Who can compete with a company who could simply afford to give everything away for free until no competition exists, then just carry on as normal and still have the odd billion in the bank!
Hang on... are you talking about Microsoft, or Linux here?
I would hope that all file formats would get released 100% into the public domain, so that all software instantly becomes Office compatable (okay, given them a few weeks). That will be a major problem for M$, as long as they are forced to keep their file formats open. Same with their APIs
Just a little hint...
The Office 97 file format (which is the same as the Office 2000 file format, by the way) is available on:
I have friends that have been hired by MSFT and they've described the component based architecture and the reasoning behind COM, COM+ and DCOM, and it was rather interesting. I was also surprised at how long it was taking *nix developers to create significant component based applications especially since most of COM (at least originally) was copied from or inspired by CORBA. Pity that COM predates CORBA by at least a year then... COM = OLE, or didn't you know that? Simon
OK... lots of people here are jumping up and down and saying that copyright is outmoded, outdated and wrong, and that you shouldn't be able to put a price on ideas.
So... let's take this to another end of the spectrum - a real, published, shipping product.
Generations Millennium is a product I worked on. It took a considerable amount of time and resources to put together (over 8 months). It also took about (all told) 120 people to put on the store shelves (in terms of data retrieval, coding, marketing, sales, development... we've got a whole chunk of the 1800s Census Index in there, which took time for a gang of people to type in).
Should it be legal for people to take the software and copy it so that everyone can have their own copy with no money going to Sierra?
If so, why?
Same applies to games. Music. Source code. Tell me why it's acceptable to copy this thing which has taken 8 months of peoples' lives to produce without their consent. I'd love to hear a rational reason as to why my thinking is wrong.
the only problem.... is what about storing redundant copies for backup Shouldn't you be keeping them on physically separate drives/machines? Local backups on the same drive are nigh on useless - because these days the drive controllers themselves will automatically take preventative action against most problems that keeping a copy on the same drive would fix. Simon
So I think that I safely assume that you either: 1) meant to say that "Cleartype *IS* the same. As has been pointed out countless times." 2) or are totally clueless
As has been pointed out many a time, Steve Gibson is talking out of his arse in this case.
Woz's trick with the NTSC standard is creates color from using a higher signal resolution than the NTSC standard's signal bandwidth allows - basically, it overflows the luma channel and starts stuffing data into the color carrier.
ClearType creates higher resolution than should be allowed by the physical constraints of the hardware by judiciously modifying the color. It also involves lots of energy dispersion, and the technique doesn't even work if you've only got two colors to play with - you need at least 64 values per R/G/B channel - not the ability to display "magenta" or "green".
So, no, Woz - genius though he may have been - didn't invent ClearType.
Try reading up on:
http://grc.com/cttech.htm - which is a page which shows in detail why the claims he made on the previous page - http://grc.com/ctwho.htm - are completely ludicrous (and this is coming from the same person!)
Or this:
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Ridge/666 4/ClearType.html (which until recently [last couple of weeks] was referred to by Steve Gibson's site)
and on here (which has actual screenshots of the tech in action)
I didn't claim that my needs are those of the majority of Microsoft customers. They clearly aren't. I was just explaining why certain "features" bother me.
Then turn them off. Defaults are defaults because they're what 99% of people will want it to do when they're using the app.
You can customize the crap out of Word - so why not take an afternoon and reduce your stress by getting it *just so*?
After all, you'd take longer tuning your kernel build - right?
On the other hand, MS no longer includes any programming tools as a standard part of their operating system, AFAIK. I find this unfortunate - I probably wouldn't be a programmer today if it weren't for the inclusion of GW-BASIC (and then VBASIC) with various versions of DOS. As bad as they were, they got me started.
Hmmm... why not use VBScript, ECMAScript or even PERL running on Windows Scripting Host?
Or download MASM from ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Developr
Or get the Windows NT resource kit - which has a C compiler with it.
