I know dick about the Martian atmosphere, but I know about photography and photoshop. The "corrected" image on that page is wrong. It has an overall cyan cast. For most images there is a sweet spot where you get the most vibrancy. If there is a colour cast, it degrades that vibrancy and makes the picture look flatter. You can clearly see this effect in comparing the two images. Its possible that the person didn't do a proper job with photoshop and the image needs a differential correction rather than a uniform change, but that's not evident from the picture.
I think we should congratulate the core team for doing the right thing. Its pretty rare for any institution to volintarily disband no matter how irrelevant it becomes. I can think of a few institutions a lot less relevant than this group that have continued plugging along for generations.
These people are showing maturity and class usually missing in the software industry. Just by taking this action, the team has refuted one of the more subtle FUD points out there, that projects will eventually peter out or be consumed by internal bickering.
I don't understand the outrage. Us Canadians have been looking on with envy at the antics of the RIAA all these years. If America has music facists, then we will have music facists. And they'll be made-in-Canada facists to boot. Let nobody say we are second best at anything.
Could they be any more stupid? I'd pick a nice Fortune 500 company with very few Linux installs. Settling would be tempting and cheap. SCO would have an easy victory and some much needed credibility. Google would be a terrible target because they wouldn't roll over
for several reasons. First, Linux is central to their core business proposition.
Second, they can evaluate for themselves the validity of SCO's claims. Third,
they are no doubt very aware of the story so far (IBM counter suit, RedHat suit,
the German ruling). And last, they will be familiar enough with IP law to know
SCO has no legal basis for suing end-users for copyright infringement. And even
if they did, until the IBM case is decided they can't prove infrigement at
all.
I can see how such a move could be compelling to our stupid friends, however.
Big well known company, high-profile Linux user, huge potential liability if SCO
were able to claim punitive damages from end- users, vulnerable because IPO
coming up and of course the impossibly fabulous power that would come from
getting Google to knuckle under. Oh please, please. please sue Google. I think
you'd see a counter suit that would make IBM's and RedHat's look like velvet
by comparison.
That brings up the other point worth mentioning. If SCO actually sues someone,
and that someone does not negotiate a settlement on the spot, this game will
change dramatically in short order. RedHat's suit would no longer be
theoretical. Their desire for an injunction would become urgent. And any other
company that sells, supports or makes money in any way from Linux would also
have a powerful motivation to seek their own unjunctions. If SCO sues, I think
its quite likely that within 60 days of their filing, they will be on the
receiving end of dozens of lawsuits. If any are successful, SCO would have to shut up for the duration of the IBM trial. Then the balance changes. SCO's interest would
be in hurrying up the case, not dragging it out. That 2005 court date would all
of a sudden seem a very, very long time away.
It comes to this, without legislative exemption from anti-competitive laws, the **AA can't compete. And they know it.
The RIAA has been a bit hysterical and made some cruicial blunders. They first went to court instead of to Washington, and their scorched earth campagin isn't working out too well. The various challenges to their subpoenas may invalidate the "shoot first and ask questions later" provisions of the DMCA. I think the MPAA is not amused or appreciative. What they are is scared. This weekend one of the pre-movie commercials at my local Cineplex was an MPAA thingy showing a real working stiff in the movie business to make the point that movie trading hurts real people. Unlike their music buddies, the MPAA has used the courts sparingly and put most of their effort into Washington lobbying. But even that's not gone well. Fritz Holling's bill was a PR disaster. Orrin Hatch's remarks earlier this year that copyright holders should be able to invade people's computers was worse. Even the senate big-wigs felt compelled to issue statements disagreeing.
And now this. They need the Government's protection to survive. They need exemption from anti-trust laws, no matter what the political consequences, or they're toast. Even if you believe all politicians are dishonest bastards, its hard to see how Hatch's little trick will work. One thing politicians really don't like is political headaches. And most are quite willing to toast contributors if there is a need for expediency. Can you imagine the furor if this got passed? Every representative would be flooded with requests by other industries for a similar exemption. All would demand that if it could be done for the movie and music businesses, it could damn well be done for them. And that's a headache no senator or congressman wants to get. Look for a lot of senators suddenly being too busy to answer Hatch's phone calls.
You know who does the cost/benefit analysis? Every hardware manufacturer on the left hand side of the Pacific Ocean. They care very much about pennies. They really hate paying tolls for proprietary standards. They really hate fussy media formats. They really hate the demands of content owners. Most of all, they really hate anything that will turn off their customers and reduce sales.
