The major problem here is: How many people trust Microsoft not to do "other things" whilst they're installing your patches?
Sure the tech savvy users like those who frequent slashdot (and we're ignoring the rabid fascist anti-MS zealots here) will not like the idea - but the problem that Microsoft is having is that even the general public are starting to mistrust them.
A case in point is the abysmal failure of Passport. Sure it has hundreds of users, but nearly all of them were forced into getting it because they wanted a hotmail account. Very few people actually store all their personal details on there.
Until they get the trust issue sorted, people are never going knowingly let them take control.
I'm sure the SEC would disagree with you on certain technicalities, but that notwithstanding, your argument is rather meaningless. If local regulations permitted, a company could kill people for sport. If the discussion is sufficiently hypothetical, there is no practical limit to its absurdity.
There is a subtle difference between not telling people why you're not releasing an update and not telling people why you've broken the law.
Any software publisher is under no obligation to explain to the general public why something is delayed or why they aren't releasing a product. The public do often get a reason because it's good PR - but that doesn't mean that they should come to expect it.
Finally, I see no reason why the SEC would disagree. They haven't mandated that Microsoft must release updates and therefore Microsoft could, tomorrow if they so wish, stop producing any bug fixes full stop. Without reason.
Short of switching to a new operating system, there is nothing the general public could do about it. Microsoft will have broken no law in their actions.
There was a trial about ten years ago. A retired policeman went on holiday and whilst he was away his money was taken from his Halifax account via an ATM. Halifax took him to court because they said that their security was infallible and the man must have given his ATM card to someone to extract money whilst he was on holiday to defraud the Halifax. The man lost.
If you're talking about buying some PC dongle at retail, then perhaps. But not the Bluetooth chipset.
Which is all very fine and well, but the retail price is the one that we all have to pay.
If the retail price is high (which it is) then it's considered expensive. The price of the actual chipset to manufacturers means nothing to the man on the street - and in the case of bluetooth, has no bearing on the amount he/she pays to get it.
It may be dirt cheap, but the manufacturers are fleecing us for the privilidge of having it.
Not being able to unmount a removable storage device (CD, my digital camera, whatever) because some process had the bright idea of keeping an open file on it, or hanging around with it as its cwd. Nautilus used to be especially bad in this regard.
If you're doing this under Gnome or KDE, it would be far better if a window popped up (a la the "Unplug or Eject Hardware" thing in windows) with a message such as:
Sorry, but you cannot unmount/dev/whathisname right now. This is because the following processes are accessing it:
I'd far rather an operating system that allowed me to use my modem and access the internet than split hairs over the definition of a modem and, ultimately, not.
Linux has WinModem support. It's just not built into the kernel as standard.
A win"modem" isn't a modem.
Read the section on "Rationale" on the linmodems site.
I don't care if the modem I have isn't a "real" modem.
I don't care if the design for the modem I have was come up by a bunch of evil monkeys in Redmond who only want to control the modem market.
I don't want to go out and buy a new modem to replace one which works quite happily with Win2k (especially when it's in my Thinkpad).
I don't want to run a script, patch some kernel code (after installing it because I thought that most people didn't need to touch kernel code any more), compile it, configure LILO (no, it's grub now - must learn how to do that), reboot, cross my fingers and then clear up afterwards.
I just want Linux to say "You have a modem. There you go, all ready to use".
And my Linux on the internet experience will be perfect.
What was that you were saying about legitimate debate and argument?
Had he used "the GPL" instead of "Linux" it would be a legitimate argument.
The GPL is a cancer - any code which touches it needs to be GPL too. However, this is by design.
Microsoft have always stated they have a problem with the GPL. This is because they can't use any of it without their own code being GPL too - they'd rather the BSD licence.
Why spent $170 for 256 megs of space? I can spent less than double and get a faster transfer (firewire compared with USB 1.1) and 10 gigs of space with an iPod [apple.com]. That just doesn't make cents. An iPod is a much better deal.
Solid state is generally better for exercise. I personally don't like the idea of shaking a HD based MP3 player for 2 hours non-stop.
Plus it's smaller and lighter - which means I can strap it onto an arm band and not feel that it's there. Not something you can do with an iPod.
