All this does is shoots down @stake's credibility.
Anyone with half brain will realise that running an entire network on a single OS is asking for it. This is why buildings don't tend to have the same key for every lock and the burglar alarm and keep skeleton keys well guarded. If this were the case, someone drops the key in the car park and whoever finds it has free reign and oh boy, the joy of the discovering that it opens every desk, filing cabinet and safe as well.
The headline was that a singular reliance on Windows is a bad thing and I can't see that this argument is flawed. For @stake to sack someone for daring to state the obvious is laughable and makes them look stupid in the same way that Microsoft always looked stupid when they'd claim that there were no reliability issues in Windows despite the fact that even the non-techiest people in an office could tell you what BSOD stands for.
If anyone at MS is thinking that this is a good thing then they should consider that many people watching have already, based on their previous record of dubious behaviour, put this down to their intervention. Whether it's true of not is irrelevant, it just seems most likely.
Mandrake Club & contributors (developers, translators...) are thanked, while business (retail sales) is boosted!
Funnily enough, Mandrake Expert contributors are left out. I remember when I signed up you were supposed to get some stuff + VIP club membership if you came in the top 5 experts in any month. This took between 2 and 4 hours a night for me to come in at 4th place but so far nothing.
Given Mandrake's financial state I couldn't be arsed to hassle them for the goods but the club membership would have been nice if they are going to start restricting non-members activities. KDE 3.2 is only available to members which makes it tricky to support if you don't have it.
Before you say pay up and join the club, I'm ex-self employed i.e. no work / no welfare. How else do you think I can spend so much time posting on/.
This is a conversation I've had with people in businesses and the UK government using gentic diversity and the dangers of inbreeding as examples. Reason? Simple - It's bloody obvious to any one with half a brain particularly when genetics gives such a strong and proven example.
As long as people make decisions based on bulk purchase price and only needing lower waged mono-system trained IT staff it will be a problem.
It was good to see that the UK government put their stationary ordering system on Linux. At least when the Gov web services, NHS, Inland Revenue etc. computers go tits up through some evil virus they'll still be able to order paperclips.
-- If accountants were capable of making engineering decisions they'd be engineers --
HP's actions this morning reaffirm the fact that enterprise end users running Linux are exposed to legal risks.
HP has realised that it can bag a few orders from customers who are worried about SCO's Linux claims by indemnifying them without having to worry about paying up 'cos SCO have proved nothing.
Rather than deny the existence of substantial structural problems with Linux as many Open Source leaders have done, HP is acknowledging that issues exist and is attempting to be responsive to its customers' request for relief.
HP don't believe that SCO will win because if they did they'd be stupid to write what could be a blank cheque as no-one knows what the settlement would be if SCO were to win.
HP's actions are driving the Linux industry towards a licensing program. In other words, Linux is not free.
And we've got so much proof of this, it's just that Darl left it on the train, er no, the dog chewed it up, er.... Darls relatives baby daughter spilt milk on it, er...... (Picks up phone) "Marketing? Can we have some more convincing ideas for bullshit please, they're still not swallowing it.
We are gratified that, alone among the major Linux vendors, HP has taken a strong stand to protect their customers by indemnifying them against possible legal difficulties stemming from their use of Linux.
Thank christ someone did somrthing that makes it look like we may have a leg to stand on. Hey Darl, keep praying. If you can ask God to get Torvalds to blurt out that he hypnotised someone at AT&T into giving him UNIX code we may win after all.
We believe that this action signals that HP recognizes their Linux users could, in fact, face litigation because of copyright violations and intellectual property problems within Linux.
Hell guys, lets threaten Linux users and companies again even though we said we wouldn't be chasing them a few weeks back. I mean it makes sense changing your claims and threats every day to stop those with short attention spans from getting bored. Also, If we can get all the Open Source coders spending their time writing open letters to us and posting on/. instead of developing their code our guys may have a chance of bringing the piece of shit that we sell up to date so we can compete again.
As a company that strongly supports its customers, HP has done something about this.
As above, HP has realised they get business from a few extra companies that are worried about our claims with minimal risk of having to pay out because they don't believe us.
