I agree with you, but, uhh, you are aware that Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Outlook, Office and a handful of other apps have already been ported to Mac OS, and IE has been ported to Solaris and at least one other UNIX platform (HP-UX maybe, I forget)? I'm typing this in MSIE/Mac now.
They'll just require it to be bundled with Office, and everything else Microsoft makes. What percentage of PCs have no Microsoft software on them whatsoever? That percentage won't have IE installed.
Can anyone tell me whether DirectX and NGWS will be considered "Middleware", as opposed to being part of Windows, and therefore will be owned by Microsoft (applications division) after the split?
I feel a great disturbance in the Force. Microsoft has been behiving themselves for the last year or two. That time is over. They're now fully evil, with nothing to get it their way.
No, StarOffice is not open-source. Neither is Netscape (not counting Mozilla), Applixware, WordPerfect, VMWare, or most of the major game titles like Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, etc.
Personally, I think I'd have less of a problem with the idea that a EULA could be legally binding if I were made to digitally sign my name to it. I'd be a bit more persuaded to read it before signing, of course.
Except that France bans encryption, so e-commerce becomes considerably more risky.
I seem to remember that you can disable most of the *cough* security features in Windows NT by simply setting your location to France in the Date/Time control panel.
I don't buy that for a second. It is the FACT this it is so easy to exploit. Don't give me that crap...wine wine, but it's the biggest target blah blah fooie.
The only thing easy to exploit about Microsoft Outlook that's being taken advantage of here is the fact that it automatically executes VBScript files, instead of making you click on them first. Woopie. If you distribute an executable program and make people click on it before it does anything, but tell them it's something cute and funny, most of them will click on it. Don't make me write such a Perl script just to prove my point.
My favorite EULA for any Windows application. Upon installation, it presents the standard licensing dialog and says you must agree to the license, and you have the option of accepting it or not. The license, of course, is the GPL.
I agree; very interesting. The reason is, Yahoo was taken down by a DDoS attack not long ago, but stealing credit card numbers is old news and nobody cares anymore.
And how the fsck do they know that the file is no longer available on the Internet?
They're referring to the specific file that the virus is trying to download, http://www.lomag.net/~ryan1918/MySissy.mpg.exe. That's the file that's no longer available. Sure, somebody probably has it mirrored somewhere, but the virus isn't programmed to download it from other locations.
The file name is something.mov.exe, and since Windows (by default) hides the file extension, all the user sees is something.mov, which they happily click on, and it probably plays a movie (I dunno, I haven't really been paying attention, but it probably does, to avoid suspicion).
If the plural of index is indeces, shouldn't the plural of Kleenex be Kleneces? If the plural of mouse is mice, what's the plural of house? If a train station is where the train stops, what happens at a workstation? If corn oil comes from corn and coconut oil comes from coconuts, how do they make baby oil?
Furthermore, I am against income taxes because it's a subtle form of stealing. If you buy a product or own property, that is putting a strain on public resources...so a tax may be appropriate. But just making money isn't putting a strain on public resources, and there is nothing stopping the state or the feds from increasing your tax rate to 90% and letting you have 10% to live, tead of letting you have 70% of your income to live. Property taxes and sales taxes are most definitely the way to go.
With income tax, the government makes exceptions if you spend money on worthy causes - donating to non-profit organizations, for example. I agree that income tax shouldn't be a ridiculously high percentage just because you make a lot of money, but it probably should be lower for poor people because they really can't afford it (trust me).
Income tax may be stealing, but so is property tax. If you make improvements to my house that increase its value, your property taxes go up.
Income tax and sales tax do pretty much the same thing, it's just that income tax is a lot less messy and annoying.
You just invalidated your argument, in terms of demonstrating Microsoft's guilt.
Couldn't the government point to much more stable operating systems...
They did point to them; their conclusions were that Linux is pretty much a server OS at this point, Be OS isn't viable because application support is limited and Be doesn't market it as a replacement to Windows, and Mac OS doesn't run on Intel-compatible hardware. If Microsoft had viable competition, they wouldn't be a monopoly!
One could point out that MSFT uses all (or nearly all) of it's resources to make their products user friendly...
And you're saying that's harmful?
How about the many recent Outlook exploits?
As has been pointed out before, the only reason those viruses target Windows and Outlook is that there's a lot of people running that software, not because it's inherently insecure in and of itself. Sure, Outlook launches VB scripts automatically, which is inexcusable, but that has nothing to do with Windows whatsoever, and nobody's ever accused Outlook of having a monopoly, to my knowledge.
