"The point was that they haven't gotten faster in proportion to the increase in size. "
Ah I see, that's true.
Not that surprising, though. The mechanical arm inside of the drive has its limitations. I wonder what it'd take to replace it with a magnetic field sorta like what TV's use to fire energy at the phosphors on the tube. I wonder if a disc (maybe optical disc?) could be read that way. Seems like you could dramatically increase it's read speed that way.
Blah I'm sure there's a serious issue that I'm not thinking about. Oh well.
" 'Right now I am sitting in front of a whirring 60-gigabyte hard disk that cost less than $100. Do the math: If back then 10 megabytes cost $1,000, then 60 gigabytes would have cost x, where x = $6,000,000 and "back then" = 18 years ago. I'm sitting in front of $6,000,000 worth of mass storage, measured at mid-1980s prices. We have Moore's law for microprocessors. But who's coined a law for hard disks? In mass storage we have seen a 60,000-fold fall in price --"
You mean that all this time we could have had much faster computers just by using magnetic media?
"What's otherwise a fairly interesting piece of hardware has no relation to the RIAA, so it's given one to make it more interesting. "
Well, that speculation wasn't entirely baseless. In the mid-eighties the RIAA made a ridiculous stink over DAT machines, worrying about lost cassette sales etc.
I agree it was used to spice up the story (just like the terms "Mozilla, OGG, Kernel, and AMD), but I suspect the author was probably thinking about that. So no, I don't agree with the flamebait comment.
"They would pay for an iPod because it holds many MP3s. That is like asking why people would pay for a bag to carry their CDs, but not a new monitor. One really doesn't have much to do with the other."
Wrong. They do it because they love music and don't mind paying for it. Why spend that much for an iPod when you could by a $50 CD player and just burn your MP3s to music CD? Afterall, if you're so much of a cheapskate that you won't buy CD's, you're not going to dump 20 albums worth of cash on a slightly smaller player for them.
" There is nothing saying that the people using their service are the ones using P2P. "
I don't think that's true. The people who'd find the service the most interesting would be those who already know the ins and outs goods and bads of compressed music, i.e. those who've already been on the P2P road. Apple's service is a lot more convienent. Don't forget that P2P is a painful service to use.
" The real test will be to see what happens in a year."
Yes, you are absolutely right. I'd caution you, though, that Apple's success is entirely within their own control. They can't just turn the service on and wait for ppl to give them money. 200,000 songs is a lot, but hardly covers what all's out there. They could lose their grip simply by not providing what people want. I subscribed to Listen.com where they have 300,000 or so songs to listen to. Unfortunately, half the songs I *want* to find aren't availalbe on it. This pushes me towards P2P where I will find them. Get my point? Apple's fate here is not solely based on the price of music.
"It is not the OS, and is completely optional. Big difference."
Windows is completely optional. There is no difference if it's an OS or not. (Hint: it's not the 'accessing hardware' part of the software that's in question here.)
If KDE was the defacto standard, it'd have the eaxct same trouble MS has.
Again, this is not relevant in that it does nothing to dispute my point.
"Huh? It isn't about Netscape or Java "ruling the market" it is about them being shut out of the market. In both cases, MS was key in doing this.
Yeah whatever, go read the ruling.
Re:How it all works.
on
The Law and P2P
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
"Let me explain to you. In the back of their minds, most Slashdot readers ("Slashbots") know that they simply don't want to pay for anything which they can get illegally for free."
Then explain to me how Apple sold 1 million songs? Explain to me why a lot of people would pay $300-$400 for an iPod or similar piece of hardware when they don't want to spend $15 for CD?
You assume it's about price tag and it never occurs to you that what's really wanted here is to be able to make music more interesting and entertaining. MP3s have brought on an interesting revolution in music by making it more portable and more customizable to the listener. (Playlists, etc.) Meanwhile, in an effort to combat this on every level (including the legal uses of MP3s), the RIAA's gunning for sweeping changes to destroy the rights of individuals, instead of just doing the right thing and filling the demand people have. Apple's site proves that people are happy to pay for music as long as the service is good and prices are fair.
