If Google is working on a new way of doing RSS advertising, wouldn't it be fiscally irresponsible to NOT try to patent it? What if they unveil a masterful system they've been working on for a year, only to find out Yahoo patented one of the methods 3 months ago, and were forced to shelve it as the legal battle ensued?
Giving it 5 seconds of thought, they could modify their development cycle so that they release technical ideas as they come up, providing the world with prior art and short-circuiting other peoples' ability to patent those concepts.
Advertising is most (if not all) of their revenue. They'd be silly not to try to protect it.
At the end of the day, it wont be that these features are cutting edge, it'll be that they're available to the masses in something with high market penetration.
For sure it's a marketing push, geared to allow people to think futuristically so that when Microsoft finally comes out with what OSX has had for a year, people will feel ahead of the game when they type alt-space and type in a metadata search term for their grandkids pics (or, in MS terms, "alt-space, code-for-camera date-range size").
However, I think you glean a better point. It's all going to be sunshine and lollipops until this piece actually ships, then once people start actually using it they're going to start finding the problems. Then, Microsoft's message is going to change to how complicated Vista is, and how many LOC or programmers or countries they had to hire to get it done. "Most sophisticated thingy evar!"
So now, once the retail and corporate-cleared user starts to try to fix these things they're going to type their error into Google (or MSN Search, natch) and find many many webboard postings about how their problem has existed since Beta2 and how it would be so neat to be fixed and well, maybe with Service Pack 1 it'll be better. Then the retail/corporate user will find their miserable community of problem-endurers and the Win9x/2k/XP cycle starts all over again with nobody able to fix things for themselves.
It's making telemarketing harder, and all that good stuff.
If only someone would invent a way to have a machine keep track of what numbers can be called when and where they are, then presenting only the good numbers to the hard-working telemarketer. I propose we call this amazing machine: a "data base".
On the contrary; the linux gang has a strong anti-Microsoft strategy, and it's one of the most insidious, subversive strategies of all.
They've been providing a cheap, reliable system with no licensing or other legal hassles, which does much of what its users want it to do. It doesn't provide easy entry to viruses, spyware, or other evil stuff, and you aren't tricked into needless upgrades.
Can you imagine the effect on the corporate world if this sort of thing became widespread? It's clear why they'd want to stop it now, before people get the idea that everything might be like this.
This is not specific to Microsoft. Certain fans of the development and technological methodology of Linux (and Open/Free software in general) may say this is the point, but it isn't. Pro-Free/Open doesn't mean Anti-Microsoft, it just seems so because Microsoft is the most visible challenger. In the same way that I'm typing "Free/Open" to denote my inclusion of multiple approaches to Free and Open software, why don't I say "Anti-Microsoft/Sun" in describing the opponents of free and/or open software? Why isn't it called "anti-proprietary/closed"?
Just what does IE offer (that is not a proprietary IE only extension) that is going to change things for the better?
Proprietary IE-only extensions tie peoples' coding practices to Microsoft's goals, which changes things for the better...for Microsoft. Microsoft's interests are all that Microsoft cares about, and the differences that they engineer into their software take mindshare away from other applications...like Firefox.
This happens frequently. I see many, many, many movies, indeed stories in general, that start out with a lot of promise, but are ultimately not able to follow through when it comes around to the middle and especially the end. This is because it's the mystery that survives, not the explanation.
I think the reason Matrix 2 and 3 are worse than the first one is that the first one was written as a movie, then they saw how successful it was and grafted some crappy sequels onto it. I really don't care what anybody says, so my opinion is really for naught, but it seems obvious to me that the Matrix was shopped to the studios as a single movie, with the ending changed so that it allowed for the studio-ordered sequels.
"Improved" would probably be significantly be more comprehensive and less intrusive. You know, it would phone home more, but tie a serial number directly to you and the content yet it would also tell you it was doing so less.
If there is no longer a home for it to phone, the DRM is doing more than making sure the content is paid for.
When DRM requires the purchase of new hardware just for things to work like they used to, then thats when it is going to turn off even the clueless consumer who normally wouldn't care.
Alright, I'm going to have to point out a change in perspective here. The way Microsoft Marketing works is that features such as these are trotted out as being the way things will be in the future, but it's not so. It's not that this DRM is going to change how things have always been, it's that new stuff *might* require it.
That's it: might.
