Oh, so now it -IS- possible to separate them? Hmm, just like their patent attorneys said a while back:
"It should be understood by those skilled in the art that a Web browser, such as Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer, is separate from the operating system." -- Microsoft patent attys., August 1998
Microsoft Innovations....
on
MacOS X DP3
·
· Score: 1
Here is an ongoing public discussion of MS innovations and catalog of MS acquisitions:
"Most people take it on faith that a high technology company as wildly successful as Microsoft must have invented something of consequence. After all, this industry is built on invention, isn't it?"
"Certainly, Microsoft holds scores of patents and copyrights -- but we'd like to know which products or basic technologies we use can be credited to the big brains in Redmond. This is a prime opportunity for Microsoft defenders to provide some evidence for the company's original contributions to the industry, because frankly, we're at a loss to think of any."
Auto/hiding task bar [rejected]
CD-ROM Autorun [rejected] UPDATE
ClearType [rejected]
Customizable Tool Palettes [pending]
Excel/Multiplan [rejected]
Favorites Icon in Internet Explorer 5 NEW
Hypertext Help [rejected]
Infra-red Mouse [pending] NEW
IntelliMouse [pending]
Microsoft BOB [accepted]
Microsoft Smartcard [pending]
Natural Keyboard [pending]
Pivot Table [rejected]
QBASIC engine [pending]
RTF (Rich Text) File format [pending] UPDATE
Tabbed Window View [pending] UPDATE
Talking Paper Clip [accepted]
VFAT Filing System [rejected]
Visual Studio Codesense Engine [pending] NEW
Word for DOS [rejected]
The (Nearly) Whole Microsoft Catalog "A compendium of Microsoft's amazing history of software and corporate purchases, joint ventures and equity investments. Each acquisition should properly be seen in two ways: first, as an effort on the part of the company to purchase that which it apparently could not invent on its own; and second, as subtracting one from the number of companies which will be permitted to follow its own course, to enrich our technological world, and dare we say it, to compete with Microsoft."
The part I like is that they "contain 100% of most, if not all, the daily requirements.". I have always wanted something like this, like Purina Human Chow, that would not spoil, was easily carried about, required no preparation, and fulfilled all nutritional requirements. Of course these Dilberitos require heating up, but I use my monitor for that. Just put 'em on the back of your monitor when you come in in the morning, and by lunchtime they are done!
What really aggravates me the most is for people (i.e. lowest scum from behind the toilet, flame-baiters) who intentionally post taunts, jibes, insults, lies, and FUD, knowing that this will agitate the more 'enthusiastic' in the crowd, for the sole purpose of unecessarily stirring up hate and discontent, and then fault them for responding in an emotional, angry manner. These are the kids who are now allegedly adults, who like to throw rocks at hornet's nests, just to piss off the hornets and watch them swarm, then complain loudly when they get the shit stung out of them. ( Certain so-called tech journalists come to mind, (Dvorak, Bray, et al.)).
The appellate court can possibly be avoided but the SC can also send it back down:
(b) Direct appeals to Supreme Court
An appeal from a final judgment pursuant to subsection (a) of this section shall lie directly to the Supreme Court, if, upon application of a party filed within fifteen days of the filing of a notice of appeal, the district judge who adjudicated the case enters an order stating that immediate consideration of the appeal by the Supreme Court is of general public importance in the administration of justice. Such order shall be filed within thirty days after the filing of a notice of appeal. When such an order is filed, the appeal and any cross appeal shall be docketed in the time and manner prescribed by the rules of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court shall thereupon either (1) dispose of the appeal and any cross appeal in the same manner as any other direct appeal authorized by law, or (2) in its discretion, deny the direct appeal and remand the case to the court of appeals, which shall then have jurisdiction to hear and determine the same as if the appeal and any cross appeal therein had been docketed in the court of appeals in the first instance pursuant to subsection (a) of this section.
Actually, yes, no doubt if things were to have continued like they were, Apple would have probably eventually had to file Chapter 11, or at least Chapter 13 bankruptcy. In my opinion. They had been reporting quarterly losses in the 10's and 100's of millions. Except for one quarter during Amelio's administration in which they reported a slight profit, but it was pretty weak. They weren't all that attractive a buy-out at the time, either, IIRC.
More importantly, and contrary to what might be a popular misunderstanding:
Billy Boy did not "bail out" Apple. At least not financially. Apple still had something like $1 billion in the bank, even though they were fast -approaching- the edge.