So yeah, nice troll. Congrats on getting your ill-thought comments modded up. Never mind that people want their music to be more interesting, no no, it's all about making it free. That's why MP3 players are making so much money when people could burn their MP3s to a music CD.
"Napster was ruled against because it isn't really P2P; requests went through a central server."
It was P2P in the sense that the users provided the content and did the transferring. Napster didn't make the content availble, they just made it searchable.
I understand your point, but Napster did have some defense by claiming that the users were the ones making the stuff available to download. I'm not saying they were right, just saying the argument could be made.
Re:Download AND Pay?
on
The Law and P2P
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
"Why would i pay to download music on one service, that i can download for free on another? "
Why would you go to Starbucks and buy a coffee when you could make your own? Simple: you get your coffee quicker with more consistent quality. $.99 buys you a fast download plus really good search capabilities.
"And one would be wrong. Last time I checked, KDE is not an operating system."
Irrelevant. It's your interface to Linux in a lot of cases.
"Why are we rehashing all of this yet again? This is old news. The DOJ realized what they did was wrong, yet some people just don't get it. "
The DoJ ruled that MS wasn't guilty of creating a monopoly, they were guilty of maintaining it. They also ruled that niether Netscape nor Java had much chance of ruling the market without MS's involvement. Who's not getting what? People are selectively remembering the judgement that supports their case instead of going by what was actually carried out.
"Good enough to not risk hosing delicate Windows 98 with a new browser install" != "Good enough."
Good enough as in "There's no reason to muck with the pile-o-poo known as 'Netscape'". There's a reason it was popularly called 'NutScrape'. Even on Linux Netscape couldn't maintain an acceptable uptime. By the time it managed to, the war was over.
If Netscape didn't have a good mail client, it wouldn't have competed at all.
"And the stuff needed to make "E-paper"? Plastics (oil) that don't degrade, heavy metals that not only are around for thousands of years, but are toxic, etc. I'd imagine that the environmental damage done by 100 reams of paper doesn't even rival that of one sheet of "E-paper". "
I find that unlikely for two reasons:
1.) I doubt that these its of paper will be very cheap. I imagine it'll cost quite a bit just to get one. I have over 5,000 sheets of paper sitting at home right now just waiting to be used.
2.) Have you read how thick this paper is? We're talking about minute amounts of resources here.
You could potentially be right. There are unknown variables here, like what gets lost when making a sheet? How long does a sheet last? etc.
The thing is, though, I seriously doubt these things will be sold in anywhere near the volume of regular paper. We'll likely see them in a tablet form factor hooked up to a PDA-Esque interface.
Unless the volume of e-paper was ridiculously high, the benefits from less paper being used would outweigh the cost of materials going into it. We still need trees to breath.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I still haven't seen an ebook interface that is as intuitive as a real book or paper."
Download an e-book to PocketPC. You don't even need to use a bookmark in it because it remembers where you last were.
"And the difficulty of moving around books and papers is greatly exaggerated."
Ever had a book fall out of your hands, land on the floor, and close? Ever have a book that's not very excited about being open? Ever try to pack two books into your bagage for a long trip? I made that mistake once.
"One, it's more difficult than "just" sending a new graphic to them. How do you get the graphic there? Two, keeping an e-paper sign lit up costs a lot more in electricity than paper-paper."
One, it's not more difficult than sending the graphic there. Can you honestly say that walking up to a billboard, plugging a connector into your laptop, and pressing the upload button is signficantly harder than hiring a couple of people to get the billboard printed, rolled up, and glued? (It's more fun in Portland since we like to have rain 90% of the year...)
Two, ectricity's only needed to change the image. Once the power's off, the image stays in place. Perhaps you didn't RTFA? They talk about it on E-ink's site.
"Whoopdy-freaking-do. If that's a problem, you have bigger problems."
Who said anything about it being a problem? Damn cool feature if you ask me.
