>If you MS decide to do this, we will do everything we can to make it cost you.
Create insecure, buggy products - thats ok. Proven illegal monoploy - thats ok. Spread FUD about OpenSource TOC/quality - thats ok. Bully HW vendors to sell your product regardless if I chose buy it or not - thats ok.
Launch a patent-legal battle, which you have no clue what its basis is - You and a million (yes, 1 million) of your close buddies suddenly get all excited.
>does the GPL prevent you from making money the Microsoft way? certainly.
What exact is the Microsoft way?
>I'll credit the guy for saying over and over again that his aim is *not* to prevent people from making a living with software.... in the traditional sense. Is that correct?
>The fact of the matter is, whatever the kids (high school and college) use is where the industry is going.
You don't think kids want to play PC games? And what about IM? Run XP to get the latest IM functionality (try to get the webcam running in the MS IM on Linux. Now try it with XP)
And have you've seen MS seminars at colleges? They give away the OS and compilers.
>Forget TCO and stuff like this.
Business methology isn't going to change in 20 years. You will still need to justify decisions and "Well, I used it in high school." isn't going to cut it.
>There will be 4 or 5 different screens of the wizard, often worded ambiguously, that if you click on the wrong one, it may ot may not allow you to go back and fix it?
Why is a wizard a bad thing, yet the instructions you gave are not "rocket science"? Couldn't you get the same amount of clarity and easy in a wizard as you could with your instructions?
Take a look at Apple UI. Lots of "wizard-like" UI. No command line interface. No guessing the video card. No guessing typing in startx or xf86config and making sure your path is correct.
>The roads are going to be jammed up if you get in an accident or not.
Get into a accident where there is no injury, just physical car damage, people/a tow truck will move the car as long as its not in a thousand pieces. Get into an injury, unless the person can walk away on his own, no one is moving that car until medical help arrives.
>A person's own rates go up if they get in an accident.
How are the rates for a new insurer determined? Don't you think they use historical data and statistics? Your serious injury does cause other people's rates to go up. Look up how rates are determined for new and existing drivers (when they renew).
>If insurance doesn't want to insure unbuckled riders, that's between the insurance industry and the rider
I'm not sure what you imply by this. Do you really think that a driver will say to an insurer that you will 80% of the time not wear a seatbelt and sign something to this effect? Do you really think the driver would get insurance?
>It may be a good idea for private pension funds to invest in the stock market.
And not a public one? Don't they have the same function, pay an amount to people in the future for their retirement?
>But private pension funds aren't taking hudreds of millions in campaign contributions
I don't get this. Social security isn't taking in campaign funds. If you imply that the government gets funds from people who want to control social security, you really should look into social security. One of the biggest segement of electors/activist are retired people and they have a HUGE interest in keeping Social Security safe. See: http://www.aarp.org/
Even if you say that "big business" is controlling things, they have better things to do than go for a hunk of money everyone is looking at, namely changing legal regulations. Name the group and I can name the legal body/law that would be worth far more to them than investing a percentage of Social Security in the stock market.
>and they aren't playing with other people's money.
Private pension funds are playing with other people's money. How are private pension funds playing with their own money and public pension funds playing with other money? They work the exact same way; People give money to pension funds, pension funds give money back when people retire. What happens between the two is not in the control of the person.
>Everyone else pays? Then why am I shelling out all this money for insurance
Ummm I was more thinking about taking resources away from others that need it. The police/ambulance/doctor/nurse/medical tech. is not looking after someone else.
Thats not even talking about the jam up on the roads and insurance rates that go up for everyone.
>These are the same people who wanted to invest Social Security in the stock market, remember? They suck at cost benefit analysis.
Um... you might want to look up why many people outside of the government think its a good idea. Take a look at the private pension funds and see how much stock they own. Or look the academic research done on asset allocation.
When you get into an accident, you have to get rescued/treated and perhaps go to a hospital and get treated there. Then everyone else gets to pay.
>But I resent the notion that people need the police to keep them from hurting themselves, and that 'fining' will convince people to value their lives.
