This is not about some OpenSource community effort versus Microsoft.
This is about a Sun/IBM alliance versus Microsoft. IBM and Sun are both quite capable in terms of political efforts. I'd put IBM way above Microsoft, for that matter. Sun's StarOffice for smaller organizations, IBM's Workplace for enterprise class, and OpenOffice.org to fill in various gaps.
Fortunately, this is not David versus Goliath. This is more like clash of the titans, and in terms of wooing government contracts my money is on IBM.
1. Apple Boot Camp boots Linux. I've tested it myself. I'm going to do an install. Check my other post. 2. IMHO, Ext2 is a good way to go. And Linux has read-write HFS+, I believe.
Just tried it now. Apple Boot Camp officially boots Linux correctly. ACPI devices and the like are correctly detected, as is the harddrive. HFS+ works too.
What does consumer thinks about this? I think that this is great, now we can have officially Windows on Apple machines...:)
I agree;-) Thought, what makes the difference anymore between Macs and Dell or Sony or IBM or some other laptop? they all run on Intel/Amd hardware with WindowsXp...
Simple. You run OS X most of the time. You go to Windows when you need it. Instead of keeping a Windows computer around for gaming, or for that one stupid APP you need, or for whatever, all you have to do is reboot. Soon, I bet you'll even be able to switch by hibernating back and forth, followed by Xen, which will allow them to run concurrently.
Also, Apple laptops are manufactured better at any given price point. My Inspiron 8200 fell apart. Literally. It started loosing screws. That doesn't happen to a MacBook Pro (or PowerBook).
Further more, it gives you the BEST compatbility. Apple Pro apps, OS X apps, Windows Apps, hell, Linux apps. They all run on your Mac.
The best Desktop UNIX, the ability to run Linux, and the ability to run Windows. What's not to love? I think that Apple was great because they had the PPC and it's still the point what makes me want to buy MacPowerBook instead of MacBookPro... To most people, processor architecture doesn't matter. Features do. Dual booting is an extra feature.
I wonder.... whatever framework they use for iTunes and Quicktime on Windows.
Perhaps the difference between iTunes Intel OS X iTunes Windows isn't much. Would be super cool if you compiled apps on Xcode, created Windows versions, but retained the Look 'n Feel of the OS X versions.
There's nothing to prevent your IT department from imaging your Intel Macs for both Windows and OS X operation. Use OS X, boot to Windows when needed. My company has be watching XP on Mac very, very closely, and if this works out properly, we'll be switching every single person in the company.
Lets you point the NT bootloader at a Linux partition.
I suspect, however, that if Boot Camp uses a bog-standard BIOS compatibility module for EFI, Linux will just work, except for the ATI RADEON x1600 drivers, which don't exist yet.
Now, before everyone flies off the hilt talking about the end of OS X....
Consider: Apple makes Windows software, too.
1. iTunes 2. QuickTime 3. iPod utilities
Now they can do their development on Macintoshes, while running native XP.
Apple supports the Windows platform, and Microsoft supports the OS X platform. Both have developer staff which works on the other.
Why should interoperability surprise you that much, from a hardware perspective? Remember; Microsoft makes Virtual PC for the Mac, and bundles it with Windows licenses. Boot Camp is not a terribly new development, its just a new solution to an older problem.
New features are NEVER bad, as long as they are optional.
Boot Camp -> Select Windows -> NT Bootloader -> Select Linux.
But, I can give you the reason Apple doesn't support Linux on Boot Camp. It's very simple; the ATI drivers for the x1600 simply don't exist for Linux yet. ATI is already taking lots of heat for not supporting the X1600 in linux, and Apple providing a dual boot solution that won't run linux on the Macbook pro and iMac (but will on the Mac Mini!) will be a very firm, very solid kick to ATI's nuts.
> Besides, I wonder what m$ thinks of this. They may like it as it opens up a new client base. Or not.
