So who would be most "suitable" for the job? Jesse Berst?:-)
Why him? Good ol' Jesse takes whatever stance will get people fired up; that's his reason for living. There's as many anti-MS articles that come out of his Berst Alerts as pro-MS.
Theory #1: they need more people because they think they are not quite up to the task with the current number.
..or...
Theory #2: they need other people because they think they are not quite up to the task with the current people, i.e. they are not good enough at it.
Either way, this sounds like good news for us!;-) Actually, Microsoft hires new employees all the time; people come, people go, and the company is expanding rapidly.
They are seeking knowlege of the strengths and weaknesses of Linux. They wish to find these so they can integrate the strengths into the next version of NT, while using the weaknesses to destroy Linux vendors. They are not afraid of lengthenning the NT code base to get what they want - if there are features in Linux that aren't in NT, then they will publicly praise these features. If there are weaknesses in Linux that aren't in NT, then they will publicly praise NT. They do not praise Linux, or Apache (as Ballmer was accused of doing) but instead the features.
My friends, features can be stolen. They have all the money in the world to steal features with.
They will tell the poor sap who takes this job that they are trying to improve NT by adding Linux-like features. They will tell themselves that. But their vision of a single OS for everything is more important than the methods used to achieve it.
Hmmm... interesting hypothesis, but do you really think that MS employees are so STUPID as to not be able to download a fraggin' copy of REDHAT? That MS has to hire a "Linux Guru" when it has several thousand of them working for it already?
Publicly available doesn't mean anything more than being able to acquire a copy on the same terms as anyone else. If Simon Cooke wants to pay the fees, and be bound by the terms of the license, then I'm sure Sun will be happy to sell him a copy. Microsoft already has a copy, and the right to use it to validate their software suite to earn the ability to label it as Java compatible. What's the problem?
This is the problem: http://www.microsoft.com/PressPass/java/java2.ht m
5.21 The TLDA provides that Sun must deliver Test Suites to Microsoft. Pursuant to sections 1.13, 1.15, 2.6(a)(ii) and section 2.6(b)(ii), Sun is to deliver to Microsoft Test Suites that are publicly available. Publicly available Test Suites are the only Test Suites that can be used to determine the rights of the parties under the TLDA. Among other things, this provision protects Microsoft from any attempt by Sun to impose secret requirements on Microsoft. Sun has never delivered any publicly available Test Suites to Microsoft. At no time has Sun tested any Microsoft Product with a publicly available Test Suite. Without having ever made a proper test and knowing the public would be unable to judge for itself because of Sun's willful breaches of contract, Sun made false public statements that Microsoft's Products have failed to pass Java Test Suites under the TLDA.
You may also want to review the trial transcripts: http://www.microsoft.com/PressPass/trial/transcr ipts/dec98/12-10-am.htm
Particularly interesting in that one is the way they treated Spyglass's JVM compatibility issues.
I'm guessing the only reason there aren't many replies to your comments stems from two facts.
1) your.sig openly confesses your being under the cerebral chains of big brother bill.
2) your comments, regardless of your disclaiming.sig, reveal the extent of #1 above.
Now... if only there were a way to systematically redirect all Munchkins "directly to hell"...
What chains? You appear to be under the cereberal chains of misplaced anger. Go tell it to your shrink.
My comments are my own. Wanna see some more? Go to the MSNBC Technology BBS and check them out. While you're there, ask a few of the Linux-heads (John Cavan, Jonathan Graham, Aleatoric, etc etc) what they think of me.
I feel perfectly justified in telling pirates to go to hell (and I hope that you noted that I was advocating that course of action only if the original poster was advocating piracy).
Good things and bad things are defined by the overall circumstances (net gain/loss). If MS is criticized for doing something that might have been called 'good' if it were done by another company, this is simply an illustration of a normal human distaste for the way MS does things, coupled with the fact that they're 'king of the hill' and the object of the game is to unseat the king.
If you don't like being part of the 'king of the hill', perhaps you need to look for another job.