I don't think the format issue is that big a problem. A large number of closed formats have been reverse engineered to a point where you can extrapolate the pertinant information. Your biggest problem is availability of the hardware.
Take the Doomsday Project (in the UK) as an example. An Acorm Archimedies lazerdisc full of content relating to life in the 20th century. The problem came when they wanted to get the data off.. and couldn't easily find a compatible lazerdisc reader.
Of course, the format of the data is an issue. But if you can't get the data off the media, then the format of it isn't going to matter in the slightest.
who insist on a completely new design of power supply and data cable for every phone that they bring out:(
What are you talking about? Nokia's power cable hasn't changed since before the 5110 (I can't remember the model name). I work with Nokia's on a daily basis and even the new 6600 has exactly the same power lead and data cable slot.
Most manufacturers have standardised on data and power cables over their range in the last couple of years. Samsung have a square block, Siemens use a thin block, SonyEricsson have what looks like two hoops and Nokia is a round small female socket.
What Nokia does change frequently is the car adapters. The 6310i and 6100 may share the same power cable, but you can't use the same car kit.
Maybe, but often all the cool stuff that the hardware division come up with get crippled by the music division because they fear that it'll be used for mass scale piracy.
.. wearing anything too tight can damage you in some way.
This is possibly one of the most useless bits of "research" for a while and i'm amazed it didn't come out of a UK university.
My old Uni announced to a great fanfare that they had provded that "the smell of food made people hungry". Another one was that "people look fatter on television than they really are".
This was one of the great sloppy lines of logic on which the trial was built. You might have noticed that Internet Explorer versions 1, 2, and basically 3 were failures, even though they too were bundled with Windows. THis was because they sucked. Microsoft products succeed when they do what customers want.
I don't know about anyone else but I was practically "forced" onto IE when Netscape released version 4.
Yes, I'm fully aware that by bundling it in with Windows they gained an unfair advantage - but lets not forget that the demise of Netscape might have been slightly slower had they not pushed out the rubbish that was Communicator.
Check again. According to MS, the Xbox had sold 9.4M on the 30:th of June. On the 30:th of March Nintendo had sold 9.55M Gamecubes.
Still not bad for a company who up until last year didn't have anything to do with the console market.
Plus, I think you'll find that outside of Slashdot (which is about 95% of the console purchasing market) people buy the consoles to play games and not mod them for Linux/DivX's/MP3's etc.
'The UK's broadband boom is likely to falter unless more progress is made towards combating digital piracy'
This is probably true. I work in an organisation that requires content from the people that Slashdot love and then hate on an almost daily basis.
They have made it abundantly clear that if we don't support DRM, they will not give us any content. There is no room for negotiation.
As much as I hate DRM and some of the ideas behind it, I realise that when companies make that kind of demand there is nothing we can do about it. Sure, we could say "push off, we don't want you" but then that would be a monumentally dumb move and in the end, if we kept that stance up, we'd have nothing to sell. Plus, before you start - we are a big company. This is not a case of us verses the big guys.
When every single company you work with is starting to make those demands, you have no chance but to comply.
So in that sense, I think they're probably right. If content providers see that the UK is making no effort towards adopting DRM, then they simply won't sell there. Again, there is no room for negotiation - like it, or lump it.
'cause most Palm apps are small ( 1MB). IIRC, the Tungsten T2 will (like other recent Palms) come with a SD/MMC/CF slot for expansion, so they can save costs by including less onboard memory.
Maybe so, but a 2 meg data file on your PC will still be 2 meg when you stick it on your PDA. More memory is always good.
My biggest gripes is the ancient and featureless built in applications (they haven't been significantly updated since 95 or so) and the fact that there is no continious syncing a la ActiveSync. This means that I can't just grab my PDA at any time and head into a meeting knowing that it's fully up to date (I'd have to hit the sync button just before).
Slightly OT but I can't get HL1 working with DirectX or OpenGL on my GeForce 4 with DirectX 8 installed.
With DirectX set up, when hitting ESC to return to the menu I get a black screen. The options are there - but I can't see them or hope to click on them.
With OpenGL I see no text, it comes out as a block of colour.
