The guy gets an email from someone using Outlook Express(OE). OE has mangled the email so badly that he can't read it (I know this, i have it happen to be all the time). So he says something to the other person, who is most likely going to say 'Tough shit, go install Windows, there's nothing I can do about it.
Or maybe even the more arrogant version which is along the lines of "If works with OE (or the website works fine with IE) it must be your end which is at fault. Can't possibly be us, we use all Microsoft stuff and that is always perfect."
So in effect, he's doing what Microsoft products do automatically, only he's spent a fair bit of time and effort doing it.
With the subtle differance that his method complies with the standards. Whereas the Microsoft situation would be in only works with one specific piece of software, this way it works fine with anything except that piece of software.
Basically if we can agree on some format that EVERYONE can read it removes the need for people to pull sh*t like this.
Wonder how much of the time file attachemnts, HTML, etc are used when simple plain text would have done the job of communicating the message perfectly well.
It is not that hard for people to save as.rtf
Indeed there are plenty of reasons for wanting to avoid sending out Word files. From macro viruses to sending out more than you think you are sending out...
Actually, the whole point to RFCs is to standardize formats for things like mail headers. In this case, he is doing something that is perfectly within specs, n'est-ce pas?
Microsoft creates an email program which plays fast and loose with the standards. As a result it produces emails which software which does comply with the standards have trouble reading. However because MSOE dosn't actually follow the standards it can have trouble with emails which actually do. Simply that someone has put some time and effort into finding out what it will choke on.
Are there any other mail readers that are compatible with Exchange server, and include the meeting scheduling and calendar features of Outlook?
People are very split on what they think of Outlook. Between those who think it's the best thing since sliced bread to those who thing it's an example of sticking some vaguely related bits together. Exchange is even capable of providing standard protocols, such as IMAP. But like much of Microsoft's stuff it is intended to work in a "viral" way. (There is an obvious irony about Microsoft carping on about the GPL being a "viral".)
Yeah, the civil rights movement succeeded by having one group pretend to be pious and righteous and having others start riots and cause distruction.... They played 'Good Cop, Bad Cop' with the system. The legislation wasn't passed because of some noble ideas, but rather a means to placate a minority to avoid riots which were hurting the US image on the world political scene.
You mean the US actually cared what the rest of the world though of it, in fairly recent times. Wonder what caused that to change:)
It isn't even new. I discovered ages ago that if you attach a winmail.dat file to your mail, with the correct "content=application/ms-tnef" (IIRC) mime-type,
There is also the multipart alternative format. Where you have an email containing both text and a machine generated HTML version of the text. Except that there is no reason for the HTML bit to be the same message all. Potentially far nastier than the winmail.dat since HTML can be used for "malware" purposes.
Not quite sure what bad puns (about even worst geography) have to do with this.
The whole business world runs on Microsoft, not because it's that great, but because there are no viable alternatives.
Most of the time the "no viable alternatives" phrase is based around circular reasoning. Let alone that in no other area of business would this excuse be used. Indeed many businesses have rules against tieing anything to a single supplier. But when it comes to software thousands of years of busines experience is completly ignored.
It's unfair that large companies can do it, on purpose, all the time, and claim "business accumen" and "responsibity to shareholders".
Or even "security". This sort of thing isn't even confined to companies. The most common version appears to be locking out web browsers other than IE. Which I have seen government websites and sites related to ISPs for controlling some aspect of the account do.
But some guy does it for principals (which, I know, should never come before money and maturity, heaven forbid.. ), and you're villified.
Including where the principle is one called "giving them a taste of their own medecin".
In Australia, it would be illegal, to restrict the sales of other region and multi region players, due to Trade practices act which forbids unfair or anti competitive acts. all it would take is a few days and a decent lawyer to get it repealed.
Isn't this act a ratification of Australia's treaty obligations with the rest of the world in the matter of free trade though.?
I guess this is the guts of my question. Why does software differ from books, video, etc in the applicability of the doctrine of first sale?
