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Confidential Microsoft Emails Posted Online
dos4who writes "From the class action 'Comes et al. v. Microsoft' suit, some very enlightening internal Microsoft emails are now made public. Emails to and from Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Jim Allchin, etc all make for some mind blowing reading. One of my favorites is from Jim Allchin to Bill Gates, entitled 'losing our way,' in which Allchin states 'I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft.'"
called they want their Halloween documents back!
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/011107/PX_2768.pdf
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language."
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
If only they had used lycos for their email.
In communist Russia, the Mac would buy Allchin today if it weren't working for Microsoft.
MicroSoft's worst detractors are their own execs.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Is this not the same thing Groklaw covered quite sometime back? There are several updates in the link, including a clarification from Allchin on that 'I'd buy a Mac' quote.
I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
These confirm that Microsoft so-called critics are just telling it like it is. Vista is a second-rate, user-hostile OSX knock-off, .NET is a java knock-off and MS senior execs are lying through their teeth when they talk about innovation.
Classic stuff.
Here is the coral cache of the documents.
Seastead this.
If you read what people post here, most sane people wouldn't touch linux and would look at these discussions as childs play.
Why?
It's interesting for Jim Allchin to state this, because in terms of performance, security and understanding what the most important problems a customer face, I didn't know Microsoft had a "way" they're somehow losing now. To say that Microsoft has always been lazy in these areas is an understatement.
Now this gets me thinking, because we in FLOSS care a lot about security and performance, but not too much about the end users experience and the applications that are important to them. We all know how Apple just Gets It(tm) and we should, too, if we ever want to expand our installed base and market share beyond geeks and tech savvy users.
- Otaku no naka no otaku, otaking da!!!
Stay tuned!
The Linux Strategy???
Since we now know that Microsoft is willing (nay, obsessed) to go "to the mat", as it were, the Linux strategy should be to exploit this tendancy as often as possible. If it happens often enough, either it will become an un-tenable situation for Microsoft, wherein after Microsoft will no longer be able to make any kind of TCO statements regarding Linux vs. Microsoft; and/or else they will go broke in all these no-profit deals (okay, admittedly, it will take them awhile to go broke... but it could happen!
If nothing else, these documents reveal _very_ publically (what many of us already knew) that Microsoft is scared SHITLESS of Linux.
Why should the market leader (a monopolistic, strong-arming, dirty-tricks, no-holds-barred leader at that!) be scared of a FREE operating system and open-source applications-- unless they can see that their dominant position is deeply threatened?
Maybe Balmer will throw some more chairs at somebody. Better be prepared to duck fast.
I wonder what business Microsoft will get into after computers, software and IT?
I think it is kind of refreshing to see such emails. At least it lets us know that they aren't totally disconnected from reality and at least from the looks of it want to make progress that is not only profitable for their company, but for computing as a whole. Oh yeah, I HATE TEH MICRO$AUFT ZOMG! Sorry, was obligatory.
These aren't "illegal leaks" - they're evidence that has been made public - and rightfully so - because justice must not only be done, but seen to be done. Don't expect to be able to keep illegal anti-competitive activities secret because of some non-existent "corporate right to privacy."
Can anyone find any non-PDF versions of these? I don't allow PDF's in my biz...
That's pretty harsh... I haven't seen a business with that policy.
Why? Even if you hate adobe, PDF viewers/renderers are available from other vendors.
That's what happened to WinFS: Jim Allchin killed it, or talked someone into killing it. If you read that "losing our way" email carefully, that's what he's talking about. LH means Longhorn, i.e., what they were calling Vista at the time (early 2004). "We need a simple fast storage system" in this context means "We need to ditch WinFS".
The "scenario" stuff is probably related to this topic also, but I don't know enough about the culture inside of Microsoft to say how.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Most of those email are plain-text. Is it really necessary to pdf them? Why don't they print them out, then take a picture of the printout on a wooden table, and post *that* to the web.
"It is a good divine that follows his own instructions" - Portia, The Merchant of Venice
Why on earth would you ban PDFs?
If it's just a matter of hating Adobe Reader, there are free open-source alternatives out there.
Go watermark and protect that text file you suggest they use..
The Coralizer algorithm doesn't Coralize links if they have the domain name in them. e.g.: it will Coralize href=lc-4.html but not href=http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/lc-4.html
Seastead this.
The PDFs are just embedded images scanned from printouts of the emails (your tax dollars at work in the court system). Google OCR is your friend.
Unless you don't "allow google in your biz" either? Microsoft search may have something similar but I've not yet seen the email where they say they're going to copy the google feature.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
I love this:
:-)
From exhibit PX 851, a memo from bradsi to billg and steveb (among others) regarding alleged "bugs" in DR DOS as found by Microsoft commissioned NSTL:
"We are engaged in a FUD campaign to let the press know about some of the bugs. We'll provide info a few bugs at a time to stretch it out."
Ahhhh...Microsoft(r) Time-Released FUD(tm). Gotta love it.
Given that the youth of America have been brought up on MS products, they're going to have a stronger attachement to them than those of us who were brought up on Commodores, Amigas, and Apples. MS *clearly* knows this. Think about that.
I don't care what your industry is, if you see someone start offering the core of what you do for free you're going to become worried. I knew people who were making a decent living doing computer consulting for home users who went out of business because of how many 15 year old neighbours could do most of what they do for free.
Linux and open source software is great, but if you work in software development on projects where there is a public interest you should be afraid.
Newbie legal question: Why is that document stamped "attorneys only" yet we're allowed to see it? I thought that stuff stayed in the court's files only? I'm asking because I was in a court case a few years ago and I hope the docs I submitted don't end up for public consumption etc.
Disclaimer: I like Linux more than I like Windows.
Still, I just don't get why this would be somehow indicative of anything but good things of Microsoft. Everyone knows that 3 years ago, they were floundering in regards to Vista. Whether you like Vista now or not, it's a perfectly reasonable thing for him to have said (i.e. I'd buy a Mac), and most likely an exaggeration anyway. It all makes a lot of sense to me, and we don't do ourselves credit as part of the FOSS community by bashing anything that isn't just because we can. =)
The reader is beyond crap. Last I checked, the reader was a 60+ meg install, and it's such a pig that PDF's take MINUTES to open on some of our machines, if the perpetually updating/crap installing reader doesn't hang trying to do an update. I shouldn't need a work around for a simple text file. It's absurd. That, and the file format itself is so bloated that it makes MS Word files look trim by comparison.
It's simply unacceptable. It's bad software. It's a bad file format. We won't use it. It's that simple. If more people refused to accept bad software, I think that we'd have less bad software floating around out there.
I don't respond to AC's.
This is because the promise of Linux has been wasted by the lack of production of true killer applications, allowing both Microsoft and Apple to further embed their OS's among their faithful.
New systems shipping with Vista are sticking a finger in the Penguin's eye, because when it comes down to it, its all about the apps.
From what I've seen, the PDF files are low-quality scanned images of printed emails. Posting them as PDFs in their original form demonstrates their authenticity.
python>>> q="'";s='q="%c";s=%c%s%c;print s%%(q,q,s,q)';print s%(q,q,s,q)
It was originally attorneys-only.
Subsequent litigation .... different case .... documents admitted into evidence .... court ruled they can be made public in this instance.
Its the same as the original AT&T / BSD agreement. It *was* secret, but the world has changed, its no longer secret ...
In economics there is a well-understood concept called switching costs how much it costs for a trading partner to change partners. Our philosophy on switching costs is very clear we want low switching costs for customers who want to start using our platform, and we want to provide so much unique value that there are in effect high costs of deciding to move to a different platform. There is a name for this: it is called Embrace and Extend.p df
http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/010807/PLEX_5906.
