I'm no lawyer, so I can't speak to the issue of copyright on email recieved.
But, if Mindcraft IS violating anything whatsoever, I trust Joe Barr will call them on it. I can almost guarantee that since they posted this, they have recieved even jucier responses from him. Joe's been going back and forth with MS advocates/trolls since FIDONET (anyone out here ever been a BBS operator? and if so, do you have some archives? grep for Joe!... dpeterso, you out there?).
I expect Joe's website has a link to this in the form of a "badge of honor".
this is nothing new to OS/2 users. some zealots get nasty and sure enough the press reports every ugly sentence and portrays the users of grassroots movement X as a bunch of jerks.
Joe Barr I see is listed repeatedly. What a suprise. Joe was just as much (if not more) mean and nasty in "support" of OS/2.
Get used to it. It's gonna get worse. The net and deadtree rags will pick this up and ram it hard. History repeats itself.
Asking everyone to stop ranting nastily is not gonna do a lick of good. Regardless of whether.001% of linux users (or trolls) or 10% rant like the examples, the perception will be put forth that this is standard linux user behavior.
team OS/2 was essentially slandered into oblivion by this process. looks like the crosshairs are now fixed on a new target.
To Linux' advantage, the like of Nick Petreley are at the forefront of influential rags like Infoworld, he can help give persepective on this. in the dark days of OS/2, we had Stewart Alsop in Nicks place, shamelessly furthuring the FUD and encouraging the false perceptions.
I too have had very similar experiences, the last one just yesterday. Your submittal is quite timely.
Should you get out? hell no.
Personally, I am just going to work on making my resumes more buzzword compliant, as well as dumb down the details.
My recent experience came from my repeated use of aparently obscure tech terms like "Perl", "CGI", "Apache" in my resume. Despite applying for a specifically Perl/Apache/CGI web position, the "gatekeeper" had to ask me:
"do you know CGI web programming"
I expect your story will induce some to submit their own tricks for getting resumes past the barely-qualified "gatekeepers". I know I could use a few tips.
I find it interesting that this article went into such exceptional detail about the business plans of these 3 companies. (At least the article mentions that Microsoft is the MS in MSNBC).
Hasn't MS been able to have such excruciating details excluded from public view, in order to protect their business plans?
I don't recall such intimate details of similar MS docs being published. Just excerpts of email, high level plans, etc. Perhaps this a decision by the particular publishers?
I do think the article tried to deliver a resouding "look at all this competition MS has" to the readers. As if some javabox running AOL is gonna run MS out of business. We all know it's actually gonna be linux:-)
The only character missing from this insidious consipracy is ex-borlander and wannabe MS killer, P. Kahn. that would make Bill tremble, eh?
I had part of an SuSE order backordered (No. Calif office) and it was left unfilled until I finally called them about it over two months later. Appeared they had the stock, just lacked follow through. It was a big suprise to me, I expected they'd be shipping asap, since it was a completed sale and their payment was awaiting fulfillment.
I ended up cancelling the remaining order (except the t-shirt, which showed up in two days after the call).
While I wasn't impressed with the failure to follow through, I have been more than satisfied with the SuSE 5.3 product itself.
Being able to upgrade from a local retailer will be a good thing.
I am not suprised by how "blatant" this whole episode is. Relatviely speaking, this is nothing to the FUD heaped on OS/2 by MS after the split with IBM.
Those who witnessed "OS Wars" of the early, mid-90's are well aware of the ability of MS to bludgeon superior technology into submission through marketing.
The main (and important) difference I can see is that today, MS has less credibity, and their target, being Linux in this case has no corporate "owner" like IBM. IBM sat idle while MS (and the IBM PC Company, "MS' biggest customer") and the trade press trashed OS/2 into oblivion.
I do not see the Linux community standing idle and taking it, ESR's post is a fine example of this. Note that benchmarks like mindcrafts were done with NT vs OS/2 over and over with no real response from IBM. The OS/2 users who protested were categorized as "zealots" and written off. On Compuserve, false user accounts (see "Barkto") were alleged to have been created to depict "real users" who then went on and on about serious OS/2 errors that "trashed my hard disk" and "my backups", ad nauseum. (Such reports were then published in PC Week, Infoworld, Computerworld to drive home the FUD).
