1. Printing is a joke. I work(ed) with the original package, and thanks to the software being based on quickbasic there is no reliable networking printing. Reports look like crap - using crappy ASCII characters to pretend to be formatting.
2. There is no reasonable ability to reuse code. Meaning, a client wants a new feature it will cost him thousands in programming time, instead of 5 minutes like in normal development environments.
3. There is no support for modern anything. Can you really justify working with software that will give you the same old shit problems that DOS did in 1988? File locking problems, memory limitations, hardware support, etc?
4. It is slower the faster computer you run it on. Thanks to the fact that the CPUs that run this code now dont look anything like that 8088/8086's that originally spawned this program, you try to run this app under Win2k on a P4 2GHz and its *slower* than a 486/33 Mhz machine running DOS 6.22.
That's a short list of why it sucks. If the software had of been written properly from day #1, it wouldn't be a total joke that it is now.
This actually makes life easier since very little clientside software will be needed there is less decentralized updating to do. It also guarantees that the user will have the software they need installed since it's either on the central server or not. Not so the Microsoft way, you've got to install the software on each machine where it's going to be used, right?
There are pro's and con's to each. For example, if you want to do anything bandwidth intensive over that thin client thin pipe you are in real trouble. Do you do video conferencing? That performs like crap over remote X. That's just one real world example I've run into. There is no simple answer, but FYI, in the MS world, there is a simple solution to that problem as well. But
but the people deciding what choices to make still have all these freedoms, so it does behoove them to honestly evaluate all of their options
No, see thats where you are wrong. It does not do them good to rock the boat at all. It can benefit them in the end, but not usually. Let me ask you this: let's say you go ahead and get them to try a small test of non-MS boxes on the network. If *anything* goes wrong with that box - regardless of its legit, caused by bad configuration, or hardware failures, or anything- someone is going to end up saying "see, I told you so!" and suddenly a win for that employee is a black mark. Now, if they go with the 'default', and something goes wrong, that's just the "way it is". That employee was just following orders.
It's called risk aversion, and it's how government works.
There are a lot of things that could be done, and with their massive push of DRM as the next-big-thing in windows, a lot of those things worry me.
Ditto. But you keep missing it friend! Everything you have said is true whether or not they buy an AV company. Get it?
They can do everything bad without this new company. The point is that in the end, they probably just wanted this specific product, without more detailed plans.
Government workers on the Federal scale need it laid out for them: how to fullfill job requirement 'X' with product 'Y'. Steps, in order.
So a reasonable thing an IT worker needs to do is this:
"How do I make my users desktop settings follow them to whatever desktop they log into on the network?"
This is an easy question for Win2k Servers + WinNT or newer workstations. Straightforward answer,in steps.
"Step 1, create a folder on a drive, share the folder by right clicking the folder, selecting Share.." etc etc.
In the world of OSS, this is a more broad question that requires a whole host more planning. Should you use NFS and just mount the users home directory when they login? What about slow links? Maybe the servers could use rsync to make things be in sync between locations.. what technology should we use for authentication?
It gets complicated. That complication is "choice". Choice is a really nice thing, but NOT when you just "want it to work".
That's why OSS is getting only slowly adopted in government. Choice - freedom to choose - is not what your government worker wants. They want to be able to say with a straightface "I had to do that, it's just the way it is.". Thats a life-saving answer when your boss asks "why?".
Seriously, it sounds like a joke, but this is really true.
To really win government offices over, someone shoudl shit down and tailor an OS distribution that works only with (1) a single model of computer, (2) provides the fewest tools available and (3) only works when you do things according to procedure and (4) has no redudant pieces.
As for being baseless, perhaps, but a lot more possible than other suggestions made here on/.
Your point seems to be that MS bought this AntiVirus company for the purpose of spying on customers and their data.
My point is, why would they spend millions when they could take a fwe people in house and code up a spyware app disgused as anti-viral technology?
The more likely answer is that they have no intention of doing anything of the sort. The more likely answer is that they want to integrate virus scanning software into Exchange, Windows, and other products and this company they bought has a product they like. That's whats most likely.
but I do agree that this will make it easier for them
How will it do that? If MS wanted, they could easily release a patch that uploads anything from your machine to their servers. Nothing an anti-virus maker offers makes that easier or even harder.
What if they made a Internet chat application, Internet web browser, Internet connection software and services, word processors, or even spreadsheet programs and integrated them into their operating system. Oh wait...
