Ummm... Actually, if you go read so MS employee blogs, or go read some VS2005 articles, you'll find that a great many customers are unhappy with the state of the product at lunch, and those "won't fix" bugs were the reason MS announced a service pack at the same time.
Given that your car retains some liquidity after you purchase it, you can justify spending more money on it. Its a poor investment, sure. But a car is worth something.
Windows License? I cannot imagine anyone really considers the resale value of a Windows license in the cost. People would seriously have to rethink the way they purchase software.
On the negative side, a secondary market for your product means you have to compete against yourself, which Microsoft, as a monopoly, most definitely doesn't want to do.
Nothing would make Microsoft happier than if Windows licenses evaporated every 3 years. When you have monopoly profits, and market dominance, the only way to make money is to keep selling new versions of your product. You don't really care what price the market is willing to bear; you've already managed to take sole control of the 'supply' side of the curve, and as such, can charge prices constrained only by substitution costs.
As long as it would cost you hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars to switch to an alternative, consumers will choose Microsoft, because they are forced to.
That's why you see large corporate discounts, and educational discounts; those are the sectors more capable of switching to an alternative at significantly lower per-user costs. At the same time, EDU and COM (as in big education and big business) can't really function at a hobbyist level, scrounging older Windows licenses as they come. What happens when you need more 98SE licenses, and your supplier is just plain out? Who's going to manage this hodge podge of individual licenses?
No one; MS site-wide licensing is cheaper, and that _expires_.
Additionally, the software itself 'dies' after a little while. Without updates, which stop after a few years, your software becomes useless in a corporate setting. Sure, you _think_ you can keep your users safe, but it never works out like that.
Remember when CNN's networks went down a few months ago? That was unpatched Windows.
In a monopoly climate, all a secondary market can do is hurt monopoly profits. I bet MS is _fuming_ over this.
Google has an Office Suite, the same way that Google has a browser (two, actually).
They are not branded Google products, but they are funded by Google.
Office Suite? Perhaps you missed the news that Google has decided to fund OpenOffice.org development.
Browsers? Perhaps you missed the bit where Google pays the Mozilla foundation a significant sum to keep google as the default search tool for Firefox, as well as hiring some of the firefox developers.
Google also pays Opera to keep google as the default search tool, and I believe to also report usage patterns.
Google's got an office suite, internet browsers, an IM service, a VOIP service, an online research library, google groups, an e-mail service, and, duh, web/video/image/dead-tree search.
Not all of these things are branded google. But Google has a hand in them, anyways.
Make no mistake, "Wintel" laptops are Microsoft products.
They are not manufactured by Microsoft, true.
Each laptop, however, requires a Windows license to operate (regardless of whether or not you actually _use_ Windows, you pay for the Windows license).
Each laptop's hardware is engineered to MS's Hardware labs standards. Many of the interfaces in these laptops were is some fashion or other coengineered by Microsoft.
Video hardware is designed to meet Microsoft's DirectX specifications, as is audio hardware, and even networking hardware.
Keyboards are designed to meet MS standards, and include MS functionality. Printers, especially the mass-produced cheap ones, are designed around MS's GDI printing standard.
Your laptop is not a direct Microsoft product, but do not be naive enough to believe that Microsoft does not have quite a few fingers into its design.
Laptop manufacturers, or their suppliers, pay the Microsoft tax in quite a few iterations, from Windows licenses, to WHQL certification, to DirectX SDKs, and other forms of support/cooperation.
The courts have already busted MS once on the use of the term Windows. They determined that usaged BEFORE the relase of MS Windows should be observered to determine if Windows was a generic term.
If you had the balls, you could most likely release a product, "Word", fight it in court, and win that the term "Word" was a generic term.
You couldn't use the term, "Microsoft Word". But the term "Word" itself, that's absurd.
Remember; Microsoft did not beat Lindows in U.S. court. Microsoft was actually loosing in U.S. Microsoft was winning in foreign courts, because Lindows did NOT have enough money to defend versus 100s of foreign lawsuits.
Not to mention that in the Lindows case, the U.S. case (not Australia, or Europe, or wherever), the Judge specifically told the Jury they were _only_ allowed to consider usage before the release of MS Windows in determining whether or not the term 'Windows' was generic.
Given that it could refer to X-Windows, or Windows on my House, or Windows on my Car, or Windows in Physics, I cannot imagine the term as non-generic.
Now, the phrase, "Microsoft Windows", this might be a different story. But in any court case that played out to the bitter end, I imagine that MS would be forced to disclaim any ownership of the term 'Windows' as it applies by itself.
The Judge clear said no amount of marketing would change the fact that Windows was a generic term:
The Court flatly rejected Microsoft's arguments today that the jury should consider the meaning of the term "windows" in its current day usage, ruling rather that the jury should focus on the timeframe prior to the release of Microsoft's Windows products, which is 1983-1985. The Court also ruled that once a word is declared generic it would continue to be generic, informing Microsoft that no amount of marketing around a generic word changes the generic state of the word. To view Honorable Judge Coughenour's ruling, visit http://www.lindows.com/genericness
Here's a little more: Judge Coughenour ruled that the jury will be instructed "to consider whether the Windows mark was generic during the period before Microsoft Windows 1.0 entered the marketplace in November 1985." At the same time, the Court ruled that it will not instruct the jury to consider the current meaning if the jury finds "windows" was a generic term prior to November 1985.
Frankly, if anyone really wanted to go to the wall, I suspect MS would loose the trademark on the terms 'Windows', 'Word', 'Money', 'Project', and possibly even 'Internet Explorer'.
Lindows gave up because they couldn't defend themselves in all of the jursidictions that Microsoft filed. MS was filing cases all over the world.
But here, at home, in the U.S., the courts were ruling against MS, and rightly so. The idea you could trademark a foreign word, 'Windows', in, say, Japan, makes some sense. The idea that you could trademark the word, 'Word', or 'Windows', in the U.S. is absurd, and the only reason that it holds any weight at all is because Microsoft has a ridiculously huge pile of money.
If I tried to trademark the term 'WhiteWolf's Doors', as a piece of software, people would laugh me out of the room.
