> Stac bought some old patents and abused them to force MS to stop using technology that neither of them had invented.
For better or worse, patents are transferrable property in our society. I think we might be better off without patents altogether, but if we are going to have them, then Microsoft is bound to play by the same rules anyone else is.
> As far as advantages over Unix goes, it's at least much better documented, as the bookcases behind me can attest.
Built-in features out the gazoo.
Just last week I was looking at man lpr to see if I could change the priority on my big print jobs in the queue to let other people's smaller jobs past. Nope, but su can reorder them by hand. Sigh...
How I miss thee, O VMS. And how I wish there were a free{beer,speech} version for x86.
>...but does anybody else get the impression that this whole 'anti-trust' trial is just a big giant dog and pony show to keep everybody happy and make the government look like they arent all up on big biz's jock ?
If that's the case then the DoJ needs to hire some better actors, because it sure as hell looks like they're all up on big biz's jock.
> The States came after Microsoft because they had dollar signs in their eyes. Nothing more, nothing less. They just wanted a piece of the pie. MS's competitors are just as bad. Why do you think all of MS's competitors are suddenly coming out of the woodwork and bringing on lawsuits? Because they know MS is in a state of weakness. What better way to eliminate your biggest competition than through litigation? Not to mention, being ruled a monopoly is a surefire way to ensure every con artist and halfwit who can't make it in the market on their own will slither out of the woodwork and make bogus claims against you. Oracle and Sun are a big example of this.
> Ada, eh? I sincerly thought that this language was dead, along with Lisp, Fortran and Cobol, the other dead dinosaurs-era "programming" languages.
I suppose you're trolling, but in case you aren't...
The current Ada standard is Ada 95, 7 years old. A standard for Ada 0x is under development right now.
There's a surprising lot of stuff going on in the Ada world right now. An Ada compiler will be integrated with GCC starting with version 3.1 (as an optional component, actually, as with Fortran). Also, the new GNU Visual Debugger is written in Ada; it supports languages on a plug-in basis, with plugins currently available for C, C++, and (of course) Ada.
Part of what's driving things like GPS and GVD is the maturation of GtkAda, a "thick" Ada binding of GTK+. This is a very polished free {beer,speech} product: it comes with 475 pages of PostScript documentation. (The bindings are also fully OO.)
I won't bother commenting on the pros and cons of Ada as a language, since everyone knows "My language is best!" -- regardless of who the speaker is.
> There's a cool map [edwardtufte.com] of Nappy's march into Russia, which shows, visually, the losses suffered by the thickness of the line, among other things.
Wish I had computer for every time I've seen that in a magazine ad. (I'd build an awesome beowulf cluster.)
It is interesting, though. For instance, you always hear about how horrible the march back west was, but if you look at the chart you can see that the army was already reduced to about 1/4 its original size by the time it reached Moscow. I looks like the march east was thrice as bad as the part you always hear horror stories about.
Such is the value of good data presentation, I suppose.
> But it's not just religion. Fanaticism comes in various forms, like the few remaining diehard Marxist and Maoist rebel movements scattered around the globe, or the militant wings of racial separatist movements.
And your basic nationalism, which has been the planet's bane for c. 2 centuries now.
> Shit./.'ed in under 10min. I swear that some people just wanna see their server collapse on purpose...
Rob runs a protection racket; if they don't pay up, he links to a story at their site.
That the real reason we get repeat stories on Slashdot: some of them foo's are too hard headed to pay up even after they see what Rob can do to them, so they get a second dose.
> the general business press is taking the line that Microsoft's legal team has everything under control this time and is crushing the States.
Let's not forget that the business press exists for the sole purpose of keeping stock prices high. It's hard to imagine that they would say anything different no matter what was going on.
But of course, they have the DoJ's desire to throw the game to give them confidence that they're going to be right this time anyway.
> But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story.
Sorry, but the discussion of Bill Gates is under another article.
> Similarly, except free as in {beer,speech}, try Balsa [gnome.org].
Oops. Now that I've re-read the grandparent post, I see that it was using the "top" command rather than just looking at the basic message info. AFAIK, Balsa does not support "top". It does save a lot of headaches, though.
