Home builders have architectural plans. Machinist have blueprints. Electronic equipment builders have schematics.
Software developers have C#, Java, Ruby, and dozens of others. It's more likely that the problem is that we A) have too many languages and B) don't think of code as a specification. Remember, in software, the computer does the building, not blue collar workers.
Does the site have a presence in the US? Well? If it doesn't then they can get bent.
It's called "international copyright law". In parciular, the Berne Convention, was not developed in the US, but was an international effort. Russia is a member of the Berne Union. The RIAA, hate them as I may, clearly has grounds to file a suit here.
But if you, as a parent, believe that it is wrong for your children to be exposed to pornography, then it is complete fucking impossible to bring them up right in modern liberal society without enclosing them in a solid steel cube...
Put the computer in the family room or some other room with public foot traffic and walk by occasionally. You can also buy some very effective filtering software which allows *you* to make the choice of what content you get filtered to your home and not your government.
In a typical apartment complex with 16 units per building, all fire risks are multiplied 16x.
It depends. Where I live most buildings have this criteria:
A) Cement and Steel construction and use fire rated sheetrock (in my case there are 4 layers between units). B) Have a commercial grade sprinkler system. C) Have a networked smoke alarm system so that the Fire Deptartment knows where the fire is and can isolate it quickly. The alarms are on the power grid and have battery backup.
The likelyhood of my apartment burning down vs. a stick frame house or apartment is probably far less, regardless of the density of residents.
Not to mention that those "expert strategic moves" you mention are also "illegal anticompetitive moves"...
Really? Are you a paralegal with an indepth understanding of the law? I would be surprised if any of this is illegal let alone unethical. Most of these moves make perfect sense:
IE: Safari is free. IE can't make money on the Mac platform. Why would MS keep putting money into something that they can't make money on?
Virtual PC: Again, MS can't make money with this. Parellels and VMWare kick Virtual PC in the ass and they decided to focus on improving their Windows version. Who would buy Virtual PC 2007 for Mac if it was released next year?
Never releasing Access, Project, or Visio for the Mac: So now it's anticompetitive to not spend millions of dollars making every piece of software cross platform?
Killing Windows Media Player for Mac: This is the closest thing you have to unethical. I would be surprised if it's illegal, and if it was than the law is too far reaching. The only reason this is a problem is that it locks the proprietary DRM to Windows. There should be a solution to this (e.g. opening up the DRM format for 3rd party players, easier said than done for obvious security reasons).
Killing Visual Basic in Mac Office: Funny how Visual Basic is the crappiest thing ever until MSFT removes support for it. I'll be rational and accept the fact that many businesses use it so this does have a real impact. Not sure how I feel about this yet. In the Windows world MS favors.NET as opposed to Visual Basic for Office automation. I know that they're porting a subset of.NET to Linux and OS X for WPF/e support, I think they should use the same subset for Office scripting so that people can port their VBA to VB.NET. But make no mistake, this is not anticompetitive. If anything it's pro competition because it gives their customers a reason to look at alternatives like OO where they had no reason before.
In Protected Mode ActiveX is not allowed to install software, touch system settings, etc. This is the sandbox you're looking for. Why is this not enough? I didn't read anywhere that indicated that the user can even disable Protected Mode, rather, it's implied that this is the out of the box experience.
As for Microsoft, it got to where it is now in large part to shady deals (QDOS, OS/2, etc.) and illegal business practices.
This is so far from being proven it's absolutely rediculous. Anybody who worked software retail during that timeframe (I did) knows that you A) had droves of people lining up for Windows 95 and B) and droves of people returning OS/2 Warp because of technical issues (e.g. data corruption, not "lack of programs cause MS screwed us").
No. People driving poorly are idiots. That could mean people driving like a maniac (weaving in and out of lanes at high speeds) or people casually cruising in the passing lane.
In IE7, we built a containment wall around IE by running it in Protected Mode. In this mode, IE can browse the web but cannot install software (good or bad) or change settings on the user's computer without explicit user consent. Because the foundation work to make this possible is in Windows Vista, this feature is not available on the XP version of IE7.
This is exactly why I don't play games online in which AI can have a significant edge. Games like Chess are essentially solved and that is not interesting to me. Games like WOW require a lot of silly repetive actions that *are* better for a machine to perform, so why would I want to perform them myself?
