bringsd truckloads of networking infrastructure to places like New Orleans when the local government doesn't have a chance of procuring it on their own that fast
That would have been charity if that infrastructure had not been set up to exclude non-MS systems. As it is, it is an investment, a way to squeeze people who are on the rocks into his technological roach motel. Even FEMA joined him to make the problem worse.
If that infrastructure had been set up to be fully interoperable with other systems, then yes it would have been philantropy / charity. As it stands, it is simply an investment to exclude competitors and potential competitors from that market (once it recovers).
1997 was one of the last years printed and other media were allowed to criticize Gates or his movement. That particular article was probably what cause him to gun for Salon by means of Slate. (see your standard Elves/Orcs analogy or similar from other geek literature)
Has he done wrong in the past? Yes. Does that mean he is incapable of doing right in the future?
No.
So what?
Does that mean he was incapable of doing right in the past? No, but he didn't.
It's more like this:
Did he do wrong in the past? Yes.
Does he do wrong in the present? Yes.
Will he do wrong in the future? Yes, based on what we have observed to date.
First off it's not real charity.
Much of it is simply
targeted to block F/OSS. Even the actual charity parts deal with dumping millions on ineffective, corrective treatments involving expensive medications and getting some level of matching funding from the local governments. And those expensive medications come from big pharmas which, surprise, Gates is heavily invested in.
There is also a strong element of PR in the Foundation: since 1995 MS has had various plans on how to direct corporate giving in ways that guarantee the greatest returns to the company. We've also been seeing loads and loads of vanity puff-pieces appearing across a wide variety of news publications. The NYT even publishes ones written by (or ghost written for) Chairman Gates himself.
The point here is that in this case it appears that charity is simply being used as tool to affect the market in ways that lobbying and plain old sales can't. It allows individual institutions or regions to be targeted quickly with a level of speed that defending governments and businesses have trouble reacting to.
It's seems that with this infusion of funding from Buffet, MS, through the Gates Foundation, crosses the line from being a lobbying entity to being fully a political/ideological movement.
Well it's self-evident to most governments that aren't receiving a substantial amount of tax revenue from a particular company marketing the software...
Well, that would be most of them seeing as
MS basically pays no tax. Even so, that company must be running on fumes by now since even MSFT shares have been tanking in stages and its stock used to provide more income that its cash cow Windows.
But compare that to CSI. Based on seeing only a few episodes, CSI has no forshadowing that I can detect nor use of clues. The story seems to play out by arresting random people loosely connected with the case, detaining them, treating them in a rude and demeaning manner and hammering them with insults and accusations. The one being detained when the show is over is the one who stays arrested.
I can't even remember the names of the crap shows I checked out last year. I do however recall that due process was portrayed as an obstacle. Around the time the Bush junta was working to try to eliminate attornet/client privilege (a necessary corner stone, but I won't go into it here) these shows helped along by also putting in little subplots in which attorney/client privilege was also painted as an obstacle. Often it was in the context of some emotionally pulling scenario where breaking that rule was the only way to prevent some minor tragedy.
I would not be surprised if people who watch regularly that kind of crap get warped views about rights and privileges.
Though MS Outlook is marketed as a mail client, it has too many hooks into the desktop operating system and into MS Exchange for it to be mapped as only going head to head with Thunderbird. MS Outlook has people locked out of most IMAP servers due to the ties into MS Exchange. It also has many people and business locked out of non-MS operating systems.
The truth is nobody cares what GoDaddy uses to park domains. Maybe it's a technical test of IIS in some fashion, but is it really worth it for Microsoft to convert sites that aren't doing anything? Windows/IIS will never compete in the $20/month free PHP package market, so it's not really worth bothering about.
That's the truth. The point there is that not all websites are of equal weight when determining control of the market. Popularity is one factor and necessity is another. No one really cares or needs to care what GoDaddy is using to park its domains.
Some sites are both frequently used by large numbers of people and essential to them.
For example, Google is popular, but it is posisble to use other search engines.
For example, your local bank, may not be popular in absolute numbers, but for some folk it is certainly important.
It would be control of sites which are both high traffic and necessary, though maybe relatively small in absolute numbers, which could give control of the market. Once control of the market is gained, it can be maintained (illegally) or further increased (illegally) by leveraging it to de-commoditize formats and/or protocols. In other words, forcing clients to use proprietary technology instead of commodity (aka open) technology to use the services on those servers.
