I guess the point is that the comments definitely count, but they shouldn't be forms or cut & pastes, and should represent your own feelings on the matter. Think about it -- if all you're willing to do is cut & paste or pass on someone else's words, what credence should you be given?
Your experience led to my typing for 20 minutes and sending the below to the DOJ. I hope my words can help others form their opinions about this rapidly-closing era of history.
.
Settling with Microsoft will not solve the problem that was created by Microsoft's predatory business practices, nor will it bring back the companies whose carcasses litter Microsoft's past.
I think there's one very specific thing that can be done to make the situation more competitive. After all, competition is the goal, right? The more companies competing for customers, the better the effort each company will put forth, and the slimmer the margin each company will skim. In the past, the OS portion of a computer purchase was small, like $60 of $3,000. These days it's more like $90 - but of a much smaller purchase, as full-featured computers can be purchased for $700 these days. Even if the cost of Windows had stayed the same, rather than risen, the cost of Windows as a percentage of the cost of the computer would have risen.
My solution: declare illegal the contracts that Microsoft forces OEMs to sign, in order to get preferred pricing. These contracts enforce that the OEM cannot customize the computer; cannot put any third-party applications that compete with Microsoft's offerings (which these days are almost any third-party applications!); and what's worse, eliminate the OEMs ability to sell a computer with more than one operating system on it.
There was a Hitachi computer sold recently with the Be OS, but it was hidden; the customer had to jump through some difficult technical hoops to enable it. Be OS's founder, Jean Louise Gasse, announced that he would provide the OS for free to any computer manufacturer (OEM) who would ship it. Only one OEM did, Hitachi, but in a form that was rather unusable to most consumers.
If the Department of Justice does one thing and one thing only, it should be to eliminate Microsoft's OEM contracts. Force Microsoft to sell Windows at a specific price for a specific number of units (i.e., a customer purchasing 10,000 licenses could get a better deal than a customer purchasing 10 licenses; however, an OEM who agrees to ship only Windows XP and Office XP should not get a better deal than an OEM who prefers to ship Windows XP with Netscape and StarOffice, assuming they're purchasing the same number of licenses. Or a computer equipped with Windows XP and Red Hat Linux).
My point is Microsoft is selling a product. They shouldn't get the right to dictate how that product is used or configured when the OEM then sells it to the end user. There are many examples of this in other industries (i.e., Ford or GM may purchase radios from Blaupunkt or Sony, for installation in their vehicles; and often, the auto manufacturer removes the faceplate and replaces it with one with their logo). To take the auto metaphor further, Ford sells a car to its dealer. The dealer then adds decals and metal logos with the name of the dealership to the back of the car, before selling it to the end user.
Obviously, Microsoft would want the OEM to not make changes to the Windows OS code, as that may destabilize the operating system and lead to crashes. However, when an OEM sells a computer, the contract they have with Microsoft forces the OEM to pay Microsoft for a Windows license, even if the computer was configured with a different OS! This reduces competition, because an OEM figures, if I have to pay for it anyway, I might as well ship it. If an OEM was free to sell computers configured however they wanted, and only pay for the parts included when that computer includes those parts, then I would say we have reached a fair settlement.
There are many, many other problems with the settlement, but if the OEM contract issue is resolved, the market will help correct the rest of the problems.
Did it occur to anyone that AOL possibly bought NSCP for no reason other than to have the avenue open to do exactly this -- file suit against Microsoft.
This rings a bell... Didn't Caldera purchase DR-DOS for pretty much the same reason, years ago?
Besides, while AOLinux's would be unlikely to defeat Windows, it would probably make more progress than today's laughably techy "consumer-oriented distributions".
I got an idea reading your post. AOL is already sending out updates to their customers on a regular basis. The next round of updates should be to identify hardware so that the forthcoming AOLinux will be able to support it.
In one fell swoop of engineering, AOL is able to gather immense amounts of configuration information. And I would bet AOL would be able to convince the hardware vendors who don't release specs or drivers to do at least the former.
I drew a little picture based on seeing the use of "AOLinux"; the "inux" seems a logical extension of the "L". Enjoy:
Sapping heat from the smokestack contents will probably cause it to not work correctly.