"It's called "recycling". Which is much easier to do with paper than electronics."
Again, no. Recycling paper involves destroying and reassembling the paper, losing elements in the process. Worse, because of paper's lack of resiliency, you have to use a lot more of it, thus creating the need for a much larger supply of it. In the case of e-paper, recycling it is just a matter of sending a new image to it. No replacement paper needed just to fix a typo.
"The arguments for epaper are just not compelling in my opinion. "
You're not going to find a compelling reason because you're not even trying to see it. You're too busy poo-pooing it. I imagine the reason for that is because you feel you sound more intelligent when you don't see the latest and greatest as being interesting. "Well I can see right through this!"
"paper-paper is super cheap because of the abundance of renewable resources available for its manufacture. If you want to update what's on the paper, just make the changes in Word and print a new copy. Why is that so hard?"
Are you serious? Do you really think it's about paper being hard to use? Honestly dude, you must be intentionally trying not to see the value here in order to score some insightful moderations.
Here are a few useful applications of e-paper:
- Single-page newspapers and books. Not only would you not have to worry about portability, but you wouldn't have to worry about bookmarks either.
- Billboards would be much easier to update. No more repainting or repapering them, just send a new graphic to them and they change automatically. They could even cycle the ads.
- Credit cards could show your balance available.
Etc etc etc.
Paper may grow on trees, but there are serious problems with it accumulating. The 'make the changes in Word and print a new copy' may sound deceptively sensible until you realize you have to get rid of the original copy.
Right now I'm reviewing a manual for a product my company is developing. This means lugging a stack of paper around. It's obnoxious. I'd LOVE to have a single sheet of paper that updates whenever I press the 'next page' button. I guess I could read it off my PocketPC, but it's awfully small...
Topic of Article:" Ubisoft will show a more promising new 3D Prince Of Persia."
Content of Caustic Window's Post:"Revamping Prince of Persia is a good idea. Nice game that one. Kinda timely, with the liberation of Iraq and all. There's a new prince of persia, y'know."
"Go read the actual findings of fact in the case."
Go read the final judgement.
"The monopoly in this case was not found to have been illegally acquired, but only to have been illegally maintained. Therefore, rather than termination of the monopoly, the proper objective of the remedy in this case is termination of the exclusionary acts and practices related thereto which served to illegally maintain the monopoly."
Followed by:
"The "causal connection between Microsoft's exclusionary conduct and its continuing position in the operating systems market" was established "only through inference." In fact, the district court expressly determined as a factual matter that there was "insufficient evidence to find that, absent Microsoft's actions, Navigator and Java already would have ignited genuine competition in the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems."
I can see why the 'findings of fact' come up more often than the final ruling. (sorry, that wasn't really directed at you, but rather the number of people who wield the 'findings of fact' like He-Man wields his sword.
The point in posting that here is that MS didn't create a monopoly based on IE's inclusing into Win98. The court says so. So when they did it at the time, they were within their rights to do so. If they did it today, post-monopoly ruling, I'd understand the attitude.
"No they didn't do that. They published an interface to call IE and then linked IE to essential files so it is darn near impossible to remove. They did not write IE as a pluggable component (one that can be removed and replaced with another same-shaped plug"
"Well, they could have written the browser as a puggable component and then published the interface."
Didn't they do that? I can write a VB app right now that calls the IE renderer and then write my own interface to it. I can rewrite IE in VB if I wanted to because of that component.
Can I replace that component? No idea. I'd be afraid to because, like you hinted at, MS likes to hide features.
"Of course, Microsoft would argue that it's not their job to help their competitors and, besides, it would ruin the consistent user interface (meaning, anything not from Microsoft is not consistent). But then Microsoft doesn't admit to being a monopoly either.... "
Well, that's a fuzzy debate to have. How does one deal with a market-created monopoly? On one hand, MS cannot be allowed to have too much powere. On the other, the gov't shouldn't bend MS over and pull their pants down.
I don't have an answer to that. All I can say is that it's nowhere near as clear-cut as the anti-MS zealots out here pretend it is.