Nah. Quite happy with my job, thankyouverymuch. Just unhappy with people like you who have an irrational hatred of software developers like me. You know, the ones who do it to try and make people's lives better, rather than as a form of intellectual masturbation.
Since when did 'downloadability' become a prerequisite for calling something 'publicly available'?
Why don't you just call Sun and ask for a copy of the test(s)? If they deliver, it's publicly available and you, buddy boy [sic], will be dining on your own words.
You're misusing the marker "sic", but never mind.
I can't call Sun and ask for a copy of the tests - because I work at Microsoft. I said they had to be publicly available.
Why don't you do it, and let us all know your results?
Actually, I think the key thing (or one of them) was that Microsoft could not pass the compatibility tests because they refused to implement JNI and RMI. I'm pretty sure that's all part of the public tests...
Please give me a URL where I can download these public tests from. Because until you do that, the tests are not PUBLIC, which is part of the contract.
This trial was not originally about clean room implementations; it's been known from the beginning that is acceptable. It's only about whether Microsoft had a contractual obligation to comply with the full Java spec and Sun's compatibility tests. From that regard, Judge Whyte's "preliminary rulings" are equivalent to deciding the trial: Microsoft is guilty.
All well and good, but the contractual obligation was that MS Java would have to pass publicly available compatibility tests. Try re-reading that contract, buddy boy. If this is all the case comes down to, MS is explicitly and unambiguously not guilty.
Uh, isn't this already what's happening? Especially when it comes to browser VMs. I don't know about you, but right now I'm downloading HotJava 3 for the sole express purpose of watching that Star Wars ASCIImation thing. Why? Because the Netscape VM breaks when it tries to run it.
MS should be more concerned about how this appears to the public at large. It's okay for MS to violate copyrights but it's not okay for anyone else to violate THEIR copyrights. Even in smaller more subtle ways. MS will prosecute someone who gives a copy of BOB(tm) to a friend or someone who uses a DOS disk from one machine to test another machine. Or someone who uses the same license of Office at home and at work. All the way up to the large pirates that ship thousands of CDs.
There's a difference between copyright infringement and copyright theft; and this had to go to court to prove that there was an infringement - not to mention the fact that there has been no final decision from the judge yet.
However, with piracy, that's a clear case of copyright theft. And if you advocate piracy, please, please, please go directly to hell.
This bodes well for the entire computing community as well as M$. Now the WINE project and other initiatives like it can use a precedent which M$ helped to set in order to shield themselves from M$ threats of litigation over their work. If WINE uses NO M$ code, then it's clean. All bets are off. WINE, Samba, Dosemu, and the like are all now protected from MS, by M$.
BILL GATES: Well we're always going to have technologies that we license. We want to move at full speed. We often go out and acquire companies and bring them into our development process. We get lots of input from the partners on what we're doing. So that's very critical. It's kind of interesting with Java--when Sun went and wrote a Windows clone, which was called WABI, they didn't have any license from us. They're welcome. Go ahead, do that. But when we did Java, we went to them; we signed a license; we paid a fee there. Because we thought, hey, if Java's got a role here, that's valuable. It is sort of illustrative of the contradictions of calling something an open standard when there's one company that controls the trademark and can define what it is. And we have no problem whether it's a standard or not a standard. We think there's some real value there. But we believe that things that are standard should be neutrally managed and things that are a company's products where that company is going to take the risks and get rewards, they should be clearly labeled that way.
I hope I interpreted this incorrectly, but the last statement in the article seemed to imply that MS was attempting to force Sun to implement additional classes in order to bring MS perversion of Java into compliance and that the judge was actually considering this? I wish I could come up with a proper analogy on why this is a bad-thing tm, but Iam too flabergasted by the gall of this to even think clearly.
Rule 1 of programming for the masses: Maintain backwards compatibility.
Besides - define compliance! As part of the Sun/MS contract, it's explicitly stated that the compatibility tests used must be PUBLICLY available.
Funnily enough, I don't see any publicly available Java Compatibility suites on sites anywhere.
