>>In addition, once you install Windows Vista RC1, you cannot roll back to the previous operating system >>installation--you will either have to acquire and install the final released edition of Windows Vista or >>reinstall a previous edition of Windows
>Nice way of getting people to forget that XP already does everything they need, and locking them into >having to buy an upgrade at retail prices.
How on earth is this a sinister thing? If you install their new beta OS they are warning you that in order to switch back you will have to reinstall. What on earth is wrong with that? I would have expected it to be that way and I would have been surprised had it been the other way around. Even if they did try to support that it wouldnt be in anyones best interests to claim that their beta software would 100% be able to switch back. An this isnt a "Trojan Horse" since they explicitly tell you thats the way it is.
As I understand it charity means you are donating something or partaking in some action motivated exclusively out of kindness. It sounds like their primary motivation here is to make a profit. If its a charity then they would effectively just be giving away shareholder money.
This sounds more like socially conscious investing than charity to me. Or at least I hope it is, if they are giving away the shareholders money and claiming its 'for profit' as a cover that wouldnt bode well for their future.
Licensing fees are typically amazingly small compared to the overall cost that a company is spending on something.
As a simple (and very common) example suppose you hire a secretary to work for your company for five years. Over the course of five years his/her salary alone will run up to 200k, who knows how much once other costs are added in. Most people(and more importantly most secretaries) generally think that MS Office is the best product for this person. If a worker you are potentially going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on is better off with MS Office then wouldnt it be stupid not to spring for a $200 dollar license? (i actually have no idea what office costs, but that sounds about right)
You can come up with a similar example for most proprietary software. Licensing fees for things like server software may be higher, but the other costs associated with it are also high enough to dwarf those license fees. What drives purchasing decisions for software is differentation and the total cost of operating, licensing fees are (almost) always trivial compared to these things.
It is so rare for people to switch to free software solely to avoid licensing fees that when it happens we see articles on slashdot about it.
I graduated from a top ten CS program about a year ago. Believe me there were plenty of people in my class with strong GPAs who lacked the engineering ability to code bubblesort and the practical knowledge to tell you what a firewall is.
Tests are extremely valuable at weeding out the CS majors who are just good at getting good grades and those who can actually code. Companies like google and microsoft have a reputation for asking lots of riddles. I went through the whole process for both though and every question I got tested real engineering skills. (usually in the form of write code to do XYZ)
The abstract is general yes. But that is the abstract, the specifics are in the pages that follow. I think that this is where all the confusion on slashdot comes from. People read the abstract and assume that anything which is remotely similar to the abstract is what they are trying to patent. When in reality it really is just an abstract. You need to look at the entire application and realize that they are patenting a specific method of doing xyz, not just "a method for doing xyz" as is usually claimed in the abstract.
No, it is far more specific than that. You cant just read the few sentences in the abstract and assume that they are trying to patent everything which even remotely fits that description. If that were the case there would be no point in writing more than a few sentences in a patent application. They are much more specific about the system they are trying to patent here.
Can you name any examples where Microsoft has bullied a small company for patent infringement on a trivial patent? I dont know of any. But you claim that MS routinely scares/bullies "anyone away from trying" using patents so I would assume that you must have some examples of this. Do you know of any? (not flaming, legitimately curious)
It seems that slashdot routinely posts headlines claiming "Microsoft patents X!" Where X is something obviously nonpatentable. However, in almost every instance what Microsoft has actually done is patented a specific method or system of performing X.
This is no exception. Microsoft has not patented conjugating verbs. They are applying for a patent for a specific type of system which helps users identify verb forms from verbs and vice versa.
Again: patenting a method or system for performing X != patenting X.
Can we get an end to all these misleading "Microsoft patents smiley faces!" type of headlines?
Everything you said sounds perfectly rational to me and I agree with most of it. The thing I take issue with is the FUD I hear from slashdot and the websites companies like google use to promote their view.
Everything in that commercial was 100% true, yet in the slashdot summary I read "...spreading a blatant lie..." and "This honestly seems too stupid to actually be real". Its kind of disheartening to see the tech community trying to spread their political views in a manner which is more dishonest and filled with FUD than some of the most extreme elements of american politics.
