I don't think the point of asking is to get a certificate - MS would never allow it.
I think the point of asking is to get the 'refusal' so they can point to that.
It would be Microsoft refusing to allow competing software to run on one of its platforms.
The Linux guys could then point to Palladium, same mechanism (certs), same controller (Microsoft), same product (Linux), and point out that if Microsoft gets this in place the same thing will happen on PCs.
At the moment we're in the fuzzy denial stage, "Palladium can be turned, off", "Microsoft not that evil", "IBM Cavalry will save us",... But thats not true, you can't turn it off because your computer has to operate with other computers that will insist on it being turned on, Microsoft *is* evil , and IBM couldn't save themselves.
This gives the Linux guys something clear they can point to, namely: "Microsoft refused to give Linux a license to their platform on non-discriminatory terms."
"Ken Schwaber is a Senior Consultant with Cutter Consortium's Agile Project Management Practice and is an experienced software developer, product manager, and industry consultant. He has been in the industry for more than 30 years, starting as a programmer and, by 1984, managing IT for one of Wang's divisions. In 1985, Mr. Schwaber founded Advanced Development Methods (ADM), a company dedicated to improving the software development practice. He initiated the process management product revolution of the early 1990s, when methodologies were automated and put to practical use on ADM's Mate process manager...."
So basically a software development manager for failed Wang that went on to make a company that tells other people how to run projects.
and Mike Beedle: http://www.mikebeedle.org/ Runs two businesses, started out as a Lasers expert in 93, then in 94 switched to writing books on programming, judging by his papers.
Guys, if you post PR puff like this on Slashdot don't you think people will check if you know what you're talking about?
Can you make it faster please? My attention span is now so short thanks to the web that.... ahh whatever.
Re:google...the *in thing* for CS folks
on
Google buys Pyra Labs
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
"...sucking up quite a few of the top notch CS folks - rob pike anyone?:)"
What does CS mean? Closed Source? Cum Shot? Oh, wait, must be cum shot if they're 'sucking' up rob 'pike' (porno stage name presumably). Nevermind, answered my own question.
"Any move towards cutting off alternatives by limiting interoperability or integration options would be fraught with danger, since it would enrage customers, "
He was spot on with this - they made MSN break Opera browsers and it sure pissed off a lot of people, (especially me).
I have a side question to any Yahoo staff here.
Your terms for being submitted to Yahoo Directory include the requirement that the site must work properly across different browsers. You have MSN, msn uk etc. listed under Portals in the World Wide Web section.
Many of MSN portals still do not work properly in Opera. What procedure do you have in place for delisting those Microsoft sites that do not support different browser?
Its about how Tesla filed for patent on the radio in 1897, Marconi applied for his patent in 1900.
Marconi's patents were thrown out at first. Marconi became rich and powerful, then Tesla's patents were thrown out in place of Marconi's.
So you end up with a market in which the patent owner isn't the inventor and the whole purpose of patents - to reward the inventor, is turned on its head.
You can see the same pattern happening in software patents and the constant requests on Slashdot for prior art.
What about the problems with Genetic Engineering?
on
Goodbye, Dolly
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
What about the risk with Genetic Engineering?
A genetic engineer takes a gene sequence, millions of bases long, changes a few and observes the results.
Imagine a hacker, taking a 10MB binary, disembling it by hand, randomly tinkering with a few bytes here and there, then looking for effects when they run it. Would you consider that app bug free?
if anything the hacker has an advantage, we can't write a DNA person, but we can write a machine code program.
Dolly's problems appeared in the first generation clone. But if no problems were observed after only a few generations of breeding from dolly it would have been declared safe.
In nature though, the changes are slow and small and the testing much much longer, and even then whole species become extinct when some weakness become apparent.
But slapping a hefty fine on them is never too late. If a thief steals a purse, its too late to stop the thief after the crime, but you can always apply punishment afterwards.
No different from the number stamped on a copy of a movie to identify which copy from which master it is. If the movie gets ripped it gets traced back to the movie theater and distributor. If the music gets copied and the tag stays intact they can go bitch to the distributor and the person it was sold to.
Always adding the usual provisos:
1. Does the press release match the reality? 2. Is it one step in a bigger nasty plan?
Provided the answers are yes & no, I think this is reasonable. Anyone have more detail?
