Incidentally, Hanson was among the first to throw software samples into magazines (freebie demo disks). Given his past experience, it was a small leap from throwing perfume samples in Cosmo, to program samples in PC Week.
This practice dates back to the very early 80s in the UK... and has a very long history. So it's not exactly novel.
Sometime in late 2001, some bozo's organising an advertising campaign for Microsoft's XBOX console decided it would be a great idea to graffiti the logo in bright green paint all over publicly funded paving, pathways, garden beds etc in Sydney, Australia. Claimed it was environmentally friendly paint, will wash off with rain. Company charged hundreds of dollars in removal costs for each logo, after the local government found that in many cases it was rather more...permanent, including many instances on newly installed granite paving. Story reported in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, so I suppose theres *plenty* of consumers like me who are spending their money on PS2 instead.
Hey, that sounds like that campaign where people spraypainted TUX on everything... and got in trouble for it. Wasn't that IBM who did that?
So they are incorporating the work of Hans Reiser~! Great idea MS! Perhaps slip in some DRM, maybe some NSA features as long as they are continuing to appropiate everyone else's ideas
No, they can't be doing that because as Hans Reiser claims, you can't do that kind of filesystem without modifying the NT kernel[1].
This idea has been around Microsoft since 1994 at least... possibly earlier. It was the whole idea behind the Cairo project.
Simon [1] Personally, I think he's on crack with that statement, but hey, if he wants to go ahead and sue Microsoft (he claimed as much on the AM-Info mailing list) to get his filesystem working on Windows because he doesn't understand how to write a filesystem driver for Windows, then he can go ahead.
On another note, anyone feel that that "turbo mode" should be kept in the windows builds only? This might sound silly, but I expect every program to jam itself in my window system tray, but for some reason, I don't want it anywhere near my linux box, it's Just Not Right(tm).
You don't need it on your Windows box either. Run BIND on the image files (it comes with the platform SDK), and hey presto, your load time will be reduced.
At least, that's what I'm seeing. It loads fast enough on my system that I might be just jumping at shadows.
I love all the trolling the AC cocksuckers are doing with this one. Let's see..I wonder what IP block (Redmond) they are originating from? IF you read it, you will see that they are on track to actually make money this year. I for one have indeed contributed the paltry $60 USD for what I consider a great Linux distro. Compare that to the $299 that Uncle Billy will be taking out on your sorry asses, you M$ apologist. Oh wait, you guys can d/l that for free from the warez groups. Nevermind.
Actually, I think you'll find that most of them are posting from 216.148.218.197.
Umm, the AI lab already had their computers. We might have paid for them to set up, but we probably didn't pay much extra for RMS to work there. Same with most people. If you already have a computer, you don't need to pay for it
No, but you have to pay the rent, for the space, electricity, water, sewage, garbage, cleaners, etc etc etc. And that office/space could have been put to better use. As could the computer time. We'll just never know.
So just face it - it cost money to do this.
EXCEPT that under the GNU anyone can do that. This is the old 'free software' confusion. Free software doesn't have to be given away. If I wanted to sell copies of GNU Emacs, I could do, as long as the people I sold it to had permission to sell it on themselves.
The normal cry here is: "but! You can't really make money selling free software, because since you can't stop others distributing it, those other people can give it away for nothing and you'll lose the money you made." Yep, that's right. But then, even if you were making commercial software they'd still be no guarantee you'd make money doing it. And a competitor might well try and push you out by giving an equivalent product away (Internet Explorer anyone?).
There can still be commercialisation and competition in free software. Witness the Linux boxed distros. The only difference is that the scarce resource involved isn't the software.
I take it that the scarce resource involved is... erm... the boxes? The store shelf space? Shrink wrap? CD Burners? Schmucks who will pay for something they can download for free? IQ points?
Great post. It's clear now and I have you to thank. You've really helped out alot of people with your little tutorial on programming.
Thanks. I hope so.
Now, it's past your bedtime little troll.
Oh you were being sarcastic. Well, gosh, I guess you got me good, huh?
I take it all back. Optimizing to the underlying architecture using standard (if you read Richter, or the Addison Wesley system books) is obviously not going to give you performance improvements. How silly of me for even thinking such a thing, or knowing such a thing because I've DONE it in my own apps.
Yeah, use C++ new/delete not crappy malloc via 12 levels of apis
New and delete are most likely implemented in the same way as malloc and free in most systems; they'll both make the same calls under the hood. Using VirtualAlloc (or heck, even deserialized local heaps) WILL make a difference. Particularly for generational garbage collection because you can reuse the same slots over and over again, and optimize for that case.
fopen/fread doesnt matter if your not doing many fopens, and if all your freads read in 256Kb blocks
256Kb blocks are wasteful. Optimal size is a function of the paging architecture of the system. Make sure your reads are to page-aligned memory, and things will be much faster. This is, for example, one reason why memory mapped files are about 20 times faster than normal file IO on Windows.