The likely scenario for this - as it would affect "clueless consumers" - is that a movie trailer (or an internet rental, hint hint) for "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, part IV: The Candying" would only be available (or, more likely, be available earlier) to people who can view it under the most restrictive DRM. Just like everything else, it will eventually wind up on broadcast TV for free anyway, so it just provides DRM-users with more layers and hassle to deal with in getting their media. It's a control mechanism for computers being used as one-way communication devices, or TVs.
You have to install and configure an ldap server (know how to administer it), recompile apache, and know what the hell mod_webdav (or even webdav) is in the first place.
Well, the submitter *did* mention all of those in the question. There are several howto's out there for creating a WebDAV server.
So NO, it isn't a stupid article. But your response is a great example of one of the underlying problems in the OSS community: developers tend to forget that the rest of the world isn't made up of developers.
Why bother? Is there any good reason for not accepting a cookie?
I think of it slightly differently: What are good reasons for accepting a cookie? You're inviting outside data to live on your machine, so I don't see a reason to allow all comers. Those that I find good reasons for keeping their cookies I put on my whitelist, which is really only the 5-10 sites that I regularly visit under login.
Which means that every time I put it in my pocket, I have to remember to hit the hold button, and every time I want to do something, I have to find the hold button and hit it, THEN hit volume-up or whatever. It's a kludge to make up for a bad control design (and it's the same kludge if it's on a portable CD player, though it's clearly not universal because I didn't need nor notice on on my last CD player).
Your last CD player didn't fit in your pocket. You complain of something tantamount to not wanting to touch a button to insert a CD into your player. Think of the hold switch as a mode selector and it can become second-nature.
are you saying that Microsoft is going to pull down it's userbase deliberately because it hasn't or won't consider it's own future?
No, I'm saying that having weak software is in Microsoft's nature. Their interests are so separate from their users', and the kool-aid drinking culture of Microsoft reinforces this, that they can't help but put out vulnerable software while offering grafted-on remedies for those faults. Hanlon's Razor tells us this is most likely unintentional.
They put out operating systems which include technologies that are encumbered by security risks and this is part of their business model. They've always done this and I'm pretty sure they always will. Now they're saying they're going to supply utilities to deal with the symptoms of these holes but they're so tied to their method of development that they are incapable of dealing with the source of the problems.
Why does it matter? I think Sun wants to confuse the community, and make people think that they are on a bandwagon that they *are not on*. I think Jonathan Schwartz knows what the "free" in FOSS means, and intentionally misused it to make people think that he was really buying into FOSS, when in fact, he hasn't, at least with respect to the the JVM and class files.
I think it matters because "free as in price" fits better with Sun's historical business model. If they can manipulate the market to think of FOSS as a price thing rather than a modification and control thing, they can keep tighter rights over their source code. This has the added benefit of preserving their ability to begin charging again later on.
While it may be nice to think these conspiracy theories that we purposefully put in vulnerabilities, the fact is that at least since 2003 MS has kicked itself into shape and now has security as the top priority.
That's fine, but the fact remains that Microsoft is adding new attack vectors just as they are incorporating new technologies to deal with security holes (which themselves qualify as potential vulnerabilities). It may be a stereotype, but the culture of "Uncle Bill" really holds sway here, that Microsoft sets itself up as both the cause and solution to security problems and extending RSS to include executable binary code is just as smart as ActiveX in the browser. That is, "not very," for the majority of users, and "definitely not" for the wild-and-wooly Internet environment.
Keep in mind Hanlon's law here. It's not enough to say that Microsoft is feeding a conspiracy by making shady business decisions because I don't think they are. They just can't help making dumb ones. Refer to the allegory of the scorpion and the frog for further illustration.
>It's really hard to hard to control the means our ads get distributed using 3rd party agencies.
What you describe is willful ignorance. You know the problem exists but you just push the blame down the chain. This whole issue could be avoided if you put some care into the contracts you sign. It's probably better than getting sued by the NY Attorney General.
>And yet, despite your self-professed ignorance you do seem to have some >very strong opinions about these matters.
Your totalizing generalizations are patronizing in the least and ignorant like those you accuse. Where you get that business about the Civil War I'll never know, but that's beside the point.
Outside of your completeist labeling there is a wide gulf between "ignorant" and "war historian", which includes any number of articles and bits of knowledge to draw upon. So let's talk.
The Germans did not pose a threat to the US in WWII. They had almost no Navy and whatever they were inventing as long-range vehicles were already being created in the US military (except for perhaps the U2, but that wasn't transcontinental). If the Germans had developed a nuclear bomb, it would have come to fruition only after the US developed theirs. Much like Germany, Japan simply did not have the manpower to conquer an entire ocean. You underestimate the degree of isolation and resources available to North America. This is also beside the point.
