them to give up THEIR intellectual property that they have developed is just proving their point
Your totally misinformed.
1. Microsoft is a monopoly. 2. Monopolies exert significant market pressure that distorts competitive landscapes. This means that unless a product is vastly superior to a Microsoft product, Microsoft will win. It makes competing on merit far more difficult. 3. In order to remedy this, the EU has insisted MS supplies interoperability documentation, as interoprability concerns are the PRIMARY market barrier that MS maintains. Why does everyone use MS software? Primary reason: Not because its the best, but because its the most interoperable.
End result of interopability? More (and better) software from competing software manufactures, and more (and better) software from Microsoft. Look at Firefox; Firefox is more or less interoperable with IE. And look at the Firefox rate of improvement? It seems to have knocked MS out of its IE stagnation. Everyone wins!
4. In order to comply with the EU order, MS offered to license its source code to anyone willing to pay a reasonable fee. This is nice and all, but doesn't satisfy the interoperability requirement! The EU has NOT said MS isn't in compliance, but at the same time they haven't decided that MS IS in compliance. At the moment (and the subject of the article) the EU council is deciding whether or not supplying source code is "sufficent" documentation for a competing company to develop and interoperable implementation. If it is found to be so, end of story.
5. The CORRECT solution for MS would have been to supply documentation for the interfaces and protocols of its various Windows platform related applications. Not the entire source code, just interface documentation.
I don't understand how thats an unreasonable request for a twice convicted monopolist whose primary market barrier is interoperability concerns. Seems like a very fair and reasonable judgement, certainly much more fair (to MS) than a company breakup or vast restrictions on their business plan.
Europe didn't demand the MS source code. They demanded the interfaces and protocols needed for interoperability.
That's like Europe asking McDonalds to put nutritional information on packging in a certain fashion, and getting the entire recipe lineup to every variation of every experimental product that McDs ever tested in a lab.
Source code != Documentation for interfaces and protocols. And Microsoft has been determined by a U.S. court (and EU court) to be an illegal monopoly. The U.S. remedies were originally to tear the company apart, and were removed because of an overzealous judge.
The E.U. is now implementing its own remedies, which is mandatory interoperability documentation. Source code != interoperability documentation.
I quote: In stentorian language seldom heard in discussions of a fellow jurist, the appeals court unanimously condemned Jackson's "rampant disregard for the judiciary's ethical obligations," and said he'd no longer be permitted anywhere near this case.... Remaining silent were Jackson's fans in the Washington establishment, who cheered the rotund jurist last year when he was denouncing Microsoft chairman Bill Gates as unethical and compared him to a "drug trafficker" and Napoleon.... Jackson repeatedly cut Microsoft attorneys short during cross-examination, while treating David Boies, who argued the case for the government, with visible deference. He appointed Larry Lessig, a prominent liberal law professor and Microsoft critic, as a special master over objections from defense lawyers.
He ordered a dismemberment of the largest software company in the world without holding one hearing on the topic, a move that seemed to shock the appeals court. Most antitrust trials of any substance take years to prepare: Jackson gave Microsoft six months.... Microsoft's adversaries were left fuming on Thursday, insisting that if Jackson had held his tongue, the breakup order would have remained intact.
"I wish he hadn't spoken out of turn the way he did because I truly believe that if he had exercised better judgment, we wouldn't have seen his remedies vacated," said Norm Hawker, a research fellow at the American Antitrust Institute, which advocates aggressive use of the antitrust laws.
"He essentially pulled the carpet out from under his own findings," Hawker said.
In fact, the district appeals court said the following: "Although we find no evidence of actual bias, we hold that the actions of the trial judge seriously tainted the proceedings before the District Court and called into question the integrity of the judicial process," the judges wrote. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/june01/microso ft_6-28.html
Judge Jackson originally tore Microsoft a new asshole. If he had not gotten so caught up in the case, Microsoft would be well on its way to a breakup (or already broken up right now). He was overzealous, and in an effort to restore judicial impartiality, other judges implemented far meeker punishments. The system overcorrected, but make no mistake; the original judge and the prosecutors were out for blood, and they blew it because they went too far.
