifying information is transmitted across the Internet". That sure sounds like they can link back to your machine to me!

I'm not saying that what Media Player trasnmits is neccissarily a big deal (depends on your views about privacy, I suppose...) but lets be truthful about what they are doing.

Re:This guy has no point

[theblueplanet]

maybe you are watching some stuff that you shouldn't be watching
By the same token, why bother with search warrants ? Hell if you ain't done nuthin' bad, just let the nice policeman do his job efficiently.
Ashcroft's sure got his work cut out.

Re:This guy has no point

[DGolden]

Repeated because I disagree with mod of AC comment:

And product activation sucks but so does having perhaps the most pirated piece of software in the world so you really can't blame them.

Microsoft WANTS it pirated. Because pirated Windows is what keeps Linux out of the desktop in a large part of the world.

If all eastern Asia had to pay the price Microsoft asks for its software, you'd be sure to see a lot of local OSes spawned from BSD or Linux, with great support for local languages.

But when you can have a pirated copy of a fully-featured Windows for 3$, why bother ?

Re:This guy has no point

[betaray]

Sigh . . .

Who defines what anti-American is? If it's you then you've got no problems, but what if it's someone who disagrees with your position?

And so what, what if you hate the way this country is run? What if with every fiber of your being you wish to see the current government brought down? Does that mean you need to be imprisoned? NO!!

As long as you play by the rules you can hate our government, hate our policies, and still not be anti-American. There are still communists in this country. I see the Communist Party convention on CSPAN every year. These people would like to "subvert" and completely change our government. However they don't resort to violence and terror because our country has a system that allows dissenting voices to organize and be heard. What you're suggesting is to silence the dissenting voice. That is the exact opposite of the principals that this country was founded on.

Please take off your blinders and realize that the world can't only be filled with people who have your exact set of ideals. It's the diversity that makes it fun, and supression of those different from you only leads to violence and death.

Re:This guy has no point

[betaray]

There's nothing sacred about the current government. The only way things change is through the people.

Consider this: During the early 20th century there was a group of people that wanted to change the government. They were not being represented, and they felt that they should demostrate, march, and otherwise coerce the government into changing fundamentally.

Of course these people were women. They couldn't vote, and had to resort to other tactics to get their voices heard. Should these women have been deported, or killed (which is the penalty for treason)?

For the lazy

[murky.waters]

Title:Microsoft's Worst Enemy
Author:Joel Hruska
Length:Two pages

MicroSatan has released some excellent software recently, xp mainly.

SicroMoft's worst enemy is itself. M$ is a typical two-faced affair: their programmers are the "good" side, they are like us, they produced better software, and they hate management.

Which brings us to the bad side: the folks who run SicroMoft are interested only in money, and hence have unleashed hell upon users in the form of "digital rights management", "authentication", "phoning home spyware", and by being the arrogant bastards that they are, treating users, firms, governments like shit.

Some governments are looking into open source, but not much is happening because MS is fighting every attempt with all they've got (lawyers, "random audits", brain wash seminars on open software).

Linux is MicroSatan's biggest enemy, huh? I thought it was MS itself? Anyway, Linux is good because, you guessed it, it is immensely powerful, cheap, and reliable.

Then Joel is losing me, and probably a lot of you, with the following closing paragraphs:

I'm no Linux user. I've never booted a distro of the OS in any of its flavors, and save for playing with it on a friend's machine, I've never spent much time in it. I am not an open source maverick, nor am I anti-business or anti-profit. What I am, however, is concerned about how Redmond intends to safeguard my privacy, my right to use an operating system as I see fit, and my rights of fair use. I am, in fact, very concerned.

Right now, Linux has yet to offer me any reason why I should go to the monumental hassle of switching and re-training myself to the new OS environment, but unlike two years ago, I can see it potentially occurring today. Drop the attitude, the lying, and the marketing BS, Microsoft--or-- begin to watch your customer base slip away.

Re:For the lazy

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, since he doesnt use Linux, his article should be summarily dismissed.....

Typical Linux user

Re: Writer should get his facts straight

[tomhudson]

Before you arrogantly claim it couldn't possibly happen to you, take a good look at companies like Apple, IBM, or 3dfx who's names were once SYNONYMOUS with computing--and who now, without exception, are either dead or relegated to niche markets in the areas they once utterly dominated. </quote>

IBM sure ain't dead ...

Revenues last quarter:

• Microsoft:
  $7,746,000,000
• IBM:
  $20,592,000,00

Interestingly, IBM made more GROSS PROFIT the last quarter ($8,094,000,000) than Microsoft's total revenues.

Contrary to popular belief, IBM, not Microsoft, is the worlds' largest software company. IBM just happens to bundle a computer with many of their offerings.

Greek Saying

[Shadow Wrought]

One of my history teachers taught us that the Greeks used to have a phrase something along the lines of "Those whom the God's would destroy, they first make proud."

My own $0.02 is that M$'s hubris will eventually provide the catalyst for their decline and eventual demise.

Re:Greek Saying

[sql*kitten]

One of my history teachers taught us that the Greeks used to have a phrase something along the lines of "Those whom the God's would destroy, they first make proud."

I think it was "they first drive mad". Hubris is what brought a mortal to their attention in the first place. Didn't like the competition, see.

Re:Greek Saying

[Anonymous DWord]

Quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius.

http://www.racialcompact.com/whomgodsdestroy.html

Re:Greek Saying

[WzDD]

> Those whom the God's would destroy,
> they first make proud

For a start, it's "they first make mad". And secondly - it's nice to see that even ancient Greeks misuse the apostrophe (though as another poster linked, it's from Longfellow, not Seneca).

Quick lesson: "God's". That's the apostrophe of posession there. That means you're talking about the "would destroy" which belongs to God, which doesn't make sense. In this case it's very easy. We're talking about more than one God. The plural of God is Gods. Nothing more to it than that.

Re:Greek Saying

[Matarick]

Man, after clicking on the main page, http://www.racialcompact.com/.
This site looks like something that a Nazi would write.

BIGOT, with a capital B.

Just be carefull next time that somebody doesn't post a racism URL unless if the person clearly warned in advance.

Re:Greek Saying

[Anonymous DWord]

Bah. I apologize. Should have known from the title, but I didn't even read the rest of the page - just came in from Google and saw the quotations at the top.

Re:Greek Saying

[Shadow Wrought]

Those wacky Greek's! Alway's putting apostrophe's where they just aren't needed. Silly Greek's:-)

Now I have to find my ol' misleading history teacher...

Re:robbIE's new best friend

[Anonymous Coward]

Christ, what's wrong with you? Are you high? Can anyone get me some of whatever this guy's on? You flunked out of typing, English 101, and countless other communication-related studies. Best go retake them.

Re:Yea right.....

[Nasheer]

He can always find a job at the FSF.

SCREW YOU AND YOUR INSIGHTFUL ONE-LINERS

[Anonymous Coward]

0 text

Re:Yea right.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe then HURD would finally get done.

Re: Writer should get his facts straight

[kypper]

Yeah, but do you think you really want a clone?

Stossel the Libertarian?

[burgburgburg]

Stossel will claim that the government has no business interfering with the business model of MS, then he'll throw lots of misleading/off-topic/deeply suspect/just plain wrong details at you, look into the camera and demand "Give me a break" and sit back and ignore everyone's pointing out his logical failures.

He's a worthless hack. Has been for years. Remember his insecticide claims?

Re:Stossel the Libertarian?

[Zhe Mappel]

Well said.

As long as we're dissing Stossel, be sure to see The Nation's superb exposé of that right wing hack:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020107&s=do wie

Re:Stossel the Libertarian?

[ncc74656]

As long as we're dissing Stossel, be sure to see The Nation's superb exposé of that right wing hack:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020107&s=do wie

You say that as if The Nation is a credible source WRT anything. You might as well quote Pravda.

Re:Stossel the Libertarian?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that red-baiting I hear?
I suppose you prefer National Review?

Re:Stossel the Libertarian?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Do tell us about his insecticide claims.

Re: Writer should get his facts straight

[Syncdata]

Amen to that sir. IBM is alive and kicking, it's just that the IBM name just isn't as ubiquitous as it once was in the media. The author is clearly viewing anything other than the desktop PC market as niche. I wonder what the author thinks about Texas Instruments?

Potential libel? (or is that slander...)

[tstoneman]

The article is not bad, and it basically shows the problems that affect any software company: techies vs marketing.

However, I do think he went out on a limb with the following comment:

"The recently-revealed fact that Microsoft, in effect, offered states a bribe in order to drop their anti-trust suits against the Redmond giant. While I hold the states equally responsible for accepting the money in the first place, Redmond is known for displaying a remarkable level of NIH syndrome (Not Invented Here) perhaps only equaled by Steve Job's unparalleled Reality Distortion Field."

I haven't heard about any of this bribe business, but if it isn't true and if he is exaggerating, I think the writer has really set himself up for a potential lawsuit. To accuse someone of committing a felony like that in this day-and-age when it hasn't been proven is kind of stupid, and I would have changed the wording around if I were him.

Re:Potential libel? (or is that slander...)

[p-k4]

libel = printed
slander = spoken

Hence, this would be an issue of libel.

Re:Potential libel? (or is that slander...)

[Cokelee]

It was a "settlement" which is legal jargon for a bribe-- basically.

Re:Potential libel? (or is that slander...)

[Anonymous Coward]

Two words - in effect. 'Nuff said?

Re:Potential libel? (or is that slander...)

[juan2074]

And for those of you who talk aloud as you type, you might be accused of both.

It is all bullshit and I am sick of it

[i_luv_linux]

The whole artice's value = zero. Here is why.

The article wants MS not to donate any machine or Windows to poor schools for competitive issues, to protect Apple's interests, but yet at the same time it critizes MS because it donates old technology.

The article accuses MS of bribing, yet there is no known evidence of such a criminal conduct. If the bribe means here a settlement, it is a legal move. There is nothing to talk about here.

Licensing program is not a good move, but let's talk about Oracle's licensing practices. Let's talk about other licensing plans out there in the industry. If you are going to critize MS for this and not others, you are just plain lying about your facts

It is also unbelievable that any person who bullshits to bash MS can get this much of attention. It doesn't even matter what you say anymore, as long as you bash MS. The facts mentioned in the article are all very well known, but still we see it here because it is yet another MS bashing article.

I just hope the real workers behind the open source are not following this stupid trend. Otherwise open source movement is doomed.

Re:It is all bullshit and I am sick of it

[Znork]

You should note that the author of the article has no connection to any open source project, and claims not even to be a user of open source software.

Microsoft is not going to change. The solution to this guys problems is to quit whining and switch to Linux.

Re:It is all bullshit and I am sick of it

[mbbac]

The article wants MS not to donate any machine or Windows to poor schools for competitive issues, to protect Apple's interests, but yet at the same time it critizes MS because it donates old technology.

The article accuses MS of bribing, yet there is no known evidence of such a criminal conduct. If the bribe means here a settlement, it is a legal move. There is nothing to talk about here.

That was part of one of Microsoft proposal's for their punishment for using their monopoly illegally. Donating used computers to schools isn't much of a punishment, especially when one of your strongest competitors currently holds a majority of that market.

Basically, that is being allowed to illegally dump product in an effort to conquer a market as a supposed form of punishment.

MOD THIS UP

[Anonymous Coward]

...And I thought Microsoft's worst enemy was these Daktaklakpaks, more annoying than clippy thing, etc.

What if...

[Lokatana]

It's interesting to notice that the author of this article claims to barely know Linux or other competing products to Microsoft. I'm not sure how much I agree with his thoughts regarding a "split" within Microsoft, but...

What if this type of thinking begins to really penetrate MS's customer base? If Joe User (think of all of your friends and family who use you as their technical support hotline) starts to believe that Microsoft is taking them to the cleaners - not just believe it, but become convinced of the fact - and is willing to make the jump to an alternative OS, what then? What if the tools to make the switch are easy enough for anyone's grandparents to freely obtain and use? (Today, most of these kinds of users don't even know how to locate an ISO, let alone download & burn it! I'm also assuming they don't want to pay for the software from a vendor or store)

What would MS do if their customer base starts to erode noticeably? Will we see more "Satanic" actions to lock in their customers, or will MS respond in a way that will benefit the overall user community?

Perhaps this would be a good followup "Ask Slashdot", but I'd love to see people's thoughts on this.

-Lokatana

Re:What if...

[andrewski]

What would MS do if their customer base starts to erode noticeably? Will we see more "Satanic" actions to lock in their customers, or will MS respond in a way that will benefit the overall user community?

Hahahahahahaha! Oh, my gosh, I think I just peed my pants.

In my recollection, MS has never done ANYTHING that benefits anybody but Bill and his minions. What, pray tell, would you have them do to benefit the user community? Release the code to Win XP under the GPL? Give away free Windows licenses for low income people and charitable organizations? Shower the west coast with candy and free Thighmasters? Actually follow a standard rather than embracing and extending it? Allowing the video you record on your new HP Media Center Edition to be played back on another computer or device (or god forbid the same computer after an upgrade of any kind)? What?

I don't think that you could come up with a single thing that MS would ever do to benefit computer users overall that wasn't calculated to benefit them financially and politically in the long run.

Thank you.

Re:What if...

[grendelkhan]

At a recent meeting of the manufacturing systems folk of our company, our CIO dropped the comment that if MS didn't make a major change in their pricing structure we'd be looking hard at "open source alternatives for our software needs in the very near future." I would kill to have a sit down with our CTO and see if he's been asked to start evaluating OpenOffice and checking our financial folk's spreadsheets for importing accuracy.

Collective jaws dropped around the conference table, being that we're Fortune 500 and probably get as good terms as you can get under Licensing 6.0. Our applications (on the MES side) are all going Win32 + IIS delivered through IE and away from the UNIX and VMS/VAX platforms, so to be told by the man that we should all be hedging our bets around suites that don't rely on MS was quite the shocker.

In our company's IT goal to massive reduce costs and bring capital spending way down without giving up productivity and return on investment, throwing down that huge of a chunk of change to a single vendor has got to be hurting. So, the sentiment is already out there, it's just taking time to ferment and filter down, but decision makers are already mulling the possibilities.

Things are not what they appear

[WindBourne]

I agree with the author that MS seems to be self-destructing, but that is not really the case. MS has always faught amongst itself. That is a similar approach to the OSS world. The only difference is that OSS does not have Marketers.
As to them, well, Bill is needing to change the strategy to survive. He was able to buy off states and even our current administration without too much repercussion. This shows that MS can adopt. What is happening behind other scences is what ppl should notice. From what I understand, there are a number of start-ups by bill that are designed to push MS. These are targeted towards unique niches. 2 companies are directed at Intuit to compete against TurboTax.
While I am a Linux developer, I do forsee that we have a rough road ahead of us. MS should never be underestimated.

Garbage editorialism.

[Konster]

"What I am, however, is concerned about how Redmond intends to safeguard my privacy, my right to use an operating system as I see fit, and my rights of fair use. I am, in fact, very concerned."

Then he goes on to say, a paragrah later, "Right now, Linux has yet to offer me any reason why I should go to the monumental hassle of switching and re-training myself to the new OS..."

You must NOT be all that concerned about your privacy, the right to use the OS as you see fit (Click on Agree or Decline after reading the EULA? A thought), or your rights of fair use if you blindly click through the EULA and install their product.

RTFEULA. Worried about all that and still agreeing to MS's EULA and being too lazy to learn an OS that's free from all that just befuddles me.

And since when did learning Linux become a monumental effort? Rocketing into space is a monumental effort. Learning Linux is akin to Bellybutton Lint Removal 101.

How does this crap make the news, anyhow?

Re:Garbage editorialism.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've used windows and windows programs since 3.1. Do you have any idea how many years I would have to practice using linux to gain the same amount of practical knowledge?

EULA is good enough reason for me to not to upgrade from w2k sp2 but not good enough reason to throw away thousands of hours worth of knowledge of windows and it's assorted programs.

The day vast majority of windows programs are either released on linux of 1:1 OSS copies of them are and linux managing is not drastically different from windows managing you have a point.

Re:Garbage editorialism.

[inode_buddha]

Wow, that's cool. RTFEULA. That's going into the Jargon file, one way or another.

Awesome argument, BTW. My sentiments exactly.

Re:Garbage editorialism.

[AndroidCat]

There's some good stuff in those EULAs. There's usually one about not being used in the development/production of chemical, nuclear or biological weapons (unless by nice countries).

Saddam: Damn! I can't send email to my generals because it would violate the licence agreement! Damn you Microsoft to hell!

Re:Garbage editorialism.

[pavera]

Unfortunately your logic fails in that Using windows for that many years does not give you purely *windows-centric* knowledge, much of that knowledge is general computer knowledge.

I have been using Linux for only 1 year after using windows very heavily since windows 3.1, and I would say I am more proficient at linux admin than windows after just that year.

Why? Because alot of windows admin stuff is really just knowledge about computers and how they work, applying that knowledge to linux/unix/macos/any platform is simple and trivial. Sure there are things that are different about Linux, or MacOS or whatever, and it takes a little while to learn it, but switching from Windows to Linux is not switching from being a programmer to being a nude model. In other words, you don't throw out an entire toolset and start over fresh (I would have to do alot of working out if I wanted to make that switch, not to mention some plastic surgery, and other enhancements, and all my programming languages would be useless), you can take alot of things from windows and they translate directly into linux, and the things that don't I've found generally are easier to do in linux... So, no you don't have to throw away thousands of hours to switch to linux, just the hundreds you spent saying "Why the hell did they do it like this??!!"

Re:THE SAME COULD BE SAID FOR LINUX

[Bilbo]

Heh... And your point is???

Another way Microsoft contradicts itself...

[weave]

Microsoft claims on one hand that Linux is more expensive, because you have to hire expensive experts to maintain it. On the other hand they push the value of an MCSE to IT people, how it's a serious certification and not something that any chump can get, and how much more money we can make if we just become certified.

So which is it? I administer a nice big AD domain on w2k servers and I personally am insulted that Microsoft is doing their best to convince my administrators as well as others that Windows administration can be done by a non-expert. How long before CFOs believe this and wonder why they are paying for all of these expensive personnel down in IT? It's bad enough they don't understand the complexity of our jobs, now Microsoft is telling them it doesn't require an "expert" to administer Windows servers. :-(

Re:Another way Microsoft contradicts itself...

[milesbparty]

I administer a nice big AD domain on w2k servers and I personally am insulted that Microsoft is doing their best to convince my administrators as well as others that Windows administration can be done by a non-expert.

Isn't windows administration nothing more than just "point, click, reboot"?

Re:Another way Microsoft contradicts itself...

[weave]

Isn't windows administration nothing more than just "point, click, reboot"?

