Microsoft's Ethical Guidelines

hankwang writes "Did you know that Microsoft has ethical guidelines? It's good to know that 'Microsoft did not make any payments to foreign government officials' while lobbying for OOXML, and that 'Microsoft conducts its business in compliance with laws designed to promote fair competition' every time they suppressed competitors. In their Corporate Citizenship section, they discuss how the customer-focused approach creates products that work well with those of competitors and open-source solutions. So all the reverse-engineering by Samba and OpenOffice.org developers wasn't really necessary."

Comments

All your base are belong to us...

[Muckluck]

Ethics? Make your time...

Re:All your base are belong to us...

[Anonymous Coward]

Apology to the Black Race:

To the entire Black race living in America, we, the Adamic, pink complexioned race (better known to you as the White race) that came to these shores from Europe, England, Scotland, Ireland, and Iceland, do hereby apologize.

We apologize for freeing you from slavery by fighting a horrible war among ourselves that cost the lives of almost two million of our own race. We apologize for continuing to fight among ourselves over that very issue, even though you've never told us you appreciate our freeing you.

We apologize for splitting to pieces our entire race the world over to take sides with you to help you survive and become a freer race. We apologize for forcing the rest of the world to outlaw the slavery which your ancestors had practiced for thousands of years, even though many nations on your home continent still practice it today.

We apologize for thinking we could civilize you when you have proven that it is indeed an impossible feat, a feat beyond anything we could have ever imagined.
We apologize for introducing Christianity to you and dragging you away from the Voodoo you previously followed, although you have managed to sneak Voodoo back into cultic Christianity and your people have accepted it, which is proven by their animalistic whooping and hollering and stomping and screaming instead of respectfully worshiping our God as they ought to.

We apologize for teaching you to add and subtract (what little you can), thereby enabling you to run a household and pay your bills (what few you will) and count your children other than on your fingers and sometimes toes when you have so many you run out of fingers.

We apologize for providing you with medical care instead of leaving you under the witch doctors you used before we arrived, as a result of which you have been able to survive all sorts of diseases to multiply in massive numbers beyond what you could have without these aides.

We apologize for building schools for you which we have had to repair over and over after you vandalized them beyond use. We apologize for inventing computers and the Internet, neither of which you use very much, but when you do use them it's mostly to bash our race.

We apologize for building factories and businesses that employ you, if you so desire to work. We apologize for creating millions of bureaucratic jobs within our government system simply to give you employment, instead of leaving you to find work on your own.

We apologize for promoting and buying your music, although you refuse to buy ours. We apologize for talking and acting as you do, although you refuse to talk and act as we do.

We apologize for placing you in our movies and TV shows and elevating you to a fictional, heroic level that you have never reached in real life. We apologize for creating this false image of yourselves in your minds, for we realize after 400 years of trying to help you that you cannot solve problems and provide leadership and create original thoughts; and the image we've placed in your minds causes you to live in a delusional world. For that we truly apologize.

We apologize for creating quota systems and forced employment programs to make sure you have the best jobs, if you so desire to work. We apologize for thinking we could educate you so that you could learn to build and help others, when you obviously have only the ability to tear down and take from others.

We apologize for giving you welfare and food stamps, with the result that for four generations over half of your race has not had to work, except in makeshift type of jobs in our governments and bureaucracies.

We apologize for promoting your children in school as if they could understand basic arithmetic and grammar, such as multiplication and past participles, when we should have made sure they were accustomed to manual labor so that we would not have had to make up jobs for them in our governments dusting seats with their butts.

We apologize for developing farms in our own lands w

Re:All your base are belong to us...

[citizen_senior]

Sorry, I'm lost with this. What has this to do with Microsoft's ethics ? I feel I'm missing something ! Perhaps I should apologise ! Yes, that's the thing. Sorry folks, I must have been breathing again ! Excuse it, please

Re:All your base are belong to us...

[Anonymous Coward]

It has nothing to do with Microsoft, but it has alot to do with reality!

Re:All your base are belong to us...

[Chrisq]

Sorry, I'm lost with this. What has this to do with Microsoft's ethics ?

It was written with the same degree of sincerity.

Re:All your base are belong to us...

[thompson.ash]

Offtopic, Flamebait, Troll...
Maybe.

But Insightful?
It'd be insightful if it wasn't copypasta.

Re:All your base are belong to us...

[SimonGhent]

Come on people, why is this racist crap not modded down?

And which asshat modded it insightful? This is not a white supremacist web site... is it?

Here's a clue: Troll, Flamebait, Off-Topic... they all work.

Re:All your base are belong to us...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry but how is it racist? The black people are completely useless. That's why all the African countries are a miserable failure.

In this PC world a piece of shit like Ice Cube can insult women and asians, but God forbid anyone says anything negative about those useless niggers.

Re:All your base are belong to us...

[jacquesm]

asshole.

Re:All your base are belong to us...

[Muros]

This flamebait gets insightful and the vaguely funny parent troll?

Re:All your base are belong to us...

[SIR_Taco]

Man... wont he be pissed when Obama gets elected

Re:All your base are belong to us...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why all the African countries are a miserable failure.

No! It's because the WTO actively keeps them that way and creates vendettas, so we can steal all their resources.

The miserable failure are you, for believing the bullshit of the WTO.

Just go and watch "The Yes Men". The WTO is the single most criminal organization on the world.

Re:All your base are belong to us...

[Anonymous Coward]

It was written with Slashdot's typical degree of rabid zealotry.

Fixed that for ya.

Re:All your base are belong to us...

[Anonymous Coward]

do ... not ... feed ... the ... trolls ...

Please!

Re:All your base are belong to us...

[thompson.ash]

WHAT THE HELL?

How the hell is that trolling?

Must've got modded by the OP...

Unsurprising

[David Gerard]

Microsoft has really lost it when it comes to evil these days. Apple's evil is just ridiculously better. Microsoft's evil was damn fine in the 1990s, but these days it's just ... sorta lame. I mean, Vista - what dismally poorly executed evil! And the Zune, oh dear.

So trying to be good is all that's left to them. Can they go straight? Or will it be straight back to crime?

Re:Unsurprising

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding, since they probable followed the two they're getting called out on.

"Microsoft did not make any payments to foreign government officials"

Well, they were probably foreign business men, now weren't they.

"Microsoft conducts its business in compliance with laws designed to promote fair competition"

Of course they do. If they don't they get slapped with huge fines.

Also: "the customer-focused approach creates products that work well with those of competitors and open-source solutions"

Well duh. It doesn't say anything about making it easy for open-source solutions and competitors from working well with IT, though...

Re:Unsurprising

[guyminuslife]

That's it. I'm officially starting a tally for every time I see that page linked on Slashdot.

And then, for every point on the tally, I'm going to put a dollar toward buying an iPod.

Bring it.

Re:Unsurprising

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

And google simply commits to "doing no evil". Yet they comply with censoring orders even in America (youtube videos disappear not just for copyright reasons, as everyone knows).

Re:Unsurprising

[davester666]

Microsoft isn't evil. It simply spends a lot of it's time exploring the boundaries of the law around the world. And when you explore boarders, half the time you're on one side and the rest on the other side.

All in an effort to help the children (new corporations).

So they will know "You can go this far without getting into trouble. You can go this much further, and pay a small fine after doing it for 10 years. You can go twice as far, but then the fine will be 10 times higher, but you will only have to pay it 50 years later." And so on...

Re:Unsurprising

[weber]

"You're not quite evil enough. You're semi-evil. You're quasi-evil. You're the margarine of evil. You're the Diet Coke of evil, just one calorie, not evil enough."
    -- Dr. Evil

Re:Unsurprising

[poetmatt]

At the about-to-explode rate of inflation and the ever increasing costs of ipods for "quality", you're going to need more than a few years :D

Re:Unsurprising

[nsheppar]

I've put the link in my sig. Enjoy that iPod. Hope you can still put food on the table.

Re:Unsurprising

[GaryPatterson]

You know that if you backdated this a month or two, you could afford fifteen iPod Touch (32GB) units, two MacBook Pros (the kind released tomorrow), an Apple TV, Time Capsule and a partridge in a... no, I mean a few iTunes gift cards.

And tomorrow Apple release new machines. Get ready to buy half a dozen Mac Pro towers, preloaded with 32GB RAM and 2x30" Apple Cinema displays.

Re:Unsurprising

[The Grassy Knoll]

Thanks for the reference to the theme tune from Ronnie Barker's "Going Straight".

What a show.

.

Re:Unsurprising

[David Gerard]

You should read the book version. It's just the scripts, written up in novel format - but somehow it's ten times better.

Re:Unsurprising

[elrous0]

Apple users don't need food. The Koolaid sustains them.

Re:Unsurprising

[JasterBobaMereel]

In related news - Hell has instructions on what do to in the event of cold weather, and Pigs have supplied to them instructions on how to land safely ...

Re:Unsurprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's $10 for your iPod.

$1 for iPod $1 for iPod $1 for iPod $1 for iPod $1 for iPod $1 for iPod $1 for iPod $1 for iPod $1 for iPod $1 for iPod

Re:Unsurprising

[Anonymous Coward]

The Zune? How is the Zune evil? If you've owned one and didn't like it, fine otherwise I'd suggest trying things before making judgmental comments without experience.

Re:Unsurprising

[David Gerard]

Mostly it was just stupid. It was Microsoft snatching defeat from the jaws of victory: really pretty good hardware, but with mediocre firmware and terrible, terrible on-PC software. If they'd just left the thing hackable, every Leengux weenie in the world would have bought one to Rockbox it. But nooo, control took precedence over making some actual money.

Another example is the Xbox 360 - a great console with great games, they were even going to make a profit from it ... until they cut corners so badly that this joke is instantly understandable and its reputation was almost irretrievably trashed. Maybe they'll get it back with the super-cheap low-end model, we'll see.

Microsoft do some great stuff. But jeez, they need to get better at it.

Re:Unsurprising

[westlake]

Microsoft isn't evil. It simply spends a lot of it's time exploring the boundaries of the law around the world.
.

Which makes it no different from any other public or private corporation in the world.

If you can name an enterprise that operates on a global scale, rakes in $60 billion a year in revenues, and has never had its own encounters with the law, you are welcome to do so - now.

Re:Unsurprising

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about your boarders but I prefer mine to be female if I'm going to be on one side of them then the other.

Captcha: dominant. So apropos!

