Which is fine, because the vast majority of people only upgrade their OS when they upgrade their machine, and then only because they use whatever comes with it.
Not everyone is a gamer who has to buy a new system every month or two.
Well, I *am* a gamer, and I've not upgraded my system in over a year, and it still plays UT2k4 just fine at max detail and 1024x768 @ 32bpp.
Microsoft is deliberately making your PC obsolete.
No, the march of time is making your PC obsolete. If you want to run software on it that it can't handle, that's your look out. If you don't want to upgrade to Longhorn (and so far as I can see, no-one is forcing you to), then you've nothing to worry about.
Another possibility occurs to me - I don't know what damage (if any) the Windows source code leak will do, but I can imagine that people at MS are perhaps worried about competing products incorporating portions of it, or otherwise using it to their advantage.
If the technology that the code is implementing is patented, then that's not possible. Proving that someone used leaked code is very, very much harder than just pointing at a patent and saying "pay up, or shut up".
Perhaps this is someone's idea of protecting against future leaks. Alternatively, perhaps it's even a step along the road to open-sourcing Windows. Let people have the code, but prevent them from doing anything commercial/public with it (or the knowledge gained from examining it) unless they pay.
That's all very well, but lack of NTFS support killed Fedora Core 1 for me.
Why, when I could just download what I needed? Two reasons:
a) I couldn't be bothered, and felt that I shouldn't have to. I expected Fedora to ship with NTFS support, and was irritated to find that it doesn't. That's highly subjective, of course.
b) my ADSL modem isn't supported by Fedora, so I couldn't get it working. It was that that lead me to find that NTFS wasn't supported, as I'd booted back to XP to download the packages to get the modem working. Booted back, and found that I couldn't access the XP partition.
I'm sure Fedora is an excellent system, but for me, it simply didn't fulfill my requirements, so I went back to Mandrake. Your mileage, of course, will vary.
There are parts of their EULA that makes them immune to accountability
As there are in every software licence I've ever read (and as I have some use/don't use power at my company, that's quite a few), including the GPL.
We're not talking about defects here, we're talking about patches that install rootkits or similar trojans. If MS did that on purpose, they'd be held accountable.
As for accountability to their customers, make your mind up (and I'm talking to/. in general here) - either people are making the switch to Linux because they're dissatisfied with MS, or they're not. If losing customers to a competing product isn't a form of accountability, I don't know what is.
I agree with him, to an extent. I see little or nothing positive in our relationship with the US, other than the reduced chance of being invaded/sanctioned into submission should we ever piss them off enough. Although, given the brewing trade war with the EU, even that's not necessarily the case.
Years ago, the BBC ran a series of adverts on BBC2 (and perhaps BBC1, I forget), the basic message of which was that the licence fee allows them to experiment.
Because they're guaranteed at least some money no matter what they do, they can spend some of it trying out new stuff. Now, this was long before the net became a household word, and they were specifically referring to new programs, but the same applies.
Because they're not entirely beholden to fickle viewers and advertisers, they can afford to experiment sometimes, and without experimentation, there can be no innovation.
For the record, though, they are beholden to the Government, who occasionally make threatening noises about the licence fee (as do the Opposition). They also have to abide by a charter, although I've not read it, so I can't comment as to what it says.
Well, IANAL and all that, but as I understand our copyright laws, no, there's no notion of fair use. You're allowed to quote short excerpts of things, of course, but according to an official FAQ I once read, we do *not* have the automatic right to make a backup copy of a copyrighted work. That's a copy, and so needs the copyright holder's permission.
Fucked up, huh?
Like I said, though, I don't suppose anyone is ever going to get hauled through the courts for doing it. Hell, technically, by ripping my CDs to mp3/ogg for my PC and iRiver, or making mix tapes/CDs, etc I'm infringing copyright. Pretty-much *everyone* does it, though, and as the old saying goes, they can't sue all of us. Doesn't make it right, of course.
