if/when it actually comes down to a point thats going to determine the validity of the GPL, there are several large corperations that have interest in the answer.
chance of you getting a great math job: are you a genius who is willing to devote alot of effort to it?
chance of your math major being usefull while trying to find very good computer jobs (I'm talking the real stuff): very good
chance of your math major with a cs minor landing you a freaking nice job (assuming of course you actually are very bright): very high
so in the end, I'd say learn your maths well; and learn your CS well. If you know both you can get a good job doing something that it sounds like might be intersting to you (might not be extremly well paying, might be though)
Write a contract that basically costs them 50% of thier corperate net worth if they are found using your IP without paying for it after 45 days, NO EXCEPTIONS for any reason. Define your IP rediciously well, make *any* information that you transmit to them during the 'trade' your property, weither you have a contract or trademark on it, and do not transmit any information except during the 'trade'.
if they won't sign that, then they are trying to ream you, and they should come up with another plan. Make sure someone who has control over that much of thier corperation is the endorser, it'd be better if you could cause a high up to be personally responsible, but if they are incorperated that'll probably be impossible.
More likley allow them to send ONE auditor over and look at stuff, under supervision (but not direction). Even better have them hire a 3rd party contracter (they shouldn't be hard to find in todays economy) that will review your code for 45 days and send a report back. Neither of these solutions could possibly cost them a penny more (well the 3rd party might) than having them devote a few developers reviewing your IP in house for a month and a half.
There is not one good reason I can think of they would recuire your entire IP to be transmited to them, there are alot I can think of for them to audit your IP.
Re:Painting the Case (slightly OT)
on
Mini-PC w/o Fans?
·
· Score: 1
I found using thermal tape on any extra holes in my case, followed by swaping my fans for quieter kinds, and optimizing the airflow so that I wasnt for instance cooling my NIC (yeah thats needed..) worked fairly well, I had to get a new heatsink, but I think I sorta knew I was going to have to when I started.
I painted the outside of my case recently, it had no real effect.
I'm currently a telemarketer to help cover college fees ($8/hour is really hard to pass up if you normally have trouble coming up with book money)
I hate it, but its great money. I am not a good telemarketer by any means, and I refuse to coerce anyone, but I normally get enough sales by just being honest with the customer.
I plan on quitting the moment I get a comparable paying job, fyi
snip
They took a very lethal dose of AIDS in a petri dish and mixed it with some of his cells and his cells remained completely unaffected. They kept raising the lethalness of the composition and finally went up to 3,000 times more than what was necessary to infect a human being and his cells stayed completely disease free. Then they started testing his blood with other things like cancer and discovered that this kid was immune to everything! Then they found another kid with these codons turned on - then another one - then another one - then 10,000, then 100,000, then a million of them - and at this point, UCLA, by watching world-wide DNA testing, estimates that 1% of the world has this new DNA. That breaks down to approximately 60 million people who are not human by the old criteria.
..
Science has stated that there are so many people showing up with this new alien DNA that they now believe that a new human race is being born on the earth today and apparently they can't get sick. Now what is really incredible - they believe that it is a very specific emotional, mental body response - a waveform coming off the body that is causing the DNA to mutate in a certain way.
..
Whatever they are doing within themselves is producing a waveform that when seen on computer screens looks almost identical to the DNA molecule. So the researchers think that by the very expression of their life that these people are mapping with the DNA - resonating it - and are changing these 4 codons and in so doing become immune to the disease.
..Drunvalo: I think someone has made the path - one child did it somewhere. Then he put it into the grids and it is now in the subconscious of the earth and is accessible to anyone. Once that happened I think somehow or another other people have connected to this on a subconscious level in deep meditation and prayer and made the change. A new race is being born and it is one of the most remarkable phenomenon that has happened on the planet! It's incredible that no one seems to know about this until now!
..
. And you know, there is another thing that happened last year - AIDS dropped something like 47% - the largest drop of a single disease in the history of the world. I believe that it had a lot to do with this very thing we are talking about.
