"FWIW, NT was a pioneer in implementing ACL's for its filesystem. "
Novell NetWare was doing ACLs in 1993 better then Windows 2003 does them in 2005. (Change an NTFS ACL at the top of a large directory tree sometime, and wait, and wait, and wait some more. It is nearly instantaneous on NetWare.)
arch/sparc/kernel/sunos_ioctl.c:/* Binary compatibility is good American knowhow fuckin' up. */
arch/sparc64/mm/init.c:/* Fucking losing PROM has more mappings in the TLB, but
arch/sparc64/kernel/traps.c:/* Why the fuck did they have to change this? */
Even better is this from 2.4:
arch/sparc/mm/srmmu.c: Are you now convinced that the Swift is one of the biggest VLSI abortions of all time? Bravo Fujitsu! Fujitsu, the !#?!%$'d up processor people. I bet if you examined the microcode of the Swift you'd find XXX's all over the place.
"Why can't the EPO button perform in the same manner as a door release for an emergency exit..."
Emergency Power Off (EPO) switches are primarilly a safety feature. If some person is being electrocuted, you hit the switch and the power dies so the person doesn't. You don't have time to wait in a situation like that. A person's life is considered more valuable then LiveJournal, which despite the name, isn't actually alive. (Insert comment about angst-ridden teen-age girls here.)
I was pretty much ignoring this story (knowing that he will just start right back up again) until I heard that his place of business is in Barrington, NH. I know people who live in that town. So I do a Google search and find that his address in the legal complaint is:
495 Route 9
Barrington, NH
That's within a few minutes walk of these people. Just down the street. They practically live next door to him!
My $DEITY. I don't know what I would do if I found out I was living next door to Sanford "Spamford" Wallace, but I expect I would have serious problems curbing violent tendencies. As it is, I'm fighting the urge to go visit those people and do something nasty on the way by this guy's place.
There is a 64-bit standard: x86-64 (used in Athlon 64 and Opteron). There's another one too: G5.
Not to mention DEC's Alpha, Sun's UltraSPARC, SGI's 64-bit MIPS stuff, IBM's Power line (not the same as PowerPC), and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Some of them were around well before PowerPC, let alone IA64 and X86-64.
If I'm in a good mood and I want to become angry, all I have to do is click on Network Neighborhood, and I go from happy to pissed off in no time flat. First of all, it practically locks up the entire computer while it SEARCHES for network shares.
In the default configuration, that is pretty common. If you are interested, I can explain how to make it work well.
1. Create a WINS server (NetBIOS name server). Point all your SMB/CIFS clients to the WINS server.
2. Set your NetBIOS Node type to 2 (P-node, or Peer Node -- WINS resolution only).
3. Disable the NetBIOS computer browser service on all but a handful of "reliable server" machines.
To disable the NetBIOS browser on NT, disable the "Computer Browser" service.
On Win 95/98/ME, set the "Master Browser" option to "No" instead of "Auto" in the "Windows File and Printer Sharing" component in Network properties. (I might have the names wrong; I don't use 9X much anymore, and I don't have one handy to check.)
I usually recommend disabling the browser service on all computers expect for domain controller(s). If you do not have a domain, disable said service on all but one or two of your servers. If you do not have any servers, you're hosed, regardless of protocol. Designate a computer "the server" to fix things.
Once this is done, Windows name resolution works pretty well.
"... a basic summary of those comments is that i accept responsibility for my failings. can you do the same?"
I'm just curious here... I've read some of the mail archives of the disputes between you and some of the other Samba developers. From my very uninformed position, it appears to have mainly been a conflict of approach and style. Now, when that happens, one party has to change their ways or leave. Since Samba was already "their" project, and you didn't want to change your ways, you got kicked out of their sandbox for not playing the way they wanted to play. That, in and of itself, does not make either side "right" or "wrong", and I'm not about to pass judgement on either side.