This is what happend with Kerberos in Active Directory. Vendor-Lock-in at it best.
From: Jim Allchin
Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2004 8:38 AM
To: Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer
Subject: Losing our way...
This is a rant. I'm sorry.
I am not sure how the company lost sight of what matters to our customers (both business and home) the most, but in my view we lost our way. I think our teams lost sight of what bug-free means, what resilience means, what full scenarios mean, what security means, what performance means, how important current applications are, and really understanding what the most important problems are[sic] customers face are. I see lots of random features and some great vision, but that doesn't translate into great products.
I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft. If you run the equivalent of VPC on a MAC[sic] you get access to basically all Windows application software (although not the hardware). Apple did not lose there way. You must watch this new video below. I know this doesn't show anything for business, but my point is abouth the philosophy that Apple uses, They think scenario. They think simple. They think fast. I know there is nothing hugely deep in this.
[URL to iLife video on Apple's site, since taken down]
I must tell you everything in my soul tells me that we should do what I called plan (b) yesterday. We need a simple fast storage system. LH is a pig and I don't see any solution to his problem. If we are to rise to the challenge of Linux and Apple, we need to start thaking the lessons of "scenario, simple, fast" to heart.
Jim
some true insight right out the mouth of the sources. I'm bookmarking these, and I've already printed some for my friends to read. Finally some proof that the evil empire is truly evil. "Screw Sun?" Scre you M$! Their products work!
Relocating to San Francisco / Palo Alto... Hire me?
You think its funny? They think it is fucking HILARIOUS.
By yesterday, Microsoft made more money on Vista than OSX has in its entire lifespan.
Sun's handling of Java gave Microsoft enough time to make .NET a killer platform, especially for Web apps.
Even if the only way that Microsoft is innovative is in how they turn other people's ideas into profit centers, I assure you that they are laughing a lot more than Apple or Sun today.
When he said...
If it's just a matter of hating Adobe Reader, there are free open-source alternatives out there.
What did you hear?
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
I think you're misunderstanding the purpose of PDF. It's not just to make text available, but to make documents (including images, and in some cases 3D content) that will look the same on ANY platform. This is absolutely necessary for publishing and other areas where you need a document format that isn't subject to all the inconsistencies of presentation that most word processing formats suffer. To my knowledge, there is no other document format that is intended to work this way. Microsoft was working on a PDF replacement, but I don't know much about it, and I'm sure it'd be bound to Microsoft.
I can agree that the Adobe Reader software sucks. But, there are many, many PDF readers available that work just fine without the Adobe nonsense, but still give you access to one of the nicest document formats available.
I know you're just trolling but I'll play along. It's too cold to do anything outside today. Why not feed the Slashtrolls...
I knew people who were making a decent living doing computer consulting for home users who went out of business because of how many 15 year old neighbours could do most of what they do for free.
That one line has got to be the best advertisement/endorsement for Linux and open source software that I've seen in a long time. If you are truly not trolling, think of how powerful that statement is: "Linux: even your neighbor's 15-year-old kid can maintain it." We should welcome software that is that easy to use and maintain, not lament it's arrival .
Try this, you'll like it. Great piece of software.
They would want to buy a Mac. You can do a LOT more things a LOT cheaper on a normal PC.
Preview opens PDF files instantly under OSX.
That mistake ("there way") was introduced by me during transcription; it was not present in the actual message.
Im a big fan of XP, but Vista has left me scratching my head trying to figure out what they were up to, from the emails I gather they don't really know either.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
That "bad file format" you are knocking is the compsiting and rendering format for the Macintosh OS X Quartz user interface.
a cos-x-gui-4.html
See this: http://arstechnica.com/reviews/1q00/macos-x-gui/m
This was the natural extrapolation from DPS - display PostScript - used on the NeXT and original SunOS NeWS.
There is a difference between crappy rendering implementation and crappy model.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
It's not the format per se. Safari on the mac pops them open in a new tab for me as quickly as opening a standard web-page, which is quick. You should look at other options for PDF's, and I think you'd have a different view of them.
It's not just to make text available, but to make documents (including images, and in some cases 3D content) that will look the same on ANY platform.
That's what DHTML and CSS is for.
I don't respond to AC's.
We are engaged in a FUD campaign to let the press know about some of the bugs.
We'll provide info a few bugs at a time to stretch it out
the proof is in the pudding
comment directly in my journal
I mean, at least he could buy the Mac and say he wanted to stay familiar with the competition.. you knows.. friends close, enemies closer, and all that... When really he just wanted the Mac.
And if somebody that high up in Microsoft is going to not buy the computer they want because they save a little money using the computer they don't, when they're obviously plenty wealthy to own the one they want.. Well.. wtf.
In short, this guy pisses me off.
TLF
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Not even the rhetoric from a "Women's study" class can prepare the reader for the contents of those letters. All the diabolical "power" talk is like a script from a bad movie. Start anywhere and you get there fast. They really are sick.
The first thing I looked at had this nonsense:
You might recall later evidence from the Novel DR-DOS lawsuit, where Microsoft later killed DR-DOS off by making Win3.1 not work with it and then blaming DR-DOS in BBS postings. Nice.
The next thing seems to indicate witness tampering in the same power struggle.
The next random look has more opinion manipulation trough astroturf:
And it goes on and on. The targets today are the ones that survived, IBM, Novel, and friends but now include the free software that everyone but M$ has agreed to use because it's better. Instead of fudding BBS, they are here and in the newspapers and TV networks they purchased for the purpose. If these dorks spent half the time wasted on improving their product, they might have a product that works. Instead, they have focused on marketing, "power" and other crap that's ended in DRM and botnet hell. No one should trust M$ for anything and everything they touch is suspect.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
That's nice.
I don't respond to AC's.
Umm, if you think DHML and CSS are the same on every platform, you need to use some other platforms. Every browser renders the content differently, even if you follow all the standards to the letter. That's just not acceptable.
They could have been faked, then printed, then scanned? How does that demonstrate that they're authentic?
"It is a good divine that follows his own instructions" - Portia, The Merchant of Venice
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work."
Isn't that what some Java detractors have been saying for years.
"Let's move on and steal the Java language."
Sounds like Sun was right not to open source Java until now.
"FW: ... "
-
".... Please dont forward.. "
Seriously? While there are some security flaws in Adobe Reader. PDF is now an open spec. You can find many open source PDF readers that do not allow the level of scripting that Acrobat does.
Your probably a troll, but if not. The plaintifs got the judges permission to post these exibits. http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article ?AID=/20070108/BUSINESS/70108029/1029
No leaks at all.
That one line has got to be the best advertisement/endorsement for Linux and open source software that I've seen in a long time. If you are truly not trolling, think of how powerful that statement is: "Linux: even your neighbor's 15-year-old kid can maintain it." We should welcome software that is that easy to use and maintain, not lament it's arrival .
Please don't. Microsoft already beat us to that one by sparring over Novell over who could have the youngest certified professional. I think the winner was Microsoft by giving an MCSE to a 12 year old.
The only real result of that is the test was too easy and MCSE is now an industry wide joke.
When Ballmer and Gates are no longer the driving force behind Microsoft, that company will really erode.
Common sense of interoperability will prevail instead of a monoculture of patches upon patches.
That is when Linux will really have a chance.
The unknown factor at this point is what platform will the RIAA/MPAA be tied to and support.
There is absolutely no common sense reason why Windows can't be completely new as OSX (as Longhorn was supposed to be) and run leagacy in VM.
Instead we get bloated Vista with DRM hooks and PMP tollways to eat up the physically superior processors and bandwidth friendly bus speeds.
