Maybe if the people in Microsoft's own country had more faith in them this 750$mil would be staying IN THE COUNTRY instead of leaving for COMMUNIST CHINA.
Wonder what proportion of this money came from outside the US anyway. Maybe Microsoft are simply returning money which came from China in the first place.
The Chinese won't give up Linux until Microsoft lets them see the code. The question is, can Microsoft trust the Chinese? In the U.S., Microsoft could take you to court for breaking a NDA - they have no such guarantees in China. Portions of Microsoft's treasured Windows source code might end up in Red Flag Linux.
Or even worst from Microsofts POV, ending up published where people from North America and Europe can read it. Though it's more likely to be code from MS Office than Windows:)
Actually, Microsoft doesn't have the nasty habit of charging for bandwidth on updates and charging money for support.
Microsoft charge for support on a per incident basis. They try and push over a lot of support costs onto OEM's too. Microsoft have even been known to charge when they can't fix a problem or for supplying a bug fix they chose not to put up on the windowsupdate site. If you look through the MS Knowlage Base you will find quite a few cases where there is a fix but you have to phone Microsoft to get it.
China has a long history of making it very difficult for corporations outside of China to make money. Corporations are attracted to China because of the immense size of the market, but the Chinese government typically structures the deals benefit the Chinese government, and the companies are lucky to break even.
Sounds like a government actually doing it's job, rather than allowing their country to be exploited by foreign corporations. Wonder how helpful the US government would be to a corporation based in China wishing to operate in the US...
The suckers in this case are the folks in Redmond. They are basically throwing their money away
With this and the X-Box how long will Microsoft's reserves last?
Absolutely. Its all so clear to me now, just when I thought M$ couldn't be totally bent on World Domination, along comes this story. I think when you look at the bigger picture, M$ in the socio-political landscape is starting to behave and act like a country into itself.
US corporations have been pushing nation states around for quite a while. The difference is that usually they pick on the small and weak (China isn't either) and they call on US militry forces for help.
And now with its introduction of Palladium, and the secret meetings between top staff at Microsoft and the leaders withing the US Intelligence Community, its becoming clear just how powerful and ambitious M$ really is.
Does "Intelligence Community" include the CIA, who are quite adept at fighting covert wars...
I don't think there is any precedent like it in history
The Catholic church in the middle ages comes to mind as an organisation capable of subverting civil government.
Microsoft is selling X-Box at a loss, they need to make profits by selling software. If some slick hacker buys 10,000 X-Boxen and converts them to PCs, Microsoft makes no money.
Which is Microsoft's problem. Commercial entities have no "devine right" to make money. Companies not making a profit is part of the normal scheme of things. Since Microsoft have extensive cash reserves they will probably stick around long enough for some shareholder lawsuits. For gambling on a risky business model and not having it pay off.
It costs Microsoft money the same way refilling ink cartridges costs printer companies money. Microsoft is losing something like $150 on each X-Box it sells. Any X-Box that is used for something other than selling game cartridges cost MS money.
Microsoft isn't some charity they are a commercial enterprise. If their business model does not work then it's up to them to find one which does work. They have huge assets to tide them over whilst they do this. A company which didn't would probably simply go bankrupt. The basic idea behind free market capitalism is that both suppliers and customers look out for their own interests.
It's also similar to the situation where people were selling cheap internet appliances expecting to lock people into long, expensive ISP contracts. Anyone who bought one and hacked it to use as a cheap terminal was costing the company money.
Ditto, it was up for the people who made the I-Opener to find a business model which worked. IIRC in some places bundling of hardware and service contracts is actually illegal.
Another similarly ineffective money losing endeaver was the CueCat debacle. Remember their value attempts to prevent people from hacking on hardware that they were giving away at Radio Shack?
Also mailing these as unsolicited gifts. Attempting to base an entire enterprise around a loss leader is a risky business.
Perhaps the real issue is whether there's any enforceable law that props up a business model that obvious gaping holes in it.
There certainly shouldn't be. The right thing for such a business to do in this situation is to either use their reserves/credit or go bankrupt.
If I use illegal copies of Microsoft Notepad to write a novel (as if), they can't stop me from distributing that novel. If I use an illegal copy of Adobe Photoshop to create an image, they can't do anything to prevent me from distributing that image either.
It's only when my work contains any intellectual property I'm not allowed to distribute I can't distribute it, no matter how it was created.
What if you used MS Word? It might well be the case that Microsoft would argue that the.DOC file contains their IP...
