Microsoft has a monopoly in the OS market which has resulted in (some) software being written only for Windows, which is then required to participate in certain work or play sectors of the market.
Microsoft has a monopoly on Office software by using closed formats which prevent competing software from participating (in any meaningful way) in the Office software market. Good luck going into work and saying "Hey Boss, go ahead and save $200 and get me OpenOffice instead of MS Office".
Microsoft has bundled numerous applications into its monopoly Operating System for the purpose of extinguishing competition in additional markets. Products such as Internet Explorer, MSN Messenger, Outlook Express have taken huge chunks of their respective markets, or destroyed the market entirely.
This is because Microsoft is able to "give it away" by charging every user of a Microsoft OS for the development of those products, and automatically distributing those products to "every" (90%+) new computer.
I don't have a choice of whether to use MSN Messenger. I have to, because it comes on all of the computers at work, and thus that is what everyone at work uses to communicate.
No one uses Eudora anymore, because Outlook Express is bundled with Windows and has the same functionality. Eudora, on the other hand, has to pay their employees somehow.
Microsoft is in a unique scenario compared to Google, Linux, or Mac because of their OS monopoly. Even if you try to argue Google has a monopoly on something (Search? Advertising?), they haven't abused it to compete unfairly in other markets.
If I had the choice to use superior products instead of using Microsofts' products, I would. I do not have that choice.
putting out lots of side products that have little to moderate success
Yes
attempting to tie branded products together to create one giant platform
Google uses open formats and platforms, and does not "shove" its additional products down users' throats in an effort to extend a monopoly in one area into others.
Microsoft behaves badly, people dislike them for it.
Google behaves well, people like them for it.
Except for Microsoft apologists, who struggle to come up with some reason Google is evil (OH NO THEY HAS OUR DATAS!, etc.)
If she was posting under a pseudonym, you might have a point. This is hardly the first time employers have made decisions about employees' ability to do their job based on public information.
Yeah, this. I made the mistake of RingTFA too. Makes it pretty easy to understand why this lady resigned after making those comments in a place where she could be tied back to her (political) career.
The real question here: Is having 1 grand social network to rule them all a Good Thing? Do you really want your mom and your employer able to see everything you say on every forum and to every friend?
AFAIK a flash exploit would still be running as your user and be very limited in what it can do.
To gain root access to your system it would have to piggyback on an independent root escalation exploit, or perhaps keylog the user escalating to root priviledges, if the OS allows user-level evesdropping on escalation dialogues.
So yes, the Unix security model is still a big improvement.
I believe Vista is trying to follow the same conventions, it's just having a difficult time doing so while trying to remain remotely backwards-compatible with the many apps coded for prior Windows versions that expect to be able to do anything to the system.
You heard it here first, Anonymous Cowardon is right.
I use Flashblock in every browser that has Flash installed, but I've still seen Flash crashing my browser anyway, and I suspect some exploits will work despite Flashblock as well.
I'd actually phrase it as a scam perpetrated on the content manufacturers BY the content manufacturers themselves. They're scamming themselves into progressing their business model. =\
1) Become a slave, eat, live, and continue to fight against slavery. In this case of iTunes this led to non-DRM music, aka the abolishment of slavery.
2) Die. There are no slaves, but you're also, ya know, dead.
To be honest, I think #1 only worked out for music because iTunes had enough of a monopoly on digital music early on that it put the music industry in a tough spot.
We haven't seen any such opening up with movies or TV shows, where there's more competition. Ironically, these are much larger files that are harder to share online in the first place!
Personally I don't buy DRM content except if you count online PC games that are limited to 1 login per cd-key. But I do buy DVDs and rip them to get them in a DRM-free digital format. If a company can ever squeeze out some DRM-free movies or TV shows, hopefully the surge in popularity+profits will push the entire market towards DRM-free.
Yeah, it can hurt to admit, but for example by using DRM, Apple was able to get iTunes such huge market share that they could:
a) demonstrate to the music industry that online distribution was possible and profitable
b) after (a), force the industry's hand into getting them to remove the DRM, due to customer complaints and (maybe more importantly) customer's and apples' willingness to increase prices for the non-DRM versions of the songs
Likewise Valve has jump-started PC game digital distribution with Steam, making more products available online. And unlike iTunes, Steam carries with it various advantages over retail distribution, such as being able to download and play your games without a CD. Not that this is impossible without DRM, but the DRM enabled Steam to offer these features for games.
