He didn't make any statement that needed any more supporting evidence than the post he was responding to.
If you had written applets between 1996 and 1998 using Netscape's VM, the Sun JVM and the Microsoft JVM at the time, and tried to get the same code working on all three, you wouldn't have needed any corroboration.
One of the worst was that Netscape's VM used completely different Z-Order to everyone else's. Their security manager was different.
I'd come up with more examples, but I've blocked out that awful part of my memory.
my god, is it just me or do MS execs seem to just not get prosecuted for purgery?
If MS execs were to be prosecuted for perjury, then the Real execs would have to be as well.
Remember; Real Networks are the people who stood up in court at the start of the trial and claimed (under oath) that Microsoft had crippled their RealPlayer G2 installer.
The real story?
RealPlayer G2's Installer was badly written, and contained bugs.
Microsoft demonstrated where the bugs in the installer were, and hey presto - it worked fine. Any good installer engineer would have been able to fix that - I guess the Real Networks ones are too busy embedding spyware to get the basics right.
So... when are the Real Networks guys going to be prosecuted for perjury?
I've been using Internet Explorer 6 for over six months now, since I got a computer that was pre-loaded with Windows XP last year. Whenever I click on a link to an MP3, AVI, or other media file, I always get a dialog box saying "Would you like to play this in Internet Explorer?" I always check "Never ask me again," and click "No." However, for some reason, I keep getting asked this very same question every time!
Your OEM screwed up the install. Your user security database is most likely hosed; other symptoms will be passwords not being remembered in Outlook Express.
Unfortunately, I can't remember the exact fix. But I had to do it on my Gateway system when it arrived at work. It's in the MS knowledge base though - search for "outlook express" "user authentication", and you should find something about it.
When I installed my own copy of Windows XP (beta, full release, whatever), it didn't have this issue. Makes you wonder what the software Gateway preloaded is doing with the system.
One thing that does occur to me is that Microsoft's monopoly OS gives them the ability to pressure and control harware OEMs into doing thier bidding. Who does Apple get to pressure in that scenario? Themselves?
For some material, there are licensing issues for other countries - depending on:
1. What music is used in the piece. 2. What brands/pictures appear in the piece. 3. Distributor rights for different countries. 4. Royalties for different countries.
etc etc etc.
Region coding allows them to get around these problems, by treating each release as a single case, instead of having to resolve all licensing issues in one version.
For example, when The Prisoner and DangerMan were released on DVD, Carlton UK had the rights to european distribution (they bought the rights to all of Lord Lew Grade's back catalog - ATV, IIRC), whereas the US rights were owned by a subsidiary of A&E. Because of this historical rights assignations, Carlton could only release a Region 1 version (hey, I phoned them and asked them). So for a long time there it was unlikely that the US was going to get The Prisoner, and nigh-on impossible that the US was going to get Secret Agent/Danger Man. Luckily, A&E have started releasing the Danger Man DVDs in the US. *phew*
Now, it is also used to keep prices at local market rates, instead of dropping to a global minimum. But that's not the whole story.
Ummm, 600,000 hours is about 68 YEARS. I think I can manage crashes 68 years apart. Even if you worst worst worst case it to 100,000 hours you are at over 11 years.
All this means is that for any given drive in any given year, you have a 1.4705% chance of your drive failing, on average.
If you have 68 drives in your system, then, it is likely that one will fail per year.
That's stats for you.
So higher MTBF can actually work out to better reliability.
Of course, this is a simplistic analysis, which doesn't take into account the actual distribution of mortality for those drives (which, for any hardware, tends to have the stillborn/geriatric ends of the spectrum with the most failures)
Think about it. Microsoft wrapped FreeBSD's TCP/IP stack with their own high-level custom interface. They wouldn't expose the sockets interface as it is presented in FreeBSD.
I'd like to see someone try doing that.
No, I'm sorry, but the Windows 2000 TCP/IP stack is not based on BSD.
Posting as an AC because I don't feel like losing my job... I do some work on CIFS and there is indeed some samba code in the codebase. Their implimentations of some functionality is portable to Win32 and more efficient than the in-house code we had previously. Rather than rewite it ourselves, samba code was taken and obfuscated. After all, who's going to find it? And good luck proving it.
Okay then:
Which building number does not exist on the Microsoft campus?
What does v- at the beginning of an email address mean?
What is the name of the asian supermarket near the campus?
What is the name of the bank that has the closest affiliation with Microsoft employees?