The EU has asked for MS to provided documentation allowing interoperability with Windows and other Windows software components.
MS offered to license the Windows source code.
MS didn't have offer the source code, and the EU is rightly saying that source code sans documentation may not be enough to make interoperability easy.
It's not that source code "Isn't enough". It's communication protocols that they want, mainly. Not piles of source.
The government is going to win this case. It's a business, not a real person, all the arguments Google can make against the government holding the information the government could make against Google themselves holding it. Google will break a deal and keep recording what people search for. If they would have been smart and just never recorded searches in the first place (which they do on the Google Search Appliance) then this wouldn't have been a big deal.
There's a HUGE difference, and I think the government most likely won't win this case. DoJ is probably incredibly surprised the Google is fighting this, and given the recent PR regarding China, this is an excellent way for Google to demonstrate their "Do No Evil" policy, at least in the U.S.
Google acknowledges that they collect data, however, for consumers to be comfortable with that, consumers need to know that data will not be abused. Most people would consider federal government data mining about pornography "mis-use". You say that Google shouldn't be collecting data. Well, guess what: Data collection IS Google's PRIMARY business, both in terms of indexing websites, caching websites (and images, and video, and sound, and news), and in terms of search records, for advertising. Without data collection, there IS no Google; your under a serious delusion if you think they could function without search records. The key is not that they collect data, the key is they keep that data sacred. No one, not you, not me, not the government, not Google employees, is allowed to peruse that data. That data is soley used for targeted advertising and search optimization, and only by software algorhthm. Google stakes its reputation on this ironclad privacy guarantee.
People don't want the federal government playing around with their porn search records. It's as simple as that. If (and when) Google wins this case, it makes AOL, MSN, and Altavista look really bad for just rolling over and playing dead. You want your data private, even though a search engine will collect it? You want to have trust in a company that will fight for your right to privacy?
Trust Google. That we see Google fighting things like this out, versus AOL or MSN, is a BIG deal.
It's a business, not a real person, all the arguments Google can make against the government holding the information the government could make against Google themselves holding it.
It's totally different. Google doesn't have a monopoly on physical force, nor can Google arrest you, nor can Google play any of the other dirty tricks a government regularly would. Google uses information for one purpose: advertising. If Google can convince you your information won't be used for any other purpose, they'll have a monopoly on high quality data for high quality advertising.
It's well recognized that the government will misuse personal data collection; this is why we (both democrats and republicans) disapprove of national federal data collection. Indeed, most capitalists see no problem with data collection by private organizations, because they can't force you to comply. This is totally different that the federal government, and real capitalists acknowledge that the government should be under much stricter scrutiny because of its unique position.
Your also oversimplyfing the legal case, as well. I quote:
Google vowed last week to fight a renewed request from the agency, calling the subpoena overbroad. Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL all conceded that they have turned over some records, noting that they did so in a limited fashion involving only aggregated data and no personally identifiable information.
Leahy said in his letter that his concerns came "against the backdrop of strong public concern over the government's monitoring of Internet communications and warrantless eavesdropping on the telephone conversations of American citizens."
Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller said the department planned to respond accordingly, though h
Sadly, in today's climate of near monopoly, "made money" may not be enough. If they can continuously outsell, such that in the long run they disrupt Nintendo's economies of scale, they'll win by default.
Meh, I do believe that google does new things. This is along side their imitation projects.
To me, however, their imitation projects are generally the original done right.
I find Gmail better than any other main webmail provider. I find Google Talk better than the other IM services. Google Local, Google Maps, Google Earth, even Froogle.
Yes, Google Video is bad; however, I suspect it'll get better quickly. The Google Video business model is very interesting, in that anyone can sell a video on Google. That's the innovative part, not necessarily the tools they use to build their projects.
