"An old Mozilla exploit continues to crash almost any version/flavor of Mozilla with just 5 lines of plain HTML code (no JavaScript, ActiveX, etc.). If you're very brave, you can test/crash your Mozilla by going here.
Yet an equivalent bug (because they're bugs, not vulnerabilities) in IE makes the front page and generates hundreds of 'M$ is teh sux' posts.
Ahhhh, but this is open source, so the bug must be 'less bad'.
First of all, comparing.NET and Java isn't very fair; you have to compare.NET and J2EE. When you level the playing field, most of his arguments readily fall apart."
.NET is not a specification for a distributed application server, J2EE is. The advantages or disadvantages quoted in the article in regards to.NET exist whether you're building a simple console application, a desktop forms-based client, a simple web app or a massively distributed, multi-tier one.
I don't necessarily agree with the article itself in some points, but I can't see how the comparison is "unfair" because it's not being made to J2EE but the Java 'platform' (Sun's words, not mine) itself. C# vs. Java would be a completely different thing, but that would be based on the features of the language and the runtime library. J2EE is just an extension of that.
Because EVERY API ever released from Redmond has SUCKED ASS
And POSIX is beautiful? Yeah, fork() is waaay better than CreateProcess(). pthreads are much better than CreateThread(). Sure.
At least they document their APIs in a human-readable form, unlike other operating systems that assume you've been writing for their API every day over the last 20 years.
Re:So much for M$'s one redeeming contribution...
on
Microsoft's Athens PC
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· Score: 1
People wanted to do things with this new consumer appliance.
What people?
Granted, for the most part it was a hobbyist market, but the need was there.
Oh, hobbyists. Yeah, pretty huge market, that.
Windows didn't bring PCs to the masses. I'll repeat this again, because you obviously didn't get it the first time.
My, my. Am I getting your panties all in a bunch here?
Suddenly, there was a machine available at commodity pricing (for businesses, anyway)
The keyword here being 'businesses', of course. As opposed to 'normal consumers' and 'Uncle Joe'.
The fact that IBM wouldn't license DOS to anyone else gave MS the fingerhold they needed
Soooo... are you saying I'm right?
The only reason MS got where they are is because of restrictive (monopolistic) licensing and pricing practices.
Gosh, I lost you there. Both Compaq and Microsoft saw an opportunity and they took it after IBM dropped the ball. If you think for a second that IBM themselves wouldn't have engaged in exactly the same 'monopolistic practices' and raked in a couple of hundred billion in the process instead of seeing this PC thing as a passing fad and going back to their mainframes, you're probably living in a different world than I am.
People bought computers because they either had a great interest in them, or they had some task that only a computer could perform
People didn't have 'great interest' in computers until they became commoditized and usable enough. Did I say 'commoditized' again? Yes, and just in case you didn't catch it the first time, that was Microsoft's doing. How they got to that point is irrelevant to this, so spare me the 'Microsoft is evil' party line, mmkay?
Just as an example, what do you think keeps Intel in business? Surely you don't think they would have pumped processor after processor, year after year - for a hobby market? For a business-only market with a 5 million unit volume instead of 50 million?
Not because they came with Windows
Bzzzt, wrong. They bought them precisely because they came with Windows, and a mouse and they could buy cool apps for it. No one else (including IBM) saw much future in the PC, so no one else bothered to compete with Microsoft there. Talk about dropping the ball, eh?
At this point, given your severe lack of knowledge of the history of the computing market
Yes, I just picked up this computer thing last year, thanks.
I'm giving serious thought to the possiblity that you may be a troll.
Of course I'm a troll! What else would I be, what with my differing opinion and all. Do you insult people who tell you your fly is open, too?
Re:So much for M$'s one redeeming contribution...
on
Microsoft's Athens PC
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Bullshit. What brought PCs down in price was the relentless march of technology and manufacturing
This 'relentless march' has to be driven by something. Mainly sales (i.e., money and the incentive to make it). That driving force was Windows 3x, whether you like it or not.
