I must really protest against the "Object-oriented vs text-ONLY" mindset. A text stream is always the same text stream regardless of which platform I send it on to. Say I generate a text stream on Linux and send it using netcat to a system running Solaris or AIX. It'll be received correctly and can be easily processed. OTOH, the "object-stream" has no inter-operable survival beyond Windows machines. Secondly, text-streams are ubiquitous. Files are text-streams. TCP connection data are text-streams. The standard I/O interface of programs is text-stream. This ubiquity of text-streams is the main reason behind UNIX's appeal for power-users. At first sight, (for those who don't fully exploit UNIX) it will appear that this "object-stream" concept is more powerful than text-stream. But it's just snake-oil.
Who said anything about open-sourcing.NET libraries? What I demand from Microsoft is precisely this: either 1) remove Windows-specific things, sanitize and/or open up the specs of your "standards" so that anybody can implement a conforming and inter-operable implementation, or 2) stop pretending that.NET is "cross-platform" or "not Windows-specific" or "inter-operable" and stop making efforts to impose.NET/Silverlight upon the world.
I do agree that my post was very much off-topic. But I just wanted to convey the general message that there's a lot of difference between opening up a standard completely and code-donations.
the CLI spec is open. Mono is implementing compatible clean-room class libraries to mimic the.NET ones.
If the CLI spec is so open and.NET is so conforming, then why did Mono developers need late night efforts from Microsoft people during presidential inauguration?
Chris Wilson, program manager for IE, is trying to do The Right Thing.
The right thing is to let the truly inter-operable standards - the standards which won't require anybody to depend on somebody's charity - to come into acceptance. What MS has been doing will only contribute to the rise of pseudo-standards - standards whose inter-operability depends on one company's charity. This, in turn, leads to the death of other web-servers because they can't implement these standards in inter-operable ways. After that, MS quits Apache Foundation to be the single player.
That's the very point which deserves close attention. If the standard itself was clean, there would be no need to ask Microsoft for help. Think about why nobody other than Microsoft could build the test-cases.
1. Create protocols/formats/standards/specifications which are not inherently inter-operable. (Remember how buggy, incomplete and inaccurate OOXML spec was. Remember how Windows-specific the.NET and Silverlight specs are.)
2. Pick one of your competitors, give him (and him alone, not the whole public) code and/or patent-freedoms so that he can make an inter-operable software. (Remember Novell OO.Org plugins, Mono and Moonlight.)
3. Claim that the standard itself is clean and inter-operable by showing the existence of the above competitor's inter-operable implementation as "proof". In making this claim, take advantage of the fact that most people, organizations and courts make the mistake of not seeing any difference between the original definition of an inter-operable standard - "A standard whose specification is public, true to reference implementation and complete so that any developer can make a fully inter-operable implementation without paying any fees or signing any license agreements" and the twisted definition given by Microsoft - "A standard that has at-least one competing implementation besides the reference implementation".
4. As the claim gradually gets accepted, the "standard" becomes a de-facto standard and more people and government will adopt it. This leads to the death of 1) other standards and 2) other independent implementations of the same standard. (because the top implementations are not inter-operable with them)
5. Now you and your friendly competitor are the only ones in the business. After everyone forgets history, pull the plug and let your competitor die.
All my computers have been attacked by US-based "Cyber-Warriors". Evidence? I have lots of it. But I won't give any because of "security reasons".
This inability of Americans (including American Slashdotters) to understand the truth when their government is lying explains why Bush got re-elected after lying about WMDs.
First, the W3C is self appointed - it isn't even an industry group but rather is a collection of academics, theorists, and philosophers.
Sure, that's a problem. But it's a much smaller problem than Microsoft.
Second, as such, they are less interested in how the web actually works and more interested in how they wish the web worked.
Again, you're conveniently hiding the more important point: their wish includes open and inherently interoperable standards, unlike Microsoft's wish which includes closed or at-most interoperable-via-partnership standards.
By your definition ODF isn't open since it is *controlled* by Sun.
You're simply wrong. Sun controls OpenOffice.org but not ODF. ODF is maintained by OASIS committee whose membership is open to all. Currently, it has representatives from OpenOffice.org, KOffice and probably some others too.
Silverlight is not open source. Moonlight is. It is not a port, it is a sanctioned, but independent, rewrite, which is also related to advances in the Mono support for quite a few things that weren't there 2 years ago.
Those two words are contradictory: you need Microsoft's sanction (permission, as i understand) if you want to develop a 100% silverlight-compatible browser. (by the way, THAT's the difference between JavaScript and Silverlight). So how is it "independent"? Am I missing something here, my fellow slashdotters?
You better ship some decent development tools with that standard.
Standards are specifications. They are not software products. Nobody "ships" standards. They just make software products (in)compatible with standards.
At the very least, Flash and Silverlight provides a uniform platform across Linux and Windows for a developer to work on, making life that much easier for users of Linux and Windows
Slashdot Mirror
I must really protest against the "Object-oriented vs text-ONLY" mindset. A text stream is always the same text stream regardless of which platform I send it on to. Say I generate a text stream on Linux and send it using netcat to a system running Solaris or AIX. It'll be received correctly and can be easily processed. OTOH, the "object-stream" has no inter-operable survival beyond Windows machines. Secondly, text-streams are ubiquitous. Files are text-streams. TCP connection data are text-streams. The standard I/O interface of programs is text-stream. This ubiquity of text-streams is the main reason behind UNIX's appeal for power-users. At first sight, (for those who don't fully exploit UNIX) it will appear that this "object-stream" concept is more powerful than text-stream. But it's just snake-oil.
