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Researchers Locate Flaw In Bitcoin Protocol
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at Microsoft Research and Cornell identified a potential flaw in Bitcoin's transaction propagation. In a recent paper they show how miner nodes in the Bitcoin network have an incentive not to relay transactions to the rest of the network, and propose to implement a scheme that rewards nodes [PDF] for relaying messages."
They seem to do lot of cool stuff. From that Courier tablet to studying Bitcoin. Even while Microsoft doesn't realize their R&D section has a great amount of potential, it's actually the only major company in the industry that does have such research center. I wish I worked there :-P
It still sounds like a better system than our current financial institutions.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Well, IBM do have a fairly large research division too.
You're the guy that said he worked in marketing yesterday. Why is it that all UIDs over 2,000,000 seem to do marketing for MS?
which is totally what she said
Only a small fraction of bitcoin nodes (e.g. 1%) are mining nodes, and they all relay transactions as relaying transactions is very cheap to do. The problem they're describing clearly does not exist. If it did someday turn out to be an issue you can address it by users handing their transactions directly to various miners, you don't need some crazy complicated reward scheme.
It's also not news— their contribution isn't insight on incentives but a complicated sibyl resistant reward scheme for trees (which the bitcoin network is not) which requires doubling the cost of forwarding a transaction every two hops it takes. (By making every node perform a great many additional cryptographic signatures and checks in order to track the reward)
And what's the Bitcoin Forums response? Denial.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
If a LARGE proportion of bitcoin nodes are run by assholes who refuse to distribute transactions then the network may fall apart.
This system seems to add a lot of complexity to solve something that has not proven a problem.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Can someone tell my why I've had Ayn Rand shoved down my throat 3 times in the past few hours online?
There has to be some kookey Anon C who can map out the coarser details of her connection to the Illuminati for me.
Please do. Thanks.
actually the only major company
Nope. Plenty of big companies have research divisions.
Microsoft's one is just one you hear a lot about because they do it for marketing reasons as well as research.
Typically very little of that research ever makes it out of there, though.
This doesn't really make sense. Clients forward transactions as well as miners (and typical clients are connected to 8 other clients, making it a very well connected network).
Granted, there is no incentive to forward transactions, but if nobody forwards transactions then the network won't work so ultimately it's in the self interest of all users to do so. Some miners may decide not to do so, in the hope that they will be the one who solves the block and get the transaction fee. But they are not actually gaining anything by doing so. They are making other miners potentially miss out on transaction fees but it doesn't improve their chances of winning the block and therefore getting the fee and there is no way they can know what transactions other miners have picked up through other routes via the network.
I think the conclusion is wrong; while there is no incentive to forward the transaction (beyond stability of the network), there is also no obvious disincentive to do so as the cost is tiny (the cost of the bandwidth to forward it)
Change "lead and tin" to "ink and rag paper" and see how that argument works out for ya.
I think the real question here is why all UIDs under 2,000,000 don't do marketing for MS. But seriously, their R&D department do some pretty cool stuff. Even though MS manage to churn out nine-nines of crap products, occasionally they still come out with something awesome that they manage to get to market (think Kinect). Shame they spend the rest of their time suing their competitors, churning out garbage like Windows and spreading FUD.
"The most dangerous enemy of a better solution is an existing codebase that is just good enough." -- Eric S. Raymond
A bug can exist without it immediately causing problems. It's generally best to fix things before they become a problem, not afterwards.
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
But seriously, their R&D department do some pretty cool stuff. Even though MS manage to churn out nine-nines of crap products, occasionally they still come out with something awesome that they manage to get to market (think Kinect).
The problem with that idea is that Kinect was a 90%+ finished product when they bought it. They polished it for use with the 360, it always takes them some time to fuck up a new technology sufficiently for their branding, and kicked it out the door. And it's taking them how long to kick out a PC version even though hobbyists have been doing it all along? Microsoft is pathetic at everything but illegally exploiting their opportunities and believing otherwise is ignorant at best.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
do marketing for MS. But seriously, their R&D department do some pretty cool stuff. Even though MS manage to churn out nine-nines of crap products, occasionally they still come out with something awesome that they manage to get to market (think Kinect).