Noticed how irritated you are with the fine. Thats the purpose of the deterient, make you think twice about doing it again.
And if you don't think people need protection from themselves, take a quick browse of the articles posted on fark.com. Being stupid is not a rare trait.
A bank can loan out a certain percentage of its deposits. It used to be less than 100%, but recently its been greater than that. Its so much, that really the deposits have nothing to do with how much a bank can lend out.
An example: A bank can go the the government and ask for X dollars. The government can print as much money as it wants since it doesn't need gold or anything to back it up except its word that it will honor it. (It doesn't even need to print anything, just create numbers in an account).
An example: Bank A has X dollars in a deposit and lend out say 0.8 x X dollars. Bank B has Y dollars and say can lend 0.8 x Y dollars. Bank A lends to Bank B, now Bank B possesses Y + (0.8 x X) dollars and can lend out 0.8 x (Y + (0.8 x X)) dollars. Bank B lends it to Bank A. Now Bank A can lend out (0.8 x (Y + (0.8 x X))) + 0.8 X dollars.
With these two examples (and not talking about forigen investors/lenders) it is left to the kind reader to show that it how much US citzens deposit into saving/chequing accounts at banks have very little to do with how much a bank can/is willing to lend out to businesses.
>Most Linux gamers bought the Windows boxes and downloaded the binaries. They were counted as Windows gamers and the sales figures point towards there being no Linux market.
Lets not assume that they are idiots.
They can track how many downloads of the Linux binaries there are. They can match CD keys with with the bianary version when you authenticate against their master servers.
Most telling is the fact that even with the seemingly low numbers of Q3 Linux users they are spending the resources again with Doom. This is miles ahead of what many companies are doing. Complain about them but not ID.
>Like people speaking to someone who doesn't seem to understand English very well, I thought "shouting" might help get my point across
Of course, what great logic.
When someone speaks to me in German, which I don't speak, I ask them to start yelling. Then suddenly I understand that the best bar in the area is 2 blocks down on the west side of the street but don't go there after 10 because its cheaper to go to the bar another 1 block down.
Also I find waving your arms up and down and doing spining in circles will help with universal translation. Very popular at the UN council meetings, I hear.
>We already have the problem accessing 5 - 10 yesr old backups
In 200 years from now, I would just get my robot butler to use my child's toy scanning quantum microscope to read the molecular magnetic alignment from the backups and have the data by dinner.:)
>And ultimately it is the individual employees at Microsoft that are responsible for the way the company works. If they don't want to be found guilty, they shouldn't work there.
Just because MS is not perfect or they could be doing something better, people should leave? Note: its not criminal actions, just not the best.
Suppose you worked at MS on their Paint program. Should you leave because you don't think that the IE or Word team are doing the right thing?
If that is your criteria for being guilty, then what company is acceptable to work for?
In terms of UI and usabilty there are alot better ones out there.
>Too many other computerized products and computer programs, however, force you to get bogged down in so many options, functions, and modes that you may just give up before finding the simple thing you want to do.
In a windowed program, there are menus. Don't want the options, don't go hunting for it.
>Today, it takes a CD to hold all the bells and whistles that have been added
No the reason why they use CD is not because its complicated, its because it cheap to mass produce. A program is > 2 megs and If you are awake in the middle of the night in a hotel room and your spouse is asleep, you would never dare to turn on the new Scrabble game.
Its called a volume control. Either built in, on the OS level or the physical speakers has them. What would the user want?
>Since my old computer chess game will not work on the new computers, I had to get a new chess game
But when you bought the old chess game it didn't specify it would work on the new OS? And this is the programmers fault for not making things compatible with technology 10 years in the future?
>Oh this is slashdot, I'm just supposed to assume that Free Software is better in all respects.
It also helps a story get accepted from the editors.
The story specifies nothing directly about OpenSource or MS or Apple. I actually would like to see this person comment on the Apple UI. Yet apparently the jab at MS is valid.
Next story to get approved: "New planet found. MS blamed for not finding it sooner, clear evidence that Free Software is better."