Otherwise the PC would have been confined to businesses and used either like a typewriter or a small mainframe. Certainly the consumer market for PCs wouldn't have existed. What we'd had ended up with is more expensive and proprietary Macs that would have captured 1/4th (at most) of the overall potential market.
Windows was not the best OS of its time (heck, even GEO was better), but it helped bring PCs to the masses. Again, whether you think that's 'bullshit' or not.
Re:So much for M$'s one redeeming contribution...
on
Microsoft's Athens PC
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Nope. That $400 'boxen' you can hack from stuff bought at Fry's Electronics is brought to you by your friends at Microsoft. "Commoditized" is the word we're loking for here.
The PC would have gotten exactly nowhere without an OS (crappy as Win3x was) to take along for the ride. A few 'killer apps' like Lotus 1-2-3, Word, Excel, PageMaker and Corel DRAW! helped as well.
That's the biggest irony in open source 'advocacy'. According to people like ESR, Microsoft set the computing world back at least a decade. So that means I must've missed Graphical Linux 1.0 when I was busy making Windows 3.0 work on top of DR DOS.
Well how about OSDN or RH or Lindows invest a coupla billion dollars of their money, pair with some big company capable of producing decent hardware (Sun?!) and do the same thing.
After all, Linux should be more than capable of this - it's a proven, reliable and universally liked desktop OS. So I'm sure the combination will sell like popcorn and provide some much needed competition for the Great Satan.
I mean, gawd. A business plan and money to back it up. How dare they.
Well, GNUstep (which is what I tend to use) is based on OpenStep, which is a WM specification originally released by NeXT (in fact, Cocoa is based on it as well). I think the main thing for GNUstep is the fact that it's based on Objective-C++. I assume AfterStep is also based on OpenStep, but I'm not sure. AfterStep I *really* don't like =)
Now, whether or not fvwm2 is either also based on the NeXT specification, or the other WMs are "based" on it because they used the code, I really don't know.
I've never really liked fvwm, dunno. It's a powerful WM, but it takes oogles of time to set just right.
Actually, Windows 2000 and up already have this kind of thing built in. Instead of showing all the h^xx0rz here how l337 you are for trying to mouth off about how Microsoft should "innovate", you might want to show up at one of Mark Russinovich's conferences one of these days. Perhaps you'll learn something useful. And you'll figure out just who "innovated" this (and no, it's not Microsoft).
It's not a vulnerability. It's a bug. It's a stupid bug, but a bug nonetheless. I used to consistently crash Mozilla on some Hotmail pages. But I didn't submit it to/. as a great story to hysterical giggles from the peanut gallery.
So let's say that this "leasing" is really taking place in the form of an Application Service Provider. Let's say then that (as per the GPL - flame me if I'm wrong, please) I modified OpenOffice or something and I'm offering it as an online service. But I'm not giving you the source. Technically I'm not engaging in redistribution of a modified version of something covered by the GPL, right?
OTOH, if leasing is physical distribution of the software under some sort of license, then I suppose the GPL would apply.
When I was working in Mexico in the mid-90s as an independent consultant one of my clients (a small hospital in northern Mexico) had an application that they used to track patient payments. I'm not sure what it was based on, maybe dBase? Anyway, it used some sort of database. But it's possible it was propietary.
This was 1994-ish and the IT guy there told me that they had been running that thing for about 7 years. That means it had been in use since '87 or so.
About four months ago I got an email from one of my old subcontractors, who is now employed full time at that hospital (which is not small anymore). His note was unrelated to this application, which I did not touch or otherwise use. He was asking me somethng about one of the other systems I did work on there. But he mentioned it in passing, and I just remembered when I saw this article.
So that means that they've been using it for the better part of 15-16 years.
When you're third world, you tend to keep stuff around until it breaks =)
Did you order the PC you "shopped around for" from Dell or somewehre similar or did you build it yourself?
Built it myself.
you are probably not in Apple's target market
I understand that. But the OP made it sound like everyone in the world who uses a PC falls within Apple's target market, and "myths" prevent us from realizing that, we poor wankers =)
I'd like to educate my peers on the alternatives to Windows (Linux and Open Source)
Just don't be an obnoxious zealot. Education is about being informed of alternatives, not cramming the One True Thing down people's throats.