Re:Unsurprising

[Anonymous Coward]

> now.

What a Big Man you must be, making demands like that over the Internet!

Re:Unsurprising

[flyingfsck]

Well, Steve Balmer is wearing his best straight jacket...

Re:Unsurprising

[Turmoyl]

The last time I explored both sides of a boarder I was charged with sexual assault. :(

Re:Unsurprising

[MrMr]

How exactly does this crossing the boundaries of law in the other direction work? Buy a new government and you're crimes are all forgotten?

Re:Unsurprising

[Perky_Goth]

What does the law have to do with morals?

Re:Unsurprising

[harry666t]

"Let's see how far can I push this knife against your skin before you start bleeding."

Re:Unsurprising

[mebrahim]

That's what I call being evil.

Re:Unsurprising

[Junior J. Junior III]

Microsoft isn't evil. It simply spends a lot of it's time exploring the boundaries of the law around the world. And when you explore boarders, half the time you're on one side and the rest on the other side.

All in an effort to help the children (new corporations).

So they will know "You can go this far without getting into trouble. You can go this much further, and pay a small fine after doing it for 10 years. You can go twice as far, but then the fine will be 10 times higher, but you will only have to pay it 50 years later." And so on...

Well, I'd buy this line of BS, except that MS always tries to push the boundary beyond where it is, to a place that's more favorable for MS's plans of world domination.

They're not just interested in finding out where the legal boundaries are, they are interested in redefining them, to eradicate all obstacles preventing or potentially preventing MS from doing whatever the hell MS wants.

A string of meaningless words!!

[jkrise]

"....Microsoft provides a broad range of policies, programs, and products that are focused on our commitment to responsible and ethical business practices that promote user choice, industry opportunity, interoperability, and transparency....."

Last I checked Microsoft's Exchange Server works well only with IE. Unlike Gmail or Yahoo mail. Exchange is lousy with Firefox, Opera or Safari. Where is the choice?

And Exchange Server 2008 I belive even screws up the IMAP support, so Thunderbird users get the bird as well... So much for interoperability and transparency.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[dvice_null]

> Where is the choice?

You can pick any browser you want from these alternatives: IE6, IE7, IE8

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[jkrise]

You can pick any browser you want from these alternatives: IE6, IE7, IE8

Not always. You can't pick IE6 AND Vista. Many sites work well only with IE6.

Recent versions of Exchange Server work well only with IE7 or later. So in a Corporate setting with Win2K systems running IE6 for the Corporate Intranet, things get very clunky and unmanagable. Add multiple versions of SharePoint, Office, Active Directory... and pretty soon, you realise even Microsoft's products do not work well between and amnongst themselves. Unless you upgrade all of them, all at once. Which is pretty much impractical and terribly expensive.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Richard_at_work]

Uhm, Exchange 2003 at least certainly works with FireFox - I use it daily. It may not be as rich as the environment you get with IE, but it certainly is perfectly usable.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Toreo asesino]

Actually, Exchange works just fine on any browser you want. Some features aren't supported (like sending rich-text emails), but 95% is.

But then, there's still a bunch of stuff you can't do on web-access for any browser, so this is hardly a show-stopper. Exchange was never meant to be just a web-mail server believe it or not.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[canix]

Strange definition of "works just fine" - works fine but not everything works. "Works just about" would have been better.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm, Exchange 2003 at least certainly works with FireFox - I use it daily. It may not be as rich as the environment you get with IE, but it certainly is perfectly usable.

But why? It looks like it's been specifically engineered that way, not anything technologically lacking in Firefox or Opera. Try replying to a neat HTML email in Firefox and it reverts to basic text, and looks terribly ugly. Also a simple plain vanilla email from Firefox is rendered in a miniscule size font when read with IE.

Mere meaningless words on an ethics page will not make the products interoperable or promote user choice. This is 2008, not 1998.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Exchange was never meant to be just a web-mail server believe it or not.

So what is Microsoft's solution for users trying to access their email while travelling? Most Internet cafe's have uninstalled IE and provide only Firefox because it is so much better against viruses. When free email providers like Gmail and Yahoo can provide great features for web users, why can't a bloatware product that costs a pile of money do the same or better?

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[cryptodan]

"....Microsoft provides a broad range of policies, programs, and products that are focused on our commitment to responsible and ethical business practices that promote user choice, industry opportunity, interoperability, and transparency....."

Last I checked Microsoft's Exchange Server works well only with IE. Unlike Gmail or Yahoo mail. Exchange is lousy with Firefox, Opera or Safari. Where is the choice?

And Exchange Server 2008 I belive even screws up the IMAP support, so Thunderbird users get the bird as well... So much for interoperability and transparency.

Have you used Lotus iNotes which is Lotus Notes for the web? It is completely broken and useless in non-internet explorer environments, so I would take your exchange bashing elsewhere. I prefer a somewhat working OWA then one that doesn't work at all.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? How about because Firefox wasn't there when Exchange 2003 was released? Because Netscape didn't have an XMLHTTP facility; Ajax came from IE and Outlook Web access.

But no, really it's a conspiracy that MS didn't have a soothsayer on the Exchange team so they could plan from a browser that wouldn't be created for another year, and when there wasn't a standard way of accessing what was, at the time, an IE only extension. Damn them. DAMN THEM TO HELL.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[CaptainPatent]

Last I checked Microsoft's Exchange Server works well only with IE. Unlike Gmail or Yahoo mail. Exchange is lousy with Firefox, Opera or Safari. Where is the choice?

Well that's easy, you get to choose whether or not you want it to work correctly!

I hope that clears things up and you can see how committed Microsoft truly is!

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Actually I've tried firefox just yesterday on my exchange webmail account. It certainly works.

Of course my company probably hasn't got the newest version of exchange webmail (? what's it called ?), but it works.

The VPN is the problem, really.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Toreo asesino]

works fine but not everything works.

What's been implemented is standards compliant. No, not 100% of Exchange web functionality available in IE is available to non IE browsers, but the 95% common functionality there is between the 2 implementations will work on any major browser - see http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/09/13/428901.aspx for a brief rundown of what won't work on non-IE browsers.

Finally, if you're looking for a web only email solution, don't use Exchange; that's not what it's designed for.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[nmg196]

> Many sites work well only with IE6.

Yes, but you shouldn't use those sites as it means they're totally obsolete and haven't been updated in the last two years since IE7 was released.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[GigaplexNZ]

Exchange was never meant to be just a web-mail server believe it or not.

So what is Microsoft's solution for users trying to access their email while travelling?

Exchange. It was designed to support web mail, but it isn't the primary purpose.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[wild_berry]

Many sites work well only with IE6

Not Slashdot. Not any more.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[omeomi]

Not always. You can't pick IE6 AND Vista.

Thank God.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[somersault]

It works, but if you tried it on IE you'd notice that you get nicer stuff like fancy context sensitive right click menus.

It was the same with hotmail for a while. They've sorted the right click menus in Firefox now, but you still can't change the ratio of inbox to reading pane.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Toreo asesino]

You can't pick IE6 AND Vista. Many sites work well only with IE6.

Name me one site that works in IE 7/8 but not IE6. Seriously, pick any.

Add multiple versions of SharePoint, Office, Active Directory... and pretty soon, you realise even Microsoft's products do not work well between and amongst themselves.

Mmmmm that's quite a sweeping comment to make; again, can you give specifics? You have a point on some of the sever-side stuff; IIS being tied to a Windows version; Exchange too tends to have fairly strict OS requirements, but for server-side operations this rarely causes adoption problems; given that server's are few compared to the many clients they are supposed to service.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[ciderVisor]

Sex Change Team ?

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[somersault]

From http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/09/13/428901.aspx

Why doesn't Premium work on Firefox?

Before I wrap up, I'd like to address the question we often receive about why OWA Premium doesn't work in non IE browsers. The following is heavily plagiarized from others who have answered this question as well (thanks Kristian!), and if after reading this you are still unclear as to why Premium doesn't work on Firefox, please feel free to post your questions here and I'll do my best to answer them.

Shockingly, the decision to make OWA Premium only work on IE6+ has nothing to do with forcing people to use other Microsoft products (sorry to have to dispel the conspiracy, and just when Oliver Stone and Kevin Costner were starting pre-production on "OWA: The Movie "). The decision was made, simply enough, due to costs, time, and customer need.

The browser support we have for OWA Premium and OWA Light is due to usage share among our customers, and the development and test investment it takes to support additional browsers/versions. This doesn't mean the browser statistics for "browsers hitting OWA", which would be skewed based on our previous browser support. We look at the browser statistics for "browsers used on the Internet" and "browsers used within our customer organizations", as well as listening to what customers are asking for, since statistics, surveys, site logs, and research firms never tell the full story. The browser matrix of OWA is about where we allocate our investments, and the need of additional browser support as compared to the need for all the other OWA features our customers want. We have limited resources, limited time, and a very large set of potential features.

I understand it would be a PITA for them to add in support for 'premium' features in every browser, but FireFox has shown to be pretty popular in general. It's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy to say "we don't add in these features for other browsers because nobody is using those browsers for OWA". If they added in support for those features in firefox they'd probably find the percentage of users using firefox for OWA increases a lot. I know I used to fire up IE just to use OWA.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[MightyYar]

There is no way to search your messages from any browser except IE... that is a broken email program!

I don't expect it to be as feature-rich as Outlook, and I don't even care if IE has more features... but SEARCH? As a result, I forward all of my mail to a gmail account. Yeah, yeah, yeah, what if my gmail is compromised. Cry me a river.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[JasterBobaMereel]

Exchange was never meant to be an Internet mail server at all - this is why it is so bad at it e.g. email outside the system is very limited in comparison with internal messages

It was designed to be (and still is) a corporate messaging and collaboration system, internet email was bolted on and is still (apparently) an afterthought

Webmail is only to be used if you cannot connect to the network and use a proper client (Outlook), it is a stopgap and is not intended to be the normal interface

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[MightyYar]

All you really need for explanation is that it uses ActiveX. They'd have to do a total rewrite in order to support other browsers.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Note some things seen as ethics issues are just inability ... like IE 6 IE 7 & IE 7 Exchange server, and more

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[somersault]

Well, OWA for Exchange 2003 doesn't ask to install any ActiveX components so I'm not so sure. Perhaps 2007 does use ActiveX. From later on in the same page the guy continued his excuses by talking about having lots of premium features that would need tweaked for them to work in other browsers, so I had thought it was more of a DOM issue.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Hognoxious]

I don't know if it works in IE7, but if you want one that doesn't work well in IE6 you're looking at it. Misplaced and overlapping sections, buttons that don't appear to do anything (metamoderation)...