Reading the stuff from the antitrust trial is interesting too - with Sun saying that they'd use the compatibility suites to force MS to implement anything they liked.
>> Ask yourself: Why in hell would MS WANT to get your password file? What could you possibly have on your system that we'd want? Are you really so egotistical and self-important that you REALLY think we'd even CONSIDER for a moment trying to get onto your machine? Please, stop, my sides are splitting.
"We'd"? curious use of the plural self. looks like malda will have to do more to keep the micros~1 trolls out.
but, first, a rebuttal: MSFT does do that. what do you think the registry e-mail they recieve every time I turn on my nt box is for? Loser.
Are you blind or something? Can you read the disclaimer I have at the bottom of my posts? The reason for "we'd" is because I work for Microsoft.
Not only that but "Malda will have to do more to keep the micros~1 trolls out"? That's pathetic (and I know for a fact that Rob doesn't condone the idea of keeping MS employees out of Slashdot).
As for your rebuttal - show me a copy of the registry email that we supposedly receive, and I'll take it up with the NT team. But I know and you know that you're talking through your ass.
Not only that, but who'd take the word of an anonymous poster. At least I'm not hiding.
A typical example of broken MS scripts (and I am using IE4!). I can't see any content on the page at all, nor any links to anything of obvious interest.
Allowing many users to log on one at a time does not a multiuser OS make. At least with Windows 3.11 you could switch users without quitting every application. This USEFUL ability was REMOVED from later versions of Windows. Now when I'm logged on as FOO with 5 apps open and realize I need to copy one file to my HD that only BAR has access to, I am screwed under 95 onward, not so with Win3.11 on down. Stupid Microsoft...
Try using the REMOTE command, or run a telnet server on your NT box.
Oh hang on a minute... you're talking about being "Screwed under 95 onwards", and about running on "Win3.11". You seem to be ignoring NT completely.
The best way to do it though is to run Terminal Server.
Actually, the NT kernel is fully multiuser; as is Win32; it's just that because of compatibility reasons, this functionality is usually hidden (older Win3.1 apps and some Win95 apps make major assumptions that they'll only be running one instance per machine, which causes problems).
Terminal Server is pretty cool. I use it all the time here at work (mainly for development; I do my buddy builds from a remote session, and run my checkin suites that way).
MS has already amply demonstrated that they can't do UNIX, and in the process they inflicted SCO on us all. For that alone they should be banned from ever doing UNIX development work again.
Hello? How long ago was that? Since 95, MS apps have been getting much better than they were in the past (I wouldn't be working here today if I hadn't seen that happen).
Talk about prejudices and preconceived notions. Sheesh.
Ugh. I hate the thought of starting my X session only to be greeted by a happy and cheery spinning M$ windows-logo globe while some ActiveX IE extension sends my password file back to microsoft.com
You really think we have to go that far? We've already got your password file, your credit card records, and pictures of you and your family.
Ask yourself: Why in hell would MS WANT to get your password file? What could you possibly have on your system that we'd want? Are you really so egotistical and self-important that you REALLY think we'd even CONSIDER for a moment trying to get onto your machine? Please, stop, my sides are splitting.
Oh, I dont know... Microsoft does seem to have a disregard for privacy. Remember the GUID's that all their apps tack into documents.
Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Just think IT'S THE SAME WITH CORBA! Lots of NASTY GUIDs (aka UUID's) running around the place! Eeeeek! Same with certain versions of RPC! Argh!
The only reason GUIDs were in office docs in the first place was so that they could be uniquely identified in Index Server; it allows weeding out of dupes. Don't be surprised if someone here at MS comes out with a one-way hash GUID generator in the near future - thus, resolving all your fears, and STILL letting everyone have a way of generating GLOBALLY UNIQUE numbers.
So I think that any MS code on my machine will never run with anything near root privilege. Actually, given my experience with MS code on my Mac, I'll never let a byte of it on my Linux machine. MS can write acceptable code for their own platform, but anything they do for other platforms really has been sub-standard in my experience.