Show them what's good about Linux/BSD/etc and what's good about Windows and viceversa. Then let them make their own minds. But bashing Windows (or viceversa) to make Linux look better is not a very bright idea, as experience has always shown.
I.e., don't use Slashdot as your source for enlightenment. Then you'll be OK.
Granted, it is more expensive, but not horribly so
Er... it's almost $1,000 more. That's normally a factor for most people, I'd say.
I didn't see any mention as to whether your computer contained DVI out, Firewire, Gigabit ethernet or any wireless connectivity
DVI, no. I have a monitor I actually like and I'm not about to shell $2,000 for a comparable size LCD. Firewire, yes. On the Audigy card. Everything else I don't need or want. Besides, if I wanted to add wireless, for example, I could do it for under $100 bucks.
Like I said, you're free to spend your money any way you want. But your argument here doesn't hold much water.
Power Mac G4 1GHz DUAL/1.256MB/80GB/DVD-R/CDRW/GigE/56K - Refurbished $1,824.00
Still well $800 over a comparable *refurbished* PC.
Slashdot Mirror
And here's a link, just to reinforce my 'troll' rating!
Yet an equivalent bug (because they're bugs, not vulnerabilities) in IE makes the front page and generates hundreds of 'M$ is teh sux' posts.
Ahhhh, but this is open source, so the bug must be 'less bad'.
I don't necessarily agree with the article itself in some points, but I can't see how the comparison is "unfair" because it's not being made to J2EE but the Java 'platform' (Sun's words, not mine) itself. C# vs. Java would be a completely different thing, but that would be based on the features of the language and the runtime library. J2EE is just an extension of that.
Well that's ironic.
And POSIX is beautiful? Yeah, fork() is waaay better than CreateProcess(). pthreads are much better than CreateThread(). Sure.
At least they document their APIs in a human-readable form, unlike other operating systems that assume you've been writing for their API every day over the last 20 years.
What people?
Granted, for the most part it was a hobbyist market, but the need was there.
Oh, hobbyists. Yeah, pretty huge market, that.
Windows didn't bring PCs to the masses. I'll repeat this again, because you obviously didn't get it the first time.
My, my. Am I getting your panties all in a bunch here?
Suddenly, there was a machine available at commodity pricing (for businesses, anyway)
The keyword here being 'businesses', of course. As opposed to 'normal consumers' and 'Uncle Joe'.
The fact that IBM wouldn't license DOS to anyone else gave MS the fingerhold they needed
Soooo... are you saying I'm right?
The only reason MS got where they are is because of restrictive (monopolistic) licensing and pricing practices.
Gosh, I lost you there. Both Compaq and Microsoft saw an opportunity and they took it after IBM dropped the ball. If you think for a second that IBM themselves wouldn't have engaged in exactly the same 'monopolistic practices' and raked in a couple of hundred billion in the process instead of seeing this PC thing as a passing fad and going back to their mainframes, you're probably living in a different world than I am.
People bought computers because they either had a great interest in them, or they had some task that only a computer could perform
People didn't have 'great interest' in computers until they became commoditized and usable enough. Did I say 'commoditized' again? Yes, and just in case you didn't catch it the first time, that was Microsoft's doing. How they got to that point is irrelevant to this, so spare me the 'Microsoft is evil' party line, mmkay?
Just as an example, what do you think keeps Intel in business? Surely you don't think they would have pumped processor after processor, year after year - for a hobby market? For a business-only market with a 5 million unit volume instead of 50 million?
Not because they came with Windows
Bzzzt, wrong. They bought them precisely because they came with Windows, and a mouse and they could buy cool apps for it. No one else (including IBM) saw much future in the PC, so no one else bothered to compete with Microsoft there. Talk about dropping the ball, eh?
At this point, given your severe lack of knowledge of the history of the computing market
Yes, I just picked up this computer thing last year, thanks.
I'm giving serious thought to the possiblity that you may be a troll.
Of course I'm a troll! What else would I be, what with my differing opinion and all. Do you insult people who tell you your fly is open, too?