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[wanderingknight]

Name me one site that works in IE 7/8 but not IE6. Seriously, pick any.

Slashdot?

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Anonymous Coward]

3 choices... and 2 of 'em don't work.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[suckmysav]

Try using outlook web access using ff3 on linux. It mostly of works, but you simply can't login without clicking thru a huge fucking screen telling you to upgrade your browser.

arseholes

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Sun.Jedi]

Sarah Palin? Is that you?

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[nabsltd]

Well, OWA for Exchange 2003 doesn't ask to install any ActiveX components so I'm not so sure.

I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to have hard-coded into IE something like "hey, this is the OWA ActiveX...it's cool...install it without asking the user regardless of the security settings they have".

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[NatasRevol]

Almost. it's the mobile sex change team.

m-sex-change-team.com

For use only on windows mobile :-)

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[jacquesm]

that'd be one very bad vector for an attack.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Liquidrage]

Considering I use my work's exchange mail exclusively with FF I would say the user experience is on par with gmail. I can search, sorta, send, etc.

The IE experience is enchanced due to active X, which I don't care for. The FF experience itself is fine though.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Anonymous Coward]

If that's a question then the answer is yes.

Tagging doesn't work. The header is a complete mess. Clicking the logo to return to the home page is hit or miss. I clicked some beta option on here last week and had to wait until I got home to reset the option as nothing was displayed afterwards.

C'mon Slashdot, some of us are forced to use this piece of shit from 9-5.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Yvanhoe]

The advice I got from someone working at MS :
Win2K ? But we're in 2008! Your scenario is not credible. It is not healthy to stay with outdated systems!

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Aphoxema]

And you can have a Model T Ford in any color you want as long as it's black, except back then it was to save money and be more efficient, now it's... I'm not sure, I don't see how Microsoft is really winning being the tightasses they are...

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[hey!]

Ummm. To promote user choice within Microsoft's product line of course.

Take standards. You participate in standards in order to increase the size of the market for your goods. Then you try to capture as much as that market as possible buy creating a "superior" implementation of that standard. The fact that this locks in the customer doesn't mean the customer didn't have a choice. Anybody who has thought about vendor lock in realizes that the element of buyer choice is critical in making it possible. Microsoft doesn't put a gun to people's heads; customers put it there then invite Microsoft to hold the trigger.

Corporate ethics standards -- sensible ones anyway -- are always about enlightened self-interest. It'd be ridiculous to expect Microsoft not to drive users to IE. Or it might be visionary. But whatever that may be, it's certainly ridiculous to expect a monopolist to be a visionary. Visionary strategies are a nuisance to monopolies. Making money from a monopoly is about tactics; the only strategy there is is to preserve the monopoly.

That's probably why Bill Gates isn't that interested in Microsoft any longer. I imagine it isn't much fun any longer. Achieving a monopoly requires boldness, vision and ruthlessness. Maintaining it just requires ruthlessness.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[MightyYar]

LOL! Well, I'm not running for office and I'm not trying to fire some distant relative :)

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[MightyYar]

It definitely uses ActiveX. Check out this MS Knowledgebase article detailing problems with the ActiveX control in Vista.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[scatteredsun]

uh...owa works just fine in Firefox, Safari, and Chrome, I haven't tried it in Opera, but I suspect it works there as well. IMAP has never been the best way to connect to Exchange, but I know for a fact Exchange Server 2007 supports it just fine. That being said.... How many POP/IMAP clients are there compared to Exchange clients.....

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[TehZorroness]

No one should be using outdated software, and no website should depend on it. If it does, it's broken and it is not your responsibility to fix. Either don't use it, or put a retard in his/her place.

On a seperate note, I don't know why people choose to use outdated proprietary software which limits their capabilities when by choosing free software they can stand (ie. remain at - not be there for one day) on the bleeding edge without bleeding out their wallets. Vendors of proprietary software are much more enticed to withold certain bugfixes and features for that next version so they can charge people all over again for the software they are already using. With free software, You click a button, update, and boom - several programs on your box are updated and have expanded functionality.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[somersault]

Strange. I haven't connected into OWA before from this install of Windows - it asked me about the security certificate, but nothing about ActiveX. This is running with IE 6 on XP SP3 running in a VM. Perhaps since it's a page on the intranet the security restrictions are lighter, but I don't think I've used IE on this install for anything but Windows Updates - the security settings should all be at default.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[pbhj]

Exchange was never meant to be just a web-mail server believe it or not.

So what is Microsoft's solution for users trying to access their email while travelling?

Exchange. It was designed to support web mail, but it isn't the primary purpose.

Surely it was designed to support Microsoft Internet Email, not web mail. I'm always keen to make this distinction - as a web designer/programmer I feel that a site that isn't designed to web standards is not a 'web site' but something else. Of course if they're using graceful deg./progressive enhanc. to provide a different experience based on ability of the browser, that's fine so long as they're using web standards.

In short if it's not using web standards compliant code, it is not a website and in this case it is not webmail.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense. Exchange works great with Firefox - even better than IE in some cases. And IPhone client is best mobile exchange client out there.

Also, any larger company has ethics document that they make you sign - all BS of course just to cover their asses and in attempt to look good

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[tsa]

? I never saw a screen like that.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[MightyYar]

Maybe it's pre-installed? I really don't know :)

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean "they haven't felt the need to conform to IE7's 'standards'", in addition to all the hacks needed to make a site work properly on IE6.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[KGIII]

It doesn't work well in IE7 or IE8 either really though IE8 is better. Sometimes the rendering is funny in Firefox but it usually renders quite nicely in Opera.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[zooblethorpe]

"Obsolete" according to whom?

There are plenty of intranet-only sites that may well be coded for IE 6, and if they work now, why the heck should a company spend the time and money to "update" them to IE 7? There are far more important things to spend the budget on -- like making money for *us* instead of for MS.

Cheers,

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I checked Microsoft's Exchange Server works well only with IE.

I access our company's OWA fine with FireFox. Haven't tried Opera.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps this is a special case of works, namely Microsoft Works?

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Can you do right-click capturing on firefox from javascript these days ? I thought that was a security risk and killed a few years ago.

No site I know of, not even google mail, has it.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[somersault]

Like I said, it works with hotmail in firefox..

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Anonymous Coward]

IE has a lot of resources microsoft put into it which allow microsoft to easily create a decent interface for their web-sites. Trying to build an interface that conforms to the constant differences between all the browsers is a significantly more taxing chore.

This is the reason Google has developed Chrome, they realized that they can only do so much while limited by all of the other browsers so they developed their own. The difference is Chrome is Open Source with the hope that other browsers will adopt some of Google's code and give Google that capability.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really think all information older than 2 years is outdated and obsolete?

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[habbi]

nope. on IE7 the main page breaks somewhere below the middle, showing a couple of mangled, unreadable posts. And both categories of tags (user and mainstream iirc) are shown side by side, with no spaces in between.

I guess checking the new layout on IE browsers was not a chance here, right?

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Blakey Rat]

Slashdot's equally shitty in all browsers. I've found tons of bugs in the most current Firefox, so it really makes you wonder what browser they could be *possibly* testing on. (I mean, I assume they wouldn't test on IE, but not on Firefox? Of course the other possibility, more likely, is that there's no testing done at all.) After a brief altercation with one of the Slashdot devs, I now diligently report every bug I find-- none have been fixed.

For example, I'm looking directly at this bug right now as I reply: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2159787&group_id=4421&atid=104421

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mobile Sex Change Team!

That just means they come to your house. No need for you to visit the hospital.

Microsoft think of everything. Who says they don't care about the users! Also, it is funded by the Bill and Melinda* Gates Foundation (*formerly Fred Smith).

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[nmg196]

> why the heck should a company spend the time and money to "update" them to IE 7?

What, apart from the obvious?!

IE 6 is about 7-8 years old and is CRAP. If you're happy to continue using that browser so that your intranet works, then feel free, but don't complain on here when you can't use the rest of the Internet when web developers stop supporting IE6 (as many have already done).

> like making money for *us* instead of for MS.

How, exactly does updating your intranet site so it works on IE7 (you know that FREE browser that comes with Windows) make money for MS? You don't need to pay MS to do it.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's try a bit lesser evil speak:

DARN them to HECK!

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Danse]

Actually I've tried firefox just yesterday on my exchange webmail account. It certainly works.

Of course my company probably hasn't got the newest version of exchange webmail (? what's it called ?), but it works.

The VPN is the problem, really.

Firefox doesn't seem to want to display the folder tree and some of the other features don't seem to work either. It's really not as functional as it is with IE. The basic stuff seems to work though.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Danse]

Not always. You can't pick IE6 AND Vista.

Thank God.

Modded funny, but seriously, as bad as IE6 was, the more Microsoft can do to move people away from it the better. At least they're trying to make IE8 more standards-compliant. It's not as far along as other browsers, but it's going in the right direction at least.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[MobyDisk]

This is a good example of Microsoft's brand of evil. They went out of their way to make Exchange work worse on other browsers.

If you use Exchange on IE, it gives you a nice AJAX thing that is almost like an app. Windows, menus, etc. If you use it on something else, it gives you a "classic" version of the app. The thing is, those other browsers have as good or better CSS/AJAX support than IE does. So the only reason it doesn't work on those browsers is because they coded it to.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[zooblethorpe]

Let me expand a little. Implicit in my post was the idea that, if a company still has any significant installed base of IE 6, there's probably a reason -- maybe they're still using an older version of Windows for which IE 7 isn't available, say Win2K or even NT4, in which case an upgrade to IE7 would require an upgrade of an awful lot of licenses, and possibly even hardware. The license fees would certainly constitute making money for MS. And given the unfortunate bomb that is Vista, many companies appear to be waiting for the next upgrade cycle before moving on, leaving even less incentive to make any switch now.

Cheers,

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Tubal-Cain]

Will Portable Firefox not work?

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Tubal-Cain]

Your sig seems strangely relevant to the rest of your post.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Anonymous Coward]

For a minute I thought that you wrote "sexchangeteam.com" and said to myself "they have teams for that? Must be a tag team effort".

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Eskarel]

Well mostly because no large business(or for that matter small business) wants to be anywhere near the bleeding edge. The bleeding edge is a dangerous place to be, that's why it's the bleeding edge and not the chocolate edge or the fluffy pillow edge.

