First of all, show me any computer hardware, cell phone, consumer electronics, or cable TV equipment, made in the US.
Secondly, could retailers and manufacturers who sell things that have never been tested and don't work as advertised bear any of the responsibility here?
As for your assertion that paying a logical price to get something good means fewer and better tech support calls, I fully agree, which is why I use a Mac and Apple software almost exclusively.
Thompson said customers need to have realistic expectations. He urged buyers to ask themselves two questions before plunking down cash for software: "What is it that I want this software to do?" and "Am I going to use this software as it's been marketed?"
I thought that bugs, marketing lies, crappy documentation, and clueless tech support were realistic expectations for most commercial software.
I think that what you are failing to see is how this argument is legally relevant. This suit is about a contract, not copyright or patents. SCO uses the term "intellectual property," but this term is not a legal term, US law has no concept of it. US law only understands contracts (like NDA's), copyrights, and patents.
SCO's court filings, which must conform to US law, only say that IBM violated their contract. Now, if court decides that a contract was violated for many years and out in the open, they may rule that it is now too late to enforce that contract.
The other legal argument (not the argument that may make sense to you and me on first reading, but the argument that actually cites law and legal precedent) is that if SCO's copyrighted, contractually protected source code was in the Linux kernel, and that source code was available for examination by anyone in the world with a computer, SCO should not have been distributing that source code themselves. "It's really hard to know" usually does not cut it in a US court.
US courts are not likely to find "I didn't know (the gun was loaded | the car had drugs in it | I was distributing my own source code without knowing it)" persuasive.
We will know nothing more until the evidence comes out. Finally, any argument I have made above presumes evidence which does not as yet exist, as far as the court is concerned. I would not be surprised if SCO files a motion to keep the discovery process and evidence hidden from the public.
I don't want MS to be taken apart. Just that other companies need to have equal access to the underlying OS and protocols so that they can make products that compete.
That was the purpose of Judge Jackson's ruling which would have split the company into separate OS and applications companies. MS application developers would not get any more info than other companies. It seems paradoxical to interfere with the free market in order to keep it free, but that's only because economics is human, not natural law.
I think that a website with an indexed bunch of Real or Quicktime files is exactly the same thing as a "time-shifted video on demand" system. If that is the case then a lot of Universities have prior art.
This idea seems so incredibly obvious that I cannot understand how a patent was granted.
OK, the claim is now that the code in question is not in the kernel, so cut out the word "kernel" and insert "system libraries" (just a hunch, I have no idea what code they're talking about at SCO; there is a very confusing article on mozillaquest.com which tries to figure out what the code in question could be).
But my original point of the insanity of accusing "the linux community" of trying to clean GPL code that's been out there for years is still valid.
"The Linux community would have me publish it now, (so they can have it) laundered by the time we can get to a court hearing. That's not the way we're going to go."
Now, admitting that anything is possible, I must ask, is McBride insane? Here is how to "clean" the code out of the Linux kernel:
Step 1: Log into kernel.org.
Step 2: Remove or patch the offending code in every version of the kernel ever posted to that site.
Step 3: Run complete tests on every patched kernel to make sure it builds and runs on all supported architectures.
Step 4: Contact RedHat, SCO (Caldera), IBM, debian.org, Suse, Slackware, and anyone who has ever distributed a Linux kernel and have them do the same.
Step 5: Contact every Linux user in the world and have them patch their kernels.
Laundering, indeed. I predict that this evidence will turn out to be shit.
Whoa! Most of the respondents here have made seriously fucked-up assumptions about my opinions based on my post. Rather than reply to each one, I will post a reply to myself.
For my own opinions, Trepidity (597) asked all the questions I would, and answered them the same way I would; this money is used to fund the general project any way the project leaders choose, not to implement DARPA-requested features. Nowhere did I say that Theo's acceptance of the funding was hypocritical, or somehow not in line with freedom.
But, if you would go back and actually read my message, I said that one should always question the source of a gift. For one example, if OpenBSD accepted $2million from the Mafia, that would be different from accepting a DARPA grant.
So, presuming that some sort of ethics and conscience enter into the transaction, if you accept funding, you have a responsibility to ask and answer the questions "where did this gift come from? What does the giver want in return? What do I think about that?" Money on its own is not political, but the giver and receiver often are.