Thats a good part solution, but I also think they should be hit with a large fine. I mean big enough to make the shareholders go OUCH.
I reckon the shareholders back the management, because they think all these abuses are earning money for them. So you hit MS in the pocket and the shareholders will then keep the company on the right side of anti-trust laws.
I think its better than the EU micro-managing a solution.
Trouble is, the EU can only levy a smallish fine (a couple of billion isn't going to have the OUCH effect).
"Not that the US really does, but M$ is really a huge and powerfull company. It's value to our economy is enormous."
Do you really think so? I don't.
For a few reasons:
firstly the various companies (Netscape, Novell, Real etc.) that they have killed or are attempting to kill are all US companies, so success or failure in killing them doesn't help the US.
Secondly, they have 40 billion tied up in defensive investments and cash - thats dead money in the US economy.
Thirdly, they are no different from Wang, Polaroid or any other large company thats had success and simply churns the same old ideas. If Wang was allowed to lock us into wordprocessors, we would never have had the PC. If polaroid locked us into instant cameras, we would never have had the digital camera and so on. Who knows how many great new ideas would have come out if the PC software market was not locked down.
Fourthly, a large chunk of that money is going on foreign subsidies in markets where Microsoft isn't strong and on new development centers in India and China. They're training the US's future competition just as much as the next major US corp.
Fifth, the License 6 money came from markets where Microsoft dominates, which for the most part means they took it straight out of US IT budgets (their biggest market). They contributed to the wave of IT sackings, but they don't pick up the unemployment cheques.
Sixth, these license revenue tricks makes their earnings look better, so US NASDAQ money goes into Microsoft shares instead of other NASDAQ startups. Those other companies may be the *next* Microsoft.
So no, I don't think this is healthy, even for the US.
Where exactly was the anti-trust officer when Microsoft's websites were sending Opera bad style sheets? Isn't this exactly the sort of thing he was appointed to prevent?
So they proved to the world that the enforcement officer was just a sham concession.
Also another question. If MS can't see anything morally wrong between throwing a bad style sheet to disadvantage a competitor, how do we know that Microsoft doesn't also make the cache a little slower for Oracle, or the sockets a little slower when connecting to Sun?
I mean if they did that to code that we can see, what the hell are they doing with the code we can't see in Windows?
"EU states must give anti-piracy alliances the right to apply for raids where they can seize infringing copies and related evidence"
You have a point.
It contains a few nasties along with the good points, they can sieze good on a provisional order if there is a likely hood that the evidence will be destroyed, I think this should be restricted to "Criminal" acts, since it can be used to harrass:
"Paragraph 1 of this Article provides in favour of the right holder, even before the examination of the merits of a case has started, for a procedure involving descriptive or physical seizure if there is a demonstrable risk that the evidence may be destroyed."
But then again there has to be a "demonstrable risk that the evidence may be destroyed" made to a court and then to balance it, there is a requirement that the right holder lodge compensation they lose if their case turns out to be baseless:
"Paragraph 2 lays down that physical seizure may be made subject to the lodging of a guarantee adequate to ensure compensation for the defendant in the event of an unjustified application."
Then there is the clause I consider good, in connection with that is and isn't criminal law.
"Provisions under criminal law For the purposes of this Article, an infringement is considered serious if it is committed intentionally and for commercial purposes."
This is the big plus for me, since it stops the constant creeping of copyright into criminal law. So we won't face random police raids for alledged infringements. This draws a nice line between what qualifies as criminal and what is civil.
Maybe it would be better if they spelled out that the right to seize evidence is restricted to acts that qualify as "criminal". Since the copyright holder might use it to "fish" and "harass" people. Same with evidence from third parties, that again should be restricted to stuff that classes as "criminal" otherwise they'll go fishing.
"They won't have any way of proving possesion of the data - any sort of seizure of hdds or busts will be illegal. That means they have to prove that the defender not only downloaded the mp3, but listened to them and kept them, which would be pretty much impossible."
I'm not sure about the latter part of your comment. (Since when has copyright infringement required proof you viewed or listened to the media?)
Yeh, they would need evidence before they bring a civil court case, just as they need evidence now to get a court to order a search. But thats the point isn't it! Its stops people using laws as a way to harrass people for what could be argued to be fair-use rights.