There are a lot of reasons why folks stick with IE 6 in the corporiate environment, but the primary one is third party core systems.

Pretty much every business has one, an application they couldn't develop themselves, and which either doesn't have an open source alternative or whose open source alternative sucks.

A lot of those applications have web interfaces, and, if the application is relatively old(not even necessarily your version of it) then realistically it's not going to be conforming to web standards because when it was built they didn't exist.

If it comes down to choosing between IE 7 and still pretty basic support for web standards, or having a system crucial to your business continue to work properly, folks are going to stick wtih IE 6.

This may change with IE 8 or 9 depending on how good the standards compliance ends up being, but IE 7 still requires a lot of the same fiddling to make it work, and the cost of getting there can be prohibitive for something as stupid as a web browser.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, if they actually programmed to standards instead of tailoring OWA for the product for the most popular browser (which just coincidentally happens to be IE), there would be a good chance that OWA worked with any browser at all. Within the confines of their chosen development method ("code for the browser, regardless of standards") they don't need a conspiracy to suppress competing browsers. But who chose that development method and why? SUrely they were aware of the consequences of that choice.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[alien9]

yeah but does it run on linux?

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Eskarel]

Let me tell you, as someone who does this sort of thing for a living, coding for IE as well as for standards is a pain in the ass.

This is especially true for AJAX. This isn't entirely Microsoft's fault, because the W3C always seems to have the attitude that "just because the browser 90% of people use already does it this way, doesn't mean that should be the standard".

XMLHttpRequest in IE 6 and earlier is an activex control. So is Microsoft's implementation of XML.

They're not controls which get installed, they're part of IE.

Some of this is changing(the W3C standard implementation of XMLHttpRequest works in IE 7), but in general doing both is a fair wack of work, and Microsoft reckons that supporting two isn't worth what it'd cost them to do. As it'd be mind bogglingly stupid of them to support Firefox and not IE, they're not going to support Firefox.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Eskarel]

The controls are ActiveX, but they're built in to IE so there are no security warnings.

Both XML and XMLHttpRequest as well as a number of other things Microsoft implemented first were initially implemented as ActiveX controls.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[nmg196]

> maybe they're still using an older version of Windows for which IE 7 isn't available, say Win2K or even NT4

Again, what's your point? These are two OBSOLETE operating systems from 8-10 years ago which are no longer supported even by Microsoft themselves.

> given the unfortunate bomb that is Vista

The majority of people have no problem with Vista now that it's been service packed. The vast majority of the original negative press surrounding Vista was to do with a few teething troubles which have now been solved in SP1. Unfortunately, by the time it was released, most people had got a bad impression of it and therefore don't even want to try it. Personally I use it daily as a software developer and don't have any problems with it. I can't find any bugs and it's never crashed - not even once.

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[Anonymous Coward]

If it wasn't meant to be a mail server them why do they call it that? Why does it try to semd mail to other mail servers if it isn't an Internet Mail Server?

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[zooblethorpe]

Fine, yes, NT4 and Win2K are indeed obsolete. You get the cigar. :) This does not change the fact that a number of large corporate computer ecosystems still have these installed. And this does not change the fact that upgrading these would involve giving MS money. And this does not change the fact that many corporate IT departments have put the kibosh on installing Vista. And this does not change the fact that, amidst the current dim economic outlook, many companies are likely loath to part with any more cash, especially for what are apparently perceived as unneeded upgrades.

Which brings us back to your post above, and my underlying response -- there's "should", and there's "is". Sure, perhaps IE6 sites shouldn't be used, but the simple fact is that they still are. And there are reasons for this besides simple inertia.

Cheers,

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[badkarmadayaccount]

What does 'funny' mean in this context? Because the rendering in Chrome sometimes puts the Parent under the Reply button. It fixes up when I collapse and reopen the comment in question, so its really weird. Whatever. Its even faster than Opera, so I'm happy. ;)

Cheers!

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[suckmysav]

Well, I'm trying to convert my GF to linux and her work email does it. Maybe you've changed your user agent string or something?

Re:A string of meaningless words!!

[KGIII]

The reply button looks like a monster mouth, overlaped text in my profile, just minor stuff really.

Ethics

[symes]

You know, sometimes you'll find organisations with the most detailed and extensive ethical guidelines imaginable. And in the same cupboard you'll find several inches of dust. "A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of what he can do, Nothing else" (Gandhi, M).

Re:Ethics

[dnoyeb]

Whats funny is that at least what is posted is not MS ethics. Those are Federal laws. They can call them ethics if they want, but not paying off foreign officials is not an ethical question. Its a legal one.

Anything to do with gaining favor from a foreign government is strictly illegal. (except for attempts to speed up what is the natural process)

Re:Ethics

[elrous0]

I always tell my kids the same thing about politicians. Their words mean nothing. Look to their ACTIONS to learn the real story.

Re:Ethics

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, and now your trying to pull that old line. I've heard it before you know, only like this: "Actions speak louder than words...and they always tell the truth." Its much like advice some mothers give their daughters about boyfriends: "Ignore everything he says, only pay attention to what he does." Damn! If we ignore all the microsoft doublespeak and only look at their behavior, DAMN!

Re:Ethics

[Kazoo the Clown]

Whats funny is that at least what is posted is not MS ethics. Those are Federal laws. They can call them ethics if they want, but not paying off foreign officials is not an ethical question. Its a legal one.

It's nice to encounter someone who realizes that ethics have absolutely nothing do to with what's legally right and wrong. You see, there's this persistent myth running around...

Looking for ethics

[crispi]

I'm sure they have some ethics around somewhere? ...somewhere... ...still looking...

Aha! ActiveEthics(TM).

Re:Looking for ethics

[Anonymous Coward]

MS Active EthiX(tm)(r)

Re:Looking for ethics

[ciderVisor]

MS don't know anything about Ethex, so they held this in Thuthex:

http://blogs.msdn.com/ukschools/archive/2008/04/01/east-sussex-harnessing-whole-school-technology-conference.aspx

Re:Looking for ethics

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Unfortunately, there are seven different known exploits to ActiveEthics that turn you into a serial child rapist.

Re:Looking for ethics

[Anonymous Coward]

"Aha! ActiveEthics(TM)."

Thats the old one, the new one is .Nethics

It runs in a configurable virtual world, so you can tweak it to fit in any situation.

Re:Looking for ethics

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait until Miguel de Icaza gets a sniff. He'll copy it and produce MonolEthic v.1.

Also, will Microsoft put their ethics through ISO - named Microsoft OfficeOpenEthicML.

Censored tags?

[Meor]

What happened to the kdawsonfud tags? Are these censored? When tags first came out they were always tagged with this but now when I tag them it never appears. It seems very odd these would be censored.

Re:Censored tags?

[Gadget_Guy]

What happened to the kdawsonfud tags?

The problem with tags like these is that they get overused so that every story by kdawson ends up with one. One might argue that this might be entirely warranted due to constant bias, but it still looks like a knee-jerk reaction to any post. It dilutes the term when used too much.

In this case: yes, it does seem unfair to associate these ethical guidelines with the reverse-engineering that went on prior to the guidelines being published. The work on Samba started over a decade before the Microsoft document was written.

If the question was rephrased into the current tense, then the answer would be that it is not necessary to reverse engineer the protocols/file formats, because they have now been published by Microsoft. It may have been ten years later than we would have liked, but then Microsoft do have a habit of trying to ignore anything that might result in the reduction of lock-in for Windows until way too late. This was why they were late in seeing the Internet as a priority, along with XML, VMs, and now open source and interoperability.

Before the bashing silliness begins

[$RANDOMLUSER]

I'll point out that they've had a big anti-trust target painted on their foreheads (both in the US and the EU) for a long long time now. I'm sure they actually do spend a lot of time making sure they don't run afoul of the local regulators, watchdog groups and newspapers.

Having said that, Microsoft?? Ethics??? hahahahaha LET THE BASHING BEGIN! Couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of assholes!

Re:Before the bashing silliness begins

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, now...

Of course "Microsoft did not make any payments to foreign government officials" while lobbying for OOXML, what do you think wives, siblings, cousins, parents, children, shell corporations, and whatever is the European equivalent for a Political Action Comittee are for?

It's just like a world class high school athlete getting recruited by an NCAA University. Of course we can't pay you directly, but would your mother like a $60K a year no-show job cleaning the dorms?

Re:Before the bashing silliness begins

[MrMr]

...I'm sure they actually do spend a lot of time making sure they don't run afoul of the local regulators...
You might expect that, but oddly enough their reluctance to comply with EU regulations has surpassed that of any company that ever did business there, making pharmaceutical and automotive companies look like charities by comparison.

What is a code of conduct for?

[golodh]

The opening post displays a startling lack of insight as far as the purpose of having a Code of Conduct is concerned.

There really do seem to be people who believe that a Code of Conduct is there to limit what a company can do. Nothing could be further from the truth.

First and foremost, a Code of Conduct is an integral part of the company's PR effort. Every self-respecting company has to have one. It's cool to have one, and you look stupid and unsophisticated if you don't. Besides, there is no need to be without. There are templates with good-sounding Codes of Conduct that are guaranteed to leave everyone a comfortably free hand.

Secondly: damage limitation. A Code of Conduct is there to be able to shield a company from legal consequences of unethical conduct by it's employees on its behalf. If an employee is caught red-handed, it really helps if a company is able to state (truthfully) that this action contravenes their official Code of Conduct. This can really limit the damage.

Re:What is a code of conduct for?

[b00le]

My own employers have an ethics code which is 33 pages of closely-spaced Maoist gibberish, most of which has nothing at all to do with the ethics of company, or managerial, behaviour and much of which is actually exhortations to blind obedience for employees. All corporations tend to authoritarianism, and these are the people who actually own the world, while blathering about freedom and democracy. The truth is that anyone employed by a large corporation spends most of their waking hours living in a totalitarian dictatorship - could this be what is wrong with Western Civilisation?

Re:What is a code of conduct for?

[Loki_666]

Mod parent up... this is exactly why they have these things.

News Headlines: Ballimer caught having sex with sheep

Microsoft PR: This is against our code of conduct and Ballimer will soon be getting shafted... erm, sacked.

Re:What is a code of conduct for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently the poster is lumping conduct with ethics. As stated a code of conduct is only posted to limit liability. Ethics implies that some type of morality and conscience was behind the code.