"Some problems with that: 1)Linux is not preinstalled on 99% of desktop pc's 2)KDE is not the only desktop environment 3)The KDE team is not a monopoly illegally using that status to force their way into another market. "
Fair points. However, if it's generally accepted that making the browser an object of the OS is an expected evolutionary step, then what choice did MS have? What should MS have done in order for that to not be an abusive action of a monopoly? The only answers I can come up with involve MS intentionally crippling their own product. I don't feel that's reasonable. I'm open to suggestions.
(BTW, I'm serious here. I want to know how MS could have handled that to avoid everybody's anger at them.)
"Well, gee whiz! If the DOJ says so, it must be true! I guess I SHOULD quit smoking pot and switch to good, healthy american tobacco and booze! And while I'm at it, I'd better cover up any naked statues I have! "
Wish I had a mod point. NineNine makes a pretty good point, the DoJ ruling is brought up ad-nauseum. What's worse is that people have selective memories about what ruling to side with.
"Windows 98 integrated IE into its operating system (and still is to date) to eliminate competition from Netscape."
One could make the argument that KDE is doing the same thing with Konqueror. The reason that nobody's crying foul on that, though, is because there are better browsers out there and people will go find them. In MS's case, they had the better browser. Why go download a browser when IE's doin the job? If MS had a shoddy browser like Konqueror (well Konq's not that bad, but bear with me) people'd flock to Netscape and there'd be none of this nonsense over MS trying to secure a monopoly via the browser.
Yeah yeah, convicted monopoiist, whatever. There's still strong reason to have IE and Explorer use the same interface. Why make browsing the web (the killer app for Windows 95 and even 98) such a different experience from browsing around on your commputer? KDE does this. They seem to think it works too. Plus, HTML can be used to customize the interface. All kinds of benefits here.
So yeah, MS may have been shitty about putting IE on there and making the competition's battle harder to fight, but the reason to make IE what it was in relation to Windows was a predictable evolution of the OS. IE's rendering engine is very versitile. You can throw HTML, Text, JPEGS, Flash, and a bunch of other objects at it that the web has caused to become standard, and it'll view it. (Not to mention the plugin support...) Why rewrite all that when you can modularize it and have a bunch of apps call the same thing?
Long story short, IE's bundling with Win98 may have dealt a death blow to Netscape, but there's enough reason to believe that wasn't MS's sole reason to include IE.
"But seriously, isnt this just a tad bit too far in the future to look toward? Or is this just to get people to quit emailing/speculating about when its coming out. "
I think it's damage control. The screengrabs of the beta that leaked are misleading in a few ways. In some ways, it looks pretty far along (i.e. a buncha new buttons there) in other ways it looks rather buggy and incomplete. (MS's stereotypes alter people's perceptions towards the negative)
By announcing that MS is taking another 2 years to work on it, it makes the beta images not seem so bad. "Ah, we're talking REALLY early here. They have quite a bit of time to really clean that up. That's good, I guess I should buy XP today."
Sorry to say this, but we don't live in a perfect world. As long as management bases their timelines on when the next trade show is coming up, we're not going to see rewrites happen until one of these deadlines is very badly missed. The people in charge just plain don't care about flawed or badly maintained code bases. They're concerned with getting a product that meets the promises that Marketing made. Sadly, engineers are too good at working within their limitations, thus making rewrites not all that necessary. (As in "we can't launch unless we do that" necessary.)
I don't think finding articles that show off the wonderfulness of code rewrites will be useful at all. Instead, this topic needs to be made attractive to PHBs out there. Make "total rewrite" a buzzword (you know, like e-commerce, push technology, and multi-media) and you'll gain a lot more leverage than landing a report labeled FYI on your boss's desk. Make it fashionable.
You all may thing I'm being cynical or even sarcastic, but I've spent the last 6 years watching PHB's work. I've listened to some bizarre rationale. I understand enough about how they work that I could become a cartoonist. I'll be happy to carry the torch when Scott Adams retires.