Don't know 'bout the rest of you, but I was thinking more along the lines of lining the outside of the smokestack with these.
That way we wouldn't change the equations already generated for the contents of the smokestack; we'd only be capturing the true waste heat that's going into the air outside the smokestack.
A nice solution would be to take the money but not allow MS to build or install the boxes.
No, take the money and then turn around and buy Xboxes!
MS loses $100 per Xbox, so they end up paying an additional 25% (about a quarter billion).
Then install Linux on those Xboxes.
Re:Prettier outside, same junk inside
on
Concept PC 2001
·
· Score: 1
But hey, maybe this is already available right now...? If it gets included with new computers, then there really wouldn't be much point to upgradable hardware.
It came with the 40 GB Western Digital drive I just bought -- there was a floppy with setup tools and stuff, and one of the tools was to copy a partition from an old drive to the new one.
Also, Partition Magic, Partition Commander, DriveImage, DriveCopy, and many other programs provide the same functions. So you needn't be worried about licensing;-).
Another way to fight them is to cost them money. This was discussed previously here on Slashdot (a few months ago), and as a result I fixed up a Perl script to make it easier.
Just go here and click "Kill GoTo Spammers!" to do damage.
Without filling in the edit box, it'll randomly choose 10-20 spammers to target. It loads the http://www.goto.com search page for "bulk+email" and then clicks on the top N links. Each click costs a certain amount of money (currently, the top link is worth $1.25). (I just ran it for 10 spammers, and did $9.59 worth of damage.)
Note that the script is written such that it can be run from the command-line or through a CGI. If you want source, Lenny has graciously provided a page for my work.
Isn't this just their way of saying they still have no clue how to implement a tax on Internet sales and make it enforcable?
So let's fight back at them using their own laws. If "Internet transactions" in different states are tax-free, then just set up the cash register as a web application, and have the customer click "Purchase" (or Enter or whatever) and have that fire off two things:
1. The store you're in initiates an Internet transaction for the total price with store B, in a different state, selling the goods to store B.
2. Store B sells the goods to the customer, and the store the customer is in provides them. (They were in front of the customer the whole time, but the ownership changed twice, rather than the usual once.)
Careful here... Apple might sue you over this blatant infringment on their trademarked Aqua vocabulary.
That's funny, I wasn't even thinking about Apple -- I was thinking more along the lines of Terminator 2. Which is a step beyond what I described (first change your circuits while running; then change your shape).
Each stage is designed to have few enough transisters that a signal has to pass through to guarantee that it will be done by the time the next clock signal arrives.
Interesting tangent -- they can therefore create larger "logic units" since they don't have to be created small enough to finish before the next beat of the drum.
What happens when one logic unit "locks up" -- will the logic unit(s) waiting for it "reset" it somehow?
Sounds like a lot of work -- but I can imagine software that will help with that immensely -- you just tell it the logic units you want, and it draws them efficiently for you, including large enough timeout values (say, twice the maximum possible time based on the size of the circuits that it draws) for the previous logic unit, and includes a "reset" line for each connection. Imagine having hardware that you could arbitrarily change the logic units in -- the limit won't be GHz, it'll be how many logic units the computer has.
That feels liquid. A computer that could actually be constantly changing underneath you; modifying the logic units could be partitioned out by the OS, as a resource that programs could use. A program would not be in machine language; it would be instructions for how to modify the processor.
If our national telecommunications infrastructure was built with a bunch of small cheap satellites, I doubt our phones and television would be as reliable.
Actually, I would bet it would be even more reliable. One of my previous jobs was with a company that wrote an excellent low-bandwidth protocol, because it had little money and couldn't afford the latest hardware.
Along the same lines, I would bet that having low-reliability satellites would force us to develop, really quickly, technology that would switch us from one to another when the first one fails. Something like the way cell phones work, actually, so it's not that revolutionary.
I really like the direction this project is leading -- we can create grand stuff from simple "cells" (i.e. humans, and Unix).
Still, it's all very confusing. I don't think it's a "serious problem", because the assumption seems to me to be that much of the dark matter has not materialized into what we recognize as matter yet.