You may be right about the investment firms, but I'd be interested to see some numbers - I really don't know how many employees (and in what jobs) they have. But I'd be surprised if a majority of the total employees at those banks were making obscene amounts of money.
What about GM - a great example of a bad company that was poorly run and didn't "deserve" to survive. How many more people in Detroit, for example, would go out of business when all of GM gets laid off? Is it worth punishing all of those other people in an already-bad economy to "set an example" of GM?
I'm no fan of executive pay and bonuses, but HYPOTHETICALLY, that guy getting 100 million could be getting 90 million at the bank next door, and would jump ship if he was not adequately compensated.
These are extremes, but so is the reality of the payscales at these (huge) firms. Let's say these 2 firms, instead of being banks, are firms that deal in rocket science (to use a cliche). There are only 3 people in the entire world who know this particular rocket science.
So Bob with the 100 million bonus is legitimately necessary to that business operating. Your choices are to lose him and EVERYONE at the company loses their job, or you fire as many low-wage workers as necessary or possible to keep him.
HOWEVER, I don't agree at all that this rocket science scenario is legitimate. Nothing is really that hard.
It was a waste of the larger companies money,
Agreed - so how can companies get away with wasting so much money? The problem is massive consolidation in (most) US markets. When there are only 2 to 3 companies, or fewer, there is no competition. Prices are higher than they should be. Massive profits are raked in and handed to whoever happens to be at the top of the near-monopoly corporation. Capitalism cannot function successfully with such large companies.
If US regulators prevented such extreme consolidation, then there would be legitimate competition in both prices and wages. Bob the executive could not get a 100,000,000 bonus because the company would not have that much profit to overpay someone that much. Prices would come down on the products or services before the company would ever have that much profit.
This is exactly the problem in health care too. Would health care costs be so exorbitant if Blue Cross, Anthem, and so on were actually separate companies competing on prices and services? Of course not. That's the reason companies buy up competitors - it lets them offer worse service at a higher price, and their customers have no choice in the matter.
The only question is - why does the US government let companies do this? Of course the answer is - those businesses are the ones paying for the senators' and congressmen's campaigns. Customers and individuals have very little influence on what the US government does these days.
You seem to think that corporations are laying off people who:
a) they can afford to pay
b) are doing useful work
That is not what is happening, at least not in our economy as a whole right now. Business have less demand for their goods and services. Because of that, they a) can't afford to pay employees, and usually also b) don't have work for employees to do.
And where would all of the employees who work for those companies be working, in this hypothetical scenario?
And how are all of the other companies in the US going to stay in business and avoid layoffs themselves if all of those other people are now out of work and unable to purchase goods and services?
I think you have an extremely unrealistic view of how fast the market can rebound to several large companies going out of business and laying off that many employees.
If a library can be linked to without the sourc I can't imagine you would ever need to open source other code that linked to those libraries. That means the code can link to any implementation of those libraries, whether or not the particular implementation used on a system is GPLed.
If you go in and edit the code for those libraries before compiling and linking to them, that is when (and what) would need to be open sourced under the GPL.
(again, not an expert so feel free to tell me I'm completely wrong!)
GPL = Viral = explicit+known requirements for use = no risk unless you're simply stealing copyrighted code and trying to get away with it
In terms of using other peoples' copyrighted code, the explicit+known requirements of the GPL are a lot less of a risk than you would run into with most other copyrighted code. Go ahead and steal some Microsoft code, for instance - good luck being given the option to open source your code and keep selling your product!
If you use someone else's copyrighted code, you risk a lawsuit unless you conform to their demands.
With the GPL, the demands are setup before the code "stealing" takes place: you're free to use it, but your code must also be made available.
With copyright, the copyright holder could require you to open source your code, could sue you for damages AND shut down your project, or demand huge sums of money (to avoid the suing and shutting down).
Can anyone really say with a straight face that the GPL makes it harder or riskier to use other peoples' code?
Could you please explain how Apple has managed to "quash" any of these from being reported?
Don't you think it's a lot more likely that, considering the number electronic devices that can and do catch fire, that there was absolutely nothing alarming or newsworthy about this extremely small number of incidents?
In Virginia they passed a law banning cell phones ONLY FOR DRIVERS UNDER 18. Ie: for the people who can't vote. Cause whether or not you can vote has a huge impact on whether talking on the cellphone is distracting, right?