Given that those are some of the most popular games currently on the market, I think your rather mistaken in this. I say this as someone who usually spends an undue amount of time insulting MS.
To me, what I wonder is if relatives of the chief security architect of Microsoft can't keep their systems free of infection, how the fuck is the rest of the world supposed to do so?
If GM executives were constantly involved in car crashes due to mechanical failure, how many cars do you think GM would sell?
Whenever a family member or friend now asks for purchasing advice, I tell them, "Get a Mac".
If they don't "get a mac", then they are on their own in terms of computing help. I suggest getting a comprehensive service plan from the retailer.
I no longer have the nerves or patience to fix people's computers on a regular basis, and these people are just not interested in safe computing practices, but I can't blame them either; even my Windows boxen used to get infected every now and then.
People who purchased systems prior to my advice changing still get help. But anyone who buys a Windows box now is on their own; yes, Windows PCs are cheaper. But my time is valuable, and I think they need an appreciation of that. The difference in price between a PC and a Mac is most likely smaller than the amount they'll pay in service over 3 years, unless they get service for free, from me.
It seems pretty amazing to me that the VP for Security for one of the biggest IT companies in the world should have to have this type of learning experience.
There's myopia on the inside, I'm sure. I imagine that MS labs work very differently than the rest of the world; no spyware, no viruses. Everything is maintained in tip-top shape.
Hell, you see this in Microsoft's failed product demonstrations; things that work in house at MS HQ fail at these huge electronics shows, and its because they've switched to a less perfect sandbox, and something minor triggers a major crash.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt that people at Windows Central see the spyware/virus problem the way the rest of the world does.
AFAIK, most ISPs kill connections that are disrupting network performance, or spewing out worms. Even SBC, which I find to be a pretty bad ISP, does this on a regular basis, and I applaud them for it. I know all the cable providers do this as well.
Are you worried about infection spreading? 'cause if you have a valid installation, you are either a) protected (fully updated), or b) exploited by an unpatched vulnerability, to the point where having Windows Defender doesn't help.
The only people that are hurt by this policy are pirates. And I have no problem with that; the actual retail cost of Windows should be part of the TCO calculation for the end user, as well.
Pirated Windows versus Linux isn't a fair comparison. I like that people now have to worry about purchasing a legit copy.
It's also, from having used Windows, interesting that he doesn't say that critical security updates still are sent despite Windows copies not having been activated. Isn't this just about non-critical (non security) Windows Update services? It's not just non-critcal update services. It includes Windows anti-spyware, and Windows anti-virus. I believe the products are called Windows Defender, and Windows OneCare. At some point, I believe MS would like to turn these into a subscription model, and I don't think that pirates will work into that calculation.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if MS made Windows free, and only charged monthly for updates, Defender, and OneCare.
It doesn't seem to make much sense to me to have Linux take over the entire box.
OS X is very stable, even if it's most common variant isn't server grade, and easier to administer. Paying Apple's hardware premium just to run Linux natively seems a tad screwy.
Some of us actually like Linux:-)
Furthermore, some of us actually prefer KDE to Aqua. Like, err... me.
I anxiously await KDE 4.0
Think of it this way; I'm going to buy a laptop. Admit that there are quite a few people out there running non-OS X laptops.
Also admit that there are quite a few people out there trying to shoehorn Linux on to a laptop. Previously, PPC-linux was inferior to x86-linux, particularly in regards to laptop support. No broadcomm 802.11b/g support, no nvidia/ati support, no power saving. So Dell, or HP, or Compaq, or IBM was the choice.
Now, we can choose an Apple x86-Linux laptop, or an HP/Compaq/Dell/Sony/IBM x86-linux laptop....
See the choice there? The ability to boot into OS X occasional is just gravy; for me, that means the choice between dual booting Windows/Linux, going into Windows for my Adobe apps, or dual booting OS X/Linux, going into OS X for my Adobe apps.
Ironically, I'm typing this to you from my Powerbook G4, which I've tried to convert to Linux on several occasions, but have continuously gotten hung up on the lack of PPC driver support.
