I have to agree. I didn't see one thing in that memo which was a big deal. Not even the note on Largo. The guy doesn't mention any odious tactics like the Halloween document did and it's the same sales pep talk you see even in smaller companies. "Rahrah! We got these sales. Rahrah! Go out and sell some more. Here's some tips for when you go out to the customer's site."
And what tips did he give? Be observant and ask questions. Use your knowledge of the customer to tailor a pitch to them. Gosh, I've *never* seen *any* vendor do that. How awful.
As for linux being the big threat, whatever. If Larry Ellison ever scored a couple of big sale with his thin client product you'd see a near boilerplate e-mail sent out telling the sales staff to watch out for them too. And it would have the same sense of urgency as this memo did.
That's just the way this aspect of business works.
Maybe if people would have gotten off their asses and voted instead of whining about how their vote didn't matter Gore could have gotten elected. He might not have even needed Florida if his supporters had actually cared. The economy was still good. Despite Clinton's numerous fuck-ups (pun intended) enough people felt the president was doing an all right job of actually running the country. Add Gore's experience as VP for two terms and the guy had ample things going for him to get elected.
Don't go blaming me and others that voted Green simply because the Democratic party couldn't rally the troops when it came time to put up or shut up. Nader stuck to a position, Bush maintained his platform, Gore OTOH spent too much time trying to find the best way to sell himself to the public. I haven't seen that much waffling since Bush Sr. was in office.
Nader didn't cost Gore the election and Bush didn't beat Gore. Gore defeated himself. End of story.
I recently attended a SANS course on IIS. According to the instructor, MS enables features to lower support costs. If it's already on nobody will call to get it working. WFM is a similiar tale. It was designed to eliminate support calls but an employee realized it could be expanded to function like tripwire.
Personally, I think if someone needed Internet printing enabled on a web server they would search for a TID instead of spending money calling MS if they couldn't noodle it out. But I'm guessing I'm just optimistic here.
More than likely we have a trade agreement with Holland that says something to the effect that companies there cannot ship what the US designates as contraband into the US. So somebody trying to buy pot seeds will simply never get them. It doesn't matter if you order it from the Internet or High Times.
I would expect the same thing to happen with people auctioning Nazi stuff on Yahoo. Shipping it to France should entail it going through customs and being intercepted by the government.
Just because it's available on the Internet doesn't mean you can get the actual product. If this scenerio holds, the best people are doing in France is window shopping.
In an ideal situation this is how it should work imo. Whether it does in the real world I have no clue. This isn't an area I'm very familiar with.
Yes-- it's called democracy. Do you really believe the Chinese don't understand free speech? They don't have free speech-- there'd be no problem if they were voting on these free speech decisions you mention, because they'd need to have votes. (I'm not too sure what India has to do with it.)
But I don't want to live in a democracy and in the USA I don't. And I don't want another culture that, while they may understand free speech, doesn't want free speech. You are aware that many cultures out there do not feel free speech is an admirable or useful goal.
And what makes you think that a world government would be a democracy? Or a Republic? Would|Should China or India (and this is why the parent mentioned India btw) get more votes because they have a larger population?
If the US votes in a few people that based on region is that any better than if China elects by a party committee?
Nearly a couple of decades ago, my Eagle project was the recreation of a WWI veterans monument for the town's historical society. My troop and I made the forms,dug that hole, poured the concrete, put the names of the dead onto it. Those people, and members of my family who were in WWII fought and died so I could enjoy the rights I currently have. Now that I have a son of my own I want him to inherit those benefits and the burdens of responsibility that come with them.
I'm not giving up those rights just because some other country doesn't think the effort to be responsible with free speech is worthwhile.
There was nothing, nada, zilch in that settlement which restricted XP or.Net and once a settlement has been approved it is game over. Do you really think a three person advisory board would have been able to handle any settlement violation in a timely fashion? Do you really think that developers, be they commercial or OSS, would have the access to MS' "middleware" they needed to compete?
A few paltry hundred million or even a few billion so it can freely continue to leverage its monopoly into the fledgling web services market?
Hell, let the investors tank MS stock. I could buy low and by the time the next anti-trust suit hit the courts I could sell and retire early.
As others have said, 36+ billion in cash; no debt; any penalty would be paid over a period of years allowing MS numerous ways to finance the payment. A quite frankly rewarding anti-trust settlement. I would fire any investor that was so short-sighted as to reccommend selling MS stock under those circumstances.
