Nope. That is only in a system of freedom and democracy such as the USA. Sadly, in "Oh Canada", the person _accused_ of libel has to _prove_ that it is true. Go read up on Canadian law.
The saddest part of all of this is that this mom is just trying to fight back, yet in good-ole-socialism, she will probably lose and and get what ever little money she has taken from her for "damages".
You Canadians and Europeans can say what you want about the USA and "us Americans", however, as an American, I know that I do enjoy freedom of speech, freedom of thought and due process. We can't always say the same for you.
Now go ahead and mod me down because I didn't say "USA sucks" and "Capitalism sucks" in my post.
Please, I want all Americans to stop posting to this thread with American laws. This took place in "Oh Canada". In that cold land of Northern American, they do not enjoy the same freedoms that we do, such as freedom of speech.
Answer: never. The main difference between Sony BMG and these three companies is that these three companies are/were very small. Once you get enough captital to bribe members of the government with, you basically become untouchable.
I guess this episode should become a lesson in all MBA classes. If your company is small then keep your head low and do good business. Once the company becomes big enough, _then_ you get to do the nasty things.
Microsoft has a trademark on "Microsoft Windows" and this mark is used in connection with computer software.
MS also has a trademark on Windows(R). The trademark Windows(R) in the USA was origianally denied in 1993. MS pulled some strings and got it through (I think in 1995). However, the Lindows vs Microsoft case in the USA was not going in favor of Microsoft so they settled with Linspire/Lindows for $20 Million (part of the settlement was for Lindows to change names and hand over the Lindows domains) because MS didn't want the generic term windows to be taken away. MS doesn't have to worry about the trademark "Microsoft Windows"(R) because it is not a generic category and describes a specific product. However, the generic term Windows(R) could easily be taken away from MS if there was a company/person that would spend the money to take it all the way to conclusion in court. Ahh, if I only was a Billionaire!
If you plan to use the Lindows example, then you can't leave out the settlement they got from MS.
MS _only_ paid a settlement because it looked like their trademark of Windows(R) in the USA could/would be judged invalid. MS _did_not_want_that_ so MS initiated the settlement. MS is the one who offered Linspire(Lindows) $20 Million US for the Lindows name and domain(s). Linspire/Lindows lost a case in Europe where they were told they couldn't use Lindows, so they took the $20 Million and changed their name. I personally wish Linspire(Lindows) didn't sell out and took the case all the way in the USA and had the trademark Windows(R) removed. See my previous post where I posted the statement from the 1993 USPTO rejection of Microsoft's request to trademark(R) Windows. It is a shame that MS was able to re-submit and some how get a trademark that was previously denied as generic. I bet money changed hands during some point of the re-submittal.
The MS trademark(R) on Windows was upheld in Europe when they were trying to force Linspire(formerly Lindows) to change their name. However, in the USA, injunctions were rejected and rulings were handed down that could have limited Microsoft's ability to defend the Windows trademark. So the MS lawyers feared losing the Windows(R) trademark in the USA and dropped the case in the USA and paid Linspire(formerly Lindows) to change their name and hand over the lindows.com domain(s). Some of this information comes from here. You could also search Google to see a bunch of news on the Lindows vs Microsoft case.
Oh, and origianlly in 1993, the USPTO rejected the Windows mark:
the term Windows is widely used, both by the public consumers, and the relevant industry, to name a class of goods or a type of software, that is, a genus of goods, referred to as windows programs or windowing software. The term Windows was in existence and known prior to adoption by the applicant. Since the term is a generic designation for the applicant's goods, then, no amount of evidence of de facto secondary meaning can render the term registrable.
Umm, Oracle standard edition cost the same as SQL Server standard edition. Oracle lowered the price a while ago. Oracle Enterprise edition costs the same as SQL standard edition, feature-for-feature. However, Oracle offers far more large scale features so you could spend more if you need those features (which most users would not). A 1 processor version of SQL Server Enterprise 2005 costs $24,999.00. You can get a feature-for-feature version of Oracle for that price as well. If you just price out a "maxed-out" Enterprise Oracle, you would probably pay about $40,000 per processor. The features you get with that maxed version exceed SQL Server and actually are not needed by most users. I actually keep telling our Oracle DBA's and our PHB's that we don't need Oracle Enterprise for 99.99% of what we use Oracle for. However, they still buy the Enterprise version of Oracle, just like they keep buying the Enterprise version of SQL Server. I guess they just like to spend company money. The apps we develop would run just as great on the standard versions of Oracle or SQL Server.