Apple's hardware premium genuinely buys you superior hardware. My powerbook is built better than the machine it replaced, a high-end Inspiron 8200. The battery lasts longer, its lighter, and its more solid. It's more resist to impact.
If it was x86, I'd primarily boot to Linux; but as my second OS, I'd MUCH rather have the option for OS X rather than Windows. The price premium for the ability to boot into OS X rather than dual-boot Windows is definitely worth it.
Why do I prefer Linux? I dunno; KDE just rubs me the right way, and Apple's X11 implementation is definitely second class compared to an Linux distribution (poor desktop integration).
I also find that when I need a random utility for Linux, I can get it and download it for free. I can contribute to it easily. When I need a random utility for OS X, I'm stuck in shareware hell, registering a series of products until I find one I really like. And of course there's no way to fix bugs.
Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, GoLive, etc. . . do not work well on Linux.
KDE is by far my preferred desktop environment, but really; if you had a choice, would you rather dual-boot into a unix-y environment for your pro apps, or dual-boot into fuggly, crap-security Windows for your pro apps?
I want to run OS X on my laptop for the Pro apps. I want to run Linux on my laptop for all my Linux apps, and my Windows games (which run very well on Cedega).
Why, pray tell, do I need Windows?
I have OS X apps I want to run. I have Linux apps I want to run. I have Windows apps I want to run that work perfectly under Wine on Linux.
Besides, many of us actually *like* KDE. I prefer KDE to Aqua, and would work in KDE all the time if I could run my OS X pro apps (Adobe Suite, Final Cut Pro, etc . . ) in a Windows on Linux. Barring that, I'll happily run a dual boot Mac.
Windows is pretty pointless for me.
The people who say Linux dual boot is stupid (while Windows dual boot is groovy) are either: A) Dedicated Mac heads who salivate over the prospect of converting Windows nuts via XP dual boot, and B) Dedicated Windows heads who salivate over the prospect of occasionally booting into OS X.
Between Linux and OS X, I've got all the application support I could possibly need. If people would pull their heads out of their asses, they'd recognize that.
The _only_ applications I have trouble with on Linux (high-end pro apps) run better than Windows on OS X (Adobe, or the OS X-only Apple apps (keynote)).
The _only_ applications I cannot run on OS X (OpenGL/DirectX games, Google Earth (up until last week), KDE, OpenOffice.org (2.0, with desktop integration), k9copy, wine, cedega, and a variety of other "free" apps I run on a daily basis) run brilliantly on SuSE Linux (which has a PPC varient now).
How can he feign outrage that politics became involved?
You don't understand Government.
The greatest aspect, and greatest failure of our form of Democratic government is that ostensibly, government employees should be apolitical. Elected officials are political; appointed officials and government employees/workers are NOT political.
Some people even actually try to hold to this; the opposite of this, politics among the beauracrats is the purest definition of "corruption".
Slashdot Mirror
them to give up THEIR intellectual property that they have developed is just proving their point
Your totally misinformed.
1. Microsoft is a monopoly.
2. Monopolies exert significant market pressure that distorts competitive landscapes. This means that unless a product is vastly superior to a Microsoft product, Microsoft will win. It makes competing on merit far more difficult.
3. In order to remedy this, the EU has insisted MS supplies interoperability documentation, as interoprability concerns are the PRIMARY market barrier that MS maintains. Why does everyone use MS software? Primary reason: Not because its the best, but because its the most interoperable.
End result of interopability? More (and better) software from competing software manufactures, and more (and better) software from Microsoft. Look at Firefox; Firefox is more or less interoperable with IE. And look at the Firefox rate of improvement? It seems to have knocked MS out of its IE stagnation. Everyone wins!
4. In order to comply with the EU order, MS offered to license its source code to anyone willing to pay a reasonable fee. This is nice and all, but doesn't satisfy the interoperability requirement! The EU has NOT said MS isn't in compliance, but at the same time they haven't decided that MS IS in compliance. At the moment (and the subject of the article) the EU council is deciding whether or not supplying source code is "sufficent" documentation for a competing company to develop and interoperable implementation. If it is found to be so, end of story.