Now that HP has stepped up for its customers, SCO once again encourages Red Hat, IBM and other major Linux vendors to do the same.
Even though we still have provided no proof whatsoever that our claims are true, the entire Open Source community hates us and we're dumping our stock like there's no tomorrow i.e. a sure sign that we are not expecting the value of our company to rocket in the long term as it would if we were to win against IBM.
We think their customers will demand it.
Fuck off you twat! I am a Linux customer, and I know quite a few other Linux customers and none of them demand indemnification against, or licences from SCO. The heads of the SCO execs on plates maybe but not licences or indemnification.
Thought for the day:
If all the proven factual evidence presented so far by SCO were laid end to end, you'd have just enough paper for a Hamster to wipe it's arse with.
"Although such a strategy might protect local companies and markets in the short term, it would make it more difficult for Asian companies to participate in world markets, he said"
We're helping to bring in Palladium and we won't tell you how it works unless you play the game our way.
That means if you want to compete with the rest of the world you have to do your local standard here, and then work on an all-new set of development" to meet standards used in other markets
How dare you set up local standards that aren't OUR local standards particularly if your local standards happen to be open and available to all because they're based on Open Source.
You have to ask yourself this: is there an advantage to having a proprietary standard in your country
Unlike our free, open and totally honest and democratic standard as presented by Microsoft
rival standards co-exist, although he predicted that a single technology would eventually win out
If Microsoft can have a monopoly I see no reason why we at Intel can't have one of our own.
Mr Barrett's comments come after a visit to several Asian countries and the opening of an Intel research and development centre in Taiwan. By 2010, Intel said, China would be the single largest market for its PC and communications chips.
There's a billion of you and 250,000 of us and unless we can screw your embryonic chip and Linux based software market we expect to be saying "but I can't send you a.doc file 'cos I only have MS Office" by 2010.
I always thought that was the point of having an age of consent. Until the kids reach the age of consent theiur parents are responsible for decisions that affect their lives. Mix this with the fact that GTA has an adult rating it can't really be argued that these kids should've had access to the game in the first place and if their parents had bought it for them I'd have thought that that is where the blame rests.
The lawsuit is not overly surprising as most people nowadays seem to seek to blame someone else for their own poor behaviour.
Don't forget, MS have been on the end of Uncle's Darl's patented cash cow milking litigation machine and lost. Maybe they're scared of him in the way that that only despotic, paranoid, power crazed dictators can be.
OK so I read it all, although breakfast stood a good chance of making a second appearance I managed it.
All I can say is the more that I read from Mr McBride the harder I think it must be for his staff to hear him with his head rammed that far up his arse. For instance:
But in the last week of August two developments occurred that adversely affect the long-term credibility of the Open Source community, with the general public and with customers.
The first development followed another series of Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on SCO, which took place two weeks ago.
You pal, should count yourself lucky that your site has been available at all from the time you started making your claims.
Open Source leader Eric Raymond was quoted as saying that he was contacted by the perpetrator and that "he's one of us."
Note the term "he's ONE of us." That's right, Darl McBride has succeeded in pissing MILLIONS of people off and ONE has launched a DDoS attack on his firms website. Far from "adversely affect the long-term credibility of the Open Source community" I'd say that this is a shining demonstration of the restraint and professionalism of the Open Source Community and reflects better on us than SCO's action relect on them.
Mr Raymond and the entire Open Source community need to aggressively help the industry police these types of crimes
OK so the US has a population of roughly 250 million people. Check the crime stats and see what percentage of the US population has a criminal conviction including lesser things like speeding etc. Now work out what percentage of the Open Source community that 1 person represents. Hell boy, I guess the Open Source community is doing a better job of policing itself than the society you live in. Also, since when has Microsoft made it hard for people with a VB developer package to write viruses.
We cannot have a situation in which companies fear they may be next to suffer computer attacks if they take a business or legal position that angers the Open Source community.
Nor can we tolerate a situation where proprietry software companies will demand money from Open source users and businesses based on as yet unfounded IP claims. To do so is at best a sign of greed and at worst a sign of FRAUD.
Until these illegal attacks are brought under control, enterprise customers and mainstream society will become increasingly alienated from anyone associated with this type of behavior.