On other occasions they just patent it so that nobody else will
So we need some new method or entity to help move bitcoin from one place to another? Perhaps something like.. banks and insurance companies and derivatives etc? I don't like where this is headed :)
I got bored of the Wii gimmick and PS Move pretty quick. So I didn't even bother buying Kinect for my 360. How is it any better? I'm not interested in dancing games, and while I used to fantasize about full body motion fighting games as a teenager, I know now that doing that doing that type of violent motion without any resistance (ie a punching bag or opponent) is pretty bad for your joints in the long run.
MS do manage to hit on good ideas every now and then, and it's good that they have a research lab. They're definitely not the only computer research lab out there. What about Bell labs? And Google Labs and 20% or whatever projects? The original poster claiming MS are the only guys that do research is pure BS.
which is totally what she said
The value of a good is actually whatever a third party is willing to give you in exchange for that good... This value is completely arbitrary, and allows products with no physical value (eg software) to be sold for huge amounts of money or other goods...
Similarly, money itself has no real value, only the value that others are willing to give in exchange for it.
The advantage of bitcoin, is that while its effectively a worthless token system, just like regular cash, it is a finite supply and thus not subject to the whims of a central authority.
Personally i use bitcoin a lot, primarily as an intermediary currency because i can buy bitcoins with money i hold in one currency, and then draw it out again in my local currency without incurring fees levied by existing currency exchange establishments.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
You can't eat gold. You can't use it to make tools to work the fields or cut trees (too soft and too rare). And yet people used little bits of gold to trade goods. Why?
This is truly a mystery.
I don't own Kinect myself, but my parents do. I do own Wii, and to be honest, Kinect is way nicer to use. For one, you don't need to hold any controller. Secondly, it seems to register your movements much better than Wii does. MS probably wouldn't had come up with it if it wasn't for Wii, but they did it so much better. I haven't tested PS Move so cannot comment on that, but it seems to be controller based like Wii.
Because the perception of developers to Microsoft has changed radically since Slashdot's founding. They've gone from being the evil empire to a developer-company with many cool toys.
Fairly large? Second only to Microsoft. And it's one of the best places you could work at.
IBM spends really a large amount of money on R&D. I wish the coffee were free, tho. Google does that right.
Getting ready to watch bitcoin plunge the rest of the way to zero. Just over $2 now. Anyone who lost money in bitcoin must be told : "seriously, what were you thinking?"
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
That's about how long it took MS to find out about Slashdot.
Not sure what planet you're living on.. Apple has become a second evil empire which may make MS seem slightly more reasonable in some cases - but MS is still obviously an evil empire in itself. As soon as their anti-trust oversight was up earlier this year, it was straight back to the BS. I feel dirty even thinking about looking at an MS product like .NET.
which is totally what she said
So due to the nature and limitations of the device it has sunk almost immediately into a morass of shovelware with dance & fitness games massively over represented and others which have throwaway mini games bolted onto the side of traditional control main game. Some titles do standout however such as Once Upon a Monster for doing something interesting with the tech.
The main buzz for the tech appears to be from hackers who discovered you can do some neat things with a camera with some depth finding capabilities.
Shame on you slashdot. This is a disgustingly misleading headline that has absolutely nothing to do with the paper. The paper is only offering recommendations for the future, based on some incorrect assumptions about the network (which is that there will be difficulty in propagating transactions). This is not a "flaw" in the protocol.
The Bitcoin network is well-connected and the only nodes that have incentive not to forward txs make up a tiny percentage of the network (less than 1%). Even if they were the only nodes on the network, the network is designed so that users can locate them, and it costs nothing for a user to forward their transaction to many/all of them. This is completely a non-issue.
The main buzz for the tech appears to be from hackers who discovered you can do some neat things with a camera with some depth finding capabilities.
And Microsoft actually responded to that a lot differently than Sony or Nintendo - They're bringing Kinect support to PC as well, and have released API's to use it.
I got bored of the Wii gimmick and PS Move pretty quick. So I didn't even bother buying Kinect for my 360. How is it any better?
It's not. All three non-haptic (don't give me that "vibration is feedback" claptrap!) motion gaming controllers are absolutely horrible to use.
However, the Kinect is an amazing machine vision system. SLAM, 3d scanning, etc, all for something the size of a Toblerone you can buy off-the-shelf for cheap.
