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Malaysian Police Not Roping Longhorn Rustlers
Artifex writes "CNN/Reuters reports that an early release of Microsoft's next operating system, 'Longhorn,' is already being sold openly in markets in Malaysia, with local police doing little to stop it. Microsoft's response, of course, is that consumers should steer clear. I'm sure this chaps their hides, as crashing copies of this as-yet-unreleased product are sure to cause dilution of branding."
Most of these are simply the same Alpha leak build 4015 that has been available on irc for months.
They do NOT include WinFS, WinFX, and are extremely buggy.
~ Maintainer of the Skajake Projects
"It's not a ready product," [Microsoft attorney Jonathan Selvasegaram] said from Malaysia. "Even if it works for a while, I think it's very risky," to install on a home computer, he said.
So how does that make the pre-release "Longhorn" version any different from, say, Windows XP?
Longhorn promises new methods of storing files, tighter links to the Internet, greater security and fewer annoying reboots, Microsoft has said.
Now that's truth in adversising: New, improved Windows! Almost secure! Less annoying than ever! Wow, whoever came up with that marketing line should get a promotion... to the mail room.
(Hey, someone's going to get modded-up for taking cheap shots at Microsoft. May as well be me!)
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
are, however, cracking down on the use of bad puns.
I'm sure this chaps their hides, as crashing copies of this as-yet-unreleased product are sure to cause dilution of branding.
Yeah, I expect to pay for an official branded crashing product. Being able to get one for free seriously undermines their market position.
So I'm going to run a knocked off version of a pre-pre-alpha with a hacked about XP core and an experimental interface from the company with the worst QA record in the entire universe.
Beep beep.
"A Pirates Life for Me"
Yo Ho Yo Ho a pirates life for me
We pillage we plunder
We rifle and loot
Drink up me hardies Yo Yo
We kidnap and ravage
And don't give a hoot
Drink up me hardies Yo Ho
(Refrain)
We extort we pilfer
We pilch and sack
Drink up me hardies Yo Ho
Marauding, embezzle
And even highjack
Drink up me hardies Yo Ho
(Refrain)
We kindle and char
Enflame and Ignite
Drink up me hardies Yo Ho
We burn up the city
We're really a fright
Drink up me hardies Yo Ho
We're rascals, scoundrels
Villains and Naives
Drink up me hardies Yo Ho
We're devils and blacksheep
Really bad eggs
Drink up me hardies Yo Ho
(Refrain)
We're beggars and blighters
Ne'erdowell cads
Drink up me hardies Yo Ho
I think we're loved
By our mommies and dads
Drink up me hardies Yo Ho
Music fades
..which just shows that the human brain is ill-adapted for thinking and was probably designed for cooling the blood-T P
I heard you can get Debian 4.0 as well! Of course, it's still free...
It seems that the utility of such a release would be limited at best. Perhaps the publicizing of this simply serves as more proverbial "egg on the face" of Microsoft than any other purpose.
StyleChief
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! -M. Python
Looks like no one bothered to read the What's Wrong With the Open Source Community article.
Maybe this will cause the price of microsoft products to drop, just like we saw with Playstation in China.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
Malaysia is one of those countries that is official Islamic, and punishes those who do not worship the Muslim god. If Longhorn were known as a Jewish OS, you'd have maniacs burning install CD's in the streets and laws being passed to ban it.
Hey, now there is a price I might pay for Longhorn. Actually the reason M$ picked that name is to deter software pirates here in the U.S. If you steal Longhorn(s) in Texas that is still a hanging offence.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Microsoft advises Malaysians to stear clear of the Windows operating system .... finally some good advice from Redmond.
Microsoft's response, of course, is that consumers should steer clear.
I generally wait until SP1 is out to try a new MS OS.
PUN CONTEST!
Rustlers, Chaps their hide, branding and steer clear.
Are there anymore? Anybody who can think of another pun gets a "Talking about computer hardware made my mother board" t-shirt!
FLAMEBAIT ???
It's anything but. Only when we get cooperation from other nations will the world be an equitable place for all.
Nuff said.
The Wknd Sessions - Malaysian and South East Asia independent music
Look, if you buy alpha-grade software from ANYWHERE and it starts to crash or behave oddly then you don't get a chance to complain to somebody.
When I played through Half-Life 2 a while back and monsters didn't render I didn't post my disgust to any online forums; I just realised that I was playing an unreleased, buggy version of the software and should be glad for what I saw at all.
The only solution to piracy in the third world is free, open-source software. Many countries being harassed by the various shady trade organizations for piracy, such as China, Brazil, and Vietnam, are switching over to open source as much as possible. There is no way that people who live on a dollar a day are going to be able to shell out hundreds of dollars every year for proprietary, closed-source software, and software companies are foolish to worry about it.
In fact, the Malaysian authorities punishing such persecution, usually at the indirect prodding of US corporations and the US corporate government, will backfire. If there's no persecution Windows is 95% pirated, then Microsoft makes 5% -- if they are persecuted and forced to switch to free software, and FreeBSD gets used for everything, then Microsoft gets 0%. Supporting punishment of third-world pirates, thus forcing them to switch to free software, is actually good for the open source movement.
