So that means they wont go to www.microsoft.com and download a viewer for word?
No, they won't. I know this is/. and we're all heavy computer users but TRY to think like a person who does nothing on a computer except type letters for his/her boss. They will no more download a viewer for word than they would have opened up their old typewriter and tried changing the motor. And its partly because they're used to being unable to do anything not in the manual and partly because they're not paid to do that and aren't interested enough to try it.
1. M$ users themselves are forced to upgrade, which is the reference to Word 6 (the last version I personally used - I quite liked it).
2. Linux etc users need new filters.
Two differing sets of people but, in essence, the same problem for both: reading the new format.
I'm glad 1997 seems like a year ago for you. you must be having more fun than I am.
You must be miserable then!
What's wrong with having a new product every 2-3 years that is backwards compatible?
The issue is that the file format changes even if none of the new features is needed for the document, this forces people that don't want the new version to buy it (on Windows) or to change OS because their boss doen't understant the issues (other platforms).
Just because you hate one company and like another you ignore the bad things they do?
Look, if we're talking about Charles Manson do I have to stop to condem a long list of other serial killers before continuing? Can't we just assume that if I dislike M$'s activities that I disliked it when Netscape did it, or when Apple do it?
You claimed that Microsoft changes the file format so it can sell more copies of Office. Now, since Office is only sold on Windows and Macintosh, only users of those platforms are potential customers. So how does changing the file format increase their bottom line among other platforms? It doesn't.
I'm not being clear.
The original post is (I think) about non-windows, but the motive for M$ to upgrade applies to both their own users (to move to the latest version) and non-windows/mac users (to get them to convert to M$ from Linux etc.).
The problem for both set of users is largely the same: they get emails etc in the new form and need new import filters.
Goddamn that sounds like some BS you heard in a college class.
No, it's called (you might want to write this down) observation of the real world. I see it every day. Tell people that there are "no user-servicable parts inside" and they assume that they have no control over it beyond what it says in the manual. They (non-hackers) will not attempt to make it do things they think of as messing about with the internal workings. They're scared.
It's just human nature. Tell people to keep their hands off a technical thing and they often do.
And it's not laziness or stupidity, it's ignorance. Ignorance is easy to cure, the other two aren't.
I didn't need to. Or did you think the original post was about reverse-engineering under Windows? I suppose it could be read that way, but it seems clear to me.
You also lied when you said they change the file format every year.
Well, it changed this year and it seems like about a year since the last one. I might be wrong, but it certainly changes enough to be a problem.
I've got news for you. THEY ALL DO.
So what? Are you suggesting that that makes it alright?
But don't talk about MS like they are so much worse than other companies.
strange...my copy of word 2000 happens to be able to save any format it understands in word 6/95 format
What? We're all talking about being forced to upgrade to 2000 to read files sent by other people. The whole point is that we don't have 2000, so what formats it saves in is irrelevant.
Is it Microsoft's fault that Linux word processors can't print text only documents well enough for professional use?
Oh, try reading the posts before acting like a dick. Any system which can run TeX is better than anything M$ can produce for professional text only documents. With pstricks it's also better for everything else.
I said that the Linux DOC file readers were not up to the job, not that Linux as a whole is incapable of professional documents.
blah blah blah, drivel,as smoothly and productively as a Windows 3.1 app.
The biggest waste of my time in the office is helping the Windows users get out of trouble with their crappy apps. The rest of the time I'm producing code and documents that I just couldn't be arsed trying to do under Windows. Some of us like an OS which only gets rebooted when new hardware is put in.
Linux was basically a bunch of people mireing around in the past...
Actually I agree, but the other option is to mire around in shit.
How do you explain the various programs for Linux that all read and MS Word.DOC files perfectly well?
As a figment of your imagination. I've tried them all and they all fail almost as soon as you leave the area of text only docs. In fact none of them print even text only docs well enough for professional use.
The copy of Word 97 in our office chokes on Word 2000 files. Perhaps there is another reason for this. I no longer use it so I didn't look too deeply into the subject. What other reason do you know off that this would happen?
