Yeah, the second section of the executive summary of his testimony mentions their love of IP.. the rest is sort of interesting in a nauseating sort of way, also: In section II of his testimony, Mr. Gates addresses three overarching elements of Microsoft's business model that have contributed significantly to Microsoft's success and to the success of every other company that builds products that take advantage of the Windows platform. Those three elements are: (i) the stability, consistency, and quality of Windows and Microsoft's commitment to developing new releases of the operating system that provide ISVs and consumers with new innovative features and functionality [NO COMMENT!];(ii) the interoperability across a wide range of hardware and software that Windows provides;and the central role played by intellectual property protection in providing Microsoft with an incentive to invest capital, time and energy in developing new software. The on settling States' proposed remedy would undermine all three of these elements, causing great damage to Microsoft, other companies that build on Microsoft's platforms, and consumers of PC software
The style of the whole exectuive summary is amusing, but not ultimately amusing if people end up believing the cheesy Microsoft Lawyer & Marketing angle to the story it presents.
BUT, he didn't mention that the gamecube can use 6X compressed textures, did he?? That makes the difference. Anyway, that would be incorrect... the Gamecube has 16 megs of video ram. I don't think the football has quite that much of a texture. The Xbox isn't that much more powerful than the Gamecube. It's close enough to be like playing a 3d game ona computer with a different graphics card or something. Nothing like the contrast between consoles in the late eighties and earliy nineties.
yeah, Really. A linux as 'mindless' to install as Windows? Nope, WIndows is the ultimate mindless install. Most people never ever install Windows from a CD, it comes on their computers... for free, many people seem to think (ha). Even worse, some people seem to think windows IS a computer, like all have it built in or something. Easy to install, or not - Installability isn't whats holding Linux back. It's this entrenched, filthy rich, paranoid, aggresive monopoly thats the problem.
Seems that they just released a new patch for IIS, a cumulative one plus patches for 10 new vulnerabilities! Seems like they might ahve been testing their products and finding security holes in their recent alleged security binge? Probably. Must be a new idea for them or something. Or maybe, these 10 new ones are holes discovered, and reported to MS 'responsibly' within the last few months? Anyway, theres 10 new holes for crackers to search for, if they don't know them already..... link at the globe
more like, OSDN or Internet.com or whoever sold a block of advertising to MS or whoever, and the ad happens to be on your page. Wow. Somewhat like the 2 page Window 2000 ad thats been in Linux Magazine for months, advertising is sold to whoever pays, generally, unless the potentially receiving publication is too idealistic for that, or has plenty of money already.
Yeah, they can't have changed their minds about wanting to have their hand in everyones pocket, or lost the desire to tap into this 'revenue stream' they sniffed there... I imiagine it will be reintroduced somehow, with different marketing in a year or a few.
The article says Microsoft is now considering selling My Services to corporations in a traditional package form, rather than as a service. The companies would maintain the data for their own users. Sounds like MS wants to design this system and sell it to other people to use, instead of implementing one by themselves for what Passport is designed to do. I like that. Microsfot shoudl be involved in making software, not stupid consumer money-sucking plans like becoming a middleman between me and my hospital. My thoughts are that this is bewildering. They must be planning to reintroduce this idea with different PR later on, hoping it will be mroe accepted? Or, maybe this is part of their recent refocus and change of strategy, including the departure of Rick Belluzo. Hmm.. I don't like Ms much, but their 'Consumer' services like MSN and Hotmail are particularly annoying.
A gameboy would be one thing... the original gameboy sucked. HTis hardware, though, is a 32 bit computer... way mroe powerful than a atari 2600, a gameboy or even A gameboy color.. they're actually the most interesting thing in gaming for people who like old 8 bit games the best.
No shit. I knew that also. I'm also quite aware that this post, as were my last two, are quite useless. Isn't anything posted on slashdot completely fucking useless? Do you think I'm some sort of freakin' idiot?
Yeah, you can tell by my uid. Actually, I was pointing that out in case it was simply someone mistaken and not a silly troll. It does seem plausible to me that somebody actually hasn't picked up on that yet, as the moderation system was unbeknownst to me in my early days here, reading essential journal of modern civilization, this compendium of all that is True and Worthy, Slashdot.
I still have to say it is combination of the manufacturer and Microsoft. If MS had given more indication of the fact that the feature was activated, especially since it doesn't need to be on all the time, and fixed the random character issue, than it wouldn't be a problem. Andb if the manufacturer had configured their system right, it wouldn't be a problem. Still, i think it's more MS's fault. The damn thing should work right.
The 'feature' is clearly the problem, since the article states it continues to insert random text even after the user has unplugged the microphone from the computer. So, how about: "Microsoft causes the problem by software that is feature rich but quality poor." I doubt they'd go that far, however.