With total freedom there would be no Microsoft, because as soon as they released a product everybody would copy it to each other...
A free market economy is not synonymous with anarchy. From the Wikipedia: "In an absolutely free-market economy, all capital, goods, services, and money flow transfers are unregulated by the government except to stop collusion that may take place among market participants. "
That is, no one is forcing a company to make their product work with other products. Obviously this wouldn't be a market if people were allowed to steal.
In a truly free market, you'd see Visual Studio...run on Linux...
No, in a truly free market MS is free to do their own market research and determine what platforms to support. In an idealists market a company would be forced to create products or alter products in ways which do not benefit the company.
Monopolists don't have the same rights than other people.
You're right, but I'm amazed at how many people pretend to understand what restrictions are actually imposed. It's complicated. You're not a lawyer. Even lawyers don't fully understand it because it's not black and white.
One thing is this: using their OS monopoly to impose their AV solution.
This is almost like saying that they're also imposing their file system solution too because they won't expose certain API's.
That is anti-competitive.
They're so anti-competitive that they even advertise for Vista antivirus competitors right on their web site.
In the age of "web 2.0", I still do not want to use a web browser as a runtime for:
- Word processing - Spreadsheets - Gaming - Email - Photo/Video editing - Pretty much any application that needs a rich UI
While DHTML/AJAX are nice technologies for web applications, there are far too many applications in which I do not what to use a web browser for. I even post to blogs via a smart client, and I wish you could reply to forums to do the same. Sure, I can use a Mac or Linux for these things, but for now at least I prefer Windows.
No, it's not a bad statistical argument if you understand the point I was making. The point is that 42% of WGA isn't failing, so it's not this huge widespread problem as people make it out to be. Why the statistic is even reported is beyond me (probably to incide "OMG 42% of WGA is failing" lemming posts), and why it's not near 100% is irrelevant.
At the most this comment should incite an investigation to determine whether or not the person was truely interested or planning on causing harm to the family. I'd have no problem with this person being arrested and questioned. The speech itself, however, should not be criminalized. With free speech comes responsibility, and if you make threats you have the responsibility to prove you won't carry out those threats. But you can't limit the speech itself here. This type of thinking is what leads you to imprisoning someone who has done nothing wrong.
No, we didn't. Niether case was black-and-white and the two can not be compared. For example, the EU is particular about some details that are simply unreasonable (i.e. crippling the user experience by not allowing the packaging of a media player with a modern OS).
Because I don't want the Federal government supporting a company's unethical business practices, even if that company is an American company. Is that unreasonable?
No, but you're being unreasonable in your definition of "unethical". To many of us, adding value to the customer means that Microsoft, Apple, and any other desktop OS makers should be able to add features and bundle product as they see fit regardless of monopoly status. For me, the ethical issue in the past was that it was hard or virtually impossible for 3rd parties to create aftermarket replacements (kind of like a car maker not allowing you to replace the stereo). But I can use Firefox, iTunes, and all sorts of applications in Windows, while I can also enjoy a lot of out of the box functionality should I choose not to download extra applications.
The reality that many anti-MS people miss is that the EU is essentially extorting money out of Microsoft. That's clearly unethical, and I'm glad my country is doing something to stop it. It is not the place for the government to tell MS how to develop their product unless there is *clear* anticompetitive behavior (i.e. not based on a few people's ideologies of how software should be). Packaging one of the most commonly used components of an OS (the web browser) has not prevented other OS's from thriving (read: OS X). You simply can't argue that it's better for the consumer to buy a computer and have to download or purchase a seperate browser. It's laughable. The same can be said for playing video, burning CD's, or any other common activity. Remember that the point of these laws is to benefit the customer, not to hurt the big "evil" corporation. Most customers want out-of-the-box functionality, and no one should prevent Microsoft from delivering that.
I guess you don't care about features that could actually improve what you do. Just because you don't know they exist or don't understand how the could help you doesn't mean they can't help you or someone else. I won't duplicate the rest of my brief position, but I obviously welcome the change.
Slashdot Mirror
Home builders have architectural plans. Machinist have blueprints. Electronic equipment builders have schematics.
Software developers have C#, Java, Ruby, and dozens of others. It's more likely that the problem is that we A) have too many languages and B) don't think of code as a specification. Remember, in software, the computer does the building, not blue collar workers.
Does the site have a presence in the US? Well? If it doesn't then they can get bent.