Is that not what's happening to SCO due to your unreasonable and ill founded behaviour.
This improper contribution of Unix code by SGI into Linux is one small example that reveals fundamental structural flaws in the Linux development process.
Then take it up with SGI. The code was stated by Perens to be a - incapable of compilation and b - removed anyway so problem sorted, shut up and move on.
To date, we claim that more than one million lines of Unix System V protected code have been contributed to Linux through this model. The flaws inherent in the Linux process must be openly addressed and fixed.
Then show us the code. It'll be removed and the problem will be gone. This in fact is part of the very law that you are using against Linux. By not divulging the dipsuted code you are weakening your own position by removing the defendants ability to remedy the situation prior to court action being taken.
I believe that the Open Source software model is at a critical stage of development.
Which I guess is the guess time for a propriety company to try to kill it and hijack its assetts.
If the Open Source community wants its products to be accepted by enterprise companies, What, like Apache, Samba etc.. the community itself must follow the rules and procedures that govern mainstream society.
As should SCO who are committing an act of extortion be demanding money for IP that they have yet
Absolutely. It's pretty natural for powerful organisations to seek the favour of decision makers and giving money to political parties is a pretty efficient way of doing it.
My point though, is that MS should only call for the benefits of a free market place if they are going to adhere to rules of free market economies.
Free markets thrive on innovation and creativity with good ideas and products growing due to their merits and poor products dying out due to their inferior quality, performance, whatever. A topical demonstration is SCO UNIX that has fallen behind Linux. Strictly speaking, SCO should pull their finger out, tell the lawyers to go home and hire coders to advance SCO into the 21st century by creating a 1st rate platform. If they don't want to put the work in they should dissolve and find new things to work on. Their current behaviour is that of a company that wants to leach of the superiour work of others to rescue a failing product.
MS on the other hand is the equivalent of the biggest mega-fucking predator you have ever seen. It has every evolutionary advantage to date and one desire, i.e. the death of every other animal on the planet. If an animal comes along that has an advantage over it, it should evolve to survive or die off. In MS world instead of evolving, the predator just has a quick word with God, who he's got a direct line to, and gets a quick lightning bolt to fry the newcomer.
In a free market, politicians, like God (if you're into that stuff) should not get involved with doing favours for one side or the other and should let the best product win. So my only request is that if MS want to continue demanding the benefits of a free market they should act like they're in one. If they want to carry on behaving in a monopolistic, unethical and predatory way can they please shut up and get on with it.
Microsoft prefers competition between software applications to be determined in the free markets rather than by government agencies
perhaps they'd like to consider the following:
1: Withdraw all political lobbyists from pestering politicians.
2: Stop making bri.. oops, donations to political parties.
3: ensure that all "charitable" donations are made via banks rather than press agencies
4: Stop flying the UK E-Envoy and other countries IT decision makers to Redmond for freebies, oops there I go again - conferences at which to discuss which MS products they'll be buying next.
5: Talk to the DoJ and, after offering thanks for favours done in the past agree to undergo investigation for the parts of the anti-trust trial that were dropped when the current US administration came to power.
6: Open up their file formats so that makers of third party and competing software can compete on a level playing field rather than having to reverse engineer complicated code for the sake of interop' with monopoly creating products i.e. MS Office.
7: Release the API details reqd. to make software run as quick as theirs
Until these and the manifold other issues created by MS's monopoly are dealt with maybe they's be graceful enough to SHUT THE FUCK UP about free markets, a concept that they either don't understand or have no intention of utilising.
I believe this was settled out of court in the God vs Caesar case where the defendant was ordered to render unto caesar that which is caesars following the signing of the relevant non disclosure agreement meaning that although the defendant had to render unto caesar, such renderings should be confidential between the defendant and god and not aired in the street in front of josiah public.
This is one of those rare occasions when I find myself quoting the bible:
Matthew Chapter 6 1 Take heed not to do your alms before men to be seen of them, otherwise ye have no reward with your Father who is in the heavens. 2 When therefore thou doest alms, sound not a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may have glory from men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. 3 But thou, when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand does; 4 so that thine alms may be in secret, and thy Father who sees in secret will render [it] to thee.
