Microsoft's problems are not due to their licensing model. They are due to their own inept management. They have too many layers of middle management, and they just don't get things done effectively anymore.
Apple under Jobs had the clarity of vision that comes from one man unambiguously in charge. Since Jobs was right more often than he was wrong, that worked well for them.
But what you're suggesting would almost certainly have led to Jobs never returning to Apple. Apple bought NeXT because they were desperate. The Apple Renaissance happened precisely because Apple "nearly [went] bankrupt in the 90's as Windows surged."
So if Apple had gone the Microsoft route in 1989, taken over the lion's share of the OS market, and been in Microsoft's position throughout the 1990s, which do you think is more likely—that they would still have fired Gil Amelio, bought NeXT, and given Steve Jobs total control of the company? Or that they would have ended up in a pattern very similar to Microsoft, with businessmen rather than visionaries running the company, and making sure to avoid putting out any highly risky new products?
I mean, obviously your scenario's not impossible. We're talking pure hypotheticals here to begin with. But looking at the reasons things happened the way they did in our timeline, we can make some good guesses as to what would happen in the alternate timeline created by Apple opening the Mac in 1989—and I just don't think it's likely that some of the key events would happen the same.
So, what you're saying is, you think Apple is (or should be) regretting their decision then, because if they had done what you suggest, they could be in Microsoft's position today?
A dying dinosaur, desperately trying to remain cool and relevant?
Is PGP that easy these days? Haven't touched it in years due to reasons already mentioned.
Most e-mail clients (KMail, Claws Mail, Thunderbird, etc) support it by default. I do not know how things are in the Windows world (I heard it's improved since Windows 95, that's it), but it's supported out of the box on most GNU/Linux software.
Barlgewhat?
Do you listen to yourself? "It's supported out of the box on most GNU/Linux software" is approximately equivalent in the utility expressed to "all the geeks I know know how to use it." In other words, pretty damn useless for practical purposes, and a long, long way away from "most email clients support it by default", at least if you take the "most" by volume of usage, and not simply by number of different clients.
Sorry, I'd like it to be the year of Linux on the desktop as much as the next guy, but it's just not realistic.
I have to wonder if Google would agree with this. It's entirely possible (given that we do not have access to the agreement in question) that by one interpretation, it does allow UMG to do exactly that—but that this was never Google's intention.
It would be really fun to watch Google bring out the actual agreement and show how it doesn't, by a reasonable reading, permit this.
(And yeah, I know it's also possible that Google did, in fact, intend this, but in general, that seems unlikely, as it would be simply stupid for Google to allow something of that nature without heavy, heavy restrictions on it.)
One of the things that I have learnt to hate about all the recent MS Windows interfaces is how it tries to outsmart me. Not having used an option for a while? It'll hide it from you,
What year are you posting from? The last Microsoft product to do that was Office 2000. Fuck, man, you're talking about something Microsoft tried for about 3 years and rejected over a DECADE ago.
That's not even remotely true. For instance, I'm absolutely 100% certain that Office 2003 did that—and a lot of people are still stuck using 2003.
Whether other or other MS products did, I can't say for certain, because I'm happily avoiding them now as much as possible.
I took a look at Legend, and it looks quite a bit like 3.5 in my eyes. But I miss monsters. With the 3.5 SRD I have a whole huge list of monsters to use, for free.
There is a monster book on the way, but it will not be free. (It is, in fact, how the Rule of Cool folks are planning to recoup some of their costs for the core book's release, so they don't have to eat quite so much ramen.)
If you're sick of d20, then please take a look at Legend—it's not like it'll cost you anything but a bit of time. This system is designed to address many of the flaws in vanilla d20, and make it much more fun to play.
They're not whining because of some additional coding they have to make to the site to allow people to remove their posts, they're whining because it's less information to sell to advertisers.
Duh?
I think Tom was attempting to address the complaint that had some legitimate foundation, rather than the "waah, waah, we can't make as much money being total parasites" whining.
All these people are first and foremost humans - flawed and all. None of them are heroes, and you should make individual traits of them your inspiration, never the whole man (or woman).
All heroes are humans, too. Unless your contention is that there's no such thing as a hero, I don't see how you can claim that someone with flaws cannot be a hero and therefore should not be admired.
“In fact, since no one is perfect, it follows that all great deeds have been accomplished out of imperfection. Yet they were accomplished, somehow, all the same.” -- Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan, _Mirror Dance_, by Lois McMaster Bujold.
Democrats love to paint the founding fathers as Christian zealots.
Beg pardon?
I've never heard a Democrat do that. I've heard many Republicans do it, though, usually as part of their attempt to prove that in order to be a "real American," you must conform to their particular brand of Christianity.
Most Democrats that I've heard from who have an opinion on the issue at all tend toward the "separation of church and state" side.