Pick up a copy of the windows 2000 server resource kit, read it, and then get back to me. (I realize you may be being sarcastic or trolling here, but still... :)

I will give you an example, point and click just doesn't work in a large environment. I have 13,000 users in my Active Directory for example. To administer a Windows environment successfully, you need to be able to script everything you can in ADSI, WMI, etc... Otherwise you'll spend all your life pointing and clicking or running out to visit client PCs. Let's say your company gets bought out and everyone's e-mail address gets changed. Are you going to sit there and point and click 13,000 accounts in Active Directory Users and Groups and manually type in the new e-mail domain name into each account? If you have to deploy a program to 2,000 desktops, are you going to run around to each PC, stick in a CD and run setup, or are you going to try to figure out how to use GPOs and msi packages to deploy it automatically?

Having Microsoft say that running a Windows environment doesn't take any real (ie, expensive) expertise is an insult to all of us who administer the things.

Re:Another way Microsoft contradicts itself...

[afidel]

I think like most things in IT it is a matter of scale. You can run a small to medium sized business on a platform supported by a few fairly untrained people, but once you get into the large business/enterprise size you need people who know what the heck they are doing because interdependencies grow geometrically so the problems scale faster then the infrastructure. If you have a large AD domain then chances are you fall into the latter catagory and need smart/well trained people. In fact I don't see microsoft advertising or even hinting about untrained people running your IT infastructure to publications like CIO insight etc. The people who have to run large IT deparments usually understand that they are a different beast from the couple of tech savvy people that run many smaller firms IT needs.

Re:Another way Microsoft contradicts itself...

[weave]

Exactly, scale *does* make all the difference. I would believe that in a 10-person office with a simple print and file server, a Windows solution would require less expertise than a Linux solution. Once you start to scale up, I have my reservations about which is really more difficult or requires the greater expertise and even if Linux does require more expertise, the increased per-seat licensing costs of Windows is far from insignificant. For example, my 13,000 Windows users get their e-mail from free (license wise) Linux servers. If I was to convert to Exchange, I'd have to get 13,000 Exchange CALs as well as multiple windows servers to handle the load. For that price, I can hire an army of Linux techs...

The same arguments are ones I have with Mac fans. While it may be true that if you compare a large desktop installation of Macs versus PCs, Macs may be easier to support, it doesn't necessarily mean that in a PC shop, adding a few Macs isn't going to reduce support costs. It will INCREASE them since now I'd have to have support staff trained in Macintosh issues. Now at some point of increasing installed base and ratio of Macs to PCs, the reduced Mac costs might reduce the TCO, but not at a ratio of n-1 to 1 for certain.

(Not that I'm convinced Macs have a lower TCO than PCs, just throwing that out as another example of how stupid these wild claims thrown out about TCO are from all sides of the platform wars...)

Re:Another way Microsoft contradicts itself...

[kruczkowski]

Good point. Most organizations I have seen don't even use there products 10%. Especialy in the Goverment. I seen people buy software just becouse it was a pretty GUI, and I heard a MCSE that was our exchange admin say once "You have to know how to write scripts to do that, I don't"

MS and the other companies know damn well that big organizations that have money don't care, and they will buy ANYTHING if they get a free t-shirt!

Re:Another way Microsoft contradicts itself...

[Anonymous Coward]

It halready happened in other countries... like Italy, where I'm living. Weirdly funny: the province of the empire is more advanced than the center of it.

Re:Another way Microsoft contradicts itself...

[milesbparty]

Being a UNIX admin, I had to at least take a little jab...I think it's my duty :)

Re:Another way Microsoft contradicts itself...

[Anonymous Coward]

I would believe that in a 10-person office with a simple print and file server, a Windows solution would require less expertise than a Linux solution.

I think Linux is actually easier, but thats because I know it better than Windows server. Its all irrelevant though -- with a really small setup like that dealing with the full MSFT server product is unnecessary complexity. Chances are, the person running it will have admin as something like 50% of their responsibilities ( like me :-) ).

The most hassle-free solution on the small office end is to buy "canned" server/appliance devices for whatever you can (storage, network, printing etc), even if it can already be done from an existing windows machine. Plastic boxes with no controls on them are so much more idiotproof, its been a joy for me to discover.

Now if only there was a plastic box to manage accounts, my life would be bliss :-)

Re:Another way Microsoft contradicts itself...

[afidel]

much more realistic is my brothers position, he is one of two "IT" workers in a mid sized telemarketing company, he does all the data prep and processing as well as maintain 2 of the 4 servers they use for everything:DB,call automation, incoming ftp, web, email, file serving, etc. This is where you could use either linux or windows but the windows solution is arguably easier to setup (though IMHO harder to properly maintain) and there are more people likely to be able to step in if he leaves. As an MCSE who is most of the way through studying for his RHCE I can say that both linux and windows are hard to setup properly for a large enterprise and that I personally believe that linux is easier to maintain in the long run but that both systems have their place. For instance I usually butcher my windows install to the point where it almost seems like a linux box, just with a much larger software selection. I have had uptimes on my win2k workstation of over 180 days, and well over a year now on a couple of linux boxes I admin, which is just as long as the Solaris boxes managed by the server admins. For a good example of linux making long term administration easier see The CEPS page This is where the Cisco Enterprise Printing System source is hosted. This system allows a couple of dozen print servers to print to hundreds of printers for tens of thousands of user, all with only 2 global print admins and minimal intervention by the hardware staff. Basically the print queues are virtuallized so that if the local print server dies one of the other print servers notices, resets the server name of the dead server to point to its own IP and takes over the controll of that queue. This allows print servers to be hot upgraded with minimal/no downtime and for failed servers to be fixed at the staffs leisure. In fact when our local print server here in Akron threw a disk it took me almost a full day to find out! No one had complained because jobs kept printing, sure they were slowed some because the had to traverse the WAN, but most people didn't even notice a slowdown.

Re:Another way Microsoft contradicts itself...

[afidel]

I know it's not good etiquite to respond to ones own post but the link got trashed and I found some info I didn't know. Sourceforge is the proper link and the print environment at Cisco is over 300 print servers with over 6,000 printers supporting almost 40K users on 6 continents, not bad for 2 guys (both of which are awsome people, I've worked with both of them when the pressure was on)

Re:Another way Microsoft contradicts itself...

[tada_mac]

"now I'd have to have support staff trained in Macintosh issues" like what? the users could support themselves most likely.

Re:Another way Microsoft contradicts itself...

[Anonymous Coward]

>I will give you an example, point and click just doesn't work in a large environment.

Then why are you administrating a "point and click" OS "in a large environment" then? You can script modifying 13000 users? Way to go genius, you're my hero.

flunkIEs coming back into vogue

[Anonymous Coward]

too old now. have to wait 'til the depression's over. maybe then get a payper root or sum thing. we'll see.

djia hear the won about king william the FUDst ceceding (you know what i mean) power to va lairy, & eugienia?

that's right, some are saying that they might move the hole phony payper liesense stock markup fraud, over to lairy's payper, seeing as heis the won who owes the most.

kind of LIEk old art andersun churning itself into acceNTure? couple of years, & 3-4 billyuns in ?pr? bs, & nobody knows what happened, YET.

Nothing that is so, is so

[Gortbusters.org]

Remember the six sacred words.. nothing that is so, is so.

Microsoft isn't looking out for the consumer.

Microsoft isn't looking out for US citizens interests.

The men of power behind Microsoft are just looking to increase their wealth and power (period).

Re:Nothing that is so, is so

[stratjakt]

>> The men of power behind Microsoft are just looking to increase their wealth and power (period).

Imagine that! In a publically traded for-profit corporation, no less! I'm shocked and appalled!

Re:Nothing that is so, is so

[geek]

No kidding, I'm so sick of these altruistic nimrods it's amazing. Yes businesses try to make money, yes thats what this country was founded upon. Don't like it? Take a hike, go to China where everyone works for the government and struggles for food from day to day.

Re:Nothing that is so, is so

[Anonymous Coward]

Better yet, why don't those people simply refuse to accept their (choose any/all that apply) pay check, welfare check, grant money, parent's allowance, trust fund allowance, power base real or imagined, etc?

After all aren't these people seeking their own well being by not doing so?

Re:Nothing that is so, is so

[Gortbusters.org]

Nobody said they didn't like it.. we just shouldn't dillude ourselves into buying the commercials (MSN ads for example) into thinking that MS (or other corps) want anything else other then to make money, squash the competition, etc.

If corporations were truely caring and consumer-centric, we wouldn't have gasoline powered vehicles still that leaked poisonous fumes into the atmosphere.

Just examples of what seems to be the status quo.

Re:Nothing that is so, is so

[jedidiah]

So are you all just admitting that the "invisible hand" is DEAD? That seems to be what you're saying. While no robber baron should WANT to actually produce what the customer wants, any robber baron should be FORCED too.

Why you seem to celebrate the notion that the "invisible hand" is dead and buried confounds me.

For you are the sort of inconsequential mite that The Invisible Hand is supposed to benefit.

Re:Nothing that is so, is so

[Anonymous Coward]

But M$ has specifically claimed to be working for the benefit of customers. Yes, that was obviously a lie.

Then a worse lie came from their mouths (or PR): They claimed to be innovating.

Re:Nothing that is so, is so

[Anonymous Coward]

You know nothing about China. But then again, you think ordering people to take a hike and go to another country is a good response to their criticism. What a rational and intelligent response from you!

Re:Nothing that is so, is so

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a hike, go to China where everyone works for the government and struggles for food from day to day.

If you think that everyone in China works for the government then I recommend against posting on that subject again until you've learned at least something about the country and its economy. Your ignorance is forgivable; your determination to broadcast the fruits of your ignorance to the world is not.

Re:Nothing that is so, is so

[Chris Johnson]

Invisible hand? Is that somehow related to the famous Invisible Pink Unicorn of story and song (well, maybe someone sang about it once)? :)

Why regular people won't switch to Linux

[Radical Rad]

I'm no Linux user. I've never booted a distro of the OS in any of its flavors...

Right now, Linux has yet to offer me any reason why I should go to the monumental hassle of switching and re-training myself to the new OS environment...

This explains in a nutshell why Linux developers should concentrate, at least in the short term, on recreating the look and feel of the MS Windows desktop.

Re:Why regular people won't switch to Linux

[dmaxwell]

Linux developers should concentrate, at least in the short term, on recreating the look and feel of the MS Windows desktop.

That takes care of the the group of people who say "Linux is too different from Windows". Unfortunately, it draws a whole crowd of these other whingers from the woodwork : "Linux isn't innovative at all. They're just trying to look like Windows."

Then we had that dillhead Dvorak who does both: Whine and complain that Linux needs to be like Windows and then when something like KDE provides this he then complains that Linux will never succeed as long as it is copying windows.

I'm starting to understand why OSS coders just build whatever the hell they want and ignore the whingers. How else are they going to keep their sanity?

Re:Why regular people won't switch to Linux

[squiggleslash]

This explains in a nutshell why Linux developers should concentrate, at least in the short term, on recreating the look and feel of the MS Windows desktop.

How?

What reason will recreating the look and feel of Windows give someone to switch?

If they want Windows, they'll use Windows. If they want something else, they will not want a clone of Windows. Choice is _good_.

Re:Why regular people won't switch to Linux

[Radical Rad]

Unfortunately, it draws a whole crowd of these other whingers from the woodwork : "Linux isn't innovative at all.

How could that happen? Since Open Source development is like a bazaar there will always be coders who do new and creative things with Linux. But that doesn't happen in the closed source cathedral style of development where you get what they give you. Once Linux has a user base on par with ms windows it will become obvious to all who the innovators are.

Nice characterization of Dvorak by the way.

Re:Why regular people won't switch to Linux

[Cro Magnon]

Maybe they want something that LOOKS like Windows, but without the Blue Screens and virii.

Re:Why regular people won't switch to Linux

[Radical Rad]

The best reason: Money. When there is little difference at the user interface level between the two systems then the one over-riding concern will be price. Of course there will still be differences in security, stability, robustness, performance, etc. but users and PHBs don't grok those things. Yes, choice _IS_ good.

Re:Why regular people won't switch to Linux

[Unregistered]

No it shows why we need to try and come up with a good reason to switch. Linux can't act like windows. We can make it look like windows and have for a long time (fwm95), bur it still doesn't act like windows and reall won't ever. But if linux has a killer app we could overcome that. We need to try to innovate not copy.

Re:Why regular people won't switch to Linux

[rmohr02]

But a computer just isn't a computer without the BSOD.

Re:Why regular people won't switch to Linux

[AndroidCat]

How else are they going to keep their sanity? QuirkObjection! This statement makes a very large assumption. :^)

Re:Why regular people won't switch to Linux

[dcmeserve]

> ... Linux developers should concentrate, at least in the short term, on recreating the look and feel of the MS Windows desktop.

Actually, I'd say there are more fundamental issues than just the "look and feel":

1. Users want it to be easy to install new programs, and also to de-install them. I'm talking about pushing a single button on your browswer (along with walking through a wizard) or some equivalent.

2. Users want the applications they desire to be *available* for the platform.

3. Users want to be able to plug in a piece of hardware, and have it *work* without going to any more effort than doing step #1 above.

Of these, it looks like #2 is making a lot of headway, but #1 and #3 are still stumbling blocks. Your average joe doesn't want to have to go read a bunch of HOWTO docs and edit a bunch of files to get something to work. Even a lot of programmers such as myself don't want to have to learn so many damn details just to get something like that to work.

I wonder if it would be a good sub-project for Mozilla, to make a general-purpose hardware/software-installer wizard.

But anyways, once these stumbling blocks are removed (to a sufficient degree), I don't see any reason why Linux wouldn't take off like wildfire for home-use.

Re:Why regular people won't switch to Linux

[Radical Rad]

Very good points. Yes #2 is coming along nicely. #1 is already here if you know where to look. rpm -i and rpm -e is what I usually use but I have seen Gui versions that make it just like ms Windows. And have you seen the Redhat 8 Package Management applet? It is exactly like ms windows. #3 is actually easier on Linux than ms windows for older hardware. Have you ever tried to install an old network card or trackball that used to work under Windows95 but isn't recognized in wnidows2000 and the manufacturer has no plans to write another driver for it on the new platform? It usually just works on Linux if it already worked on an earlier kernel.

I wonder if it would be a good sub-project for Mozilla, to make a general-purpose hardware/software-installer wizard.

That's not necessary although the Mozilla installer is quite slick. Take a look at the Loki Setup Installer 1.5.8 by Sam Latinga and Stephane Peter. http://www.lokigames.com/development/setup.php3 Joe Average shouldn't need to read any how-to's as long as he sticks with prepackaged apps that have been blessed by his distribution, but when a developer wants to get software out without having to wait on a Redhat or Suse to package his stuff and bundle it with their next distribution then he can download the Loki Setup Installer edit some XML and voila!

Re:Why regular people won't switch to Linux

[dcmeserve]

> > I wonder if it would be a good sub-project for Mozilla, to make a general-purpose hardware/software-installer wizard.
>
> That's not necessary although the Mozilla installer is quite slick. Take a look at ...

Thanks for the reference!

My point about Mozilla, though, is that even if another program can make an installation easy, *that* program needs to be readily accessible from something the user knows already. A browser would fit the bill nicely. Perhaps it'd even better than going to a pulldown menu from the desktop, if done correctly: hit the "download" button on the web site, and the browser automatically goes into the installation sequence. Actually, I think that's the approach that Lindows is taking?

Oh, another thing I'd like to see would be to allow for easy installs in *user* space -- i.e. you should never *have* to become root to install something. That's one of the weakness of windows, isn't it, that you have to be root to do most everything.

Re:Why regular people won't switch to Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Once Linux has a user base on par with ms windows it will become obvious to all who the innovators are.

Yeah, the same people who have been coming up with all these innovative features for years, Apple and NeXT.

Re:Why regular people won't switch to Linux

[Radical Rad]

I see what you mean. And I know that can be done now because I have seen Javascript apps that copy files to a local drive to use as a permanent cache. The app must ask permission to write to the local filesystem first. There are also "evil skins" for Mozilla that can do things like that but I am not sure exactly what they are capable of. But making xpi files is easy from what I hear. Just write some javascript, zip it up, and set the extesion to .xpi.

There are certain things that you must be root to do and there just is no getting around it for security reasons, but if your app does not require the use of well known ports or write access to sensitive files or direct access to the kernel then there is nothing to stop you from installing under a user account.

Microsoft has always had major internal fights

[joeflies]

Like any big company with very few major products making most of the revenues, and lots of opinions on where it should go, there is always an internal power battle

Some of the more public ones that I've heard about include

Battle between the VMS guys and the rest of management and the Windows squad (covered in the book Fumbling the Future)

Battle between the Windows manager and the standalone IE manager during Win98's browser integration. Forgot which book that was in

I'm sure that Microsoft Research creating new technologies largely independently of the product teams also creates PARC-style battles as well.

if i had....

[aut0mator]

... a worst enemy that made me a multi-billionaire, well who needs friends ;-)

Parallels

[Tall Rob Mc]

It is most likely that I'm not the first person to draw this parallel, but I've noticed it more and more recently...

Microsoft and the US government are in very similar situations.

Here, we have two extremely powerful entities that are very prone to extend beyond their reasonable range of influence to make everything go exactly the way they want it to.

Both are facing enemies (the US against terrorists, and Microsoft against Linux) that have emerged as a decentralized and nearly attack-proof.

Both have earned a good deal of resentment from the communities which they supposedly serve (MS has people like us constantly bitching while President Bush's approval rating has dropped below 50% this December: and both rightfully so).

Both, despite the great amount of disapproval, appear to be doing nothing to change their situation (except for Bush's recent decision to back down on threats of attacking North Korea, though he intends to push for isolating them economically).

Could a few good leaders in Washington clear this whole mess up? I think so. Now if only such people existed... -sigh-

Re:Parallels

[Anonymous Coward]

Both are facing enemies (the US against terrorists, and Microsoft against Linux) that have emerged as a decentralized and nearly attack-proof.

We still do not know who those terrorists are. Bet you some of them are in our own government right now.

utter nonsense

[fermion]

I partly agree with the article. It is completely true that if you manufacture an adequate product and don't try to cheat your customers, you will be perceived as a good company. Beyond that, the article is nonsense.

Beyond that, it is nonsense. My experience with XP is that is more stable than any other consumer MS OS, but not as good as 2000. For one thing, the adaptive GUI just gets in the way. The market has spoken on XBox. It is a good machine, but not good enough. Without the benefit of monopoly, MS was not able to set the price on the product, and had to do several price reduction in order to get the results it wanted. This would also be the case with it's OS and apps if competition exists. In countries that aren't MS hostages, the XBox is not doing well. As for the tablet PC, it is not yet a product. We do not how exactly it will act. It is probably as good as XBox, which may not be good enough.

The problem with MS is that it does not have to innovate. It does not have to create great products. Without competition, there is no need to excel. It can steal , cajole, and threaten. The creativity is limited to calling the OS 'Windows'. The charity is limited to giving kids junk and then taking a writeoff for the inflated value. The programming wonders are limited to creating a paperclip that you can't get rid of, or wizards that won't let you get back to the menu. I find the culture to be pretty unified.

Re:Why the link to Eugenia and OSnews anyway??