You don't need to pay $$$ to read MS word documents, you can download a free reader for most of the MS Office formats from microsoft.
Only if you are a Windows user.
The vast majority of Windows users don't know about this, and wouldn't try it if they did. Closed source software discourages attempts to understand the system you're using and makes simple solutions like this daunting to their users. Oops, off-topic.
Why would a company with the smartest people in the world make life more difficult on themselves by making their own formats hard to read?
Well I can't imagine why but Microsoft, on the other hand, has a strong profit motive. Once the file format changes, as it does every year (or faster) people start getting emails with the new format in attachments. If they could just use a filter then they wouldn't have to upgrade from Word 6 or whatever was the last version that actually offered them new features they needed.
An obfusticated format means that filters are hard to write so such people are forced to upgrade which == cash for Bill. In fact, according to M$ this is their single biggest source of revenue.
I guess Microsoft will go out of it's way next to obfusticate their source code to make it more difficult for the OSS community to read their source?
Undoubtedly, if they're ever forced to release it. In fact, since you mention it, the release of the source code would be useful almost exclusively for the.h files with the data structures in them. Frankly, who gives a damn about the rest of the code? I can write my own bugs, thanks.
DOC isn't going to be very important in a few years anyway, Microsoft are moving to XML based everything.
Which means that at some point they'll start changing the definition of XML to close out competitors. They've always taken this approach, why do you think they won't this time?
When a twit like you starts defending M$ the question I always want to ask is "If they're not a pack of shits why do they bribe, threaten, steal and lie? Do you think it's some sort of hobby?"
As a full fledged desktop browser it will always lag behind Mozilla or IE, in regard to such things as 3rd party support and support of new web standards.
It led the way in CSS support and HTML4. Opera also doesn't try to engulf and extend the "standard" the way the other two have, and that's fine by me. I want support for the real standard, not the browser's own personal "new standard". 3rd party support on Windoze for Opera is actually quite good, better than 3rd party support for Netscape/Mozilla on Linux.
In the long run I expect derivatives of Mozilla to kill of Opera once and for all,
On what planet? Mozilla is a dead duck, kept alive only by the lack of a decent competition. Opera's closed-source nature will keep Mozzy alive but not through any superiority of functionality. Once a decent open-source option comes along it's goodbye, big guy.
The most recent versions of Mozilla are just about catching up with the early v3.x versions of Opera in terms of funcionality and still with a huge memory footprint as the price.
Eazel's Nautilus in the long run
That's a very long run indeed, given the state Nautilus is in (not even given an Alpha release yet).
Why would anyone want to use Opera if Mozilla is available?
Speaking personally I'm going to drop Netscape/Mozilla like a hot potato as soon as Opera enters Beta. I use it when I can when forced to use Windows and it's far better than anything the other big ones (IE + Moz) can show. I have no real reason to believe that Mozilla will ever deliver what Opera has and fit on a floppy so I can take it on-site with me.
Even if it didn't fit (compressed) onto a floppy it's ease of use, speed, memory use etc are very good.
The only thing I'm not happy with in Opera is their insistance that a browser is something that you use to read your email with, but that's an error repeated in all the graphical browsers.
Cloning a piece of software doesn't need source code, just the binary and the cp command.
As someone who owns a company, and left school years ago, I use open source code for everything I can (one function in the company is run by closed source code) for exactly the "we can fix it" reason.
That one piece of closed source code that we use (for finding distances between postcodes) is a constant thorn in the side of the IT department. We can't change the way it accepts data, we have little control over the output method (although the format is flexible) and it's impossible to do anything when a bug arises other than hope the company that supplies it has already had a bug report and there's a new version waiting when we 'phone.
By forcing OEMs to install windows on their machines.
By buying 10% shares in startups so they get inside knowledge on their Research, allowing M$'s enormous Development department to leapfrog over the startups' development and get a product to market first.
By using the profits from the OEM scam to cross subsidise the supply of software 'free' as 'part of the OS', destryong the business model of other companies which can't screw money out of OEMs (and therfore out of the people who buy the OEM's machines).