Do companies not have the freedom to have different business models?
But what they don't, or at least shouldn't, have the ability to do is to bully their customers into ensuring their business model works. With a console they are selling a piece of hardware, possibly at loss. If someone works out how to use that piece of hardware in a novel way then tough, the doctorine of first sale should apply.
I think that if this was true, than shouldn't people have to pay Microsoft money everytime they put a program they made in Visual Basic/C up for download because it is using Microsoft code/APIs?
The same kind of "logic" would lead to Microsoft owning the copyright of the contents of every file created by Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access, Publisher, etc. Some of these formats appear to be stuffed full of what is in effect executable code.
Oh, I agree with you that one of the ways in which money distorts the equality of citizens is through the lobbyist industry,
No doubt some lobby groups are actually publically funded
There a handful of issues (gun laws, abortion, etc.) that always generate thousands of letters.
Because there are plenty of organisations with views from all sides of the debate and the issue is likely to be raised in the press so people actually know about it.
Most legilation that really affects our lives (telco deregulation, DMCA, etc.) get passed without any direct input from the public at all.
Most people probably didn't know it existed at all. With most of those who did being the lobbiests who wrote it.
Concerted attempts have been made to wield the clue-stick in the direction of parliament, however, they're still thick as pigshit when it comes to computers:
Maybe, since they obviously have some spare time on their hands, could hold a competition with the US Congress to find the least clueful legislator:)
The bill, as it stands, would outlaw everything which causes somebody else's computer to slow down without the owner's permission. Read the bill if you think I'm exaggerating.
It also appears to be utterly redundant, since the kind of things it seaks to outlaw are already illegal.
It seems that each year more of the people feel disenfranchised, whether they are in any literal sense or not. (It doesn't make too much different whether you are allowed to vote or not when the candidates are bought and sold by the large campaign donors.)
Or where there are few candidates. Many people in Europe have also been showing dissatisfaction with established political parties. For some reason it appears to be a lot easier get a new political party elected in European countries than in the US. Possibly because of different rules on campaign funding and access to the media.Would something like the recent Dutch general election even be possible in the US?
I hate and despise Bush. And I'm still not sure that Gore would have been any better.
Quite likely this is why many Americans don't even bother to register to vote.
Nader would have been better, but only because he would be deadlocked with Congress all the time. A government that did nothing new would be preferable to the one that we have ended up with.
Does anyone not Republican or Democrat seriously stand a chance of being elected as US president? Effectivly the US media ignores "third party" candidates.
Most of this entire mess traces back to when a Judge ruled that corporations were people. They aren't. It's clear that they aren't.
Not only that corporations arn't treated as people, especially when they break the law. There is no such thing as a jail for corporations, a corporation can be on trial whilst conducting "business as usual". Giving corporations the same rights as real people effectivly turns them into something superior.
It is somewhat peculiar, but it or something like it was probably inevitable. Culturally, the US is much more diverse than any single European nation
Not exactly, in some ways, notably political parties the US is considerably less diverse than many European countries.
although just possibly not much more than the EU taken as a whole. Since we do not share a single culture, culture alone cannot be a unifying principle.
Many European countries have cultural variations, even small countries such as Belgium.
The US forces all immigrant to pledge loyalty to the republic, and to disavow loyalty to any other state before being naturalized.
These people made a specific choice to become US citizens of their own free will. Specific conditions are placed on doing this, including making such a pledge and renouncing any citizenship to any other nation they may otherwise be entitled to claim.
Why is it so wrong to ask that people who just happened to be born here make the same pledge?
Think about that, a Pledge, which is a solem oath and a Prayer which is susposed to have been authored by God himself (If you beleave in that sort of thing) being reduced to meaningless noises that students squak out like good little parrots.
Wonder how long before the US constitution winds up the same way. Assuming that has not already happened...
Added to your other points (which I have not quoted here), it is not uncommon for citizens of foreign countries to attend US schools. Why should a Swedish exchange student (like a good friend of mine) be forced to pledge allegiance to the US government?
It's not as if the Swedish government would expect pledges of allegiance from US citizens who happened to be on their territory.
More to the point, why should a US citizen be forced to pledge allegiance to the US government? I'm a US citizen and there are many things that our government does that I don't agree with. I shouldn't have to blindly agree to give the government my undying loyalty if I'm not taking a public office or entering the military.
