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Microsoft vs. Burst.com
rocketjam writes "Robert X. Cringley has an interesting story on one of Microsoft's many little-known legal cases. Burst.com is suing Microsoft, claiming MS negotiated in bad faith for over a year before stealing Burst's patented technology for increasing the efficiency of video and audio streaming. After Microsoft submitted all emails associated with the their dealings with Burst to the court, Burst's lawyers discovered a 35-week gap of missing mail during a critical portion of the negotiations. When the judge learned the Sun vs. Microsoft antitrust case had revealed that MS keeps backups of all emails on over 100,000 tapes stored offsite, he ordered them to come up with the missing messages."
BURST POST!
if burst.com has a legitimate claim, they should kick the shit out of microsoft. i mean its one thing to have people use a shitty os, but stealing, now that is just plain mean. the only way to kill the giant is to get it when it's hurting.
For The Best Jazz/Hip-hop fusion > COlD DUCK
Cringley mentions that Burst's technology runs under Linux and Solaris. He alleges that one of Microsoft's motives might have been a paranoid desire to reduce closs-platform competetion. It will be very interesting to see if this allegation is proven in court.
Wow...Microsoft undertaking anti-competitive behavior and holding evidence from a court of law? I don't believe it.
Err...wait...that's the only thing they seem to be doing lately, aside from helping the feds bust 18 year olds for writing worms.
A lawsuit against Microsoft. Geeze, I hope the company I work for issues a decree to install no more Microsoft products until this is worked out in court.
Oh, sorry, thats just for the SCO crap.
That totally boggles the mind that companies/individuals still think that they can play the "electronic ignorance" game with the court and legal computer experts. It seems as if the time of being able to pull the wool over the courts eyes due to the lack of knowledge of technology is slowing coming to an end.
What's even more amazing, in this case, is that it is Microsoft playing "oops, backups? whats that?"
The lawyers printed out all the message (140 boxes) then sorted them by hand it seems to find the missing dates. Maybe they should have used a computer.
...is that they happen again and again. It's cheaper for MS to just pay small companies "small" settlements of $20-50 million.
That's chump change to MS but lots of money to most smaller companies -- so MS just buys it's way out of these lawsuits until the cows come home.
Unfortunately, something like this isn't enough to really nail MS and make them change permanently. I almost yawn when I hear about it right now -- it's somewhat depressing that a strategy like this can work, but it makes great numbers sense.
Due to my own involvement in these kinds of things I'm posting anonymously, which sucks...
Now taking bets on Microsoft's off site back up location mysteriously having lost/erased those tapes.
As much as Microsoft is likely wrong in this situation.... it shows more of the woes of software patents. It's too late for us in the US, but for those of you in Europe.... write your... uhhh, Europie Congressperson....
If software patents were legal at the turn of the century, Ford would be the only car company in the world.
So the question is, will future companies still decide to deal and partner with MS, or will this case impact their business alignment reputation more than any other? MS will still dangle a ton of money in front of any company, at which point will those littler guys convienently forget the behemoth's negotiation techniques?
Was M$ disputing the e-mails produced (I ASSume) by Burst? If so, that would make them dumber than usual in the courtroom.
Loading...
somehow, some AG has to start treating microsofts behavior as a criminal matter. holding managers and executives personally responsible is the only way their culture will change.
i haven't figured out why lying, then getting caught, to a judge hasn't had greater effect on microsoft. i told the judge that i couldn't have been doing 60 in that school zone my car doesn't go that fast. when the officer that pulled me over proved i was lying i got an even bigger fine. oh well. thats what i get for trying to pick up enough speed to make it up the next hill.
The reason for this mass erasure, it was explained, is that Burst technology was unimpressive and not of interest to Microsoft, and the e-mails were simply not worth keeping. The probability that they all deleted their emails for the exact same period is of approximately the same order as the probability that there actually is Linux code stolen from SCO.
"And this is my boy, Sherman. Speak, Sherman." "Hello." "Good boy."
Seattle Firefighters will tomorrow be engaged in a struggle to supress a fire after a large explosion at a data center used by Microsoft to store their offsite backups. I cant understand it the Fire Chief will state, the building seems to have flooded with acid and the 2 tons of explosives which were being stored there for some reason exploded, very unusual.
A spokesman for Microsoft will say "its unfortunate" without a hint of irony.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Did microsoft already integrate some of this stolen Burst tech into WMP streaming server software? Or even the codec itself? I'm scared.
Many Thanks,
Luke
This is just business as usual for MS. They have a long history of such activity. When it gets to court sometimes they lose, but frequently enough they are able to bankrupt the complaining company before "the wheels of justice" get around to turning. Frequently enough that they still consider it good practice even after losing a few cases. (The punishments were trivial, so why stop?)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
It's funny that Microsoft does not learn from history. But how do you change 20+ years of anticompetitive methods and shady business practices? This wouldn't happen if Microsoft had been split up. Hopefully all that is just and humaine will prevail.
JasonBlogs
Don't let that little company with its claims of intellectual property slow you down! MS Uber alles! /me takes off rant hat, puts on anti-MS hat
Wait a sec...
Go Burst!
Am I the only one who thinks there should be real penalties for this kind of behavior? I mean, I understand you are supposed to try to win a case and everything, but failing to produce evidence on demand from a court should be punished, especially when the culprit has a history of presenting false and misleading information in court, and encouraging its legal agents to lie under oath. Why the fuck is it that we don't hold Big Faceless Corporations to the same standards of culpability as we hold individuals? If a small business pulled this shit in court, you'd get it up the wazoo, but when Microsoft does it, it's like the judicial system has no memory from one incident to the next.
Subject says it all... I was under the impression that Microsoft was forced to keep all emails they sent or received... That was part of an old settlement M$ had with the US government...
*scratchs head* maybe I'm getting senile...
OK 35 minutes, who'd even know?
35 hours, What? Frigging Veritas... Damnit Bill get them on the phone!
35 Days, OH THAT IS IT! I want the back up guy fired... jeez fellas we're really sorry
35 WEEKS? Yes your honor we were trying to pull one over on you....
This
Just wondering - when is SCO going to get an icon like Microsoft (Billgatus of Borg)? And what will it look like?
I forget, is it odd days or even days that software patents are worse than Microsoft on Slashdot?
If you check the related links at that article, you will find another interesting theory by Cringley, who cites any number of cases where MS has ripped off companies, pretending to be interested in buying their technology, but only flirting long enough to steal it. I normally don't like Cringley, but this time he seems spot on.
If it happens to be true, it would cause quite some problems for MS. May these fuckers burn in Hell, and fantastic if we can help out a little.
Next thing you know Bill Gates will be stating "I am not a crook!"
This tagline is copyrighted material. Please send $10 for an affordable replacement.
http://www.m-cam.com/~watsonj/usptohistory.html
The modern concept of the patent was established in England where, in 1449, King Henry VI awarded a patent to John of Utynam for stained glass manufacturing.