[murky.waters]

It is not a "story" what's on osnews.com! (Yes, it's ".com", not ".org") Just to drive home the direct copying point, this is what they've posted:

Microsoft Worst Enemy: Themselves

By Contributing Editor Kevin Adams - Posted on 2002-12-30 01:18:37

"Microsoft's biggest threat isn't Linux, OpenOffice, or any piece of software at all--its themselves. Over the last eighteen months two distinctly different Microsoft cultures have emerged, often in opposition to each other. " You can get the full article over at Sudhian Media.


This is what slashdot posted:

Microsoft's Worst Enemy: Themselves

Posted by Hemos on Monday December 30, @01:45PM

KobyBoy writes "Saw this story posted on OSnews this morning. "Microsoft's biggest threat isn't Linux, OpenOffice, or any piece of software at all--its themselves. Over the last eighteen months two distinctly different Microsoft cultures have emerged, often in opposition to each other." You can get the full article at Sudhian Media." [Quotation marks as in the post]

OK, it's at the top of the page, but why is slashdot continuing to copy every second (tenth) story from OSNews.com other than to remind us of how much we hate that little fat idiot Eugly? It surely isn't because of the quality of their so-called stories.

Predictions of Microsoft decline

[ManoMarks]

are premature. People have been claiming the end of MS for years, and it's still going strong. While I'd love to see it at least shaken up and reformed, and more consumer friendly, I don't yet see any evidence of even a mild decline.

Re:Predictions of Microsoft decline

[smart.id]

More consumer friendly? You're talking about the company that has a commercial with a butterfly running around the city, blocking "inappropriate" content.

Re:Predictions of Microsoft decline

[pmz]

I don't yet see any evidence of even a mild decline.

More and more people are becoming skeptical about Microsoft's motives and the true value of their new products (e.g., Win XP really isn't all that great once the novelty wears off). Also, I've seen people at all-Microsoft shops become defensive about why they use the software they do (in the back of their minds they are beginning to realize where their eggs are). And, in general, the adoptions rates for new MS products (Win XP, XBOX, etc.) aren't stellar.

I really think Microsoft has peaked. However, it'll be several years, still, until they really decline, because the installed base is just so huge. And, in those years, genuine much-more-open competition, such as OpenOffice, Mac OS, Linux, etc., will mature further and make Microsoft look more obviously like the proprietary pit of technology that they are.

Perhaps you should too.

[Tide]

Well IBM makes boatloads of cash, thats for sure, but I wouldn't call them just a software company. Like Sun they make their cash off of services and support for overpriced hardware. MS is pretty much all software, and has a market cap more than twice that of IBM, which is why they are the worlds largest software company. Plus Im not sure where you got your profit numbers, but on Quicken a different story is painted:

MSFT:
Revenue - $7,746,000
Net Income - $2,726, 000

IBM:
Revenue - $19,821,000
Net Income - $1,694,000

And also from Quicken:
What is Net Income?
The amount of a company's total sales (revenue) remaining after subtracting all of its costs, in a given period of time (also referred to as "net earnings"). This very important figure (literally the source of the term "the bottom line" for where you find it on an income statement) is the best measure of the current operating state of a company.

Re:Perhaps you should too.

[WindBourne]

MS is pretty much all software
That is changing very quickly these days. I noticed MS's NIC's and switches at Best Buy. My guess is that very shortly, they will buy one of the major companies (i.e. micron, or gateway) and rename them to MS. They are looking to to things that the Hardware companies are not doing, like inovate.
Personally, I wish IBM, HP, Gateway, and Dell would get off their ass and start inovating, but they are only interested in trying to capture markets rather than create new markets. I do not give them much longer before MS is truely up to competing in the hardware arena.

Re:Perhaps you should too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry for being picky on /. But aren't you
missing some zeros on those numbers?

IBM made only 19Mil??? I think that number is a
bit higher.

Re:Perhaps you should too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most financial sites list all figures in terms of 1,000s. So it is 19 Billion, I'd assume.

Re:Perhaps you should too.

[T-Ranger]

If I were MS, I would do exactly that. Or more likely, just start up my own brand new company.

One of the market influnences that will help OSS "beat" MS is that a OS license from MS is getting to be close to the largest single cost of building a computer. See Walmart and Lindows..

Extending that further if MS starts selling computers then they can put whatever they want on the desktop right? No more AOL installs. Service and support contracts everywhere!

Re:Perhaps you should too.

[frank_adrian314159]

they make their cash off of services and support for overpriced hardware.

Overpriced? With respect to what measure? Most of the people who use IBM hardware do so because they can't find alternatives that provide the stability and service provided with an IBM solution. When you get me a PC platform where I can hot swap memory modules and CPUs we can talk. Plus make sure that the OS that it's running supports such usage. Self monitoring so that I don't have 75% of my scheduled jobs crashing before I found out CPU 3 has crashed would be nice, too. People who use these machines might find them overpriced if you want to talk MIPS, but most have other, very rational reasons to use these machines.

Re:Perhaps you should too.

[NullProg]

The IBM finacial statement for the quarter can be found here:

http://www.ibm.com/investor/3q02/3q02earnings.ph tm l

The line that is most relevent is how much they paid in federal taxes. Microsoft does not pay any taxes. Nor do they pay investor dividends (IBM Does).I don't think we can call Microsoft just a software company with the introduction of X Box.

I also would not trust any earnings report from Microsoft. Like Enron, standard accounting practices do not apply. Read some of these articles:

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/business/DailyNew s/ msbooks990121.html

http://finance.pro2net.com/x34261.xml

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit1999052 7. html

http://www.billparish.com/msftfraudfacts.html

Enjoy,

Re:Perhaps you should too.

[christophersaul]

Hear hear! Overpriced compared to what? Intel addresses its own niche, but comes nowhere near what the Solaris/SPARCs, or other enterprise vendors offer in terms of reliability, scalability, etc.

Sadly the IT world doesn't entirely consist of little PCs running Linux and Apache. And no guys, sticking in hundreds of dual cpu Linux boxes does not miraculously address every IT need where a large number of cpus is required.

Have a quick sojourn in the world of real IT and learn something.

Re:Perhaps you should too.

[GlassHeart]

[Net Income is the] amount of a company's total sales (revenue) remaining after subtracting all of its costs, in a given period of time [...]. This very important figure [...] is the best measure of the current operating state of a company.

This is grossly simplified. A company with poor sales (and therefore negative net income) can hold a valuable patent, a developing bestseller product, or even just a good domain name to be worth more its net income suggests. Similarly, a company with great net income may be facing an anti-trust investigation (think IBM), or some other potential disturbance (think brewing internal conflicts in Apple).

Worse, net income has not proven to be difficult to falsify: some companies have added future earnings to bloat revenue, and others have hidden away expenses in subsidiaries.

The wise observer will not attribute too much importance to a single metric of performance.

Re:Perhaps you should too.

[Anonymous Coward]

This very important figure (literally the source of the term "the bottom line" for where you find it on an income statement) is the best measure of the current operating state of a company.

I don't know the truth or otherwise of the numbers you or anyone else are providing. I would say, however, that anyone claiming that there is a "best measure of the current operating state" of any company is not just ignorant but dangerously so as a source of advice.

If you want to understand the operating state of a company, and especially if you want to compare companies then you have to understand the company, you have to understand the industry, you have to look at a hell of a lot more than one number. Whoever wrote the sentence you were quoting should be locked up where he can't make any more misleading pronouncements.

Re:Perhaps you should too.

[Citizen of Earth]

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit19990527. html

How do I mod an external link as +1 Insightful?

May 1999 was well before the telecom meltdown, right?

AREN'T YOU FUCKING BRILLIANT?

[Anonymous Coward]

-n/t-

Control or Vision ?

[fygment]

... I think the latter. Microsoft (Gates) can be said to have an unshakeable vision of what they want. That quality is what defines a leader either in a person or in a corporation. The "control" is only when they can impart that vision to employees and corporate allies.

Absolutely Correct

[awitod]

This author is dead on. The IT graveyard of invincible vendors is wide and deep, and without an exception I can think of the killing blows were always self-inflicted: Micro-Channel Architecture, Word Perfect 5.0 for Windows, Unix-Ware, and on and on and on.

I watch this board closely to try to gauge perception. (I watch lots of other things too, because everything has some inherent bias, borg toon anyone?) I want to know where the industry is headed. In the past I've felt the pain of backing the wrong technology and after many years have come to appreciate such an error's effect on my families ability to do things they enjoy, like eat and sleep inside.

For the last several years the food on my table has come from a deep knowledge of many of Microsoft's products. At the end of the day, I really don't care what tools I used to create a new system. What I care about is that I can do what I love (design and build software) for someone who appreciates the effort enough to pay me a decent sum of money.

I view many of the arguments on this site with mild amusement (open vs. closed source) as the ravings of modern-day hippies or the very young. Unfortunately, I am constrained by certain requirements in my life and I doubt very much that my wife or my children would care about free-as-in-speech vs. free-as-in-beer, and as such care much more about the bottom-line than high-minded principals, no matter how appealing.

That said, I am starting to study and use Linux and other offerings of this community. Some of it is very impressive and some of it, I must say, is promising but primitive crap. I do not believe that the movement will overthrow Microsoft on its own merit. I do believe that Microsoft is creating enough incentive for the market to make this a commercially viable alternative.

The PS2's were awesome and reliable machines. They were probably worth the additional price. But, by the time IBM really tried to strong-arm the market, the IT buying community was pissed off enough that the platform's relative merits meant nothing. I believe that OS/2 was equally affected by this, although it's terrible setup procedure hurt it as well. Microsoft is today's IBM. I hope they get their heads out of their asses soon, but they'd better do it quickly.

Re:Absolutely Correct

[PenguinPooper]

HeHe.... wordperfect 5.0 gawd!! now that was funny.. and it was so easy to use...

Re:Absolutely Correct

[n-baxley]

Just curious, what other places do you visit to get a well balanced view of the IT community? I like /., but it does get a bit extreme for me too.

Re:Absolutely Correct

[Anonymous Coward]

> At the end of the day, I really don't care what tools I used....

That's fine. You're also the one who has to sleep at night.....

> I am constrained by certain requirements in my life and I doubt very much that my wife or my children ... and look into those children's eyes.

Nope, don't envy you.

And they still have 9*% market share ...

[fygment]

... so I guess it isn't much of an issue is it?

Pots and Kettles

[Swanktastic]

"Microsoft has serious problems because they have a dichotomy in their strategy and thinking!" or so says the slashdotter...

Listen folks, if this is a problem, then the Open Source movement might as well quit while the quitting is good. If you can get N OSS developers in a room, you're guaranteed to have N completely different opinions on what should be done in terms of any software strategy: technical, marketing, or other. And why should it be any different? After all, projects are done ostensibly for fun and self-improvement. No one should be allowed to tell me what to do with my code! Multiply this logic by a million and you have a good handle on the swarming behavior of the Open Source community.

Besides, if I am to read the article correctly, the main problem with Microsoft is that they are making better products while they still haven't cleaned their act up in terms of being a "good corporate citizen."

This isn't really grounds for celebration. If anything, it should be a wake up call that Linux on the desktop is becoming less competetive by the day in terms of functionality and 'meeting the consumers needs.'

Re:Pots and Kettles

[No Such Agency]

If you can get N OSS developers in a room, you're guaranteed to have N completely different opinions on what should be done in terms of any software strategy: technical, marketing, or other.

More like N+1 different opinions ;-)

M$ Marketers are no better than used car salesman

[COredneck]

The old saying, "Leave it to marketing to f*ck things up". I am not a fan of Micro$oft being a Linux/BSD user.

One way they can solve their problems (M$) is let the engineers have a say on things. Marketing people should focus on selling the product instead of micromanage what the engineers make. Like used car salesman, they are scheming on how to make something complex and expensive which should be simple if the engineers are allowed to do their job.

YOU FAIL IT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Karma-whore, YOU FAIL IT!

OK talk about why ads don't work

[SquadBoy]

http://www.osnews.com and it has a Victoria's Secret ad? WTF? That was funny.

I've seen this before

[Alethes]

This reminds me of another heavily fragmented software community.

Who is Linux's worst enemy?

Re:I've seen this before

[Anonymous Coward]

People like you are. Some of us like linux the way it is without needing some mass unification. Thats probably the greatest strength of linux, the ability to change it to suit your own needs. If you don't like some part of linux, like your dislike of how everything isn't unified then get off your ass and fix it. People don't live to satisfy your needs and program to appease you. In fact unless you pay someone else to get something in linux done, you have to get it done yourself. So who is the worst enemy of linux? Lazy slobs like you. :)

Re:I've seen this before

[Anonymous Coward]

The author makes a good point - if Linux vaulted to 90% market share tomorrow, would the community/infrastructure be there to handle it? I think not. I'm the unofficial "Linux guy" for a 2000+ person "technical" shop (these people mostly all have degrees in CS or engineering, lots of Masters degrees and more than a few PhDs), and some days the requests I get just about inundate me even with our helpdesk running frontline coverage for me. Makes it hard to get my "real job" done sometimes.

Yawn

[MeanMF]

Score: -1, Wishful Thinking

A-FUCKING-MEN to this article...

[pVoid]

For those who actually read articles on Slashdot, this one is probably the most insightful article I've seen in a long time!

And people should start opening their eyes:

It says two basic things: Moft technicians good, moft lawyers and marketers bad.

Think about it, Moft's bugs aren't so humoungous... Had they had 'proper' legal and marketing departments, nobody would have been so outraged by most of these bugs. (Btw, most of the bugs in IIS are actually in ISAPI filters. Not IIS itself - and if Moft had had the courage of leaving them un'plugged' to start with... sigh)...

I truely hope the tech team at redmond wins it out though... They DO have some of the most amazing programmers out there. And I really don't care what some /. geeks with 'vengeance' written on their forheads have to say about it.

Re:A-FUCKING-MEN to this article...

[andy_geek]

Oh man. I had "vagrant" on my forehead. Shoot, another club I don't quite fit into.

Typical Armchair Techie Rant

[Dolemite_the_Wiz]

"I'm no Linux user." But it's the best thing since sliced bread.

You would think in the very least, he could read a couple of web sites about Linux before blowing smoke out of his ass.

Dolemite

The bigger they are...

[BalkanBoy]

the harder they fall. _Excellent_ writeup.

Like Leia said to Grand Moff Tarkin....

[ThresholdRPG]

It is good to see this issue getting more attention. As Microsoft tries to take more intimate control of how we use our computers, the more people they will send into the waiting arms of alternatives like Linux. And as the market for Linux grows, there will be more motivation (and gain) to produce quality alternative applications (office suites, ports of games, etc).

This situation reminds me of Princess Leia's warning to Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars: "The tighter you squeeze, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers..."

I have a customer who is a VP with Microsoft (he makes hardware, not software... For example, he is on the patent for the Strategic Commander). I was recently discussing with him the whole license structure of Office as well as the way MSFT is trying to limit you to 1 or 2 installs per copy of Windows.

He finds the practice to be idiotic and damaging in the long term to the company. He feels that such actions do nothing but jeopardize their position in the market since such moves anger customers enormously, limit their flexibility, and increase their willingness to try alternatives. Sadly, he's just an engineer and not a policy maker.

I admit that I am still plodding along working most of the time in Windows and using Office for word processing and spreadsheets. But all my servers run Linux and I look forward to the day when I can comfortably use Linux as my main OS for ALL work and hopefully MOST of my gaming.

Re:Your POST is all bullshit and I am sick of it

[Anonymous Coward]

It is also unbelievable that any person who bullshits to kiss the a$$ of MS can get this much of attention. It doesn't even matter what you say anymore, as long as you suk the a$$ of M$. The facts mentioned in the article are all very well known, but still we see your post here because it is yet another MS a$$-ki$$ing post.

Dual boot computers will be a major test

[jonsmirl]

This latest anti-trust round has made it possible for the PC makers to ship dual boot systems. Hopefully all of the major PC vendors will have some backbone and start offering dual boot Windows and Linux on all of their machines. A shared partition would let you get at data files from both OS's.

Only a few people might initially try out Linux, but over time this would improve. Open Office, Linux games, a mess up or price increase by MS may all be reasons to switch. But having the OS on the hard disk is critical to making the switch easy.

Microsoft needs a villian to rally it's employee against. Linux is playing the part of the villian. Without a credible villian MS will break up into internal fiefdoms like it is doing.

Linux and OSS vs. Windows, or?

[ShwAsasin]

Must every article talk about the benefits of Linux and Open Source. As a developer I like Linux because it's a good alternative to Windows, however, I'm not a fan of the Open Source idea.

Yes, open source has it's merits and people who work on the open projects should be commended for all their great work, but it starts to get annoying when people expect everything on Linux to be free and open source.

I've been wanting to write Linux Gui code a long time, however the only Gui toolkits which allow closed source for commercial use are too much money to pay, so I am detered from developing with them. Perhaps a bit of commercialization of things could help Linux?

This brings me to my main question. Is Open Source a requirement for Linux to succeed in the Operating System business, or is it just a selling point?

Re:Linux and OSS vs. Windows, or?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been wanting to write Linux Gui code a long time, however the only Gui toolkits which allow closed source for commercial use are too much money to pay, so I am detered from developing with them. Perhaps a bit of commercialization of things could help Linux?

People like you are the reason the GTK+ was licensed under the LGPL. The purpose of the LGPL is to allow commercial development on open source systems.

References:

1. http://www.gtk.org/tutorial/ch-introduction.html
2. http://www.gnu.org

Re:Linux and OSS vs. Windows, or?

[Chris Johnson]

It is a requirement for Linux to be impossible to kill or neutralize in the Operating System (or any) business.

There's no kind of guarantee that it'll succeed, but that does permanently leave open the possibility of succeeding in the long run.

Free Software (to a lesser extent Open Source, which is more business-goals-identified) is specifically about guaranteeing access to everyone who wants it, without exception. No business mistake or IP shift can stop that, no change in underlying hardware platform can marginalize the Free Software- worst comes to worst, you abandon a closed hardware platform, take your Free Software and go make a computer that you can use it with. There isn't a situation where it can be taken away from you.

So, by being based on Free Software, Linux cannot be taken OUT of the Operating System business. That's not a guarantee of success but it's worth a hell of a lot... there's a value to that kind of availability.

Re:Linux and OSS vs. Windows, or?

[Anonymous Coward]

a. nothing about open source says you can't sell your project, you just can't keep it a secret. This means that Bob down the street can sell it too, and Jill can copy it. But Bob and Jill don't know why you built it that way, and chances are they don't have time to fix it or extend it.

b. gui development? X Window System is licensed under the MIT license, iirc -- go for it bud. And there are plenty of commercial GUI kits for X if you don't like programming directly on X -- Motif leaps to mind.

Oooh -- you wanted it to be _free_ ... very consistent argument...

But seriously, if what you're doing is commercial, get someone to pay you hourly for working on it, and release the code for free. Stallman et al. will show you that the idea of an intellectual "good" (as in a tradeable secret) is morally wrong, and you'll have to go to court to stop people sharing it anyhow, so why bother?

Just get an hourly wage for producing it in the first place and ensure that it's open source so you can be sure to be allowed to go to another payer when your first meal ticket runs out.