MS has it's hands full trying to FUD Linux into obscurity. But be assured, they are experienced at this type of "warfare" and will attack furiously. With such deep pockets, I expect they feel a war of attrition is winnable.
This remains to be seen. The Linux community is not an impotent IBM. And today, we have a maturing internet to get some real facts distributed that the traditional "legacy" trade rags tend to not report.
my very first pc was a cheapo 8086 Amstrad with (only) dual 360k floppies.
It took 4 floppies to boot into the GEM environment (which was essentially useless anyway without a hard drive).
I quickly learned about batch files, which enabled me to get rid of the prompts to load the final 3 diskettes. (you mean I don't HAVE to load GEM?).
The 3 disk GEM exercise was nothing to trying to compile a QuickBasic program for my first programming course. (insert disk 2, remove, insert disk 3, removed, insert disk 6, removed, insert disk 9, remove, insert disk 1, after 5 minutes of swapping diskettes.....hello world!).
And I thought I'd heard the last of GEM....
When billg claims "GEM is dead", we'll know it's back:-)
If Alsop's saying it, it must be something that helps leverage/maintain the win-stranglehold and would be detrimental to Linux and anything else of computing value.
You surely degrade/. credibility by linking any thoughts penned by one of the alltime great MS FUDsters.
Go back and read some of his editorials in Infoworld's past (Petereley now resides in his old space), and see why he most surely would be under strong consideration as the very first inductee to the MS FUDWriters Hall of Fame.
With the Win2000 release being pushed back further and further, with reports of 30 some-odd million lines of new code, and a public track record of delays it is aparent that more delays are all but inevitable for the "next generation" windows.
Rather than continually admitting the trouble and being subjected to the fallout of unmet expectations, Ms can announce a "redirection" that introduces "source code" would buy MS time and provide and excuse for further delay of the Win200x release. (They can point to OpenMozilla's delays as an example).
By releasing "source code" in what will surely be a more limiting license than Apple's, they can get the benefits of being "open source" (it's hip, it's in and it's geeky), as well as stall the movement to the "alternative" open source system, Linux by corporate america. Business will get all the benefits of Windows support and applications, as well as the coolness of "open source", why move to the unsupported, application (re: Office) deprived Linux?
In the same way Win95 was used to check the short-lived momentum of OS/2 (recall that it was billed as a true preemptive multitasker, when it was really DOS/Win4 in fancy dress), the "open" Win200x can be used in an attempt to hinder broad Linux acceptance.
Can it work like it did against IBM? I personally don't think so.
Seems that to support Office in all it's glorious proprietary-ness, a special MS Linux will be required.
Then when Office "breaks" in "non-standard" Linuxes, MS can show that it's Linux is the one true Linux. No doubt the objective trade rags will proclaim the one true Linux, the superior of Linuxes, with it's "standard" Linux GUI (as seen in win9x). and OLE-X compliance. and because of the lack of stability and standards in the non-true-linuxes, of course IE6 only works on MSLinux.....
....after they fail on their first in-house distro attempt, who they gonna buy/assimilate as to get it right? maybe a slashdot poll can be done to find out gets to be "it"??:-)
with IBM. this is a behomoth that has been known to cut off it's own arm just to piss off it's one good leg.
the ibm PC company refused to even preload OS/2 because it was in bed with MS and OS/2 threatened that relationship. the infighting involved between the software and hardware sides of ibm in past years is stupifying.
look forward 5 years. assuming MS gets off easy again with DoJ (not a leap is it?) and they get their iron fist around the pc world even further.... do you think for a second that some IBM suit won't trade away the yikes and/or any other wishy-washy licensing scheme for a big chunk o' microsoft pie?
i'm not saying ibm is gonna betray (honestly or dishonestly) the open source community due to such licenses this thread concerns, but don't rule out anything.
if there is a loophole, expect it will be exploited. and this loophole is pretty damn large.
Corel is beating a dead horse. If ANYONE would know about trying to emulate/port win apps it would be IBM, which did one hell of a job trying to support win 3.1 and derivatives on OS/2.