The logical reason why Vista isn't a 'NEW' OS is because of the developers.
Micrsoft doesn't want developers learning something new unless it's Microsoft and a platform switch could cause mutiny.
Apple, with less resources, brought us OSX with legacy support in less time that it took Vista to get to retail from XP.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
Many courts across the country require PDF format for exhibits. That way, exhibits can be retrieved from court websites and emailed to and fro by counsel and court.
Written on January 2004. This was just before the big 'reset' where they realized they were going in the wrong direction, and completely refocused their efforts -- they wen't gun-ho on security, developing XP SP2, and moving 'longhorn' development to the win2k3 codebase instead of the bloated junk they had for the very early previews.
So the statement makes total sense within context. Soon after Jim's statement, the development of 'longhorn' was dramatically altered. You can't use it as a reflection of the RTM'd product. The RTM'd product is a result of these harsh words.
That's definatly not what DHTML and css are for. They are meant to be able to display content on a wide variety of devices, adapting the display of the content to better fit it. Completly different beast. People to try to make their websites look exactly the same on all platforms are comepletly missing the point and going to need a lot of headacke medecine.
Is Jim Allchin.
I mean, his chin isn't particulary prominent at all.
-- Of course I'm paranoid. I'm a sysadmin.
It may not be the best software, but to call PDF a bad format is just plain ignorant.
It allows document publishers to ensure that their files will look the same on every platform, transcending font issues etc - you can't say that with Word docments, web pages, rtf files etc.
True, for this kind of document it makes little sense to use a PDF vs. images, but that's not the fault of the format, it's the fault of the people who digitized the printouts.
If you're fed up with Adobe PDF reader, try something else like the free Foxit Reader - small, quick to load and fast to browse files, I haven't had the reader installed for a couple of years now.
It is possible to make a fast reader, see the one that ships with Mac OS X, or Evince - they both fly even with large complex documents.
I am NaN
If you don't allow PDF into your network, you might try an online converter. I haven't tried it, but I see that Adobe has one.
Jim Allchin, is that you?! Never knew you hung out here too
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
Why do I really care about 1991. Do you think that will actually change the release of Windows Vista or Microsoft domination of the world technology market? How screwed would the world be if Microsoft closed its doors one day because they get tired of being a business that is always fighting legal battles? Imagine a world without Microsoft. 911 tries to dispatch an ambulance but they can't activate their copy of windows to run the dispatch software because Microsoft closed its doors. A automotive company tries to install Quickbooks but it requires the latest Windows .NET updates before it will install, but they can't seem to get them from Microsoft because the website is down.
Like it or not, Microsoft is a dominating force in the world. I only wish I had thought of it first :-)
So when I read documents from 1990 and 1991 I say "how much money is this costing tax payers?" and "at what point will Microsoft just say screw it and close their doors."
Peace
Obama = Socialism.
Nothing could be more clear than the intention of the rant, so I'll type it here for those too lazy to click the link. It deserves the space.
-Jim Allchin, January 07 2004
It's obvious they did not listen to him and that's good for everyone. Vista is 10 GB in size and wastes all sorts of processing power for it's DRM insanity, after they dropped their silly new file system and many other vaporware improvements. While it will be difficult if not impossible to make Vista work under Linux or Mac, it's not going to matter because Vista is going to kill the platform. The failure of Vista, more than the failure of Zune and Xbox shows that M$ is going to have to compete on something other than, "It's M$ and you are going to need them tomorrow no matter how crappy their stuff is."
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
You are right, and this is why I said "demonstrate", not "prove". They still could have been faked; scans alone do not prove anything. However, they do support the fact that the documents are genuine when accompanied with other factors. When you claim that you have confidential emails from Microsoft, which format would you rather publish the emails in: plain text that anyone could fake in minutes, or scans which look exactly like what you have, and require extra effort to fake?
This is my opinion of course. They may have used PDF for entirely different reasons.
python>>> q="'";s='q="%c";s=%c%s%c;print s%%(q,q,s,q)';print s%(q,q,s,q)
Deleted
http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/011907/PLEX1025.pd f
This looks like a document about internal testing of Dr DOS, and it looks like they had good reasons to warn people who were about to run windows on Dr DOS (as in - the crashes you will experience are their product, not ours)
PDF is an open, internationally accepted standard. There are several readers capable of opening and manipulating them - if you're using Windows (which I'll assume you're not since you're against bloated, bad software), you can try FoxIT PDF Reader, which opens PDFs in seconds, rather than minutes. As a neat aside, it's free to download and use.
I'll agree that people posting PDFs of plain-text files drive me nuts, due to the additional overhead, but with a PDF you preserve all formatting and can create copies that are not subject to easy modification. Try that with plain text.
very lame
This was a device already on the market that they endorsed. They knew they were slaughtered from the start and still unleashed playsforsure on us. Funny to see them admit how bad some of their own stuff is.
If you're just following someone else?
Anyway. GnuStep should be the default Linux GUI...
Deleted
It's interesting for Jim Allchin to state this, because in terms of performance, security and understanding what the most important problems a customer face, I didn't know Microsoft had a "way" they're somehow losing now. To say that Microsoft has always been lazy in these areas is an understatement.
Their strategy had been lazy - buy into established markets and crush all others. It required little programming effort and made fat returns. This anti-social model was only indirectly anti-user. File format tricks and the destruction of simple protocols was more directly insulting but none of that compares to the present disaster Vista is.
The vast amount of DRM madness in Vista is probably what Allchin was talking about in 2004. M$ did put vast effort into that, but it's all directly against the best interests of the user. They put "trip bits" into it for crying out loud! As if their cobbled together crap was not bad enough already, they added instability. Exactly what he said is worth reading again and again:
He saw that XP was already bad and that others were eating their lunch. His little rant, supposedly got WinFS out of the picture, but the message obviously did not hit home.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
moron. It's especially moronic if your emperor's decree affects other users.
I didn't see where Kevin Bacon figures in?
damaged by dogma
they have focused on marketing, "power" and other crap that's ended in DRM and botnet hell.
This is probably what Jim was talking about in 2004. I've posted this twice now, but it deserves every inch of space.
All the FUD in the world won't save them from what Vista has become. The DRM alone could waste the resources of a multi-core super computer but that seems to be what they spent their development time doing. What a quagmire.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
N/T
if your using windows there are a lot of pdf readers out there.. one of them is foxitreader small and fast
"We need a simple fast storage system" in this context means "We need to ditch WinFS".
Now that Vista is out, you can see he was talking about much more than that. Had the company quit focusing on trying to become a publishing, music and games monopoly as well as a computing monopoly, Vista would not weigh in at 10GB of trip bits, encrypted binary paths and other in the customer face insult and instability. WinFS was just one of the things that make Vista less than fast, stable, secure or anything else the customer might want. He thought that M$ should spend developer time on making things work for the user, not building better cages.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
> There are several updates in the link, including a clarification from Allchin on that 'I'd buy a Mac' quote.
Looks like his new name around Christmastime was Jim Allglasschin.
Jim Allchin worked for Microsoft for over 16 years before retiring in early 2007, on the day that Microsoft officially released the Windows Vista operating system to consumers. Today, Jim Allchin dedicates most of his time to evangelize Apple on Slashdot. You probably know him as Whiney Mac Fanboy
We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us
Thank you for stating so eloquently what so many people just don't seem to grok. Linux wasn't designed to be a "Windows Killer" -- it was designed to be a better and free-er Unix. It has succeeded admirably in that goal, largely displacing most of the problematic proprietary Unixes. Linux has also become *the* operating system with which the plumbing for the next generation of Internet-based apps are built. Why take down the desktop monopolist when you can simply be the technology leader for what comes *after* the inevitable decline of the desktop?