5. The CORRECT solution for MS would have been to supply documentation for the interfaces and protocols of its various Windows platform related applications. Not the entire source code, just interface documentation.
I don't understand how thats an unreasonable request for a twice convicted monopolist whose primary market barrier is interoperability concerns. Seems like a very fair and reasonable judgement, certainly much more fair (to MS) than a company breakup or vast restrictions on their business plan.
Europe didn't demand the MS source code. They demanded the interfaces and protocols needed for interoperability.
That's like Europe asking McDonalds to put nutritional information on packging in a certain fashion, and getting the entire recipe lineup to every variation of every experimental product that McDs ever tested in a lab.
Source code != Documentation for interfaces and protocols. And Microsoft has been determined by a U.S. court (and EU court) to be an illegal monopoly. The U.S. remedies were originally to tear the company apart, and were removed because of an overzealous judge.
The E.U. is now implementing its own remedies, which is mandatory interoperability documentation. Source code != interoperability documentation.
Get it?
Actually, the U.S. government's balls were TOO big.
0 0.html
... ...
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o ft_6-28.html
Seriously; the original decision against MS was to break up the company.
Why was it reversed?
http://www.wired.com/news/antitrust/0,1551,44902,
I quote:
In stentorian language seldom heard in discussions of a fellow jurist, the appeals court unanimously condemned Jackson's "rampant disregard for the judiciary's ethical obligations," and said he'd no longer be permitted anywhere near this case.
Remaining silent were Jackson's fans in the Washington establishment, who cheered the rotund jurist last year when he was denouncing Microsoft chairman Bill Gates as unethical and compared him to a "drug trafficker" and Napoleon.
Jackson repeatedly cut Microsoft attorneys short during cross-examination, while treating David Boies, who argued the case for the government, with visible deference. He appointed Larry Lessig, a prominent liberal law professor and Microsoft critic, as a special master over objections from defense lawyers.
He ordered a dismemberment of the largest software company in the world without holding one hearing on the topic, a move that seemed to shock the appeals court. Most antitrust trials of any substance take years to prepare: Jackson gave Microsoft six months.
Microsoft's adversaries were left fuming on Thursday, insisting that if Jackson had held his tongue, the breakup order would have remained intact.
"I wish he hadn't spoken out of turn the way he did because I truly believe that if he had exercised better judgment, we wouldn't have seen his remedies vacated," said Norm Hawker, a research fellow at the American Antitrust Institute, which advocates aggressive use of the antitrust laws.
"He essentially pulled the carpet out from under his own findings," Hawker said.
In fact, the district appeals court said the following:
"Although we find no evidence of actual bias, we hold that the actions of the trial judge seriously tainted the proceedings before the District Court and called into question the integrity of the judicial process," the judges wrote.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/june01/micros
Judge Jackson originally tore Microsoft a new asshole. If he had not gotten so caught up in the case, Microsoft would be well on its way to a breakup (or already broken up right now). He was overzealous, and in an effort to restore judicial impartiality, other judges implemented far meeker punishments. The system overcorrected, but make no mistake; the original judge and the prosecutors were out for blood, and they blew it because they went too far.
The EU has asked for MS to provided documentation allowing interoperability with Windows and other Windows software components.
MS offered to license the Windows source code.
MS didn't have offer the source code, and the EU is rightly saying that source code sans documentation may not be enough to make interoperability easy.
It's not that source code "Isn't enough". It's communication protocols that they want, mainly. Not piles of source.
There's a HUGE difference, and I think the government most likely won't win this case. DoJ is probably incredibly surprised the Google is fighting this, and given the recent PR regarding China, this is an excellent way for Google to demonstrate their "Do No Evil" policy, at least in the U.S.