If the DOJ is going to punk out after winning the case, the least I expect from the deal is to have MS pay all legal costs for the US and the States. That way, we as taxpayers have lost zip on the deal. It's the very first thing I thought of when I saw the settlement.
Considering MS has $39 billion in cash I don't even see this as being punative. If my AG doesn't hold out for that I want him removed.
Personally, I hope this dies during the proceedings for the Tunney Act. This reeks of politics and selling out. Yeah, ditch the original legal team and put a bunch of newbies on the case; get the decision almost entirely re-affirmed on appeal then abandon key areas of the fight. Finally (as if), meekly agree to a toothless settlement that isn't even nearly as strong as one that was rejected. A settlement where the monopolist makes the rules and some puppet advisory board gets to pretend that they can enforce the agreement. All for the grossly mistaken assuption that if we leave this convicted monopoly alone the decimated tech sector will bounce back.
Yeah, just give me another tax refund so I can go buy a copy of WinXP. At least then my Passport information will be safe.:P
While I'm not happy with the Shrub being in office I just can't see how you can blame us being worse off totally on Bush. I can't blame the economy on him because it was going to tank no matter who got into office. I can't blame the terrorist attacks on him, nor can I really blame him for the USA Act as I think something similiar would have happened if Gore had gotten in.
I can blame him for his weak environmental stance and for taking our current anti-trust policy back to the Reagan era. I can blame him for that stupid tax rebate that really didn't do me any good and didn't stop the government from tapping Social Security anyway.
But I don't think that we'd be better off if Gore was in office now or even if Ralph was. It is just too short of a timespan with too much shit that was already rolling downhill for any one man to really make a difference.
Oh and before anybody asks I voted Green for the record.
Microsoft also will be required to license any intellectual property to computer manufacturers and software developers necessary for them to exercise their rights under the proposed Final Judgment, including for example, using the middleware protocols disclosed by Microsoft to interoperate with the operating system. This enforcement measure will ensure that intellectual property rights do not interfere with the rights and obligations under the proposed Final Judgment.
Does that mean OSS projects like Mozilla and OpenOffice would get access? What constitutes a "software developer?" Are we talking a corporation or does that term carry a broader interpretation? If I make a GPL'd product and the only way I could license the IP was under the GPL or a compatable license would MS be forced to comply? As a developer, what are my "rights?"
Hey now! None of that! They can extend this by another whole 2, count 'em, 2 years.
How fun. Who wants to lay odds the USA Act gets extended until the sun no longer rises and the mountains are now more but this extension never gets used?
Oh and I totally agree with you about the document formats.
I'm not wrong about anything. I'm deliberately taking the industry's side to show why they wouldn't want something like the 4000 to reach the marketplace.
The entire idea of creating a show specifically for HBO or Showtime or what-have-you is to increase the value for subscribers. It's a hook for the consumer to spend money and when you hit it off like HBO did with the Sopranos you want that show to remain exclusive. You don't get to understand what the people on the radio are raving about as you drive into work. You don't get to chat about the cliff-hanger at lunch with your co-workers. If you don't want to pay that's fine but don't expect to watch the Sopranos. For every capitalist, libertarian, Ayn Rand loving/.er out there this should be fair. HBO made it, they have a right in determining how it gets distributed and if people don't like it they can vote with their wallet and not buy it while accepting the consequence that they can't watch it.
And about every quarter HBO or some other premium channel offers a free preview with a deal to subscribe so the cable company can argue that you are getting to sample the content before you buy. There is no reason for a file trading service under these conditions.
The cable company already allows you to try before you buy.
Finally, my buddy is a potential sale and trading kills the opprotunity to make that sale. Grossly oversimplified, HBO has two basic ways to make money as a company. Charge more for the product or get more customers. Investing in the product and giving it exclusive content is a way of swaying more people into subscribing. But if HBO's content is already being given away they have no leverage to sell a subscription.
A company has to grow to stay alive. Every year, the basics to run the business cost more and you need to constantly reinvest so people will keep subscribing. Eventually the Sopranos will get old. Something else will have to be tried and hopefully become the next big hook. From the media industry's standpoint trading files between friends is stealing from them. You are devaluing their investment by making it a commodity that anyone can get. For a company like HBO which doesn't gain revenue through advertising this is a big deal.
Oh, and another issue. If the webcam ever gets good enough that all you are effectively sending your friends is the video feed off of your set you are rebroadcasting the program. Currently, that is not time/space shifting, sharing, or for personal use and is a blatant copyright violation. This would definately wind up in court and I'd be interested in seeing the ruling.