If you can get any of these right, I might believe you. My current guess would be that, no, you won't be able to.
Especially since as early as 1998 there were EXPLICIT instructions to all MS employees not to even LOOK at open-source code, on pain of death.
You go into a store. Software Product A is sitting on the shelf for $10.
You decide that Product A isn't worth $10 to you. (The step you missed)
You decide that you will not use Product A at all, because copying it is morally, ethically and legally wrong. If it's not worth $10 to you, then why would you want a copy? (the step you missed).
If it's not worth $10 to you, why are you making a copy? What possible value could that copy have to you?
Well, obviously it's worth something. People don't do anything for no reason whatsoever.
I bet you go to car dealerships and drive cars off the lot that are 'too expensive' for you too.
I didn't win the lottery, so I've suffered a net lost of $320 million this year. Damn. At least I should get a tax break. Because I feel like I should have gotten that money, and I didn't, that means that I lost it.
Sorry, but that's a facetious and completely orthogonal argument.
They're selling their stuff. They do NOT give you permission to have it for free. If you don't like those terms, walk.
Where the hell did you come up with that lottery ticket thing?
Tell ya what. We'll make your salary completely lotto based, and see how you feel then. How does that sound?
I made a copy FOR FREE, rather than buy it. Assume that sans this option, I wouldn't have bought it. That means the value it has for me is less than the amount they are asking. Possibly, near zero value.
They lost no profit, because they never would have made any off me.
It's leeches like you that give leeches a bad name.
Look: they don't want to give you free entertainment. They want to sell entertainment to others.
If you don't like that, don't do it. Don't fuck with other peoples livelihoods just because you're too cheap to buy your toys.
I hope one of these days I get the opportunity to steal from you.
So you are saying that if I go into a store and put a copy of The Sims under my jacket and walk out without paying it is the same as burning an illegal copy of a friend's game? I have to disagree
Well, let's run the numbers, shall we?
Development team for 2 years: $4 million dollars.
Cost of goods on a copy of the sims... oh... say $6.
Store Price of The Sims: $49.95
Store Take: ~ 50%
You have just deprived the software company of $18.97 of revenue.
Breakeven to the company: 212,000 copies need to be sold.
So yes, it's the same as burning an illegal copy of the game. The only difference being that those $6 for the box, manuals, CDs, etc don't necessarily get given to the manufacturing company.
HOWEVER, if your copying causes a copy to be sent back to the software company as a return from the distributor, that means that they take a hit of a little over $24.
So it's complicated. Depending on how far you take each argument, it is arguably *worse* for you to copy the software than it is to shoplift it -- because at least with shoplifting, they're insured against the loss.
Yeah, thats all very well, but where is the `theft` and where is the `piracy`. Both these words already have meanings in dictionaries which have nothing in common with the definitions as implied in the article - indeed in almost every discussion about software `piracy`.
*sigh* I bet you bitch about the difference between hacker/cracker too.
The theft is in the copying. You have made/taken a copy which you were not allowed to do so. Therefore you have taken the data without their permission. Given that you have something which belongs to someone else which you didn't have before, and you have it without their permission, that is theft.
Why do they insist on equating an illegal copy with a stolen copy. The "thief" in the stolen copy case has not deprived the owner of the copyright of anything, the victim still has everything he had before the "theft"
Here we go - in very tiny words for you, ok?
You go into a store. Software Product A is sitting on the shelf for $10.
You go around to your friend's house. Software Product A is copied to you for free.
Producer of Software Product A has now lost a $10 sale.
Whether you would have bought it for $10 or not is irrelevant - you made a copy, so it obviously has value to you.
Therefore, you are depriving the software company of their profit on that product.
If you disagree with this, then fine, disagree with the software company too - and DON'T USE or COPY THEIR PRODUCT.
Star Wars has made George Lucas a billionaire (or close to it) and you have to ask exactly what he thinks he's got to lose by letting loose of the franchise. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did this with his Sherlock Holmes character and greatly enriched popular culture. For example, Sherlock Holmes appears in more films than any other recurring character.
Sorry, but I don't think that's the entire story. For example:
"Elementary, Dear Data"
Episode Number 29 Season 2 Stardate 42286.3 Original airdate 12/5/88
Writer Brian Alan Lane Director Rob Bowman
Synopsis Data and Geordi play Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson on the holodeck. The computer creates a powerful foe, Dr. Moriarty, who kidnaps Dr. Pulaski and learns to control the ship.
