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User: peterstev

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  1. Re:There is a price for what you want on Is It Wrong to Love Microsoft? · · Score: 1

    Downgrade this for getting the facts wrong.

    Microsoft BASIC was originaly written by Bill Gates. I know because I tried to optimize some of his code while I was there - a non-trivial task, as I discovered.

    Yes, Microsoft bought 86-DOS from Tim Patterson's Seattle Computer. But what is not so well known is that Tim Patterson himself worked on the PC-DOS 1.0 project.

    Customers were not required to buy DOS for their IBM PC, at least not in the early days. The original IBM PC was sold with a choice of operating systems. CP-M/86, P-System, PC-DOS and I think one other.

    PC-DOS (as it was then known) cost $50 dollars, the others cost around $400. Which one would you have bought? (Just to help you out, minimum wage back then was about $2.65/hr)

    Microsoft is where it is because they got a number of things right about the software business: They were the low cost provider. They were the open supplier - MS products were the first which offered binary compatibility across hardware vendors. And they understood that volume is more important than margin.

    A lot of things happened later: Microsoft became the IBM it was trying to dethrone. But that's another story...

  2. Re:I hope there's someone here old enough to get t on Google Might Disappear in Five Years · · Score: 2, Funny

    In the year 2525 v2.0

    In the year 2525
    If Bill is still alive
    If Linus still can hack they may find

    In the year 3535
    Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies
    Everything you think do and say
    Is stored on the RAID you took today

    In the year 4545
    You ain't gonna need your teeth, won't need your eyes
    You won't find a thing to chew
    Google's gonna do that for you

    In the year 5555
    Your mouse hangin' limp at your sides
    Your legs got nothin' to do
    Windows 55's doing that for you

    In the year 6565
    You won't need no husband, won't need no wife
    You'll pick your son, pick your daughter too
    Who'd have thought, Windows would do that for you?

    In the year 7510
    If DOS is a comin' He oughta make it by then
    Maybe He'll look around Himself and say
    Guess it's time for the judgement day

    In the year 8510
    Linux is gonna shake His mighty head
    He'll either say I'm pleased where man has been
    Or tear it down and start again woh oh

    In the year 9595
    I'm kinda wonderin' if Google is gonna be alive
    He's indexed everything this old Earth can give
    But He won't retrieve nothin more woh oh

    Now it's been ten thousand years
    Google has filled its googleplex
    For what we never knew
    Now Windows reign is through

    But through eternal night
    The twinkling of Windows-lite
    So very far away
    Maybe it's only yesterday

    In the year 2525
    If man is still alive
    If woman can survive, they may find......

    With apologies to Zager and Evans.

  3. What for? on Consumers Union Wants You to Share Your Story · · Score: 1

    Just as you said, we have the US Congress. I can't imaging a better lobbying organization then that!

    I wish congress would lobby for my project. Imagine what a 1 Billion $ appropriation would do for MythTV!

  4. OpenOffice.org is not GPL on We're Open enough, Says Microsoft · · Score: 3, Informative
    Open Office is dual licenced. You can pick which license you want to use.

    "The libraries and component functionality of the OpenOffice.org source code" are LGPL, which allows them to be linked in to proprietary works.

    It is also possible to license OO.org under the Sun Industry Standards Source License (SISSL). This allows you to make proprietary, binary only distributions, if you maintain compatibility with with the APIs and XML formats. Microsoft could download the entire source, add an MS-Office GUI and a their own Word importer and make "MS-Office Released" out of it. As long as they don't break any interfaces, that's OK under the SISSL. Why doesn't MS import OO files? Because they don't want to. Perhaps they need some convincing...

  5. How about: Form a militia? on File Sharing and CD Sales, Again · · Score: 1

    If the law sanctions attacks on my property, does this constitute unreasonable search and seizure? Does this violate Due Process? Is it a bill of attainder (condemnation by legislation, not by the courts).

    Does the right to bear arms and form militia give us the right to own electronic arms, which defend against electionic attack? Given that pre-emptive defense is increasingly acceptable, perhaps we should form unregulated militia, which defend themselves with D-DOS counterstrikes against the RIAA?

    Laws like these foster a very hostile climate on the Internet, with implications that go way beyond the problems of the RIAA. Do our legislators really want to bring this on?