IBM even tried to get Lotus to deliver SmartSuite using a similar angle (Open32 vs. Win32). It exists, years after the promises...now that no one cares. Corel has nowhere near the deep pockets IBM has and does not have the commitment IBM did have (they promised OS/2 for 10 more years to large corp customers, and to IBM's credit they keep such promises). Promises are a dime a dozen at Corel.
Corel is grasping at straws and Copeland always gives good press.
gotta side with the aclu on this one, "spam" can be defined in so many ways it's ridiculous.
I also concur with the post about slashdot effect potentially being affected. if your site causes a "spam" of the toshiba website, I imagine Virginia could confiscate your computers and jail you.
just another BS law for sake of "protecting" the world from itself.
don't most emailers come with filter technology now? I get spammed once and once only from site X, I don't need some dumb ass legistator saving me from email I don't want.
I recently heard from a damn reliable source that approx 1000 heads are now involved at MS with Linux. In what capacity and to what end was not disclosed.
COBOL programmers making 6 figures? I know at least 10 people who do COBOL/DB2/CICS who make that EASY as consultants. not even Y2K, just normal maintentance tasks. amazing yes, and very cool for those making it.
on the other hand, I also know many, many more COBOL programmers who make the 30-40k. to be honest, some of them are lucky to have a job at all (thanks to large beaurocracies who never seem to be able to fire anyone), as they have zero initiative to learn anything new. they wait for their employer to drop something better in their lap. it doesn't work that way.
As a former COBOL programmer who "got out", I did it on my own with hard work, late night classes and personal education via tools like linux/apache/perl/gnu. I know others who have no initiative, but just bitch and moan because their manager does not magically advance their careers/skillsets. (they also tend to not enjoy hearing me tell them this).
and if a magical contract to do COBOL appears, I can do that if I choose (although unlikely).:-)
I agree, the world is far from fair. it's up to us to carve out our own living. i have found that if you work hard, smart and ethically, things will work out.
as far as the "hoax", I think there is a HUGE shortage of experienced quality people. there is more to IS than coding. People, communication, analysis skills and adherence to proven development and design disciplines are much more important than just the ability to create "cool code".
Most of the very best "programmers", while showing deep appreciation for, wouldn't necessarily be winning any perl obsfucation contests.:-)
3. Because everything suck so much we need to have govt hold our hands and protect us against those evil foreigners that will work for peanuts (i.e. we won't get rich quick if we have competition).
If you are a foreigner and are being recruited to come to the USA then you should aquaint yourself with our job market.
If you desire to be taken advantage of and paid "peanuts" for the in-demand skills you have worked so hard to obtain then you should resign yourself to being resented by those of us who have worked just as hard if not harder to achieve the pay scales we now hold.
You speak of "jose" working in Taco Bell. Consider the "Joses" that work in our fields picking lettuce for "peanuts", living in squalor waiting for immigration to catch up with them. If you take a "peanuts" job in the USA doing in-demand high tech work then it is YOU who are remembling "Jose", the migrant farmworker.
Apologies to those named Jose, in fact I have a very good friend and former colleague named Jose who comes from El Salvador. Jose makes good money. And so should YOU if you come here and work hitech.
Until then, work for 27k and pay 50% to taxes and flame those of us who have been able to get a decent chunk out of corporations who care not about us, but about the bottom line.
btw, My wife is an IS manager for a large insurance firm, she hires out of college to do IBM Mainframe work starting at about $55k US dollars + retirement and insurance benefits.
Why would you consider undercutting a good market? Why not join it, instead of working to wreck it?
Slashdot Mirror
Lets say SuSE GPL's YAST.
So what, is redhat gonna use it? Debian? Caldera?
bfd on gpl'ing a distro's config tool. The value added of the config is the only thing that makes distro's truly worth paying for.
if basing your linux buying decision is on the config tools, SuSE wins. if it's on truly free software, isn't Debian filling that need?
I think the bulk of snivelers are trolls.
I'm no lawyer, so I can't speak to the issue of copyright on email recieved.
... dpeterso, you out there?).