All of which are now configurable, ie, you can hide any of those apps and make it so that they are not used by default/at all. Aol IM is integrated via a standard open API into the OS; as is any product which wants to be.
As long as they do the same with this product, then, whats the big deal?
And as long as they dont make it technically harder for competitors to sell their wares, whats the problem?
Ohh right.. thats exactly what employers want - an employee with a pre-disposition to getting sued, costing a butload of money, and doing things that get negative attention from big bad organizations like the RIAA.
Umm.. except this time things seem to be going how they predict. CD sales aren't going up, and they are declining a lot. CD Singles are virtually dead, as in, not selling at all. That's pretty much dead on a casuality of MP3s, wouldn't you say?
The problem is, and what a lot of people believe could happen, is that a larger scale terrorist attack could easily skip to the front of the line.
For example, a large scale nuclear explosion in a large city could easily 1 million deaths, and many more casualities.
Additionally, people worry about "heart failure" less than "terrorism" because "heart failure" is (a) contributed to by life-style choices and (b) entirely random. People worry about "terrorism" more than "heart failure" because its (a) new, (b) completely random, (c) indiscriminate, and (d) more likely to be concentrated in a single area.
There is nothing wrong about worrying/being concerned with terrorism. Being terrified is an overreaction, but then again, that's the whole point.
The point is though if that 80 lines implemented something that is patentend, the implementation is not what is so critical, but rather, the infringement of the patent or violation of trade secret.
You can have 80,000 lines of code, or 80, or 8, or 1. The quantity is virtually irrelevant. If I designed a language that would all me to break a certain patent in only 1 line of code, it wouldn't matter to a judge that it was only 1 line out of millions.
Say both codes include "int a;". Well, to a non-programmer, they stole the code. To a programmer, nope, it's what a lot of people use.
Not, thats not true. Consider literature. Two books start with "once upon a time". Doesn't mean they are copied. And non-programmers wouldn't assume it either.
Same with your other example. On the other hand, when you have paragraphics of comments, like are common, or a *pattern* of identical comments, then you can start to get a feel for whether or not the code is copied.
Yes, but you dont need a programmer just to find the bits. That can be done later by a non-programmer. And also, lets talk about linked-lists. If you have a block of code over here that uses linked lists, and a block over here that uses linked lists, just because it involves linked lists doesn't mean that its not copied. I am sure this guy had a threshold for how many lines needed to be identitical before flagging it.
In essence, this guy doesnt have to know anything about code. He's doing the same thing anyone revieing articles or books for uncited quoting or plagarism is doing. Looking for a pattern of identical or suspicously similiar code. A single instance here or there of similiarity isn't suspicous.
If you are looking for duplicate code, then its a pretty non-programmer task. Its kinda like "compare column A" and "locate instances of column A within column B".
It's like asking a non-farmer to find the corn field on the farm. Or a non-pilot where the pilot would sit.
So now the windows explorer is not a program?Everything is a program. Its not an application though, its part of the OS.
Second, editing a filename is consistent. Click once to select it. Click 'File', click 'Rename', type the new name. Press ENTER or click the icon again.
Thats how it should work.
In Word, there is no triple click. The first click selects the paragraph. Double-clicking selects all text. Again, follows the rules.
It's that the interface to a computer is not uniform
Actually its pretty good, especially if you just count the actual OS and not crappy apps:
A few rules will spell it all out - for example in Windows these rules sum up 'clicking':
1. Inside a program, double clicking is never needed.
2. Click everything once.
3. If something becomes highlighted when you click once, it requires a double click to activate.
That's it. Those are the rules. Now, like I said, you can go out of your way to change the behaviour. These changes were designed to overcome physical limitations in laptops and portables though.
Personally, I see 0% pirated software professionally,
You need to get out more. A lot more. You sound like you are in a good place. But you are outside the norm.
Second, as a matter of fact, I do most of my work as a contractor, and am currently writing software for two companies that operate jointly in Maine and Vietnam. All the software they use here is legal, all the software over there is pirated.
Does configuring a network card really have to be common knowledge?
Should everyone know their IRQs?
Somethings also require a more creative mind then some computer eggheads have. It is a generalization, but people who are good at logical tasks, sometimes are very bad at tasks requiring creative thought.
Okay, but I will tell you this. Sit down and think about the difference between double-clicking and single-clicking. In a few sentences, you can sum up exactly when you click and when you double click. It's pretty basic. The major OS's - Windows, MacOSX, Linux/XWindows - have the same basic ideas here. And its not new. Yes, you can override the defaults, but most people don't.
