One source familiar with Microsoft's plans said C# is "intended as (a way to foster) new styles of development. Combine it with the Web services (Microsoft) is announcing and you get powerful stuff. It also so happens to effectively mirror what Java can provide. It provides operating system independence (which Java provides), but it also provides language independence, which Java can't provide."
Uhh, it sounds to me like this is Windows-only. What the hell are these guys smoking? It runs on Windows 98 and NT 4 and 2000, so that makes it OS-independent? Unless Microsoft ports it so it runs on Linux or Mac OS X or something, I don't see how anyone can call it OS-independent.
"But that invades my privacy!", you say. That's true, it does invade your privacy. But it is also perfectly legal--the ISP or the company is assisting the government in the investigation of a crime, and failure to do so can yield charges like obstruction of justice and aiding and abetting. If the crime is serious enough, it may also warrant a conspiracy charge. ISPs and companies hate that kind of pressure, and tend to fold under it rapidly, no matter what their stance is on user privacy. After all, a "you are totally anonymous" policy is hard to enforce when jackbooted thugs kick in your door and shut down your hosting operation.
My understanding is that if someone reports illegal activity to an ISP, the ISP can take action according to their Terms Of Service, but cannot disclose any personal information to the person who reported the offense. So, if the RIAA tells me I have a user who's sharing illegal MP3s, and gives me the user's IP address, I can check to see who the user is, but I can't tell the RIAA. I can take action against the user (by terminating their account, etc.), and I can tell the RIAA that I have done so, but unless the RIAA presents me with a court order, they'er not getting the name of my user. If I do disclose the name of the user to the RIAA, the user can sue me.
I imagine that some ISPs could simply make exceptions to this, by explicitly stating in their Terms Of Service that they can give out personal information in this kind of situation, but there might actually be laws against it. I'm not sure.
You need a court order. There are privacy laws that prevent you from giving out that information otherwise. Disclosing the information to any third party without a court order can find you on the wrong end of a lawsuit.
However, if someone reports an illegal activity or any other activity that violates the ISP's acceptible use policy/terms of service, the ISP can take action (generally by terminating the account, or, if it's something illegal, involving the authorities themselves).
You might find the Open Content license interesting. Similar concept to the GPL, but applies to content such as news articles. Mac OS Rumors is an example of a site that releases its content under the Open Content License.
Your second rule was implicitly stated in the official rules, and your first rule is implied by the second. Your third rule is merely a slight variation on the rule about the driver's girlfriend.
Your remaining rules, however, should be considered for inclusion on the official site.
Does anyone know what the mysterious anesthetizing blue liquid is? I think something a little more scientific (and intelligent) than a taste test is in order. Anyone?
The market share of Windows will drop to 50%? Please! I really doubt that the market share will change significantly, especially in the short (
It will be at least two years before the split takes effect anyway. A couple years after that, their market share will be on its way down to 50%. Please understand that I'm not trying to suggest that Windows will drop to 50% market share by this Christmas.
Yes, the OS part will only have Windows but what more leverage do they need? They can (and will) still force it onto OEM's in the same ways they do now. The only difference is that by protecting their monopoly they won't be doing anything that the Justice Department can do anything about.
The Final Judgement puts serious restrictions on Windows, Inc. Many of Microsoft's current tactics (offering cheaper rates to cooperative OEMs, threatening to withhold licenses, charging royalties for computers that don't ship with Microsoft products, etc.) will be made illegal.
Call me wacky, but I'm starting to really believe that a breakup would be good for Microsoft.
It will, but it won't necessarily be good for Windows' market share.
I've been configuring systems on Dell's Web site, and trying to get roughly comparable systems with Linux and Windows installed. Can someone explain to me why the Linux version costs $100 more than the Windows version, even if you include Office 2k Pro?
Not quite. First, Windows, Inc. won't have a complete monopoly. They'll be weakened by this case, just as Linux and Mac OS are really taking off. They'll still have a large market share, but it will probably drop down to 50%.
Also, as was already pointed out, Microsoft leverages their two monopolies to protect both of them. That will stop. Microsoft (the new apps company) will still have monopolies to leverage, but Windows won't have anything but Windows.