I am starting to think that the Athlon 64 I'm going to buy(when the price comes down a bit) may be my last CPU purchase for many years. Later board/chip combos look increasingly scary. Watch for a brisk underground economy develop for the last generations of DRM, TCP and MS free technology. It won't be much of a hardship. I can play games now at 1280x1024 in 32bit. By the time the curtain comes down, I'll be able to play them with anti-aliasing as well. Nothing else I have ever done (including voice recognition) needed the kind of horsepower required by Unreal Tournament 2003. If my computer can play that, its going to be a looooong time until I buy another.
Good points, but the game is changing fast. Five years ago, markets outside North America (except for Europe) were considered irrelevant in the industry. Not anymore. Check out this interesting story . Or let me summarize the important points:
The Thai Government's cheap Linux computer program is a smashing success.
A local (Linux only) PC vendor has just passed HP to become the largest vendor in the country.
Gartner says that only 40% of new computers sold in Thailand this year had Windows installed.
All this bad news after MS dropped the price of Windows+Office to US$37. If that's still too much, you can buy a Windows CD on many streetcorners for US$4. Clearly, many people are choosing Linux. Why do they want Linux instead of Windows? Because of a brilliant localization effort by the country's Linux community. The Linux Thai language support is far better, apparently, than Microsoft's.
This leads to the interesting proposition that localization can be done better and cheaper by local volonteers. Product managers sitting in Redmond don't have the incentive or resources to compete with hundreds of grassroots efforts.
Thailand is not an exception, its just a few years ahead of other countries. Remember in Jurassic Park when the glass of water started shaking ominously? Thailand and Israel are the first two ripples.
Its important to continually restate the basic facts of the case. SCO is using the "Big Lie" propaganda strategy. To do this you keep saying big lies, the bigger the better. Eventually, some subset of the listeners will come to believe the lie, and another larger subset will come to believe some subset of the lie. In addition, all will be cowed. "Best not to risk it" being roughly equal to "you win". This method was perfected by Josef Goebbles (not that I want to trivialize his crimes through comparison to SCO). Of course Goebbles had sufficient control of the media to ensure no confilcting messages or inconvenient facts got in the way. Darl doesn't have that luxury. But the best way to counter the strategy is continual restatement of the facts in a credible manner. This paper should be viewed in that light, and is an excellent contribution to the cause.
There was no overturning of the verdict, or a new trial. The Appeals Court upheld Jackson's finding of facts, and his conclusions in law. Microsoft is a monopoly and broke the law to maintain and extend that monopoly. What the court disagreed with was Jackson's remedies. Jackson ordered the company broken up, and the Appeals Court recinded that order.
Because Jackson had made critical remarks about Microsoft in the press, the court pulled the case from him and gave it to Kollar-Kotelly. She ran an extended hearing about the proper punishment for Microsoft and decided a slap on the wrist was the most appropriate remedy.
Massachusetts (and others) disagreed that her orders were sufficient to redress the offenses. They appealed her orders to the same Appeals Court who held a hearing on the matter a couple of weeks ago. And there is stands. Microsoft is a monopolist convicted of breaking the law, and Kollar-Kotelly's orders stand unless the Appeals Court overturns them as well. That would be a long-shot. They may add a few bits and pieces to "ensure" MS is deprived of the friuts of their crimes, but that's about it.
As an MBA who neither rose through the ranks or got anything through cronyism I'll claim a unique viewpoint on this. I agree with everything bladernr wrote, and then some. For every empty headed MBA type (and I've seen plenty) I have also seen a bone headed developer. No group has a monopoly on stupidity. To think so is a sign of immaturity. And for raw arrogance and ignorance, nobody can beat a 22 year old self-taught developer who thinks they are brilliant. Usually, the more brilliant they think they are, the less brilliant they really are.
A good business needs a lot of different skills. It needs people who can do the business stuff, the bookeeping stuff, the marketing stuff, the shipping stuff, the HR stuff and the coding stuff. Anyone that thinks their part of the process is irreducibly important and everyone is expendible is simply a moron. They have no value to any organization and I would fire them in a heartbeat. That they might be a key executive, or a key developer is irrelevant. Keeping them will do far more damage to the company than getting rid of them.