"Beginning in 1552, a series of "letters patents" was issued by the Crown. The monarchy began a trend of issuing patents for its own benefit and for the benefit of officers and friends of the Court.4 Patents were issued on entire industries, not just inventions. For example, the Stationers enjoyed complete control over the publishing industry in England. The balance of power soon shifted towards those whom the monarchy decided to favor. Reform began with reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Francis Bacon commented that the Queen would grant patents for any invention that she deemed useful to the country. In an effort to curb further abuses of power, Parliament, in 1624, passed the English Statute of Monopolies, which outlawed all royally sanctioned monopolies. Realizing the importance of protecting inventors and the economic benefits associated with encouraging innovation, an exception was allowed for patents of "new manufactures." These patents were awarded to the inventor as long as their new devices did not hurt trade or result in price increases. Additionally, a statutory limit of fourteen years was imposed on English patents."
is the way micrisoft behaves, and yet people and especially businesses continue to basically sell themselves to the bishop of redmond. okay, i can see people, walking into best buy, comp usa, even go to dell.com and by a "pc". many just don't think about an OS. however, i cannot fathom how businesses will continue to so slovenly follow and buy into whatever microsoft puts out. if any other supplier or partner acted even remotely similarly, then nobody would do business with them. i don't get it. i understand schools from personal experience. they throw freebies and such to the schools. for instance, in my master's in ed program, we can get office pro for $20. for mac or windows. and most schoot IT people are not too bright or talented, else they'd have more lucrative employment. but businesses are another deal. why do they follow them still. it can't be because there are no other options. ( i personally think "piracy" had alot to do with it. but that's another thread.)
<rhetorical question>is managment really that stupid or shortsighted?</rhetorical question>
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Coincidentally a large shipment of magnets were just shipped to the address of a S. Ballmer...
"Wow...Microsoft undertaking anti-competitive behavior and holding evidence from a court of law? I don't believe it."
You forgot the bodies offshore, wearing the concrete shoes. There's a reason Microsoft's in Seattle.
If microsoft at some point was requested by the DOJ to keep track of all their emails, why would anyone in microsoft communicate sensitive information via email ?
If they havnt done in the past, such communication today probably happens via something like their corporate instant messenger.
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
Maybe they should have used a computer.
Clippy: "It looks like you're trying to sue us, would you like me to delete all of your files?"
A good book that alleges that Microsoft does many of the same practices that are alleged by Cringley is "Hard Drive." (at Amazon).
Burst vs. Microsoft? Microsoft is the defendant, not the plaintiff.
"Next thing you know Bill Gates will be stating "I am not a crook!""
Jargon file: Tricky Dick : see Bill Gates.
It's Anne Grabowski's birthday! Ice cream cake in Bldg 4-R break room!
Last chance to sign up for this year's Secret Santa/Hidden Hannukah Harry! RSVP with Roger McGillicuddy before December 12th.
Just wanted everyone to know that Bill and Valerie Trammel had a beautiful 8lb, 7oz baby girl at 8:30 last night at Cyprus Creek Memorial Hospital. So let's all welcome little Hortence into the world! Yay!
And so on...
"Yes, your honor, we felt that those e-mails were important enough not to erase from Microsoft's permanent record, but the ones relating to the negotiations for which we were under a legally-binding non-disclosure agreement were just, so, pointless, you know?"
I thought so too, then I realized that the period of time in which MS discussed the issue is not specified. If it's 30 weeks, it all adds up fine.
everything in moderation
Ok, I get it now. Grace me with a (-1, Silly) mod, please!
getSexySig();
No, it means that those seven meetings took place over the course of eight or nine months, which really isn't all that unusual for business negotiations.
I'd go with the worms theory - everyone knows Microsoft products are full holes, so why not the back up tapes their emails are kept on? The fact that they're two totally different concepts is irrevelant, as this IS Microsoft...
The Mothership
Whats wrong with his math? The messagesceases one week before negotiations began, the seven meetings were over a 30 week period and the messages resume 4 weeks later.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
>Jargon file: Tricky Dick : see Bill Gates.
;-)
I was thinking about an awful pun relating Tricky Dick, Bill Gates, MicroSoft, hard disks, and a 3.5" floppy, but good taste prevailed
This tagline is copyrighted material. Please send $10 for an affordable replacement.
As a longtime Microsoft watcher, I have to jump in at this point and wonder why, if the technology was of no interest, Microsoft took seven meetings over two years to decide this?
So, the seven meetings occured in a period of 2 years. Actually, Cringely is right. It's 5 weeks per meeting and it all adds up to 35 weeks.
getSexySig();
damn echange servers.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
That would be Burst.com vs. Microsoft, not, as used in Slashdot's article title, Microsoft vs. Burst.com.
The real enemy isn't Microsoft, IMHO they are just taking a worthless belief - "intellectual property" to its logical conclusion. Microsoft is the enemy, not because they are Microsoft, but because they have held themselves accountable to upholding and imposing an unjust and false property right.
Even listening to the most amazing stories about what happened to huge amounts of moeny, the Federal bankruptcy agent doesn't even look up. He's heard it all before so many times, it's the same old shit. Everybody lies.
I don't suppose you read about any Enron executives going to jail recently, did you? Of course not. What Enron did is no different than what every big corporation does. Some are just better than others and if you steal too much at the wrong time, the house of cards can fall down. Executives don't go to jail for stealing. Can you imagine a trial of executives by their peers -- other executives? "Well, Kenny, you should have used my guys to set up your fake accounts. You wouldn't have been found out for another couple years and you could have paid Ashcroft his cut and moved the rest of the money to a good bank in Grand Cayman by then."
Maybe these standards of culpability that you are referring to only exist in your head? There is certainly not much evidence in the real world of anything that resembles "business morality". Almost every business in the USA is crooked. With a giant overbearing government that has a bloodthirst for taking your money and then returning less than 4 cents on each tax dollar, would a rational being expect anything else? If it's okay for the government to lie, cheat, and steal, why should a small business, big business, investor, or anyone else do different?
If you unplug from the morality that is taught to worker units so they are obedient and efficient, you'll be in for a major wake-up call. Your job is to work and pay your taxes, that is all. And good workers are moral workers. Keeps costs down and profits up. All around you, the country is being looted. The workers are going to wake up one day and realize they are fucked because they've been robbed blind while they've had their faces glued to their television sets, absorbing the latest disinformation from the media and the government.
All of the other companies than signed a 'non-disclosure' agreement with M$ and then had their technology stolen ?
IIRC, most of the lawsuits ended up being sealed so the results couldn't be used against M$ in the future. You know, 'We'll give you 10 million only if you never tell anybody how we screwed you'.
It would be interesting to see how long the list is...
I remember reading a press release concerning Burst and Microsoft cooperating in the development of A/V technologies for the web. At the time I said to myself, "what fools". Once again, someone trusts MS and gets burned. People are morons.
In this case, they've pruned 37 weeks of related emails from their employees' computers and their mail servers, so what's to stop them doctoring the emails recovered from backups?
I guess there would be a possible problem if an employee had printouts or had forwarded certain emails to another address for whatever reason. Then again, what motivation would that employee have for exposing the cover up?
I don't know how things work in the USA corp envioronment, but would something along the lines of monthly backups duplicated, sealed, and dated, only to be opened in the event of litigation, help in these cases at all? This would both protect the legitimate accuser and the wrongly accused... or perhaps it's not that big a deal, and tampering isn't a logistically attractive proposition.