I take it you've not tried any MS Mac software in the last 2 years then...
They may be writing the browser, but will it be open-source? Even if it is, would it be GPL or a more restrictuve license (my money's on the second, or not at all)
Who knows... but check this out as a sign of things that may be on the horizon.
Slashdot Mirror
All of your plans have been completely public, although you've been lying out your ass about the delivery date for years.
Funny... Microsoft has never officially announced a release date for NT5/Win2k; it's all been press speculation.
So who would be most "suitable" for the job? :-)
Jesse Berst?
Why him? Good ol' Jesse takes whatever stance will get people fired up; that's his reason for living. There's as many anti-MS articles that come out of his Berst Alerts as pro-MS.
Theory #1: they need more people because they think they are not quite up to the task with the current number.
;-)
..or...
Theory #2: they need other people because they think they are not quite up to the task with the current people, i.e. they are not good enough at it.
Either way, this sounds like good news for us!
Actually, Microsoft hires new employees all the time; people come, people go, and the company is expanding rapidly.
Solution? Hire people. Stands to reason really.
They are seeking knowlege of the strengths and weaknesses of Linux. They wish to find these so they can integrate the strengths into the next version of NT, while using the weaknesses to destroy Linux vendors. They are not afraid of lengthenning the NT code base to get what they want - if there are features in Linux that aren't in NT, then they will publicly praise these features. If there are weaknesses in Linux that aren't in NT, then they will publicly praise
NT. They do not praise Linux, or Apache (as Ballmer was accused of doing) but instead the features.
My friends, features can be stolen. They have all the money in the world to steal features with.
They will tell the poor sap who takes this job that they are trying to improve NT by adding Linux-like features. They will tell themselves that. But their vision of a single OS for everything is more important than the methods used to achieve it.
Hmmm... interesting hypothesis, but do you really think that MS employees are so STUPID as to not be able to download a fraggin' copy of REDHAT? That MS has to hire a "Linux Guru" when it has several thousand of them working for it already?
This is the problem:
http://www.microsoft.com/PressPass/java/java2.h
You may also want to review the trial transcripts:
http://www.microsoft.com/PressPass/trial/transc
Particularly interesting in that one is the way they treated Spyglass's JVM compatibility issues.
I'm guessing the only reason there aren't many replies to your comments stems from two facts.
.sig openly confesses your being under the cerebral chains of big brother bill.
.sig, reveal the extent of #1 above.
1) your
2) your comments, regardless of your disclaiming
Now... if only there were a way to systematically redirect all Munchkins "directly to hell"...
What chains? You appear to be under the cereberal chains of misplaced anger. Go tell it to your shrink.
My comments are my own. Wanna see some more? Go to the MSNBC Technology BBS and check them out. While you're there, ask a few of the Linux-heads (John Cavan, Jonathan Graham, Aleatoric, etc etc) what they think of me.
I feel perfectly justified in telling pirates to go to hell (and I hope that you noted that I was advocating that course of action only if the original poster was advocating piracy).
Good things and bad things are defined by the overall circumstances (net gain/loss). If MS is criticized for doing something that might have been called 'good' if it were done by another company, this is simply an illustration of a normal human distaste for the way MS does things, coupled with the fact that they're 'king of the hill' and the object of the game is to unseat the king.
If you don't like being part of the 'king of the hill', perhaps you need to look for another job.
Nah. Quite happy with my job, thankyouverymuch. Just unhappy with people like you who have an irrational hatred of software developers like me.
You know, the ones who do it to try and make people's lives better, rather than as a form of intellectual masturbation.
Hey there, buddy boy [sic]
Since when did 'downloadability' become a prerequisite for calling something 'publicly available'?
Why don't you just call Sun and ask for a copy of the test(s)? If they deliver, it's publicly available and you, buddy boy [sic], will be dining on your own words.
You're misusing the marker "sic", but never mind.
I can't call Sun and ask for a copy of the tests - because I work at Microsoft. I said they had to be publicly available.