That said, I've seen quite a few CEOs up close. Some were idiots, some crooked, most pretty competent and a few really, really good. Anyone that can do a decent job as a CEO is a pretty unusual person. Its an almost impossible job. What's amazing is not that a few people can do it well, but that anyone can do it at all. I've got no problem with a good CEO making a ton of money. However, what we've got now is a distorted market. A good CEO should get a nice slice of the wealth they help create. But now, bad CEOs get a nice slice no matter how well or badly they do the job. Being appointed to a top job should be an opportunity for personal wealth, not a guarantee of it.
The parent did not say you should shut up and not question why they made their decision. It said that the question of monopoly is settled from a legal standpoint. You can question the why and how of the decision all you want. That doesn't change the fact that in law, MS is a monopoly. The Sherman Act does not specify a 100% market share as a condition. As the parent said, a predatory monopolist could simply keep one weak competitor alive and get away with anything.
Every time MS anti-trust news comes up anywhere, someone invariably voices the opinion that MS is not a monopoly. This is utter nonsense and should be roundly condemned. Monopoly is both a legal and economic concept. In legal terms, this is settled. They have been so found by the US Federal Courts. Both at trial and on appeal. You may know a lot about computers, but I think US Federal judges know more about the law. One can debate the relevancy of the legal definition, or the fairness of the process, but one cannot debate the fact of the matter. Microsoft is, legally, a monopoly.
The economic definition of monopoly is looser than the legal. Anyone with a dominant market position could qualify. Someone with a 90% market share, the ability to change price at will, and the means to move the overall market is a monopoly in every sense of the word. Simply to say that one needs a 100% market share to qualify is nonsense. All MS would need to do to avoid anti-trust problems would be to not entirely wipe out the competition. Throw a few crumbs. Like say investing $150 million in Apple and continuing to provide Office and IE for Mac.
Its nice that you use only Linux and avoid MS products. That is to be commended. But to extrapolate your experience market-wide is rank arrogance. Just because you personally haven't suffered because of their crimes is entirely irrelevant. If a bank gets robbed, but it wasn't your money, would you argue the robber should get off?
Microsoft is a monopoly, they broke the law in protecting and extending that monopoly. They are liable for punishment. These are facts, not opinion, and not open to debate.
That's how long it takes a signal to reach us from the probe. When you consider the galaxy is 100,000 light years across, 8.4 billion miles is nothing.
The company I work for, Hotsprings Inc., has been accused often of providing spyware. This is because we use Cydoor to deliver ads in the PC version. By most definitions, our Cydoor implementation is not spyware. The user consents to its install, it works only with Hotline and only when the app is open, It does not collect info on the user or their activities, and it has an explicit uninstall on the "Add-Remove Software" control panel. That has not stopped people from claiming we are gathering all kinds of nasty information for the CIA/FBI/Mi5/DOJ/CSIS/MS. And that we do it on both the Mac and PC. Even though Cydoor only works on Windows. Cydoor themselves have felt the heat from PR and stopped issuing unique user IDs. So they are no longer spyware by most definitions. But they still show up on all the lists.
I strongly suspect that there has been a loosely organized FUD campaign by those who had disputes with the old company that ran Hotline. Despite the damage the FUD has done to our business, I don't see any positive outcome from this. Lawsuits don't address the real problem, a negative perception of the company by users. We have confined ourselves to stating the kind of arguments above, and left it at that. Since the application is now open source, I had thought the allegations would dry up on their own. They are reduced, but have never entirely gone away.
With all this trouble, why do we still use Cydoor and an ad mechanism? Because for a developer like us, its the only game in town. Hotline Communications used to sell the app as shareware. They had a take-up rate of about 1/2 of 1%. The fact that the app is widely used to trade files tends to cultivate a user base lacking a commitment to pay for software. The only way we can get any kind of revenue from the app is ads. Mind you this is the branded, mass-market version. Anyone can compile the source to get an ad-free version.
So what is a developer to do? If our experience is anything like others, the mere presence of ads will attract potentially devestating spyware charges. And once made, the charges hang in the air like a bad smell for a long time. Its virtually impossible to successfully refute the charges if they are not true, or to repent if they are. If you want to really screw someone, call their app spyware.
