"Taking your knowledge from 1 company to another is very unethical and these type of rules prevent these thigns from happening."
I already replied under someone else to this but I just wanted to repeat how silly that way of thinking is. Starting at a company and then copying the internal design of something and then immediately quiting so you can hand over that same exact design to someone else is unethical. Working for a company learning everything you can about it and then leaving at some point to start your own competing firm is totally ethical. Its a joke that non-compete agreements were ever allowed to become standard practice in some industries.
"Ahhh you've learned the intricate workings of frying McDonalds French Fries, your forbidden to work in the fast food industry for the next 3 years. Sorry, its for our protection."
Those types of agreements should be illegal IMHO. The grandparent's insane and anti-employee ideals about protecting the company are the only thing unethical here. It may be standard practice but that doesn't mean its right.
The coporate drones have done their job well if they've convinced anyone out there that forbiding you to work in the same industry after you've left a company is somehow right.
I think you might be kidding yourself. Even with the candy turned off XP would run like poo down your leg on a 486. Slow and awkwardly. Could you imagine waiting for Norton and MS Office to start up on a 486? And if your referring to simply running a stock install only, then what good is saying XP runs fine on old hardware when as soon as you launch one app it grinds to a halt? I think launching WMP alone would melt the cpu of a 486;)
"Most likely, Google is going to release their own operating system."
No they won't. I think when people say this they haven't really thought about what's involved in marketing a new OS. Google isn't stupid enough to get involved with pushing an OS to compete with Windows, and there is much more money to be made in managing data then putting out an OS that Dell and every other OEM won't touch with a ten foot pole. I know people love to guess on what Google will do next, but trust me it won't be a Free OS that compete with Windows and OSX.
btw everything you described already happened. Recently someone developed and put out a Commercial OS for Free that was kinda like a Mac, had less features than Windows, was more stable, and had a somewhat Unix-ish core. It was BEos. It was a total failure.
So let me ask. Is is okay if I buy the same brand wireless phone as you and then use your phone system to make long distance calls? Afterall your wireless signal is useable from blocks away from your house. And by buying a wireless phone you have agreed to become a public broadcaster. Going by your analogy, if any signal comes from your house its ok for public use. Is that the same thing according to you?
I do agree people should take some freaking responsiblity but I also know that plently of people will only run with WEP off because otherwise their networks won't work. Different wireless makers and all that.
I guess I get your point, I just don't really agree that by setting up the Free WAP that your ISP gives you , you automatically agree to be a broadcaster and let anyone who can connect use your network. Personally I think passive monitoring is fine. Afterall their signal is going out over the airwaves and into your house. But...IMHO that's not a two-way street. You don't automatically have the right to use their bandwidth and access their network resources.
Just because you can do something doesn't make it right.
"When the entire security team consists of people who have other full-time jobs, it's impossible to make sure that someone will be around when they are needed."
Your wrongly basing your entire arguement on the idea that OSS programmer(s)=loner(s) with other "real" jobs. That is simply not the case for many OSS projects. Commercial OSS companies like Red Hat, Suse/Novell, et al are and have been the driving force in OSS for some time now. Look at any big distro, any major software project etc and at this point chances are they are being bankrolled and supported by commercial copanies that are paying people to work on them and deal with things like security issues. And if a popular project has a security flaw that an author won't address, and distros won't fix because its not part of their distro...well you know the deal, use the source luke.
I see what your trying to say but again your arguement is flawed as "traditional" OSS development no longer means unpaid and non-commercial. I don't think that the people buying Red Hat linux and getting security support for years and years would share the same viewpoint. And I also don't think that commercial companies put more into security than OSS programmers do. History just doesn't show that.
For version.002 for widget X that isn't widely used and gets abandoned for lack of interest and now has a security issue, how is that different than in the commercial world? At least with OSS someone/anyone can fix the problem. With commercial software you literally have to stop using the software because no fix will ever come.
OSS is particulary well suited to dealing with security issues IMHO and the problems it has with security are more or less the same problems that commercial software makers face. Your floating down a well known river in Egypt if you think that in the commercial world all projects have people who are paid to soley to work on security.
My favorite was when I used to pick my monitor from the monitor database in an installer and then it would install it at a fucked up and awkward high resolution and unsupportable/unreadable resolution and a 60Hz refresh rate. I swear I think that database was screwed from the beginning and yet tons of distros just included it and assumed that they worked right. WTF were they thinking? Typing in my monitors frequencies never worked that well either. Somehow putting in 40-60H and 55-120V never got you 1024x768@85Hz and just ended up in hours of trial and error with the user-friendly and easy to read XF86Config file. Go figure. Thank god for the Nvidia drivers or I'd still be stuck at 70Hz.