They just can't decide certain critical things like what the user see the first time the computer boots, what icons are on the desktop, what Microsoft programs are installed, what icons are not on the desktop, which microsoft programs are NOT installed, etc... Also, you might want to tell that to Steve Ballmer - he seems to think that if the States win the right for OEMs to customize Windows more than they already do, there will be 'thousands' of versions of Windows unleashed, incompatible and chaotic.
I use Mandrake and Debian. I think Mandrake's survival is important. I signed up for their club. After using their OS for 3 years it's not that bad, I have found many mandrakisms to be quite convenient... so, I won't even bother readin what the weirdos here at slashdot have to say about this article... likely, most of their brains have a long term vibility issue.
A ha, so true to MS fashion... Just like Frontpage, Windows NT, Visio, IE, MS-DOS, etc. they couldn't even start the damn project themselves. It must be more efficient to buy a project already underway or rip off some FreeBSD code than to start anew, but its still pretty pathetic for the world's largest and wealthiest software company that they can't start anything by themselves, much less anything 'innovative'...
MS rarely makes a move not calcuated to gain them an advantage... Look, even when they pretend to give away computers and software, it turns out to be a ruse for hooking kids while they are young... not much gratitude or philanthropy from MS. Plus, the shared source license is basically: "You can look at our source. and then, if you use any code remotely like it in a product of yours that comes to our attention, we'll sue the hell out of you. All changes you make belong to us anyway. Thanks for voluntering to imporve our product for free! Maybe some one can fix some of those pesky bugs we never get around too!" MS give a gift to the freebsd community? No thanks...
Java isn't the core of their business monetarily, but it is everything for Sun as far as their ability to have leverage over and control the future of software.
Or, it could mean that developers at MS have fuckin billions of dollars to play with and spend on paying each other to tweak office 2006, while Linux applications are put together for the love of computing and the need for a program. If you tihnk 'linux applications' are horse shit, that a generalization... and I don't think thats why they aren't widespread, please recall we're dealing against a convicted monopolist there... also, I bet anythign you have no familiarity with current linux productivity applications.
Acutally, the last example shows nothing. If the lego blocks are superior... thats your opinion.. and so you choose to pay extra for a brand name? Well, the tomatoes in the store brand can and the twice as expensive brand name are just the fucking same at my supermarket.
The hiring of lawyers and lobbyists just to keep other companies from being able to hire them seems like an extension of MS's history of dirty tricks and slimy maneuvers. I'd have to say only people who really don't understand how corrupt this company is would be eager to see them expand into broadband, veideo game consoles, banking, commerce, etc.
Also, it's a another indication they clearly have too much money.
When you start online, you can go to the level up to where you have been in offline mode...So, if you've cleared up to the mines, start a server and you can go anywhere up to the mines. And then, if you've cleared all of them you can start a hard, V. Hard or Ultimate game, where you can go up to where you have cleared in that difficulty level, you know? So if you've beaten normal mode and gotten to the caves on Hard, you can start a normal game and go to any of the areas, or a hard game, and go up to the caves.
So pretty much, you need Offline play to make online better, but you don't really need to play online to play offline. Personally, I paly with my brother all the time... so its cooler online.
Personally, though, I wish they would make a Phantasy Star 5 that was a normal, offline RPG. It would have to totally kick ass, and we didn't even get one for the Saturn, so its about time!
Phantasy Star online for the Dreamcast (and soon the NIntendo Gamecube, PC and Xbox!) is totally addictive if you like RPGs. So far i've played about 150 hours and still I'm yearning for ultimate mode...
Well, one similarity I see is FReBSD is where MS rips their TCP stack from and who knows what else. In fact, I bet huge chunks of the OS have been based on or ripped from FreeBSD - everytime MS starts a project, they look to buy something already in progress, or even better, base it on a free set of code they don't even have to pay for.
Yes, the tcp stack in Win 95, 98, 2000, and ME came from FreeBSD - Fyodor of nmap fame notes in http://www.insecure.org/nmap/nma
p-fingerprinting-article.html :
TCP Initial Window (... ) This test actually gives us a lot of information, since some operating systems can be uniquely identified by the window alone (for example, AIX is the only OS I have seen which uses 0x3F25). In their "completely rewritten" TCP stack for NT5 [Windows 2000], Microsoft uses 0x402E. Interestingly, that is exactly the number used by OpenBSD and FreeBSD."
So, not only are they using ther freebsd tcp stack (already no secret), but they didn't 'completely rewrite' it as claimed, of course.
And thats how FreeBSD is related to Win Xp, because WinXp probably includes a lot of it.
Incidentally, this is also why Bill Gates 'likes' the FreeBSD license... and doesn't like the GPL at all...