On the other hand, SlashDot itself has been remarkably quiet about Windows 2000, and that should have qualified for a news story or two. Regardless of what you feel about Windows, this release is a MAJOR release of the current #1 operating system in the world and should have been covered as such. It is unfortunate that Slashdot did not feel it could put up a news article with some appropriate links describing new features, and even better if someone has a copy, a fast initial impression.
You know, I can't honestly decide if it's complete obliviousness, or a joke of Kaufmanesque stature... After all, it's only when you see that it's a joke that you can appreciate it.
Think: nice juxtaposition: Linux Kernel release 2.3.46 (minor rev increase) vs. Win2K. Interesting anti-hype statement. Nice contrast.
Though I still reckon it's somewhat oblivious and ostrich-like not to cover it in at least some way. Maybe they'll do so today.
But really, what can one say about a product launch? I can see it now. "Oh yeah, and That Company finally really officially actually really said that W2K is out, after we've already been discussing the Gold Release for about two weeks.";-)
Well, amusingly, even after it went Gold and RTM'd, there were still lots of people here claiming it was vaporware because "it wasn't in stores yet".
Remember, one of the major "selling points" of SP3 (aside from the fact that it replaced *shudder* SP2) was that it rebooted "50% faster".:)
Which is actually very useful if you're using NT as a workstation, and you do environmentally conscious things like turning the machine off at night when no-one's using it...
I was recently at a Microsoft Partners function that was attended by three Windows 2000 developers. One of them discussed specifically the question of why Windows/IIS web servers needed to be rebooted so often. Here's (approximately) what he said: "We found that they weren't always rebooting because they needed to, but because they wanted it to happen under their control, not when the machine decided it was needed. When we examined the problems, we found most of them were within IIS itself, relating to locked files and non-terminating scripts. Under Windows 2000, IIS runs as a service that you can stop and start by itself without rebooting the OS, and you can schedule it to happen when you want."
Which is actually - believe it or not - the same solution that Apache uses. It'll reboot itself now and then to reduce memory leaks.
Talk about your bugless OSS software... Shouldn't those leaks be fixed instead?
Yes, Win98 Service pack is available for download, BUT only if you are using Win98 and only if you are using whatever version of IE they feel like requiring. For someone who has to maintain a large number of computers, doing this for each one is a hugh burden. Downloading a single service pack (some *.exe or *.zip or even *.cab) file would be far easier. But, I can't. This hardly counts as free to me. It's a hell of lot of work.
Perhaps you've neglected to remember Windows 98 or Windows 98se?
Windows 98 SE - all those patches are available as "Windows 98 Service Pack 1" which is available for free. You don't get the internet connection sharing or any of the new features -but you get the bug fixes.
Same with Windows 95 - you can download the service packs for Windows 95 for free from http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com - you'll get more features by upgrading to Win98, but you don't have to.
And, of course, MS will charge for the fix. It's a perfect business model. And when you spend that much on attorney's, your business models do *not* have to be legal.
In the last 4 years, I've not seen Microsoft charge a penny for service packs. You, sir, are spreading FUD.
Oh wow! it's an anonymous coward. Guess I should have realized - FUD === AC.
Since there are just sooooo many thousands of bugs, I challange ZDnet and Slashdot to name even 200 of them.
I'll name one of them! (Since I entered at least 3 bugs into that database once-upon-a-time... I've been there...)
It goes something like this:
Title: License Plates out of Date. Description: Car has out-of-state plates. Get new ones.
Repro: Look at front and rear of car.
Status: Resolved - won't fix Reopened Postponed Closed as fixed Reopened - Assigned to new team member from out of state... Postponed.
...
Etc etc etc... so on and so forth:)
(As for the other 62999, I have no idea... but a large number of them are most likely bugs that can't be fixed, because fixing them would break existing applications - such as the "Tab control when positioned with tabs running vertically will not return correct dimensions of space remaining" one that I filed about a year ago...
The thing is, it can't be fixed... apparently (though I never got one of the NT team to tell me how the info could be used), the values it returns are deterministic, and as such, someone could have come up with a calculation to work around the problem, and as such, fixing it would break existing apps.