We can't detect it. That's the key. An advanced civilization has perfected DysonSpheres , and is enclosing the stars to capture the energy. They are able to capture every possible piece of energy, so that we detect nothing.
I suppose that's a side effect of perfecting your energy capture -- it's undetectable. We're in a race. A race to enclose the universe; whoever get the most energy wins.
I saw the letter you sent to use the corrupt DMCA against a web site helping to promote your product. I was considering purchasing an Aibo. Now I won't. Change your mind and I might change mine.
I firmly believe in having a COE on every machine.
Erm, which meaning of COE? I tried looking it up with Atomica (great little app), but got the following:
COE is an acronym for:
CATIA Operator's Exchange
Cab Over Engine (truck design)
Care of Equipment (for ACG duties)
Center Of Excellence
Center Of Expertise
Central Office Equipment (telecommunications)
Certificate of Entitlement (Singapore)
Checkout and Evaluation
Chief Of Engineers
Church of England
Church of Euthanasia
Close of Escrow
Common Operating Environment
Community of Excellence
Concept Of Employment
Concept of Execution
Contract Operations Executive
Control Office Equipment (telecommunications)
Corps Of Engineers (US Army)
Council Of Europe
Council for Opportunity in Education
Cut Out Early
Personally I like the Church of Euthanasia -- if the users don't like it, help them commit suicide. That's pleasant.;-) And since you're a church you get a tax break as well!
(I know, it's most likely Common Operating Environment, but it's fun to play.)
But, can't you imagine MS being able to sufficiently screw up a distribution of high quality software, and carefully achieve the right balance, so that it sells, but constantly needs support and or upgrades, yet keeps brand loyalty?
Heh, I see them doing that already.
But with free software, the users would be able to fix things that Microsoft deliberately broke. So there could be a "User Community Service Pack" that could be applied to a Microsoft distribution to fix it. Which would, of course, evolve as Microsoft made releases.
The only way for them to prevent this is to close the source again, and then we're not arguing any more.;-)
Even freakier, see jamessmall.com -- it was the first-listed URL, and it boasted "microsoft.com.was.hacked.today.by.jamessmall.com" , so I went to see what was there and it turns out this guy just got hit by a fire. Details at the above link, but sketchy as to what started it etc. I posted a reply, saying he may want to mention to the cops that someone put his name there (unless he was the hacker).
Here's my response to reading your post; I consider it energy well-spent. Hopefully more of you can repeat the message. I sent it to howard@howardstern.com, which may or may not be him but hopefully defaults to a catch-all that someone is reading.
Howard (I know this isn't Howard, it probably goes to a default@howardstern.com -- please pass this on to him),
I saw you mentioned on Slashdot tonight: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23009&cid=2477 192
Is that true? If you said "well screw that!" for Windows XP, perhaps you'd be interested in Linux, which can be downloaded freely from the Internet! You can install it on as many computers as you want to; there essentially is no license to violate (there's a license, but it's completely different -- the GPL http://www.fsf.org, which simply says that if you make changes and sell the changes, you have to provide the source code with it). And the complete source code is available, for free!
There's a new company, Lindows.com, http://www.lindows.com which is rewriting Windows from scratch, so they can run Windows games under Linux. Many programs already run under Linux, using an emulator called WINE http://www.winehq.org which can handle 90% of the Windows calls -- and which is constantly being improved, a new version being released every two weeks.
It would help your listeners greatly if you would mention this. The alternative is free, and open -- it comes with the source code, so if there's a bug, or a feature you'd like to see, you (or someone you pay) can easily modify the source. No waiting on hold with Microsoft Tech Support and being ignored because your problem isn't important enough. Any programming shop can fix your problem.
Most Windows programs already run on Linux, and it's only going to improve from here! I have no financial interest in this (I'm retired), I simply want to help your listeners make the better choice. Those with cable modems or DSL can download a CD image in 10-20 minutes, then burn it onto a CD and install it on all their friend's computers, completely legally.
Freedom is killer. That's what this country was based on. Especially in these unstable times, we need to protect freedom. Please help spread the message -- there's a free alternative.