Now where's my tin-foil hat.
Let's see, $1B or so to AOL for damages to Netscape. About .5B for another recent patent suit. There was a CA consumer class action they tried to settle by "donating" software to schools.
They seem to be on a real losing streak, legally. What am I missing? What's the total for legal damages in court cases to date?
But with $50B in the bank, losing law suits seems just a minor cost of doing business.
Best,
-jimbo
XML Tools for Mac OS X
Just wondering... the article says that Burst now only employs two people. I don't know how functional the company still is (their website is up at least), but I would think that like SCO, their primary goal is pursuing this lawsuit. The obvious difference is that Burst seems to have a legitimate claim. After they (hopefully) win the MS case, I would hope that the two people working at Burst would continue to develop their business and their technology, rather than just sitting back on a fat cash settlement or award.
But your honor, a worm ate my homework... honest!
And this just a few months after MS bought a licence from SCO and trumpeted how commited they were to respecting IP through licencing.
Right there is the main thing wrong with the USA. How a fictitious entity can have the same legal rights as a living person is beyond me.
First seen on Stardate 41386.4 in the TNG episode "The Last Outpost", the Ferengi have proven themselves to be capitalists who can be counted on appearing wherever there is even a hint of profit. They are considered a neutral race, with no affiliation to any other political power in the Galaxy. Known for their shiftiness and marked materialism, the Ferengi's disrepute preceedes them, so the discovery of the Gamma Quadrant is seen as an unprecedented opportunity to exploit naive new worlds for profit.m ary/xeno/ferengi.html
Source : http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Nebula/4156/infir
It seems quite fit indeed ! McBride even looks like one in some details of his face...
Go for it Malda, make our day.
United States of America, good ol' backers of world peace.
to not have a backup of emails.
I once worked for a comany that was in the midst of a lawsuit. It was company policy that emails were not archived. It made presenting information for discovery so much easier.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
haha, that'd be good!
Never too soon to fight and change US Patent Law to one that makes sense, like for example, nullify all past software and business method patents, or at least, never grant new ones.
"So the judge ordered Microsoft to produce the missing messages. The employee PCs, the servers, and the off-site backup tapes have to be searched and soon. The Microsoft lawyers complained that would be like finding a needle in a haystack. The judge reminded them that it was they who had put that needle in the hay."
The classic example of the monopoly is Standard Oil. Now, one of the people responsible for bringing light to Rockefeller's monopoly was the muck-raker Ida Tarbell. She had an interest in bringing Rockefeller to justice: her father was an oil worker in Pennsylvania whose company was put out of business by Standard Oil. Through the writing of a series of articles, she informed the reading public about the misdeeds of the Trust. She also followed Rockefeller personally. Eventually, she wrote a book, The History of the Standard Oil Company. (Note: all of this info is what I remember of some movie about the subject, which I watched in February.)
Back to the present day. How can we (non-trivially) compare $O to M$?
Does anybody else agree? Or am I just full of shit? Or both?
"Filippo Brunelleschi, the architect of Florence's remarkable
cathedral, won the world's first patent for a technical
invention in 1421. Brunelleschi was a classic man of the
Renaissance: tough-minded, multi-talented and thoroughly
self-confident. He claimed he had invented a new means of
conveying goods up the Arno River (he was intentionally vague
on details), which he refused to develop unless the state kept
others from copying his design. Florence complied, and
Brunelleschi walked away with the right to exclude all new
means of transport on the Arno for three years.
That Florence acceded to Brunelleschi's demands is hardly
surprising. The Italian Renaissance city-states, locked in a
struggle for wealth and power, habitually gave monopolies to
those who would build a needed bridge or mill, or who introduced
some useful craft or industry. They would issue "letter patents"
public declarations that openly (patently) announced the
privilege. What distinguished Brunelleschi's bargain was
invention - he was awarded the exclusive use of his own creation.
(more on Brunelleschi can be found in "Brunelleschi's Patent", Journal of
the Patent Office Society 28 (1946), page 109.
(credit to Greg Aharonian, who used to run a patent industry newsletter mailing list)
DISCLAIMER: I work at a Patent Attorneys firm, but IANAPA.
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
Cringely mentions "John Walker's essay 'The Last Days of Autodesk.'" This sounds like a good read, but Google wouldn't cough it up. Anyone know where to find this essay?
Sent from my iPhone
How long of a run are you thinking of? Check this out. MS is currently worth about $50 BILLION. $50 BILLION - $5 billion is $45 billion. $5 billion / $50 million is 500.
So... a mere five hundred settlements later, MS will only be worth $45 billion instead of the $50 billion they're worth now. Except that, by then they'll probably have made enough money back to more than counteract the loss.
Yes, it is true that it does damamge a company's reptuation to have to dole out money through all these settlements. But the saving face action you're talking about is very important for a company. I imagine that many of the people that have stock in MS will want to turn a blind eye to MS criticism as long as they possibly can. If MS ever had to admit to serious wrongdoing, the company's stock would be hurt badly. Their value might even shrink an order of magnitude or half an order. Ouchie for Bill, Steve and all the rest.
IMHO, MS will try to prevent that for as long as they possibly can.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
Spyglass
1000 SlashDot sigs
It just doesn't make sense for a company like Microsoft, which is part of the BSA to go ahead and steal another company's intellectual property.
How can these people claim recourse against software pirates when they, themselves are pirating other people's ideas, software and concepts?
like myself. argh. It would be nice if slashdot allowed people to edit their posts after they've been posted. Then I could hide my math error.
$50 billion / $50 million is only 100. So MS would have to start worrying sooner.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
Ok guys, I'm not a big fan of MS either and I'm also against software patents but remember this: one of the reasons we're against software patents is their obviousness or, at least, the ineluctable conclusion that "this" or "something like this" would be a good way to write this code to make it better. While I think knowingly excising email info from the record should be met with large court imposed sanctions, it's also possible that the patent infringement Burst claims is related to aforementioned issues w/ software patents -- the fact that it's obvious how to make it better and compentent ("one of ordinary skill in the art") programmers ar MS saw that. -nude
..Judge Jackson said it.
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
It all makes perfect sense if you consider some Ferengi Rules of Acquisition. Consider the following: #3: Never spend more for an acquisition than you have to. #16: A deal is a deal ...until a better one comes along.
#52: Never ask when you can take.
#60. Keep your lies consistent.
#181: Not even dishonesty can tarnish the shine of profit.
#189: Let others keep their reputation. You keep their money.
#242: More is good...all is better.
That's the first 2, Flamebait I've ever seen!
a) how impressed they were with the technology
b) how helpful the NDA documents were from Burst
c) how easy it would be to integrate the technology into MS products as soon as Burst was dead
d) how stringing them along and not signing a deal would lead to the necessary death.
Those days will be soon over. DOJ and others are demanding the the electronic copies be handed over to the courts.
Although, It could be well over a year before MS turns over all 35 weeks of e-mails, restoring e-mail from commvault isn't as easy has it sounds.
1 claiming patent infringments
2 claiming MS stole secrets under a NDA.
If this is the same technology they can't win on both.
It really wouldn't surprise me if they lost data. What a load of poop that program is. Makes you wonder what backup software that they actually use.