Very well said and a good "in a nutshell" analysis of the topic of GPL vs BSD over the decade. Things like who's in charge, how well they do with dealing with outsider contributors, and the quality of the code are all important factors to the success of a project. But overall it was and continues to be the GPL license which software strength and value. The "take what you want and never have to give back" BSD license is the one that hurts more than helps.
Even though the above post is a completely madeup TROLL, it still illustrates a good point. Without proper preperation you WILL fail if you attempt to migrate to linux or any other OS.
Its obvious this person didn't do research into which hardware was supported. And thus they had a horrible experience. Getting hardward supported on linux that doesn't work 100% out of the box is a total F*cking PITA. That's why you make sure you stuff is supported before you even reach for the install CD.
As far as mp3's skipping something was really wrong there. I haven't heard widespread reports of that happening since the 90's.
And also I will say that if you wanted compatibilty why didn't you use Firefox or Opera?
You know, I've seen enough reports of the problems people have over the years with linux that I don't even suggest linux as a desktop anymore. I do respond to help help people but I don't ever tell people to switch from Windows. Its not worth my breath and not worth it unless you want to actually get elbow deep in computer technology and your OS. Most people don't want to learn anything more than "push this button to turn on your PC and push the big blue E to access the Internet".
But again I must say that this person set themselves up to fail. Who the hell switches SEVEN machines to linux in one shot and expects everthing to work perfectly? Have much linux admin experience? No? Then why did you do that? You should have done 1 PC at a time over a long period to make sure everyone was used to it and you could iron out things like printers not working.
You know what? I changed my mind. The above post is a total Troll. I'm just waiting for someone to point out that this is an old copy and paste from 3 years ago.
If you don't want to install google's special player just download VLC zip version and then click "Open File", copy and paste the link and the video plays. No muss and no extra software/MIME types needed.
That solution works but does suck ass. Who wants to go back to the days of only being able to watch the channel your recording? That's lamer then lame and defeats the whole purpose. If your multimedia/gaming/music/mythtv or whatever box is in your living room(as most are) then you've just eliminated being able to use your main TV.
That's all good IMO. Right now there is a dearth of products which support the 60GB Ipod Photo. Its very annoying that 95% of Ipod accessories only fits the 20GB and sometimes the 30GB photo.
Now that there is only the 20GB and 60GB photo maybe the 60GB will finally get some 3rd party support.
btw buy the 30GB model while you can ($319@buy.com). $299 for a 20GB photo model is a total ripoff.
First off without support for Bittorrent Itunes Podcating feature will make it a fairly crappy Podcasting tool. Too many shows like TWIT have gone Bittorrent to simply ignore it. Now user are going to have to use Ipodder AND Itunes to manage podcast? Great.
I disagree that Apple will do anything about it either. Apple and especially Jobs from what I can see are not exactly for P2P. Adopting and integrating BT and therefore P2P directly into one of Apple's products might be seen as endorsing BT which as we all know is a tool for "pirating music and movies". In otherwords don't expect to see that anytime soon.
I may be wrong, and actually hope I am. Btw are there podcast listeners on/.? I surprised there is only one post on the lack of BT support in Itunes.
Unless you've been hiding under a rock you would know that with every release Apple tightens down Itunes and makes it less and less useable by taking away features and stripping away ways access to your own music. You know, things like reducing the number of times you can burn a playlist, taking away internet sharing, and then taking away unlimited Lan sharing. Now its what? 5 lousy users a day that can connect to your shared music? I'm just waiting for Apple to remove sharing and cd burning all together. If you think that isn't their long term goal your kidding yourself.
Seriously WTF? Would any other company be able to get away removing features release after release in an attempt to control what you can do with YOUR music? My guess is no.
" to run on any PC with a DVD drive (and who doesn't have one these days?)"
Every worked in an office setting? A DVD version of a livecd is pretty worthless in a corporate setting. You just can't count on having a DVD drive everywhere you go unlike a CD drive. I think its amazing how much stuff they can fit on a DVD but for now liveCD's are more useful.