/snip
how can they write this stuff? Seriously
snip
1. They come into the world with a feeling of royalty (and often act like it).
2. They have a feeling of "deserving to be here," and are surprised when others don't share that.
3. Self-worth is not a big issue. They often tell the parents "who they are."
4. They have difficulty with absolute authority (authority without explanation or choice).
5. They simply will not do certain things; for example - waiting in line is difficult for them.
6. They get frustrated with systems that are ritual-oriented and don't require creative thought.
7. They often see better ways of doing things, both at home and at school, which makes them seem like "system busters" - (nonconforming to any system).
8. They seem antisocial unless they are with their own kind. If there are no others of like consciousness around them, they often let no other human understand them. School is extremely difficult for them socially.
9. They will not respond to "guilt" discipline - (Wait till you father gets home and finds out what you did").
10. They are not shy in letting you know what they need.
/snip
asperger is the first mental disorder that comes to mind that would encoumpas all 10 of those, I'm sure multiple other ones do as well...
snip
I have been around children my whole life and I have never encountered such a BUSY child. I can not get anything done with him. I can't get him to nap. I can't get him to eat anything except bread, yogurt, tropical fruit, & cookies. He won't drink any milk. I can not get him weaned. He can not/will not sleep through the night.
/snip
hm, sounds odly like myself described by my parents, strangley I'm not psycic in the least...
snip
Dr. Gerard - That's a big question! I just had a lady who read my chapter in The Indigo Children send me an e-mail asking if her 18 month old son has more DNA than others. Everyone is asking this. I think if you looked under a microscope at the human DNA, you would see a double strand as it is naturally. That is my personal opinion right now. I'm hoping that the activated DNA would show to be multiple, but the fact remains that no matter what scientific school of thought you come from, using the results so far taken from the Human Genome Project, you can only see around 35%, maybe 40% of the entire DNA. You can see this with computerized help, but the rest is still unknown. We have one double strand now that is still unknown. Now you are going to add 10 new strands on top of that! You would be called a woo-woo nut in a minute. However, just like you have an auric field around you, and you have memory that is not only in your blood and bones, but also around you, and your brain is a transmitter to receive it, you do have consciousness.
/snip
WHAT?!?!?!?!?!? hi, at least have some semblence of truth...
and to close
snip
The Indigo child needs to be respected. It is not so much the DNA that is superior, but it is the consciousness that is expanded. Everyone wants proof and validation that they have a special child, and it is getting out of hand! Instead, relax and learn from your "Indigo" child.
/snip
strangley, you should avoid proving the concepts pointed out in this document, as they would all fall apart upon any sort of labratory inspection.
ok I'm not gona go over the blatant falacies about the psycic communication, but this one...
It is the third group that I am most interested in - the Children of AIDS. About 10 or 11 years ago in the US, there was a baby born with AIDS. They tested him at birth and at 6 months and he tested positive for AIDS. They tested him a year later and he still tested positive. Then they didn't test him again until he was 6, and what was amazing is that this test showed that he was completely AIDS free! In fact, there was no trace that he ever had AIDS or HIV whatsoever!
was just too much.
come on, you expect me to believe someone resistant to aids wasn't postered all over every media outlet? and 'about 10 or 11 years ago' um, that was right around the mass acceptance of aids as a virus instead of some god disease; if that happened right them, this kid would have been labeled the return of christ.
why would they stick around on earth with all the pesky humans (whom they can't attack just for the sake of attacking, they have a concept of 'soul') attacking them all the time
if they are really superior to humanity, *and* they create thier own socoiety, thier first goal will to diasociate themselves from earth.
Colonizing the rest of the solar system would be a good first step, the astroid belt probably contains enough minerals to create a whole army of (insert random hi-tech gizmo here).
more likley they wont achieve sentience except in controlled situations, and they will be carefully goverened.
Self-replicating intelligent robots will be strictly goverened.
its not like your going to wake up tomorow and all these robots are going to *exist*; someone has to manufacture them, and that takes time.
This isnt like Virus (that movie suke btw), its more like space travel or computers.