Google acknowledges that they collect data, however, for consumers to be comfortable with that, consumers need to know that data will not be abused. Most people would consider federal government data mining about pornography "mis-use". You say that Google shouldn't be collecting data. Well, guess what: Data collection IS Google's PRIMARY business, both in terms of indexing websites, caching websites (and images, and video, and sound, and news), and in terms of search records, for advertising. Without data collection, there IS no Google; your under a serious delusion if you think they could function without search records. The key is not that they collect data, the key is they keep that data sacred. No one, not you, not me, not the government, not Google employees, is allowed to peruse that data. That data is soley used for targeted advertising and search optimization, and only by software algorhthm. Google stakes its reputation on this ironclad privacy guarantee.
People don't want the federal government playing around with their porn search records. It's as simple as that. If (and when) Google wins this case, it makes AOL, MSN, and Altavista look really bad for just rolling over and playing dead. You want your data private, even though a search engine will collect it? You want to have trust in a company that will fight for your right to privacy?
Trust Google. That we see Google fighting things like this out, versus AOL or MSN, is a BIG deal.
It's a business, not a real person, all the arguments Google can make against the government holding the information the government could make against Google themselves holding it.
It's totally different. Google doesn't have a monopoly on physical force, nor can Google arrest you, nor can Google play any of the other dirty tricks a government regularly would. Google uses information for one purpose: advertising. If Google can convince you your information won't be used for any other purpose, they'll have a monopoly on high quality data for high quality advertising.
It's well recognized that the government will misuse personal data collection; this is why we (both democrats and republicans) disapprove of national federal data collection. Indeed, most capitalists see no problem with data collection by private organizations, because they can't force you to comply. This is totally different that the federal government, and real capitalists acknowledge that the government should be under much stricter scrutiny because of its unique position.
Your also oversimplyfing the legal case, as well. I quote:
Sadly, in today's climate of near monopoly, "made money" may not be enough. If they can continuously outsell, such that in the long run they disrupt Nintendo's economies of scale, they'll win by default.
Meh, I do believe that google does new things. This is along side their imitation projects.
To me, however, their imitation projects are generally the original done right.
I find Gmail better than any other main webmail provider. I find Google Talk better than the other IM services. Google Local, Google Maps, Google Earth, even Froogle.
Yes, Google Video is bad; however, I suspect it'll get better quickly. The Google Video business model is very interesting, in that anyone can sell a video on Google. That's the innovative part, not necessarily the tools they use to build their projects.
I guess they didn't (Xbox) learn from Nintendo's experience in the console market, either, huh?
MS is going after Sony, 'cause Sony thrashed Nintendo in consoles.
What's different in MS going after Nintendo, 'cause Nintendo thrashed Sony in handhelds? (Not that I actually believe they thrashed them)
I guess you aren't familar with Microsoft Game Studios huh?
Titles for Windows:
http://www.microsoft.com/games/pc/default.aspx
Titles for Xbox:
http://www.microsoft.com/games/xbox/default.aspx
Given that those are some of the most popular games currently on the market, I think your rather mistaken in this. I say this as someone who usually spends an undue amount of time insulting MS.
This is an ISP problem, not an OS problem.
Bandwidth abuse should result in termination of your connection. Period.
Just about every large provider already does this.
To me, that's not the strange part.
To me, what I wonder is if relatives of the chief security architect of Microsoft can't keep their systems free of infection, how the fuck is the rest of the world supposed to do so?
If GM executives were constantly involved in car crashes due to mechanical failure, how many cars do you think GM would sell?
Not Very Many
Its an ISP problem, not a Microsoft problem.
Besides, if all the spam zombies disappeared tomorrow, do you _really_ think we'd see the end of spam?
I doubt it.
Don't pirate Windows. Either buy it, or use Linux. You've got a free alternative, so use it.
Whenever a family member or friend now asks for purchasing advice, I tell them, "Get a Mac".
If they don't "get a mac", then they are on their own in terms of computing help. I suggest getting a comprehensive service plan from the retailer.