Then we get bullshit like this from Gator. Don't they know how the Internet works? The suit and settlement will cause more negative buzz than anything one site or individual could excite. I say this from the perspective of someone who has had to fight negative buzz. And in a situation where demonstrably false things were being said. This is another example of the failure of lawsuits as a business model. Even if you win, you lose. Because Gator can say (and enforce) anything they want. They are still spyware. And that's the problem, not what someone says about it.
Yesterday morning, when this first broke, the SunnComm CEO dismissed its importance in a CNet story:
"This is not an all-or-nothing thing," Jacobs said. "People can break into your house, because there's lots of information out there on how to pick locks. But that knowledge doesn't mean you don't buy a lock."
But then the story broke out of the industry news and into the mass media. Whoops! I guess the financial markets think that you won't buy a lock that won't work. Panic ensues in the boardroom. SunnComm seemed unavailable for comment by yesterday afternoon when CNN and the "major" media started calling. If they had talked to the media, the quote would have been:
"What the fuck to we do now?"
So someone had the bright idea to sue the messenger. I bet Jack Valent and his movie mogul masters are soooooo pissed at the Music Morons. Between this and the RIAA suopenas, they are wrecking the DMCA.
No, what they are saying here is that the sitefinder service is a violation of the contract. And that if ICANN decides its ok, they will change the contract to allow it.
They are reiterating that Verisign has gone beyond the scope of their mandate regardless of the technical and operational issues. ICANN is raising the stakes.
You know all those posts that have a variation on:
1. Do Something
2. ???
3. Profit!
Now I understand what step 2 is. Sue everyone.
Seriously, though. The boneheads don't have a trademark for "Dewey Decimal" or "Dewey Decimal System" They have "Dewey" (one of a number of different "Dewey"s) and they have "Dewey Decimal Classification", but unless the Library Hotel was being promoted as the "Dewey Decimal Classification Libary Hotel" or "The Official Dewey Decimal Hotel" I don't see a case. And I am familiar with the need to police one's trademarks. This isn't about protecting a trademark because nobody at any time is going to be confused into thinking that the hotel has any relationship with the OCLC. Until this story ran, were there more than a few thousand in the US that even knew the organization existed?
Everyone seems to have missed the one truly scary idea in this story.
The electronic diary can be studied remotely by experts to build up a profile of the offender which will help them predict whether the person will offend again.
The point about narrowing the pool of usual suspects when a crime has been comitted is very fucking scary as well. What if a tagged individual is in the area when a crime is committed by an untagged individual? I sure wouldn't want to be in that guy's position.
The idea of tracking an individual during probation is not in itself objectionable. Those on probation are not considered absolved, they are still serving a portion of their sentence. However, the story indicates the promoters of this technology are not making much of a distinction. And that they expect the offender will continue to wear the device. I'd give this one an 8 out of 10 on the slippery slope scale. If it works with paedophiles, why not track bank robbers to ensure they only use ATMs? How about B&E artists? The system could tell the cops if they were in a strange neighbourhood in the middle of the night. And why not anyone with a history of violent crime? Think how many police officers would be saved by knowing in advance that the car they are stopping contains ex-cons?
Please. It's a monopoly by any reasonable definition you want to use. The mere existence of an alternative means nothing. Why do you breath oxygen? There are many other gases available. Why not try nitrogen today?
As for the whim of a judge... What do you want to do, vote on it? That's what judges are for. Its what the legal system is for. To decide when people break the law. Microsoft is a monopoly and they broke the law. I don't understand why people find this so difficult to get their heads around. Its not a matter of debate. To go on about it is as useful as saying the government persecuted Timothy McVeigh for his political beliefs. Not only wrong, but profoundly missing the point.
You are failing to consider something. Its not a question of force. Its a question of who is in charge. The government has to be in charge because it is accountable to everyone. Microsoft is accountable only to its shareholders. Your point about the government controlling any company it wants is illogical. The government cannot dictate to a company or anyone else except by law and due process. And if the laws the government passess are unconstitutional, they are thrown out by the courts. If the laws are unpopular, the government is thrown out at the next election.
Microsoft had its due process. It is now a matter of factual record that Microsoft's present position is not due to a better product, but to abuse of their monopoly position. And that behaviour was and is contrary to the law. There is no debate about this. To what extent the government should act to correct this is open to debate. That's called politics and everyone is entitled to an opinion.
