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Ballmer and McNealy Smiling Together
cahiha writes "Sun and Microsoft are pushing a single sign-on and identity management solution, and the Sun home page has a picture of McNealy and Ballmer smiling together. Yahoo has details on the conflict between the industry giants, and there is more information on the collaboration at the Sun press release page. The press release took place Friday morning." From the article: "The technology news, though, was overshadowed by the joint appearance of McNealy and Ballmer, who until April 2004 were bitter enemies. McNealy once referred to Microsoft's executive team of Ballmer and
Bill Gates as 'Beavis and Butthead.'"
Nuff said.
Microsoft, on the other hand, needs to look more "open" and more "willing to play nicely with competitors". What better way than to find a half-dead ex-competitor, one that won't pose any serious challenge, and start cooperating with them. Maybe this will appease those EU anti-trust people.
So in desperation, Sun is reaching for a life preserver made of cast iron.
Of course, this could be an entirely new, unworkable "a single sign-on and identity management solution," that will be just as distrusted and irrelevant as Passport was. People don't even trust Microsoft to handle their e-mail without infecting their machine, much less keeping their "identity" secure.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is im-possible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and jus-tice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary. Adam Smith, the "Wealth of Nations" What goes around comes around. Steve
This is about what Digital was doing at this point in their death spiral. The pilot hasn't told the passengers the situation... When I die, I want to die in my sleep, like my Grandfather did, and not like the 500 screaming passengers on his plane.
Next year when MS starts screwing Sun, Sun will complain and be told: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
you know better than any of us that Microsoft is a difficult company to deal with
Yes they do. Think about it: Sun forced Microsoft to settle for $2 billion regarding Java. Sun is backing OO.org without anyone having sued them. Sun is open sourcing UNIX(TM) this summer.
Sun's lawyers and executives have balls. Even the female ones.
If anything will make Sun succeed it is this ability to deal with the Microsofts and IBMs and survive.
I shudder to say this in many ways, but some good could actually come out of this if Sun and Microsoft could get some cooperation happening on Java (or more generally a unified runtime and API). Sun may be near irrelevant but Java is in many ways the main competitor to Microsoft's broad development platform (is it still called .NET?)
Putting aside the important considerations around free/open software, it could make a lot of people's lives simpler. Its not that Java isn't already rich and cross platform, it would just be a next step in unification and perhaps make development for small devices for example easier.
But due to their contexts, I wouldn't fully trust either company, and especially both, to carry the flag for a unified development environment, just like I'm sure this latest cooperation will yield to some selling out of purely technical or ethical concerns. "Liberty Alliance" (groan) appeared to be much more important than MS' solution, with much more real third party participation, so this is a consolidation that will have repurcussions. The third party opinions and participation of interested parties like geeks is still important to prevent sneaking in designs intended purely for the benefit of MS and Sun, rather than contributing to developments that are generally useful.
.........at least not in their homepage
THE REASON THERE IS A CAPS LOCK KEY
Caps lock is on the keyboard because there used to be a shift lock on a typewriter keyboard. It was on the typewriter keyboard because there were only two ways of providing emphasis on a typewriter, ALL CAPS and underline. So you quite often typed a lot of capitals in a sequence.
But the trouble with shift lock is that you ended up typing $^&***&^% when you got to any numbers. Shift lock only makes sense when applied to letters, and so the caps lock was born on electric typewriters and computer keyboards.
Later, on computers it was also useful for computer languages like BASIC and FORTRAN that were programmed in uppercase.
It is for SHOUTING.
But seriously, you have to go back to the old mechanical typewriters, where shift literally shifted the mechanism vertically so that the uppercase portion of the strikers hit the ribbon. The Caps Lock was actually a little mechanical lock that held the shift lever down.
There was also no Enter/Return key. You slapped a big lever up on the carriage, which rotated the drum up a line, and then transferred you slap to the carriage to move it back to the right.
You also had to strike the keys, as you were mechanically moving a striker up to hit the ribbon over the paper. If you pushed them, you'd get no, or a light strike.
And you tried to type 'teh', you'd probably end up with a mechanical snarl.
When you learned typing, they would have typewriters with no letters on the key caps. You couldn't hunt and peck if you wanted to. I wonder if they even teach typing on mechanical or electric typewriters anymore.
You better wash your hands of all that evil-supported GNU software then. Oh wait, you mean you didn't realize that without Sun and Solaris that 90% of the FSF software suite wouldn't have had a development platform, back in the day?
Didn't think you did.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Software isn't so trivial. There's support staff expertise to build, there's a customer base to build, etc. It isn't like customers like seeing one company vaporize to have another one spring up and say "hey, over here, folks!"