It is the nature of a theory to be "purely undeniable" in any context that involves it being provably true.
Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity is _not_ provably true. We can make observations that suggest it is true, and we can posit experiments that could potentially prove it false.
Quantum Mechanics is _not_ provably true. We can make observations that suggest it is true, and we can posit experiments that could potentially prove it false.
Evolution is _not_ provably true. We can make observations that suggest it is true, and we can posit experiments that could potentially prove it false.
Intelligent Design is _not_ provably true. We _cannot_ make observations that suggest it true. We _cannot_ posit experiments that could potentially prove it false.
Feel free to teach Intelligent Design. In either literature, sociology, or history. It has _no_ place in Biology. I believe I'm quoting Sagan, but if you taken an infinite universe, the chance of an infinitesimally small event occuring _repeatedly_ is 100%.
And theologically, I'm far more inclined to believe that the creator would have set the ball rolling towards evolution, rather than manufacturing the universe out of nothing in seven days several thousand years ago.
The bible should not be taken literally. If you read the bible literally, Jesus answers all prayers for healing, and PI is equal to _exactly_ 3.
Not that I'm even a Christian, but I don't understand why the concept of intelligent design is even necessary, except to advance a particular fundamentalist religious cause.
Even the Vatican has thrown its weight behind evolution.
Intelligent Design belongs with flat earth, earth as the center of the universe, and heaven as a literal place 800 miles up.
Note that evolution may belong with the epicycle system; as in, a better theory may come up. But that _sure_ as hell won't be Intelligent Design.
Though I'd probably place myself closer to an old fashioned, (1800's era) 'liberal', true-con.
As in Science, The Market, and Modernity will save us all.
Frankly, I don't know where these religious nut heads come from. I keep hearing all these polls about how the majority of American's believe in Intelligent Design, yet in the circles I walk in anyone discussing Intelligent Design would be laughed out of the room.
And yes, I walk among business people, not ivory tower researchers, or raving atheists.
I'm happy, because this means that regions in the U.S. (not-Kansas) will have fewer difficulties attracting business than those fundines in Kansas (fundamentalists).
I'm sad, because as Kansas continues to deterioriate into a rabidly backward and conservative area, more and more destitute as each year goes by, government handouts will be seen as the only way out.
You reap what you sow. As the (some of the) rest of the U.S. watches Kansas deteroriate into nothing, I hope we have the intelligence to leave them in the gutter.
And that's why its important that this case law is being slowly built up.
The case in question pertains _exactly_ to this situation. It doesn't matter about the majority of users; I _own_ one copy of the CD. Ripping of this CD to a non-protected format is _needed_ for me to be able to use it.
Otherwise, the programmer in question could simply have said, "But, your honor, I designed the software for their requirements at the time, and they could have simplyed employeed me, or purchased a different program, at any given time!"
It doesn't matter that I could switch to a different OS. It doesn't matter that I could purchase a different CD. All that matter is unless the CD promimently, expressedly says, "Not compatible with the following ", I can modify it if necessary to for me to use it.
And if the CD does have such requirements, it isn't a CD. The redbook audio standard doesn't permit that kind of crap. It's an optical audio disk, and should be labeled and sold as such.
I cannot play it from CD on my iPod. My Lexus's CD player will not play some DRM encrypted CDs. My Linux system (and I own nothing but Linux & OS X systems) will not run the proprietary DRM rootkits that enable access to various disks.
For me, in several situations, I cannot use these CD players. I do not own a standalone CD player, except for the changer and 1-shot in my Lexus.
Currently, this worm is only compatible with Linux/BSD systems, because they are the only systems with full shell scripting capabilities.
It is rumored that you can obtain the same level of compatibility with the Cygwin Suite, but that is not an officially supported configuration by Microsoft.
Never fear, though, Monad will bring Lupper, and similar PHP/Shell script worms to the Windows platform for the masses!
Seriously, though; isn't everyone fairly aware that PHP ain't that secure?
I guess I started it out with some fuel for the flamefest, but at the risk of turning this into a lovefest, this: KDE-heads stomp on GNOME just as much, that's kind of the problem. I try out KDE occasionally, mess about with it. I probably won't use it as my primary desktop anytime soon, I prefer GNOME. But they're both powerful environments, and to each his own.
is the sentiment that I think _really_ contributes to Linux. For people who prefer an elegant, well-designed (as in a great deal of architectural work) environment, GNOME seems to fit the bill.
For those of us who prefer to have a bit of everything and two kitchen sinks, even if there are some design flaws, and bits of UI ugliness, KDE fits the bill.
I don't think this is a weakness of Desktop linux. I think this is a _strength_. I find it very hard to agree with the "one windowmanager to rule them ALL" crowd. You and I, we both use Linux (unless your running a bsd or something). Our environments look totally different. Yet we can interoperate (for the most part) in terms of apps and utilities. I think that's great.
Oh, and thanks for the valuable information. I'll try and shoehorn the latest GNOME on to my system, so I can play with this neat sounding GNOME-VFS thing, and maybe learn a thing or two about the other side of the force.
And I agree- KDE-heads that stomp on GNOME should be shot. Well, perhaps not shot, but perhaps forced to use run Blackbox for a couple weeks. Though, you have to admit that all the competition between GNOME and KDE seems to drive them both forward.
Without KDE, I'm sure myself, my friends, and my company would be using Windows.
Gnome doesn't do enough for the end user. Too many settings required mucking around in either the registry-like editor, or just plain command line things.
I remember trying to use Gnome is SuSE 9.0, and not being able to figure out how to specify which app to use for which mime type. Someone politely informed me that this was the procedure to set default apps for various mime-types.
Yeah, that's noob friendly. Apparently, wasn't 'fixed' in 2.10, either. Is it fixed now?
Either way, lack of simple things like that, plus KDE's KIOslaves (which are beautiful, come on, who doesn't love fish:// or klik://), plus a far superior file browser (I've seen the gnome when I'm forced to load up a GTK app, which is rare).
How do I open from a network location in gnome? Can it be done? (In the file browser?)