Exchange server + exchange protocal = dropped messages.
It's not a bug.... it's a feature!
And may eventually happen some day in some country is M$ patents, IP, and copywrite or some combination therein will be declared null and void.
Just because a business loses billions doesn't mean the executives did anything wrong. Stupidity isn't illegal, because if it was you would have been in jail a long time ago.
Financial cases are notoriously hard to prosecute. The legal matters are usually vague and there very rarely is "a smoking gun". Having said that, several Enron executives are under indictment. In spite of what you believe, they still might end up in jail. Of course it'll be a minimum security prison, but then again, jail is jail.
Cringley column submitters to be winners of the karma-whore-of-the-week award.
:(
Especially when they get posted on a slow Saturday.
"Microsoft is acting the same way every business in the USA acts. "
We already know this.
If Burst.com actually has software patents on the technology Microsoft allegedly stole from them, isn't this case an example of how software patents can help the little guy faced with huge companies stealing their inventions?
Sorry, I didn't read the article so forgive me if this scenario doesn't exactly fit. But I thought it would be worthwhile bringing up given the recent surge in protests against software patents.
At a company I worked for 8 years ago, Microsoft "evaluated" our product for more than a year, then filed a patent application for the fundamental technology behind it. We didn't even have to sue them. We just demonstrated to the patent office that:
1) Microsoft was trying to patent technology that we had been shipping for 3 years.
2) Microsoft had "evaluated" our product for a year before filing for a patent.
3) We had implemented the technologies straight out of textbooks, giving concrete evidence of prior art. (That's one reason we were not foolish enough to try to patent it ourselves.)
The patent application was rejected. The most interesting note about the incident was that it all happened within 2 months - amazingly fast.
You started out so well there. This was a beautiful rant. It is too bad that the slashdot editor won't let you change the font color because I think that the last paragraph would look great in red.
Given the above, perhaps you would be kind enough to answer the key questions Marks and Engels didn't. like how to keep the "awakend workers" from becomming as corrupt as there bosses, or what is a "fair" meains of distributing limited recources?
By the way, would you be so kind as to tell the slashdot readership what it is you do? If we are to follow the lead of history, we might guess that you have more incommon (education, finance, social class) with evil corprate officers then you do with any lower middle class working stiff.
From the B.R.D.S.,
JFMILLER
Strive to make your client happy, not necessarly give them what they ask for
Forget about security through obsfucation, someone at Microsoft should start obsfucating those emails!
Ok, so it's very nice to come to the aid of the poor underdog who company which has just been bitten by big bad Microsoft. Cringeley does this nicely by stirring up a lot of mud and coming up with some of his trademark wacky theories.
/. crowd, please keep in mind that Cringeley is one of the less pleasant examples of an ignorant technological luddite.
While all this is going on, dear
So, there is this company. It has two employees. I wonder how much code these two employees have written and produced over the years.
And this company has this amazing patent portofolio of nine patents dealing with a technology to "take advantage of the nature of the internet to BURST data to the end user" - instead of fetching the data byte by byte whenever the player wants to play the next frame... right. There is a word for this. Well, actually, there's two words for this.
One, the legal term, is "blackmail": get a patent for a blindingly obvious solution to something that's not even a technical problem and claim that any unwashed programmer would have automatically chosen a mode of implementation that is so harebrained that it would have resulted in great performance losses.
Oh, yeah, and the other word: it's "caching". The idea that maybe data should be downloaded as fast as possible and replayed with some buffer time to spare for lags of the slower transmission medium has been around the block a few times. In fact, I remember writing code for the C64 that did this to play sound while loading data from disk.
Now, instead of going on about what precisely a C64 is - GUYS! Think about which sides you are taking and what you are clamoring for. Burst.com is one of the worse pirates sailing the sea of intellectual capital. Microsoft might be the big evil, but this discussion is as supportive of the ideals of Open Source as the McCarthy trials for Unamerican Behaviour were with respect to supporting democracy and freedom of speech in the US.
Anyone with a gram of brains should be writing to the judge asking him to dismiss the suit... and award damages to Microsoft ask the harmed party.
PS: IMHO, no company should be allowed to pursue patent lawsuits unless they are actually selling a product in the space protected by the patents. But that's just me.
At least Cringe is an ACTUAL journalist, not some wannabe like Sims...
The wild thing here is that Bill Gates thinks people will never wise up.
These corporate horrors are propped up by all the money they make, and people imagine that only a giant company like that can do big business. You need a big oil company to do oil exploration, and so on. But you don't *really* need a big company to make good software, a medium size one would do it. You only need a really big software company to dominate.
Cynically, I personally believe that Microsoft uses the size of its firm, and its cash flow to dominate the software world economically, while the U.S. government uses Microsoft's ability to dominate this area for the purposes of spying. Just for argument's sake, how much of the intelligence used by the War on Terrorism, the War on Drugs, or any other policy is actually derived from intentionally engineered holes and spyware associated with Microsoft products? Seems a word processor, a spreadsheet, and an email program ought to be a good place to put a keylogger..
To me this is the only possible reason Microsoft could still exist. I mean, their lawyers are only human. There is nothing occult going on here. It is just a superpower that has developed a nasty addiction to software solutions from the same company that makes consumer operating systems.
Call me paranoid, but then again I expected the wars in the middle east for the past ten years, and expected them to be backed by just as flimsy reasons as they are now. Of course I didn't expect the horrors of 911, so I thought the U.S. president would be in more trouble. However Tony Blair seems to be on the receiving end a bit these days.
Anyway, unless someone has a better answer, I go for Occam's Razor. It is impossible that Microsoft can get out of such repeated hideous offenses.. the only public anger of the U.S. government at Microsoft was when a recent version of windows was shipped with all of its ports wide open. Perhaps they took their pledge for INsecurity too far? Anyway, the next simplest answer beyond Bill getting supernatural help in the courts is that he's already got a few much bigger deals with the government and feels protected. Of course it doesn't hurt to have a pile of money too.
Not every business. Many, for sure, but not all.
I think that the large corporations are more likely to engage in such activities.
A few years ago, one company owned some patents for something they manufactured. One of the very large corporations (I don't remember which one in particular) placed a large order with them.
The company didn't have the manufacturing capacity for that large an order, but the large corporation was kind enough to loan them money at good interest rates so they could do it.
All went well until the company was ready to deliver. The big corporation cancelled the order and when the small company couldn't pay, they forced them into bankruptcy.
Then, in the bankruptcy, the big corporation bought all the assets of the small company and ended up owning the technology.
By the way, the very worst I've heard of was a small "venture capital" firm a number of years ago.
They would "invest" a large amount of money in the firm and got control of the board of directors as part of the deal.
In reality, the "venture capital" firm really put in only a few thousand dollars. But they started ordering all the equipment and supplies they could through the business. It was hauled off just as fast as possilble after delivery.
And they weren't worried at all that they might have to go to prison for fraud. They figured that it would take years to get to court and the investors in the business would not want to pour money down the drain paying the lawyers since they would probably never get anything back.
It is "fashionable" to forget Clinton's little email thing? Which one - the fact that an IT contractor lost some emails (like that's never happened before), or that Clinton never actually used email when he was in office?