Because it started off being that way. Remember at one time, before COTS, software involved contractors working for customers much bigger than themselves. Some of the terms which have wound up in a COTS environment appear to only actually make sense where the end user contracts the software writer to write the software. More recently you have lobbying to change copyright law to formalise this situation.
I honestly don't understand why people make the blanket assumptions that you can impose a EULA on software when such a thing applied to any other medium protected by copyright is totally bogus.
Because no-one has called them up on it. Publishers tried this with books and failed. Now, at least in one part of the world, this has also been found to apply to films on DVD.
If the courts actually decide that it doesn't and that EULAs are binding (i.e. click-through/assumed agreements, obviously signed contracts for enterprise software ARE binding by contract law), then I will deem copyright law no longer applies to software.
Actually you'd need to do something like send the copyright holder a letter stating "By breaking the seal on the envelope you have placed into the public domain worldwide"...
Actually, price descrimination can be a good thing. For example, price descrimination is largely responsible for the availability of cheap airline tickets and airline tickets being generally available on short notice. Without price descrimination, you'd likely have a situation where you'd pay more than the cheapest fares these days and/or there'd be no seats available for the last minute traveller.
However this is nothing like DVD region codes. It's the product of an aircraft having a scheduled departure time.
DVD's are software. They contain logic - menu systems, scene browsers, and most importantly, a nasty little piece of malicioius code called "region coding"
There are cars, even toasters which contain software. However this software cannot have a "viral" licence which "infects" the whole entity.
The court case was not about DVD in general, but about Movie DVDs in particular. WB was trying to say that because a miniscule part of a nomal movie DVD is software for menus and such that the whole this should be considered software.
Effectivly what they tried was "viral licencing". A little bit of software makes the whole thing "software". An Australian judge concluded that this argument was bogus. Wonder what an American judge would have decided...
Actually, computer games - whether in DVD, CD, disc or cartridge format - are classified as movies rather than software under Australian law. That sounds dumb, but it's actually partly at the request of companies like Warner! The Australian Government is lifting parallel import restrictions on software but not on movies, so the game industry wanted to ensure games were in the movie basket. Sounds like Warner is trying to have its cake and eat it too!
The unusual thing is not their trying. But that they have been told "no you can't". At least on this specific issue. Maybe video rental shops in Australia will now sue Warner (and other distributers) for replacement of damaged or worn media at cost...
It comes back down to the ruling; just because the DVD contains software, and requires a processor to be used, does not mean that it is perceived as software, or acts meaningfully as software in its application. As long as (for practical purposes) DVDs are used as vehicles for film, then they are just a higher-tech version of videotapes, and should be treated accordingly.
A more broad interpretation would be that, in Australia at least, what is considered is important is the content. With the media and technology surrounding the media being irrelevent. No distinction being made between a 35mm print, a VHS tape, a DVD and any other method which might be used for storing films (and presumably television programmes.) This rather fundermentally different than the sort of thing which has been going on in the US, where great fuss is made about media and technology surrounding them.
Since I'm not in Australia, this doesn't affect me directly, but it's still a moral victory (now if we can just convince a judge in the US to accept an Australian court finding as precedent...)
Whilst a US might expect Australia to follow it's ruling expecting the opposite is like expecting water to run uphill.
Basically, the decision ruled that DVD movies cannot be treated as software simply because they are digitally recorded, and because DVD players have processors.
Effectivly what the Australians appear to be saying is that what matters is the content. Especially since DVD are often marketed with, as a subsitute for or a replacement of VHS tapes. The view in the US is that the technology and media is what matters, hence such things as the DMCA.
Scientists are allowed to patent the genes that they dicover.......this has lead to the unwillingness to share since sharing would cost them the potential money that can be made with the gene........
Also they could publish, someone else patents or has patented part of their work. Then they find their work hampered by licencing fees and paying lawyers.
I have always said that Patents on genes was a bad disision.......at the turn of the 20th century, scientists tried to patent Elements on the periodic table......the were not allowed because they belonged to everyone.....well, how is that logic diffrent for Genes?