Of course all of this could be handled easily by having added penalties for dangerous driving while distracted.
Why make a law for every single possible way to be distracted while driving? Cell phones, eating, shaving, putting on makeup, loose dog (hi Stephen King), falling asleep, and so on.
Cell phones should be treated like every other distraction. If you're driving safely, there's no problem. If you're swerving or cause an accident, you should get in trouble.
Just to be clear, this is one way in which "smart" interfaces are worse than dumb ones. There are also many advantages to smart interfaces. It's a tradeoff, and for now there is no way to get the best of both worlds.
It'll be nice when we can have raised buttons that can also change and disappear as appropriate for different interfaces.
At my elementary school the parents of the "stupid" kids started whining that their kids were being labeled and placed in the "stupid" class. They raised a fuss and had the classes all mixed together the next year.
In 2nd grade I got straight As in the smart class.
In 3rd grade I got straight As in the mixed class without having to do ANY work, and while being completely bored to death for 90% of the school day. I even got in trouble by trying to make things challenging for myself because I was so bored.
After that 1 year the students were re-segregated into smart and stupid classes again. Why? Because the stupid kids' parents were upset that their kids were now surrounded by kids who could run circles around them in class. They were being given the same material and grading scale as the smart kids, and the result was their kids felt even stupider and hopeless.
In 4th grade I got my first C. I had been broken of thinking school was fun and challenging, and started doing the bare minimum to get by. I managed to stay in the gifted classes for the rest of school, but always getting Bs and Cs, sometimes worse.
I have to wonder what my work ethic would be like (and indeed, my whole persona) if I hadn't been taught in 3rd grade that I was smarter than everyone else and could get by without any effort.
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed with both you and GP. I slow down for tailgaters.
I also let drivers pass if they want to go a faster speed than I am, and I have the opportunity to get out of their way.
If there's a car right in front of me and someone is tailgating me, I don't hesitate to slow down until they're a safe distance behind me.
Microsoft has a monopoly in the OS market which has resulted in (some) software being written only for Windows, which is then required to participate in certain work or play sectors of the market.
Microsoft has a monopoly on Office software by using closed formats which prevent competing software from participating (in any meaningful way) in the Office software market. Good luck going into work and saying "Hey Boss, go ahead and save $200 and get me OpenOffice instead of MS Office".
Microsoft has bundled numerous applications into its monopoly Operating System for the purpose of extinguishing competition in additional markets. Products such as Internet Explorer, MSN Messenger, Outlook Express have taken huge chunks of their respective markets, or destroyed the market entirely.
This is because Microsoft is able to "give it away" by charging every user of a Microsoft OS for the development of those products, and automatically distributing those products to "every" (90%+) new computer.
I don't have a choice of whether to use MSN Messenger. I have to, because it comes on all of the computers at work, and thus that is what everyone at work uses to communicate.
No one uses Eudora anymore, because Outlook Express is bundled with Windows and has the same functionality. Eudora, on the other hand, has to pay their employees somehow.
Microsoft is in a unique scenario compared to Google, Linux, or Mac because of their OS monopoly. Even if you try to argue Google has a monopoly on something (Search? Advertising?), they haven't abused it to compete unfairly in other markets.
If I had the choice to use superior products instead of using Microsofts' products, I would. I do not have that choice.
putting out lots of side products that have little to moderate success
Yes
attempting to tie branded products together to create one giant platform
Google uses open formats and platforms, and does not "shove" its additional products down users' throats in an effort to extend a monopoly in one area into others.
Microsoft behaves badly, people dislike them for it.
Google behaves well, people like them for it.
Except for Microsoft apologists, who struggle to come up with some reason Google is evil (OH NO THEY HAS OUR DATAS!, etc.)
Private Life != Public Internet Forum
If she was posting under a pseudonym, you might have a point. This is hardly the first time employers have made decisions about employees' ability to do their job based on public information.
Yeah, this. I made the mistake of RingTFA too. Makes it pretty easy to understand why this lady resigned after making those comments in a place where she could be tied back to her (political) career.
The real question here: Is having 1 grand social network to rule them all a Good Thing? Do you really want your mom and your employer able to see everything you say on every forum and to every friend?
AFAIK a flash exploit would still be running as your user and be very limited in what it can do.
To gain root access to your system it would have to piggyback on an independent root escalation exploit, or perhaps keylog the user escalating to root priviledges, if the OS allows user-level evesdropping on escalation dialogues.