> If you want a pretty windoze gui for doing the same thing, and free as in 'beer' / nagware, try Mailwasher [mailwasher.net]. The ability to bounce spam and delete virii from POP boxs before downloading, not to mention dickheads who send huge emails is very useful. It has saved me numerous times.
Similarly, except free as in {beer,speech}, try Balsa. When I crank it up it connects to my IMAP server and lists my inbox without downloading anything. The list includes the number of lines and and whether or not the message has an attachment. I just ctrl-click all the trash and then ctrl-d to delete it without downloading it to my local trashcan.
This has saved me a huge amount of annoyance since I started using it. Basically, if a message isn't from a friend and doesn't have a subject line that makes me want to read it, it never gets downloaded. (And no, "MAKE MONEY FAST" doesn't make me want to read it.)
> 94. We work to enable interoperability because the market demands it. Proof of our success is provided by the large number of products that interoperate with Windows today, including server software from Sun and Novell and, of course, tens of thousands of Web sites that run on various versions of UNIX and are accessible from Windows-based PCs.
Gee, isn't that a high standard for "interoperability"! I mean, wow, you can view Web pages served from other operating systems, woo-hoo.
Slashdot Mirror
> When purchasing a Bible there are tons of options (Adult study,
WOW! That sounds a LOT more fun than the prudish old version I read as a kid!
> A testament to the state of the
That's 'cause there's not a "nice troll" moderation option, so we use "insightful" as a stand-in.
> Stac bought some old patents and abused them to force MS to stop using technology that neither of them had invented.
For better or worse, patents are transferrable property in our society. I think we might be better off without patents altogether, but if we are going to have them, then Microsoft is bound to play by the same rules anyone else is.
> As far as advantages over Unix goes, it's at least much better documented, as the bookcases behind me can attest.
Built-in features out the gazoo.
Just last week I was looking at man lpr to see if I could change the priority on my big print jobs in the queue to let other people's smaller jobs past. Nope, but su can reorder them by hand. Sigh...
How I miss thee, O VMS. And how I wish there were a free{beer,speech} version for x86.
>
Neither. We're teaching them how to MAKE MONEY FAST!!! with pushy business practices.
That's what's important in America, you know.
>
If that's the case then the DoJ needs to hire some better actors, because it sure as hell looks like they're all up on big biz's jock.
> The States came after Microsoft because they had dollar signs in their eyes. Nothing more, nothing less. They just wanted a piece of the pie. MS's competitors are just as bad. Why do you think all of MS's competitors are suddenly coming out of the woodwork and bringing on lawsuits? Because they know MS is in a state of weakness. What better way to eliminate your biggest competition than through litigation? Not to mention, being ruled a monopoly is a surefire way to ensure every con artist and halfwit who can't make it in the market on their own will slither out of the woodwork and make bogus claims against you. Oracle and Sun are a big example of this.
So... What exactly do you do at Microsoft?
> but wouldn't you love to see SWAT teams breaking down doors to sieze copies of Outlook?
They already do that, except that it's federal marshals instead of SWAT teams, and it's done for agregated petty theft instead of mass murder.
Oh, well... our society almost has it right.
> as Thrasymachus said, "I declare justice is nothing but the advantage of the stronger" - Republic 338c
Yeah, but the phrase "poetic advantage of the stronger" just doesn't have quite the right ring to it.
> Ada, eh? I sincerly thought that this language was dead, along with Lisp, Fortran
and Cobol, the other dead dinosaurs-era "programming" languages.
I suppose you're trolling, but in case you aren't...
The current Ada standard is Ada 95, 7 years old. A standard for Ada 0x is under development right now.
There's a surprising lot of stuff going on in the Ada world right now. An Ada compiler will be integrated with GCC starting with version 3.1 (as an optional component, actually, as with Fortran). Also, the new GNU Visual Debugger is written in Ada; it supports languages on a plug-in basis, with plugins currently available for C, C++, and (of course) Ada.
Part of what's driving things like GPS and GVD is the maturation of GtkAda, a "thick" Ada binding of GTK+. This is a very polished free {beer,speech} product: it comes with 475 pages of PostScript documentation. (The bindings are also fully OO.)