>Have you ever considered that they couldn't care less about DRM on the media?
No no. This is slashdot. Everything that MS/Bill Gates/the-developer-on-the-2nd-floor-at-Redmond is EVIL/wrong/"oppressive to the free will of all mankind".
Now if it was Torvalds who had said this, and he is ok with DRM in Linux, then it would be Insightful/correct/"an advancement for all man-kind, we owe you our childern Torvalds!".
Remember, here at slashdot there are many people, but just one mind.
>but the philosophy is the same, you can't dodge responsibility forever.
You are taking it way out of hand.
There is ethics involved when it comes to the life and death situations, but not when it comes to a general program. (Critical systems are different, but a browser isn't in that category)
When you are talking about something large and complex like an browser highly integrated into the OS there are lots of grey areas involved. Do you allow plug-ins to be easily installled knowning that if you don't it causes usablility issues for many users you are trying to service? Is a pop-up ok? Is a pop-up with certifications using 64bit encrytoption ok? 128bit? How would the end-user even verify it?
Look at the recent bug in Mozilla. Now should those guys resign from the team for ignorning the issue? Did they really ignore it? Did they have valid reasons for not protecting their end-users, regardless of where the actual hole orginated?
Slashdot Mirror
>Either that, or they are trying to lose that cash-mountain to make it less of a target for something over the horizon that we haven't seen yet.
"Oh, instead of $53 billion, they only have $49 billion in cash. Lets call off the lawsuit since its not worth it anymore."
Great logic there.
>If you MS decide to do this, we will do everything we can to make it cost you.
Create insecure, buggy products - thats ok.
Proven illegal monoploy - thats ok.
Spread FUD about OpenSource TOC/quality - thats ok.
Bully HW vendors to sell your product regardless if I chose buy it or not - thats ok.
Launch a patent-legal battle, which you have no clue what its basis is - You and a million (yes, 1 million) of your close buddies suddenly get all excited.
And this is Insightful?
>It's the abuse of the system that is the problem.
By allowing the abuse, doesn't that mean there is a problem with the system, therefore the system needs to be fixed?
>does the GPL prevent you from making money the Microsoft way? certainly.
... in the traditional sense. Is that correct?
What exact is the Microsoft way?
>I'll credit the guy for saying over and over again that his aim is *not* to prevent people from making a living with software.
>The fact of the matter is, whatever the kids (high school and college) use is where the industry is going.
You don't think kids want to play PC games? And what about IM? Run XP to get the latest IM functionality (try to get the webcam running in the MS IM on Linux. Now try it with XP)
And have you've seen MS seminars at colleges? They give away the OS and compilers.
>Forget TCO and stuff like this.
Business methology isn't going to change in 20 years. You will still need to justify decisions and "Well, I used it in high school." isn't going to cut it.
>There will be 4 or 5 different screens of the wizard, often worded ambiguously, that if you click on the wrong one, it may ot may not allow you to go back and fix it?
Why is a wizard a bad thing, yet the instructions you gave are not "rocket science"? Couldn't you get the same amount of clarity and easy in a wizard as you could with your instructions?
Take a look at Apple UI. Lots of "wizard-like" UI. No command line interface. No guessing the video card. No guessing typing in startx or xf86config and making sure your path is correct.
Worked for Rogue/NetHack/Moria/Angband/ToME for years
>The roads are going to be jammed up if you get in an accident or not.
Get into a accident where there is no injury, just physical car damage, people/a tow truck will move the car as long as its not in a thousand pieces. Get into an injury, unless the person can walk away on his own, no one is moving that car until medical help arrives.
>A person's own rates go up if they get in an accident.
How are the rates for a new insurer determined? Don't you think they use historical data and statistics? Your serious injury does cause other people's rates to go up. Look up how rates are determined for new and existing drivers (when they renew).
>If insurance doesn't want to insure unbuckled riders, that's between the insurance industry and the rider
I'm not sure what you imply by this. Do you really think that a driver will say to an insurer that you will 80% of the time not wear a seatbelt and sign something to this effect? Do you really think the driver would get insurance?