Easier to integrate with.NET
It sounds like your just trying to make up stuff..Net is.Net. The DB layer is abstracted. If you have a DB lib, it all works just as well. MySQL has a great.Net SQL connector. You can even get commercial versions if you want. Notice the nice VS.Net integration in the screen shots? As for PostgreSQL, just do a search on Google and you will find plenty of Open Source as well as commercial.Net providers. Saying SQL Server is "easier" to integrate into.Net is just silly. It makes no sense.
I have been working with MS SQL 2000 and I must say I was surprising pleased with it, other then the POS that is called DTS, I never had any problems with SQL server, with it crashing or problems handling a lot of data
Why would you? SQL Server 2000, was/is a very, very good RDBMS. To me the major flaw is that it is MS-Only. SQL Enterprise Manager was/is a very nice front end. As far as DTS packages go, I guess I have not had the problems you have had. We run tons of DTS packages that trade data between Oracle and SQL Server every night. Many of them are probably starting to kick-off soon. I think the GUI for working with SQL Server is much better then the default for Oracle. However, there are some very powerful tools for Oracle. The apps I have seen our Oracle DBA's run were great.
My only Fear with MS SQL 2005 is that it will break so much compatibility that we well need to redo a lot of stored procedures
This seems to be hit or miss. I have been using SQL Server 2005 with Visual Studio 2005 for a while now thanks to MSDN. SQL Server 2005 for me has been either the app didn't need any changes, or the app had.Net compile errors out the wazoo.
Oh, and for those who have always said that Oracle was/is "heavy" and sucked up too much memory? Well, welcome to SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005. I am wondering if MS rewrote Visual Studio 2005 in C# because the startup time sucks and the memory foot-print sucks and the run-time performance sucks. Visual Studio 2005 also changes most everything you are used to with web applications (from VS.Net 2003). You no longer create a new project of type web application, you create/open "web sites". I found this very stupid. To me a project is a project, regardless of the type. I don't want one project type for C# desktop and one for C# web. As for SQL Server 2005, the memory usage is not much different than Oracle. I remember always complaining about how an O
A threatening letter will be sent automatically...
Why would they even have to do that? According to TFA, everything will be on _their_ servers. All they would have to do is have their "Brittany-BackStreatBoy-ETC" scanner delete any file they though was "infringing" and send the user who uploaded it an email saying "sorry, Charlie, we deleted your upload". Problem solved.
The PHB's of this corp will probably convince the media companies that no copyright material is ever traded since it always stays on the companies servers. However, more technical users will know that if it is playing on their computer, then the bits are going through their computer and probably could be captured and recorded.
Didn't the U.S. government pay for the "pipes" already with our TAX DOLLARS? Our tax dollars were used over decades to build up the phone systems infrastructure. Why should we pay for them again. I say the U.S. government should just take the pipes back and grant equal access to them, everyone pays the same for access. Then let companies compete.
Will Google Secure Access work at other locations?
No - the Google Secure Access client is only intended to provide secure web access for users at a few local Mountain View, CA "hotspots" that Google established as part of a community outreach program.
I don't many cable companies really view VoIP as the enemy. I wouldn't worry.
Actually they do. Many cable companies are now offering their own "digital" phone. My wife just signed us up for it here in central FL with Brighthouse. We now have digital cable, digital phone and high speed Internet through Brighthouse. I am sure that the cable companies would rather have you pay them ~$40 a month for unlimited nation wide digital phone than see you get very cheap or even free VoIP like Skype, etc.
I have never tried Skype or the others, I wonder if Brighthouse is introducing latency into VoIP traffic? Has anyone noticed poor VoIP performance here in the USA over cable modem or DSL?
whereas it's possible to actually find Microsoft employees who actually have minds of their own.