We had an example of harrassment-by-law recently, when the FBI raided homes of alledged 'uncapped modem' users. Sure they broke they're terms of service, but since when has the FBI enforced ISPs terms of service?
Copyright infringement still comes under CIVIL law, the record companies can sue if they want.
This is only about EU law, which is eventually enforced by national police forces. i.e. its criminal law.
So all the EU are saying is that for it to be a crime under national law there has to be a commercial gain behind the copyright infringement. The normal copyright CIVIL laws are still there exactly as before.
This is quite reasonable. If the guys ripping off their stuff for profit, the police can intervene, if hes making copies for his friends, they have to take him to court.
"Apache is on par with IIS in terms of server installations,"
http://www.netcraft.com/survey/
Netcraft says Apache is 2:1 over IIS. To get a 1:1 you would have to count unused default installations.
"Oracle is only more popular than SQL Server/MSDE in data centers"
Last figures I saw from AMR gave Oracle 54% of the database market and Microsoft 21%. If you can point me to other figures, I'll happily look at them.
"You certainly didn't put any thought into your argument, you simply started with the anti-MS stance and tried to justify it." The two numbers I quoted I consider to be accepted facts. I didn't realise there was any dispute of these until you questioned them. Your turn now to put some substance on your argument.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think the point of asking is to get a certificate - MS would never allow it.
I think the point of asking is to get the 'refusal' so they can point to that.
It would be Microsoft refusing to allow competing software to run on one of its platforms.
The Linux guys could then point to Palladium, same mechanism (certs), same controller (Microsoft), same product (Linux), and point out that if Microsoft gets this in place the same thing will happen on PCs.
At the moment we're in the fuzzy denial stage, "Palladium can be turned, off", "Microsoft not that evil", "IBM Cavalry will save us",...
But thats not true, you can't turn it off because your computer has to operate with other computers that will insist on it being turned on, Microsoft *is* evil , and IBM couldn't save themselves.
This gives the Linux guys something clear they can point to, namely:
"Microsoft refused to give Linux a license to their platform on non-discriminatory terms."
Its usually Salmon or Sushi in first class.
More carry on baggage too, which might come in handy....
Bablefish is provided by Systrans (a French company), yet I don't see Overture offering anything like it.
So maybe Systrans signed an exclusive with Alta-Vista and maybe thats what the big attraction is.
Google is improving its translation, so Overture has to match. I don't see anything else in Alta-Vista thats worth the money.
A quick search on google reveals their past work:
"Ken Schwaber is a Senior Consultant with Cutter Consortium's Agile Project Management Practice and is an experienced software developer, product manager, and industry consultant. He has been in the industry for more than 30 years, starting as a programmer and, by 1984, managing IT for one of Wang's divisions. In 1985, Mr. Schwaber founded Advanced Development Methods (ADM), a company dedicated to improving the software development practice. He initiated the process management product revolution of the early 1990s, when methodologies were automated and put to practical use on ADM's Mate process manager...."
So basically a software development manager for failed Wang that went on to make a company that tells other people how to run projects.
and Mike Beedle:
http://www.mikebeedle.org/
Runs two businesses, started out as a Lasers expert in 93, then in 94 switched to writing books on programming, judging by his papers.
Guys, if you post PR puff like this on Slashdot don't you think people will check if you know what you're talking about?
Don't click the 'submit' button twice.
"Her smarts eventually got her to the Redmond"
He intelligence allowed her to climb the career ladder.
"...online equivalent of a pajama party where people take turns playing deejay"
Has Kazaa like functionality.
"You invite friends to form a posse"
You invite dirty old men pretending to be little girls across the internet to come play with you're cat.
"..the most artistic winks..."
Winks? as in eyelid batting or are the young getting totally yorlandish and too incompsatoriallyfund.
"..grinding skateboard tunes erupting.."
Oh lord, make it stop!
Can you make it faster please? My attention span is now so short thanks to the web that.... ahh whatever.
"...sucking up quite a few of the top notch CS folks - rob pike anyone?:)"
What does CS mean? Closed Source? Cum Shot? Oh, wait, must be cum shot if they're 'sucking' up rob 'pike' (porno stage name presumably). Nevermind, answered my own question.
I've added some comments to this page:
http://www.soap-flowers.com/scratch/talk.htmlScroll down the 15th Feb part
It shows you what MSn.co.uk looks like in Opera 6 and IE5, and what the IE5 version looks like when loaded into Opera.