It's all back to writing code to the OS, or writing portable code -- one is good for perf, the other is good for portability. And like most optimizations, you can get a lot by just profiling and optimizing on a case by case basis.
It's amazing that Sun's (or any other non-M$) VM could approach the M$ VM perf considering the proprietary hooks and low-level tricks M$ used to get that kind of performance.
You know what most of those proprietary hooks and low-level tricks are?
Not using fopen and malloc to handle all of your memory management and file i/o.
That's it. End of story.
Use VirtualAlloc for memory management, and you'll get better perf. Use CreateFile with overlapped I/O or completion ports, and you'll get better perf.
Basically, Sun writes their code to be ported, and MS writes it directly to their platform. Portable code = sucky performance. Live with it -- don't blame Microsoft because Sun don't tune their code.
In the Microsoft case, the "market" was defined as "personal computers" in which market Microsoft clearly has enough power to dictate pricing and distribution... and they have demonstrated.
No, it was defined as the IBM-PC x86 compatible personal computer market. Which is a bit narrow, don't you think? For a start, it removes Apple
Check out this article [grc.com]. ClearType is just Microsoft's name for sub-pixel rendering, and it's been around for decades now.
Yeah, but Gibson is also an ass who doesn't seem to know the difference between scientific method and guesswork.
MS research has the fully detailed papers which indicate the fourier transforms, information theory and signal processing theory behind the technique. Which is a damn sight more thorough than Gibson's quackery.
"Oh yeah, apple did it all in the 70s". Bullshit. Back then, the Apple II didn't have the hardware or the CPU power to do the kind of calculation you need to do for Cleartype. Nor did it have the color resolution. All Apple's tech was was a way of hacking color out of a monochrome NTSC signal -- not getting better resolution out of a monochrome signal using color. Get the difference?
When are people around here going to do some thinking and some research instead of acting like idiots? I thought that people who flock to sites like this were supposed to be tech savvy? Maybe it's just me, but I thought that indicated at least a modicum of intelligence instead of blind sheepery.
So the guy that is head of Windows (You remember Windows right? That OS that is tied so closely with Internet Explorer) doesn't know about IE on the Mac. Yeah, right!
What I find absolutely hilarious is that these guys, some of the richest guys in the world, with all their money and power, still have to lie like little children who have been caught doing something wrong. It's pathetic, really pathetic.
1. I'd love to see you in court. You have to be very careful what you say, because lawyers will twist your words and present them as fact -- and then say "no further questions" before you have the chance to explain your statement. This isn't a dress rehearsal; it's the real deal. You have to frame every answer as if they will stop you at the end of that sentence and mark it as the "Recorded Truth". (I hope I'm never in court; I'd very likely strangle the lawyer if they tried that with me).
2. Microsoft is *huge*. Over 35,000 people. And the Mac Business Unit -- who do all the Mac development -- are in California. He's in charge of Windows, in Redmond. They're two separate divisions, and unless things have changed since I've worked there, communication is probably lousy or nonexistant between the two. Heck, usually it's lousy or nonexistant between groups who have to work together unless Ballmer or Gates hits them with a big stick.
Windows 95 or NT comes out, and Microsoft claims to have bundled in a useful, featurific backup program. By that time, the healthy market was down to two or three brand competitors including Norton. With the release of 95 or NT, Norton completely exits the market for backup programs as they believe there is no way of competing with a useful backup program from MS.
Obviously you've not checked into Norton's product list since... oh... 1995. Norton Ghost is a rather excellent backup program. And yes, they still sell it.
That MS reasoning is crap. They can remove all the browser-related (i.e, IE) DLLs and leave just the rendering engine. All the HTML-based help works, but the browser and its FTP download engine, etc are no longer installed.
You can't remove WinInet -- I use that a lot.
Feel free to remove IExplore.exe. It's the only part I don't use in my own apps, and it's 62kb. I won't miss it.
That's because the OSS movement is currently mostly working on operating systems, office suites, web browsers, server software, database applications, and other such things primaraly used by buissness. Games aren't exactly at the top of the priority list for buissness development.
I thought that console mode text editors and flashy KDE skins were the number 1 killer development project that everyone's working on?
OLE2 and.net are both made by Microsoft. If you want to know the complexity of a.net transferred user interface, have a look at the source code that makes it run. First, it needs a runtime. Next, you'll need to define classes. Do you get the point?
Other than that you don't seem to have done much programming in either, no I don't.
If you want to know how complexity is, when a webpage is replaced with a.net solution, then have a look at the OLE2 "hello world" application source code.
What are you talking about? OLE2 has nothing to do with.NET.
