It won't be "in the wild". This article is only talking about it being available to states attorneys and others involved in the case, not the general public.
Before everyone offers clever comments about what they'll do with the source code when they get it, note that individual average citizens won't be getting the source code (at least not as a result of this ruling, except in the case of leaks). They're not talking about handing over the code so everyone can see it, it is only to be used for a specific purpose by specific people. The "states" will get it, meaning the people representing the states involved in the case such as the attorney generals, other lawyers, and most importantly expert witnesses. They're not getting access to the source code to determine whether it sucks or to help the Samba team out, but only to determine the validity of one specific argument made by MS:
Nine state attorneys general had argued that they needed to see the Windows source code in order to verify Microsoft's claim it could not offer a simpler version of the Windows personal computer operating system, stripped of features like the Internet Explorer browser.
I asked this very question when visiting MS 6 years ago... the answer from the guy showing me around (who had been working there since the early/mid 80s) was that no, he hadn't written any code in many, many years.
Very true. I didn't intend to imply that there *should* be a way to make companies adhere to software standards (that is another discussion), but rather that in the MS/JVM case, there *was* a way to keep them from destandardizing a de facto standard.
However, it is important to note that MS is a monopoly, and the actions of a monopoly must be very carefully watched. What *should* be done is to make sure they don't use their position as a monopoly to extend or enfore their control. At a minimum they must be held to a higher standard, since the normal rules of competition aren't in effect. That is where legal techniques should be used when possible.
The worst that could happen is it could lead to one-platform binaries.
I agree, but I see the "worst" adjective there not only as a boundary but as a degree. To quote MS, the intent of.NET is "to enable software developers to quickly build and deploy powerful, interoperable XML Web services." If the binaries only run on one platform, it isn't very interoperable. If the "WWW/Internet" becomes ".NET software", they're just one step away from ignoring all Internet communication standards and just having an MS-only web. That would be the worst thing that could happen to the WWW and possibly to the entire Internet.
The real benefit of having a standard is that there is some well-defined notion of what is "standard" and what is an "extension".
In Java, there is a mechanism for making platform-specific extensions and the programmers must consiously use them, making the resulting lack of platform interoperability obvious. What MS tried to do with Java was change the behaviour of the "standard" JVM. In that way, it may have been impossible for the developer to know they were using such extensions until they tried to run it using a non MS-JVM.
To those giving MS praise for coming up with.NET (including Miguel): Face it, there isn't a significant difference between CLR-type functionality and the JVM. Getting the JVM was a much bigger step than going from JVM -> CLR. In MS's defense, though, since it's an incremental and obivous step, WHOEVER had made that step would be embracing and extending the innovation of the JVM work at Sun (and the efforts to bring other languages to the JVM).
I'll leave the discussion of Java (the language) vs C# out of this.
The real difference is that with Java/JVM, when MS deviated from the spec (de facto, governed by Sun) Sun was able to get them to stop. Sun put the smack down on MS for trying to make MS-specific changes to MS's implementation of Java. This would have resulted in people developing for MS-Java thinking they were developing for Java, and then having issues when trying to get their code to "run anywhere" besides MS OSs.
With CLR/.NET there's no one to sue Microsoft when they go and take what is touted as being an open spec and change their implementation of it. That will lead to.NET software that people will think can run on any.NET platform that actually only runs on MS's.NET. Sure, it's an ECMA standard, but that doesn't keep MS from introducting their own "extensions" to it which lock users into MS.NET while still giving the illusion of not being MS-specific.
Or am I wrong? Is there any legal way to punish MS for the type of mischief they tried with Java/JVM and that I predict they will try with CLR/.NET?
Films like 'A Beautiful Mind' are not meant to be complete biographies and they're not even meant to be documentaries -- they are meant to tell a story and to be entertaining. It would be impossible to depict the events with complete accuracy, so they might as well make something that people will enjoy.
Art not completely accurately reflecting life is not a new issue, no matter what the medium. You think that thousands of years ago animals looked like what we see drawn on cave walls? Even one's best memories of the most recent things that one has witnessed won't be true to life, so don't expect 2 hours of film that is responsible for recouping the cost of its production to be.
