Thanks! As an employee at Intercosmos Media Group (the company that owns and operates directNIC) it's great to bump into random positive comments at the inner circle of the geek sphere. Glad to hear we're making some people happy. =)
Nathan Hawks
Technical Writer / Associate Editor
Intercosmos Media Group / directNIC.com
Wouldn't it be really funny if the user "codetalker" was black, or Navajo? Racism is an ugly, ugly thing, no matter what form it takes, AC. Propagating it with a defensive posture isn't any better than an offensive one. I think it would be really groovy and mature of you if you apologized for your uncalled-for outburst.
As a former manager of a staff of phone support techs, this doesn't sound good. Privacy doesn't (or shouldn't) apply in cases where you're using company products to conduct company business. You're there to work, and they have every right to see what you're doing when you're doing it.
I know that monitoring software (via software pretty similar to VNC but neither beer-nor-speech free) helped us get rid of a few folks who were surfing porn, netsexing, and even downloading 1337 h@><0r utilities. I think once we even stopped a rep from verbally abusing a customer via a trouble ticket response because we caught him typing the message. Without these tools, they would have just minimized the windows and the company would have been open to liability. Now, if this precedent applies to all monitoring of workstations, companies are far less able to enforce their employees' behavior, for which the employer is accountable. In short, bunk.
This has probably already been said (because it's frigging common knowledge) but, if responsible parties don't periodically challenge and point out the flaws in all types of security, we're just waiting for some irresponsible person to cause a need for it.
Actually, that's not something I pulled out of thin air. NPR mentioned it (IIRC) when they were discussing the movie a couple weeks ago. Final Fantasy is the most successful franchise ever spawned from Japanese soil.
SquareUSA, not Squaresoft, made the movie. Squaresoft is the video game localization company; the American sister to Square, the parent in Japan. SquareUSA is the arm in Honolulu which, so far, only makes movies.
A car is a better metaphor for this. Buy a Ford car, and paint it any color you like. Stick badges all over it. Pull the badge off the grille. Put big bull horns on the front, and 'roo bars. Add fluffy seat covers. Just leave the internals alone, or Ford can justifiably refuse to service it for you.
The reseller isn't allowed to do any such thing without a specific license from the manufactuer. Without special arrangement, a Ford F150 has to be, in every conceivable way, exactly like it was when it left the assembly line, when the customer buys it new. Anything else would result in a big ole smackdown. The rights you mention are ok for the end user (car purchaser) and any used car seller, because they aren't a Ford Authorized Reseller (licensee).
Now, moving past the legalese, is it right? Is it fair? Not really. It reduces customer options in an area where it matters a lot more than, say, what brand of stereo is factory-installed in your truck. But, it's a time honored way to do business. Pizza Hut only sells Pepsi. Nobody cries foul. Coke isn't even available in some inferior format. It's the partnership they chose to make. Microsoft, in this case, chose to create competing products itself, thereby essentially partnering with itself to provide all these different components that, otherwise, they would probably license from another developer.
All this, as well as the recent developments in the XP environment where the integration of instant messenging and media playing tools is actually beginning to show real benefits (Flash required) for users, does add up to this: Microsoft SHOULD level the playing field. Perhaps not a breakup, but they ought to be outright required to provide thorough API documentation through and through, on a timely basis, and allow other developers to integrate the same features using their third party tools. Microsoft still gets the credit for inventing the way, for example, Outlook checks to see if your mail recipient is online with your IM client. You, however, choose which IM client is involved. That's innovation AND fair play.
Well, yeah. That's exactly right. Pretty much any right to resell or bundle any product or service includes a clause that reads something like "...Licensee is not permitted to modify the Product, in part or in whole, without exclusive and specific license from Licensor, and only to the extent explicitly stated in the license." That's called brand protection. It keeps Licensee from warping the Product and causing degradation of the brand. (And yeah, it also keeps AOL from having the same share of the Desktop.)