I no longer have the nerves or patience to fix people's computers on a regular basis, and these people are just not interested in safe computing practices, but I can't blame them either; even my Windows boxen used to get infected every now and then.
People who purchased systems prior to my advice changing still get help. But anyone who buys a Windows box now is on their own; yes, Windows PCs are cheaper. But my time is valuable, and I think they need an appreciation of that. The difference in price between a PC and a Mac is most likely smaller than the amount they'll pay in service over 3 years, unless they get service for free, from me.
It seems pretty amazing to me that the VP for Security for one of the biggest IT companies in the world should have to have this type of learning experience.
There's myopia on the inside, I'm sure. I imagine that MS labs work very differently than the rest of the world; no spyware, no viruses. Everything is maintained in tip-top shape.
Hell, you see this in Microsoft's failed product demonstrations; things that work in house at MS HQ fail at these huge electronics shows, and its because they've switched to a less perfect sandbox, and something minor triggers a major crash.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt that people at Windows Central see the spyware/virus problem the way the rest of the world does.
How, exactly, is MS putting the internet at risk?
AFAIK, most ISPs kill connections that are disrupting network performance, or spewing out worms. Even SBC, which I find to be a pretty bad ISP, does this on a regular basis, and I applaud them for it. I know all the cable providers do this as well.
Are you worried about infection spreading? 'cause if you have a valid installation, you are either a) protected (fully updated), or b) exploited by an unpatched vulnerability, to the point where having Windows Defender doesn't help.
The only people that are hurt by this policy are pirates. And I have no problem with that; the actual retail cost of Windows should be part of the TCO calculation for the end user, as well.
Pirated Windows versus Linux isn't a fair comparison. I like that people now have to worry about purchasing a legit copy.
It's also, from having used Windows, interesting that he doesn't say that critical security updates still are sent despite Windows copies not having been activated. Isn't this just about non-critical (non security) Windows Update services?
It's not just non-critcal update services. It includes Windows anti-spyware, and Windows anti-virus. I believe the products are called Windows Defender, and Windows OneCare. At some point, I believe MS would like to turn these into a subscription model, and I don't think that pirates will work into that calculation.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if MS made Windows free, and only charged monthly for updates, Defender, and OneCare.
Yeah, yeah, but that's because the non-open-source accelerator module is not running.
It doesn't support OSx86 as a client or host, yet. The developers of the competing open-source accelerator module are working on it.
http://qemu.dad-answers.com/viewtopic.php?t=223&po stdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
I suspect this means we'll have OSx86 running on a Linux host on Intel Macs in no time.
Groovy
It doesn't seem to make much sense to me to have Linux take over the entire box.
:-)
OS X is very stable, even if it's most common variant isn't server grade, and easier to administer. Paying Apple's hardware premium just to run Linux natively seems a tad screwy.
Some of us actually like Linux
Furthermore, some of us actually prefer KDE to Aqua. Like, err... me.
I anxiously await KDE 4.0
Think of it this way; I'm going to buy a laptop. Admit that there are quite a few people out there running non-OS X laptops.
Also admit that there are quite a few people out there trying to shoehorn Linux on to a laptop. Previously, PPC-linux was inferior to x86-linux, particularly in regards to laptop support. No broadcomm 802.11b/g support, no nvidia/ati support, no power saving. So Dell, or HP, or Compaq, or IBM was the choice.
Now, we can choose an Apple x86-Linux laptop, or an HP/Compaq/Dell/Sony/IBM x86-linux laptop....
See the choice there? The ability to boot into OS X occasional is just gravy; for me, that means the choice between dual booting Windows/Linux, going into Windows for my Adobe apps, or dual booting OS X/Linux, going into OS X for my Adobe apps.
Ironically, I'm typing this to you from my Powerbook G4, which I've tried to convert to Linux on several occasions, but have continuously gotten hung up on the lack of PPC driver support.
Apple's hardware premium genuinely buys you superior hardware. My powerbook is built better than the machine it replaced, a high-end Inspiron 8200. The battery lasts longer, its lighter, and its more solid. It's more resist to impact.
