What it really boils down to is this. Microsoft knows quite well what Edward Yourdon wrote about "good enough" software. So long as they keep IE "good enough" for the majority of users, they won't get that many defections.
You might argue that IE isn't "good enough" but for the vast majority of people, it is. At least as far as they're concerned.
Microsoft staved off a lot of problems with SP2, which really goes a long way toward making IE "almost good enough". So long as they can address major security holes within a decent amount of time, people will be content to wait for all these big changes that will happen in IE7.
Until web sites start breaking, some major IE related worm comes along that claims 99% of the users systems, or something equally as serious. They won't budge more than a few percentage points.
Of course it doesn't hurt MS that they have to keep IE around anyway to run Windows Update, or use the help system, run Quicken or a number of other apps.
Also, you are now changing your tune. Your original message said that MS hadn't done anything to make.NET cross platform.
The fact of the matter is, if MS had wanted it to be Windows only, they wouldn't have standardized it. They wouldn't have created Rotor. They wouldn't have made the core runtime portable. They wouldn't have done a lot of different things.
You are confusing the runtime with with the libraries. Libraries are just interfaces. Java is still java even if you're not using Swing, or if you are using a native interface library.
The fact that the core runtime is designed to be cross platform is what makes it cross platform. That core runtime has also been released (called Rotor) on BSD.
It's quite easy to make platform dependant Java. The point of being cross platform is that it's relatively easy to port, not that it's write once run anywhere (which even Java isn't for anything non-trivial).
Actually, yes. MS did do a lot of work to make.NET cross platform, they just didn't actually implement it on multiple platforms, though they did release Rotor for BSD. What is the point of ISO standardization if you don't intend it to be cross platform?
My experience with H1B's has been the opposite. They've seldom been real world qualified. They lacked experience, and their edcuation was questionable. One guy had a Phd in Database Design, but his code had the worst defect rate of anyone in the company. He used exceptions as goto's for crying out loud.
That's not to say i've never met a qualified H1B, I have.
My problem with the H1B program is when similarly or better qualified citizens are laid off in favor of H1B replacements. Don't say it doesn't happen. It happens all the time.
It seems you worked for an honorable company. The fact of the matter is, this doesn't happen on a regular basis.
First, large companies already have immigration lawyers and the process in place to handle H1B's, so the more they hire, the more amortization they get on the process. Second, "median salary" is very subjective, and there are a lot of loopholes. What's worse, the INS generally relies on the H1B to report their sponsor if they fail to meet the requirements, but doing so will almost certainly get them fired and then deported.
Then there are the consulting companies that specialize in farming out H1B's on a contract basis.
You are right, for a small company, hiring an H1B is largely more work than it's worth, unless a contract company comes along and gives them a deal they can't pass up.
Grantsdale may not be able to, but the new nForce 4 chipset can. Of course they will already be selling this with 2 x8 slots, but you will be able to buy non-SLI versions with a x16 that is programmable. In fact, Gigabyte has one.
I disagree. Some MP3 players need to be small and lightweight, but that depends entirely upon need. I don't need it to be, I need it to carry my song library around with me. That's why iPod's are so popular, despite them not being all that small and lightweight.
Because of the bluetooth, the phone need not be phone shaped either, it need only use a bluetooth headset, or even a wired one for that matter. Not a big deal. It can have a 'brick' form factor.
I don't consider any of your arguments to be valid for a user like myself. I don't *WANT* a small light mp3 player. I don't *WANT* anything phone shaped. And honestly, my Clie NZ90 worked great as a camera, wasn't awkward at all. I want something I can bolt on my hip and use as needed.
I don't want multiple devices. Too much stuff to keep track of, too much stuff to carry. Too many different devices to maintain (each with different battery lives, charging stations, PC connections, etc..)
Now, I'll grant you that phone companies will try to screw you.. maybe.. at least Verizon is doing the right thing with their 3G network, giving you unlimited surfing for a fixed price.
Digital convergence is the only way this technology will become truly useful. Otherwise, it's just too much work.
Over the years, I've bought a few PDA's, but they've never lived up to their hype for me. Their usefulness was limited for a variety of reasons.
What I want is the holy grail. The single device that I can use for everything. MP3's, PDA, Cell Phone, Digital Camera, etc...