Fifteen would be a crowd in my living room. But wait, it's now 2005 and Web cams have progressed and all the dark fiber is lit and lots of folks are starting to leave their living room cams on so that friends can share virtual space. Now, you're watching a k3wl show in your house, and I'm there too, and I zoom the cam in by remote and watch with you.
Oh I can just see that now as over the computer I hear "Flower move your butt, you're blocking the TV!" or "Hey! Who has the remote? I was watching that!" or "Ummm, folks you left the cam on..... Maybe next time you could keep that stuff in the bedroom. I think my son needs therapy now."
The diff is I'd swap shows with my friends but this put up a web cam and "have my friends over virtually" to watch a movie? For myself it would never fly.
Yes, but if I tape Enterprise and hand the tape over to a co-worker who missed the episode I can't watch the tape while it is in his possession. For myself, I consider this to be a big @whatever but for the TV industry it would be a big issue.
Also, you can share that file 15 times according to the article. So you and 15 "TV buddies" get to watch the show. And skip all the commercials too.
Another interesting quirk. I subscribe to say HBO and send a buddie who doesn't get HBO every episode of Six Feet Under and in trade he sends me some series off of Showtime. The cable company loses money on two premium packages. Now let me do that for 15 buddies. Price gouging bastards they are and personally I would get some small satisfaction (my wife would get a great deal of satisfaction as she actually pays the bill:) but I'm surprised they haven't sued already.
Here's another interesing possible hack. What if I could get the PVR to record while I'm playing a DVD and then I could send that movie to 15 buddies? IIRC, the 4000 records 320 hours of video. Heh, I'd almost break down and buy a DVD player if I could do that.
I'll skip point 1. I agree with your assessment and as others have pointed out the switch will be made.
On point 2 however, I just don't agree with you. Moshe does more than a adequate job of explaining his stance on this issue. Between pointinging out the costs of making the kernel fully preemptible, citing his experiences with using it on personal machines (good) and servers (not so good), then noting the preemtible kernel breaks Mosix and LIDS I think he's got a right to his opinion. It's based upon at least as much fact as stating everyone loves the preemptible kernel.
While the idea is interesting I don't think it is practical. From what I've read on KT and in this article changing the VM forces design considerations on userland programs. It's additional complexity that most developers (and especially companies like Oracle) wouldn't appreciate. I also think it would raise support costs. At the very least I'd want some variable in/etc that would clearly state which VM was being used. For me at least, the issue is simplicity in favor of flexibility
I think the biggest bone of contention in the community is Linus replaced the VM in the current stable version instead of pushing it into 2.5. Again, not being a kernel hacker and only going from everything I've read, this was a radical change. I'd almost be willing to say the latest kernels should be labeled 2.6 but that's just me.
Oh, and finally, to paraphrase an old saying, give any tech-savvy user enough rope and they will hang themselves.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned 'A Wrinkle in Time.' by Madeleine L'Engle. I recently saw that it has been made into a mini-series set to air in 2002.
Jackson didn't find some program a monopoly, he found a company to be a monopoly in a certain market. That case revolved around the browser they distributed under that monopoly.
I suggest getting your axioms and facts right before critiquing somebody else's analysis.
Why not? Considering if I catch the original story late anything I want to say is drowned out in a sea of posts. With a redundant story a person has a chance to be heard.
Personally I don't have any problem with redundant stories be they a few days apart so the weekend readers can get a shot or even having one creep up a couple of months after the original. The window of opprotunity to comment and get involved in any meaningful dialog is a matter of a few hours. The exact opposite extreme you see in newsgroups where threads can last for weeks.
Redunant stories mitigate that problem at the cost of some obligatory anal-retentive whining by people who could have just skipped the story they have seen before.
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And what tips did he give? Be observant and ask questions. Use your knowledge of the customer to tailor a pitch to them. Gosh, I've *never* seen *any* vendor do that. How awful.
As for linux being the big threat, whatever. If Larry Ellison ever scored a couple of big sale with his thin client product you'd see a near boilerplate e-mail sent out telling the sales staff to watch out for them too. And it would have the same sense of urgency as this memo did. That's just the way this aspect of business works.
Oh waitaminute..... Nevermind.
Don't go blaming me and others that voted Green simply because the Democratic party couldn't rally the troops when it came time to put up or shut up. Nader stuck to a position, Bush maintained his platform, Gore OTOH spent too much time trying to find the best way to sell himself to the public. I haven't seen that much waffling since Bush Sr. was in office.