I do this using what has become known as the "Tower of Changers". I have 7 Nakamichi 16x 5-disc changers in an external SCSI case. I just load it up with 35 CDs, run my script (which encodes from all 7 drives at once), and a few hours later I have a couple dozen GB of MP3s. Very handy. Not quite as sexy as using a 200 disc changer, but it works very well.
As someone elsewhere said, what we need is the details of the format so that other software can use it. I'd much rather have Star/OpenOffice be able to use MS format documents than have to use Office to work on them. Especially if Explorer for Solaris is any indication of their ability to write software for other platforms...
I watched the Justice Department briefing, and I've read the agreement a few times. I've yet to see any indication that any enforceable change is likely to come out of this.
It does mention listening to "Internet Radio"... Who knows exactly what that is (I'd guess just streaming MP3), but it is likely you could use your PC as the "Internet Radio Station".
These aren't problems, they're tradeoffs and design/implementation considerations. Everything is relative -- there is no perfect software, especially as judged by this list. Software that rated highly on these points for my use might be crap as far as someone else is concerned, so a list of things someone thinks are common problems with software is not an *argument*, which is what the post is asking for.
Please post all "I think I'm going to patent [insert obvious commonly used everyday thing here]! hehehe! Aren't I clever!" type posts under this thread so they they can be summarily ignored.
Even the simple iFeel is a *little* more than just "shaking or not" -- it does have "varying degrees of vibration" and the frequency of shaking can be chosen too as indicated (http://moore.cx/dan/out/ifeel/). Irregular patterns of vibration can be handled by just timing individual pulses in software. The Immersion software simulates textures by triggering pulses of various intensities that correspond to the mouse position/movement. It isn't spectacular, but is a much better effect than I anticipated. There are pointing devices that do actually restrict movement, in particular I've seen at least one that is a mouse, but they're much more expensive. The nice thing about the iFeel is that it gives another non-intrusive way to indicate something to the user at very low cost. The bad thing is that no one really uses it well right now.
While the classical bit can store any number between 0 and 255 on each of
its eight bytes, the qubit can store all the
numbers between 0 and 255 on a byte of
eight qubits. This allows much more information to be stored on a quantum bit
than a classical bit...
nope. Be has gone over this question many times; there's too much licensed technology. i don't think i've seen a definitive answer on whether everything-but the licensed tech could be, though.
Slashdot Mirror
That would be an excellent use for those silly CueCats. Scan a few barcodes off the back of the CD case when you install...
http://us.imdb.com/Details?0089886
It won't be "in the wild". This article is only talking about it being available to states attorneys and others involved in the case, not the general public.
I asked this very question when visiting MS 6 years ago... the answer from the guy showing me around (who had been working there since the early/mid 80s) was that no, he hadn't written any code in many, many years.
Very true. I didn't intend to imply that there *should* be a way to make companies adhere to software standards (that is another discussion), but rather that in the MS/JVM case, there *was* a way to keep them from destandardizing a de facto standard.
However, it is important to note that MS is a monopoly, and the actions of a monopoly must be very carefully watched. What *should* be done is to make sure they don't use their position as a monopoly to extend or enfore their control. At a minimum they must be held to a higher standard, since the normal rules of competition aren't in effect. That is where legal techniques should be used when possible.
The worst that could happen is it could lead to one-platform binaries.I agree, but I see the "worst" adjective there not only as a boundary but as a degree. To quote MS, the intent of .NET is "to enable software developers to quickly build and deploy powerful, interoperable XML Web services." If the binaries only run on one platform, it isn't very interoperable. If the "WWW/Internet" becomes ".NET software", they're just one step away from ignoring all Internet communication standards and just having an MS-only web. That would be the worst thing that could happen to the WWW and possibly to the entire Internet.
The real benefit of having a standard is that there is some well-defined notion of what is "standard" and what is an "extension".In Java, there is a mechanism for making platform-specific extensions and the programmers must consiously use them, making the resulting lack of platform interoperability obvious. What MS tried to do with Java was change the behaviour of the "standard" JVM. In that way, it may have been impossible for the developer to know they were using such extensions until they tried to run it using a non MS-JVM.
To those giving MS praise for coming up with .NET (including Miguel): Face it, there isn't a significant difference between CLR-type functionality and the JVM. Getting the JVM was a much bigger step than going from JVM -> CLR. In MS's defense, though, since it's an incremental and obivous step, WHOEVER had made that step would be embracing and extending the innovation of the JVM work at Sun (and the efforts to bring other languages to the JVM).