Slashdot Mirror
"The point was that they haven't gotten faster in proportion to the increase in size. "
Ah I see, that's true.
Not that surprising, though. The mechanical arm inside of the drive has its limitations. I wonder what it'd take to replace it with a magnetic field sorta like what TV's use to fire energy at the phosphors on the tube. I wonder if a disc (maybe optical disc?) could be read that way. Seems like you could dramatically increase it's read speed that way.
Blah I'm sure there's a serious issue that I'm not thinking about. Oh well.
"Whirring is the key word. Hard disks have gotten bigger. But they haven't gotten faster. They haven't gotten quieter. "
Techhnically they have. 10,000 RPM hard drives haven't been around forever. They first showed up in 1996.
" 'Right now I am sitting in front of a whirring 60-gigabyte hard disk that cost less than $100. Do the math: If back then 10 megabytes cost $1,000, then 60 gigabytes would have cost x, where x = $6,000,000 and "back then" = 18 years ago. I'm sitting in front of $6,000,000 worth of mass storage, measured at mid-1980s prices. We have Moore's law for microprocessors. But who's coined a law for hard disks? In mass storage we have seen a 60,000-fold fall in price --"
You mean that all this time we could have had much faster computers just by using magnetic media?
"What's otherwise a fairly interesting piece of hardware has no relation to the RIAA, so it's given one to make it more interesting. "
Well, that speculation wasn't entirely baseless. In the mid-eighties the RIAA made a ridiculous stink over DAT machines, worrying about lost cassette sales etc.
I agree it was used to spice up the story (just like the terms "Mozilla, OGG, Kernel, and AMD), but I suspect the author was probably thinking about that. So no, I don't agree with the flamebait comment.
"They would pay for an iPod because it holds many MP3s. That is like asking why people would pay for a bag to carry their CDs, but not a new monitor. One really doesn't have much to do with the other."
Wrong. They do it because they love music and don't mind paying for it. Why spend that much for an iPod when you could by a $50 CD player and just burn your MP3s to music CD? Afterall, if you're so much of a cheapskate that you won't buy CD's, you're not going to dump 20 albums worth of cash on a slightly smaller player for them.
" There is nothing saying that the people using their service are the ones using P2P. "
I don't think that's true. The people who'd find the service the most interesting would be those who already know the ins and outs goods and bads of compressed music, i.e. those who've already been on the P2P road. Apple's service is a lot more convienent. Don't forget that P2P is a painful service to use.
" The real test will be to see what happens in a year."
Yes, you are absolutely right. I'd caution you, though, that Apple's success is entirely within their own control. They can't just turn the service on and wait for ppl to give them money. 200,000 songs is a lot, but hardly covers what all's out there. They could lose their grip simply by not providing what people want. I subscribed to Listen.com where they have 300,000 or so songs to listen to. Unfortunately, half the songs I *want* to find aren't availalbe on it. This pushes me towards P2P where I will find them. Get my point? Apple's fate here is not solely based on the price of music.
"It is not the OS, and is completely optional. Big difference."
Windows is completely optional. There is no difference if it's an OS or not. (Hint: it's not the 'accessing hardware' part of the software that's in question here.)
If KDE was the defacto standard, it'd have the eaxct same trouble MS has.
Again, this is not relevant in that it does nothing to dispute my point.
"Huh? It isn't about Netscape or Java "ruling the market" it is about them being shut out of the market. In both cases, MS was key in doing this.
Yeah whatever, go read the ruling.
"Let me explain to you. In the back of their minds, most Slashdot readers ("Slashbots") know that they simply don't want to pay for anything which they can get illegally for free."
Then explain to me how Apple sold 1 million songs? Explain to me why a lot of people would pay $300-$400 for an iPod or similar piece of hardware when they don't want to spend $15 for CD?
