I'm for Gore, but let's not be silly -- both sides INCLUDING Democrats -- have accepted contributions from Microsoft. As Bill Gates has said, this case will be resolved in the legal system and people should vote their conscience.
It's true that Windows has historically had a reboot problem, but I think Windows 2000 has made big strides in that regard. I won't rehash the old argument, but I just wanted to mention that. When you criticize a product for something, the best you can expect is that the company will respond to the criticism and improve it, and I think that's exactly what Microsoft has done here.
No, if this were Microsoft, people would be saying there they go again, late software, boy do they suck. I hope as organizations close to slashdotters' hearts start to grow up and come to terms with reality, they'll gain more perspective on why other companies make the decisions they do. Interesting quote from Linus on the 2.4 kernel:
"So instead of just going to a well-threaded FS (file system) and cleaned-up networking, we ended up having loop-back mounts, 64-bit file systems, NFS v3, 64GB memory support, etc. -- a lot more than originally envisioned," he said. "And it's damn hard to say 'no' when it's all so obviously a good thing. At some point the 'no' is required just to get a new stable version out.
"In this regard, open source is definitely not very different from any software project -- they are notorious for always being over-budget both fiscally and time-wise."
No no, go do a search of US Fed Circuits on FindLaw for the phrase "clear error" and you'll get a gazillion rulings saying "we review the findings of fact for clear error"; in contrast you'll get exactly zero saying the same for the supposed "egregious error" standard.
People like Bob Lande, who was quoted by CNET as saying: "I think there is now almost a 100-percent chance the Supreme Court will take the case" (a few days before the court decided 8-1 not to take it). Check it out for yerself here .
CNET, ZDNet usually only quote anti-MS folks for legal analysis.
Let me also add this from BRACCO v. MICHIGAN TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY:
We review a trial court's findings of fact for clear error. "Findings of fact by the trial court may not be set aside unless clearly erroneous. In the application of this principle, regard shall be given to the special opportunity of the trial court to judge the credibility of the witnesses who appeared before it." MCR 2.613(C). "A finding of fact is clearly erroneous when, although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court is left with a definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been made."
Sure, just to pick one, JOHNSON v. HALE (9th Cir. 1991):
"The district court committed clear error when it refused to award compensatory damages for humiliation and emotional distress. We reverse and remand with the instruction that the district court award plaintiffs an amount which will fairly compensate them for these injuries."
Bill Neukom is happy to explain the clear error standard here.
The sancity of the Findings of Fact i.e. "they cannot be overturned" is a myth perpetuated by the press and the BS'ers they quote (the same people who said there was a 100% chance the Supreme Court would agree to bypass the Appeals Court and take the case). The standard for overturning findings of fact is clear error, and I think Microsoft will argue there was a lot of clear error in the findings of fact.
Maybe this had something to do with the slashdot discussion or maybe (just maybe) it had something to do with the frontpage articles ZDNet and C|Net decided to run.
I guess we can add "Spamming" as another "Business" where Microsoft can use its monopoly status to its advantage.
To which supposed monopoly are you referring? If you're referring to the supposed OS monopoly then how is MSN Explorer leveraging that? It has nothing to do with Windows. If it's a monopoly of Internet client software you're referring to, then I'd defer to the numbers on that: AOL has 23 million members vs. MSN's 3 or so million (despite being on the desktop since Windows 95).
Further, Microsoft has agreed to rewrite the email message send: check out this story on C|Net.
Bill Gates has *never* said he hopes the election will put someone more friendly in the White House. What he has said is that the trial is a legal issue that will be resolved in court and that people should vote their conscience.
I agree completely. I'm sick of the asinine knee-jerk responses people pile on to these things without knowing the facts. And that snide "No your honor, we aren't a monopoly" comment in the original posting was just demagoguery.
You admit exactly what I'm trying to show. You refer to Corel's failed strategy of porting their Office suite to Linux as "latching onto a fad" along the lines of "WordPerfect Office for Java", yet you demand that Microsoft "latch on to" the very same "fad." Explain to me how you reconcile that.