Re:What is a code of conduct for?

[timmarhy]

what i pose to you, is how would you do things better? try running a company where the janitor gets an equal vote on say, corporate strategy and see how long you last.

Re:What is a code of conduct for?

[Anonymous Coward]

The opening post displays a startling lack of insight as far is concerned.

You must be new here.

Re:What is a code of conduct for?

[Tryfen]

Co-Ops - or Workers' Cooperative. One of the largest retailers in the UK is a Co-Op.

If you work there as a janitor - you own part of the company and thus get a vote. It's working well for them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative

Re:What is a code of conduct for?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather have every person in the company own it and be responsible for running it into the ground than 1 over paid CEO who will just run away with a golden parachute if anything bad ever happens.

Re:What is a code of conduct for?

[timmarhy]

that's not what i'm talking about. sure all the workers own part of the company but when they are at work they still have to say yes sir three bags full sir.

Re:What is a code of conduct for?

[SD-Arcadia]

In the spirit of and beyond Co-Ops one can also consider the ParEcon model. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_economics

Re:What is a code of conduct for?

[kaaona]

My employer's senior VPs got caught bribing middle eastern royals some years ago in a very public scandal. To atone for their sins, the corporation must implement a 23-point ethics recovery plan contrived by outside consultants. What really pisses off the rank and file employees of this multinational is that we're the ones being forced to watch to a never-ending stream of training videos (like the VD films of past eras) when it's the Rolex and pinkie ring crowd that should get the Clockwork Orange treatment. Corporate ethics, honest politicians, honor among thieves. Yeah, right.

Re:What is a code of conduct for?

[jacquesm]

not sure if I'd prefer him to be shafted or sacked... maybe both ?

Re:What is a code of conduct for?

[pbhj]

Everyone knows all janitors are savants, with preponderous intellectual acumen, in disguise.

Re:What is a code of conduct for?

[turing_m]

All corporations tend to authoritarianism, and these are the people who actually own the world, while blathering about freedom and democracy. The truth is that anyone employed by a large corporation spends most of their waking hours living in a totalitarian dictatorship - could this be what is wrong with Western Civilisation?

What would you propose as an alternative? If the alternative to totalitarianism is freedom, the alternative to dictatorship is democracy and living under these conditions is what is wrong with Western Civilization, I'm not convinced that the alternatives are anything more than blathering.

Re:What is a code of conduct for?

[deets101]

I work for a large company, I won't mention its name but it initials are H. P., and our ethics code has really helped us!!!!!

GNU's code of ethics just says...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Big Stallman loves you. Big Stallman is watching you."

No bribes for OOXML, but

[Tuqui]

'Microsoft did not make any payments to foreign government officials' while lobbying for OOXML

But obviously they pay bribes to squash the Open Source Software Law in Peru

Re:No bribes for OOXML, but

[Anonymous Coward]

A public donation is hardly a bribe even in this day and age. If it was most companies in the world would be guilty, and those that weren't should be ridiculed for being heartless bastards.

Re:No bribes for OOXML, but

[Omnifarious]

Oh, but Microsoft's public 'donations' are never without strings. They should be more appropriately be thought of as deep discounts on their products in order to foster lock-in.

So when those deep discounts are being given to governments, especially when those governments are contemplating the sovereignty issues inherent in being locked-in to a single vendor, you have to start wondering whether or not the word 'bribe' isn't more appropriate. Microsoft is basically using economic inducements to entice governments into making decisions that are not in the long-term best interests of the people they supposedly represent.

repetitio est mater studiorum

[alxtoth]

If they repeat this stuff often enough, people will get used to it. Or even believe !

News eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Publicly the world bank and the IMF make out like they're doing something other than enslaving the entire world.

Film at 11!

Ethics?

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect that if I looked up Ethics in MS Encarta it would probably say

"Ethics - A county to the east of London"

---------
Essex for non-uk readers

Re:Ethics?

[oldhack]

Ethics is sex with 'es' strapped on... this an English thing?

Re:Ethics?

[SilentMobius]

"Ethics" sounds like "Essex" if said with a lisp. The joke made me giggle so yeah, probably a UK thing.

we'll take the 1/2 black 'muslim terrorist'

[Anonymous Coward]

almost anything would be an improvement over the current greed/fear/ego driven life0cidal glowbull warmongering execrable regime.

'funny' how the cost of our 'wars' & the blight that is fuddles' (& other felons) stock markup FraUD softwar gangster 'business' is never factored in to our national (spiritual) bankruptcy. it's all in the manual, you can 'play' along if you like.

greed, fear & ego are unprecedented evile's primary weapons. those, along with deception & coercion, helps most of us remain (unwittingly?) dependent on its' life0cidal hired goons' agenda. most of yOUR dwindling resources are being squandered on the 'wars', & continuation of the billionerrors stock markup FraUD/pyramid schemes. nobody ever mentions the real long term costs of those debacles in both life & any notion of prosperity for us, or our children, not to mention the abuse of the consciences of those of us who still have one. see you on the other side of it. the lights are coming up all over now. conspiracy theorists are being vindicated. some might choose a tin umbrella to go with their hats. the fairytail is winding down now. let your conscience be yOUR guide. you can be more helpful than you might have imagined. there are still some choices. if they do not suit you, consider the likely results of continuing to follow the corepirate nazi hypenosys story LIEn, whereas anything of relevance is replaced almost instantly with pr ?firm? scriptdead mindphuking propaganda or 'celebrity' trivia 'foam'. meanwhile; don't forget to get a little more oxygen on yOUR brain, & look up in the sky from time to time, starting early in the day. there's lots going on up there.

http://news.google.com/?ncl=1216734813&hl=en&topic=n
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/opinion/31mon1.html?em&ex=1199336400&en=c4b5414371631707&ei=5087%0A
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080918/ap_on_re_us/tent_cities;_ylt=A0wNcyS6yNJIZBoBSxKs0NUE
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/world/29amnesty.html?hp
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/02/nasa.global.warming.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/05/severe.weather.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/02/honore.preparedness/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/09/28/what.matters.meltdown/index.html#cnnSTCText
http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/books/10/07/atwood.debt/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/opinion/01dowd.html?em&ex=1212638400&en=744b7cebc86723e5&ei=5087%0A
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/05/senate.iraq/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/washington/17contractor.html?hp
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/world/middleeast/03kurdistan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080708/cheney_climate.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080805/pl_politico/12308;_ylt=A0wNcxTPdJhILAYAVQms0NUE
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/18/voting.problems/index.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080903/ts_nm/environment_arctic_dc;_ylt=A0wNcwhhcb5It3EBoy2s0NUE
(talk about cowardlly race fixing/bad theater/fiction?) http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/19/news/economy/sec_short_selling/index.htm?cnn=yes
http://us.lrd.yahoo.com/_ylt=ApTbxRfLnscxaGGuCocWlwq7YWsA/SIG=11qicue6l/**http%3A//biz.yahoo.com/ap/081006/meltdown_kashkari.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/opinion/04sat1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
(the teaching of hate as a way of 'life' synonymous with failed dictatorships) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081004/ap_on_re_us/newspapers_islam_dvd;_ylt=A0wNcwWdfudITHkACAus0NUE
(some yoga & yogurt makes killing/getting killed less stressful) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081007/ap_on_re_us/warrior_mind;_ylt=A0wNcw9iXutIPkMBwzGs0NUE
(the old bait & switch...you're share of the resulting 'product' is a fairytail nightmare?)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081011/ap_on_bi_ge/where_s_the_money;_ylt=A0wNcwJGwvFIZAQAE6ms0NUE

is it time to get real yet? A LOT of energy is being squandered in attempts to keep US in the dark. in the end

"Do Some Evil"

[Anonymous Coward]

"We find the word 'no' to be a bit strong, and not in the best interest of the company or some of its stock holders. For this reason, 'some' evil is allowed if it increases long term growth or profits. Or if Steve Ballmer wishes it. Please keep this in mind in your dealings as we do not want employees to become confused that they are working for Google."

Actual ethics section from the manual

[Anonymous Coward]

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Re:Actual ethics section from the manual

[XavidX]

This is a placeholder.

/troll

[Anonymous Coward]

i rofl'd at this IRL

Ethical Guidelines

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is every bit as evil as GE, or the US government.
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=type&type=16

Although its an unpopular view, I don't consider microsoft to be exceptionally evil, as large corps go. I've completed online "ethics training" courses for various companies. The policies are really about protecting corporate interests.

Microsoft has surrendered to Samba now...

[adamkennedy]

After the Vista debacle and how easy it was for Samba to implement the new CIFS, Microsoft has surrendered to the inevitable now.

They've now built and operate an interoperability testing laboratory for the Samba team to use to improve integration with Samba.

Re:Microsoft has surrendered to Samba now...

[fritsd]

and that after only 16 years!!!

what is the point of this MS bashing?

[timmarhy]

what the fuck do nerds who post this dribble think is going to happen, that MS will tremble at their scorn? Every single company with more than a few 100 employees has these kinds of corporate statements which are supposed to be all touchy feelie but completely optional. some dick at MS probably has a job doing nothing but writing this crap, it doesn't make MS a single bit evil.

frankly that anyone finds this news worthy shows the level of naivety around here....

Re:what is the point of this MS bashing?

[Anonymous Coward]

And I bet you bought two copies of Windows Vista, because you love it and Microsoft sooooo much.

Re:what is the point of this MS bashing?

[qmaqdk]

I'm surprised at your reaction to this.

MS bashing has been happening since Windows 95, and has since then become part of geek culture. It's all but automatic now, and just for fun. Like Chuck Norris jokes and the like. And you do know that this is /. right?

In the nineties a friend of mine also used to get angry when I bashed MS (again just for fun), and it really confounded me that he would get so angry. Perhaps you can enlighten me?

Re:what is the point of this MS bashing?

[GaryPatterson]

... it doesn't make MS a single bit evil

You're completely correct. Only their past actions make MS seem evil. A document about their ethics is mere window dressing.

(I kid, I kid! Not on this, but on other things, I kid, I kid! I mean, which other company has destroyed the competition in such a way? Outside munitions manufacturers, that is? But hey, they've got good ideas about ethics these days. It's just a shame their management can't take time out of their vital puppy-strangling projects to read them! Try the chicken, tip your waitress and remember, I'm here all week so you don't have to be.)

Re:what is the point of this MS bashing?