HP has a few nice units coming out that are almost there, but they're missing the crucial part: A hard drive ala iPod.
Give me a PDA with wireless (802.11 + Cell/3G wireless), bluetooth, 10-40GB hard drive (hell, i'd even settle for the 4GB iPod mini hard drive at this juncture), 128MB+ memory, fast processor (200Mhz+), 1.3MP Digital Camera or better (with flash!), sliding minikeyboard that slides over a larger display (kind of like a cross between the Clie NZ90 and the Treo or Zaurus)...
Then make it convenient to carry and use. Obviously you're not going to get all those features into an ultra compact form factor, but something the size of an NZ90 should be doable.
The big problem, of course, is power. That sucker will eat batteries like they're potato chips. So, there needs to be a big, high power battery, and the ability to swap batteries easily without disturbing the applications.
No, you're not stealing the content by not viewing the ads, but you are putting a nail in the coffin of free content provided by advertising, or worse, letting those that do view the ads vote on which content to support, leaving you without a voice.
Advertisers pay for content, and they are more likely to pay for content that potential customers will watch. That is, they'll pay for things they see a financial return with.
Do you really want to leave the programming decisions up to those that view the ads? As an ad viewer, you have the abilty to vote with your pocket book. Support advertisers that fund programming you like.
Honestly, this is one reason why all the good shows get taken off the air, while all the stupid ones go on forever. Advertisers see the benefit from funding shows where the majority of viewers aren't smart enough to avoid the advertising. You need to make advertisers aware that you like the content they're sponsoring, and that you're a paying customer.
Yet how many of us simply take the route of turning off the TV, or not watching it at all, because there's nothing there we like? Be more active in your viewing if you want good content. The same is true of web sites.
I think there's a huge difference between what TiVo does and what adblock does. With TiVo, you decide if you want to skip the ads each and every time they come up. But you're not really skipping them, you're just fast forwarding through them, and still able to absorb some of their content. There have been a lot of times i've ff'd and stopped to view an ad that I caught periphially.
Even if you get up and walk out of the room, or change channels during a commercial, you are still making hte conscious decision to do so each and every time, not simply setting a feature on the TV to automatically go black everytime a commercial comes on.
With adblock you're not even given the opportunity to view an ad you might consider viewing, if you were interested in it.
It's the job of advertisers to make advertising interesting. If it's not, we won't pay attention. But they are paying for the content you are enjoying, and you should at least give them the opportunity to hold up their side of the deal.
The point here is this. Whether or not you believe it's your right to ignore ads (it is), you have to understand that if enough people do that, the model will change, and it probably won't change for the better. turning the internet into a giant subscription service would not be good for information, nor would having 50+% of it dissappear because they could no longer make money through advertising.
So go ahead, be selfish. Just don't complain when things change for the worse.
I'm kind of curious. What made you think it was ok to do such a lop sided comparison?
You used an OS that was released over 2 years ago, yet you used currently patched Linux and Mac boxes by way of comparison?
I'd bet if you used circa 2002 unpatched Linux PC, it would also be compromised relatively quickly, considering all the rootkits and script kiddie exploits out there for various vulnerabilities.
All you've proven was that unpatched boxes are vulnerable.
Windows Installer is NOT as developed or as robust as the package management systems on Linux. That is why so many programs leave so much crap behind them when you un-install them on Windows.
BWahahahahahahahahahahahahah
Oh my lord.. I laughed forever.
No. You don't have even the slightest idea of why things are left behind on Windows. The first reason is laziness. Many programmers simply do not bother to write a decent uninstall script.
The second reason is ignorance. Many developers haven't taken the time understand all the issues associated with installs, and elect for the safe route of not uninstalling anything that might be used by anyone else. There are mechanisms in place to do reference counting, but many people just don't take the time to educate themselves.
The third reason is arrogance. They leave things behind in some failed attempt at copyright protection. If those files or registry entries or whatever still exist the next time the program is installed, don't give them a free trial. This is arrogance because they believe they have the right to litter peoples systems with their stuff for their own reasons.
Neither deborphan or debfoster are part of the package management system. In fact, one might argue that the fact they were written shows a weakness in the package manager, at least as far as the package manager is *supposed* to work.