At Jobs' 'request' to Gates, Microsoft 1) purchased $150 worth of NON-VOTING Apple stock as a sign of good faith, (which is now worth more than Apple's most recent quarterly profits, I might add), and 2) paid Apple a then undisclosed figure to settle a number of patent infringement suits, (ripping off QuickTime code for one). The amount was later learned to be $200 million.
This did in some way "bail Apple out" in that it lent Apple some badly needed credibility that it was not going to disappear any time soon, since it could be read as "Well if MS invested in them, they must have some chance of survival, right?"
Bottom Line: I think it is a misinterpretation of the facts to say that "Microsoft bailed Apple out".
Another two D.C. 'government related' sites, (i.e. somewhat political), are that of the Consumer Project On Technology, (http://www.cmptech.org), and Essential Information, (http://www.essential.org). These are the people that brought us the Appraising Microsoft conferences, which in part helped spawn the current DOJ antitrust suit against MS.
"Security professionals deride Microsoft operating systems, in particular, as porous and unreliable, often crashing and leaving themselves open to attack. "Windows NT is slow, it's buggy, and we don't trust it," says Marcus Ranum, founder of the security software company Network Flight Recorder, who faults NT-centric networking strategies for contributing to decreased security."
They FINALLY moved their news server off NT and onto something that WORKS??!!! WOOHOO!!! That was one of the biggest complaints people have had since I have been on, (since 9/98). That's a step in the right direction. The problem is that they say mgt from on high has mandated that it is NT. Also that this is to be the model for the rest of the rollouts. I guess Money Talk$.
I think his point was that it was a largely -preventable- 'bug'. If they intentionally designed and coded stuff in that they knew would break on Y2k, then they were being lazy and irresponsible. So the breakage would be intended behavior, since they didn't care. But if they actually tried to do stuff correctly and problems still came up, then I'd say that is more of a bug category.
My personal opinion, is that most of this y2k stuff was totally preventable if designers of h/w, s/w had been more responsible. If it is something they can 'fix' today, why could they not have 'fixed' it before they released it????
IT'S ALREADY BALKANIZED!!! There are DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, NT 3.5, NT 4, NT-Whenever, and so on. Hell, within the panoply of MS pseudo OS products, there is balkanization already.
I have seen people "Get into Computer Science" with the idea they are going to learn about PC hardware, or "programming", or in general have no idea of what they are getting into, and much less why. I am not saying this is a general case, just that I have seen it, and I think it contributes to the non-graduating rate.
I think at most universities you are going to get a healthy dose of the underlying theory, math, logic, linguistics that make up the 'science' part of it, where the 'computer' part of it is more of a medium in which to implement, explore computing concepts.
The program I went through, (U of TX), didn't 'teach you C/C++', 'teach you Lisp', or 'teach you Unix', etc., you were pretty much left on your own to learn stuff like that, unless you -chose- to specifically take an optional 1 hr course in C, C++, Lisp, whatever. Otherwise you learn how and why operating systems are designed the way they are, say using Unix as an example, and using C to implement experiments and so on. You learn how and why languages and compilers are designed the way they are. Good software design practices are drilled into your little newbie brain. (eg. the y2k 'bug' was completely preventable in most cases). You get into stuff like automata theory that can warp your head. You learn about formal verification of algorithms. You learn about static and dynamic efficiencies, sorting algorithms, data structures, numerical methods, and so on.
Basically, I think a lot of people didn't know what they were getting into, me included. But I'm glad I made it out! Just don't ask how long it took;-) All said, I'm glad I have that background. It does make a difference, and shapes how you think about, approach and solve problems.
He may not actually -be- a monster, but he created one -- the unimind, monoculture that is Microsoft. A psychological clone of his own self. A Frankenstein's monster if you will, and like that one, more than its master can now handle.
And as they say, the fish rots from the head down.
Yeah, I checked this out, too, and was going to post it but you beat me to it!;-) Anyway, he makes -some- good points, but he seems to be more pissed about it being Java than that it is not language independant. Perhaps the OMG thought since Java can be -platform- independant, that would slide? dunno.
Anyway, I got this from the home page's opening lines:
We specialize in offering training and consulting on Microsoft's distributed component architectures, including Java, COM, DCOM, MTS, Falcon, and Wolfpack. This web site is a valuable source of information about Microsoft's distributed object architectures, the architecture that Microsoft calls DNA (Distributed interNet Applications).
Roger Sessions is available to come to your company and teach courses on Microsoft distributed object technologies.
