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Groklaw Putting Comes v. Microsoft Docs Online
An anonymous reader writes "PJ of Groklaw is working on putting the documents from Comes v. Microsoft online, to make them searchable and accessible to everyone. If you don't remember their history, the plaintiffs got these documents from Microsoft during discovery after fighting the lawyers tooth and nail. After realizing how embarrassing the documents were to Microsoft, they put them online and later got a very large settlement from Microsoft by agreeing to take their website down. The web being what it is, these documents had already been mirrored and were later (legally) made available on the Pirate Bay. Now Groklaw has put them online and is looking for people to help transcribe them, so that documents like the infamous Evangelism is War presentation will not be forgotten."
I'm quite grateful for the Streisand Effect. If not for that, then normally someone who sells out or is (legally) bribed like this removes everyone's access to such information. Too bad those people caved, but that need not cost us the ability to know what they wanted so badly to hide.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Rest assured that any information that isn't negative to Microsoft will be posted last if at all.
Microsoft already does all they can to trumpet everything that goes to their favour, there's no need to repeat these pieces.
GL/PJ isn't exactly know for being an unbiased source - she will say/do anything to keep the hits/money coming in.
This is a war, and the other side fights hard for themselves. We're not supposed to help them.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
I somewhat doubt microsoft fought and bribed to suppress anything complimentary. I like the way you smear PJ, btw. Wouldn't PJ's best source of income be getting a microsoft bribe to keep the records obscure?
Being a shill is bad enough, but is anybody even paying you to post this shit, or is this some sort of public service? Groglaw is also a sort of public service, but somehow they have credibility.
is going to be a whole speciality within litigation PR.
If you don't like Groklaw, debunk what is presented there.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
If you read the whole document the bit about stacking "independent" panels and getting favorable "news" stories is the only truly unethical part and even that is regularly done by a lot of companies including Apple in particular. it's just good agressive competition. Or maybe I worked for Oracle for too long :)
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I had one of the people working on the case come talk to my college class. The documents provided to the law office were on paper. The office had an impressive cluster of computers used to do optical code recognition on all the documents so that they could be indexed and searched. There were tons of documents. It was not easy technically, and they worked a lot of hours.
The person I talked to always hoped someone would take this on. They couldn't give up their work for public domain, but there was a ton of computer history contained in those files.
This is why I wish the internet would become a development platform for application (GUI driven in this case). If this was the case the platform wars (to borrow Microsoft terminology) would be over and developers would code for the internet. Google, with chrome os etc, seems to be an ally in this, not that they are benevolent benefactors, just that their business aims and the open source community desires align.
What would it take to code in any number of languages (in the way we can now code in javascript) for the web.
"This is a war, and the other side fights hard for themselves. We're not supposed to help them."
this is more than a war, its a way of life. on the microsoft side are the baby boomers cars and elecricity for all and tons of crappy junk. on the other side is a hope that community can hold eachother together so that there is food and sustainability. community broke down when the so called atomic age allowed most americans to live outside of poverty, with cars and suburbs. community is everything, it is the only way forward. i thought for a long time that technology could make me happy, the endorphines of gaming, the pride of having good karma in online chat like slashdot. i like most americans ignored where the money tree was being shaken to make capitalism create illusionary money, as if with no drawbacks. now i see things differently it is sad to me to think on the past. yet i still am addicted to glowing screens, even though they allow me to ignore the people actually trying to help me find my future.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
When you get out of grammar school they'll teach you about reasoning in a little more detail, but for now, what you did there is called a "false dichotomy", arguing from the premise that only two alternatives are possible.
It works very well to trap the unwary, because the dishonest part is unspoken.
If this post is making you angry, perhaps you'd like to put more effort into detecting false premises in your own.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
Is that right around the same time Microsoft started thinking about using its bulk and business practices to achieve marketing ends, is right around the same time its innovation, risk taking, and other admirable traits about the company slacked off. I mean, yeah, it might have been hurtful to Borland for Microsoft to buy the superior Fox and use it to crush dBase, but at least the market did get a better product. And it might have been wrong to use Windows money to fund the development of Visual Studio to propel it past Turbo C++, but, again, the consumer got a better product. Even IE4 was better than Netscape.
But this email is from 1997, when MS had won the OS wars, the browser wars, and since then, what has happened? MS has lost its focus on computing entirely. Folding the Windows NT core into the Windows 95 shell to get first Windows NT 4.0 and then Windows 2000 were the best things the company did, and since then, we've had really not much to write home about.
This is my sig.
there was a ton of computer history contained in those files.
Indeed! There're many interesting bits in these emails that explain quite well some of the things we suffer every day.