So why is it that I can't think of but a small handful of college professors who know when to click and when to double click. Hell, I'd settle if half of them knew that there was no such thing as a "triple-click" that is in common use.
There is nothing more sad than seeing a professor making $90k a year who sits down on his lecturing machine hooked to a digital projector and seeing him click his PowerPoint presentation 8 or 10 times in rapid succession trying to get it to load, only to have it pop-up 4 or 5 times. The best is when they blame it on virus problems, bad hardware, or the last person to use the machine.
I strongly recommend Southern New Hampshire University.
I don't work for them or anything, but I went there for a few classes back when it was New Hampshire College.
Essentially they are a real live university but they also offer all their classes online. Its cheaper than University of Phoenix, and the courses are in my opinion of better quality.
(Plus, they've never f*$@ed with my grades, transcripts, or billing)
You can't get it *exactly*, but to say you can get a good estimate is simply false.
Statistical sampling is not impossible to figure out, and it is rather accurate when conditions are correct.
Yes, demand is a function of it's desirability and its price. That is correct. I think its a little slanted to assume that the BSA counted every "demand" point that did not result in a sale as a loss to piracy. Even a slanted organization would have incentive to correct largely correct numbers.
Besides all that, the numbers seem about correct. I see just about as much pirated software as legally licensed software in the field, and this suggests my perceptions are correct.
MS has been doing a better job of eliminating the pirated option, making it more and more difficult to effectively "pirate" software unless you are *really* trying to. This should also be considered.
Slashdot Mirror
Thats a big " as long as" statement.
Consider in this DOS based world:
1. Printing is a joke. I work(ed) with the original package, and thanks to the software being based on quickbasic there is no reliable networking printing. Reports look like crap - using crappy ASCII characters to pretend to be formatting.
2. There is no reasonable ability to reuse code. Meaning, a client wants a new feature it will cost him thousands in programming time, instead of 5 minutes like in normal development environments.
3. There is no support for modern anything. Can you really justify working with software that will give you the same old shit problems that DOS did in 1988? File locking problems, memory limitations, hardware support, etc?
4. It is slower the faster computer you run it on. Thanks to the fact that the CPUs that run this code now dont look anything like that 8088/8086's that originally spawned this program, you try to run this app under Win2k on a P4 2GHz and its *slower* than a 486/33 Mhz machine running DOS 6.22.
That's a short list of why it sucks. If the software had of been written properly from day #1, it wouldn't be a total joke that it is now.
open all the information on their protocols to the general public.
Are you sure about that statement? 'General Public'?
I thought it was more like they could offer it to different people for different rates. Can you backup the 'general public' claim?
A company that is essentially flat for 30 years is a great anchor if you have a risky portfolio.
Just FYI...
This actually makes life easier since very little clientside software will be needed there is less decentralized updating to do. It also guarantees that the user will have the software they need installed since it's either on the central server or not. Not so the Microsoft way, you've got to install the software on each machine where it's going to be used, right?
There are pro's and con's to each. For example, if you want to do anything bandwidth intensive over that thin client thin pipe you are in real trouble. Do you do video conferencing? That performs like crap over remote X. That's just one real world example I've run into. There is no simple answer, but FYI, in the MS world, there is a simple solution to that problem as well. But
but the people deciding what choices to make still have all these freedoms, so it does behoove them to honestly evaluate all of their options
No, see thats where you are wrong. It does not do them good to rock the boat at all. It can benefit them in the end, but not usually. Let me ask you this: let's say you go ahead and get them to try a small test of non-MS boxes on the network. If *anything* goes wrong with that box - regardless of its legit, caused by bad configuration, or hardware failures, or anything- someone is going to end up saying "see, I told you so!" and suddenly a win for that employee is a black mark. Now, if they go with the 'default', and something goes wrong, that's just the "way it is". That employee was just following orders.
It's called risk aversion, and it's how government works.
There are a lot of things that could be done, and with their massive push of DRM as the next-big-thing in windows, a lot of those things worry me.
Ditto. But you keep missing it friend! Everything you have said is true whether or not they buy an AV company. Get it?
They can do everything bad without this new company. The point is that in the end, they probably just wanted this specific product, without more detailed plans.
The thing is this:
Government workers on the Federal scale need it laid out for them: how to fullfill job requirement 'X' with product 'Y'. Steps, in order.
So a reasonable thing an IT worker needs to do is this:
"How do I make my users desktop settings follow them to whatever desktop they log into on the network?"