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
There are companies where nobody dares question the official policy. Not successful companies, mind you.
Clearly Microsoft is not populated by yes-men.
Anyone?
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
You make what appears to be a good point... but there is an algorithm in the case of the Coral Cache. When the Coral server receives a URL it doesn't already have cached, it does execute a different code path than when the URL is already cached. It is the caching path of the Coral server algorithm that should parse and correct the absolute URLs.
Seastead this.
xbox360 has been a HUGE success partly due to Sony shooting themselves in the foot by trying to push a $600 console and having production issues with the PS3 but still calling xbox360 a failure is really pushing it.
PS2 sales still dwarf the others, but yes you have to judge "success" by M$ terms to consider it an abssolute failure. It has taken them years just to break even and they are not #1 by a long shot and M$ considers the existence of others to be a failure on their part. On a Macro scale, Games are what used to drive enthusiasts to their platform and keep them there. Consoles that cost much less than tricked out PC's and perform as well are a real threat to M$, especially when the technically superior hardware is running Linux. The new Xbox is going to look increasingly stale over the year, while Sony works out production problems and PS3 adds titles that take advantage of the hardware. Sales of Xbox are going to tank.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
And how we switched from Commodores, Amigas and Apples to MS based computing, they will switch exactly as their ancestors switched.
Let's not forget that both people discussing "screw Sun" used to work for them. There is probably a whole lot of baggage we'll never know that goes along with two guys switching companies and paradigms.
As an EDSer, I've seen plenty of my former colleagues take a "screw EDS" view in their new companies... they were dissatisfied with aspects of business and how they were managed (sometimes justifiably, sometimes not so much); until they became just as disafected by their new employers, they were considerably hostile in words and action, at times, to their old employer.
Given that they were involved with J++, discussing a cross-platform mandate (big with Slashdotters, but not even a blip on the radar screen with 99% of Microsoft's customer base), and the context of the discussion involved co-opting lessons learned and design imperitives (not really the product itself), this discussion was not exactly the smoking gun you guys would like it to be.
you're
This reminds me of the Enron e-mail data that was released, with similarly "shocking" emails. Actually, in the Enron case, they really were illuminating because a lot of e-mails addressed to Ken Lay towards the end of the company's life included the words "you bastard". Also, you didn't have to look very hard to find rampant corporate nepotism (Ken Lay's daughter Elizabeth pimping her friends). The original dataset is at CMU, and a web-browsable version is at enronemail.com, although you have to register for the latter one. The first link lets you download the zipped contents of a bunch of executive's email boxes (sent items, deleted items, inbox, etc.)...it's really nuts.
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
FWIW, the folks at GrokLaw have dug out copies of the Bill Gates deposition videos from the anti-trust trial. It's a pretty big download, but funny and sad as hell when you look back at it.
C|N>K
twitter, you are just amazing. You've taken a karma hit in the past few days and now you're down to replying to yourself using your sockpuppet so you can make it look like someone agrees with your dribble. That's just too funny.
Yeah, DHTML and CSS are really suitable for publishing. Please shut up, you utter, complete, and absolute cretin.
Sorry, typo. Obviously I meant to say Your troll is using your computer.
You're confusing your memes. The wooden table running gag is from the Daily WTF. Or is your real name Paula? ;-)
i'm just leafing thru some pdfs from the site.
...
... good luck to "Comes et al."
interessting the PLEX_5306.pdf.
a "test" financed by MS to show DR-DOS was
not compatible with the network OSes of the time.
very funny stuff in there.
like they have [lastdrive=E] in config.sys but
then say that they can't access a "Y:" network drive.
-or-
this: [device=himem.sys] in config.sys
anyway
Linux and open source software is great, but if you work in software development on projects where there is a public interest you should be afraid.
Only if you suck at it. It's called "meritocracy" for a reason.
What .NET did, was give developers a reason not to switch, and enough of them to steal the profitability potential away from Sun. How come so many of you never take a business perspective to your replies?
There are plenty of companies using .NET in the enterprise, and whether .NET is superior doesnt matter at all in that equation. .NET allows apps to be built quickly, without much learning curve, and foot-in-the-door matters more than anything else when it comes to technical adoption. If .NET existed solely for the purpose of limiting Java penetration, then you would have to conclude that on that note alone, .NET is wildly successful.
So, stop with the technical arguments, because it is past time for us to understand that technology alone never wins in the enterprise.
Suggestion: Try upgrading those slow machines to the newer Intel 386 CPUs. You'll get much better performance. Or even go to the cutting edge and get some circa 2002 AMD Athlon 1200s (like my current workstation) with a rompin' stompin' 512 megs of RAM. I've never had a PDF take longer than 15 seconds to open with this thing, and even that PDF was an 11" x 17" poster with a CMYK TIFF image completely covering the background, another 15 CMYK 300dpi images embedded, 5 logos, and saved to PDF/X-3, one of least-squeezed subformats you can choose from. In fact, since I process PDFs for the publishing industry, virtually every PDF I deal with is somewhere between 5x-20x the size of the PDFs that you folks in Enterprise come across, yet I've never had a PDF take longer than about 15 seconds to open. I even run the older Acrobat 5 under WINE on Linux with a plugin or two that the average civilian would never have and it never takes longer than 15 seconds to open massive, CMYK-clogged PDFs.
Now, if you wanna talk about something that's slow and impossible to use, let's talk about Microsoft Office formats. I've got a Publisher file from last year that 3 different Publisher owners couldn't open for me. I couldn't open it in my Office 2000-era version of Publisher (even after the creator saved a supposedly 2000-compatible version). We know it didn't get mangled on transit, because I made a copy and shipped it back to the originator and she could open the copy just fine in her Publisher. But for me and two other colleagues who had various versions of Publisher installed, it might as well have been Martian cuneiform. The 4th guy finally did manage to crack it. How's that for portability? 3 out of 5 versions of Publisher can't even open Publisher files created on another system...even after you make up-versions and down-versions.
Here's a quote from the Submissions Spec Sheet of a national magazine I built an ad for recently that pretty much sums it up for the commercial printing/publishing industry. Minor variations on this can be found on the Submissions Guidelines pages of virtually every magazine and newspaper on the planet:
My note: here they mean raw, completely unformatted text except forline breaks separating paragraphs. You might as well use Notepad as Word.
* * * * *
Buying the right computer and getting it to work properly is no more complicated than building a nuclear reactor from wristwatch parts in a darkened room using only your teeth.
--Dave Barry
Bill Gates: http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_6114. pdf
.mov extension is priceless. I wonder how many similar emails Novell will send because of their deal.
"Who should Avie be working with? Do we have a clear plan on what we want Apple to do to undermine Sun?"
The Apple guy's complaint back to Bill that IE4 is screwing with the
When will these guys figure out all email is public?
If you want to scheme, that's what golf courses are for.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
I don't think it is all about the apps. I think they're a large part, but it's really not all about the apps. After using AmaroK (music player for KDE) I get frustrated at Windows Media Player and iTunes and Winamp. Most consumers don't use their computers for anything but surfing the web, e-mail, music, IM, and typing up a report, and Firefox, Thunderbird, AmaroK, gaim, and OpenOffice do all that just fine. No, I don't think it's an issue with killer apps. I think it's marketing. People are told that Linux is hard and it's for geeks. Yet when I sit one of these people down in front of a Gnome or KDE desktop, they know how to use it just fine. Those "killer apps" were there the whole time, but ignorance defended the misconception they weren't and wouldn't ever be.