"One things I find myself wondering about is whether we shouldn't try and make the "ACPI" extensions somehow Windows specific. It seems unfortunate if we do this work and get our partners to do the work and the result is that Linux works great without having to do the work. Maybe there is no way to avoid this problem but it does bother me. Maybe we could define the APIs so that they work well with NT and not the others even if they are open. Or maybe we could patent something related to this" - Bill Gates
"One thing we have got to change in our strategy - allowing Office documents to be rendered well by others people browser is one of the most destructive things we could do to the company. We have to stop putting any effort into this and make sure that Office documents very well depends on PROPIETARY IE capabilities" - Bill Gates
If Google wins it would be far, far worse than anything Microsoft could do. It would mean that desktop computers would be hobbled based on a low level baseline of common functionality, that, applications would be subject to be found only based on what Google likes or dislike, and that users data will not even belong to them.
This is my sig.
No, they won't. It sure would be nice, though.
If the (government-owned, government-operated) public schools actually taught logic, argumentation, and critical thinking, thoroughly and exhaustively, it would remove a lot of individuals and interests from power. Imagine if we never had any laws or policies except those that could stand up to rigorous examination. Imagine that clearly enough and you'll see why no one who could arrange that is inclined to let it happen.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Surely the Evangeline* is War email is pure and simple evidence that they are evil and we should do everything in our power to oppose them. A company as big as that should be scrupulously decent and honest and try to avoid any embarrassment --- but apparently they no longer feel embarrassed about their own actions --- a bit like a friend of mine who gets high and then acts like a c**ck but really doesn't seem to feel ashamed of his own behaviour --- so he keeps on doing stupid things until I hit him. Facebook are the same; sometimes even Google.
In all cases, we-the-people need to beat them back into behaving decently.
Boycott Microsoft.
Also, boycott Novell (stfu Jono Bacon...)
And whilst I like Ubuntu and De Icaza, also boycott Gnome.
Not just at home on your crappy home PCs and laptops --- but in the office too.
(*we are all lost)
Imagine that clearly enough and you'll see why no one who could arrange that is inclined to let it happen.
Said no one who could arrange that being the electorate of your county/state/country?
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
I'm sorry - are you being ironic or taking the piss?
Imagine that clearly enough and you'll see why no one who could arrange that is inclined to let it happen.
Said no one who could arrange that being the electorate of your county/state/country?
Right. The electorate who lack the critical thinking skills and knowledge of logical fallacies to understand what's wrong with the status quo are unlikely to demand leaders who institute policies that stand up to critical thinking and are free of logical fallacies. This suits our current leaders just fine. Those leaders are not stupid. They know how to play the game of politics to their advantage. They are aware of the situation and its implications, they know what's wrong with their laws and policies, but those serve the interests who got them into power so they are unwilling to change this system. It could only come from the electorate, which, as I already said, is ill-equipped to demand this sort of change. Did you fail to derive that from my previous post?
That's the danger of giving government direct control over education and the curriculum. I have no problem with the state governments using tax money to fund education, but the parents should be able to use that tax money to send the children to any school they like. I'd like to see something like the voucher system (the money follows the child instead of the child having to follow the money) and I'd also like to see government get out of the education business entirely other than providing the voucher. The reason we don't have vouchers is because the NEA is its biggest opponent and they have a ton of political clout that they have no reservations about using. It's not because vouchers are an unsound idea or are logically flawed. Refer to my previous point for how we arrived at this situation.
I don't like it and I don't delight in pointing it out, but most people are passive sheep. If the schooling they received does not teach them logic, argumentation, and critical thinking, then they won't learn those things. They could find books, Web sites, and other resources and teach themselves, for only basic literacy is required, but they won't because it doesn't occur to them that they should. Only a tiny minority of people would ever take that sort of initiative. So the reality is, if the schools don't teach these things, then the number of people who retain this knowledge are going to be such a tiny minority that politicians can safely ignore them in any election. I hope this explains why we have the current situation and why it's unlikely to change anytime soon.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
After realizing how embarrassing the documents were to Microsoft
I find this hard to beleive. After all, they did release Vista.
Have gnu, will travel.
Submitter here.
Yes, it was mirrored by others (thankfully people had the foresight to mirror this stuff right away). In fact, one person who had all the files asked what to do with them (either here or on Groklaw, I don't recall), and I was the one who suggested it be put on the Pirate Bay. I don't know for sure that he took my advice, but I do know that a Comes collection appeared there shortly thereafter.
You're joking, right?
Can we have an example of an open format that Microsoft can't implement? And no, the GPL does not prevent a proprietary software maker from making a compatible application.