Please show me _one_ that has done this in any public fashion and has not be fired. Saying "oh, I talked to one in an MS-Toilet(tm) and he said, hey, I use Linux and an IPod", is not much of an argument IMO.
You keep fighting the good fight, though. Ten years from its inception as an open source project, OpenOffice.org might hope to achieve the 10% market share established as a victory point by Mozilla/Firefox advocates. You might want to work on the fact that this Free As In Beech software looks like crap, isn't compatible with the VBA macros that businesses use daily (but which you would childishly dismiss with name-calling and "I don't use that, so it's not important" rhetoric), and is slow even compared to Microsoft Office**.
Geez, you have to work for MS to be such a shill or you and Bill make man-boy love weekly. Why would you get so emotional over a stupid freaking company and some software? To answer some of your stupid points, IMO OOo doesn't look like crap, I like the interface and it is pretty darn close to MS Office, so if you think OOo looks like crap, well you must think MS office looks like crap as well. As far as this stupid point:
isn't compatible with the VBA macros that businesses use daily (but which you would childishly dismiss with name-calling and "I don't use that, so it's not important" rhetoric)
So VBA crap is waht business use daily? So I take it you have worked for _all_ business that use MS office and know that they use VBA crap daily? Wow, you are great. Me personally, I have only worked for 3 fortune 500 companies and not one has use VBA in any production software. The fortune 500 I am at now would never deploy VBA office crap as an "application" and expect it to be stable and our user to use it. So get over _your_ childish crap that "all" business use VBA, because it just isn't true. Any "application" I have seen based on MS office and VBA has crumbled once the concurrent users have gotten over a very small number and _more_ money had to be spent on programmers like me to create real applications that are not based on VBA and MS office.
You also missed the point where I said I don't want USENET-style replies. I'm not having a vocal conversation with you, so stop pretending like we're having a back-and-forth chat, point for point.
Huh? This is/. reject. If you don't like the way/. works, than don't post. It is a simple as that.
* Programmers, engineers, whatever.
Uhh... not quite dummy. There is a huge difference. To program software you don't even need a stinking education, just some stupid MS "certification in VB" can get you in the door to many companies. Now, try to go and engineer a bridge or some electrical systems of a rocket with just some MS "certification" and see how far you get.
Most users do not need to worry about any upgrade path to Oracle. Oracle cannot take away MySQL. MySQL is GPLed and we will always have the code.
Oracle may be looking to get enterprise clients to switch from MySQL to Oracle. IMO, I wish them the best. However, Oracle would be dumb (as would MS, IBM) to think that they could switch a small to medium site to an expensive DB server costing $1,000's per processor. The (non-)enterprise versions of Oracle and MS SQL Server are not expensive from a medium-large to large company perspective. However, try to get a small to medium sized company to dish out $5,000+ for a DB server and see how fast they look for other options.
MS is coming out with another "watered-down" version of MS SQL Server for their 2005 version. I wonder how many concurrent users can connect or what the limitations are. I am sure MS won't allow any old company to just use a watered-down SQL server free of charge. If that is the case, I would just write a connection manager to always use only the max limit of connections and save our company a crap load of cash.
IMO, there is always going to be a nice market for the OSS DB's such as MySQL and PostgreSQL. The price is hard to beat and the features/speed for both is great. IME, the only reason to really use one of the paid-for databases is for some very expensive financial type applications where you want the support/reputation. Otherwise, MySQL/PostgreSQL does the same for less. Now if I could only find a way to convince the PHB's at the fortune 500 where I work of that fact.
These XML files are in plain text; the only thing binary about them is binary attachments (such as PNG files) that are referenced in the document itself.
So an embedded excel spreadsheet in a word doc is going to be plain text? An embedded PowerPoint presentation is going to be plain text? Microsoft has finally given up their entire "IP" to all their office formats? I don't think so.
What exactly is going to stop any MS Office competitor from just using the MS Office XML format if it is "totally open" as you suggest? Oh, yeah, those damn patents, not to mention that it is not totally open. Please show me _one_ official link from MS that tells me all the specs I need to know to fully read and write MS Office documents with zero patent/license encumbrances, and then I will believe you.
It was really great "innovation" on the part of MS to use XML for exactly what it was designed to do and then get a patent to block others from doing it.