Roger Sessions' new book is COM and DCOM; Microsoft's Vision for Distributed Objects, published by John Wiley and Sons. This book gives an overview of the various technologies Microsoft has introduced to support distributed object applications, and to compete with mainframes for the commerce market. These technologies include Java, COM, DCOM, MTS (Microsoft Transaction Server), Falcon, Wolfpack, and a sophisticated framework for support of distributed transactions.
I can't say this guy is unbiased. I guess since the OMG made Java the middle tier standard instead of, oh say, Visual Basic or COM/DCOM, his business might be impacted???? I think his trustability with me just dropped a couple of magnitudes.
Well, I didn't really know jack about Apple except for an Apple II I bought in '78. In university everything was basically C/Unix (Sun/HP) after the first year, and I have been using Suns at work for the past 8 years. I love Unix and would not want to do the kind of work I do on anything else. But when it came time to replace my old XT at home, I bought a PMac 8500. I had become aquainted with a Mac IIci in '93 at work, and I really liked it. Now at home I have that old 6502 Apple II, 4 little 020 Mac Plus'es, 1 040 Quadra, non-descript XT, 1 Dell 486/W95, PowerMac 8500 booting MacOS/BeOS/LinuxPPC, and one of the first iMacs, all on Ethernet with shared cable modem. I love Unix. I love my Macs. To like one or the other is not mutually exclusive. I gravitate toward as much quality as I can get. I am looking forward to see how OS X turns out. I just hope I can get to a cli when I want one.
I have to give them credit for being willing to listen and modify their license according to people's inputs and complaints. I can think of other companies who have had deaf ears about what they dump onto the market, and pay lip service to "consumer/developer demands". But even without comparing their rather quick response to the community feedback, to the total lack of response from say some 'other' commercial s/w company, I think this bodes well. Until they are proven to be devils in this arena, they should be given the benefit of the doubt. They've not done this before, and they still gotta cover their ass.
I guess the EvangeList has accomplished what it was intended to do, but that doesn't mean there is no longer a need for dispelling myths, corrrecting inaccurate articles, (so long as Dvorak, Langa, Bray, and Brandt are around), and sharing information and solutions.
Linux is indeed a Threat to MickeyShaft, but not in the way they seem to think. It is not a Threat because it is cheaper, or because it is open source, but the biggest reason Linux is a Threat to MS Dominion is that IT FREAKING WORKS !!!! People are -mostly- interested in Linux, IMO, because FIRST OF ALL it is more stable, is more scalable, and more powewrful. It does the job better. I think even if it weren't 'free', (distros can cost), and even if it weren't open source, that it would still be very attractive to most because of its PROVEN ability to do the job. The other aspects just make it even -more- attractive.
Unfortunately for M$, this is the only thing they can not face head on. Quality.
Slashdot Mirror
Be, Inc. clearly does not hold a monopoly on Intel/AMD/et al. based PCs. There is a big difference.
"It should be understood by those skilled in the art that a Web browser, such as Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer, is separate from the operating system." -- Microsoft patent attys., August 1998
The Microsoft Hall Of Innovationh tml
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/innovation.s
"Most people take it on faith that a high technology company as wildly successful as Microsoft must have invented something of consequence. After all, this industry is built on invention, isn't it?"
"Certainly, Microsoft holds scores of patents and copyrights -- but we'd like to know which products or basic technologies we use can be credited to the big brains in Redmond. This is a prime opportunity for Microsoft defenders to provide some evidence for the company's original contributions to the industry, because frankly, we're at a loss to think of any."
The (Nearly) Whole Microsoft Catalog
t alog.shtml
"A compendium of Microsoft's amazing history of software and corporate purchases, joint ventures and equity investments. Each acquisition should properly be seen in two ways: first, as an effort on the part of the company to purchase that which it apparently could not invent on its own; and second, as subtracting one from the number of companies which will be permitted to follow its own course, to enrich our technological world, and dare we say it, to compete with Microsoft."
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/catalog/yrca
The part I like is that they "contain 100% of most, if not all, the daily requirements.". I have always wanted something like this, like Purina Human Chow, that would not spoil, was easily carried about, required no preparation, and fulfilled all nutritional requirements. Of course these Dilberitos require heating up, but I use my monitor for that. Just put 'em on the back of your monitor when you come in in the morning, and by lunchtime they are done!
What really aggravates me the most is for people (i.e. lowest scum from behind the toilet, flame-baiters) who intentionally post taunts, jibes, insults, lies, and FUD, knowing that this will agitate the more 'enthusiastic' in the crowd, for the sole purpose of unecessarily stirring up hate and discontent, and then fault them for responding in an emotional, angry manner. These are the kids who are now allegedly adults, who like to throw rocks at hornet's nests, just to piss off the hornets and watch them swarm, then complain loudly when they get the shit stung out of them. ( Certain so-called tech journalists come to mind, (Dvorak, Bray, et al.)).