Like most psychotic right wing morons, I'm sure you think it's big deal that a few random thousand out of hundreds of thousands of Whitehouse emails were lost (and then later recovered - thanks to wasting $12,066,346 on the task). No one thinking it worthy of any special attention outside the tinfoil hat crowd.
Clinton went through the audit from hell, and the only thing hundreds of millions of dollars (some private, some public) ever determined about the man was that he has a weakness for hummers.
No shit sherlock.
Meanwhile, our current president is claiming "executive privilege" over so many things (that just a few years ago would have been front page news -- thanks to the "liberal" media) even tinfoil hat Republican Congressman Dan Burton has become uneasy.
Just like The Book of Common Prayer: Love thy neighbor, honor the King, fear God. Words to live by. Or else.
to not have a backup of emails.
I once worked for a comany that was in the midst of a lawsuit. It was company policy that emails were not archived. It made presenting information for discovery so much easier.
I guess that depends on how Evil(tm) your company plans on being. I guess the company you worked for had aspirations to be as Evil(tm) as Microsoft, and by the sounds of it, is well on the way.
Evil(tm) is a registered trademark of the Microsoft Corporation.
yeah, what he said. and your English is good enough!
Everytime I see a story like this, my faith in open source is significantly diminishes.
At this point, I don't think open source will ever make any significant move against Microsoft. The reason is that, from the slashdot stories it is quite obvious that only when Microsoft does something wrong, open source seem to make some progress, at least in the eyes of this slashdot mob.
What burst.com claims is very vague. The story doesn't tell anything, we don't know if there is any email, we don't know what Microsoft did or that Burst.com is trying to make money out of thin air. The court is still going on, and we all know that in America, anybody can sue anybodyelse and can win in the courts without even proving much, as long as the judge and the jury is biased. That's why SCO is able to make people confused about the issue. People say it is crap, but if slashdot community thinks that burst.com has a good case here, then they also send a message to people who are about to use Linux, cause this effectively means that SCO has a good chance of winning.
You can say things against Microsoft without looking this stupid. And by the way, the author of the article is making his life by bashing Microsoft. I know that guy and his articles don't mean anything to me.
So the judge ordered Microsoft to produce the missing messages. The employee PCs, the servers, and the off-site backup tapes have to be searched and soon. The Microsoft lawyers complained that would be like finding a needle in a haystack. The judge reminded them that it was they who had put that needle in the hay.
Classic!
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
I'm glad you notice the underlying philosophy. My head clicked with the message too... although I suspect I liked it more since I'm a socialist :)
...how to keep the "awakend workers" from becomming as corrupt as there bosses, or what is a "fair" meains of distributing limited recources?
;)
I don't think anyone knows for sure HOW to keep corruption from creeping into the system. But we do know what Marx said. He said that the government will dissapear (resulting in anarchism although I don't think he used the concept of anarchism) and that is when we are free. I agree with him. The only thing is that neither he nor anyone else has said HOW the govt (or any authority) is going to dissapear. Suffice to say, IF the govt DOES dissapear, corruption (of a similar scale) will not exist...
My personal opinion is that you lower corruption by continuously de-centralizing power. You keep doing that until power cannot be monopolized (ie. you will basically arrive at anarchism at that point). Of course, easier said than done... Power is more addicting than drugs, sex, or oil
If we are to follow the lead of history, we might guess that you have more incommon (education, finance, social class) with evil corprate officers then you do with any lower middle class working stiff.
I don't know who you are referring to but Marx had more in common with the lower class than you think...
A spectre is haunting earth... Capitalism WILL collapse... just be prpeared for its collapse...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
I guess that depends on how Evil(tm) your company plans on being.
Well, the company and several executives eventually plead guilty to stealing another company's trade secrets/source code.
I only found myself working there because of an acquisition and I left as soon as I could.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
NT
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Instead of communism what I think is worth looking at is Adam Smith's original vision of capitalism. As you likely know, Adam Smith wrote "Wealth of Nations" which laid out the core principles of a capitalist system. However, Adam Smith's vision was not contained in this one book. Rather, Adam Smith always maintained that to build a sustainable and socially beneficial economic system that you needed the basic capitalist system ("Wealth of Nations", 1763) together with the moral system which he detailed in "Theory of Moral Sentiments", 1759.
Because Adam Smith was never able to integrate the two systems of theory that he laid out, morality and capitalism, into one integrated system, there has always been controversy on how to build a sustainable moral economic system. In "Theory of Moral Sentiments", Smith emphasizes that it is sympathy that is a fundamental human motive, while in "Wealth of Nations", Smith instead says the motive is "self-interest". Obviously there is much ground between these two sides of human nature.
Business places a large emphasis on having a strong legal system. As without such a system, many business transactions would cost more, or simply be impossible. It was the Common Law, and strict adherence to it, that enabled a new era of business to flourish. And the Common Law is based on a moral system, much of which was laid out in religious teachings. Thus we can see that morality is the foundation of easy, low-cost, flexible human collaboration and exchange. Put another way, without a strong legal system, based on our moral system, there is no foundation for a mutually beneficial society.
The world has seen how a ruthless amoral company like Microsoft has flourished in a societal and business environment that has no underlying moral foundation. No matter what the cost to the individual and to society, because of Microsoft's monopoly, we are forced to pay the Microsoft tax. Not merely do we have to pay the tax, but in our brief lives, we also suffer the cost of the dearth of innovation that exists under the shadow of a monopoly. And it is not just Microsoft, but nearly all companies that extract money from their customers and deliver far less value than was promised. And today's governments deliver just a miniscule fraction of every tax dollar back to the people in the form of tangible goods and services. The rest disappears because of corruption.
Needless to say, we see in today's world that there is an ever increasing growth of corruption. This increase is due to the fact that the business world and legal system have dropped nearly all adherence to a moral system. Everything is amoral money-centric self-interest. And thus we end up with a corrupt system, an inefficient system, large-scale society ills and the widespread looting that is going on today. Ever wonder how Microsoft is accumulating cash so fast? Immoral monopoly pricing certainly helps. And the energy companies make Microsoft look like a beginner. Furthermore, because there is no care for the welfare of our fellow human beings, nor even any care for Nature herself, we have created vast environmental problems that have a profound negative effect on th
I'm sick of this right-wing disinformation campaign too.
>Clinton went through the audit from hell
If the House and Senate weren't controlled by the GOP so would Bush, so right now he's riding high on "party immunity." It won't last forever and 2004 is right around the corner.
In this time of corporate malfeasance, it should
...
come as no surprise that "S.weet O.ld B.ill" Gates
is up to his old tricks. How can you expect any
monopoly with $50 Billion in the bank not to
expect to get their way? Money talks, and M$
continues to play the part of a gambler playing
"table stakes" poker, with a wheelbarrow full of
cash guarded by his lawyers.
That "Burst.com" managed to survive long enough
to bring M$ to court is remarkable. Whether it
will mean anything by the time the case goes
through the courts (,which may take 5 - 10 years),
is the real question. Sun is still doing battle
with M$ over Java. Microsoft is obviously
gambling that, with their money and lawyers,
they can keep any lawsuit tied up in court
for so long that any loss to M$ becomes a moot
point: -- the technology and the marketplace
will have changed the "order of battle" in their
favor.