The rules around "Interlectual property" have changed over the last hundred years.
Microsoft has now put security priority #1 and I don't know what that's worth, but I would bet that they're going to start getting away from running everything as "root" on the latest and greatest MS OS.
IIRC the "home" version of XP has all users being "administrator" by default. Also there is plenty of Windows software out there which simply won't work unless it's convinced it's running on a machine with zero security. Maybe now Microsoft will actually start to think about ways of having the OS fool such broken software.
Having Lindows log in as root and run everything as root is backwards. At a minimum, create users that have near root access but not EVERYTHING.
Or ways in which the OS can make programs think they have privileges they don't actually need, but won't run without. Breaking the OS, because (some) applications are broken is utterly daft.
The main problem with Linux is the steep learning curve if you're new to it. My grand father has trouble using windows. Imagine him trying to compile a kernel.
Effectivly this is simply the "Linux is hard to use because the administration and installation tasks are difficult". This is a false argument since it is comparing apples with pinecones. Could this man install Windows, could he edit the registry, could he rebuild his car engine, could work out the chemistry of producting fuel for it from crude oil. Of does he have someone else do these things? Maybe he would find using a Linux machine no more difficult than Windows, maybe he would find it somewhat easier or harder. Without understanding what he finds difficult in using Windows it's hard to tell.
So the problem is that over-userfriendlyness breeds stupid users?
How many people would let their friends perform maintainance on their bodies? Excepting cases where their friends are qualified doctors and dentists...
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The guy gets an email from someone using Outlook Express(OE). OE has mangled the email so badly that he can't read it (I know this, i have it happen to be all the time). So he says something to the other person, who is most likely going to say 'Tough shit, go install Windows, there's nothing I can do about it.
Or maybe even the more arrogant version which is along the lines of "If works with OE (or the website works fine with IE) it must be your end which is at fault. Can't possibly be us, we use all Microsoft stuff and that is always perfect."
So in effect, he's doing what Microsoft products do automatically, only he's spent a fair bit of time and effort doing it.
With the subtle differance that his method complies with the standards. Whereas the Microsoft situation would be in only works with one specific piece of software, this way it works fine with anything except that piece of software.
Basically if we can agree on some format that EVERYONE can read it removes the need for people to pull sh*t like this.
.rtf
Wonder how much of the time file attachemnts, HTML, etc are used when simple plain text would have done the job of communicating the message perfectly well.
It is not that hard for people to save as
Indeed there are plenty of reasons for wanting to avoid sending out Word files. From macro viruses to sending out more than you think you are sending out...
Actually, the whole point to RFCs is to standardize formats for things like mail headers. In this case, he is doing something that is perfectly within specs, n'est-ce pas?
Microsoft creates an email program which plays fast and loose with the standards. As a result it produces emails which software which does comply with the standards have trouble reading. However because MSOE dosn't actually follow the standards it can have trouble with emails which actually do.
Simply that someone has put some time and effort into finding out what it will choke on.
Are there any other mail readers that are compatible with Exchange server, and include the meeting scheduling and calendar features of Outlook?
People are very split on what they think of Outlook. Between those who think it's the best thing since sliced bread to those who thing it's an example of sticking some vaguely related bits together.
Exchange is even capable of providing standard protocols, such as IMAP. But like much of Microsoft's stuff it is intended to work in a "viral" way. (There is an obvious irony about Microsoft carping on about the GPL being a "viral".)
Yeah, the civil rights movement succeeded by having one group pretend to be pious and righteous and having others start riots and cause distruction. ... They played 'Good Cop, Bad Cop' with the system. The legislation wasn't passed because of some noble ideas, but rather a means to placate a minority to avoid riots which were hurting the US image on the world political scene.
:)
You mean the US actually cared what the rest of the world though of it, in fairly recent times. Wonder what caused that to change
It isn't even new. I discovered ages ago that if you attach a winmail.dat file to your mail, with the correct "content=application/ms-tnef" (IIRC) mime-type,
There is also the multipart alternative format. Where you have an email containing both text and a machine generated HTML version of the text. Except that there is no reason for the HTML bit to be the same message all. Potentially far nastier than the winmail.dat since HTML can be used for "malware" purposes.