Why don't you do it, and let us all know your results?
Actually, I think the key thing (or one of them) was that Microsoft could not pass the compatibility tests because they refused to implement JNI and RMI. I'm pretty sure that's all part of the public tests...
Please give me a URL where I can download these public tests from. Because until you do that, the tests are not PUBLIC, which is part of the contract.
This trial was not originally about clean room implementations; it's been known from the beginning that is acceptable. It's only about whether Microsoft had a contractual obligation to comply with the full Java spec and Sun's compatibility tests. From that regard, Judge Whyte's "preliminary rulings" are equivalent to deciding the trial: Microsoft is guilty.
All well and good, but the contractual obligation was that MS Java would have to pass publicly available compatibility tests. Try re-reading that contract, buddy boy. If this is all the case comes down to, MS is explicitly and unambiguously not guilty.
(btw: I am not a lawyer)
Uh, isn't this already what's happening? Especially when it comes to browser VMs. I don't know about you, but right now I'm downloading HotJava 3 for the sole express purpose of watching that Star Wars ASCIImation thing. Why? Because the Netscape VM breaks when it tries to run it.
Try the MS JVM - it runs fine on there.
;-)
MS should be more concerned about how this appears to the public at large. It's okay for MS to violate copyrights but it's not okay for anyone else to violate THEIR copyrights. Even in smaller more subtle ways.
MS will prosecute someone who gives a copy of BOB(tm) to a friend or someone who uses a DOS disk from one machine to test another machine. Or someone who uses the same license of Office at home and at work. All the way up to the large pirates that ship thousands of CDs.
There's a difference between copyright infringement and copyright theft; and this had to go to court to prove that there was an infringement - not to mention the fact that there has been no final decision from the judge yet .
However, with piracy, that's a clear case of copyright theft. And if you advocate piracy, please, please, please go directly to hell.
Thank you chairman bill.
You're a bit late to thank him...
http://www.microsoft.com/BillGates/speeches/gar
I hope I interpreted this incorrectly, but the last statement in the article seemed to imply that MS was attempting to force Sun to implement additional classes in order to bring MS perversion of Java into compliance and that the judge was actually considering this? I wish I could come up with a proper analogy on why this is a bad-thing tm, but Iam too flabergasted by the gall of this to even think clearly.
Rule 1 of programming for the masses:
Maintain backwards compatibility.
Besides - define compliance! As part of the Sun/MS contract, it's explicitly stated that the compatibility tests used must be PUBLICLY available.
Funnily enough, I don't see any publicly available Java Compatibility suites on sites anywhere.
Reading the stuff from the antitrust trial is interesting too - with Sun saying that they'd use the compatibility suites to force MS to implement anything they liked.
The Serial numbers of all your MS software, or any other SPA protected code on your machine... Yepp, I see Legal slavering over that..
I'd be happy to see that, personally. Piracy costs me money. If you're pirating software, please feel free to go to hell.
The rest of the net using the MS 'features' as exploits is the real risk, remember 'Back Orifice' ?
Hellooooo? Back Orifice is a TROJAN HORSE. The same attack would work against Linux.
And how much extra does _that_ cost Mr. Simone Cook? Is it much more than my trusty xterm?
I have no idea how much "extra" it costs - if at all.
However, I do know one thing - if it costs more than nothing, you won't be happy. So I don't know why I bothered replying to you.
>> Ask yourself: Why in hell would MS WANT to get your password file? What could you possibly have on your system that we'd want? Are you really so egotistical and self-important that you REALLY think we'd even CONSIDER for a moment trying to get onto your machine? Please, stop, my sides are splitting.
"We'd"? curious use of the plural self. looks like malda will have to do more to keep the micros~1 trolls out.
but, first, a rebuttal: MSFT does do that. what do you think the registry e-mail they recieve every time I turn on my nt box is for? Loser.
Are you blind or something? Can you read the disclaimer I have at the bottom of my posts? The reason for "we'd" is because I work for Microsoft.