So with a 20% global marketshare, effect on the market would be negligable if most of that 20% consists of domain parking. Conversely, if most of that 20% becomes government or healthcare, then the effect is quite profound.
No one cares about domain parking, but that by itself is no reason to ignore the server side.
MS has abused its control of client side many times in the last 10 years alone, if one is to go by all the court judgements against MS. Though none of the judgements have yet resulted in any actual meaniingful action, let alone in a timely action. However, because it has been and is still being abused in an ongoing fashion it is being watched more closely. And perhaps therefore a move on the servers might get farther before it is noticed.
Sure, until your PHB strolls in and declares that "we're switching to Microsoft!". Remember, Microsoft doesn't have to buy^H^H^Hconvince you, they just have to convince the guy who holds the purse strings.
That's one common vector for spreading IIS. And aparently what happened with the domain parking services.
You get closer to real numbers if you look at stats for active sites instead. IIS' recent upswing in marketshare was due to MS paying some of the domain parking services to use IIS instead of something practical, but they don't have to pay all the sites to switch just key ones that force users to use MS-only clients or DRM.
To get more of the market, it would not be necessary to pay such large percentage of the industry to downgrade to IIS. Looking at Sweden's current situation as an example (or more correctly, a warning), MS can worm IIS into enough library, radio/TV and government sites that it is able to start pushing MS-only extensions, formats and DRM, even before it reaches critical mass.
After critical mass is reached, it could then begin to required MS-only extensions, formats and DRM. The DRM, for example, could even be used to ensure that only MS Windows platforms have access, or even specific versions of MS Windows. Then at some point the switch can be flipped and non-MS or even non-Windows users can be locked out.
I'd strongly consider the LaTex+version control options. That's a rather tried and true approach and does give you more control over typesetting and layout than you'd get otherwise.
I've wondered about using an XML-based format like DocBook or OpenDocument instead. To use OpenDocument, you'd have to have the check in process unzip the document into its components, and the check out process would have to zip the separate pieces into a single unit. But aside from check-in/check-out it would give non-technical users some more familiar software to use.
They have two products listed: a keyboard (#54) and the Xbox 360 (#89).
Inclusion of #89 strikes me as completely bizarre.
Other consoles have had more of an impact as far as leaps in graphic quality or choice of games. Other consoles have been in high demand around the world, not just in the US or the 51st State, Sweden. Other consoles despite high demand have kept up supply. Other consoles have been manufactured without self-immolating power supplies or recalls that blamed components not actually part of the fire hazard.
So its presence on the list is to me a mystery and certainly shoots down most of the credibility of the list in my eyes.
So let me get this. Journalists are not ok with Yahoo! ethics, once, in China, but are somehow just fine with how MS' behavior over decades in the whole world.?
Why the heck is this so familiar to me? Ah yea, I remember. Sun sued Microsoft for their Java support in Windows/IE.
Actually not. Sun sued MS because it was distributing something that was not Java, but they were calling Java anyway. Sun and MS had a contract giving MS full rights to distribute Java as much as it wanted. However, MS chose not to honor that contract and distributed something intentionally broken instead.
Anyway, we have not heard Adobe's side of this yet. So far everything has been 1 or 2 degrees of separation from either MS or MS fan sites.
Expect the same to happen with XPS.
That's what this very well could be about. MS could be trying to use (illegally) its desktop monopoly to crush Adobe and establish a XFS/Metro monopoly in the place of PDF. Adobe's played very well in that regard and everybody, even BSD and Linux users have benefited from PDF. Based on the last twenty years of behavior, I don't think anyone can with a straight face say they could expect the same of MS and Metro/XFS.
The Vasa is a very interesting case. First off, it's the largest restoration project. It has its own museum in Stockholm and if you see nothing else in the city, you shoud see the Vasa. There is a website, but it blows chunks so I won't link to it. See the physical ship instead. The museum has a lot of detail about the making of the ship as well as the sinking, recovery and restoration.
The ship sank some 10 to 15 minutes into it's maiden voyage. The exact location was forgotten. It was found as the result of one old fellow who spent years and years looking for it by taking core samples of the bottom of the sound every meter or so. The ship was then dug out of the mud by (now archaic-looking) dive teams, raised and then brought to dry dock where it is today.