How does even just posting the news constitute bias?
xie xie ni de xin4
Some of my own Top Ten Reasons Why Gates Resigned:
Here are a few other possibilities:
-Enrolled at ITT Technological Institute.
-Decided to leave before people associated him with Microsoft.
-Figured out Where he Wanted to Go Today & went there.
-Bought the Vatican & took over as CEO of the Papal See.
-Got a job at Home Depot where he can "finally sell some -real- windows, dammit!"
-Wanted to use his iMac without Balmer's constant teasing.
-Microsoft corporate culture wasn't hip to his wanting to wear jeans, sneakers, black turtlenecks, and a beard.
-Took Steve Jobs' advice and joined an ashram.
-He -really- wanted to be the "iCEO".
-Found out that being Microsoft CEO doesn't get him free coffee at Starbucks.
-Read Nietsche (sp?) and decided to move up & fill the vacancy.
-He realized The Road Ahead was a cul-de-sac.
-After you've crushed and destroyed every competitor in your way, it's Miller time!
-Wants to help O.J. look for 'the -real- killers'.
-Buying a little south sea desert island to retire on : AUSTRALIA!!
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/15
The appellate court can possibly be avoided but the SC can also send it back down:
(b) Direct appeals to Supreme Court
An appeal from a final judgment pursuant to subsection (a) of this section shall lie directly to the Supreme Court, if, upon application of a party filed within fifteen days of the filing of a notice of appeal, the district judge who adjudicated the case enters an order stating that immediate consideration of the appeal by the Supreme Court is of general public importance in the administration of justice. Such order shall be filed within thirty days after the filing of a notice of appeal. When such an order is filed, the appeal and any cross appeal shall be docketed in the time and manner prescribed by the rules of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court shall thereupon either
(1) dispose of the appeal and any cross appeal in the same manner as any other direct appeal authorized by law, or
(2) in its discretion, deny the direct appeal and remand the case to the court of appeals, which shall then have jurisdiction to hear and determine the same as if the appeal and any cross appeal therein had been docketed in the court of appeals in the first instance pursuant to subsection (a) of this section.
Actually, yes, no doubt if things were to have continued like they were, Apple would have probably eventually had to file Chapter 11, or at least Chapter 13 bankruptcy. In my opinion. They had been reporting quarterly losses in the 10's and 100's of millions. Except for one quarter during Amelio's administration in which they reported a slight profit, but it was pretty weak. They weren't all that attractive a buy-out at the time, either, IIRC.
More importantly, and contrary to what might be a popular misunderstanding:
Bottom Line: I think it is a misinterpretation of the facts to say that "Microsoft bailed Apple out".
Another two D.C. 'government related' sites, (i.e. somewhat political), are that of the Consumer Project On Technology, (http://www.cmptech.org), and Essential Information, (http://www.essential.org). These are the people that brought us the Appraising Microsoft conferences, which in part helped spawn the current DOJ antitrust suit against MS.
Nice to know both sites run Linux with Apache.
Well, I count just one.
"Security professionals deride Microsoft operating systems, in particular, as porous and unreliable, often crashing and leaving themselves open to attack. "Windows NT is slow, it's buggy, and we don't trust it," says Marcus Ranum, founder of the security software company Network Flight Recorder, who faults NT-centric networking strategies for contributing to decreased security."
yeah, and they friggin' -bought- that. More Innovation(tm MS) in MS hardware.
And they suck badly. I believe the IE for Solaris is even still beta. At least the one I downloaded and tried recently was.
They FINALLY moved their news server off NT and onto something that WORKS??!!! WOOHOO!!! That was one of the biggest complaints people have had since I have been on, (since 9/98). That's a step in the right direction. The problem is that they say mgt from on high has mandated that it is NT. Also that this is to be the model for the rest of the rollouts. I guess Money Talk$.
I think his point was that it was a largely -preventable- 'bug'. If they intentionally designed and coded stuff in that they knew would break on Y2k, then they were being lazy and irresponsible. So the breakage would be intended behavior, since they didn't care. But if they actually tried to do stuff correctly and problems still came up, then I'd say that is more of a bug category.
My personal opinion, is that most of this y2k stuff was totally preventable if designers of h/w, s/w had been more responsible. If it is something they can 'fix' today, why could they not have 'fixed' it before they released it????