Dumb and Dumber

[Veteran]

Microsoft's managers by the standards by which people in that field judge success are superb.

What do I mean by that? If you judge Microsoft's management by the universal business scorecard - money - then no one can argue that they are doing a bad job.

From a technical viewpoint Microsoft's managers are clueless idiots, from an ethical standpoint they are amoral cretins who barely qualify as human; but from a business standpoint - the company has made a lot of money on their watch.

In reality Microsoft's management is a lot like a defensive lineman who gets a pass stuck in his face guard - then stumbles blindly into the end zone to score a game winning touchdown; they were in the right place at the right time - every thing else was pure dumb luck.

Of course, Microsoft's management believes that their brilliant business decisions are responsible for Microsoft's success; but then I have already written about their technical judgment.

Re:Dumb and Dumber

[Stumbles]

How in the world can you call MS managers top notch on any level. Hell, if I had a product that is more or less manditory to be shipped with every PC, I would not need much of a management staff or marketing for that matter.

Just to give you an idea....

[jordanda]

I work at Microsoft Game Studios. Every full time engineer in my department runs Linux on at least one of their home computers but I've met project leads who don't even know what the GPL is. A lot of our staff come from companies that we've purchased. The difference between a native Micosofty and a bought one is staggering. The most comic example are the guys who work for Bungie. Bungie made Mac games for years and they all come to work in Mac schwag.

Re:Just to give you an idea....

[Anonymous Coward]

That is funny.
Maybe that's the reason Microsoft's attitude has changed as much as it has. All the aquisitions over the years have filtered out all of the mid and low level staffers. It would make sense. Would also account for the "netscape engineers are weenies" thing a couple of years ago. Don't think the old microsoft would have had the sense of humor to do something like that. All things aside, I\MS bashing is getting old. Why don't we shut up and start doing something?

THE TRUTH HURTS HUH, YOU LITTLE BITCHES?

[Anonymous Coward]

n/t.

Simple philosophy

[Gortbusters.org]

This is simple philosophy, if one is one own's worst enemy, then as a collective, one collective must be their own worst enemy.

Did anyone see, "The Sum of All Fears"? Sure, it seemed to be a movie that tried to profit it off of gort-fears post-911, but in the movie it did show that the worst enemies of people are actually themselves.

And off topic, if yer wondering wtf a gort is, read it . Yes, the biggest gort of all is often yourself.

Cheap shot against Microsoft

[stephanruby]

This article is a cheap shot against Microsoft. The same thing could be said of any other profitable company.The people who create a product don't see eye to eye with the people who try to extract as much money as possible from that same product. This is Universal a truth.

The real enemy of Microsoft is the Status Quo. It's that old version of excel spreadsheet that a secretary is using as a database, it's that scrap of paper that the IT director is using to keep track of his passwords, and it's that old Linux box humming along under the desk. The Status Quo is the enemy of Microsoft. It's the enemy of Linux. And it's the enemy of every god damn company out there.

If Linux keeps on focusing on the Status Quo as its main competitor and if Microsoft keeps on focusing on Linux as its main competitor -- Linux will always win.

Re:Cheap shot against Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this article a cheap shot against Microsoft? I honestly believe that it's a very truthful article about them. Although I do agree with much of what you say about the status quo, but at the same time I also have to disagree with you about this being a bashing of Microsoft. Besides, if this was a big bashing of a company just because it's popular, how often have you heard people slamming Oracle or Disney or some of the individual companies under Time Warner who are far worse than even Microsoft in their respective areas? What's being bashed here is not a big profitable company. It's a company with zero ethics and overwhelming greed.

Re:Cheap shot against Microsoft

[andy_geek]

Look, to some extent you're right: the grunts at any company grow bitter with how the muck-mucks in the Mercedes' (Mercedi?) market their blood sweat and tears. Anyone here ever had a meeting with a Marketing VP in which your eyes didn't roll at least once? 'Nuff said.

But I think this is unique to software development companies. Do the people working the 3rd shift line at the GM parts plant care as much about how the next Taurus is marketed as we do about the next version of our own company's software? Nope. I'm curious as to why this is, although I suspect that it's got something to do with there being an artistic component to programming that isn't necessarily (notice I didn't say "never") there for the auto parts manufacturer.

So, the problem is that if you create art for a corporation, they will use it and sell it, and you might not like how/why they do it. Moreover, the corporation is likely to seize on what type of your art sells well and market that into oblivion, letting the rest of your art get shelved.

Let's say you're an artist for an art factory and you start out doing Cube-ist stuff, and then you start to get into Avant Garde stuff, and your boss at the art factory says "Hey, screw that: more people shaped like shoe-boxes, you!" That's what we've got here. Microsoft's programmers are in some ways victims of their predecessor's success.

Poor, poor Microsofties.... *sniffle*

excuse me?

[geek]

Bush's approval rating is still in the high 60's. Try backing up your claim.

Not only that but Bush was recently named Americas most admired man:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/852547.asp

You Bush haters fucking astound me with your ignorance. Why would you bring Bush up in this thread? Just fucking astounding.

Re:excuse me?

[Anonymous Coward]

you sound hot. might be the flamebait you've swallowed.

Re:excuse me?

[Tall Rob Mc]

First of all, I don't hate Bush. I voted for Bush. He's doing the best he can in a shitty situation. He hasn't had many choices. I brought him up because he's nearly impossible not to mention with the topic I was commenting about.

As for the approval rating, I was watching CNN yesterday where a few talkings heads were having a discussion about the fact that Bush's approval rating for December will be 49%. I'm not sure of the name of the show, but I wish I would have noticed it so I could mention it here.

Hits the Nail Right on the Head

[serutan]

Hruska couldn't be more accurate. In my past 5+ years as a contractor working mostly at Microsoft, I've definitely seen the internal character of the place becoming less geek-centered and more suit-centered. Recently there was a poster on the wall exhorting people to save the company money by remembering that the free beverages are for consumption at work only. When you have administrative people busying themselves with that type of "hall monitor" behavior, you are also going to see things like junk-computer disposal disguised as charity, advertising disguised as customer feedback, and lawyer-driven software design.

Re:Hits the Nail Right on the Head

[blair1q]

UNIX was lawyer-driven software design.

Microsoft Marketing & Microsoft Developers

[jjonte]

I've said it before..There *ARE* 2 groups at Microsoft
Marketing and Developers.
I wouldn't blame billG, he's more of a software engineer than a marketing mongul.

Take a look at past software projects that were designed by engineers and not marketing.

• Xbox - kickass hardware, kickass platform
• .NET from a technical perspective (common type system, xml-centric, logical)
• Windows NT, Dave Cutler was a true blue software engineer

Lets look at Marketing projects

• Windows ME - BOMB
• Sharepoint - Nobody uses this, POS
• Hailstorm - canned, haha, oops

They need to drop their marketing dept and put the engineers back in charge.
There's nothing wrong with making money off software...in fact, its preferred. But its the method of which its done.

Re:Microsoft Marketing & Microsoft Developers

[cranos]

You know I though no-one used Share Point either, that is until the fucking MCSE here at work whacked it onto the Intranet Server without telling me. AAAAARGGGGGHHHH, fucked everything up.

Let this be a lesson to you, the only good thing an MCSE can say to you is "Would you like fries with that?"

Re:Microsoft Marketing & Microsoft Developers

[TheHawke]

This is old hat.

Old hates are just resurfacing... The divide has always been there in the business world folks. And the way that it is going it'll just deepen and worsen unless management gets their act squared away and tries to heal matters, no matter what it takes.
THAT might take a couple hundered years since management is a problem in itself.

your point is?

[rodentia]

News flash: it's 2002, not 1992. Microsoft-bashing is getting a little old.

As though defending yourself and your pocketbook were a fashion trend. Like they are any less a monopoly today. As if they were not actively buying legislative influence, strong-arming interoperability standards and bribing nations to maintain marketshare.

Self-defense is *so* nineties. Value for money is just bourgeois. Ethical behavior, no legal behavior, is, like, last week.

Unacceptable!

[dirbinhas]

As far as fast, easy to use, GUIs go, I think Windows still has the edge on Linux. So stability ain't all that great...yeah, and security is pretty lax as well. I would be willing to give those up for some speed and the ability to play more games. After all, these are programming mistakes. This I can accept. However, the addition of spyware is not a mistake.

If the national media ever exposes this invasion of privacy by MS, instead of focusing on antitrust suits and SUNs constant whining, I think average users will be pissed. Maybe even pissed enough to switch.

Re:Unacceptable!

[andy_geek]

You're dead wrong. The "average user", who I take to mean the fabled "average American" in this case, is willingly letting all sorts of civil rights go by the wayside as we speak. The fact that John Poindexter is gonna know what videos I rented from 1988-1993 really disturbs me. The fact is, people don't care. By the time they do care, it'll be too late.

Re:Unacceptable!

[juan2074]

The fact that Poindexter will know what movies I rented in Mr. Chen's name does not bother me.

Wow...

[greygent]

This is a great.... blog entry, thanks Slashdot!

When will we get the "Story Moderation" feature in Slashcode? I look forward to the day.

Re: Writer should get his facts straight

[mrkurt]

Wow, IBM had $20 bil. in their most recent quarter. I'm surprised. And they made $8 bil. in earnings. It has to be the industry's best-kept secret. (It shows you how much I've been following balance sheets lately) One would think that MS was bigger than B. Blue given the amount of publicity they generate. Perhaps what Hruska was talking about was the fact that MS drove IBM off most desktops way back when. Things have changed a lot for them in the past 4-5 years though.

Other than that oversight, I think Joel Hruska delivered the most concise, complete critique of Redmond I've read all year. MS really is their own worst enemy. You would think a company who has experienced the success they have would figure out a way to continue to be successful by supporting and promoting open standards, seriously committing themselves to security and reliability for their products, completely opening up their APIs to encourage developers toward Windows, and have flexible, reasonable licensing agreements to satisfy the interests of all their customers. But then, that has never been characteristic of MS, has it?

Instead, for this camper, MS's moves over the past twelve months have meant the following:

• Dual-booting a machine with Win98 and Linux, then blowing away Windows when I turned the machine into a server (after all, getting Win 2k Server would be $1000 list, and might not be all that stable)
• Figuring out that .NET is nothing more than a way to freeze its Windows developers in place, and lock organizations into Windows, I decide not to migrate to VB.NET or C#. Understand, my background had been as a VB developer. I go exploring alternatives. Python is looking mighty good to me right now.
• After finding out that Win XP contains "product activation" modules that rob one of one's dignity, and SP's that give MS admin rights on your machines, I decide I will install Win 2k on my new "naked" PC and my old laptop, but I will not go beyond SP2. In fact, Win 2k will be the last version of Windows I will ever buy.
• Seeing the incredible amount of security vulnerabilities that IE, Outlook, and Windows itself continue to experience, on my Windows machimes, I install and run Mozilla as my default web browser.
• On my laptop and Linux machine (by now upgraded to RH 8), I have OpenOffice 1.0.1 installed, and I enjoy the ability to share files among the machines, as well as read files created by MS Office programs on the other PC. I also enjoy the fact that I saved at least $400- 500 by using OOo.

If my experience is any example of how MS is trying to win friends and influence people in the know, it ain't happening, folks. For Joel and others who say that the learning curve is too steep, I say, give Linux a try-- you'd be surprised how much has changed in the past couple years.

Best Post

[d3xt3r]

By far the best post I've read on Slashdot in a long, long time. Well said.

Re:Best Post

[kin_korn_karn]

Thank you very much. (I hate to be all self-congratulatory in my own thread but you don't have an email address and /. has no private message facility)

It will take more than Microsoft's own failings

[ACK!!]

to bring down a monopoly such as this.

The key to Microsoft ever losing its monopoly status is two-fold.

1. Microsoft must screw up royally and continue to tick its customers off.

2. The competition (linux or Apple or whoever) has to progress significantly and continue to do well at the same time.

Otherwise the consumer will have to stick to the kludged up monopolist because there is no other choice.

The key therefore is not just Microsoft failing but other companies actually succeeding and progressing as MS fumbles.

After all even if Linux and Apple and other companies do a good job with their products the vast majority of people will continue to make the safe move and use MS products despite the alternatives.

Without both factors, the monopoly continues.

THANKS FOR SHARING

[Anonymous Coward]

...

yep

[geek]

It's a perfectly natural progression. It happens in everything from government to businesses. It's called freedom of speech and it's what makes this country great. The tossing of ideas into the idea pool and fishing out the good ones.

People around here seem to think Bill runs things at MS which is far from the truth, not only is he not CEO anymore but the decision makers are the shareholders and board of directors. Of course if the mindless drones around here didn't have a target like Bill they wouldn't know what to do with themselves.

Re:yep

[NullProg]

People around here seem to think Bill runs things at MS which is far from the truth, not only is he not CEO anymore but the decision makers are the shareholders and board of directors.

I'm not trying to start a flame war, but who do you think owns the majority of shares? Bill Gates and Paul Allen do. From this link here:
http://web.quuxuum.org/~evan/bgnw.html
Bill's 622,321,300 shares represents 12.49% of Microsoft.

Bill's change in position at Microsoft was in title only. He still runs his company and is on the board of directors.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/bod /default.asp

Enjoy,

I agree

[Nick_dm]

I have to say I really agree with this, I'm not a linux user and have never been. I think win2k is a pretty good OS (I'm on it atm) and XP sounds pretty good from the reports I've heard (I'm not saying either are flawless, but overall stable enough to get by and easy to use).

However I don't like being roped into using other products or having people trying to monitor me. Once I've picked an OS I want to be able to pick all the individual programs seperately, MS seems to want to sell you the complete PC package and then charge you for each individual piece.

With regards to monitoring, I can understand it on something like xbox live (their hardware, their software, their network) but with my pc that I built, using programs that I hand picked I don't want to have to worry about using an MS program just incase they've put some extra "features" in.

At the moment the main thing keeping me on windows is games (I'm a pretty serious player and while linux is improving it doesn't have quite the support I want there yet) but I'm tempted to switch to linux for everything else.

Great Job

[feendster]

The author did an excellent job illustrating his ideas. I also think he has a valid point. M$ is suffering from an attack from within. It's vitally important for M$'s management and developers to adopt the Co. vision. "Buy, beg, borrow or steal your way to a good stock price." Then in 2 or 3 years they can find themselves residing in a van down by the river because the once powerful M$ will have fallen from grace. This has happened to many a once great giant. Look at Lucent, for instance.

...and what is your point?

[WebCowboy]

I have to respectfully counter some of your statements--quite honestly I'm surprised they were modded up to the degree they were as they are as poorly thought out as you claim the featured article to be...

- Microsoft put little more than a CDDB lookup into their player. Since everyone freaked out they've made it very very obvious during the install what gets sent. Take a look at everyone else's player and you'll see they are not trying to take over the world in some sinister plot. And product activation sucks but so does having perhaps the most pirated piece of software in the world so you really can't blame them.

Kudos to MS for disclosing exactly what their player is doing--if they didn't we WOULD have reason to be concerned about ulterior motives and "sinister plots". However, the very fact that extensive means of monitoring usage are being integrated into software is itself disturbing. Sure it's done in the name of convenience and no ill will is intended...but what if the system is compromised by someone with malicious intent--either within MS or outside it(especially knowing MS's security record)?

And as for product activation being a response to rampant piracy--perhaps MS is putting too much into treating a symptom rather than finding a cure. Windows and Office aren't pirated so much just because they are there (although their universality in the market doesn't help). Consider that the ONLY profitable divisions of MS are the OS and Office groups, and that they achieve their profits through extreme mark-ups and draconian licensing policies. Combine that with very low hardware prices and it's no wonder nobody like buying Windows or Office--why spend less than $1000 on a very capable PC and more than that just for the basic software? Can you imagine what piracy would be like in the video industry if you paid $150 for your DVD player and a single movie cost $100 or more?

- Microsoft lobbies. Welcome to the united states of america. ...and all that is wrong with it. Exactly where is the point or thought in that statement? Is you point that since massive corprate lobbying happens all the time it is still good? RIAA, MPAA, Benson&Hedges, EXXON and other such corporate interests are stuffing the pockets of a lot of politicians too--most often in defence of coporate welfare and policies against the interests of democracy, individual rights and freedoms and the environment. I guess since MS shouldn't be held accountable for their lobbying practices neither should anyone else.

- Attacking microsoft because the PCs it donates aren't good enough? Come on! Donations are voluntary and should be welcomed no matter what they are. Don't forget Gates does some serious giving-back. Funny how he forgets to mention this..

Having had first hand experience with organisations on the receiving end of such so-called donations I have to say WHAT A PILE OF CRAP! Donations are voluntary and should be wecomed no matter what? So the food bank should accept donations of mouldy cheese? Distress shelters should accept ripped, tattered and soiled blankets, coats and clothing? They were "volunteered" by someone too so we should bend down and kiss their feet for ther generous offers?

Schools, churches and other charitable organisations are staffed by and large by volunteers and low-paid staff on meagre budgets--dealing with inappropriate donations wastes their time ans id more harmful than not giving at all. These 386, 486 and early Pentiums running Win 3.1 and 95 that MS "graciously" donates to schools are THEIR "mouldy blocks of cheese". Indeed, they can be put to as much good use in a typical school.

And as far as Bill and MS giving back a-plenty. If I remember correctly a good tithe to your church was traditionally 15% of your disposable income. MS and Bill personally come NO WHERE CLOSE to that. Furthermore, much of the charitable work Bill does is done with his own interest in mind. Bill can swoop down and provide a school with dozens of brand new P4s equipped with Windows XP (he doesn't even to that). Then in subsequent years he'll subject them to software audits and mandatory upgrades, to MS's benefit. Well--praise the lord Bill Gates was around to help us out.

As for me, I'll continue bashing Microsoft so long as they provide me with the wrecking ball with which I can do it.

Re:...and what is your point?

[jedidiah]

A tithe is 10% of your GROSS. It's a concept spelled out quite unambiguously in the Tanach.

I don't buy it.

[Ashurbanipal]

I realize that "you have to sacrifice security to gain flexibility" is dogma around here, but I have to disagree.

You *can* sacrifice security to gain something else, but this is typically the result of bad analysis or bad design. Or ludicrous deadlines.

Take SSH for example. It has all the useability of telnet, and rsh, and rlogin. All rolled into one! That's pretty flexible. Yet far more secure than any of the things it replaces, because it was intelligently designed. Implementation is a cakewalk, too. Any idiot can install a properly packaged SSH client, although some of the servers are *not* properly packaged.

Ultimate security is a target, not an attainable goal. Really good software approaches the target, less superlative software falls short.

But in Microsoft's case, they were always a PC company - designing products for unconnected, personal computers - so there was no goal of security at all! Until the Internet community forced them into a connected marketplace. It's no wonder they don't like us netizens, we made their work hard and their world dangerous.

Bravo

[aufecht]

Bravo, Bravo. An article by a non-Linux/OSS user telling Microsoft to shape up or piss off. We need to see more of this. This should be the main argument right now to switch desktop users away from Microsoft software. I have talked to many people who just don't want to hear about stability, user interface etc. But, start telling these people that soon Microsoft will be in their bedrooms telling them they can't f*** in that postition and they begin to listen. Educate the public on the real evils of Microsoft.