What about the upgrade cycle?...That's harming consumers in terms of their money spending.
Upgrades were addressed in the Final Judgement. Microsoft isn't required to release free upgrades, but they can no longer force people to upgrade if they don't want to. See section 3.i.
And then there's the harm to non-consumers. Ie, the MSFT tax. Buying a computer from almost any dealer necessitates the installation (and hence purchase) of windows.
The Final Judgement also dealt with that. See sections 3.a.ii and 3.f.
Do yourself a favor and read the court documents before complaining about the conclusions that were drawn from them. And by the way, FWIW, I agree with you completely.
Middleware: Next Generation Windows Services
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Microsoft Quickies
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· Score: 2
NGWS clearly fits the definition of Middleware.
According to section 3.g of the Final Judgement, Microsoft can't bundle any Middleware Products to Windows unless they let you take it out, and unless they give discounts to OEMs who license Windows but remove the Middleware Product. Since Microsoft isn't likely to be happy with this, does this mean that NGWS will not be distributed as part of Windows at all?
The two companies are prevented from working together, aside from the OS company licensing products and technology from the apps company under specific rules. Plus, both companies are required to continue to do their best to remain successful and competitive. For the apps company to exclusively support Windows makes no more sense for the Microsoft apps company than it does for any other applications developer, and for the OS company to support Microsoft apps to the exclusion of other products is similarly stupid.
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I feel a great disturbance in the Force. Microsoft has been behiving themselves for the last year or two. That time is over. They're now fully evil, with nothing to get it their way.
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I seem to remember that you can disable most of the *cough* security features in Windows NT by simply setting your location to France in the Date/Time control panel.
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The only thing easy to exploit about Microsoft Outlook that's being taken advantage of here is the fact that it automatically executes VBScript files, instead of making you click on them first. Woopie. If you distribute an executable program and make people click on it before it does anything, but tell them it's something cute and funny, most of them will click on it. Don't make me write such a Perl script just to prove my point.
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They're referring to the specific file that the virus is trying to download, http://www.lomag.net/~ryan1918/MySissy.mpg.exe. That's the file that's no longer available. Sure, somebody probably has it mirrored somewhere, but the virus isn't programmed to download it from other locations.
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With income tax, the government makes exceptions if you spend money on worthy causes - donating to non-profit organizations, for example. I agree that income tax shouldn't be a ridiculously high percentage just because you make a lot of money, but it probably should be lower for poor people because they really can't afford it (trust me).
Income tax may be stealing, but so is property tax. If you make improvements to my house that increase its value, your property taxes go up.
Income tax and sales tax do pretty much the same thing, it's just that income tax is a lot less messy and annoying.
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You just invalidated your argument, in terms of demonstrating Microsoft's guilt.
Couldn't the government point to much more stable operating systems...
They did point to them; their conclusions were that Linux is pretty much a server OS at this point, Be OS isn't viable because application support is limited and Be doesn't market it as a replacement to Windows, and Mac OS doesn't run on Intel-compatible hardware. If Microsoft had viable competition, they wouldn't be a monopoly!
One could point out that MSFT uses all (or nearly all) of it's resources to make their products user friendly...
And you're saying that's harmful?
How about the many recent Outlook exploits?
As has been pointed out before, the only reason those viruses target Windows and Outlook is that there's a lot of people running that software, not because it's inherently insecure in and of itself. Sure, Outlook launches VB scripts automatically, which is inexcusable, but that has nothing to do with Windows whatsoever, and nobody's ever accused Outlook of having a monopoly, to my knowledge.
What about the upgrade cycle?
Upgrades were addressed in the Final Judgement. Microsoft isn't required to release free upgrades, but they can no longer force people to upgrade if they don't want to. See section 3.i.
And then there's the harm to non-consumers. Ie, the MSFT tax. Buying a computer from almost any dealer necessitates the installation (and hence purchase) of windows.
The Final Judgement also dealt with that. See sections 3.a.ii and 3.f.
Do yourself a favor and read the court documents before complaining about the conclusions that were drawn from them. And by the way, FWIW, I agree with you completely.
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According to section 3.g of the Final Judgement, Microsoft can't bundle any Middleware Products to Windows unless they let you take it out, and unless they give discounts to OEMs who license Windows but remove the Middleware Product. Since Microsoft isn't likely to be happy with this, does this mean that NGWS will not be distributed as part of Windows at all?
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