In other words "charity is charity when you do it quietly". Boasting about it on the other hand, is self publicising and earns you no brownie points or to put it another way:
Let not thy marketing department send out press releases in order to make thy people think thou art a generous individual when instead thou art trying to maximise thine user base and profits for such actions render thee no better than the rulers of Sco who long ago wedged thine heads up thine arses and tried to rob the righteous penguinistas and thine own shareholders.
Corporation have WAY too much control over the legal process and society.
A society can only be ruled over with the consent of the people and the art of any "democratic" government is to perfume the shit they dump on people so no-one smells it's presence. Only when the whole population is up to their ears in it does it seem to spark them into action.
Whether or not anything can be done about it is down to the American people but I believe that Lincoln stated that (and I'm para-phrasing heavily here) If the government stops acting in the interests of the people the people have the right to bring down the government.
Get saving then and start funding candidates that will not take any corporate money and will make decisions based on what's best for Joe Average and not the likes of Darl McShitforbrains. As the "land of the free" you should feel obliged to show us foreigners how it's done.
Damn it man... For I minute I started believing it was possible myself.
One of my clients bought a Dell laptop with works 7 on it and needed to change the default page size to A4 for UK use. It reqd. 3 calls to Dell and 2 to Microsoft before we gave up and found via the net that you have to pull up regedit and make a change to the Windows registry. What a crock of shit!!
Slashdot Mirror
All this does is shoots down @stake's credibility.
Anyone with half brain will realise that running an entire network on a single OS is asking for it. This is why buildings don't tend to have the same key for every lock and the burglar alarm and keep skeleton keys well guarded. If this were the case, someone drops the key in the car park and whoever finds it has free reign and oh boy, the joy of the discovering that it opens every desk, filing cabinet and safe as well.
The headline was that a singular reliance on Windows is a bad thing and I can't see that this argument is flawed. For @stake to sack someone for daring to state the obvious is laughable and makes them look stupid in the same way that Microsoft always looked stupid when they'd claim that there were no reliability issues in Windows despite the fact that even the non-techiest people in an office could tell you what BSOD stands for.
If anyone at MS is thinking that this is a good thing then they should consider that many people watching have already, based on their previous record of dubious behaviour, put this down to their intervention. Whether it's true of not is irrelevant, it just seems most likely.
Mandrake Club & contributors (developers, translators...) are thanked, while business (retail sales) is boosted!
/.
Funnily enough, Mandrake Expert contributors are left out. I remember when I signed up you were supposed to get some stuff + VIP club membership if you came in the top 5 experts in any month. This took between 2 and 4 hours a night for me to come in at 4th place but so far nothing.
Given Mandrake's financial state I couldn't be arsed to hassle them for the goods but the club membership would have been nice if they are going to start restricting non-members activities. KDE 3.2 is only available to members which makes it tricky to support if you don't have it.
Before you say pay up and join the club, I'm ex-self employed i.e. no work / no welfare. How else do you think I can spend so much time posting on
This is a conversation I've had with people in businesses and the UK government using gentic diversity and the dangers of inbreeding as examples. Reason? Simple - It's bloody obvious to any one with half a brain particularly when genetics gives such a strong and proven example.
As long as people make decisions based on bulk purchase price and only needing lower waged mono-system trained IT staff it will be a problem.
It was good to see that the UK government put their stationary ordering system on Linux. At least when the Gov web services, NHS, Inland Revenue etc. computers go tits up through some evil virus they'll still be able to order paperclips.
-- If accountants were capable of making engineering decisions they'd be engineers --
HP's actions this morning reaffirm the fact that enterprise end users running Linux are exposed to legal risks.
/. instead of developing their code our guys may have a chance of bringing the piece of shit that we sell up to date so we can compete again.
HP has realised that it can bag a few orders from customers who are worried about SCO's Linux claims by indemnifying them without having to worry about paying up 'cos SCO have proved nothing.
Rather than deny the existence of substantial structural problems with Linux as many Open Source leaders have done, HP is acknowledging that issues exist and is attempting to be responsive to its customers' request for relief.