It's also the "wrong way around", it would make more sense for the US government (or at least government officials) to pledge allegiance to the US people. Doubt the people who originally wrote the US constitution would have any time for such an idea. Their position appeared to be something along the line that governments are like fire, good servant, poor master.
Uh, in the Constitution, where it is specifically forbidden for the government to limit the people's right to petition the government for the redress of greivances.
How can this be made to work in a world where commercial and political special interest groups have full time professional lobbiest. Who are also very good at making sure that voices other than their own don't get heard.
Where is the seperation of power when you have only two political parties in power,
Indeed it's rather hard to find any section of government in the US, at any level. Which is not utterly dominated by these two parties
and they often have the same views on important issues related to freedom?
Probably explains low voter registration and turnout in the US. If someone cannot find a candidate to represent their views then any vote they make is a wasted vote anyway.
Atheism implies a lack of belief in deities. "Weak" atheism implies nothing more than withheld belief based on lack of evidence or ignorance of the concept. "Strong" atheism implies the outright assertion "there are no gods".
A "strong atheist" can be someone who has a great deal of faith in his or her position.
Curiously, Allah that muslim's worship is the same god that christians/catholics worship.
Interesting seperation of christian and catholic... Jews, Christians and Muslims all supposedly worship the same god.
Not just metaphorically, but the Koran mentions Jesus, Moses and Noah by name. Islam however is based on the word of God/Allah as interpretted by Mohammed, and he is regarded as the infallible final prophet, and no-discussion-will-be-entered-into-on-the-subject- thankyouverymuch.
Islam has different sects, just as does Christianity and Jewdism.
The imperative of killing OBL derives from the right to self-defense. He's killed thousands of innocent people, and there's no reason to believe that he will desist until he's dead.
I doubt he personally has killed thousands of people. Even if he has given the orders. then why should, the likes of, G W Bush and Ariel Sharon not be placed in exactly the same catagory?
The author talks about "incompatabilities with files created with Microsoft products like Word" - what's the incompatability? It's between Word, and... things that AREN'T Word.
Sometimes there are problems between Word and Word:)
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe if the people in Microsoft's own country had more faith in them this 750$mil would be staying IN THE COUNTRY instead of leaving for COMMUNIST CHINA.
Wonder what proportion of this money came from outside the US anyway. Maybe Microsoft are simply returning money which came from China in the first place.
The Chinese won't give up Linux until Microsoft lets them see the code. The question is, can Microsoft trust the Chinese? In the U.S., Microsoft could take you to court for breaking a NDA - they have no such guarantees in China. Portions of Microsoft's treasured Windows source code might end up in Red Flag Linux.
:)
Or even worst from Microsofts POV, ending up published where people from North America and Europe can read it.
Though it's more likely to be code from MS Office than Windows
Actually, Microsoft doesn't have the nasty habit of charging for bandwidth on updates and charging money for support.
Microsoft charge for support on a per incident basis. They try and push over a lot of support costs onto OEM's too. Microsoft have even been known to charge when they can't fix a problem or for supplying a bug fix they chose not to put up on the windowsupdate site.
If you look through the MS Knowlage Base you will find quite a few cases where there is a fix but you have to phone Microsoft to get it.
China has a long history of making it very difficult for corporations outside of China to make money. Corporations are attracted to China because of the immense size of the market, but the Chinese government typically structures the deals benefit the Chinese government, and the companies are lucky to break even.
Sounds like a government actually doing it's job, rather than allowing their country to be exploited by foreign corporations.
Wonder how helpful the US government would be to a corporation based in China wishing to operate in the US...
The suckers in this case are the folks in Redmond. They are basically throwing their money away
With this and the X-Box how long will Microsoft's reserves last?
Absolutely. Its all so clear to me now, just when I thought M$ couldn't be totally bent on World Domination, along comes this story. I think when you look at the bigger picture, M$ in the socio-political landscape is starting to behave and act like a country into itself.
US corporations have been pushing nation states around for quite a while. The difference is that usually they pick on the small and weak (China isn't either) and they call on US militry forces for help.
And now with its introduction of Palladium, and the secret meetings between top staff at Microsoft and the leaders withing the US Intelligence Community, its becoming clear just how powerful and ambitious M$ really is.
Does "Intelligence Community" include the CIA, who are quite adept at fighting covert wars...
I don't think there is any precedent like it in history
The Catholic church in the middle ages comes to mind as an organisation capable of subverting civil government.
Microsoft is selling X-Box at a loss, they need to make profits by selling software. If some slick hacker buys 10,000 X-Boxen and converts them to PCs, Microsoft makes no money.