PS Move works like a Wii Plus remote, but is more accurate. The remote relays it's pitch, rotation etc. and the PS3 does some simply geometry to track the ball on the end to work out it's exact position in space. It's remarkably accurate. That said there haven't been many standout titles for it. Like Kinect, most games only include a move experience as some kind of afterthought, e.g. a mini game or whatever, or throw it in as an alternative control scheme. I tried the controls with Killzone 3 and thought it was pretty awkward though some people appear to like it. More successful are where it was integrated with EyePet and Heavy Rain strangely. Best example of it in use has to be Tumble where you can pick up blocks and build towers to complete challenges.
And Sony haven't done that? Oh wait they did.
I think the real question here is why all UIDs under 2,000,000 don't do marketing for MS.
Stupid question. We're too old.
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
The Kinect is "early" in Natural Interface (OpenNI) for computers. Consider the Xbox360 Kinect as a early prototype. Right now it's killer use is 3D model rigging, posing and blocking for 3D animation movies (Just look up some of the mid to late 2011 MikuMiku Dance videos which let you use the Kinect for posing.)
It's much in the same line as how Film and Videotape video cameras evolved. Early models are expensive and low resolution, later models should have higher resolution and more points to model. I believe the current Kinect only has like 12 trackable points. So you only have the option of full body stiff movement, or face movement, not both.
The Wiimote and PS Move could technically be used in the same manner, but you only get two trackable points (assuming you have two wiimotes or two ps move controllers.) The PS Move is clearly a knockoff of the Wiimote, and there's no way you can say it isn't. In fact it pretty much works exactly the same as the Wiimote except the Infrared tracking is generated by the remote and captured by the camera, instead of in the wiimote which has the infrared generated by the Wii base unit, and the wiimote has the IR tracking in the device itself. Technically the wiimote is cheaper, but not by much.
Like IBM have had for years you mean ....IBM is a small company that produces software and some other stuff ...
It's research department is quite well known ... five Nobel Prizes, four Turing Awards, nine National Medals of Technology, and five National Medals of Science.
Courier Tablet - sorry no-one seems to have heard of it, is that anything like the iPad or the Galaxy Tablet ?
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
it's actually the only major company in the industry that does have such research center. I wish I worked there :-P
Google X might be larger, if anyone knew where it was....
The PS Move is clearly a knockoff of the Wiimote, and there's no way you can say it isn't.
I wouldn't try to say that it isn't. It's a knockoff that improves a lot on the original though. I haven't tried Wii motion plus though so I can't say how that compares. I only used my Move with the demos it came with though - I haven't seen any games come out that I'd actually want to play with it. If a good game came out for Kinect or any other future control system, then I'd buy it of course. But they're all just gimmicky garbage so far. It's a shame that Rock Band and Guitar Hero were so overdone, I'd rather see a steady stream of improvements with specialised controllers for certain game types.
which is totally what she said
This;
The stability of the current desktop computer market is so important to Microsoft that they will practically never actually innovate. They have an R&D department for two reasons. 1) To keep the ideas away from other companies by patenting them and then not licensing them onward 2) To keep the good people away from other companies by using them to create patents.
The reason not to work for Microsoft R&D is that, whilst you will be comfortable, well fed and well off, you will lead an empty life and they will suck your soul out of you.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Yeah and that's great and all, if you just want to crap out useless prototypes that never actually go anywhere(the BitCoin research is pretty cool though)... heaven forbid you have an idea that threatens Office, Windows or the Xbox divisions.
Life at Microsoft R&D must be some bizarre sisyphean effort that's somehow rewarding when you *almost* get that boulder up the hill.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
What's so bad about .NET? Apart from your prejudice. It's actually good platform, and C# is awesome language for developers. .NET is also fully open. The reason why the newest versions aren't fully supported in Linux is just because of this - the general hate towards Microsoft and their success with Windows. Microsoft does give out the specs, but Linux developers don't want to update their programs. That's really hardly Microsoft's fault.
It's no mystery. Gold is limited in quantity. It is difficult to forge. It does not degrade over time. And it requires work to acquire.
As much as anything, trading is about forming relationships. It is about acceding to risk. It is about placing resources in the hands of others, in which we trust they will be well used and cared for. Look at the evolution of currency from simple barter, into our current system, one of credit and accounting standards in which reputation is paramount yet fraud is omnipresent.
