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Gates Gets Government Guards for Gala
Nick Irelan writes "The home of the world's richest man was a 'temporary security zone' when he held a party for members of the National Governors Association. Bill's guests included Newt Gingrich, Tommy Thompson, and Leon Panetta. Gates also put in $150,000 for the governors' meeting held the next day. News.com covered this story very well." If your invitation to Gates' place got "lost in the mail", you can read about a Microsoft intern who got to have dinner with the big cheese.
stop that!
;)
feh. stuff.
Microsoft's Projects Hosted on SourceForge.net Hit High Note With Open Source Users
Thursday July 29, 4:00 pm ET
100,000 Downloads Reported for Microsoft's WiX Software in First 100 Days
FREMONT, CA--(MARKET WIRE)--Jul 29, 2004 -- SourceForge.net, an OSTG (a wholly-owned subsidiary of VA Software Corp., (NasdaqNM:LNUX - News) site, today released data reporting that the two Microsoft projects released under the company's "Shared Source Initiative" are in the top 5% of active projects hosted on SourceForge.net. SourceForge.net (www.sourceforge.net) is the collaborative development site founded to support and foster Open Source development projects, and currently hosts more than 80,000 projects on the site.
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Microsoft's two projects, WiX and WTL, represent the first time that the company has released projects on SourceForge.net. The Windows installer XML (WiX) software allows developers to build installation packages for Windows products was posted on SourceForge.net in April, and has received nearly 100,000 downloads in the first 100 days of its posting. The Windows Template Library (WTL), which allows developers to create graphic interfaces for Windows programs, is also in its third month of posting, and has received 19,000 downloads -- placing both projects in the top 5% of active projects on the site.
"We're not surprised to see this level of interest in the Microsoft projects," said Patrick McGovern, Director, SourceForge.net. "More than a quarter of the projects on SourceForge.net are Windows-related, and anything that makes developing for that platform easier is very attractive to our users. We're pleased that Microsoft has been testing the Open Source waters with an Open Source license on our site, and, judging by user response for the first three months, we look forward to hosting even more projects from Microsoft as they reach out to the Open Source community."
WiX and WTL represent different types of projects for Microsoft. While both are developer tools, WiX was initially developed for internal use at Microsoft and later became the first Shared Source project ever released to the community via SourceForge.net. WTL was available via the Microsoft Developer Network for 5 years before it was released on SourceForge.net. Both projects are available now under the Common Public License and allow interested communities of developers to work with the tools and to modify them if needed in order to fit custom needs.
"We chose to host the Shared Source WiX and WTL projects on SourceForge.net because it is home to a strong community of Windows developers and has a great tradition of collaborative development," said Jason Matusow, director of Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative. "Through the WiX and WTL offerings, we are applying lessons learned over the past three years on the Shared Source Initiative and engaging more closely with the developer community. We are proud to have WiX and WTL represent our first Shared Source offerings on SourceForge.net."
If the list is endless, that must mean that it includes everyone on the planet, and then some more (aliens?). Don't you ever tire of eating alone?
Microsoft is a good place to work like the upper reaches of the Soviet bureaucracy were a good place to work. Yes, they take care of you. They also own your life. It's classic company-town stuff, updated with a high-tech gloss.
I'm not selling this short. Some people are very happy with such an arrangement. But, after almost ten years in the service, I'm happy to be working for a small company that doesn't have that attitude -- independence has its risks, but greater rewards.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
but since the dollar has strengthened slightly since then
Much to the chagrin of lunatic Bush-bashers.