I mean, it's Microsoft's operating system. They can't be expected to pay licencing or advertising costs to promote their own (other) products, and they can't be expected to miss out on the most lucrative advertising medium, the Windows desktop, just because they happen to own it. There are ways to help competitors out, but telling MS that their own desktop is off limits is like telling McDonalds to sell their Big Macs and McNuggets... somewhere other than at a McDonalds.
I answer this question at least once a month, it seems.
Every Final Fantasy title is just that; it is the ultimate event in one planet's history. Every FF title takes place on a different planet, and they are not really sequels of each other. The only exception to this is a little cross-villaination between FF1 and FF9, and the occasional joke (such as the ending of FF9, where it is claimed in a theatre performance that the hero will be with his lover, and "no cloud, no squall shall deter me." -- Cloud being the hero of FF7, Squall the hero of FF8.) This, and certain common themes aside (celestial beings, background creatures, and the trademark struggle between citizenry vs. ultimately powerful corruption) are all that link the stories together. So, each of them is a Final Fantasy.
Final Fantasy has always been full of these kinds of tear-wrenching scenes, such as:
FF2 (4 in Japan): Two young kids, who have been assigned to teach a jaded Dark Knight the ways of kindness, have succeeded. They have taught him the innocence of childhood through example, and shown him that that innocence is not a weakness; indeed, their strength has been the only power which has helped the party survive during that black-hearted knight's errors in judgement and doubts of heart. As he finally transcends his past and becomes endowed with the spiritual guidance of paladinhood, those children cheer him on, ever faithful and good. At a tragic turning point in the game, the spectral will of a recently defeated boss has prepared a trap; they have won a battle, but it will cost them their lives, as they are locked in a collapsing room of a huge stone castle. As their final lesson to this fledgeling paladin, the two kids struggle to prop themselves against the crumbling walls as firmly as possible, and turn each other to stone; imprisoning themselves eternally to live unblinking, unmoving, forever, in order to help the paladin save the world.
All the stories (since 2US/4JP) have had this kind of heart-wrenching skill. You spend more time with these people than you would with any character in a novel. Square tells exquisite stories of philosophy and human passion. Thank goodness they also happen to sell like hotcakes.
Well, ok. It's not part of the operating system proper, it's part of what's called the "distribution." The difference is this: the operating system is a self-contained set of programming which must be present in order for the computer to work. There are peripheral portions, such as device drivers, which are arguably not required, but they also make up the OS proper. The applications are supplied for convenience in what's called the distribution. The Gimp is not a part of Linux, it's just something that's available for Linux and is distributed with it for convenience's sake. IE is, arguably, required to be shipped with the OS, not because its functionality is required (such as with an IO codebase for disk or keyboard ops) but because the core codebase requires it to be there or else it won't function right, by design. This isn't done because it's necessary in order for Windows to operate as Windows should, but because Microsoft =wants= it to be a requirement. In programming, there's a simple function called require() which means, "if I can't include this file into me, I won't compile at all." Regardless of the logical reasons WHY the IE codebase is require()d, that association between OS and app is enforced, and that disparity between need and implementation at the moral intersection is what's being argued; not simply "should it be included on the CD."
That is a very eloquent and empassioned monologue depicting the view of capitalism. It also departs from reality in that:
The point is not to murder or destroy Bill Gates or the Microsoft Corporation. We just want him/them to operate his/their business under the constraints of the law and of moral practice.
While many of us disagree with the belief that personal wealth has any place in a just society, that is not the question here.
There is no denying, except by the uneducated, unaware, or amoral, that it is wrong and punishable to achieve and maintain monopoly power over a market.
Furthermore, it is wrong to achieve and maintain monopoly power over a dominating social vehicle if that power is not benevolent and very carefully monitored and frequently audited.
The Internet is unquestionably the leading social vehicle of this age of man, and the computer is the gateway to the Internet. Microsoft controls the computer - not by force, but by the more effective means of consumer convenience, which Microsoft has manufactured to their advantage. Microsoft must therefore adhere to a higher standard of social responsibility than an organization which is simply limited in its influence to the realm of pure commerce.