So yes, the Unix security model is still a big improvement.
I believe Vista is trying to follow the same conventions, it's just having a difficult time doing so while trying to remain remotely backwards-compatible with the many apps coded for prior Windows versions that expect to be able to do anything to the system.
You heard it here first, Anonymous Cowardon is right.
I use Flashblock in every browser that has Flash installed, but I've still seen Flash crashing my browser anyway, and I suspect some exploits will work despite Flashblock as well.
In a way...yes :)
I'd actually phrase it as a scam perpetrated on the content manufacturers BY the content manufacturers themselves. They're scamming themselves into progressing their business model. =\
Being a bit more pragmatic, your options are:
1) Become a slave, eat, live, and continue to fight against slavery. In this case of iTunes this led to non-DRM music, aka the abolishment of slavery.
2) Die. There are no slaves, but you're also, ya know, dead.
To be honest, I think #1 only worked out for music because iTunes had enough of a monopoly on digital music early on that it put the music industry in a tough spot.
We haven't seen any such opening up with movies or TV shows, where there's more competition. Ironically, these are much larger files that are harder to share online in the first place!
Personally I don't buy DRM content except if you count online PC games that are limited to 1 login per cd-key. But I do buy DVDs and rip them to get them in a DRM-free digital format. If a company can ever squeeze out some DRM-free movies or TV shows, hopefully the surge in popularity+profits will push the entire market towards DRM-free.
Yeah, it can hurt to admit, but for example by using DRM, Apple was able to get iTunes such huge market share that they could:
a) demonstrate to the music industry that online distribution was possible and profitable
b) after (a), force the industry's hand into getting them to remove the DRM, due to customer complaints and (maybe more importantly) customer's and apples' willingness to increase prices for the non-DRM versions of the songs
Likewise Valve has jump-started PC game digital distribution with Steam, making more products available online. And unlike iTunes, Steam carries with it various advantages over retail distribution, such as being able to download and play your games without a CD. Not that this is impossible without DRM, but the DRM enabled Steam to offer these features for games.
You may be right about the investment firms, but I'd be interested to see some numbers - I really don't know how many employees (and in what jobs) they have. But I'd be surprised if a majority of the total employees at those banks were making obscene amounts of money.
What about GM - a great example of a bad company that was poorly run and didn't "deserve" to survive. How many more people in Detroit, for example, would go out of business when all of GM gets laid off? Is it worth punishing all of those other people in an already-bad economy to "set an example" of GM?
I'm no fan of executive pay and bonuses, but HYPOTHETICALLY, that guy getting 100 million could be getting 90 million at the bank next door, and would jump ship if he was not adequately compensated.
These are extremes, but so is the reality of the payscales at these (huge) firms. Let's say these 2 firms, instead of being banks, are firms that deal in rocket science (to use a cliche). There are only 3 people in the entire world who know this particular rocket science.
So Bob with the 100 million bonus is legitimately necessary to that business operating. Your choices are to lose him and EVERYONE at the company loses their job, or you fire as many low-wage workers as necessary or possible to keep him.
HOWEVER, I don't agree at all that this rocket science scenario is legitimate. Nothing is really that hard.
It was a waste of the larger companies money,
Agreed - so how can companies get away with wasting so much money? The problem is massive consolidation in (most) US markets. When there are only 2 to 3 companies, or fewer, there is no competition. Prices are higher than they should be. Massive profits are raked in and handed to whoever happens to be at the top of the near-monopoly corporation. Capitalism cannot function successfully with such large companies.
If US regulators prevented such extreme consolidation, then there would be legitimate competition in both prices and wages. Bob the executive could not get a 100,000,000 bonus because the company would not have that much profit to overpay someone that much. Prices would come down on the products or services before the company would ever have that much profit.
This is exactly the problem in health care too. Would health care costs be so exorbitant if Blue Cross, Anthem, and so on were actually separate companies competing on prices and services? Of course not. That's the reason companies buy up competitors - it lets them offer worse service at a higher price, and their customers have no choice in the matter.
The only question is - why does the US government let companies do this? Of course the answer is - those businesses are the ones paying for the senators' and congressmen's campaigns. Customers and individuals have very little influence on what the US government does these days.
(sorry to go off on such a tanget :)
Not mod points, just wanted to vote you up for getting to the real heart of the matter along with great links backing it up.