While Theo accepts the indirect DARPA grant to continue working on his project his way, he might not accept the same amount of money to specifically help Saudi Arabia wall off the Internet to its citizens. But, he would say that Saudi Arabia could use his software to do it themselves. In all cases, he has asked himself the proper questions and answered honestly based on his own sense of ethics and morals.
Mr. DeRaadt thinks software should be secure, and that people should be free. He is now being funded in part by DARPA, which is also designing the Total Information Awareness project. Its main platform will probably be OpenBSD. A lot of free software is used for purposes that the original authors might not like.
So why not question the source of a gift? That shows intelligence, thoughtfulness, and awareness of the effects of one's actions on the wider world.
I agree that we should be happy for the promotion and improvement of free software, but it is smart of anyone, no matter his or her politics, to keep an eye on the big picture to make sure that one does not explicitly take money to promote an agenda that is abhorrent to his or her morals.
I can only speak to multimedia content generation. I have never measured the speed of my PowerMac dual 1GHz with Final Cut Pro against a 3GHz Pentium running Premiere, but I do know that after 3 years of using Adobe's products with third-party hardware and drivers on Windows, I gave up and got a Mac with Apple software.
I bought 4 boxes: PowerMac, Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro, and a 6-to-4 pin firewire cable for camera. I have never purchased another accessory, peripheral, or software package, and the system is so well designed and executed that I can start an editing session in the morning and mail a 1 hour tape or DVD to a client by 5.
With the Powerbook, I can shoot video and edit it on the plane home. If it's a long plane ride, I'll have the DVD burned before we land, while the guy in the seat next to me fights with his Vaio or Dell (I've been on many flights where some poor bastard gets no work done because Windows eats itself; it's happened to me too).
My experiences over the past 5 years convince me that the Megahertz mongers have got the issues backwards. If you can first show me any combination of PC and laptop hardware on the Intel platform that can do everything I describe above for the exact same price, I will look at the speed of filter application or transition rendering.
My point is that if Apple makes faster machines their superior systems will be better than they are now. If speed is the only improvement a PC with Windows and Adobe products offers, that system is still inferior to the Mac.
I think that the "rules" are weird anyway and won't work for the Apple stores. Apple sells abot 15 products, and all of them are unique in the product line. I think what they were after was a sort of vertical integration. Make the best looking computers. Make sure the graphics shine (hence the uncomfortable term "lickable" used to describe the interface). Then, make sure the products look as good in the store as they do in the ads.
Most importantly: CompUSA and Microcenter are terrifying, chaotic messes that don't really have what you want in all the clutter, so I think the Apple stores were designed to be the exact opposite of that.
The minimalist approach freaked me a little when I first went in, but then I realized that they were saying: you don't need to buy a sounds card, some software, an MP3 player, a cable. Just buy a Mac and an Ipod and you have everything you need. Also, from working in grocery stores for many years, it is obvious to me that this designer is using rules from that field (even if he does not think so). How could an Ipod be an impulse buy? You may get convinced to buy one, but I don't think it can be equated with a candy bar.
I will continue to use Virtual PC 6 on my Mac for now (I use Windows 2000 to control my windows domain controllers and Linux for software development and testing), but I understand the fears created by this purchase and will be testing replacement software where available.
MS has proven time and time again that they will do anything they can get away with to squash competing platforms.
Unfortunately in the US, "what they can get away with" seems no longer related to what is legal.
If you're going to make this assertion, you should say exactly what is "so much more" about this patent. I read Interwoven's press release. They say that the patent contains 13 claims.
I read all 13 claims of the patent (go to the Patent and trademark office and do a "Quick Search" for patent #6505212, and saw an exact description of all the features CVS and Clear Case users have enjoyed for years. Six years ago I built a system using PVCS to manage source code and a 7 platform build system, and three years ago I adapted it to CVS for management of a website managed by 45 writers and programmers. It included a staging area, individual or team work areas, and the ability to search versions by content.
Following the 13 claims are the details of the patent; there is nothing there that cannot be done with CVS and some perl or python scripts. The "virtualization module" is similar to perl I wrote to run the site. The user typed in the URL with the CVS label and they would get the site in their browser as it appeared when labeled. Clear Case did the same thing with a file system view.
Nothing personal against Interwoven; if their product works it's worth the money, but it does not deserve a patent.
Since one thing holding us up is backwards compatibility, why bother building it into the CPU at all? Partner with VMware; pay them to build a 64-bit version of the VM that will act like a 32-bit PIII or IV so people can run their apps until they're rewritten properly (or forever, if they're never rewritten). I guess first you need the 64-bit Windows to make it attractive to the corporate customer.