If they're smart, I suspect they are wetting themselves right about now. Although this is potentially good for them in the short term, it is another clear signal that Apple is engaging in a stealth campaign to take market share from windows. Once people get used to the idea that something should Just Work(TM), they tend to quickly tire of substandard products. With a big enough market penetration for OS X PLUS Unix/BSD/Linux (could be anywhere from 10-25%), microsoft effectively loses its desktop monopoly, and has to compete ON QUALITY. This is something they are both organizationally and technologically ill-equipped to do. If they manage to do so anyway, everybody wins.
Maybe yes, maybe no. MS sells software licenses. If you recall, MS really liked Virtual PC, because it let them sell Windows licenses to Mac users. That's why virtual PC is a standard part of MS Office for Mac Professional.
This is more of the same, from that perspective. Expect MS to release a Virtual PC for Intel Macs that will boot the Boot Camp partition.
I have under my control (between work and home) about 7 Windows XP machines, none of them secured any more than the installation defaults, and most much less. About half of them have SP2.
I've never had a peice of spyware, malware, anything-ware, virus, or trojan..... Ever....
I am browsing a bizzare combination of sites for probably 10 hours of each day, using firefox and internet explorer. I goto plenty of free game sites, pr0n sites, etc.... Never have I had a problem, never has anything installed, never has my machine slowed down....
No SP2, no firewall, no antivirus, no spyware remover? Impossible. Simply impossible. You cannot browse to a free game site or free pr0n site using Internet Explorer without having an Active X-installed malware attack. And if you open up any service ports, you'll get Code Red style worms.
If you said you had NAT firewalls, without every using DMZ host, as well as up-to-day anti-virus and anti-spyware, as well as SP2, and didn't use IE, then I would believe you.
Or if you had NAT firewalls, didn't use DMZ host, no antivirus, no antispyware, used IE, but didn't browse anything but really big name sites (CNN, Yahoo, Google, etc. . ..) then I would believe you.
So have fun, but don't be stupid and buy into the myth that Windows is the only OS that can be affected like this.
It depends on your definition of the word, "like".
If you mean whether rootkits and malware are possible on OS X, Linux, Unix as well as Windows, then yes. If you mean that rootkits/malware are a big of a threat, as common, or are even remotely possible to the average desktop OS X, Linux, Unix, or Windows system, then no. If you mean Total Time of 0wnzership on OS X, Linux and Unix = Total Time of 0wnzership on Windows, then no.
No software is perfect. Even NASA has made 6 coding errors in the last decade. But pragmatically, running Windows you are much, much, much, much, much, much more liked to get rooted. Hell, if John Doe random Hacker doesn't infect your system, then 180 solutions, or even Sony will!
The only reason most XP malware is so simplistic is because the defenses are so piss poor.
There have been some incredibly sophisticated rootkits out there in the past. One can easily fathom malware that _cannot_ be detected without booting from known good media, and performing a scan without excuting any on-system code.
there really only are a few different ways in which a bug can operate on the system. They all need startup access, (and there are only really two ways that they can get that, one being a standard location in the registry) and they're all going to leave a RAM/CPU footprint.
You're really incredibly wrong here. While this has been the rule so far, there is no reason that this will remain true. Most likely, it won't; the only reason current malware is dumb is because it can remain dumb and _succesful_.
This is not because Unix sucks. This is because Unix doesn't have a vast number of crappy script kiddies out there; the Unix black-hats are the real deal. And it happens in the Windows world, too; remember when Valve's source repository was stolen? (Valve produced Half-Life 2. There was a custom crack job into their systems.)
Its a fuzzy memory, but I remember reading one story where a rootkit was introduced into a compiler at an early stage in some system design. The rootkit'd compiler was used to compile the base system's binaries, and then was used to build future revisions (and a more complete version) of the compiler. I can't find the exact story, but here's a link to an attack experiment that does just that. Click Basically, an attacker changes a compiler binary to produce malicious versions of some programs, INCLUDING ITSELF. Once this is done, the attack perpetuates, essentially undetectably. Thompson demonstrated the attack in a devastating way: he subverted a compiler of an experimental victim, allowing Thompson to log in as root without using a password. The victim never noticed the attack, even when they disassembled the binaries -- the compiler rigged the disassembler, too.
