Yes there is - a level playing field. I don't think anyone will gain anything from access to Microsoft source code. I'm not interested in it. The only thing that is needed is to enforce Microsoft's adherence to published standards. If MS are using a protocol or format that is not a published standard, then it must be published and formalised. APIs, document formats, the lot. They are welcome to keep their IP to themselves in the form of their particular implementation of these APIS and formats in the proprietary product known as "Windows", but they must not be allowed to control both the operating system AND the protocols at the same time. I think the nine states are really barking up the wrong tree. If the formats and protocols were open and fixed the market would naturally develop competitors to Windows over time; and surely that's the ultimate goal of the punishment phase of the trial? Windows would then stand or fall by its own merits.
...."accidentally" letting free-to-air smut broadcast, but only on digital.....that will instantly sell a few million more sets. Humankind is nothing if not predictable.
The proponents of this scheme seem to be guilty (yet again) of the London-And-South-East-Is Representative-Of-The-UK viewpoint. The vast majority of the UK has absolutely no problem with serious congestion on the roads at all, sure the roads get *busier* at peak times but mostly it adds a few minutes to your journey. Extrapolating problem areas like London (and perhaps ten other cities and black spots) into a nationwide congestion problem when probably 90% of the population outside of London never sees London-style congestion at all is a bit silly. Then using that extrapolation to justify a nationwide GPS based road tax system is laughable. Perhaps if the UK was not such a London-centric economy then the congestion around London would ease; lets try encouraging business to move out elsewhere in the country; this would move traffic elsewhere, but would mean, overall, more manageable levels everywhere.
Any investigating authority worth their salt would keep a copy of the original encrypted data before asking you for your key anyway so I doubt this would help much..."OK, Joe, let's try again with the REAL key this time shall we..or should we assume you are withholding it?".
The biggest problem I can infer from reading the DOJ's press releases is that while MS will have to share protocol and interface information (what about file formats? These are more important to competitors in many cases than protocols) there may not be any restriction on MS supplying these details one month and then modifying them the next, coupled with automatic forced software update in XP to match....once again competing developers may end up in a not very cost-effective game of catch-up. Need to see the details....could be very disappointing.
While improved graphics are always welcome never lose sight of the gameplay; I would trade all the 3d-polygon-shifting gazillions in the world for the basic addictive gameplay of a tetris or even a space invaders. This is why I think Nintendo will win in the long run, their games always seem to have matured for a long time in the design stage before a single pixel is coloured. Often I get the feeling with PS2 games that the rush to be first to market ends up with some games being rather two dimensional (in a playability sense!).
I suspect I'm not going to like add-ins written with C# and.NET also; could MS please make that an optional download too so we can all choose if we like to see it or not?
It worries me that attempts to pin down the nature of Open Source development will be of more use to its opponents than its supporters; before something can be attacked you have to define what it is. Does this type of survey not lay the open source community open to cherry-picking of statistics, "xx% of Open Developers have no qualification, it must be rubbish", that sort of thing.
The battleground is not, I think, the operating system, but the protocol standards in the web browser. Microsoft would prefer us to focus on the operating system "wars" because that's a short term battle which can be won or lost, no difference; I suspect new apps will make more and more use of browser based technology over the coming years. He who owns the browser will own the world. Holding the line on open standards in the browser is the key issue in maintaining reasonable competition.
From a business perspective I would say PCs are the WORST thing to ever happen the the computer infrastructure. Back in the "bad old days" before terminals we had punched card interfaces; a complete nightmare. We then entered a nirvana like state for ten years or so where "dumb terminals" were the order of the day connected to remote servers; very little in the way of administration problems, all software installs under easy and obvious central control, net result: stability and satisfied users. Along comes the PC and within five years we have a complete organisational nightmare on our hands, no standardisation, users installing all sorts of crap and then blaming central support when it doesn't work, you know the score. And the benefits twenty years on? Our users spend two hours fussing over the font they should be using in Word documents, underlining bits, fannying around with nineteen million formatting features, attending training courses to learn fifteen million more, and all for internal memos which before would have been scribbled on a piece of paper in five minutes. Where exactly is the improvement here? Nurse! The flannel please!
Since Apache runs the majority of web servers in the world can't we just suggest a new Apache config parameter...
Insert_global_IE_metatag_disabler=yes
to be set by default so every page served switches the IE metatag feature off unless the page explicitly requests it left on? That should level the playing field a bit......