With investment from Intel and Microsoft, they could release a cheap VM workstation optimized to run Windows only. They could even detect a 32-bit app starting up and shove it off to the VM, where it sounds like it might run faster. Well, easy for me to say, I guess. Make it so!
Also, MS is buying Connectix, but their VMs are below VMware's quality, and it seems they bought it mainly for the server product. But this strategy could still work for them; build the 64-bit Windows workstation with a built in 32-bit VM.
I believe the claim ("more blanks were sold than pre-recorded discs"); I just don't buy their inference. The RIAA argues that the sales figures for blanks proves beyond any doubt that there is widespread unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material, and that this is the main (or even sole) reason for a decline in sales of their members' products.
Where is anyone suggesting that the murderer is not responsible, or less responsible, just because he got help committing his crime?
The court ruled that the information broker is responsible for their actions: they spied on this woman, sold her info to someone (but did not bother to find out who the buyer was or what he intended to do with the info), then cashed their check.
Your inference is incorrect; the court did not rule that responsibility shared is responsibility diminished. If three people are convicted in the same murder, they can all get the same sentence; I don't think the court would impose one sentence divided by 3.
The point is that you can tell the phone company to leave you out of the book. It does cost you, but the issue here is that you have the choice; you have some control over use of your personal information.
Notice that the decision states that people who sell information have responsibilities to the person to whom that information pertains. Particularly in this case, if someone obtains your information through fraudulent means, they can be sued under the MA and NH consumer protection laws. In this case, the plaintiff alleges that someone representing Docusearch called the murder victim and got her work address by lying about who they were and why they wanted it.
SF provides one of the most valuable services in the US; they preserve recordings of US and international music that would never be released by a major label. After reading this article I counted the records and CDs I own that are released by SF; surprisingly (because I am not what I would call a folk-music fan), it's 1/8 of my 2000 title collection.
I imagine that every so often they see sales jump due to a fad (like when the soundtrack to "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?" spurred a new interest in traditional Southern country music), so I am glad to see them adopt a just-in-time manufaturing method to deal with the ups and downs of their markets. I am not sure if this is their official mandate or not, but their goal is to see that all titles are always available.
One problem I forsee, what is the shelf life of the dyes used in CD-Rs? I think that the gold ones are projected to last 100 years before they break down. Am I right, or did I remember it wrong?
On another point, I do not believe the RIAA's argument that "more blank than prerecorded CDs were sold last year." At my job, we go through 100 CDs a week archiving data, and at another job we went through 3000 per quarter releasing software updates for our customers. I have also worked for a large university which licenses software from the big companies; the internal distributions are done via CD-R (thousands of employees).
As usual, the RIAA presents a number without any proof of what it means. This is like their whole "falling sales" argument; labels' sales fell less than the number of new titles they didn't release during the same years. But then again, the RIAA represents what must be the single largest population of cocaine, crack, and heroin users in the world (and I am not talking about musicians), so cogent argument is not what I'd expect from them.
I think that the user is more likely to ask: Why did the file format change? To get to the main point of the story, why should the user have to remember an extra step, or learn how to change the default behavior of Word6, just because the vendor decided to make the file format incompatible? What was wrong with the old format?
A more savvy user will say, why can't you read (or write) something like the Apple interface design guidelines? If you disagree with it, it is at least an attempt to address user experience and logical navigation through an application.
All the ranting about users will not provide a satisfactory argument or explanation for, what appears to a user, to be capricious and arbitrary changes to a working system. I mean, a car is a complicated device, but nearly everyone can drive one. I recently traveled to Europe, and figured out how to drive a "reverse" car with a stick shift in 2 minutes, because both it and the roads followed some logical standards.
As a sysadmin, documentation writer, and applications developer, I stand by the lesson I've learned over the past 10 years: if you design a system, and a lot of people have problems with it, you have done something wrong, not the users. If your final word is to call them idiots, you may not be cut out for the profession.
Slashdot Mirror
First of all, show me any computer hardware, cell phone, consumer electronics, or cable TV equipment, made in the US.
Secondly, could retailers and manufacturers who sell things that have never been tested and don't work as advertised bear any of the responsibility here?
As for your assertion that paying a logical price to get something good means fewer and better tech support calls, I fully agree, which is why I use a Mac and Apple software almost exclusively.