Of course, the nightmare scenario hasn't happened, and most likely won't. Imagine if someone seriously infiltrated the Windows development process; including Visual Studio. Don't snicker; GNU's development systems have been compromised, as has Valve's source repository. Both of these organizations have admin-level software running on many, many machines worldwide. Sure, someone would eventually find out if MS was rooted that badly, but imagine if there was a patch release, or an service pack, or something.
A vast number of systems worldwide would need to be manually booted from clean media in order to be restored. Scary.
If order for this to work, you have to stick with 100% RPM software. That's not always possible; some essential stuff isn't avaliable as RPM (Nvidia binary drivers, for one).
However, SuSE already does what you describe, for packages that exist in the RPM database. You can boot from the install CD, go to repair, and verify installed packages from there. Broken files get fixed.
Because it's entirely different if it was their font designer who said it or if it was a random employee whom they asked "hey, do these two look the same to you?"
IIRC, their attorney said it infront of the board of inquiry.
Their defense was not, "The Fonts are Different".
Their defense was, "The Fonts are the same, but they have no proof they sold it first, because although the invoice they show you is from 2000, the CD they presented was pressed in 2005."
Microsoft doesn't settle until they've forced the other guy to spend millions (tens of millions?) on legal costs.
To Microsoft, its not about how much it costs MS; its about how much its costs YOU.
They're willing to spend $1,000 to for your company to spend $10, because MS has tons of cash. This is standard Microsoft fare; look at Caldera, Stacker, and many other companies that were blatantly ripped off by MS. MS does settle; just after their opponent is dead (or crippled).
That's the funny thing; in the other two circumstances you mention, you would legally be in the clear. If you didn't order something, and someone delivers it/provides service/whatever, its not your problem. The worst they can do is turn off the service, ask for the product back, or ask you to pay them. You aren't legally bound to do so.
Lemme quote: "T.O.: How did Monsanto find out? P.S.: It came out in my court case that a former employee of Monsanto had rented some of that land a year or two before. He told Monsanto I possibly could have some of Monsanto's Roundup Ready Canola in it. And it was quite obvious when you drove down the main road, you'd see something dead, but plants growing in it, and they were canola.
T.O.: How did Monsanto claim this canola got into your field? P.S.: By either stealing it-they even went that far-or getting it illegally from a seed-house or whatever. So, anyway, I stood up to Monsanto and said, "No way. I never had any. You destroyed my fifty years of development." So eventually it went to court. But in pretrial just before court... they said that they had absolutely no proof... that I had obtained the seed illegally. But they said that didn't matter. The fact that there are some of their plants growing on my land infringed on their patent.
T.O.: How likely is it that your canola became Roundup resistant by pollination with patented plants? P.S.: I'd say cross-pollination would be a smaller way. But the big way-my neighbor, we found out in court, had grown it in 1996 right next to me. A whole half-mile. There was a windstorm and a lot of it blew into my field.
T.O.: The pollen blew over? P.S.: No, the seeds. So the judge ruled it doesn't matter how it got there, even if my crop was cross-pollinated. He said if pure seeds got onto my land and mixed with my plants, my whole crop becomes their property because now you can't distinguish which plants are GMO. So he ruled that all my profits from my 1998 canola crop go to Monsanto-even from fields that were tested and had no contamination.
T.O.: Some plants in your crop might have a single gene that Monsanto spliced into canola. Because Monsanto patented this canola, the presence of a single gene among all these plants, most of which don't have this gene, means that Monsanto owns the whole thing? P.S.: That's right. You can imagine how far-reaching that decision is. Think about farmers all over the world, people that own trees or plants or flowers: Gene gets in....