IT'S ALREADY BALKANIZED!!! There are DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, NT 3.5, NT 4, NT-Whenever, and so on. Hell, within the panoply of MS pseudo OS products, there is balkanization already.
I have seen people "Get into Computer Science" with the idea they are going to learn about PC hardware, or "programming", or in general have no idea of what they are getting into, and much less why. I am not saying this is a general case, just that I have seen it, and I think it contributes to the non-graduating rate.
;-) All said, I'm glad I have that background. It does make a difference, and shapes how you think about, approach and solve problems.
I think at most universities you are going to get a healthy dose of the underlying theory, math, logic, linguistics that make up the 'science' part of it, where the 'computer' part of it is more of a medium in which to implement, explore computing concepts.
The program I went through, (U of TX), didn't 'teach you C/C++', 'teach you Lisp', or 'teach you Unix', etc., you were pretty much left on your own to learn stuff like that, unless you -chose- to specifically take an optional 1 hr course in C, C++, Lisp, whatever. Otherwise you learn how and why operating systems are designed the way they are, say using Unix as an example, and using C to implement experiments and so on. You learn how and why languages and compilers are designed the way they are. Good software design practices are drilled into your little newbie brain. (eg. the y2k 'bug' was completely preventable in most cases). You get into stuff like automata theory that can warp your head. You learn about formal verification of algorithms. You learn about static and dynamic efficiencies, sorting algorithms, data structures, numerical methods, and so on.
Basically, I think a lot of people didn't know what they were getting into, me included. But I'm glad I made it out! Just don't ask how long it took
And as they say, the fish rots from the head down.
Anyway, I got this from the home page's opening lines:
We specialize in offering training and consulting on Microsoft's distributed component architectures, including Java, COM, DCOM, MTS, Falcon, and Wolfpack. This web site is a valuable source of information about Microsoft's distributed object architectures, the architecture that Microsoft calls DNA (Distributed interNet Applications).
Roger Sessions is available to come to your company and teach courses on Microsoft distributed object technologies.
Roger Sessions' new book is COM and DCOM; Microsoft's Vision for Distributed Objects, published by John Wiley and Sons. This book gives an overview of the various technologies Microsoft has introduced to support distributed object applications, and to compete with mainframes for the commerce market. These technologies include Java, COM, DCOM, MTS (Microsoft Transaction Server), Falcon, Wolfpack, and a sophisticated framework for support of distributed transactions.
I can't say this guy is unbiased. I guess since the OMG made Java the middle tier standard instead of, oh say, Visual Basic or COM/DCOM, his business might be impacted???? I think his trustability with me just dropped a couple of magnitudes.
Well, I didn't really know jack about Apple except for an Apple II I bought in '78. In university everything was basically C/Unix (Sun/HP) after the first year, and I have been using Suns at work for the past 8 years. I love Unix and would not want to do the kind of work I do on anything else. But when it came time to replace my old XT at home, I bought a PMac 8500. I had become aquainted with a Mac IIci in '93 at work, and I really liked it. Now at home I have that old 6502 Apple II, 4 little 020 Mac Plus'es, 1 040 Quadra, non-descript XT, 1 Dell 486/W95, PowerMac 8500 booting MacOS/BeOS/LinuxPPC, and one of the first iMacs, all on Ethernet with shared cable modem. I love Unix. I love my Macs. To like one or the other is not mutually exclusive. I gravitate toward as much quality as I can get. I am looking forward to see how OS X turns out. I just hope I can get to a cli when I want one.
I have to give them credit for being willing to listen and modify their license according to people's inputs and complaints. I can think of other companies who have had deaf ears about what they dump onto the market, and pay lip service to "consumer/developer demands". But even without comparing their rather quick response to the community feedback, to the total lack of response from say some 'other' commercial s/w company, I think this bodes well. Until they are proven to be devils in this arena, they should be given the benefit of the doubt. They've not done this before, and they still gotta cover their ass.
Among other lists, there is still the MacMarines at http://www.macmarines.com.
Linux is indeed a Threat to MickeyShaft, but not in the way they seem to think. It is not a Threat because it is cheaper, or because it is open source, but the biggest reason Linux is a Threat to MS Dominion is that IT FREAKING WORKS !!!! People are -mostly- interested in Linux, IMO, because FIRST OF ALL it is more stable, is more scalable, and more powewrful. It does the job better. I think even if it weren't 'free', (distros can cost), and even if it weren't open source, that it would still be very attractive to most because of its PROVEN ability to do the job. The other aspects just make it even -more- attractive.
Unfortunately for M$, this is the only thing they can not face head on. Quality.