Those posters who agreethis hurts AFP's business aren't entirely wrong. Their services are as often abused in the print world as on the web, tales of journalists taking relatively innocuous wire service grabs and blowing them up into controversies are too legion to mention; many urban myths got started that way. That's as much "without attribution" as sticking on a page without mentioning the source.
But the real reason it WILL hurt AFP is that they will no longer be on the web radar screens of their real customers. In the relatively small highly-competitive market they operate in, such marginal disadvantages DO count, which is precisely why they tend to overlook much of their print customer's errant journos.
But let's not point out the bloody obvious, shall we? Much more DILLIGENT to spend serious money and time on lawsuits. Idiots.
This is just a sound-bite to talk up MSFT stock. It isn't even related to the article. Bill is paranoid that someone will think of a use for computers that Microsoft can't control.
...which is, if the monopolistic telecoms can shaft Internet companies, they will. If 3rd-party VoIP goes away, that just leaves the ISPs themselves to scramble a deal with a telecom before they too get battered. And if NZ Telecom is already doing this, then our dear old monster Telstra here in Oz will shortly be doing an end-run of the Australian industry post-privatisation. I'd love to see their list of targets, it will be impressive.
Why do engineers prefer DOS? Why are all these old OS's kicking around? Because the apps they run still do their job. Mac Classic is also a good example of having to support a plaform for older apps. Old unix boxen abound because the systems are running 24/7 mission-critical stuff from 20 years ago. I know people happily writing and running DOS-based POS software for *the last 10 years* and making a good living from it.
Then again, I have a Linux box limited to 2.6.7 because the winmodem code won't work with anything higher.
...when I read this stuff is how much of the computer hardware industry is dependent on these guys. Seriously, these guys are supposed to be the reason why I should fork out AGAIN for 90% of my components to participate in their next risk-averse eye-candy gameplay-numbered-in-hours DRM crap. How much of the PC industry would just go away without it? I hope all goes the way of the console world and the rest of us with other uses for our PCs can be left to it.
I just wanted to make a few of things clear for the rest of you just in case you think this kind of thing is too bad to be true:
The government lied and kept quiet about the stuff they thought was probably bad but were too ideologically naive to investigate.
The media were lazy, lied, and believed every word the government said.
The public didn't know, didn't understand, and didn't ask.
After all that, US interests are still trying to rewrite the rules so they can dictate our pharmaceutical prices, still trying to enforce MS-only policy in our bureacracy, and still complaining that our agricultural and mining industries are over-protected. Keep an eye on our uranium deposits, for instance...
This is an important opportunity to explain to your PHBs how their business (and your livelihood) is going to be circumscribed by Microsoft-only technology unless they make a move to more interoperable and less encumbered software. Compliance is going to cost mega-dollars from lawyers fees to license renewal. It's just not worth it.
This kind of greed is going to kill XML innovation just by making the mechanisms legally doubtful unless you're a corporation who can afford to waste shareholder's investments.
Not for long. The BBC's charter is under review again and the calls for privatisation that come at such times are just as loud. But the Hutton inquiry did real damage this time, and some politicians smell blood.
This Sunday Times article is a representative overview in the online media about the likelihood of a sale, but a swift Google reveals that some of these arguments have been going on for years.
Frankly, all public broadcasting and their associated websites are seen as unfair competition by the corporations, and must be stopped from undercutting their valuable market.
Somehow I'd be more impressed if I was given this option with my next DVD burner. I've never *seen* a full version of Nero 6, so it's not as if they're rolling out the red carpet to your average user. I wouldn't be too impressed if I were a drive manufacturer.
OTOH, it's a great way of sorting out the pirate reg keys, don't you think?
While the article's conclusion seems insightful enough, it doesn't take account of aspects like the general outsourcing of data entry (formerly the only kind of IT work women could get), or the sheer lack of advancement opportunities, particularly in telecommunications. Even with good prospects, women are disadvantaged.
Given the current wonky state of the larger IT companies, are they missing a useful female perspective?
Nothing funny about it, MS is resorting to buying its innovation in the form of developers of other major software; it's indicative of how difficult it is for the major companies to move anywhere. MS has real trouble unless it can continue to support the OS platform; this is another attempt to shore up the dam, and not a bad one.
It's not so good for OOo. per se, but the whole FOSS movement indirectly benefits as the market differentation smooths out. IOW, if the only alternative is MS, it's much easier to sell your solution if it has sufficient utility.
Firstly, let me point you to something I've said earlier. Go on, I'll wait, it isn't long.
