Feel revolted if you must. Those quotation marks on either side of the statement are indicators of a spoken phrase. The comma indicates a brief pause. It is not meant to be correct according to standard written grammatical regulations. I could have used an elipses or a dash but I chose a comma because I happen to like commas.
The retail value of a product is the highest anybody's actually paid for it in a retail market.
If they retailed these CDs at $17, and even one person bought them at full price (which, as a former member of Columbia House, I have), they can say the value is $17 even if everybody else paid $8 or less. This is pretty fair...you don't want the courts forcing YOU to use some liquidation price...and I'm sure the judge in the case knew they were going to inflate the price of the merchandise, and inflated the price of the settlement accodingly.
In an unfree society, we would not be able to debate this. In an unfree society, you would be unable to go here and see naked breasts. In an unfree society, I would not be able to post this.
Don't get so stressed out at the economic censure of public speech. Get stressed out when they start trying to censor PRIVATE speech.
Actually, if the world was perfect, the RIAA would exist, and its tireless efforts as a non-profit to guarantee that artists and record producers each get a fair cut of market value CD sales would be a credit to the music loving public.
I don't know how many times I axed you guys not to nitpick on the grammar tip, but I'm fiend to break my linguistic foot off in your ass if you don't cut it. The syntax of spoken English language is not set in stone, nor is it even agreed upon by the majority of speakers. The rules of usage are set by the users and are in constant flux. Furthermore, the stylistic approach to language taken by groups attempting to assert their identity through language should not be outcried as "how not to speak," as this is insulting and devisive. Remember: the British look down on our use of "elevator" and misspelling of "color" and "civilisation."
Big Pun is not an example of how NOT to speak. It is more an example of how TO speak, if you want to be respected in the future career path of successful emceeing. This is how dialectic speech should be taught -- use "You was wrong" in the rap game, and "you were wrong" in the world of business. In the world of politics, use "you were wrong, and that's why everybody on your side of the argument is a terrorist loving traitor." It's all about the best tool for the job.
But the purpose of studies is to offer insight into the best tools for a specific set of dependencies. Decry the dependencies, and you're essentially eliminating the purpose of the study.
For example, I am working on a GIS application. I looked at offerings from ArcView and MapInfo and found that while they do what I need to do out of the box, they are quite expensive and required a license for every seat of my application. So I looked to Open Source. There I found hundreds of tools, none of which did what I needed to do. I could adapt a bunch of them to accomplish my goals, but the time to do that, as well as port them all to Windows, would cost at least ten times more than either of these applications. What's worse is that I am not a GIS expert...I can load and search maps using the interface, but I couldn't write my own algorithms to do so...and to commission the work would cost more than if I did it myself.
So, for my particular use, Open Source Software is insufficient. If I just had to display a raster graph, it would be perfect. But for my use, it doesn't work.
Now, if I had released my findings as a study -- "Developer finds Open Source No Good in Specific Area" -- slashdrones would first attack the specific area, attack me for not being bright enough to know some obscure, undocumented toolset that could have solved my problem, and then proceed to talk about how great it was that the computer in their car runs Linux, thus making it the ultimate operating system.
This is defeatest bullshit. Ignoring your problems doesn't make them go away. This is like blaming McDonalds for your big, fat ass, or blaming Microsoft because you got a virus when you didn't run the patch they released to prevent it.
Your post was fairly well written, but mistaken on the subject of turning engines on and off. Idling is by far the worst thing you can do to an engine, as coolant and oil do not flow properly at idle speeds. An idling engine winds up lubricating itself with the dirtiest part of the oil, increasing wear even more than constant usage, which is why "highway miles" are much worse than "city miles." In stop and go traffic, it isn't the and go that ruins your engine -- it's the stop.
Furthermore, stopping your engine for thirty seconds or even a few minutes in traffic is not enough to cool combustion chambers nor catylitic converters. Once they're hot, they stay hot for a good long time. Starting a warm engine is an easy thing to do; in fact, the author of Drive it forever suggests using a block warmer, even in the summer, to avoid the wear of starting and idling a cool engine. The same book suggests cutting the engine at long (30 second+) stoplights to reduce idling.