Why don't I 'contribute' to the gnome project to make these things better? Simple: KDE already does them correctly for me.
Do I mind that other people are happy with gnome, or prefer gnome? No. But all you gnome-heads should stop stomping on other people's Desktop Environments. Seriously; Gnome doesn't work for some of us.
If the next OpenSuSE (which is my current distribution) has inferior KDE support, I'll be thrilled to move to a thriving Kubuntu.
There's nothing wrong with Gnome, for those who use it. But for some of us, gnome just doesn't cut it. Gnome may be different, Gnome may be more 'unix'. But some of us who actually use Linux as our sole operating system rely on KDE, and couldn't imagine switching to gnome.
This is WhiteWolf666, reposting logged in (I hope). Slashdot's login system is hopeless broken on my systems. What the hell is going wrong? I keep getting logged out each time I login.
There is, indeed, a difference. Just because it isn't black and white doesn't mean it isn't there. Few things in the world represent polar opposites....
Where can you go to get a Linux preinstall? Does that same manufacturer sell the Linux system (or *gasp* empty system) cheaper or more expensive than the equivalent Windows box? (Hint: 99% of the time, its cheaper to get the Windows box, and wipe it).
What's the difference in installing Linux on a computer, or starting Windows on a system where it comes preinstalled? Which is easier (apples to oranges, but representative of the market)?
Microsoft's primary Windows sales come in the form of system pre-installs. Linux doesn't even _exist_ in that area, especially in places where piracy runs rampant. Linux becomes the premium operating system, which doesn't make any sense, because it doesn't cost the manufacturer _anything_ to ship an empty system, and it costs little to image Linux systems.
Now, you can go to McDonalds. In most areas, _every_ McDonalds is opposite a Burger King, Taco Bell, and Wendies. Not to mention two dozen local places.
Same with Starbucks.
Where you can get coca cola, you can get pepsi (either in the same store, or across the street at the another place). This is fundamentally different as to the current Microsoft market dynamic. Now, one might say that there are only a few choices in the cola market. That's true; however, the barriers to entry aren't huge (we just introduced a new energy drink product at a very modest investment), and oligopoly is a substantially different state of affairs than monopoly. That's why we have laws against collusion; to prevent oligopoly situations from approaching monopoly profits.
The line at which one defines a company as a monopoly is substantially lower than 'the merest possibility of a competitor exists when you hold a bunch of unreasonable assumptions'.
It's far closer to, 'consumers have little choice in what to purchase within a price range of plus/minus 15% of the 'monopoly' product'.
If the argument is that Microsoft is monopolistic because they're the only ones who can sell Windows
This is misleading. Microsoft is a monopoly because they are the only ones who can enter into the various distributions channels of products termed 'operating systems' without incurring unreasonable economic burdens.
Yes, this is why phone companies, cable companies and electric companies are monpolies too. Only "building a new electrical system" falls into the category of legitimate barriers to entry, and "bundling, predatory OEM contracts, and malicious breakage of competitors reverse engineering" fall into the category of illegitimate barries to entry.
The term 'monopoly' is an economic term. Economics is not, and never will be, a black and white system. At any given point one can quibble and say Corporate X is not a monopoly. Nearly anything can be done without; substitutes exist for everything at all levels.
It is far more important to evalute the market's barriers to entry versus what they would be in an ideal situation.
Why is that? Why does it matter that Microsoft is a monopoly? Well, one of the reasons is because a primary tools used in the generation of Microsoft's wealth is copyright. Copyright is not a God Given Right (TM). Copyright is a limited monopoly established on a work, by Congress, in order to promote the arts, sciences, and economy. If an entity misuses this government GRANT, and artificially damages the market, the government needs to step in a correct it.
Ironically, this does not conflict with the libertarian viewpoint. One must first acknowledge that copyright is not a God Given Right (TM). It is something established by the government, and as such, it deserves constant review. From the Libertarian perspective, co
The world _shouldn't_ be criticizing the U.S. in regards to Iraq. The world _should_ be helping stabilize Iraq.
The world _should_ criticize the U.S. in regards to its ugly, close relation to the state of Israel (which, by the way, continues to maintain _two_ ethnic classes of citizenship), Saudi Arabia (which is fucked in more ways than one), and the bizarre, complex, and sometimes malicious policy the U.S. holds in regards to dictatorships in the various failed states of Africa and portions of South America.
Oh, and the outrageous crimes that are international drug interdiction.
Once upon a time, the U.N. was established in the interest of pursuing self-determination for all, with peace and prosperity running close second.
I quote the U.N. charter: WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED
to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, AND FOR THESE ENDS
to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and
to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and
to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and
to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples, HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS
Note this particular section:"by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest"
You'd think this would justify actions in, say, the Congo, or the Ertriean-Ethiopan war, or the various horrible totalitarian dictatorships where mass murder and ethnic cleansing are documented.
Not that the U.S. is going about it the right way or anything, but in my view, the U.S. is a hell of a lot closer to achieving this than anyone else.
The U.S., by any standards, is evil. The Iraq war was poorly planned, and winning the peace proves impossible. The U.S. regularly strongarms nations into doing wrong, and into abusing their own people. The U.S. manipulates the financial systems of the world. The U.S. dominates the very notions of discourse on the internet.
Yet, for some reason, the U.S. seems to have better intentions AND results than anyone else.
Kind of a sorry state of affairs.
As far as I'm concerned, the world shouldn't be upset about the current Iraq warrior. "World Leaders", rather, should be _ashamed_ that the Iran-Iraq war went on for so long, that the Israeli-Palestinian dispute continues to smolder, that Saudi Arabia, a fairly evil regime, continues to prosper on dirty oil money. I could go on and on.
People shouldn't be pissed off the U.S. is trying to change Iraq. People _should_ be pissed off that the world AS A WHOLE did not act sooner, and more decisively.
The U.S. fuckups are nothing in comparison the general apathy and disdain the rest of the world feels. I'm disgusting with this, in regards to the state of humanity.
And I expect to see more of this in the future. As-is, Ethiopia and Ertriea look as if they will start another war in the near future. Far, far more people will die than the U.S. has killed (yes, we've killed innocents) in Iraq. But no one will bat and eyelash, because Oil isn't involved, and the U.S. isn't involved, so its not a political hot button.