IIRC the shipmaster died partway into the construction without a trained or skilled replacement. Unmodified, it would have not been noteworthy and maybe a little under armed. Adding the extra gun deck made the ship too tall and unstable. So to compensate, extra ballast was added, bringing the lowest gun deck about inline with the water.
Before launching, it failed the stability test of the time in which 40 men where to run in unision from one side of the ship to the other 40 times (or something like that). It was launched anyway, sliding nicely into the water, some sails were set and when it rounded the end of the island and caught it first breeze, it tipped and sank.
The sinking roughly co-incided with the end of Sweden as a feared superpower, thought it was only one factor of many.
I'd add a step in the middle there. Many businesses when to Novell first. It was by eating Novell's marketshare that NT gained any ground in the server room in the first place.
Strong-arming, give aways, bundling and various other anti-competitive measures played a large role in getting NT (and versions 2000, XP, 2003) anywhere near the server room.
Interestingly, the tide is turning again. Despite the ongoing anti-competitive activities, people realize that they've been burnt by MS, even if only as a result shelling out for software assurance. Though many have a longer more serious list of grievances and disappointments. With all other options gone, that basically leaves only 'Linux'. As a result we are now seeing that
sales of Linux servers have shown 15 consecutive quarters of growth. That's sales not general market share which would also include Linux servers installed over other operating systems.
After the screen version gets done, it's time to then hammer out CSS that prints well. Not that many are going to be printing, but those that do should at least get a decent rendering on paper.
I'm also curious about a third modality: audio.
It would be useful to have three components to the new stylesheet: one each optimized for screen, print and audio.
However, I don't see any reason why Microsoft can't just add ODF support and make it an optional format. Computers are fast these days, and it should be up to the user to decide...
I'm surprised no one has brought that up earlier. MS has been making grand claims about being able to support arbitrary, user-selected XML schemas in the upcoming versions of MS Office. OpenDocument is certainly XML, and the schema is freely available. So, if MS' claims about its XML capabilities are true, then OpenDocument support is already there. However, it may well be that these claims are in the same category as WinFS, driver quality, etc.
People with disabilites are concerned that the applications which currently support ODF do not support text readers and such to the same level that the Microsoft Office suite supports those devices. With assistive technology, they can access electronically-stored documents in MS Office proprietary format better than they can (currently) access electronically-stored documents in ODF format (without using the plug-in).
But wait; there's a flaw to that argument Microsoft doesn't want anyone to notice.
There's a second thing that MS doesn't want you to notice either: that all accessibilty tools are made by third parties in spite of MS. Documentation for MS APIs is incomplete, often inaccurate, and often missing. That's the crux of why both the EU and the DOJ have been finding MS not in compliance with court remedies handed out as punishement for breaking trade law.
The bite is that it would be much easier for the accessibility teams to develop software for MS' competitors, especially the Open Source ones. However, we see the Red Queen Principle at work here in that developing for MS is currently essential given it's market share, but so laborious and difficult to develop for that all resources are needed just to keep up, leaving little or now oppurtunity for expanding new markets.
The Linux Terminal Server Project aka LTSP would be the way to go. Based on what I've read, which is a fair amount, it's faster, cheaper, lower maintenance, more secure, more flexible, and has lower systems requirments than the corresponding MS Windows offering. If you want a real-life case study, then Portland, Oregon schools are the place to look, they're not afraid of MS sales teams any more and don't mind being public.
Though I've read up on the subject, as far as anecdotal support goes I've only seen a small number of thin client sites in recent years. However, of the thin client sites I've seen, I have to say that the ones running LTSP or a variant, have been really pleasant to use and the ones running (or more correctly trying to run) Windows-based thin clients have been poor to unusable.
A third option to consider would be to buy extra screens, mice and keyboards and go multi-headed aka "multi-seat". It'll more than do for stations where students are just using the web (to include mail) or working on papers, spreadsheets, or presentations.
Once the universities go through a few worm/virus cycles where they can't access the system (either because of server or client side problems) for a few days, they might reconsider their choice.
