The exam had the following preconditions: *Unforgeable pseudonymous identities* Bidirectional, typed, filterable links Arbitrage agents Bonding agents Escrow agents Digital Cash Capability Based Security with Strong Encryption
7) Someone claiming to be you starts roaming the Web making wild claims. You want to make sure people know it isn't really you. Wouldn't unforgeable psuedonymous identities make this impossible?
No, the test was to pick 5 questions, decide which of the above elements would be required to answer the questions, and write an essay detailing how and why.
First of all, did anyone actually read the article before chanting "wait for Mozilla" or talking about boycotting companies that design MSIE-only web pages?
Several of the people being quoted are talking about using a browser either as a front end to a corporate intranet (where standardizing on one browser is feasible), or an application system using XML. It has nothing to do with corporations designing MSIE-only web pages for the internet.
I'm not saying IE is the better browser, or that Mozilla will not beat the pants off of it when it's done, or that I won't use Mozilla when it's done, but it's not done and that is the big reason why these corporate intranet / XML-based applications are using MSIE.
Sure, you can tell me to submit bug reports or fix bugs myself -- despite the fact that I've not been able to get Mozilla to work yet, be it on my Win95 machine at work, my Power Mac at home, or compiling it myseslf on the Linux/PPC partition at home, when I do I'll document every bug I can find -- but are you trying to say the same thing to Burlington Coat Factory? Their IT people probably have better things to do.
Reading that FoF seemed a lot more like an Intel-bashing fest than a Microsoft trial, constantly referring to the infeasbility of alternate microprocessors and OS's for anything but Intel-based systems. Anyone else get the impression this whole process is laying the groundwork to nail Intel next?
The whole thing about "Intel-compatible PCs" is defining what market it is that Microsoft has a monopoly on that it is trying to exploit. (Obviously, Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly on OSes for PPC-based PCs, or for Alpha-based PCs...)
Keep in mind that this isn't a press release from the Department of Justice; this is a legal document. The judge can't "lay groundwork" to "nail Intel" because it's not within his purview.
How is it that this same crowd gladly shouts to the heavens that Microsoft is a monopoly with no competition whatsoever, then the very next moment talks about how much competition Linux is for MS? I really don't like the hipocrasy, could the zealots please make up their minds?
Simple.
The trial isn't about Microsoft's status as a monopoly now; it's about if they were a monopoly at the time of the incidents in question, and if they were using means that are illegal under anti-trust law to extend that monopoly in the case of the incidents in question.
I actually dont mind the Windows OS and am glad they integrated the browser into Windows.
Then you're an idiot, because it's extra baggage for a machine that doesn't need IE installed -- say, a machine that's not going to be connected to the Internet. (Those do exist, you know; I have six of them.)
Some people will start screaming Mac, Mac, Mac but I cannot easily replace a chip in a Mac to make it a bit faster, a faster modem is 3 times the cost of a PC, RAM costs much more, a video card is outrageously priced, etc....
Out of curiosity, do you think it would be that way if Mac had, say, a 40% market share on desktops instead of 10% or whatever it is?
I will be the first to admit that Apple hasn't made the smartest business decisions, but Jackson nailed at least one of MS'c crimes on the head; Apple very likely would not be endorsing or installing MSIE now if Microsoft didn't threaten to kill off MS Office.
I do not agree with allot of the judges "finding of facts" and I really believe this huge waste of my damn tax dollars should never have begun.
Are you just assuming that Jackson made all of this stuff up? News reports of the coverage showed the DOJ's lawyers utterly (and rightfully) destroying the credibility of Microsoft's "experts". As for poor, defenseless MS, no one put a gun to their head and made them submit a forged video demonstration as evidence, put their CEO on the stand unable to withstand cross-examination, or buy "independant studies" and "grassroots support from the little people".
Microsoft has played dirty pool every step of the way of its existence, up to and including its handling of the trial. It's about time someone called them on the carpet for it.
I sometimes build computers for people that have never used a computer. It is much easier for them to start the computer, click on the big globe, dial up to the Internet and then surf around for a while and that is who most of the users are. They may change their desktop to put a picture of their kids on it, but that is about it.
Great. More power to you. I have no problem with MS having a monopoly because their stuff is better, cheaper, or easier to use than any alternatives; if I recall, the Sherman Act protects such "natural monopolies". The problem, is, it's not better, cheaper, or easier to use, at least not in every case.
If I install a Linux OS on their computer, it is going to be nearly impossible for them to get help with problems with their computer and they are going to call me. If they have Windows, they can usually get tips/tricks/help from people they work with, friends, family, etc. They are not going to want to get into IRC or newsgroups to solve problems.
And this would be that "positive network effect" that Jackson was speaking of.
39. Consumer demand for Windows enjoys positive network effects. A positive network effect is a phenomenon by which the attractiveness of a product increases with the number of people using it. The fact that there is a multitude of people using Windows makes the product more attractive to consumers. The large installed base attracts corporate customers who want to use an operating system that new employees are already likely to know how to use, and it attracts academic consumers who want to use software that will allow them to share files easily with colleagues at other institutions. The main reason that demand for Windows experiences positive network effects, however, is that the size of Windows' installed base impels ISVs to write applications first and foremost to Windows, thereby ensuring a large body of applications from which consumers can choose. The large body of applications thus reinforces demand for Windows, augmenting Microsoft's dominant position and thereby perpetuating ISV incentives to write applications principally for Windows. This self-reinforcing cycle is often referred to as a "positive feedback loop."