Thompson said customers need to have realistic expectations. He urged buyers to ask themselves two questions before plunking down cash for software: "What is it that I want this software to do?" and "Am I going to use this software as it's been marketed?"
I thought that bugs, marketing lies, crappy documentation, and clueless tech support were realistic expectations for most commercial software.
You are correct. I did mean to say that what is relevant to you and me is not always what is relevant to the court.
I got mixed up and was also replying to other replies to you which started down the 'intellectual property' argument. I apologize for the mistake.
I think that what you are failing to see is how this argument is legally relevant. This suit is about a contract, not copyright or patents. SCO uses the term "intellectual property," but this term is not a legal term, US law has no concept of it. US law only understands contracts (like NDA's), copyrights, and patents.
SCO's court filings, which must conform to US law, only say that IBM violated their contract. Now, if court decides that a contract was violated for many years and out in the open, they may rule that it is now too late to enforce that contract.
The other legal argument (not the argument that may make sense to you and me on first reading, but the argument that actually cites law and legal precedent) is that if SCO's copyrighted, contractually protected source code was in the Linux kernel, and that source code was available for examination by anyone in the world with a computer, SCO should not have been distributing that source code themselves. "It's really hard to know" usually does not cut it in a US court.
US courts are not likely to find "I didn't know (the gun was loaded | the car had drugs in it | I was distributing my own source code without knowing it)" persuasive.
We will know nothing more until the evidence comes out. Finally, any argument I have made above presumes evidence which does not as yet exist, as far as the court is concerned. I would not be surprised if SCO files a motion to keep the discovery process and evidence hidden from the public.
I don't want MS to be taken apart. Just that other companies need to have equal access to the underlying OS and protocols so that they can make products that compete.
That was the purpose of Judge Jackson's ruling which would have split the company into separate OS and applications companies. MS application developers would not get any more info than other companies. It seems paradoxical to interfere with the free market in order to keep it free, but that's only because economics is human, not natural law.
I think that a website with an indexed bunch of Real or Quicktime files is exactly the same thing as a "time-shifted video on demand" system. If that is the case then a lot of Universities have prior art.
This idea seems so incredibly obvious that I cannot understand how a patent was granted.
I thought that was the reason Perl, Python, and sockets programming are so popular.
This is a non-starter for me; I've never been hampered by interop problems with open source software.
Authors of open source start out to solve their problems, not mine. I can solve my own problems with readily available tools.
The point is not to suggest how to do it, only that it cannot be done, and that this scenario as a reason for not presenting evidence is asinine.
Nope, I was wrong. Right there at the top of the article McBride says "kernel." OK, I have to get home and launder my workstation. See ya.
OK, the claim is now that the code in question is not in the kernel, so cut out the word "kernel" and insert "system libraries" (just a hunch, I have no idea what code they're talking about at SCO; there is a very confusing article on mozillaquest.com which tries to figure out what the code in question could be).
But my original point of the insanity of accusing "the linux community" of trying to clean GPL code that's been out there for years is still valid.
"The Linux community would have me publish it now, (so they can have it) laundered by the time we can get to a court hearing. That's not the way we're going to go."
Now, admitting that anything is possible, I must ask, is McBride insane? Here is how to "clean" the code out of the Linux kernel:
Step 1: Log into kernel.org.
Step 2: Remove or patch the offending code in every version of the kernel ever posted to that site.
Step 3: Run complete tests on every patched kernel to make sure it builds and runs on all supported architectures.
Step 4: Contact RedHat, SCO (Caldera), IBM, debian.org, Suse, Slackware, and anyone who has ever distributed a Linux kernel and have them do the same.
Step 5: Contact every Linux user in the world and have them patch their kernels.
Laundering, indeed. I predict that this evidence will turn out to be shit.
Whoa! Most of the respondents here have made seriously fucked-up assumptions about my opinions based on my post. Rather than reply to each one, I will post a reply to myself.
For my own opinions, Trepidity (597) asked all the questions I would, and answered them the same way I would; this money is used to fund the general project any way the project leaders choose, not to implement DARPA-requested features. Nowhere did I say that Theo's acceptance of the funding was hypocritical, or somehow not in line with freedom.
But, if you would go back and actually read my message, I said that one should always question the source of a gift. For one example, if OpenBSD accepted $2million from the Mafia, that would be different from accepting a DARPA grant.
So, presuming that some sort of ethics and conscience enter into the transaction, if you accept funding, you have a responsibility to ask and answer the questions "where did this gift come from? What does the giver want in return? What do I think about that?" Money on its own is not political, but the giver and receiver often are.