This is an easy question for Win2k Servers + WinNT or newer workstations. Straightforward answer,in steps.
"Step 1, create a folder on a drive, share the folder by right clicking the folder, selecting Share.." etc etc.
In the world of OSS, this is a more broad question that requires a whole host more planning. Should you use NFS and just mount the users home directory when they login? What about slow links? Maybe the servers could use rsync to make things be in sync between locations.. what technology should we use for authentication?
It gets complicated. That complication is "choice". Choice is a really nice thing, but NOT when you just "want it to work".
That's why OSS is getting only slowly adopted in government. Choice - freedom to choose - is not what your government worker wants. They want to be able to say with a straightface "I had to do that, it's just the way it is.". Thats a life-saving answer when your boss asks "why?".
Seriously, it sounds like a joke, but this is really true.
To really win government offices over, someone shoudl shit down and tailor an OS distribution that works only with (1) a single model of computer, (2) provides the fewest tools available and (3) only works when you do things according to procedure and (4) has no redudant pieces.
Just my two cents...
As for being baseless, perhaps, but a lot more possible than other suggestions made here on /.
Your point seems to be that MS bought this AntiVirus company for the purpose of spying on customers and their data.
My point is, why would they spend millions when they could take a fwe people in house and code up a spyware app disgused as anti-viral technology?
The more likely answer is that they have no intention of doing anything of the sort. The more likely answer is that they want to integrate virus scanning software into Exchange, Windows, and other products and this company they bought has a product they like. That's whats most likely.
There is a lot you could do, and explain it all away as the normal actions of the anti-virus tool.
Nope.
1. Virus-scanning takes place on the local PC by a binary. Lets agree on that.
2. Current Virus scanning software works by downloading via HTTP or FTP a new definition file which tells the binary in step #1 how to work.
3. If ANY non-HTTP information is sent to the server, that'll cause suspicion.
There is NOTHING in a virus scanning package that MS can't already include without spending MILLIONS on buying a third-party company.
MS may have evil intentions here, but your position is baseless and illogical.
isn't this the classic example of leveraging the monopoly to take over another area?
Umm..
There is nothing here saying that they are going to bundle it with Windows, is there?
but I do agree that this will make it easier for them
How will it do that? If MS wanted, they could easily release a patch that uploads anything from your machine to their servers. Nothing an anti-virus maker offers makes that easier or even harder.
So what is the point again?
What if they made a Internet chat application, Internet web browser, Internet connection software and services, word processors, or even spreadsheet programs and integrated them into their operating system. Oh wait...
All of which are now configurable, ie, you can hide any of those apps and make it so that they are not used by default/at all. Aol IM is integrated via a standard open API into the OS; as is any product which wants to be.
As long as they do the same with this product, then, whats the big deal?
And as long as they dont make it technically harder for competitors to sell their wares, whats the problem?
Ohh right.. thats exactly what employers want - an employee with a pre-disposition to getting sued, costing a butload of money, and doing things that get negative attention from big bad organizations like the RIAA.
I firmly believe we should have a rule that puts a "none of the above" on all positions elected.
If "none of the above" wins, all the candidates are barred from re-running till the next period and a new election is held.
After a certain number of times - quite a few like 6 or 12 or something - the seat is simply unfilled if its non-critical - ie not "governor", etc.
Umm.. except this time things seem to be going how they predict. CD sales aren't going up, and they are declining a lot. CD Singles are virtually dead, as in, not selling at all. That's pretty much dead on a casuality of MP3s, wouldn't you say?
The problem is, and what a lot of people believe could happen, is that a larger scale terrorist attack could easily skip to the front of the line.
For example, a large scale nuclear explosion in a large city could easily 1 million deaths, and many more casualities.
Additionally, people worry about "heart failure" less than "terrorism" because "heart failure" is (a) contributed to by life-style choices and (b) entirely random. People worry about "terrorism" more than "heart failure" because its (a) new, (b) completely random, (c) indiscriminate, and (d) more likely to be concentrated in a single area.
There is nothing wrong about worrying/being concerned with terrorism. Being terrified is an overreaction, but then again, that's the whole point.
The point is though if that 80 lines implemented something that is patentend, the implementation is not what is so critical, but rather, the infringement of the patent or violation of trade secret.
You can have 80,000 lines of code, or 80, or 8, or 1. The quantity is virtually irrelevant. If I designed a language that would all me to break a certain patent in only 1 line of code, it wouldn't matter to a judge that it was only 1 line out of millions.