Slashdot Mirror
I know dick about the Martian atmosphere, but I know about photography and photoshop. The "corrected" image on that page is wrong. It has an overall cyan cast. For most images there is a sweet spot where you get the most vibrancy. If there is a colour cast, it degrades that vibrancy and makes the picture look flatter. You can clearly see this effect in comparing the two images. Its possible that the person didn't do a proper job with photoshop and the image needs a differential correction rather than a uniform change, but that's not evident from the picture.
I think we should congratulate the core team for doing the right thing. Its pretty rare for any institution to volintarily disband no matter how irrelevant it becomes. I can think of a few institutions a lot less relevant than this group that have continued plugging along for generations.
These people are showing maturity and class usually missing in the software industry. Just by taking this action, the team has refuted one of the more subtle FUD points out there, that projects will eventually peter out or be consumed by internal bickering.
For the slow Sunday afternoon readers, I've got a funny pic + comment on King Darl on my website here.
I don't understand the outrage. Us Canadians have been looking on with envy at the antics of the RIAA all these years. If America has music facists, then we will have music facists. And they'll be made-in-Canada facists to boot. Let nobody say we are second best at anything.
Could they be any more stupid? I'd pick a nice Fortune 500 company with very few Linux installs. Settling would be tempting and cheap. SCO would have an easy victory and some much needed credibility. Google would be a terrible target because they wouldn't roll over for several reasons. First, Linux is central to their core business proposition. Second, they can evaluate for themselves the validity of SCO's claims. Third, they are no doubt very aware of the story so far (IBM counter suit, RedHat suit, the German ruling). And last, they will be familiar enough with IP law to know SCO has no legal basis for suing end-users for copyright infringement. And even if they did, until the IBM case is decided they can't prove infrigement at all.
I can see how such a move could be compelling to our stupid friends, however. Big well known company, high-profile Linux user, huge potential liability if SCO were able to claim punitive damages from end- users, vulnerable because IPO coming up and of course the impossibly fabulous power that would come from getting Google to knuckle under. Oh please, please. please sue Google. I think you'd see a counter suit that would make IBM's and RedHat's look like velvet by comparison.
That brings up the other point worth mentioning. If SCO actually sues someone, and that someone does not negotiate a settlement on the spot, this game will change dramatically in short order. RedHat's suit would no longer be theoretical. Their desire for an injunction would become urgent. And any other company that sells, supports or makes money in any way from Linux would also have a powerful motivation to seek their own unjunctions. If SCO sues, I think its quite likely that within 60 days of their filing, they will be on the receiving end of dozens of lawsuits. If any are successful, SCO would have to shut up for the duration of the IBM trial. Then the balance changes. SCO's interest would be in hurrying up the case, not dragging it out. That 2005 court date would all of a sudden seem a very, very long time away.
It comes to this, without legislative exemption from anti-competitive laws, the **AA can't compete. And they know it.
The RIAA has been a bit hysterical and made some cruicial blunders. They first went to court instead of to Washington, and their scorched earth campagin isn't working out too well. The various challenges to their subpoenas may invalidate the "shoot first and ask questions later" provisions of the DMCA. I think the MPAA is not amused or appreciative. What they are is scared. This weekend one of the pre-movie commercials at my local Cineplex was an MPAA thingy showing a real working stiff in the movie business to make the point that movie trading hurts real people. Unlike their music buddies, the MPAA has used the courts sparingly and put most of their effort into Washington lobbying. But even that's not gone well. Fritz Holling's bill was a PR disaster. Orrin Hatch's remarks earlier this year that copyright holders should be able to invade people's computers was worse. Even the senate big-wigs felt compelled to issue statements disagreeing.
And now this. They need the Government's protection to survive. They need exemption from anti-trust laws, no matter what the political consequences, or they're toast. Even if you believe all politicians are dishonest bastards, its hard to see how Hatch's little trick will work. One thing politicians really don't like is political headaches. And most are quite willing to toast contributors if there is a need for expediency. Can you imagine the furor if this got passed? Every representative would be flooded with requests by other industries for a similar exemption. All would demand that if it could be done for the movie and music businesses, it could damn well be done for them. And that's a headache no senator or congressman wants to get. Look for a lot of senators suddenly being too busy to answer Hatch's phone calls.
brilliant
You know who does the cost/benefit analysis? Every hardware manufacturer on the left hand side of the Pacific Ocean. They care very much about pennies. They really hate paying tolls for proprietary standards. They really hate fussy media formats. They really hate the demands of content owners. Most of all, they really hate anything that will turn off their customers and reduce sales.