Ads reappeared for me the other day, too. I wasn't sure whether it was because my karma slipped below an invisible threshold or because they'd removed the option—particularly since they never explained why I got the option, or why, 2-3 times, it randomly turned itself off and had to be re-checked.
It is a reflection of the fantasy world of boys and young men that has not yet been tempered with a healthy sex life and fueled by a need to be seen as socially equal to the other men a group, a need that often trumps the wishes of romantic partners.
Really? You think it's limited to people who are actually, physically immature? Wow, you must not get out much.
The attitude evident in this naming sounds very much like the atmosphere at a company I know of (I wasn't unlucky enough to have to work there, but a woman I know was). The guys in charge were all in their late 40s to 60s, married (though one of them is now getting messily divorced—his wife found out about some of his mistresses), with children (and, in some cases, grandchildren), and utterly disrespectful of women. Their language and general attitude toward women was dreadfully shameful. The best we can figure is that they had spent too much time in China, where some of that attitude is taken for granted, and the rest probably comes from the fact that, as rich white businessmen in China, they were not refused much there.
Yeah, childish geeks who are too introverted to get a girlfriend (a stereotype I question the validity of) are far from the only people who think so crudely.
Predicting where crime will happen, and putting more uniforms there to stop it or catch the guys in the act? That's good. That's very good—I'd call it police work at its best. As long as it's at least a little better than random.
Predicting who is going to commit a crime and arresting them before they do it, now that would be bad. But it doesn't sound like that's what they're intending.
I think it's important to support innovations in law enforcement that actually help, especially when there are so many that do the opposite lately. Just because you're afraid of what they might decide to do next doesn't mean it's wise to trash this idea.
I recently took a position as general tech guy for one department of a university, liaising with central IT for stuff that they handle better. However, part of the deal is that, since I actually have Linux experience, I'm more or less the Linux support guy for the university now...
So far, not much has come of that, but it's been less than a year...
Apparently, the particular patent involved in this case was originally filed in 1992, and then got a long series of "continuations".
You use scare quotes because you don't know what those are, right?
Not specifically, but...
Continuation applications are applications filed off the parent application, getting the benefit of the same filing date. The claims can be different, but must have support in the application as filed - no new matter can be added.
...that's more or less what I thought. And from my limited understanding of what exactly the patent filed in 1992 claimed, if the claims as they stand today are really close enough to the in-app upgrade system that they won't get laughed out of court, it wouldn't surprise me at all if at least some of the continuations would, by any reasonable interpretation, add new matter.
Thus, my use of quotes: not because I don't know what a continuation means, but because I question whether what the company did really qualifies.
The Internet existed in 1992. The Web, as we know it, didn't, and most discussion was on newsgroups. If I remember correctly, that was the period when there was a lot of discussion about commercial use of the Internet.
So, you support my point: the Internet, as we know it today, did not exist in 1992.
Now, I haven't gone and looked at it, but I rather doubt that the patent filed in 1992, before what we know as the Internet existed, bore much resemblance to what is being claimed today...
You mean what you know of the Internet. And just because you didn't know about it, doesn't mean it didn't exist.
Yes, thank you, I'm not a total moron. That's why I said "the Internet as we know it," not simply "the Internet." And by any measure not come up with by a hopelessly literalist nitpicking jerk, what existed in 1992 was not much like the Internet as we know it today.
Apparently, the particular patent involved in this case was originally filed in 1992, and then got a long series of "continuations".
Now, I haven't gone and looked at it, but I rather doubt that the patent filed in 1992, before what we know as the Internet existed, bore much resemblance to what is being claimed today...but that's the patent system for you. Anything that was created after the original filing date cannot count as prior art, so they can claim they thought of it all, even if they added various claims a decade later based on stuff they saw people already doing, by more "continuations."
You know, in short-term scheduling, you need the day only. So you can write "on the 12." - but then when you need to be more specific, you simply expand that to "on the 12.5." - you add more detail as required, and you always add in the same way (at the end).
It's logically consistent. Then again, maybe I just think so because I'm European.
I'm American, and I think the European format is more consistent and sensible. If I weren't surrounded by people using the American format, I'd probably use the European one all the time.
Perhaps it's not the "European" part that makes you look at it that way, but the "geek" part?
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's problems are not due to their licensing model. They are due to their own inept management. They have too many layers of middle management, and they just don't get things done effectively anymore.
Apple under Jobs had the clarity of vision that comes from one man unambiguously in charge. Since Jobs was right more often than he was wrong, that worked well for them.
But what you're suggesting would almost certainly have led to Jobs never returning to Apple. Apple bought NeXT because they were desperate. The Apple Renaissance happened precisely because Apple "nearly [went] bankrupt in the 90's as Windows surged."