You're right -- but I think that the fact that you're right, but this case is pressing on anyway, is a hint that our antitrust laws are leaning toward the more evolved EU laws; that being, a company's practices need not be bad for consumers in order to be bad; the health of the competitive market must also be taken into account, and if a company's practices are destroying competitors, they company is breaking the law. Personally, I think that that is a good policy, inasmuch as it means that the public benefits from non-exclusive competitive creation of compatible open standards (not just in the computing world, but everywhere.)
In every GNU OS installer I've ever used, there is a little checkbox (or similiar iface item) next to "The GIMP" which allows me to say I don't want it.
In the spirit of the term FUD, we need an acronym for this MS behavior.
SCLAT: Selective Creation of Legal Terminology
or perhaps more clear at a glance,
LIE: Leveraging Ignorance Everywhere
In more seriousness though, that's what they're doing; hoping that they can establish a legal definition for what "comingling" means, so that they can then prove themselves innocent of the crime they just (mis)defined.
Does anybody know how a technology expert can suggest an alternate definition of how dynamically include()d/require()d code works to the Appeals (or soon-to-be assigned Circuit) court? Not that I'd be that expert, but someone who is ought to draft a proposal.
This is exceptional. Not that it will take off immediately (because Mac and Win are already so established in this field) but it does come at a good time. Software distributors will raise an interested eyebrow when they see that Linux distributions can be tailored easily to revolve around a specific task structure; it will provide them an incentive not really present on mainstream OSs, because the first movers will have the power of a whole Linux distro more or less revolving around their software. Good idea!
Before posting, zero comments; after posting, 70, among these being posts enlightening me to the particulars. So, most of my comments are now invalid. My bad. =)
...and this sort of thing is a common "winding down" process at the end of a volley of threatened legal action. The law firm is just trying to recover some costs of producing the legal documents sent to the K team. However, in the event that the K team totally ignores or explicitly refuses to pay that fee, the firm's only recourse would be to sue for that fee. In most cases like this, it's an idle threat; the K team could ignore the threat with no problems. But, since KIllustrator (as a name) did have the potential to dilute Adobe's trade name, the firm, as a retained legal representative, had the right to send such a letter, and therefore is entitled to insist on legal fees paid by the infringing party.
"Business meets technology." It might be the scariest thing ever, but business is still viewing each advancement technology just like anything else; something they can own exclusively. The Internet is yet another cultural innovation that happened too soon, because we don't have the social maturity to handle it properly.
Give a read to "Nobrow: The Culture of Marketing; The Marketing of Culture." Excellent stuff written by a guy who's made a living of packing maximum content into minimum space. It discusses a lot of the mentalities behind the privitization of thoughts, styles, etc. It's important to note that it's not a matter of "their fault" versus "our greater good," because we consumers make this sort of a nightmare not only possible, but in many respects necessary. We demand it, more or less, because there is a balance between the need for freedom of choice, and the need for a way to distinguish the cream from the crop.
What relevance does that topic bear on this problem? Simple; it's the mentality, stupid! Incorporation is a way of life. We have long relied on the assurance that Good Things (tm) will be maintained by organized parties with financial incentive to keep those Good Things (tm) flowing. Without that incorporated mechanic in place, how can we be sure that today's staple of life won't be gone tomorrow? Who will ensure that the things we rely on will be here tomorrow? It's a valid concern, and our current system fills that need well; but not well enough, and its driving principles are flawed in such ways that lead naturally to this sort of problem. We should change that by reading good books that teach us about the problem, and then changing our social (and market) behaviors to fix it. Providers will and must respond to their market's demands.
Orbital motion about a point, especially as distinguished from axial rotation: the planetary revolution about the sun.
A turning or rotational motion about an axis.
A single complete cycle of such orbital or axial motion.
The overthrow of one government and its replacement with another.
A sudden or momentous change in a situation: the revolution in computer technology.
Geology. A time of major crustal deformation, when folds and faults are formed.
In terms of the digital music revolution, we're talking about one or both of two different things; the overthrow of a ruling body (in this case, a combination of the Industry and the Man), or a sudden or momentous change in a situation: the revolution in computer technology. The latter will not stop. The former is a pipe dream that was made technically feasible by the latter.