Slashdot Mirror
Yes there is - a level playing field. I don't think anyone will gain anything from access to Microsoft source code. I'm not interested in it. The only thing that is needed is to enforce Microsoft's adherence to published standards. If MS are using a protocol or format that is not a published standard, then it must be published and formalised. APIs, document formats, the lot. They are welcome to keep their IP to themselves in the form of their particular implementation of these APIS and formats in the proprietary product known as "Windows", but they must not be allowed to control both the operating system AND the protocols at the same time. I think the nine states are really barking up the wrong tree. If the formats and protocols were open and fixed the market would naturally develop competitors to Windows over time; and surely that's the ultimate goal of the punishment phase of the trial? Windows would then stand or fall by its own merits.
...."accidentally" letting free-to-air smut broadcast, but only on digital.....that will instantly sell a few million more sets. Humankind is nothing if not predictable.
The proponents of this scheme seem to be guilty (yet again) of the London-And-South-East-Is Representative-Of-The-UK viewpoint. The vast majority of the UK has absolutely no problem with serious congestion on the roads at all, sure the roads get *busier* at peak times but mostly it adds a few minutes to your journey. Extrapolating problem areas like London (and perhaps ten other cities and black spots) into a nationwide congestion problem when probably 90% of the population outside of London never sees London-style congestion at all is a bit silly. Then using that extrapolation to justify a nationwide GPS based road tax system is laughable. Perhaps if the UK was not such a London-centric economy then the congestion around London would ease; lets try encouraging business to move out elsewhere in the country; this would move traffic elsewhere, but would mean, overall, more manageable levels everywhere.
Any investigating authority worth their salt would keep a copy of the original encrypted data before asking you for your key anyway so I doubt this would help much..."OK, Joe, let's try again with the REAL key this time shall we..or should we assume you are withholding it?".
The biggest problem I can infer from reading the DOJ's press releases is that while MS will have to share protocol and interface information (what about file formats? These are more important to competitors in many cases than protocols) there may not be any restriction on MS supplying these details one month and then modifying them the next, coupled with automatic forced software update in XP to match....once again competing developers may end up in a not very cost-effective game of catch-up. Need to see the details....could be very disappointing.
While improved graphics are always welcome never lose sight of the gameplay; I would trade all the 3d-polygon-shifting gazillions in the world for the basic addictive gameplay of a tetris or even a space invaders. This is why I think Nintendo will win in the long run, their games always seem to have matured for a long time in the design stage before a single pixel is coloured. Often I get the feeling with PS2 games that the rush to be first to market ends up with some games being rather two dimensional (in a playability sense!).
I suspect I'm not going to like add-ins written with C# and .NET also; could MS please make that an optional download too so we can all choose if we like to see it or not?
It worries me that attempts to pin down the nature of Open Source development will be of more use to its opponents than its supporters; before something can be attacked you have to define what it is. Does this type of survey not lay the open source community open to cherry-picking of statistics, "xx% of Open Developers have no qualification, it must be rubbish", that sort of thing.
The battleground is not, I think, the operating system, but the protocol standards in the web browser. Microsoft would prefer us to focus on the operating system "wars" because that's a short term battle which can be won or lost, no difference; I suspect new apps will make more and more use of browser based technology over the coming years. He who owns the browser will own the world. Holding the line on open standards in the browser is the key issue in maintaining reasonable competition.
Anyone have the Quake III benchmark for this new box? :-)
From a business perspective I would say PCs are the WORST thing to ever happen the the computer infrastructure. Back in the "bad old days" before terminals we had punched card interfaces; a complete nightmare. We then entered a nirvana like state for ten years or so where "dumb terminals" were the order of the day connected to remote servers; very little in the way of administration problems, all software installs under easy and obvious central control, net result: stability and satisfied users. Along comes the PC and within five years we have a complete organisational nightmare on our hands, no standardisation, users installing all sorts of crap and then blaming central support when it doesn't work, you know the score. And the benefits twenty years on? Our users spend two hours fussing over the font they should be using in Word documents, underlining bits, fannying around with nineteen million formatting features, attending training courses to learn fifteen million more, and all for internal memos which before would have been scribbled on a piece of paper in five minutes. Where exactly is the improvement here? Nurse! The flannel please!
Since Apache runs the majority of web servers in the world can't we just suggest a new Apache config parameter... Insert_global_IE_metatag_disabler=yes to be set by default so every page served switches the IE metatag feature off unless the page explicitly requests it left on? That should level the playing field a bit......