This is the way it goes, folks - a lot of bugs get entered and can't be fixed because they'd break compatibility with some olde Win3.1 app or something.
They don't even IMPLY, they STATE, they WROTE that having the source to the OS made it more vulnerable to this attack. IT IS AN ABSOLUTE **LIE**. It's not even a matter of opinion: it's my opinion, for instance, that having the source code is better, overall, from a security point of view. HOWEVER, saying that having the source code available makes Linux & Solaris more vulnerable (or, from what I understand, more likely to be used as hosts) to to DDOS attacks is a complete and unfounded LIE.
While I'm not one to advocate security through obscurity, I do have to take you to task over your claim that it's an outright lie; it's not.
1. If the source comes with it, I can embed my own malicious code in the source and pass it on like that. People have to check what I've done - and people might not spot it. I can't do my own source rev for a closed-source OS, so this form of attack won't work. The closest analagous attack that will work is a trojan or virus attack.
2. If the source comes with it, I can run it through BoundsChecker or Purify or some other such intelligent lint tool and find any buffer overflows in the source - or any potential other errors. Heck, I can even go through it by hand and see what I can find that I can use to get access to the machine. I don't report them - I just note they're there and use them as exploits to embed my DDOS code onto the system that is vulnerable. This is much easier than the way you have to do it on closed-source systems, where you have to do things as a matter of trial and error and slowly wend your way through the system prodding here and there to try and find some kind of hole - and then you've got to find some way of inserting your own code onto the system from there. Much more difficult.
Let's face it - it's possible on both systems. But let's also face it, it's not a lie to say that it's easier to insert malicious/foreign code into an operating system that you have the source to. Because it IS easier - just not much easier.
Isn't the large Icon's setting in Plus! allow for support of 64x64 icons?
Of course, that's actually still too small, and it doesn't scale very intelligently, but it's a step in the direction. I'm betting Apple will be able to leverage this new display technology and wow everyone =)
Well, actually, Windows supports icons up to 2048x2048 in size (according to VC++), and in 32 bit color - and amazingly, it does this wonderful thing where it automatically bilinear interpolates them to the right size if the icons are too small. It'll also quite happily give you 72x72 icons for most things if you set it to do that - though it looks kind of weird. Using the Appearance tab, you can set everything so that it's a factor of X bigger than now, including font sizes (though for existing apps, a "large font" mode will be needed - and anyone who doesn't use StretchBlit in their apps to size things for the screen, and who doesn't use font-metrics rather than direct pixel metrics deserves to be shot).
It'll handle it quite happily. And, as I used to work there, I'll tell you right now that they were considering this and have plans in place to handle this when I was there (Oct 1998 - June 1999). But sorry, I can't tell you the details - you'll have to take it on faith.
Um, ok. Consider NT. It has multiple client API interfaces (posix, win16, win32) that plug into the actual operating system. Apps are supposed to be written to one of the client APIs. The "internal" NT api is secret and undocumented. The problem is that the client API interfaces add another layer of inderection and slow things down.
Ok... this is a given. Except for the fact that the internal docs aren't available to MS programmers to use either (I tried while I was there so that I could access floppy disks at sector levels). You can get down to ioctl level if you want to -- and that IS documented.
Most developers outside of MS can't use the native "internal" NT api. A few have managed to reverse engineer pieces of it, but its well known that MS applications (like IIS) use this API extensively. Non MS applications are penalized because this api is not published and documented. Netscape actually talks about how they reverse engineered part of the internal NT api and doubled performance for their webserver. The IIS developers didn't have to reverse engineer anything; they had all the documentation available to them.
References please - I don't believe you. I'd love these magical URLs to fall from the sky detailing how Netscape needed to do X Y and Z to get things working.
Bear in mind, however, that Netscape (note: not Mozilla) has enough trouble getting a browser running fast & stable on Linux - and they have the SOURCE CODE for that...