I know I plan on investing a few k in bulk legos, I've already dumped 400 into them.
It dosen't really need to have alot of R&D go into it, it just needs to be convenient to get everything planned and built (some upgraded lego graphing paper couldn't hurt anyone.. I can't use the stuff they sponsor at all)
(ponders what it means to be trolling/. lego posts at 2am in the morning...)
after liquidating my everquest character (read, got a bunch of extra cash) recently for 500$ I imediatly invested 400 on legos..
my roomate thinks I'm a bit stange, and i'm prety sure I'm never going to get laid again ^.^
damn you slashdot!!!
at least I was able to use www.lego.com/bulk;)
Re:If AOL blocks Trillian, consumers lose !!!
on
AOL vs. Trillian
·
· Score: 1
>>This is equivalent to AOL blocking their users from receiving email from non-AOL accounts
no.
This is equivlent to not allowing people using non-standard clients from logging onto the AOL services, avoiding the generation of revenue through ads in the AOL client.
Do you pay for the server costs to use AIM? Does your alternate service pay AOL anything for thier services?
If you answered no to both of those questions, you have no case.
I think the important part is this
"Undaunted, the inventor says that once powered-up, his device can run indefinitely -- or at least until the parts wear out."
since the definition of parts is still quite iffy, its very possible that the fact of running out of stored power destroys the parts.
Thus this article would be 'true', none the less its still retarded.
I normally read the entire book if I am intending to impliment (several) something(s) in that language (os, whatever). If the book was worth reading I'll re-read it with a hi-lighter and set it on my current refrences shelf.
I can normally read a well-writen 800-1000 page book for decent understanding in about 15 hours, and if its wroth re-checking it normally takes about 4 more.
I don't really find it a waste of time, I've found once I've read a well writen (notice, alot of long books aern't) I can start reading any source and have enough understanding to figure out what it means even if I have no prior experience with a similar language.
OTOH. 300 page concise books are much better if I'm just looking to 'get it done' and maintainability(I totally mutilated that spelling, haha) and elegance take a back seat to development lifecycle.
until 2k (and I don't know what version of IE, after 4 they are all the same to me) was a sub-process [I'm not sure of the actual technical relation of the two, but they could interact w/ eachother and were dependent upon eachother] of "Explorer.exe" (this actually explained a good majority of the insanly short startup time).
Thus when your browser crashed, you irrecoverably killed the WM. When your WM crashed (it re-created itself in that case.. normally) it killed all instances of IE.
If he is actually sincere about this, weither or not I choose to use WindowsOS (haha funny pun, ok mabe not/duck) for other reasons, an increase in general security of the Windows Operating System (desktop or server, whatever the diffrence is..) leads to me fretting less at work because some pinhead decided we would impliment such and such deparment using Microsoft products (yes, despite what you teenage idealists think, this DOES actually happen to professional IT people in real workplaces)
I for one hope that he is really making a buisness decision, not a PR move (no, I'm not saying it dosen't sound like a PR stunt to me). In the past he has decided to turn his company completly on a dime before (internet company anyone?), and he has proven he is a very sucessfull buisnessman and can do such radical things, and come out millions of dollars in the positive.
Before I get mass flamed, let me clearly state, I think Windows is the worst comercial consumer operating system in common usage, even if you dont include the real operating systems for guru's. But I also think Bill is a great buisnessman (weither or not hes ethical is a far diffrent question)
Now that we have that cleared up lets look at the problems in WinXP (since I assume they are going to continue buildling from that instead of going back to Win2k, though I think it might be a wise decision for them to do so)
File Cache is memory hungry
A few suspected memory leaks here and there
huge memory overhead (if they didnt increase the current overhead in a few years it would be considered trivial)
some UI tweaks wouldn't be harmfull to anyone, just nothing radical (I don't want to spend time learning how to navigate a windows system in the rare situation I use one)
Could use some SMP work
Other than that the majority of all complaints I could honestly extend are security related.