That's what I'm willing to pay for the next version of Windows. As well, the prototype Longhorn is supposedly buggy and unstable, possibly compromising your system. At least Microsoft is consistant.
Celebrities are like ads, if we all ignore them, they'll just go away.
I could understand if they were pirating what passes for a finished product from MS, but a h@x0r3d, unstable beta that isn't even finished? Who could POSSIBLY want that?
OTOH, maybe so many people will get fed up with its overt instability that they'll go and buy Red Flag Linux, or some other i18n Linux distro, instead.
SCREW THE ADS! http://adblock.mozdev.org/ Proud user of teh Fox of Fire - Registered Linux User #289618
Local police are doing little to stop it? Hmm. I'm not very well versed in Malaysian crime rates, but I would guess that the police have slightly more pressing issues to be concerned with.
I mean, the definition of the word "piracy".
It is very obvious to me that this Longhorn system is not something people can use today, as it is. I mean, MS will still work on it for a long while before it can be trusted upon (if then).
So, what use are they except as a "preview" of what MS is cooking ? And, as a "preview", how much different is it from an article about it ? And how much can it hurt ? Everything that looks good will be "wow", everything that looks bad will be "can't wait for them to fix it"!
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
Microsoft have to say "oh, we wish this wasn't happening". If they didn't say that, the west would get annoyed, and complain about unfairness. (because we all know how badly off the west is :-)
Microsoft can get enforcement whenever they want, but in poorer countries, the market saturation is more important. (and that these illegal copies will train people to know Microsoft).
When they want to flip the table, they complain to the US govt, the US govt threatens to put malasia on the 301 Watch List (list of countries where the US aren't happy with "IP enforcement). Once they go on this list, people are afraid to trade with them, the IMF stops loaning them cash, and the World Bank stops rolling over it's existing loans. This happened to Korea already (and it was Microsoft that made it happen).
Add to this that the US delegation to the WIPO summits always contains Microsoft representatives (as "industry experts"), and you have a lot of control, without being visible, whenever they want.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
If, indeed, the police are treating this issue as secondary to illegal pornography, then I would say they are on the right track.
Not that I am against pr0n as such, but a lot of human suffering goes into producing much of it, especially much of the cheap, street quality stuff. Most of the characters are drugged/coerced into performing by their overlords, any many do it out of necessity, in order to get their square meals. Most of them are prostitutes, who were forced in by pimps/etc.
So, to end the rant, I think the police have their priorities right, if they're more worried about stopping the pr0n racket than protecting the rights of a multi-billion dollar company.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
But the Malaysian version is all blue-gray in color, half resolution, and occasionally black silhouettes of people obscure the desktop.
What is this, Subliminal Cowboy Reference Day on Slashdot?
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
crashing copies of this as-yet-unreleased product are sure to cause dilution of branding
Yeah, I bet they will think twice about buying burned copies of the Longhorn release version, once they see how much this one crashes.
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
Well, what will happen if some folks already use Longhorn and a new worm attacks Windows and Longhorn as well. Of course Microsoft is NOT going to provide a patch until Longhorn is officially released. I guess this will become a serious problem any time soon.
Malaysia is such a cesspool of fraud and deceit, I'm hardly surprised. Leave it to them to try to sell leaked, incomplete preview software. Back when I was in the web hosting business, I dropped routes to the country entirely (as best as I could) so they couldn't even see my webserver, much less find my credit card ordering page :-P
He should just go in and kill the Malaysian Prime Minister and solve all of the problems.
That way rather than trying to collect the cows now that the gate has been left open, Microsoft would have several thousand free employees helping to fix all the problems with Longhorn.
"Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')
to be Malaysian!
*sniff*
*sniff*
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
that anyone would put that crap on their system anyway. geez youd need a beowulf of 3 gig'ers just to get it to boot.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
Anyone who thinks $1.58 is a good deal for a pre-alpha Microsoft OS deserves that "experience"
I heard that the reason longhorn won't come out til 2006 is because there was a judgement in 2000 that Microsoft had to share certain source code with certain companies for 5 years (ie until 2005) and that they dont want to write the bulk of the DRM in until after that? Can anyone confirm or is that total crap?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Hey, at the very least they won't have to do any further testing to make sure it works as expected...
.dll that does essentially the same thing and call it bar.dll? If the code is different, but it does the same thing, is it still IP infringement?
In all seriousness, though, WHY would anyone want such a thing. The ONLY reason I would be interested in something like that is if it ALSO came with enough source to compile. After all, that would put a monkey wrench in things.
Imagine if someone who got (however) access to the source, then wrote a paper on what would be necessary to implement compatibility, and then someone else, upon reading it, then wrote a description of that paper (but with enough detail to be useful). Now imagine if someone then implemented the description. What is their level of liability (having never seen the source, or even the paper by the guy who wrote it)?