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, the second section of the executive summary of his testimony mentions their love of IP.. the rest is sort of interesting in a nauseating sort of way, also:
In section II of his testimony, Mr. Gates addresses three overarching elements of Microsoft's business model that have contributed significantly to Microsoft's success and to the success of every other company that builds products that take advantage of the Windows platform. Those three elements are: (i) the stability, consistency, and quality of Windows and Microsoft's commitment to developing new releases of the operating system that provide ISVs and consumers with new innovative features and functionality [NO COMMENT!];(ii) the interoperability across a wide range of hardware and software that Windows provides;and the central role played by intellectual property protection in providing Microsoft with an incentive to invest capital, time and energy in developing new software. The on settling States' proposed remedy would undermine all three of these elements, causing great damage to Microsoft, other companies that build on Microsoft's platforms, and consumers of PC software
The style of the whole exectuive summary is amusing, but not ultimately amusing if people end up believing the cheesy Microsoft Lawyer & Marketing angle to the story it presents.
BUT, he didn't mention that the gamecube can use 6X compressed textures, did he?? That makes the difference. Anyway, that would be incorrect... the Gamecube has 16 megs of video ram. I don't think the football has quite that much of a texture.
The Xbox isn't that much more powerful than the Gamecube. It's close enough to be like playing a 3d game ona computer with a different graphics card or something. Nothing like the contrast between consoles in the late eighties and earliy nineties.
yeah, Really.
A linux as 'mindless' to install as Windows? Nope, WIndows is the ultimate mindless install. Most people never ever install Windows from a CD, it comes on their computers... for free, many people seem to think (ha). Even worse, some people seem to think windows IS a computer, like all have it built in or something.
Easy to install, or not - Installability isn't whats holding Linux back. It's this entrenched, filthy rich, paranoid, aggresive monopoly thats the problem.
Seems that they just released a new patch for IIS, a cumulative one plus patches for 10 new vulnerabilities! Seems like they might ahve been testing their products and finding security holes in their recent alleged security binge? Probably. Must be a new idea for them or something. Or maybe, these 10 new ones are holes discovered, and reported to MS 'responsibly' within the last few months? Anyway, theres 10 new holes for crackers to search for, if they don't know them already.... .
link at the globe
more like, OSDN or Internet.com or whoever sold a block of advertising to MS or whoever, and the ad happens to be on your page. Wow.
Somewhat like the 2 page Window 2000 ad thats been in Linux Magazine for months, advertising is sold to whoever pays, generally, unless the potentially receiving publication is too idealistic for that, or has plenty of money already.
Yeah, they can't have changed their minds about wanting to have their hand in everyones pocket, or lost the desire to tap into this 'revenue stream' they sniffed there...
I imiagine it will be reintroduced somehow, with different marketing in a year or a few.
The article says Microsoft is now considering selling My Services to corporations in a traditional package form, rather than as a service. The companies would maintain the data for their own users.
Sounds like MS wants to design this system and sell it to other people to use, instead of implementing one by themselves for what Passport is designed to do. I like that. Microsfot shoudl be involved in making software, not stupid consumer money-sucking plans like becoming a middleman between me and my hospital.
My thoughts are that this is bewildering. They must be planning to reintroduce this idea with different PR later on, hoping it will be mroe accepted? Or, maybe this is part of their recent refocus and change of strategy, including the departure of Rick Belluzo. Hmm.. I don't like Ms much, but their 'Consumer' services like MSN and Hotmail are particularly annoying.
"Trustworthy computing" - I doubt MS can do that.
How about "Antitrustworthy Computing?" Thats where they seem to excel.
A gameboy would be one thing... the original gameboy sucked. HTis hardware, though, is a 32 bit computer... way mroe powerful than a atari 2600, a gameboy or even A gameboy color.. they're actually the most interesting thing in gaming for people who like old 8 bit games the best.
What a fucked up review.
Can we see how much MS paid for that one?
No shit. I knew that also. I'm also quite aware that this post, as were my last two, are quite useless. Isn't anything posted on slashdot completely fucking useless? Do you think I'm some sort of freakin' idiot?
Yeah, you can tell by my uid.
Actually, I was pointing that out in case it was simply someone mistaken and not a silly troll. It does seem plausible to me that somebody actually hasn't picked up on that yet, as the moderation system was unbeknownst to me in my early days here, reading essential journal of modern civilization, this compendium of all that is True and Worthy, Slashdot.
Um, Hi.. slashdot moderation is done by random groups of readers, not paid editors.
I still have to say it is combination of the manufacturer and Microsoft. If MS had given more indication of the fact that the feature was activated, especially since it doesn't need to be on all the time, and fixed the random character issue, than it wouldn't be a problem. Andb if the manufacturer had configured their system right, it wouldn't be a problem. Still, i think it's more MS's fault. The damn thing should work right.
The 'feature' is clearly the problem, since the article states it continues to insert random text even after the user has unplugged the microphone from the computer.