But "what would have happened?" is all speculation! What are you left with when you leave out all of the guesswork and fantasy? I can't find any proof that war protects freedom, and if you can't either then I'll consider my point to stand up to scrutiny.
I'm not the one who asserted an economic price for freedom, the "US Marine" in the OP did. So do many others. It goes like this: the price of freedom is war. So the theory would have to be that the freedoms we want to retain require a certain amount of military assertiveness in order to keep. In other words, if we didn't go to war, we would be slaves under a foreign dictator (or something equally fanciful and draconian). I don't believe this, and I don't think anybody can prove that war=freedom (one should consider the Edo period in Japan at this point). I said it's equally probable that preserving freedom doesn't require war.
Please do let me know if there are any pertinent portions of your shrill screed I have ignored by mistake. The issue is not what would have happened if WWII ended differently, the issue is whether the military engages in war to protect the freedoms that US citizens currently enjoy, and whether that strategy is effective in achieving that goal.
Is this a troll for a business plan or something? I haven't known people to expect more than good service, but maybe I'm wrong. Obviously people are getting "more" than that from somewhere, but where? And why won't this person articulate it? I agree that predicting the future might be a good entrepreneurial angle, so let us know when you figure that one out.
Good service hasn't really changed in the past century. Don't make your customers hate you, and tell prospective customers how you're going to prevent them from hating you in the future. It's not a science, why does it need to change?
Slashdot Mirror
The nature of power demands that at some time people will be made scapegoats because somebody stuffed up.
As Jenny Holzer said, "Deviants are sacrificed to increase group solidarity."
Perhaps, but SCO's claim that the GPL is invalid, represents the fact they have not accepted the terms of the GPL.
a corporate repudiation of the GPL doesn't qualify as not accepting the terms of the GPL if in fact they make the source and modifications public.
If Google is working on a new way of doing RSS advertising, wouldn't it be fiscally irresponsible to NOT try to patent it? What if they unveil a masterful system they've been working on for a year, only to find out Yahoo patented one of the methods 3 months ago, and were forced to shelve it as the legal battle ensued?
Giving it 5 seconds of thought, they could modify their development cycle so that they release technical ideas as they come up, providing the world with prior art and short-circuiting other peoples' ability to patent those concepts.
Advertising is most (if not all) of their revenue. They'd be silly not to try to protect it.
This isn't advertising that they're protecting.
At the end of the day, it wont be that these features are cutting edge, it'll be that they're available to the masses in something with high market penetration.
For sure it's a marketing push, geared to allow people to think futuristically so that when Microsoft finally comes out with what OSX has had for a year, people will feel ahead of the game when they type alt-space and type in a metadata search term for their grandkids pics (or, in MS terms, "alt-space, code-for-camera date-range size").
However, I think you glean a better point. It's all going to be sunshine and lollipops until this piece actually ships, then once people start actually using it they're going to start finding the problems. Then, Microsoft's message is going to change to how complicated Vista is, and how many LOC or programmers or countries they had to hire to get it done. "Most sophisticated thingy evar!"
So now, once the retail and corporate-cleared user starts to try to fix these things they're going to type their error into Google (or MSN Search, natch) and find many many webboard postings about how their problem has existed since Beta2 and how it would be so neat to be fixed and well, maybe with Service Pack 1 it'll be better. Then the retail/corporate user will find their miserable community of problem-endurers and the Win9x/2k/XP cycle starts all over again with nobody able to fix things for themselves.
It's making telemarketing harder, and all that good stuff.
If only someone would invent a way to have a machine keep track of what numbers can be called when and where they are, then presenting only the good numbers to the hard-working telemarketer. I propose we call this amazing machine: a "data base".
On the contrary; the linux gang has a strong anti-Microsoft strategy, and it's one of the most insidious, subversive strategies of all.
They've been providing a cheap, reliable system with no licensing or other legal hassles, which does much of what its users want it to do. It doesn't provide easy entry to viruses, spyware, or other evil stuff, and you aren't tricked into needless upgrades.
Can you imagine the effect on the corporate world if this sort of thing became widespread? It's clear why they'd want to stop it now, before people get the idea that everything might be like this.