Currency does not need to have inherent value. The value of a currency is in the people who use it, in the value produced by specialization and trade, and in the avoidance of risk while doing so. The value of Bitcoin lies in it's ability to help identify trading partners of similar calibre, with similar values, and to weed out the rest.
Burning GPU time is equivalent to burning $100 bills.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I think the real question here is why all UIDs under 2,000,000 don't do marketing for MS.
Authenticity.
But... the future refused to change.
"The flaw pointed out in (this) paper is that there is a negative incentive for miners to forward Bitcoin transactions." This is a big derp on the part of these researchers.
There might be 20 pools collectively mining, and maybe 100+ people mining by themselves at this time. They currently have more processing power than the top 10 supercomputers in the world put together. Miners strengthen the blockchain record of past transactions against cryptographic forgery, but their processing power is not what distributes the pre-inclusion transactions to other nodes on the network.
The forwarding of transactions around the network is done largely by the 40,000+ users who have Bitcoin open at any time, and form the peer-to-peer transaction distribution network. They distribute the newest transactions waiting to be included in the blockchain to the miners and to each other, and any miner will want to include any outstanding transactions in the next block theyadd to the blockchain, so they can earn the associated transaction fees.
If one mining pool doesn't forward transactions waiting to be included in the blockchain, then the dozens of connections each peer has to each other will distribute it everywhere else on the network in about a second anyway.
Well, untill we have direct neural interfaces, any game input system will be (and currently is) a limited kind of toy. Old directional plus buttons joystic leads to 2D interaction, even when the game tries to create a 3D environment, stearing wells and pistol lead to car and shooting games, respectively, the Wii control restrics the games to very coarse movements, and so on.
In the end, it is ok that the kinetic is a false movement plataform. It happens to be quite fun, at least sporadicaly (I don't own one), as is the Wii, restricted to those coarse movements. Controlling things with your fingers gets tiresome after you try those other devices. Also, it is not just a camera with depth finding capabilties, it is a cheap camera with depth finding capabilities. Just like the Wii mote isn't just a set of accelerometers...
Rethinking email
The Wii control works on PC out of the factory, no need for anything fancy, except for bluetooth. People just don't use it a lot (except, maybe, on media centers) because it doesn't make much sense.
Microsoft is on a different situation, because the kinetic would be usefull on a PC (for some really targeted applications), and because it prohibited people from using it that way. Now you are trying to make MS backtracking from that prohibition sound as if it was making some incredible innovation. That simply isn't true, all the "innovation" MS is doing here is removing the restrictions (that aren't even legal around here) it tried to impose on its clients.
And by the way, did MS already release the kitnetic for PCs? Or is it still just vapourware anounced to stop competitors?
Rethinking email
Google as well. Saw an interesting article on Google X labs, their "skunkworks"-style division yesterday.
http://www.slashgear.com/google-x-labs-plans-robot-researchers-to-map-the-future-14194990/
There's a link to the poorly-paywalled nytimes article in there. Funny thing is they like to keep the fact that they're doing research a secret and constantly emphasize that they put very little money into research, because research makes shareholders nervous. Shows you how far ahead shareholders (or their HFT servers) are thinking.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
the general hate towards Microsoft and their success with Windows.
Um. The hate has never been about success. The hate has been due to the monopoly position of an inferior product. Now I know you're just a marketing droid and therefore probably have no idea nor experience of the technical history during the 80s and 90s, and maybe even the 00s, but there are logical reasons for all the hate.
Windows has been getting better over the years, but those of us who experienced some of the alternatives tend to feel like MS's monopoly has held the advancement of desktop software back by about 10 years. I used to wish that Apple would gain more marketshare. They have done so now, and they do produce technically superior software to MS - it's just a shame that they have even worse policies in some cases, alongside the same "destroy your competition" ethos that MS have. Geeks (and anyone else who wants to see technology advancing as efficiently and beneficially as possible) prefer competition, not all out war.
which is totally what she said
What I want to see is Kinect controls integrated into games with otherwise "traditional" control schemes. I imagine an FPS that still uses a controller for the main action, but utilizes head tracking with the Kinect; you would still control your aiming, shooting, and moving with the controller, but could peek around a corner in the game by moving your head to the side. Couple this with a 3D TV, and you've got yourself an incredibly immersive experience.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
There is a direct correlation between gold and poontang. There you have it.