The thing I'm curious about is, what are you looking for from Jeremy Allison? Acknowledgment of your efforts? An apology? An invitation to join the project as a decision-maker?
Here is the link M. Coward posted, but fixed, plus my +2 score so more will see it. (Sorry M. Coward, but then, I figure if you're Anonymous, you're not worried about credit or karma.)
I don't know the people or the situation enough to judge either one, but I figure it is good to see both sides. The truth, I suspect, is somewhere in the middle, but I say that onlly because it usually is.
"My experience is with AD in small networks, where the usesrs want something simple like central passwords and roaming profiles."
Yah, that's generally what we use it for, too. (I work for an IT systems integrator.)
"... there have been nothing but problems. Slow logons, the server requires rebooting..."
Dollars to donuts, your DNS configuration is wrong. For most small networks, this usually boils down to: "You need to make sure the one and only resolving DNS server mentioned anywhere in your configuration is your Active Directory Domain Controller". Along that same line: "Never mention your ISP's DNS servers anywhere!" (This is a tremendous over-simplication, but it will do for Slashdot. Reply if you really want to know the details.)
A lot of people are still used to NT4. There wasn't much you could do to mis-configure NT4. Sure, it might not work in the first place, but it was always due to Microsoft bugs and limitations and there wasn't anything you could do about it. If it could be done with NT4 "out of the box", it was generally pretty easy to do.
Contrast that with Windows 2000 and Active Directory. Suddenly, DNS, DHCP, dynamic DNS updates, DNS record types, DNS SRV records, LDAP, and Kerberos all get involved. Your DNS infrastructure has to correct or Active Directory will blow chunks. You cannot get by without reading the manual. That is a stark constrast to NT4.
"... and user management is a pain."
This strikes me as odd. If anything, I find user management much easier in AD vs NT4. What makes you say it is a pain? Maybe I can offer some advice.
FYI and FWIW, we also frequently deploy Samba in NT4 PDC emulation mode, and find it works very well at that. Centralized security database, roaming profiles, etc. I just miss Active Directory Group Policy.
Heh. No kidding. I once sysop'ed on a BBS. The old, dial-up kind, not the new, web kind. When "ANSI graphics" meant "colored text". Anyway, we had this one popular game, with a couple different variations, and some non-obvious rules. So we gave it a menu screen all its own, with a "Read Me" kind of option set apart at the top of the menu. It was labeled something like "Important information about this game". Next to that, in blinking-yellow-on-black text, was the phrase "Read This!!!".
At least once a month, I would answer a tech support request with the form letter:
You need to read the "Important information" file on that game's menu. It's the option with the blinking yellow "Read This" next to it.
It's amazing how people have brains which are so much more capable then these dumb computers, and yet still manage to be dumber then the computers.
The Intel guy has a point. Most people have no use for a 64-bit address space, at least for right now. Indeed, increasing the address space can actually slow things down.
It is only the fact that the AMD64/x86-64/whatever design also happens to add more general purpose registers that makes it useful for every day computing. Of course, you can have more registers without having a 64-bit address space, but that's too complex for most people. So "64-bit is better" wins out.
"How will it perform compared to AMD's chips? AFAIK AMD usually performs better clock to clock?"
Comparing processors "clock for clock" has never meant a lot, and is meaning less and less all the time. Different designs do things so differently that clock rate has about as much to do with actual performance as the color of the chip package.
The best measure of CPU performance remains the price/performance ratio. That is, for a given amount of money, how fast will a CPU perform a given task? In other words, how much bang for the buck. AMD has consistantly been beating Intel in that department for years. Sure, you might find a chip from Intel that is 10% faster, but it will cost you 80% more.
Even comparing price/performance on just CPUs has become difficult to impossible. Core logic (especially the memory subsystem and periperal bus) have become so important, and so differentiated, that establishing an apples-to-apples CPU comparison is hard. So instead of comparing just CPUs, you have to compare CPU/chipset/memory combinations.