You assume it's about price tag and it never occurs to you that what's really wanted here is to be able to make music more interesting and entertaining. MP3s have brought on an interesting revolution in music by making it more portable and more customizable to the listener. (Playlists, etc.) Meanwhile, in an effort to combat this on every level (including the legal uses of MP3s), the RIAA's gunning for sweeping changes to destroy the rights of individuals, instead of just doing the right thing and filling the demand people have. Apple's site proves that people are happy to pay for music as long as the service is good and prices are fair.
So yeah, nice troll. Congrats on getting your ill-thought comments modded up. Never mind that people want their music to be more interesting, no no, it's all about making it free. That's why MP3 players are making so much money when people could burn their MP3s to a music CD.
"Napster was ruled against because it isn't really P2P; requests went through a central server."
It was P2P in the sense that the users provided the content and did the transferring. Napster didn't make the content availble, they just made it searchable.
I understand your point, but Napster did have some defense by claiming that the users were the ones making the stuff available to download. I'm not saying they were right, just saying the argument could be made.
"Why would i pay to download music on one service, that i can download for free on another? "
Why would you go to Starbucks and buy a coffee when you could make your own? Simple: you get your coffee quicker with more consistent quality. $.99 buys you a fast download plus really good search capabilities.
"And one would be wrong. Last time I checked, KDE is not an operating system."
Irrelevant. It's your interface to Linux in a lot of cases.
"Why are we rehashing all of this yet again? This is old news. The DOJ realized what they did was wrong, yet some people just don't get it. "
The DoJ ruled that MS wasn't guilty of creating a monopoly, they were guilty of maintaining it. They also ruled that niether Netscape nor Java had much chance of ruling the market without MS's involvement. Who's not getting what? People are selectively remembering the judgement that supports their case instead of going by what was actually carried out.
"Good enough to not risk hosing delicate Windows 98 with a new browser install" != "Good enough."
Good enough as in "There's no reason to muck with the pile-o-poo known as 'Netscape'". There's a reason it was popularly called 'NutScrape'. Even on Linux Netscape couldn't maintain an acceptable uptime. By the time it managed to, the war was over.
If Netscape didn't have a good mail client, it wouldn't have competed at all.
"And the stuff needed to make "E-paper"? Plastics (oil) that don't degrade, heavy metals that not only are around for thousands of years, but are toxic, etc. I'd imagine that the environmental damage done by 100 reams of paper doesn't even rival that of one sheet of "E-paper". "
I find that unlikely for two reasons:
1.) I doubt that these its of paper will be very cheap. I imagine it'll cost quite a bit just to get one. I have over 5,000 sheets of paper sitting at home right now just waiting to be used.
2.) Have you read how thick this paper is? We're talking about minute amounts of resources here.
You could potentially be right. There are unknown variables here, like what gets lost when making a sheet? How long does a sheet last? etc.
The thing is, though, I seriously doubt these things will be sold in anywhere near the volume of regular paper. We'll likely see them in a tablet form factor hooked up to a PDA-Esque interface.
Unless the volume of e-paper was ridiculously high, the benefits from less paper being used would outweigh the cost of materials going into it. We still need trees to breath.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I still haven't seen an ebook interface that is as intuitive as a real book or paper."
Download an e-book to PocketPC. You don't even need to use a bookmark in it because it remembers where you last were.
"And the difficulty of moving around books and papers is greatly exaggerated."
Ever had a book fall out of your hands, land on the floor, and close? Ever have a book that's not very excited about being open? Ever try to pack two books into your bagage for a long trip? I made that mistake once.
"One, it's more difficult than "just" sending a new graphic to them. How do you get the graphic there? Two, keeping an e-paper sign lit up costs a lot more in electricity than paper-paper."
One, it's not more difficult than sending the graphic there. Can you honestly say that walking up to a billboard, plugging a connector into your laptop, and pressing the upload button is signficantly harder than hiring a couple of people to get the billboard printed, rolled up, and glued? (It's more fun in Portland since we like to have rain 90% of the year...)
Two, ectricity's only needed to change the image. Once the power's off, the image stays in place. Perhaps you didn't RTFA? They talk about it on E-ink's site.