Imagine there are no miners. This is the practical endgame result when the chance of solving a block drops so low there is no point for ordinary users to be a miner.
Why would I run a Bitcoin client then? What are my incentives?
The health of the bit coin network or maybe society? There will always be some that do this. But most people value short gain profit over anything else.. Ref 'tragedy of the commons' or for that matter 'environment problem X'.
Perhaps I will run it because I use Bitcoin myself? I would certainly use it in the moments I need access to Bitcoins.
But in the 'idle' periods? I have no incentive, this would just be another bandwidth user and potential entrance into my system.
Give me incentive. Give me a chance of 'earning' something running my client and I would probably run it. But in my scenario, remember that there is no practical chance of getting a payment for a new block, so I would be interested in earning the transaction fee instead.
But once you have incentive for doing something, you run into the Sybil problem the Microsoft researchers try to defeat with their hybrid model. Assume zombie networks with lots of machines running for this purpose, and they might be able to at least push their odds in their favor.
The Microsoft analysis seems to be a sound analysis, given some assumptions. I believe that we, as technical people, should do less posturing and more scientific method. If you disagree, see if you can disprove that their assumptions were correct or try to prove a different model. I happen to agree.
Fast, Soon, Correct. Pick 2.
That the whole thing is a pump and dump scam.
Say it ain't so!
/sarcasm
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
The reason not to work for Microsoft R&D is that, whilst you will be comfortable, well fed and well off, you will lead an empty life and they will suck your soul out of you.
Isn't that pretty much how employment in general works?
But seriously, their R&D department do some pretty cool stuff. Even though MS manage to churn out nine-nines of crap products, occasionally they still come out with something awesome that they manage to get to market (think Kinect).
The problem with that idea is that Kinect was a 90%+ finished product when they bought it.
That's strange, isn't this EXACTLY the sort of thing people praise Apple for? I mean hell, two weeks ago that's exactly what I heard journalists waxing poetic about with Steve Jobs.
"Just a fox, a whisper."
the more rules and regulations need to be put into place to stop abuse.
Like actual currency.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I wish the coffee were free, tho. Google does that right.
You have just broken my SmugAnnoyingGitOmeter.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
For some employers more so than for others, I feel :)
The GP/GGP's comments seem about right to me. I always did wonder how MS Research could do so much cool stuff, and yet have so little of it make it to market with any of the coolness still attached.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Fairly large? Second only to Microsoft. And it's one of the best places you could work at.
IBM spends really a large amount of money on R&D. I wish the coffee were free, tho. Google does that right.
How can they expect to do R&D if the coffee's not free?
I'm serious!
Dark Reflection
Problem is, the final 10% polishing is actually pretty damn hard. If you've done software development, getting to the point where the basic features work is really quick. But getting to the point where it's releasable and usable takes a lot of effort.
It's one thing that Apple is known for (most innovations that are "cool" are at the 90% stage, but it still takes a ton of effort to get it to the stage where people other than geeks and engineers can USE it).
For Kinect, the final 10% would involve packaging (how does Kinect look, and will it fit with the rest of the equipment?), fitting the stuff inside the package (does it fit? Does the enclosure need redesign?), and more importantly, manufacturability.
Sticking a reference design in a box is not easy. A lot of work is required in order to be able to build in huge volumes - are the parts available in quantity (and cheaply)? Can it be assembled easily or are there fiddly calibration bits that'll take time to work? Are there simple pass/fail criterion?
It takes a lot of work. For open-source, you can abandon it after the 90% point (and most stuff is - the final work is the boring dull stuff no one wants to do), but it's not going to fly for commercial products that you want people to buy. And they know when a product was skimped on.
Heck, even the UI of a product is important, and Kinect took some beating there.
(It's why you get reviews on "solidness" - a minor detail but relates to build quality, ditto with use of "cheap plastic" or worse yet, "cheap feeling plastic".) It's that final 10% that Apple is well reknown for, and if it was easy, well, Apple would be dead and there would be tons of products with well designed UIs and very nice casings and such.
My biggest problem with Kinect is that it is apparently impossible to create a decent golf game with it.
Apparently, it can't read what you're doing with your wrists ... unless they made it so you were holding a controller.