Please read this blog, by a real Microsoft software engineer
No thanks. I don't need any more corporate MS crap. I doubt this "real" MS software "engineer" is allowed to speak his mind. Plenty have been fired for MS for less than saying that MS is not the "best". How about the poor guy who just posted some pictures of MS getting in some nice new G5 Macs that got fired?
but if you want your questions answered then take them to a Microsoft software engineer
Does MS call _all_ of their programmers "engineers"? Do all of those "software engieers" _actually_ have degrees and certifications in engineering? Or are they really just programmers with a nice PR made title? I studied engineering and work as a programmer. I personally cannot stand when I see people who just program computers with _zero_ engineering training get titles of "engineer".
You seems to be a shill for MS. However, MS has not, and will not give up their hold on their proprietary MS Office document formats. Please send me a link the day MS officially allows _anyone_ to use their office formats in the way OpenDocument would allow.
Which isn't very well supported by all browsers. Plus there is also the issue over print control. There is really no way to control printing via Javascript in a cross-browser, cross-plaform way. I know a group where I work are using a crappy IE-only ActiveX control because they needed a web page to print without any user control. They needed to print multiple pages and having a for() loop and window.print() that a user would have to click 25 times just wouldn't do.
While HTML is great for display of content over the web, it really sucks as a format for office documents. No one wants to have to send around multiple files to just display a single document. No want wants to have to zip up all the files of a web page (css, images, javascript) and then give instructions to users on how to extract the files and double-click on index.html. No one wants to worry about print preferences, etc. Have you ever seen how IE prints a page? It puts a URL and and other crap on the page. The last thing I want at the top of each report page is file:///D:/My%20Documents/tmp/foo.html or D:\My Documents\tmp\foo.html. The last thing I want to do is to give instructions to tons of users on how to turn off all the IE print headers/footers.
No thanks. Use the right format for the right job.
Office 12 will basically be using a proprietary patent-encumbered format wrapped in a buzz-word XML wrapper. That doesn't make it open at all, though that is what the MS PR-machine is trying to make everyone think.
I can serialize an object in a program to a file. I can then encrypt that file and stick it in an XML-wrapper. Does that make it open? Nope. Sure, the plain text in an Office 12 doc will be viewable, however the objects will be what are in a proprietary format (and probably patent encumbered to boot). So anything more complicated than a Dear John letter will need to be reverse engineered just like the current.doc format.
Why would MS totally be open to putting their _whole_ doc format in XML where anyone can read/write to it, yet be against an OpenDocument format? The only reasons I can think of is because in the XML-wrapper, MS can still keep things proprietary by just encoding a proprietary blob and dropping it in XML and the fact that MS has a patent on their XML "innovation".
Since Solaris has DTrace (and FreeBSD will have it soon as well), wouldn't they automatically be better than the Linux kernel?
No. First, niether Solaris nor FreeBSD are microkernels. Second DTrace is for kernel developers and sysadmins. As a USER, what I really care about is overall performance of a kernel. This article about comparing MySQL Performance on Solaris 10, Linux 2.4/2.6, FreeBSD and OpenBSD pretty much sums up what matters to me. I run MySQL and Tomcat on Linux 2.6 because it just is faster. While Solaris 10 is good, it just wasn't as fast as Linux 2.6 from my tests. Linux 2.6 allowed me to get the most "bang for the buck" out of my servers for MySQL and Tomcat.
A "political solution" is really just smoke an mirrors for a politician so that they can get re-elected to office or elected to a new office. It lets our politicians have something to point at and say "see, I did this great thing while I was in this office, that is why you need to elect me to this new office".
This Spitzer idiot will actually tell people that he "kept their children safe" and believe it or not, there will be tons of other idiots that will think it is true : (
There are a lot of funny things like this in the USA. At 17, I was able to sign up for the US Marine Corps. At 18, I was allowed to enter the US Marine Coprs. I went in in 1991, during that whole Gulf War thingy. The funny thing to me (now at the age of 32) is that I was allowed by the US federal govt. to sign my life over to them to possible fight and die for my country at _only_ 18, yet I was not old enough to buy and drink a beer! I guess uncle Sam really knows what is best for us.