HP don't believe that SCO will win because if they did they'd be stupid to write what could be a blank cheque as no-one knows what the settlement would be if SCO were to win.
HP's actions are driving the Linux industry towards a licensing program. In other words, Linux is not free.
And we've got so much proof of this, it's just that Darl left it on the train, er no, the dog chewed it up, er.... Darls relatives baby daughter spilt milk on it, er...... (Picks up phone) "Marketing? Can we have some more convincing ideas for bullshit please, they're still not swallowing it.
We are gratified that, alone among the major Linux vendors, HP has taken a strong stand to protect their customers by indemnifying them against possible legal difficulties stemming from their use of Linux.
Thank christ someone did somrthing that makes it look like we may have a leg to stand on. Hey Darl, keep praying. If you can ask God to get Torvalds to blurt out that he hypnotised someone at AT&T into giving him UNIX code we may win after all.
We believe that this action signals that HP recognizes their Linux users could, in fact, face litigation because of copyright violations and intellectual property problems within Linux.
Hell guys, lets threaten Linux users and companies again even though we said we wouldn't be chasing them a few weeks back. I mean it makes sense changing your claims and threats every day to stop those with short attention spans from getting bored. Also, If we can get all the Open Source coders spending their time writing open letters to us and posting on
As a company that strongly supports its customers, HP has done something about this.
As above, HP has realised they get business from a few extra companies that are worried about our claims with minimal risk of having to pay out because they don't believe us.
Now that HP has stepped up for its customers, SCO once again encourages Red Hat, IBM and other major Linux vendors to do the same.
Even though we still have provided no proof whatsoever that our claims are true, the entire Open Source community hates us and we're dumping our stock like there's no tomorrow i.e. a sure sign that we are not expecting the value of our company to rocket in the long term as it would if we were to win against IBM.
We think their customers will demand it.
Fuck off you twat! I am a Linux customer, and I know quite a few other Linux customers and none of them demand indemnification against, or licences from SCO. The heads of the SCO execs on plates maybe but not licences or indemnification.
Thought for the day:
If all the proven factual evidence presented so far by SCO were laid end to end, you'd have just enough paper for a Hamster to wipe it's arse with.
"Although such a strategy might protect local companies and markets in the short term, it would make it more difficult for Asian companies to participate in world markets, he said"
.doc file 'cos I only have MS Office" by 2010.
We're helping to bring in Palladium and we won't tell you how it works unless you play the game our way.
That means if you want to compete with the rest of the world you have to do your local standard here, and then work on an all-new set of development" to meet standards used in other markets
How dare you set up local standards that aren't OUR local standards particularly if your local standards happen to be open and available to all because they're based on Open Source.
You have to ask yourself this: is there an advantage to having a proprietary standard in your country
Unlike our free, open and totally honest and democratic standard as presented by Microsoft
rival standards co-exist, although he predicted that a single technology would eventually win out
If Microsoft can have a monopoly I see no reason why we at Intel can't have one of our own.
Mr Barrett's comments come after a visit to several Asian countries and the opening of an Intel research and development centre in Taiwan. By 2010, Intel said, China would be the single largest market for its PC and communications chips.
There's a billion of you and 250,000 of us and unless we can screw your embryonic chip and Linux based software market we expect to be saying "but I can't send you a
I always thought that was the point of having an age of consent. Until the kids reach the age of consent theiur parents are responsible for decisions that affect their lives. Mix this with the fact that GTA has an adult rating it can't really be argued that these kids should've had access to the game in the first place and if their parents had bought it for them I'd have thought that that is where the blame rests.
The lawsuit is not overly surprising as most people nowadays seem to seek to blame someone else for their own poor behaviour.
Don't forget, MS have been on the end of Uncle's Darl's patented cash cow milking litigation machine and lost. Maybe they're scared of him in the way that that only despotic, paranoid, power crazed dictators can be.
"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer"
I can't help but think that any wise judge would confiscate their passports until the case is over.
Nice one,
Cheers for the link, Now I have a list of companies whose products I shall be telling every one I do work for NOT to buy.