You seem to think that corporations are laying off people who:
a) they can afford to pay
b) are doing useful work
That is not what is happening, at least not in our economy as a whole right now. Business have less demand for their goods and services. Because of that, they a) can't afford to pay employees, and usually also b) don't have work for employees to do.
With A+B, why would you NOT lay off employees?
And where would all of the employees who work for those companies be working, in this hypothetical scenario?
And how are all of the other companies in the US going to stay in business and avoid layoffs themselves if all of those other people are now out of work and unable to purchase goods and services?
I think you have an extremely unrealistic view of how fast the market can rebound to several large companies going out of business and laying off that many employees.
IANAL but:
If a library can be linked to without the sourc I can't imagine you would ever need to open source other code that linked to those libraries. That means the code can link to any implementation of those libraries, whether or not the particular implementation used on a system is GPLed.
If you go in and edit the code for those libraries before compiling and linking to them, that is when (and what) would need to be open sourced under the GPL.
(again, not an expert so feel free to tell me I'm completely wrong!)
Exactly, GPL-haters are trying to frame it as:
GPL = Viral = risky to use
When it's really
GPL = Viral = explicit+known requirements for use = no risk unless you're simply stealing copyrighted code and trying to get away with it
In terms of using other peoples' copyrighted code, the explicit+known requirements of the GPL are a lot less of a risk than you would run into with most other copyrighted code. Go ahead and steal some Microsoft code, for instance - good luck being given the option to open source your code and keep selling your product!
If you use someone else's copyrighted code, you risk a lawsuit unless you conform to their demands.
With the GPL, the demands are setup before the code "stealing" takes place: you're free to use it, but your code must also be made available.
With copyright, the copyright holder could require you to open source your code, could sue you for damages AND shut down your project, or demand huge sums of money (to avoid the suing and shutting down).
Can anyone really say with a straight face that the GPL makes it harder or riskier to use other peoples' code?
"amateurs" are mostly hobbyists
Yes
Amateur implies a certain level of skill on par or slightly below professionals
It implies, depending on field, a lack of resources and tools that professionals may have available. It does not imply a lack of skill or effort.
Could you please explain how Apple has managed to "quash" any of these from being reported?
Don't you think it's a lot more likely that, considering the number electronic devices that can and do catch fire, that there was absolutely nothing alarming or newsworthy about this extremely small number of incidents?
Foxes can fly???? I WANT ONE
They plan to provide WIFI at the theaters so players can bring their laptops.
Players without laptops will require a family member or friend to take their spot in the raid, or risk getting kicked from their guild
>.
In Virginia they passed a law banning cell phones ONLY FOR DRIVERS UNDER 18. Ie: for the people who can't vote. Cause whether or not you can vote has a huge impact on whether talking on the cellphone is distracting, right?
Of course all of this could be handled easily by having added penalties for dangerous driving while distracted.
Why make a law for every single possible way to be distracted while driving? Cell phones, eating, shaving, putting on makeup, loose dog (hi Stephen King), falling asleep, and so on.
Cell phones should be treated like every other distraction. If you're driving safely, there's no problem. If you're swerving or cause an accident, you should get in trouble.
Just to be clear, this is one way in which "smart" interfaces are worse than dumb ones. There are also many advantages to smart interfaces. It's a tradeoff, and for now there is no way to get the best of both worlds.
It'll be nice when we can have raised buttons that can also change and disappear as appropriate for different interfaces.
At my elementary school the parents of the "stupid" kids started whining that their kids were being labeled and placed in the "stupid" class. They raised a fuss and had the classes all mixed together the next year.
In 2nd grade I got straight As in the smart class.
In 3rd grade I got straight As in the mixed class without having to do ANY work, and while being completely bored to death for 90% of the school day. I even got in trouble by trying to make things challenging for myself because I was so bored.
After that 1 year the students were re-segregated into smart and stupid classes again. Why? Because the stupid kids' parents were upset that their kids were now surrounded by kids who could run circles around them in class. They were being given the same material and grading scale as the smart kids, and the result was their kids felt even stupider and hopeless.
In 4th grade I got my first C. I had been broken of thinking school was fun and challenging, and started doing the bare minimum to get by. I managed to stay in the gifted classes for the rest of school, but always getting Bs and Cs, sometimes worse.
I have to wonder what my work ethic would be like (and indeed, my whole persona) if I hadn't been taught in 3rd grade that I was smarter than everyone else and could get by without any effort.