Dam small has X, firefox, Office apps and a bunch of other useful programs making it a workable desktop, all in 50MB. For what it does it quite impressive. tomsrtbt has its place but in this day in age I'd rather not assume that A) the machine will even have a floppy and B) your floppy disk won't break when you need it.
I just can't wait until 100% on machines can boot from usb sticks. Right now only certain usb thumbdrives can be made bootable, lots of machines don't recognize Usb thumbdries as bootable etc. The day USB booting is a common as cdrom booting I'll be a happy camper.
btw anyone else find the article remarkably shallow? I know he said he only scratched the surface but still, more informatoin would have been nice.
I didn't post that to try to get at your personally. I'm sure your actually working towards an open format. But somewhere way above your head the lawyers and Ballmer have got together and made a plan on how to integrate this move with their long term strategy to destroy the cancer that is Linux and harm OSS in general. That is the nature of MS afterall. And last time I checked that hadn't changed.:(
You realize that only reason that many offices don't use something like OpenOffice.org is because they can't get 100% compatiblity when sending/receiving MS Office docs right? Now I'm not naive, there are plently of companies that would die without outlook and love sharepoint and Offices workgroup features etc. But and this is a big BUT, universities, consumers, small businesses, and even many larger business haven't sold they're souls to the Exchange demon. Your just going to let potentially millions of users just walk away from MS Office to OpenOffice.org OR any other office suite because your now a believer in Open formats? You'll pardon those of us who've been around a while from taking a wait and see attitude. Ms has wielded incompatibility as a club to bludgeon competitors for years. Why would they stop when they A)have a monopoly in the Office market B) have an MS "friendly" DOJ and president C) have so much to "lose" by working with others?
Let me guess, there is some sort of provision or scheme somewhere down the road where OSS and GPL software won't be able to use this due to patents?
"But with Google in the bandwagon, I guess this problem can be solved with a win on the open source front:-)"
Or realistically google will just create a special version of VLC in which they license the proprietary codecs and OSS and VLC gain nothing. That or they will transcode everything into an OSS and patent friendly format that VLC can play without running into any patent issues.
Either way there are no guarantees that this will help OSS in any way or help VLC with its patent issues. Sorry to be negative but its completely naive to think that google will somehow magically fix the patent issues surrounding VLC. That's just wishful thinking.
If that's the case then the Ipod accessory market is ripe for lawsuits. Tons of Car chargers that look the same, lots of blue and clear "Thin" ipod cases, earbuds etc. Christ 90% of Ipod accessories are copies of another product out there. I could spend the rest of my life listing products that look and function the same in the ipod world.
Beyond the fact that the podbuddy has an extension arm and an lcd screen, I just don't see it as a ripoff. Bogus patent enforcement IMHO.
Oh btw some of DLO's cases suck ass. Don't buy them unless you want the front of your ipod completely scratched up. Perhaps we should make sure that none of their cases look like anything else on the market?
Anyway you can see how I feel. And I'll give you one guess who will never see dollar one of my money. You suck DLO.
You'd think that with a UID that low you'd remember that there was an Internet with Free content before ads starting appearing on every single freaking page. But I guess not.
The biggest joke of all is that advertisers think online ads work in the first place. I haven't looked directly at the top or bottom of a page in like 7 years. Most humans look for the text and ignore all of that crap floating on the edges that has bright flashing colors.
Either way its a moot point as adblocking with prebuilt filters won't ever appear by default in Firefox or IE.
So basically all of these worthless agruements about what would happen "if everyone started using filters etc" are just that, worthless. It isn't ever going to happen so why do people feel the need to bring it up year after year?
Actually its a long term solution. Microsoft in exchange for being allowed to continue its monopoly over the entire corporate world would be forced to have a board which oversees it and makes sure that file formats and APIs are in the open. There would be no "hidden API's" because MS wouldn't be allowed to release anything until the board verfied that MS was following the rules. Approval would be based on MS complying with file format and interoperability goals that industry experts set.
How nice would it be if when Office 2008 came out that instantly you could go to MS's site and download the file specs etc. It would work and MS wouldn't have to give away all of their source code in order to comply. In the end competitors would be able to gain a foothold, consumers would actually have choice in the Office suite market and MS would probably sell even more copies because of all of the cool software that would come out extending MS Office.
I know its all pie in the sky considering who is currently in power in the US but it certainly doable.
Slashdot Mirror
"Taking your knowledge from 1 company to another is very unethical and these type of rules prevent these thigns from happening."