A good case in point is the DoJ suit, which when
taken with all the other M$ malfeasance, should
have resulted in a "Ma Bell" sized breakup. The
DoJ screwed up by focusing only on the most
narrow of legal points. M$ used to stay above
the "fray" of "greasing the political wheels",
but that was before the DoJ action. The end
result for M$ was little more than a slap on
the wrist. (Kind of like the $750 Million fine
to be imposed on WorldCom for $11 Bilion worth
of corporate fraud.)
Money talks, and the biggest money talks the
loudest. Once in a while there is some form
of justice for the little guys. Best of luck
to Burst.com
...note who said that..and where he is now. :-)
Personally, I dont give a rats ass.
Success will always come quicker to those who drop morality in business or any sphere. Business leaders already know this... it's impossible to run a large corporation without having the ability to justify immoral behavior.. ask IBM, ask Walmart, ask Apple, ask McDonalds....
It's like the school bully.. no, he is not really an insecure confused softy inside... he's just bigger than you are and knows it. This is not something specific to microsoft.. it has to do with power and those who wield it to show how they can wield it.
Note that you don't see microsoft trying to screw IBM or Sony or Coke in any direct fashion other than old fashioned competition. They know full well that they'd get their ass handed to them by an even bigger bully...
This has happened before, and it will happen again. When it happens to you, do what burst has done... try to take them on as best as you can. One of the weaknesses a bully has is that their strenth depends on fear.. show no fear.
Don't forget Sybase. MS was involved in a "partnership" with Sybase that somehow ended in MS walking away with several decades of work that had gone into Sybase's SQL Server. MS named their forked product SQL Server too and it became so popular that poor Sybase ended up renaming their product to Adaptive Server since by this time everyone thought SQL Server = Microsoft. I guess that's what they call innovation.
I hope everyone noticed this part of the article:
"Why would a company like Microsoft do this?" asked Richard Lang, who is Burst's CEO and half the company workforce. "We were a little company. Microsoft could have had our technology for almost nothing, but instead they stole it. We called them on it, and they could have settled at any time, but they didn't. They stuck their heels in and won't give an inch even now. The only way I can make sense of this behavior is that they need to win no matter what the cost."
That's normal behaviour for Microsoft. When faced with claims by Apple, Borland, Wordperfect, and others, Microsoft did exactly the same thing -- they dug in their heals and fought tooth and nail, dragging things out in court for years until the other side settled out of exhaustion.
But then SCO came along.
SCO's claim is dubious.
SCO's claim is unproven.
And what did Microsoft do?
Microsoft paid SCO at least $10 million.
They didn't question SCO's claim.
They didn't take time to negotiate a better deal.
They certainly didn't fight it out in court.
Microsoft just paid, quickly, and without being pressured.
Most people would say that the payment was premature, even for a normal company.
But for Microsoft, given their history, the quick payment borders on insanity.
Therefore, either Microsoft has suddenly gone insane, or the $10+ million is exactly what many people have been saying -- a payoff, in exchange for which SCO will try to do as much damage to Linux as possible.
Very well put.
I have two thought I would like to add.
I tend to agree with you that only a "near-death" type experience on a grand scale will be enough to create sudden world wide change. However, I am not so pessimistic about long term small scale change. A common refrain where I'm at is "A few people can change the world, indeed it the only thing that ever has" A few good rants on Slashdot may not end the MS reign of terror, but it is how all great movements have started; with a little grumbling.
Second, it is not necessary to convert the whole world/nation/proletariat. When courageous people speak reasonable words in strong voices people listen. I give you, for example, the Free Software movement. The whole computing world didn't suddenly drop everything and go open source as a revolt agents Microsoft's unfair monopoly, but when people like RMS, Linus or Larry Wall decided to do something better they started a trend.
You are correct when you state that the corruption of most major corporation are rooted in a lack of morality. No one starts out saying "I want to be a money grubbing weasel when I grow up." A few people can, however, change this trend. I guess my point is that we--you, I and everybody else who can see beyond their TV screens--don't have to wait for a government changing revolution. We can do something now and be effective at doing it. You have good facts and based on this and other comment you are excellent at expressing them. Make sure you talk to people who will listen and have a little faith that the world will follow.
I will make the world a better place one person at a time, will you?
From the B.R.D.S.,
JFMILLER
Strive to make your client happy, not necessarly give them what they ask for
Ok you guys are missing the point, to write for a closed source OS, or linux or any OS, to optimise and make your binary more efficient, you need to use calls to externals. If you choose to dev your software offering based on a static binary, then you make it a little harder for others to decompile your software. The big question is how was Burst first offered to MS and did burst then re-write to use dynamic libs. This change in code would quickly open the door for MS to rip the ideas off. If Burst rewrote at the behest of MS so that the code would be more "Windows efficient" then one can argue that MS deliberately screws over the software that it wants first. This is the problem with closed source you can write a functioning binary but as soon as you optimise the software with windows dlls you are at the mercy of Microsoft because the calls to dlls are really easy to reverse. Yes I can believe MS wanting someone to "optimise" a dynamic version. The problem is the closed source system that MS has created is evil, it can be used to easily screw over coders.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
Bill and Steve been "in office" long enough to have enough mistakes pile up to put
them on a slippery slope. Of course, they have their electorate pretty well tied up.
It might take a somewhat stronger outside force to effect a regime change
Ever notice how many times enough scandal accumulates by the time a president hits
the second term that he probably wouldn't be elected a third term?
I would like to be more optimistic than you and hope that the USA will implode under the weight of its own oppressiveness. After all, so many citizens have guns "just in case".
I don't understand why the corporations which are in charge cannot see the benefit of looking after those that cannot look after themselves. Eg
Environment: If resources continue to be consumed at a rate they cannot be replaced (and pillaging other countries doesn't count as replacement), then there will be no air to breathe, no food to eat, and it will be impossible to spend time outdoors in expensive hobbies like golf, yachting, skiing etc.
Social Care: I'd much prefer to provide people basic food, shelter, and health care. If I also provide them with education and easy to get birth control then there is a good chance they can make their own opportunities. Should I make it difficult for them to get their basic life needs by stealing their resources or locking them all in prison, they will make it impossible for me to walk the street. I'd much rather hand over $5 to someone who asks politely for it, than someone who shoots me first.
International Policy: I have never seen the USA so destructive as it is now. Despite the USA thinking it can destroy the rest of the world if it wants to, I don't think that the big corporate owners and execs will be able to maintain their lifestyle if they are forced to act on that point.
I think that the last resort is for the USA citizens to get focussed, get emailing and start their own green (sustainable/renewable planet) party. It worked in Europe in less than 2 years. I think there would be plenty of European or Non USA support for such a venture. There may even be support from inside. The other tricky thing would be to get the USA corporations to understand the true consequences of their greed. I don't understand why they have to see the death of the whole planet before they believe that's where they're headed. If Europe can turn things around, so can the USA.