T.O.: What sort of agreement do farmers enter into when the buy seed from Monsanto? P.S.: You sign a contract, and in the contract it says you must allow Monsanto's police to come on your land for three years and you're not allowed to save your own seed. You've always got to go back and buy your seed each year."
Sweden doesn't have a "low" crime rate. Sweden's crime rate seems (to me at least) to be where it should be. Minimal, but representative of the mental illness associated with crime (inability to determine right from wrong, for whatever developmental or biochemical reasons).
The U.S.'s crime rate is artificially high, because our system of kick-ass courts, kick-ass police, criminalizing everything, long jail sentances, and excution _doesn't work_.
Crime is not a war. You don't "fight" crime. Crime, in the U.S., not only includes the aforementioned group of those unable to determine right from wrong, but also includes the impoverished, individuals who are socially connected to our extremely harsh law enforcement personnel (DEA officers are often rude (and corrupt!), brutish thugs who are not substantially different from the gang members they fight. Local police officers are occasionally like this, too; mainly by their involvement in things that police really shouldn't be involved in. However, while bastard = the rule for DEA officers, most local police officers are genuinly nice, responsible, and thoughtful people), victims of social crusades (war on pornography! war on drugs! war on IP criminals! war on tax evaders!), or victims of capitalism gone bad (road toll violators, speed trap victims (some American police departments fund the majority of their operations from traffic and/or parking violations. In some jurisdictions, a portion of the fines goes into the localities general fund; also, this category includes much of white collar fraud. Why? Don't kid yourself; a significant proporation of businesses do shady things, however, only a few people get made examples of; its not what you do wrong, it who you know, especially in places like Chicago.)
In the U.S., law enforcement is big business. From traffic/toll/parking violations to Prohibition, U.S. law enforcement employs hundreds of thousands of people, maintains multiple billion dollar budgets (with billions of dollars in revenue!) to spin off industries (prisons, prison support systems (laundry, food), police equipment sales, automated parking/toll/traffic enforcement systems,even social marketing capmaigns (don't do drugs! don't look at porn! abstinance is healthy!), not to mention the international spending (military interdiction).
Crime is popular in the U.S. because the powers that be profit from it. It used to be that this meant criminals profitted; now, chasing criminals is proftiable. Therefore, it makes sense to criminalize as much as possible.
*shrug* The current state of the U.S. judicial system, law enforcement, and crime is a excellent argument for the Libertarian Party.
Legalizing drugs would most likely actually reduce incidence of violence, as well.
Drug usage is only a subset of drug crime. Even if drug usage increased in a legalized world, the peripheral crime "effects" would vanish.
Sorry, off-topic, but Prohibition is a pet peeve of mine. The bizarre hypocrisy of the failed Alcohol Prohibiton experiment and the current "other" substance Prohibition situation blows my mind.
Errr.... 1 beer + 30 minutes cooldown = less imparement than the following activites:
1. Listening to the radio, and singing along 2. Talking on the cellphone (this is imparent closer to the.07 range!) 3. Talking to other people in the car. 4. Sleepiness. 5. Screaming Children.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, Dell distributes RedHat Enterprises Linux.
:)
What does that tell you?
oOo. Sounds like you are going to find the data singularity.
.... is this a new MS Vista technology?
A single byte that is all other data compressed together, and from which all knowledge flows! The universal black hole of data!
Don't tell me
Guys, you aren't looking at this correctly.
This is not about some OpenSource community effort versus Microsoft.
This is about a Sun/IBM alliance versus Microsoft. IBM and Sun are both quite capable in terms of political efforts. I'd put IBM way above Microsoft, for that matter. Sun's StarOffice for smaller organizations, IBM's Workplace for enterprise class, and OpenOffice.org to fill in various gaps.
Fortunately, this is not David versus Goliath. This is more like clash of the titans, and in terms of wooing government contracts my money is on IBM.