I reposted this from a reply, since I feel it is something people should understand.
Repeat after me:
"Anyone can setup their own DNS server at _any_ time".
Say that 3 times.
Sure, if you setup your own DNS server at home, you probably won't have a lot of adoption. But the EU has a great deal more reach than you, and shouldn't have any problem convincing Europeans to use their DNS. Cuba, China, and Iran will have even less.
The answer is simple, and has little (read _nothing_) to do with ICANN, or IANA. Whenever it wants, the EU can setup its own naming authority. As long as they don't change the way IP addresses are assigned, it breaks _nothing_.
The U.S. blocks.ir for its own residents. So what? China already blocks all kinds of things. An EU naming authority will block ALL manner of things (Nazi websites, for one. But there are plenty of other registrations that are no-go in the EU). That's fine; each organization can manipulate its own registration scheme, at will.
Rather than having one, universal, flat global system, poorly managed by a central authority which will be unable to satisfy the contradictory demands of the various governments of the world, a fragmented _DNS_ system makes much more sense.
You, and most other people, are misunderstanding what is going on.
Imagine, once upon a time, when the USPTO was established, that other governments, instead of developing their own patent organizations, simply followed U.S. standards. We had a unified world wide patent system, based upon U.S. law. Then, other nations became pissed off about this, because they felt that the U.S. would use the unified patent system to the detriment of those nations.
As such, they demand that the U.S. relinquish control of the USPTO, and turn it into the UNPTO, which would be government through the U.N. China, Iran, and Cuba, in particular, would like to see some patents invalidated, so they push hard for this.
Does it make any sense? No.
What makes _much_ more sense is that each government established its own patent authority, and then various governments negotiated bi and multi-lateral agreements regarding the governance of patents.
The internet should work _exactly_ the same way. As long as the IP address space doesn't get fragmented (and with IPv6, theres NO reason for that to happen), "control" of the DNS system is a non-issue. In fact, I think the world would be a better place with a fragmented DNS system. Why? Because barring laws in unfree countries (which have their own firewalls anyway (read China)), if you don't like your DNS, you can simply point your system at another one.
"Anyone can setup their own DNS server at _any_ time".
Say that 3 times.
Sure, if you setup your own DNS server at home, you probably won't have a lot of adoption. But the EU has a great deal more reach than you.
The answer is simple, and has little (read _nothing_) to do with ICANN, or IANA. Whenever it wants, the EU can setup its own naming authority. As long as they don't change the way IP addresses are assigned, it breaks _nothing_.
The U.S. blocks.ir for its own residents. So what? China already blocks all kinds of things. An EU naming authority will block ALL manner of things (Nazi websites, for one. But there are plenty of other registrations that are no-go in the EU). That's fine; each organization can manipulate its own registration scheme, at will.
You, and most other people, are misunderstanding what is going on.
Imagine, once upon a time, when the USPTO was established, that other governments, instead of developing their own patent organizations, simply followed U.S. standards. We had a unified world wide patent system, based upon U.S. law. Then, other nations became pissed off about this, because they felt that the U.S. would use the unified patent system to the detriment of those nations.
As such, they demand that the U.S. relinquish control of the USPTO, and turn it into the UNPTO, which would be government through the U.N. China, Iran, and Cuba, in particular, would like to see some patents invalidated, so they push hard for this.
Does it make any sense? No.
What makes _much_ more sense is that each government established its own patent authority, and then various governments negotiated bi and multi-lateral agreements regarding the governance of patents.
The internet should work _exactly_ the same way. As long as the IP address space doesn't get fragmented (and with IPv6, theres NO reason for that to happen), "control" of the DNS system is a non-issue. In fact, I think the world would be a better place with a fragmented DNS system. Why? Because barring laws in unfree countries (which have their own firewalls anyway (read China)), if you don't like your DNS, you can simply point your system at another one.
1. Be nice to have some real competition versus Linux/OS X in terms of architecture. XP/2003 just aren't there. Vista won't be, most likely. 2. Where such a beast (research OS) ever to become a product, would it demonstrate a high level of backwards compatibility? If not, would it actually have to compete on merits, rather than vendor lock-in? 3. It's taken ~10 years to write Wine to the point where it is in _beta_. Now, I'm sure MS can do it faster, because they have the documentation; after all, they designed it. But how long will it take? Or will they use a virtual machine architecture?
In any case, if MS switches to an entirely different OS architecture, I forsee the end of the MS monopoly. Release of a non-Win32 based OS, one that runs older applications (either desktop OR server) in emulation validates Linux/OS with QEMU/Virtual PC/VMware/Xen/Whatever.
4. I doubt this will ever leave the lab. Singularity will be a test bed for MS researchers who want to play with various concepts. These things will be ported over to Vista, or whatever comes into the future. I cannot imagine a world in which MS actually started from scratch; having to market such a product against mainline-Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, AIX, and FreeBSD would be pure madness. It's already extremely difficult for MS to push Office against older versions of Office; this has generated substantial pressure towards alternative Office packages.
It'll be significantly harder for MS to push towards a non-Windows MS operating system. Every single CIO willing to consider moving from Windows will be willing to consider moving to Linux/OS X/whatever instead.
Slashdot Mirror
Ummm... Actually, if you go read so MS employee blogs, or go read some VS2005 articles, you'll find that a great many customers are unhappy with the state of the product at lunch, and those "won't fix" bugs were the reason MS announced a service pack at the same time.
/ 490007.aspx
Go take a look:
http://minimsft.blogspot.com/
http://blogs.msdn.com/scottwil/archive/2005/11/07
Yes, and No.
It depends on the product.
Given that your car retains some liquidity after you purchase it, you can justify spending more money on it. Its a poor investment, sure. But a car is worth something.
Windows License? I cannot imagine anyone really considers the resale value of a Windows license in the cost. People would seriously have to rethink the way they purchase software.
On the negative side, a secondary market for your product means you have to compete against yourself, which Microsoft, as a monopoly, most definitely doesn't want to do.