I have a problem with the word "Morality" in this context. The people who call themselves "Moral" tend to be very intolerant of anyone not like them. I think it would be good to be intolerant of polution, corporate fraud, political fraud, and lack of health and education opportunites. But I don't see why all of us should be "good christians" and intolerant of anything else. Wasn't the USA founded on tolerance, specifically religious tolerance? Why is there so little of it. Why is there so much fear-mongering? Is the USA government and corporations' techniques so very different to the fear mongering actions of other totalitarian regimes.
I am so glad that there are some USA citizens who understand that the rest of the world exists in its own right, and not as an exploitation opportunity.
Hmm so many things to rant about, so many directions to rant in...About as cohesive as dry sand.
"Yes, we should steal the Burst technology and then.. .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
but that would be wrong!"
(Well, they could still have been sued for anticompetitive behaviour, but not for outright theft...)
In exchange for their valuable services, they got official permission from their government to act in such manner: these were the "letters of marque".
Maybe the Open Source community should do something similar? Yes, Burst's behavior may look like patent privateering. But it is directed against the enemy. This can't be all bad ;-)
If Burst had patents, then how could MS 'steal' the technology anyway? And if the technology was so great, how come they have no company, just two people left, how come they never made a profit or no other company licensed it?
Forcing a company to show internal emails 'to see what they were thinking during negotiations' is sick.
Burst, bunch of whiners.
In other news Steve Ballmer declared that backups were now considered harmful to innovation, a threat to the U.S. economy (i.e. Microsoft), and promoting communism in general due to its anachronistic nature. In addtion, he announced that Longhorn would incorporate a backup solution that would save Microsoft from such embarassments in the future by a new coding scheme: - steal => license - play along => negotiate - eradicate them => point out their irrelevance - commies => open source community - our own shit => windows
Microsoft isn't worried about their backup emails being found and used in this case, because once they get their new Palladium enabled computers up and running on site, they'll never have to worry about leaking emails ever again.
"We're sorry but we HAVE backups, it's just that we can't read them because Johnny X no longer works for us and his key was accidentally erased. We'd try to recover it but it's illegal to circumvent encryption due to the DMCA."
Reminds me once again why Palladium is such a bad idea - all it secures is the corporation, not the individual.
Quizo69
Visceral Psyche Films
... unless they buy it, that is. I wonder why Microsoft didn't simply buy out Burst when it had shrunk to a two man outfit and things looked bleak indeed. Simply destroying Burst makes no sense for Microsoft, they should have seen to it, that the technology remains proprietary, and to that end they should have either bought Burst (and their patents) or strengthened it (so Burst can maintain a strong position in the Solaris- and (more important) Linux-Market. If there's noone defending Bursts patents, we'd have seen an open source implementation of the technology as soon as the technology becomes important enough, and then it's cross platform again, only in a way that can't be controlled by anyone.
/. is not by accident) why don't they try to exert control over Burst-technology?
The other thing is, that even if Burst dies someone ends up with the patents (and that'd likely not be Microsoft: since they didn't bother before why bother when Burst goes bonk) and eventually someone will try to make money out of it by litigation (that's the current business-modell in the US: 1. get the rights to some IP 2. sue 3. money), so as long as Microsoft doesn't keep the situation under control there's the constant danger of being sued.
These are two very important reasons to keep some control over the Burst technology, either by choosing them as a business-partner (and i'm sure MS has enough ways to make their "business partners" only do what's in MSs interest) or, even better, by buying them out. It's really strange that they make such a tactical error, especially Microsoft. Since they're all about control (the Borg-pictogram on
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
I'm having to post anonymously for obvious reasons here.
At my company, a Fortune 500, $50 Billion company, and ranked #1 in its own sector, we have a corporate policy of deleting all Email which is over 21 days old.
From the CEO to the Help Desk lackey.
21 days.
Email older than that is automatically purged.
Of course, this doesn't stop certain people *cough* *cough* from backing up one's own email onto one's own laptop. *cough* *cough*.
Then again, no laptop or desktop is backed up throughout the enterprise, either.
Storing Emails on one's laptop is not officially endorsed or supported by my company, too.
Plausible deniability.
"You want what? All Emails for the past 6 months? We don't have them! All Email is destroyed after 21 days."
"We need the Emails on your employee's laptops, too."
"Sorry, we just finished a PC Refresh and all of those hard drives have been wiped clean."
Gotta love Big Business.
3. lawyers and the likes will go and specifically search for things with which they can nail MS.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
The workers are going to wake up one day and realize they are fucked because they've been robbed blind while they've had their faces glued to their television sets, absorbing the latest disinformation from the media and the government.
And so just who buys the products produced by corporations? Workers do, and at all levels. Corporations make profits by selling products and services to individuals and that includes other corporations. And all workers are compensated in the US, and they are free to use their compensation however they want and that includes NOT watching TV.
Trust me. I know all about this communist propaganda. I used to me one myself, until I realized what a huge lie communism and the sentiments you are spewing are.
Dawn of the Dead
Jon.
No shock there. Everyone should have learned from Sendo that allowing MS access to the intellectual property they want, without a blood contract, is asking for trouble.
It's Burst.com vs. Microsoft, not Microsoft vs. Burst.com...
The plaintiff goes first, and the defendant goes second.
i've been a juror in civil cases, as have friends of mine. i can state first hand there IS a jury in civil law.
To get any money from patent infringement you must first:
1) prove patent infringement
2) prove damages
If you can prove willful infringement, you will collect triple damages.
But regardless of whether or not the infringement was willful or not, you can still collect for damages. This is the whole point of a patent, you basically have a mini-monopoly on your implementation of an idea for a period of time.
It sounds like in your particular case, your lawyers were unable to prove damages.
Mao might have said that but he wasn't speaking for Marx or Engels. The Communist Manifesto was clearly about the rights of the worker; that the concept of communism was bastardised by Stalin, Mao, and everyone else doesn't alter that.
I agree with the rest of your post though.
I guess that is because there are different text code standard exists on different machines, the text (ascii) file might be all right if everyone use IBM PC.
Please name a desktop computer popular in 2003 that does not use ASCII, one of the ISO 8859 supersets of ASCII, or Unicode as its native character encoding.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The name of this case should be Burst.Com vs Microsoft, since Burst.com is suing.
If you are trying to read the previous pulpit he refers to, the link to it on http://www.pbs.org/cringely/oldhat.html appears to be broken, but the story is at http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20030821. html.
If your company uses an email system like Lotus Notes, which has built in encryption, signing, etc... then a far amount.
Of course this is MS so....
Knowing MicroSoft's penchant to "borrow" technology, I wouldnt be surprised to find some SCO code deep in Windows. Even though on the surface Windows seems to be completely different OS; (1) MS "owned" PC-UNIX (Xenix) in the 1970s and 1980s until it sold it to SCO and (2) the MS-NT-OS "borrowed" heavily from VMS (formerly DEC-Compaq now HP).
Not only that, but if you notice, MS licenses nothing from anybody. They stole this technology, they stole the SQL technology. They may sometimes buy out a company, but they would much rather go to court than license anything, which make the SCO licensing stink even more.