Windows installer is very mature, and very extensive in what it can do. Here's a link to the SDK, so you can see the functionality it does that dpkg or apt do not, for example dpkg and apt cannot do transactioned installs and rollback a partially installed, or upgraded program to it's earlier state. Sure you can use other programs within your dpkg or apt script to accomplish these details, but they're not part of the installer itself.
In fact, these package managers have very little actual functionality. They list a number of files, where they're installed to, and what dependancies are needed, and they maintain a database of installed packages. That's about it, next to being able to execute scripts to do the configuration work. That's not to say that this is a bad thing. It works.
The problem is that you're making bold claims about both the package managers of Linux and the Windows installer, when you clearly have little idea what either of them really do or capable of.
You appear to be making some assumptions here. First, you assume there isn't a package management system in Windows. There is, and it's quite extensive. It's called the Windows Installer, and there are a ton of tools out there to utilize it correctly.
EDS choose the easy route, which is simply copying files, rather than implementing a full package deployment, something they would have had to do under Linux as well, and likewise would have probably failed to do so.
They did precisely what you are saying they would have had to have done on Linux. There was no reason for them to do what they did, but they did it anyways.
First of all, that's precisely what happened here. EDS broke the update packages by bypassing them entirely using a third party product that did not do version checking.
Second, The machines wouldn't boot, therefore there is no way to run any kind of script to fix the problem, thus your third solution is likely what happened in this case as well. However, it takes some time to manually go to 60,000 machines and fix them, even if it only takes 5 minutes per machine.
The exact same thing would have happened with any OS, including Linux, had EDS decided to bypass the normal version checking tools and do things themselves, creating an unbootable system.
The problem is that any patent reform would ultimately punish the little guy. For example, your requirement of implementing that patent within a year would punish those people without sufficient resources to do so. The idea behind patents was to protect the little guy, to give them the time necessary to produce a real product from their invention.
Any system that helps the little guy can be abused by the big guy.
Also, remember that Linux kernel hackers are not working in a vacuum. They have access to research and published papers on patented technology. While they may not have intentionally implemented something they knew to be patented, one doesn't always realize where their ideas come from. It may be that they read about the technology in passing, which spurred their ideas. Also, many of the people working on the kernel have worked commercial OS's, and again may have had access to technology that they've consciously forgotten about, but their subconscious still remembers.
So, unless it's possible to prove that the inventor had no access to the technology in any way, it's not possible to use the "obvious" argument. And since it's quite difficult to prove such a situation, it's unlikely to hold up.
You seem to have a skewed idea of how the patent system works. Just because someone else independantly invents the same thing doesn't mean the original patent is invalid. It's quite possible for two people to independantly invent the same thing without it being an obvious invention.
Remember, that patents are based on algorithms, not implementations. Also remember that what may seem obvious today, wasn't necessarily obvious when it was first invented. There may be multiple ideas based on the invention, which gives someone the idea for a similar invention to the first. It seems obvious, since you've had access to the derived inventions, but it wasn't in the first place.
For example, I once had the "bright" idea to invent a circuit that would allow you to utilize the high beam filament of a headlight when the low beam filament burnt out. After doing a patent search, I found that it had already been patented, in various ways, several times. Is this an obvious invention? I don't think so, even though I independantly came to the same conclusions as other people. It was based on a number of other ideas and events, and I probably would not have had the idea if I hadn't already seen technology similar to it.
Have you ever bothered to read ProCD v Zeidenberg and it's appeal, or perhaps even the volumes of work written about it. This is the defacto case law on the subject of shrink wrap licenses, and it clearly says that so long as there is a means to return the product and receive a refund, then the party need not be able to read the license prior to purchase.
Before anyone jumps down my throat about not being able to return the copy of Windows that comes with an OEM PC, you can. You have to return the PC with it, though. While you might not like that, it is an option, and thus meets the criteria set by the appeals court.
Slashdot Mirror
What it really boils down to is this. Microsoft knows quite well what Edward Yourdon wrote about "good enough" software. So long as they keep IE "good enough" for the majority of users, they won't get that many defections.
You might argue that IE isn't "good enough" but for the vast majority of people, it is. At least as far as they're concerned.