Why would they piss those people off by canceling the beta accounts and making them then compete for usernames with the rest of the unwashed masses?
I agree, they probably wouldn't. They're almost certainly completely at liberty to wipe any accounts that were sold off on sites like eBay, though.
There's also no real guarantee at this point that the service will ever make it out of beta. They can cancel it at any time, for any reason (too expensive, too many legal questions, too many people moaning about privacy, sole sponsor leaves/dies, etc).
That said, what the hell? You've spent $20 on something that in all probability isn't just going to vaporise, and you're clearly happy with your purchase. I wouldn't have bought a gmail account, but then there's plenty of stuff I do buy that you wouldn't want, I'm sure. To each their own - I hope you manage to hang on to it.
java support should be in every distro out of the box such that java could become *the* new language for desktop development via java gtk/gnome bindings
Let's not get ahead of ourselves here, shall we? Linux still only has an absolutely minute share of the desktop market. Doing what you say might make Java "*the* new language for desktop development" on Linux, but hardly in general. Even that is far from certain, though, given the amount of downright hatred there is for it amongst people here.
switching to gpl would fix this, and suddently grind the C# momentum to a halt i think.
You think wrong. C# has enough advantages and nice features that almost no matter what is done to Java, it's not going to go away. The same is true the other way around, of course - C# isn't going to make Java go away, either.
(Disclaimer: I code C# for fun, and Java for profit)
the related disadvantages (as well as the advantages, if any) dissapear
Two advantages off the top of my (rather tired) head, in no particular order:
Platform independence. That's achieved, of course, because the JVM *is* the platform, but at work I write Java code on my Windows XP box that others use on their Linux and Win 2K boxes, that is then deployed on machines running various flavours of Linux - generally RedHat. Can't do that with native compilation.
Code optimisation with the JIT compiler. Having the code compiled by a JIT compiler means that the JVM can optimise it taking advantage of knowledge about how its being run that simply is not available to a traditional compiler.
I have to ask - what is your level of experience with Java? I get the impression that you're not particularly experienced with it, if you doubt that there are any advantages to using runtime interpretation and JIT compilation. Sure, there are disadvantages too, but nothing is perfect. Java's method is particularly well suited to long-running (server) applications, although I use a couple of excellent GUI apps too (but then I have a "beefy" machine - 2.4GHz P4 with 1/2 gig of RAM)
Other than shareholders, to whom are they accountable?
The US DoJ, the EU Commission (who actually take action, it seems), their customers, etc.
If MS release a patch that hoses systems or installs a rootkit, then a great many people will be clamouring for their blood. If some random guy on the net does it, everyone will be clamouring for his blood too. The difference being, you have to find him first, then hope that he's not in a country that won't extradite or prosecute him. MS has offices everywhere, and so can be held accountable by a great many governments.
If he was trying to get you to download and install a Trojan horse, why would he tell you to backup your system? Why would he have a disclaimer with dire warnings about 'no warranty' and "damages" rather than a statement that the software is "r33ly L33t" and that you need it now?
In order to attempt to appear legitimate. I've seen simlar "no warranty" warnings in no-cd cracks and the like.
Why would Information Week provide a link to it if it was a Trojan horse?
Because they don't realise that it is, and believe that it's legitimate.
There's 96 hits on Google when you look up "Alper Coskun" (with quotes) and "98SE" -- none of which mentions his sinister plot to get your oh-so-valuable data that you keep on an ancient Windows 98 PC.
Now you're just being silly - he's hardly likely to put up a webpage about it, and a lack of others doing so just means that no-one has figured it out yet.
Now, I don't suppose that there is anything sinister about this, but really - to the best of my knowledge, he's just some random guy on the internet. Why should I trust him?
Yeah, they're dumb, but they're perfectly within their rights to do that if they choose. Stealing/trashing the car is a crime, no matter where you park it or what state you leave it in (ie locked, unlocked, doors open, etc)
Computer users need to take more care, but the bad guys also need to be stopped.