You see, it's not the documented APIs that are the problem. It's the undocumented ones that MS uses and keeps hidden that give them (another monopolistic) competitve edge
Hmmm... you wear wool... I'm willing to bet that from this evidence, you spend 90% of your time every day thinking about having sex with sheep.
Disagree with me? In that case - provide evidence that you don't think about having sex with sheep 90% of the time.
You can't prove a negative. Congratulations - you're spreading FUD about Microsoft:
Fear - Microsoft has "hidden APIs" which lets them get more performance out of their code. Uncertainty - Will our apps get the same benefits? Doubt - Will we be able to go to market with this stuff if we don't know if we'll be able to compete effectively?
Well, thanks a lot. So basically, you're repeating hearsay evidence that X, Y and Z person has invented... you're not even able to point to apps that run better because the APIs which they use aren't documented.
Give you a hint: Microsoft isn't that organized internally. I used to work there - on the Visual Studio team. And guess what I used to find documentation for all of my programming? And what my peers all used? That's right! A Favorites item pointing to MSDN... just one click, and all your docs are there.
Of course, you won't believe me, because someone once said to you "Oh, Microsoft has all these secret APIs - that's why their wordprocessor runs better than XYZ's one... not because XYZ didn't optimize the heck out of it".
Ah, our Resident Slashdot Microsoft Apologist crawls out of the woodwork yet again:)
Ya know, you should send MS a bill for all the time you spend trolling here, spreading their FUD for them - perhaps they would pay you something for all the free PR.
Which brings up a question... just why are you here? You obviously are a big MS fan, and while I've never seen you actually bashing Linux, apparently you don't like it. Do you think the whole Open Source thing is bad/garbage/evil ?
I guess I just don't understand your motivation(s). I liken your situation to myself going to some pro-Windows forum and telling the people there how great Linux/BSD is. Why bother?
Ah... I see... ad hominem attacks rather than looking at the point.
You are Joe Barr, and I claim my $5.
I've never bashed Linux - except for pointing out where its usability is lacking (and guess what, I actually gave suggestions as to how to fix it)
Just face it - this ain't a "Linux-only" club. It's "news for nerds", and I just so happen to be a nerd.
1. Identify the FUD in my statement. Any of my statements. You won't find any.
2. You might notice, if you looked hard enough, that according to my user info - I used to work for Microsoft. I have no great love for them; I just hate seeing people spreading FUD about them - and I know more about Microsoft than I do about Linux, so I fight Microsoft FUD and not Linux FUD. Believe me, if I were to start defending Linux online, I'd get complaints - because I'm not as well informed.
3. I used to run Slackware on my PC at home (dual-booting with NT). Last time I tried an install (with my girlfriend who has been running Linux since patch level 0.98 - that is, before it was popular), I was sorely disappointed. I thought things would have moved on in leaps and bounds - well, they have - but not far enough.
4. Open Source - well, I'm not a GNU fan; I think the GPL is restrictive. Personally, when I release software into the wild, it's going under the BSD license. But that's just me. However, I've not had time to come up with any software to release into the wild recently, so that's a moot point.
5. Why am I bothering with this when you're quite happy to criticize, but don't have to guts to even sign your name? At least I put my email address and web address up online so that people can talk to me. At least I'm not hiding who I am.
6. Looks like you're FUDding me. Hope you like spreading FUD.
7. Now... about my points... want to give something concrete as an example? Or are you (as I suspect) just full of hot air?
Slashdot Mirror
Company! I meant company! :)
Who can compete with a company who could simply afford to give everything away for free until no competition exists, then just carry on as normal and still have the odd billion in the bank!
Hang on... are you talking about Microsoft, or Linux here?
Oh.. I forgot... Linux isn't a country...
Simon
I would hope that all file formats would get released 100% into the public domain, so that all software instantly becomes Office compatable (okay, given them a few weeks). That will be a major problem for M$, as long as they are forced to keep their file formats open.
Same with their APIs
Just a little hint...