But, if Mindcraft IS violating anything whatsoever, I trust Joe Barr will call them on it. I can almost guarantee that since they posted this, they have recieved even jucier responses from him. Joe's been going back and forth with MS advocates/trolls since FIDONET (anyone out here ever been a BBS operator? and if so, do you have some archives? grep for Joe!
I expect Joe's website has a link to this in the form of a "badge of honor".
this is nothing new to OS/2 users. some zealots get nasty and sure enough the press reports every ugly sentence and portrays the users of grassroots movement X as a bunch of jerks.
.001% of linux users (or trolls) or 10% rant like the examples, the perception will be put forth that this is standard linux user behavior.
Joe Barr I see is listed repeatedly. What a suprise. Joe was just as much (if not more) mean and nasty in "support" of OS/2.
Get used to it. It's gonna get worse. The net and deadtree rags will pick this up and ram it hard. History repeats itself.
Asking everyone to stop ranting nastily is not gonna do a lick of good. Regardless of whether
team OS/2 was essentially slandered into oblivion by this process. looks like the crosshairs are now fixed on a new target.
To Linux' advantage, the like of Nick Petreley are at the forefront of influential rags like Infoworld, he can help give persepective on this. in the dark days of OS/2, we had Stewart Alsop in Nicks place, shamelessly furthuring the FUD and encouraging the false perceptions.
just my $.02
Joseph,
I too have had very similar experiences, the last one just yesterday. Your submittal is quite timely.
Should you get out? hell no.
Personally, I am just going to work on making my resumes more buzzword compliant, as well as dumb down the details.
My recent experience came from my repeated use of aparently obscure tech terms like "Perl", "CGI", "Apache" in my resume. Despite applying for a specifically Perl/Apache/CGI web position, the "gatekeeper" had to ask me:
"do you know CGI web programming"
I expect your story will induce some to submit their own tricks for getting resumes past the barely-qualified "gatekeepers". I know I could use a few tips.
good luck!
I find it interesting that this article went into such exceptional detail about the business plans of these 3 companies. (At least the article mentions that Microsoft is the MS in MSNBC).
:-)
Hasn't MS been able to have such excruciating details excluded from public view, in order to protect their business plans?
I don't recall such intimate details of similar MS docs being published. Just excerpts of email, high level plans, etc. Perhaps this a decision by the particular publishers?
I do think the article tried to deliver a resouding "look at all this competition MS has" to the readers. As if some javabox running AOL is gonna run MS out of business. We all know it's actually gonna be linux
The only character missing from this insidious consipracy is ex-borlander and wannabe MS killer, P. Kahn. that would make Bill tremble, eh?
I had a somewhat similar experience with SuSE...
I had part of an SuSE order backordered (No. Calif office) and it was left unfilled until I finally called them about it over two months later. Appeared they had the stock, just lacked follow through. It was a big suprise to me, I expected they'd be shipping asap, since it was a completed sale and their payment was awaiting fulfillment.
I ended up cancelling the remaining order (except the t-shirt, which showed up in two days after the call).
While I wasn't impressed with the failure to follow through, I have been more than satisfied with the SuSE 5.3 product itself.
Being able to upgrade from a local retailer will be a good thing.
to answer on the ethics of shipping and handling with a e-version of the audience tape.
postage would be absolutely ok. handling I would say absolutely not. the media is reimbursable, the time to burn it, no.
bandwidth? uncharted territory....
shameless promo on...
Kuli Loach
shamless promo off
I am not suprised by how "blatant" this whole episode is. Relatviely speaking, this is nothing to the FUD heaped on OS/2 by MS after the split with IBM.
Those who witnessed "OS Wars" of the early, mid-90's are well aware of the ability of MS to bludgeon superior technology into submission through marketing.
The main (and important) difference I can see is that today, MS has less credibity, and their target, being Linux in this case has no corporate "owner" like IBM. IBM sat idle while MS (and the IBM PC Company, "MS' biggest customer") and the trade press trashed OS/2 into oblivion.
I do not see the Linux community standing idle and taking it, ESR's post is a fine example of this. Note that benchmarks like mindcrafts were done with NT vs OS/2 over and over with no real response from IBM. The OS/2 users who protested were categorized as "zealots" and written off. On Compuserve, false user accounts (see "Barkto") were alleged to have been created to depict "real users" who then went on and on about serious OS/2 errors that "trashed my hard disk" and "my backups", ad nauseum. (Such reports were then published in PC Week, Infoworld, Computerworld to drive home the FUD).