It would if technical merits were to come into play anywhere in the decision making process. However, MS is more an ideology or a way for top management to wear on their sleeve their beleif in Chairman Bill. What usually happens in the MS shops is that either 1) people get used to the lower level of service and accept it as normal, or 2) the Microsoft Effect kicks in and people project the difficulties they have with MS products onto all other technology. For the former, there is no demand for better service driving a move away from MS. For the latter, all effort is spent rationalizing the bad decision.
Besides, most users especially MS techs (the burger-flippers of the IT world) and the media seem to have been successfully indocrinated by MS into considering all MS-viruses, MS-worms, and MS-trojans as general e-mail- or Internet-problems. Get the media to look past that advertising income and start calling a spade a spade and you'll see some rapid movement.
Let's look at the basis for that attempt at humor shall we.
Over the years, Microsoft has acted to thwart Quicktime and has employed both punitive and exclusionary tactics. It has gone as far as introducing technical problems and misleading error messages (DR-DOS anyone?) which impair Quicktime's performance and impede Apple's ability to develop for MS platforms.
Furthermore, Microsoft has repeatedly pressured apple to give up Quicktime and cede the multimedia playback market to Microsoft.
When MS saw how much better Quicktime was that its own crap, MS tried to steal Quicktime. When that didn't work, MS then tried to block Quicktime for Windows.
MS' antics hurt the market, hurt the end users, and run up tax-funded court costs.
Well, dude, he is rather like the Internet's equivalent of Osama bin Laden. Weathly, from a well connected rich family, caused uncounted dollars of economic harm, not to mention the grief brought by his scheming to millions of people every day.
That the president of a country with over one fifth of the world's population and an enormous and rapidly growing economy is called to do PR tricks for a politician like Gates.
Or that a politician like Gates takes precident over our official representatives in D.C.
Or that the US didn't learn its lesson when the 'Big Three' where allowed to set policy in the 60's, 70's and 80's. Letting a politician like Gates meddle with US international trade and foreign policy, will likely have the same effect on US technology as the "Big Three" had on the once-great US automotive industry. Gates has already taken a thriving, diverse and economically productive market and killed it, largely through a mixture of illegal business practices. Do we want that same effect to spread to all computer-using industries in the US ?
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That would have been charity if that infrastructure had not been set up to exclude non-MS systems. As it is, it is an investment, a way to squeeze people who are on the rocks into his technological roach motel. Even FEMA joined him to make the problem worse.
If that infrastructure had been set up to be fully interoperable with other systems, then yes it would have been philantropy / charity. As it stands, it is simply an investment to exclude competitors and potential competitors from that market (once it recovers).
1997 was one of the last years printed and other media were allowed to criticize Gates or his movement. That particular article was probably what cause him to gun for Salon by means of Slate. (see your standard Elves/Orcs analogy or similar from other geek literature)
So what?
Does that mean he was incapable of doing right in the past? No, but he didn't.
It's more like this:
Did he do wrong in the past? Yes.
Does he do wrong in the present? Yes.
Will he do wrong in the future? Yes, based on what we have observed to date.
First off it's not real charity.
Much of it is simply targeted to block F/OSS. Even the actual charity parts deal with dumping millions on ineffective, corrective treatments involving expensive medications and getting some level of matching funding from the local governments. And those expensive medications come from big pharmas which, surprise, Gates is heavily invested in.
There is also a strong element of PR in the Foundation: since 1995 MS has had various plans on how to direct corporate giving in ways that guarantee the greatest returns to the company. We've also been seeing loads and loads of vanity puff-pieces appearing across a wide variety of news publications. The NYT even publishes ones written by (or ghost written for) Chairman Gates himself.
The point here is that in this case it appears that charity is simply being used as tool to affect the market in ways that lobbying and plain old sales can't. It allows individual institutions or regions to be targeted quickly with a level of speed that defending governments and businesses have trouble reacting to.
It's seems that with this infusion of funding from Buffet, MS, through the Gates Foundation, crosses the line from being a lobbying entity to being fully a political/ideological movement.
Welcome to the next level.
But compare that to CSI. Based on seeing only a few episodes, CSI has no forshadowing that I can detect nor use of clues. The story seems to play out by arresting random people loosely connected with the case, detaining them, treating them in a rude and demeaning manner and hammering them with insults and accusations. The one being detained when the show is over is the one who stays arrested.