Main Characters and Guest Cast Brent Spiner (Lt. Commander Data) LeVar Burton (Lt. Geordi La Forge) Diana Muldaur (Dr. Katherine Pulaski) Daniel Davis (Dr. James Moriarty) Alan Shearman (Inspector Lestrade) Anne Elizabeth Ramsey (Ensign Clancy)
Notes Professor Moriarty returns to the holodeck in sixth season's "Ship in a Bottle." This is the only episode Data plays Sherlock Holmes, due to a lawsuit from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's estate.
He hasn't created any, because there is no such thing. Knowledge and information cannot be owned, and what little pretention to "ownership" of it exists in law is a legal fiction created to stimulate "science and the useful arts
Knowledge & Information != Arts
A science fiction novel conveys some knowledge, and some information, but the format is where the value lies.
For example:
Black holes are collapsed stars which even light cannot escape IS NOT the same as the Disney movie The Black Hole.
One is knowledge and information - the other is structured use of that knowledge.
For example, music is an arrangement of musical notes. You can't copyright a musical note - but you CAN copyright the arrangement.
If it is true, anywhere, that a library pays a royalty on (say) per-check-out or per-year (as is true for some scientific journals!) this should be fixed. Libraries are a public resource. An important one, unless you like cultivating uneducated peasantry.
Slashdot Mirror
He didn't make any statement that needed any more supporting evidence than the post he was responding to.
If you had written applets between 1996 and 1998 using Netscape's VM, the Sun JVM and the Microsoft JVM at the time, and tried to get the same code working on all three, you wouldn't have needed any corroboration.
One of the worst was that Netscape's VM used completely different Z-Order to everyone else's. Their security manager was different.
I'd come up with more examples, but I've blocked out that awful part of my memory.
Simon
my god, is it just me or do MS execs seem to just not get prosecuted for purgery?
If MS execs were to be prosecuted for perjury, then the Real execs would have to be as well.
Remember; Real Networks are the people who stood up in court at the start of the trial and claimed (under oath) that Microsoft had crippled their RealPlayer G2 installer.
The real story?
RealPlayer G2's Installer was badly written, and contained bugs.
Microsoft demonstrated where the bugs in the installer were, and hey presto - it worked fine. Any good installer engineer would have been able to fix that - I guess the Real Networks ones are too busy embedding spyware to get the basics right.
So... when are the Real Networks guys going to be prosecuted for perjury?
Simon
I've been using Internet Explorer 6 for over six months now, since I got a computer that was pre-loaded with Windows XP last year. Whenever I click on a link to an MP3, AVI, or other media file, I always get a dialog box saying "Would you like to play this in Internet Explorer?" I always check "Never ask me again," and click "No." However, for some reason, I keep getting asked this very same question every time!
Your OEM screwed up the install. Your user security database is most likely hosed; other symptoms will be passwords not being remembered in Outlook Express.
Unfortunately, I can't remember the exact fix. But I had to do it on my Gateway system when it arrived at work. It's in the MS knowledge base though - search for "outlook express" "user authentication", and you should find something about it.
When I installed my own copy of Windows XP (beta, full release, whatever), it didn't have this issue. Makes you wonder what the software Gateway preloaded is doing with the system.
Simon
Hey, since when is open source about a single platform?
Since it became religion. Or a way of killing Microsoft. Or both.
Simon
Hey; don't complain - the same scheme worked for YOUR comment; you got modded up.
Simon
One thing that does occur to me is that Microsoft's monopoly OS gives them the ability to pressure and control harware OEMs into doing thier bidding. Who does Apple get to pressure in that scenario? Themselves?
No, the clone manufacturers.
What clone manufacturers?
Exactly. There used to be some.
Simon
Yeah, we're just awful people for holding a monopoly up to different standards than we hold any other business to. My guilt is killing me
Well, you are holding Apple to different standards than you hold any other business to.
Don't forget; if you use Judge Pennfield Jackson's criteria for determining Microsoft to be a monopoly, Apple is one as well.
Simon
This is correct - mod up!
Actually, it's only partly correct.
For some material, there are licensing issues for other countries - depending on:
1. What music is used in the piece.
2. What brands/pictures appear in the piece.
3. Distributor rights for different countries.
4. Royalties for different countries.
etc etc etc.
Region coding allows them to get around these problems, by treating each release as a single case, instead of having to resolve all licensing issues in one version.