Just because the wise US forefathers saw patents as a meaningful concept doesn't mean everyone across the world share the same wisdom.
The real crux of the problem is that there is a WIDE gulf between the law and enforcement of the law
The real real problem is that there's an armada of press and web-sites that spew rubbish against china.
Who said anything about open-sourcing .NET libraries? What I demand from Microsoft is precisely this: either 1) remove Windows-specific things, sanitize and/or open up the specs of your "standards" so that anybody can implement a conforming and inter-operable implementation, or 2) stop pretending that .NET is "cross-platform" or "not Windows-specific" or "inter-operable" and stop making efforts to impose .NET/Silverlight upon the world.
I do agree that my post was very much off-topic. But I just wanted to convey the general message that there's a lot of difference between opening up a standard completely and code-donations.
the CLI spec is open. Mono is implementing compatible clean-room class libraries to mimic the .NET ones.
If the CLI spec is so open and .NET is so conforming, then why did Mono developers need late night efforts from Microsoft people during presidential inauguration?
Neither Flash nor Silverlight is a standard. It's just a fight between two evils.
Chris Wilson, program manager for IE, is trying to do The Right Thing.
The right thing is to let the truly inter-operable standards - the standards which won't require anybody to depend on somebody's charity - to come into acceptance. What MS has been doing will only contribute to the rise of pseudo-standards - standards whose inter-operability depends on one company's charity. This, in turn, leads to the death of other web-servers because they can't implement these standards in inter-operable ways. After that, MS quits Apache Foundation to be the single player.
Contributing to ONE among a bunch of competitors is not the same as defining the standard cleanly in the first place.
That's the very point which deserves close attention. If the standard itself was clean, there would be no need to ask Microsoft for help. Think about why nobody other than Microsoft could build the test-cases.
Sometimes it is possible for only 2 people to win.
and all others to die.
1. Create protocols/formats/standards/specifications which are not inherently inter-operable. (Remember how buggy, incomplete and inaccurate OOXML spec was. Remember how Windows-specific the .NET and Silverlight specs are.)
2. Pick one of your competitors, give him (and him alone, not the whole public) code and/or patent-freedoms so that he can make an inter-operable software. (Remember Novell OO.Org plugins, Mono and Moonlight.)
3. Claim that the standard itself is clean and inter-operable by showing the existence of the above competitor's inter-operable implementation as "proof". In making this claim, take advantage of the fact that most people, organizations and courts make the mistake of not seeing any difference between the original definition of an inter-operable standard - "A standard whose specification is public, true to reference implementation and complete so that any developer can make a fully inter-operable implementation without paying any fees or signing any license agreements" and the twisted definition given by Microsoft - "A standard that has at-least one competing implementation besides the reference implementation".
4. As the claim gradually gets accepted, the "standard" becomes a de-facto standard and more people and government will adopt it. This leads to the death of 1) other standards and 2) other independent implementations of the same standard. (because the top implementations are not inter-operable with them)
5. Now you and your friendly competitor are the only ones in the business. After everyone forgets history, pull the plug and let your competitor die.
The very fact that you need Microsoft's help indicates that Moonlight is not the way to go.
All my computers have been attacked by US-based "Cyber-Warriors". Evidence? I have lots of it. But I won't give any because of "security reasons". This inability of Americans (including American Slashdotters) to understand the truth when their government is lying explains why Bush got re-elected after lying about WMDs.
+1
The abysmal level of technical detail in all these "US military data was stolen", "Pentagon was hacked" kind of reports confirms it.
First, the W3C is self appointed - it isn't even an industry group but rather is a collection of academics, theorists, and philosophers.
Sure, that's a problem. But it's a much smaller problem than Microsoft.
Second, as such, they are less interested in how the web actually works and more interested in how they wish the web worked.
Again, you're conveniently hiding the more important point: their wish includes open and inherently interoperable standards, unlike Microsoft's wish which includes closed or at-most interoperable-via-partnership standards.
...they will lose their OEM discounts for Windows?
You must also be talking about things like
Windows Hardware Quality Lab(WHQL) Certification
By your definition ODF isn't open since it is *controlled* by Sun.
You're simply wrong. Sun controls OpenOffice.org but not ODF. ODF is maintained by OASIS committee whose membership is open to all. Currently, it has representatives from OpenOffice.org, KOffice and probably some others too.
Silverlight is not open source. Moonlight is. It is not a port, it is a sanctioned, but independent, rewrite, which is also related to advances in the Mono support for quite a few things that weren't there 2 years ago.
Those two words are contradictory: you need Microsoft's sanction (permission, as i understand) if you want to develop a 100% silverlight-compatible browser. (by the way, THAT's the difference between JavaScript and Silverlight). So how is it "independent"? Am I missing something here, my fellow slashdotters?
You better ship some decent development tools with that standard.
Standards are specifications. They are not software products. Nobody "ships" standards. They just make software products (in)compatible with standards.
At the very least, Flash and Silverlight provides a uniform platform across Linux and Windows for a developer to work on, making life that much easier for users of Linux and Windows
....and that much PITA for all others.
OK. Then try the astronaut.
not necessarily as an astronaut. She could be an engineer or a technical manager at NASA.
introducing new and potentially crippling compatibility issues
not to mention new flavors of DRM and many new proprietary protocols and formats.
All invisibility cloaks to date work by hiding an object embedded inside them.
This conventional kind is enough for me. Where can I get one?