I can't even remember the names of the crap shows I checked out last year. I do however recall that due process was portrayed as an obstacle. Around the time the Bush junta was working to try to eliminate attornet/client privilege (a necessary corner stone, but I won't go into it here) these shows helped along by also putting in little subplots in which attorney/client privilege was also painted as an obstacle. Often it was in the context of some emotionally pulling scenario where breaking that rule was the only way to prevent some minor tragedy.
I would not be surprised if people who watch regularly that kind of crap get warped views about rights and privileges.
Though MS Outlook is marketed as a mail client, it has too many hooks into the desktop operating system and into MS Exchange for it to be mapped as only going head to head with Thunderbird. MS Outlook has people locked out of most IMAP servers due to the ties into MS Exchange. It also has many people and business locked out of non-MS operating systems.
Dude, they were downsized. Check the headlines from a couple years ago.
That's the truth. The point there is that not all websites are of equal weight when determining control of the market. Popularity is one factor and necessity is another. No one really cares or needs to care what GoDaddy is using to park its domains.
Some sites are both frequently used by large numbers of people and essential to them.
It would be control of sites which are both high traffic and necessary, though maybe relatively small in absolute numbers, which could give control of the market. Once control of the market is gained, it can be maintained (illegally) or further increased (illegally) by leveraging it to de-commoditize formats and/or protocols. In other words, forcing clients to use proprietary technology instead of commodity (aka open) technology to use the services on those servers.
So with a 20% global marketshare, effect on the market would be negligable if most of that 20% consists of domain parking. Conversely, if most of that 20% becomes government or healthcare, then the effect is quite profound.
No one cares about domain parking, but that by itself is no reason to ignore the server side. MS has abused its control of client side many times in the last 10 years alone, if one is to go by all the court judgements against MS. Though none of the judgements have yet resulted in any actual meaniingful action, let alone in a timely action. However, because it has been and is still being abused in an ongoing fashion it is being watched more closely. And perhaps therefore a move on the servers might get farther before it is noticed.
That's one common vector for spreading IIS. And aparently what happened with the domain parking services.
You get closer to real numbers if you look at stats for active sites instead. IIS' recent upswing in marketshare was due to MS paying some of the domain parking services to use IIS instead of something practical, but they don't have to pay all the sites to switch just key ones that force users to use MS-only clients or DRM.
To get more of the market, it would not be necessary to pay such large percentage of the industry to downgrade to IIS. Looking at Sweden's current situation as an example (or more correctly, a warning), MS can worm IIS into enough library, radio/TV and government sites that it is able to start pushing MS-only extensions, formats and DRM, even before it reaches critical mass.
After critical mass is reached, it could then begin to required MS-only extensions, formats and DRM. The DRM, for example, could even be used to ensure that only MS Windows platforms have access, or even specific versions of MS Windows. Then at some point the switch can be flipped and non-MS or even non-Windows users can be locked out.
I'd strongly consider the LaTex+version control options. That's a rather tried and true approach and does give you more control over typesetting and layout than you'd get otherwise.
I've wondered about using an XML-based format like DocBook or OpenDocument instead. To use OpenDocument, you'd have to have the check in process unzip the document into its components, and the check out process would have to zip the separate pieces into a single unit. But aside from check-in/check-out it would give non-technical users some more familiar software to use.
Inclusion of #89 strikes me as completely bizarre.
Other consoles have had more of an impact as far as leaps in graphic quality or choice of games. Other consoles have been in high demand around the world, not just in the US or the 51st State, Sweden. Other consoles despite high demand have kept up supply. Other consoles have been manufactured without self-immolating power supplies or recalls that blamed components not actually part of the fire hazard.
So its presence on the list is to me a mystery and certainly shoots down most of the credibility of the list in my eyes.
So let me get this. Journalists are not ok with Yahoo! ethics, once, in China, but are somehow just fine with how MS' behavior over decades in the whole world.?
Anyway, we have not heard Adobe's side of this yet. So far everything has been 1 or 2 degrees of separation from either MS or MS fan sites.