So you don't allow PDF, and you don't understand HTML/CSS. I certainly hope this isn't an [b]IT[/b] business...
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
It was a good product introduced at the right time for the right audience.
Compared to MacOS Windows 3.1 was a piece of shit. I used it for programming but for everything else, word processing, drawing, and desktop publishing, I used Macs. And the only reason I used it for programming was because the programming classes used it not MacOS, I'd rather have used Macs when programming.
FalconShould there be a Law?
As is perfectly clear from the ridiculous Gates interview. He's inspired to make even bolder lies than usual...
I think we can stop worrying once they're down to a reasonable 30% market share with a $20 product. But with they're attitude, and inherent criminality, we'll probably have to just shut them down. If Gates' mental state continues to unravel, we might even see him behind the bars he's earned so thoroughly...
you had me at #!
I am still a very big fan of us putting the source code of the key parts of IE out on the Web (without commercial reproduction rights) so that Universities who want to "extend" browsers use ours for their experiments. -- Bill Gates (1995) http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_2494. pdf
the Mac and Windows worlds had people running to the store to replace perfectly good machines.
Uh, no. That's not the case with OS X. New releases have almost always been faster than the previous one, on the same hardware (sometimes much faster - which is what improving software is all about, eh). OS X 10.4 runs quite happily on an old G3, including the 3D-accelerated UI (introduced 2002) which Windows claims Vista has (but only on the latest and most expensive cards, and if the moon is in the right phase, and so on).
Once again, Microsoft is several years late and more than a dollar short...
you had me at #!
in the real world, no such thing happened. What happened was that Microsoft inserted code into a beta version of Win3.1 that displayed a warning. That's right, not only did the evil code not stop Windows working at all (it just displayed a misleading message and waited for a keypress), it was removed after the beta and never existed in any version of Windows that was sold to the public.
The damage was planned to go along with another fud campaign, and most certainly made it to public release. Even if it was only a "warning" like you say, the damage was enough to destroy DR-DOS and the competition M$ so worried about. The records for that suit were destroyed as part of a deal between the Soft and Novel so the best synopsis by an unbiased observer I know of is here. The most important bits are:
The emails then go on to detail how they Fudded Compuserve to blame DR-DOS.
Anyway you look at it, M$ treated their customers with contempt and still does. Your defense of such tactics in defense of "the truth" is disturbing. Do like it when people lie to you so they can take your money?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Agreed! Especially for photographers, serious amateurs and pros. When GIMP offers at least 12 bit colour depth then it may be a good cheap, free, replacement for Photoshop.
If you want to take on photoshop... You have to get serious. Its not that hard to make a better app than photoshop. Painter and Alias Sketchbook pro both feature things that make photoshop seem primative....
Are Painter and Alias really good photo editors, better than PS? I'm hoping to break into photography but as I'm on disability and don't work I can't justify the expense of PS. So I've been considering other programs like Painter, Blender, Xara Xtreme, Inkscape, or ImageMagick. I'm hoping to get a Macbook Pro rsn and when I do I've give them a test drive.
Last time i ran linux.. the whole dependency thing drove me mad and installing things were varied experiences.
Linspire is coming out with ports for different distros of linux for Click N Run or CNR. Installing software with it means there's no dependencies to deal with, CNR takes care of installing software. Once the CNR software is installed the user goes to the CNR software warehouse, choose what software they want, then click the install button. CNR downloads and installs the software, if there are any dependencies it takes care of them. Linux geeks may frown on such things, but they have to realize that if they want the average computer user to use Linux then there has to be an easy way for users to install apps.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Giving corporations HUMAN rights is completely messed up. They should enjoy the same rights as any group of people, but they should never be given human rights. Microsoft is allowed to have internal documents that it can protect. But when these documents are demanded by a court, the court can allow the documents to be made public. The judge has allowed Roxanne Connlin to release all of these documents on the website. Microsoft has petitioned to keep some documents out of the public domain, and these documents are not on the site.
Curiously, this is the first time that Bill Gates testimony to the DOJ is viewable by the public. This case is shining a great deal of light on Microsoft business practices.
Think global, act loco
Don't let your temper get us into even more trouble. The chair 'incident' made us look really bad.
- Bill
"Vista, like it or not, has turned into a 'phenomenal' product, by definition"
By definition it's phenomenal?
Let's look in the dictionary:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Phenomenal
Here's the 1st definition:
1. highly extraordinary or prodigious; exceptional: phenomenal speed.
Well, the fact that it implies speediness means this has nothing to do with Vista.
Okay, let's look some more:
2. of or pertaining to phenomena.
I hate those kind of definition. It's a non-definition. Doesn't help us so...
3. of the nature of a phenomenon; cognizable by the senses.
This might be it, particularly if we're talking about the sense of smell.
In terms of this being some sort of major event, unfortunately, Microsoft hit their high water mark in '95 when they introduced Windows 95. This launch is more subdued probably because it breaks most computers, and the benefits are heavily weighted towards providing DRM services. The launch is similar to Windows XP, although the stakes are much higher for MS these days.
In terms of phenomenal launches, we're a bit numb right now seeing as how Nintendo and Sony had actual phenomenal launches of their platforms.
The only phenomena right now will be how fast MS either drops prices or throws a lot of features in the box to convince a bored public that what they're doing is worthwhile. I think the sell is tough mainly because even chairman bill can't articulate value for Vista. It's a fair bet that Vista could be Microsoft's Vietnam.
"It's wrong to say "number one software company" when their business revolves around making me-too parodies of competitors innovative products."
Oh the irony. Open-source copies everyone left and right, and if those ideas come from business? Then it's like pulling teeth to get OSS to give credit were it's due.
These documents are SCANNED. Many of them have handwriting in the margins. Plain text of the original email would loose information.
Think global, act loco
Also on the same website is the testimony Bill Gates gave in the US v. Microsoft case.
"the proof of the pudding is in the eating".
See also...
"all that glisters".
No, none of these things matter. I just can't help myself.
Since Allichin retired on Wednesday, looks like he can buy that Mac now. Maybe Jobs had a special one he's been saving all these years.
Of course they are. A .NET shop, by instance.
Your ad could be here!
..."computer servicing" mostly means reinstalling Microsoft Windows. The rest is generally things like upgrading memory or video cards, with a few building-up new machines (itself a trivial task). There's a very good reason Desktop Engineers are mocked. When a 12-year-old can do your job just by reading TFM you don't have much opportunity to boast about your profession.
On the one hand MS has helped make a "Desktop Engineer" of anybody who uses their OS, but on the other hand that's mostly because their OS is so crappy that every man and his dog has had to learn how to do it, since anybody who can't reinstall Windows, and without access to somebody who can, is going to be fucked-in-a-bad-way very quickly.
When did you last break your *nix/*BSD machine?
I'm kind of scared that there might be mentioning of the great Xenu somewhere in those documents.
Do not trust this signature.
Link directly to the source
That's all..
# Erik
stealing is another.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
There's no profit (I have to assume you mean "net profit" here) with a product until you break even then surpass your gross costs of development/production/marketing/shipping, etc.
I really doubt Vista is profitable yet.
Mind you, in the case of F/LOSS, each software project might individually fall on its own (rather than a monolithic Microsoft cow flopped onto its side), and through the process of forking, we might be able to recover from the fall. But forking is overrated --see how much energy and resources was consumed organizing for a fork in something as fundamental as XFree86-- and is only good for preventing a worthwhile project from dying due to lack of interest. When we're trying to compete and we're already playing catch-up[1], we can't afford to use forking as a safety net. We need to be focused: What do the users *need*? Do it.