The Office 97 file format (which is the same as the Office 2000 file format, by the way) is available on:
MSDN Library January 1999.
It's also on http://www.wotsit.org.
Just thought I'd let you know... because it hasn't seemed to be any kind of major problem for M$ so far...
Simon
I have friends that have been hired by MSFT and they've described the component based architecture and the reasoning behind COM, COM+ and DCOM, and it was rather interesting. I was also surprised at how long it was taking *nix developers to create significant component based applications especially since most of COM (at least originally) was copied from or inspired by CORBA. Pity that COM predates CORBA by at least a year then... COM = OLE, or didn't you know that? Simon
Actually, you probably could - the author of the patent gives you a circuit diagram.
You'll need an EHT power supply unit though.
Si
OK... lots of people here are jumping up and down and saying that copyright is outmoded, outdated and wrong, and that you shouldn't be able to put a price on ideas.
So... let's take this to another end of the spectrum - a real, published, shipping product.
Generations Millennium is a product I worked on. It took a considerable amount of time and resources to put together (over 8 months). It also took about (all told) 120 people to put on the store shelves (in terms of data retrieval, coding, marketing, sales, development... we've got a whole chunk of the 1800s Census Index in there, which took time for a gang of people to type in).
Should it be legal for people to take the software and copy it so that everyone can have their own copy with no money going to Sierra?
If so, why?
Same applies to games. Music. Source code. Tell me why it's acceptable to copy this thing which has taken 8 months of peoples' lives to produce without their consent. I'd love to hear a rational reason as to why my thinking is wrong.
Simon
the only problem .... is what about storing redundant copies for backup Shouldn't you be keeping them on physically separate drives/machines? Local backups on the same drive are nigh on useless - because these days the drive controllers themselves will automatically take preventative action against most problems that keeping a copy on the same drive would fix. Simon
So I think that I safely assume that you either:
6 4/ClearType.html
e fault.htm
1) meant to say that "Cleartype *IS* the same. As has been pointed out countless times."
2) or are totally clueless
As has been pointed out many a time, Steve Gibson is talking out of his arse in this case.
Woz's trick with the NTSC standard is creates color from using a higher signal resolution than the NTSC standard's signal bandwidth allows - basically, it overflows the luma channel and starts stuffing data into the color carrier.
ClearType creates higher resolution than should be allowed by the physical constraints of the hardware by judiciously modifying the color. It also involves lots of energy dispersion, and the technique doesn't even work if you've only got two colors to play with - you need at least 64 values per R/G/B channel - not the ability to display "magenta" or "green".
So, no, Woz - genius though he may have been - didn't invent ClearType.
Try reading up on:
http://grc.com/cttech.htm - which is a page which shows in detail why the claims he made on the previous page - http://grc.com/ctwho.htm - are completely ludicrous (and this is coming from the same person!)
Or this:
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Ridge/66
(which until recently [last couple of weeks] was referred to by Steve Gibson's site)
and on here (which has actual screenshots of the tech in action)
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/d
I didn't claim that my needs are those of the majority of Microsoft customers. They clearly aren't. I was just explaining why certain "features" bother me.
Then turn them off. Defaults are defaults because they're what 99% of people will want it to do when they're using the app.
You can customize the crap out of Word - so why not take an afternoon and reduce your stress by getting it *just so*?
After all, you'd take longer tuning your kernel build - right?
Simon
Unless there is a cooperative process to develop specifications the fact that they eventually get published does not make them open.
Oh, you mean like the ActiveX Working Group?
Well gee, ain't that the darndest thing...
Simon
On the other hand, MS no longer includes any programming tools as a standard part of their operating system, AFAIK. I find this unfortunate - I probably wouldn't be a programmer today if it weren't for the inclusion of GW-BASIC (and then VBASIC) with various versions of DOS. As bad as they were, they got me started.
Hmmm... why not use VBScript, ECMAScript or even PERL running on Windows Scripting Host?
Or download MASM from ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Developr
Or get the Windows NT resource kit - which has a C compiler with it.