Please, get a grip. And stop smoking that which makes you paranoid.
Do you ever wonder why Sierra picked you as one of the developers who wasn't worth keeping?
Not particularly; not that it's any of your business, but my division was shut down to a skeleton crew.
I can tell you what the problem is: you're just a jerk, and you have no respect for other people
Says the guy who has no respect for other peoples property and hard work? You keep posting these keys. That's not the behavior of someone who has any kind of respect for other people. That's the behavior of a punk-ass kid who wants to cause a little trouble, and is hiding behind a 'crusade' to give himself rationalization for his actions and an excuse to his own conscience for what he's doing.
I'll bet it just boggles your mind that you can buy a copy of Red Hat Linux for $50, and give a copy to your friend without paying for it - legally. You live in a world of EULAs, complicated per-seat licensing arrangements, and silly ever-changing rules that govern what people can and cannot do with their own damn property.
I was writing free software before it became the latest vogue thing to do to rile against society.
Clue for you -- and here's the big problem that you need to get through your oh so thick skull:
It's not YOUR property. The media is what you bought. You did not buy the property. You can buy the property for several million dollars, or you can buy the media and the right to use it according to the license agreement for much less.
Even Lawrence Lessig copyrights his articles. Don't you see something rather... odd about that for someone who is trying to get rid of copyright? For someone who lauds free software?
Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but things are changing, and I'm a big part of the tide that will wash you and your fellow greedmongers away. Take a tip from me: change now, or become extinct.
Oh, and what would you suppose I do? Get a degree in biochemistry and move into genetics instead?
Just exactly how does this society you're predicting work? Who does the software engineering in it? And how do *they* make a living? Because I assure you, it will collapse.
So, my advice to you is to do some reading and open your mind. Read The Cathedral and the Bazaar; think about it a bit. Pick a project on Sourceforge [sourceforge.net] that looks interesting and contribute. Give back to the community.
I give back to the community by answering technical questions on technical forums. You seem to assume I'm part of your 'community' (whatever that is...). No, I'm not. It's not my community to give anything back to.
I ask you again; which community are you talking about? If you're talking about computer science, I'm sorry, but a piece of genealogy software, or a game isn't going to give back anything. It'll teach some newbies how to do the same thing, or others can come along and live as parasites on the back of the hard work done by others, but it won't actually give anything *back* to the community.
Besides, the last time I tried giving anything to the Linux community, I got 400 people telling me that no, there were no problems with the Linux UI. None whatsoever. Which is why a friend of mine has a terminal window with a scrollbar on the left hand side, and every other window has one on the right. No rhyme, reason or logic.
And, for the record, I've read The Cathedral and the Bazaar. I've also read the GNU Manifesto, where Stallman spells out how he wants all software engineers (you know, people who spend their lives learning a highly technical art & science, and spend all of their waking hours working on projects) to be retail clerks. I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in that scheme of things. You go right ahead and do it if you want to, but I don't have to.
And frankly, with the quality of most open source projects, I have nothing to worry about. I will always be able to invent a better mousetrap, and people will pay for that.
By the way, this community you speak of... are you going to be giving your law services for free to them? Why don't you post your OWN name and stand behind your words?
Oh I forgot; you're a coward 'anarchist' who claims to be a 1st year law student, who can spout philosophy and angst all he likes, but won't actually back it up with any kind of substance. Like, perhaps, the chance of getting punished for his behavior.
It's very easy to jump up and down and make faces when there's no consequences. But if you believed in your actions, then you'd stand behind them.
Go on, give us your name. Your email address. Your home address. And in the unlikely event you pass the bar, I'm sure we can all contact you so that you can give back to your 'community' by doing all of your work pro-bono.
I see you keep ignoring that. You are expecting to get paid to be a lawyer, yes?
Well, let's take a look at a few points on your resume, shall we?
Why? It's not exactly relevant, Mr. 1st Year Law Student who will never pass the bar.
A Washington address. Suspicious, but I'll let it drop.
What's suspicious about it?
Shipped 8 complete consumer applications with over 30 SKUs". So what was your contribution to the industry, again? You wrote 8 useless programs, which end users will not be able to modify, and sold them at a tremendous markup. If the programs were really all that great, why didn't you release the source code so everyone could see them? What do you have to be proud of?
Tremendous markup? What a crock of shit. You don't know what you're talking about. Profit on those titles? Around $2 a piece.
Why don't I release the source code? Because, numbnutz, it's not mine to release. Also, I don't get off on giving away my work for free. I gather you are going to work pro-bono on ALL of your cases then?
Oh, I'm sorry, I'm talking to a supposed 'law student' who will obviously be charging a hefty fee for his 'services'. If he ever passes the bar.