I am starting to think that the Athlon 64 I'm going to buy(when the price comes down a bit) may be my last CPU purchase for many years. Later board/chip combos look increasingly scary. Watch for a brisk underground economy develop for the last generations of DRM, TCP and MS free technology. It won't be much of a hardship. I can play games now at 1280x1024 in 32bit. By the time the curtain comes down, I'll be able to play them with anti-aliasing as well. Nothing else I have ever done (including voice recognition) needed the kind of horsepower required by Unreal Tournament 2003. If my computer can play that, its going to be a looooong time until I buy another.
-
The Thai Government's cheap Linux computer program is a smashing success.
-
A local (Linux only) PC vendor has just passed HP to become the largest vendor in the country.
-
Gartner says that only 40% of new computers sold in Thailand this year had Windows installed.
All this bad news after MS dropped the price of Windows+Office to US$37. If that's still too much, you can buy a Windows CD on many streetcorners for US$4. Clearly, many people are choosing Linux. Why do they want Linux instead of Windows? Because of a brilliant localization effort by the country's Linux community. The Linux Thai language support is far better, apparently, than Microsoft's. This leads to the interesting proposition that localization can be done better and cheaper by local volonteers. Product managers sitting in Redmond don't have the incentive or resources to compete with hundreds of grassroots efforts.Thailand is not an exception, its just a few years ahead of other countries. Remember in Jurassic Park when the glass of water started shaking ominously? Thailand and Israel are the first two ripples.
Its important to continually restate the basic facts of the case. SCO is using the "Big Lie" propaganda strategy. To do this you keep saying big lies, the bigger the better. Eventually, some subset of the listeners will come to believe the lie, and another larger subset will come to believe some subset of the lie. In addition, all will be cowed. "Best not to risk it" being roughly equal to "you win". This method was perfected by Josef Goebbles (not that I want to trivialize his crimes through comparison to SCO). Of course Goebbles had sufficient control of the media to ensure no confilcting messages or inconvenient facts got in the way. Darl doesn't have that luxury. But the best way to counter the strategy is continual restatement of the facts in a credible manner. This paper should be viewed in that light, and is an excellent contribution to the cause.
There was no overturning of the verdict, or a new trial. The Appeals Court upheld Jackson's finding of facts, and his conclusions in law. Microsoft is a monopoly and broke the law to maintain and extend that monopoly. What the court disagreed with was Jackson's remedies. Jackson ordered the company broken up, and the Appeals Court recinded that order.
Because Jackson had made critical remarks about Microsoft in the press, the court pulled the case from him and gave it to Kollar-Kotelly. She ran an extended hearing about the proper punishment for Microsoft and decided a slap on the wrist was the most appropriate remedy.
Massachusetts (and others) disagreed that her orders were sufficient to redress the offenses. They appealed her orders to the same Appeals Court who held a hearing on the matter a couple of weeks ago. And there is stands. Microsoft is a monopolist convicted of breaking the law, and Kollar-Kotelly's orders stand unless the Appeals Court overturns them as well. That would be a long-shot. They may add a few bits and pieces to "ensure" MS is deprived of the friuts of their crimes, but that's about it.
As an MBA who neither rose through the ranks or got anything through cronyism I'll claim a unique viewpoint on this. I agree with everything bladernr wrote, and then some. For every empty headed MBA type (and I've seen plenty) I have also seen a bone headed developer. No group has a monopoly on stupidity. To think so is a sign of immaturity. And for raw arrogance and ignorance, nobody can beat a 22 year old self-taught developer who thinks they are brilliant. Usually, the more brilliant they think they are, the less brilliant they really are.
A good business needs a lot of different skills. It needs people who can do the business stuff, the bookeeping stuff, the marketing stuff, the shipping stuff, the HR stuff and the coding stuff. Anyone that thinks their part of the process is irreducibly important and everyone is expendible is simply a moron. They have no value to any organization and I would fire them in a heartbeat. That they might be a key executive, or a key developer is irrelevant. Keeping them will do far more damage to the company than getting rid of them.