I think the music industry should be reinvented from the ground up. How many musicians would make free, digital distribution a part of their marketing (and yes, moneymaking) schema if their record companies allowed/offered such options in their contracts?
If artists could be community-contribution-minded and still make money, we wouldn't be facing the polarized lawsuits and "moral" questions that the Napster (and other) cases make things out to be.
Hey, Netscape is a product to us, not an experiment in successful coding practices. We want something we can use that doesn't suck. Save the rest for coffee talk with the developers.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks! As an employee at Intercosmos Media Group (the company that owns and operates directNIC) it's great to bump into random positive comments at the inner circle of the geek sphere. Glad to hear we're making some people happy. =)
Nathan Hawks
Technical Writer / Associate Editor
Intercosmos Media Group / directNIC.com
Wouldn't it be really funny if the user "codetalker" was black, or Navajo? Racism is an ugly, ugly thing, no matter what form it takes, AC. Propagating it with a defensive posture isn't any better than an offensive one. I think it would be really groovy and mature of you if you apologized for your uncalled-for outburst.
As a former manager of a staff of phone support techs, this doesn't sound good. Privacy doesn't (or shouldn't) apply in cases where you're using company products to conduct company business. You're there to work, and they have every right to see what you're doing when you're doing it.
I know that monitoring software (via software pretty similar to VNC but neither beer-nor-speech free) helped us get rid of a few folks who were surfing porn, netsexing, and even downloading 1337 h@><0r utilities. I think once we even stopped a rep from verbally abusing a customer via a trouble ticket response because we caught him typing the message. Without these tools, they would have just minimized the windows and the company would have been open to liability. Now, if this precedent applies to all monitoring of workstations, companies are far less able to enforce their employees' behavior, for which the employer is accountable. In short, bunk.
This has probably already been said (because it's frigging common knowledge) but, if responsible parties don't periodically challenge and point out the flaws in all types of security, we're just waiting for some irresponsible person to cause a need for it.
Actually, that's not something I pulled out of thin air. NPR mentioned it (IIRC) when they were discussing the movie a couple weeks ago. Final Fantasy is the most successful franchise ever spawned from Japanese soil.
SquareUSA, not Squaresoft, made the movie. Squaresoft is the video game localization company; the American sister to Square, the parent in Japan. SquareUSA is the arm in Honolulu which, so far, only makes movies.
Only if you think of it in terms of the movie. The Final Fantasy brand is the most successful franchise of any kind ever spawned from Japanese soil.
Point. But, here's the difference:
A car is a better metaphor for this. Buy a Ford car, and paint it any color you like. Stick badges all over it. Pull the badge off the grille. Put big bull horns on the front, and 'roo bars. Add fluffy seat covers. Just leave the internals alone, or Ford can justifiably refuse to service it for you.The reseller isn't allowed to do any such thing without a specific license from the manufactuer. Without special arrangement, a Ford F150 has to be, in every conceivable way, exactly like it was when it left the assembly line, when the customer buys it new. Anything else would result in a big ole smackdown. The rights you mention are ok for the end user (car purchaser) and any used car seller, because they aren't a Ford Authorized Reseller (licensee).
Now, moving past the legalese, is it right? Is it fair? Not really. It reduces customer options in an area where it matters a lot more than, say, what brand of stereo is factory-installed in your truck. But, it's a time honored way to do business. Pizza Hut only sells Pepsi. Nobody cries foul. Coke isn't even available in some inferior format. It's the partnership they chose to make. Microsoft, in this case, chose to create competing products itself, thereby essentially partnering with itself to provide all these different components that, otherwise, they would probably license from another developer.
All this, as well as the recent developments in the XP environment where the integration of instant messenging and media playing tools is actually beginning to show real benefits (Flash required) for users, does add up to this: Microsoft SHOULD level the playing field. Perhaps not a breakup, but they ought to be outright required to provide thorough API documentation through and through, on a timely basis, and allow other developers to integrate the same features using their third party tools. Microsoft still gets the credit for inventing the way, for example, Outlook checks to see if your mail recipient is online with your IM client. You, however, choose which IM client is involved. That's innovation AND fair play.