Which is Microsoft's problem. Commercial entities have no "devine right" to make money. Companies not making a profit is part of the normal scheme of things.
Since Microsoft have extensive cash reserves they will probably stick around long enough for some shareholder lawsuits. For gambling on a risky business model and not having it pay off.
It costs Microsoft money the same way refilling ink cartridges costs printer companies money. Microsoft is losing something like $150 on each X-Box it sells. Any X-Box that is used for something other than selling game cartridges cost MS money.
Microsoft isn't some charity they are a commercial enterprise. If their business model does not work then it's up to them to find one which does work. They have huge assets to tide them over whilst they do this. A company which didn't would probably simply go bankrupt.
The basic idea behind free market capitalism is that both suppliers and customers look out for their own interests.
It's also similar to the situation where people were selling cheap internet appliances expecting to lock people into long, expensive ISP contracts. Anyone who bought one and hacked it to use as a cheap terminal was costing the company money.
Ditto, it was up for the people who made the I-Opener to find a business model which worked. IIRC in some places bundling of hardware and service contracts is actually illegal.
Another similarly ineffective money losing endeaver was the CueCat debacle. Remember their value attempts to prevent people from hacking on hardware that they were giving away at Radio Shack?
Also mailing these as unsolicited gifts. Attempting to base an entire enterprise around a loss leader is a risky business.
Perhaps the real issue is whether there's any enforceable law that props up a business model that obvious gaping holes in it.
There certainly shouldn't be. The right thing for such a business to do in this situation is to either use their reserves/credit or go bankrupt.
If I use illegal copies of Microsoft Notepad to write a novel (as if), they can't stop me from distributing that novel. If I use an illegal copy of Adobe Photoshop to create an image, they can't do anything to prevent me from distributing that image either.
.DOC file contains their IP...
It's only when my work contains any intellectual property I'm not allowed to distribute I can't distribute it, no matter how it was created.
What if you used MS Word? It might well be the case that Microsoft would argue that the
Do companies not have the freedom to have different business models?
But what they don't, or at least shouldn't, have the ability to do is to bully their customers into ensuring their business model works. With a console they are selling a piece of hardware, possibly at loss. If someone works out how to use that piece of hardware in a novel way then tough, the doctorine of first sale should apply.
I think that if this was true, than shouldn't people have to pay Microsoft money everytime they put a program they made in Visual Basic/C up for download because it is using Microsoft code/APIs?
The same kind of "logic" would lead to Microsoft owning the copyright of the contents of every file created by Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access, Publisher, etc. Some of these formats appear to be stuffed full of what is in effect executable code.
Virulent licensing indeed. And Microsoft complains about how the GPL contaminates projects. :)
They already said that anything put through Hotmail belongs to them. How long before Microsoft claim copyright on anything produced by MS Word?
Oh, I agree with you that one of the ways in which money distorts the equality of citizens is through the lobbyist industry,
No doubt some lobby groups are actually publically funded
There a handful of issues (gun laws, abortion, etc.) that always generate thousands of letters.
Because there are plenty of organisations with views from all sides of the debate and the issue is likely to be raised in the press so people actually know about it.
Most legilation that really affects our lives (telco deregulation, DMCA, etc.) get passed without any direct input from the public at all.
Most people probably didn't know it existed at all. With most of those who did being the lobbiests who wrote it.
Concerted attempts have been made to wield the clue-stick in the direction of parliament, however, they're still thick as pigshit when it comes to computers:
:)
Maybe, since they obviously have some spare time on their hands, could hold a competition with the US Congress to find the least clueful legislator
The bill, as it stands, would outlaw everything which causes somebody else's computer to slow down without the owner's permission. Read the bill if you think I'm exaggerating.
It also appears to be utterly redundant, since the kind of things it seaks to outlaw are already illegal.
The simple phrase "Under God" could be applied to almost any major religion
Only to monotheistic religions
and doesn't really suggest any particular religion or ideology.
It implies monotheism, which certainly excludes the polytheistic Hindu faith.
It seems that each year more of the people feel disenfranchised, whether they are in any literal sense or not. (It doesn't make too much different whether you are allowed to vote or not when the candidates are bought and sold by the large campaign donors.)
Or where there are few candidates. Many people in Europe have also been showing dissatisfaction with established political parties. For some reason it appears to be a lot easier get a new political party elected in European countries than in the US. Possibly because of different rules on campaign funding and access to the media.Would something like the recent Dutch general election even be possible in the US?