This is not specific to Microsoft. Certain fans of the development and technological methodology of Linux (and Open/Free software in general) may say this is the point, but it isn't. Pro-Free/Open doesn't mean Anti-Microsoft, it just seems so because Microsoft is the most visible challenger. In the same way that I'm typing "Free/Open" to denote my inclusion of multiple approaches to Free and Open software, why don't I say "Anti-Microsoft/Sun" in describing the opponents of free and/or open software? Why isn't it called "anti-proprietary/closed"?
Hope you like giving away your hard-earned works for free to Fox:
is there a change-of-control clause?
Just what does IE offer (that is not a proprietary IE only extension) that is going to change things for the better?
Proprietary IE-only extensions tie peoples' coding practices to Microsoft's goals, which changes things for the better...for Microsoft. Microsoft's interests are all that Microsoft cares about, and the differences that they engineer into their software take mindshare away from other applications...like Firefox.
This happens frequently. I see many, many, many movies, indeed stories in general, that start out with a lot of promise, but are ultimately not able to follow through when it comes around to the middle and especially the end. This is because it's the mystery that survives, not the explanation.
I think the reason Matrix 2 and 3 are worse than the first one is that the first one was written as a movie, then they saw how successful it was and grafted some crappy sequels onto it. I really don't care what anybody says, so my opinion is really for naught, but it seems obvious to me that the Matrix was shopped to the studios as a single movie, with the ending changed so that it allowed for the studio-ordered sequels.
Another silver lining to this new lawsuit is that it will put Amazon's patents to the test.
Unless they settle out of court.
"Improved" would probably be significantly be more comprehensive and less intrusive. You know, it would phone home more, but tie a serial number directly to you and the content yet it would also tell you it was doing so less.
If there is no longer a home for it to phone, the DRM is doing more than making sure the content is paid for.
If the DRM was improved so that it would get out of his way, he would still have no issue with it.
Except that the whole *point* of DRM is to be in the way. What would a DRM system that did not get in the way look like?
clearly it must have been stolen since it performs a similar function.
I've speculated for a long time that they're attempting a "look and feel" landgrab.
When DRM requires the purchase of new hardware just for things to work like they used to, then thats when it is going to turn off even the clueless consumer who normally wouldn't care.
Alright, I'm going to have to point out a change in perspective here. The way Microsoft Marketing works is that features such as these are trotted out as being the way things will be in the future, but it's not so. It's not that this DRM is going to change how things have always been, it's that new stuff *might* require it.
That's it: might.
The likely scenario for this - as it would affect "clueless consumers" - is that a movie trailer (or an internet rental, hint hint) for "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, part IV: The Candying" would only be available (or, more likely, be available earlier) to people who can view it under the most restrictive DRM. Just like everything else, it will eventually wind up on broadcast TV for free anyway, so it just provides DRM-users with more layers and hassle to deal with in getting their media. It's a control mechanism for computers being used as one-way communication devices, or TVs.
You have to install and configure an ldap server (know how to administer it), recompile apache, and know what the hell mod_webdav (or even webdav) is in the first place.
Well, the submitter *did* mention all of those in the question. There are several howto's out there for creating a WebDAV server.
So NO, it isn't a stupid article. But your response is a great example of one of the underlying problems in the OSS community: developers tend to forget that the rest of the world isn't made up of developers.
LOL, bitter much?
I'm not a developer.
Why bother? Is there any good reason for not accepting a cookie?
I think of it slightly differently: What are good reasons for accepting a cookie? You're inviting outside data to live on your machine, so I don't see a reason to allow all comers. Those that I find good reasons for keeping their cookies I put on my whitelist, which is really only the 5-10 sites that I regularly visit under login.
Doesn't Apache + mod_webdav + auth_ldap support all of this?
Yes it does. This is a stupid article.
Which means that every time I put it in my pocket, I have to remember to hit the hold button, and every time I want to do something, I have to find the hold button and hit it, THEN hit volume-up or whatever. It's a kludge to make up for a bad control design (and it's the same kludge if it's on a portable CD player, though it's clearly not universal because I didn't need nor notice on on my last CD player).
Your last CD player didn't fit in your pocket. You complain of something tantamount to not wanting to touch a button to insert a CD into your player. Think of the hold switch as a mode selector and it can become second-nature.
are you saying that Microsoft is going to pull down it's userbase deliberately because it hasn't or won't consider it's own future?
No, I'm saying that having weak software is in Microsoft's nature. Their interests are so separate from their users', and the kool-aid drinking culture of Microsoft reinforces this, that they can't help but put out vulnerable software while offering grafted-on remedies for those faults. Hanlon's Razor tells us this is most likely unintentional.