Nothing would make Microsoft happier than if Windows licenses evaporated every 3 years. When you have monopoly profits, and market dominance, the only way to make money is to keep selling new versions of your product. You don't really care what price the market is willing to bear; you've already managed to take sole control of the 'supply' side of the curve, and as such, can charge prices constrained only by substitution costs.
As long as it would cost you hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars to switch to an alternative, consumers will choose Microsoft, because they are forced to.
That's why you see large corporate discounts, and educational discounts; those are the sectors more capable of switching to an alternative at significantly lower per-user costs. At the same time, EDU and COM (as in big education and big business) can't really function at a hobbyist level, scrounging older Windows licenses as they come. What happens when you need more 98SE licenses, and your supplier is just plain out? Who's going to manage this hodge podge of individual licenses?
No one; MS site-wide licensing is cheaper, and that _expires_.
Additionally, the software itself 'dies' after a little while. Without updates, which stop after a few years, your software becomes useless in a corporate setting. Sure, you _think_ you can keep your users safe, but it never works out like that.
Remember when CNN's networks went down a few months ago? That was unpatched Windows.
In a monopoly climate, all a secondary market can do is hurt monopoly profits. I bet MS is _fuming_ over this.
Google has an Office Suite, the same way that Google has a browser (two, actually).
They are not branded Google products, but they are funded by Google.
Office Suite? Perhaps you missed the news that Google has decided to fund OpenOffice.org development.
Browsers? Perhaps you missed the bit where Google pays the Mozilla foundation a significant sum to keep google as the default search tool for Firefox, as well as hiring some of the firefox developers.
Google also pays Opera to keep google as the default search tool, and I believe to also report usage patterns.
Google's got an office suite, internet browsers, an IM service, a VOIP service, an online research library, google groups, an e-mail service, and, duh, web/video/image/dead-tree search.
Not all of these things are branded google. But Google has a hand in them, anyways.
Make no mistake, "Wintel" laptops are Microsoft products.
They are not manufactured by Microsoft, true.
Each laptop, however, requires a Windows license to operate (regardless of whether or not you actually _use_ Windows, you pay for the Windows license).
Each laptop's hardware is engineered to MS's Hardware labs standards. Many of the interfaces in these laptops were is some fashion or other coengineered by Microsoft.
Video hardware is designed to meet Microsoft's DirectX specifications, as is audio hardware, and even networking hardware.
Keyboards are designed to meet MS standards, and include MS functionality. Printers, especially the mass-produced cheap ones, are designed around MS's GDI printing standard.
Your laptop is not a direct Microsoft product, but do not be naive enough to believe that Microsoft does not have quite a few fingers into its design.
Laptop manufacturers, or their suppliers, pay the Microsoft tax in quite a few iterations, from Windows licenses, to WHQL certification, to DirectX SDKs, and other forms of support/cooperation.
Frankly, Word an extremely generic term.
The courts have already busted MS once on the use of the term Windows. They determined that usaged BEFORE the relase of MS Windows should be observered to determine if Windows was a generic term.
If you had the balls, you could most likely release a product, "Word", fight it in court, and win that the term "Word" was a generic term.
You couldn't use the term, "Microsoft Word". But the term "Word" itself, that's absurd.
Remember; Microsoft did not beat Lindows in U.S. court. Microsoft was actually loosing in U.S. Microsoft was winning in foreign courts, because Lindows did NOT have enough money to defend versus 100s of foreign lawsuits.
Which is a damn shame.
are a total joke.
Come on.
'Windows', 'Money', 'Word', 'Project', 'DOS (Disk Operating System)', 'Digital Image', 'Publisher', 'Business Accounting'
Come on, are ANY of those terms NOT generic?
Not to mention that in the Lindows case, the U.S. case (not Australia, or Europe, or wherever), the Judge specifically told the Jury they were _only_ allowed to consider usage before the release of MS Windows in determining whether or not the term 'Windows' was generic.
Given that it could refer to X-Windows, or Windows on my House, or Windows on my Car, or Windows in Physics, I cannot imagine the term as non-generic.
Now, the phrase, "Microsoft Windows", this might be a different story. But in any court case that played out to the bitter end, I imagine that MS would be forced to disclaim any ownership of the term 'Windows' as it applies by itself.
Nonsense.
1 055425570
MS was loosing the trademark case in the U.S. regarding the term 'Windows'
http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php/2004021
The Judge clear said no amount of marketing would change the fact that Windows was a generic term:
The Court flatly rejected Microsoft's arguments today that the jury should consider the meaning of the term "windows" in its current day usage, ruling rather that the jury should focus on the timeframe prior to the release of Microsoft's Windows products, which is 1983-1985. The Court also ruled that once a word is declared generic it would continue to be generic, informing Microsoft that no amount of marketing around a generic word changes the generic state of the word. To view Honorable Judge Coughenour's ruling, visit http://www.lindows.com/genericness
Here's a little more:
Judge Coughenour ruled that the jury will be instructed "to consider whether the Windows mark was generic during the period before Microsoft Windows 1.0 entered the marketplace in November 1985." At the same time, the Court ruled that it will not instruct the jury to consider the current meaning if the jury finds "windows" was a generic term prior to November 1985.
Frankly, if anyone really wanted to go to the wall, I suspect MS would loose the trademark on the terms 'Windows', 'Word', 'Money', 'Project', and possibly even 'Internet Explorer'.
Lindows gave up because they couldn't defend themselves in all of the jursidictions that Microsoft filed. MS was filing cases all over the world.
But here, at home, in the U.S., the courts were ruling against MS, and rightly so. The idea you could trademark a foreign word, 'Windows', in, say, Japan, makes some sense. The idea that you could trademark the word, 'Word', or 'Windows', in the U.S. is absurd, and the only reason that it holds any weight at all is because Microsoft has a ridiculously huge pile of money.
If I tried to trademark the term 'WhiteWolf's Doors', as a piece of software, people would laugh me out of the room.