"This went on a few weeks before one of the techs noticed something: said secretaries were 'storing' their boot floppies by affixing them to a nearby filing cabinet - with fridge magnets!"
Many years ago, in the days of the PC/XT, I knew a guy who had a 5.25-inch floppy disk, labeled "Emergency boot disk", stuck to his file cabinet with a gigantic red horse-shoe magnet.
First time I saw it, I stopped dead in my tracks and stared open-mouthed. After a few seconds, the guy says, "It's a joke".
Still cracks me up today.
A better version of the backup warning
on
Creative Data Loss
·
· Score: 1
"A little gem I heard a while ago: There are 2 kinds of people. Those that have lost data, and those that will."
This is what I tell customers: There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who makes backups, and those who will end up wishing they had.
Worst data loss episode was a customer, a metal fabrication shop, who insisted that buying a tape backup drive for their brand new server would cost too much. Well, as (bad) luck would have it, the drive failed about a month of operation. They had already moved all of their CAD drawings to the server, and had no other useful copies. They blamed us, of course, and we parted ways under bad circumstances. So I don't really know what happened after that, but I did notice that the place went out of business almost immediately after.
Which leads to another of my favorite sayings: "If you think it costs a lot to do it right, just wait until you find out how much it costs to do it wrong."
"I guess the smartest thing I can do is invest in a fireproof waterproof lock box, and stick it in an attic."
In all seriousness, the best thing "mere mortals" like us can do is likely invest in a safe deposit box at a bank, and maintain current copies (paper or electronic) of important stuff there. Bank vaults are reasonably secure against theft, fire, flood, and other threats.
I've also known people who have family or close friends nearby (but not too nearby), and swap disks and papers. Not a bank vault, but at least a structure fire at your residence won't be the end for your data.
On-site backups are better then nothing, but a serious structure fire, or a theft, or even a flood can still destroy everything. By keeping copies at a reasonable distance, you've practically eliminated any chance of major data loss.
With off-site copies, if something big enough to knock out both copies at once does happen, chances are, your backups are going to be the least of your worries.
The "freezer trick" is an age-old "last ditch" trick. As people have been saying, it is not intended to be a permanent fix, but rather, something that will get the drive running (or limping) long enough to get your data off of it.
One theory is that rapid temperature changes will cause some minor expansion and contraction of the components in the drive, which could be enough to un-stick a stuck mechanism.
Another theory says that if the problem is a bad connection (solder joint, etc.), the contraction caused by freezing it could re-make the connection (at least until it warms up again).
Still another theory says that bad ICs ("computer chips") are sometimes sensitive to thermal conditions, and cooling them down might revive them. (Again, until it warms up again.)
When all this fails, you can still send it off to the professionals. I like CBL Data Recovery Technologies. You ship them the drive. They give you a free quote. If you agree, they attempt the recovery. If they succeed, you pay up and get your data back. No data, no charge.
Companies like these will do things like try to repair bad components on a PCB, try replacing the PCB from an inventory they maintain, or removing the platters in a clean room and reading the data using special equipment. It ain't cheap, but they can sometimes work minor miracles.
"Did you also know Wal-Mart's employee name badges have RFID tags (and have had for many years) that allow Wal-Mart to track where an employee is at any given time?"
I dunno about any of the rest of this, but I know that's false. My mom is a store manager at Wal-Mart, and their badges don't have any RFID capability in them. Not yet, anyway. It wouldn't surprise me if that's coming. But not right now. Care to tell us where you get your information?
"Badges? We don't got no badges. We don't need no stinkin badges!"
Roughly ten years ago, Microsoft was found, in a court of law, to have knowingly stolen code from Stac Electronic's popular "Stacker" whole-disk compression utility, and used it in their DoubleSpace utility. That's the reason for Microsoft MS-DOS 6.21 (I think it was.21) -- it removed the stolen code.