It would be illegal, immoral (unauthorised use of my computer is unauthorised use, whether for good or ill*) and most likely cause more problems than it solves. Most of the problems with most worms revolve around bandwidth usage - they hammer the networks as they propagate and search for hosts. A "good" worm would be no different.
As others have pointed out, it would also be essentially useless - so you release a patching worm today, and tomorrow, a new vulnerability is discovered. What now? Another worm? Update the current one? Neither is a very attractive solution.
* Yes, machines should be patched, and those that aren't represent a danger to the network, but two wrongs do not make a right.
The murderer is worse. At worst, the spammer's actions degrade your quality of life a little (by forcing you to spend time dealing with their spam). The murderer ends the life of those they kill; that's far worse than the slight degradation of your quality of life.
Even when minimized, iTunes is taking up far more CPU than a media player should (even more than WMP!).
As I type, I am listening to WMP playing an mp3, and (according to Task Manager) CPU usage by WMP is never above 1%, and keeps dropping to 0.
I've no idea how much iTunes uses (I tried it briefly a week ago but didn't like it), but it seems to me that it wouldn't have to use much to use "even more than WMP".
Backing up your Disney DVDs so your kids don't destroy them, then playing the backups while the originals are kept under lock and key, is not infringement.
Well, that really depends on where you live. Here in the UK, for example, it most certainly is infringement.
No, I don't suppose that anyone would ever get in trouble for it - but that doesn't make it legal, or make the law right.
The headline is written by the submittor, in this case spike-288. All timothy did (assuming he's not edited it) was choose the story to post, and add the update.
Well, to be fair, MS did it first - the user agent string of every version of IE I've ever used (3.0 up) has contained the word "Mozilla" in it (as well as the word "compatible", of course).
It'd be pretty hypocritical of MS to complain now. Besides, why would they? What do they care if some small percentage of browsers claiming to be IE aren't? It just inflates the (already huge) percentage usage figures for IE. That can only be a good thing, at least marketing-wise.
# If ownership of ID cards will be compulsory; # If the carrying of ID cards will be compulsory;
How can it not be? If owning the ID card is not compulsory, then what use will it be, other than to perhaps restrict availability of certain services (eg health care) to those who do own them?
Likewise, what use is an id system that is ostensibly to help prevent terrorism, if you don't have to carry them? Anyone who wishes to remain anonymous will simply not carry the card, then fail to report to a police station (if required to do so to produce it).
The only way I can see this system being run is if ownership of and carrying the cards is compulsory. If not, then it will be too easy for people to just slip through the cracks.
quite often articles are mirrored by websites like Slashdot
Slashdot doesn't mirror anything, it just links to the article at source. The reason for that is copyright - slashdot doesn't have permission to mirror the article. Stuff published on the net is still copyrighted unless specifically mark as being public domain.
Linking to an article in no way copies it, and so cannot be prevented by copyright law. There is no inconsistency here - if slashdot copied the article verbatim and hosted it on their own site, then they'd be infringing copyright.
True, people do sometimes copy articles into comments here, in case the server is slashdotted. For what it's worth, they are in fact commiting copyright infringement, and are opening themselves (and potentially slashdot) up to legal proceedings. I don't suppose it would ever come to that, but the copyright holder would be within their rights to sue.
Then again all those Quadro users could be CAD people and they've got no audience. =)
Not just CAD - I do server-side Java programming, and we've all recently been bought new PCs. The spec we went for included a Quadro FX 500; don't ask me why, it just did... (it was that, or a similar machine with a GeForce - I didn't make the choice)
Slashdot Mirror
It will merely be the average new system.
Which is fine, because the vast majority of people only upgrade their OS when they upgrade their machine, and then only because they use whatever comes with it.
Not everyone is a gamer who has to buy a new system every month or two.
Well, I *am* a gamer, and I've not upgraded my system in over a year, and it still plays UT2k4 just fine at max detail and 1024x768 @ 32bpp.
Microsoft is deliberately making your PC obsolete.