Thanks,
Thing 1
PS It would be really cool to have recordings of your shows available on your web site. I'd love to hear the segment where you discussed Windows XP. Please consider it. You could even sell ad space in the recordings, for a separate revenue stream. Sure, some people will FF through them, but most will have it on while doing other things. I can help set this up if you like.
PPS You may also want to let your listeners know about the piece of legislation Senator Hollings is embarrased to discuss, but is promoting because of payments from the entertainment industry. It's called the SSSCA, and will kill the technology industry -- all digital devices will be required to have strong copy protection, which means writing "hello world" will require a Computer Science degree to protect the output. It also means the death of the open source industry, which is what created Linux. It's a response to the Napster-like ability of all media to be digitally transmitted, at no cost, with perfect copies. It's a new world; just as we lost the buggy whip industry when automobiles came around, we will lose the "media conglomerates" -- but they'll try to stop progress by buying legislation, and that hurts everybody. Imagine if you couldn't make mix tapes. That's their future. Again, choose freedom. Thanks.
See any fatal flaws in what I've described so far? Wouldn't it be ironic?
The biggest flaw is one I see with the "services and support model" in general: the higher quality the software, the less support it needs.
So creating an income based on support -- and at the same time improving your product to the point it doesn't need support -- are diametrically opposed.
I can't see Microsoft buying into it. So, yes, it would be ironic.;-)
so, you go this route, and either die, get away with it, or go to jail. who gives a shit if you were planning on dying anyhow if your mission was a success?
That's one thing I don't get about the terrorists. How can anyone be convinced that "dying for jihad is better than living"?
Someone here said we need to act quickly and decisively to avoid bin Laden from becoming the next Hitler. He sure seems to have twisted his followers' brains around -- a scary parallel.
Officials were quoted as saying are considering burning all the unopened mail in the facility destined for the whitehouse in order to protect the president and whitehouse staff. Does anyone else see anything wrong with this?
I certainly do, especially after seeing on CNN that the spores were found on a "slitter" -- a mail opening device.
So burning unopened mail? Sounds fishy. My question would be "Which officials? Hollings?"
You missed the episode of What's Happenin? where the Doobie Brothers appear and lecture Rerun and the kids on the evils of "dubbing".
I got the urge to see this Disney film a few pages below your post. I checked a couple out (eDonkey2000 couldn't connect, nor could BearShare) and decided to download Limewire. You mentioned the Doobie Brothers -- check out the ad from the download page!
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Get started here:
Compare Leading MP3 Players
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Note: Go ahead and check out CNET's services; your download will continue uninterrupted in the background.
Slashdot Mirror
Your experience led to my typing for 20 minutes and sending the below to the DOJ. I hope my words can help others form their opinions about this rapidly-closing era of history.
.
Settling with Microsoft will not solve the problem that was created by Microsoft's predatory business practices, nor will it bring back the companies whose carcasses litter Microsoft's past.
I think there's one very specific thing that can be done to make the situation more competitive. After all, competition is the goal, right? The more companies competing for customers, the better the effort each company will put forth, and the slimmer the margin each company will skim. In the past, the OS portion of a computer purchase was small, like $60 of $3,000. These days it's more like $90 - but of a much smaller purchase, as full-featured computers can be purchased for $700 these days. Even if the cost of Windows had stayed the same, rather than risen, the cost of Windows as a percentage of the cost of the computer would have risen.
My solution: declare illegal the contracts that Microsoft forces OEMs to sign, in order to get preferred pricing. These contracts enforce that the OEM cannot customize the computer; cannot put any third-party applications that compete with Microsoft's offerings (which these days are almost any third-party applications!); and what's worse, eliminate the OEMs ability to sell a computer with more than one operating system on it.
There was a Hitachi computer sold recently with the Be OS, but it was hidden; the customer had to jump through some difficult technical hoops to enable it. Be OS's founder, Jean Louise Gasse, announced that he would provide the OS for free to any computer manufacturer (OEM) who would ship it. Only one OEM did, Hitachi, but in a form that was rather unusable to most consumers.