[MyLongNickName]

Slashdot is like midnight basketball leagues for nerds. It keeps them off the streets where they might get into trouble.

Re:what is the point of this MS bashing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to /.

Re:what is the point of this MS bashing?

[ConceptJunkie]

I think the word you're looking for is 'drivel'.

Re:what is the point of this MS bashing?

[timmarhy]

what makes you think i give a shit about MS in the slightest? as i pointed out, they are no different to any other large company when it comes to this stuff. if anyone actually got angry about MS or linux bashing it'd be pointless, MS isn't going to love you for defending them.

Re:what is the point of this MS bashing?

[qmaqdk]

Ok. Maybe I just mistook your cursing for being angry. My mistake.

Re:what is the point of this MS bashing?

[Blakey Rat]

Well, it is possible that Microsoft employees might actually be proud of the work they do and therefore get offended by bashing, especially blatantly untrue bashing. (For example, there was a whole array of bashing around the new Office 2007 interface, which is something Microsoft's Office Division should be rightly proud of-- it *is* better than the old way.)

I don't have a problem with people bashing Microsoft when they have valid complaints, it just bugs me when they're people who have obviously never even bothered to try using the products. You can tell, because they usually obsess over features like Clippy, which haven't existed in years and years. I don't think spreading lies about Microsoft does any good.

Re:what is the point of this MS bashing?

[UncleTogie]

What makes you think we gripe less about anyone else doing the same?

If you try to sell a poop sandwich as "filet mignon", you're going to get complaints.

"But what about the code?"

[Anonymous Coward]

"They're more Guidelines than actual rules..."

Vista broke DHCP.

[Zombie Ryushu]

Are you aware, that Vista did something that caused DHCP to break for many many home based residential gateway "routers" - and among one of the things that was broken was Linux's dhcpd?

I have one Vista Client. We can't use DHCP with it, we have to use static addressing just for that node to work.

More and more Vista boxes with broken DHCP clients get put out every day. And when I'm brought a Vista client with one of those horribly broken DHCP clients I'm told "Its Linux's problem, "fix" Linux's DHCP Server.

Re:Vista broke DHCP.

[Anonymous Coward]

Informative? Where is the information here? Seriously, when issues arise at the communication border between 2 components, the fault can be on either side (or both). Until I see someone tracing the network exchange and comparing against the standard to figure what is at fault, I call BS.
So, maybe this work has been done and blame was found to be on the Vista side, but this comment would be informative only if pointing to that analysis. As it stands, I only see FUD.

Re:Vista broke DHCP.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you aware that it's because those routers don't obey the standards (which you guys harp on IE about incessantly), and that the behavior can be reverted (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233 - guess what was the first google result for "Vista DHCP")? You rabid zealots are intolerable.

Re:Vista broke DHCP.

[jeremyp]

Actually, both sides are at fault in the spirit if not in the letter of the RFC.

The broadcast flag is included as a work around for a nasty catch 22 situation that some network interfaces might suffer from, namely not being able to receive unicast IP packets until they have been configured with an IP address. This means that such an interface cannot receive its own IP address in an IP packet which is what the DHCP server would normally use.

Acording to the DHCP RFC ( http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1541.html )

"A client that cannot receive unicast IP datagrams until its protocol software has been configured with an IP address SHOULD set the BROADCAST bit in the 'flags' field to 1 in any DHCPDISCOVER or DHCPREQUEST messages that client sends. The BROADCAST bit will provide a hint to the DHCP server and BOOTP relay agent to broadcast any messages to the client on the client's subnet. A client that can receive unicast IP datagrams before its protocol software has been configured SHOULD clear the BROADCAST bit to 0."

So Vista is - was (because it was fixed in sp1 I believe) - morally at fault because its IP stack is capable of receiving unicast packets before the IP address has been configured. However, the word "should" rather than "must" was used so Microsoft is still in compliance with the letter of the protocol.

On the server side:

"A server or relay agent sending or relaying a DHCP message directly to a DHCP client ... SHOULD examine the BROADCAST bit in the 'flags' field. If this bit is set to 1, the DHCP message SHOULD be sent as an IP broadcast using an IP broadcast address (preferably 255.255.255.255) as the IP destination address and the link-layer broadcast address as the link-layer destination address."

Again, it says "should" instead of "must" and so the server side is also morally wrong, but still in compliance with the protocol.

The bug is actually in the RFC

Weasel words

[dutchd00d]

Funny how they say "Microsoft conducts its business in compliance with laws designed to promote fair competition" instead of "Microsoft will not engage in unfair competition". Gotta keep those loopholes open!

Re:Weasel words

[MagdJTK]

What's more depressing is that they thought it was required to put this in their ethical guidelines.

When you have to actively point out that your employees shouldn't knowingly break the law, something must be wrong.

Re:Weasel words

[ledow]

More importantly - why bother to write that you'll do something that is a legal obligation anyway (debates about whether MS broke it are irrelevant). If they wrote "Microsoft will not conduct its business in compliance with laws designed to promote fair competition", then they'd be showing intention of breaking the law - there is no other interpretation.

So what they've stated is basically a statutory requirement of them anyway. This is the sort of things that should warn you off a company - that they "agree" to abide by statutory legal requirements.

"XYZ Plc. agrees not to mug your granny, charge you false bills, make up their end-of-year returns or sell stolen stock". Of course you bloody do, because you have no legal alternative and to state otherwise would be ludicrous.

However "XYZ Plc agrees to be a good citizen in the Open Source community" has MUCH, MUCH more weight behind it because it's optional, binding and states an intention, not a requirement.

Re:Weasel words

[quadrox]

Not really, seriously. Not engaging in unfair competion is a very broad and vague statement, which ultimately commits them to not very much. Stating that they will obey applicable laws and regulations at tellst you exactly what they promise to do or not to do.

Optimally they would have both statements, but if they have to pick one, the one they picked is the best. Also from a legal point of view.

Re:Weasel words

[pubjames]

That's what struck me. Many of the items boil down to "we obey the relevant laws". That's not ethics.

Re:Weasel words

[scamper_22]

well what business wants competition?
There is nothing intrinsically immoral about things like proprietary data formats, locking down your system...

There are laws to counter such things in order to promote fair competition. Microsoft has to obey those laws. That is all anyone should ask of them. That is all that is asked of any business.

Re:Weasel words

[Anonymous Coward]

I find that 5-funny.

Re:Weasel words

[themightythor]

Laws are ostensibly society's guidelines for acceptable behavior. Are you saying that MS should somehow strive to be more acceptable than what society deems sufficient?

Re:Weasel words

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that the whole point of ethics guidelines?

Love

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot loves to hate Microsoft.

Categorisation

[pjt33]

There's a reason that this is filed under Entertainment rather than, say, News.

Re:Categorisation

[Slash.Poop]

There is also a reason why most Microsoft stories are tagged with things like.....

antimicrosoftentertainment
laughable
humor
donotwant
itsatrapdevelopers
vistaispants
testbetter
whatcouldpossiblygowrongtech
hahadevelopers
andnothingofvaluewaslosttech
haha
flamebaitentertainment
embraceandextend
embraceextendextinguish

....nope, not that reason.

____________________
Always look on the bright side of life.

Why are you surprised ?

[unity100]

After all microsoft is a charity organization. Its only normal that they have a corporate ethics and citizenship code ....

Guidelines?

[DJRumpy]

Really, their more of a suggestion...

Not evil

[HangingChad]

Microsoft is not evil, they have merely raised incompetence to a level that's indistinguishable from malice. Redmond is not capable of the consistency of purpose and execution that really good evil requires.

Re:Not evil

[Anonymous Coward]

So to paraphrase the late Sir A.(nonymous)C.(oward) Clarke:

âAny sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.â(TM)

- Peder

Re:Not evil

[ColonelPanic]

Microsoft is to software what the Corleone family was to olive oil imports.

(It may be what they do, but it's not how they make their money.)

At least they know that they aren't ''great''

[Alain Williams]

Ballmer's letter starts: ''Microsoft aspires to be a great company'' -- which is him really saying ''I would like Microsoft to be a great company, but ...''

We could have told him that all along :-)

Microsoft is just misunderstood.

[Anonymous Coward]

All true, but somewhat beside the point.

Microsoft is just misunderstood. People think that Microsoft is a software company, but it isn't. Microsoft is an abuse company that sells software as a way of delivering abuse. Microsoft's evil is not a side-effect of their management philosophy, Microsoft's evil is their business model.

Re:Microsoft is just misunderstood.

[mysidia]

Sounds about right.

I heard that the next major version of windows will have a SQL-based file system.

And General Protection Fault / Illegal operation has occured is being enhanced.

Not only will windows now kill applications at random, but will corrupt files you were working on at random.

And the newest enhancement is corrupting files you weren't working on at random.

Because the documents you weren't working on will be stored on disk within the same binary blob.

Windows explorer will transparently open the binary blob with all lots of your documents in it as a folder, so you can still drag and drop them to other document stores or send a document as an e-mail.

Re:Microsoft is just misunderstood.

[BCW2]

Can we get this one carved in stone?

Possibly the most accurate and funny comment about M$ ever made!

Re:Microsoft is just misunderstood.

[mashiyach]

Where are modpoints when you need them?

Consider yourself upmodded to +10 Insightful!

Re:Microsoft is just misunderstood.

[jacquesm]

now who names their file '; delete from files ;

?

Re:Microsoft is just misunderstood.

[tsa]

What a cool new verb: to upmod!

Re:Microsoft is just misunderstood.

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is an abuse company that sells software

OH, oh I'm sorry, but this is abuse, you want room 12A, Just along the corridor.

Re:Microsoft is just misunderstood.

[ch-chuck]

Man: But I bought a pc for an argument.

Msft: Aha! In that case, you want linux. Room 12A, next door.

Man: Sorry.

Msft: (stupid git)

Re:Microsoft is just misunderstood.

[greenguy]

Man: Look, I came here for an argument, I'm not going to just stand...
Q: Oh, oh, I'm sorry, but this is abuse.
M: Oh, I see, well, that explains it.
Q: Ah yes, you want Linux, just along the corridor.
M: Oh, Thank you very much. Sorry.
Q: Not at all.
M: Thank you. Stupid git!!

Re:Microsoft is just misunderstood.

[Anonymous Coward]

Little bobby files, we call him.

Re:Microsoft is just misunderstood.

[Belial6]

And the newest enhancement is corrupting files you weren't working on at random. Because the documents you weren't working on will be stored on disk within the same binary blob.