The rest of your response is the same failed assumptions cobbled together by sloppy logic (and mixed in with some name-calling) that I've addressed previously e.g. IBM has invested in Linux, therefore there "must be something there" (yeah, remember Microchannel?), an investment saved Apply (a sinking ship is a sinking ship no matter how much $$ you pile on; Apple cut expenses, reinvigorated its product line, and addressed the failed licensing strategy of the Amelio administration), etc.
All you're doing is spouting rhetoric to avoid the facts. Previously you had said:
Without the anti-trust trial, Office for the Mac would never have existed
I pointed out that Office for Mac preceded any antitrust inquiry by five years; further, it preceded the development of Office for Windows. When I pointed out that another company had tried porting their Office suite to Linux and found lackluster demand, all you could do was dismiss Corel as a "great bandwagon jumper" instead of explaining why Microsoft should do something that failed for another company. Your poor reasoning continued:
Why are [sic] IBM investing a billion dollars in a 'non-viable' platform?
IBM believes it's a disruptive technology (Note that you can't in one breath say Microsoft faces no OS competition and in the next breath say Linux will topple Windows). You also can't use another company's investment strategy to argue that Microsoft should port Office to a platform with no demonstrable demand. Remember all the high-profile investors Priceline had? If a high-profile investor jumped off a cliff, should we all follow?:-)
Apple were [sic] in serious shit before Microsoft came along
No, Apple was in serious shit before Steve Jobs came along. He slashed expenses and turned the company profitable in Q1FY98.
Linux is already the number 2 choice on Intel servers, and it's not far behind MacOS on the desktop.
I would agree Linux is a contender in the server market. The desktop market is another story (and "it's not far behind MacOS" is not a very compelling statement, by the way). Listen to Id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead explain why they scrapped a retail version of "Quake III Arena" for Linux:
"It's a support nightmare due to the multiple flavors of popular versions (of Linux) and the ever-changing kernel; retailers don't want it; and the Linux Q3A sales were disappointing."
And Redhat? This from C|Net:
Red Hat, the top Linux software seller, still doesn't see Linux as a desktop operating system replacement. Instead, Red Hat tailors versions of Linux for heavy-duty computers called servers and small gadgets such as Cradle Technologies' all-purpose computing devices. "The desktop space is extremely interesting, but for this particular company at this time, it's not going to be our primary focus," said Red Hat spokeswoman Melissa London.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm for Gore, but let's not be silly -- both sides INCLUDING Democrats -- have accepted contributions from Microsoft. As Bill Gates has said, this case will be resolved in the legal system and people should vote their conscience.
It's true that Windows has historically had a reboot problem, but I think Windows 2000 has made big strides in that regard. I won't rehash the old argument, but I just wanted to mention that. When you criticize a product for something, the best you can expect is that the company will respond to the criticism and improve it, and I think that's exactly what Microsoft has done here.
As was previously stated, these guarantees are more PR than anything but you brought it up....
"So instead of just going to a well-threaded FS (file system) and cleaned-up networking, we ended up having loop-back mounts, 64-bit file systems, NFS v3, 64GB memory support, etc. -- a lot more than originally envisioned," he said. "And it's damn hard to say 'no' when it's all so obviously a good thing. At some point the 'no' is required just to get a new stable version out.
"In this regard, open source is definitely not very different from any software project -- they are notorious for always being over-budget both fiscally and time-wise."
No no, go do a search of US Fed Circuits on FindLaw for the phrase "clear error" and you'll get a gazillion rulings saying "we review the findings of fact for clear error"; in contrast you'll get exactly zero saying the same for the supposed "egregious error" standard.
CNET, ZDNet usually only quote anti-MS folks for legal analysis.
We review a trial court's findings of fact for clear error. "Findings of fact by the trial court may not be set aside unless clearly erroneous. In the application of this principle, regard shall be given to the special opportunity of the trial court to judge the credibility of the witnesses who appeared before it." MCR 2.613(C). "A finding of fact is clearly erroneous when, although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court is left with a definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been made."