Cutting your engine rather than idling is GOOD for your car, good for the environment and can save up to 100 gallons per year. All it costs is your dignity when people with their windows rolled up and A/C blasting look at you funny for "stalling out."
The reason was that 30 years ago they didn't take into account new technological practices and new fields of oil. The practices and supplies they knew about 30 years ago HAVE been exhausted, for the most part. Drive through texas some time and look at all the dead rigs from the 1970s, or at the abandoned offshore rigs along the west coast. As far as I know, futurable situations for the exhaustion of oil at current rates of consumption increase, also taking into account usage drop-off trends as prices increase, place the death of oil in the 2040s or 2050s, where it's stayed since the 1990s.
Anyway, it's all well and good to scoff at the DATEs offered by seemingly paranoid environmentalists, but that doesn't mean we aren't in danger of running out of oil. The simple fact of oil is that it is a resource that takes millions of years to renew, and we are using it at a much faster pace than time and pressure can create it. We will eventually run out and have to move on to a new fuel source, and unless we're proactive, the switchover period could be very tense. Right now, 38% of the power for American industry comes from oil -- and it's increasing. The majority of American consumer goods are imported using trucks, trains and boats that run on oil. Thus, a high price of oil leads to overall inflation and could -- COULD, mind you, I don't think it will -- lead to a failure of our logistic infrastructure.
This is why people are worried about it. This is why we have wars for oil. It is a resource essential to the survival of the US as a superpower, and yet we don't have enough to be self sufficient. Reducing the dependence on foreign oil is one solid step towards the cessation of our meddling in the middle east, but it's expensive -- and most American companies would rather stick with the status quo than "waste" money on new solutions for a problem that isn't even here yet.
I'm not one of these "OMG destroy all cars" environmentalists -- I think science will find a way. But the way isn't oil. The petroleum age will pass on in our lifetimes, so you may as well put in your time with speedboats, ATVs and convertibles now.
Actually, the public doesn't want electric cars, but not because the "big three said so." Come on man, the big three have done a LOT of research into electric cars, it'd be shooting themselves in the foot to spend money on something they were just going to spin doctor into oblivion.
The single seat thing is obviously not a big deal with many people -- specifically, those buying motorcycles, Minis and/or convertibles. Sure, the SUV and the truck are hits...but the ENTIRE public doesn't buy them. My buddy's whole family works for Daimler-Chrysler; he's gung-ho, buy american, but he actually traded in his Dodge for a VW Golf when he started commuting into the city every day. His reasoning? Driving a truck into a city alone was an absurd waste of resources...and the US doesn't MAKE a luxurious smaller car.
#3 hits the problem on the head. We don't want to buy an $18,000 car that can only drive 40 miles. That's ludicruous. What if there's an accident and you get stuck in a traffic jam for an hour with a quickly exhausting battery? What if there's a detour, or you forget your briefcase and have to rush home?
I mean, I put about 50 miles per day on my car. That's no a whole hell of a lot...but it would mean that with this car, I would need to charge at least TWICE A DAY. What I drive to my buddy's house and he doesn't want me running up his electric bill with my wierd shoecar? What if I have to go to the mall, or the outlet mall just outside town?
A range of 100 miles I could live with. 70, as was quoted in some of Ford's electric fleet vehicles, might be enough. But 40? I could do 40 miles on a friggin' bicycle; it'd take me an extra hour to get to and from work, but I'd be better off in the long run.
Uh, OS updates are free. OS upgrades cost money. But then again, if you want your OS provider to continue developing new features, it's in your best interest to pay for a pack of them every coupld years.
Last I knew, AOL's HR department doesn't have juridiction in computer crimes, nor does the state have the right to tell AOL who to fire. AOL's done. The conviction is pending, man.
Ah, but the problem there is that so many people have turned off remote access to their SMTP servers to prevent open relays that you can't assert that the SMTP server delivering the message has ANYTHING to do with it. SMTP servers have become like corner mailboxes; I use smtp.nycap.rr.com at home and smtp.work.com at work, etc.