By changing the file formats in Office, which is the indusry standard at the moment, every year. This helps prevent people taking up things like Star Office because the import filters never really get to a stable condition before they need changed. It also greatly abuses the users who start getting files from other people which they can't read in their own M$ apps and so have to upgrade software which they are happy with for their own use and so make Office M$'s largest single income.
Etc. I've got to go to work so I'll not bother with all the rest.
I also don't see how breaking it up into two companies that won't compete with each other helps.
I agree. If you or I did what M$ has done we'd get locked up (this is a repeat offence). The lawyers keep telling us that a company is a legal entity like a person and that's why Gates can hide from prosecution (he did nothing wrong, it was the company) yet when sentence is passed companies get special treatment that human criminals can only dream of. M$ should be shut down, just like a human thief/conman/fraudster would be.
TWW
Re:Some copyright delusions
on
Copyrant
·
· Score: 1
What a crock of shit. You redefine the word "sell" and then ramble on at tedious and moronic length about why someone else is wrong because they use the normal definition.
Selling something does not normally imply that the buyer can do whatever they like with the item. Everyone here is quite aware that if someone sells them a book they are not allowed to COPY it and sell or give away one or more of the copies they now have.
But, that doesn't mean that I don't own any of the books in my collection. I can do anything I like with the original books that does not involve distribution which does remove possession of the book's content from me. Do you see? It's about my right to copy.
This is the basic fundimental of copyright law: that the right to make copies is not normally transferred with a work.
Perhaps that's too hard for you to follow. It's certainly M$'s hope that it is.
The act of *selling* implies that you give complete rights of a piece of intellectual property over to someone, for example if you were to sell a piece of literature which you had written to someone, they would have complete rights to sell, modify, and distribute this literature wherever and whenever they wanted.
On what planet? In this one that right is sold as a separate case involving a special contract between an author and (normally) a publisher. If James Joyce sold you a manuscript of a novel you would require explicit permission to publish the manuscript, but not to just sell it on to someone else, correct the punctuation or light the fire with it.
These point have been clarified in courts across the globe.
Ah, sarcasam. Well, to answer in kind: It's a good thing we have Christians in our midst to clear up the question of all these other religions that seem to have cropped up. Of course, they're all bunk!
But, lucky us, a bunch of Romans 2000 years ago got told the truth by someone who never met Jesus, and who disagreed on almost every point of theology that he taught and HIS OWN BROTHER continued to teach, saw the light and passed it down to us.
How those Moslems must kick themselves, The Zorastrians must feel foolish indeed, and let's not even mention the horrible mistake the Jews have been making all this time. If only they had read one of the versions of the Bible (pick one - any one!) they could all have been saved.
It's one thing to believe in Santa, the tooth fairy and the existance of one true god when you're a kid, its quite another once you're supposed to be an adult.
Special bonus: the non-sarcastic answer.
People who study theology (those who are religious, that is) get wrapped up in the internal logic of the thing and are cut-off from the reality which is that it's all made up. The classic example is the old argument about angels on the head of a pin: the whole subject can be (and has been) debated in great detail, but only if no one says "There aren't any angels, so it doesn't matter". Then the whole house of cards falls down and you're left with the realisation that theology is on the same plain as collecting Pokemon: great fun so long as you keep it self-contained and ignore the fact that it's totally meaningless outside it's own context.
Oh, that's brilliant! Which version of the collected Judeo-Christian fairy stories do you want to copyright? The original Hebrew/Greek, where Mary is not a virgin? Or the one that fits your cosey view of how everyone should get on?
What do you call 'misuse'? What on earth constitutes 'fair use' of a pile of badly-edited, badly-translated, irrelevent, superstitious sheep-herders' explanations of things they didn't understand 4000-2000 years ago (ie, just about everything).
Are you going to slap an injunction on the IRA next time they kill a protestant, or on the UVF when they kill a Catholic?
What practical use, in other words, would this be other than to let one group of cultist shit on other such cults.
What about Jesus, too? Can we copyright his image, even though every known portrait is based on the statue of Zeus which was one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world? Could Zeus sue if someone did?