Stac won the lawsuit, but it was too late -- the damage had already been done, and Stac went out of business. The 800-pound gorilla won again.
There's a term for companies which consider themselves safe from Microsoft because they have established market dominance: Bankrupt.
Microsoft has a very long and very successful history of coming into markets previously owned by other companies and taking them over. They never get it right on the first try, but their OS and Office cash cows can keep feeding repeated attempts until they win through sheer persistence. It becomes a war of attrition and Microsoft has far deeper reserves.
Don't believe me? Go look up this history of any of these:
Lotus 1-2-3
Word Perfect
Stac Electronics
DesqView
DR-DOS
Trumpet Winsock
Novell NetWare
Netscape Communications
One ignores Microsoft at one's own peril.
I am seriously worried about TiVo now. Microsoft has the resources to crush them, regardless of who has the better product or more recognition.
"I'm more a fan of "hard core" SF like Star Trek myself..."
Heh. A lot of people would object to calling Trek "hard core SF". The term "hard SF" is usually used to describe stuff that's heavily based on real-world modern-day science knowledge and theory. Larry Niven's "Neutron Star" is a good example.
The one thing that appears to be universally true about these genres is that if you ask X different people what the definition of "SF" is, you will get at least X different answers.
Slashdot Mirror
"FWIW, NT was a pioneer in implementing ACL's for its filesystem. "
Novell NetWare was doing ACLs in 1993 better then Windows 2003 does them in 2005. (Change an NTFS ACL at the top of a large directory tree sometime, and wait, and wait, and wait some more. It is nearly instantaneous on NetWare.)
These all from 2.6:
/* XXX Fucking Cypress... */
/* Binary compatibility is good American knowhow fuckin' up. */
/* Fucking losing PROM has more mappings in the TLB, but
/* Why the fuck did they have to change this? */
arch/sparc/kernel/ptrace.c:/* Fuck me gently with a chainsaw... */
arch/sparc/kernel/head.S:
arch/sparc/kernel/sunos_ioctl.c:
arch/sparc64/mm/init.c:
arch/sparc64/kernel/traps.c:
Even better is this from 2.4:
arch/sparc/mm/srmmu.c: Are you now convinced that the Swift is one of the
biggest VLSI abortions of all time? Bravo Fujitsu!
Fujitsu, the !#?!%$'d up processor people. I bet if
you examined the microcode of the Swift you'd find
XXX's all over the place.
Here's a Liger:
i ger.html
:)
http://www.tigers-animal-actors.com/about/liger/l
Prolly not what you meant, I know.
I saw a Liger in person (it was about 50 feet away) at King Richard's Fair last fall. It was one BIG cat.
i ger.html
More info on the same animal here:
http://www.tigers-animal-actors.com/about/liger/l
"Why can't the EPO button perform in the same manner as a door release for an emergency exit..."
t ml
. html
Emergency Power Off (EPO) switches are primarilly a safety feature. If some person is being electrocuted, you hit the switch and the power dies so the person doesn't. You don't have time to wait in a situation like that. A person's life is considered more valuable then LiveJournal, which despite the name, isn't actually alive. (Insert comment about angst-ridden teen-age girls here.)
See also:
http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/S/scram-switch.h
http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/B/Big-Red-Switch
I was pretty much ignoring this story (knowing that he will just start right back up again) until I heard that his place of business is in Barrington, NH. I know people who live in that town. So I do a Google search and find that his address in the legal complaint is:
495 Route 9
Barrington, NH
That's within a few minutes walk of these people. Just down the street. They practically live next door to him!
My $DEITY. I don't know what I would do if I found out I was living next door to Sanford "Spamford" Wallace, but I expect I would have serious problems curbing violent tendencies. As it is, I'm fighting the urge to go visit those people and do something nasty on the way by this guy's place.