No, I think you're incorrect.
MS will incorporate ODF, and will do it very badly.
Same as with the web. You'll have to have an OpenOffice.org ODF, and MS Office ODF, and the two will not meet without quirks in OpenOffice.org
It's going to be ugly. MS's resistance is just their first bit of opposition.
1. Apple Boot Camp boots Linux. I've tested it myself. I'm going to do an install. Check my other post.
2. IMHO, Ext2 is a good way to go. And Linux has read-write HFS+, I believe.
Just tried it now. Apple Boot Camp officially boots Linux correctly. ACPI devices and the like are correctly detected, as is the harddrive. HFS+ works too.
Bea-U-tiful.
Gonna install SuSE, will post updates on my blog.
Bea-U-tiful. So Cool.
What does consumer thinks about this? I think that this is great, now we can have officially Windows on Apple machines... :)
;-)
I agree
Thought, what makes the difference anymore between Macs and Dell or Sony or IBM or some other laptop? they all run on Intel/Amd hardware with WindowsXp...
Simple. You run OS X most of the time. You go to Windows when you need it. Instead of keeping a Windows computer around for gaming, or for that one stupid APP you need, or for whatever, all you have to do is reboot. Soon, I bet you'll even be able to switch by hibernating back and forth, followed by Xen, which will allow them to run concurrently.
Also, Apple laptops are manufactured better at any given price point. My Inspiron 8200 fell apart. Literally. It started loosing screws. That doesn't happen to a MacBook Pro (or PowerBook).
Further more, it gives you the BEST compatbility. Apple Pro apps, OS X apps, Windows Apps, hell, Linux apps. They all run on your Mac.
The best Desktop UNIX, the ability to run Linux, and the ability to run Windows. What's not to love?
I think that Apple was great because they had the PPC and it's still the point what makes me want to buy MacPowerBook instead of MacBookPro...
To most people, processor architecture doesn't matter. Features do. Dual booting is an extra feature.
I wonder.... whatever framework they use for iTunes and Quicktime on Windows.
Perhaps the difference between iTunes Intel OS X iTunes Windows isn't much. Would be super cool if you compiled apps on Xcode, created Windows versions, but retained the Look 'n Feel of the OS X versions.
Your not looking at the business sector :)
There's nothing to prevent your IT department from imaging your Intel Macs for both Windows and OS X operation. Use OS X, boot to Windows when needed. My company has be watching XP on Mac very, very closely, and if this works out properly, we'll be switching every single person in the company.
http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/bootlinux.h tm
:)
Lets you point the NT bootloader at a Linux partition.
I suspect, however, that if Boot Camp uses a bog-standard BIOS compatibility module for EFI, Linux will just work, except for the ATI RADEON x1600 drivers, which don't exist yet.
I'll try it out soon
Now, before everyone flies off the hilt talking about the end of OS X....
Consider: Apple makes Windows software, too.
1. iTunes
2. QuickTime
3. iPod utilities
Now they can do their development on Macintoshes, while running native XP.
Apple supports the Windows platform, and Microsoft supports the OS X platform. Both have developer staff which works on the other.
Why should interoperability surprise you that much, from a hardware perspective? Remember; Microsoft makes Virtual PC for the Mac, and bundles it with Windows licenses. Boot Camp is not a terribly new development, its just a new solution to an older problem.
New features are NEVER bad, as long as they are optional.
If Windows can boot.... ... So can Linux.
h tm
http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/bootlinux.
Boot Camp -> Select Windows -> NT Bootloader -> Select Linux.
But, I can give you the reason Apple doesn't support Linux on Boot Camp. It's very simple; the ATI drivers for the x1600 simply don't exist for Linux yet. ATI is already taking lots of heat for not supporting the X1600 in linux, and Apple providing a dual boot solution that won't run linux on the Macbook pro and iMac (but will on the Mac Mini!) will be a very firm, very solid kick to ATI's nuts.