-----
[1]: Stop it with the "I don't care if Linux doesn't take over the world" meme. Our goal is to have Linux gain enough respectability so that we get things like hardware drivers, and those who want to use Linux are able to do so without artificially created barriers like the Winmodem crap.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
Do you have any Idea how manny people will try that command. For those who don't understand don't try that command, it will in efect wipe out your command.com on the root of c:
In this document, they talk about leaking information to "Spencer or Cringely" to continue the smear campaign against Digital Research. The referenced Cringely is likely Robert X. Cringely (and confirms a lot of what I've suspected about that particular column anyway). But who is Spencer?
Wow! OS/2 Crush plan:
1 9.pdf
http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/2000/PX021
Given that they were involved with J++, discussing a cross-platform mandate (big with Slashdotters, but not even a blip on the radar screen with 99% of Microsoft's customer base), and the context of the discussion involved co-opting lessons learned and design imperatives (not really the product itself), this discussion was not exactly the smoking gun you guys would like it to be.
The attitude is not so easily dismissed and it shows itself again and again. While the comment might be aimed at Sun, it ultimately harms the customer.
"Cross-platform" is a huge subject that customers deeply care about but one that M$ customers will always be disappointed with. People desperately want their computers and other devices to work together but it's not going to happen with a company like M$ around. People want their PDA, cameras, portable music players and DVRs to work together and share information. Anyone trying to provide that for customers on a M$ platform is doomed to have their work broken when M$ inevitably comes in to steal the market. "Let's steal java," is a perfect example. When he says that, he means "we have the market share and can define what works and what does not." I watched them do the same thing to Palm, when "security" updates screwed over sync on W2K, so that the new Windoze Pocket PCs could gain market share. And, we've seen the same kind of thing in portable music players. The third E of EEE is extinguish. Once the treat to M$ dominance has been removed, the thing stolen will be ignored or removed. The issue is so much larger than Java and one or two employees. When you sum up all the pieces, the picture that emerges is not pretty at all, is it?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Linux is the killer application and it will be even more so in the future. Don't worry MS is scared of Linux and probably even more so today.
1. When you typed this posted at least a few linux boxes where involved in storing, sorting
and displaying your drivel.
2. I bet you probably even do a few google searches per day, there you go again 100,000 linux boxes
faithfully answer your request at lightning speed.
3. Go to work and half the printers there probably have embedded linux.
4. You are probably posting using your wireless router again running linux.
5. Watching your dvr or tivo today, again linux.
6. Go to the movies and watching CG animation again rendered on linux.
7. Request a web page, probably linux dns server answering that request.
8. Check your email, again probably linux or routed through linux boxes somewhere.
9. Wipe your ass, some embedded controller at the paper mill running linux made that happen.
10. Picking your nose... well ok linux probably had nothing to do with that but that is what the
parent had to be doing when authoring that post.
Linux touches your life everyday and does so without
being noticed...now that is the killer app!
Got Code?
Given that the youth of America have been brought up on MS products, they're going to have a stronger attachement to them than those of us who were brought up on Commodores, Amigas, and Apples. MS *clearly* knows this. Think about that.
Well, do you know that the Commodore 64 BASIC v2 was largely produced by Microsoft?
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_BASIC
http://www.google.com/search?q=+site%3Amicrosoft.c om+%22microsoft+confidential%22&btnG=Search
I always enjoy seeing proprietary markings on a company's documents. It makes finding them with a search engine much easier. Other fun search terms:
site:microsoft.com "Microsoft Internal Use Only"
site:microsoft.com "Internal Use Only"
site:microsoft.com NDA
Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
Best comment of 2007 so far
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
If you don't like that, there are other options like the Foxit PDF reader, and more. That's not even remotely true. Convert a DOC to PDF, and it will always be smaller.
The bad rep PDFs get, is mostly because of scanned documents (images) being converted to PDFs, without OCR. So people think they've got a 1MB PDF for a few pages of text, but they've really got several 8x11 images, highly compressed.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Yes and no. Kids are curious. Kids like to try and go against the grain, find their own little niche, to be "cool" or "different".
It would not surprise me in the slightest if we have a lot of them experimenting with Linux and other alternative OSes on that basis alone. I know back when I started playing with Linux when I was 17-18 in the mid 90s it was initially largely because it was obscure and different and i was curious about it :D
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
I took the line to mean both the ease of maintaining Windows and the relatively low level of technical fortitude among the general, non-15 y.o., population. Further, this was largely true throughout the DOS-based Windows era but has only recently been stressed with the rise of zombie/spyware-ridden NT-based machines.
"After 17 years with the company, Jim Allchin retired from Microsoft as of Jan. 30, 2007 - the day on which Microsoft officially released the Windows Vista operating system to consumers." Here's his bio.
one of the "research" organizations - I think it was IDC - to produce a "comparison" between Linux and Windows that was favorable to Windows, after Gartner told them they wouldn't do it.
Then they argued over whether they should ADMIT that Microsoft sponsored the study because they KNEW that admitting it would blow the game - so they argued for LYING about it.
Here's a quote from the story:
In an email dated 1 November, 2002, Kevin Johnson, now the head of Windows, wrote: "I don't like it to be public on the doc that we sponsored it because I don't think the outcome is as favourable as we had hoped. I just don't like competitors using it as ammo against us. It is easier if it doesn't mention that we sponsored it."
And another:
And the month before, Houston wrote Johnson a message that intimated pressure had been put on IDC to tweak the report so it would put Microsoft in a better light. "I hate to put it like this, but at this point, IDC is done negotiating with us. We have moved them quite a bit already, but they are now holding the line, saying that if we want the names of their 'big' analysts on the report, this is it."
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I haven't used windows at all yet this century :) so maybe that's why I don't recognize the 'LH' Allchin is referring to in the directly linked document for this story, context being: "We need a simple fast storage system. LH is a pig and I don't see any solution to this problem." What's 'LH' refer to? thanks!
it just hated seeing every employee with a damn APPLE logo on their desk and installing itunes.
So now all employees have a free zune, and itunes is removed by admins as spyware.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
GO read the history of how ibm started and how it blew of NCR in the typewritter days.
To sell new type writers they bought up every 2nd hand stores, and shut them down.
Bill gates mother used to work for IBM. I bet she mentoured him on all the tricks of IBMs evil ways
since 1890 onwards when Thomas ruled.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Finally maybe MS will have made DRM useful to themselves, and make all notes and emails drmed so that they cannot be used in court.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
The policy could be that, text is easy to change and edit. But a scanned image of an email (perhaps with a crc) is harder
to 'change' and alter. Its as close to an original paper document you can find.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Why should the market leader (a monopolistic, strong-arming, dirty-tricks, no-holds-barred leader at that!) be scared of a FREE operating system and open-source applications-- unless they can see that their dominant position is deeply threatened?
Because they realize that Linux is a fuzzy-copy fake of a real OS that may just fool enough people to switch over.
It's fantastic that you pat yourself on the back so well. My guess is that you have no real workings within the "linux community" other than to run your mouth.
Do yourself a favor and go check out a real version of unix and realized that this FOSS bullshit has nothing on the rest of the unix loving world.
Because his "Biz" is his pot growing hobby in his mom's basement.
Anyone that says his "biz" is himself in his moms basememt.
yet they can't write memos worth a damn. The one from Allchin is atrocious. If I were to write a memo to Bill Gates, I would at least proof read it. Of course, the threats I would insert into such a memo would probably have far worse consequences than a few grammatical errors.
FAQs are evil.
I used this quote as an email sig for some time in 1998-1999, why is this news now?
Does anyone know where it was released back then?
You dont do much business do you.
PDF is pretty much a standard format these days.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Comment removed based on user account deletion
1 in 4 Maine children in struggle with hunger.