Oh, and by the way, it's pretty clear in the Bible that Jehovah only allows the death penalty at his own express order, not mortals'. But people like you don't like that, so you choose to ignore it. But that's not misuse, is it?
Bloody Christians, bloody waste of bloody space the bloody lot of 'em.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I was only listing things they've been found guilty of in a court of law, but perhaps you've other information.
[Yes, you are a fool, just so you know]
You just want to be a mug, don't you?
No, they won't. I know this is /. and we're all heavy computer users but TRY to think like a person who does nothing on a computer except type letters for his/her boss. They will no more download a viewer for word than they would have opened up their old typewriter and tried changing the motor. And its partly because they're used to being unable to do anything not in the manual and partly because they're not paid to do that and aren't interested enough to try it.
TWW
1. M$ users themselves are forced to upgrade, which is the reference to Word 6 (the last version I personally used - I quite liked it).
2. Linux etc users need new filters.
Two differing sets of people but, in essence, the same problem for both: reading the new format.
I'm glad 1997 seems like a year ago for you. you must be having more fun than I am.
You must be miserable then!
What's wrong with having a new product every 2-3 years that is backwards compatible?
The issue is that the file format changes even if none of the new features is needed for the document, this forces people that don't want the new version to buy it (on Windows) or to change OS because their boss doen't understant the issues (other platforms).
Just because you hate one company and like another you ignore the bad things they do?
Look, if we're talking about Charles Manson do I have to stop to condem a long list of other serial killers before continuing? Can't we just assume that if I dislike M$'s activities that I disliked it when Netscape did it, or when Apple do it?
I'm not being clear.
The original post is (I think) about non-windows, but the motive for M$ to upgrade applies to both their own users (to move to the latest version) and non-windows/mac users (to get them to convert to M$ from Linux etc.).
The problem for both set of users is largely the same: they get emails etc in the new form and need new import filters.
No, it's called (you might want to write this down) observation of the real world. I see it every day. Tell people that there are "no user-servicable parts inside" and they assume that they have no control over it beyond what it says in the manual. They (non-hackers) will not attempt to make it do things they think of as messing about with the internal workings. They're scared.
It's just human nature. Tell people to keep their hands off a technical thing and they often do.
And it's not laziness or stupidity, it's ignorance. Ignorance is easy to cure, the other two aren't.
TWW
Actually you didn't say that.
I didn't need to. Or did you think the original post was about reverse-engineering under Windows? I suppose it could be read that way, but it seems clear to me.
You also lied when you said they change the file format every year.
Well, it changed this year and it seems like about a year since the last one. I might be wrong, but it certainly changes enough to be a problem.
I've got news for you. THEY ALL DO.
So what? Are you suggesting that that makes it alright?
But don't talk about MS like they are so much worse than other companies.
I didn't; pay attention.
What? We're all talking about being forced to upgrade to 2000 to read files sent by other people. The whole point is that we don't have 2000, so what formats it saves in is irrelevant.
TWW
Oh, try reading the posts before acting like a dick. Any system which can run TeX is better than anything M$ can produce for professional text only documents. With pstricks it's also better for everything else.
I said that the Linux DOC file readers were not up to the job, not that Linux as a whole is incapable of professional documents.
blah blah blah, drivel,as smoothly and productively as a Windows 3.1 app.
The biggest waste of my time in the office is helping the Windows users get out of trouble with their crappy apps. The rest of the time I'm producing code and documents that I just couldn't be arsed trying to do under Windows. Some of us like an OS which only gets rebooted when new hardware is put in.
Linux was basically a bunch of people mireing around in the past...
Actually I agree, but the other option is to mire around in shit.
TWW
As a figment of your imagination. I've tried them all and they all fail almost as soon as you leave the area of text only docs. In fact none of them print even text only docs well enough for professional use.
TWW
The last time the DOC format changed was 1997.
The copy of Word 97 in our office chokes on Word 2000 files. Perhaps there is another reason for this. I no longer use it so I didn't look too deeply into the subject. What other reason do you know off that this would happen?
TWW
You don't need to pay $$$ to read MS word documents, you can download a free reader for most of the MS Office formats from microsoft.
Only if you are a Windows user.