I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress -J Adams
Welcome to UNIX. The correct answer could be grep, perl, gawk, or any one of a squillion other patterning languages, one of half a dozen databases, or something like KMail, which doesn't seem to mind unlimited numbers of messages in one mailbox, or pick sixty possibilities I never mentioned or thought of. Most of which have cryptic 2-3 letter names. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
...or after the last run of Win32 viruses filled up some uni's 80GB student quarantine drive in one day?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Their native standard doesn't follow any of these, and their "Unicode" breaks Unicode (e.g. fancy quotes in "high control character" space).
Big surprise that answer was.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
It's common for "believers" to suggest that when an implementation of their political/economic philosophy or religion ends up in disaster that it was due to it being implemented incorrectly or... that not enough of their political/economic philosophy or religion was implemented.
Theft and murder seems to be what humans consistently do well...for thousands of years of recorded history...regardless of the political/economic philosophy or religion under which the crimes were committed.
I want to be alone with the sandwich
Parent comment is great, but I think it should be "ethics" and not "morals" that guides the legislature. Morals are too personal, too subject to ideological indoctrination and zealotry. Ethics is where most people can agree.
If you're arguing that the only thing to save us will be a "return to morality," brought on by some great fear, then what you're saying is that society hasn't really progessed much since the days of the Wrathful God of the Old Testament. Not that I necessarily disagree with that, but it doesn't seem like that's the direction you want society to go in.
You make it sound as though there's something wrong with that. I'm no believer in Communism any more than I'm a believer in Capitalism but it's true to say that the Communist Manifesto was never implemented. Just because some political leaders chose to label their regimes "communist" doesn't make them so.
It's only a word after all and hardly seems worth discussing, but some people (nobody in this thread I hasten to add) like to confuse Stalinist Russia (essentially a murdurous dictatorship) with the Communist or even Socialist principles and use it as an excuse to criticise any policy that even hints at being socialist in orgin. That's just dumb IMO.
That seems to be true.
BLAST POST!
heh, since I'm posting anonymously, I'm sure I'll get a low scoring "off topic/flame bait" score, inspite of that "funny" first post.
Prove me wrong Moderators...prove me wrong...
By those measures, OSS is anti-american. Since OSS is based on the principles of freedom from re-inventing something that is already available for free. Freedom from the need to rape and plunder. Businesses (or atleast big businesses) thrive on competition and beating others to submission. Open source on the other hand is about depriving oneself of sleep, for the sake of getting flamed by others when your code is a bitch to read. Or in the case of kernel hackers, getting rejected by Linus. It's all the same at the end of the day.
Ever notice how many times enough scandal accumulates by the time a president hits
the second term that he probably wouldn't be elected a third term?
Interesting, but as there is no allowed third term, I think the actual process is more like keep the scandals down for the first term, then who cares. It isn't like they can run again.
Acts of massive stupidity are almost never covered by warranty. --me.
Spyglass
sybase, sendo
I went looking for that essay Cringley mentions and he's the only online reference to it. Anyone know where it appeared?
aaditya@member.fsf.org
Look at what Jesus Christ said vs. what Christianity has does in His name (from the Crusades to Jimmy Swaggart to Pedophile Priests.) Same with Marx and Engles. Same with Islam. Same with Adam Smith.
My suggestion is that implementation of these complex theories on how society should operate spun by the sages that created them always seem to fall way short of the ideal. On the other side, opponents of the sage's theory site the flawed implementations as evidence that the original theory itself is with out merit and use that as evidence that their theory is correct.
So I don't see any actual progress here. Look at our "final solution" for Iraq. Putting men, women, and children through a meatgrinder because the previous regime was putting men, women, and children through a meat grinder.
My point is that it seems like massive theft and murder on a grand scale are the result of almost every implementation of someone's grand theory.
I'm not saying that it's not interesting to discuss these theories, It just seems delusional to think that they represent "progress."
Robert Fripp (the worlds greatest guitar player IMO) said it best..."Quantitative action works by violence and breeds reaction. Qualitative action works by example and invites reciprocation."
I want to be alone with the sandwich
"Communism was not invented to do anything good for the worker, or to form any sort of utopia; rather, it was invented as a mechanism to change the world's balance of power."
First of all, communism was not "invented". Second, since it wasn't invented, it had no purpose of doing "anything good for the worker" or changing the "balance of power". Communism was an idea that Marx predicted was the next step in political/economical structure. It was the next step after capitalism. Although he stated this was after capitalism, he was working on skipping the capitalistic system and jumping straight into communism. Now that which people ignorantly see as communism is all a twisted system. It has certain characteristics, but it fails the true nature of what Marx called communism. I don't believe I have anything else to say about the rest of your comment, just that part.
Buying out the a studio from the troubled entertainment industry. Microsoft has already shown interest and you can expect current relationships change when they are providing more content.
This has been fought a thousand times, in the middle ages, it was protection and fielty to a castle for saftey; in the colonial age, it was indentured servitude and the various "corporations" that settled north america then tried to hide behind "property" rights. [they had repersentation in their corporate masters parliment. we didn't buy that then.. or now] It's a shame our govenment has forgotten the reason it was founded...to resist corperate tyrany!
It comes down to the fact that while People have the right to property and such, corporations do not necessaraly inherit all those rights, after all, they have unnatural long life, and cannot be reasonably punished [after all, we don't lock up stockholders for MS behaviour...we probably should] as a normal individual....this makes them kind of like nobility...and as have a directive in the constitution to prevent that. You a citizen have rights over your property, when you create a government [what a corporation really is] then you must follow the US constitution which governs all governments on this soil. There's nothing "left-wing" about it.
You did post to SlashDot, no? (-: Terry Pratchett would love this place :-)
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Were they using Hotmail(tm)?
Oh, wait...
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Answer: MacOS uses a proprietary 8-bit character set, NOT 8859.
Classic Mac OS did use a proprietary "MacRoman" encoding, but hasn't Mac OS X switched to something Unicode-based?
Will I retire or break 10K?
...of a giant white shark being nibbled at by thousands of pirana. I don't care much for either of them, but it would be nice to see the shark stripped to the bone.
Big Brother Bush is doubleplus ungood.
Destroying evidence in Federal Court is a very bad idea if you hope to defend a suit (at least if you're caught). In most courts, that means, at the least, that the jury is simply instructed to assume that the destroyed evidence supported the other party's version of events. This aside from fines, jail sentences, etc..
(IAAL)
To pull off that kind of a fraud would be impossible.
Too many people would have to lie. If a handful of people are secretly disgruntled, you are dead, and the people that order the fraud would definately go to jail.
This is my sig.
Microsoft, although being one of the nastier players in the software industry would be the essence of goodness and niceness in even the music industry. When was the last time Bill Gates had anyone's kneecaps broken? Crushing companies hurts poeple - and unemployment causes real pain, suffering, mental illness and suicide - but the problem isn't Microsoft, it's bad corporate behaviour in general. Once again it's barbarians (might is right) raiding farmers (lots of rules to make sure there's enough seed to plant next spring).
If the technology wasn't interesting enough that they felt the need to delete 35 weeks worth of emails about it, why did M$ need to steal the technology (as claimed by Burst)?
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet;
A chrysanthemum by any other name would be easier to spell
Wow! Thanks, AC.
9/6/03 and I just noticed your comment.
This far back nobody reads or mods but maybe you'll see this.
1000 SlashDot sigs