If the guy is selling his open source version of Oracle, and it does the same or better job as Oracle for a lower price, then how is it fair to tax him to protect a company which produces a worse, more expensive product ?
Wrong. The price will stay constant, but hardware will continue to improve.
The reason Bill wants free hardware and expensive software, is that the alternative, i.e. free software and expensive hardware, puts Microsoft out of business.
Sticking all that money in Microsoft's cash account is actually a net *loss* nationally, especially since Microsoft gets tax breaks and actually pays very little tax.
"Microsoft enjoyed more than $12 billion in total tax breaks over the past five years. In fact, Microsoft actually paid no tax at all in 1999, despite $12.3 billion in reported U.S. profits. Microsoft's tax rate for the past two years was only 1.8 percent on $21.9 billion in pretax U.S. profits."
Using Open Source/Free Software would not take Microsoft money out of the system; instead the same money could be spent on hardware, training, better support.
If you are talking about the US, of course IBM, Redhat and Novell are all American companies, and they *do* pay tax.
The difference is in this scheme I presume you could have executable only access to the install partition, and not read access. So there could be hidden code in there, and you would never know about it.
Compare this with Linux. You can use one copy on as many machines as you like, or as many copies as you like on as many machines as you like. In fact, you are encouraged to.
Actually, it is a crime under the DMCA, section 1202. There was an article on this very issue on groklaw.net. All they need to do is say that a watermark is copyright management information.
Sec. 1202. Integrity of copyright management information
. . . (b) REMOVAL OR ALTERATION OF COPYRIGHT MANAGEMENT INFORMATION- No person shall, without the authority of the copyright owner or the law--
(1) intentionally remove or alter any copyright management information,
(2) distribute or import for distribution copyright management information knowing that the copyright management information has been removed or altered without authority of the copyright owner or the law, or
(3) distribute, import for distribution, or publicly perform works, copies of works, or phonorecords, knowing that copyright management information has been removed or altered without authority of the copyright owner or the law,
knowing, or, with respect to civil remedies under section 1203, having reasonable grounds to know, that it will induce, enable, facilitate, or conceal an infringement of any right under this title.
In other words "Thou shalt not do anything we don't like."
I have never lied in my work. In fact I once quit a job because I was asked to lie to customers about how many support staff we had on out projects (that was a long time ago, and a few weeks after I left the company was bought out by somebody else...)
If lying is a part of your job, it's time to quit and find something else.
I think a lot of people here are missing the real point, which is not about *players* it is about *codecs*. By making wmv the default format on 95% of desktop machines, this gives Microsoft a huge amount of leverage on content providers.
This means a lock in to one proprietary format, and locks out other formats.
Slashdot Mirror
If the guy is selling his open source version of Oracle, and it does the same or better job as Oracle for a lower price, then how is it fair to tax him to protect a company which produces a worse, more expensive product ?
I disagree. Bandwidth is the amount of data delivered/time it takes to deliver.
If the pigeons fly twice as fast, they can deliver twice as much data in the same time period. Thus the bandwidth doubles.
If the distance were to double then it would take at least twice as long to deliver the same amount of data. Thus the bandwidth would halve.
The reason Bill wants free hardware and expensive software, is that the alternative, i.e. free software and expensive hardware, puts Microsoft out of business.
maybe one part of NASA was using radians, and another degrees.
If you want to do more than just watching, try this...
"Microsoft enjoyed more than $12 billion in total tax breaks over the past five years. In fact, Microsoft actually paid no tax at all in 1999, despite $12.3 billion in reported U.S. profits. Microsoft's tax rate for the past two years was only 1.8 percent on $21.9 billion in pretax U.S. profits."
Using Open Source/Free Software would not take Microsoft money out of the system; instead the same money could be spent on hardware, training, better support.
If you are talking about the US, of course IBM, Redhat and Novell are all American companies, and they *do* pay tax.
The difference is in this scheme I presume you could have executable only access to the install partition, and not read access. So there could be hidden code in there, and you would never know about it.
The fools !
A pantomime cave troll. One guy standing on the other's shoulders, swinging a big club.
(Groan).
Which nicely proves the point - Microsoft browser software is stagnating, whilst all the true innovation is taking place outside that company.
Compare this with Linux. You can use one copy on as many machines as you like, or as many copies as you like on as many machines as you like. In fact, you are encouraged to.
Then I have some marvellous snake oil for you, which will cure every known disease. I can let you have some very cheap.
2) Windows Re-installed from scratch.
3) Windows Removed.
4) Windows Replaced (with an OS that works better...)
Sec. 1202. Integrity of copyright management information
. . . (b) REMOVAL OR ALTERATION OF COPYRIGHT MANAGEMENT INFORMATION- No person shall, without the authority of the copyright owner or the law--
(1) intentionally remove or alter any copyright management information,
(2) distribute or import for distribution copyright management information knowing that the copyright management information has been removed or altered without authority of the copyright owner or the law, or
(3) distribute, import for distribution, or publicly perform works, copies of works, or phonorecords, knowing that copyright management information has been removed or altered without authority of the copyright owner or the law,
knowing, or, with respect to civil remedies under section 1203, having reasonable grounds to know, that it will induce, enable, facilitate, or conceal an infringement of any right under this title.
In other words "Thou shalt not do anything we don't like."
I wonder what he could be talking about there ? Conflict with a vendor ? Which vendor, and why would there be a conflict ?
2) Is there a good choice of popular and less well known music from the last 30 years or so ?
3) Are the downloads CD quality or better ?
If the answer to these 3 questions is yes, I will probably sign up.
Open sourcing quicktime ? - nope
An Open Source client for iTunes ? - nope
They take, but they give nothing back.
I prefer "Three Blinded White Mice" on the Mouse Organ.
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 68056 Jul 11 2002
ed is becoming too bloated for me these days...
...welcome our slurping overladies !
If lying is a part of your job, it's time to quit and find something else.
Yup, that was just what I was thinking as well.
This would also have the advantage of preventing further ddos attacks.
This means a lock in to one proprietary format, and locks out other formats.
...welcome our acid drinking overlords !
(Well somebody had to say it...)