MS has it's hands full trying to FUD Linux into obscurity. But be assured, they are experienced at this type of "warfare" and will attack furiously. With such deep pockets, I expect they feel a war of attrition is winnable.
This remains to be seen. The Linux community is not an impotent IBM. And today, we have a maturing internet to get some real facts distributed that the traditional "legacy" trade rags tend to not report.
my very first pc was a cheapo 8086 Amstrad with (only) dual 360k floppies.
:-)
It took 4 floppies to boot into the GEM environment (which was essentially useless anyway without a hard drive).
I quickly learned about batch files, which enabled me to get rid of the prompts to load the final 3 diskettes. (you mean I don't HAVE to load GEM?).
The 3 disk GEM exercise was nothing to trying to compile a QuickBasic program for my first programming course. (insert disk 2, remove, insert disk 3, removed, insert disk 6, removed, insert disk 9, remove, insert disk 1, after 5 minutes of swapping diskettes.....hello world!).
And I thought I'd heard the last of GEM....
When billg claims "GEM is dead", we'll know it's back
If Alsop's saying it, it must be something that helps leverage/maintain the win-stranglehold and would be detrimental to Linux and anything else of computing value.
/. credibility by linking any thoughts penned by one of the alltime great MS FUDsters.
You surely degrade
Go back and read some of his editorials in Infoworld's past (Petereley now resides in his old space), and see why he most surely would be under strong consideration as the very first inductee to the MS FUDWriters Hall of Fame.
With the Win2000 release being pushed back further and further, with reports of 30 some-odd million lines of new code, and a public track record of delays it is aparent that more delays are all but inevitable for the "next generation" windows.
Rather than continually admitting the trouble and being subjected to the fallout of unmet expectations, Ms can announce a "redirection" that introduces "source code" would buy MS time and provide and excuse for further delay of the Win200x release. (They can point to OpenMozilla's delays as an example).
By releasing "source code" in what will surely be a more limiting license than Apple's, they can get the benefits of being "open source" (it's hip, it's in and it's geeky), as well as stall the movement to the "alternative" open source system, Linux by corporate america. Business will get all the benefits of Windows support and applications, as well as the coolness of "open source", why move to the unsupported, application (re: Office) deprived Linux?
In the same way Win95 was used to check the short-lived momentum of OS/2 (recall that it was billed as a true preemptive multitasker, when it was really DOS/Win4 in fancy dress), the "open" Win200x can be used in an attempt to hinder broad Linux acceptance.
Can it work like it did against IBM? I personally don't think so.
Just my $.02
MS just wanted to ensure maximum innovation at the demo.
kudos to micron and gateway for their public display of spinelessness. it's good to know who to avoid when making those expensive hardware purchases.
Seems that to support Office in all it's glorious proprietary-ness, a special MS Linux will be required.
:-)
Then when Office "breaks" in "non-standard" Linuxes, MS can show that it's Linux is the one true Linux. No doubt the objective trade rags will proclaim the one true Linux, the superior of Linuxes, with it's "standard" Linux GUI (as seen in win9x). and OLE-X compliance. and because of the lack of stability and standards in the non-true-linuxes, of course IE6 only works on MSLinux.....
....after they fail on their first in-house distro attempt, who they gonna buy/assimilate as to get it right? maybe a slashdot poll can be done to find out gets to be "it"??
with IBM. this is a behomoth that has been known to cut off it's own arm just to piss off it's one good leg.
the ibm PC company refused to even preload OS/2 because it was in bed with MS and OS/2 threatened that relationship. the infighting involved between the software and hardware sides of ibm in past years is stupifying.
look forward 5 years. assuming MS gets off easy again with DoJ (not a leap is it?) and they get their iron fist around the pc world even further.... do you think for a second that some IBM suit won't trade away the yikes and/or any other wishy-washy licensing scheme for a big chunk o' microsoft pie?
i'm not saying ibm is gonna betray (honestly or dishonestly) the open source community due to such licenses this thread concerns, but don't rule out anything.
if there is a loophole, expect it will be exploited. and this loophole is pretty damn large.