It is my feeling that if they did a feature freeze on the UI and driver interface and the general configuration setup, and worked soley upon improvments and security (of corse with a small team doing new UI stuff to impress the drooling x-treme programer types), and developed office/IE to use only the documented API (with the API frozen) with both products focused upon security (office is plenty usable as it is, optimization and security would be the best, and the ability to create decent 'other filetype' exports) the OS would mature rapidly
The things I really hate about using M$ products currently (not because they are closed source, I use plenty of closed source apps, I don't choose my software based upon politics, I choose it upon what works and gets the job done) is that I feel like I'm using a OS that has a lacking kernel, and whils't there are security exploits on my OS of choice (FreeBSD if your curious) they are generally quickly patched, and always workaroundable, not to mention the fact no software I've ever liked has had a major security flaw to my knowledge), there are far more security exploits for M$ windows (mostly dealing with Outlook, an app thats completly banned for use at our company, our daily bat file actually deletes the would be outlook folder if someone did install it, so they can call us up and complain about the errors caused and get promptly chewed out). While using my OS of choice, I feel that if there was a security exploit, it'd be all over everywhere, not sitting in some hackers mind (though that is possible, much less likley) whereas with M$ I feel that there might be a 9 month old exploit that hasn't even made SecurityFocus yet, that bothers me.
In conclusion, I do think this sounds an awful lot like a nice PR leak, I hope that it isn't. If I liked M$, it would be great, even though I dont like M$, since I'm forced to deal with it on a semi-regular basis, it greatly effects me anyway. This isnt a *nix vs M$ discussion or anything, I'm just stating that in the scope of M$ development, them focusing on security would actually be a good thing in my eyes.
(ps forgive the I'm sure numerous grammer/spelling errors in this post, I'm typing it while about to go to bed)
didn't this same topic come up just a brief while ago?
I'm not going to bother looking up the link, but if I can remember it as a simple user, I should hope the editors can...
Slashdot Mirror
This might turn out to be an interesting trial.
chance of you getting a great math job: are you a genius who is willing to devote alot of effort to it?
chance of your math major being usefull while trying to find very good computer jobs (I'm talking the real stuff): very good
chance of your math major with a cs minor landing you a freaking nice job (assuming of course you actually are very bright): very high
so in the end, I'd say learn your maths well; and learn your CS well. If you know both you can get a good job doing something that it sounds like might be intersting to you (might not be extremly well paying, might be though)
get one, or a few.
Write a contract that basically costs them 50% of thier corperate net worth if they are found using your IP without paying for it after 45 days, NO EXCEPTIONS for any reason. Define your IP rediciously well, make *any* information that you transmit to them during the 'trade' your property, weither you have a contract or trademark on it, and do not transmit any information except during the 'trade'.
if they won't sign that, then they are trying to ream you, and they should come up with another plan. Make sure someone who has control over that much of thier corperation is the endorser, it'd be better if you could cause a high up to be personally responsible, but if they are incorperated that'll probably be impossible.
More likley allow them to send ONE auditor over and look at stuff, under supervision (but not direction). Even better have them hire a 3rd party contracter (they shouldn't be hard to find in todays economy) that will review your code for 45 days and send a report back. Neither of these solutions could possibly cost them a penny more (well the 3rd party might) than having them devote a few developers reviewing your IP in house for a month and a half.
There is not one good reason I can think of they would recuire your entire IP to be transmited to them, there are alot I can think of for them to audit your IP.
I found using thermal tape on any extra holes in my case, followed by swaping my fans for quieter kinds, and optimizing the airflow so that I wasnt for instance cooling my NIC (yeah thats needed..) worked fairly well, I had to get a new heatsink, but I think I sorta knew I was going to have to when I started.
I painted the outside of my case recently, it had no real effect.
I'm currently a telemarketer to help cover college fees ($8/hour is really hard to pass up if you normally have trouble coming up with book money)
I hate it, but its great money. I am not a good telemarketer by any means, and I refuse to coerce anyone, but I normally get enough sales by just being honest with the customer.