The vast majority of Windows users don't know about this, and wouldn't try it if they did. Closed source software discourages attempts to understand the system you're using and makes simple solutions like this daunting to their users. Oops, off-topic.
TWW
Well I can't imagine why but Microsoft, on the other hand, has a strong profit motive. Once the file format changes, as it does every year (or faster) people start getting emails with the new format in attachments. If they could just use a filter then they wouldn't have to upgrade from Word 6 or whatever was the last version that actually offered them new features they needed.
An obfusticated format means that filters are hard to write so such people are forced to upgrade which == cash for Bill. In fact, according to M$ this is their single biggest source of revenue.
I guess Microsoft will go out of it's way next to obfusticate their source code to make it more difficult for the OSS community to read their source?
Undoubtedly, if they're ever forced to release it. In fact, since you mention it, the release of the source code would be useful almost exclusively for the .h files with the data structures in them. Frankly, who gives a damn about the rest of the code? I can write my own bugs, thanks.
DOC isn't going to be very important in a few years anyway, Microsoft are moving to XML based everything.
Which means that at some point they'll start changing the definition of XML to close out competitors. They've always taken this approach, why do you think they won't this time?
When a twit like you starts defending M$ the question I always want to ask is "If they're not a pack of shits why do they bribe, threaten, steal and lie? Do you think it's some sort of hobby?"
TWW
Quality software is a niche, I agree.
As a full fledged desktop browser it will always lag behind Mozilla or IE, in regard to such things as 3rd party support and support of new web standards.
It led the way in CSS support and HTML4. Opera also doesn't try to engulf and extend the "standard" the way the other two have, and that's fine by me. I want support for the real standard, not the browser's own personal "new standard". 3rd party support on Windoze for Opera is actually quite good, better than 3rd party support for Netscape/Mozilla on Linux.
In the long run I expect derivatives of Mozilla to kill of Opera once and for all,
On what planet? Mozilla is a dead duck, kept alive only by the lack of a decent competition. Opera's closed-source nature will keep Mozzy alive but not through any superiority of functionality. Once a decent open-source option comes along it's goodbye, big guy.
The most recent versions of Mozilla are just about catching up with the early v3.x versions of Opera in terms of funcionality and still with a huge memory footprint as the price.
Eazel's Nautilus in the long run
That's a very long run indeed, given the state Nautilus is in (not even given an Alpha release yet).
TWW
Speaking personally I'm going to drop Netscape/Mozilla like a hot potato as soon as Opera enters Beta. I use it when I can when forced to use Windows and it's far better than anything the other big ones (IE + Moz) can show. I have no real reason to believe that Mozilla will ever deliver what Opera has and fit on a floppy so I can take it on-site with me.
Even if it didn't fit (compressed) onto a floppy it's ease of use, speed, memory use etc are very good.
The only thing I'm not happy with in Opera is their insistance that a browser is something that you use to read your email with, but that's an error repeated in all the graphical browsers.
TWW
As someone who owns a company, and left school years ago, I use open source code for everything I can (one function in the company is run by closed source code) for exactly the "we can fix it" reason.
That one piece of closed source code that we use (for finding distances between postcodes) is a constant thorn in the side of the IT department. We can't change the way it accepts data, we have little control over the output method (although the format is flexible) and it's impossible to do anything when a bug arises other than hope the company that supplies it has already had a bug report and there's a new version waiting when we 'phone.
TWW
By forcing OEMs to install windows on their machines.
By buying 10% shares in startups so they get inside knowledge on their Research, allowing M$'s enormous Development department to leapfrog over the startups' development and get a product to market first.
By using the profits from the OEM scam to cross subsidise the supply of software 'free' as 'part of the OS', destryong the business model of other companies which can't screw money out of OEMs (and therfore out of the people who buy the OEM's machines).
By changing the file formats in Office, which is the indusry standard at the moment, every year. This helps prevent people taking up things like Star Office because the import filters never really get to a stable condition before they need changed. It also greatly abuses the users who start getting files from other people which they can't read in their own M$ apps and so have to upgrade software which they are happy with for their own use and so make Office M$'s largest single income.