MS has already done this. Dos 6.0 with disk compression turned on put all of your files into what is essentially a giant ZIP. If the file got corrupted anywhere, the who drive was lost.

Re:Microsoft is just misunderstood.

[MobyDisk]

That's all stuff that was supposed to be in Vista, but didn't make it. :)

Re:Microsoft is just misunderstood.

[UncleTogie]

If the file got corrupted anywhere, the who drive was lost.

That's what you get if you beta-test in Whoville...

Re:Microsoft is just misunderstood.

[mysidia]

Sounds familiar

Think of the e-mail bourne viruses that will be possible, the payload can be in the filename...

And "don't download files from an untrusted source" gets a whole new meaning.

#define hypocrisy

[jhhdk]

N/T

Mod the story "funny"

[Kvasio]

It's a nice prank story ....

OK I'll bite...

[Anonymous Coward]

While having a code of ethics doesn't make MS evil, it does throw the difference between what they say and what they do into stark relief.

"Fair Competition and Antitrust: As a global business, we encounter laws and regulations designed to promote fair competition and encourage ethical and legal behavior among competitors. Antitrust laws and fair competition laws generally prohibit any activity that restrains free trade and limits competition. We conduct our business in compliance with these laws."

Oops...So when found guilty of anti-trust, who got fired for not only breaking the law, but also the companies policy? I guess the company must condone such behaviour.

Clippy here!

[Hognoxious]

It looks like you're trying to write some ethical conduct guidelines.

Would you prefer:

* Vague platitudes and general statements of the obvious
* Poetic idealism interspersed with wishful thinking
* A statement that boils down to "We do what we can get away with, no more no less. If it was wrong it would be illegal, wouldn't it?"

Ethics

[jav1231]

Ethics: Things you can get fired for but Microsoft executives can't.

Tried this?

[domatic]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233

There's some other registry tweaks that may apply and you can google for them. The above referenced MS article makes it sound as if all those DHCP servers are implemented incorrectly but then when Vista is the only client having trouble.........

Re:Tried this?

[LarsG]

As far as I can find, the relevant RFCs (2131) say that DHCP servers "should" honour the broadcast flag, but it does not say "must".

So it seems MS is in the wrong here. Since it is not a requirement for the DHCP server to support the broadcast flag, the client should fall back to not using the flag if it receives no reply.

Why does MS need to be evil...

[tjstork]

When Linux is so busy self destructing.

Gnome isn't doing anything much of note - the desktop is the same as it as ever was over the last few years, and in the meantime, a working KDE 4 is looking to become the Duke Nukem of open source projects.

But in any case, I wouldn't support OOXML at all if I was MS. Like, XML sucks and is so 1990s. I'm ready to go back to binary files.

Re:Why does MS need to be evil...

[Enderandrew]

Apparently you haven't used KDE 4 in a while. It works just fine. I recommend the openSUSE packages especially since they backport so many fixes and features.

Re:Why does MS need to be evil...

[tjstork]

I used installed KDE 4 two weeks using apt on my Ubuntu box. The fallout was disastrous - broke my x server, busted up my virtual box ose and I don't have time to fix it all, and uninstall doesn't work with the kernel upgrade it snuck in. And at the end of it all, I don't really like what they did with plasma. The fonts are all inconsistent, the iconography is unfinished.. the thing just feels clunky and untrustworthy.

Once its rolling I like Vista better.

You need to get out of the mindset that says that just because use something, it has to be "better". You know, I've been driving American cars for 30 years and I only buy American cars. I'm just a homer that way. Go GM, Ford and Chrysler and I'd rather have my wife sleep with another guy before I put a cent into a Toyota or a VW or a BMW in my house. But I'm not under any illusions that American cars are "better" than their offerings. Toyota quality is legendary, Honda 4's engines are very good and the BMW 6 is legendary. But yet I only buy American cars.

IT's the same thing with Open Source, if you advocate it. Sure, Vista might have better stuff in ways, but, if you like the culture that Open Source represents, that really is all that matters. There doesn't need to be a pissing match over whose OS is "better" or not because with any good "better" is an intangible thing. I mean, if you wanted the "best" food, you could make a pretty good argument that the McDonald's Dollar Menu might well be the best food because it has a very high calories and protein per dollar ratio, but I don't think you are going to get laid taking your girlfriend there.

Purpose of publishing ethical guidelines

[Anonymous Coward]

Having ethics is different from publishing ethical guidelines. The latter is usually preparation for a defense in court against charges of un-ethical behavior. "We aren't un-ethical, it was a rogue employee...we'll fire him to prove it."

oxymoron

[hesaigo999ca]

Isnt this what an oxymoron is???
M$ actually playing by the rules???

Nigeria

[Enderandrew]

Didn't the Nigerian government expose how Microsoft was bribing them to move away from Linux on Classmate PCs?

Ethical guidelines, my 22 syllables:

[paniq]

Others might have just one word, I have 22 syllables for Microsofts Ethical Guidelines:

AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Microsoft is no different than most others

[Anonymous Coward]

Big business is big evil. People are dying and suffering because of the unchecked, unethical actions by those who've corrupted the legal and political system.

The biggest criminals are not in prison, they are in power, thanks to our complacency.

STHU about the Ethics allready

[Twyst3d]

Funny how every other corporation in the world fights just as dirty and its ok for them to do it. But when Microsoft tries to make money and ensure its own success just the same as anyone else would, its evil.

Why dont you go cry about something that matters like the underground slave market of north american girls being sold as sex slaves in asia? Why dont you go cry about Tibet?

Plenty of WORTHWILE subjects to whine about in the world that should have far more priority than this. Grow up and move on.

a shocking statement.

[filthpickle]

that might be the dumbest thing I have ever read on any messageboard anywhere on the net.

Ethics != Obeying the Law

[S77IM]

Except in VB, where Ethics <> Obeying the Law.

Ubuntu to blame

[Enderandrew]

If Ubuntu can't uninstall packages, that is Ubuntu's fault, not KDE's. Ubuntu has some terrible KDE packages, and their package manager is responsible for cleanly removing them.

Re:Ubuntu to blame

[tjstork]

If Ubuntu can't uninstall packages, that is Ubuntu's fault, not KDE's. Ubuntu has some terrible KDE packages, and their package manager is responsible for cleanly removing them.

But, as a consumer, I don't care about all of that. I see "Linux". Microsoft doesn't get a pass for bad or non-existent drivers. For years, they point the finger at the driver people and the driver people point their finger back. And consumers generally don't even blame the driver people, they go squarely at Microsoft. That's why Apple is gaining some share. They have a less flexible platform, but at least they have a claim of responsibility for the whole thing.

Re:Ubuntu to blame

[Enderandrew]

Almost every time I say this I get modded troll, but really it is the truth. Ubuntu is doing a very good job at increasing visibility for Linux on the whole, but in many ways, it is far from the best Linux has to offer. It frustrates me that people have bad experiences with Ubuntu and then assume that Linux is bad on the whole.

Ubuntu is supposed to be very simple. It is designed for people who want a working, basic desktop out of the box with sane defaults. It is marketed at a certain audience.

However, in almost every regard I find openSUSE to be a better distro. Their sane defaults are even better. They put out a quality Gnome desktop, a quality KDE 3 desktop and a quality KDE 4 desktop. Their package manager is on par with Ubuntu, if not better these days. The installer is superb. Yast is a great "control panel" and makes configuration a breeze.

openSUSE 11.1 is coming out in December or so. I am running the beta of it at the moment, as well as openSUSE 11.0. I highly recommend checking it out.

You do have a point though that no one company or person is Linux. There are difficulties sometimes figuring out if a bug is with one package, another package, the distro, or what. However the advantage of OSS development, even though it is splintered, is that anyone can take responsibility. If I see a usability problem with Windows, I can't fix it. Heck, I can't even report it to Microsoft. They don't listen. Apple refuses to take customer suggestions and even threatens you with their lawyers if you attempt to. With Linux, not only can I make suggestions and bug reports, but I can also just fix it myself.

Re:Ubuntu to blame

[ericrost]

Unfortunately, a lot of us won't touch anything SUSE with a ten foot pole since the whole MS patent swap. If you don't like Ubuntu's package maintainers, there's always Debian.

Re:Ubuntu to blame

[Enderandrew]

Honestly, I understand how people would feel that way. I think Novell's patent deal enables MS fud. I'm not sure I would give Novell a single dime. However, openSUSE is free and largely community driven. The openSUSE build tools are aimed at the entire Linux community, and allow anyone to compile anything for any distro.

There are other quality distros like Mandriva, PCLinuxOS, Sabayon, Arch, etc. I just happen to really like openSUSE for a couple of reasons.

Yast obviously, but the biggest thing is that Novell pays tons of developers to patch upstream bugs, backport features, etc. I find openSUSE just has great packages. Novell's go-oo fork of OOo has been pushing innovation, and largely forced OOo to adopt features they were slow to adopt.

Re:Ubuntu to blame

[ericrost]

I can't really speak to the quality of the KDE packages in Ubuntu as the little bit I dip my toes into KDE is mainly for KDE apps. Gnome fills my needs and stays out of my way. Ubuntu has a great community around it and googling for [Problem related to linux] ubuntu tends to net me a solution. The distro lines up fairly well with my values; present open source libre solutions first, if those don't work, fine give me a proprietary solution that's free and unsupported.

I agree that having companies around like Novell and Redhat are invaluable, but I will likely never run those distros for one large reason. Their community support (Redhat's at the very least and I would be surprised if SUSE's is any better) sucks because its a distro for kernel hacking developers. If you can't make something work you're hosed, because no one on the irc channels nor the forums will respond without taking a piece out of you for not knowing exactly what you're doing.

Feel free to correct me if I'm off base in SUSE's case, but that's what has kept me happy in Ubuntu-land. It doesn't have the garbage package maintenance of Gentoo (nor the ricers) and its friendly to those that like to tinker and break things.

Re:Ubuntu to blame

[Enderandrew]

I don't think RedHat has ever concerned themselves with average desktop users. Novell is still aiming at the enterprise market with SLES/SLED, but openSUSE is an attempt at a community distro. They united several fan-run forums into an official openSUSE community forum. They have a good wiki and decent documentation. You can buy a retail box of openSUSE with a thick manual, case badges, and a DVD featuring both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors.