That said, I've seen quite a few CEOs up close. Some were idiots, some crooked, most pretty competent and a few really, really good. Anyone that can do a decent job as a CEO is a pretty unusual person. Its an almost impossible job. What's amazing is not that a few people can do it well, but that anyone can do it at all. I've got no problem with a good CEO making a ton of money. However, what we've got now is a distorted market. A good CEO should get a nice slice of the wealth they help create. But now, bad CEOs get a nice slice no matter how well or badly they do the job. Being appointed to a top job should be an opportunity for personal wealth, not a guarantee of it.
The parent did not say you should shut up and not question why they made their decision. It said that the question of monopoly is settled from a legal standpoint. You can question the why and how of the decision all you want. That doesn't change the fact that in law, MS is a monopoly. The Sherman Act does not specify a 100% market share as a condition. As the parent said, a predatory monopolist could simply keep one weak competitor alive and get away with anything.
I'd suggest Hotline/Openline (shameless plug).
You can get the compiled binaries of the open source non-banner clients at the following URLs: PC Client, Mac Client
And the servers here: PC Server, Mac Server
Info for the app is here:
Hotsprings
Info on the open source projects here:
Opensprings
Every time MS anti-trust news comes up anywhere, someone invariably voices the opinion that MS is not a monopoly. This is utter nonsense and should be roundly condemned. Monopoly is both a legal and economic concept. In legal terms, this is settled. They have been so found by the US Federal Courts. Both at trial and on appeal. You may know a lot about computers, but I think US Federal judges know more about the law. One can debate the relevancy of the legal definition, or the fairness of the process, but one cannot debate the fact of the matter. Microsoft is, legally, a monopoly.
The economic definition of monopoly is looser than the legal. Anyone with a dominant market position could qualify. Someone with a 90% market share, the ability to change price at will, and the means to move the overall market is a monopoly in every sense of the word. Simply to say that one needs a 100% market share to qualify is nonsense. All MS would need to do to avoid anti-trust problems would be to not entirely wipe out the competition. Throw a few crumbs. Like say investing $150 million in Apple and continuing to provide Office and IE for Mac.
Its nice that you use only Linux and avoid MS products. That is to be commended. But to extrapolate your experience market-wide is rank arrogance. Just because you personally haven't suffered because of their crimes is entirely irrelevant. If a bank gets robbed, but it wasn't your money, would you argue the robber should get off?
Microsoft is a monopoly, they broke the law in protecting and extending that monopoly. They are liable for punishment. These are facts, not opinion, and not open to debate.
That's how long it takes a signal to reach us from the probe. When you consider the galaxy is 100,000 light years across, 8.4 billion miles is nothing.
The company I work for, Hotsprings Inc., has been accused often of providing spyware. This is because we use Cydoor to deliver ads in the PC version. By most definitions, our Cydoor implementation is not spyware. The user consents to its install, it works only with Hotline and only when the app is open, It does not collect info on the user or their activities, and it has an explicit uninstall on the "Add-Remove Software" control panel. That has not stopped people from claiming we are gathering all kinds of nasty information for the CIA/FBI/Mi5/DOJ/CSIS/MS. And that we do it on both the Mac and PC. Even though Cydoor only works on Windows. Cydoor themselves have felt the heat from PR and stopped issuing unique user IDs. So they are no longer spyware by most definitions. But they still show up on all the lists.
I strongly suspect that there has been a loosely organized FUD campaign by those who had disputes with the old company that ran Hotline. Despite the damage the FUD has done to our business, I don't see any positive outcome from this. Lawsuits don't address the real problem, a negative perception of the company by users. We have confined ourselves to stating the kind of arguments above, and left it at that. Since the application is now open source, I had thought the allegations would dry up on their own. They are reduced, but have never entirely gone away.
With all this trouble, why do we still use Cydoor and an ad mechanism? Because for a developer like us, its the only game in town. Hotline Communications used to sell the app as shareware. They had a take-up rate of about 1/2 of 1%. The fact that the app is widely used to trade files tends to cultivate a user base lacking a commitment to pay for software. The only way we can get any kind of revenue from the app is ads. Mind you this is the branded, mass-market version. Anyone can compile the source to get an ad-free version.
So what is a developer to do? If our experience is anything like others, the mere presence of ads will attract potentially devestating spyware charges. And once made, the charges hang in the air like a bad smell for a long time. Its virtually impossible to successfully refute the charges if they are not true, or to repent if they are. If you want to really screw someone, call their app spyware.