Yeah, but if he has it will be obsolete by now.
you know, this makes me think that this "cross platform" stuff should not be pushed as 'cross OS' but instead, it should be talked about in relation to working across Microsofts various OS's and their versions.
Here are two scenarios in this regard:
1:
developer1-"Look, why don't we start these new projects on JBOSS and Java? It's all cross-platform and we can not only run it on our Windows Server 2003 machines, if we could also run it on a Linux server."
developer2-"Who cares about Linux, we're a Microsoft shop so it doesn't matter if the project runs on Linux."
2:
developer1-"Look, why don't we start these new project on JBOSS and JAVA? It's all cross-platform and we can not only run it on our Windows Server 2003 machines, it'll also run it on that Windows Server 2000 machine we have running just a few database translations a week. And, it'll run on and can be developed on the Windows XP machines we all have." developer2-"You mean the app software will run on those without having to upgrade them? That's cool and if it works, we won't have to deal with changing everything again when we have to bring in the Vista Server machines."
You get the idea.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I tried going through it manually, and then noticed there were countless emails, most of which were boring. A much better approach is to google through the emails for keywords like this.
In doing so, I noticed the first hit is a document outlining their strategy for partially breaking networking compatibility with Linux. "Our Linux Strategy"
Another document from January of '99 describes Linux's greatest strength over NT as its flexibility, and its greatest weakness as its ease of use (although nearly every usage problem specifically mentioned no longer applies in modern Linux distributions). It also describes two of their worst-case scenarios being that IBM and Sun adopt Linux. One quote of interest is, "There is the very real long term threat that as MS expends the development dollars to create a bevy of new features in NT, Linux will simply cherry pick the best features an [sic] incorporate them into their codebase. The effect of patents and copyright in combatting Linux remains to be investigated."
They are too busy counting the Baying Sheep's money to give a shit. If you bought it, they did their job.
*** I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft.'" ***
:) Or does he like being in a miniscule minority in the computing world?
Why? So he can pay more for Office and other software?
Every browser renders the content differently, even if you follow all the standards to the letter.
That's because the WWW is designed to simultaneously support users with vastly different rendering capabilities (1024x768x24 vs 1280x1024x32, text-only vs text+images, etc.). The only way to get exactly the same rendering is to go with a fixed graphical display which would look pristine on setups just like the developer's box but crap everywhere else.
That's just not acceptable.
Then publish PDFs, DVIs, imagemap PNGs, etc., or just write a non-HTML GUI application.
Better order that apple.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/010807/PLEX_7264.p df
From the Microsoft Co-President of the Platforms and Services Division to Bill G and Steve B
To my knowledge, there is no other document format that is intended to work this way.
Errrr.... Tex?
http://www.latex-project.org/
And I ain't ever used it, but my friends here do their entire print magazine in it.
jokes work on you. ;-)
Actually, this document is a scanned image, the next one you find might be the text log of a court hearing. Using PDF means that you use one reader for both, and it "just works".
Indeed I am not surprised.
In an economy as crappy as this, the "you can always work for a more ethical software company" isn't as practical as it used to be.
I mean, how many jobs are there at RedHat?
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Out of all of Microsoft's products it seems that Office is one of the few Microsoft applications that actually win because of it's merits. Word is the best consumer targeted word processor. This seems to apply to Excel as well. Access is best in what it does. It's not going to be the best of bread for real server based databases but for smaller footprint requirements it's ease of use and versatility (it's user interface) makes it the clear choice. I switched to Apple when they went to OS X and have not regretted it. The one thing that I miss is something equivalent to Access. My thoughts on the matter as to why there is not a version of Access for OS X is that Microsoft understands that out of their entire product line there is no clear competitor for Access and thus not releasing a version for OS X will keep a large group of people using Windows rather than switching. Office is one of the few Microsoft products that is worth paying for IMHO.
If you know of an application that provides what Access does that one can run on OS X, or Linux (as most Linux code can easily be ported to OS X) please let me know as I have searched far and long. And what I am talking about here is not speed of the actual database engine or some other such metric but rather the concept of views and the graphical interface that allows such quick development of complex SQL searches and report generation.
I can see that what I am saying here might cause my posting to be labeled as troll or some other such derogatory adjective but I am not looking to post this in an attempt to elicit such responses but to give my opinion on a subject that I have spent time researching. If you want to flame this and truly have valid arguments I wait in anticipation of hearing them because it will mean that I have missed something in my research and there are comparable products out there.
Nick Powers
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
"we are far from done on the browser front. We are--at 30% but Netscape has shipped a good product far ahead of us and still verysavvy and veryInterested in kaeping their stock price up. We need to execute on 1E4. surpass 50% share, and be setup to continue the share gain via great distribubon and product before we pull the plug."
. pdf
http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_6092
When he says 'pull the plug' is he talking about stopping development of IE once they reached a certain marketshare and netscape was dead? Kinda like they did..?
"Looking out beyond that I think our work on natural interface (I mean by this our
. pdf
research work on putting speech/handwriting/linguistics/learning together in a bayesian framework) is the Only concrete thing that can happen fast enough with enough volume to make 200mips chips look bad then make 500mips chips look bad, then make l200mips chips look bad... etc..etc.. This is what Intel needs from the software market."
http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_3876
I guess we already know this, but Microsoft partnering with Intel to sell more chips by developing technology that can only work with faster chips? What a surprise.
If that's not acceptable, you're doing something wrong. The web was designed to work that way, and different software is supposed to have some freedom on how the document gets rendered (even including whether it gets "rendered" at all, as opposed to read aloud, parsed by a machine, etc.). Accept that and learn to work with it, and you'll be a lot happier.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
...he just did all those people a favor, by breaking the Microsoft crap that was infecting their computer!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
And that's why when the revolution finally does come, it'll come from Asia and Africa (and maybe to a lesser extent Europe). Why else did you think Free Software advocates were building laptops for third-world kids?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I keep forgetting about it.
Deleted
Can anyone find any non-PDF versions of these? I don't allow PDF's in my biz...
You sad, strange little man.
Illiterate little man, I should say. The plural of PDF is not PDF's.
Idiot.
it's like the difference between knowing, academically that Richard Nixon was a crook, and reading transcripts of him saying to his aides 'How can we perjure ourselves in front of a grand jury to get out of this'.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
n/t
Allchin's analysis of Windows seems correct. And Sridharan's analysis of Java seems correct, too: in 1997, Java was positioned to be a cross-platform desktop environment with web-delivered applications, and it has utterly failed at becoming a significant force in that area. Java, instead, has moved into the niche of corporate server side applications.
I guess you have them in every company, just recently I was put into the loop of a whole series of mails between managers where the subject was lil' AOL' me.
It started between two Service Delivery Managers, one being my direct superior. Apparently the other SDL was not too happy that one of her guys needed to pick up some work. A whole thread going back an forward for a week, where language became more colourful between the 2 SDL's with about every manager you could find in the company address book on cc. When my manager finally got a detailed mail about everything I didn't do or did wrong, with dates and details of specific tasks, he forwarded the lot to me (without even a 1 on 1 chat or comment in the mail).
The last mail in the thread was portraying me as a lazy, for no good employee and it wasn't until I looked at the dates mentioned that I got a big grin on my face... The dates mentioned where dates I was on holiday, or out of the country on training. So I replied to that mail, giving my take on it and put the whole circus on cc, including HR.
After that, my phone didn't stop ringing; managers I never heard of, apologising their arses off and my mailbox overflowing with likewise apologies and pleas not to take this up any further with HR or involve anyone else. It got so crazy that I sent out a mail to every one, asking them kindly to stop doing that, because it was being a hindrance in getting my job done and clogging up my mailbox. "Accidentally" I cc'd my business manager in it.