Visual Basic, VB (virus building) Script, C# experience. Wow, that will get you real far in life - knowing a few non-portable, proprietary languages. Twit.
Well, unfortunately, skills go out of vogue. So you don't put the ones that you don't use regularly on the resume (for example, Pascal, Fortran and IBM370 assembly language). For readers just tuning in, here's the actual list:
C, C++, Java, Visual Basic, VBScript, JavaScript, C#, Z80 (and related CPUs) Assembly, other Assembly language
I note that you don't mention Java as being proprietary (it is). You don't mention C, C++ or assembly language (which are more useful). You don't mention Javascript. How odd. Might it be that you're in training to be one of those lawyers who twists the facts to make their argument sound better, and then, after doing so says "No further questions"?
Is this what they teach you at law school? How to lie eloquently? You're an ass.
A "Brainbench" certification. Whatever that hell that is, it's probably useless.
Three actually, and I only put the ones that I considered important out of the 6 or 7 I've done. What's the matter? Jealous that I can take those and you don't have the brainpower to do so?
Work experience at Microsoft, on.Net. Again, you're wasting your days away developing proprietary technologies that trade security and stability for profits. Nothing new here.
Big fat hairy deal. I've also got work experience at several other companies. You see, there's this thing, it's called "Money". It lets you do things like "EAT" and "PAY RENT".
Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot -- you're going to be working for free when you get out of "law school", aren't you?
You see, Mr. Cooke, the difference between you and me is that I am working for a better world. I want to see more openness, more sharing, and more flexibility. Information wants to be free. You, on the other hand, embrace a pay-as-you-go model of selling software that is quickly becoming obsolete with the continued success of the open source movement. Your only goal is material gain; someday you will realize the sheer emptiness of your life, but by that point it will probably be too late.
Information does NOT want to be free. Knowledge wants to be free. Learning and education want to be free. But software isn't information per se.
But hey, you can put all the sugar-coated candy wrappings around it that you like -- when it comes down to it, you're proposing a utopian solution to a society that doesn't work AT ALL like that. Ultimate end result? Stagnation and resource starvation because there won't be anyone who can make money on new work, so no one will do the work because they'll be too busy working at K-Mart to code.
I embrace the pay-for-software model (not pay-as-you-go -- that's a subscription model, which I disagree with). Why? Because I happen to think that time which you will never get back in your life is precious. If I work on something, I reserve the right to be paid for that work. I also reserve the right to not give away that work for free, not be forced or coerced or extorted into giving away that work for free, and to charge whatever I deem appropriate for that work. Similarly, everyone else has the right to pay whatever they deem appropriate -- or not at all.
It'd only be obsolete if most free software wasn't a pile of dung. A functional pile of dung, but an unpolished, unrefined pile of dung.
What's your goal? (I again refer the reader to the fact that Fair Use Guy is supposedly studying law... not exactly a field known for its lack of money-grubbing) How do you know that my only goal is material gain? Do you honestly think that someone having the source code to Netscape is going to advance the state of the art of computer science? Will it make humanity any less hungry? Any less disease ridden? No, I don't think so. Frankly, if people want to use my work, they can pay for it. And I'm not going to change my mind on that.
The thing is, Mr. Fair Use Guy, that youdo not have the right to give away
other people's intellectual property
whether you think so or not. It is against the law. Not just the DMCA you're so opposed to, but the whole history of copyright.
I reserve the right to give away keys I've made from impressions of YOUR door lock, with full address information so that anyone who wants to wander in and steal your property can do so. Why not? After all, it's exactly the same thing that you're doing.
Fortunately, most people are decent, and will pay what people ask for the software they use.
Our side is winning, Mr. Cooke. Ten years from now, I will have something to show for my efforts, and all you will have is an unemploment check.
No, sorry, don't think it will happen. Although hopefully all of the lawyers and pseudo-wannabe 1st year student lawyers will be dead by then.
I am not sure where you get your "facts" or your arrogant attitude
probably the same place you get YOUR arrogant attitude that makes you think you can steal other peoples' work, money and time by posting keys to their shareware on public sites.
Slashdot Mirror
Incidentally, Hanson was among the first to throw software samples into magazines (freebie demo disks). Given his past experience, it was a small leap from throwing perfume samples in Cosmo, to program samples in PC Week.
This practice dates back to the very early 80s in the UK... and has a very long history. So it's not exactly novel.
Simon
chalked "Peace, Love and Linux
Not chalked; spray painted using black spray paint.
They were 'supposed' to use chalk, but 'accidentally' didn't.
Sun, in true opportunistic form, offered to clean it up for them.