.NET software that people will think can run on any .NET platform that actually only runs on MS's .NET. Sure, it's an ECMA standard, but that doesn't keep MS from introducting their own "extensions" to it which lock users into MS.NET while still giving the illusion of not being MS-specific.
I'll leave the discussion of Java (the language) vs C# out of this.
The real difference is that with Java/JVM, when MS deviated from the spec (de facto, governed by Sun) Sun was able to get them to stop. Sun put the smack down on MS for trying to make MS-specific changes to MS's implementation of Java. This would have resulted in people developing for MS-Java thinking they were developing for Java, and then having issues when trying to get their code to "run anywhere" besides MS OSs.
With CLR/.NET there's no one to sue Microsoft when they go and take what is touted as being an open spec and change their implementation of it. That will lead to
Or am I wrong? Is there any legal way to punish MS for the type of mischief they tried with Java/JVM and that I predict they will try with CLR/.NET?
Films like 'A Beautiful Mind' are not meant to be complete biographies and they're not even meant to be documentaries -- they are meant to tell a story and to be entertaining. It would be impossible to depict the events with complete accuracy, so they might as well make something that people will enjoy.
Art not completely accurately reflecting life is not a new issue, no matter what the medium. You think that thousands of years ago animals looked like what we see drawn on cave walls? Even one's best memories of the most recent things that one has witnessed won't be true to life, so don't expect 2 hours of film that is responsible for recouping the cost of its production to be.
I'm pretty sure emacs fanatics will tell you that emacs already is the emacs of the browser world.
I do this using what has become known as the "Tower of Changers". I have 7 Nakamichi 16x 5-disc changers in an external SCSI case. I just load it up with 35 CDs, run my script (which encodes from all 7 drives at once), and a few hours later I have a couple dozen GB of MP3s. Very handy. Not quite as sexy as using a 200 disc changer, but it works very well.
As someone elsewhere said, what we need is the details of the format so that other software can use it. I'd much rather have Star/OpenOffice be able to use MS format documents than have to use Office to work on them. Especially if Explorer for Solaris is any indication of their ability to write software for other platforms...
I watched the Justice Department briefing, and I've read the agreement a few times. I've yet to see any indication that any enforceable change is likely to come out of this.
Can anyone out there see a silver lining?
It does mention listening to "Internet Radio"... Who knows exactly what that is (I'd guess just streaming MP3), but it is likely you could use your PC as the "Internet Radio Station".
These aren't problems, they're tradeoffs and design/implementation considerations. Everything is relative -- there is no perfect software, especially as judged by this list. Software that rated highly on these points for my use might be crap as far as someone else is concerned, so a list of things someone thinks are common problems with software is not an *argument*, which is what the post is asking for.
Please post all "I think I'm going to patent [insert obvious commonly used everyday thing here]! hehehe! Aren't I clever!" type posts under this thread so they they can be summarily ignored.
Even the simple iFeel is a *little* more than just "shaking or not" -- it does have "varying degrees of vibration" and the frequency of shaking can be chosen too as indicated (http://moore.cx/dan/out/ifeel/). Irregular patterns of vibration can be handled by just timing individual pulses in software. The Immersion software simulates textures by triggering pulses of various intensities that correspond to the mouse position/movement. It isn't spectacular, but is a much better effect than I anticipated. There are pointing devices that do actually restrict movement, in particular I've seen at least one that is a mouse, but they're much more expensive. The nice thing about the iFeel is that it gives another non-intrusive way to indicate something to the user at very low cost. The bad thing is that no one really uses it well right now.
write your own:
http://moore.cx/dan/out/ifeel/
"Limited Edition"? Is this self-imposed regulation?
There is no sequel, only Zuul.
How can that be?
Also, no BBS door games? WTF?
nope. Be has gone over this question many times; there's too much licensed technology. i don't think i've seen a definitive answer on whether everything-but the licensed tech could be, though.
I'm sure Tom Hall is actually leaving so he can begin work on Rise of the Triad 2.
That's a lot of additional material.
It seems *someone* thinks pretty highly of their little movie.
Yup. There was a company (Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs) that used gold. I think CDRs use something else too, don't they?