> Besides, I wonder what m$ thinks of this. They may like it as it opens up a new client base. Or not.
If they're smart, I suspect they are wetting themselves right about now. Although this is potentially good for them in the short term, it is another clear signal that Apple is engaging in a stealth campaign to take market share from windows. Once people get used to the idea that something should Just Work(TM), they tend to quickly tire of substandard products. With a big enough market penetration for OS X PLUS Unix/BSD/Linux (could be anywhere from 10-25%), microsoft effectively loses its desktop monopoly, and has to compete ON QUALITY. This is something they are both organizationally and technologically ill-equipped to do. If they manage to do so anyway, everybody wins.
Maybe yes, maybe no. MS sells software licenses. If you recall, MS really liked Virtual PC, because it let them sell Windows licenses to Mac users. That's why virtual PC is a standard part of MS Office for Mac Professional.
This is more of the same, from that perspective. Expect MS to release a Virtual PC for Intel Macs that will boot the Boot Camp partition.
Given all the unoffical Xen sponsorship from Apple, I wonder if this Boot Camp business is a precursor to true virtualization in Leopard.
That would be absolutely beautiful to release right before Vista.
Either your blessed, or your lying.
.) then I would believe you.
;-)
I have under my control (between work and home) about 7 Windows XP machines, none of them secured any more than the installation defaults, and most much less. About half of them have SP2.
I've never had a peice of spyware, malware, anything-ware, virus, or trojan..... Ever....
I am browsing a bizzare combination of sites for probably 10 hours of each day, using firefox and internet explorer. I goto plenty of free game sites, pr0n sites, etc.... Never have I had a problem, never has anything installed, never has my machine slowed down....
No SP2, no firewall, no antivirus, no spyware remover? Impossible. Simply impossible. You cannot browse to a free game site or free pr0n site using Internet Explorer without having an Active X-installed malware attack. And if you open up any service ports, you'll get Code Red style worms.
If you said you had NAT firewalls, without every using DMZ host, as well as up-to-day anti-virus and anti-spyware, as well as SP2, and didn't use IE, then I would believe you.
Or if you had NAT firewalls, didn't use DMZ host, no antivirus, no antispyware, used IE, but didn't browse anything but really big name sites (CNN, Yahoo, Google, etc. . .
I assume you don't use Outlook, either
So have fun, but don't be stupid and buy into the myth that Windows is the only OS that can be affected like this.
It depends on your definition of the word, "like".
If you mean whether rootkits and malware are possible on OS X, Linux, Unix as well as Windows, then yes.
If you mean that rootkits/malware are a big of a threat, as common, or are even remotely possible to the average desktop OS X, Linux, Unix, or Windows system, then no.
If you mean Total Time of 0wnzership on OS X, Linux and Unix = Total Time of 0wnzership on Windows, then no.
No software is perfect. Even NASA has made 6 coding errors in the last decade. But pragmatically, running Windows you are much, much, much, much, much, much more liked to get rooted. Hell, if John Doe random Hacker doesn't infect your system, then 180 solutions, or even Sony will!
This doesn't happen on Linux, Unix, or OS X.
The only reason most XP malware is so simplistic is because the defenses are so piss poor.
There have been some incredibly sophisticated rootkits out there in the past. One can easily fathom malware that _cannot_ be detected without booting from known good media, and performing a scan without excuting any on-system code.
there really only are a few different ways in which a bug can operate on the system. They all need startup access, (and there are only really two ways that they can get that, one being a standard location in the registry) and they're all going to leave a RAM/CPU footprint.
You're really incredibly wrong here. While this has been the rule so far, there is no reason that this will remain true. Most likely, it won't; the only reason current malware is dumb is because it can remain dumb and _succesful_.
Unix breakins are far, far more difficult to deal with then Windows breakins
This is not because Unix sucks. This is because Unix doesn't have a vast number of crappy script kiddies out there; the Unix black-hats are the real deal. And it happens in the Windows world, too; remember when Valve's source repository was stolen? (Valve produced Half-Life 2. There was a custom crack job into their systems.)