Microsoft staved off a lot of problems with SP2, which really goes a long way toward making IE "almost good enough". So long as they can address major security holes within a decent amount of time, people will be content to wait for all these big changes that will happen in IE7.
Until web sites start breaking, some major IE related worm comes along that claims 99% of the users systems, or something equally as serious. They won't budge more than a few percentage points.
Of course it doesn't hurt MS that they have to keep IE around anyway to run Windows Update, or use the help system, run Quicken or a number of other apps.
Also, you are now changing your tune. Your original message said that MS hadn't done anything to make .NET cross platform.
The fact of the matter is, if MS had wanted it to be Windows only, they wouldn't have standardized it. They wouldn't have created Rotor. They wouldn't have made the core runtime portable. They wouldn't have done a lot of different things.
You are confusing the runtime with with the libraries. Libraries are just interfaces. Java is still java even if you're not using Swing, or if you are using a native interface library.
The fact that the core runtime is designed to be cross platform is what makes it cross platform. That core runtime has also been released (called Rotor) on BSD.
It's quite easy to make platform dependant Java. The point of being cross platform is that it's relatively easy to port, not that it's write once run anywhere (which even Java isn't for anything non-trivial).
Actually, yes. MS did do a lot of work to make .NET cross platform, they just didn't actually implement it on multiple platforms, though they did release Rotor for BSD. What is the point of ISO standardization if you don't intend it to be cross platform?
Yes, anyone with money can get a certificate, but they can't get a certificate that claims their program comes from the mozilla foundation.
My experience with H1B's has been the opposite. They've seldom been real world qualified. They lacked experience, and their edcuation was questionable. One guy had a Phd in Database Design, but his code had the worst defect rate of anyone in the company. He used exceptions as goto's for crying out loud.
That's not to say i've never met a qualified H1B, I have.
My problem with the H1B program is when similarly or better qualified citizens are laid off in favor of H1B replacements. Don't say it doesn't happen. It happens all the time.
It seems you worked for an honorable company. The fact of the matter is, this doesn't happen on a regular basis.
First, large companies already have immigration lawyers and the process in place to handle H1B's, so the more they hire, the more amortization they get on the process. Second, "median salary" is very subjective, and there are a lot of loopholes. What's worse, the INS generally relies on the H1B to report their sponsor if they fail to meet the requirements, but doing so will almost certainly get them fired and then deported.
Then there are the consulting companies that specialize in farming out H1B's on a contract basis.
You are right, for a small company, hiring an H1B is largely more work than it's worth, unless a contract company comes along and gives them a deal they can't pass up.
Grantsdale may not be able to, but the new nForce 4 chipset can. Of course they will already be selling this with 2 x8 slots, but you will be able to buy non-SLI versions with a x16 that is programmable. In fact, Gigabyte has one.
I disagree. Some MP3 players need to be small and lightweight, but that depends entirely upon need. I don't need it to be, I need it to carry my song library around with me. That's why iPod's are so popular, despite them not being all that small and lightweight.
Because of the bluetooth, the phone need not be phone shaped either, it need only use a bluetooth headset, or even a wired one for that matter. Not a big deal. It can have a 'brick' form factor.
I don't consider any of your arguments to be valid for a user like myself. I don't *WANT* a small light mp3 player. I don't *WANT* anything phone shaped. And honestly, my Clie NZ90 worked great as a camera, wasn't awkward at all. I want something I can bolt on my hip and use as needed.
I don't want multiple devices. Too much stuff to keep track of, too much stuff to carry. Too many different devices to maintain (each with different battery lives, charging stations, PC connections, etc..)
Now, I'll grant you that phone companies will try to screw you.. maybe.. at least Verizon is doing the right thing with their 3G network, giving you unlimited surfing for a fixed price.
Digital convergence is the only way this technology will become truly useful. Otherwise, it's just too much work.
Over the years, I've bought a few PDA's, but they've never lived up to their hype for me. Their usefulness was limited for a variety of reasons.
What I want is the holy grail. The single device that I can use for everything. MP3's, PDA, Cell Phone, Digital Camera, etc...
HP has a few nice units coming out that are almost there, but they're missing the crucial part: A hard drive ala iPod.