No, the march of time is making your PC obsolete. If you want to run software on it that it can't handle, that's your look out. If you don't want to upgrade to Longhorn (and so far as I can see, no-one is forcing you to), then you've nothing to worry about.
Another possibility occurs to me - I don't know what damage (if any) the Windows source code leak will do, but I can imagine that people at MS are perhaps worried about competing products incorporating portions of it, or otherwise using it to their advantage.
If the technology that the code is implementing is patented, then that's not possible. Proving that someone used leaked code is very, very much harder than just pointing at a patent and saying "pay up, or shut up".
Perhaps this is someone's idea of protecting against future leaks. Alternatively, perhaps it's even a step along the road to open-sourcing Windows. Let people have the code, but prevent them from doing anything commercial/public with it (or the knowledge gained from examining it) unless they pay.
That's all very well, but lack of NTFS support killed Fedora Core 1 for me.
Why, when I could just download what I needed? Two reasons:
a) I couldn't be bothered, and felt that I shouldn't have to. I expected Fedora to ship with NTFS support, and was irritated to find that it doesn't. That's highly subjective, of course.
b) my ADSL modem isn't supported by Fedora, so I couldn't get it working. It was that that lead me to find that NTFS wasn't supported, as I'd booted back to XP to download the packages to get the modem working. Booted back, and found that I couldn't access the XP partition.
I'm sure Fedora is an excellent system, but for me, it simply didn't fulfill my requirements, so I went back to Mandrake. Your mileage, of course, will vary.
There are parts of their EULA that makes them immune to accountability
/. in general here) - either people are making the switch to Linux because they're dissatisfied with MS, or they're not. If losing customers to a competing product isn't a form of accountability, I don't know what is.
As there are in every software licence I've ever read (and as I have some use/don't use power at my company, that's quite a few), including the GPL.
We're not talking about defects here, we're talking about patches that install rootkits or similar trojans. If MS did that on purpose, they'd be held accountable.
As for accountability to their customers, make your mind up (and I'm talking to
Wanna log in and say that?
I agree with him, to an extent. I see little or nothing positive in our relationship with the US, other than the reduced chance of being invaded/sanctioned into submission should we ever piss them off enough. Although, given the brewing trade war with the EU, even that's not necessarily the case.
Years ago, the BBC ran a series of adverts on BBC2 (and perhaps BBC1, I forget), the basic message of which was that the licence fee allows them to experiment.
Because they're guaranteed at least some money no matter what they do, they can spend some of it trying out new stuff. Now, this was long before the net became a household word, and they were specifically referring to new programs, but the same applies.
Because they're not entirely beholden to fickle viewers and advertisers, they can afford to experiment sometimes, and without experimentation, there can be no innovation.
For the record, though, they are beholden to the Government, who occasionally make threatening noises about the licence fee (as do the Opposition). They also have to abide by a charter, although I've not read it, so I can't comment as to what it says.
Well, IANAL and all that, but as I understand our copyright laws, no, there's no notion of fair use. You're allowed to quote short excerpts of things, of course, but according to an official FAQ I once read, we do *not* have the automatic right to make a backup copy of a copyrighted work. That's a copy, and so needs the copyright holder's permission.
Fucked up, huh?
Like I said, though, I don't suppose anyone is ever going to get hauled through the courts for doing it. Hell, technically, by ripping my CDs to mp3/ogg for my PC and iRiver, or making mix tapes/CDs, etc I'm infringing copyright. Pretty-much *everyone* does it, though, and as the old saying goes, they can't sue all of us. Doesn't make it right, of course.
Why would they piss those people off by canceling the beta accounts and making them then compete for usernames with the rest of the unwashed masses?
I agree, they probably wouldn't. They're almost certainly completely at liberty to wipe any accounts that were sold off on sites like eBay, though.
There's also no real guarantee at this point that the service will ever make it out of beta. They can cancel it at any time, for any reason (too expensive, too many legal questions, too many people moaning about privacy, sole sponsor leaves/dies, etc).