LOL

[Danse]

They are looking to to things that the Hardware companies are not doing, like inovate.

Only if your definition of innovate is, "To create something that only works with Microsoft's proprietary software." Gee, weren't winmodems a great idea?

Re:LOL

[WindBourne]

Only if your definition of innovate is, "To create something that only works with Microsoft's proprietary software."
No that is MS's approach to Innovation (BTW, IBM, Sun, and HP all used it as well). Consider that these companies still manufactuer what are basically soup-up versions of the same thing from 1982: the PC. That is not innovation. They all tweak a little here a little there, but they are basically, the same damn thing. They also pay lip service to saying that they will improve, but they are afraid of hurting their own Bottom Line.

Consider the House market
PC's with wireless make absolutly no sense. The Laptop makes a bit, but only a bit more. Why? becuase they still need to be hooked up to power. Instead, they should offer a ethernet switch with POE that provides 15 watts of power / connection. Does not sound like much until you get too realizing the shear number of devices that can run at that low wattage. Over time, the race would be on to create high speeds, but lower wattage items. So what are some suggestions for items:

• Use the Etrax chip to create :
  1. 2 CF slots, that can handle ethernet card, or a modem. This allows interface back to DSL or POTS lines. Likewise, you can easily create APs.
  2. 2 IDE/ATA slots. Combined with 2 2.5/1.8 " drives, you have a nice small server for house operations: Yes, I know it is not fast, but for holding info about the house, or songs, or movies it is perfect. If you need more speed, then a different system could be bought and plugged in instead.
  3. 1 USB which the etrax supports nicely. Build a cheap web cam.
  4. Audio. this is a big one. Combine it with a small amp, and use one / speaker. True, you would only be able to get watts, but that is / speaker. That will handle most household. It would also solve the problem that hollywood has.
  5. combined with TV/radio card for streaming video/audio. The nice thing is that if an OSS program shows up that captures and saves it to the disk, then it gets around the TIVO patent that is only for an integrated unit. (What do you bet that MS will do this and then IBM/HP will give it a look-se.) This will allow a multi-monitors to see TV or hear the radio. The argument will be that they have to see the same thing. Fine, just buy 2 or 3 of them. Issue solved.
  6. create a small touchscreen interface, say 5 and 10 ". This can be used for input to the house system as well as other devices. A great example would be Washer/Dryer. IBM or HP could easily get Maytag to create washer/dryer with interface, but would have a chip and ethernet port. This device is then used to control both washer/dryer. Or with a DAC and thermostat, you could control Furnice/h2o heater/air conditioner. Out here in the west, we irragate our lawns. They could be put on the same system. Use the touchscreen as pix display or clock.
• Use a faster but low wattage chip such as transmeta combined with ram, ehternet, lcd display, blue tooth. This could be done in 15 watts. But even if it was not, they you have to plug it in. What of it. Use the POE to drive the ethernet, chip, ram and have the display/blue tooth on other power. If plugged in, that allows for distributed proccessing in the house. higher power processor combined with lower

I find it amazing how hard it is for companies to innovate now. They are so afraid until somebody else has done. BTW, I have been trying to get IBM and HP to look at these ideas (and others). It is very difficult to get through there levels of marketeers. What is sad, is that I have worked for both. If it is hard for me, I can not imagine what it is like for others.
From others, I have heard that MS is far easier to work with on getting things off the ground. It's just that they will screw you shortly.

Re:LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

Well damn. Ford and GM have been shipping souped up cars forever. Maybe there's no more demand to satisfy with innovation. Also, truely revolutionary products usually spring from the sidelines and are first ridiculed. If the innovation persists despite attacks by industry conservatives then the innovations are stolen by the bigger players. MSFT getting into hardware would only a ploy to grab more control of the upgrade cycle and drive sales... It's like Arm & Hammer buying Frigidare to drive baking soda sales via trivial modifications.

MSFT wants the entertainment industry to force through new hardware requirements which will transiently generate large license sales while everyone is forced to upgrade. Plus, MSFT thinks it can be clever enough to leech onto the studios.

*cough*

[Balinares]

Microsoft put little more than a CDDB lookup into their player.

Err. Mind explaining what kind of use a CDDB lookup might have for DVDs?

Re:*cough*

[pod]

Err. Mind explaining what kind of use a CDDB lookup might have for DVDs?

Uh, perhaps to look up the director, cast list, reviews, goofs, trivia?

Many mp3 players have an option to hook up to a directory to look up album details. Why would they do that? It's an MP3! It already has all the info you need in the ID tag! But there's obviously a use for it.

The problem with WMP lookups is that it sends a unique id along with the request.

Re:*cough*

[jedidiah]

Is there enough metadata on a DVD to completely catagorize it for use inside some sort of jukebox? If not, then a DVDDB database has exactly the same usefullness as a DVDDB database.

Admittedly, this is NOT what the M$ player is.

Um.

[runderwo]

From the article:

I'm no Linux user. I've never booted a distro of the OS in any of its flavors, and save for playing with it on a friend's machine, I've never spent much time in it. I am not an open source maverick, nor am I anti-business or anti-profit.

You know, if someone has to qualify their editorial claims by saying that they aren't part of those "open source mavericks" over there, or that they are not "anti-business or anti-profit", what does that say about us open-source mavericks as a desirable group of people to identify with?

I think the very idea that someone in the mainstream has gotten the idea that we are anti-business/anti-profit is very BAD, as it constitutes a fundamental misunderstanding of the movement behind free software and the open source development model.

Who in the mainstream is going to align themselves with us, if we give them the impression that we're anarchists and commies?

Re:Um.

[GauteL]

"Who in the mainstream is going to align themselves with us, if we give them the impression that we're anarchists and commies?"

Speak for yourself! I might not be an anarchist, but I'm pretty close to a commie!
Are Free Software and communism related? At least not closely. I'm actually more concerned with people (especially it seems in the US) having the notion that communism is evil. Thus I object to the idea of seeing Free Software as communism is also seeing it as evil.

Although I have to admit that it is easier for me to promote free software if I do not mention that I'm a socialist/communist.

You can decide wether promoting free software is just part of my sinister plot to introduce communism in the western world, or if this is all (or mostly) unrelated.

Re:Um.

[andy_geek]

Wow, this should be fun. From Microsoft (Fascism) to Communism in one thread? Cool. Maybe we can also tackle the Israeli-Palestinian thing, world hunger and the next Pauly Shore movie?

I remember in school the history teachers telling us that the right is so far right and the left is so far left that they actually meet.

I am an Open Source proponent, but you make it sound like we take breaks from coding to go sing strains of "Give Peace A Chance" while tending vegetable gardens on our laid-back Hacker Kibbutz. There's a broad spectrum here: just because I'm for socialized medicine doesn't mean I'm in favor of rationing out toilet paper. I think you're making a pretty big leap here, and more power to your shiny red ass, but thankyouvermuch I am a capitalist pig who supports Open Source.

Re:Um.

[tshak]

I think the very idea that someone in the mainstream has gotten the idea that we are anti-business/anti-profit is very BAD, as it constitutes a fundamental misunderstanding of the movement behind free software and the open source development model.

I dissagree that there is a fundamental understanding. First, there are many FSF leaders who seem to have a semi-communisitic or more accurately a utopian philosophy which precludes the need for profiting or much profit. Second, those who are part of the FSF and OSS movements generally believe that profiting is possible through means other than selling software. However, this has yet to be proven (arguably), and therefore even those who think they believe in profiting practically don't because they are supporting an (again, arguably) not-for-profit movement.

Re:Um.

[sheldon]

I think the very idea that someone in the mainstream has gotten the idea that we are anti-business/anti-profit is very BAD, as it constitutes a fundamental misunderstanding of the movement behind free software and the open source development model.

On the contrary it shows that they have a very good understanding of the movement behind free software.

Who in the mainstream is going to align themselves with us, if we give them the impression that we're anarchists and commies?

They are not. But if you want to shed that image you need to stop acting like Software Communists.

Re:Um.

[m1a1]

I think that that is fine he claims not to be an "open source maverick." This editorial isn't meant to connect with you and I (although it does resonate with me on many levels). He wants it to be accessible to even those who know little or nothing about linux. He makes sure they understand that he isn't just some sort of activist (as MS makes OSS users out to be). His PC is a tool. He feels that MS is on the way to breaking his tool, and he wants the world to know that he won't stand for it. This is good.

Re:Um.

[runderwo]

They are not. But if you want to shed that image you need to stop acting like Software Communists.

I don't get your point. Of course free software is about the ability to share.

Are you saying that RMS is speaking out against profiting from selling software? If so, you're wrong. RMS has always embraced companies that sell free software. To him, everything else but the freedom is irrelevant.

I think you may be falling into the same trap that these mainstream pundits fall into.

Re:Um.

[runderwo]

I dissagree that there is a fundamental understanding. First, there are many FSF leaders who seem to have a semi-communisitic or more accurately a utopian philosophy which precludes the need for profiting or much profit.

Who are these "many FSF leaders"? Where have they said this?

Second, those who are part of the FSF and OSS movements generally believe that profiting is possible through means other than selling software.

You make it sound like the availability of other means of profit mutually excludes selling the software. It does not.

However, this has yet to be proven (arguably)

I would argue that there are already many companies out there embracing the demand for business built around free software, but I'd just get flamed and pointed out that none of them are as successful as Microsoft.

and therefore even those who think they believe in profiting practically don't because they are supporting an (again, arguably) not-for-profit movement.

Well, it seems that you're as confused as the guy in the article. There is nothing at all not-for-profit about free software or OSS development. Would you please provide me with some references that you used to reach the conclusion that you currently hold? I really hope you re-evaluate your opinions.

Re:Um.

[runderwo]

Although I have to admit that it is easier for me to promote free software if I do not mention that I'm a socialist/communist.

Well, that's just it. I think the movement would succeed a lot more if we focused on the movement itself, and not tying it into other dogmas that we may hold.

This is a capitalist society at heart. If I present myself as a businessman, and promote free software on the basis of what it can do for my business, I will be much more well received than if I present it as a basis for a pro-communist or pro-socialist argument.

People will already be shocked by the notion of an alternative model to proprietary software, and that shock must be overcome for them to accept your argument; why saddle it with even more shock by tying another sociopolitical agenda to it?

Re:Um.

[sheldon]

Are you saying that RMS is speaking out against profiting from selling software? If so, you're wrong.

Really?

Maybe you should explain this quote from the Manifesto then...

"Low-paying organizations do poorly in competition with high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly if the high-paying ones are banned."

I think you may be falling into the same trap that these mainstream pundits fall into.

Since when is reading comprehension a trap?

There's a old saying... "Above all things, be true to yourself." You should keep that in mind next time you try to claim RMS is not against profiting from selling software.

Re:Um.

[tshak]

Who are these "many FSF leaders"? Where have they said this?

I'm talking about guys like RMS, Torvalds, etc.

You make it sound like the availability of other means of profit mutually excludes selling the software. It does not...I would argue that there are already many companies out there embracing the demand for business built around free software, but I'd just get flamed and pointed out that none of them are as successful as Microsoft.

You are missing the entire point. We are talking about general public perception. You can sit here and argue with me how OSS can be profitable without selling software, but the bottom line is most people won't sit down and listen to your arguments. Sure, IBM has done some things with Linux, but DB2 is still closed. Sure Apple has an OS'd Unix core, but their bread-and-butter OS is not OS'd. The guy in the article isn't confused at all, he simply doesn't see the profit. Now, whether or not we think that profit is possible is a totally different discussion - one that's been made in countless threads on /. before. I can link you to many sites that show profit models for OSS. But what really matters is if the big companies are truelly profiting off of OSS without selling software (they aren't, yet anyway), or if companies are profiting off of supporting OSS (they aren't, RH's recent profit was only for a single quarter - they are still tens of millions in the hole).

Again, I don't want to argue about how we think OSS could profit, or how it's working well in certain situations like OS X, or IBM's Linux Servers, because in both cases propietary software is being sold.

Re:Um.

[runderwo]

You know, you sound an awful lot like a troll. As much as you spout off about reading comprehension like you're my superior or something in that regard, you're relying on one quote taken completely out of context to back your point up. That's not a good argument.

Maybe you should explain this quote from the Manifesto then... "Low-paying organizations do poorly in competition with high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly if the high-paying ones are banned."

If you read the preceding paragraphs, he mentions that programmers who share code will not be able to charge as much for that code. He doesn't say they will give it away for free, and he also enumerates some non-monetary benefits that programmers can receive from coding the "GNU Way".

In your out-of-context quote, he is not advocating banning high-paying jobs, which you may be claiming (I'm not sure!). But this is not what he is saying -- placed in context, he is simply stating a fact: that programmers are unhappy at low-paying jobs only when higher-paying ones are available to them. The example he used is one that was close to his heart, the programmers at the MIT AI lab. He claims they were perfectly happy while hacking at MIT, and were lured away by job offers where their happiness was not increased, only their money.

The whole section is a claim that money does not have to be constantly changing hands in order to motivate people to work. This has nothing to do at all with businesses capitalizing on free software as a product!

Re:Um.

[runderwo]

I'm talking about guys like RMS, Torvalds, etc.

Torvalds, like most other people, has nothing to do with the FSF besides using their license for his OS kernel. He is not a Free Software advocate, he is an advocate of the open source development model.

I am certain that if a company approached him with an offer for a proprietary-licensed version of the Linux kernel, he would be more than happy to provide it, to the behest of RMS.

The guy in the article isn't confused at all, he simply doesn't see the profit.

He is confused because he insinuates, from his perception, that FS/OSS advocates are anti-profit or anti-business. This is not the case, and my point was that if that is how people are perceiving us, that perception needs to be repaired, and soon.

Certainly, there may be individual communists or socialists among our ranks, but by and large, the movement does not represent their views. It represents a software development and distribution model that strikes a better balance between the rights of the user and the rights of the producer. That's all.

Re:Um.

[sheldon]

"You know, you sound an awful lot like a troll."

Is this ad hominem? You can't defend your position intelligently so you try to discount any opposition to it?

"In your out-of-context quote, he is not advocating banning high-paying jobs, which you may be claiming (I'm not sure!)."

Even in context, the quote advocates the banning of high-paying jobs. Why exactly are you uncertain why I am claiming this? Is it some sort of unwillingess to come to terms with the position you are defending? Why are you so fearful of Stallman that you pretend that he does not say that which his words advocate?

"But this is not what he is saying -- placed in context, he is simply stating a fact: that programmers are unhappy at low-paying jobs only when higher-paying ones are available to them. "

Yes, he said that, but then he went on to say that if we make higher-paying jobs unavailable then they'll all be happy again. What's that say to you? To me it says he's advocating the elimination of my freedom as a developer to choose who to sell my services to.

This right for me to decide the terms by which I am willing to sell my mind and body is one of the fundamental rights we enjoy in the United States.

"The example he used is one that was close to his heart, the programmers at the MIT AI lab. He claims they were perfectly happy while hacking at MIT, and were lured away by job offers where their happiness was not increased, only their money. "

That was *THEIR* choice. Besides that Stallman doesn't know whether or not they were happier, all Stallman knows is that he wasn't happy. So Stallman decided to take it upon himself to make their lives as miserable and retched as his own out of spite.

"The whole section is a claim that money does not have to be constantly changing hands in order to motivate people to work."

No it does not. There are many men and women who devote themselves to god and become Priests and Nuns. But you know what? They choose to do that.

"This has nothing to do at all with businesses capitalizing on free software as a product!"

You're right, it doesn't. This has to do with Richard Stallman advocating ways to eliminate high-paying jobs for developers. One such way is to destroy the notion of intellectual property via the GPL. The other such way is to ban commercial software.

http://www.redhat.com/opensourcenow/bill_opensou rc e.html

Re:Um.

[sheldon]

He is confused because he insinuates, from his perception, that FS/OSS advocates are anti-profit or anti-business. This is not the case, and my point was that if that is how people are perceiving us, that perception needs to be repaired, and soon.

Repair the perception by explaining to me how I'm going to get rich by creating software.

represents a software development and distribution model that strikes a better balance between the rights of the user and the rights of the producer.

No... the GPL represents a software distribution model that favors the rights of the user over the rights of the producer. I agree that we need a better balance, but the GPL does not represent that. Largely because it's motivated by envy and spite rather than any positive virtues.

Re:Um.

[runderwo]

Repair the perception by explaining to me how I'm going to get rich by creating software.

If your only intent is to "get rich", then I'm afraid I have no answers for you, as getting rich is sort of like winning the lottery.

If you actually meant "make an honest living" instead, then there are plenty of examples: Dual licensing, Hardware bundling, the "ransom" model, etc.

No... the GPL represents a software distribution model that favors the rights of the user over the rights of the producer.

Right, and how is this? Point out exactly in which areas that the user gets more rights than the producer.

(Notwithstanding that the intent of the GPL was to discard the notion of producers and consumers in software. Any user can become a producer if they want to.)

Largely because it's motivated by envy and spite rather than any positive virtues.

Uh-huh. (Rolls eyes.) Where is this "envy" and "spite" that you speak of? RMS wants everyone to have the freedom to modify and redistribute software that they use. What is so utterly hateful about this?

I really wish people would open their eyes to new possibilities, instead of blindly fighting things that they just don't understand.

Re:Um.

[runderwo]

Is this ad hominem? You can't defend your position intelligently so you try to discount any opposition to it?

You're the one that talked down to me in the first place, so kiss my ass if my "ad hominem" (consisting of pointing out your ad hominem) bothers you.

Why are you so fearful of Stallman that you pretend that he does not say that which his words advocate?

No. You're simply reading things into his words that aren't there.

You know, if you take offense to his words and you cared enough to make a change, you could drop him an intelligent, well-considered email and post his response here. As it is though, you're sounding more like a conspiracy theorist, than someone with a legitimate beef.

This has to do with Richard Stallman advocating ways to eliminate high-paying jobs for developers.

You've got to be joking. How many companies wouldn't exist if it weren't for Free Software? How many "middleware" service jobs would not exist? How many hardware products would not exist without an unencumbered embedded operating system in them? The list goes on and on.

Things benefit the industry in ways which you would hardly have any idea of. Just because you can't immediately see and identify the effects doesn't mean they aren't waiting to be discovered.

One such way is to destroy the notion of intellectual property via the GPL.

Riiight. The GPL is by all means a brutal hack on the intellectual property system in the US, but by no means does it prevent anyone from putting works under any other license. In addition, it leverages the existing IP framework in the US to accomplish its own goals.

The GPL's terms are not onerous; if you use GPL software and wish to redistribute it, you must do it in accordance with the GPL; nothing more, nothing less. If you don't like it, don't use the GPL for your software, and don't use any software licensed under it, or else pay the developer for a proprietary-friendly license.

How is it going to "destroy" intellectual property?

The other such way is to ban commercial software.