Etc. I've got to go to work so I'll not bother with all the rest.
I also don't see how breaking it up into two companies that won't compete with each other helps.
I agree. If you or I did what M$ has done we'd get locked up (this is a repeat offence). The lawyers keep telling us that a company is a legal entity like a person and that's why Gates can hide from prosecution (he did nothing wrong, it was the company) yet when sentence is passed companies get special treatment that human criminals can only dream of. M$ should be shut down, just like a human thief/conman/fraudster would be.
TWW
Selling something does not normally imply that the buyer can do whatever they like with the item. Everyone here is quite aware that if someone sells them a book they are not allowed to COPY it and sell or give away one or more of the copies they now have.
But, that doesn't mean that I don't own any of the books in my collection. I can do anything I like with the original books that does not involve distribution which does remove possession of the book's content from me. Do you see? It's about my right to copy.
This is the basic fundimental of copyright law: that the right to make copies is not normally transferred with a work.
Perhaps that's too hard for you to follow. It's certainly M$'s hope that it is.
The act of *selling* implies that you give complete rights of a piece of intellectual property over to someone, for example if you were to sell a piece of literature which you had written to someone, they would have complete rights to sell, modify, and distribute this literature wherever and whenever they wanted.
On what planet? In this one that right is sold as a separate case involving a special contract between an author and (normally) a publisher. If James Joyce sold you a manuscript of a novel you would require explicit permission to publish the manuscript, but not to just sell it on to someone else, correct the punctuation or light the fire with it.
These point have been clarified in courts across the globe.
TWW
You: What the F*@K for?
TD: Oh, you know - stuff. Petrol and bits of wear and tear.
You: Let's see the meter.
TD: Er... I forgot to put it on.
You: Look, here's £10, give me a call when you've got an itemised bill.
TWW
TWW
TWW
Ha ha. It must be nice to find something that confirms one of your beliefs, at least.
TWW
But, lucky us, a bunch of Romans 2000 years ago got told the truth by someone who never met Jesus, and who disagreed on almost every point of theology that he taught and HIS OWN BROTHER continued to teach, saw the light and passed it down to us.
How those Moslems must kick themselves, The Zorastrians must feel foolish indeed, and let's not even mention the horrible mistake the Jews have been making all this time. If only they had read one of the versions of the Bible (pick one - any one!) they could all have been saved.
It's one thing to believe in Santa, the tooth fairy and the existance of one true god when you're a kid, its quite another once you're supposed to be an adult.
Special bonus: the non-sarcastic answer.
People who study theology (those who are religious, that is) get wrapped up in the internal logic of the thing and are cut-off from the reality which is that it's all made up. The classic example is the old argument about angels on the head of a pin: the whole subject can be (and has been) debated in great detail, but only if no one says "There aren't any angels, so it doesn't matter". Then the whole house of cards falls down and you're left with the realisation that theology is on the same plain as collecting Pokemon: great fun so long as you keep it self-contained and ignore the fact that it's totally meaningless outside it's own context.
Well off-topic now.
TWW
What do you call 'misuse'? What on earth constitutes 'fair use' of a pile of badly-edited, badly-translated, irrelevent, superstitious sheep-herders' explanations of things they didn't understand 4000-2000 years ago (ie, just about everything).
Are you going to slap an injunction on the IRA next time they kill a protestant, or on the UVF when they kill a Catholic?
What practical use, in other words, would this be other than to let one group of cultist shit on other such cults.
What about Jesus, too? Can we copyright his image, even though every known portrait is based on the statue of Zeus which was one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world? Could Zeus sue if someone did?
Oh, and by the way, it's pretty clear in the Bible that Jehovah only allows the death penalty at his own express order, not mortals'. But people like you don't like that, so you choose to ignore it. But that's not misuse, is it?
Bloody Christians, bloody waste of bloody space the bloody lot of 'em.
Wise up.
TWW
In other words: force them to extend their monopoly. That's a great help!
TWW
I wish! Linux is GPL but I still haven't seen a decent file manger for it. I don't consider a F.M. which takes 12MB of resources "decent", BTW.
TWW