Its a fuzzy memory, but I remember reading one story where a rootkit was introduced into a compiler at an early stage in some system design. The rootkit'd compiler was used to compile the base system's binaries, and then was used to build future revisions (and a more complete version) of the compiler. I can't find the exact story, but here's a link to an attack experiment that does just that. Click
Basically, an attacker changes a compiler binary to produce malicious versions of some programs, INCLUDING ITSELF. Once this is done, the attack perpetuates, essentially undetectably. Thompson demonstrated the attack in a devastating way: he subverted a compiler of an experimental victim, allowing Thompson to log in as root without using a password. The victim never noticed the attack, even when they disassembled the binaries -- the compiler rigged the disassembler, too.
Of course, the nightmare scenario hasn't happened, and most likely won't. Imagine if someone seriously infiltrated the Windows development process; including Visual Studio. Don't snicker; GNU's development systems have been compromised, as has Valve's source repository. Both of these organizations have admin-level software running on many, many machines worldwide. Sure, someone would eventually find out if MS was rooted that badly, but imagine if there was a patch release, or an service pack, or something.
A vast number of systems worldwide would need to be manually booted from clean media in order to be restored. Scary.
If order for this to work, you have to stick with 100% RPM software. That's not always possible; some essential stuff isn't avaliable as RPM (Nvidia binary drivers, for one).
However, SuSE already does what you describe, for packages that exist in the RPM database. You can boot from the install CD, go to repair, and verify installed packages from there. Broken files get fixed.
Because it's entirely different if it was their font designer who said it or if it was a random employee whom they asked "hey, do these two look the same to you?"
IIRC, their attorney said it infront of the board of inquiry.
Their defense was not, "The Fonts are Different".
Their defense was, "The Fonts are the same, but they have no proof they sold it first, because although the invoice they show you is from 2000, the CD they presented was pressed in 2005."
That's a goofy defense.
Microsoft doesn't settle until they've forced the other guy to spend millions (tens of millions?) on legal costs.
To Microsoft, its not about how much it costs MS; its about how much its costs YOU.
They're willing to spend $1,000 to for your company to spend $10, because MS has tons of cash. This is standard Microsoft fare; look at Caldera, Stacker, and many other companies that were blatantly ripped off by MS. MS does settle; just after their opponent is dead (or crippled).
Hmm.....
;)
If only the judicial system had as much common sense as you
That's the funny thing; in the other two circumstances you mention, you would legally be in the clear. If you didn't order something, and someone delivers it/provides service/whatever, its not your problem. The worst they can do is turn off the service, ask for the product back, or ask you to pay them. You aren't legally bound to do so.
Monsanto, however, has already won cases involving the scenario I had described.
Lemme quote:
"T.O.: How did Monsanto find out?
P.S.: It came out in my court case that a former employee of Monsanto had rented some of that land a year or two before. He told Monsanto I possibly could have some of Monsanto's Roundup Ready Canola in it. And it was quite obvious when you drove down the main road, you'd see something dead, but plants growing in it, and they were canola.
T.O.: How did Monsanto claim this canola got into your field?
P.S.: By either stealing it-they even went that far-or getting it illegally from a seed-house or whatever. So, anyway, I stood up to Monsanto and said, "No way. I never had any. You destroyed my fifty years of development." So eventually it went to court. But in pretrial just before court... they said that they had absolutely no proof... that I had obtained the seed illegally. But they said that didn't matter. The fact that there are some of their plants growing on my land infringed on their patent.
T.O.: How likely is it that your canola became Roundup resistant by pollination with patented plants?
P.S.: I'd say cross-pollination would be a smaller way. But the big way-my neighbor, we found out in court, had grown it in 1996 right next to me. A whole half-mile. There was a windstorm and a lot of it blew into my field.