It's called "international copyright law". In parciular, the Berne Convention, was not developed in the US, but was an international effort. Russia is a member of the Berne Union. The RIAA, hate them as I may, clearly has grounds to file a suit here.
But if you, as a parent, believe that it is wrong for your children to be exposed to pornography, then it is complete fucking impossible to bring them up right in modern liberal society without enclosing them in a solid steel cube...
Put the computer in the family room or some other room with public foot traffic and walk by occasionally. You can also buy some very effective filtering software which allows *you* to make the choice of what content you get filtered to your home and not your government.
In a typical apartment complex with 16 units per building, all fire risks are multiplied 16x.
It depends. Where I live most buildings have this criteria:
A) Cement and Steel construction and use fire rated sheetrock (in my case there are 4 layers between units).
B) Have a commercial grade sprinkler system.
C) Have a networked smoke alarm system so that the Fire Deptartment knows where the fire is and can isolate it quickly. The alarms are on the power grid and have battery backup.
The likelyhood of my apartment burning down vs. a stick frame house or apartment is probably far less, regardless of the density of residents.
Not to mention that those "expert strategic moves" you mention are also "illegal anticompetitive moves"...
.NET as opposed to Visual Basic for Office automation. I know that they're porting a subset of .NET to Linux and OS X for WPF/e support, I think they should use the same subset for Office scripting so that people can port their VBA to VB.NET. But make no mistake, this is not anticompetitive. If anything it's pro competition because it gives their customers a reason to look at alternatives like OO where they had no reason before.
Really? Are you a paralegal with an indepth understanding of the law? I would be surprised if any of this is illegal let alone unethical. Most of these moves make perfect sense:
IE: Safari is free. IE can't make money on the Mac platform. Why would MS keep putting money into something that they can't make money on?
Virtual PC: Again, MS can't make money with this. Parellels and VMWare kick Virtual PC in the ass and they decided to focus on improving their Windows version. Who would buy Virtual PC 2007 for Mac if it was released next year?
Never releasing Access, Project, or Visio for the Mac: So now it's anticompetitive to not spend millions of dollars making every piece of software cross platform?
Killing Windows Media Player for Mac: This is the closest thing you have to unethical. I would be surprised if it's illegal, and if it was than the law is too far reaching. The only reason this is a problem is that it locks the proprietary DRM to Windows. There should be a solution to this (e.g. opening up the DRM format for 3rd party players, easier said than done for obvious security reasons).
Killing Visual Basic in Mac Office: Funny how Visual Basic is the crappiest thing ever until MSFT removes support for it. I'll be rational and accept the fact that many businesses use it so this does have a real impact. Not sure how I feel about this yet. In the Windows world MS favors
I am in no way a Micros~1 apologist...
1995 called. They want their spelling of Microsoft back.
In Protected Mode ActiveX is not allowed to install software, touch system settings, etc. This is the sandbox you're looking for. Why is this not enough? I didn't read anywhere that indicated that the user can even disable Protected Mode, rather, it's implied that this is the out of the box experience.
As for Microsoft, it got to where it is now in large part to shady deals (QDOS, OS/2, etc.) and illegal business practices.
This is so far from being proven it's absolutely rediculous. Anybody who worked software retail during that timeframe (I did) knows that you A) had droves of people lining up for Windows 95 and B) and droves of people returning OS/2 Warp because of technical issues (e.g. data corruption, not "lack of programs cause MS screwed us").
No. People driving poorly are idiots. That could mean people driving like a maniac (weaving in and out of lanes at high speeds) or people casually cruising in the passing lane.
Until ActiveX is limited to a VM, it should be totally disabled.
Your problems should be solved in Vista: IE7 Security in Brief. From the blog post:
In IE7, we built a containment wall around IE by running it in Protected Mode. In this mode, IE can browse the web but cannot install software (good or bad) or change settings on the user's computer without explicit user consent. Because the foundation work to make this possible is in Windows Vista, this feature is not available on the XP version of IE7.
This is exactly why I don't play games online in which AI can have a significant edge. Games like Chess are essentially solved and that is not interesting to me. Games like WOW require a lot of silly repetive actions that *are* better for a machine to perform, so why would I want to perform them myself?
With total freedom there would be no Microsoft, because as soon as they released a product everybody would copy it to each other...