I know but I couldn't resist a dig ;)
But surely if stupid people were coding on Windows it would crash a lot and have piss poor secur.....
Oh yeah, see what you mean
OK so I read it all, although breakfast stood a good chance of making a second appearance I managed it.
All I can say is the more that I read from Mr McBride the harder I think it must be for his staff to hear him with his head rammed that far up his arse. For instance:
But in the last week of August two developments occurred that adversely affect the long-term credibility of the Open Source community, with the general public and with customers.
The first development followed another series of Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on SCO, which took place two weeks ago.
You pal, should count yourself lucky that your site has been available at all from the time you started making your claims.
Open Source leader Eric Raymond was quoted as saying that he was contacted by the perpetrator and that "he's one of us."
Note the term "he's ONE of us." That's right, Darl McBride has succeeded in pissing MILLIONS of people off and ONE has launched a DDoS attack on his firms website. Far from "adversely affect the long-term credibility of the Open Source community" I'd say that this is a shining demonstration of the restraint and professionalism of the Open Source Community and reflects better on us than SCO's action relect on them.
Mr Raymond and the entire Open Source community need to aggressively help the industry police these types of crimes
OK so the US has a population of roughly 250 million people. Check the crime stats and see what percentage of the US population has a criminal conviction including lesser things like speeding etc. Now work out what percentage of the Open Source community that 1 person represents. Hell boy, I guess the Open Source community is doing a better job of policing itself than the society you live in. Also, since when has Microsoft made it hard for people with a VB developer package to write viruses.
We cannot have a situation in which companies fear they may be next to suffer computer attacks if they take a business or legal position that angers the Open Source community.
Nor can we tolerate a situation where proprietry software companies will demand money from Open source users and businesses based on as yet unfounded IP claims. To do so is at best a sign of greed and at worst a sign of FRAUD.
Until these illegal attacks are brought under control, enterprise customers and mainstream society will become increasingly alienated from anyone associated with this type of behavior.
Is that not what's happening to SCO due to your unreasonable and ill founded behaviour.
This improper contribution of Unix code by SGI into Linux is one small example that reveals fundamental structural flaws in the Linux development process.
Then take it up with SGI. The code was stated by Perens to be a - incapable of compilation and b - removed anyway so problem sorted, shut up and move on.
To date, we claim that more than one million lines of Unix System V protected code have been contributed to Linux through this model. The flaws inherent in the Linux process must be openly addressed and fixed.
Then show us the code. It'll be removed and the problem will be gone. This in fact is part of the very law that you are using against Linux. By not divulging the dipsuted code you are weakening your own position by removing the defendants ability to remedy the situation prior to court action being taken.
I believe that the Open Source software model is at a critical stage of development.
Which I guess is the guess time for a propriety company to try to kill it and hijack its assetts.
If the Open Source community wants its products to be accepted by enterprise companies,
What, like Apache, Samba etc..
the community itself must follow the rules and procedures that govern mainstream society.
As should SCO who are committing an act of extortion be demanding money for IP that they have yet
Frickin' knew I shoulda bought at $10, instead I placed my faith in justice and shorted them...
Yeah but we're not talking about justice here we're talking about the law.
LOL
:)
Excellent.... Are you a lawyer? If not I feel you missed a calling in life
Absolutely. It's pretty natural for powerful organisations to seek the favour of decision makers and giving money to political parties is a pretty efficient way of doing it.
My point though, is that MS should only call for the benefits of a free market place if they are going to adhere to rules of free market economies.
Free markets thrive on innovation and creativity with good ideas and products growing due to their merits and poor products dying out due to their inferior quality, performance, whatever. A topical demonstration is SCO UNIX that has fallen behind Linux. Strictly speaking, SCO should pull their finger out, tell the lawyers to go home and hire coders to advance SCO into the 21st century by creating a 1st rate platform. If they don't want to put the work in they should dissolve and find new things to work on. Their current behaviour is that of a company that wants to leach of the superiour work of others to rescue a failing product.
MS on the other hand is the equivalent of the biggest mega-fucking predator you have ever seen. It has every evolutionary advantage to date and one desire, i.e. the death of every other animal on the planet. If an animal comes along that has an advantage over it, it should evolve to survive or die off. In MS world instead of evolving, the predator just has a quick word with God, who he's got a direct line to, and gets a quick lightning bolt to fry the newcomer.