Say both codes include "int a;". Well, to a non-programmer, they stole the code. To a programmer, nope, it's what a lot of people use.
Not, thats not true. Consider literature. Two books start with "once upon a time". Doesn't mean they are copied. And non-programmers wouldn't assume it either.
Same with your other example. On the other hand, when you have paragraphics of comments, like are common, or a *pattern* of identical comments, then you can start to get a feel for whether or not the code is copied.
Yes, but you dont need a programmer just to find the bits. That can be done later by a non-programmer. And also, lets talk about linked-lists. If you have a block of code over here that uses linked lists, and a block over here that uses linked lists, just because it involves linked lists doesn't mean that its not copied. I am sure this guy had a threshold for how many lines needed to be identitical before flagging it.
In essence, this guy doesnt have to know anything about code. He's doing the same thing anyone revieing articles or books for uncited quoting or plagarism is doing. Looking for a pattern of identical or suspicously similiar code. A single instance here or there of similiarity isn't suspicous.
No, actually not.
If you are looking for duplicate code, then its a pretty non-programmer task. Its kinda like "compare column A" and "locate instances of column A within column B".
It's like asking a non-farmer to find the corn field on the farm. Or a non-pilot where the pilot would sit.
So now the windows explorer is not a program?Everything is a program. Its not an application though, its part of the OS.
Second, editing a filename is consistent. Click once to select it. Click 'File', click 'Rename', type the new name. Press ENTER or click the icon again.
Thats how it should work.
In Word, there is no triple click. The first click selects the paragraph. Double-clicking selects all text. Again, follows the rules.
It's that the interface to a computer is not uniform
Actually its pretty good, especially if you just count the actual OS and not crappy apps:
A few rules will spell it all out - for example in Windows these rules sum up 'clicking':
1. Inside a program, double clicking is never needed.
2. Click everything once.
3. If something becomes highlighted when you click once, it requires a double click to activate.
That's it. Those are the rules. Now, like I said, you can go out of your way to change the behaviour. These changes were designed to overcome physical limitations in laptops and portables though.
Personally, I see 0% pirated software professionally,
You need to get out more. A lot more. You sound like you are in a good place. But you are outside the norm.
Second, as a matter of fact, I do most of my work as a contractor, and am currently writing software for two companies that operate jointly in Maine and Vietnam. All the software they use here is legal, all the software over there is pirated.
Does configuring a network card really have to be common knowledge? Should everyone know their IRQs? Somethings also require a more creative mind then some computer eggheads have. It is a generalization, but people who are good at logical tasks, sometimes are very bad at tasks requiring creative thought.
Okay, but I will tell you this. Sit down and think about the difference between double-clicking and single-clicking. In a few sentences, you can sum up exactly when you click and when you double click. It's pretty basic. The major OS's - Windows, MacOSX, Linux/XWindows - have the same basic ideas here. And its not new. Yes, you can override the defaults, but most people don't.
So why is it that I can't think of but a small handful of college professors who know when to click and when to double click. Hell, I'd settle if half of them knew that there was no such thing as a "triple-click" that is in common use.
There is nothing more sad than seeing a professor making $90k a year who sits down on his lecturing machine hooked to a digital projector and seeing him click his PowerPoint presentation 8 or 10 times in rapid succession trying to get it to load, only to have it pop-up 4 or 5 times. The best is when they blame it on virus problems, bad hardware, or the last person to use the machine.
Not really that impressive.
I strongly recommend Southern New Hampshire University.
I don't work for them or anything, but I went there for a few classes back when it was New Hampshire College.
Essentially they are a real live university but they also offer all their classes online. Its cheaper than University of Phoenix, and the courses are in my opinion of better quality.
(Plus, they've never f*$@ed with my grades, transcripts, or billing)
You can't get it *exactly*, but to say you can get a good estimate is simply false.
Statistical sampling is not impossible to figure out, and it is rather accurate when conditions are correct.
Yes, demand is a function of it's desirability and its price. That is correct. I think its a little slanted to assume that the BSA counted every "demand" point that did not result in a sale as a loss to piracy. Even a slanted organization would have incentive to correct largely correct numbers.
Besides all that, the numbers seem about correct. I see just about as much pirated software as legally licensed software in the field, and this suggests my perceptions are correct.
MS has been doing a better job of eliminating the pirated option, making it more and more difficult to effectively "pirate" software unless you are *really* trying to. This should also be considered.