Have you ever looked at any of the financial reports or SEC filings from a telco? Generally speaking, they arent that high, they make a modest and reasonably fair profit. Based on some of the responses I have read on here I would expect them to be making $20 for every $1 they spend annually.
Your comment about how "thats the way its been and thats the way it should be" does not hold up to logic. Right now the average person is not using that much bandwidth. Five to ten years from now each person will be using a lot more. Someone has to shoulder that cost. If they want their business model to be built around charging silicon valley companies to send packets through their network so that they dont have to raise costs on consumers isnt that their right?
I dont think you are really being fair here. You are accusing all telcos of price gouging in the future based on the fact that one of them tried to increase the bill they gave consumers by a couple of dollars.
If the telcos try to price gouge and give themselves a huge profit margin in the future that is a seperate issue and one that would be covered by anti trust laws.
The fact of the matter is that right now what they are saying in that commercial is 100% true. If a law is passed that says that the big companies pay nothing then the consumers will be the ones facing increased costs as the amount of bandwidth used by each person rises over the next few years.
It seems to me that everyones response to this is to just keep accusing the telcos of corruption whenever someone points out that what they are saying is actually true.
Logically if the big companies pay then the consumer wont pay as much. This is what everyone on that side of the issue has been saying all along. The only place that I have heard the idea that "big companies pay AND consumers pay" is from websites like slashdot and companies like google. (those with a vested interest in not having the big companies pay)
The telcos are claiming that broadband prices are going to rise dramaticaly over the next 5-10 years as people start using more bandwidth. This will cause everyones internet access fees to double or more unless they bill the silicon valley companies.
What they are saying makes perfect sense to me. I can see that it would be very bad for a lot of the smaller tech companies that cant afford this kind of thing. But I dont think there is any blatant dishonesty on the part of the telcos despite what the tech community constantly claims.
Do you see any flaws with this logic?
I dunno about "this seems too stupid to actually be real".
It seems logical to me that telcos need to make their money from somewhere. Currently they bill the consumer. They want to bill the silicon valley companies. It sounds to me like what they are saying is exactly true. The silicon valley companies want the consumer to be the one paying.
Is it possible that the extreme bias on this issue from sites like slashdot is due to the fact that a lot of people on this website work for those silicon valley companies?
Slashdot Mirror
>>In addition, once you install Windows Vista RC1, you cannot roll back to the previous operating system
>>installation--you will either have to acquire and install the final released edition of Windows Vista or
>>reinstall a previous edition of Windows
>Nice way of getting people to forget that XP already does everything they need, and locking them into
>having to buy an upgrade at retail prices.
How on earth is this a sinister thing? If you install their new beta OS they are warning you that in order to switch back you will have to reinstall. What on earth is wrong with that? I would have expected it to be that way and I would have been surprised had it been the other way around. Even if they did try to support that it wouldnt be in anyones best interests to claim that their beta software would 100% be able to switch back. An this isnt a "Trojan Horse" since they explicitly tell you thats the way it is.
As I understand it charity means you are donating something or partaking in some action motivated exclusively out of kindness. It sounds like their primary motivation here is to make a profit. If its a charity then they would effectively just be giving away shareholder money. This sounds more like socially conscious investing than charity to me. Or at least I hope it is, if they are giving away the shareholders money and claiming its 'for profit' as a cover that wouldnt bode well for their future.
Licensing fees are typically amazingly small compared to the overall cost that a company is spending on something. As a simple (and very common) example suppose you hire a secretary to work for your company for five years. Over the course of five years his/her salary alone will run up to 200k, who knows how much once other costs are added in. Most people(and more importantly most secretaries) generally think that MS Office is the best product for this person. If a worker you are potentially going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on is better off with MS Office then wouldnt it be stupid not to spring for a $200 dollar license? (i actually have no idea what office costs, but that sounds about right) You can come up with a similar example for most proprietary software. Licensing fees for things like server software may be higher, but the other costs associated with it are also high enough to dwarf those license fees. What drives purchasing decisions for software is differentation and the total cost of operating, licensing fees are (almost) always trivial compared to these things. It is so rare for people to switch to free software solely to avoid licensing fees that when it happens we see articles on slashdot about it.