So if Apple had gone the Microsoft route in 1989, taken over the lion's share of the OS market, and been in Microsoft's position throughout the 1990s, which do you think is more likely—that they would still have fired Gil Amelio, bought NeXT, and given Steve Jobs total control of the company? Or that they would have ended up in a pattern very similar to Microsoft, with businessmen rather than visionaries running the company, and making sure to avoid putting out any highly risky new products?
I mean, obviously your scenario's not impossible. We're talking pure hypotheticals here to begin with. But looking at the reasons things happened the way they did in our timeline, we can make some good guesses as to what would happen in the alternate timeline created by Apple opening the Mac in 1989—and I just don't think it's likely that some of the key events would happen the same.
Dan Aris
So, what you're saying is, you think Apple is (or should be) regretting their decision then, because if they had done what you suggest, they could be in Microsoft's position today?
A dying dinosaur, desperately trying to remain cool and relevant?
Dan Aris
Is PGP that easy these days? Haven't touched it in years due to reasons already mentioned.
Most e-mail clients (KMail, Claws Mail, Thunderbird, etc) support it by default. I do not know how things are in the Windows world (I heard it's improved since Windows 95, that's it), but it's supported out of the box on most GNU/Linux software.
Barlgewhat?
Do you listen to yourself? "It's supported out of the box on most GNU/Linux software" is approximately equivalent in the utility expressed to "all the geeks I know know how to use it." In other words, pretty damn useless for practical purposes, and a long, long way away from "most email clients support it by default", at least if you take the "most" by volume of usage, and not simply by number of different clients.
Sorry, I'd like it to be the year of Linux on the desktop as much as the next guy, but it's just not realistic.
Dan Aris
I have to wonder if Google would agree with this. It's entirely possible (given that we do not have access to the agreement in question) that by one interpretation, it does allow UMG to do exactly that—but that this was never Google's intention.
It would be really fun to watch Google bring out the actual agreement and show how it doesn't, by a reasonable reading, permit this.
(And yeah, I know it's also possible that Google did, in fact, intend this, but in general, that seems unlikely, as it would be simply stupid for Google to allow something of that nature without heavy, heavy restrictions on it.)
Dan Aris
What year are you posting from? The last Microsoft product to do that was Office 2000. Fuck, man, you're talking about something Microsoft tried for about 3 years and rejected over a DECADE ago.
That's not even remotely true. For instance, I'm absolutely 100% certain that Office 2003 did that—and a lot of people are still stuck using 2003.
Whether other or other MS products did, I can't say for certain, because I'm happily avoiding them now as much as possible.
Dan Aris
As mentioned above. The last update has already been announced as the Last update that will be released for Stanza.
Yeah, but Apple had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
Amazon bought Lexcycle, and they're now end-of-lifing a product that competes with their own.
Dan Aris
I took a look at Legend, and it looks quite a bit like 3.5 in my eyes. But I miss monsters. With the 3.5 SRD I have a whole huge list of monsters to use, for free.
There is a monster book on the way, but it will not be free. (It is, in fact, how the Rule of Cool folks are planning to recoup some of their costs for the core book's release, so they don't have to eat quite so much ramen.)
Dan Aris
If you're sick of d20, then please take a look at Legend—it's not like it'll cost you anything but a bit of time. This system is designed to address many of the flaws in vanilla d20, and make it much more fun to play.
Dan Aris
They're not whining because of some additional coding they have to make to the site to allow people to remove their posts, they're whining because it's less information to sell to advertisers.
Duh?
I think Tom was attempting to address the complaint that had some legitimate foundation, rather than the "waah, waah, we can't make as much money being total parasites" whining.
Dan Aris
That's primarily interesting for its historical significance, rather than its conformation to Platonic ideals of programming.
All these people are first and foremost humans - flawed and all. None of them are heroes, and you should make individual traits of them your inspiration, never the whole man (or woman).
All heroes are humans, too. Unless your contention is that there's no such thing as a hero, I don't see how you can claim that someone with flaws cannot be a hero and therefore should not be admired.
“In fact, since no one is perfect, it follows that all great deeds have been accomplished out of imperfection. Yet they were accomplished, somehow, all the same.” -- Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan, _Mirror Dance_, by Lois McMaster Bujold.
Dan Aris
Democrats love to paint the founding fathers as Christian zealots.
Beg pardon?
I've never heard a Democrat do that. I've heard many Republicans do it, though, usually as part of their attempt to prove that in order to be a "real American," you must conform to their particular brand of Christianity.
Most Democrats that I've heard from who have an opinion on the issue at all tend toward the "separation of church and state" side.
Dan Aris
Seriously, if this were in any way correct, then Facebook would have already killed Twitter.
Dan Aris
Ads reappeared for me the other day, too. I wasn't sure whether it was because my karma slipped below an invisible threshold or because they'd removed the option—particularly since they never explained why I got the option, or why, 2-3 times, it randomly turned itself off and had to be re-checked.