Give me a PDA with wireless (802.11 + Cell/3G wireless), bluetooth, 10-40GB hard drive (hell, i'd even settle for the 4GB iPod mini hard drive at this juncture), 128MB+ memory, fast processor (200Mhz+), 1.3MP Digital Camera or better (with flash!), sliding minikeyboard that slides over a larger display (kind of like a cross between the Clie NZ90 and the Treo or Zaurus)...
Then make it convenient to carry and use. Obviously you're not going to get all those features into an ultra compact form factor, but something the size of an NZ90 should be doable.
The big problem, of course, is power. That sucker will eat batteries like they're potato chips. So, there needs to be a big, high power battery, and the ability to swap batteries easily without disturbing the applications.
I don't care what it costs. I'd pay it.
No, you're not stealing the content by not viewing the ads, but you are putting a nail in the coffin of free content provided by advertising, or worse, letting those that do view the ads vote on which content to support, leaving you without a voice.
Something to think about is this:
Advertisers pay for content, and they are more likely to pay for content that potential customers will watch. That is, they'll pay for things they see a financial return with.
Do you really want to leave the programming decisions up to those that view the ads? As an ad viewer, you have the abilty to vote with your pocket book. Support advertisers that fund programming you like.
Honestly, this is one reason why all the good shows get taken off the air, while all the stupid ones go on forever. Advertisers see the benefit from funding shows where the majority of viewers aren't smart enough to avoid the advertising. You need to make advertisers aware that you like the content they're sponsoring, and that you're a paying customer.
Yet how many of us simply take the route of turning off the TV, or not watching it at all, because there's nothing there we like? Be more active in your viewing if you want good content. The same is true of web sites.
I think there's a huge difference between what TiVo does and what adblock does. With TiVo, you decide if you want to skip the ads each and every time they come up. But you're not really skipping them, you're just fast forwarding through them, and still able to absorb some of their content. There have been a lot of times i've ff'd and stopped to view an ad that I caught periphially.
Even if you get up and walk out of the room, or change channels during a commercial, you are still making hte conscious decision to do so each and every time, not simply setting a feature on the TV to automatically go black everytime a commercial comes on.
With adblock you're not even given the opportunity to view an ad you might consider viewing, if you were interested in it.
It's the job of advertisers to make advertising interesting. If it's not, we won't pay attention. But they are paying for the content you are enjoying, and you should at least give them the opportunity to hold up their side of the deal.
The point here is this. Whether or not you believe it's your right to ignore ads (it is), you have to understand that if enough people do that, the model will change, and it probably won't change for the better. turning the internet into a giant subscription service would not be good for information, nor would having 50+% of it dissappear because they could no longer make money through advertising.
So go ahead, be selfish. Just don't complain when things change for the worse.
XP SP1 does come with a firewall, and it's relatively easy to turn on. It's just not on by default.
You aren't even aware that XP has always had a firewall????
I'm kind of curious. What made you think it was ok to do such a lop sided comparison?
You used an OS that was released over 2 years ago, yet you used currently patched Linux and Mac boxes by way of comparison?
I'd bet if you used circa 2002 unpatched Linux PC, it would also be compromised relatively quickly, considering all the rootkits and script kiddie exploits out there for various vulnerabilities.
All you've proven was that unpatched boxes are vulnerable.
Windows Installer is NOT as developed or as robust as the package management systems on Linux. That is why so many programs leave so much crap behind them when you un-install them on Windows.
BWahahahahahahahahahahahahah
Oh my lord.. I laughed forever.
No. You don't have even the slightest idea of why things are left behind on Windows. The first reason is laziness. Many programmers simply do not bother to write a decent uninstall script.
The second reason is ignorance. Many developers haven't taken the time understand all the issues associated with installs, and elect for the safe route of not uninstalling anything that might be used by anyone else. There are mechanisms in place to do reference counting, but many people just don't take the time to educate themselves.
The third reason is arrogance. They leave things behind in some failed attempt at copyright protection. If those files or registry entries or whatever still exist the next time the program is installed, don't give them a free trial. This is arrogance because they believe they have the right to litter peoples systems with their stuff for their own reasons.
Neither deborphan or debfoster are part of the package management system. In fact, one might argue that the fact they were written shows a weakness in the package manager, at least as far as the package manager is *supposed* to work.