In a free market, politicians, like God (if you're into that stuff) should not get involved with doing favours for one side or the other and should let the best product win. So my only request is that if MS want to continue demanding the benefits of a free market they should act like they're in one. If they want to carry on behaving in a monopolistic, unethical and predatory way can they please shut up and get on with it.
Microsoft prefers competition between software applications to be determined in the free markets rather than by government agencies
perhaps they'd like to consider the following:
1: Withdraw all political lobbyists from pestering politicians.
2: Stop making bri.. oops, donations to political parties.
3: ensure that all "charitable" donations are made via banks rather than press agencies
4: Stop flying the UK E-Envoy and other countries IT decision makers to Redmond for freebies, oops there I go again - conferences at which to discuss which MS products they'll be buying next.
5: Talk to the DoJ and, after offering thanks for favours done in the past agree to undergo investigation for the parts of the anti-trust trial that were dropped when the current US administration came to power.
6: Open up their file formats so that makers of third party and competing software can compete on a level playing field rather than having to reverse engineer complicated code for the sake of interop' with monopoly creating products i.e. MS Office.
7: Release the API details reqd. to make software run as quick as theirs
Until these and the manifold other issues created by MS's monopoly are dealt with maybe they's be graceful enough to SHUT THE FUCK UP about free markets, a concept that they either don't understand or have no intention of utilising.
I believe this was settled out of court in the God vs Caesar case where the defendant was ordered to render unto caesar that which is caesars following the signing of the relevant non disclosure agreement meaning that although the defendant had to render unto caesar, such renderings should be confidential between the defendant and god and not aired in the street in front of josiah public.
Drunk, me? surely not
That's why I never got an english degree ;)
A link for Lawyers and civil servants
This is one of those rare occasions when I find myself quoting the bible:
Matthew
Chapter 6
1 Take heed not to do your alms before men to be seen of them, otherwise ye have no reward with your Father who is in the heavens. 2 When therefore thou doest alms, sound not a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may have glory from men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. 3 But thou, when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand does; 4 so that thine alms may be in secret, and thy Father who sees in secret will render [it] to thee.
In other words "charity is charity when you do it quietly". Boasting about it on the other hand, is self publicising and earns you no brownie points or to put it another way:
Let not thy marketing department send out press releases in order to make thy people think thou art a generous individual when instead thou art trying to maximise thine user base and profits for such actions render thee no better than the rulers of Sco who long ago wedged thine heads up thine arses and tried to rob the righteous penguinistas and thine own shareholders.
here the phrase "poisoned chalice" springs to mind
Form an ordely queue to become Darl McBride's best friend.
Sorry, started cold turkeying after being on Slashdot without seeing SCO/McB get a mention today.
Given the implied use I'd probably refrain from sending the Vaseline. Cylinder head valve grinding paste maybe, but not vaseline.
Corporation have WAY too much control over the legal process and society.
A society can only be ruled over with the consent of the people and the art of any "democratic" government is to perfume the shit they dump on people so no-one smells it's presence. Only when the whole population is up to their ears in it does it seem to spark them into action.
Whether or not anything can be done about it is down to the American people but I believe that Lincoln stated that (and I'm para-phrasing heavily here) If the government stops acting in the interests of the people the people have the right to bring down the government.
Get saving then and start funding candidates that will not take any corporate money and will make decisions based on what's best for Joe Average and not the likes of Darl McShitforbrains. As the "land of the free" you should feel obliged to show us foreigners how it's done.
Damn it man... For I minute I started believing it was possible myself.
Of course, he is a Mormon. That should explain it.
I think you've got a "m" to many in their.
Personally I prefer the description fuckwit although corpse would be even better
MS Works isn't even compatable with reality.
One of my clients bought a Dell laptop with works 7 on it and needed to change the default page size to A4 for UK use. It reqd. 3 calls to Dell and 2 to Microsoft before we gave up and found via the net that you have to pull up regedit and make a change to the Windows registry. What a crock of shit!!