Dan Aris
"Almost half"? I would have expected the number of ad networks ignoring do-not-track to be closer to 80%.
This indicates that more than half are honoring it, which is, IMHO, quite a victory for our side.
Dan Aris
It is a reflection of the fantasy world of boys and young men that has not yet been tempered with a healthy sex life and fueled by a need to be seen as socially equal to the other men a group, a need that often trumps the wishes of romantic partners.
Really? You think it's limited to people who are actually, physically immature? Wow, you must not get out much.
The attitude evident in this naming sounds very much like the atmosphere at a company I know of (I wasn't unlucky enough to have to work there, but a woman I know was). The guys in charge were all in their late 40s to 60s, married (though one of them is now getting messily divorced—his wife found out about some of his mistresses), with children (and, in some cases, grandchildren), and utterly disrespectful of women. Their language and general attitude toward women was dreadfully shameful. The best we can figure is that they had spent too much time in China, where some of that attitude is taken for granted, and the rest probably comes from the fact that, as rich white businessmen in China, they were not refused much there.
Yeah, childish geeks who are too introverted to get a girlfriend (a stereotype I question the validity of) are far from the only people who think so crudely.
Dan Aris
Predicting where crime will happen, and putting more uniforms there to stop it or catch the guys in the act? That's good. That's very good—I'd call it police work at its best. As long as it's at least a little better than random.
Predicting who is going to commit a crime and arresting them before they do it, now that would be bad. But it doesn't sound like that's what they're intending.
I think it's important to support innovations in law enforcement that actually help, especially when there are so many that do the opposite lately. Just because you're afraid of what they might decide to do next doesn't mean it's wise to trash this idea.
Dan Aris
and the penalty for crack (which is the popular form of cocaine in black communities) is much higher than the penalty for powder cocaine.
This is changing, too, according to a story on NPR this morning. I believe they said it was another SCOTUS ruling, but I'm not 100% sure.
Dan Aris
I recently took a position as general tech guy for one department of a university, liaising with central IT for stuff that they handle better. However, part of the deal is that, since I actually have Linux experience, I'm more or less the Linux support guy for the university now...
So far, not much has come of that, but it's been less than a year...
Dan Aris
You do know that taxis aren't available everywhere the roads go, aren't you?
Yes, believe it or not, ledow, there really is a world outside your metropolitan paradise.
Dan Aris
Apparently, the particular patent involved in this case was originally filed in 1992, and then got a long series of "continuations".
You use scare quotes because you don't know what those are, right?
Not specifically, but...
Continuation applications are applications filed off the parent application, getting the benefit of the same filing date. The claims can be different, but must have support in the application as filed - no new matter can be added.
...that's more or less what I thought. And from my limited understanding of what exactly the patent filed in 1992 claimed, if the claims as they stand today are really close enough to the in-app upgrade system that they won't get laughed out of court, it wouldn't surprise me at all if at least some of the continuations would, by any reasonable interpretation, add new matter.
Thus, my use of quotes: not because I don't know what a continuation means, but because I question whether what the company did really qualifies.
Dan Aris
The Internet existed in 1992. The Web, as we know it, didn't, and most discussion was on newsgroups. If I remember correctly, that was the period when there was a lot of discussion about commercial use of the Internet.
So, you support my point: the Internet, as we know it today, did not exist in 1992.
Dan Aris
Now, I haven't gone and looked at it, but I rather doubt that the patent filed in 1992, before what we know as the Internet existed, bore much resemblance to what is being claimed today...
You mean what you know of the Internet. And just because you didn't know about it, doesn't mean it didn't exist.
Yes, thank you, I'm not a total moron. That's why I said "the Internet as we know it," not simply "the Internet." And by any measure not come up with by a hopelessly literalist nitpicking jerk, what existed in 1992 was not much like the Internet as we know it today.
Dan Aris
Apparently, the particular patent involved in this case was originally filed in 1992, and then got a long series of "continuations".
Now, I haven't gone and looked at it, but I rather doubt that the patent filed in 1992, before what we know as the Internet existed, bore much resemblance to what is being claimed today...but that's the patent system for you. Anything that was created after the original filing date cannot count as prior art, so they can claim they thought of it all, even if they added various claims a decade later based on stuff they saw people already doing, by more "continuations."
Dan Aris
It is also a lot more useful for expansion.
You know, in short-term scheduling, you need the day only. So you can write "on the 12." - but then when you need to be more specific, you simply expand that to "on the 12.5." - you add more detail as required, and you always add in the same way (at the end).
It's logically consistent. Then again, maybe I just think so because I'm European.
I'm American, and I think the European format is more consistent and sensible. If I weren't surrounded by people using the American format, I'd probably use the European one all the time.
Perhaps it's not the "European" part that makes you look at it that way, but the "geek" part?
Dan Aris