Now I understand that if I took the time to show them how to compile a piece of software, or modify their path or mount drives, etc, they wouldnt need to find help or call me all the time, but face it, the average user does not want to know how to do this, they want to point and click and Windows has done a fairly good job at this.
I have no problem with Microsoft doing all of that work (or Apple, for that matter); to make a program "intelligent" or "intuitive" often means a lot of work on the part of the programmers.
The Mac is much simplier but the cost of a Mac and the upgrade ability over shadows its ease of use to most people.
Again, we're back to "positive network effects" and economies of scale; it's likely that Windows peripherals might cost more and Mac peripherals might cost less were the PC desktop market more like 60%/40%.
Look at the cosumer market for other products. The clapper for example. How many times have we made fun of that commercial? I actually know a few people that bought it. Bread machines are another example. People want the smell, taste and texture of fresh bread, but they dont want to spend the time rolling the dough, letting it rise and then baking it. They want to open the packets, dump the ingredients in and then go watch soaps.
Again, you're missing the point. I have no problem with Microsoft having a monopoly on operating systems, and keeping that monopoly by having a flat-out better product.
But the problem is, antitrust legislation doesn't allow you to use a monopoly in one market (Intel-based PCs operating systems) as leverage to get a monopoly in another market (in this case, web browsers). At the time MS was trying to crush Netscape, it did not have the better product.
Now as far as browsers go, I prefer IE over Netscape.
That's your right.
I have less problems with IE than I do with Netscape. They both crash just as often, but rendering HTML is better in IE.
Which can probably be chalked up to Netscape not putting a new or updated version of their browser out in what, a couple of YEARS? Yes, I know and hope that Mozilla will kick IE's ass when it's done. The thing is, it's not done, and people have to surf the web now as well in the future. (Which was the whole point of Microsoft's mission in the first place; once everyone is using MSIE and IIS to serve the "dynamic content" you extend protocols like you're rotating shield frequencies on the Enterprise to keep everyone else playing catch-up.)
I believe if there was a better solution out there for your average person to use easily, it would blow Windows out of the water, but it has yet to arrive.
And if the yet-to-arrive product weren't Open Source, Microsoft would probably have tried to buy or otherwise drive the maker out of business. How long do you think the makers of Opera and iCab for the Mac would have lasted if this trial weren't going on, or (even worse) Microsoft had not been found at fault?
The chip industry is a prime example. How long did Intel rule the world for processors?
Now that AMD has come out with lower cost, faster chips they are giving Intel a hell of a run for their money. I love that!!! That's the american way.
Again, it's apples and oranges. The rules for physical products and intangible products (one could say "intellectual property") are different for a reason.
That is what we need, competition, not the tax wasting government to tell us/MS they are a monopoly on the desktop. DUH! We know that!
That's not what they're telling us, dolt. They're telling us that Microsoft is using its monopoly power to make sure it has a monopoly on everything else that isn't nailed down or on fire.
As another poster pointed out (I want to find a source for that story!) an oil/steel/banking consortium was able to amass so much power at its time that the head of that consortium was practically in a position to replace the Federal Government!
Now, instead of being owned by Standard Oil, it'd be people logging onto Microsoft WorldNet with Microsoft Passport on Microsoft Internet Explorer to use Microsoft's BillPay Wizard to pay the bills to Microsoft Interactive Cable Network and Microsoft Office Application Distribution Service, and to check your Hotmail account just in time to get the weekly coupons from Microsoft Grocery Service, and Microsoft/Amazon.com.
If we would have spent the tax dollars on further developing linux or BeOS and making it easier to use than Windows and make it free for computer manufacturers to OEM it on the new PC's,
You are aware the the BeOS is a proprietary product, right? Are you saying that you think it would be okay for the government to subsidize a private corporation to compete with Microsoft? Or that the feds should subsidize the cost of bundling it on PCs? That would be less of an intrusion into the private sector then finding Microsoft guilty of commiting crimes under antitrust law?
Hey Redhat 6.1 came with XMMS instead of X11AMP. I am going to sue Redhat because it did not include my favorite MP3 player. You're bad RH. You're evil!
Now we're comparing apples to bananas. It's a fact of antitrust legislation that the kind of things corporations can do to gain or keep market share are illegal for a corporation that is found to be a monopoly to do.
If Red Hat wants to agree to bundle a product or a service made by another company to the mutual benefit of both, that's one thing. I don't even think there'd be a case if Microsoft had made a strategic alliance with Netscape against a third party (say Opera had come along 5 years earlier) because in theory Netscape can end that alliance or Opera might make Microsoft a better deal.
And of course, we're ignoring the whole Open Source factor; anyone can take Red Hat's installer, RPM package manager and other GPLed goodies and build a Red Hat-style distribution that uses X11AMP instead of XMMS (or KDE instead of GNOME, tcsh over bash, pine over mutt, yadda yadda yadda), and let the better distribution win.
Think of Windows as a car. You get pissed at, kick it, hit it and scream at it sometimes, but would you rather ride a horse or walk?
Not the same thing at all. You're supposing that there is an alternative to Windows that we could switch to on Intel-based PCs. There was in OS/2, but the trial is full of tidbits on how Microsoft killed off that competition by means other than having the better product. I suspect that BeOS was/is next...