If it was x86, I'd primarily boot to Linux; but as my second OS, I'd MUCH rather have the option for OS X rather than Windows. The price premium for the ability to boot into OS X rather than dual-boot Windows is definitely worth it.
Why do I prefer Linux? I dunno; KDE just rubs me the right way, and Apple's X11 implementation is definitely second class compared to an Linux distribution (poor desktop integration).
I also find that when I need a random utility for Linux, I can get it and download it for free. I can contribute to it easily. When I need a random utility for OS X, I'm stuck in shareware hell, registering a series of products until I find one I really like. And of course there's no way to fix bugs.
Some of us drink the OSS kool-aid, I guess.
Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, GoLive, etc. . . do not work well on Linux.
;-)
KDE is by far my preferred desktop environment, but really; if you had a choice, would you rather dual-boot into a unix-y environment for your pro apps, or dual-boot into fuggly, crap-security Windows for your pro apps?
I rest my case
Hear Hear!
I want to run OS X on my laptop for the Pro apps.
I want to run Linux on my laptop for all my Linux apps, and my Windows games (which run very well on Cedega).
Why, pray tell, do I need Windows?
I have OS X apps I want to run.
I have Linux apps I want to run.
I have Windows apps I want to run that work perfectly under Wine on Linux.
Besides, many of us actually *like* KDE. I prefer KDE to Aqua, and would work in KDE all the time if I could run my OS X pro apps (Adobe Suite, Final Cut Pro, etc . . ) in a Windows on Linux. Barring that, I'll happily run a dual boot Mac.
Windows is pretty pointless for me.
The people who say Linux dual boot is stupid (while Windows dual boot is groovy) are either:
A) Dedicated Mac heads who salivate over the prospect of converting Windows nuts via XP dual boot, and
B) Dedicated Windows heads who salivate over the prospect of occasionally booting into OS X.
Between Linux and OS X, I've got all the application support I could possibly need. If people would pull their heads out of their asses, they'd recognize that.
The _only_ applications I have trouble with on Linux (high-end pro apps) run better than Windows on OS X (Adobe, or the OS X-only Apple apps (keynote)).
The _only_ applications I cannot run on OS X (OpenGL/DirectX games, Google Earth (up until last week), KDE, OpenOffice.org (2.0, with desktop integration), k9copy, wine, cedega, and a variety of other "free" apps I run on a daily basis) run brilliantly on SuSE Linux (which has a PPC varient now).
Why would I _ever_ want to pay the MS tax?
Meh, at this point, its not clear who has correctly defined communism.
The academic community, who coined it....
Or the political leaders who use it to describe themselves on a regular basis....
The definitions are radically different. *shrug*
How can he feign outrage that politics became involved?
You don't understand Government.
The greatest aspect, and greatest failure of our form of Democratic government is that ostensibly, government employees should be apolitical. Elected officials are political; appointed officials and government employees/workers are NOT political.
Some people even actually try to hold to this; the opposite of this, politics among the beauracrats is the purest definition of "corruption".
Hear Hear!
Currently the Federal government spends 20% of our GDP. I'm not sure how much the states, collectively, spend, but I'm sure its substantial.
Lets try less than that. How's about we aim for 15%? Then we can look around, and decide if we can go lower than that.
TI is an OEM linuxant licensor.
It's not FREE (as in speech), but its free (as in beer) for end-users.
Plus, the Linuxant's driverloader is drop-dead easy to use, and works flawlessly with all TI chipsets (TI gives them all the documentation necessary).
P.S.: How to identify 802.11g TI cards.
Anything that supports 100 Mbps, or 125 Mbps. These are exclusively TI chipsets.
Also the 802.11b+ cards, that supported "2x" and "4x" mode. 22 Mbps and 44 Mbps 802.11b are exclusively TI chipsets.
The "+" modes work in Linux, but the "+" modes don't really show you much speed improvements anyways.