This is a fairly nice way of doing things, I think. It involves the provider of the internet connection with the mail delivery process. SPF seems like a good idea, but remember: it is exceedingly easy to get a new domain. To defeat the "proection" offered by SPF, all you have to do is register a domain and add your zombie as the SPF for that domain. Since a random PC doesn't know the zombie from adam, and the SPF is okay, it'll be delivered...the only difference between this, and the way things work today, is that a lot of work would go into the non-solution.
Yes. But apparently a judge, who decides these things, decided that the law didn't say that, exactly, and that he's not going to stop them from operating while a jury analyzes the situation.
If you can find a judge who will let you scream in my house while we decide whether or not it's your right to do so, more power to you, kid. I may not like it, but it's not my position to do anything about it.
Actually, the iTMS' trick is compete with free downloads through file sharing as well as traditional CD sales.
They're doing so by offering a huge catalog with instant, reliable avaialability at (moderately) high quality for a "pretty fair" price. I don't bother with the hassles (legal and logistic) of file sharing any more. I still "borrow" CDs to add to my library, but for my pick and choose singles downloads, I'll look to Apple.
Actually, if history has proven anything it's that deregulation in a telecommunications industry decreases overall expansion.
The idea is that, outside of regulation, telecommunications tend to settle on "safe" levels of service, where margins are highest but R&D suffers. With regulation, that same level becomes unsafe as margins decrease and competition on the regulated low-end service becomes stagnant. The thought process goes something like this: We are regulated. We have to charge a specific price for baseline service, where both the price and the baseline are mandated. Therefore, if we want to raise revenues, we will need to create a demand for a more expensive service ABOVE baseline, and we will need to push our boundaries into new territories. The cable industry developed cable broadband, digital cable, addressable cable and on-demand pay-per-view as means to maximize profits during their strong regulation period (from 1992 on).
Of course, if you're in a regulated industry it's hard to see the forest for the trees. It looks like the government is forcing you to do what you don't want to do, and that's lose money on a cheap baseline service (many cable companies broke even on regulated "basic" cable). Therefore, when you exit regulation the natural reaction is to raise prices, let service fall off and enjoy your freedom. Some say this is what killed various airlines after THEY became dereg'd.
Anyhow, it's good to see SBC upping their network. But I'd say that deregulation of fiber had little to do with the decision. I'd also like to point out that regulating all broadband providers to offer 512/128 service at $30 would create a ton of very profitable high speed options at the same price we pay now for that speed. Prices stay the same, but service goes up...or did you think SBC's new supercoolfast DSL was gonna be $50?
Right. That's where law comes in. Laws say that you can't enter my house unless I invite you and that you have to leave when I ask you to. If you think this is unconstitutional, you can file suit and the courts will hear you. If the courts agree, the law will be repealed, and you can scream in my living room all you want.
I think it's funny when law works the way it's supposed to, analyzing both sides without prejudice, and people get angry because their favorite side isn't being favored. If it were you being discriminated against by the populous, your rights being stepped on because people don't like how you operate, you would want a fair court, right? You wouldn't want them to say, "well, you don't get first amendment rights, because people don't like advertisements. Sorry."
If you were being allegorical about the NDA and lawsuits, I'd like to know what you were alluding to. I've never heard of Microsoft suing ex-employees and I've also found the Microsoft community to be at least as friendly when it comes to sharing code and solutions with each other.
The difference is, in the Microsoft world you'd give somebody an example on how to make soup, expecting them to make their own but with the understanding that they didn't owe you anything more than kudos. In the Linux world, you'd give them the soup and the recipe and demand a taste of any future soups made by the recipient, and god forbid he try and sell the soup!
Anyhow, my point was that having the best product is not enough, you need marketing and you need to counter false claims made by the opposition. Microsoft's funding of organizations that are working to question the obvious fallacy of "the competition is free and it's better" is understandable. I don't doubt that they're firing hefty volleys of FUD back, as this is the nature of the industry. Do you really think that DRM'd WMA files are going to cause the collapse of the economy and lead to the elimination of all rights to fair usage and free speech? I don't. In fact, I think it's preposterous. But that doesn't stop many OSS fans from using this as the central argument for Linux. Like not being able to play said files at all is going to somehow protect you from moral and social decay.