Nader didn't cost Gore the election and Bush didn't beat Gore. Gore defeated himself. End of story.
I recently attended a SANS course on IIS. According to the instructor, MS enables features to lower support costs. If it's already on nobody will call to get it working. WFM is a similiar tale. It was designed to eliminate support calls but an employee realized it could be expanded to function like tripwire.
Personally, I think if someone needed Internet printing enabled on a web server they would search for a TID instead of spending money calling MS if they couldn't noodle it out. But I'm guessing I'm just optimistic here.
I would expect the same thing to happen with people auctioning Nazi stuff on Yahoo. Shipping it to France should entail it going through customs and being intercepted by the government. Just because it's available on the Internet doesn't mean you can get the actual product. If this scenerio holds, the best people are doing in France is window shopping.
In an ideal situation this is how it should work imo. Whether it does in the real world I have no clue. This isn't an area I'm very familiar with.
But I don't want to live in a democracy and in the USA I don't. And I don't want another culture that, while they may understand free speech, doesn't want free speech. You are aware that many cultures out there do not feel free speech is an admirable or useful goal.
And what makes you think that a world government would be a democracy? Or a Republic? Would|Should China or India (and this is why the parent mentioned India btw) get more votes because they have a larger population? If the US votes in a few people that based on region is that any better than if China elects by a party committee?
Nearly a couple of decades ago, my Eagle project was the recreation of a WWI veterans monument for the town's historical society. My troop and I made the forms,dug that hole, poured the concrete, put the names of the dead onto it. Those people, and members of my family who were in WWII fought and died so I could enjoy the rights I currently have. Now that I have a son of my own I want him to inherit those benefits and the burdens of responsibility that come with them.
I'm not giving up those rights just because some other country doesn't think the effort to be responsible with free speech is worthwhile.
And with a big enough bribe you can make a DIP switch.
There was nothing, nada, zilch in that settlement which restricted XP or .Net and once a settlement has been approved it is game over. Do you really think a three person advisory board would have been able to handle any settlement violation in a timely fashion? Do you really think that developers, be they commercial or OSS, would have the access to MS' "middleware" they needed to compete?
Hell, let the investors tank MS stock. I could buy low and by the time the next anti-trust suit hit the courts I could sell and retire early.
As others have said, 36+ billion in cash; no debt; any penalty would be paid over a period of years allowing MS numerous ways to finance the payment. A quite frankly rewarding anti-trust settlement. I would fire any investor that was so short-sighted as to reccommend selling MS stock under those circumstances.
Considering MS has $39 billion in cash I don't even see this as being punative. If my AG doesn't hold out for that I want him removed.
Personally, I hope this dies during the proceedings for the Tunney Act. This reeks of politics and selling out. Yeah, ditch the original legal team and put a bunch of newbies on the case; get the decision almost entirely re-affirmed on appeal then abandon key areas of the fight. Finally (as if), meekly agree to a toothless settlement that isn't even nearly as strong as one that was rejected. A settlement where the monopolist makes the rules and some puppet advisory board gets to pretend that they can enforce the agreement. All for the grossly mistaken assuption that if we leave this convicted monopoly alone the decimated tech sector will bounce back.
Yeah, just give me another tax refund so I can go buy a copy of WinXP. At least then my Passport information will be safe. :P
I can blame him for his weak environmental stance and for taking our current anti-trust policy back to the Reagan era. I can blame him for that stupid tax rebate that really didn't do me any good and didn't stop the government from tapping Social Security anyway.
But I don't think that we'd be better off if Gore was in office now or even if Ralph was. It is just too short of a timespan with too much shit that was already rolling downhill for any one man to really make a difference.
Oh and before anybody asks I voted Green for the record.
Does that mean OSS projects like Mozilla and OpenOffice would get access? What constitutes a "software developer?" Are we talking a corporation or does that term carry a broader interpretation? If I make a GPL'd product and the only way I could license the IP was under the GPL or a compatable license would MS be forced to comply? As a developer, what are my "rights?"
How fun. Who wants to lay odds the USA Act gets extended until the sun no longer rises and the mountains are now more but this extension never gets used?
Oh and I totally agree with you about the document formats.
But what about the case of buying books for a library? Library's pay a premium on books so they can offer them on loan. Why is this any different?