Or get the Cygwin Win32 GNU tools.
Your options are many.
Simon
On the other hand, SlashDot itself has been remarkably quiet about Windows 2000, and that should have qualified for a news story or two. Regardless of what you feel about Windows, this release is a MAJOR release of the current #1 operating system in the world and should have been covered as such. It is unfortunate that Slashdot did not feel it could put up a news article with some appropriate links describing new features, and even better if someone has a copy, a fast initial impression.
You know, I can't honestly decide if it's complete obliviousness, or a joke of Kaufmanesque stature... After all, it's only when you see that it's a joke that you can appreciate it.
Think: nice juxtaposition: Linux Kernel release 2.3.46 (minor rev increase) vs. Win2K. Interesting anti-hype statement. Nice contrast.
Though I still reckon it's somewhat oblivious and ostrich-like not to cover it in at least some way. Maybe they'll do so today.
Si
But really, what can one say about a product launch? I can see it now. "Oh yeah, and That Company finally really officially actually really said that W2K is out, after we've already been discussing the Gold Release for about two weeks." ;-)
Well, amusingly, even after it went Gold and RTM'd, there were still lots of people here claiming it was vaporware because "it wasn't in stores yet".
A better use of a clue-by-four, I couldn't find.
Simon
Remember, one of the major "selling points" of SP3 (aside from the fact that it replaced *shudder* SP2) was that it rebooted "50% faster". :)
Which is actually very useful if you're using NT as a workstation, and you do environmentally conscious things like turning the machine off at night when no-one's using it...
Simon
I was recently at a Microsoft Partners function that was attended by three Windows 2000 developers. One of them discussed specifically the question of why Windows/IIS web servers needed to be rebooted so often. Here's (approximately) what he said: "We found that they weren't always rebooting because they needed to, but because they wanted it to happen under their control, not when the machine decided it was needed. When we examined the problems, we found most of them were within IIS itself, relating to locked files and non-terminating scripts. Under Windows 2000, IIS runs as a service that you can stop and start by itself without rebooting the OS, and you can schedule it to happen when you want."
Which is actually - believe it or not - the same solution that Apache uses. It'll reboot itself now and then to reduce memory leaks.
Talk about your bugless OSS software... Shouldn't those leaks be fixed instead?
Simon
Yes, Win98 Service pack is available for download, BUT only if you are using Win98 and only if you are using whatever version of IE they feel like requiring. For someone who has to maintain a large number of computers, doing this for each one is a hugh burden. Downloading a single service pack (some *.exe or *.zip or even *.cab) file would be far easier. But, I can't. This hardly counts as free to me. It's a hell of lot of work.
Then order it on CD rom for $4.
Simon
Perhaps you've neglected to remember Windows 98 or Windows 98se?
Windows 98 SE - all those patches are available as "Windows 98 Service Pack 1" which is available for free. You don't get the internet connection sharing or any of the new features -but you get the bug fixes.
Same with Windows 95 - you can download the service packs for Windows 95 for free from http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com - you'll get more features by upgrading to Win98, but you don't have to.
Now... about that crack rock you were smoking..
Simon
And, of course, MS will charge for the fix. It's a perfect business model. And when you spend that much on attorney's, your business models do *not* have to be legal.
In the last 4 years, I've not seen Microsoft charge a penny for service packs. You, sir, are spreading FUD.
Oh wow! it's an anonymous coward. Guess I should have realized - FUD === AC.
Simon
Since there are just sooooo many thousands of bugs, I challange ZDnet and Slashdot to name even 200 of them.
:)
I'll name one of them! (Since I entered at least 3 bugs into that database once-upon-a-time... I've been there...)
It goes something like this:
Title: License Plates out of Date.
Description:
Car has out-of-state plates. Get new ones.
Repro: Look at front and rear of car.
Status:
Resolved - won't fix
Reopened
Postponed
Closed as fixed
Reopened - Assigned to new team member from out of state...
Postponed.
...