I did a Google Groups search and the DirectX is a known problem (with no fix so it seems). But I'd like to go something better than Software rendering and I'm stuck with OpenGL - can I fix this? Any ideas?
But, my Corporate license was offered at a price of $120 per seat. So there's still a loss of $1,300 per seat, even if MS foots the bill!! Very clever, typical MS.
I'm sure if you asked for the old licence terms, they'd be happy to give them to you.
It's definately not perfect, but it's better than what it was.
So the whole "relatively open, exceedingly easy" part of the iTunes Music Center just completely passed them by. Good to know.
Given that you need most of these recommedations to run any application (even Windows) these days - it's safe enough to bet that most people will have fufilled 90% of the requirements without having to lift a finger.
The biggest issue I see is that a fair number of people will need to upgrade to Windows Media Player 9.
I installed it a couple of days ago and I wouldn't say it was exceedingly easy to do so for the non-tech savy, but close enough.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure the tech savvy users like those who frequent slashdot (and we're ignoring the rabid fascist anti-MS zealots here) will not like the idea - but the problem that Microsoft is having is that even the general public are starting to mistrust them.
A case in point is the abysmal failure of Passport. Sure it has hundreds of users, but nearly all of them were forced into getting it because they wanted a hotmail account. Very few people actually store all their personal details on there.
Until they get the trust issue sorted, people are never going knowingly let them take control.
There is a subtle difference between not telling people why you're not releasing an update and not telling people why you've broken the law.
Any software publisher is under no obligation to explain to the general public why something is delayed or why they aren't releasing a product. The public do often get a reason because it's good PR - but that doesn't mean that they should come to expect it.
Finally, I see no reason why the SEC would disagree. They haven't mandated that Microsoft must release updates and therefore Microsoft could, tomorrow if they so wish, stop producing any bug fixes full stop. Without reason.
Short of switching to a new operating system, there is nothing the general public could do about it. Microsoft will have broken no law in their actions.
When you're pretty much any company, you don't have to give reasons to everything you do. At least not publically.
Even Apple is perfectly entitled to do the same.
Good memory!
His name was John Munden and it was October 1992.
Some articles are here and here about it.
Which is all very fine and well, but the retail price is the one that we all have to pay.
If the retail price is high (which it is) then it's considered expensive. The price of the actual chipset to manufacturers means nothing to the man on the street - and in the case of bluetooth, has no bearing on the amount he/she pays to get it.
It may be dirt cheap, but the manufacturers are fleecing us for the privilidge of having it.
The longer this drags out, the more of a reason people have to stick with their comfy Microsoft products ...
If you're doing this under Gnome or KDE, it would be far better if a window popped up (a la the "Unplug or Eject Hardware" thing in windows) with a message such as:
Or something like that. Pity I can't code it.
Yes.
I'd far rather an operating system that allowed me to use my modem and access the internet than split hairs over the definition of a modem and, ultimately, not.
Linux has WinModem support. It's just not built into the kernel as standard.
A win"modem" isn't a modem.
Read the section on "Rationale" on the linmodems site.
I don't care if the design for the modem I have was come up by a bunch of evil monkeys in Redmond who only want to control the modem market.
I don't want to go out and buy a new modem to replace one which works quite happily with Win2k (especially when it's in my Thinkpad).
I don't want to run a script, patch some kernel code (after installing it because I thought that most people didn't need to touch kernel code any more), compile it, configure LILO (no, it's grub now - must learn how to do that), reboot, cross my fingers and then clear up afterwards.
I just want Linux to say "You have a modem. There you go, all ready to use".
And my Linux on the internet experience will be perfect.
Had he used "the GPL" instead of "Linux" it would be a legitimate argument.
The GPL is a cancer - any code which touches it needs to be GPL too. However, this is by design.
Microsoft have always stated they have a problem with the GPL. This is because they can't use any of it without their own code being GPL too - they'd rather the BSD licence.
Solid state is generally better for exercise. I personally don't like the idea of shaking a HD based MP3 player for 2 hours non-stop.
Plus it's smaller and lighter - which means I can strap it onto an arm band and not feel that it's there. Not something you can do with an iPod.