That's just absurd. I'd like to see you show me where RMS has ever advocated outlawing proprietary software. The GNU/FSF was erected in the first place as an alternative, so people can exercise choice if they are tired of being locked into proprietary solutions. Why on earth would anyone advocate removing the same choice that fostered the creation of Free Software?

So anyway, you've managed to flame away without even answering the original question: from what angle exactly are people getting the idea that Free Software is anti-capitalist or anti-corporate? I still haven't found any reasonable means, just a lot of angry people and RMS-bashers.

Re:Server slashdotted ... here's the article

[Jucius Maximus]

"Add it all up and what you have is a company that, at the least, displays a profound level of arrogance coupled with the unshakable belief that they have not only the ability, but the right to dictate to the rest of the world, from charities to corporations, how the world should look."

Reminds me of Dubyah.

Bill Gates personal loss

[valisk]

You can use this handy wealthclock kindly provided by Philip Greenspun to see just how much that might be, or just to stare in disgusted silence as you realise that Bill Gates is worth more than most countries on earth

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Bill Gates' Money

[Valdrax]

If you think that Microsoft's $40 Billion is an impressive number calculate what Bill Gates would lose personally if Microsoft's stock lost half of its value.

His fortune is less tied to MS than you might think. Gates has diversified his holdings over the past several years and as of Sept. 9th of this year only held 11.6% of the company's stock. I believe his current net holdings are worth $43 billion. MSFT has 5,346,449,872 shares as of Sept. 30th, and it closed on that day at $43.74. On that day, MS stock was worth $223 billion, and he held only $27 billion in MS stock. If he lost half that, he'd go from $43 billion to $29.5 billion (ignoring the fact that an MS crash would take down the whole market). Boo hoo. He'd still have over 100 times what he was worth back in 1986.

Of course, this in no way invalidates your argument which is 100% correct. MS is a very stock price-obsessed company, and a lot of mutual funds invest so much money into it because it's preceived as a stable growth company. A major Enron-like shake-up like Bill Parish has been hoping for would devistate the market as badly as Enron's did. MS's business personnel are wholy obsessed with keeping this growth stable, and it's been well documented that MS uses tricky accounting to smooth losses from one quarter to the next by storing up money from good quarters and counting it as "earnings" later.

Incidentally, the Bill Gates Net Worth Page is an amusing collection of statistics and extrapolations about his wealth, though its data is a little out of date. It shows things like how long he could buy off every major official in the government (if he stopped earning money), how fast you'd have to go picking up dollar bills from end to end to earn money as fast as he has since MS went public (35+ MPH), and how if he can maintain his current rate of growth per year (over 35%!), he'll be a trillionaire by 2014.

Re:Bill Gates' Money

[Zordak]

and how if he can maintain his current rate of growth per year (over 35%!), he'll be a trillionaire by 2014

And this is exactly Microsoft's problem. As has been pointed out, they are obsessed with inflating stock prices. Their entire strategy is like a positive feedback control system. Make money, Extend monopoly, make more money. Setting economics aside, this kind of system cannot even be maintained mathematically. Unbounded systems are inherently unstable. There has to be negative feedback for the system to maintain itself. In the past, the Sherman Act did a fair job of providing the requisite negative feedback (notice how the Bells are still around, and are still solid businesses, if not as large as before), but Microsoft seems to have been able to castrate that in the latest round, so no there is absolutely nothing to hold them in check. Any system -- physical, financial or otherwise -- has limited energy. I really don't know that our financial system has the energy to sustain an individual trillionnaire. I could be wrong, maybe the number is bigger, but ultimately, there is a finite limit to how much mass a body can accumulate before collapsing in on itself. The larger Microsoft gets, the bigger and more impressive their eventual fall will be, and unfortunately, the more collatoral damage they will inflict in the process. So, Microsoft really is their own worst enemy. In my opinion (I am dead serious about this), the best thing they could do is hire a bunch of controls engineers to take over their business development, who could then come up with a stability model. Unfortunately, as someone else pointed out, Microsoft appears to be much more concerned with short-term growth than with longevity. With their present model, there is no question of if they will crash spectacularly, it is only a question of when.

Re:Bill Gates' Money

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep... just like Bill once the crash is over and everyone who lost out has their way with him

Re:Bill Gates' Money

[ninewands]

Quoth the poster:

Any system -- physical, financial or otherwise -- has limited energy. I really don't know that our financial system has the energy to sustain an individual trillionnaire. I could be wrong, maybe the number is bigger, but ultimately, there is a finite limit to how much mass a body can accumulate before collapsing in on itself.

Oh yeah, that's that "Club of Rome" thing I remember from economics back in the 80's ... IIRC, the world economy was going to collapse some time around 2000 because all the resources would have been consumed.

Don't get me wrong ... I don't disagree with MOST of what you say. In fact, a couple of months ago, I shocked my broker by telling her that I considered (and I still do) Microsoft to be a high-risk investment. There will come a time when Microsoft stock will at least, if not collapse, fall dramatically. Despite (or maybe because of) all their cash, Microsoft is pretty much a financial house of cards, and their continued attempt to pump up the stock price by any means necessary will eventually come home to roost. I cannot predict how much damage will be done when it happens, but I, for one, am keeping my IRAs and other investment funds the hell OUT of MSFT.

Re:Bill Gates' Money

[cheese_wallet]

Your analogies are all over the place.

"there is a finite limit to how much mass a body can accumulate before collapsing in on itself."

What the hell does that have to do with economics? Economics is all fiction, an abstract idea. How exactly do you put limits on an abstraction? Economics is not a zero-sum game.

Re:Bill Gates' Money

[Physics Dude]

There will come a time when Microsoft stock will at least, if not collapse, fall dramatically.

I agree with what you're saying but wanted to point out that this has already happened to some extent.

It sounds from many of the comments here that people still think that Microsoft's stocks are experiencing decent growth. Not true. Microsoft's stock prices were rising steadily for years with excellent return and regular stock splits. Then near the beginning of 2000 they plumited from about $120/share to around $60/share. Since that time, they've been hovering around $50 with no real growth over the last three years! People keep speculating that MSFT stock will recover, but so far, no signs of it.

Re:Bill Gates' Money

[wormbin]

this kind of system cannot even be maintained mathematically. Unbounded systems are inherently unstable.

Next thing you'll be telling us is that a group of genetically engineered Dinosaurs on a remote island are uncontrollable. :)

Seriously, I agree with the substance of your post. Unless MS figures out how to sell Windows to Martians, their stock price is in for a tumble.

Re:Bill Gates' Money

[ConceptJunkie]

Yeah, with Microsoft it can be a net negative game. They often get paid to make things worse. That's one of the benefits of being a monopoly.

Re:Bill Gates' Money

[SectoidRandom]

Although I agree with just about all of what you said, I most definatly agree that comparisons to mathematical models are certainly valid, I suggest a more appropriate example to better compare with Microsoft than your choice of Bell is IBM. Like MS they too jumped through all the hoops of the Sherman Act, and like MS they essentially came out un-touched. The thing that got them in the end was the market place, and unfortunatly that is likely to be the only thing that has a chance of taking MS down. It may be hard to imagine, MS being surpassed by rivals, but i'm sure 25 years ago the same was thought of IBM.

I said unfortunatly because unlike a quick breakup of Microsoft by the government a slow gradual erosion of power and position by market forces, is firstly in no way assured, but secondly likely to be drawn out much longer. Meaning that when it comes to competition and fairness for consumers in the market, it is going to get a lot worse before it gets any better!

Re:Bill Gates' Money

[Zordak]

The mass does not have to be physical mass. In this case, it is financial mass. The laws of an unbounded system still apply. Are money and economics made up? Perhaps, but enough people believe in them that they are viable entities. Made up or not, in the world of economics, Microsoft is an extrememly massive body, and the positive feedback loop continues to add to that financial mass. This cannot be sustained indefinitely. It may not collapse this year or next year or even next decade, but it will collapse eventually. Just as there is a finite amount of physical mass in the universe, there is a finite amount of money, even in our "made-up" system. You can only make up so much before the whole system breaks down. Something has to give eventually.

Re:Bill Gates' Money

[Zordak]

IIRC, the world economy was going to collapse some time around 2000 because all the resources would have been consumed.

I didn't say when Microsoft would collapse, only that it is inevitable. I think the global economy is more stable than that. The only way it would collapse is if there were absolutely no physical resources left to put behind the money we make up. I haven't seen any credible sources predicting that happening in the immediate future. Within that system, however, there are finite resources ("money" in this case). Microsoft is a single body within that system that is absorbing vast amounts of those resources and accumulating mass in a positive feedback loop (it's like a monster that only gets hungrier when it eats and is large enough to eat whatever it wants). That simply cannot be sustained forever. I don't know when it will break, but I will stand fast by the assertion that it will eventually break.

Re:Bill Gates' Money

[chthon]

Well, since the amount of money available is finite, that should somewhere be the limit on the system.

Re:Bill Gates' Money

[perljon]

Any system -- physical, financial or otherwise -- has limited energy.

Your theory would have merrit if we were close to the limit of economic productiog. But we aren't. We aren't even close. Much of the world is undeveloped and not optimised for maximum production efficiency; there is plenty of room for population growth in most parts of the world; and we have an abundance of raw minerals and energy on the earth and beyond.

The energy of Microsoft is based on the economy of it's customers. The economy of it's customers is fuelled by production. Production in is determined by the number of producers; the effeciency of the producer; and the raw materials availabilty to maintain effeciency and feed production.

Comparing MS's rate of growth against a snapshot of a present economy is flawed. You must also predict the economy of 2014 and the growth steps from here to there, which is nearly impossible without divine intervention. Also, it has to be assumed that' MS's growth rate will change depending on the size of the economy (which is the amount of production).

Finally, predicting the economy of 2014 is a pretty tough thing to do. It's feasable, but would take a lot more resources than just you because there are so many factors involved. It's pretty straight forward to predict the number of producers in 2014. Population predictions based on the current population are a dime a dozen, and they are fairly accurate minus siginfigant events (war, disease, famin). Next you would have to calculate the effeciency of the work force. That's very tuff. You not only have to consider ifrastructure changes that increase efficiency, but technological and methodical advances. There's lots of possible infrastructure changes to be done in 3rd world countries, for example. And who can accurately predict scientific breakthroughs in the next decade. But there are also some infrastructure changes that could take place in developed nations. In the past, efficiency in the United States was significantly increased with the development of centralized power and heating, for example. (Also, internet, computers, highways, combustion engines, farming methodologies, factory robots, AI, etc.). Finally, you would have to calculate the availabilty of resources for the products, producers, and effeciency systems. For example, an oil shortage would decrease effeciency in all kinds of siginficant ways, and wouldn't neccesarly be predictable. Also, what if all of a sudden food stops growing in half the world. That really blows your population estimates. Silicon becomes a scarce and computers are no longer available in mass quantities... etc.

In short, economic predictions over 10 years is like trying to predict the wheather 10 years from today. You can guess, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it. But that doesn't matter in your theory any way, as you don't really consider that the production (ie, economy) will increase at a significant rate in the next 10 years, providing the prequesite energy for Bill Gates to reach a trillion dollar goal.

Re:Bill Gates' Money

[Brendan Byrd]

In fact, a couple of months ago, I shocked my broker by telling her that I considered (and I still do) Microsoft to be a high-risk investment.

Sounds like you need to switch brokers. She shouldn't be shocked by that.

Re:Bill Gates' Money

[Anonymous Coward]

I could be wrong, maybe the number is bigger, but ultimately, there is a finite limit to how much mass a body can accumulate before collapsing in on itself.

Which is why if Microsoft wants to continue growing at it's traditional rate, it should allow itself to be split up by the Justice Dept. into 3 or more independent companies.

Re:Bill Gates' Money

[Zordak]

I agree that it is not practical to predict the economy of 2014. In fact, even ignoring catastrophic events, we can't predict the economy next year. That's not what I am getting at here, though. As I said at first, any positive feedback control system is inherently unstable. To refute that, you need to refute my theory that Microsoft operates on a positive feedback model. If you are willing to grant the positive feedback theory, they will eventually fail. How long is eventually? That is where it is pure conjecture. It may not be in the next 10 years (I would conjecture that 10 years is sufficient time for them to reach critical mass if they don't get some negative feedback introduced into the system, but as you said, that's just a guess).

Re:Bill Gates' Money

[Valdrax]

That was over the course of a few months after a 2-for-1 stock split, so it was really just a shaking out of the price to match the previous market capitalization of the company. However, I wasn't aware of the dip in 2001 and the fact that the price has hovered there ever since. (I don't own MSFT stock, so I don't watch it often.) Maybe the stock has finally stabilized after all these years.

Re:Bill Gates' Money

[jafuser]

You know, this has *got* to be the same way with AOL subscriptions. Seriously. If you haven't already gotten a dozen discs in the mail and passed over a couple of hundred displays at checkout stands for a free two zillion hours on AOL, are you suddenly going to change your mind?

The only people they (AOL and MS) have left to consume are new computer buyers, and last I heard the number of people without computers is drying up.

Re:Bill Gates' Money

[Physics Dude]

That may have been a partially effect but I don't believe it can account for the tremendous speed of the initial drop and the total lack of recovery.

This extremely rapid drop was almost a year after the last split and was MUCH larger percentage wise than any other split normalization in their history, and it coincided with several press releases about the anti-trust proceedings.

Note that MSFT had been experiencing sustained geometric growth up until that point and have been experiencing an overall decline of stock value ever since.

You can see the difference and the entire lack of recovery graphically here.

Cultures of fictional worlds

[yerricde]

I remember in Dragonball where Goku asked a policeman where Bulma lived and the policeman could call up a picture for every person named Bulma in the city and helped him find her. Impossible with the rights some people want.

Such a law is almost necessary in the different cultures of the fictional worlds in which animated television takes place. In many of those cultures, a character's face is his or her surname, and the residents of the world do not consider having pictures of everybody in town to constitute privacy violation. Likewise, whether Microsoft software violates its users' privacy depends entirely on ambient culture.

(Aside: Know why the dubbing is so bad on some animated films and series? Easy. People in fictional worlds that have never had contact with white America would have no reason to speak English.)

Love hate

[Capt_Troy]

Just to preface this: I've only read te first page of the article, the second seems to not be available at the moment...

I use Microsoft products as a home consumer (joystick, steering wheel, mouse, Windows XP, and an XBox). I do most of my programming work on a Linux box.

I do feel like MS treats business customers differently than it does home consumers however. For example, the company that I am working for is currently undergoing a MS audit where they are treated almost like a bunch of thieves and the general theme of the audit is "We know you are stealing something, where is it?" And for that, I hate them. They could handle it better and provide better service rather than just trying to pry more money out of our cold dead hands...

However, as a home user I have been very pleased, especially with the customer service. My XBox broke last week, they shipped me a box with an Airborne shipping label. I boxed it up, shipped it out and they fixed it same day and next dayed it back to me. 2 days! I was amazed and impressed, try to get that kind of service out of Sony... And it was all totally free.

So if MS would spend the same kind of efforts to please their business customers as they do their home customers, they would be in a much brighter place corporate wise. Why don't they do this? Well, I think it's pretty simple, cause it is very easy to take a lot of money from a big company, much easier than it is to take a little money from some guy sitting at home trying to play his Xbox.

well.....*DUH*

[andy_geek]

So, you say Microsoft will ultimately destroy itself? Well, la deefreakin' da! What megalitic entity throughout the history of time that's been destroyed hasn't destroyed themselves? See the Roman Empire, the Soviet Union or the Roman Catholic Church for a refresher.

I just hope I'm not supposed to feel sorry for Bill, Steve and the gang because they're getting some pushback from the Microserfs.

I tend to think the reason we're starting to see dissention up at the Redmond Institute for Wayward Boys is an ecomonic one: in the 80's and 90's, developers at Microsoft were making the same sort of crap/bloat/spy/suck-ware, but the difference was they were making a mint off of it. Now, the fully-vested huge stock options are not there, staff turnover is high, and the cro-magnon managers that drive projects have become more and more unpleasant to work for. I speak from some experience, as a former Microsoftie. So, just like any of us who are feeling more pressure to perform with smaller reward at the end of the day, the geeks out there are starting to bitch and moan.

This happens in bajillions of companies every day, particulalry from the IT infrastructure: just ask IBM'ers off-the-record how happy they are with their company's adherence to J2EE spec's, as an example. But don't get the lofty idea that the programmers at Bill Central are nobly rising up to give an Open-Source pimp-slap to their .NET oppressors. If they were getting the juice, they'd be happy as clams.

And don't fault them for it: it's why they went to M$ to begin with. These are people who are not agonizing over the social and geek-topian ramifications of their work. They've made their peace with that. Now, we can (and will, dammit) harrangue them for being a part of said same awful machine, but that's who they is, folks.

This isn't about technology anymore than it is about macaroni and cheese. This is about moolah. As long as they can put in their 10 hours a day building flight simulation easter eggs into the latest version of FrontPage, they will tolerate the occasional Nazi-esque rally with Ballmer or the (less-occasional) ass-reaming they receive from their managers. It's just as the rewards for such easter egging have been diminishing, the risk for complaining about the coroporate ethos has dimished as well.

Let the flaming begin.

Re:well.....*DUH*

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean that America is going down aswell?

Looking at bush i would say:

Listen to the man for christ sake, hes completely insane!

Stop hittin yourself!

[Helios292]

I'm confused now.

Does this mean that if one side were to win, Microsofts threatens to have a monopoly over itself?

Microsoft success or faliure, so what?

[miffo.swe]

I have come to the conclusion that wether Microsoft survives or not doesnt bother me a piss. One part of me would most gladly see the Borg go down in agony. The other part looks at his nice linux desktop wich does everything he did in windows and much better and feels a state of nirvana. As long as i have my linux and no one tries to destroy it i couldnt give less sh*t about windows. We need to stop looking at what Microsoft is doing and do our own stuff.

They are hurt if linux makes a success, we shouldnt care less if Microsoft do. Lets focus at linux and let Microsoft play in their own little pond by themselves.

OSX on x86

[Anonymous Coward]

why doesn't apple give MS a little more competition on x86 by porting OSX to it? I mean it should not be too much work right, becuase the kernel is based on BSD, which already runs on x86?
-brett

Re:OSX on x86

[andy_geek]

Oh this should be fun....

Before you get bombarded with people telling you that this topic has been discussed ad nauseum, I will say that no matter what Apple/Linus do at this point, it's still M$'s game to lose.

Re:OSX on x86

[tada_mac]

oh they have, it is called Marklar. try to get them to release it in shrinkwrap though. wait for 1/7/2003

Bigger Picture

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux will beat Windows for the same reason that DOS beat the Mac. I am the person that people call for help with their computer. My parents, families, friends, my company, etc. all call me when something goes wrong. They recently have started calling me for help with WinXP, and I simply say, even to my own mother, "sorry, I can't help you since I have never used XP and I have no intentions to do so".