"The district court committed clear error when it refused to award compensatory damages for humiliation and emotional distress. We reverse and remand with the instruction that the district court award plaintiffs an amount which will fairly compensate them for these injuries."
Bill Neukom is happy to explain the clear error standard here.
The sancity of the Findings of Fact i.e. "they cannot be overturned" is a myth perpetuated by the press and the BS'ers they quote (the same people who said there was a 100% chance the Supreme Court would agree to bypass the Appeals Court and take the case). The standard for overturning findings of fact is clear error, and I think Microsoft will argue there was a lot of clear error in the findings of fact.
Maybe this had something to do with the slashdot discussion or maybe (just maybe) it had something to do with the frontpage articles ZDNet and C|Net decided to run.
To which supposed monopoly are you referring? If you're referring to the supposed OS monopoly then how is MSN Explorer leveraging that? It has nothing to do with Windows. If it's a monopoly of Internet client software you're referring to, then I'd defer to the numbers on that: AOL has 23 million members vs. MSN's 3 or so million (despite being on the desktop since Windows 95).
Further, Microsoft has agreed to rewrite the email message send: check out this story on C|Net.Bill Gates has *never* said he hopes the election will put someone more friendly in the White House. What he has said is that the trial is a legal issue that will be resolved in court and that people should vote their conscience.
I agree completely. I'm sick of the asinine knee-jerk responses people pile on to these things without knowing the facts. And that snide "No your honor, we aren't a monopoly" comment in the original posting was just demagoguery.
The rest of your response is the same failed assumptions cobbled together by sloppy logic (and mixed in with some name-calling) that I've addressed previously e.g. IBM has invested in Linux, therefore there "must be something there" (yeah, remember Microchannel?), an investment saved Apply (a sinking ship is a sinking ship no matter how much $$ you pile on; Apple cut expenses, reinvigorated its product line, and addressed the failed licensing strategy of the Amelio administration), etc.
Without the anti-trust trial, Office for the Mac would never have existed
I pointed out that Office for Mac preceded any antitrust inquiry by five years; further, it preceded the development of Office for Windows. When I pointed out that another company had tried porting their Office suite to Linux and found lackluster demand, all you could do was dismiss Corel as a "great bandwagon jumper" instead of explaining why Microsoft should do something that failed for another company. Your poor reasoning continued:
Why are [sic] IBM investing a billion dollars in a 'non-viable' platform?
IBM believes it's a disruptive technology (Note that you can't in one breath say Microsoft faces no OS competition and in the next breath say Linux will topple Windows). You also can't use another company's investment strategy to argue that Microsoft should port Office to a platform with no demonstrable demand. Remember all the high-profile investors Priceline had? If a high-profile investor jumped off a cliff, should we all follow? :-)
Apple were [sic] in serious shit before Microsoft came along
No, Apple was in serious shit before Steve Jobs came along. He slashed expenses and turned the company profitable in Q1FY98.
Linux is already the number 2 choice on Intel servers, and it's not far behind MacOS on the desktop.
I would agree Linux is a contender in the server market. The desktop market is another story (and "it's not far behind MacOS" is not a very compelling statement, by the way). Listen to Id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead explain why they scrapped a retail version of "Quake III Arena" for Linux:
"It's a support nightmare due to the multiple flavors of popular versions (of Linux) and the ever-changing kernel; retailers don't want it; and the Linux Q3A sales were disappointing."
And Redhat? This from C|Net:
Red Hat, the top Linux software seller, still doesn't see Linux as a desktop operating system replacement. Instead, Red Hat tailors versions of Linux for heavy-duty computers called servers and small gadgets such as Cradle Technologies' all-purpose computing devices. "The desktop space is extremely interesting, but for this particular company at this time, it's not going to be our primary focus," said Red Hat spokeswoman Melissa London.