No true. That -30 did not fix a bug in Opera 6.
. gi f
MSN UK continues not to work in Opera 7.
http://www.msn.co.uk/
and their games were so bad they did this with Technet:
http://www.soap-flowers.com/ms/technet_in_opera
"Any move towards cutting off alternatives by limiting interoperability or integration options would be fraught with danger, since it would enrage customers, "
He was spot on with this - they made MSN break Opera browsers and it sure pissed off a lot of people, (especially me).
I have a side question to any Yahoo staff here.
Your terms for being submitted to Yahoo Directory include the requirement that the site must work properly across different browsers.
You have MSN, msn uk etc. listed under Portals in the World Wide Web section.
Many of MSN portals still do not work properly in Opera. What procedure do you have in place for delisting those Microsoft sites that do not support different browser?
Read this:
PBS, Who invented Radio?Its about how Tesla filed for patent on the radio in 1897, Marconi applied for his patent in 1900.
Marconi's patents were thrown out at first. Marconi became rich and powerful, then Tesla's patents were thrown out in place of Marconi's.
So you end up with a market in which the patent owner isn't the inventor and the whole purpose of patents - to reward the inventor, is turned on its head.
You can see the same pattern happening in software patents and the constant requests on Slashdot for prior art.
What about the risk with Genetic Engineering?
A genetic engineer takes a gene sequence, millions of bases long, changes a few and observes the results.
Imagine a hacker, taking a 10MB binary, disembling it by hand, randomly tinkering with a few bytes here and there, then looking for effects when they run it. Would you consider that app bug free?
if anything the hacker has an advantage, we can't write a DNA person, but we can write a machine code program.
Dolly's problems appeared in the first generation clone. But if no problems were observed after only a few generations of breeding from dolly it would have been declared safe.
In nature though, the changes are slow and small and the testing much much longer, and even then whole species become extinct when some weakness become apparent.
I reckon GE is a much bigger risk than cloning.
Try following my URL for screen shot links if you want to see what they were up to (and still are up to - the MS sites still don't work 100% yet).
FTP:
No standard directory listing
Designed for human readable command lines not machine readability
Bad error recovery, many differing standards on restart
Password sent in plain text, not even concealed
ASCII mode! Need I say more?
HTTP: none of the above
Once again another Java win too.
It may be Linux based, but it can run Java apps along with the rest of the phone world.
Maybe its too late to unbundle XP,
But slapping a hefty fine on them is never too late.
If a thief steals a purse, its too late to stop the thief after the crime, but you can always apply punishment afterwards.
Sounds OK. (no pun)
No different from the number stamped on a copy of a movie to identify which copy from which master it is. If the movie gets ripped it gets traced back to the movie theater and distributor. If the music gets copied and the tag stays intact they can go bitch to the distributor and the person it was sold to.
Always adding the usual provisos:
1. Does the press release match the reality?
2. Is it one step in a bigger nasty plan?
Provided the answers are yes & no, I think this is reasonable. Anyone have more detail?
Thats a good part solution, but I also think they should be hit with a large fine.
I mean big enough to make the shareholders go OUCH.
I reckon the shareholders back the management, because they think all these abuses are earning money for them. So you hit MS in the pocket and the shareholders will then keep the company on the right side of anti-trust laws.
I think its better than the EU micro-managing a solution.
Trouble is, the EU can only levy a smallish fine (a couple of billion isn't going to have the OUCH effect).
"Not that the US really does, but M$ is really a huge and powerfull company. It's value to our economy is enormous."
Do you really think so? I don't.
For a few reasons:
firstly the various companies (Netscape, Novell, Real etc.) that they have killed or are attempting to kill are all US companies, so success or failure in killing them doesn't help the US.
Secondly, they have 40 billion tied up in defensive investments and cash - thats dead money in the US economy.
Thirdly, they are no different from Wang, Polaroid or any other large company thats had success and simply churns the same old ideas. If Wang was allowed to lock us into wordprocessors, we would never have had the PC. If polaroid locked us into instant cameras, we would never have had the digital camera and so on. Who knows how many great new ideas would have come out if the PC software market was not locked down.
Fourthly, a large chunk of that money is going on foreign subsidies in markets where Microsoft isn't strong and on new development centers in India and China. They're training the US's future competition just as much as the next major US corp.