I plan on quitting the moment I get a comparable paying job, fyi
snip
They took a very lethal dose of AIDS in a petri dish and mixed it with some of his cells and his cells remained completely unaffected. They kept raising the lethalness of the composition and finally went up to 3,000 times more than what was necessary to infect a human being and his cells stayed completely disease free. Then they started testing his blood with other things like cancer and discovered that this kid was immune to everything! Then they found another kid with these codons turned on - then another one - then another one - then 10,000, then 100,000, then a million of them - and at this point, UCLA, by watching world-wide DNA testing, estimates that 1% of the world has this new DNA. That breaks down to approximately 60 million people who are not human by the old criteria.
..
Science has stated that there are so many people showing up with this new alien DNA that they now believe that a new human race is being born on the earth today and apparently they can't get sick. Now what is really incredible - they believe that it is a very specific emotional, mental body response - a waveform coming off the body that is causing the DNA to mutate in a certain way.
..
Whatever they are doing within themselves is producing a waveform that when seen on computer screens looks almost identical to the DNA molecule. So the researchers think that by the very expression of their life that these people are mapping with the DNA - resonating it - and are changing these 4 codons and in so doing become immune to the disease.
..Drunvalo: I think someone has made the path - one child did it somewhere. Then he put it into the grids and it is now in the subconscious of the earth and is accessible to anyone. Once that happened I think somehow or another other people have connected to this on a subconscious level in deep meditation and prayer and made the change. A new race is being born and it is one of the most remarkable phenomenon that has happened on the planet! It's incredible that no one seems to know about this until now!
..
. And you know, there is another thing that happened last year - AIDS dropped something like 47% - the largest drop of a single disease in the history of the world. I believe that it had a lot to do with this very thing we are talking about.
/snip
how can they write this stuff? Seriously
snip
1. They come into the world with a feeling of royalty (and often act like it).
2. They have a feeling of "deserving to be here," and are surprised when others don't share that.
3. Self-worth is not a big issue. They often tell the parents "who they are."
4. They have difficulty with absolute authority (authority without explanation or choice).
5. They simply will not do certain things; for example - waiting in line is difficult for them.
6. They get frustrated with systems that are ritual-oriented and don't require creative thought.
7. They often see better ways of doing things, both at home and at school, which makes them seem like "system busters" - (nonconforming to any system).
8. They seem antisocial unless they are with their own kind. If there are no others of like consciousness around them, they often let no other human understand them. School is extremely difficult for them socially.
9. They will not respond to "guilt" discipline - (Wait till you father gets home and finds out what you did").
10. They are not shy in letting you know what they need.
/snip
asperger is the first mental disorder that comes to mind that would encoumpas all 10 of those, I'm sure multiple other ones do as well...
snip
I have been around children my whole life and I have never encountered such a BUSY child. I can not get anything done with him. I can't get him to nap. I can't get him to eat anything except bread, yogurt, tropical fruit, & cookies. He won't drink any milk. I can not get him weaned. He can not/will not sleep through the night.
/snip
hm, sounds odly like myself described by my parents, strangley I'm not psycic in the least...
snip
Dr. Gerard - That's a big question! I just had a lady who read my chapter in The Indigo Children send me an e-mail asking if her 18 month old son has more DNA than others. Everyone is asking this. I think if you looked under a microscope at the human DNA, you would see a double strand as it is naturally. That is my personal opinion right now. I'm hoping that the activated DNA would show to be multiple, but the fact remains that no matter what scientific school of thought you come from, using the results so far taken from the Human Genome Project, you can only see around 35%, maybe 40% of the entire DNA. You can see this with computerized help, but the rest is still unknown. We have one double strand now that is still unknown. Now you are going to add 10 new strands on top of that! You would be called a woo-woo nut in a minute. However, just like you have an auric field around you, and you have memory that is not only in your blood and bones, but also around you, and your brain is a transmitter to receive it, you do have consciousness.
/snip
WHAT?!?!?!?!?!? hi, at least have some semblence of truth...
and to close
snip
The Indigo child needs to be respected. It is not so much the DNA that is superior, but it is the consciousness that is expanded. Everyone wants proof and validation that they have a special child, and it is getting out of hand! Instead, relax and learn from your "Indigo" child.