See, I've done this for about five years, and haven't had too much of a problem with viruses. In fact, I've helped a couple of friends track down exactly who has the virus.
It happens a lot in organizations, too. You don't buy a CD for every computer -- you have a single installation image for the whole company, and packs of seat licenses for each package inside. Sometimes you'll install more copies of software X than you have licenses, and lo and behold, you're a pirate. You can afford to pay it -- it's even in the budget -- but lax accounting means you forgot about it.
The true non-tinfoil hat spirit of the BSA was to assure businesses that they were all caught up with licenses. However, widespread abuse of this copy friendly policy lead to the BSA becoming an anti-pirate posse, and a way for disgruntled ex-employees to "screw" their former employers. The original spirit still lives on in the "self audit" program that MOST of slashdot regards as a means to self incriminate. Really, it's just a way to make sure everything you use is paid for in a chaotic environment...shit, the one I used at my last company reported to the IT department, not to the BSA.
Microsoft has BILLIONS of dollars, my friend, and tons of revenues comin in. They can afford to improve their products AND spread FUD. Which, if you ignore Slashdot for a minute, is exactly what they're doing. Longhorn has numerous revolutionary features, as does the next SQL server..NET keeps getting better and better. And the latest Mac office suite was the best yet.
All of these products give you a lot more than what their open source analogs offer. The open source offerings are good enough for most people, but that doesn't mean that Microsoft's software isn't any good. Soup kitchens will feed you for free; this doesn't put the restaurants out of business.
Slashdot Mirror
Feel revolted if you must. Those quotation marks on either side of the statement are indicators of a spoken phrase. The comma indicates a brief pause. It is not meant to be correct according to standard written grammatical regulations. I could have used an elipses or a dash but I chose a comma because I happen to like commas.
The retail value of a product is the highest anybody's actually paid for it in a retail market.
If they retailed these CDs at $17, and even one person bought them at full price (which, as a former member of Columbia House, I have), they can say the value is $17 even if everybody else paid $8 or less. This is pretty fair...you don't want the courts forcing YOU to use some liquidation price...and I'm sure the judge in the case knew they were going to inflate the price of the merchandise, and inflated the price of the settlement accodingly.
In an unfree society, we would not be able to debate this. In an unfree society, you would be unable to go here and see naked breasts. In an unfree society, I would not be able to post this.
Don't get so stressed out at the economic censure of public speech. Get stressed out when they start trying to censor PRIVATE speech.
Actually, if the world was perfect, the RIAA would exist, and its tireless efforts as a non-profit to guarantee that artists and record producers each get a fair cut of market value CD sales would be a credit to the music loving public.
I don't know how many times I axed you guys not to nitpick on the grammar tip, but I'm fiend to break my linguistic foot off in your ass if you don't cut it. The syntax of spoken English language is not set in stone, nor is it even agreed upon by the majority of speakers. The rules of usage are set by the users and are in constant flux. Furthermore, the stylistic approach to language taken by groups attempting to assert their identity through language should not be outcried as "how not to speak," as this is insulting and devisive. Remember: the British look down on our use of "elevator" and misspelling of "color" and "civilisation."
Big Pun is not an example of how NOT to speak. It is more an example of how TO speak, if you want to be respected in the future career path of successful emceeing. This is how dialectic speech should be taught -- use "You was wrong" in the rap game, and "you were wrong" in the world of business. In the world of politics, use "you were wrong, and that's why everybody on your side of the argument is a terrorist loving traitor." It's all about the best tool for the job.
But the purpose of studies is to offer insight into the best tools for a specific set of dependencies. Decry the dependencies, and you're essentially eliminating the purpose of the study.