"Free software gives the power to the software engineer."
Not really. We still live in a society where people have to make money. This means working for a company doing their software development or consulting, which usually doesn't mesh with the software engineer's own ideals.
The idealism behind the FSF is good, but it has its limits.
I know that most folks are familiar with the Linux vs. Windows debate but look who could get replaced easier....Solaris.
A case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend? Maybe......
Oh hold on, this is not coming from the Cannes festival...
Besides, browsers such as Mozilla already have the capability of storing your login info -- LOCALLY, UNDER YOUR CONTROL, not at some distant and super major coropration.
Well, the choice is yours, folks. Centralized login, and all that implies, or decentralized and less vunerable to comprimise.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
Without Sun and Solaris, development would have continued on systems from DEC, HP, or any of the dozen or so other *nix vendors around at the time.
Solaris' popularity didn't make it indispensible.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
In other news, McNeally and Ballmer have also been trying to figure out a way to make Hell hotter and are currently developing STH technology: a way to make people's first mistake send them straight to Hell. Evil never sleeps, folks!
BANG!
But seriously, people have been talking about thin clients for a decade, and they never took off. When $200 gets you a really nice commodity PC, there's no real point. The monitor ends up costing you more than the PC. It surprises me even more that you're talking about home users. Why would a home user want to pay money every month to have access to part of a CPU, and access it via an unreliable and/or slow internet connection?
I can understand the motivation in an academic or corporate setting for wanting to use thin clients so you can cut down on support costs. But that was true 10 years ago, and it never got popular. For one thing, it may just be more efficient to give the user some control over his machine, so he can get his work done. Also, if you really want to lock down the machines on your network so lusers can't infect them with viruses, install limewire, etc., there are cheaper ways to do that than to buy an overpriced thin client from Sun. It's just a matter of software. For example, the computers in the labs at my school get their hard disks automatically reimaged every so often.
Find free books.
This is an excellent point. If anyone should be running business (or society in general), it should be the scientists, artists and academics. They are typically not blinded by avarice in the sameway that the average businessman is. Profit is useful, but it should never be the main motivation for doing something. The main motivation should be the further development of mankind so that the totality of the species may expand beyond the confines of our primitive solar system. The improvements to our cultures should not only be in the technology arena, but also in social and behavioral aspects. The goal should be to stamp out fear, greed and selfishness and replace them with a thirst for knowledge, a deeper understanding of the benefits of cooperation over competition, and a strong awareness of our responsibility to those around us.
Sadly, we have let our society be taken over by the common criminal's desire for material wealth with no reasonable limits. Fortunately, not everyone thinks this way and many of us attempt to rise above that archaic mode of thinking. We see the value in cooperation and how making top dollar does little to further the species. Capitalism has served it's purpose, but it is not scaling well as the means of information production becomes ubiquitous. IP laws and software patents are not there to protect you unless you are a big enough software business to afford the lawyers. This is not right or just. Source code is merely the analogue to a recipe, the compilers, linkers, etc... are the cooking utensils. No one has set out to restrict what you can cook, so why should they restrict what you write for your computer? Is it illegal to make a hamburger at home? Did McDonald's set out to keep people from stealing the hmburger from their virttual monopoly? No. So all this talk of software patents is pure rubbish and legal tacticsto keep the power inthe richest hands. The time has come to destroy this system of control. I plan to continue writing code in any way I see fit in order to do what I need to do with my machines. No corporations are going to stop me even if they wish to brand me a criminal. Sometimes you just have to stand up for what you believe in. I believe that computers are tools and my ideas are free.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
I think the divide is between free as in freedom and everyone else.
I've been using linux for a long time, since about '92. (I should be a lot better at it than I am -- I'm not claiming any kind of geek mastery over it.)
And for almost all of that time it's been about the software and not the license. I always thought the free software fanatics were, well, fanatics. Ideologues.
I don't think that any more. In the end, the only software that's perfectly alined with its users' interests is open source.
It's usually not described in these terms, but defining characteristic of open source is that the owners or creators have given away their ability to control how people use the software.
Out of the big guys in silicon valley, gates is probably one of the better ones. Personally, I'd rather hang out with him than with Jobs. I always imagine Jobs sitting in a chair with disciples gathered around his feet. Ellison must be a nightmare.
Gates is the worst only because he's the biggest and most powerful. If Jobs was the biggest and most powerful, he'd be the worst.
I used to run a business on sparc servers. I like Sun and their technology. But Sun is looking out for Sun, and they always will, and if it's in their interests to throw me under the train, they will.
Debian *can't* throw me under the train. They've signed away all the rights they'd need to be able to do it.