If you dont like the color of your living room, you paint it, you dont go sue the house builder because you soon realized that the color of the wall clashed with the window treaments you decided to buy.
You do if the house builder makes you sign a contract before your house is built that says you can't repaint your house, knock out walls, add an extra room later for a nursery, or sell the house without the house builder's approval; and you have no choice because he's forced all of the other house builders in the area out of business or hired them to work for him.
Dont go suing them because you think linux is better or you wanted Netscape instead of IE.
Thanks for demonstrating that you have no idea what this case was about. It was about a company using its time, money and resources to prevent you from having as little choice as possible as to which OS your home PC uses (soon to be followed by web browser, streaming media format, office suite, and who knows what else in the future?)
The development of Linux and the Open Source model may have been the one force that Microsoft could not have bought, put out of business or FUDed into oblivion. Then again, the "Halloween Document" outlined out a strategy to deal with that as well...
As he says so many times it's about free software (free speech) so use the GPL/LGPL. WTF? Is it me, or does the very act of *using* a license prohibit freedom to a certain extent.
You're exactly right. I what I suspect would be Stallman's ideal world, software licenses would not exist. People would write code and rewrite other people's code and share that code with their friends and no one would try to sue to keep you from using their "property" in ways they don't approve of.
But, since that doesn't happen, RMS advocates the GPL instead. The GPL is an attempt to subvert the power of software licenses -- to deny others the freedom to do whatever they want with a product that they possess. In this case, instead of eroding the end users' rights in favor of the vendor, the GPL erodes the rights of the vendor in favor of the end user. If I don't like your product, I can take it apart, figure out how to make it better and sell it myself. At the same time, my users can do the same thing to me.
On a side note, maybe I don't have enough of a technical background, but I fail to see why linking a binary against a GPL library means the binary has to be GPLed to avoid licensing conflicts (the so-called "viral nature" of the GPL, if I understand correctly).
They're still two different products, right? Could I not link it agsinst, say, Microsoft's "Visual C" library (if such a thing exists) as opposed to the GNU C library? If I link GPLed software against a non-GPL library, is _that_ a violation of the GPL?
1) Echelon and similar programs have included industrial espionage to their resume of services offered. I have a few reservations about government being able to tap my phone lines, read my email or whatnot (assuming they can get a search warrant for it) but I have a HUGE problem with listening posts and spies gathering information for corporate interests (be they foreign or domestic).
2) Why are you saying "Well, I don't write about assassinating the president, so they don't listen to me"? How do you think they figure out which emails contain what text? They collect EVERYTHING and sort it out at their leisure.
3) The entertainment industry is to blame for people not trusting their government? Funny, I thought it was things like: * Political candidates using hostages in Iran as bargaining chips to get elected * Idiots campaigning for "family values" who can't keep it in their pants themselves * Eroding personal freedoms in the name of "decency" or "saving the children" * Watergate * Iran/contra Granted, I don't think these groups or individuals are necessarily as malicious or organized as people believe, but entertainment draws as much from real life as it does flights of fancy.
4) Efforts like "Jam Echelon Day" have done nothing but help terrorists get a chance to get by our security. I think that we should instead all do our part to avoid writing e-mail that might get picked up by Echelon to lighten their work load and let them take care of the important stuff. Are you seriously advocating SELF-CENSORSHIP in order to make people who are violating our constitutional rights (not the right to privacy, but the right to unreasonable search and seizure) more effective? "Oh no, we can't talk about terrorism because it eats up valuable processing cycles or disk place for Echelon" Two words: FUCK THEM. Make them work at least as hard as the terrorists are to avoid this kind of detection in the first place.
And, in closing...
May Allah guide our hands as we thrust our swords into the heart of the Great White American Satan!
After reading this post on Cryptography, combined with the earlier posts on the Best hacks, where someone placed a backdoor into the login.c in Unix, I am wondering about the security of Linux and whether there could be backdoors floating around inside the kernel code, init.d or whatever.
The answer is, strictly speaking, "yes, there could be backdoors in init.d, login.c, ftpd, etc."
However, one of the traditionally-acknowledged strengths of open source software over proprietary software is that bugs or backdoors can more easily be detected, reported, and fixed -- be it by the code maintainer, a third-party vendor (Red Hat, Caldera, etc.) or one of the end users themselves. With proporietary software, you are on the vendor's schedule as to when (or even if) a bug is corrected or a backdoor closed.
The rest of your question is, therefore, moot; even if Alan Cox or Linus Torvalds have a secret plan to backdoor or booby-trap the Linux kernel source, there are too many people banging away at it on a regular basis for it to go undetected.
I remember reading the same thing.. I don't know if it was on slashdot or I saw it on the news, but I remember it, and it was actually quite a long time ago. At least 2 weeks ago.. Oh well..
...and can be found in "The Past Through Tomorrow", a collection of his shorter stories (also featuring the story "Methuselah's Children", which is I believe the first appearance of Lazarus Long)
"I wonder how (a PC vendor) can get to $200 with Windows 98. But if they can do it, that's a real PC -- that's a breakthrough," he said.
What the hell was this guy thinking when he said this? I thought it was the greatest thing in the world when the article said they were going to charge $500 for a Windows box and only $200 for a Linux box, then this idiot has to imply that a Linux box "doesn't count as a REAL PC". Arg.
Well, you know, it doesn't. I mean, since Microsoft's operating system is so great, we wouldn't need a monopoly to force people to keep using our OS.