Not only that but "Malda will have to do more to keep the micros~1 trolls out"? That's pathetic (and I know for a fact that Rob doesn't condone the idea of keeping MS employees out of Slashdot).
As for your rebuttal - show me a copy of the registry email that we supposedly receive, and I'll take it up with the NT team. But I know and you know that you're talking through your ass.
Not only that, but who'd take the word of an anonymous poster. At least I'm not hiding.
A typical example of broken MS scripts (and I am using IE4!). I can't see any content on the page at all, nor any links to anything of obvious interest.
Hmmmm.... *loads up Netscape*. Seems great to me!
Allowing many users to log on one at a time does not a multiuser OS make. At least with Windows 3.11 you could switch users without quitting every application. This USEFUL ability was REMOVED from later versions of Windows. Now when I'm logged on as FOO with 5 apps open and realize I need to copy one file to my HD that only BAR has access to, I am screwed under 95 onward, not so with Win3.11 on down. Stupid Microsoft...
Try using the REMOTE command, or run a telnet server on your NT box.
Oh hang on a minute... you're talking about being "Screwed under 95 onwards", and about running on "Win3.11". You seem to be ignoring NT completely.
The best way to do it though is to run Terminal Server.
it's from Micro$oft
'nuff said
What the hell's that got to do with anything? As much as possible you shouldn't run ANYTHING as root for security and safety's sake.
Since MS has no true multiuser OS
Actually, the NT kernel is fully multiuser; as is Win32; it's just that because of compatibility reasons, this functionality is usually hidden (older Win3.1 apps and some Win95 apps make major assumptions that they'll only be running one instance per machine, which causes problems).
Terminal Server is pretty cool. I use it all the time here at work (mainly for development; I do my buddy builds from a remote session, and run my checkin suites that way).
MS has already amply demonstrated that they can't do UNIX, and in the process they inflicted SCO on us all. For that alone they should be banned from ever doing UNIX development work again.
Hello? How long ago was that? Since 95, MS apps have been getting much better than they were in the past (I wouldn't be working here today if I hadn't seen that happen).
Talk about prejudices and preconceived notions. Sheesh.
Ugh. I hate the thought of starting my X session only to be greeted by a happy and cheery spinning M$ windows-logo globe while some ActiveX IE extension sends my password file back to microsoft.com
You really think we have to go that far? We've already got your password file, your credit card records, and pictures of you and your family.
Ask yourself: Why in hell would MS WANT to get your password file? What could you possibly have on your system that we'd want? Are you really so egotistical and self-important that you REALLY think we'd even CONSIDER for a moment trying to get onto your machine? Please, stop, my sides are splitting.
Oh, I dont know... Microsoft does seem to have a disregard for privacy. Remember the GUID's that all their apps tack into documents.
Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Just think IT'S THE SAME WITH CORBA! Lots of NASTY GUIDs (aka UUID's) running around the place! Eeeeek! Same with certain versions of RPC! Argh!
The only reason GUIDs were in office docs in the first place was so that they could be uniquely identified in Index Server; it allows weeding out of dupes. Don't be surprised if someone here at MS comes out with a one-way hash GUID generator in the near future - thus, resolving all your fears, and STILL letting everyone have a way of generating GLOBALLY UNIQUE numbers.
So I think that any MS code on my machine will never run with anything near root privilege.
Actually, given my experience with MS code on my Mac, I'll never let a byte of it on my Linux machine. MS can write acceptable code for their own platform, but anything they do for other platforms really has been sub-standard in my experience.
I take it you've not tried any MS Mac software in the last 2 years then...
They may be writing the browser, but will it be open-source? Even if it is, would it be GPL or a more restrictuve license (my money's on the second, or not at all)
r ability.htm
Who knows... but check this out as a sign of things that may be on the horizon.
http://www.microsoft.com/java/resource/interope
Wow. MS doesn't announce anything either way (and hasn't), this entire discussion is based around supposition, and you're complaining about VAPORWARE?
The mind boggles.