Windows installer is very mature, and very extensive in what it can do. Here's a link to the SDK, so you can see the functionality it does that dpkg or apt do not, for example dpkg and apt cannot do transactioned installs and rollback a partially installed, or upgraded program to it's earlier state. Sure you can use other programs within your dpkg or apt script to accomplish these details, but they're not part of the installer itself.
In fact, these package managers have very little actual functionality. They list a number of files, where they're installed to, and what dependancies are needed, and they maintain a database of installed packages. That's about it, next to being able to execute scripts to do the configuration work. That's not to say that this is a bad thing. It works.
The problem is that you're making bold claims about both the package managers of Linux and the Windows installer, when you clearly have little idea what either of them really do or capable of.
MS Windows Installer SDK
You appear to be making some assumptions here. First, you assume there isn't a package management system in Windows. There is, and it's quite extensive. It's called the Windows Installer, and there are a ton of tools out there to utilize it correctly.
EDS choose the easy route, which is simply copying files, rather than implementing a full package deployment, something they would have had to do under Linux as well, and likewise would have probably failed to do so.
They did precisely what you are saying they would have had to have done on Linux. There was no reason for them to do what they did, but they did it anyways.
The author of the XP patch script, in this case, was EDS themselves. They broke it, they screwed up.
EDS wasn't using SUS, they were using a third party product called Radia, which bypasses the standard update protocols and just copies files.
First of all, that's precisely what happened here. EDS broke the update packages by bypassing them entirely using a third party product that did not do version checking.
Second, The machines wouldn't boot, therefore there is no way to run any kind of script to fix the problem, thus your third solution is likely what happened in this case as well. However, it takes some time to manually go to 60,000 machines and fix them, even if it only takes 5 minutes per machine.
The exact same thing would have happened with any OS, including Linux, had EDS decided to bypass the normal version checking tools and do things themselves, creating an unbootable system.
And if you're pushing out updates to Windows, you're almost assuredly using a Windows update package that also checks OS versions.
Guess what? EDS chose to do it themselves using a third party product rather than use the much more mature and safe existing update tools.
Now who's fault is that?
The problem is that any patent reform would ultimately punish the little guy. For example, your requirement of implementing that patent within a year would punish those people without sufficient resources to do so. The idea behind patents was to protect the little guy, to give them the time necessary to produce a real product from their invention.
Any system that helps the little guy can be abused by the big guy.
Also, remember that Linux kernel hackers are not working in a vacuum. They have access to research and published papers on patented technology. While they may not have intentionally implemented something they knew to be patented, one doesn't always realize where their ideas come from. It may be that they read about the technology in passing, which spurred their ideas. Also, many of the people working on the kernel have worked commercial OS's, and again may have had access to technology that they've consciously forgotten about, but their subconscious still remembers.
So, unless it's possible to prove that the inventor had no access to the technology in any way, it's not possible to use the "obvious" argument. And since it's quite difficult to prove such a situation, it's unlikely to hold up.
You seem to have a skewed idea of how the patent system works. Just because someone else independantly invents the same thing doesn't mean the original patent is invalid. It's quite possible for two people to independantly invent the same thing without it being an obvious invention.
Remember, that patents are based on algorithms, not implementations. Also remember that what may seem obvious today, wasn't necessarily obvious when it was first invented. There may be multiple ideas based on the invention, which gives someone the idea for a similar invention to the first. It seems obvious, since you've had access to the derived inventions, but it wasn't in the first place.
For example, I once had the "bright" idea to invent a circuit that would allow you to utilize the high beam filament of a headlight when the low beam filament burnt out. After doing a patent search, I found that it had already been patented, in various ways, several times. Is this an obvious invention? I don't think so, even though I independantly came to the same conclusions as other people. It was based on a number of other ideas and events, and I probably would not have had the idea if I hadn't already seen technology similar to it.
Have you ever bothered to read ProCD v Zeidenberg and it's appeal, or perhaps even the volumes of work written about it. This is the defacto case law on the subject of shrink wrap licenses, and it clearly says that so long as there is a means to return the product and receive a refund, then the party need not be able to read the license prior to purchase.
Before anyone jumps down my throat about not being able to return the copy of Windows that comes with an OEM PC, you can. You have to return the PC with it, though. While you might not like that, it is an option, and thus meets the criteria set by the appeals court.