If the Department of Justice does one thing and one thing only, it should be to eliminate Microsoft's OEM contracts. Force Microsoft to sell Windows at a specific price for a specific number of units (i.e., a customer purchasing 10,000 licenses could get a better deal than a customer purchasing 10 licenses; however, an OEM who agrees to ship only Windows XP and Office XP should not get a better deal than an OEM who prefers to ship Windows XP with Netscape and StarOffice, assuming they're purchasing the same number of licenses. Or a computer equipped with Windows XP and Red Hat Linux).
My point is Microsoft is selling a product. They shouldn't get the right to dictate how that product is used or configured when the OEM then sells it to the end user. There are many examples of this in other industries (i.e., Ford or GM may purchase radios from Blaupunkt or Sony, for installation in their vehicles; and often, the auto manufacturer removes the faceplate and replaces it with one with their logo). To take the auto metaphor further, Ford sells a car to its dealer. The dealer then adds decals and metal logos with the name of the dealership to the back of the car, before selling it to the end user.
Obviously, Microsoft would want the OEM to not make changes to the Windows OS code, as that may destabilize the operating system and lead to crashes. However, when an OEM sells a computer, the contract they have with Microsoft forces the OEM to pay Microsoft for a Windows license, even if the computer was configured with a different OS! This reduces competition, because an OEM figures, if I have to pay for it anyway, I might as well ship it. If an OEM was free to sell computers configured however they wanted, and only pay for the parts included when that computer includes those parts, then I would say we have reached a fair settlement.
There are many, many other problems with the settlement, but if the OEM contract issue is resolved, the market will help correct the rest of the problems.
Thanks for listening,
My Name
My Address
This rings a bell... Didn't Caldera purchase DR-DOS for pretty much the same reason, years ago?
Hopefully AOL will have better luck than Caldera.
I got an idea reading your post. AOL is already sending out updates to their customers on a regular basis. The next round of updates should be to identify hardware so that the forthcoming AOLinux will be able to support it.
In one fell swoop of engineering, AOL is able to gather immense amounts of configuration information. And I would bet AOL would be able to convince the hardware vendors who don't release specs or drivers to do at least the former.
I drew a little picture based on seeing the use of "AOLinux"; the "inux" seems a logical extension of the "L". Enjoy:
goofy art
(Couldn't figure out how to get the image to show here, but a link's better than nothing. It's more a concept than actual art; I'm a programmer. ;-)
Don't know 'bout the rest of you, but I was thinking more along the lines of lining the outside of the smokestack with these.
That way we wouldn't change the equations already generated for the contents of the smokestack; we'd only be capturing the true waste heat that's going into the air outside the smokestack.
What kind of ammo? Drug use? Homosexuality? Crimes committed?
What other types of personal data could really be used against you?
I completely agree with your position, however. I've seen my share of unmentionable corporate behavior. I'll stick to small companies, thanks.
No, take the money and then turn around and buy Xboxes!
MS loses $100 per Xbox, so they end up paying an additional 25% (about a quarter billion).
Then install Linux on those Xboxes.
It came with the 40 GB Western Digital drive I just bought -- there was a floppy with setup tools and stuff, and one of the tools was to copy a partition from an old drive to the new one.
Also, Partition Magic, Partition Commander, DriveImage, DriveCopy, and many other programs provide the same functions. So you needn't be worried about licensing ;-).
Just go here and click "Kill GoTo Spammers!" to do damage.
Without filling in the edit box, it'll randomly choose 10-20 spammers to target. It loads the http://www.goto.com search page for "bulk+email" and then clicks on the top N links. Each click costs a certain amount of money (currently, the top link is worth $1.25). (I just ran it for 10 spammers, and did $9.59 worth of damage.)
Note that the script is written such that it can be run from the command-line or through a CGI. If you want source, Lenny has graciously provided a page for my work.
Enjoy!
So let's fight back at them using their own laws. If "Internet transactions" in different states are tax-free, then just set up the cash register as a web application, and have the customer click "Purchase" (or Enter or whatever) and have that fire off two things:
Any holes?
Careful here... Apple might sue you over this blatant infringment on their trademarked Aqua vocabulary.