For example, I am working on a GIS application. I looked at offerings from ArcView and MapInfo and found that while they do what I need to do out of the box, they are quite expensive and required a license for every seat of my application. So I looked to Open Source. There I found hundreds of tools, none of which did what I needed to do. I could adapt a bunch of them to accomplish my goals, but the time to do that, as well as port them all to Windows, would cost at least ten times more than either of these applications. What's worse is that I am not a GIS expert...I can load and search maps using the interface, but I couldn't write my own algorithms to do so...and to commission the work would cost more than if I did it myself.
So, for my particular use, Open Source Software is insufficient. If I just had to display a raster graph, it would be perfect. But for my use, it doesn't work.
Now, if I had released my findings as a study -- "Developer finds Open Source No Good in Specific Area" -- slashdrones would first attack the specific area, attack me for not being bright enough to know some obscure, undocumented toolset that could have solved my problem, and then proceed to talk about how great it was that the computer in their car runs Linux, thus making it the ultimate operating system.
This is defeatest bullshit. Ignoring your problems doesn't make them go away. This is like blaming McDonalds for your big, fat ass, or blaming Microsoft because you got a virus when you didn't run the patch they released to prevent it.
Your post was fairly well written, but mistaken on the subject of turning engines on and off. Idling is by far the worst thing you can do to an engine, as coolant and oil do not flow properly at idle speeds. An idling engine winds up lubricating itself with the dirtiest part of the oil, increasing wear even more than constant usage, which is why "highway miles" are much worse than "city miles." In stop and go traffic, it isn't the and go that ruins your engine -- it's the stop.
Furthermore, stopping your engine for thirty seconds or even a few minutes in traffic is not enough to cool combustion chambers nor catylitic converters. Once they're hot, they stay hot for a good long time. Starting a warm engine is an easy thing to do; in fact, the author of Drive it forever suggests using a block warmer, even in the summer, to avoid the wear of starting and idling a cool engine. The same book suggests cutting the engine at long (30 second+) stoplights to reduce idling.
Cutting your engine rather than idling is GOOD for your car, good for the environment and can save up to 100 gallons per year. All it costs is your dignity when people with their windows rolled up and A/C blasting look at you funny for "stalling out."
The reason was that 30 years ago they didn't take into account new technological practices and new fields of oil. The practices and supplies they knew about 30 years ago HAVE been exhausted, for the most part. Drive through texas some time and look at all the dead rigs from the 1970s, or at the abandoned offshore rigs along the west coast. As far as I know, futurable situations for the exhaustion of oil at current rates of consumption increase, also taking into account usage drop-off trends as prices increase, place the death of oil in the 2040s or 2050s, where it's stayed since the 1990s.
Anyway, it's all well and good to scoff at the DATEs offered by seemingly paranoid environmentalists, but that doesn't mean we aren't in danger of running out of oil. The simple fact of oil is that it is a resource that takes millions of years to renew, and we are using it at a much faster pace than time and pressure can create it. We will eventually run out and have to move on to a new fuel source, and unless we're proactive, the switchover period could be very tense. Right now, 38% of the power for American industry comes from oil -- and it's increasing. The majority of American consumer goods are imported using trucks, trains and boats that run on oil. Thus, a high price of oil leads to overall inflation and could -- COULD, mind you, I don't think it will -- lead to a failure of our logistic infrastructure.
This is why people are worried about it. This is why we have wars for oil. It is a resource essential to the survival of the US as a superpower, and yet we don't have enough to be self sufficient. Reducing the dependence on foreign oil is one solid step towards the cessation of our meddling in the middle east, but it's expensive -- and most American companies would rather stick with the status quo than "waste" money on new solutions for a problem that isn't even here yet.
I'm not one of these "OMG destroy all cars" environmentalists -- I think science will find a way. But the way isn't oil. The petroleum age will pass on in our lifetimes, so you may as well put in your time with speedboats, ATVs and convertibles now.
Actually, the public doesn't want electric cars, but not because the "big three said so." Come on man, the big three have done a LOT of research into electric cars, it'd be shooting themselves in the foot to spend money on something they were just going to spin doctor into oblivion.