Well, yeah. That's exactly right. Pretty much any right to resell or bundle any product or service includes a clause that reads something like "...Licensee is not permitted to modify the Product, in part or in whole, without exclusive and specific license from Licensor, and only to the extent explicitly stated in the license." That's called brand protection. It keeps Licensee from warping the Product and causing degradation of the brand. (And yeah, it also keeps AOL from having the same share of the Desktop.)
I mean, it's Microsoft's operating system. They can't be expected to pay licencing or advertising costs to promote their own (other) products, and they can't be expected to miss out on the most lucrative advertising medium, the Windows desktop, just because they happen to own it. There are ways to help competitors out, but telling MS that their own desktop is off limits is like telling McDonalds to sell their Big Macs and McNuggets... somewhere other than at a McDonalds.
I answer this question at least once a month, it seems.
Every Final Fantasy title is just that; it is the ultimate event in one planet's history. Every FF title takes place on a different planet, and they are not really sequels of each other. The only exception to this is a little cross-villaination between FF1 and FF9, and the occasional joke (such as the ending of FF9, where it is claimed in a theatre performance that the hero will be with his lover, and "no cloud, no squall shall deter me." -- Cloud being the hero of FF7, Squall the hero of FF8.) This, and certain common themes aside (celestial beings, background creatures, and the trademark struggle between citizenry vs. ultimately powerful corruption) are all that link the stories together. So, each of them is a Final Fantasy.
Final Fantasy has always been full of these kinds of tear-wrenching scenes, such as:
FF2 (4 in Japan): Two young kids, who have been assigned to teach a jaded Dark Knight the ways of kindness, have succeeded. They have taught him the innocence of childhood through example, and shown him that that innocence is not a weakness; indeed, their strength has been the only power which has helped the party survive during that black-hearted knight's errors in judgement and doubts of heart. As he finally transcends his past and becomes endowed with the spiritual guidance of paladinhood, those children cheer him on, ever faithful and good. At a tragic turning point in the game, the spectral will of a recently defeated boss has prepared a trap; they have won a battle, but it will cost them their lives, as they are locked in a collapsing room of a huge stone castle. As their final lesson to this fledgeling paladin, the two kids struggle to prop themselves against the crumbling walls as firmly as possible, and turn each other to stone; imprisoning themselves eternally to live unblinking, unmoving, forever, in order to help the paladin save the world.
All the stories (since 2US/4JP) have had this kind of heart-wrenching skill. You spend more time with these people than you would with any character in a novel. Square tells exquisite stories of philosophy and human passion. Thank goodness they also happen to sell like hotcakes.
Well, ok. It's not part of the operating system proper, it's part of what's called the "distribution." The difference is this: the operating system is a self-contained set of programming which must be present in order for the computer to work. There are peripheral portions, such as device drivers, which are arguably not required, but they also make up the OS proper. The applications are supplied for convenience in what's called the distribution. The Gimp is not a part of Linux, it's just something that's available for Linux and is distributed with it for convenience's sake. IE is, arguably, required to be shipped with the OS, not because its functionality is required (such as with an IO codebase for disk or keyboard ops) but because the core codebase requires it to be there or else it won't function right, by design. This isn't done because it's necessary in order for Windows to operate as Windows should, but because Microsoft =wants= it to be a requirement. In programming, there's a simple function called require() which means, "if I can't include this file into me, I won't compile at all." Regardless of the logical reasons WHY the IE codebase is require()d, that association between OS and app is enforced, and that disparity between need and implementation at the moral intersection is what's being argued; not simply "should it be included on the CD."
That is a very eloquent and empassioned monologue depicting the view of capitalism. It also departs from reality in that:
You're right -- but I think that the fact that you're right, but this case is pressing on anyway, is a hint that our antitrust laws are leaning toward the more evolved EU laws; that being, a company's practices need not be bad for consumers in order to be bad; the health of the competitive market must also be taken into account, and if a company's practices are destroying competitors, they company is breaking the law. Personally, I think that that is a good policy, inasmuch as it means that the public benefits from non-exclusive competitive creation of compatible open standards (not just in the computing world, but everywhere.)