To be fair
.. that word.. I do not think it means what you think it means.
it's not like the other side go out of their way to make their 'standards' easy for Microsoft to implement.
Since "the other side" in this case are proponents of Open Source or Open Standards, please cite *one* case where an open standard was deliberately obstructing to MS.
Let's be fair and accurate. You totally mischaracterized Bill Gates' position. The email doesn't say lets not go out of our way to make the stuff easier for others to implement, it says we should go out of our way to make it so others cannot implement it . The two are completely different, and worlds apart.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Those of us who actually paid attention in school DID learn those skills. Can't say the same for students who had their heads up their asses thinking they were better than everyone else though...
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
neither- I think he's being a troll, but I don't have the mod points to confirm it.
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
If Google wins then there will be available numerous facilities available in the Google cloud that are attractive alternatives to doing things the hard way, for every case where excellent cloud apps make sense.
Google's not trying to take your personal workstation away. If you want to host your own data and crunch your own numbers your way that's up to you. But if you don't, they want to be the easiest and best way to assemble and reference information online. I don't see that as a bad thing.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
This behaviour is in Microsoft's DNA from the first dealings with Gary Kildall to the current i4i debacle. It didn't mysteriously originate at the moment that Microsoft turned the corner from logarithmic growth to slow decline in January of 2000. For that radical course correction we need look no further than the appointment of Steve Ballmer to the helm on that day.
Obviously Ballmer isn't responsible for the culture that established these behaviours - he inherited that. We should just be thankful he's not as good at executing it.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I think PJ has got a pretty thick skin, particularly after the SCO scamsters went after her with everything they had. Some retarded little puke shilling for Microsft ain't a speck of shit on the floor compared to the unholy trinity of Lyons, Enderle and O'Gara. It's like comparing some Nigerian scammer to Bernie Madoff.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If you had enjoyed the benefit of playing with SVR2 through a 30" high def graphical terminal in 1984 as I did, Microsoft's "innovations" in Windows 2000 some 15 years later might seem a bit less amazing. In 1984 we had aerial photos on LaserDisc overlaid with terrain data that we could draw on, and real-time position data in a distributed database with mesh networking for geotracking important operational assets. You could take a bomb to all but one node in the system, and that last node would stay up and have the latest propagated data. Yes, it took three or four seconds to redraw when you shifted scale or moved the map, but it was 1984. We had csh, ksh, X-Windows with widgets that looked better than W2k's. Networking was assumed. It was a multiuser system with an evolved system of managing user security that persists to this day. This was about nine months after Microsoft had invented the remarkable "subdirectory" concept with DOS 2.0, and 14 years before they included an IP stack by default. </sarcasm>.
Back then it took about 12 minutes to draft a professional one page letter using a CPT dedicated word processing station with full-page WYSYWIG and a SCSI daisy wheel printer. Today you can do a Google maps mashup of your own Cell GPS geolocation data in real time, and it takes about 25 minutes to craft a one-page letter. So the advantage of 25 years of progress is that technolgies are cheaper and more common and individuals are less effective.
A default install of SVR2 included development tools - grep, lex, yacc, awk, sed, an assembler, compiler, and cross-compiler for new hardware architectures, the source for the OS and all the tools, an ip stack including email. It was a multiuser environment. The processor performance graph, to give an example, included an animated graph of the pen writing the data on the scrolling log - an unnecessary but artful use of screen space that I miss to this day.
Rock solid? Windows 2000? Give me a break! If you think W2k was rock solid you have low standards.
Microsoft marketed Windows 2000 as the most secure Windows version ever,[15] but it became the target of a number of high-profile virus attacks such as Code Red and Nimda.[16] Over nine years after its release, it continues to receive patches for security vulnerabilities nearly every month.
Windows 2000 was a remarkable advance in the scope of "Microsoft operating systems". People who know better found nothing special in it. It wasn't as good as eight year old Jolix then, and it still isn't.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Of course, the world might change after the Supreme Court decides Bilski, but to take a real-world example, back when CompuServe decided to be stupid and start charging royalties on GIF implementations, wouldn't it have been smarter of them to say that, if your implementation is under the GPL, then there is no royalty? They killed that golden goose about the time it should have started laying them some serious eggs if they had treated it better.
So, if an implementation of GIF was under the GPL (and also available not under the GPL) both the software author and the patent holder could have profited from selling the non-GPLed software version (these could be one and the same entity/person, but that's not strictly necessary). A sane strategy would have charged "x" dollars for the use of the patent, "x+y" for the patent + software, or "0" for the software and patent in a GPLed application.
I don't know what you think people do with patents, but most patents are, in fact, quite selectively licensed.