That's what this very well could be about. MS could be trying to use (illegally) its desktop monopoly to crush Adobe and establish a XFS/Metro monopoly in the place of PDF. Adobe's played very well in that regard and everybody, even BSD and Linux users have benefited from PDF. Based on the last twenty years of behavior, I don't think anyone can with a straight face say they could expect the same of MS and Metro/XFS.The ship sank some 10 to 15 minutes into it's maiden voyage. The exact location was forgotten. It was found as the result of one old fellow who spent years and years looking for it by taking core samples of the bottom of the sound every meter or so. The ship was then dug out of the mud by (now archaic-looking) dive teams, raised and then brought to dry dock where it is today.
IIRC the shipmaster died partway into the construction without a trained or skilled replacement. Unmodified, it would have not been noteworthy and maybe a little under armed. Adding the extra gun deck made the ship too tall and unstable. So to compensate, extra ballast was added, bringing the lowest gun deck about inline with the water.
Before launching, it failed the stability test of the time in which 40 men where to run in unision from one side of the ship to the other 40 times (or something like that). It was launched anyway, sliding nicely into the water, some sails were set and when it rounded the end of the island and caught it first breeze, it tipped and sank.
The sinking roughly co-incided with the end of Sweden as a feared superpower, thought it was only one factor of many.
What is the official way for those with a pathological fear of the command line and/or a fixation on doing everything via the GUI ?
Interestingly, the tide is turning again. Despite the ongoing anti-competitive activities, people realize that they've been burnt by MS, even if only as a result shelling out for software assurance. Though many have a longer more serious list of grievances and disappointments. With all other options gone, that basically leaves only 'Linux'. As a result we are now seeing that sales of Linux servers have shown 15 consecutive quarters of growth. That's sales not general market share which would also include Linux servers installed over other operating systems.
It would be useful to have three components to the new stylesheet: one each optimized for screen, print and audio.
The bite is that it would be much easier for the accessibility teams to develop software for MS' competitors, especially the Open Source ones. However, we see the Red Queen Principle at work here in that developing for MS is currently essential given it's market share, but so laborious and difficult to develop for that all resources are needed just to keep up, leaving little or now oppurtunity for expanding new markets.
Though I've read up on the subject, as far as anecdotal support goes I've only seen a small number of thin client sites in recent years. However, of the thin client sites I've seen, I have to say that the ones running LTSP or a variant, have been really pleasant to use and the ones running (or more correctly trying to run) Windows-based thin clients have been poor to unusable.
A third option to consider would be to buy extra screens, mice and keyboards and go multi-headed aka "multi-seat". It'll more than do for stations where students are just using the web (to include mail) or working on papers, spreadsheets, or presentations.
Besides, most users especially MS techs (the burger-flippers of the IT world) and the media seem to have been successfully indocrinated by MS into considering all MS-viruses, MS-worms, and MS-trojans as general e-mail- or Internet-problems. Get the media to look past that advertising income and start calling a spade a spade and you'll see some rapid movement.
Over the years, Microsoft has acted to thwart Quicktime and has employed both punitive and exclusionary tactics. It has gone as far as introducing technical problems and misleading error messages (DR-DOS anyone?) which impair Quicktime's performance and impede Apple's ability to develop for MS platforms.
Don't take my word for it. See that and very many other examples in the court's records (warning for PDF).
Furthermore, Microsoft has repeatedly pressured apple to give up Quicktime and cede the multimedia playback market to Microsoft. When MS saw how much better Quicktime was that its own crap, MS tried to steal Quicktime. When that didn't work, MS then tried to block Quicktime for Windows.
MS' antics hurt the market, hurt the end users, and run up tax-funded court costs.
how is MS trying to patent parts of the iPod in anyway defensive?
iPods were shipping before the MS patent was even filed.
Well, dude, he is rather like the Internet's equivalent of Osama bin Laden. Weathly, from a well connected rich family, caused uncounted dollars of economic harm, not to mention the grief brought by his scheming to millions of people every day.
Or that a politician like Gates takes precident over our official representatives in D.C.
Or that the US didn't learn its lesson when the 'Big Three' where allowed to set policy in the 60's, 70's and 80's. Letting a politician like Gates meddle with US international trade and foreign policy, will likely have the same effect on US technology as the "Big Three" had on the once-great US automotive industry. Gates has already taken a thriving, diverse and economically productive market and killed it, largely through a mixture of illegal business practices. Do we want that same effect to spread to all computer-using industries in the US ?