/snip
strangley, you should avoid proving the concepts pointed out in this document, as they would all fall apart upon any sort of labratory inspection.
Oh well.
(- can't believe he just read all of that..)
ok I'm not gona go over the blatant falacies about the psycic communication, but this one...
It is the third group that I am most interested in - the Children of AIDS. About 10 or 11 years ago in the US, there was a baby born with AIDS. They tested him at birth and at 6 months and he tested positive for AIDS. They tested him a year later and he still tested positive. Then they didn't test him again until he was 6, and what was amazing is that this test showed that he was completely AIDS free! In fact, there was no trace that he ever had AIDS or HIV whatsoever!
was just too much.
come on, you expect me to believe someone resistant to aids wasn't postered all over every media outlet? and 'about 10 or 11 years ago' um, that was right around the mass acceptance of aids as a virus instead of some god disease; if that happened right them, this kid would have been labeled the return of christ.
come on, that article was painfull to read.
um
it has been observed in a lab? really? were there scientific papers proving this?
I'm all for evolution, as its currently the *best* theory, but, don't go spreading FUD, it makes you look like M$
whos going to control the robots?
Other robots?
why would they stick around on earth with all the pesky humans (whom they can't attack just for the sake of attacking, they have a concept of 'soul') attacking them all the time
if they are really superior to humanity, *and* they create thier own socoiety, thier first goal will to diasociate themselves from earth.
Colonizing the rest of the solar system would be a good first step, the astroid belt probably contains enough minerals to create a whole army of (insert random hi-tech gizmo here).
more likley they wont achieve sentience except in controlled situations, and they will be carefully goverened.
Self-replicating intelligent robots will be strictly goverened.
its not like your going to wake up tomorow and all these robots are going to *exist*; someone has to manufacture them, and that takes time.
This isnt like Virus (that movie suke btw), its more like space travel or computers.
I'd suggest that you try ebay starting in about 10 days (as soon as all the /. auctoneers die down..)
that or just pester all your friends, that *almost* always works for finding ancient comodity parts
I think it was cool cause they give the design for one.
you know, I'm tempted to build one those look kinda cool
Good Eats is a great show
I also enjoy Naked Chief (though alot of his recepies are a bit, odd)
East Meets West is great, unfortunatly I never see it due to it being on at like 3:30 am.
I noticed the same phenonenon in urban iowa (if thats not an oxymoron I don't know what is..)
first post...
this topics been up for like 10 minuites, where are all the regular trolls?
anyway, perl is my favorite dev language, so I don't really bother with php tools, sorry.
thier bulk orders was a great first step
/. lego posts at 2am in the morning...)
I know I plan on investing a few k in bulk legos, I've already dumped 400 into them.
It dosen't really need to have alot of R&D go into it, it just needs to be convenient to get everything planned and built (some upgraded lego graphing paper couldn't hurt anyone.. I can't use the stuff they sponsor at all)
(ponders what it means to be trolling
you know, you should archive these somewhere, I'd be interested in re-reading them sometime.
Thats actually kinda interesting (even if it is way offtopic)
haha I know the feeling
;)
after liquidating my everquest character (read, got a bunch of extra cash) recently for 500$ I imediatly invested 400 on legos..
my roomate thinks I'm a bit stange, and i'm prety sure I'm never going to get laid again ^.^
damn you slashdot!!!
at least I was able to use www.lego.com/bulk
>>This is equivalent to AOL blocking their users from receiving email from non-AOL accounts no. This is equivlent to not allowing people using non-standard clients from logging onto the AOL services, avoiding the generation of revenue through ads in the AOL client. Do you pay for the server costs to use AIM? Does your alternate service pay AOL anything for thier services? If you answered no to both of those questions, you have no case.
I'm prety sure its not posted for its *high quality* or *technical accuracy*
but you wouldn't know that.
since the definition of parts is still quite iffy, its very possible that the fact of running out of stored power destroys the parts.