I mean, not that we have a monopoly. But if we did, it'd be because people like using our software, not because we've been able to strong-arm the OEMs into bundling Windows on all of their machines.
Now, don't get me wrong, it's not that we like strong-arming OEMs. If they'd just sell users the operating system that they (the users) prefer, we'd all be a lot happier.
Oh, and if they'd bundle MS Internet Explorer, too. I mean, what's the big deal? It's not like anyone likes using Netscape Navigator; I mean, we were able to take all of their business away by giving away copies of our browser for free. That proves MSIE is better, right?
Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah; it can't possibly be a [quote marks with fingers]"real PC" if it's not running Windows 98 and MS Internet Explorer.
Thanks for letting me ramble. Oh, and sign up for your Passport account already; my stock prices are slipping, and I need to add another wing to the house to hold some more redundant NT boxes...
I've been so damned busy trying to get Mozilla to work on the MacOS partition (without luck), I was wondering if anyone had gotten it to work on Linux/PPC yet.
Is there an RPM avaialble, or should I get give it a go when I get home?
So stop this borderline racist/xenophobic talk right now and get down to improve your high school system so that it actually teaches something to the students ( the non-asian-origin students that is... the asian kids can extract the maximum out of even this crappy system )
Please tell me you were trying to be ironic in this last statement.
If not, then you need to go back and re-read the definition of "racism"; I don't see how your parenthetical comment is any less "racist" than the ones you're decrying.
...for the writer anyway. I stopped reading when I came upon this:
> CDs - a digital recording technology - sometimes > sound a little cold to the ear because, > subconsciously anyway, we can hear the tiny > spaces between the recorded samples of music.
His credibility is toast.
Thank you for pointing this out. I hit that part of the article and I was thinking "say what?"
I'm probably more on the non-technical side of geekdom (just enough knowledge to make me dangerous and all that), but if even I know that's not how CDs -- or for that matter, most digitized sound -- works, then how the hell can I believe that this engine "which leaves programmers at Apple in shock" is genuine?
Hell, for all we know, the writer just transcribed the presentation this 22-year old "visionary" gave him, or rewrote a press release. Either way, he needs to be taken out and flogged.
... it was faithful to the actions of a *with a nod to KODT* "typical" group of players rather than "the AD&D rules system".
Just think:
The thief in the party would be constantly trying to pick the other members' pockets.
The fighters in the party are belligerent towards everyone they meet, in the hopes of starting a fight to "rack up some more XPs".
(for players who play more than one character) Two or more members of the party seem to almost think with a group mind, freely trading valuable and rare magic items who whomever needs them the most at the time.
One of the characters is very melodramatic, and takes pains to point out minor or irrelevant details of their history.
Hirelings and henchman are used to spring traps and as fodder for ambushes.
A member of the party is slain, and is replaced by a son or brother who looks and acts almost like the deceased member.
Sure, what qualifies as an "assault" weapon is sketchy, but there are for sure things that AREN'T needed for sport/hunting. Automatic/semi-automatic capability, large clips, rapid-fire, etc. These are obviously not features that can be claimed to be added for "sport".
Funny, but when I was growing up in northern Alaska, my father owned a hunting/fishing supplies store that sold weapons with virtually every option you just described. And yet I don't ever remember hearing of any episodes of spree killing or random violence, not once in the 18 years I lived there (and the eight since).
If a couple of thousand people living just south of the Arctic Circle can figure out how to handle guns "obvious NOT meant for hunting" without killing each other, maybe the rest of the world can?
Sure, it's based on what the writer considers "facts" but so were the first reports.
Hardly.
The initial reports were probably taken from out-of-context comments and testimony from kids who had just been shot at. And, in typical media feeding frenzy fashion, if Channel A says "we believe this may have happened", then Channel B says "we have reports that this happened".
This Salon article is taken for a summary of comments made by one of the chief investigators into the shootings (she said something to the effect that for every day since April 20, she's been investigating what happened at Columbiine High School) after spending five months sorting out who said what, why, and what, to the best of everyone's knowledge, actually happened.
Of course, the actual report of the investigation has not actually been released yet, so the fine details may end up differing slightly. But I'm willing to trust that this is as good of an account as we'll ever get (short of taking a time machine back to April 20, 1999) as to what actually happened and why.
... then stop sending stories about them to Slashdot.
Yeah, they are tired PR vehicles. And there was a great essay from an earlier "crack this machine" Slashdot thread talking about why such stunts could actually harm a company's reputation (maybe someone can find it?)
Universities ought to be using Windows and teaching the skills that are most in demand (like VB), so as to produce marketable graduates.
They can teach whatever they want to teach to best equip their students (read as "produce marketable graduates" if you will) but they should use free software for their own infrastructure.
Slashdot Mirror
The exam had the following preconditions:
*Unforgeable pseudonymous identities*
Bidirectional, typed, filterable links
Arbitrage agents
Bonding agents
Escrow agents
Digital Cash
Capability Based Security with Strong Encryption
7) Someone claiming to be you starts roaming the Web making wild claims. You want to make sure people know it isn't really
you.
Wouldn't unforgeable psuedonymous identities make this impossible?
No, the test was to pick 5 questions, decide which of the above elements would be required to answer the questions, and write an essay detailing how and why.
Jay (=
Thy're going to take an object and multiply it by the square of the speed of light to get some energy?