While Theo accepts the indirect DARPA grant to continue working on his project his way, he might not accept the same amount of money to specifically help Saudi Arabia wall off the Internet to its citizens. But, he would say that Saudi Arabia could use his software to do it themselves. In all cases, he has asked himself the proper questions and answered honestly based on his own sense of ethics and morals.
Mr. DeRaadt thinks software should be secure, and that people should be free. He is now being funded in part by DARPA, which is also designing the Total Information Awareness project. Its main platform will probably be OpenBSD. A lot of free software is used for purposes that the original authors might not like.
So why not question the source of a gift? That shows intelligence, thoughtfulness, and awareness of the effects of one's actions on the wider world.
I agree that we should be happy for the promotion and improvement of free software, but it is smart of anyone, no matter his or her politics, to keep an eye on the big picture to make sure that one does not explicitly take money to promote an agenda that is abhorrent to his or her morals.
I can only speak to multimedia content generation. I have never measured the speed of my PowerMac dual 1GHz with Final Cut Pro against a 3GHz Pentium running Premiere, but I do know that after 3 years of using Adobe's products with third-party hardware and drivers on Windows, I gave up and got a Mac with Apple software.
I bought 4 boxes: PowerMac, Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro, and a 6-to-4 pin firewire cable for camera. I have never purchased another accessory, peripheral, or software package, and the system is so well designed and executed that I can start an editing session in the morning and mail a 1 hour tape or DVD to a client by 5.
With the Powerbook, I can shoot video and edit it on the plane home. If it's a long plane ride, I'll have the DVD burned before we land, while the guy in the seat next to me fights with his Vaio or Dell (I've been on many flights where some poor bastard gets no work done because Windows eats itself; it's happened to me too).
My experiences over the past 5 years convince me that the Megahertz mongers have got the issues backwards. If you can first show me any combination of PC and laptop hardware on the Intel platform that can do everything I describe above for the exact same price, I will look at the speed of filter application or transition rendering.
My point is that if Apple makes faster machines their superior systems will be better than they are now. If speed is the only improvement a PC with Windows and Adobe products offers, that system is still inferior to the Mac.
I think that the "rules" are weird anyway and won't work for the Apple stores. Apple sells abot 15 products, and all of them are unique in the product line. I think what they were after was a sort of vertical integration. Make the best looking computers. Make sure the graphics shine (hence the uncomfortable term "lickable" used to describe the interface). Then, make sure the products look as good in the store as they do in the ads.
Most importantly: CompUSA and Microcenter are terrifying, chaotic messes that don't really have what you want in all the clutter, so I think the Apple stores were designed to be the exact opposite of that.
The minimalist approach freaked me a little when I first went in, but then I realized that they were saying: you don't need to buy a sounds card, some software, an MP3 player, a cable. Just buy a Mac and an Ipod and you have everything you need.
Also, from working in grocery stores for many years, it is obvious to me that this designer is using rules from that field (even if he does not think so). How could an Ipod be an impulse buy? You may get convinced to buy one, but I don't think it can be equated with a candy bar.
I agree, but in 95 Linux was barely usable too.
I will continue to use Virtual PC 6 on my Mac for now (I use Windows 2000 to control my windows domain controllers and Linux for software development and testing), but I understand the fears created by this purchase and will be testing replacement software where available.
MS has proven time and time again that they will do anything they can get away with to squash competing platforms.
Unfortunately in the US, "what they can get away with" seems no longer related to what is legal.
If you're going to make this assertion, you should say exactly what is "so much more" about this patent. I read Interwoven's press release. They say that the patent contains 13 claims.
I read all 13 claims of the patent (go to the Patent and trademark office and do a "Quick Search" for patent #6505212, and saw an exact description of all the features CVS and Clear Case users have enjoyed for years. Six years ago I built a system using PVCS to manage source code and a 7 platform build system, and three years ago I adapted it to CVS for management of a website managed by 45 writers and programmers. It included a staging area, individual or team work areas, and the ability to search versions by content.
Following the 13 claims are the details of the patent; there is nothing there that cannot be done with CVS and some perl or python scripts. The "virtualization module" is similar to perl I wrote to run the site. The user typed in the URL with the CVS label and they would get the site in their browser as it appeared when labeled. Clear Case did the same thing with a file system view.
Nothing personal against Interwoven; if their product works it's worth the money, but it does not deserve a patent.