That said, what the hell? You've spent $20 on something that in all probability isn't just going to vaporise, and you're clearly happy with your purchase. I wouldn't have bought a gmail account, but then there's plenty of stuff I do buy that you wouldn't want, I'm sure. To each their own - I hope you manage to hang on to it.
low-impact game players like me are out of date in 3-6 months and can not play games until we upgrade our computers!!
I last upgraded my system in Jan 2003 - new mobo, proc and RAM. The graphics card is a little over 2 years old (GeForce 3 Ti 200).
I can still play UT2k4 just fine at pretty high detail settings.
3-6 months? Hardly, unless you're forever buying 3+ year old hardware.
java support should be in every distro out of the box such that java could become *the* new language for desktop development via java gtk/gnome bindings
Let's not get ahead of ourselves here, shall we? Linux still only has an absolutely minute share of the desktop market. Doing what you say might make Java "*the* new language for desktop development" on Linux, but hardly in general. Even that is far from certain, though, given the amount of downright hatred there is for it amongst people here.
switching to gpl would fix this, and suddently grind the C# momentum to a halt i think.
You think wrong. C# has enough advantages and nice features that almost no matter what is done to Java, it's not going to go away. The same is true the other way around, of course - C# isn't going to make Java go away, either.
(Disclaimer: I code C# for fun, and Java for profit)
the related disadvantages (as well as the advantages, if any) dissapear
Two advantages off the top of my (rather tired) head, in no particular order:
Platform independence. That's achieved, of course, because the JVM *is* the platform, but at work I write Java code on my Windows XP box that others use on their Linux and Win 2K boxes, that is then deployed on machines running various flavours of Linux - generally RedHat. Can't do that with native compilation.
Code optimisation with the JIT compiler. Having the code compiled by a JIT compiler means that the JVM can optimise it taking advantage of knowledge about how its being run that simply is not available to a traditional compiler.
I have to ask - what is your level of experience with Java? I get the impression that you're not particularly experienced with it, if you doubt that there are any advantages to using runtime interpretation and JIT compilation. Sure, there are disadvantages too, but nothing is perfect. Java's method is particularly well suited to long-running (server) applications, although I use a couple of excellent GUI apps too (but then I have a "beefy" machine - 2.4GHz P4 with 1/2 gig of RAM)
I think java has short-circuit evaluation
Yes it does - the "double" operators, && and || do short-circuit evaluation. The "single" operators, & and |, do not.
Other than shareholders, to whom are they accountable?
The US DoJ, the EU Commission (who actually take action, it seems), their customers, etc.
If MS release a patch that hoses systems or installs a rootkit, then a great many people will be clamouring for their blood. If some random guy on the net does it, everyone will be clamouring for his blood too. The difference being, you have to find him first, then hope that he's not in a country that won't extradite or prosecute him. MS has offices everywhere, and so can be held accountable by a great many governments.
If he was trying to get you to download and install a Trojan horse, why would he tell you to backup your system? Why would he have a disclaimer with dire warnings about 'no warranty' and "damages" rather than a statement that the software is "r33ly L33t" and that you need it now?
In order to attempt to appear legitimate. I've seen simlar "no warranty" warnings in no-cd cracks and the like.
Why would Information Week provide a link to it if it was a Trojan horse?
Because they don't realise that it is, and believe that it's legitimate.
There's 96 hits on Google when you look up "Alper Coskun" (with quotes) and "98SE" -- none of which mentions his sinister plot to get your oh-so-valuable data that you keep on an ancient Windows 98 PC.
Now you're just being silly - he's hardly likely to put up a webpage about it, and a lack of others doing so just means that no-one has figured it out yet.
Now, I don't suppose that there is anything sinister about this, but really - to the best of my knowledge, he's just some random guy on the internet. Why should I trust him?
Yeah, they're dumb, but they're perfectly within their rights to do that if they choose. Stealing/trashing the car is a crime, no matter where you park it or what state you leave it in (ie locked, unlocked, doors open, etc)
Computer users need to take more care, but the bad guys also need to be stopped.