"Whoopdy-freaking-do. If that's a problem, you have bigger problems."
Who said anything about it being a problem? Damn cool feature if you ask me.
"It's called "recycling". Which is much easier to do with paper than electronics."
Again, no. Recycling paper involves destroying and reassembling the paper, losing elements in the process. Worse, because of paper's lack of resiliency, you have to use a lot more of it, thus creating the need for a much larger supply of it. In the case of e-paper, recycling it is just a matter of sending a new image to it. No replacement paper needed just to fix a typo.
"The arguments for epaper are just not compelling in my opinion. "
You're not going to find a compelling reason because you're not even trying to see it. You're too busy poo-pooing it. I imagine the reason for that is because you feel you sound more intelligent when you don't see the latest and greatest as being interesting. "Well I can see right through this!"
Sorry, the parent post wasn't off-topic either. Try 'funny' or 'overrated'.
Somebody with mod points is being a little dense today.
"paper-paper is super cheap because of the abundance of renewable resources available for its manufacture. If you want to update what's on the paper, just make the changes in Word and print a new copy. Why is that so hard?"
Are you serious? Do you really think it's about paper being hard to use? Honestly dude, you must be intentionally trying not to see the value here in order to score some insightful moderations.
Here are a few useful applications of e-paper:
- Single-page newspapers and books. Not only would you not have to worry about portability, but you wouldn't have to worry about bookmarks either.
- Billboards would be much easier to update. No more repainting or repapering them, just send a new graphic to them and they change automatically. They could even cycle the ads.
- Credit cards could show your balance available.
Etc etc etc.
Paper may grow on trees, but there are serious problems with it accumulating. The 'make the changes in Word and print a new copy' may sound deceptively sensible until you realize you have to get rid of the original copy.
Right now I'm reviewing a manual for a product my company is developing. This means lugging a stack of paper around. It's obnoxious. I'd LOVE to have a single sheet of paper that updates whenever I press the 'next page' button. I guess I could read it off my PocketPC, but it's awfully small...
"Will I have to worry about electrocution when I wipe my bum? "/i.
I'd be more worried about creating a spark in a contained space like that.
Topic of Article: " Ubisoft will show a more promising new 3D Prince Of Persia."
Content of Caustic Window's Post: "Revamping Prince of Persia is a good idea. Nice game that one. Kinda timely, with the liberation of Iraq and all. There's a new prince of persia, y'know."
Moderation of Caustic Window's Post: "Off-Topic"
Meta-Moderation Results: "-1, Ignorant."
Go read the final judgement.
Followed by:
I can see why the 'findings of fact' come up more often than the final ruling. (sorry, that wasn't really directed at you, but rather the number of people who wield the 'findings of fact' like He-Man wields his sword.
The point in posting that here is that MS didn't create a monopoly based on IE's inclusing into Win98. The court says so. So when they did it at the time, they were within their rights to do so. If they did it today, post-monopoly ruling, I'd understand the attitude.
"No they didn't do that. They published an interface to call IE and then linked IE to essential files so it is darn near impossible to remove. They did not write IE as a pluggable component (one that can be removed and replaced with another same-shaped plug"
Ah I understand, thanks!
"Well, they could have written the browser as a puggable component and then published the interface."
Didn't they do that? I can write a VB app right now that calls the IE renderer and then write my own interface to it. I can rewrite IE in VB if I wanted to because of that component.
Can I replace that component? No idea. I'd be afraid to because, like you hinted at, MS likes to hide features.
"Of course, Microsoft would argue that it's not their job to help their competitors and, besides, it would ruin the consistent user interface (meaning, anything not from Microsoft is not consistent). But then Microsoft doesn't admit to being a monopoly either.... "
Well, that's a fuzzy debate to have. How does one deal with a market-created monopoly? On one hand, MS cannot be allowed to have too much powere. On the other, the gov't shouldn't bend MS over and pull their pants down.
I don't have an answer to that. All I can say is that it's nowhere near as clear-cut as the anti-MS zealots out here pretend it is.