There is a 64-bit standard: x86-64 (used in Athlon 64 and Opteron). There's another one too: G5.
Not to mention DEC's Alpha, Sun's UltraSPARC, SGI's 64-bit MIPS stuff, IBM's Power line (not the same as PowerPC), and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Some of them were around well before PowerPC, let alone IA64 and X86-64.
If I'm in a good mood and I want to become angry, all I have to do is click on Network Neighborhood, and I go from happy to pissed off in no time flat. First of all, it practically locks up the entire computer while it SEARCHES for network shares.
In the default configuration, that is pretty common. If you are interested, I can explain how to make it work well.
1. Create a WINS server (NetBIOS name server). Point all your SMB/CIFS clients to the WINS server.
2. Set your NetBIOS Node type to 2 (P-node, or Peer Node -- WINS resolution only).
3. Disable the NetBIOS computer browser service on all but a handful of "reliable server" machines.
To disable the NetBIOS browser on NT, disable the "Computer Browser" service.
On Win 95/98/ME, set the "Master Browser" option to "No" instead of "Auto" in the "Windows File and Printer Sharing" component in Network properties. (I might have the names wrong; I don't use 9X much anymore, and I don't have one handy to check.)
I usually recommend disabling the browser service on all computers expect for domain controller(s). If you do not have a domain, disable said service on all but one or two of your servers. If you do not have any servers, you're hosed, regardless of protocol. Designate a computer "the server" to fix things.
Once this is done, Windows name resolution works pretty well.
"... a basic summary of those comments is that i accept responsibility for my failings. can you do the same?"
I'm just curious here... I've read some of the mail archives of the disputes between you and some of the other Samba developers. From my very uninformed position, it appears to have mainly been a conflict of approach and style. Now, when that happens, one party has to change their ways or leave. Since Samba was already "their" project, and you didn't want to change your ways, you got kicked out of their sandbox for not playing the way they wanted to play. That, in and of itself, does not make either side "right" or "wrong", and I'm not about to pass judgement on either side.
The thing I'm curious about is, what are you looking for from Jeremy Allison? Acknowledgment of your efforts? An apology? An invitation to join the project as a decision-maker?
As Mr. Morden would say: What do you want?
Here is the link M. Coward posted, but fixed, plus my +2 score so more will see it. (Sorry M. Coward, but then, I figure if you're Anonymous, you're not worried about credit or karma.)
0 2-January/018388.html
http://lists.samba.org/archive/samba-technical/20
I don't know the people or the situation enough to judge either one, but I figure it is good to see both sides. The truth, I suspect, is somewhere in the middle, but I say that onlly because it usually is.
"My experience is with AD in small networks, where the usesrs want something simple like central passwords and roaming profiles."
..."
Yah, that's generally what we use it for, too. (I work for an IT systems integrator.)
"... there have been nothing but problems. Slow logons, the server requires rebooting
Dollars to donuts, your DNS configuration is wrong. For most small networks, this usually boils down to: "You need to make sure the one and only resolving DNS server mentioned anywhere in your configuration is your Active Directory Domain Controller". Along that same line: "Never mention your ISP's DNS servers anywhere!" (This is a tremendous over-simplication, but it will do for Slashdot. Reply if you really want to know the details.)
A lot of people are still used to NT4. There wasn't much you could do to mis-configure NT4. Sure, it might not work in the first place, but it was always due to Microsoft bugs and limitations and there wasn't anything you could do about it. If it could be done with NT4 "out of the box", it was generally pretty easy to do.
Contrast that with Windows 2000 and Active Directory. Suddenly, DNS, DHCP, dynamic DNS updates, DNS record types, DNS SRV records, LDAP, and Kerberos all get involved. Your DNS infrastructure has to correct or Active Directory will blow chunks. You cannot get by without reading the manual. That is a stark constrast to NT4.
"... and user management is a pain."