This really ought to be obvious, but I think the UN/NATO thing was an exaggeration.
In every GNU OS installer I've ever used, there is a little checkbox (or similiar iface item) next to "The GIMP" which allows me to say I don't want it.
In the spirit of the term FUD, we need an acronym for this MS behavior.
SCLAT: Selective Creation of Legal Terminology
or perhaps more clear at a glance,
LIE: Leveraging Ignorance Everywhere
In more seriousness though, that's what they're doing; hoping that they can establish a legal definition for what "comingling" means, so that they can then prove themselves innocent of the crime they just (mis)defined.
Does anybody know how a technology expert can suggest an alternate definition of how dynamically include()d/require()d code works to the Appeals (or soon-to-be assigned Circuit) court? Not that I'd be that expert, but someone who is ought to draft a proposal.
This is exceptional. Not that it will take off immediately (because Mac and Win are already so established in this field) but it does come at a good time. Software distributors will raise an interested eyebrow when they see that Linux distributions can be tailored easily to revolve around a specific task structure; it will provide them an incentive not really present on mainstream OSs, because the first movers will have the power of a whole Linux distro more or less revolving around their software. Good idea!
Before posting, zero comments; after posting, 70, among these being posts enlightening me to the particulars. So, most of my comments are now invalid. My bad. =)
...and this sort of thing is a common "winding down" process at the end of a volley of threatened legal action. The law firm is just trying to recover some costs of producing the legal documents sent to the K team. However, in the event that the K team totally ignores or explicitly refuses to pay that fee, the firm's only recourse would be to sue for that fee. In most cases like this, it's an idle threat; the K team could ignore the threat with no problems. But, since KIllustrator (as a name) did have the potential to dilute Adobe's trade name, the firm, as a retained legal representative, had the right to send such a letter, and therefore is entitled to insist on legal fees paid by the infringing party.
"Business meets technology." It might be the scariest thing ever, but business is still viewing each advancement technology just like anything else; something they can own exclusively. The Internet is yet another cultural innovation that happened too soon, because we don't have the social maturity to handle it properly.
Give a read to "Nobrow: The Culture of Marketing; The Marketing of Culture." Excellent stuff written by a guy who's made a living of packing maximum content into minimum space. It discusses a lot of the mentalities behind the privitization of thoughts, styles, etc. It's important to note that it's not a matter of "their fault" versus "our greater good," because we consumers make this sort of a nightmare not only possible, but in many respects necessary. We demand it, more or less, because there is a balance between the need for freedom of choice, and the need for a way to distinguish the cream from the crop.
What relevance does that topic bear on this problem? Simple; it's the mentality, stupid! Incorporation is a way of life. We have long relied on the assurance that Good Things (tm) will be maintained by organized parties with financial incentive to keep those Good Things (tm) flowing. Without that incorporated mechanic in place, how can we be sure that today's staple of life won't be gone tomorrow? Who will ensure that the things we rely on will be here tomorrow? It's a valid concern, and our current system fills that need well; but not well enough, and its driving principles are flawed in such ways that lead naturally to this sort of problem. We should change that by reading good books that teach us about the problem, and then changing our social (and market) behaviors to fix it. Providers will and must respond to their market's demands.
In terms of the digital music revolution, we're talking about one or both of two different things; the overthrow of a ruling body (in this case, a combination of the Industry and the Man), or a sudden or momentous change in a situation: the revolution in computer technology. The latter will not stop. The former is a pipe dream that was made technically feasible by the latter.
I think the music industry should be reinvented from the ground up. How many musicians would make free, digital distribution a part of their marketing (and yes, moneymaking) schema if their record companies allowed/offered such options in their contracts?
If artists could be community-contribution-minded and still make money, we wouldn't be facing the polarized lawsuits and "moral" questions that the Napster (and other) cases make things out to be.
Someone just multi-lingualed your article, and you called if off topic? C'mon!
Hey, Netscape is a product to us, not an experiment in successful coding practices. We want something we can use that doesn't suck. Save the rest for coffee talk with the developers.