Ok, you read it? So what's this competition you keep talking about? FOSS has no competitors. If someone else wants to be as foolish and paranoid as the rest of the software industry, that's their problem. Because we're part of the solution, if they know what's good for them. Ignore the noise and do something productive.
This is a damning indictment of the entire industry. And really, if the focus is on software patents, can that be such a shock?
This is why the US software patent system must never be exported: if they want to nothing but sit on their arses and sue each other, let them. The rest of us have real work to do.
W: My OS reports less vulnerabilities! L: Oh yeah? Well my vulnerabilties get FIXED!! W: YOUR morons need a degree to fix YOUR OS, our morons only need to click a button!!! L: OUR morons WROTE our OS in vi!!!! =P
I'll make one teeny tiny observation: how is it, when Linux and Windows is compared, it's always the Windows vulnerabilites that affect the entire OS far outnumber individual application problems, whereas the Linux vulnerabilities are mainly problems with individual applications, and root-level vulnerabilities are a much smaller percentage of the total pool? And why are we always comparing Windows Server 2003 and Red Had Server [insert favourite version here]?
Let's look at the costs involved for MS. Could it possibly be cheaper in dollar terms to grab an anti-spyware tool and not even sell it, versus actually fix ActiveX etc? Well that was easy.
Try it from the other side. How much does the potential risk cost spyware "providers"? Nada. Does it cost MS? Only in mindshare terms to other OS's, in itself worth the cost of anti-spyware.
Notice how neither side thinks of the OS itself as a cost? That's because we're paying. For the anti-spyware, the spyware and the OS. Candy from a baby. You're missing the point if all you're concerned with is whether MS anti-spyware is good or not, that's irrelevant. They're still playing, you're still paying.
If it's too difficult for journalists to protect sources in an investigative piece, you lose investigative journalism.
If it's easier to get paid by greasing the palms of industry or government than to expose their shady double-dealing, what do you expect of journalism?
The media in the West is in imminent danger of losing the faith of the populace because of this.
That country ceased to exist decades ago, or do you think McCarthyism happened somewhere else? You're still free to believe in the founding myth, but your freedom is being ignored in reality.
Slashdot Mirror
Those posters who agreethis hurts AFP's business aren't entirely wrong. Their services are as often abused in the print world as on the web, tales of journalists taking relatively innocuous wire service grabs and blowing them up into controversies are too legion to mention; many urban myths got started that way. That's as much "without attribution" as sticking on a page without mentioning the source.
But the real reason it WILL hurt AFP is that they will no longer be on the web radar screens of their real customers. In the relatively small highly-competitive market they operate in, such marginal disadvantages DO count, which is precisely why they tend to overlook much of their print customer's errant journos.
But let's not point out the bloody obvious, shall we? Much more DILLIGENT to spend serious money and time on lawsuits. Idiots.
...and Microsoft would grind to a halt.
This is just a sound-bite to talk up MSFT stock. It isn't even related to the article. Bill is paranoid that someone will think of a use for computers that Microsoft can't control.
The gift that keeps on giving
...which is, if the monopolistic telecoms can shaft Internet companies, they will. If 3rd-party VoIP goes away, that just leaves the ISPs themselves to scramble a deal with a telecom before they too get battered. And if NZ Telecom is already doing this, then our dear old monster Telstra here in Oz will shortly be doing an end-run of the Australian industry post-privatisation. I'd love to see their list of targets, it will be impressive.
Why do engineers prefer DOS? Why are all these old OS's kicking around? Because the apps they run still do their job. Mac Classic is also a good example of having to support a plaform for older apps. Old unix boxen abound because the systems are running 24/7 mission-critical stuff from 20 years ago. I know people happily writing and running DOS-based POS software for *the last 10 years* and making a good living from it.
Then again, I have a Linux box limited to 2.6.7 because the winmodem code won't work with anything higher.
...when I read this stuff is how much of the computer hardware industry is dependent on these guys. Seriously, these guys are supposed to be the reason why I should fork out AGAIN for 90% of my components to participate in their next risk-averse eye-candy gameplay-numbered-in-hours DRM crap. How much of the PC industry would just go away without it? I hope all goes the way of the console world and the rest of us with other uses for our PCs can be left to it.
I just wanted to make a few of things clear for the rest of you just in case you think this kind of thing is too bad to be true:
After all that, US interests are still trying to rewrite the rules so they can dictate our pharmaceutical prices, still trying to enforce MS-only policy in our bureacracy, and still complaining that our agricultural and mining industries are over-protected. Keep an eye on our uranium deposits, for instance...