I already replied under someone else to this but I just wanted to repeat how silly that way of thinking is. Starting at a company and then copying the internal design of something and then immediately quiting so you can hand over that same exact design to someone else is unethical. Working for a company learning everything you can about it and then leaving at some point to start your own competing firm is totally ethical. Its a joke that non-compete agreements were ever allowed to become standard practice in some industries.
"Ahhh you've learned the intricate workings of frying McDonalds French Fries, your forbidden to work in the fast food industry for the next 3 years. Sorry, its for our protection."
Those types of agreements should be illegal IMHO. The grandparent's insane and anti-employee ideals about protecting the company are the only thing unethical here. It may be standard practice but that doesn't mean its right.
The coporate drones have done their job well if they've convinced anyone out there that forbiding you to work in the same industry after you've left a company is somehow right.
And Macs will always run on PowerPC chips too...
I think you might be kidding yourself. Even with the candy turned off XP would run like poo down your leg on a 486. Slow and awkwardly. Could you imagine waiting for Norton and MS Office to start up on a 486? And if your referring to simply running a stock install only, then what good is saying XP runs fine on old hardware when as soon as you launch one app it grinds to a halt? I think launching WMP alone would melt the cpu of a 486 ;)
"Most likely, Google is going to release their own operating system."
No they won't. I think when people say this they haven't really thought about what's involved in marketing a new OS. Google isn't stupid enough to get involved with pushing an OS to compete with Windows, and there is much more money to be made in managing data then putting out an OS that Dell and every other OEM won't touch with a ten foot pole. I know people love to guess on what Google will do next, but trust me it won't be a Free OS that compete with Windows and OSX.
btw everything you described already happened. Recently someone developed and put out a Commercial OS for Free that was kinda like a Mac, had less features than Windows, was more stable, and had a somewhat Unix-ish core. It was BEos. It was a total failure.
So let me ask. Is is okay if I buy the same brand wireless phone as you and then use your phone system to make long distance calls? Afterall your wireless signal is useable from blocks away from your house. And by buying a wireless phone you have agreed to become a public broadcaster. Going by your analogy, if any signal comes from your house its ok for public use. Is that the same thing according to you?
I do agree people should take some freaking responsiblity but I also know that plently of people will only run with WEP off because otherwise their networks won't work. Different wireless makers and all that.
I guess I get your point, I just don't really agree that by setting up the Free WAP that your ISP gives you , you automatically agree to be a broadcaster and let anyone who can connect use your network. Personally I think passive monitoring is fine. Afterall their signal is going out over the airwaves and into your house. But...IMHO that's not a two-way street. You don't automatically have the right to use their bandwidth and access their network resources.
Just because you can do something doesn't make it right.
"When the entire security team consists of people who have other full-time jobs, it's impossible to make sure that someone will be around when they are needed."
.002 for widget X that isn't widely used and gets abandoned for lack of interest and now has a security issue, how is that different than in the commercial world? At least with OSS someone/anyone can fix the problem. With commercial software you literally have to stop using the software because no fix will ever come.
Your wrongly basing your entire arguement on the idea that OSS programmer(s)=loner(s) with other "real" jobs. That is simply not the case for many OSS projects. Commercial OSS companies like Red Hat, Suse/Novell, et al are and have been the driving force in OSS for some time now. Look at any big distro, any major software project etc and at this point chances are they are being bankrolled and supported by commercial copanies that are paying people to work on them and deal with things like security issues. And if a popular project has a security flaw that an author won't address, and distros won't fix because its not part of their distro...well you know the deal, use the source luke.
I see what your trying to say but again your arguement is flawed as "traditional" OSS development no longer means unpaid and non-commercial. I don't think that the people buying Red Hat linux and getting security support for years and years would share the same viewpoint. And I also don't think that commercial companies put more into security than OSS programmers do. History just doesn't show that.
For version
OSS is particulary well suited to dealing with security issues IMHO and the problems it has with security are more or less the same problems that commercial software makers face. Your floating down a well known river in Egypt if you think that in the commercial world all projects have people who are paid to soley to work on security.
My favorite was when I used to pick my monitor from the monitor database in an installer and then it would install it at a fucked up and awkward high resolution and unsupportable/unreadable resolution and a 60Hz refresh rate. I swear I think that database was screwed from the beginning and yet tons of distros just included it and assumed that they worked right. WTF were they thinking? Typing in my monitors frequencies never worked that well either. Somehow putting in 40-60H and 55-120V never got you 1024x768@85Hz and just ended up in hours of trial and error with the user-friendly and easy to read XF86Config file. Go figure. Thank god for the Nvidia drivers or I'd still be stuck at 70Hz.