Yeah, that's why I said that it would pay to develop such support in software.
Since one thing holding us up is backwards compatibility, why bother building it into the CPU at all? Partner with VMware; pay them to build a 64-bit version of the VM that will act like a 32-bit PIII or IV so people can run their apps until they're rewritten properly (or forever, if they're never rewritten). I guess first you need the 64-bit Windows to make it attractive to the corporate customer.
With investment from Intel and Microsoft, they could release a cheap VM workstation optimized to run Windows only. They could even detect a 32-bit app starting up and shove it off to the VM, where it sounds like it might run faster. Well, easy for me to say, I guess. Make it so!
Also, MS is buying Connectix, but their VMs are below VMware's quality, and it seems they bought it mainly for the server product. But this strategy could still work for them; build the 64-bit Windows workstation with a built in 32-bit VM.
I believe the claim ("more blanks were sold than pre-recorded discs"); I just don't buy their inference. The RIAA argues that the sales figures for blanks proves beyond any doubt that there is widespread unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material, and that this is the main (or even sole) reason for a decline in sales of their members' products.
Where is anyone suggesting that the murderer is not responsible, or less responsible, just because he got help committing his crime?
The court ruled that the information broker is responsible for their actions: they spied on this woman, sold her info to someone (but did not bother to find out who the buyer was or what he intended to do with the info), then cashed their check.
Your inference is incorrect; the court did not rule that responsibility shared is responsibility diminished. If three people are convicted in the same murder, they can all get the same sentence; I don't think the court would impose one sentence divided by 3.
The point is that you can tell the phone company to leave you out of the book. It does cost you, but the issue here is that you have the choice; you have some control over use of your personal information.
Notice that the decision states that people who sell information have responsibilities to the person to whom that information pertains. Particularly in this case, if someone obtains your information through fraudulent means, they can be sued under the MA and NH consumer protection laws. In this case, the plaintiff alleges that someone representing Docusearch called the murder victim and got her work address by lying about who they were and why they wanted it.
SF provides one of the most valuable services in the US; they preserve recordings of US and international music that would never be released by a major label. After reading this article I counted the records and CDs I own that are released by SF; surprisingly (because I am not what I would call a folk-music fan), it's 1/8 of my 2000 title collection.
I imagine that every so often they see sales jump due to a fad (like when the soundtrack to "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?" spurred a new interest in traditional Southern country music), so I am glad to see them adopt a just-in-time manufaturing method to deal with the ups and downs of their markets. I am not sure if this is their official mandate or not, but their goal is to see that all titles are always available.
One problem I forsee, what is the shelf life of the dyes used in CD-Rs? I think that the gold ones are projected to last 100 years before they break down. Am I right, or did I remember it wrong?
On another point, I do not believe the RIAA's argument that "more blank than prerecorded CDs were sold last year." At my job, we go through 100 CDs a week archiving data, and at another job we went through 3000 per quarter releasing software updates for our customers. I have also worked for a large university which licenses software from the big companies; the internal distributions are done via CD-R (thousands of employees).
As usual, the RIAA presents a number without any proof of what it means. This is like their whole "falling sales" argument; labels' sales fell less than the number of new titles they didn't release during the same years. But then again, the RIAA represents what must be the single largest population of cocaine, crack, and heroin users in the world (and I am not talking about musicians), so cogent argument is not what I'd expect from them.
I think that the user is more likely to ask: Why did the file format change? To get to the main point of the story, why should the user have to remember an extra step, or learn how to change the default behavior of Word6, just because the vendor decided to make the file format incompatible? What was wrong with the old format?
A more savvy user will say, why can't you read (or write) something like the Apple interface design guidelines? If you disagree with it, it is at least an attempt to address user experience and logical navigation through an application.
All the ranting about users will not provide a satisfactory argument or explanation for, what appears to a user, to be capricious and arbitrary changes to a working system. I mean, a car is a complicated device, but nearly everyone can drive one. I recently traveled to Europe, and figured out how to drive a "reverse" car with a stick shift in 2 minutes, because both it and the roads followed some logical standards.
As a sysadmin, documentation writer, and applications developer, I stand by the lesson I've learned over the past 10 years: if you design a system, and a lot of people have problems with it, you have done something wrong, not the users. If your final word is to call them idiots, you may not be cut out for the profession.
I think that the fact that Berman is "confused" about the movie's failure while being "convinced" that it is a good movie might explain the problem.