I graduated from a top ten CS program about a year ago. Believe me there were plenty of people in my class with strong GPAs who lacked the engineering ability to code bubblesort and the practical knowledge to tell you what a firewall is. Tests are extremely valuable at weeding out the CS majors who are just good at getting good grades and those who can actually code. Companies like google and microsoft have a reputation for asking lots of riddles. I went through the whole process for both though and every question I got tested real engineering skills. (usually in the form of write code to do XYZ)
The abstract is general yes. But that is the abstract, the specifics are in the pages that follow. I think that this is where all the confusion on slashdot comes from. People read the abstract and assume that anything which is remotely similar to the abstract is what they are trying to patent. When in reality it really is just an abstract. You need to look at the entire application and realize that they are patenting a specific method of doing xyz, not just "a method for doing xyz" as is usually claimed in the abstract.
No, it is far more specific than that. You cant just read the few sentences in the abstract and assume that they are trying to patent everything which even remotely fits that description. If that were the case there would be no point in writing more than a few sentences in a patent application. They are much more specific about the system they are trying to patent here.
Can you name any examples where Microsoft has bullied a small company for patent infringement on a trivial patent? I dont know of any. But you claim that MS routinely scares/bullies "anyone away from trying" using patents so I would assume that you must have some examples of this. Do you know of any? (not flaming, legitimately curious)
It seems that slashdot routinely posts headlines claiming "Microsoft patents X!" Where X is something obviously nonpatentable. However, in almost every instance what Microsoft has actually done is patented a specific method or system of performing X. This is no exception. Microsoft has not patented conjugating verbs. They are applying for a patent for a specific type of system which helps users identify verb forms from verbs and vice versa. Again: patenting a method or system for performing X != patenting X. Can we get an end to all these misleading "Microsoft patents smiley faces!" type of headlines?
Everything you said sounds perfectly rational to me and I agree with most of it. The thing I take issue with is the FUD I hear from slashdot and the websites companies like google use to promote their view. Everything in that commercial was 100% true, yet in the slashdot summary I read "...spreading a blatant lie..." and "This honestly seems too stupid to actually be real". Its kind of disheartening to see the tech community trying to spread their political views in a manner which is more dishonest and filled with FUD than some of the most extreme elements of american politics.
Have you ever looked at any of the financial reports or SEC filings from a telco? Generally speaking, they arent that high, they make a modest and reasonably fair profit. Based on some of the responses I have read on here I would expect them to be making $20 for every $1 they spend annually. Your comment about how "thats the way its been and thats the way it should be" does not hold up to logic. Right now the average person is not using that much bandwidth. Five to ten years from now each person will be using a lot more. Someone has to shoulder that cost. If they want their business model to be built around charging silicon valley companies to send packets through their network so that they dont have to raise costs on consumers isnt that their right?
I dont think you are really being fair here. You are accusing all telcos of price gouging in the future based on the fact that one of them tried to increase the bill they gave consumers by a couple of dollars. If the telcos try to price gouge and give themselves a huge profit margin in the future that is a seperate issue and one that would be covered by anti trust laws. The fact of the matter is that right now what they are saying in that commercial is 100% true. If a law is passed that says that the big companies pay nothing then the consumers will be the ones facing increased costs as the amount of bandwidth used by each person rises over the next few years. It seems to me that everyones response to this is to just keep accusing the telcos of corruption whenever someone points out that what they are saying is actually true.
Logically if the big companies pay then the consumer wont pay as much. This is what everyone on that side of the issue has been saying all along. The only place that I have heard the idea that "big companies pay AND consumers pay" is from websites like slashdot and companies like google. (those with a vested interest in not having the big companies pay) The telcos are claiming that broadband prices are going to rise dramaticaly over the next 5-10 years as people start using more bandwidth. This will cause everyones internet access fees to double or more unless they bill the silicon valley companies. What they are saying makes perfect sense to me. I can see that it would be very bad for a lot of the smaller tech companies that cant afford this kind of thing. But I dont think there is any blatant dishonesty on the part of the telcos despite what the tech community constantly claims. Do you see any flaws with this logic?
I dunno about "this seems too stupid to actually be real". It seems logical to me that telcos need to make their money from somewhere. Currently they bill the consumer. They want to bill the silicon valley companies. It sounds to me like what they are saying is exactly true. The silicon valley companies want the consumer to be the one paying. Is it possible that the extreme bias on this issue from sites like slashdot is due to the fact that a lot of people on this website work for those silicon valley companies?