The FSF didn't accomplish anything noteworthy without Linus' blind and aggressive campaign to write a great kernel for some strange reason.
Hmmm
Let's admit the dirty, little secret.
The FSF didn't accomplish anything noteworthy even with Linus' blind and aggressive campaign until the major competitors of Microsoft decided that dumping money and people into "free software" projects that competed with Microsoft was a good way to get revenge on Bill Gates for killing their old "centralized server computing equals high profits" model. Really. Name a project that made it big (say, 2% of the market) without back channel funding from IBM or SUN or Oracle.
There are lots of corporate computers in the Top 500 list. The difference is these are specifically computers tested using the Linpack benchmark. This is typically going to be traditional HPC clusters and not single purpose machines optimized for another need.
You WILL find a Microsoft's Ranier cluster running Windows on 2048 processors as the 116th fastest computer in the world on the Top 500 list.
There were a LOT of companies stealing the IBM BIOS code by typing in the source in the Technical Reference Manual. That was ruled illegal.
What the later cloners (including Compaq) did was take the programming reference manual, hire people who would sign a legally binding statement that they had never seen the BIOS code and do a black box reverse engineering job on the functions. The best jobs were done by Compaq (who didn't resell their clean BIOS) and Phoenix who just did a much better job than everybody else. (Including things like making sure there was a "NOT (C) IBM" where IBM had their copyright statement since IBM software looked for the letters "IBM" to only run on their own machines)
Let's see - an objective Slashdot analysis of an objective article by Mary Jo Foley as interpreted by some poster? Serious disappointment's in store for you.
Just as a start, notice that the headline talks about what Microsoft announce
d
at the Mix06 conference. Um. Hate to break it to whoever wrote that headline but Mix06 doesn't start until Next Monday as the could have easily learned by
Reading the actual article they linked to
Going to Microsoft's Mix06 website and actually reading the dates.
Bizarre. You actually argued for Case Dependance by saying that the computer should be hard on programmers to enforce discipline in typing. Wow. Do you really think that accidently typing thisDoesSomeStuff() instead of thisDoesSomeSTuff() should result in two separate objects with no warning? Should we just cut out error messages in compilers and go back to punch cards so we can all get our typing skills REALLY up to shape?
As for shifted delimiters, the best you can say is they're not that bad a problem. OK. Why have a problem at all when there are better choices. Again, bizarre.
Next you say, Make Programming Really, Really Hard. Yeah. Had this masochism thing long?
Then you move on to suggesting that we really need programming tools that make it easy to make mistakes so people can learn to fix these errors. Um, again, you really think that rather than let the compiler stop you from doing stupid things you should spend all your time doing them? Uh, huh. There's that "please beat me" thing again.
So, essentially your arguement for using C derived languages is that they're unnecessarily hard, unnecessarily unforgiving and unnecessarily error prone. Well, I'd agree with the description but not the masochism.
The point of a language is to make it easier to get ideas into practice. You seem to have missed that point by taking pride not in what you've created but by the number and stupidity of hurdles you've had to overcome to do anything. And, apparently, that's the C derived mindset.
C# has syntax that is more similar to Java, C, C++ and the like.
Actually, a lot of us would say that's precisely why they should NOT start with C#. The C derived languages inherited (no pun intended) a huge number of postively awful syntax ideas that never should have seen the light of day like case sensitivity, use of shifted characters as delimiters like { and }, determinate order of options, and so on. (And that's not even discussing the insane non-syntax ideas)
C# does help you learn that syntax but why saddle a beginner with what's effectively a ritual hazing?
A company that profits on fear and paranoia CityWatcher is publicising their insane internal security system to increase fear and paranoia and thus their sales.
In case anybody didn't check, this is a company that sells security cameras that can be remotely monitored over the Internet for cities who want to keep a close eye on their residents...
Fortunately, the GPL has given us a better way to pay people for the work of creating good software: They get paid with everybody else's work.
Really? Tell that to the janitor at Red Hat or the CEO or the sales reps. They seem to want to get paid in cash. And they've actually managed to convince you that somehow you don't deserve any of their money despite you doing the actual creative work. Yeah. Great idea.
Funny thing is, the whole "GPL" thing was originally a way for CASH-RICH geeks to pay something back for all the millions we'd made as part of a theoretical "Gift Economy" that seemed to rely on us geeks giving gifts and the marketing weasels taking them. Odd - that part seems to be skipped a lot in discussion these days.
So you're condemning Microsoft for having code written by contractors rather than employees and for not reinventing all technology from scratch. Um. That's pretty silly.
No. The Model 100 OS used the FAT file system (invented by BillG for Microsoft Disk BASIC) but that hardly makes it the same program. As for PC-DOS/MS-DOS being really CP/M (Actually the accusation is that it was stolen CP/M-86) the killer to that baseless argument is that PC-DOS/MS-DOS was out before CP/M-86 for the IBM platform. Was it similar? Sure. The whole point was to make it an easy transition for CP/M programmers. Ask Tim Patterson sometime, he wrote it.