For example, when The Prisoner and DangerMan were released on DVD, Carlton UK had the rights to european distribution (they bought the rights to all of Lord Lew Grade's back catalog - ATV, IIRC), whereas the US rights were owned by a subsidiary of A&E. Because of this historical rights assignations, Carlton could only release a Region 1 version (hey, I phoned them and asked them). So for a long time there it was unlikely that the US was going to get The Prisoner, and nigh-on impossible that the US was going to get Secret Agent/Danger Man. Luckily, A&E have started releasing the Danger Man DVDs in the US. *phew*
Now, it is also used to keep prices at local market rates, instead of dropping to a global minimum. But that's not the whole story.
Simon
Ummm, 600,000 hours is about 68 YEARS. I think I can manage crashes 68 years apart. Even if you worst worst worst case it to 100,000 hours you are at over 11 years.
All this means is that for any given drive in any given year, you have a 1.4705% chance of your drive failing, on average.
If you have 68 drives in your system, then, it is likely that one will fail per year.
That's stats for you.
So higher MTBF can actually work out to better reliability.
Of course, this is a simplistic analysis, which doesn't take into account the actual distribution of mortality for those drives (which, for any hardware, tends to have the stillborn/geriatric ends of the spectrum with the most failures)
Simon
So the code running your local nuclear reactor is better tested than the code animating your office assistant.
:-)
:-))
... you hope
Si
(actually, I should take that joke back... I know a few people who write code to run nuclear reactors...
Because it took more time to find that link.
Besides, when you post the same thing over and over and over whenever anybody makes this claim, it gets boring.
Think about it. Microsoft wrapped FreeBSD's TCP/IP stack with their own high-level custom interface. They wouldn't expose the sockets interface as it is presented in FreeBSD.
I'd like to see someone try doing that.
No, I'm sorry, but the Windows 2000 TCP/IP stack is not based on BSD.
Earlier versions were.
The real scoop
For example, Windows 2000 appears to be using a TCP/IP implementation directly copied from the FreeBSD kernel tree
Damn. I hope someone told the Winsock team, because the API is COMPLETELY different.
Since when has FreeBSD supported IO Completion ports, Overlapped IO, IO Completion Routines, EventSelect, and Window Message selection?
Simon
Posting as an AC because I don't feel like losing my job... I do some work on CIFS and there is indeed some samba code in the codebase. Their implimentations of some functionality is portable to Win32 and more efficient than the in-house code we had previously. Rather than rewite it ourselves, samba code was taken and obfuscated. After all, who's going to find it? And good luck proving it.
Okay then:
Which building number does not exist on the Microsoft campus?
What does v- at the beginning of an email address mean?
What is the name of the asian supermarket near the campus?
What is the name of the bank that has the closest affiliation with Microsoft employees?
If you can get any of these right, I might believe you. My current guess would be that, no, you won't be able to.
Especially since as early as 1998 there were EXPLICIT instructions to all MS employees not to even LOOK at open-source code, on pain of death.
Simon
*grins* exactly - it's all about respect of other people.
You go into a store. Software Product A is sitting on the shelf for $10.
You decide that Product A isn't worth $10 to you. (The step you missed)
You decide that you will not use Product A at all, because copying it is morally, ethically and legally wrong. If it's not worth $10 to you, then why would you want a copy? (the step you missed).
If it's not worth $10 to you, why are you making a copy? What possible value could that copy have to you?
Well, obviously it's worth something. People don't do anything for no reason whatsoever.
I bet you go to car dealerships and drive cars off the lot that are 'too expensive' for you too.
Simon
Exactly! Oh, wait. No. You're exactly wrong.
I didn't win the lottery, so I've suffered a net lost of $320 million this year. Damn. At least I should get a tax break. Because I feel like I should have gotten that money, and I didn't, that means that I lost it.
Sorry, but that's a facetious and completely orthogonal argument.
They're selling their stuff. They do NOT give you permission to have it for free. If you don't like those terms, walk.
Where the hell did you come up with that lottery ticket thing?
Tell ya what. We'll make your salary completely lotto based, and see how you feel then. How does that sound?
Simon
I made a copy FOR FREE, rather than buy it.
Assume that sans this option, I wouldn't
have bought it. That means the value it has
for me is less than the amount they are asking.
Possibly, near zero value.
They lost no profit, because they never would
have made any off me.
It's leeches like you that give leeches a bad name.
Look: they don't want to give you free entertainment. They want to sell entertainment to others.
If you don't like that, don't do it. Don't fuck with other peoples livelihoods just because you're too cheap to buy your toys.