Next day there was a very nice meeting with coffee and cake and a whole bunch of managers I never met. (Including my business mangers' boss)
I'm sure that if I posted the whole thread and the resulting memo, it would make a good story, especially as I work for a rather large IT company that just recently had their wrists smacked for not being as ethical as they want to make every one believe they are.
The point is, that companies are run by people and people come with human behaviour, resulting in the ability to say or write emotionally motivated statements when emotion gets the best of them. The MS mails are very entertaining, but no different in behaviour that I have seen in many companies. Managers are human, despite their attempts to hide it, and thankfully they supply us with a wide range of entertainment while keeping lawyers on the job.
Who doesn't love a juicy scandal?
Supporting MS products doesn't mean you have to like them.
Following up the common complaints about Vista, download Vista Service Pack 1 .
Vista Service Pack 2 is in development and soon to be released.
Remember to apply this important upgrade to your system when it becomes available.
Only true for PDF 1.4 or the special version of PDF, PDF-A the archiving version. PDF 1.5 or above can include enough javascript to make a document that changes depending upon who looks at it. The trouble is that PDF-A doesn't exist yet so when we hold documents, we have to ensure that they are PDF 1.4 and only PDF 1.4 to be sure they are legally useful as source material.
See my journal, I write things there
Every browser renders the content differently, even if you follow all the standards to the letter. That's just not acceptable.
If that's not acceptable, you're doing something wrong.
No, if that's not acceptable you have different requirements. We aren't talking about web pages, we're talking about passing formatted documents that are intended to be printed on paper from point to point so that they look the same. It's a different application. It has different requirements. Therefore the solutions are different.
"Cross-platform" is a huge subject that customers deeply care about.
Cite your statements next time you spew your altruistic BS.
Wasn't this part of the rationale behind .NET? That it would work on multiple Windows variants, including Windows CE (which MS is is still pushing for all kinds of stuff) as well as NT.
The other thing MS means by cross-platform is hardware independence. Until a couple of years ago, they thought that most PCs might eventually be based on Itanium and wanted a way to migrate to that without rewriting apps.
I just found that when I load http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/010807/PLEX_7264.p df in Preview.app on Mac OS X, it appears simply to be a scanned copy of a print-out (not only from the distortion but also it is obvious pixelated as you zoom in), but I am able to select, copy, and paste the text. When this PDF was made, was some sort of OCR process performed that includes the results or did Apple quietly introduce this functionality into their viewer?
Why bother.
If you're going to get a mac book, i'd look into Aperture from Apple. Its a pretty good program. Adobe has had to counter it by creating a similar program called Lightroom. I've heard good things about Aperture on the Mac from my mac friends. I'm not sure how deep its photoediting features are compared to Photoshop. Photoshop is pretty much the standard tool.
I've thought about getting Aperture. For archiving and keeping a record of all editting done on photos it's good but it's not really a photo editor. It can be used to get photos ready to print on a consumer printer but I wouldn't want to use it on a pro printer model or to send to a pro lab.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I thought Microsoft stopped having program managers when Windows 95 came out.
Not if .NET 3 doesn't run on any version of Windows Server before 2003, such as the still widely deployed Windows 2000 Server.
without rewriting apps.Migrating to doesn't require a complete rewrite, just a refactoring to make sure that the code is alignment-clean and endian-clean.
they're going to have a stronger attachement to them than those of us who were brought up on Commodores, Amigas, and Apples
Because you're still using your computers from 1987? There may be some sentimental attachment, but I'd argue that A) it doesn't stem merely from the fact that you used them growing up, but rather that they were fun to use, and B) even if an attachment developed, that doesn't prevent anyone from making objective decisions in the future. Sure, it's fun to fire up the C64 emulator and mess around every once in a while, but at the end of the day I realize it doesn't fill the needs I have today.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
This is quite possibly the coolest thing I've ever seen mentioned slashdot. These documents if you spend the time to troll through them is a history lesson from the inside out providing tons of insights into various technologies and directions the industry has gone through throughout the years and in a general sence the workings, structured interaction of large organizations. I feel like a really fat kid in a candy store.
:) for what they really are.
I hope people will see past the MS vs whatever political mumbo jumbo and appreciate these "memos"
Allchin's memo about "LH" (Longhorn, aka Vista) was sent in January 2004, several months before "The Reset" that occurred midway through Vista development. He's referring to the earlier, pre-reset Longhorn builds, which were indeed resource hogs (partly due to a C#-developed shell that tied into the SQL-based WinFS filesystem). That memo was probably the beginning of the line of discussion that eventually led to the reset, including the decision to drop WinFS and recode the shell without .NET.
You actually have to give Allchin credit for at least noticing and caring enough about how off-course things had gotten to raise hell and pull a U-turn.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
I just found that when I load http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/010807/PLEX_7264.p df in Preview.app on Mac OS X, it appears simply to be a scanned copy of a print-out (not only from the distortion but also it is obvious pixelated as you zoom in), but I am able to select, copy, and paste the text. When this PDF was made, was some sort of OCR process performed that includes the results or did Apple quietly introduce this functionality into their viewer?
The other possible explanation is that they just used a really fucking awful font. No, even worse than Comic Sans.
I'm constantly surprised by people who think the law and government are something "out there" rather than an extension of us. But I guess that's an antiquated concept of The Enlightenment, and if there's a name that most certainly does NOT describe the US circa 2007, it's "enlightened".
You are welcome on my lawn.
If that is their public face on it then not only are they failing but it goes against their marketing plans.
.Net support going very far back and as it moves forward, I'd expect to see additions breaking backward support. After all, they are fighting their own saturated market more then Linux and Mac.
The cross-platform stuff out there from OTHER companies exist with different motives. Those businesses need to see that the product works across as many platforms( and versions of Windows ) as possible. So long as it makes sense to do so and in the case for Java, if the JDK or JRE are there, tons of stuff come along for the ride. They want their stuff working on older systems and spend the time and effort making sure it does.
Microsoft, they talk about it but have not delivered for 15 years and won't. Not because they can't but because it's against their business plan, against their profit making business of selling new copies of MS Windows. They want incompatabilities to force upgrades. This treadmill is called the Microsoft Economy. I would doubt you'll see MS
IMO
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
In which planet please?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
He said that people at Microsoft, most likely refering to those who set policy and claim they are going to "Fucking kill" something were sociopathic, not you.
Sociopaths aren't necessarily people without morals or ethics. They aren't necessarily socially inept. They have no conscience and no empathy.
Being a lazy pacifist is by no means the social norm. I understand the need to feel that one is an underdog, but please, have some perspective. Most people are not pacifists, and most people are only lazy when they are doing thigns they don't actually want to be doing.
The war/fighting mentality that is so common in the business world is wrongheaded and inefficient. Cooperation is the most efficient strategy, not competition. If competition were really more efficient, you would see corporations structured internally with multiple competing business units. You do not. Instead, you see as much cooperation as the corporation can muster. The competition/fighting/war mentality is counterproductive and should be called out when encountered.
Your argument is guilty of the reductio-ad-absurdum and strawman logical fallacies.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Their open sauce OCR reader is a great tool...
Also check out Paint.net Its a program called Paint.net Its free and may suit your needs. Its a decent free photoediting/painting program.
Thanks, Paint.net looks interesting however it's Windows, XP or Vista, only and I'm switching to Linux and Mac OSX. Another thing, looking through the info and searching the forum it looks like it only has an 8 bit colour depth. I want at least 16 bit colour depth.
FalconShould there be a Law?