The entire idea of creating a show specifically for HBO or Showtime or what-have-you is to increase the value for subscribers. It's a hook for the consumer to spend money and when you hit it off like HBO did with the Sopranos you want that show to remain exclusive. You don't get to understand what the people on the radio are raving about as you drive into work. You don't get to chat about the cliff-hanger at lunch with your co-workers. If you don't want to pay that's fine but don't expect to watch the Sopranos. For every capitalist, libertarian, Ayn Rand loving /.er out there this should be fair. HBO made it, they have a right in determining how it gets distributed and if people don't like it they can vote with their wallet and not buy it while accepting the consequence that they can't watch it.
And about every quarter HBO or some other premium channel offers a free preview with a deal to subscribe so the cable company can argue that you are getting to sample the content before you buy. There is no reason for a file trading service under these conditions. The cable company already allows you to try before you buy.
Finally, my buddy is a potential sale and trading kills the opprotunity to make that sale. Grossly oversimplified, HBO has two basic ways to make money as a company. Charge more for the product or get more customers. Investing in the product and giving it exclusive content is a way of swaying more people into subscribing. But if HBO's content is already being given away they have no leverage to sell a subscription.
A company has to grow to stay alive. Every year, the basics to run the business cost more and you need to constantly reinvest so people will keep subscribing. Eventually the Sopranos will get old. Something else will have to be tried and hopefully become the next big hook. From the media industry's standpoint trading files between friends is stealing from them. You are devaluing their investment by making it a commodity that anyone can get. For a company like HBO which doesn't gain revenue through advertising this is a big deal.
Of course that exploding while you watch them issue is a bitch.
Oh, and another issue. If the webcam ever gets good enough that all you are effectively sending your friends is the video feed off of your set you are rebroadcasting the program. Currently, that is not time/space shifting, sharing, or for personal use and is a blatant copyright violation. This would definately wind up in court and I'd be interested in seeing the ruling.
Oh I can just see that now as over the computer I hear "Flower move your butt, you're blocking the TV!" or "Hey! Who has the remote? I was watching that!" or "Ummm, folks you left the cam on..... Maybe next time you could keep that stuff in the bedroom. I think my son needs therapy now."
The diff is I'd swap shows with my friends but this put up a web cam and "have my friends over virtually" to watch a movie? For myself it would never fly.
Also, you can share that file 15 times according to the article. So you and 15 "TV buddies" get to watch the show. And skip all the commercials too.
Another interesting quirk. I subscribe to say HBO and send a buddie who doesn't get HBO every episode of Six Feet Under and in trade he sends me some series off of Showtime. The cable company loses money on two premium packages. Now let me do that for 15 buddies. Price gouging bastards they are and personally I would get some small satisfaction (my wife would get a great deal of satisfaction as she actually pays the bill:) but I'm surprised they haven't sued already.
Here's another interesing possible hack. What if I could get the PVR to record while I'm playing a DVD and then I could send that movie to 15 buddies? IIRC, the 4000 records 320 hours of video. Heh, I'd almost break down and buy a DVD player if I could do that.
On point 2 however, I just don't agree with you. Moshe does more than a adequate job of explaining his stance on this issue. Between pointinging out the costs of making the kernel fully preemptible, citing his experiences with using it on personal machines (good) and servers (not so good), then noting the preemtible kernel breaks Mosix and LIDS I think he's got a right to his opinion. It's based upon at least as much fact as stating everyone loves the preemptible kernel.
A better analogy would be look at the success of emacs v. xemacs. iirc, that was a true fork.
I think the biggest bone of contention in the community is Linus replaced the VM in the current stable version instead of pushing it into 2.5. Again, not being a kernel hacker and only going from everything I've read, this was a radical change. I'd almost be willing to say the latest kernels should be labeled 2.6 but that's just me.
Oh, and finally, to paraphrase an old saying, give any tech-savvy user enough rope and they will hang themselves.
At least that's what I think. :)
I'm surprised no one has mentioned 'A Wrinkle in Time.' by Madeleine L'Engle. I recently saw that it has been made into a mini-series set to air in 2002.
I suggest getting your axioms and facts right before critiquing somebody else's analysis.
Personally I don't have any problem with redundant stories be they a few days apart so the weekend readers can get a shot or even having one creep up a couple of months after the original. The window of opprotunity to comment and get involved in any meaningful dialog is a matter of a few hours. The exact opposite extreme you see in newsgroups where threads can last for weeks.
Redunant stories mitigate that problem at the cost of some obligatory anal-retentive whining by people who could have just skipped the story they have seen before.