Very well said and a good "in a nutshell" analysis of the topic of GPL vs BSD over the decade. Things like who's in charge, how well they do with dealing with outsider contributors, and the quality of the code are all important factors to the success of a project. But overall it was and continues to be the GPL license which software strength and value. The "take what you want and never have to give back" BSD license is the one that hurts more than helps.
Even though the above post is a completely madeup TROLL, it still illustrates a good point. Without proper preperation you WILL fail if you attempt to migrate to linux or any other OS.
Its obvious this person didn't do research into which hardware was supported. And thus they had a horrible experience. Getting hardward supported on linux that doesn't work 100% out of the box is a total F*cking PITA. That's why you make sure you stuff is supported before you even reach for the install CD.
As far as mp3's skipping something was really wrong there. I haven't heard widespread reports of that happening since the 90's.
And also I will say that if you wanted compatibilty why didn't you use Firefox or Opera?
You know, I've seen enough reports of the problems people have over the years with linux that I don't even suggest linux as a desktop anymore. I do respond to help help people but I don't ever tell people to switch from Windows. Its not worth my breath and not worth it unless you want to actually get elbow deep in computer technology and your OS. Most people don't want to learn anything more than "push this button to turn on your PC and push the big blue E to access the Internet".
But again I must say that this person set themselves up to fail. Who the hell switches SEVEN machines to linux in one shot and expects everthing to work perfectly? Have much linux admin experience? No? Then why did you do that? You should have done 1 PC at a time over a long period to make sure everyone was used to it and you could iron out things like printers not working.
You know what? I changed my mind. The above post is a total Troll. I'm just waiting for someone to point out that this is an old copy and paste from 3 years ago.
Nice bookmarklet. :)
If you don't want to install google's special player just download VLC zip version and then click "Open File", copy and paste the link and the video plays. No muss and no extra software/MIME types needed.
That solution works but does suck ass. Who wants to go back to the days of only being able to watch the channel your recording? That's lamer then lame and defeats the whole purpose. If your multimedia/gaming/music/mythtv or whatever box is in your living room(as most are) then you've just eliminated being able to use your main TV.
That's all good IMO. Right now there is a dearth of products which support the 60GB Ipod Photo. Its very annoying that 95% of Ipod accessories only fits the 20GB and sometimes the 30GB photo.
Now that there is only the 20GB and 60GB photo maybe the 60GB will finally get some 3rd party support.
btw buy the 30GB model while you can ($319@buy.com). $299 for a 20GB photo model is a total ripoff.
http://www.konfabulator.com/
First off without support for Bittorrent Itunes Podcating feature will make it a fairly crappy Podcasting tool. Too many shows like TWIT have gone Bittorrent to simply ignore it. Now user are going to have to use Ipodder AND Itunes to manage podcast? Great.
/.? I surprised there is only one post on the lack of BT support in Itunes.
I disagree that Apple will do anything about it either. Apple and especially Jobs from what I can see are not exactly for P2P. Adopting and integrating BT and therefore P2P directly into one of Apple's products might be seen as endorsing BT which as we all know is a tool for "pirating music and movies". In otherwords don't expect to see that anytime soon.
I may be wrong, and actually hope I am. Btw are there podcast listeners on
Unless you've been hiding under a rock you would know that with every release Apple tightens down Itunes and makes it less and less useable by taking away features and stripping away ways access to your own music. You know, things like reducing the number of times you can burn a playlist, taking away internet sharing, and then taking away unlimited Lan sharing. Now its what? 5 lousy users a day that can connect to your shared music? I'm just waiting for Apple to remove sharing and cd burning all together. If you think that isn't their long term goal your kidding yourself.
Seriously WTF? Would any other company be able to get away removing features release after release in an attempt to control what you can do with YOUR music? My guess is no.
" to run on any PC with a DVD drive (and who doesn't have one these days?)"
Every worked in an office setting? A DVD version of a livecd is pretty worthless in a corporate setting. You just can't count on having a DVD drive everywhere you go unlike a CD drive. I think its amazing how much stuff they can fit on a DVD but for now liveCD's are more useful.