I hate and despise Bush. And I'm still not sure that Gore would have been any better.
Quite likely this is why many Americans don't even bother to register to vote.
Nader would have been better, but only because he would be deadlocked with Congress all the time. A government that did nothing new would be preferable to the one that we have ended up with.
Does anyone not Republican or Democrat seriously stand a chance of being elected as US president? Effectivly the US media ignores "third party" candidates.
Most of this entire mess traces back to when a Judge ruled that corporations were people. They aren't. It's clear that they aren't.
Not only that corporations arn't treated as people, especially when they break the law. There is no such thing as a jail for corporations, a corporation can be on trial whilst conducting "business as usual". Giving corporations the same rights as real people effectivly turns them into something superior.
It is somewhat peculiar, but it or something like it was probably inevitable. Culturally, the US is much more diverse than any single European nation
Not exactly, in some ways, notably political parties the US is considerably less diverse than many European countries.
although just possibly not much more than the EU taken as a whole. Since we do not share a single culture, culture alone cannot be a unifying principle.
Many European countries have cultural variations, even small countries such as Belgium.
The US forces all immigrant to pledge loyalty to the republic, and to disavow loyalty to any other state before being naturalized.
These people made a specific choice to become US citizens of their own free will. Specific conditions are placed on doing this, including making such a pledge and renouncing any citizenship to any other nation they may otherwise be entitled to claim.
Why is it so wrong to ask that people who just happened to be born here make the same pledge?
Since when can people choose where they are born?
Think about that, a Pledge, which is a solem oath and a Prayer which is susposed to have been authored by God himself (If you beleave in that sort of thing) being reduced to meaningless noises that students squak out like good little parrots.
Wonder how long before the US constitution winds up the same way. Assuming that has not already happened...
Added to your other points (which I have not quoted here), it is not uncommon for citizens of foreign countries to attend US schools. Why should a Swedish exchange student (like a good friend of mine) be forced to pledge allegiance to the US government?
It's not as if the Swedish government would expect pledges of allegiance from US citizens who happened to be on their territory.
More to the point, why should a US citizen be forced to pledge allegiance to the US government? I'm a US citizen and there are many things that our government does that I don't agree with. I shouldn't have to blindly agree to give the government my undying loyalty if I'm not taking a public office or entering the military.
It's also the "wrong way around", it would make more sense for the US government (or at least government officials) to pledge allegiance to the US people.
Doubt the people who originally wrote the US constitution would have any time for such an idea. Their position appeared to be something along the line that governments are like fire, good servant, poor master.
Uh, in the Constitution, where it is specifically forbidden for the government to limit the people's right to petition the government for the redress of greivances.
How can this be made to work in a world where commercial and political special interest groups have full time professional lobbiest. Who are also very good at making sure that voices other than their own don't get heard.
Where is the seperation of power when you have only two political parties in power,
Indeed it's rather hard to find any section of government in the US, at any level. Which is not utterly dominated by these two parties
and they often have the same views on important issues related to freedom?
Probably explains low voter registration and turnout in the US. If someone cannot find a candidate to represent their views then any vote they make is a wasted vote anyway.
Atheism implies a lack of belief in deities. "Weak" atheism implies nothing more than withheld belief based on lack of evidence or ignorance of the concept. "Strong" atheism implies the outright assertion "there are no gods".
A "strong atheist" can be someone who has a great deal of faith in his or her position.
Curiously, Allah that muslim's worship is the same god that christians/catholics worship.
- thankyouverymuch.
Interesting seperation of christian and catholic... Jews, Christians and Muslims all supposedly worship the same god.
Not just metaphorically, but the Koran mentions Jesus, Moses and Noah by name. Islam however is based on the word of God/Allah as interpretted by Mohammed, and he is regarded as the infallible final prophet, and no-discussion-will-be-entered-into-on-the-subject
Islam has different sects, just as does Christianity and Jewdism.
The imperative of killing OBL derives from the right to self-defense. He's killed thousands of innocent people, and there's no reason to believe that he will desist until he's dead.
I doubt he personally has killed thousands of people. Even if he has given the orders. then why should, the likes of, G W Bush and Ariel Sharon not be placed in exactly the same catagory?
The author talks about "incompatabilities with files created with Microsoft products like Word" - what's the incompatability? It's between Word, and... things that AREN'T Word.
:)
Sometimes there are problems between Word and Word