Now, as for the other ludicrous canard that Microsoft buys all its software, lets do a list of MS products that were written in house. It won't be thorough but here are a few off the top of my head:
Windows OS family
Windows NT OS family
Windows CE family
Windows Mobile
XBOX
XBOX 360
MS-DOS (versions 2 and above including little things like subdirectories)
Word (MS-DOS, Windows, Mac)
Excel (Windows, Mac)
SQL Server (and, no it doesn't have any Sybase code anymore)
Exchange
Outlook
Visual Studio
.NET
Visual Basic
QuickBASIC
QuickPascal
C#
ASP
ASP.NET
IIS
Of course, there are hundreds more to counter the dozen or so counter-examples you could come up with but I suspect you're less interested in history than in making up stories.
Oh, and just to point out the level of cluelessness, the Apple ][ you cite as your example used a 6502 not a 6802. The 6502 was a totally different chip than the 68xx family from a different vendor with a different architecture. You'd think you'd know at least that.
Actually, no. Gates hasn't worked on any hacks personally since Altair Basic, and even then he was a part of a team. Microsoft in general buys way more technology than they ever innovate. Compare that to the elegance of using the off cycle of a 6802 microprocessor instead of a video card just to create a computer with fewer chips, and thus cheaper for consumers....one is of these things is not like the other.
Actually, yes. Bill worked on vast amounts of software himself as a developer for the first decade of Microsoft and as a individual starting with Altair Basic (he wrote almost all of it) and ending with the OS for the Radio Shack Model 100 (the first popular laptop in history and still spoken of with awe by reporters) which he wrote himself. Microsoft develops vastly more software than it buys. Oh, and the rest of your post was just as clueless and was nothing more than presenting the world the way you wish it were rather than caring about any actual demonstrable facts.
Wow! If you run as an administrator you can add a new administrator! And you can do it from the command line! Why, I'll bet you could even script it! Horrors!!! Those incompetent fools!
And people here wonder why/. is considered a silly source of information...
The only reasonable reply to bosses who say, "What if I train them and then they leave?" (which they WILL say if pushed for why they don't feel like investing in "their greatest resource") is, "What if you don't train them and they stay?"
Yep. It's all their fault and the software's fault and, and, and.
And that's why central IT management drifts toward incompetence and making their own lives easier at the cost of the users and that's why PCs took off.
Thank you for proving all my initial points.
No. What you are saying is that you were incompetent at empowering and educating your users and had to rely on taking power away from them. Your defenses for this incompetence are to say that you'd sufficiently bludgeoned the users to think it was their fault and then to blame the software.
Fascinating. Only people who manage networks are grown ups.
That's precisely the arrogance that caused the problems that the PC solved. Bet you don't say that to all *users*, like, say your CEO. Nah. Didn't think so.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmm
Let's admit the dirty, little secret.
The FSF didn't accomplish anything noteworthy even with Linus' blind and aggressive campaign until the major competitors of Microsoft decided that dumping money and people into "free software" projects that competed with Microsoft was a good way to get revenge on Bill Gates for killing their old "centralized server computing equals high profits" model. Really. Name a project that made it big (say, 2% of the market) without back channel funding from IBM or SUN or Oracle.
Well, we know they donate the money they'd have spent on a warez copy of Windows. And, really, that's the same thing, isn't it?
"Sorry, antitrust is designed to thwart that kind of tying only if one has a dominant market position"
And Apple has a 100% market position on OS X based personal computers.
"and is using the tying to extend that dominance into a different market."
Nope. Using that position to harm consumer is the original (and most common) use of antitrust law.
You see, except when dealing with Microsoft, antitrust law is supposed to protect consumers from harm and not to protect competitor's profit margins.
There are lots of corporate computers in the Top 500 list. The difference is these are specifically computers tested using the Linpack benchmark. This is typically going to be traditional HPC clusters and not single purpose machines optimized for another need.
You WILL find a Microsoft's Ranier cluster running Windows on 2048 processors as the 116th fastest computer in the world on the Top 500 list.
Rhapsody has it. Zune has it (as one option). Napster has it.
How much do you want to be that when Steve Jobs makes the announcement, he'll position it as Yet Another Apple Innovation?
And the Apple fans will not only believe it but parrot it ad nauseum.
Actually, no.
There were a LOT of companies stealing the IBM BIOS code by typing in the source in the Technical Reference Manual. That was ruled illegal.
What the later cloners (including Compaq) did was take the programming reference manual, hire people who would sign a legally binding statement that they had never seen the BIOS code and do a black box reverse engineering job on the functions. The best jobs were done by Compaq (who didn't resell their clean BIOS) and Phoenix who just did a much better job than everybody else. (Including things like making sure there was a "NOT (C) IBM" where IBM had their copyright statement since IBM software looked for the letters "IBM" to only run on their own machines)
Um. No. CP/M-86 was about three times the price of PC-DOS and didn't ship until months after IBM released PC-DOS 1.0.
You almost got the Peripheral Interchange Program (PIP) syntax right, though.
A> PIP B:FILE=A:FILE
Just as a start, notice that the headline talks about what Microsoft announce
- d
at the Mix06 conference. Um. Hate to break it to whoever wrote that headline but Mix06 doesn't start until Next Monday as the could have easily learned byOK. Taking them in order...