It's not about whether or not the guys at the top are good or bad. It's that they're in roles that simply shouldn't exist. That's the problem with google's ambitious plans. The guys who run google are great -- they probably go out on sunday's and wash the feet of the poor. But they're amassing a lot of power over information, and the mass itself isn't a good thing.
I find your stereotype wrong.
Who is there to blame but DEC for believing Microsoft lies rather than innovating on their business model and attitudes and trying to get ahead of the train again.
There were actual signs hanging above engineer's desks "We're DEC and you are not." and the attitude was pervasive.
They were never willing to go with something new that was not thought of, developed, patented, and otherwise controlled by DEC.
Small wonder when they needed an answer, they thought it would be someone like Microsoft.
I spent many years in the depths of DEC hardware and software, but good riddance. They would have become just like Microsoft or worse had they been able, because they were controlling the hardware as well. It is just too bad that no one picked up the Alpha chip or any number of other good technologies that they were somehow unable or unwilling to bring to the masses.
No, you stated that it couldn't have happened otherwise.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
That said, I think Microsoft sees themself on a precarious perch. They think they keep their domination of the desktop by denying the average customer freedom of choice. Go to a Best Buy or browse Dell.com. We only see Microsoft boxen.
Microsoft has been better at forcing us to use Microsoft products than geting us to want to use Microsoft products. As a result Microsoft is not exaclty loved by a large part of it's customer base. The Microsoft partisans see the resentment even though they attribute it to jealousy of Microsofts success instead of a reaction to Microsoft's actions.
So far Microsoft has been successful at killing potential threats. When Netscape and Java were seen as potential OS independent platform Microsoft cut off Netscape's "air supply."
When BeOS was around Microsoft prohibited the Box Makers from configuring dual boot boxes from being truely dual boot!
It has been easy for Micosoft to kill off these single company threats.
Why has has Microsoft been able to tell the box makers what to do. If 95% of the business of a box maker is Microsoft boxes, then they have to do an Microsoft says.
I am sure that Microsoft fears the possibility of an alternative such as Linux getting enough market share that some Box Makers could tell Microsoft to bugger off. I am sure they fear this scenario. And Linux can not be killed by cutting off a company's "air supply."
But I think the fear is unfounded. I think most people would stick with Windows even if they had Linux boxes next to the Windows boxes at Best Buy.
Religion is the main cause of atheism.
If anyone should be running business (or society in general), it should be the scientists, artists and academics.
I'd much rather see a business man in charge of a business (or society in general). It's bad enough when scientists, artists and academics run a business you've invested in, right into the ground, but that's nothing compared to the horrors of the "theocracies" they've lead. Even in spite of their intentions, a realist is usually more benign then an idealist.
They are typically not blinded by avarice in the sameway that the average businessman is.
Perhaps, but in my experience scientists, artists and academics tend to be worse than blinded, perhaps by higher ideals and are all the scarier for it. That said, corporations are truely inhuman, but that it less about businessmen and more about the laws that require them to put profit ahead of all else.
The time has come to destroy this system of control.
I agree that there are some changes that need to be made for the betterment of all mankind, but after havinbg read about "[your] struggle", I think I will be forwarding your text to the Department of Homeland Security.
Have a nice day.
That's not true, you know. Sometimes people work for companies because of lack of motivation, sometimes lack of capital, sometimes fear, sometimes a combination of these things.
And maybe there are some people who actually LIKE working for companies. Maybe they like the relative security, the human contact, the culture, the well-defined role and responsibility.
The world needs more and better entrepreneurs but lets be serious, not everyone can be, or should be, an entrepreneur.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
How the mighty have fallen, poor bastards - how I remember the sun of a decade ago, how strong, innovative and proud they once were.
For them to be reduced to to this, kissing up to the peecee monopolist, is a saddening spectacle. IMHO it's a sign that sun is not long for this world, at least not the sun that we know.
We've seen the pattern repeated in the past, with one hapless company after another lining up for the same treatment, getting in bed with microsoft, taking a wad of cash and giving up far more than they realize, fading into irrelavance shortly thereafter.
Sun, it was good to know you - although we didn't always see eye to eye, it can't be denied that you contributed a lot to the internet and the unix community.
R.I.P.
I think the real point is not to trust ANY person with power, in which case, that's actually good advice. Nonetheless, "not trusting" is not the same as "is evil".
BTW "person with power" == Linus, RMS, Red Hat as well as Sun, IBM, etc. If you blindly follow ANY leader, you're a fool.
But clearly the zealots can't get it through their thick heads that demonizing Sun, or IBM, or BitKeeper is no different from demonizing RMS and the FSF. Just as not-reality-based.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001