It has much less to do with technical merits, than the social issues behind the software as we move to network-centric computing. I have drawn a line in the sand, and the people around me will eventually follow, in the same way that they did to DOS away from Mac. The reason is that I, and people like me, are the ones that make computing possible. I have invested thousands of hours fixing computer problems and teaching people how to use them for free, simply because I wanted people to be able to communicate and use computers. I thank Microsoft and Bill Gates for helping us get to where we are, and I'm sorry to break the news to people, but their time is up. I don't expect them to bow down gracefullly, even though it would make things easier, but I have decided that Microsoft is no longer the best thing for me and my sphere of influence. It's not that it's that bad, it's more that there's something better. It's more open, more stable, more flexible, more secure, more powerful, and more expandable, both as a product and as an organization. Given how important computers have become to society and to the economy, GNU/Linux and even Java represent a better social contract and a better approach to computing. It's the best that society has to offer, and that's where I'm investing. I will not fix something or work on something that wastes my time, the most valuable commodity in the world.

These days, people trust and respect my opinion because I had the good judgement to recognize Linux and Open Source over ten years ago, and that forsight is coming to pass. Now, I tell them that Linux will win, no matter how long Microsoft delays the inevitable. The X factor that will weigh most heavily in the balance, is that Microsoft no longer has my help.

Re:Bigger Picture

[andy_geek]

You realize, Nostradamus, that at the current rate that Linux is chipping away at Microsoft, your predictions will come true...in roughly the year 2050. At which time, are you telling me Linux is still going to be the major player? I doubt even Linus would make that guess. The market is flooded with Windows boxes and we're in a recession. Think people are eager to switch to something else, even if its free? That means buying books, buying manuals, buying friends who know this stuff dinner.

The "war" such as it is has been lost, for a long time. Evolution is the only thing that's gonna stop M$, and it will. But if you're waiting for the giant Asteroid to wipe them off them map, good luck. Look at how long cockroaches have survived.

Re:Bigger Picture

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize, Nostradamus, that at the current rate that ...

You realize, Einstein, that virtually no such relations are linear functions, Right?

Re:Bigger Picture

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that there are people like me, who would much rather support Windows XP than a Linux box any day. And I would like to support Macs over Windows even more. I'm not going to spend the time teaching someone how to use Linux when they already know the same interface that has been around since good ol' 95. Not only that, but features are developed much more sensibly on a platform that designed by marketers and not software engineers.

Variety is the Spice of Software Communities

[Alethes]

I don't want any "mass unification" in Linux or any such garbage. I'm just saying that the Microsoft community having two opposing viewpoints within it doesn't mean anything more than Linux having several fragments. Variety is a Good Thing(TM).

People are jumping and down excited that Microsoft is going to somehow fall apart because of opposition within the camp, but Linux has been strengthened by that very characteristic. Will Microsoft be weakened by the very thing that makes software better? Of course not. Microsoft is not their own worst enemy anymore than the Linux/FS/OSS community is theirs. Come on people -- use a little consistency in your logic.

Wow, did everybody miss the point of that one?

Re:Variety is the Spice of Software Communities

[jedidiah]

There is a vast gulf between Microsoft "the community" and Microsoft "the company". Also, Microsoft is not the multi-headed beast that the Free Software community is. The Free Software community really can go in 100 directions at once. Microsoft probably can't. It's a more limited entity working with limited resources.

NT5 WILL be compromised to suit the consumer needs of XP. EASY will take precedence over secure or even "reasonably secure".

Microsoft is a consumer company trying to pretend at being an enterprise company. Whereas the Linux/Unix community can afford a more varied identity as there are more brand names to go around.

Re:Why the link to Eugenia and OSnews anyway??

[Anonymous Coward]

10.000.000 greeks hate eugenia for flaming on her own country!!! fellow ./ers,
welcome to the club of
eugenia-haters ...stupid bitch...sigh...

3 apples tall !!!

[ghjm]

I really want to know: Do you know where that reference comes from?

-Graham

Re:3 apples tall !!!

[Fulcrum of Evil]

That's smurf size

Re:Market Cap

[tomhudson]

Re: Market Cap: Microsoft doesn't pay dividends. Never has. It's a pure speculation play. If it were evaluated as an income-producing stock, it's market cap would be negative, because they are facing potential liabilites in Europe (read their financial statements) over anti-trust concerns that amount to several times their cash horde.

Besides, their market cap is a mooks game, as most investors found out this past year.

As another poster pointed out (below), MSFT didn't pay taxes last year, IBM did. Who has the "real" profits?

Microsoft hardware: Joysticks, mice, keyboards, home multimedia centers, pvrs, etc, a division that is losing money hand over fist.

The true value in any computer is not the hardware. IBM understands that with their zSeries Linux mainframe. They've done a real value-add there.

Re: IBM vs Microsoft

[tomhudson]

Actually, IBM has always generated more revenue than Microsoft. And when you get down to it, they're both software companies - even mainframes are useless without software. I've been winning this bet since at least the middle of 1996. Back then, IBM earned on Monday what Microsoft took the whole week to make. So we've seen how, while hardware has followed Moore's law, Microsoft products have been doing the opposite.

Actually, your experience is much more indicative of where everyone's going to be going over the next few years, ;-)

Have a happy new year!

Come along and share the software...sing it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Richard M. Stallman shuts his fucking pie hole -- one way or another, God forbid -- and Linux takes off like a scalded dog. Until then, forget about it.

Re:Come along and share the software...sing it!

[jedidiah]

Stallman's antics are strictly for the choir. If you think that potential WinDOS converts are going to base their choices on the antics of RMS, you need to get out a bit more. Stallman is invisible to most end users.

LINUX WILL NEVER WIN IN THE DESKTOP WAR...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless MASSIVE changes are made, look at the linux file system, etc, there are people who use a computer EVERY DAY, using windows, who have NO IDEA how to delete something off of the desktop, do you actually think they would be able to figure out where their program installed to in linux? no, under windows, theres "PROGRAM FILES", hmm, its somewhat logical that it would go there, and they can probabbly figure that since they're using "windows", the "windows" folder is probably where "windows" keeps its files.

Re:LINUX WILL NEVER WIN IN THE DESKTOP WAR...

[andy_geek]

No no no! There is no UNLESS. There is just NO, it won't win. I know this sucks to admit. Listen, I'm a Mac person: I'm well acquainted with the bitter taste of having a 3rd-rate, bug-ridden piece of bloatware being a standard. But move past it.

Let me tell you, Bill Gates is SO beyond thinking about the desktop. It's the advantage of having oodles of cash, you see, but he's already targeting emerging markets (tablets, wireless, etc).

The battle, she is over. And it wasn't even much of a fight. And if the tech community stays mired in the "we're better, how come they won't notice that?" conversation, M$ will run right past us all and own the next big thing.

Stop trying to re-do what Microsoft has already undone. Think of what else is out there to do, change the whole paradim, not the perception.

Re:LINUX WILL NEVER WIN IN THE DESKTOP WAR...

[miffo.swe]

Linux can very well win the desktop. Not diretly but if it makes even limited success in creating open standards it will open up the OS market for other players. Imagine what would happen if all applications was written in platform independant form? Applications and the barrier to entry is the single and only thing that is holding other OS from competing with MS Windows. Open standards steaming from linux could change that.

Why do you think MS was so afraid of JAVA?

Re:LINUX WILL NEVER WIN IN THE DESKTOP WAR...

[andy_geek]

I am a Java developer and would love nothing more, but luckily my fantasies are much more attainable: like sleeping with Jenny McCarthy or learning to read minds.

If you're betting on Java to replace the desktop, I will take that bet any day of the week: I like those odds.

If, however, you're looking to the Java community to create the next killer app, redefine personal computing, etc, that could happen.

Just set your goals, skippy.

Re:LINUX WILL NEVER WIN IN THE DESKTOP WAR...

[miffo.swe]

I was merely using Java as an example of a cross platform technology. There are numerous others that could emerge. The only company afraid of this is Microsoft. The applications barrier is thanks to linux and open source quickly eroding. If you make a new OS today that will compete against MS Windows it is highly beneficial to make it able to compile linux applications. Having the source code is a step towards x-platform. Now if the source was written with platform independance in mind, then open source would completely wipe out the barrier to entry,

What is the most common complaint against new OS?

Yep, can it run application x?

Re:LINUX WILL NEVER WIN IN THE DESKTOP WAR...

[korgull]

I don't agree to that.
In case these users don't know how to deal with Windows they can instead also use Linux without knowing every detail.
I mean clicking on a browser icon and browse the net is the same thing. Also using email is as easy as in windows. Even using openoffice shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Why do you think these users need to know everything about the Linux if they don't know that from windows ?

We are committed to shareholder value

[Anonymous Coward]

Who remembers Apple's Spindler saying that?

When I see:
Microsoft knows that their existing customers have large investments in their Microsoft software. Replacing this software would be very difficult, and so Microsoft is making these customers pay the price of their misplaced loyalty.
I think back to Apple of the eartly 1990's. Look at how well such a model worked for Apple.

Did anyone mirror this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did anyone mirror this before it got slashdotted?

Re:Server slashdotted ... here's the article

[Anonymous Coward]

The server is really slashdotted, thanks.

Bribe vs. settlement

[coyote-san]

If the money goes to the official(s) approving the deal, it's a bribe and criminal. If it goes towards other programs or the general fund, it's a settlement and legal.

Of course reality is far more complex than that. Some officials may use the money to fund pet projects that they can't fund through regular channels. But that's a matter for the state (either the elected officials overseeing these people, or the voters themselves) to address.

Not exactly true

[autopr0n]

No, people arn't going modify the kernel or download kernal mods of the 'net, but what they can do is choose between lots of diffrent distros, with diffrent options and software installed.

Communism == EVIL

[jmorris42]

Yes, communism is Evil. Everywhere it has been tried it has ended in millions of bodies in unmarked graves. Everywhere. Don't even start that crap about some wicked people getting in control and screwing up a good idea. It has to be that way, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Communism is based on the idea that one absolute dictator will decide what is best for everyone (the Seven Year Plan) and everyone else will selflessly put out a 100% effort to achieve the goal. When the reality that people won't put out much effort with no hope of a reward, the 'malcontents' start get shipped off to the deathcamps.

If the maximum leader actually responds to the wishes of the lead, he isn't a maximum leader anymore and the government drifts away from communism because 'the people' never actually want communism. They might SAY they want some of the trappings of it, but offer them the whole package and as soon as they figure out how badly they get screwed along with 'the evil rich' they want nothing to do with it. Then it's either popular rule or rule from the muzzle of a gun. Popular rule means slide towards a European style Welfare State Socialism with a stagnant economy or keep going towards a full Free Market. The other option is for starry eyed communism to turn into Stalinism, which is historically the more popular choice since those in power never want to give it up without a fight. After all, they have convinced themselves they are the most wise and enlightened leaders in the land and are most fit to rule.

Re:Communism == EVIL

[Chris Johnson]

How old are you? :D

The trouble with communism is that man oppresses his fellow man. With capitalism it is the reverse ;)

You seem to have communism confused with fascism. An understandable mistake, considering that our own leaders have a hard time telling the difference between capitalism and fascism! Still, you might consider being more quiet about things that you only have a 'Schoolhouse Rock' understanding of.

And don't look at me that way- I'm an anarchist, meaning that I don't trust you, Stalin, the assembled CEOs of the (ha!) 'free market', or even myself if you gave me that kind of power. You're all conning yourselves into thinking you have the magic bullet, 'do things this way and you'll never have to come to agreements with people you don't like because everything will happen perfectly thereafter'. Yeah right! Your 'free market' is just as corrupt as the worst Stalinist excesses, if you give it the same amount of power. And you're busy convincing yourself that you're the wise and enlightened one and you (or at least the policies you suggest) are most fit to rule.

Your view of democratic capitalism is based on the idea that crime does not pay :) too late!

You can still say communism is evil, though. As long as you concede that capitalism is equally evil :)

Re:Communism == EVIL

[GauteL]

As opposed to the millions of graves capitalism has created. Possibly not in the US, but in all the countries that Western Capitalist countries exploit for profit.

Besides. "Kill counts" are almost always exaggerated when presented from a "communist country" as part of common propaganda. When Ceucescu was overthrown in Rumania he was presented as a communist dictator, when in fact he was largely supported by the west, and was much more of a facist than a communist. The kill numbers where presented in the scale of 50.000 when in fact they were less than 1000.

At the same time USA attacked Panama in a "clean, precision attack to take down an evil communist dictator", when in fact he came to power supported by the US, and the kill numbers (civilians) where actually larger than in the revolt in Rumenia.

I would not trust for instance CNN, NBC or CBS to give you an objective view on communism.

Red Khmer in Cambodia was supported by the west until he got troublesome.

Communism in it's basic idea is "provide what you can, and receive what you need" and the idea that the people shall own the means of production.

I'm not saying that it has been a raging success so far, although Cuba seems to work pretty well right now, apart from the ridiculous ban by their biggest potential market (USA). The implementation of Communism has so far been flawed. Their are lots of elements to change in the idea, but it has not at all been proven that the basic idea is evil. Perhaps it is not a good idea to give too much power to a leader, that can be changed.

The notion that "capitalism works" is equally ridiculous. It might work for you, but there are huge masses of people being hurt by capitalism every day.

I'm just "nearly" a communist, and I think there is a better way than capitalism. If you disagree, that is fine, but the whole "communism is evil" mantra of Western Capitalism is basically flawed and makes arguments useless.

Re:Communism == EVIL

[jmorris42]

> How old are you? :D

I only got to vote for Reagan's re-election. Do the math. ;)

> You seem to have communism confused with fascism.

That is because while they differ somewhat in theory, in implementation they look pretty much the same. One maximum leader deciding what the correct allocation of resources is and when someone objects, shooting them or putting them in camps.

> And don't look at me that way- I'm an anarchist, meaning that
> I don't trust you, Stalin, the assembled CEOs of the (ha!)
> 'free market', or even myself if you gave me that kind of power.

You won't see me defending the mercantilism passing itself off as Capitalism these days, but I'll defend Capitalism to the end. Because it is the only system devised so far that doesn't depend on giving one maximum leader (or cabal of Congresscritters) so much power that it must corrupt. When the invisible hand of the marketplace allocates resources it is through mutually consentual transactions instead of a government decree enforced at the end of a gun.

Oh, and don't rag on Schoolhouse Rock. It does a better job of teaching civics than what goes on in actual schoolhouses these days. It pretty accurately covers the material that the elementary school set should be required to know and does it in a way that the intended audience remembers it. In reality, most high school grads can't even name the three branches of our government. Sad.

Re: Writer should get his facts straight

[akuma(x86)]

Gross profit does not include operating expenses and is not what wall street uses to assign value to a business. Net income is the metric of choice.

Actual IBM earnings last quarter were:
$1,313,000,000 (source: yahoo finance)

Compare to Microsoft:
$2,726,000,000 (source: yahoo finance)

I guess that's why the market capitalization of Microsoft stock is more than 2x that of IBM. This ratio happens to be very well correlated to the earnings ratio. At the end of the day, earnings is all that matters when assigning value to a company and that is why most people claim that Microsoft is the largest software company.

What?

[autopr0n]

Um, I don't think you can have a negative market cap. IIRC, the market cap is just the number of stocks times the stock value. In order for M$ to have a negative market cap, they would need to have negative-valued stocks.

rating at 50%, most admired by 28%

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the latest TIME/CNN poll showing Bush's approval rating right at 50%.
http://www.bartcopnation.com/dcforum/User_fi les/3e 0d6854455ee8e0.jpg

He is most admired by 28% according to the
poll you cited. The president is the most
famous person in the US and can easily get a
plurality.

Same Situation As Usual...

[Master of Transhuman]

The article is /.'ed and I can't read it.

And there are 267 comments arguing about America and the antitrust trial and the GPL, etc. ad nauseum... ...

And I can't even find the place to change my sig...

And when Slashdot loaded originally, the scroll bars were missing...

Can't ANYBODY in IT do something right?

Re:Market Cap

[akuma(x86)]

Microsoft is an extremely powerful company, but not powerful enough to avoid paying taxes. Microsoft paid hefty taxes last year.

I refer you to the following evidence on yahoo finance.

Here are numbers from last quarter:

Income Before Tax $4,069,000,000
Income Tax Expense $1,343,000,000

Re: Writer should get his facts straight

[tomhudson]

Who has more sales? IBM. That makes them number 1 by any rational standard. As for market capitalization, the day that Microsoft pays dividends, we'll see it evaluated like any other company. In other words, rationally.

Linux's worst enemy?

[juan2074]

Uh, FreeBSD?

Re: Writer should get his facts straight

[akuma(x86)]

If you want to use sales as a metric to measure size, that's fine.

I'm just pointing out that most wall street types use net income (aka - earnings) to measure the worth of a company. Net income is extremely well correlated to market cap. Therefore, most people on wall street use the earnings/market-cap metric to value the business.

Re: Writer should get his facts straight

[tomhudson]

The writer said that IBM was a has-been. They're actually number 1 in terms of sales.

Also, net income can fluctuate based on differences in accounting principles (Enron, etc), whereas sales, unless fraudulently booked to different quarters, really says just how much money passes through your hands.

After all, a company that breaks even on a bllion of sales is certainly bigger, and a more important player in their field (as measured by customers who vote with their wallets) than a competitor that makes a thousand-dollar profit on annual sales of two grand.

Microsoft "Engineer"

[AndroidCat]

Aren't there a lot of places where only a P.Eng can legally call themselves an engineer? (Memebership in the local professional engineering society, worked under another P.Eng for n months, a degree.) Frequently my job title has been "software engineer", but I'm never very happy about that. And someone with a CrackerJack prize certification calling themselves an "engineer" makes me even less happy.

Emm-Aye-Cee-Are-Oh-Ess-Oh-Eff-Tee...

("CrackerJacker" would be a nice subtitution for hacker if we could get the press to adopt it. Not likely.)

mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

can someone post a mirror to this article since www.sudhian.com appears to be down and there is no google cache yet.

Re:M$ Marketers are no better than used car salesm

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with this is that engineers, left to their own devices, would create pretty toys that did not necessarily meet user needs.

That is why you have marketeers.

Stossel the Liar

[burgburgburg]

John Stossel reported on 20/20 that tests commissioned by ABC News indicated organic produce was more likely than conventional produce to be contaminated by E. coli bacteria. Stossel also said, "Our tests surprisingly found no pesticide residue on the conventional samples [of produce] or the organic" -- thereby contradicting one of organic food's primary selling points.

The report was aired twice before Stossel was forced to retract the statements which were patently false because the group that supposedly did the tests kept complaining that the tests described had never been done.

The first actual study of the issue was completed in May and showed that organically grown produce contained a third as many pesticide residues as conventionally grown foods.

Stossel knew there was no study to support his ridiculous claims, but it meshed with his political beliefs and he didn't think anyone would call him on it.

More details about the real study are here. More about Stossel's junk science can be found here.

shut up, please

[Anonymous Coward]

damn people, shut the f*** up. now they are going to read this at M$, and evade all their problems!!

Microsoft's Worst Enemy:

[Kizzle]

Deez nuts

Microsoft's Greatest Enemy:

[Anonymous Coward]

You know you want to click it!

ALL CAPS TITLES WILL I SUPPOSE?