Even so, it would probably be easier to just do it the way we are--from scratch. Another question though--are the names of certain files copyrighted? That is, if I know program X wants bar.dll, can I make a
Just questions, don't flame me because I am asking--I really want to know.
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
Shouldn't that be:
Malaysian Porice Not Roping Ronghorn Rustrers
If you "get what you pay for", what do you get with open software then?
The owls are not what they seem
Isn't the answer obvious?
Go with a G5!
In Russia (not Soviet Russia :) ) Win Longhorn is sold in every software shopside with WinXP (for $3), Adobe Photoshop ($3) and Half Life II ($6).
Those were only two-thirds puns: P-U.
When the Sheriff won't do anything about rustlers, you call in the Rangers.
Longhorn promises new methods of storing files, tighter links to the Internet, greater security and fewer annoying reboots, Microsoft has said.
Fewer reboots, what a feature. I got a good laugh out of that. Imagine if GM claimed to sell you a car that would 'start more often'.
If people want to find out more about the copyright and patent politics & tricks of global trade, I highly recommend "Information Feudalism", by Peter Drahos with John Braithwaite.
"Information Rules!" has been recommended to me by the same person that recommened "Information Feudalism", so it's probably also very good.
"Globalisation and it's Discontents" is an okay book. It focuses on economics though, and the malpractice of the IMF and World Bank.
On my homepage, I keep a list of good books, and online sources of information. (and from working on the EU software patentability directive, and the EUCD, I know that educated individuals can make a difference.)
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
People who make $200/week are not going to have to pay $200 or more for Microsoft's latest product....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Longhorn is at least 24 months away (according to the presentation I sat through this morning) so whatever anyone buys and runs today is worlds away from the finished product...
The Microsoft PR juggernaut is hitting full stride. "Any PR is good PR!"
I think somewhere, a Microsoft employee (or contractor) leaked this pre-release copy out to the web just to get some free testing.
It makes sense... leak it, and just listen. Learn what the rest of the world has to say.
Let's say that the programmers/contractors want to know what the world thinks: If they release a pre-alpha, the news media might not like it, MS would see their market value take a hit. If the pirates don't like it, too bad... but it's not a loss, it's a learning situation.
Secondly, MS, if they were just a bit smarter, could put some positive spin on this event by saying, "Hey, Longhorn is so good that pirates are making $1.50 on pre-alpha copies... just wait until we get a few more bugs worked in... I mean out."
One last thought:
Anyone stupid enough to pay $1.58 for a pre-alpha release has probably gotten exactly what they deserve.
-- No sig for you!
Bull shit or on /. B$
Herd seen on cattle's drive
Corral Draw
I could go on but I hope you've learned a very important lassoing.
I'm not running photoshop and that's where the G5 "performs" because some Apple dolt spent years optimizing some routine in assembler.
I'm looking for a dual/quad system for running heavy ab initio simulations.
With the poor results people will recieve from installing pirated alpha/beta software, there is a good chance this will cut in to the piracy of the retail product, those poor resellers are just hurting themselves. :)
thats pretty fucking funny if you ask me
1. profit!!
.
.
.
2. late release
3. miss shipping date
4. design product
Egg Troll loves you :)
Linux is in trouble.
Windows Longhorn was released today in Malaysia under a new software license (Free as in 'arr matey's, shiver me timbers').
Tux was not available for comment. He was said to be away on a 'vacation cruise'.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
Longhorn promises new methods of storing files, tighter links to the Internet, greater security and fewer annoying reboots, Microsoft has said. "
Well , so does Knoppix, Yarrow, Mandrake, Slackware, or even RH$.
So, whats the big deal???
* Carthago Delenda Est *
That all the virii/exploits will be ready and waiting for all of MS world in 2005.
Or maybe we'll have pre-release virus definitions ready by then...
Everyone will get buggy shit that crashes 6 ways to sunday and finally will say fsck it and switch to the new Asian Linux, I forget what it's called, maybe "Red Star" Linux?
Anyway, this is a leg up for Linux in Asia..
Buh bye Billy!
Six months before it's released, they'll change the name to Windows 2006 or whatever and all of the bad press goes away. Sheep consumers hear Windows 2006 and think, "Well, it's not that Longhorn version I've heard so many bad things about, so it must be okay." They buy it up because they're too scared to try anything else even though the new EULA says that MS can turn on your webcam and watch you any time they want.
The latest build is 4051 not 4015. It was launched at the PDC two months ago.
Here is a little review I wrote: http://www.betaone.net/index.php?showtopic=29402
I didn't read the article, but it sounds like typical bullshit for the DMCA/RIAA crowd to butter up their claims that "The Steaks are High!" and "Just Cownt The Money We're Losing!", where in reality, nothing could be fodder from the truth. Or as recently herd on Slashdot ... "Moove on -- nothing to see here."
...
That said, I do think taking the bull by the horns and running with Longhorn is a an udderly bad idea, even in Singapore.