Thus this article would be 'true', none the less its still retarded.
I can normally read a well-writen 800-1000 page book for decent understanding in about 15 hours, and if its wroth re-checking it normally takes about 4 more.
I don't really find it a waste of time, I've found once I've read a well writen (notice, alot of long books aern't) I can start reading any source and have enough understanding to figure out what it means even if I have no prior experience with a similar language.
OTOH. 300 page concise books are much better if I'm just looking to 'get it done' and maintainability(I totally mutilated that spelling, haha) and elegance take a back seat to development lifecycle.
back then (you obviously started using computers when at least 32 megs was default from oem), when it was designed, 640k was plenty.
back then cpu cycles and bits were at a premium, so permiting 2gb of ram was both worthless, and expensive.
in 10 years your going to complain 'setting the limit at 2gb was retarded.'
please spare me.
Thus when your browser crashed, you irrecoverably killed the WM. When your WM crashed (it re-created itself in that case.. normally) it killed all instances of IE.
If he is actually sincere about this, weither or not I choose to use WindowsOS (haha funny pun, ok mabe not /duck) for other reasons, an increase in general security of the Windows Operating System (desktop or server, whatever the diffrence is..) leads to me fretting less at work because some pinhead decided we would impliment such and such deparment using Microsoft products (yes, despite what you teenage idealists think, this DOES actually happen to professional IT people in real workplaces)
I for one hope that he is really making a buisness decision, not a PR move (no, I'm not saying it dosen't sound like a PR stunt to me). In the past he has decided to turn his company completly on a dime before (internet company anyone?), and he has proven he is a very sucessfull buisnessman and can do such radical things, and come out millions of dollars in the positive.
Before I get mass flamed, let me clearly state, I think Windows is the worst comercial consumer operating system in common usage, even if you dont include the real operating systems for guru's. But I also think Bill is a great buisnessman (weither or not hes ethical is a far diffrent question)
Now that we have that cleared up lets look at the problems in WinXP (since I assume they are going to continue buildling from that instead of going back to Win2k, though I think it might be a wise decision for them to do so)
Other than that the majority of all complaints I could honestly extend are security related.
It is my feeling that if they did a feature freeze on the UI and driver interface and the general configuration setup, and worked soley upon improvments and security (of corse with a small team doing new UI stuff to impress the drooling x-treme programer types), and developed office/IE to use only the documented API (with the API frozen) with both products focused upon security (office is plenty usable as it is, optimization and security would be the best, and the ability to create decent 'other filetype' exports) the OS would mature rapidly
The things I really hate about using M$ products currently (not because they are closed source, I use plenty of closed source apps, I don't choose my software based upon politics, I choose it upon what works and gets the job done) is that I feel like I'm using a OS that has a lacking kernel, and whils't there are security exploits on my OS of choice (FreeBSD if your curious) they are generally quickly patched, and always workaroundable, not to mention the fact no software I've ever liked has had a major security flaw to my knowledge), there are far more security exploits for M$ windows (mostly dealing with Outlook, an app thats completly banned for use at our company, our daily bat file actually deletes the would be outlook folder if someone did install it, so they can call us up and complain about the errors caused and get promptly chewed out). While using my OS of choice, I feel that if there was a security exploit, it'd be all over everywhere, not sitting in some hackers mind (though that is possible, much less likley) whereas with M$ I feel that there might be a 9 month old exploit that hasn't even made SecurityFocus yet, that bothers me.
In conclusion, I do think this sounds an awful lot like a nice PR leak, I hope that it isn't. If I liked M$, it would be great, even though I dont like M$, since I'm forced to deal with it on a semi-regular basis, it greatly effects me anyway. This isnt a *nix vs M$ discussion or anything, I'm just stating that in the scope of M$ development, them focusing on security would actually be a good thing in my eyes.
(ps forgive the I'm sure numerous grammer/spelling errors in this post, I'm typing it while about to go to bed)
didn't this same topic come up just a brief while ago? I'm not going to bother looking up the link, but if I can remember it as a simple user, I should hope the editors can...