This strikes me as odd. If anything, I find user management much easier in AD vs NT4. What makes you say it is a pain? Maybe I can offer some advice.
FYI and FWIW, we also frequently deploy Samba in NT4 PDC emulation mode, and find it works very well at that. Centralized security database, roaming profiles, etc. I just miss Active Directory Group Policy.
"PLEASE READ (-- in HUGE letters)"
Heh. No kidding. I once sysop'ed on a BBS. The old, dial-up kind, not the new, web kind. When "ANSI graphics" meant "colored text". Anyway, we had this one popular game, with a couple different variations, and some non-obvious rules. So we gave it a menu screen all its own, with a "Read Me" kind of option set apart at the top of the menu. It was labeled something like "Important information about this game". Next to that, in blinking-yellow-on-black text, was the phrase "Read This!!!".
At least once a month, I would answer a tech support request with the form letter:
You need to read the "Important information" file on that game's menu. It's the option with the blinking yellow "Read This" next to it.
It's amazing how people have brains which are so much more capable then these dumb computers, and yet still manage to be dumber then the computers.
*sigh*
Am I the only one who saw "ornithopter" in the headline and thought "Dune"? That's certainly the only place I've ever seen the word before.
g
Best artist's conception I could find on short notice:
http://www.duneinfo.com/michael/images/landing.jp
The Intel guy has a point. Most people have no use for a 64-bit address space, at least for right now. Indeed, increasing the address space can actually slow things down.
It is only the fact that the AMD64/x86-64/whatever design also happens to add more general purpose registers that makes it useful for every day computing. Of course, you can have more registers without having a 64-bit address space, but that's too complex for most people. So "64-bit is better" wins out.
"How will it perform compared to AMD's chips? AFAIK AMD usually performs better clock to clock?"
Comparing processors "clock for clock" has never meant a lot, and is meaning less and less all the time. Different designs do things so differently that clock rate has about as much to do with actual performance as the color of the chip package.
The best measure of CPU performance remains the price/performance ratio. That is, for a given amount of money, how fast will a CPU perform a given task? In other words, how much bang for the buck. AMD has consistantly been beating Intel in that department for years. Sure, you might find a chip from Intel that is 10% faster, but it will cost you 80% more.
Even comparing price/performance on just CPUs has become difficult to impossible. Core logic (especially the memory subsystem and periperal bus) have become so important, and so differentiated, that establishing an apples-to-apples CPU comparison is hard. So instead of comparing just CPUs, you have to compare CPU/chipset/memory combinations.
"This went on a few weeks before one of the techs noticed something: said secretaries were 'storing' their boot floppies by affixing them to a nearby filing cabinet - with fridge magnets!"
Many years ago, in the days of the PC/XT, I knew a guy who had a 5.25-inch floppy disk, labeled "Emergency boot disk", stuck to his file cabinet with a gigantic red horse-shoe magnet.
First time I saw it, I stopped dead in my tracks and stared open-mouthed. After a few seconds, the guy says, "It's a joke".
Still cracks me up today.
"A little gem I heard a while ago: There are 2 kinds of people. Those that have lost data, and those that will."
This is what I tell customers: There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who makes backups, and those who will end up wishing they had.
Worst data loss episode was a customer, a metal fabrication shop, who insisted that buying a tape backup drive for their brand new server would cost too much. Well, as (bad) luck would have it, the drive failed about a month of operation. They had already moved all of their CAD drawings to the server, and had no other useful copies. They blamed us, of course, and we parted ways under bad circumstances. So I don't really know what happened after that, but I did notice that the place went out of business almost immediately after.
Which leads to another of my favorite sayings: "If you think it costs a lot to do it right, just wait until you find out how much it costs to do it wrong."
"I guess the smartest thing I can do is invest in a fireproof waterproof lock box, and stick it in an attic."