Jay (=
First of all, did anyone actually read the article before chanting "wait for Mozilla" or talking about boycotting companies that design MSIE-only web pages?
Several of the people being quoted are talking about using a browser either as a front end to a corporate intranet (where standardizing on one browser is feasible), or an application system using XML. It has nothing to do with corporations designing MSIE-only web pages for the internet.
I'm not saying IE is the better browser, or that Mozilla will not beat the pants off of it when it's done, or that I won't use Mozilla when it's done, but it's not done and that is the big reason why these corporate intranet / XML-based applications are using MSIE.
Sure, you can tell me to submit bug reports or fix bugs myself -- despite the fact that I've not been able to get Mozilla to work yet, be it on my Win95 machine at work, my Power Mac at home, or compiling it myseslf on the Linux/PPC partition at home, when I do I'll document every bug I can find -- but are you trying to say the same thing to Burlington Coat Factory? Their IT people probably have better things to do.
Jay (=
Reading that FoF seemed a lot more like an Intel-bashing fest than a Microsoft trial, constantly referring to the infeasbility of alternate microprocessors and OS's for anything but Intel-based systems. Anyone else get the impression this whole process is laying the groundwork to nail Intel next?
The whole thing about "Intel-compatible PCs" is defining what market it is that Microsoft has a monopoly on that it is trying to exploit. (Obviously, Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly on OSes for PPC-based PCs, or for Alpha-based PCs...)
Keep in mind that this isn't a press release from the Department of Justice; this is a legal document. The judge can't "lay groundwork" to "nail Intel" because it's not within his purview.
Jay (=
How is it that this same crowd gladly shouts to the heavens that Microsoft is a monopoly with no competition whatsoever, then the very next moment talks about how much competition Linux is for MS? I really don't like the hipocrasy, could the zealots please make up their minds?
Simple.
The trial isn't about Microsoft's status as a monopoly now; it's about if they were a monopoly at the time of the incidents in question, and if they were using means that are illegal under anti-trust law to extend that monopoly in the case of the incidents in question.
Jay (=
I actually dont mind the Windows OS and am glad they integrated the browser into Windows.
Then you're an idiot, because it's extra baggage for a machine that doesn't need IE installed -- say, a machine that's not going to be connected to the Internet. (Those do exist, you know; I have six of them.)
Some people will start screaming Mac, Mac, Mac but I cannot easily replace a chip in a Mac to make it a bit faster, a faster modem is 3 times the cost of a PC, RAM costs much more, a video card is outrageously priced, etc....
Out of curiosity, do you think it would be that way if Mac had, say, a 40% market share on desktops instead of 10% or whatever it is?
I will be the first to admit that Apple hasn't made the smartest business decisions, but Jackson nailed at least one of MS'c crimes on the head; Apple very likely would not be endorsing or installing MSIE now if Microsoft didn't threaten to kill off MS Office.
I do not agree with allot of the judges "finding of facts" and I really believe this huge waste of my damn tax dollars should never have begun.
Are you just assuming that Jackson made all of this stuff up? News reports of the coverage showed the DOJ's lawyers utterly (and rightfully) destroying the credibility of Microsoft's "experts". As for poor, defenseless MS, no one put a gun to their head and made them submit a forged video demonstration as evidence, put their CEO on the stand unable to withstand cross-examination, or buy "independant studies" and "grassroots support from the little people".
Microsoft has played dirty pool every step of the way of its existence, up to and including its handling of the trial. It's about time someone called them on the carpet for it.
I sometimes build computers for people that have never used a computer. It is much easier for them to start the computer, click on the big globe, dial up to the Internet and then surf around for a while and that is who most of the users are. They may change their desktop to put a picture of their kids on it, but that is about it.
Great. More power to you. I have no problem with MS having a monopoly because their stuff is better, cheaper, or easier to use than any alternatives; if I recall, the Sherman Act protects such "natural monopolies". The problem, is, it's not better, cheaper, or easier to use, at least not in every case.
If I install a Linux OS on their computer, it is going to be nearly impossible for them to get help with problems with their computer and they are going to call me. If they have Windows, they can usually get tips/tricks/help from people they work with, friends, family, etc. They are not going to want to get into IRC or newsgroups to solve problems.
And this would be that "positive network effect" that Jackson was speaking of.
39. Consumer demand for Windows enjoys positive network effects. A positive network effect is a phenomenon by which the attractiveness of a product increases with the number of people using it. The fact that there is a multitude of people using Windows makes the product more attractive to consumers. The large installed base attracts corporate customers who want to use an operating system that new employees are already likely to know how to use, and it attracts academic consumers who want to use software that will allow them to share files easily with colleagues at other institutions. The main reason that demand for Windows experiences positive network effects, however, is that the size of Windows' installed base impels ISVs to write applications first and foremost to Windows, thereby ensuring a large body of applications from which consumers can choose. The large body of applications thus reinforces demand for Windows, augmenting Microsoft's dominant position and thereby perpetuating ISV incentives to write applications principally for Windows. This self-reinforcing cycle is often referred to as a "positive feedback loop."
Now I understand that if I took the time to show them how to compile a piece of software, or modify their path or mount drives, etc, they wouldnt need to find help or call me all the time, but face it, the average user does not want to know how to do this, they want to point and click and Windows has done a fairly good job at this.