Denial isn't just a river in Egypt, son.
Not quite sure what bad puns (about even worst geography) have to do with this.
The whole business world runs on Microsoft, not because it's that great, but because there are no viable alternatives.
Most of the time the "no viable alternatives" phrase is based around circular reasoning. Let alone that in no other area of business would this excuse be used. Indeed many businesses have rules against tieing anything to a single supplier. But when it comes to software thousands of years of busines experience is completly ignored.
But he is limiting a lot of corporations that have Outlook setup as mandatory email type.
Rather they are limiting themselves...
It's unfair that large companies can do it, on purpose, all the time, and claim "business accumen" and "responsibity to shareholders".
.. ), and you're villified.
Or even "security". This sort of thing isn't even confined to companies. The most common version appears to be locking out web browsers other than IE. Which I have seen government websites and sites related to ISPs for controlling some aspect of the account do.
But some guy does it for principals (which, I know, should never come before money and maturity, heaven forbid
Including where the principle is one called "giving them a taste of their own medecin".
I think it's equally obvious that patents do not "choke off innovation".
Assuming a patent system which works correctly.
Who out there is not trying to think of better ways to do things just because bad patents have been granted?
However when "bad patents" excede more than a trivial proportion of patents issued things are rather broken.
Preventing people from using inventions (even if they are obvious in retrospect) doesn't choke off innovation. Profit, maybe, but not innovation.
Maybe they can't even test if their idea will even work, because doing that would infringe on a pile of bad patents.
In Australia, it would be illegal, to restrict the sales of other region and multi region players, due to Trade practices act which forbids unfair or anti competitive acts. all it would take is a few days and a decent lawyer to get it repealed.
Isn't this act a ratification of Australia's treaty obligations with the rest of the world in the matter of free trade though.?
A VHS tape can have 4 hours on it. DVD 3
You can now get E300 video tapes. That's 5 hours (at standard speed.)
I guess this is the guts of my question. Why does software differ from books, video, etc in the applicability of the doctrine of first sale?
Because it started off being that way. Remember at one time, before COTS, software involved contractors working for customers much bigger than themselves. Some of the terms which have wound up in a COTS environment appear to only actually make sense where the end user contracts the software writer to write the software.
More recently you have lobbying to change copyright law to formalise this situation.
I honestly don't understand why people make the blanket assumptions that you can impose a EULA on software when such a thing applied to any other medium protected by copyright is totally bogus.
Because no-one has called them up on it. Publishers tried this with books and failed. Now, at least in one part of the world, this has also been found to apply to films on DVD.
If the courts actually decide that it doesn't and that EULAs are binding (i.e. click-through/assumed agreements, obviously signed contracts for enterprise software ARE binding by contract law), then I will deem copyright law no longer applies to software.
Actually you'd need to do something like send the copyright holder a letter stating "By breaking the seal on the envelope you have placed into the public domain worldwide"...
Actually, price descrimination can be a good thing. For example, price descrimination is largely responsible for the availability of cheap airline tickets and airline tickets being generally available on short notice. Without price descrimination, you'd likely have a situation where you'd pay more than the cheapest fares these days and/or there'd be no seats available for the last minute traveller.
However this is nothing like DVD region codes. It's the product of an aircraft having a scheduled departure time.
DVD's are software. They contain logic - menu systems, scene browsers, and most importantly, a nasty little piece of malicioius code called "region coding"
There are cars, even toasters which contain software. However this software cannot have a "viral" licence which "infects" the whole entity.
The court case was not about DVD in general, but about Movie DVDs in particular. WB was trying to say that because a miniscule part of a nomal movie DVD is software for menus and such that the whole this should be considered software.
Effectivly what they tried was "viral licencing". A little bit of software makes the whole thing "software". An Australian judge concluded that this argument was bogus. Wonder what an American judge would have decided...