Then we get bullshit like this from Gator. Don't they know how the Internet works? The suit and settlement will cause more negative buzz than anything one site or individual could excite. I say this from the perspective of someone who has had to fight negative buzz. And in a situation where demonstrably false things were being said. This is another example of the failure of lawsuits as a business model. Even if you win, you lose. Because Gator can say (and enforce) anything they want. They are still spyware. And that's the problem, not what someone says about it.
Yesterday morning, when this first broke, the SunnComm CEO dismissed its importance in a CNet story:
"This is not an all-or-nothing thing," Jacobs said. "People can break into your house, because there's lots of information out there on how to pick locks. But that knowledge doesn't mean you don't buy a lock."
But then the story broke out of the industry news and into the mass media. Whoops! I guess the financial markets think that you won't buy a lock that won't work. Panic ensues in the boardroom. SunnComm seemed unavailable for comment by yesterday afternoon when CNN and the "major" media started calling. If they had talked to the media, the quote would have been:
"What the fuck to we do now?"
So someone had the bright idea to sue the messenger. I bet Jack Valent and his movie mogul masters are soooooo pissed at the Music Morons. Between this and the RIAA suopenas, they are wrecking the DMCA.
No, what they are saying here is that the sitefinder service is a violation of the contract. And that if ICANN decides its ok, they will change the contract to allow it.
They are reiterating that Verisign has gone beyond the scope of their mandate regardless of the technical and operational issues. ICANN is raising the stakes.
You know all those posts that have a variation on:
1. Do Something
2. ??? 3. Profit!
Now I understand what step 2 is. Sue everyone.
Seriously, though. The boneheads don't have a trademark for "Dewey Decimal" or "Dewey Decimal System" They have "Dewey" (one of a number of different "Dewey"s) and they have "Dewey Decimal Classification", but unless the Library Hotel was being promoted as the "Dewey Decimal Classification Libary Hotel" or "The Official Dewey Decimal Hotel" I don't see a case. And I am familiar with the need to police one's trademarks. This isn't about protecting a trademark because nobody at any time is going to be confused into thinking that the hotel has any relationship with the OCLC. Until this story ran, were there more than a few thousand in the US that even knew the organization existed?
Everyone seems to have missed the one truly scary idea in this story.
The electronic diary can be studied remotely by experts to build up a profile of the offender which will help them predict whether the person will offend again.
I've heard this idea before.
The point about narrowing the pool of usual suspects when a crime has been comitted is very fucking scary as well. What if a tagged individual is in the area when a crime is committed by an untagged individual? I sure wouldn't want to be in that guy's position.
The idea of tracking an individual during probation is not in itself objectionable. Those on probation are not considered absolved, they are still serving a portion of their sentence. However, the story indicates the promoters of this technology are not making much of a distinction. And that they expect the offender will continue to wear the device. I'd give this one an 8 out of 10 on the slippery slope scale. If it works with paedophiles, why not track bank robbers to ensure they only use ATMs? How about B&E artists? The system could tell the cops if they were in a strange neighbourhood in the middle of the night. And why not anyone with a history of violent crime? Think how many police officers would be saved by knowing in advance that the car they are stopping contains ex-cons?
Cause the one field where SCO are undisputed masters is unsubstantiated allegations.
Please. It's a monopoly by any reasonable definition you want to use. The mere existence of an alternative means nothing. Why do you breath oxygen? There are many other gases available. Why not try nitrogen today?
As for the whim of a judge... What do you want to do, vote on it? That's what judges are for. Its what the legal system is for. To decide when people break the law. Microsoft is a monopoly and they broke the law. I don't understand why people find this so difficult to get their heads around. Its not a matter of debate. To go on about it is as useful as saying the government persecuted Timothy McVeigh for his political beliefs. Not only wrong, but profoundly missing the point.
You are failing to consider something. Its not a question of force. Its a question of who is in charge. The government has to be in charge because it is accountable to everyone. Microsoft is accountable only to its shareholders. Your point about the government controlling any company it wants is illogical. The government cannot dictate to a company or anyone else except by law and due process. And if the laws the government passess are unconstitutional, they are thrown out by the courts. If the laws are unpopular, the government is thrown out at the next election.
Microsoft had its due process. It is now a matter of factual record that Microsoft's present position is not due to a better product, but to abuse of their monopoly position. And that behaviour was and is contrary to the law. There is no debate about this. To what extent the government should act to correct this is open to debate. That's called politics and everyone is entitled to an opinion.