I was really hoping for a decent golf game. :-P
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Bell Labs also used to set the standard in R&D,
Just like the last 10% of a software development project usuallyrequires more time than the first 90%,
..people are still wasting their time with Bitcoin. Well, to be fair, normal non-criminal people, that is. Seriously, why are we still discussing this at all?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Price drops on midnight on the 13th,
but this post was made on Tuesday November 15, @10:18AM and there is no real response in Bitcoin value.
There is still no other way to hold a currency in one's head unaided for example, so the fundamentals are the same (it's still useful, no alternative yet).
A blog I run for the wealth
Lets be fair, Ive got a UID over 2 million and am proud to say I don't work in marketing. I'm unemployed.
For Kinect, the final 10% would involve packaging (how does Kinect look, and will it fit with the rest of the equipment?)
which is subjective; I think it looks lame, but that's my own personal opinion.
fitting the stuff inside the package (does it fit? Does the enclosure need redesign?),
They made the package for the camera. Srsly?
and more importantly, manufacturability.
Which is the kind of thing that Microsoft has proven themselves to be bad at time and again with flaky hardware. Unless that's just planned obsolescence, in which case they have merely proven themselves to be bastards time and again, which we knew anyway.
Heck, even the UI of a product is important, and Kinect took some beating there.
IOW, they failed.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
IBM has the best private research center in the world. Count how many patents and paper come out of there vs MS research. Hint it's more than 10x.
oooo I resent that. If I hadn't stopped using slashdot for years and could still remember my original creds, I'd say something biting about people with UIDs over 900000. Because 900000 is obviously the right number for criticism.
Well the issue is that you can't have loans in bitcoin because it's design guarantees long-term deflation (regardless of the short term fluctuations). So any loan would have to have a negative interest rate, otherwise that seemingly low 1% loan is really a massive 40% when the deflation is factored in.
It also means the best investment strategy is always to sit on your bitcoin. That's free and the value continuously increases. Those with all the coin will continue to have all the coin forever. Yes inflation is a hidden tax... but one that hits the wealthy much harder and forces them to put their money to some sort of productive use (or watch its value evaporate).
If you want to argue that loans and investment are terrible evils and deserve to be eradicated then you are certainly free to make that argument.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
How can they expect to do R&D if the coffee's not free?
I'm serious!
Fuck coffee. R&D requires unhindered access to weed/shrooms/LSD. I'm serious.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
It likely has something to do with the tax breaks companies get for giving out research grants.
Bahaha! Nice detective work, somersault.
Busted!
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
I don't market for Microsoft. And my UID quite plainly shows that I'm older than dirt!
They have an R&D department for two reasons. 1) To keep the ideas away from other companies by patenting them and then not licensing them onward 2) To keep the good people away from other companies by using them to create patents.
Can you explain which one of the two reasons you've given apply to, for example, MSR keeping two lead developers of Glasgow Haskell Compiler (Simon Peyton Jones and Simon Marlow) on its payroll, specifically for working on GHC? Keeping in mind that it is open source software, licensed under BSDL...
I mean, I'd love to be working on this stuff, but Microsoft so rarely does anything with it other than hold onto it in case they might someday do something with it.
I'd much rather work for a company which does less cool things which actually stand a chance of either making it to market or being released as open source.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Indeed :p Here's the comment I was referring to
which is totally what she said
The problem with that idea is that Kinect was a 90%+ finished product when they bought it.
That's strange, isn't this EXACTLY the sort of thing people praise Apple for? I mean hell, two weeks ago that's exactly what I heard journalists waxing poetic about with Steve Jobs.
People who aren't me. Check my posting history, I got plenty of downmods right after Jobs died for saying the things that RMS eventually said about Jobs (I don't believe in "too soon" or "sacred") and then I got more for supporting RMS' article. Luckily I got more up than down. That doesn't mean that the groupthink agrees with me, but it does suggest that the groupthink is not as aligned as you seem to think it is.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Coffee is free at Microsoft. Comes out of a machine that brews each cup.
I'm sure that the real reason is more devious and evil than anything I can come up with, but if I can think of that list in a few minutes I'm sure that a Microsoft manager with billions of dollars of resources behind him, who spends his entire time trying to come up with ways to thwart the progress of the human race can have his own reasons for doing this.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Not only that, but you are stuck using Windows.
It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage. - Colonel Henry Walton Jones, Jr., Ph.D.
is that it is/was a fucking pyramid scheme.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it