Should have really posted this as anonymous cow-ard instead of trying to milk this thread
Yee-hah.
Your .sig made me vomit.
Most people just want something that will run out of the box. Since they cannot afford to pay the retail price, market forces will prevail and bring lower prices. If people want Windows, they're going to get it even if you wave a finger at them and say BSD or *NIX is better. Cracking down won't and hasn't removed piracy, its merely made the pirates (Arrrr) sneakier.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Without the rampant piracy of the early releases of windows, MS would not have the monopoly it has today. MS's complaints about piracy always ring a tad bit ironic to me.
I have a second sig, I call it sig#2.
Not to mention a few hundred million fewer paying customers.
Tell me, is that a good business model?
I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
I'm also an alcoholic prone to blackouts and violent rages and my liver is about to blow so I've got nothing to lose. Suggestions?
I don't think VA Tech chose them because they wanted to run Photoshop.
WTFO ?? Is not diluted excrement still excrement?
.... Hopefully this will cause M$ to collapse .... Unlikely ... Piss em' off? ...
For those like me who are work bound to these products
You bet, I guess that's good enough
It kinda goes without saying that we should steer clear. Or do they just mean the pirated version? :)
For a second there, I thought it said "Malaysian Police Not Raping Longhorn Rustlers", and thought "Wow, the BSA is getting *really* nasty now..."
I know of at least one rewritten .DLL, for Windows9x, the folks at wininternals rewrote the VCACHE functionality with some better self-management and memory compression. Apparently they did accomplish a working replacement to the Windows VCACHE system, but without full-disclosure the performance and reliability were limited. In the end the speed was the same as the old VCACHE, and the compact/compress parts didn't seem to be all that useful.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
I'm not going to say anything bad about M$ for a few days. My linux box went down and it was masq'ing for a few computers which for now xp is doing the masquerading. It's slow, it's unnessarily complicated (for the OS, not for me), but it's functional. Plus it was a nice bonus because I didnt' know xp could do such a thing. I'm glad M$ decided to put something of value in their home version which could have easily been considered an extra.
M$ getting their panties in a knot over VNC is still very funny.
Back in '96 and '97, I was running copies of Win98 (yeah, betas or even alphas) from a Russian CD. Before XP came out, I had a CD from Lithuania that did the same thing. Tho M$ may bitch, I think these are deliberately leaked to increase interest for an OS that is still 2 years away.
What I am most interested in is not included on these CDs; M$'s so-called "trustworthy computing", with its dependency on the Fritz chip to be included on later motherboard designs, doesn't seem to have anything implemented on these CDs.
Favorite quote from the article:
Longhorn promises... greater security and fewer annoying reboots, Microsoft has said.
Yeah, and I heard that for Win98, XP, win2k3, etc. How long are people going to keep buying into M$'s empty promises?
It seems no one has bothered post to where to download it, nor buy it.. Not that I'd even bother. I've been converting users over to Linux all over the place. It's not really that hard.. They want to browse the net and read Email. That's all they did on Windows either.
Well, except for one graphics guy. He's fallen in love with Gimp, and a whole array of other free tools.
And the office folks. They're all into OpenOffice.
I tried to explain that there is so much more they can do. They're just happy to be free of viruses, and have their machines run faster than they did with any version of Windows, and never crash.
If, indeed, the police are treating this issue as secondary to illegal pornography, then I would say they are on the right track.
If it wasnt for illegal pornography why would anybody bother with computers at all?
And I don't think VA Tech has much experience in high performance scientific computing.
I don't think extensive market research and a serious analysis of product utility has much of a place in the business plans of pirates
Example Pirate Business Plan
Rape
Pillage
Plunder
PROFIT!
what goes around comes around!
Or wouldn't you touch that with a ten-foot poll?
Your dream will never come true. Human nature is to blame. Sorry.
Blar.
Malaysia is a multi-ethnic society with Malays (the Muslims), Chinese and Indians. As a non-Muslim Malaysian, I'm not "punished" for not worshipping the Muslim "god". Well let me take that back. It depends on what you mean by punish. Sure non-Muslims are treated horribly with discrimination but not to the point where we all have to convert to Islam yet (but there were points when this happened in parts of Malaysia in the past).
I guess what I'm saying is, don't lump all of us into the same category. Non-Muslim Malaysians do not think the same way as the Muslims. In fact, post-9/11, non-Muslim Malaysians suffer twice...
1. By being associated with Malaysia, we're always treated with suspicion when we travel, despite not having any stupid idiotic Muslim jihad tendencies (far, far from it).
2. By being in Malaysia, we're treated with discrimination from the ruling Muslims on everything from education to buying houses at higher prices.
I'm only thankful that the ruling government consists of moderate Muslims now. If the moderates can do these now, who knows what the radical morons can do.
The cost of writable media is too high. Data media must be priced higher than the actual softwares value, that way, it will not be lucrative to burn a $15 program, on a $50 CD-R.
Wasnt the answer obvious as $1,000 for a bullet?