Take the Doomsday Project (in the UK) as an example. An Acorm Archimedies lazerdisc full of content relating to life in the 20th century. The problem came when they wanted to get the data off .. and couldn't easily find a compatible lazerdisc reader.
Of course, the format of the data is an issue. But if you can't get the data off the media, then the format of it isn't going to matter in the slightest.
What are you talking about? Nokia's power cable hasn't changed since before the 5110 (I can't remember the model name). I work with Nokia's on a daily basis and even the new 6600 has exactly the same power lead and data cable slot.
Most manufacturers have standardised on data and power cables over their range in the last couple of years. Samsung have a square block, Siemens use a thin block, SonyEricsson have what looks like two hoops and Nokia is a round small female socket.
What Nokia does change frequently is the car adapters. The 6310i and 6100 may share the same power cable, but you can't use the same car kit.
What are you talking about? Beside the hard drive and PCMCIA, there is no standard.
He was being sarcastic. Don't worry, two other people missed it too :)
Maybe, but often all the cool stuff that the hardware division come up with get crippled by the music division because they fear that it'll be used for mass scale piracy.
See the Net-MD for a classic example.
This is possibly one of the most useless bits of "research" for a while and i'm amazed it didn't come out of a UK university.
My old Uni announced to a great fanfare that they had provded that "the smell of food made people hungry". Another one was that "people look fatter on television than they really are".
Yes, really.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that they do, but I still think this is a minority.
IMHO the majority of them buy Xboxes to play games and nothing else.
I don't know about anyone else but I was practically "forced" onto IE when Netscape released version 4.
Yes, I'm fully aware that by bundling it in with Windows they gained an unfair advantage - but lets not forget that the demise of Netscape might have been slightly slower had they not pushed out the rubbish that was Communicator.
Moving from that to IE felt like a relief.
Still not bad for a company who up until last year didn't have anything to do with the console market.
Plus, I think you'll find that outside of Slashdot (which is about 95% of the console purchasing market) people buy the consoles to play games and not mod them for Linux/DivX's/MP3's etc.
Let us not forget the "success" of the Indrema ...
Pointy Haired Boss - as found in Dilbert.
Generally used to indicate the archetypal half-witted middle-management type.
This is probably true. I work in an organisation that requires content from the people that Slashdot love and then hate on an almost daily basis.
They have made it abundantly clear that if we don't support DRM, they will not give us any content. There is no room for negotiation.
As much as I hate DRM and some of the ideas behind it, I realise that when companies make that kind of demand there is nothing we can do about it. Sure, we could say "push off, we don't want you" but then that would be a monumentally dumb move and in the end, if we kept that stance up, we'd have nothing to sell. Plus, before you start - we are a big company. This is not a case of us verses the big guys.
When every single company you work with is starting to make those demands, you have no chance but to comply.
So in that sense, I think they're probably right. If content providers see that the UK is making no effort towards adopting DRM, then they simply won't sell there. Again, there is no room for negotiation - like it, or lump it.
Maybe so, but a 2 meg data file on your PC will still be 2 meg when you stick it on your PDA. More memory is always good.
My biggest gripes is the ancient and featureless built in applications (they haven't been significantly updated since 95 or so) and the fact that there is no continious syncing a la ActiveSync. This means that I can't just grab my PDA at any time and head into a meeting knowing that it's fully up to date (I'd have to hit the sync button just before).
With DirectX set up, when hitting ESC to return to the menu I get a black screen. The options are there - but I can't see them or hope to click on them.
With OpenGL I see no text, it comes out as a block of colour.
I did a Google Groups search and the DirectX is a known problem (with no fix so it seems). But I'd like to go something better than Software rendering and I'm stuck with OpenGL - can I fix this? Any ideas?
Many thanks.
I'm sure if you asked for the old licence terms, they'd be happy to give them to you.
It's definately not perfect, but it's better than what it was.
Given that you need most of these recommedations to run any application (even Windows) these days - it's safe enough to bet that most people will have fufilled 90% of the requirements without having to lift a finger.
The biggest issue I see is that a fair number of people will need to upgrade to Windows Media Player 9.
I installed it a couple of days ago and I wouldn't say it was exceedingly easy to do so for the non-tech savy, but close enough.