This 'relentless march' has to be driven by something. Mainly sales (i.e., money and the incentive to make it). That driving force was Windows 3x, whether you like it or not.
Otherwise the PC would have been confined to businesses and used either like a typewriter or a small mainframe. Certainly the consumer market for PCs wouldn't have existed. What we'd had ended up with is more expensive and proprietary Macs that would have captured 1/4th (at most) of the overall potential market.
Windows was not the best OS of its time (heck, even GEO was better), but it helped bring PCs to the masses. Again, whether you think that's 'bullshit' or not.
The PC would have gotten exactly nowhere without an OS (crappy as Win3x was) to take along for the ride. A few 'killer apps' like Lotus 1-2-3, Word, Excel, PageMaker and Corel DRAW! helped as well.
That's the biggest irony in open source 'advocacy'. According to people like ESR, Microsoft set the computing world back at least a decade. So that means I must've missed Graphical Linux 1.0 when I was busy making Windows 3.0 work on top of DR DOS.
Alternatives are such a nice thing.
Well how about OSDN or RH or Lindows invest a coupla billion dollars of their money, pair with some big company capable of producing decent hardware (Sun?!) and do the same thing.
After all, Linux should be more than capable of this - it's a proven, reliable and universally liked desktop OS. So I'm sure the combination will sell like popcorn and provide some much needed competition for the Great Satan.
I mean, gawd. A business plan and money to back it up. How dare they.
Doh!
Now, whether or not fvwm2 is either also based on the NeXT specification, or the other WMs are "based" on it because they used the code, I really don't know.
I've never really liked fvwm, dunno. It's a powerful WM, but it takes oogles of time to set just right.
Guess I'm just weird like that.
BlackBox is also nice.
Hope that helps!
Slow news night, eh?
OTOH, if leasing is physical distribution of the software under some sort of license, then I suppose the GPL would apply.
This was 1994-ish and the IT guy there told me that they had been running that thing for about 7 years. That means it had been in use since '87 or so.
About four months ago I got an email from one of my old subcontractors, who is now employed full time at that hospital (which is not small anymore). His note was unrelated to this application, which I did not touch or otherwise use. He was asking me somethng about one of the other systems I did work on there. But he mentioned it in passing, and I just remembered when I saw this article.
So that means that they've been using it for the better part of 15-16 years.
When you're third world, you tend to keep stuff around until it breaks =)
What do you propose "we" "do" about it? Or are you just karma whoring by using the tried and tested "let's give this story a Microsoft angle"?
Hi. This is the RIAA. Please gives us a call at your earliest convenience. We have flexible payment plans. Thanks.
Didja mean Faux News? =)
Like coverage of Linux. Naturally.
OK, that was cruel.
Yes!
Built it myself.
you are probably not in Apple's target market
I understand that. But the OP made it sound like everyone in the world who uses a PC falls within Apple's target market, and "myths" prevent us from realizing that, we poor wankers =)
Just don't be an obnoxious zealot. Education is about being informed of alternatives, not cramming the One True Thing down people's throats.
Show them what's good about Linux/BSD/etc and what's good about Windows and viceversa. Then let them make their own minds. But bashing Windows (or viceversa) to make Linux look better is not a very bright idea, as experience has always shown.
I.e., don't use Slashdot as your source for enlightenment. Then you'll be OK.
Er... it's almost $1,000 more. That's normally a factor for most people, I'd say.
I didn't see any mention as to whether your computer contained DVI out, Firewire, Gigabit ethernet or any wireless connectivity
DVI, no. I have a monitor I actually like and I'm not about to shell $2,000 for a comparable size LCD. Firewire, yes. On the Audigy card. Everything else I don't need or want. Besides, if I wanted to add wireless, for example, I could do it for under $100 bucks.
Like I said, you're free to spend your money any way you want. But your argument here doesn't hold much water.
Power Mac G4 1GHz DUAL/1.256MB/80GB/DVD-R/CDRW/GigE/56K - Refurbished $1,824.00
Still well $800 over a comparable *refurbished* PC.