In all seriousness, the best thing "mere mortals" like us can do is likely invest in a safe deposit box at a bank, and maintain current copies (paper or electronic) of important stuff there. Bank vaults are reasonably secure against theft, fire, flood, and other threats.
I've also known people who have family or close friends nearby (but not too nearby), and swap disks and papers. Not a bank vault, but at least a structure fire at your residence won't be the end for your data.
On-site backups are better then nothing, but a serious structure fire, or a theft, or even a flood can still destroy everything. By keeping copies at a reasonable distance, you've practically eliminated any chance of major data loss.
With off-site copies, if something big enough to knock out both copies at once does happen, chances are, your backups are going to be the least of your worries.
The "freezer trick" is an age-old "last ditch" trick. As people have been saying, it is not intended to be a permanent fix, but rather, something that will get the drive running (or limping) long enough to get your data off of it.
One theory is that rapid temperature changes will cause some minor expansion and contraction of the components in the drive, which could be enough to un-stick a stuck mechanism.
Another theory says that if the problem is a bad connection (solder joint, etc.), the contraction caused by freezing it could re-make the connection (at least until it warms up again).
Still another theory says that bad ICs ("computer chips") are sometimes sensitive to thermal conditions, and cooling them down might revive them. (Again, until it warms up again.)
When all this fails, you can still send it off to the professionals. I like CBL Data Recovery Technologies. You ship them the drive. They give you a free quote. If you agree, they attempt the recovery. If they succeed, you pay up and get your data back. No data, no charge.
Companies like these will do things like try to repair bad components on a PCB, try replacing the PCB from an inventory they maintain, or removing the platters in a clean room and reading the data using special equipment. It ain't cheap, but they can sometimes work minor miracles.
kimanaw: "Except it takes 8 Teradata DBAs to manage the 460 TBytes, and 23 Oracle DBAs to manage 1 Gig."
Tim C: "Where I work, we have two dozen or more active Oracle databases, and 2 DBAs."
Ummmm, that's nice. How big are they? kimanaw was talking about database size, and you are talking about database instances.
'course, I'm pretty sure this whole conversation is bullshit, but I just felt like pointing that out.
"Did you also know Wal-Mart's employee name badges have RFID tags (and have had for many years) that allow Wal-Mart to track where an employee is at any given time?"
I dunno about any of the rest of this, but I know that's false. My mom is a store manager at Wal-Mart, and their badges don't have any RFID capability in them. Not yet, anyway. It wouldn't surprise me if that's coming. But not right now. Care to tell us where you get your information?
"Badges? We don't got no badges. We don't need no stinkin badges!"
Microsoft pirates software -- this is news?
.21) -- it removed the stolen code.
Roughly ten years ago, Microsoft was found, in a court of law, to have knowingly stolen code from Stac Electronic's popular "Stacker" whole-disk compression utility, and used it in their DoubleSpace utility. That's the reason for Microsoft MS-DOS 6.21 (I think it was
Stac won the lawsuit, but it was too late -- the damage had already been done, and Stac went out of business. The 800-pound gorilla won again.
Microsoft has a very long and very successful history of coming into markets previously owned by other companies and taking them over. They never get it right on the first try, but their OS and Office cash cows can keep feeding repeated attempts until they win through sheer persistence. It becomes a war of attrition and Microsoft has far deeper reserves.
Don't believe me? Go look up this history of any of these:
One ignores Microsoft at one's own peril.
I am seriously worried about TiVo now. Microsoft has the resources to crush them, regardless of who has the better product or more recognition.
"I'm more a fan of "hard core" SF like Star Trek myself..."
Heh. A lot of people would object to calling Trek "hard core SF". The term "hard SF" is usually used to describe stuff that's heavily based on real-world modern-day science knowledge and theory. Larry Niven's "Neutron Star" is a good example.
The one thing that appears to be universally true about these genres is that if you ask X different people what the definition of "SF" is, you will get at least X different answers.
That's not a bug, it's a feature.