One might imagine his handwashing will be as enthusiastic as his evangelism was. In order to extract the maximum marketability from his confession it's necessary that he embellish it until it was even more diabolical than it actually was.
I'm not giving him a pass here - the man promoted the evil prevention of progress in a most effective way. I'm just pointing out that much like his efforts then were, his efforts to promote his book will be equally self-serving.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Let's start with ISO/IEC 29500. This is Microsoft's own bought-and-paid-for International Standards Organization format that includes such rigorous definitions as "whitespace like Office 95 does it". Microsoft managed to destroy the credibility of a 60 year old standards organization devoted to international cooperation in order to get their "standard" accepted but can't be bothered to implement it:
Microsoft, which currently has no products which are compatible with ISO/IEC 29500,[45][46][47][48] has voiced commitment to using the ISO/IEC 29500 standard in their future products.[49]
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Seriously - ready the Comes documents and listen to Bill Gates in his own words describe portability and open formats as anathema to his plans for a Windows world - listen to him instruct his minions on the destruction of interopability. You seriously can't make this stuff up as well as he tells it. The man is a genius. There are ogg video and audio as well. It's beautiful in the way that volcano video is when you live far away from the lava flow.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
You had me right up until you said "And whilst I like Ubuntu and De Icaza,". I assume you mean Miguel de Icaza, founder of gnome and proponent of .net and Moonlight.
And then I realized how cleverly you turn the discussion to acceptance of your hero. C#, .net and moonlight are encumbered by patents. Adoption of them is a trap. It's admittedly a sweet trap, but you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar...
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Define: Internet Troll
There is no "point" that any sane person would accept.
Now, the history behind it is not something I am familiar with, however.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
In the context of Windows OS's, W2k was "rock solid". That's equivalent to Dave Barry's assesment of the claim that XP is Microsoft's most secure operating system ever: the most articulate vegetable ever.
It's funny. laugh. Usually we laugh because we dare not cry. If you want to laugh at something, laugh at the odd spelling of laugh. Is that not weird? And what of weird, which is itself odd?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
And you will pay his fee.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Maureeen O'Gara, is that you?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
To be fair it's not like the other side go out of their way to make their 'standards' easy for Microsoft to implement.
Others have focused on the fact that there is a big difference between not making standards easy to implement, and deliberately making them more difficult. However, there is another issue here: you are a liar. The "other side" does in fact make their standards easy for Microsoft to implement them. As if publishing RFCs which describe the protocols wasn't enough, the source code is Open. That means that Microsoft can look right into the code and see precisely how the system is implemented — a benefit not available from Microsoft platforms, at least not for the common user.
You are either an ignoramus who should keep his hands off the keyboard when he doesn't know shit, or a troll. Pick one; there's no third way.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Unbiased you are not. Clearly you don't understand what Groklaw is all about, and why stuff like this *MUST* be made public. Groklaw has credibility because it posts truths, uncomfortable or not, and keeps all the shenanigans public. No wonder the malodorous M$ hate it, as does the crew behind the SCO$cam extortion attempt.
I think the real problem is that after Reagan they are all giving you a "low tax state" standard of education - not just Texas that seemed to be proud of it back in the day which is why I chose it as the example along with California's "ebonics".
I've got a bad feeling that the above was read as "blah blah Texas blah blah Nigeria" and suggest you read that sentence again, you've responded as if I'd written something completely different to what is there.
The USA has some of the best postgraduate education but has been steadily slipping far behind the rest of the world in other areas. It really is leaving people unfit to deal with modern society and setting them up to be taken in by various scams, cults and corrupt politicians. Education is a major part of a useful bullshit detector.
GL/PJ isn't exactly know for being an unbiased source
As opposed to the "unbiased" generic computing press I suppose ?
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
She had O'Gara stalking her, for fuck's sake. I don't know whether you're a shill or not, but you are a worthless asshole.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Microsoft == Sauron
Well, the only reason Kildall is part of the IBM PC story is that Bill Gates referred IBM to him.
Most people would be grateful for a business referral to the largest computer company in the world, but perhaps you don't "read" it that way.
None of the players in the creation of the PC knew at the time that it would be such a big success. IBM, Intel and Gates took the chance and Kildall didn't.
OGG, CSS, OASIS, OOXML... although the last one isn't really 'open'. I'm sure there's like a gazillion others. They're just completely unable to do it.
Next up, a twitter account proclaims water is wet and another mighty ACer proclaims TWITTER!
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
Rob Enderle, please stand up!
He is such an obnoxious twit.
You are assuming that: a) everyone is capable of complex critical thinking; and b) that incompetent politicos could arrange would be able to stop all teachers from teaching such things; and c) that people can't learn those things themselves.