I won't bother commenting on the pros and cons of Ada as a language, since everyone knows "My language is best!" -- regardless of who the speaker is.
> Globalism, dude. It's a lot easier to make enemies worldwide in 2002 than it was in 1492, or even 1902.
I dunno 'bout that. Whenever I play Freeciv I usually have the rest of the world on my case by 3500 BC.
> Math cannot predict wars, but logic and political analysis can.
My buddy Harry Seldon says otherwise.
> There's a cool map [edwardtufte.com] of Nappy's march into Russia, which shows, visually, the losses suffered by the thickness of the line, among other things.
Wish I had computer for every time I've seen that in a magazine ad. (I'd build an awesome beowulf cluster.)
It is interesting, though. For instance, you always hear about how horrible the march back west was, but if you look at the chart you can see that the army was already reduced to about 1/4 its original size by the time it reached Moscow. I looks like the march east was thrice as bad as the part you always hear horror stories about.
Such is the value of good data presentation, I suppose.
> But it's not just religion. Fanaticism comes in various forms, like the few remaining diehard Marxist and Maoist rebel movements scattered around the globe, or the militant wings of racial separatist movements.
And your basic nationalism, which has been the planet's bane for c. 2 centuries now.
> Shit.
Rob runs a protection racket; if they don't pay up, he links to a story at their site.
That the real reason we get repeat stories on Slashdot: some of them foo's are too hard headed to pay up even after they see what Rob can do to them, so they get a second dose.
> Looks like Larry's gonna get the "Criminal" bit set in his entry in the National Big Brother database.
LMAO. That's the funniest thing I've seen here in months.
> I'll be forced to hunt you down and force you to watch MTV 24x7 until you're nothing but a gibbering, drooling shell of a human being.
That's not much of a threat to those of us who already spend a lot of time hanging around Slashdot.
[Gibbers, drools, exits stage left wiping the drool off his shell.]
> the general business press is taking the line that Microsoft's legal team has everything under control this time and is crushing the States.
Let's not forget that the business press exists for the sole purpose of keeping stock prices high. It's hard to imagine that they would say anything different no matter what was going on.
But of course, they have the DoJ's desire to throw the game to give them confidence that they're going to be right this time anyway.
> I am stealing all of society! I will crush the world economy! It is my evil masterplan!
I go further and add insult to injury, by getting up and making a peepee during commercials.
Take that! I pith on your profitability, Turner Broadcathting!
> Hell, it was D.O.A.... any games out for it yet?
Dunno 'bout that, but there are damn sure a lot of commercials out for it.
> But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story.
Sorry, but the discussion of Bill Gates is under another article.
> Similarly, except free as in {beer,speech}, try Balsa [gnome.org].
Oops. Now that I've re-read the grandparent post, I see that it was using the "top" command rather than just looking at the basic message info. AFAIK, Balsa does not support "top". It does save a lot of headaches, though.
> If you want a pretty windoze gui for doing the same thing, and free as in 'beer' / nagware, try Mailwasher [mailwasher.net]. The ability to bounce spam and delete virii from POP boxs before downloading, not to mention dickheads who send huge emails is very useful. It has saved me numerous times.
Similarly, except free as in {beer,speech}, try Balsa. When I crank it up it connects to my IMAP server and lists my inbox without downloading anything. The list includes the number of lines and and whether or not the message has an attachment. I just ctrl-click all the trash and then ctrl-d to delete it without downloading it to my local trashcan.
This has saved me a huge amount of annoyance since I started using it. Basically, if a message isn't from a friend and doesn't have a subject line that makes me want to read it, it never gets downloaded. (And no, "MAKE MONEY FAST" doesn't make me want to read it.)
> 94. We work to enable interoperability because the market demands it. Proof of our success is provided by the large number of products that interoperate with Windows today, including server software from Sun and Novell and, of course, tens of thousands of Web sites that run on various versions of UNIX and are accessible from Windows-based PCs.
Gee, isn't that a high standard for "interoperability"! I mean, wow, you can view Web pages served from other operating systems, woo-hoo.
...was Star Wars a documentary about Hidden Fortress, or a parody of it?
This being Slashdot, I'm wondering whether the subject means "Review of a hands-free mouse" or "Review of Hand's free mouse".