I wouldn't say that openSUSE has the best community. It isn't near the size that Ubuntu is. But openSUSE has a passable community for support.

I also still enjoy the Gentoo forums, even though I moved away from Gentoo (the lack of package maintainers is killing Gentoo).

Re:Ubuntu to blame

[Blakey Rat]

If I see a usability problem with Windows, I can't fix it. Heck, I can't even report it to Microsoft. They don't listen.

Have you tried? I've gotten very good responses from Microsoft about various issues. (A bug in SQL Server Management Studio when using multiple monitors, a bug in Zune when you unplug a USB heatset, and a few others I can't remember any longer.) I don't know what makes you say you can't even report it to Microsoft; what's stopping you?

Re:Ubuntu to blame

[Enderandrew]

I've tried reporting desktop usability issues.

Re:Ubuntu to blame

[gujo-odori]

*buntu puts out quality versions of those things, too. In fact, theyre so good that I moved from Debian Sid to Ubuntu back in 2003 when it was still in beta.

Of course, KDE 4 is at least two point releases (at least two, but probably more) away from even being a patch on the ass of KDE 3.5, so Ubuntu's default KDE 4 in Intrepid and lack of KDE 3.5 even in backports has caused me to migrate back to Debian Sid at work. At home, I'm on the fence between going back to Sid and running Xubuntu Intrepid and running KDE apps in the XFCE environment while I migrate over to GTK stuff. Next step is to set up dovecot on my file server and push all my email over there and access it via IMAP.

KDE 4 will probably be pretty good someday, but I'm not certain it will be so good that it will make me migrate back. My desktop history is FVWM95 -> AfterStep -> Window Maker -> Enlightenmen -> GNOME -> KDE 3.0 -> where I am now, migrating to something other than KDE. KDE 3.0 was so good it blew me away. I switched off of GNOME as soon as I tried it and have been a KDE user ever since. It was a quantum leap forward from KDE 2 in every way. In contrast, my reaction to KDE 4 was - and has been at every release since 4.0, "You've got to be kidding me." There's a lot of potential there, but it's currently very weak on functionality, doesn't have many themes available (just 3 pages on kdelook) and even fewer good ones. The default Oxygen theme is fugly.

I'm hardly the only KDE user to react this way. KDE 4 has been at least as big of a PR and acceptance failure as Vista was for Microsoft. Maybe worse. That could explain the resemblance between Oxygen and Vista, I suppose.

Some in the KDE camp call that a knee-jerk reaction and refusal to try things that are new. If that was true, none of us would be using Linux in the first place. And then, of course, there's the MacBook Pro I was issued when I took my current job. First-time Mac user, I think the thing rocks. I like it so much I bought one for my wife when her ThinkPad bit the dust. The fact is, KDE 4 was, and still is, a balls-up and the KDE devs who have said the problem is the users, not them and their product, are full of it. My dumping KDE comes 75% from the poor usability of 4 and 25% from the poor attitude of (some of) the devs.

Halliburton has all employees take annual course

[peter303]

Its pretty common in the oil industry from people I hear to have the "annual lecture" or tested video course on ethics, mainly that dealing with US & foreign government officials. Its sort of an inside joke when it doesnt work.

WTF!

[Anonymous Coward]

Of all the nerve! WHAT GALL!!! Using Microsoft and ETHICAL in the same sentence!!!!!

ms.ethics?still not bottom.

[Luke_22]

well, here in italy we have Berlusconi that's speaking about ethics, so i guess it's not the most laughable story...
nice try trough.

Invalid certificate...

[flyingfsck]

"If you have a concern regarding a questionable accounting or auditing matter and wish to submit the concern confidentially or anonymously, you may do so by submitting a report via the Microsoft Integrity Web site , calling the Business Conduct Line, or sending a letter or fax to the Director of Compliance as outlined above." However, the Integrity web site https://www.microsoftintegrity.com/ has an invalid security certificate.

Re:Invalid certificate...

[Blakey Rat]

However, the Integrity web site https://www.microsoftintegrity.com/ has an invalid security certificate.

Maybe your certificate repository is out-of-date. It shows as perfectly valid in FF 3.0.3 in Windows and IE 7.

What scares me is...

[zooblethorpe]

... that I can't tell if your post is a joke, or what's actually planned. :-|

Cheers,

Re:What scares me is...

[mysidia]

Recall: MS had planned the SQL/DBM-based filesystem for Vista, but they missed their target, and had to trim back that and other features for Vista to get released "on time".

As for placing all your office documents in an opaque "document" store; it is basically a form of vendor lock-in I anticipate. The justification will be "enhanced security", "rights management", and other new features.

The files will be stored in an open format (no problem); it's just that third party/open source software will not be able to open the container.

Your documents container may even contain plain ".TXT", ".RTF", and ".ODT" files. The DRM and proprietary features are essentially factored out of the documents themselves, and made part of a container store format.

MS software will by default store all documents in a new encrypted, DRM-ready secure container to keep all your private files private.

When you e-mail someone a document, a new container is made, and the container is sent.

The only way to get a raw document file out of Office will be to find a "File Export" feature buried in some obscure menu.

Export will be disabled unless you authored the document originally, or you set permissions in another menu (off by default) to allow export.

WTF is up with the down-modding??

[zooblethorpe]

Mods, PLEASE, for the love of gravy, stop downmodding posts just because you disagree! This is the epitome of the kind of petty schoolyard BS that is dragging down any attempt at public discourse in the US. MightyYar's post here could conceivably be viewed as inflammatory by those with thin skins, but get real -- this is an off-hand comment intended to be *flippant*, and is (mostly) true to boot -- Sarah Palin is indeed a) running for office, and b) has pushed to have an ex-brother-in-law fired. These are both publicly documented facts, that have even been avowed by Palin herself. Now get over yourselves, and take your cursors off those danged negative mod options!

Sheesh. People these days...

Cheers,

Re:WTF is up with the down-modding??

[MightyYar]

Thanks for the defense!

I really was just making what I thought to be a harmless joke. Didn't mean nuthin' by it! Thin skin on the internet... who knew? :)

Thpelling fix

[zooblethorpe]

Shouldn't that be:

"Ethics - A county to the eatht of London" :-)

Cheers,

A history of Microsoft's code of ethics

[dkegel]

I've been keeping tabs on it since about 1999. See http://kegel.com/corporate_ethics.html

because saying it is true makes it true. right

[Locutus]

they are a marketing company and what they say in public has very little association with the truth. They even lied to a federal judge in one of thier cases( faked a video, said it wasn't faked ).

What surprises me is the press still quotes them. Just like the word "open" means something unique to Microsoft compared to what the world + dog accept "open" to mean, I suspect the word "ethics" has its own MS-ethics definition. They are a marketing company and spin is what they do. IMO

LoB

You Would Think

[Anonymous Coward]

If they really cared about ethics, it's clearly obvious to any semi-intelligent person, they would make some effort to build an OS that is secure. They're not fooling anyone.

so?

[Tom]

Pretty much every big corporation has a code of ethics.

Few abide by it.

So what's the fuzz?

Please...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the lamest attempt at Microsoft-bashing I've seen here in awhile. Corporations, big and small, are all about making money. Period. Why should Microsoft be any different? While they'd all love good PR from appearing ethical, I highly doubt it's a priority with ANY of them.

Certainly this isn't the best you commie pinko open-source command-line-nutjob zealots can come up with? Is it?

Obligatory quote.....

[gadget junkie]

All true, but somewhat beside the point. Microsoft is just misunderstood. People think that Microsoft is a software company, but it isn't. Microsoft is an abuse company that sells software as a way of delivering abuse. Microsoft's evil is not a side-effect of their management philosophy, Microsoft's evil is their business model.

[...]While you were in space I created a way for us to make huge sums of legitimate money and still maintain the ethics and business practices of an evil organization"
P.S.: if Ballmer is number two, who's mini me?

Irony, duplicity, and hypocrisy.

[DrPeper]

I just love the smell of irony, duplicity, and hypocrisy in the morning! Thanks. I'm good for the rest of the day.

Oh wait I got all of that turning on the news and listening to the U.S. Presidential candidates.

Well...then I'm good for a few months now.

Required for govt work...

[david.emery]

I believe a corporate ethics policy that says these kinds of things is a mandatory requirement for government contracting work. Since Microsoft wants to sell to the Feds, they have to have this pro-forma policy.

Oh, and I once had a Microsoft Lawyer lecture me on corporate ethics. Fortunately it was only in an email, so I was unable to respond physically...

dave

Re:Required for govt work...

[QuietObserver]

Oh, and I once had a Microsoft Lawyer lecture me on corporate ethics. Fortunately it was only in an email, so I was unable to respond physically...

I'd ask for a copy of that, but my guess is it's probably unfit for human consumption.

Probably not because they want to.

[Anonymous Coward]

Its pretty common [...] to have the "annual lecture" or tested video course on ethics [....]

Not sure about Haliburton specifically but, where I'm at, the requirement for regular ethics training is mandated by a legal settlement for earlier, um, activities that indicated a broad need for such training.

And, you're right. It doesn't change behavior. It just removes the "I didn't know" excuse for next time.

Microsoft has ethical guidelines?

[Master of Transhuman]

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!

Oh, bwhahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!

Make it stop, I'm starting to hurt!

Bwahahahahahahahahaha!!!

Ethics policies

[bogidu]

In my experience all large companies have posted ethical guidelines in order to cover their asses by providing scapegoats when they are caught. It's simple, the corporation can do no wrong, it was just a wayward employee violating policy.

RE: Microsoft's Ethical Guidelines

[Anonymous Coward]

Ethical?

Guidlines?

Microsoft?

What rotting smelly flesh! Kick it in the gutter, where it is to be washed away, like so many other failures. His High Magestrates Billy G. and the presumptrouptus Stevie B., are prime examples of born failures.

Deary deary, this odd world couple makes a wounderful case for why abortion is needed now, don't they.

Digging oh so deep

[rayk_sland]

Microsoft's ethics are obviously at the core... of a memo to the publicity department.

While we're on the subject...

[Hognoxious]

At the foot of each summary on the main page there's a little input box, with something that looks like a rotating green flower to the right of it. What's that supposed to do?

Also it says something about a feedback menu, which I've never seen. Unless that thing with the flower is it. I don't know, it's half hidden under the title of the following story...

Anybody else getting the "invisble ink" (you can only see the words wehn you select the text) for the story titles ?

idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of the stuff you nerds post here is just unbelievably stupid.