>It may be a good idea for private pension funds to invest in the stock market.
And not a public one? Don't they have the same function, pay an amount to people in the future for their retirement?
>But private pension funds aren't taking hudreds of millions in campaign contributions
I don't get this. Social security isn't taking in campaign funds.
If you imply that the government gets funds from people who want to control social security, you really should look into social security. One of the biggest segement of electors/activist are retired people and they have a HUGE interest in keeping Social Security safe. See: http://www.aarp.org/
Even if you say that "big business" is controlling things, they have better things to do than go for a hunk of money everyone is looking at, namely changing legal regulations. Name the group and I can name the legal body/law that would be worth far more to them than investing a percentage of Social Security in the stock market.
>and they aren't playing with other people's money.
Private pension funds are playing with other people's money. How are private pension funds playing with their own money and public pension funds playing with other money? They work the exact same way; People give money to pension funds, pension funds give money back when people retire. What happens between the two is not in the control of the person.
>Everyone else pays? Then why am I shelling out all this money for insurance
Ummm I was more thinking about taking resources away from others that need it. The police/ambulance/doctor/nurse/medical tech. is not looking after someone else.
Thats not even talking about the jam up on the roads and insurance rates that go up for everyone.
>These are the same people who wanted to invest Social Security in the stock market, remember? They suck at cost benefit analysis.
Um... you might want to look up why many people outside of the government think its a good idea. Take a look at the private pension funds and see how much stock they own. Or look the academic research done on asset allocation.
>Not wearing a seatbelt? Get a fine.
When you get into an accident, you have to get rescued/treated and perhaps go to a hospital and get treated there. Then everyone else gets to pay.
>But I resent the notion that people need the police to keep them from hurting themselves, and that 'fining' will convince people to value their lives.
Noticed how irritated you are with the fine. Thats the purpose of the deterient, make you think twice about doing it again.
And if you don't think people need protection from themselves, take a quick browse of the articles posted on fark.com. Being stupid is not a rare trait.
Actually you both have it wrong.
A bank can loan out a certain percentage of its deposits. It used to be less than 100%, but recently its been greater than that. Its so much, that really the deposits have nothing to do with how much a bank can lend out.
An example: A bank can go the the government and ask for X dollars. The government can print as much money as it wants since it doesn't need gold or anything to back it up except its word that it will honor it. (It doesn't even need to print anything, just create numbers in an account).
An example: Bank A has X dollars in a deposit and lend out say 0.8 x X dollars. Bank B has Y dollars and say can lend 0.8 x Y dollars. Bank A lends to Bank B, now Bank B possesses Y + (0.8 x X) dollars and can lend out 0.8 x (Y + (0.8 x X)) dollars. Bank B lends it to Bank A. Now Bank A can lend out (0.8 x (Y + (0.8 x X))) + 0.8 X dollars.
With these two examples (and not talking about forigen investors/lenders) it is left to the kind reader to show that it how much US citzens deposit into saving/chequing accounts at banks have very little to do with how much a bank can/is willing to lend out to businesses.
>Most Linux gamers bought the Windows boxes and downloaded the binaries. They were counted as Windows gamers and the sales figures point towards there being no Linux market.
Lets not assume that they are idiots.
They can track how many downloads of the Linux binaries there are. They can match CD keys with with the bianary version when you authenticate against their master servers.
Most telling is the fact that even with the seemingly low numbers of Q3 Linux users they are spending the resources again with Doom. This is miles ahead of what many companies are doing. Complain about them but not ID.
>Like people speaking to someone who doesn't seem to understand English very well, I thought "shouting" might help get my point across
Of course, what great logic.
When someone speaks to me in German, which I don't speak, I ask them to start yelling. Then suddenly I understand that the best bar in the area is 2 blocks down on the west side of the street but don't go there after 10 because its cheaper to go to the bar another 1 block down.
Also I find waving your arms up and down and doing spining in circles will help with universal translation. Very popular at the UN council meetings, I hear.