Etc etc etc... so on and so forth
(As for the other 62999, I have no idea... but a large number of them are most likely bugs that can't be fixed, because fixing them would break existing applications - such as the "Tab control when positioned with tabs running vertically will not return correct dimensions of space remaining" one that I filed about a year ago...
The thing is, it can't be fixed... apparently (though I never got one of the NT team to tell me how the info could be used), the values it returns are deterministic, and as such, someone could have come up with a calculation to work around the problem, and as such, fixing it would break existing apps.
This is the way it goes, folks - a lot of bugs get entered and can't be fixed because they'd break compatibility with some olde Win3.1 app or something.
Shame really.)
Simon
They don't even IMPLY, they STATE, they WROTE that having the source to the OS made it more vulnerable to this attack. IT IS AN ABSOLUTE **LIE**. It's not even a matter of opinion: it's my opinion, for instance, that having the source code is better, overall, from a security point of view. HOWEVER, saying that having the source code available makes Linux & Solaris more vulnerable (or, from what I understand, more likely to be used as hosts) to to DDOS attacks is a complete and unfounded LIE.
While I'm not one to advocate security through obscurity, I do have to take you to task over your claim that it's an outright lie; it's not.
1. If the source comes with it, I can embed my own malicious code in the source and pass it on like that. People have to check what I've done - and people might not spot it. I can't do my own source rev for a closed-source OS, so this form of attack won't work. The closest analagous attack that will work is a trojan or virus attack.
2. If the source comes with it, I can run it through BoundsChecker or Purify or some other such intelligent lint tool and find any buffer overflows in the source - or any potential other errors. Heck, I can even go through it by hand and see what I can find that I can use to get access to the machine. I don't report them - I just note they're there and use them as exploits to embed my DDOS code onto the system that is vulnerable. This is much easier than the way you have to do it on closed-source systems, where you have to do things as a matter of trial and error and slowly wend your way through the system prodding here and there to try and find some kind of hole - and then you've got to find some way of inserting your own code onto the system from there. Much more difficult.
Let's face it - it's possible on both systems. But let's also face it, it's not a lie to say that it's easier to insert malicious/foreign code into an operating system that you have the source to. Because it IS easier - just not much easier.
Simon
Display Properties -> Appearance -> Icon Size (set it to 72)... not bad, huh?
Simon
Isn't the large Icon's setting in Plus! allow for support of 64x64 icons?
Of course, that's actually still too small, and it doesn't scale very intelligently, but it's a step in the direction. I'm betting Apple will be able to leverage this new display technology and wow everyone =)
Well, actually, Windows supports icons up to 2048x2048 in size (according to VC++), and in 32 bit color - and amazingly, it does this wonderful thing where it automatically bilinear interpolates them to the right size if the icons are too small. It'll also quite happily give you 72x72 icons for most things if you set it to do that - though it looks kind of weird. Using the Appearance tab, you can set everything so that it's a factor of X bigger than now, including font sizes (though for existing apps, a "large font" mode will be needed - and anyone who doesn't use StretchBlit in their apps to size things for the screen, and who doesn't use font-metrics rather than direct pixel metrics deserves to be shot).
It'll handle it quite happily. And, as I used to work there, I'll tell you right now that they were considering this and have plans in place to handle this when I was there (Oct 1998 - June 1999). But sorry, I can't tell you the details - you'll have to take it on faith.
Um, ok. Consider NT. It has multiple client API interfaces (posix, win16, win32) that plug into the actual operating system. Apps are supposed to be written to one of the client APIs. The "internal" NT api is secret and undocumented. The problem is that the client API interfaces add another layer of inderection and slow things down.
Ok... this is a given. Except for the fact that the internal docs aren't available to MS programmers to use either (I tried while I was there so that I could access floppy disks at sector levels). You can get down to ioctl level if you want to -- and that IS documented.