T.O.: The pollen blew over?
P.S.: No, the seeds. So the judge ruled it doesn't matter how it got there, even if my crop was cross-pollinated. He said if pure seeds got onto my land and mixed with my plants, my whole crop becomes their property because now you can't distinguish which plants are GMO. So he ruled that all my profits from my 1998 canola crop go to Monsanto-even from fields that were tested and had no contamination.
T.O.: Some plants in your crop might have a single gene that Monsanto spliced into canola. Because Monsanto patented this canola, the presence of a single gene among all these plants, most of which don't have this gene, means that Monsanto owns the whole thing?
P.S.: That's right. You can imagine how far-reaching that decision is. Think about farmers all over the world, people that own trees or plants or flowers: Gene gets in....
T.O.: What sort of agreement do farmers enter into when the buy seed from Monsanto?
P.S.: You sign a contract, and in the contract it says you must allow Monsanto's police to come on your land for three years and you're not allowed to save your own seed. You've always got to go back and buy your seed each year."
Errr... I smell patrotism on both sides.
Sweden doesn't have a "low" crime rate. Sweden's crime rate seems (to me at least) to be where it should be. Minimal, but representative of the mental illness associated with crime (inability to determine right from wrong, for whatever developmental or biochemical reasons).
The U.S.'s crime rate is artificially high, because our system of kick-ass courts, kick-ass police, criminalizing everything, long jail sentances, and excution _doesn't work_.
Crime is not a war. You don't "fight" crime. Crime, in the U.S., not only includes the aforementioned group of those unable to determine right from wrong, but also includes the impoverished, individuals who are socially connected to our extremely harsh law enforcement personnel (DEA officers are often rude (and corrupt!), brutish thugs who are not substantially different from the gang members they fight. Local police officers are occasionally like this, too; mainly by their involvement in things that police really shouldn't be involved in. However, while bastard = the rule for DEA officers, most local police officers are genuinly nice, responsible, and thoughtful people), victims of social crusades (war on pornography! war on drugs! war on IP criminals! war on tax evaders!), or victims of capitalism gone bad (road toll violators, speed trap victims (some American police departments fund the majority of their operations from traffic and/or parking violations. In some jurisdictions, a portion of the fines goes into the localities general fund; also, this category includes much of white collar fraud. Why? Don't kid yourself; a significant proporation of businesses do shady things, however, only a few people get made examples of; its not what you do wrong, it who you know, especially in places like Chicago.)
In the U.S., law enforcement is big business. From traffic/toll/parking violations to Prohibition, U.S. law enforcement employs hundreds of thousands of people, maintains multiple billion dollar budgets (with billions of dollars in revenue!) to spin off industries (prisons, prison support systems (laundry, food), police equipment sales, automated parking/toll/traffic enforcement systems,even social marketing capmaigns (don't do drugs! don't look at porn! abstinance is healthy!), not to mention the international spending (military interdiction).
Crime is popular in the U.S. because the powers that be profit from it. It used to be that this meant criminals profitted; now, chasing criminals is proftiable. Therefore, it makes sense to criminalize as much as possible.
*shrug* The current state of the U.S. judicial system, law enforcement, and crime is a excellent argument for the Libertarian Party.
Legalizing drugs would most likely actually reduce incidence of violence, as well.
Drug usage is only a subset of drug crime. Even if drug usage increased in a legalized world, the peripheral crime "effects" would vanish.
Sorry, off-topic, but Prohibition is a pet peeve of mine. The bizarre hypocrisy of the failed Alcohol Prohibiton experiment and the current "other" substance Prohibition situation blows my mind.
Errr.... 1 beer + 30 minutes cooldown = less imparement than the following activites:
.07 range!)
1. Listening to the radio, and singing along
2. Talking on the cellphone (this is imparent closer to the
3. Talking to other people in the car.
4. Sleepiness.
5. Screaming Children.
Should we ban these activites as well?