[theolein]

Fear that no one's listening to you?

IE != XBox

[SerpentMage]

They gave away IE and used the OS to subsidize the costs of IE development.

In XBox this is not entirely possible since there are actual costs. If you skip on the hardware costs then the games are more expensive. If you make the hardware more expensive then the games could be cheaper.

The problem that I see in the XBox market is that it has turned mature and I would even think that it will begin to collapse again.

I read how certain toy chains are starting to stop carrying the games because the games are for 16+ year old only. Now before one says, oh this is different because there is more penetration, please remember Atari and others who had console games as well. And likewise once people got over the initial hype it died off.

The problem with gaming these days is that it has become dull. Online gaming is a new and interesting twist, but that will carry the games only so far. Who knows what that will be....

GNOME is by no means a copy of Win98

[CmdrTHAC0]

I think you're trolling, but I'll offer up a pair of quick counterexamples.

1. Windows does not lock the CD-ROM tray. If you press the Eject button, you will get your CD back, no questions asked. GNOME certainly does not. There's no way for a Unixy OS to tell a program "You have to chdir() off that CD."
2. It's quite easy to change Sawfish keybindings. But what if I don't want Win+D to do Minimize All on Windows?

Re:GNOME is by no means a copy of Win98

[BigBir3d]

*SIGH*

Emulate does not mean to blatantly copy everything.

My point was that Windows 98 is the accepted standard interface for the personal computer as of right now. Sure, win2k and winxp are newer and function differently, but the look is more or less the same (depending on your settings...xp...)

KDE and Gnome look like win98. That doesn't mean that everything operates the same as win98...

You could make the argument that OS X emulates all of them combined... just not as rigorously in the style department, but more in the functionality department (GUI with 'windows', a CLI etc etc).

Re:GNOME is by no means a copy of Win98

[CmdrTHAC0]

You didn't say emulate. And as far as that goes, GNOME does not emulate Win98, either. Look at a default GNOME desktop sometime. It has a Mac-like menu bar, detachable menus, and a shade button on every window where the close button would be. And good luck trying to change your keyboard layout in the Control Center.

"Don't shoot! We're a loser country!"

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking out from America, the allies and enemies are starting to look a lot alike. Everyone is convinced that with enough carrot (what's the password this week, "partnership," right?) and enough stick (calling us names, the cold shoulder, the occasional bomb) America will eventually say, "Aw to hell with it. It's all our fault. We're sorry for being such terrible people. We're going to stand down our military and security forces and wait patiently for you guys to tell us what to do."

It just isn't going to happen. Ever. We'd drop The Bomb first. Fortunately it probably won't come to that.

Re:Market Cap

[NullProg]

Microsoft is an extremely powerful company, but not powerful enough to avoid paying taxes. Microsoft paid hefty taxes last year.

Maybe. But if you look here:
http://www.ctj.org/html/corp0402.htm

You will see,

Microsoft enjoyed more than $12 billion in total tax breaks over the past five years. In fact, Microsoft actually paid no tax at all in 1999, despite $12.3 billion in reported U.S. profits. Microsoft's tax rate for the past two years was only 1.8 percent on $21.9 billion in pretax U.S. profits.


Enjoy,

Re:"Don't shoot! We're a loser country!"

[Anonymous Coward]

You're more or less making the same point I was making. NZ's voice would be ignored by the higher-ups in the US who perpetrate their atrocities abroad.

I don't type all this thinking it's going to somehow change US policy, I type all this to point out why it makes no sense to target NZ for terrorism. Some people point to the America's Cup (a fucking BOAT RACE) as a prime target for terrorism. This is mindlessness at it's most basic.

I don't blame the US population in general for the actions of the megalomaniacs in charge. It seems quite clear to me most of the thinkers in your country don't want to go to war with Iraq, for example.

I live for the day the Usonians revolt and the government over there makes a short 100-year-or-so return to the sort of thinking it used to display as a new, free country.

"its themselves"?

[Anonymous Coward]

The one time the apostrophe is SUPPOSED to be there, and it's left out. Nice.

Apple ][ forever, baby !

[UnknownSoldier]

Although that Mac OS X is starting to look pretty sweet ...

Hello old "friend"...

[_Donut_Troll]

To "friendly_fire" posting as AC:

Dude, even the people who thought they might have wanted to agree with you rolled their eyes at your posts in the MS/Antitirust Forums at the New York Times.

Fans of James Joyce might groove to it, but most people just dismiss you as a troll, even when you're right. Why don't you register an account, use normal English, and quit linking to trustworthycomputing.com (which merely redirects to here) in every single post? You've been doing this at NYT for... close to 2 years now? Maybe it still seems entertaining and novel to do, but to the rest of it, your joke was is well past being stale. You may now proceed to grow up a little, please.

BTW, a traceroute on that domain winds up here. Fnord.

Re:Market Cap

[akuma(x86)]

As a shareholder in MSFT, I strongly disagree. They have paid lots of taxes over the years, well over the claimed 1.8% tax rate. I wish they didn't pay taxes, my stock would be worth more :)

Here are a couple of sources:

Yahoo annual data - this is taken from the government SEC filings

Microsoft data - this is just a check against the previous numbers - they are the same

Send on the clowns

[Anonymous Coward]

Skim the replies to this article and you'll see a very strong subtext of wishful thinking, e.g. "Gee, Linux couldn't compete with Windows on the desktop, so luckily all we had to do was sit by and let MS self-destruct."

Sorry, but it just won't work that way. MS has shown over and over again that they're too smart and too ruthless not to recover from any self-inflicted wound. The only way to defeat MS is to do the hard work needed to make Linux a genuine threat to Windows on the desktop. Anything less than that is just a waste of time.

Lose Your Geeks and You're Dead

[serutan]

The article focuses on the impact on customers, but I think the most serious effects of the tech-vs-business strain within Microsoft will be on the company itself. As the company is controlled more and more by lawyers and financial people rather than technical people, it is becoming less and less a geek-friendly place. Many valued techies who used to feel a real passion for working at Microsoft are probably already saying Screw It and walking away. And that's the poison pill that will kill Microsoft.

Re:Market Cap

[NullProg]

You have to stop getting your information from Microsoft. :) Try this article on for size:

http://www.billparish.com/20000418microsoftnotax .h tml

A partial rebuttal to the above link is here:

http://www.awitness.org/journal/microsoft_stock_ op tions.html

Enjoy,

May be a little more complicated

[einhverfr]

First, I disagree that Microsoft's biggest enemy is themselves. I think Microsoft's biggest enemy is Moor's Law, and computer power is outpacing people's general needs. This means that computer lifecycles are increasing, and Windows market size hence is likely to decrease. I think there are people in the sr. management who understand this, and I think there are many who don't. But the attempts to move into emerging embedded markets has been severely hampered by Linux and so you have a lot of people trying to figure out what to do.

Enter Microsoft's Enemy #2-- .NET Development Environment and Framework (i.e. Microsoft). Here is where I think the culture split occurs. Many people at Microsoft see the major competitive threats to be Java and Linux because on some abstract level they reduce Windows' market share. The problem is you end up with two cultures-- one who wants to beat Linux by all means necessary and the other that wants to beat Java by all means necessary.

These are mutually exclusive goals. The anti-Java camp wants to see the .NET framework be a Java killer and knows that it can only do that if Mono, Portable.NET etc. succeed. So they vocally support all third-party attempts at interoperability, etc. Blinded by their attempt to kill Java and hence dominate the intermediary language world with technologies that Microsoft initially developed (but would likely no longer control) they don't see that this would bring to Linux/FreeBSD/[favorite os] all the RAD tools that Windows now has. Hence the OS market is commoditized, and Windows falls to Linux ;)

The other camp is the one currently pressing for subscription licensing of Windows, Office, etc. They believe in the market power (i.e. monopoly) of Microsoft and believe that few people can turn to competing products successfully. Most fo them don't understand the .NET framework idea well enough to realize what it might do, but they try to reinvent Windows adding many truly advanced features (like 3d UI, RDBMS-based file-system, etc) that no one really needs and eat upway too much performance...

The real problem is that Bill has not tried to reconcile these camps, and this is a serius problem, but the root cause is from external economic factors.

It's not the products, it's the customer abuse.

[zerofoo]

I've dealt with Microsoft products for a very long time. Dos, Windows 3.1, NT....etc. have served my clients well for a very long time. Later I became a network admin for a school and again, MS products fit the bill very well.

Recently Microsoft has not been happy with billions of dollars in profits (none paid to stockholders as a dividend). And started licensing schemes to ensure continual "subscription" revenue. Consider that their server software (costing thousands of dollars) does not come with ANY support at all; this adds insult to injury. (Server support is a pay-per-incident model.)

These greed driven licensing pracitces are the last straw. Microsoft must realize that treating its customers like dirt will only ensure that the customers look at other offerings. I am currently evaluating OS X and linux as eventual replacements for the total MS environment we now live in.

MS better start treating it's customers nicely if it wants to keep them. They aren't the only game in town any more.

-ted

Marketing paranoia

[theolein]

Microsoft's real secret to success will be their downfall: Microsoft's so-called embrace and extend is not the real secret to their success. The strategy of complete and utter marketing paranoia in which Microsoft will attempt to kill any competitor in any market, no matter how small, to avoid the remote possibility of the competitor ever being a threat to Microsoft. This doesn't apply to Mac OSX because MS has needed them as a token competitor in the past. MS has lost any trust they ever had amongst independant developers because of this.

Know your history

[mabu]

First off, all this talk about "Microsoft Technology" is a farce. From the very beginning when Bill Gates weaseled his earliest software licenses from real coders, Microsoft was more a marketing machine than a development company. It amuses me that anyone ever thought of them differently. The company's modus operandi hasn't changed one bit since day one: take other peoples' technology and leverage it for your own gain and garner as much control over the environment as possible.

The saddest part of all this is the new generation of "programmers" who don't really seem to understand that stability and performance have NEVER been platform or hardware dependent. The new breed of developers as well as users has been conditioned to accept failure and mediocre performance as the status quo. Microsoft, Oracle, and other companies have shifted their business model to exploit the instability of their own products to create entirely new (support) industries from which to profit. It's like they're selling you tainted food and offering health insurance at the same time.

With few exceptions, Microsoft puts out crap. They don't even spray it with perfume any more.. The computing public has learned to enjoy the taste of crap, and they'll serve you a bigger pile of crap each season and you'll love it. What else are you going to do?

I would really like to see OSS take over, and I do my part, but I see an increasingly lazy, uneducated and unmotivated public that is becoming more and more difficult to reason with. I am at a loss how to knock some sense into the public without an ad budget of less than many millions of dollars. Welcome to the new millennium. It looks like it will have to get much worse before it gets better.

Re:Know your history

[mabu]

Let me correct that... of course stability and performance are platform-dependent when your OS is a piece of crap. But what I mean is that rarely are computer problems hardware-based. Almost 100% of problems are software-related and avoidable. Microsoft's competition for both platform and desktop dominance has created an environment where due to the proprietary nature of their OS, along with their superior ability to "whore" themselves out in markets to destroy other companies, have completely eradicated most capable competitors.

The Greatest Gamble

[m1a1]

This is a little offtopic, but it is at the bottom, so nobody will read it anyways.

I look at the tech industry, that I am preparing to enter, and I see my life ahead of me as a great gamble. I have to pick what platform to develop for, who to develop for, and where to develop at. All of these choices will seriously affect my life, my earning value, and the future of my family. This is scary! Five years ago, I was still in high school. If someone asked me then what platform I would develop on I would say, "The newest Win32 of course!" In a perfect world I would have wanted to work for my MS. Now though, there is no guarantee. I honestly believe linux is the future of computing, but I have no idea what business model is best to use with it! OSS is new territory in the business world. The GPL is a big question mark! I am pretty damn good at poker, but I don't enjoy the prospect of gambling with my life. Oh well, here it comes.

Looking at what they do, not what they say...

[Kjella]

The EULA could say "all your base are belongs to us" and noone would care. Nobody will start bothering until Microsoft actually uses the power granted by those EULAs, like automatic forced updates, or prevent you from playing certain songs/movies, or something.

As for linux being easy to learn, I just had to explain to my boss why the photo scanned on one machine couldn't magically appear on his machine along with the digital photos from his digital camera. "You have to store it on the network, and then get it from your own machine" (no direct sharing, goes through server). Try explaining him Linux and well, lol....

Kjella

Agreed.

[Moderation abuser]

IBM boxes == rock solid.

And I can't emphasise strongly enough how important that stability is. I can get actual work done instead of fighting fires.

e.g. average AIX box:
#> uptime
10:15AM up 368 days, 42 mins, 2 users, load average: 0.17, 0.12, 0.12

Everyone's on holiday at the moment, so all the systems are idle.

Our Linux boxes are quite good but the AIX boxes still beat them easily in terms of stability and flexibility and it's not as if IBM's Unix systems are their most stable platforms. Windows is comparatively shite.

We could argue all day about the relative merits of the various operating systems and hardware platforms, but I would have no qualms about spending a bit more cash up front and spec'ing an IBM box for an application.

The Real Problems...

[Anonymous Coward]

1. 80+% of Windows developers suck! They couldn't code their way out of a paper bag! Sure you can blame the MFC/API's. I blame the tools, specifically VB! The most popular development language is still VB. VB is absolute garbage. It's too easy to write bad code. There are far too many untrained developers turning out bad code under Windows. However, it's a large group of developers and there are hundreds of thousands of VB applications that will only run on Windows. VB is really easy for just about anyone who'd interested in writing code to use it. This makes for far too many 1D10T's writing crap code!
2. Visual Studio and .NET is an attempt to attract better developers and get them off Java. One can code in the language of choice, it doesn't have to be C#. Rumors are flying of Microsoft buying Borland or Macromedia, etc. If Borland goes down it will leave MS as the only source of decent development tools on the platform.
3. Developers, Developers, Developers... It's the MS matra. Well we are the real true Geek developers and SysAdmins who know what they are doing. Unfortunately, we don't seem to truly matter when any moron MCSE and any idiot with a 5th grade education can code in VB!
4. Real programmers use C/C++/ObjC/Java/Python/Ruby/Perl. But we don't have a really good development platform. Actually we have the best development platform but no one knows it. We need to come up with a way to bring our tools to the Novice developers and make it just as easy as VB to code in. However we need to also enforce good practices in code.
5. Apples developer tools are mind blowing. The OpenStep/NeXTStep API is awesome! If you know C, you can learn the ObjC extensions in a couple of days. The part that takes an effort is understanding the NS API and how to use it effectively. Java can also be used with the NS API and if you add WebObjects, it gets even better. We should start throwing resources into the GNUStep project. It's a clone of NeXTStep and is rather close to Apples Cocoa API. These guys have the most potential to suceed, it's just the project moves very slow because they don't have enough developers working on it. NeXTStep is where the idea of RAD design actually came from. It was the first Object based development system that actually worked. So much so that Microsoft and Borland copied the graphical RAD design, but they still didn't really get it. NeXTStep/OpenStep is so far ahead of the competition, it's not funny. The tools are far superior to anything else out there. Wonder what Apples plans for Marklar are? Marklar is an x86 port of Mac OS X. OpenStep ran on x86 and many other platforms as well. A Solaris, Linux, and Windows port of either Mac OS X or say just the OpenStep API would allow for a very powerful cross platform development suite. NeXT was doing just this before Apple bought them out. The OpenStep API was published and that's where GNUStep is going. They've basically done OpenStep now they are catching up to Apples Cocoa which is really OpenStep with a new name.

I run Solaris, Linux, and Mac OS X. My primary system is an Apple PowerBook because I can use it across all platforms and systems. I connect to the Solaris X-Windows systems at home and work. I run many Linux/FreeBSD applications under Mac OS X. I run Perl and Python on Mac OS X. I've got emacs and Vim working perfectly. Latest version of Apples free developer tools allow me to change the default editor and it works with Vim and Emacs. I connect to Windows systems when I have to. I run MS Office X which is used because I have no choice with workers sending me MS Office documents. I love the hardware/OS integration. Power management actually works! Close the lid of the PowerBook and it goes instantly to sleep, lift the lid and it instantly wakes. I've got an 11 day uptime only because of the latest 10.2.3 update that forced a reboot. I've run this laptop for months between updates without needing to ever reboot it. It's no wonder much of the Unix world is buying Apple laptops and once they're hooked, they are buying iMac's for other family members. We still run Linux and the commercial UNIX systems on the serverside. But our workstations are going Mac. I don't see Sun being replaced by Apple anytime soon. Even if they do go Marklar and port Mac OS X Server to run on x86 blades. Sun still outscales x86 in every way shape and form. It just costs way too much. Depends on what you need/want. Need really big reliable hardware that can scale to huge proportions, then you need Sun. The low and middle midrange Unix market is already won by Linux. The highend is still Sun/HP.

Should make for a really interesting new year!

Pot, meet kettle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, what? According to the Yahoo Financial web page, for the quarter ending September 30, 2002, IBM had gross profit of $8,094,000,000 on total revenue of $20,592,000,000.

Of course, IBM also pays a dividend (not much, indicated dividend of $0.60 according to their web page, but more than Microsoft, who pays, um, ZERO).

Wrong infrastructure

[TheConfusedOne]

The infrastructure that MS has is the OEM's and the Corporate IT heads.

It doesn't matter how many people you have pushing your product by word of mouth. If it doesn't appear "auto-magically" on that new PC that John Q. Public gets from CompUSA/Best Buy/Circuit City/etc. then your chances of making any significant inroads versus MS are essentially zero.

The next best thing we can do is have "convert a newbie" day and everyone rebuild a friend's PC with Linux or other non-MS OS of choice. You will of course have to commit to coming back multiple times when they buy their new camera, printer, scanner, etc. Also, you'll need to make the system dual boot if they're a serious gamer.

MS may have made huge mistakes and continue to "squander opportunities", but as long as people like Michael Dell live in Bill Gates' back pocket then there's not a whole heck of a lot that can be done.

Windows RG kills Clippy

[grrliegeek]

WindowsRG
Experience the fun of killing Clippy in Word.

How to put this to use?

[Wordman]

The real question is: how can we the consumers use this rift to hasten Microsoft's fall? Can we divide into groups and shout for certain products or features for the sole purpose of making the arguments between the two sides louder?

Days to come... :-) Re:Absolutely Correct

[lent]

The way it's going we may see:

Microsoft has now decided that having customers pick up the telephone and call Microsoft to re-enable Windows or Office XP after a configuration
change still has not solved the software piracy problem.

Microsoft has decided to drop phone support and in an exciting joint venture with the United States Postal Service, customers having these problems can simply travel down to their local post office to have a new password issued. :-)

OT:SLASH Journal

[red5]

Hey GG Your Journal is rather interesting it's to bad comments aren't enabled.

Last Post!

[alpg]

Convention organizer to Linus Torvalds: "You might like to come with us
to some licensed[1] place, and have some pizza."

Linus: "Oh, I did not know that you needed a license to eat pizza".

[1] Licenced - refers in Australia to a restaurant which has government
licence to sell liquor.
-- Linus at a talk at the Melbourne University

- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...