Yeah.... :(
:(
Anyone with a hidden agenda usually turns out to be evil
Is there any reason to suppose that Intelligent Design is more or less likely than, say, The Flying Sphagehtti Monster or The Sneeze of the Great Green Arkleseizure
It is the nature of a theory to be "purely undeniable" in any context that involves it being provably true.
Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity is _not_ provably true. We can make observations that suggest it is true, and we can posit experiments that could potentially prove it false.
Quantum Mechanics is _not_ provably true. We can make observations that suggest it is true, and we can posit experiments that could potentially prove it false.
Evolution is _not_ provably true. We can make observations that suggest it is true, and we can posit experiments that could potentially prove it false.
Intelligent Design is _not_ provably true. We _cannot_ make observations that suggest it true. We _cannot_ posit experiments that could potentially prove it false.
Feel free to teach Intelligent Design. In either literature, sociology, or history. It has _no_ place in Biology. I believe I'm quoting Sagan, but if you taken an infinite universe, the chance of an infinitesimally small event occuring _repeatedly_ is 100%.
And theologically, I'm far more inclined to believe that the creator would have set the ball rolling towards evolution, rather than manufacturing the universe out of nothing in seven days several thousand years ago.
The bible should not be taken literally. If you read the bible literally, Jesus answers all prayers for healing, and PI is equal to _exactly_ 3.
Not that I'm even a Christian, but I don't understand why the concept of intelligent design is even necessary, except to advance a particular fundamentalist religious cause.
Even the Vatican has thrown its weight behind evolution.
Intelligent Design belongs with flat earth, earth as the center of the universe, and heaven as a literal place 800 miles up.
Note that evolution may belong with the epicycle system; as in, a better theory may come up. But that _sure_ as hell won't be Intelligent Design.
I'd classify myself as conservative, too.
I didn't mean to conflate the to terms. However, Kansas is both conservative, and, in a separate vein, backwards.
Sadly, areas that have both of these qualities tend to be rabidly religious.
Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
http://www.venganza.org/
Not all neo-cons are religious nut heads.
Though I'd probably place myself closer to an old fashioned, (1800's era) 'liberal', true-con.
As in Science, The Market, and Modernity will save us all.
Frankly, I don't know where these religious nut heads come from. I keep hearing all these polls about how the majority of American's believe in Intelligent Design, yet in the circles I walk in anyone discussing Intelligent Design would be laughed out of the room.
And yes, I walk among business people, not ivory tower researchers, or raving atheists.
I'm happy, because this means that regions in the U.S. (not-Kansas) will have fewer difficulties attracting business than those fundines in Kansas (fundamentalists).
I'm sad, because as Kansas continues to deterioriate into a rabidly backward and conservative area, more and more destitute as each year goes by, government handouts will be seen as the only way out.
You reap what you sow. As the (some of the) rest of the U.S. watches Kansas deteroriate into nothing, I hope we have the intelligence to leave them in the gutter.
And that's why its important that this case law is being slowly built up.
The case in question pertains _exactly_ to this situation. It doesn't matter about the majority of users; I _own_ one copy of the CD. Ripping of this CD to a non-protected format is _needed_ for me to be able to use it.
Otherwise, the programmer in question could simply have said, "But, your honor, I designed the software for their requirements at the time, and they could have simplyed employeed me, or purchased a different program, at any given time!"
It doesn't matter that I could switch to a different OS. It doesn't matter that I could purchase a different CD. All that matter is unless the CD promimently, expressedly says, "Not compatible with the following ", I can modify it if necessary to for me to use it.
And if the CD does have such requirements, it isn't a CD. The redbook audio standard doesn't permit that kind of crap. It's an optical audio disk, and should be labeled and sold as such.
I cannot play it from CD on my iPod.
My Lexus's CD player will not play some DRM encrypted CDs.
My Linux system (and I own nothing but Linux & OS X systems) will not run the proprietary DRM rootkits that enable access to various disks.
For me, in several situations, I cannot use these CD players. I do not own a standalone CD player, except for the changer and 1-shot in my Lexus.
Fair enough. That's the correct way to say it.
Currently, this worm is only compatible with Linux/BSD systems, because they are the only systems with full shell scripting capabilities.
It is rumored that you can obtain the same level of compatibility with the Cygwin Suite, but that is not an officially supported configuration by Microsoft.
Never fear, though, Monad will bring Lupper, and similar PHP/Shell script worms to the Windows platform for the masses!
Seriously, though; isn't everyone fairly aware that PHP ain't that secure?
As a SuSE KDE user, I can say he has definitely peaked my interest.
I'll probably be installing Kubuntu on my test bed, to see how it compares with the latest OpenSuSE.
I've been a _very_ long time SuSE user. I've got the 5.0 CD's laying around, and every release since then.
I guess I started it out with some fuel for the flamefest, but at the risk of turning this into a lovefest, this:
KDE-heads stomp on GNOME just as much, that's kind of the problem. I try out KDE occasionally, mess about with it. I probably won't use it as my primary desktop anytime soon, I prefer GNOME. But they're both powerful environments, and to each his own.
is the sentiment that I think _really_ contributes to Linux. For people who prefer an elegant, well-designed (as in a great deal of architectural work) environment, GNOME seems to fit the bill.
For those of us who prefer to have a bit of everything and two kitchen sinks, even if there are some design flaws, and bits of UI ugliness, KDE fits the bill.
I don't think this is a weakness of Desktop linux. I think this is a _strength_. I find it very hard to agree with the "one windowmanager to rule them ALL" crowd. You and I, we both use Linux (unless your running a bsd or something). Our environments look totally different. Yet we can interoperate (for the most part) in terms of apps and utilities. I think that's great.
Oh, and thanks for the valuable information. I'll try and shoehorn the latest GNOME on to my system, so I can play with this neat sounding GNOME-VFS thing, and maybe learn a thing or two about the other side of the force.
And I agree- KDE-heads that stomp on GNOME should be shot. Well, perhaps not shot, but perhaps forced to use run Blackbox for a couple weeks. Though, you have to admit that all the competition between GNOME and KDE seems to drive them both forward.
Without KDE, I'm sure myself, my friends, and my company would be using Windows.
Gnome doesn't do enough for the end user. Too many settings required mucking around in either the registry-like editor, or just plain command line things.