The single seat thing is obviously not a big deal with many people -- specifically, those buying motorcycles, Minis and/or convertibles. Sure, the SUV and the truck are hits...but the ENTIRE public doesn't buy them. My buddy's whole family works for Daimler-Chrysler; he's gung-ho, buy american, but he actually traded in his Dodge for a VW Golf when he started commuting into the city every day. His reasoning? Driving a truck into a city alone was an absurd waste of resources...and the US doesn't MAKE a luxurious smaller car.
#3 hits the problem on the head. We don't want to buy an $18,000 car that can only drive 40 miles. That's ludicruous. What if there's an accident and you get stuck in a traffic jam for an hour with a quickly exhausting battery? What if there's a detour, or you forget your briefcase and have to rush home?
I mean, I put about 50 miles per day on my car. That's no a whole hell of a lot...but it would mean that with this car, I would need to charge at least TWICE A DAY. What I drive to my buddy's house and he doesn't want me running up his electric bill with my wierd shoecar? What if I have to go to the mall, or the outlet mall just outside town?
A range of 100 miles I could live with. 70, as was quoted in some of Ford's electric fleet vehicles, might be enough. But 40? I could do 40 miles on a friggin' bicycle; it'd take me an extra hour to get to and from work, but I'd be better off in the long run.
Any VW TDI model with a 15 gallon tank will have a range around 600 miles. Just to stick up for "dino-juice burners."
And the big difference? The TDI is a production car. The Tzero is a production sample and a lot of high hopes.
Oh, and I hope those Lithium Ion batteries are user replacable. You'll probably have to pry off the hood with a screwdriver.
Uh, OS updates are free. OS upgrades cost money. But then again, if you want your OS provider to continue developing new features, it's in your best interest to pay for a pack of them every coupld years.
Impossible. The man could never work AOL technical support. He doesn't speak Svengali.
Last I knew, AOL's HR department doesn't have juridiction in computer crimes, nor does the state have the right to tell AOL who to fire. AOL's done. The conviction is pending, man.
Ah, but the problem there is that so many people have turned off remote access to their SMTP servers to prevent open relays that you can't assert that the SMTP server delivering the message has ANYTHING to do with it. SMTP servers have become like corner mailboxes; I use smtp.nycap.rr.com at home and smtp.work.com at work, etc.
This is a fairly nice way of doing things, I think. It involves the provider of the internet connection with the mail delivery process. SPF seems like a good idea, but remember: it is exceedingly easy to get a new domain. To defeat the "proection" offered by SPF, all you have to do is register a domain and add your zombie as the SPF for that domain. Since a random PC doesn't know the zombie from adam, and the SPF is okay, it'll be delivered...the only difference between this, and the way things work today, is that a lot of work would go into the non-solution.
I only need one command when I find myself at the command line:
exit
I find it makes life a lot more worthwhile.
Fuck emacs. Fuck vi. Fuck pico. It's all about echo.
Yes. But apparently a judge, who decides these things, decided that the law didn't say that, exactly, and that he's not going to stop them from operating while a jury analyzes the situation.
If you can find a judge who will let you scream in my house while we decide whether or not it's your right to do so, more power to you, kid. I may not like it, but it's not my position to do anything about it.
Actually, the iTMS' trick is compete with free downloads through file sharing as well as traditional CD sales.
They're doing so by offering a huge catalog with instant, reliable avaialability at (moderately) high quality for a "pretty fair" price. I don't bother with the hassles (legal and logistic) of file sharing any more. I still "borrow" CDs to add to my library, but for my pick and choose singles downloads, I'll look to Apple.
Actually, if history has proven anything it's that deregulation in a telecommunications industry decreases overall expansion.
The idea is that, outside of regulation, telecommunications tend to settle on "safe" levels of service, where margins are highest but R&D suffers. With regulation, that same level becomes unsafe as margins decrease and competition on the regulated low-end service becomes stagnant. The thought process goes something like this: We are regulated. We have to charge a specific price for baseline service, where both the price and the baseline are mandated. Therefore, if we want to raise revenues, we will need to create a demand for a more expensive service ABOVE baseline, and we will need to push our boundaries into new territories. The cable industry developed cable broadband, digital cable, addressable cable and on-demand pay-per-view as means to maximize profits during their strong regulation period (from 1992 on).