Simon
Sometime in late 2001, some bozo's organising an advertising campaign for Microsoft's XBOX console decided it would be a great idea to graffiti the logo in bright green paint all over publicly funded paving, pathways, garden beds etc in Sydney, Australia. Claimed it was environmentally friendly paint, will wash off with rain. Company charged hundreds of dollars in removal costs for each logo, after the local government found that in many cases it was rather more...permanent, including many instances on newly installed granite paving. Story reported in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, so I suppose theres *plenty* of consumers like me who are spending their money on PS2 instead.
Hey, that sounds like that campaign where people spraypainted TUX on everything... and got in trouble for it. Wasn't that IBM who did that?
I guess stupidity is universal.
Simon
So they are incorporating the work of Hans Reiser~! Great idea MS! Perhaps slip in some DRM, maybe some NSA features as long as they are continuing to appropiate everyone else's ideas
No, they can't be doing that because as Hans Reiser claims, you can't do that kind of filesystem without modifying the NT kernel[1].
This idea has been around Microsoft since 1994 at least... possibly earlier. It was the whole idea behind the Cairo project.
Simon
[1] Personally, I think he's on crack with that statement, but hey, if he wants to go ahead and sue Microsoft (he claimed as much on the AM-Info mailing list) to get his filesystem working on Windows because he doesn't understand how to write a filesystem driver for Windows, then he can go ahead.
On another note, anyone feel that that "turbo mode" should be kept in the windows builds only? This might sound silly, but I expect every program to jam itself in my window system tray, but for some reason, I don't want it anywhere near my linux box, it's Just Not Right(tm).
You don't need it on your Windows box either. Run BIND on the image files (it comes with the platform SDK), and hey presto, your load time will be reduced.
At least, that's what I'm seeing. It loads fast enough on my system that I might be just jumping at shadows.
Simon
I love all the trolling the AC cocksuckers are doing with this one. Let's see..I wonder what IP block (Redmond) they are originating from? IF you read it, you will see that they are on track to actually make money this year. I for one have indeed contributed the paltry $60 USD for what I consider a great Linux distro. Compare that to the $299 that Uncle Billy will be taking out on your sorry asses, you M$ apologist. Oh wait, you guys can d/l that for free from the warez groups. Nevermind.
Actually, I think you'll find that most of them are posting from 216.148.218.197.
Simon
Umm, the AI lab already had their computers. We might have paid for them to set up, but we probably didn't pay much extra for RMS to work there. Same with most people. If you already have a computer, you don't need to pay for it
No, but you have to pay the rent, for the space, electricity, water, sewage, garbage, cleaners, etc etc etc. And that office/space could have been put to better use. As could the computer time. We'll just never know.
So just face it - it cost money to do this.
EXCEPT that under the GNU anyone can do that. This is the old 'free software' confusion. Free software doesn't have to be given away. If I wanted to sell copies of GNU Emacs, I could do, as long as the people I sold it to had permission to sell it on themselves.
The normal cry here is: "but! You can't really make money selling free software, because since you can't stop others distributing it, those other people can give it away for nothing and you'll lose the money you made." Yep, that's right. But then, even if you were making commercial software they'd still be no guarantee you'd make money doing it. And a competitor might well try and push you out by giving an equivalent product away (Internet Explorer anyone?).
There can still be commercialisation and competition in free software. Witness the Linux boxed distros. The only difference is that the scarce resource involved isn't the software.
I take it that the scarce resource involved is... erm... the boxes? The store shelf space? Shrink wrap? CD Burners? Schmucks who will pay for something they can download for free? IQ points?
Simon
Great post. It's clear now and I have you to thank. You've really helped out alot of people with your little tutorial on programming.
Thanks. I hope so.
Now, it's past your bedtime little troll.
Oh you were being sarcastic. Well, gosh, I guess you got me good, huh?
I take it all back. Optimizing to the underlying architecture using standard (if you read Richter, or the Addison Wesley system books) is obviously not going to give you performance improvements. How silly of me for even thinking such a thing, or knowing such a thing because I've DONE it in my own apps.
Simon
Yeah, use C++ new/delete not crappy malloc via 12 levels of apis
New and delete are most likely implemented in the same way as malloc and free in most systems; they'll both make the same calls under the hood. Using VirtualAlloc (or heck, even deserialized local heaps) WILL make a difference. Particularly for generational garbage collection because you can reuse the same slots over and over again, and optimize for that case.
fopen/fread doesnt matter if your not doing many fopens, and if all your freads read in 256Kb blocks
256Kb blocks are wasteful. Optimal size is a function of the paging architecture of the system. Make sure your reads are to page-aligned memory, and things will be much faster. This is, for example, one reason why memory mapped files are about 20 times faster than normal file IO on Windows.
It's all back to writing code to the OS, or writing portable code -- one is good for perf, the other is good for portability. And like most optimizations, you can get a lot by just profiling and optimizing on a case by case basis.