Fifth, the License 6 money came from markets where Microsoft dominates, which for the most part means they took it straight out of US IT budgets (their biggest market).
They contributed to the wave of IT sackings, but they don't pick up the unemployment cheques.
Sixth, these license revenue tricks makes their earnings look better, so US NASDAQ money goes into Microsoft shares instead of other NASDAQ startups. Those other companies may be the *next* Microsoft.
So no, I don't think this is healthy, even for the US.
Yeh they really blew it with that Opera attack.
Where exactly was the anti-trust officer when Microsoft's websites were sending Opera bad style sheets? Isn't this exactly the sort of thing he was appointed to prevent?
So they proved to the world that the enforcement officer was just a sham concession.
Also another question. If MS can't see anything morally wrong between throwing a bad style sheet to disadvantage a competitor, how do we know that Microsoft doesn't also make the cache a little slower for Oracle, or the sockets a little slower when connecting to Sun?
I mean if they did that to code that we can see, what the hell are they doing with the code we can't see in Windows?
"EU states must give anti-piracy alliances the right to apply for raids where they can seize infringing copies and related evidence"
You have a point.
It contains a few nasties along with the good points, they can sieze good on a provisional order if there is a likely hood that the evidence will be destroyed, I think this should be restricted to "Criminal" acts, since it can be used to harrass:
"Paragraph 1 of this Article provides in favour of the right holder, even before the examination
of the merits of a case has started, for a procedure involving descriptive or physical seizure if there is a demonstrable risk that the evidence may be destroyed."
But then again there has to be a "demonstrable risk that the evidence may be destroyed" made to a court and then to balance it, there is a requirement that the right holder lodge compensation they lose if their case turns out to be baseless:
"Paragraph 2 lays down that physical seizure may be made subject to the lodging of a
guarantee adequate to ensure compensation for the defendant in the event of an unjustified
application."
Then there is the clause I consider good, in connection with that is and isn't criminal law.
"Provisions under criminal law
For the purposes of this Article, an infringement is considered serious if it is committed intentionally and for commercial purposes."
This is the big plus for me, since it stops the constant creeping of copyright into criminal law.
So we won't face random police raids for alledged infringements. This draws a nice line between what qualifies as criminal and what is civil.
Maybe it would be better if they spelled out that the right to seize evidence is restricted to acts that qualify as "criminal".
Since the copyright holder might use it to "fish" and "harass" people. Same with evidence from third parties, that again should be restricted to stuff that classes as "criminal" otherwise they'll go fishing.
"They won't have any way of proving possesion of the data - any sort of seizure of hdds or busts will be illegal. That means they have to prove that the defender not only downloaded the mp3, but listened to them and kept them, which would be pretty much impossible."
I'm not sure about the latter part of your comment. (Since when has copyright infringement required proof you viewed or listened to the media?)
Yeh, they would need evidence before they bring a civil court case, just as they need evidence now to get a court to order a search. But thats the point isn't it!
Its stops people using laws as a way to harrass people for what could be argued to be fair-use rights.
We had an example of harrassment-by-law recently, when the FBI raided homes of alledged 'uncapped modem' users. Sure they broke they're terms of service, but since when has the FBI enforced ISPs terms of service?
Copyright infringement still comes under CIVIL law, the record companies can sue if they want.
This is only about EU law, which is eventually enforced by national police forces. i.e. its criminal law.
So all the EU are saying is that for it to be a crime under national law there has to be a commercial gain behind the copyright infringement.
The normal copyright CIVIL laws are still there exactly as before.
This is quite reasonable. If the guys ripping off their stuff for profit, the police can intervene, if hes making copies for his friends, they have to take him to court.
"Apache is on par with IIS in terms of server installations,"
http://www.netcraft.com/survey/
Netcraft says Apache is 2:1 over IIS. To get a 1:1 you would have to count unused default installations.
"Oracle is only more popular than SQL Server/MSDE in data centers"
Last figures I saw from AMR gave Oracle 54% of the database market and Microsoft 21%.
If you can point me to other figures, I'll happily look at them.
"You certainly didn't put any thought into your argument, you simply started with the anti-MS stance and tried to justify it."
The two numbers I quoted I consider to be accepted facts. I didn't realise there was any dispute of these until you questioned them. Your turn now to put some substance on your argument.