A free market economy is not synonymous with anarchy. From the Wikipedia:
"In an absolutely free-market economy, all capital, goods, services, and money flow transfers are unregulated by the government except to stop collusion that may take place among market participants. "
That is, no one is forcing a company to make their product work with other products. Obviously this wouldn't be a market if people were allowed to steal.
In a truly free market, you'd see Visual Studio...run on Linux...
No, in a truly free market MS is free to do their own market research and determine what platforms to support. In an idealists market a company would be forced to create products or alter products in ways which do not benefit the company.
I really don't understand the State in this situation at all
It's called extortion.
Monopolists don't have the same rights than other people.
You're right, but I'm amazed at how many people pretend to understand what restrictions are actually imposed. It's complicated. You're not a lawyer. Even lawyers don't fully understand it because it's not black and white.
One thing is this: using their OS monopoly to impose their AV solution.
This is almost like saying that they're also imposing their file system solution too because they won't expose certain API's.
That is anti-competitive.
They're so anti-competitive that they even advertise for Vista antivirus competitors right on their web site.
But we seem to forget that Side B uses unrealistic fear about the erosion of personal freedoms.
You make a valid point, although because of human nature I feel safer erring on "Side B".
In the age of "web 2.0", I still do not want to use a web browser as a runtime for:
- Word processing
- Spreadsheets
- Gaming
- Email
- Photo/Video editing
- Pretty much any application that needs a rich UI
While DHTML/AJAX are nice technologies for web applications, there are far too many applications in which I do not what to use a web browser for. I even post to blogs via a smart client, and I wish you could reply to forums to do the same. Sure, I can use a Mac or Linux for these things, but for now at least I prefer Windows.
No, it's not a bad statistical argument if you understand the point I was making. The point is that 42% of WGA isn't failing, so it's not this huge widespread problem as people make it out to be. Why the statistic is even reported is beyond me (probably to incide "OMG 42% of WGA is failing" lemming posts), and why it's not near 100% is irrelevant.
See also Red Herring.
At the most this comment should incite an investigation to determine whether or not the person was truely interested or planning on causing harm to the family. I'd have no problem with this person being arrested and questioned. The speech itself, however, should not be criminalized. With free speech comes responsibility, and if you make threats you have the responsibility to prove you won't carry out those threats. But you can't limit the speech itself here. This type of thinking is what leads you to imprisoning someone who has done nothing wrong.
2 of the 3 PC's are currently running pirated copies of XP and have safely passed...So here is 3 sales/upgrades that MS won't get.
It doesn't look like they were getting them anyway.
That's 42% of the 137 reported problems, not 42% of of all WGA installations.
We convicted them of the same crime...
No, we didn't. Niether case was black-and-white and the two can not be compared. For example, the EU is particular about some details that are simply unreasonable (i.e. crippling the user experience by not allowing the packaging of a media player with a modern OS).
Because I don't want the Federal government supporting a company's unethical business practices, even if that company is an American company. Is that unreasonable?
No, but you're being unreasonable in your definition of "unethical". To many of us, adding value to the customer means that Microsoft, Apple, and any other desktop OS makers should be able to add features and bundle product as they see fit regardless of monopoly status. For me, the ethical issue in the past was that it was hard or virtually impossible for 3rd parties to create aftermarket replacements (kind of like a car maker not allowing you to replace the stereo). But I can use Firefox, iTunes, and all sorts of applications in Windows, while I can also enjoy a lot of out of the box functionality should I choose not to download extra applications.
The reality that many anti-MS people miss is that the EU is essentially extorting money out of Microsoft. That's clearly unethical, and I'm glad my country is doing something to stop it. It is not the place for the government to tell MS how to develop their product unless there is *clear* anticompetitive behavior (i.e. not based on a few people's ideologies of how software should be). Packaging one of the most commonly used components of an OS (the web browser) has not prevented other OS's from thriving (read: OS X). You simply can't argue that it's better for the consumer to buy a computer and have to download or purchase a seperate browser. It's laughable. The same can be said for playing video, burning CD's, or any other common activity. Remember that the point of these laws is to benefit the customer, not to hurt the big "evil" corporation. Most customers want out-of-the-box functionality, and no one should prevent Microsoft from delivering that.
I guess you don't care about features that could actually improve what you do. Just because you don't know they exist or don't understand how the could help you doesn't mean they can't help you or someone else.
I won't duplicate the rest of my brief position, but I obviously welcome the change.