I remember trying to use Gnome is SuSE 9.0, and not being able to figure out how to specify which app to use for which mime type. Someone politely informed me that this was the procedure to set default apps for various mime-types.
Yeah, that's noob friendly. Apparently, wasn't 'fixed' in 2.10, either. Is it fixed now?
Either way, lack of simple things like that, plus KDE's KIOslaves (which are beautiful, come on, who doesn't love fish:// or klik://), plus a far superior file browser (I've seen the gnome when I'm forced to load up a GTK app, which is rare).
How do I open from a network location in gnome? Can it be done? (In the file browser?)
Why don't I 'contribute' to the gnome project to make these things better? Simple: KDE already does them correctly for me.
Do I mind that other people are happy with gnome, or prefer gnome? No. But all you gnome-heads should stop stomping on other people's Desktop Environments. Seriously; Gnome doesn't work for some of us.
If the next OpenSuSE (which is my current distribution) has inferior KDE support, I'll be thrilled to move to a thriving Kubuntu.
There's nothing wrong with Gnome, for those who use it. But for some of us, gnome just doesn't cut it. Gnome may be different, Gnome may be more 'unix'. But some of us who actually use Linux as our sole operating system rely on KDE, and couldn't imagine switching to gnome.
This is WhiteWolf666, reposting logged in (I hope). Slashdot's login system is hopeless broken on my systems. What the hell is going wrong? I keep getting logged out each time I login.
There is, indeed, a difference. Just because it isn't black and white doesn't mean it isn't there. Few things in the world represent polar opposites....
Where can you go to get a Linux preinstall? Does that same manufacturer sell the Linux system (or *gasp* empty system) cheaper or more expensive than the equivalent Windows box? (Hint: 99% of the time, its cheaper to get the Windows box, and wipe it).
What's the difference in installing Linux on a computer, or starting Windows on a system where it comes preinstalled? Which is easier (apples to oranges, but representative of the market)?
Microsoft's primary Windows sales come in the form of system pre-installs. Linux doesn't even _exist_ in that area, especially in places where piracy runs rampant. Linux becomes the premium operating system, which doesn't make any sense, because it doesn't cost the manufacturer _anything_ to ship an empty system, and it costs little to image Linux systems.
Now, you can go to McDonalds. In most areas, _every_ McDonalds is opposite a Burger King, Taco Bell, and Wendies. Not to mention two dozen local places.
Same with Starbucks.
Where you can get coca cola, you can get pepsi (either in the same store, or across the street at the another place). This is fundamentally different as to the current Microsoft market dynamic. Now, one might say that there are only a few choices in the cola market. That's true; however, the barriers to entry aren't huge (we just introduced a new energy drink product at a very modest investment), and oligopoly is a substantially different state of affairs than monopoly. That's why we have laws against collusion; to prevent oligopoly situations from approaching monopoly profits.
The line at which one defines a company as a monopoly is substantially lower than 'the merest possibility of a competitor exists when you hold a bunch of unreasonable assumptions'.
It's far closer to, 'consumers have little choice in what to purchase within a price range of plus/minus 15% of the 'monopoly' product'.
If the argument is that Microsoft is monopolistic because they're the only ones who can sell Windows
This is misleading. Microsoft is a monopoly because they are the only ones who can enter into the various distributions channels of products termed 'operating systems' without incurring unreasonable economic burdens.
Yes, this is why phone companies, cable companies and electric companies are monpolies too. Only "building a new electrical system" falls into the category of legitimate barriers to entry, and "bundling, predatory OEM contracts, and malicious breakage of competitors reverse engineering" fall into the category of illegitimate barries to entry.
The term 'monopoly' is an economic term. Economics is not, and never will be, a black and white system. At any given point one can quibble and say Corporate X is not a monopoly. Nearly anything can be done without; substitutes exist for everything at all levels.
It is far more important to evalute the market's barriers to entry versus what they would be in an ideal situation.
Why is that? Why does it matter that Microsoft is a monopoly? Well, one of the reasons is because a primary tools used in the generation of Microsoft's wealth is copyright. Copyright is not a God Given Right (TM). Copyright is a limited monopoly established on a work, by Congress, in order to promote the arts, sciences, and economy. If an entity misuses this government GRANT, and artificially damages the market, the government needs to step in a correct it.
Ironically, this does not conflict with the libertarian viewpoint. One must first acknowledge that copyright is not a God Given Right (TM). It is something established by the government, and as such, it deserves constant review. From the Libertarian perspective, co
(Hear Hear!)
Indeed. As is Democracy in Afghanistan.
The world _shouldn't_ be criticizing the U.S. in regards to Iraq. The world _should_ be helping stabilize Iraq.
The world _should_ criticize the U.S. in regards to its ugly, close relation to the state of Israel (which, by the way, continues to maintain _two_ ethnic classes of citizenship), Saudi Arabia (which is fucked in more ways than one), and the bizarre, complex, and sometimes malicious policy the U.S. holds in regards to dictatorships in the various failed states of Africa and portions of South America.
Oh, and the outrageous crimes that are international drug interdiction.
Once upon a time, the U.N. was established in the interest of pursuing self-determination for all, with peace and prosperity running close second.
I quote the U.N. charter:
WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED
to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
AND FOR THESE ENDS
to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and
to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and
to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and
to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,
HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS
Note this particular section:"by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest"
You'd think this would justify actions in, say, the Congo, or the Ertriean-Ethiopan war, or the various horrible totalitarian dictatorships where mass murder and ethnic cleansing are documented.
Not that the U.S. is going about it the right way or anything, but in my view, the U.S. is a hell of a lot closer to achieving this than anyone else.
The U.S., by any standards, is evil. The Iraq war was poorly planned, and winning the peace proves impossible. The U.S. regularly strongarms nations into doing wrong, and into abusing their own people. The U.S. manipulates the financial systems of the world. The U.S. dominates the very notions of discourse on the internet.
Yet, for some reason, the U.S. seems to have better intentions AND results than anyone else.
Kind of a sorry state of affairs.