Of course, if you're in a regulated industry it's hard to see the forest for the trees. It looks like the government is forcing you to do what you don't want to do, and that's lose money on a cheap baseline service (many cable companies broke even on regulated "basic" cable). Therefore, when you exit regulation the natural reaction is to raise prices, let service fall off and enjoy your freedom. Some say this is what killed various airlines after THEY became dereg'd.
Anyhow, it's good to see SBC upping their network. But I'd say that deregulation of fiber had little to do with the decision. I'd also like to point out that regulating all broadband providers to offer 512/128 service at $30 would create a ton of very profitable high speed options at the same price we pay now for that speed. Prices stay the same, but service goes up...or did you think SBC's new supercoolfast DSL was gonna be $50?
Really? Advertising isn't protected under the first amendment?
That's news to me. It'd be news to a lawyer too. Enlighten thyself. And mods, let's try not to mark patently false statements as +1, Insightful.
Right. That's where law comes in. Laws say that you can't enter my house unless I invite you and that you have to leave when I ask you to. If you think this is unconstitutional, you can file suit and the courts will hear you. If the courts agree, the law will be repealed, and you can scream in my living room all you want.
I think it's funny when law works the way it's supposed to, analyzing both sides without prejudice, and people get angry because their favorite side isn't being favored. If it were you being discriminated against by the populous, your rights being stepped on because people don't like how you operate, you would want a fair court, right? You wouldn't want them to say, "well, you don't get first amendment rights, because people don't like advertisements. Sorry."
If you were being allegorical about the NDA and lawsuits, I'd like to know what you were alluding to. I've never heard of Microsoft suing ex-employees and I've also found the Microsoft community to be at least as friendly when it comes to sharing code and solutions with each other.
The difference is, in the Microsoft world you'd give somebody an example on how to make soup, expecting them to make their own but with the understanding that they didn't owe you anything more than kudos. In the Linux world, you'd give them the soup and the recipe and demand a taste of any future soups made by the recipient, and god forbid he try and sell the soup!
Anyhow, my point was that having the best product is not enough, you need marketing and you need to counter false claims made by the opposition. Microsoft's funding of organizations that are working to question the obvious fallacy of "the competition is free and it's better" is understandable. I don't doubt that they're firing hefty volleys of FUD back, as this is the nature of the industry. Do you really think that DRM'd WMA files are going to cause the collapse of the economy and lead to the elimination of all rights to fair usage and free speech? I don't. In fact, I think it's preposterous. But that doesn't stop many OSS fans from using this as the central argument for Linux. Like not being able to play said files at all is going to somehow protect you from moral and social decay.
See, I've done this for about five years, and haven't had too much of a problem with viruses. In fact, I've helped a couple of friends track down exactly who has the virus.
It happens a lot in organizations, too. You don't buy a CD for every computer -- you have a single installation image for the whole company, and packs of seat licenses for each package inside. Sometimes you'll install more copies of software X than you have licenses, and lo and behold, you're a pirate. You can afford to pay it -- it's even in the budget -- but lax accounting means you forgot about it.
The true non-tinfoil hat spirit of the BSA was to assure businesses that they were all caught up with licenses. However, widespread abuse of this copy friendly policy lead to the BSA becoming an anti-pirate posse, and a way for disgruntled ex-employees to "screw" their former employers. The original spirit still lives on in the "self audit" program that MOST of slashdot regards as a means to self incriminate. Really, it's just a way to make sure everything you use is paid for in a chaotic environment...shit, the one I used at my last company reported to the IT department, not to the BSA.
Microsoft has BILLIONS of dollars, my friend, and tons of revenues comin in. They can afford to improve their products AND spread FUD. Which, if you ignore Slashdot for a minute, is exactly what they're doing. Longhorn has numerous revolutionary features, as does the next SQL server. .NET keeps getting better and better. And the latest Mac office suite was the best yet.
All of these products give you a lot more than what their open source analogs offer. The open source offerings are good enough for most people, but that doesn't mean that Microsoft's software isn't any good. Soup kitchens will feed you for free; this doesn't put the restaurants out of business.