"Some problems with that:
1)Linux is not preinstalled on 99% of desktop pc's
2)KDE is not the only desktop environment
3)The KDE team is not a monopoly illegally using that status to force their way into another market. "
Fair points. However, if it's generally accepted that making the browser an object of the OS is an expected evolutionary step, then what choice did MS have? What should MS have done in order for that to not be an abusive action of a monopoly? The only answers I can come up with involve MS intentionally crippling their own product. I don't feel that's reasonable. I'm open to suggestions.
(BTW, I'm serious here. I want to know how MS could have handled that to avoid everybody's anger at them.)
"Well, gee whiz! If the DOJ says so, it must be true! I guess I SHOULD quit smoking pot and switch to good, healthy american tobacco and booze! And while I'm at it, I'd better cover up any naked statues I have! "
Wish I had a mod point. NineNine makes a pretty good point, the DoJ ruling is brought up ad-nauseum. What's worse is that people have selective memories about what ruling to side with.
"Windows 98 integrated IE into its operating system (and still is to date) to eliminate competition from Netscape."
One could make the argument that KDE is doing the same thing with Konqueror. The reason that nobody's crying foul on that, though, is because there are better browsers out there and people will go find them. In MS's case, they had the better browser. Why go download a browser when IE's doin the job? If MS had a shoddy browser like Konqueror (well Konq's not that bad, but bear with me) people'd flock to Netscape and there'd be none of this nonsense over MS trying to secure a monopoly via the browser.
Yeah yeah, convicted monopoiist, whatever. There's still strong reason to have IE and Explorer use the same interface. Why make browsing the web (the killer app for Windows 95 and even 98) such a different experience from browsing around on your commputer? KDE does this. They seem to think it works too. Plus, HTML can be used to customize the interface. All kinds of benefits here.
So yeah, MS may have been shitty about putting IE on there and making the competition's battle harder to fight, but the reason to make IE what it was in relation to Windows was a predictable evolution of the OS. IE's rendering engine is very versitile. You can throw HTML, Text, JPEGS, Flash, and a bunch of other objects at it that the web has caused to become standard, and it'll view it. (Not to mention the plugin support...) Why rewrite all that when you can modularize it and have a bunch of apps call the same thing?
Long story short, IE's bundling with Win98 may have dealt a death blow to Netscape, but there's enough reason to believe that wasn't MS's sole reason to include IE.
"But seriously, isnt this just a tad bit too far in the future to look toward? Or is this just to get people to quit emailing/speculating about when its coming out. "
I think it's damage control. The screengrabs of the beta that leaked are misleading in a few ways. In some ways, it looks pretty far along (i.e. a buncha new buttons there) in other ways it looks rather buggy and incomplete. (MS's stereotypes alter people's perceptions towards the negative)
By announcing that MS is taking another 2 years to work on it, it makes the beta images not seem so bad. "Ah, we're talking REALLY early here. They have quite a bit of time to really clean that up. That's good, I guess I should buy XP today."
Sorry to say this, but we don't live in a perfect world. As long as management bases their timelines on when the next trade show is coming up, we're not going to see rewrites happen until one of these deadlines is very badly missed. The people in charge just plain don't care about flawed or badly maintained code bases. They're concerned with getting a product that meets the promises that Marketing made. Sadly, engineers are too good at working within their limitations, thus making rewrites not all that necessary. (As in "we can't launch unless we do that" necessary.)
I don't think finding articles that show off the wonderfulness of code rewrites will be useful at all. Instead, this topic needs to be made attractive to PHBs out there. Make "total rewrite" a buzzword (you know, like e-commerce, push technology, and multi-media) and you'll gain a lot more leverage than landing a report labeled FYI on your boss's desk. Make it fashionable.
You all may thing I'm being cynical or even sarcastic, but I've spent the last 6 years watching PHB's work. I've listened to some bizarre rationale. I understand enough about how they work that I could become a cartoonist. I'll be happy to carry the torch when Scott Adams retires.