Bizarre. You actually argued for Case Dependance by saying that the computer should be hard on programmers to enforce discipline in typing. Wow. Do you really think that accidently typing thisDoesSomeStuff() instead of thisDoesSomeSTuff() should result in two separate objects with no warning? Should we just cut out error messages in compilers and go back to punch cards so we can all get our typing skills REALLY up to shape?
As for shifted delimiters, the best you can say is they're not that bad a problem. OK. Why have a problem at all when there are better choices. Again, bizarre.
Next you say, Make Programming Really, Really Hard. Yeah. Had this masochism thing long?
Then you move on to suggesting that we really need programming tools that make it easy to make mistakes so people can learn to fix these errors. Um, again, you really think that rather than let the compiler stop you from doing stupid things you should spend all your time doing them? Uh, huh. There's that "please beat me" thing again.
So, essentially your arguement for using C derived languages is that they're unnecessarily hard, unnecessarily unforgiving and unnecessarily error prone. Well, I'd agree with the description but not the masochism.
The point of a language is to make it easier to get ideas into practice. You seem to have missed that point by taking pride not in what you've created but by the number and stupidity of hurdles you've had to overcome to do anything. And, apparently, that's the C derived mindset.
Actually, a lot of us would say that's precisely why they should NOT start with C#. The C derived languages inherited (no pun intended) a huge number of postively awful syntax ideas that never should have seen the light of day like case sensitivity, use of shifted characters as delimiters like { and }, determinate order of options, and so on. (And that's not even discussing the insane non-syntax ideas)
C# does help you learn that syntax but why saddle a beginner with what's effectively a ritual hazing?
But the moon is still free, right? Right?
No. Reverend Moon owns the Washington Times.
Rather than actually developing programming languages we've been doing 873 virtually identical variation on C...
Pathetic, isn't it.
In case anybody didn't check, this is a company that sells security cameras that can be remotely monitored over the Internet for cities who want to keep a close eye on their residents...
Really? Tell that to the janitor at Red Hat or the CEO or the sales reps. They seem to want to get paid in cash. And they've actually managed to convince you that somehow you don't deserve any of their money despite you doing the actual creative work. Yeah. Great idea.
Funny thing is, the whole "GPL" thing was originally a way for CASH-RICH geeks to pay something back for all the millions we'd made as part of a theoretical "Gift Economy" that seemed to rely on us geeks giving gifts and the marketing weasels taking them. Odd - that part seems to be skipped a lot in discussion these days.
So you're condemning Microsoft for having code written by contractors rather than employees and for not reinventing all technology from scratch. Um. That's pretty silly.
Now, as for the other ludicrous canard that Microsoft buys all its software, lets do a list of MS products that were written in house. It won't be thorough but here are a few off the top of my head:
- Windows OS family
- Windows NT OS family
- Windows CE family
- Windows Mobile
- XBOX
- XBOX 360
- MS-DOS (versions 2 and above including little things like subdirectories)
- Word (MS-DOS, Windows, Mac)
- Excel (Windows, Mac)
- SQL Server (and, no it doesn't have any Sybase code anymore)
- Exchange
- Outlook
- Visual Studio
- .NET
- Visual Basic
- QuickBASIC
- QuickPascal
- C#
- ASP
- ASP.NET
- IIS
Of course, there are hundreds more to counter the dozen or so counter-examples you could come up with but I suspect you're less interested in history than in making up stories.Oh, and just to point out the level of cluelessness, the Apple ][ you cite as your example used a 6502 not a 6802. The 6502 was a totally different chip than the 68xx family from a different vendor with a different architecture. You'd think you'd know at least that.
Actually, yes. Bill worked on vast amounts of software himself as a developer for the first decade of Microsoft and as a individual starting with Altair Basic (he wrote almost all of it) and ending with the OS for the Radio Shack Model 100 (the first popular laptop in history and still spoken of with awe by reporters) which he wrote himself. Microsoft develops vastly more software than it buys. Oh, and the rest of your post was just as clueless and was nothing more than presenting the world the way you wish it were rather than caring about any actual demonstrable facts.
And people here wonder why /. is considered a silly source of information...
The only reasonable reply to bosses who say, "What if I train them and then they leave?" (which they WILL say if pushed for why they don't feel like investing in "their greatest resource") is, "What if you don't train them and they stay?"
The Windows NT Family has Supported the following processor architectures with Released Products
By comparison Apple has supported
Yep. It's all their fault and the software's fault and, and, and. And that's why central IT management drifts toward incompetence and making their own lives easier at the cost of the users and that's why PCs took off. Thank you for proving all my initial points.
No. What you are saying is that you were incompetent at empowering and educating your users and had to rely on taking power away from them. Your defenses for this incompetence are to say that you'd sufficiently bludgeoned the users to think it was their fault and then to blame the software.
So what you're saying is that you were incompetent at your job?
That's precisely the arrogance that caused the problems that the PC solved. Bet you don't say that to all *users*, like, say your CEO. Nah. Didn't think so.