Dam small has X, firefox, Office apps and a bunch of other useful programs making it a workable desktop, all in 50MB. For what it does it quite impressive. tomsrtbt has its place but in this day in age I'd rather not assume that A) the machine will even have a floppy and B) your floppy disk won't break when you need it.
I just can't wait until 100% on machines can boot from usb sticks. Right now only certain usb thumbdrives can be made bootable, lots of machines don't recognize Usb thumbdries as bootable etc. The day USB booting is a common as cdrom booting I'll be a happy camper.
btw anyone else find the article remarkably shallow? I know he said he only scratched the surface but still, more informatoin would have been nice.
I didn't post that to try to get at your personally. I'm sure your actually working towards an open format. But somewhere way above your head the lawyers and Ballmer have got together and made a plan on how to integrate this move with their long term strategy to destroy the cancer that is Linux and harm OSS in general. That is the nature of MS afterall. And last time I checked that hadn't changed. :(
And when the other shoe drops?
You realize that only reason that many offices don't use something like OpenOffice.org is because they can't get 100% compatiblity when sending/receiving MS Office docs right? Now I'm not naive, there are plently of companies that would die without outlook and love sharepoint and Offices workgroup features etc. But and this is a big BUT, universities, consumers, small businesses, and even many larger business haven't sold they're souls to the Exchange demon. Your just going to let potentially millions of users just walk away from MS Office to OpenOffice.org OR any other office suite because your now a believer in Open formats? You'll pardon those of us who've been around a while from taking a wait and see attitude. Ms has wielded incompatibility as a club to bludgeon competitors for years. Why would they stop when they A)have a monopoly in the Office market B) have an MS "friendly" DOJ and president C) have so much to "lose" by working with others?
Let me guess, there is some sort of provision or scheme somewhere down the road where OSS and GPL software won't be able to use this due to patents?
"But with Google in the bandwagon, I guess this problem can be solved with a win on the open source front :-)"
Or realistically google will just create a special version of VLC in which they license the proprietary codecs and OSS and VLC gain nothing. That or they will transcode everything into an OSS and patent friendly format that VLC can play without running into any patent issues.
Either way there are no guarantees that this will help OSS in any way or help VLC with its patent issues. Sorry to be negative but its completely naive to think that google will somehow magically fix the patent issues surrounding VLC. That's just wishful thinking.
If that's the case then the Ipod accessory market is ripe for lawsuits. Tons of Car chargers that look the same, lots of blue and clear "Thin" ipod cases, earbuds etc. Christ 90% of Ipod accessories are copies of another product out there. I could spend the rest of my life listing products that look and function the same in the ipod world.
Beyond the fact that the podbuddy has an extension arm and an lcd screen, I just don't see it as a ripoff. Bogus patent enforcement IMHO.
Oh btw some of DLO's cases suck ass. Don't buy them unless you want the front of your ipod completely scratched up. Perhaps we should make sure that none of their cases look like anything else on the market?
Anyway you can see how I feel. And I'll give you one guess who will never see dollar one of my money. You suck DLO.
You'd think that with a UID that low you'd remember that there was an Internet with Free content before ads starting appearing on every single freaking page. But I guess not.
The biggest joke of all is that advertisers think online ads work in the first place. I haven't looked directly at the top or bottom of a page in like 7 years. Most humans look for the text and ignore all of that crap floating on the edges that has bright flashing colors.
Either way its a moot point as adblocking with prebuilt filters won't ever appear by default in Firefox or IE.
So basically all of these worthless agruements about what would happen "if everyone started using filters etc" are just that, worthless. It isn't ever going to happen so why do people feel the need to bring it up year after year?
"Releasing specs is at best a stopgap measure"
Actually its a long term solution. Microsoft in exchange for being allowed to continue its monopoly over the entire corporate world would be forced to have a board which oversees it and makes sure that file formats and APIs are in the open. There would be no "hidden API's" because MS wouldn't be allowed to release anything until the board verfied that MS was following the rules. Approval would be based on MS complying with file format and interoperability goals that industry experts set.
How nice would it be if when Office 2008 came out that instantly you could go to MS's site and download the file specs etc. It would work and MS wouldn't have to give away all of their source code in order to comply. In the end competitors would be able to gain a foothold, consumers would actually have choice in the Office suite market and MS would probably sell even more copies because of all of the cool software that would come out extending MS Office.
I know its all pie in the sky considering who is currently in power in the US but it certainly doable.
"It's glorious...for long web pages"
;)
"My hands can stay on the keyboard"
Yea right.