>We already have the problem accessing 5 - 10 yesr old backups
:)
In 200 years from now, I would just get my robot butler to use my child's toy scanning quantum microscope to read the molecular magnetic alignment from the backups and have the data by dinner.
>say in 500 years, get a copy of these 5 volumes
:)
Unfortunately, you can't understand the books since it in some ancient, long dead language.
This lawsuit has nothing to do with Linux. RedHat could making pickled cabbage and this lawsuit still could have happened.
Don't worry you thousand doughy, pasty-faced geeks, the very intelligent vultures don't give a crap what you do.
I can see your valid points up to...
>And ultimately it is the individual employees at Microsoft that are responsible for the way the company works. If they don't want to be found guilty, they shouldn't work there.
Just because MS is not perfect or they could be doing something better, people should leave? Note: its not criminal actions, just not the best.
Suppose you worked at MS on their Paint program. Should you leave because you don't think that the IE or Word team are doing the right thing?
If that is your criteria for being guilty, then what company is acceptable to work for?
Those all-caps do make you seem so smart.
You should have ended off your sentences with "!!!1!" then it would have been just perfect.
In terms of UI and usabilty there are alot better ones out there.
>Too many other computerized products and computer programs, however, force you to get bogged down in so many options, functions, and modes that you may just give up before finding the simple thing you want to do.
In a windowed program, there are menus. Don't want the options, don't go hunting for it.
>Today, it takes a CD to hold all the bells and whistles that have been added
No the reason why they use CD is not because its complicated, its because it cheap to mass produce. A program is > 2 megs and If you are awake in the middle of the night in a hotel room and your spouse is asleep, you would never dare to turn on the new Scrabble game.
Its called a volume control. Either built in, on the OS level or the physical speakers has them. What would the user want?
>Since my old computer chess game will not work on the new computers, I had to get a new chess game
But when you bought the old chess game it didn't specify it would work on the new OS? And this is the programmers fault for not making things compatible with technology 10 years in the future?
>Oh this is slashdot, I'm just supposed to assume that Free Software is better in all respects.
It also helps a story get accepted from the editors.
The story specifies nothing directly about OpenSource or MS or Apple. I actually would like to see this person comment on the Apple UI. Yet apparently the jab at MS is valid.
Next story to get approved:
"New planet found. MS blamed for not finding it sooner, clear evidence that Free Software is better."
>Have you ever considered that they couldn't care less about DRM on the media?
No no. This is slashdot. Everything that MS/Bill Gates/the-developer-on-the-2nd-floor-at-Redmond is EVIL/wrong/"oppressive to the free will of all mankind".
Now if it was Torvalds who had said this, and he is ok with DRM in Linux, then it would be Insightful/correct/"an advancement for all man-kind, we owe you our childern Torvalds!".
Remember, here at slashdot there are many people, but just one mind.
>I suggest that you do something similar.
As a Canadian, why would my family care what the American Dept of Homeland Security says?
And just to add something, I did suggest it to them sometime ago.
Then the exploit for Mozilla came out, now they are asking me why they went through all the trouble of changing browsers.
If its not as low cost as a Win/PC then its not a viable alternative, is it?
>Because it's the media's job to disseminate important information, not ours.
Look up the first 10 top world news stories. Those are important information, not the fact that one piece of software is better than another.
>but the philosophy is the same, you can't dodge responsibility forever.
You are taking it way out of hand.
There is ethics involved when it comes to the life and death situations, but not when it comes to a general program. (Critical systems are different, but a browser isn't in that category)
When you are talking about something large and complex like an browser highly integrated into the OS there are lots of grey areas involved. Do you allow plug-ins to be easily installled knowning that if you don't it causes usablility issues for many users you are trying to service? Is a pop-up ok? Is a pop-up with certifications using 64bit encrytoption ok? 128bit? How would the end-user even verify it?
Look at the recent bug in Mozilla. Now should those guys resign from the team for ignorning the issue? Did they really ignore it? Did they have valid reasons for not protecting their end-users, regardless of where the actual hole orginated?