Simon
It's amazing that Sun's (or any other non-M$) VM could approach the M$ VM perf considering the proprietary hooks and low-level tricks M$ used to get that kind of performance.
You know what most of those proprietary hooks and low-level tricks are?
Not using fopen and malloc to handle all of your memory management and file i/o.
That's it. End of story.
Use VirtualAlloc for memory management, and you'll get better perf.
Use CreateFile with overlapped I/O or completion ports, and you'll get better perf.
Basically, Sun writes their code to be ported, and MS writes it directly to their platform. Portable code = sucky performance. Live with it -- don't blame Microsoft because Sun don't tune their code.
Simon
In the Microsoft case, the "market" was defined as "personal computers" in which market Microsoft clearly has enough power to dictate pricing and distribution... and they have demonstrated.
No, it was defined as the IBM-PC x86 compatible personal computer market. Which is a bit narrow, don't you think? For a start, it removes Apple
Wordpad replaced by OpenOffice?
A 47Mb zipfile download replacement for a few Kb wrapper around the RichEdit control?
You've got to be joking. Talk about bloat.
Si
Check out this article [grc.com]. ClearType is just Microsoft's name for sub-pixel rendering, and it's been around for decades now.
Yeah, but Gibson is also an ass who doesn't seem to know the difference between scientific method and guesswork.
MS research has the fully detailed papers which indicate the fourier transforms, information theory and signal processing theory behind the technique. Which is a damn sight more thorough than Gibson's quackery.
"Oh yeah, apple did it all in the 70s". Bullshit. Back then, the Apple II didn't have the hardware or the CPU power to do the kind of calculation you need to do for Cleartype. Nor did it have the color resolution. All Apple's tech was was a way of hacking color out of a monochrome NTSC signal -- not getting better resolution out of a monochrome signal using color. Get the difference?
When are people around here going to do some thinking and some research instead of acting like idiots? I thought that people who flock to sites like this were supposed to be tech savvy? Maybe it's just me, but I thought that indicated at least a modicum of intelligence instead of blind sheepery.
Simon
if you want even the illusion of credibility you should probably not post for the next 2-3 months.
I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you're talking about. Care to elaborate, oh Anonymous (and obviously gutless) wonder?
Si
So the guy that is head of Windows (You remember Windows right? That OS that is tied so closely with Internet Explorer) doesn't know about IE on the Mac. Yeah, right!
What I find absolutely hilarious is that these guys, some of the richest guys in the world, with all their money and power, still have to lie like little children who have been caught doing something wrong. It's pathetic, really pathetic.
1. I'd love to see you in court. You have to be very careful what you say, because lawyers will twist your words and present them as fact -- and then say "no further questions" before you have the chance to explain your statement. This isn't a dress rehearsal; it's the real deal. You have to frame every answer as if they will stop you at the end of that sentence and mark it as the "Recorded Truth". (I hope I'm never in court; I'd very likely strangle the lawyer if they tried that with me).
2. Microsoft is *huge*. Over 35,000 people. And the Mac Business Unit -- who do all the Mac development -- are in California. He's in charge of Windows, in Redmond. They're two separate divisions, and unless things have changed since I've worked there, communication is probably lousy or nonexistant between the two. Heck, usually it's lousy or nonexistant between groups who have to work together unless Ballmer or Gates hits them with a big stick.
Simon
Windows 95 or NT comes out, and Microsoft claims to have bundled in a useful, featurific backup program. By that time, the healthy market was down to two or three brand competitors including Norton. With the release of 95 or NT, Norton completely exits the market for backup programs as they believe there is no way of competing with a useful backup program from MS.
Obviously you've not checked into Norton's product list since... oh... 1995. Norton Ghost is a rather excellent backup program. And yes, they still sell it.
Please, do more research.
That MS reasoning is crap. They can remove all the browser-related (i.e, IE) DLLs and leave just the rendering engine. All the HTML-based help works, but the browser and its FTP download engine, etc are no longer installed.
You can't remove WinInet -- I use that a lot.
Feel free to remove IExplore.exe. It's the only part I don't use in my own apps, and it's 62kb. I won't miss it.
Simon
That's because the OSS movement is currently mostly working on operating systems, office suites, web browsers, server software, database applications, and other such things primaraly used by buissness. Games aren't exactly at the top of the priority list for buissness development.
I thought that console mode text editors and flashy KDE skins were the number 1 killer development project that everyone's working on?
Simon
Can't remember who posted this first, and I don't remember the exact phrasing, but Gandhi's four steps to victory are as follows:
First, they ignore you.
Then, they laugh at you.
Then, they fight you.
Then, you win.
Looks like open-source has made it to step three. Come on, Gandhi, don't fail us now.
No, looks like Microsoft has made it to step 3.
God it's such a STUPIDLY improperly used quote.