This is an important opportunity to explain to your PHBs how their business (and your livelihood) is going to be circumscribed by Microsoft-only technology unless they make a move to more interoperable and less encumbered software. Compliance is going to cost mega-dollars from lawyers fees to license renewal. It's just not worth it.
This kind of greed is going to kill XML innovation just by making the mechanisms legally doubtful unless you're a corporation who can afford to waste shareholder's investments.
Not for long. The BBC's charter is under review again and the calls for privatisation that come at such times are just as loud. But the Hutton inquiry did real damage this time, and some politicians smell blood.
This Sunday Times article is a representative overview in the online media about the likelihood of a sale, but a swift Google reveals that some of these arguments have been going on for years.
Frankly, all public broadcasting and their associated websites are seen as unfair competition by the corporations, and must be stopped from undercutting their valuable market.
Somehow I'd be more impressed if I was given this option with my next DVD burner. I've never *seen* a full version of Nero 6, so it's not as if they're rolling out the red carpet to your average user. I wouldn't be too impressed if I were a drive manufacturer.
OTOH, it's a great way of sorting out the pirate reg keys, don't you think?
...bloody vikings!
Foxes claim the henhouse design is a submarine patent by the dogs.
While the article's conclusion seems insightful enough, it doesn't take account of aspects like the general outsourcing of data entry (formerly the only kind of IT work women could get), or the sheer lack of advancement opportunities, particularly in telecommunications. Even with good prospects, women are disadvantaged.
Given the current wonky state of the larger IT companies, are they missing a useful female perspective?
Nothing funny about it, MS is resorting to buying its innovation in the form of developers of other major software; it's indicative of how difficult it is for the major companies to move anywhere. MS has real trouble unless it can continue to support the OS platform; this is another attempt to shore up the dam, and not a bad one.
It's not so good for OOo. per se, but the whole FOSS movement indirectly benefits as the market differentation smooths out. IOW, if the only alternative is MS, it's much easier to sell your solution if it has sufficient utility.
Firstly, let me point you to something I've said earlier. Go on, I'll wait, it isn't long.
Ok, you read it? So what's this competition you keep talking about? FOSS has no competitors. If someone else wants to be as foolish and paranoid as the rest of the software industry, that's their problem. Because we're part of the solution, if they know what's good for them. Ignore the noise and do something productive.
This is a damning indictment of the entire industry. And really, if the focus is on software patents, can that be such a shock?
This is why the US software patent system must never be exported: if they want to nothing but sit on their arses and sue each other, let them. The rest of us have real work to do.
even on broadband, how could you *not* notice this?!
"Hey babe, come up and see my FOSS project" hasn't exactly been my most successful line.
ObPython:
Beats bashing mice with a mallet. Anyone for 'The Bells of St. Marys' ?
Anything that removes great quantities of humans has to be good.
Lobbying takes a lot more dough than you or I have, bud.
W: My OS reports less vulnerabilities!
L: Oh yeah? Well my vulnerabilties get FIXED!!
W: YOUR morons need a degree to fix YOUR OS, our morons only need to click a button!!!
L: OUR morons WROTE our OS in vi!!!! =P
I'll make one teeny tiny observation: how is it, when Linux and Windows is compared, it's always the Windows vulnerabilites that affect the entire OS far outnumber individual application problems, whereas the Linux vulnerabilities are mainly problems with individual applications, and root-level vulnerabilities are a much smaller percentage of the total pool? And why are we always comparing Windows Server 2003 and Red Had Server [insert favourite version here]?
Let's look at the costs involved for MS. Could it possibly be cheaper in dollar terms to grab an anti-spyware tool and not even sell it, versus actually fix ActiveX etc? Well that was easy.
Try it from the other side. How much does the potential risk cost spyware "providers"? Nada. Does it cost MS? Only in mindshare terms to other OS's, in itself worth the cost of anti-spyware.
Notice how neither side thinks of the OS itself as a cost? That's because we're paying. For the anti-spyware, the spyware and the OS. Candy from a baby. You're missing the point if all you're concerned with is whether MS anti-spyware is good or not, that's irrelevant. They're still playing, you're still paying.
Candy from a baby. A whole lot of babies.
If it's too difficult for journalists to protect sources in an investigative piece, you lose investigative journalism.
If it's easier to get paid by greasing the palms of industry or government than to expose their shady double-dealing, what do you expect of journalism?
The media in the West is in imminent danger of losing the faith of the populace because of this.
That country ceased to exist decades ago, or do you think McCarthyism happened somewhere else? You're still free to believe in the founding myth, but your freedom is being ignored in reality.