Corel is beating a dead horse. If ANYONE would know about trying to emulate/port win apps it would be IBM, which did one hell of a job trying to support win 3.1 and derivatives on OS/2.
IBM even tried to get Lotus to deliver SmartSuite using a similar angle (Open32 vs. Win32). It exists, years after the promises...now that no one cares. Corel has nowhere near the deep pockets IBM has and does not have the commitment IBM did have (they promised OS/2 for 10 more years to large corp customers, and to IBM's credit they keep such promises). Promises are a dime a dozen at Corel.
Corel is grasping at straws and Copeland always gives good press.
jail time now for "spam", eh?
gotta side with the aclu on this one, "spam" can be defined in so many ways it's ridiculous.
I also concur with the post about slashdot effect potentially being affected. if your site causes a "spam" of the toshiba website, I imagine Virginia could confiscate your computers and jail you.
just another BS law for sake of "protecting" the world from itself.
don't most emailers come with filter technology now? I get spammed once and once only from site X, I don't need some dumb ass legistator saving me from email I don't want.
I am amazed to see slashdot come out for this.
maybe a poll:
is the slashdot effect = spam?
DVORAK> The U.are.U appears to be foolproof; nothing I could do would defeat it
whoa!!!! Dvorak-proof. must be way secure...
I recently heard from a damn reliable source that approx 1000 heads are now involved at MS with Linux. In what capacity and to what end was not disclosed.
I have a hard time believing it would be OSS.
COBOL programmers making 6 figures? I know at least 10 people who do COBOL/DB2/CICS who make that EASY as consultants. not even Y2K, just normal maintentance tasks. amazing yes, and very cool for those making it.
:-)
:-)
on the other hand, I also know many, many more COBOL programmers who make the 30-40k. to be honest, some of them are lucky to have a job at all (thanks to large beaurocracies who never seem to be able to fire anyone), as they have zero initiative to learn anything new. they wait for their employer to drop something better in their lap. it doesn't work that way.
As a former COBOL programmer who "got out", I did it on my own with hard work, late night classes and personal education via tools like linux/apache/perl/gnu. I know others who have no initiative, but just bitch and moan because their manager does not magically advance their careers/skillsets. (they also tend to not enjoy hearing me tell them this).
and if a magical contract to do COBOL appears, I can do that if I choose (although unlikely).
I agree, the world is far from fair. it's up to us to carve out our own living. i have found that if you work hard, smart and ethically, things will work out.
as far as the "hoax", I think there is a HUGE shortage of experienced quality people. there is more to IS than coding. People, communication, analysis skills and adherence to proven development and design disciplines are much more important than just the ability to create "cool code".
Most of the very best "programmers", while showing deep appreciation for, wouldn't necessarily be winning any perl obsfucation contests.
3. Because everything suck so much we need to have govt hold our hands and protect us against those evil foreigners that will work for peanuts (i.e. we won't get rich quick if we have competition).
If you are a foreigner and are being recruited to come to the USA then you should aquaint yourself with our job market.
If you desire to be taken advantage of and paid "peanuts" for the in-demand skills you have worked so hard to obtain then you should resign yourself to being resented by those of us who have worked just as hard if not harder to achieve the pay scales we now hold.
You speak of "jose" working in Taco Bell. Consider the "Joses" that work in our fields picking lettuce for "peanuts", living in squalor waiting for immigration to catch up with them. If you take a "peanuts" job in the USA doing in-demand high tech work then it is YOU who are remembling "Jose", the migrant farmworker.
Apologies to those named Jose, in fact I have a very good friend and former colleague named Jose who comes from El Salvador. Jose makes good money. And so should YOU if you come here and work hitech.
Until then, work for 27k and pay 50% to taxes and flame those of us who have been able to get a decent chunk out of corporations who care not about us, but about the bottom line.
btw, My wife is an IS manager for a large insurance firm, she hires out of college to do IBM Mainframe work starting at about $55k US dollars + retirement and insurance benefits.
Why would you consider undercutting a good market?
Why not join it, instead of working to wreck it?
Free software, not free labor!