I'm getting sick of people like you saying "Yeah, maybe Microsoft has done some bad things, but it's OK because we've all used Windows for something useful at some point and they've done a lot to bring computers to the masses." Hello? That does not excuse them!
Go read some of the court documents. Contrary to popular opinion, Judge Jackson clearly believes that Microsoft has made computers more accessible for the masses, has done a lot of good things, and been generally good for the economy. That's great. It doesn't change the fact that they have consistently, repeatedly, broken the law by illegally abusing their monopoly power to stifle innovation in the rest of the industry (and sometimes in different industries).
Breaking up Microsoft isn't going to seriously hurt them. Jackson has been careful about that. All he's trying to do is get them to stop breaking the law. Unfortunately, there are a few issues that the DoJ didn't focus on; consequently, the Final Judgement won't stop Microsoft from abusing their monopoly power at all - rather, it will simply change the way in which Microsoft goes about it (tying everything into NGWS and leveraging that, instead of Windows).
As others have pointed out, that's a patent, not a copyright, and as I recall it's going to expire in September - it hasn't expired yet. I could be wrong about this; anyone have more info?
Touché. To be honest, I don't think I could survive for very long without at least one Mac OS box, and I use cheap PCs for all my UNIX/Linux needs, but if you've got an extra iMac or two floating around, it'd make a nice Linux box. If all I had was a Mac, I'm sure I'd dual-boot.
Can't wait for Mac OS X to make all the problems go away.:-)
Your post is an obvious troll. Your first two points have nothing to do with the discussion (we're talking about languages, not about execution speed or interpretor overhead).
As for your fourth point, when was the last time you tried to write a CGI program in C++? I have, and it sucks ass, because C++ is retarded when it comes to string processing. Perl lets me make associative arrays, where an array of strings is indexed by a string variable.
Finally, what does C++ programming being a valuable skill have to do with how good a language it is? Last year, COBOL programming was a very valuable skill.
Please don't take for granted all the things the government DOES have online. I can follow the antitrust trial against Microsoft by reading court documents in PDF format on the DOJ's Web site. The President's State of the Union address is online. Wondering about a particular law? Look it up. Of course, numerous sites host copies of the Constitution and Declaration of Independance.
Take a look at your state's Web site at http://www.state.XX.us/ where XX is your state abbreviation, such as Arizona or Oregon or Michigan.
The iMac was released on August 15th, 1998 at 233 MHz. Since then there have been several updates, and current iMacs are 400MHz (or 350MHz for the $999 ones). The PowerPC 750 is not a slow CPU, but at 233MHz, some people want faster.
Apple did pull the plug on Mac clones in '97, but they've never had a problem with other companies selling Mac-compatible hardware. Remember that every Mac clone has an Apple-licensed (not just approved, but licensed, as in copyright) motherboard and ROM. The Mac OS wouldn't work without that ROM, so it would only work on Apple or Apple-licensed systems. However, Mac OS X removes this limitation (it may take a little hacking to get it to work on non-Apple mobos, but hey, it's open source so you can do that), so we should be seeing Mac clones with no Apple-imposed restrictions popping up within the next few years.
Apple will probably (sue them/modify future Imacs so this modification is not possible/otherwise behave in a fashion considered anti-social by the geek culture at large.) Pick one.
Remember, the DMCA only applies to software, music and DVDs, not hardware. Fair use still applies. If you want to swap out your CPU, you can do so. Not only that, but as someone else pointed out, PowerLogix and Newer Technologies have been at this for a long time already, and Apple has no objections. The CPUs are expensive enough that the upgrade manufacturers aren't really detracting from Apple's hardware sales.
As for releasing a new iMac, well, wait one month. I don't know about compatibility.
Slashdot Mirror
Uhh, it sounds to me like this is Windows-only. What the hell are these guys smoking? It runs on Windows 98 and NT 4 and 2000, so that makes it OS-independent? Unless Microsoft ports it so it runs on Linux or Mac OS X or something, I don't see how anyone can call it OS-independent.
G# anyone?