As far as I'm concerned, the world shouldn't be upset about the current Iraq warrior. "World Leaders", rather, should be _ashamed_ that the Iran-Iraq war went on for so long, that the Israeli-Palestinian dispute continues to smolder, that Saudi Arabia, a fairly evil regime, continues to prosper on dirty oil money. I could go on and on.
People shouldn't be pissed off the U.S. is trying to change Iraq. People _should_ be pissed off that the world AS A WHOLE did not act sooner, and more decisively.
The U.S. fuckups are nothing in comparison the general apathy and disdain the rest of the world feels. I'm disgusting with this, in regards to the state of humanity.
And I expect to see more of this in the future. As-is, Ethiopia and Ertriea look as if they will start another war in the near future. Far, far more people will die than the U.S. has killed (yes, we've killed innocents) in Iraq. But no one will bat and eyelash, because Oil isn't involved, and the U.S. isn't involved, so its not a political hot button.
I thou
I reposted this from a reply, since I feel it is something people should understand.
.ir for its own residents. So what? China already blocks all kinds of things. An EU naming authority will block ALL manner of things (Nazi websites, for one. But there are plenty of other registrations that are no-go in the EU). That's fine; each organization can manipulate its own registration scheme, at will.
Repeat after me:
"Anyone can setup their own DNS server at _any_ time".
Say that 3 times.
Sure, if you setup your own DNS server at home, you probably won't have a lot of adoption. But the EU has a great deal more reach than you, and shouldn't have any problem convincing Europeans to use their DNS. Cuba, China, and Iran will have even less.
The answer is simple, and has little (read _nothing_) to do with ICANN, or IANA. Whenever it wants, the EU can setup its own naming authority. As long as they don't change the way IP addresses are assigned, it breaks _nothing_.
The U.S. blocks
Rather than having one, universal, flat global system, poorly managed by a central authority which will be unable to satisfy the contradictory demands of the various governments of the world, a fragmented _DNS_ system makes much more sense.
You, and most other people, are misunderstanding what is going on.
Imagine, once upon a time, when the USPTO was established, that other governments, instead of developing their own patent organizations, simply followed U.S. standards. We had a unified world wide patent system, based upon U.S. law. Then, other nations became pissed off about this, because they felt that the U.S. would use the unified patent system to the detriment of those nations.
As such, they demand that the U.S. relinquish control of the USPTO, and turn it into the UNPTO, which would be government through the U.N. China, Iran, and Cuba, in particular, would like to see some patents invalidated, so they push hard for this.
Does it make any sense? No.
What makes _much_ more sense is that each government established its own patent authority, and then various governments negotiated bi and multi-lateral agreements regarding the governance of patents.
The internet should work _exactly_ the same way. As long as the IP address space doesn't get fragmented (and with IPv6, theres NO reason for that to happen), "control" of the DNS system is a non-issue. In fact, I think the world would be a better place with a fragmented DNS system. Why? Because barring laws in unfree countries (which have their own firewalls anyway (read China)), if you don't like your DNS, you can simply point your system at another one.
Repeat after me:
.ir for its own residents. So what? China already blocks all kinds of things. An EU naming authority will block ALL manner of things (Nazi websites, for one. But there are plenty of other registrations that are no-go in the EU). That's fine; each organization can manipulate its own registration scheme, at will.
"Anyone can setup their own DNS server at _any_ time".
Say that 3 times.
Sure, if you setup your own DNS server at home, you probably won't have a lot of adoption. But the EU has a great deal more reach than you.
The answer is simple, and has little (read _nothing_) to do with ICANN, or IANA. Whenever it wants, the EU can setup its own naming authority. As long as they don't change the way IP addresses are assigned, it breaks _nothing_.
The U.S. blocks
You, and most other people, are misunderstanding what is going on.
Imagine, once upon a time, when the USPTO was established, that other governments, instead of developing their own patent organizations, simply followed U.S. standards. We had a unified world wide patent system, based upon U.S. law. Then, other nations became pissed off about this, because they felt that the U.S. would use the unified patent system to the detriment of those nations.
As such, they demand that the U.S. relinquish control of the USPTO, and turn it into the UNPTO, which would be government through the U.N. China, Iran, and Cuba, in particular, would like to see some patents invalidated, so they push hard for this.
Does it make any sense? No.
What makes _much_ more sense is that each government established its own patent authority, and then various governments negotiated bi and multi-lateral agreements regarding the governance of patents.
The internet should work _exactly_ the same way. As long as the IP address space doesn't get fragmented (and with IPv6, theres NO reason for that to happen), "control" of the DNS system is a non-issue. In fact, I think the world would be a better place with a fragmented DNS system. Why? Because barring laws in unfree countries (which have their own firewalls anyway (read China)), if you don't like your DNS, you can simply point your system at another one.
Thoughts:
1. Be nice to have some real competition versus Linux/OS X in terms of architecture. XP/2003 just aren't there. Vista won't be, most likely.
2. Where such a beast (research OS) ever to become a product, would it demonstrate a high level of backwards compatibility? If not, would it actually have to compete on merits, rather than vendor lock-in?
3. It's taken ~10 years to write Wine to the point where it is in _beta_. Now, I'm sure MS can do it faster, because they have the documentation; after all, they designed it. But how long will it take? Or will they use a virtual machine architecture?
In any case, if MS switches to an entirely different OS architecture, I forsee the end of the MS monopoly. Release of a non-Win32 based OS, one that runs older applications (either desktop OR server) in emulation validates Linux/OS with QEMU/Virtual PC/VMware/Xen/Whatever.
4. I doubt this will ever leave the lab. Singularity will be a test bed for MS researchers who want to play with various concepts. These things will be ported over to Vista, or whatever comes into the future. I cannot imagine a world in which MS actually started from scratch; having to market such a product against mainline-Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, AIX, and FreeBSD would be pure madness. It's already extremely difficult for MS to push Office against older versions of Office; this has generated substantial pressure towards alternative Office packages.
It'll be significantly harder for MS to push towards a non-Windows MS operating system. Every single CIO willing to consider moving from Windows will be willing to consider moving to Linux/OS X/whatever instead.