But, mark my words, you on planet Earth will discover it in quite a short time from now, and then you will find that these little things like the worst QA record "in the whole universe" matter little, and moreover, I know many companies worse than Microsoft outside of this Galaxy.
--
what should anybody do with this?
"Microsoft's response, of course, is that consumers should steer clear."
'Nuff said.
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
Enough puns already! Let's put this out to pasture before we all step in it.
I wonder if Longhorn will run under MacBochs X86?
That would be worth a bux & a 1/2 to see
* Carthago Delenda Est *
Shame they beat out all but two of the experienced groups then.
crashing copies of this as-yet-unreleased product are sure to cause dilution of branding.
If crashing causes dilution of branding then no one would think Microsoft when whatever flavor of Windows they have crashes...
...hang on a second...I just remembered I patented software crashing. I'll have to get my lawyers to start them royalty lawsuits. Pretty soon even my lawyers will be richer than God, and I'll be richer than Bill Gates! Brilliant!
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
It was just in October that the PM of Malaysia, Dr Mahathir, gave an antisemitic speech that would have made Hitler proud. Dr Mahathir... or should we call him Dr Mengela.
"I'm not "punished" for not worshipping the Muslim "god"."
Is there any element of Muslim law in the courts? Is there any way non-Muslims are forced to obey Islamic religious practices?
I doubt it is as bad as it was during the "enlightened" great Muslim empire of the Middle Ages, where Jews had to pay a special tax just for being Jewish, but how bad is it? the legal discrimination?
Tagline*: After the Borg King's daughter, Longhorn Alpha, is kidnapped by the Pirate Captain Malaysia, Longhorn's childhood friend Steve Ballmer must team up with rogue pirate SCO to save her. Little do they know that these pirates are cursed. Forced to exist between living and dead, and only revealing their skeleton forms in the moonlight, the pirates intend to use Longhorn's BSOD and holes (a part of their curse) to return to their normal state.
Coming soon to court rooms near you ! PIRATES OF THE MALAYSIAN
*Adapted version. Original is here.
getSexySig();
Well that's fair enough. Stop worrying about what they are getting up to and they will stop worrying about you.
Hoal!!!
HA!
I agree, piracy is bad. Even piracy of MS is bad. Nonetheless, this isn't commercial software. It isn't for sale - anywhere, at any price - from the publisher. It is, at worst, publicity for the upcoming release. At best, it will show some new features. IMHO, it's a non-story - people who can't afford to purchase the software anyway are forking over $1.58 for a partial-product from IP pirates, and the local police have more important things to do.
It's rustling.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I had a dual boot machine at the time with OS/2 and Win 3.1, all my school assignments, code, etc. all unprotected and un-backed-up on my one-and-only machine. Gee, Fred, can you see this one coming?
So, I spent hundreds of hours over about 2 weeks downloading all the various floppies from the BBS, which was one of the first GUI BBSs in the area. But all that time was SO worth it when I saw that Chicago logo as I installed to a new partition on a 1 or 2 gig drive.
About an hour and a half later, the install was complete, and I was ready to boot for the first time. I held my breath and rebooted. BSOD! I rebooted. BSOD again! I rebooted several more times, each involving a BSOD!
So, I huffed and puffed and tried to get into the partition from OS/2 - no such luck. OS/2 wouldn't boot.
Uhhhhh.
But it was on another drive! Still, both my drives were unbootable toast.
I called several computer stores, the guy at the BBS, and several friends. No one had a solution for me. I tried booting back into Win 3.1 with floppies, but it could no longer read from the drive, either. Finally, I gave up on the conventional and tried calling Microsoft. I came up with a good excuse about how a student friend had "borrowed" my computer and brought it back in this state. I managed to finally get through to a technician, and I explained the error codes I was getting from the bluescreen. He didn't believe me, and thought I should just re-install. He said, "Those aren't Windows error codes. Are you sure that's on the screen?" Finally, in a huff, I gave up and cracked a beer open. About halfway through my beer my phone rang. It was "Tim" from Microsoft. He was an Engineer, and one of the Tech guys had followed up on my problem with him, a developer of Win 95.
Uhhhhh.
Tim was REALLY interested in how I had gotten ahold of the copy, and could he please have the name of the friend? When I balked, he threatened to have MS attorneys look into it, as "corporate espionage" (as he put it) was serious business. He threatened to get the school involved, and once again threatened with the attorneys before I hung up on him. I unplugged the phone for a few days, and magically, never heard from him again.
Oh, yeah. A good copy of Slackware fixed my problem, btw. Great lesson learned about stealing software, and espeically about how a real OS works...
Any sufficiently well-organized Government is indistinguishable from bullshit.
Why should this cause any more dilution of branding than the crashing copies of released product has?
No electrons were harmed creating this post, though some may have been subjected to electrical and/or magnetic fields.
Watch the estimated performance drop like a rock. Everybody would be building G% clusters if they were so great.
Follow the money. You can't go wrong.