I have no problem with Microsoft doing all of that work (or Apple, for that matter); to make a program "intelligent" or "intuitive" often means a lot of work on the part of the programmers.
The Mac is much simplier but the cost of a Mac and the upgrade ability over shadows its ease of use to most people.
Again, we're back to "positive network effects" and economies of scale; it's likely that Windows peripherals might cost more and Mac peripherals might cost less were the PC desktop market more like 60%/40%.
Look at the cosumer market for other products. The clapper for example. How many times have we made fun of that commercial? I actually know a few people that bought it. Bread machines are another example. People want the smell, taste and texture of fresh bread, but they dont want to spend the time rolling the dough, letting it rise and then baking it. They want to open the packets, dump the ingredients in and then go watch soaps.
Again, you're missing the point. I have no problem with Microsoft having a monopoly on operating systems, and keeping that monopoly by having a flat-out better product.
But the problem is, antitrust legislation doesn't allow you to use a monopoly in one market (Intel-based PCs operating systems) as leverage to get a monopoly in another market (in this case, web browsers). At the time MS was trying to crush Netscape, it did not have the better product.
Now as far as browsers go, I prefer IE over Netscape.
That's your right.
I have less problems with IE than I do with Netscape. They both crash just as often, but rendering HTML is better in IE.
Which can probably be chalked up to Netscape not putting a new or updated version of their browser out in what, a couple of YEARS? Yes, I know and hope that Mozilla will kick IE's ass when it's done. The thing is, it's not done, and people have to surf the web now as well in the future. (Which was the whole point of Microsoft's mission in the first place; once everyone is using MSIE and IIS to serve the "dynamic content" you extend protocols like you're rotating shield frequencies on the Enterprise to keep everyone else playing catch-up.)
I believe if there was a better solution out there for your average person to use easily, it would blow Windows out of the water, but it has yet to arrive.
And if the yet-to-arrive product weren't Open Source, Microsoft would probably have tried to buy or otherwise drive the maker out of business. How long do you think the makers of Opera and iCab for the Mac would have lasted if this trial weren't going on, or (even worse) Microsoft had not been found at fault?
The chip industry is a prime example. How long did Intel rule the world for processors?
Now that AMD has come out with lower cost, faster chips they are giving Intel a hell of a run for their money. I love that!!! That's the american way.
Again, it's apples and oranges. The rules for physical products and intangible products (one could say "intellectual property") are different for a reason.
That is what we need, competition, not the tax wasting government to tell us/MS they are a monopoly on the desktop. DUH! We know that!
That's not what they're telling us, dolt. They're telling us that Microsoft is using its monopoly power to make sure it has a monopoly on everything else that isn't nailed down or on fire.
As another poster pointed out (I want to find a source for that story!) an oil/steel/banking consortium was able to amass so much power at its time that the head of that consortium was practically in a position to replace the Federal Government!
Now, instead of being owned by Standard Oil, it'd be people logging onto Microsoft WorldNet with Microsoft Passport on Microsoft Internet Explorer to use Microsoft's BillPay Wizard to pay the bills to Microsoft Interactive Cable Network and Microsoft Office Application Distribution Service, and to check your Hotmail account just in time to get the weekly coupons from Microsoft Grocery Service, and Microsoft/Amazon.com.
If we would have spent the tax dollars on further developing linux or BeOS and making it easier to use than Windows and make it free for computer manufacturers to OEM it on the new PC's,
You are aware the the BeOS is a proprietary product, right? Are you saying that you think it would be okay for the government to subsidize a private corporation to compete with Microsoft? Or that the feds should subsidize the cost of bundling it on PCs? That would be less of an intrusion into the private sector then finding Microsoft guilty of commiting crimes under antitrust law?
Hey Redhat 6.1 came with XMMS instead of X11AMP. I am going to sue Redhat because it did not include my favorite MP3 player. You're bad RH. You're evil!
Now we're comparing apples to bananas. It's a fact of antitrust legislation that the kind of things corporations can do to gain or keep market share are illegal for a corporation that is found to be a monopoly to do.
If Red Hat wants to agree to bundle a product or a service made by another company to the mutual benefit of both, that's one thing. I don't even think there'd be a case if Microsoft had made a strategic alliance with Netscape against a third party (say Opera had come along 5 years earlier) because in theory Netscape can end that alliance or Opera might make Microsoft a better deal.
And of course, we're ignoring the whole Open Source factor; anyone can take Red Hat's installer, RPM package manager and other GPLed goodies and build a Red Hat-style distribution that uses X11AMP instead of XMMS (or KDE instead of GNOME, tcsh over bash, pine over mutt, yadda yadda yadda), and let the better distribution win.
Think of Windows as a car. You get pissed at, kick it, hit it and scream at it sometimes, but would you rather ride a horse or walk?
Not the same thing at all. You're supposing that there is an alternative to Windows that we could switch to on Intel-based PCs. There was in OS/2, but the trial is full of tidbits on how Microsoft killed off that competition by means other than having the better product. I suspect that BeOS was/is next...
If you dont like the color of your living room, you paint it, you dont go sue the house builder because you soon realized that the color of the wall clashed with the window treaments you decided to buy.
You do if the house builder makes you sign a contract before your house is built that says you can't repaint your house, knock out walls, add an extra room later for a nursery, or sell the house without the house builder's approval; and you have no choice because he's forced all of the other house builders in the area out of business or hired them to work for him.
Dont go suing them because you think linux is better or you wanted Netscape instead of IE.