They put out operating systems which include technologies that are encumbered by security risks and this is part of their business model. They've always done this and I'm pretty sure they always will. Now they're saying they're going to supply utilities to deal with the symptoms of these holes but they're so tied to their method of development that they are incapable of dealing with the source of the problems.
Why does it matter? I think Sun wants to confuse the community, and make people think that they are on a bandwagon that they *are not on*. I think Jonathan Schwartz knows what the "free" in FOSS means, and intentionally misused it to make people think that he was really buying into FOSS, when in fact, he hasn't, at least with respect to the the JVM and class files.
I think it matters because "free as in price" fits better with Sun's historical business model. If they can manipulate the market to think of FOSS as a price thing rather than a modification and control thing, they can keep tighter rights over their source code. This has the added benefit of preserving their ability to begin charging again later on.
While it may be nice to think these conspiracy theories that we purposefully put in vulnerabilities, the fact is that at least since 2003 MS has kicked itself into shape and now has security as the top priority.
That's fine, but the fact remains that Microsoft is adding new attack vectors just as they are incorporating new technologies to deal with security holes (which themselves qualify as potential vulnerabilities). It may be a stereotype, but the culture of "Uncle Bill" really holds sway here, that Microsoft sets itself up as both the cause and solution to security problems and extending RSS to include executable binary code is just as smart as ActiveX in the browser. That is, "not very," for the majority of users, and "definitely not" for the wild-and-wooly Internet environment.
Keep in mind Hanlon's law here. It's not enough to say that Microsoft is feeding a conspiracy by making shady business decisions because I don't think they are. They just can't help making dumb ones. Refer to the allegory of the scorpion and the frog for further illustration.
>It's really hard to hard to control the means our ads get distributed using 3rd party agencies.
What you describe is willful ignorance. You know the problem exists but you just push the blame down the chain. This whole issue could be avoided if you put some care into the contracts you sign. It's probably better than getting sued by the NY Attorney General.
>And yet, despite your self-professed ignorance you do seem to have some
>very strong opinions about these matters.
Your totalizing generalizations are patronizing in the least and ignorant like those you accuse. Where you get that business about the Civil War I'll never know, but that's beside the point.
Outside of your completeist labeling there is a wide gulf between "ignorant" and "war historian", which includes any number of articles and bits of knowledge to draw upon. So let's talk.
The Germans did not pose a threat to the US in WWII. They had almost no Navy and whatever they were inventing as long-range vehicles were already being created in the US military (except for perhaps the U2, but that wasn't transcontinental). If the Germans had developed a nuclear bomb, it would have come to fruition only after the US developed theirs. Much like Germany, Japan simply did not have the manpower to conquer an entire ocean. You underestimate the degree of isolation and resources available to North America. This is also beside the point.
But "what would have happened?" is all speculation! What are you left with when you leave out all of the guesswork and fantasy? I can't find any proof that war protects freedom, and if you can't either then I'll consider my point to stand up to scrutiny.
I'm not the one who asserted an economic price for freedom, the "US Marine" in the OP did. So do many others. It goes like this: the price of freedom is war. So the theory would have to be that the freedoms we want to retain require a certain amount of military assertiveness in order to keep. In other words, if we didn't go to war, we would be slaves under a foreign dictator (or something equally fanciful and draconian). I don't believe this, and I don't think anybody can prove that war=freedom (one should consider the Edo period in Japan at this point). I said it's equally probable that preserving freedom doesn't require war.
Please do let me know if there are any pertinent portions of your shrill screed I have ignored by mistake. The issue is not what would have happened if WWII ended differently, the issue is whether the military engages in war to protect the freedoms that US citizens currently enjoy, and whether that strategy is effective in achieving that goal.
>Isn't that fairly inconsistant with your other post, then? If you don't
>know how the services protect you, how can you claimed they are
>bullies?
No, it's consistent. I said that it's equally probable that the
military doesn't actually protect US freedoms.
Is this a troll for a business plan or something? I haven't known people to expect more than good service, but maybe I'm wrong. Obviously people are getting "more" than that from somewhere, but where? And why won't this person articulate it? I agree that predicting the future might be a good entrepreneurial angle, so let us know when you figure that one out.
Good service hasn't really changed in the past century. Don't make your customers hate you, and tell prospective customers how you're going to prevent them from hating you in the future. It's not a science, why does it need to change?