Malaysian Police Not Roping Longhorn Rustlers
For a minute, I thought this was about some sort of 'rough trade' deal. I hesitated mightily before clicking on it in Evolution.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
If local law enforcement isn't doing the job, Microsoft should just buy Malaysia.
They'll be sending out hundreds of thousands of CDs FREE OF CHARGE when beta-testing time comes. Sure, somebody in Malaysia is stupid enough to pay $2 for pre-alpha code with major pieces missing. What's the big deal here? Why is this "stuff that matters"?
"In all states, Muslims can be tried under the Muslim law (or syariah law)"
:)
Can Muslims change religion (become non-Muslims) and thus not be subject to Muslim law? Some countries mandate horrific punishment for such an act of conscience.
"Special discounts for Muslims when buying cars and houses. They get them at really low prices compared to non-Muslims."
That sounds pretty barbaric. Can't imagine "Christian discounts" flying in the U.S. or U.K. However, many U.S. business and the government now have policies in place to deny jobs if you are not of the correct "race".
"As for Dr Mahathir, actually he's a pretty capable leader "
He made the trains run on time, right?
Given a choice beteween a a company using stolen commercial software, or using GPL stuff, modifing it, and then selling it without releasing the code, Ill take the later any day of the week and twice on Sunday.... 'We' the OSS/Free Software community have lost nothing in 'evil' entities stealing from us insted os stealing from commercial shops... unless they start to ask stupid question on mailing lists that is :) We have gained what is the hardest thing to aquire. Mind share.
Software companies dont talk about it, and they all vigorusly prosicute blatent offenders, but piracy is a good thing.
Mind share.
Adobe Photoshop is perhaps the most pirated software ever. And its not just the best of the graphic program market, it IS the graphic program market. Why? Well, it is a dam good peice of software, but at least as importantly: people know how to use it, they like it, and for a company who actualy needs it, the $1000 cost is nothing.
For a lot of product lines, the OpenSource product is 'good enough' these days. So why isnt OSS software being installed everywhere? Lack of mind share.
This must be Microsoft's sneaky foray into the open source model! Release early and often! Watch the source to hit Kazaa any day now...
This must be how all those people get jobs ahead of me asking for 7 years .Net experience.
I've been using Longhorn since '03 myself...
How do you know that more G5 clusters aren't already in the planning stages? Not that many clusters are built and each one of the clusters that does get built requires careful planning to ensure it meets the needs of whoever is buying it. The G5 has not been on the market that long and I'm sure we'll see many more clusters made with G5's, especially after the final results are in on the one VT built.
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
I think it's chafes, not chaps. Look those words up if you don't know what they mean, darn it.
Both clean installs, no weird peripherals/3rd party drivers, office machines.
XP box crashes at least once/week, often more. Various symptoms. The Win2K crashes maybe once a month, same apps.
XP may be an improvement over Win98, but I'll still take Win2K over XP any day. Lesser of the evils.
Artifex writes "CNN/Reuters reports that an early release of Microsoft's next operating system, 'Longhorn,' is already being sold openly in markets in Malaysia, with local police doing little to stop it.
Didn't you mean to say "with local police making no attempt to round them up?"
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Since the most important thing in the introduction of any new version of Windoze is coming up with a ridiculous name for it, I suggest "Shortarm."
> I wonder if the inability to enforce a global IP paradigm
> will be the Great Undoing of Western Capitalism
Oh to be an optimist again.
WIPO has 179 members, most of which are third world nations. Every few years, they all meet to make agreements. America agrees to lower it's trade barriers for agricultural and manufacture goods, if the other countries agree to implement copyright and patent laws similar to those of the US. (In practice, the trade barriers of the US don't come down in useful ways.)
The size, wealth, and military might of the US gives it a lot of bargining power. Nations are played against eachother. "If you don't agree to this, we'll trade with all of your neighbours but not you". No developing nation can offord to stand up for itself.
When the US wants a nation to increase it's copyright or patent enforcement, it threatens to cease trading. These countries rely on selling agricultural and factory goods, so they comply. How could they reject DRM if they aren't making their own DRM-less computers?
"The Revolution" will be very hard, and the developing nations know that if it fails, they may never recover. It will take decades (hopefully just two) for them to be ready for a revolution. Free Software offers a complete solution to one part of their problem, but they have many more to deal with, and the west is making sure that the roots of these problems are growing ever deeper.and their problems are growing.
(The computer factories in Asia are mostly owned by US companies. If Asia decided to take over the factory, I can see Bush taking it as an act of war.)
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
I had a erfectly legal version of Win95. I had a lot of problems (including a trashed boot partition) and I tried to report them. Next moment, I get a piece of paper from the BSA about software audits.
I used XP-pro and 2K. I found the latter more mature (it has been around for a long time). XP-pro's gee whiz bits seems to have added unnecessary feature and thus instability. The home version totally sucks though.
Longhorn is so far from being finished right now, I don't know why anyone would want a leaked copy of it. Why not go with a pirated copy of XP or something instead?