The Open Source community started out ignoring Microsoft.
Then, they laughed at Microsoft.
Now they're fighting Microsoft.
So does this mean that eventually Microsoft will win too?
I mean, I'm just curious here. Or does that quote only apply when it's working the way you want it to work?
Stop with the black & white thinking. Accept that there is such a thing as shades of gray. It's much healthier.
Si
OLE2 and .net are both made by Microsoft. If you want to know the complexity of a .net transferred user interface, have a look at the source code that makes it run. First, it needs a runtime. Next, you'll need to define classes. Do you get the point?
Other than that you don't seem to have done much programming in either, no I don't.
Si
If you want to know how complexity is, when a webpage is replaced with a .net solution, then have a look at the OLE2 "hello world" application source code.
.NET.
What are you talking about? OLE2 has nothing to do with
Please, get a grip. And stop smoking that which makes you paranoid.
Si
Nicely done. Hook, line, sinker, and copy of Angling Times.
Do you ever wonder why Sierra picked you as one of the developers who wasn't worth keeping?
Not particularly; not that it's any of your business, but my division was shut down to a skeleton crew.
I can tell you what the problem is: you're just a jerk, and you have no respect for other people
Says the guy who has no respect for other peoples property and hard work? You keep posting these keys. That's not the behavior of someone who has any kind of respect for other people. That's the behavior of a punk-ass kid who wants to cause a little trouble, and is hiding behind a 'crusade' to give himself rationalization for his actions and an excuse to his own conscience for what he's doing.
I'll bet it just boggles your mind that you can buy a copy of Red Hat Linux for $50, and give a copy to your friend without paying for it - legally. You live in a world of EULAs, complicated per-seat licensing arrangements, and silly ever-changing rules that govern what people can and cannot do with their own damn property.
I was writing free software before it became the latest vogue thing to do to rile against society.
Clue for you -- and here's the big problem that you need to get through your oh so thick skull:
It's not YOUR property. The media is what you bought. You did not buy the property. You can buy the property for several million dollars, or you can buy the media and the right to use it according to the license agreement for much less.
Even Lawrence Lessig copyrights his articles. Don't you see something rather... odd about that for someone who is trying to get rid of copyright? For someone who lauds free software?
Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but things are changing, and I'm a big part of the tide that will wash you and your fellow greedmongers away. Take a tip from me: change now, or become extinct.
Oh, and what would you suppose I do? Get a degree in biochemistry and move into genetics instead?
Just exactly how does this society you're predicting work? Who does the software engineering in it? And how do *they* make a living? Because I assure you, it will collapse.
So, my advice to you is to do some reading and open your mind. Read The Cathedral and the Bazaar; think about it a bit. Pick a project on Sourceforge [sourceforge.net] that looks interesting and contribute. Give back to the community.
I give back to the community by answering technical questions on technical forums. You seem to assume I'm part of your 'community' (whatever that is...). No, I'm not. It's not my community to give anything back to.
I ask you again; which community are you talking about? If you're talking about computer science, I'm sorry, but a piece of genealogy software, or a game isn't going to give back anything. It'll teach some newbies how to do the same thing, or others can come along and live as parasites on the back of the hard work done by others, but it won't actually give anything *back* to the community.
Besides, the last time I tried giving anything to the Linux community, I got 400 people telling me that no, there were no problems with the Linux UI. None whatsoever. Which is why a friend of mine has a terminal window with a scrollbar on the left hand side, and every other window has one on the right. No rhyme, reason or logic.
And, for the record, I've read The Cathedral and the Bazaar. I've also read the GNU Manifesto, where Stallman spells out how he wants all software engineers (you know, people who spend their lives learning a highly technical art & science, and spend all of their waking hours working on projects) to be retail clerks. I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in that scheme of things. You go right ahead and do it if you want to, but I don't have to.
And frankly, with the quality of most open source projects, I have nothing to worry about. I will always be able to invent a better mousetrap, and people will pay for that.
By the way, this community you speak of... are you going to be giving your law services for free to them? Why don't you post your OWN name and stand behind your words?
Oh I forgot; you're a coward 'anarchist' who claims to be a 1st year law student, who can spout philosophy and angst all he likes, but won't actually back it up with any kind of substance. Like, perhaps, the chance of getting punished for his behavior.
It's very easy to jump up and down and make faces when there's no consequences. But if you believed in your actions, then you'd stand behind them.
Go on, give us your name. Your email address. Your home address. And in the unlikely event you pass the bar, I'm sure we can all contact you so that you can give back to your 'community' by doing all of your work pro-bono.
I see you keep ignoring that. You are expecting to get paid to be a lawyer, yes?
Why? It's not exactly relevant, Mr. 1st Year Law Student who will never pass the bar.
A Washington address. Suspicious, but I'll let it drop.