It would be illegal, immoral (unauthorised use of my computer is unauthorised use, whether for good or ill*) and most likely cause more problems than it solves. Most of the problems with most worms revolve around bandwidth usage - they hammer the networks as they propagate and search for hosts. A "good" worm would be no different.
As others have pointed out, it would also be essentially useless - so you release a patching worm today, and tomorrow, a new vulnerability is discovered. What now? Another worm? Update the current one? Neither is a very attractive solution.
* Yes, machines should be patched, and those that aren't represent a danger to the network, but two wrongs do not make a right.
The murderer is worse. At worst, the spammer's actions degrade your quality of life a little (by forcing you to spend time dealing with their spam). The murderer ends the life of those they kill; that's far worse than the slight degradation of your quality of life.
Sometimes, 5000 * 1/5000 != 1.
Even when minimized, iTunes is taking up far more CPU than a media player should (even more than WMP!).
As I type, I am listening to WMP playing an mp3, and (according to Task Manager) CPU usage by WMP is never above 1%, and keeps dropping to 0.
I've no idea how much iTunes uses (I tried it briefly a week ago but didn't like it), but it seems to me that it wouldn't have to use much to use "even more than WMP".
Backing up your Disney DVDs so your kids don't destroy them, then playing the backups while the originals are kept under lock and key, is not infringement.
Well, that really depends on where you live. Here in the UK, for example, it most certainly is infringement.
No, I don't suppose that anyone would ever get in trouble for it - but that doesn't make it legal, or make the law right.
The headline is written by the submittor, in this case spike-288. All timothy did (assuming he's not edited it) was choose the story to post, and add the update.
Well, to be fair, MS did it first - the user agent string of every version of IE I've ever used (3.0 up) has contained the word "Mozilla" in it (as well as the word "compatible", of course).
It'd be pretty hypocritical of MS to complain now. Besides, why would they? What do they care if some small percentage of browsers claiming to be IE aren't? It just inflates the (already huge) percentage usage figures for IE. That can only be a good thing, at least marketing-wise.
# If ownership of ID cards will be compulsory;
# If the carrying of ID cards will be compulsory;
How can it not be? If owning the ID card is not compulsory, then what use will it be, other than to perhaps restrict availability of certain services (eg health care) to those who do own them?
Likewise, what use is an id system that is ostensibly to help prevent terrorism, if you don't have to carry them? Anyone who wishes to remain anonymous will simply not carry the card, then fail to report to a police station (if required to do so to produce it).
The only way I can see this system being run is if ownership of and carrying the cards is compulsory. If not, then it will be too easy for people to just slip through the cracks.
quite often articles are mirrored by websites like Slashdot
Slashdot doesn't mirror anything, it just links to the article at source. The reason for that is copyright - slashdot doesn't have permission to mirror the article. Stuff published on the net is still copyrighted unless specifically mark as being public domain.
Linking to an article in no way copies it, and so cannot be prevented by copyright law. There is no inconsistency here - if slashdot copied the article verbatim and hosted it on their own site, then they'd be infringing copyright.
True, people do sometimes copy articles into comments here, in case the server is slashdotted. For what it's worth, they are in fact commiting copyright infringement, and are opening themselves (and potentially slashdot) up to legal proceedings. I don't suppose it would ever come to that, but the copyright holder would be within their rights to sue.
(Disclaimer: IANAL, etc)
Personally, I'd rather google had that money, than the spammers had it to spend on yet more hardware and bandwidth (or just get rich with).
For that matter, if the ads offend you so much, have you mailed google about it? If enough people complain, they may well pull them.
Then again all those Quadro users could be CAD people and they've got no audience. =)
Not just CAD - I do server-side Java programming, and we've all recently been bought new PCs. The spec we went for included a Quadro FX 500; don't ask me why, it just did... (it was that, or a similar machine with a GeForce - I didn't make the choice)