Actually, computer games - whether in DVD, CD, disc or cartridge format - are classified as movies rather than software under Australian law. That sounds dumb, but it's actually partly at the request of companies like Warner! The Australian Government is lifting parallel import restrictions on software but not on movies, so the game industry wanted to ensure games were in the movie basket. Sounds like Warner is trying to have its cake and eat it too!
The unusual thing is not their trying. But that they have been told "no you can't". At least on this specific issue.
Maybe video rental shops in Australia will now sue Warner (and other distributers) for replacement of damaged or worn media at cost...
It comes back down to the ruling; just because the DVD contains software, and requires a processor to be used, does not mean that it is perceived as software, or acts meaningfully as software in its application. As long as (for practical purposes) DVDs are used as vehicles for film, then they are just a higher-tech version of videotapes, and should be treated accordingly.
A more broad interpretation would be that, in Australia at least, what is considered is important is the content. With the media and technology surrounding the media being irrelevent. No distinction being made between a 35mm print, a VHS tape, a DVD and any other method which might be used for storing films (and presumably television programmes.)
This rather fundermentally different than the sort of thing which has been going on in the US, where great fuss is made about media and technology surrounding them.
Since I'm not in Australia, this doesn't affect me directly, but it's still a moral victory (now if we can just convince a judge in the US to accept an Australian court finding as precedent...)
Whilst a US might expect Australia to follow it's ruling expecting the opposite is like expecting water to run uphill.
Basically, the decision ruled that DVD movies cannot be treated as software simply because they are digitally recorded, and because DVD players have processors.
Effectivly what the Australians appear to be saying is that what matters is the content. Especially since DVD are often marketed with, as a subsitute for or a replacement of VHS tapes.
The view in the US is that the technology and media is what matters, hence such things as the DMCA.
Scientists are allowed to patent the genes that they dicover.......this has lead to the unwillingness to share since sharing would cost them the potential money that can be made with the gene........
Also they could publish, someone else patents or has patented part of their work. Then they find their work hampered by licencing fees and paying lawyers.
I have always said that Patents on genes was a bad disision.......at the turn of the 20th century, scientists tried to patent Elements on the periodic table......the were not allowed because they belonged to everyone.....well, how is that logic diffrent for Genes?
The rules around "Interlectual property" have changed over the last hundred years.
It sounds like Lindows has taken Linux a giant leap towards the ease-of-use that modern desktop users demand.
Do "modern desktop users" actually demand anything? As opposed to simply getting given what the monopoly provider things they should have.
This might actually be competitive in the marketplace!
What competitive marketplace? There isn't one, Microsoft killed it.
Microsoft has now put security priority #1 and I don't know what that's worth, but I would bet that they're going to start getting away from running everything as "root" on the latest and greatest MS OS.
IIRC the "home" version of XP has all users being "administrator" by default. Also there is plenty of Windows software out there which simply won't work unless it's convinced it's running on a machine with zero security. Maybe now Microsoft will actually start to think about ways of having the OS fool such broken software.
Having Lindows log in as root and run everything as root is backwards. At a minimum, create users that have near root access but not EVERYTHING.
Or ways in which the OS can make programs think they have privileges they don't actually need, but won't run without. Breaking the OS, because (some) applications are broken is utterly daft.
The main problem with Linux is the steep learning curve if you're new to it. My grand father has trouble using windows. Imagine him trying to compile a kernel.
Effectivly this is simply the "Linux is hard to use because the administration and installation tasks are difficult". This is a false argument since it is comparing apples with pinecones.
Could this man install Windows, could he edit the registry, could he rebuild his car engine, could work out the chemistry of producting fuel for it from crude oil. Of does he have someone else do these things?
Maybe he would find using a Linux machine no more difficult than Windows, maybe he would find it somewhat easier or harder. Without understanding what he finds difficult in using Windows it's hard to tell.
So the problem is that over-userfriendlyness breeds stupid users?
How many people would let their friends perform maintainance on their bodies? Excepting cases where their friends are qualified doctors and dentists...