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My understanding is that if someone reports illegal activity to an ISP, the ISP can take action according to their Terms Of Service, but cannot disclose any personal information to the person who reported the offense. So, if the RIAA tells me I have a user who's sharing illegal MP3s, and gives me the user's IP address, I can check to see who the user is, but I can't tell the RIAA. I can take action against the user (by terminating their account, etc.), and I can tell the RIAA that I have done so, but unless the RIAA presents me with a court order, they'er not getting the name of my user. If I do disclose the name of the user to the RIAA, the user can sue me.
I imagine that some ISPs could simply make exceptions to this, by explicitly stating in their Terms Of Service that they can give out personal information in this kind of situation, but there might actually be laws against it. I'm not sure.
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However, if someone reports an illegal activity or any other activity that violates the ISP's acceptible use policy/terms of service, the ISP can take action (generally by terminating the account, or, if it's something illegal, involving the authorities themselves).
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Your remaining rules, however, should be considered for inclusion on the official site.
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It will be at least two years before the split takes effect anyway. A couple years after that, their market share will be on its way down to 50%. Please understand that I'm not trying to suggest that Windows will drop to 50% market share by this Christmas.
Yes, the OS part will only have Windows but what more leverage do they need? They can (and will) still force it onto OEM's in the same ways they do now. The only difference is that by protecting their monopoly they won't be doing anything that the Justice Department can do anything about.
The Final Judgement puts serious restrictions on Windows, Inc. Many of Microsoft's current tactics (offering cheaper rates to cooperative OEMs, threatening to withhold licenses, charging royalties for computers that don't ship with Microsoft products, etc.) will be made illegal.
Call me wacky, but I'm starting to really believe that a breakup would be good for Microsoft.
It will, but it won't necessarily be good for Windows' market share.
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Also, as was already pointed out, Microsoft leverages their two monopolies to protect both of them. That will stop. Microsoft (the new apps company) will still have monopolies to leverage, but Windows won't have anything but Windows.
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Go read some of the court documents. Contrary to popular opinion, Judge Jackson clearly believes that Microsoft has made computers more accessible for the masses, has done a lot of good things, and been generally good for the economy. That's great. It doesn't change the fact that they have consistently, repeatedly, broken the law by illegally abusing their monopoly power to stifle innovation in the rest of the industry (and sometimes in different industries).
Breaking up Microsoft isn't going to seriously hurt them. Jackson has been careful about that. All he's trying to do is get them to stop breaking the law. Unfortunately, there are a few issues that the DoJ didn't focus on; consequently, the Final Judgement won't stop Microsoft from abusing their monopoly power at all - rather, it will simply change the way in which Microsoft goes about it (tying everything into NGWS and leveraging that, instead of Windows).
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Depends on which shelf you're shopping at.
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Can't wait for Mac OS X to make all the problems go away.
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As for your fourth point, when was the last time you tried to write a CGI program in C++? I have, and it sucks ass, because C++ is retarded when it comes to string processing. Perl lets me make associative arrays, where an array of strings is indexed by a string variable.
Finally, what does C++ programming being a valuable skill have to do with how good a language it is? Last year, COBOL programming was a very valuable skill.
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Take a look at your state's Web site at http://www.state.XX.us/ where XX is your state abbreviation, such as Arizona or Oregon or Michigan.
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Would "Dick and Jane" be blocked as pornographic too?
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Apple did pull the plug on Mac clones in '97, but they've never had a problem with other companies selling Mac-compatible hardware. Remember that every Mac clone has an Apple-licensed (not just approved, but licensed, as in copyright) motherboard and ROM. The Mac OS wouldn't work without that ROM, so it would only work on Apple or Apple-licensed systems. However, Mac OS X removes this limitation (it may take a little hacking to get it to work on non-Apple mobos, but hey, it's open source so you can do that), so we should be seeing Mac clones with no Apple-imposed restrictions popping up within the next few years.
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Remember, the DMCA only applies to software, music and DVDs, not hardware. Fair use still applies. If you want to swap out your CPU, you can do so. Not only that, but as someone else pointed out, PowerLogix and Newer Technologies have been at this for a long time already, and Apple has no objections. The CPUs are expensive enough that the upgrade manufacturers aren't really detracting from Apple's hardware sales.
As for releasing a new iMac, well, wait one month. I don't know about compatibility.
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It sounds like this was one of the newer 350-400MHz models, the ones that you can actually see all the way through?
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