What's suspicious about it?
Shipped 8 complete consumer applications with over 30 SKUs". So what was your contribution to the industry, again? You wrote 8 useless programs, which end users will not be able to modify, and sold them at a tremendous markup. If the programs were really all that great, why didn't you release the source code so everyone could see them? What do you have to be proud of?
Tremendous markup? What a crock of shit. You don't know what you're talking about. Profit on those titles? Around $2 a piece.
Why don't I release the source code? Because, numbnutz, it's not mine to release. Also, I don't get off on giving away my work for free. I gather you are going to work pro-bono on ALL of your cases then?
Oh, I'm sorry, I'm talking to a supposed 'law student' who will obviously be charging a hefty fee for his 'services'. If he ever passes the bar.
Visual Basic, VB (virus building) Script, C# experience. Wow, that will get you real far in life - knowing a few non-portable, proprietary languages. Twit.
Well, unfortunately, skills go out of vogue. So you don't put the ones that you don't use regularly on the resume (for example, Pascal, Fortran and IBM370 assembly language). For readers just tuning in, here's the actual list:
C, C++, Java, Visual Basic, VBScript, JavaScript, C#, Z80 (and related CPUs) Assembly, other Assembly language
I note that you don't mention Java as being proprietary (it is). You don't mention C, C++ or assembly language (which are more useful). You don't mention Javascript. How odd. Might it be that you're in training to be one of those lawyers who twists the facts to make their argument sound better, and then, after doing so says "No further questions"?
Is this what they teach you at law school? How to lie eloquently? You're an ass.
A "Brainbench" certification. Whatever that hell that is, it's probably useless.
Three actually, and I only put the ones that I considered important out of the 6 or 7 I've done. What's the matter? Jealous that I can take those and you don't have the brainpower to do so?
Work experience at Microsoft, on
Big fat hairy deal. I've also got work experience at several other companies. You see, there's this thing, it's called "Money". It lets you do things like "EAT" and "PAY RENT".
Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot -- you're going to be working for free when you get out of "law school", aren't you?
You see, Mr. Cooke, the difference between you and me is that I am working for a better world. I want to see more openness, more sharing, and more flexibility. Information wants to be free. You, on the other hand, embrace a pay-as-you-go model of selling software that is quickly becoming obsolete with the continued success of the open source movement. Your only goal is material gain; someday you will realize the sheer emptiness of your life, but by that point it will probably be too late.
Information does NOT want to be free. Knowledge wants to be free. Learning and education want to be free. But software isn't information per se.
But hey, you can put all the sugar-coated candy wrappings around it that you like -- when it comes down to it, you're proposing a utopian solution to a society that doesn't work AT ALL like that. Ultimate end result? Stagnation and resource starvation because there won't be anyone who can make money on new work, so no one will do the work because they'll be too busy working at K-Mart to code.
I embrace the pay-for-software model (not pay-as-you-go -- that's a subscription model, which I disagree with). Why? Because I happen to think that time which you will never get back in your life is precious. If I work on something, I reserve the right to be paid for that work. I also reserve the right to not give away that work for free, not be forced or coerced or extorted into giving away that work for free, and to charge whatever I deem appropriate for that work. Similarly, everyone else has the right to pay whatever they deem appropriate -- or not at all.
It'd only be obsolete if most free software wasn't a pile of dung. A functional pile of dung, but an unpolished, unrefined pile of dung.
What's your goal? (I again refer the reader to the fact that Fair Use Guy is supposedly studying law... not exactly a field known for its lack of money-grubbing) How do you know that my only goal is material gain? Do you honestly think that someone having the source code to Netscape is going to advance the state of the art of computer science? Will it make humanity any less hungry? Any less disease ridden? No, I don't think so. Frankly, if people want to use my work, they can pay for it. And I'm not going to change my mind on that.
The thing is, Mr. Fair Use Guy, that you do not have the right to give away
- other people's intellectual property
whether you think so or not. It is against the law. Not just the DMCA you're so opposed to, but the whole history of copyright.I reserve the right to give away keys I've made from impressions of YOUR door lock, with full address information so that anyone who wants to wander in and steal your property can do so. Why not? After all, it's exactly the same thing that you're doing.
Fortunately, most people are decent, and will pay what people ask for the software they use.
Our side is winning, Mr. Cooke. Ten years from now, I will have something to show for my efforts, and all you will have is an unemploment check.
No, sorry, don't think it will happen. Although hopefully all of the lawyers and pseudo-wannabe 1st year student lawyers will be dead by then.
Simon
I am not sure where you get your "facts" or your arrogant attitude
probably the same place you get YOUR arrogant attitude that makes you think you can steal other peoples' work, money and time by posting keys to their shareware on public sites.
Parasite.
Simon