Thanks for demonstrating that you have no idea what this case was about. It was about a company using its time, money and resources to prevent you from having as little choice as possible as to which OS your home PC uses (soon to be followed by web browser, streaming media format, office suite, and who knows what else in the future?)
The development of Linux and the Open Source model may have been the one force that Microsoft could not have bought, put out of business or FUDed into oblivion. Then again, the "Halloween Document" outlined out a strategy to deal with that as well...
Jay (=
You are the first person I've, well, "met" who reads Sherman's Lagoon that neither I nor my friend Matt (who introduced me) introduced to the strip.
Another one I bookmark and read regularly is Liberty Meadows. Funny stuff.
Now back to your regularly scheduled Slashdot...
Jay (=
As he says so many times it's about free software (free speech) so use the GPL/LGPL.
WTF? Is it me, or does the very act of *using* a license prohibit freedom to a certain extent.
You're exactly right. I what I suspect would be Stallman's ideal world, software licenses would not exist. People would write code and rewrite other people's code and share that code with their friends and no one would try to sue to keep you from using their "property" in ways they don't approve of.
But, since that doesn't happen, RMS advocates the GPL instead. The GPL is an attempt to subvert the power of software licenses -- to deny others the freedom to do whatever they want with a product that they possess. In this case, instead of eroding the end users' rights in favor of the vendor, the GPL erodes the rights of the vendor in favor of the end user. If I don't like your product, I can take it apart, figure out how to make it better and sell it myself. At the same time, my users can do the same thing to me.
On a side note, maybe I don't have enough of a technical background, but I fail to see why linking a binary against a GPL library means the binary has to be GPLed to avoid licensing conflicts (the so-called "viral nature" of the GPL, if I understand correctly).
They're still two different products, right? Could I not link it agsinst, say, Microsoft's "Visual C" library (if such a thing exists) as opposed to the GNU C library? If I link GPLed software against a non-GPL library, is _that_ a violation of the GPL?
Jay (=
Several problems with your suppositions:
1) Echelon and similar programs have included industrial espionage to their resume of services offered. I have a few reservations about government being able to tap my phone lines, read my email or whatnot (assuming they can get a search warrant for it) but I have a HUGE problem with listening posts and spies gathering information for corporate interests (be they foreign or domestic).
2) Why are you saying "Well, I don't write about assassinating the president, so they don't listen to me"? How do you think they figure out which emails contain what text? They collect EVERYTHING and sort it out at their leisure.
3) The entertainment industry is to blame for people not trusting their government? Funny, I thought it was things like:
* Political candidates using hostages in Iran as bargaining chips to get elected
* Idiots campaigning for "family values" who can't keep it in their pants themselves
* Eroding personal freedoms in the name of "decency" or "saving the children"
* Watergate
* Iran/contra
Granted, I don't think these groups or individuals are necessarily as malicious or organized as people believe, but entertainment draws as much from real life as it does flights of fancy.
4) Efforts like "Jam Echelon Day" have done nothing but help terrorists get a chance to get by our security. I think that we should instead all do our part to avoid writing e-mail that might get picked up by Echelon to lighten their work load and let them take care of the important stuff. Are you seriously advocating SELF-CENSORSHIP in order to make people who are violating our constitutional rights (not the right to privacy, but the right to unreasonable search and seizure) more effective? "Oh no, we can't talk about terrorism because it eats up valuable processing cycles or disk place for Echelon" Two words: FUCK THEM. Make them work at least as hard as the terrorists are to avoid this kind of detection in the first place.
And, in closing...
May Allah guide our hands as we thrust our swords into the heart of the Great White American Satan!
:)
Jay (=
After reading this post on Cryptography, combined with the earlier posts on the Best hacks, where someone placed a backdoor into the login.c in Unix, I am wondering about the security of Linux and whether there could be backdoors floating around inside the kernel code, init.d or whatever.
The answer is, strictly speaking, "yes, there could be backdoors in init.d, login.c, ftpd, etc."
However, one of the traditionally-acknowledged strengths of open source software over proprietary software is that bugs or backdoors can more easily be detected, reported, and fixed -- be it by the code maintainer, a third-party vendor (Red Hat, Caldera, etc.) or one of the end users themselves. With proporietary software, you are on the vendor's schedule as to when (or even if) a bug is corrected or a backdoor closed.
The rest of your question is, therefore, moot; even if Alan Cox or Linus Torvalds have a secret plan to backdoor or booby-trap the Linux kernel source, there are too many people banging away at it on a regular basis for it to go undetected.
Jay (=
I remember reading the same thing.. I don't know if it was on slashdot or I saw it on the news, but I remember it, and it was actually quite a long time ago. At least 2 weeks ago.. Oh well..
The article in question was "Cloning Another Extinct Species". The article in question referred to cloning an extinct tiger, and also referenced an earlier Slashdot article about cloning extinct Huia bird, but mammoths were brought up in the commentary; that might be where you're getting confused.
Jay (=
...and can be found in "The Past Through Tomorrow", a collection of his shorter stories (also featuring the story "Methuselah's Children", which is I believe the first appearance of Lazarus Long)
Jay (=
"I wonder how (a PC vendor) can get to $200 with Windows 98. But if they can do it, that's a real PC -- that's a breakthrough," he said.