Most developers outside of MS can't use the native "internal" NT api. A few have managed to reverse engineer pieces of it, but its well known that MS applications (like IIS) use this API extensively. Non MS applications are penalized because this api is not published and documented. Netscape actually talks about how they reverse engineered part of the internal NT api and doubled performance for their webserver. The IIS developers didn't have to reverse engineer anything; they had all the documentation available to them.
References please - I don't believe you. I'd love these magical URLs to fall from the sky detailing how Netscape needed to do X Y and Z to get things working.
Bear in mind, however, that Netscape (note: not Mozilla) has enough trouble getting a browser running fast & stable on Linux - and they have the SOURCE CODE for that...
Simon
You see, it's not the documented APIs that are the problem. It's the undocumented ones that MS uses and keeps hidden that give them (another monopolistic) competitve edge
Hmmm... you wear wool... I'm willing to bet that from this evidence, you spend 90% of your time every day thinking about having sex with sheep.
Disagree with me? In that case - provide evidence that you don't think about having sex with sheep 90% of the time.
You can't prove a negative. Congratulations - you're spreading FUD about Microsoft:
Fear - Microsoft has "hidden APIs" which lets them get more performance out of their code.
Uncertainty - Will our apps get the same benefits?
Doubt - Will we be able to go to market with this stuff if we don't know if we'll be able to compete effectively?
Well, thanks a lot. So basically, you're repeating hearsay evidence that X, Y and Z person has invented... you're not even able to point to apps that run better because the APIs which they use aren't documented.
Give you a hint: Microsoft isn't that organized internally. I used to work there - on the Visual Studio team. And guess what I used to find documentation for all of my programming? And what my peers all used? That's right! A Favorites item pointing to MSDN... just one click, and all your docs are there.
Of course, you won't believe me, because someone once said to you "Oh, Microsoft has all these secret APIs - that's why their wordprocessor runs better than XYZ's one... not because XYZ didn't optimize the heck out of it".
Again - show me the facts, jack.
Simon
Ah, our Resident Slashdot Microsoft Apologist crawls out of the woodwork yet again :)
... about my points... want to give something concrete as an example? Or are you (as I suspect) just full of hot air?
Ya know, you should send MS a bill for all the time you spend trolling here, spreading their FUD for them - perhaps they would pay you something for all the free PR.
Which brings up a question... just why are you here? You obviously are a big MS fan, and while I've never seen you actually bashing Linux, apparently you don't like it. Do you think the whole Open Source thing is bad/garbage/evil ?
I guess I just don't understand your motivation(s). I liken your situation to myself going to some pro-Windows forum and telling the people there how great Linux/BSD is. Why bother?
Ah... I see... ad hominem attacks rather than looking at the point.
You are Joe Barr, and I claim my $5.
I've never bashed Linux - except for pointing out where its usability is lacking (and guess what, I actually gave suggestions as to how to fix it)
Just face it - this ain't a "Linux-only" club. It's "news for nerds", and I just so happen to be a nerd.
1. Identify the FUD in my statement. Any of my statements. You won't find any.
2. You might notice, if you looked hard enough, that according to my user info - I used to work for Microsoft. I have no great love for them; I just hate seeing people spreading FUD about them - and I know more about Microsoft than I do about Linux, so I fight Microsoft FUD and not Linux FUD. Believe me, if I were to start defending Linux online, I'd get complaints - because I'm not as well informed.
3. I used to run Slackware on my PC at home (dual-booting with NT). Last time I tried an install (with my girlfriend who has been running Linux since patch level 0.98 - that is, before it was popular), I was sorely disappointed. I thought things would have moved on in leaps and bounds - well, they have - but not far enough.
4. Open Source - well, I'm not a GNU fan; I think the GPL is restrictive. Personally, when I release software into the wild, it's going under the BSD license. But that's just me. However, I've not had time to come up with any software to release into the wild recently, so that's a moot point.
5. Why am I bothering with this when you're quite happy to criticize, but don't have to guts to even sign your name? At least I put my email address and web address up online so that people can talk to me. At least I'm not hiding who I am.
6. Looks like you're FUDding me. Hope you like spreading FUD.
7. Now
Simon