It's kind of like this early release of the Half Life 3 source:
int main() { return 0; }
It's not quite done yet, but don't you feel l33t?
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
"they get to go after illegal porn (where $illegal is something like snuff films, or child porn, etc)"
Just so you know, in Malaysia, all porn is illegal.
I agree though, that going after porn should be a higher priority. Since porn is outlawed, only outlaws have porn. And most of these people who sell porn aren't very much concerned about who it goes to as long as they make some money.
I remember hearing from someone once that there were guys selling porn for about the equivalent of US$0.50 a CD, in front of a school! It makes sense that the police are first concentrating more on cracking down on something so easily available to minors.
Personally I would rather have the open source movement "win" on its own merits than because somebody (unfairly) judges MS on the basis of alpha software. If we compare release software vs. alpha, the release version will probably win. Alpha *testing* is intended to eliminate such bugs, after all.
Microsoft should "lose" because their software (and intellectual property model) is inferior, not because people are comparing non-release MS software with release-version Open Source software.
I use Outlook and it does crash often (every other day?), but I've yet to have it drag down the whole O/S. 'Matter of fact, at different times I have to reboot (cleanly) because something's acting flakey or it's gotten slow, but I've never had the O/S flat out crash. Certainly the Unix boxen stay up longer, but my XP's idle process is currently about 700 hours old -- around a month. If you're crashing twice a day, I'd imagine that something's not quite setup right with your system.
...how to setup WindowsXP the way you want it - then don't open your mouth.
It's like configuring Linux except easier.
And it's way more stable than Linux has ever been for me. Why? Cause I don't have a hot clue how to setup Linux the way I want it.
Microsoft's response, of course, is that consumers should steer clear
I've been trying to tell consumers that for years!!
For a minute, I thought this was referring to the VACHE .dll
> BSOD == Old news, funny back in 1998. Uncommmon occurance in Win2k/XP.
You'd think that, however, even after a fresh install of XP Pro, all service packs and updates, only a few small, "Signed" drivers installed, my ex's Compaq laptop BSOD's at least every other day or so. When it chooses to BSOD. Sometimes the screen just goes black without explanation.
This is the second XP machine I've encountered just recently that has incredibly frustrating issues. To be fair, I've also encountered a some that work without major stability problems.
The bottom line is, Windows XP, just like any previous or future Windows release, has wildly varying stability, hinging upon your hardware and your popularity with the gods. Is the average uptime over all the NT-based Windows boxes greater than the average over all the Windows 9x (DOS)-based boxes? Of course! Would I touch 9x given that NT exists? Of course not! But don't get all high and mighty and try to claim that all XP installs are bulletproof. That's simply not true.
As I hear it, Miscrosoft is planning to come out with a line of underwear. On the inner surface will be a raised (think bas-relief) Windows logo.
Yes, you too can wear the Microsoft brand.
This is how Microsoft established market share in Asia; complaining about piracy while making sporadic efforts to stop it. For all we know, Microsoft could have given the product to the pirates just to avoid losing market share to Linux.
Know your own employees, ya idjits! Pre-release alphas do not make it into the wild all by themselves, and certainly the consumers had nothing to do with it because it's... well.. pre-release!
Or is this Microsoft using it as another excuse to support the MPAA's Terminator 3 theorem: that peer-to-peer networking will be the death of us all?
Underscoring the scale of U.S. companies' copyright problems in Asia, CDs containing software Microsoft (MSFT: Research, Estimates) has code named "Longhorn" are on sale for six ringgit, or about $1.58, in southern Malaysia.
Longhorn's file allocation database will crash leaving users unable to locate their files. Longhorn is pure crap, not even worth pirating!
I just want to say, regardless of how much I dislike Microsoft's OS, I truly believe this is a terrible thing to happen.
Piracy, in whatever form, is never warranted.
There are plenty of alternatives that cost much less and work just as well.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d Capitalization really works: i helped my uncle jack off a horse
...for Uncle Bill and Uncle Steve to test out their new Long-Range Anti-Software Piracy Laser Array (LORANASPLAY). The thing takes advantage of the GPS and radiolocation transmitter chips built into motherboards that were secretly marketed months ago in only the highest-risk (for piracy) countries.
After all, you gotta have targets before you can test any weapon, right? For those would-be early adopters of Longhorn who would like a countermeasure, you can dress yourself in armor made out of AOL 9.0 CDs (shiny side out). The reflective surface will keep the laser shots from doing you any lasting harm.
I think I'll go take some more meds...
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
Who are we in the US to knock the Malaysian authorities. What have we done to stop the free flow of Windows? It's easier to get a copy of Windows here than it is to get a rock of good crack cocaine.
My Blog
While your post is serious flamebait and rather first-world elite, I'm going to agree with the general tone of it. The real answer to developing countries like Malaysia and Thailand (where I live) is to enforce these laws, which will force the populace or govenment to create solutions based on local talent, thereby increasing the amount of this talent and encouraging a sprouting IT industry.