What the hell was this guy thinking when he said this? I thought it was the greatest thing in the world when the article said they were going to charge $500 for a Windows box and only $200 for a Linux box, then this idiot has to imply that a Linux box "doesn't count as a REAL PC". Arg.
Well, you know, it doesn't. I mean, since Microsoft's operating system is so great, we wouldn't need a monopoly to force people to keep using our OS.
I mean, not that we have a monopoly. But if we did, it'd be because people like using our software, not because we've been able to strong-arm the OEMs into bundling Windows on all of their machines.
Now, don't get me wrong, it's not that we like strong-arming OEMs. If they'd just sell users the operating system that they (the users) prefer, we'd all be a lot happier.
Oh, and if they'd bundle MS Internet Explorer, too. I mean, what's the big deal? It's not like anyone likes using Netscape Navigator; I mean, we were able to take all of their business away by giving away copies of our browser for free. That proves MSIE is better, right?
Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah; it can't possibly be a [quote marks with fingers]"real PC" if it's not running Windows 98 and MS Internet Explorer.
Thanks for letting me ramble. Oh, and sign up for your Passport account already; my stock prices are slipping, and I need to add another wing to the house to hold some more redundant NT boxes...
--billg@microsoft.com
I've been so damned busy trying to get Mozilla to work on the MacOS partition (without luck), I was wondering if anyone had gotten it to work on Linux/PPC yet.
Is there an RPM avaialble, or should I get give it a go when I get home?
Jay (=
When coding, I wear:
Jay (=
So stop this borderline racist/xenophobic talk right now and get down to improve your high school system so that it actually teaches something to the students ( the non-asian-origin students that is... the asian kids can extract the maximum out of even this crappy system )
Please tell me you were trying to be ironic in this last statement.
If not, then you need to go back and re-read the definition of "racism"; I don't see how your parenthetical comment is any less "racist" than the ones you're decrying.
Jay (=
...for the writer anyway. I stopped reading when I came upon this:
> CDs - a digital recording technology - sometimes
> sound a little cold to the ear because,
> subconsciously anyway, we can hear the tiny
> spaces between the recorded samples of music.
His credibility is toast.
Thank you for pointing this out. I hit that part of the article and I was thinking "say what?"
I'm probably more on the non-technical side of geekdom (just enough knowledge to make me dangerous and all that), but if even I know that's not how CDs -- or for that matter, most digitized sound -- works, then how the hell can I believe that this engine "which leaves programmers at Apple in shock" is genuine?
Hell, for all we know, the writer just transcribed the presentation this 22-year old "visionary" gave him, or rewrote a press release. Either way, he needs to be taken out and flogged.
Jay (=
... it was faithful to the actions of a *with a nod to KODT* "typical" group of players rather than "the AD&D rules system".
Just think:
Jay (=
If 2/3 were tournament viable everyone wouldn't need to keep buying packs. We could buy less packs and we'd have good cards. Trade to get others.
You want them to design better cards so they can sell fewer boxes?
This is the company that included the "foil premium cards" into Magic sets to pump the collectability back up...
Jay (=
The article says MSN is "shifting its focus to online communications".
;)
What the #*%&(#% were they doing BEFORE?
Why, fighting for their right to innovate in the marketplace and anticipate and meet its customer's needs, of course.
Jay (=
Sure, what qualifies as an "assault" weapon is sketchy, but there are for sure things that AREN'T needed for sport/hunting. Automatic/semi-automatic capability, large clips, rapid-fire, etc. These are obviously not features that can be claimed to be added for "sport".
Funny, but when I was growing up in northern Alaska, my father owned a hunting/fishing supplies store that sold weapons with virtually every option you just described. And yet I don't ever remember hearing of any episodes of spree killing or random violence, not once in the 18 years I lived there (and the eight since).
If a couple of thousand people living just south of the Arctic Circle can figure out how to handle guns "obvious NOT meant for hunting" without killing each other, maybe the rest of the world can?
Jay (=
Sure, it's based on what the writer considers "facts" but so were the first reports.
Hardly.
The initial reports were probably taken from out-of-context comments and testimony from kids who had just been shot at. And, in typical media feeding frenzy fashion, if Channel A says "we believe this may have happened", then Channel B says "we have reports that this happened".
This Salon article is taken for a summary of comments made by one of the chief investigators into the shootings (she said something to the effect that for every day since April 20, she's been investigating what happened at Columbiine High School) after spending five months sorting out who said what, why, and what, to the best of everyone's knowledge, actually happened.
Of course, the actual report of the investigation has not actually been released yet, so the fine details may end up differing slightly. But I'm willing to trust that this is as good of an account as we'll ever get (short of taking a time machine back to April 20, 1999) as to what actually happened and why.
Jay (=
Just think; this guy can raise his capital by offering "extreme cliff diving"!
Bungie-jumping? Pfft, that's for wimps! What do you need a safety cord for? Just throw yourself off a 100-foot cliff -- and LIVE!
Now there's an adrenaline fix...
Jay (=
... then stop sending stories about them to Slashdot.
Yeah, they are tired PR vehicles. And there was a great essay from an earlier "crack this machine" Slashdot thread talking about why such stunts could actually harm a company's reputation (maybe someone can find it?)
Jay (=
Universities ought to be using Windows and teaching the skills that are most in demand (like VB), so as to produce marketable graduates.
They can teach whatever they want to teach to best equip their students (read as "produce marketable graduates" if you will) but they should use free software for their own infrastructure.
Jay (=