I hope one of these days I get the opportunity to steal from you.
Simon
So you are saying that if I go into a store and put a copy of The Sims under my jacket and walk out without paying it is the same as burning an illegal copy of a friend's game? I have to disagree
Well, let's run the numbers, shall we?
Development team for 2 years: $4 million dollars.
Cost of goods on a copy of the sims... oh... say $6.
Store Price of The Sims: $49.95
Store Take: ~ 50%
You have just deprived the software company of $18.97 of revenue.
Breakeven to the company: 212,000 copies need to be sold.
So yes, it's the same as burning an illegal copy of the game. The only difference being that those $6 for the box, manuals, CDs, etc don't necessarily get given to the manufacturing company.
HOWEVER, if your copying causes a copy to be sent back to the software company as a return from the distributor, that means that they take a hit of a little over $24.
So it's complicated. Depending on how far you take each argument, it is arguably *worse* for you to copy the software than it is to shoplift it -- because at least with shoplifting, they're insured against the loss.
Simon
Yeah, thats all very well, but where is the `theft` and where is the `piracy`. Both these words already have meanings in dictionaries which have nothing in common with the definitions as implied in the article - indeed in almost every discussion about software `piracy`.
*sigh* I bet you bitch about the difference between hacker/cracker too.
The theft is in the copying. You have made/taken a copy which you were not allowed to do so. Therefore you have taken the data without their permission. Given that you have something which belongs to someone else which you didn't have before, and you have it without their permission, that is theft.
Simon
Why do they insist on equating an illegal copy with a stolen copy. The "thief" in the stolen copy case has not deprived the owner of the copyright of anything, the victim still has everything he had before the "theft"
Here we go - in very tiny words for you, ok?
You go into a store. Software Product A is sitting on the shelf for $10.
You go around to your friend's house. Software Product A is copied to you for free.
Producer of Software Product A has now lost a $10 sale.
Whether you would have bought it for $10 or not is irrelevant - you made a copy, so it obviously has value to you.
Therefore, you are depriving the software company of their profit on that product.
If you disagree with this, then fine, disagree with the software company too - and DON'T USE or COPY THEIR PRODUCT.
Simon
Star Wars has made George Lucas a billionaire (or close to it) and you have to ask exactly what he thinks he's got to lose by letting loose of the franchise. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did this with his Sherlock Holmes character and greatly enriched popular culture. For example, Sherlock Holmes appears in more films than any other recurring character.
Sorry, but I don't think that's the entire story. For example:
"Elementary, Dear Data"
Episode Number 29
Season 2
Stardate 42286.3
Original airdate 12/5/88
Writer Brian Alan Lane
Director Rob Bowman
Synopsis
Data and Geordi play Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson on the holodeck. The computer creates a powerful foe, Dr. Moriarty, who kidnaps Dr. Pulaski and learns to control the ship.
Main Characters and Guest Cast
Brent Spiner (Lt. Commander Data)
LeVar Burton (Lt. Geordi La Forge)
Diana Muldaur (Dr. Katherine Pulaski)
Daniel Davis (Dr. James Moriarty)
Alan Shearman (Inspector Lestrade)
Anne Elizabeth Ramsey (Ensign Clancy)
Notes
Professor Moriarty returns to the holodeck in sixth season's "Ship in a Bottle."
This is the only episode Data plays Sherlock Holmes, due to a lawsuit from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's estate.
He hasn't created any, because there is no such thing. Knowledge and information cannot be owned, and what little pretention to "ownership" of it exists in law is a legal fiction created to stimulate "science and the useful arts
Knowledge & Information != Arts
A science fiction novel conveys some knowledge, and some information, but the format is where the value lies.
For example:
Black holes are collapsed stars which even light cannot escape IS NOT the same as the Disney movie The Black Hole.
One is knowledge and information - the other is structured use of that knowledge.
For example, music is an arrangement of musical notes. You can't copyright a musical note - but you CAN copyright the arrangement.
Simon
If it is true, anywhere, that a library pays a royalty on (say) per-check-out or per-year (as is true for some scientific journals!) this should be fixed. Libraries are a public resource. An important one, unless you like cultivating uneducated peasantry.
See: the UK, Canada, Australia.
http://www.plrinternational.com/
Simon
Libraries do NOT pay authors royalties. Where in the world did you get that idea?
o nal.com
http://www.plr.uk.com/
http://www.plrinternati
Public Lending Royalties have been in place in the UK since at least 1980, IIRC.