That's funny, I wasn't even thinking about Apple -- I was thinking more along the lines of Terminator 2. Which is a step beyond what I described (first change your circuits while running; then change your shape).
Interesting tangent -- they can therefore create larger "logic units" since they don't have to be created small enough to finish before the next beat of the drum.
What happens when one logic unit "locks up" -- will the logic unit(s) waiting for it "reset" it somehow?
Sounds like a lot of work -- but I can imagine software that will help with that immensely -- you just tell it the logic units you want, and it draws them efficiently for you, including large enough timeout values (say, twice the maximum possible time based on the size of the circuits that it draws) for the previous logic unit, and includes a "reset" line for each connection. Imagine having hardware that you could arbitrarily change the logic units in -- the limit won't be GHz, it'll be how many logic units the computer has.
That feels liquid. A computer that could actually be constantly changing underneath you; modifying the logic units could be partitioned out by the OS, as a resource that programs could use. A program would not be in machine language; it would be instructions for how to modify the processor.
I join the AC in being interested. Please post the entire CD somewhere (FreeNet, Gnutella, a free site from Geocities/Yahoo/Excite/MSN/etc.).
Actually, I would bet it would be even more reliable. One of my previous jobs was with a company that wrote an excellent low-bandwidth protocol, because it had little money and couldn't afford the latest hardware.
Along the same lines, I would bet that having low-reliability satellites would force us to develop, really quickly, technology that would switch us from one to another when the first one fails. Something like the way cell phones work, actually, so it's not that revolutionary.
I really like the direction this project is leading -- we can create grand stuff from simple "cells" (i.e. humans, and Unix).
We can't detect it. That's the key. An advanced civilization has perfected Dyson Spheres , and is enclosing the stars to capture the energy. They are able to capture every possible piece of energy, so that we detect nothing.
I suppose that's a side effect of perfecting your energy capture -- it's undetectable. We're in a race. A race to enclose the universe; whoever get the most energy wins.
Seriously, I think about these things. ;-)
I filled in the form:
Erm, which meaning of COE? I tried looking it up with Atomica (great little app), but got the following:
Personally I like the Church of Euthanasia -- if the users don't like it, help them commit suicide. That's pleasant. ;-) And since you're a church you get a tax break as well!
(I know, it's most likely Common Operating Environment, but it's fun to play.)
Heh, I see them doing that already.
But with free software, the users would be able to fix things that Microsoft deliberately broke. So there could be a "User Community Service Pack" that could be applied to a Microsoft distribution to fix it. Which would, of course, evolve as Microsoft made releases.
The only way for them to prevent this is to close the source again, and then we're not arguing any more. ;-)
Even freakier, see jamessmall.com -- it was the first-listed URL, and it boasted "microsoft.com.was.hacked.today.by.jamessmall.com" , so I went to see what was there and it turns out this guy just got hit by a fire. Details at the above link, but sketchy as to what started it etc. I posted a reply, saying he may want to mention to the cops that someone put his name there (unless he was the hacker).
The actual quote (Feeling Lucky at Google with "ghandi first they") is here :
Now they're fighting us.
The biggest flaw is one I see with the "services and support model" in general: the higher quality the software, the less support it needs.
So creating an income based on support -- and at the same time improving your product to the point it doesn't need support -- are diametrically opposed.
I can't see Microsoft buying into it. So, yes, it would be ironic. ;-)
That's one thing I don't get about the terrorists. How can anyone be convinced that "dying for jihad is better than living"?
Someone here said we need to act quickly and decisively to avoid bin Laden from becoming the next Hitler. He sure seems to have twisted his followers' brains around -- a scary parallel.
I certainly do, especially after seeing on CNN that the spores were found on a "slitter" -- a mail opening device.
So burning unopened mail? Sounds fishy. My question would be "Which officials? Hollings?"
So when was the last time you ate a mattress?
I got the urge to see this Disney film a few pages below your post. I checked a couple out (eDonkey2000 couldn't connect, nor could BearShare) and decided to download Limewire . You mentioned the Doobie Brothers -- check out the ad from the download page!
I guess the CNET producers saw the episode. ;-)