So, how about:
"Microsoft causes the problem by software that is feature rich but quality poor." I doubt they'd go that far, however.
They just can't decide certain critical things like what the user see the first time the computer boots, what icons are on the desktop, what Microsoft programs are installed, what icons are not on the desktop, which microsoft programs are NOT installed, etc...
Also, you might want to tell that to Steve Ballmer - he seems to think that if the States win the right for OEMs to customize Windows more than they already do, there will be 'thousands' of versions of Windows unleashed, incompatible and chaotic.
I use Mandrake and Debian. I think Mandrake's survival is important.
I signed up for their club. After using their OS for 3 years it's not that bad, I have found many mandrakisms to be quite convenient... so, I won't even bother readin what the weirdos here at slashdot have to say about this article... likely, most of their brains have a long term vibility issue.
A ha, so true to MS fashion...
Just like Frontpage, Windows NT, Visio, IE, MS-DOS, etc. they couldn't even start the damn project themselves. It must be more efficient to buy a project already underway or rip off some FreeBSD code than to start anew, but its still pretty pathetic for the world's largest and wealthiest software company that they can't start anything by themselves, much less anything 'innovative'...
MS rarely makes a move not calcuated to gain them an advantage...
Look, even when they pretend to give away computers and software, it turns out to be a ruse for hooking kids while they are young... not much gratitude or philanthropy from MS.
Plus, the shared source license is basically: "You can look at our source. and then, if you use any code remotely like it in a product of yours that comes to our attention, we'll sue the hell out of you. All changes you make belong to us anyway. Thanks for voluntering to imporve our product for free! Maybe some one can fix some of those pesky bugs we never get around too!"
MS give a gift to the freebsd community? No thanks...
Java isn't the core of their business monetarily, but it is everything for Sun as far as their ability to have leverage over and control the future of software.
Or, it could mean that developers at MS have fuckin billions of dollars to play with and spend on paying each other to tweak office 2006, while Linux applications are put together for the love of computing and the need for a program. If you tihnk 'linux applications' are horse shit, that a generalization... and I don't think thats why they aren't widespread, please recall we're dealing against a convicted monopolist there... also, I bet anythign you have no familiarity with current linux productivity applications.
Acutally, the last example shows nothing. If the lego blocks are superior... thats your opinion.. and so you choose to pay extra for a brand name? Well, the tomatoes in the store brand can and the twice as expensive brand name are just the fucking same at my supermarket.
The hiring of lawyers and lobbyists just to keep other companies from being able to hire them seems like an extension of MS's history of dirty tricks and slimy maneuvers. I'd have to say only people who really don't understand how corrupt this company is would be eager to see them expand into broadband, veideo game consoles, banking, commerce, etc.
Also, it's a another indication they clearly have too much money.
When you start online, you can go to the level up to where you have been in offline mode...So, if you've cleared up to the mines, start a server and you can go anywhere up to the mines. And then, if you've cleared all of them you can start a hard, V. Hard or Ultimate game, where you can go up to where you have cleared in that difficulty level, you know? So if you've beaten normal mode and gotten to the caves on Hard, you can start a normal game and go to any of the areas, or a hard game, and go up to the caves.
So pretty much, you need Offline play to make online better, but you don't really need to play online to play offline. Personally, I paly with my brother all the time... so its cooler online.
Personally, though, I wish they would make a Phantasy Star 5 that was a normal, offline RPG. It would have to totally kick ass, and we didn't even get one for the Saturn, so its about time!
Phantasy Star online for the Dreamcast (and soon the NIntendo Gamecube, PC and Xbox!) is totally addictive if you like RPGs. So far i've played about 150 hours and still I'm yearning for ultimate mode...
Well, one similarity I see is FReBSD is where MS rips their TCP stack from and who knows what else. In fact, I bet huge chunks of the OS have been based on or ripped from FreeBSD - everytime MS starts a project, they look to buy something already in progress, or even better, base it on a free set of code they don't even have to pay for.
Yes, the tcp stack in Win 95, 98, 2000, and ME came from FreeBSD - Fyodor of nmap fame notes in http://www.insecure.org/nmap/nma
p-fingerprinting-article.html :
TCP Initial Window (... ) This test actually gives us a lot of information, since some operating systems can be uniquely identified by the window alone (for example, AIX is the only OS I have seen which uses 0x3F25). In their "completely rewritten" TCP stack for NT5 [Windows 2000], Microsoft uses 0x402E. Interestingly, that is exactly the number used by OpenBSD and FreeBSD."
So, not only are they using ther freebsd tcp stack (already no secret), but they didn't 'completely rewrite' it as claimed, of course.
And thats how FreeBSD is related to Win Xp, because WinXp probably includes a lot of it.
Incidentally, this is also why Bill Gates 'likes' the FreeBSD license... and doesn't like the GPL at all...