The ICT Ministry here had that well in focus until MS poured billions of Baht on the minitry's head.
Put identity in the browser.
"respecting copyrights of properiaty operating systems and office suites can be quote costly."
You're just an acre shy of reality. They don't care about treatys, or copyright or any of that. Repeat there's no cost to them for proprietary software. You're trying to draw a distinction that doesn't exist. Second respecting the GPL can cost. As in money they're NOT making if they do. We've already had a story on Slashdot on a company NOT honoring the GPL, and their gains from doing so ($$$). Don't be so naive.
As they say with buying these pirated products: caveat emptor!
Caveat emptor? Don't you mean caveat kleptor?
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
This is a new low cost offshore testing strategy, "Many pirates make all alpha tests shallow?" Reuters News Service notes that a Microsoft spokesman advises against installing this version, thats probably very good advice, but also deliciously tempting...
Wild speculation: If you willingly distribute demo copies of your closed source OS at a conference, you are probably aware this kind of thing can and will happen... So, its plausibly to wonder if its motivated by a deeper goal, maybe...
(1) Appearing to be the wounded victim of Pirates, provides more fuel for DRM, much needed sympathy in courts, press etc.
(2) Who cares. Any publicity is good publicity?
(3) Good viruses take time you know. Virus writers (out there somewhere) need plenty of reverse engineering time to keep the (massively profitable) anti-virus industry in business?
(4) Any bug report is a good bug report.
(5) Deliberate FUD, no signal, just noise, duh, move along now, nothing to see?.
(6) Nah, for my money this is all just conspiracy theory paranoia, triggered by regular PHB incompetence and normal illicit activity. NOP.
There is no god; get over it already! Never exchange a walk on part in the war, for a lead role in a cage.
I suspect that Longhorn is less dangerous to your PC than say Mandrakes ability to kill your harddrive or OS X 10.3 ability to wipe your external firewire drive
FYI, all porn here is illegal. Though, the street cops tolorate it as long as there is no civil disorder. (and payment)
You are absolutely right about "making" money though. There is more money in raiding porn because it's considered a much more serious offence then just VCDs, and they usually get about 200-400 (1/4 -1/2 months pay) odd ringgit from the kingpins to "bail" out their street guys.
Also, at the end of the day, the cops are also humans with needs, they know that Windows is overpriced, and they also want to own computers cheaply, and they are fully aware that software piracy is what is going to enable their children to gain the knowlage to have a better future.
(Can a cop making rm900 a month afford to pay rm450 for Windows and maybe say rm 5,000 for photoshop?)
So every few months they organise a circus act of an operation, where they will raid a few software shops where the operators are wanted on other charges anyway, call it a raid, make sure the press is there to blow it out of porpotions and call it a sucessful opoeration to keep the F8king BSA happy.
You're right about one thing: I honestly have never seen the BSOD in Windows XP. The reason for this is very simple: EVERY TIME I've seen it crash (and I've seen it crash at hundreds of times on half a dozen boxes), it *invariably* locks up completely. Think about that for a moment.
At least with the BSOD I had SOME chance at recovery. Now I have none.
Do you expect me to accept that Microsoft has done me a great favor by banishing the dreaded BSOD? Bah... that's crap. If anything, Microsoft has REMOVED a semi-useful feature that allowed me to actually recover from a crash (on occasion, anyway.) Maybe they realized that it was an emblem of their failure--maybe someone thought that if they removed the "sorry, we fucked up" sign, then people would think that they've fixed the problem.
Note that I'm just addressing the BSOD issue, here--it's true that XP is far ahead of 98SE in terms of stability (though I highly doubt that most people are going for months at a time without crashes.) However, I do wish that they hadn't gotten rid of (or "nerfed", I suppose) the BSOD, and I think that BSOD jokes are even more ironic because of it--I hated the old 9x days of constant crashes, but I think it'd be great if M$ gave me the option of recovering from 20-40% of my less frequent (but still extremely annoying) XP crashes.
BSOD jokes aren't obsolete... they're made a thousandfold more ironic once you're forced to utter a sentence like this:
"I miss the Blue Screen of Death."
you just don't get it. they haven't respected it before, and couldnt have afforded to respect it anyways.
but:
there's international pressure on them to start respecting copyright. that's what this whole shebang with them is ALL ABOUT. THAT'S WHY THEY ARE LOOKING AT FREE SOFTWARE, they have to start doing it sooner or later.
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world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Why bother uncle Bill, uncle Bush or uncle Sam? Uncle Ho wants you!
no they reall need US help to stagnate as thee is no finer example of stagnation. on there own they will stop stagnating and start developing.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
I was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2001. There was an entire level in a medium-sized mall in the middle of the city where they basically sold computer related pirated products. There is also Chinatown, of course, where the selection is even better. Pirated software is a fairly big source of tax-income in KL. The goverment has realized that spreading software will educate the people, so they don't see any point in doing much to stop this. Anyway, this is my impression from what Malaysian people told me.
Malaysia rules!