I think enough people have responded to you to answer your post. The Hyatt problem (which was very bad) was not caused by some corporate engineer(s). Those engineers went a few steps further and went for certifications that they agree to abide by. As a result, they get a much higher rate of pay. However, they are also responsible for the overall design. In a situation where an engineer gets a state or federal cert to be a public consultant as an expert, then yes they should be held liable.
I think your points are exaggerated. I never said in my post that Ford should be liable for natural failures. I only stated _quality_ failures. A few years ago I purchased a new Ford Ranger pick-up truck. After a few weeks, there was a recall because the tires would just blow up!. That is certainly _not_ because of "some extreme environment" or "driving into a building at 100mph".
If I use faulty software, I only put my data in danger
Really? You must come from some other planet. There are tons of medical equipment that _needs_ software. So if someone was having a heart attack and the software said that their heart rate was 120/80 while it really was 190/120, that would be OK? There are also many other critical systems that if they fail, could result in human death that need software to function. You really need to come out of your fantasy world where software could only "put your data in danger".
Should the internet be regulated like roads are?
Like you, I say, NO. The govt. could only screw things up more. However, the lack of govt. regulation does not mean the lack of personal liability. The govt. does not regulate my front lawn the way they would a public road. However, if my front lawn was very poorly maintained and someone was injured because of that, I certainly could be held liable for it. Do I agree with that? No, however that is the current situation.
I agree 100%. I think all companies should be liable for their products. However, I do not think it should be at the individual employee level. After all, the point of a fictitious entity know as a "corporation" is to remove personal liability. If one employee causes a bad product, well fire that employee. However, in the end it should be the "company" that is liable.
If Ford has a car with faulty steering that locks and causes me to be in a very bad accident, should Ford be liable? IMO, yes. Should the engineers be personally liable? IMO, no. It is up to Ford and their management to hire competent employees and competent management to make sure those employees put out a safe product.
Imagine what would happen if people were allowed to sue an individual employee because of a faulty product. The cost of labor for _any_ technical job would go through the roof because those, engineers, developers, machinists, etc would all need to buy personal liability insurance, just like doctors have to. One of the reasons doctors _have_ to charge so much here in the USA is because of insurance costs to protect them against sue-happy lawyers and people. Top surgeons can easily pay $100,000+ a year just for insurance!
I like Linux as much as the next guy, and I use it on a daily basis...
You later stated:
I have never been required to re-compile all of my system binaries, patch the kernel and update all my dependencies in Windows in order to play a game, however, in Linux, this is standard practice.
You must be either lying about using Linux or you are trolling. What Linux distro do you use that requires you to "re-compile all of your system binaries, patch the kernel and update all your dependencies" just to play a game? I _do_ use Linux (Fedora and Ubuntu) and have _NEVER_ had to recompile my system binaries, patch the kernel or update my dependencies to play a game. Once in a while I may update my Linux Nvidia drivers (Just click a few buttons and it is done), however, I have to do that on Windows too (click a few buttons, reboot) if I want the latest official version from NVidia.
A world without natural life wouldn't just "suck," you ignorant twat, it would be impossible.
Gee, thanks for the great info captain obvious! You are a freakin idiot. I was exaggerating to make a point, reject.
Sure, you personally may not give a shit about anything (or anyone) outside your own front door, but thank god your type is vasty outnumbered by people who do, or your life (and everyone elses) would end very, very quickly.
You are the biggest reject I have seen yet here on/. From one post you some how assume you know me and my "type". Get off yourself loser, you are not that clever.
Now, would I sacrifice my life to save a whale? Probably not. To save all the whales? Yeah, I sure would. Honorable people have sacrificed a lot more, for a lot less. Your life, however, I would sacrifice to save a guppy, you ignorant troll.
Ah, yes you are such the hero, what honor you must have! Let me take a page out of your book and guess your "type" from one post. Hmm, I bet you are the "type" that would watch a human suffer because you live in your own self absorbed world where if anyone is different than you they are not equally deserving as you.
People of my "type" got off their @ss and served in the U.S.M.C to protect the freedom of pond scum trash such as you. Please do the world a favor and 1) do not reproduce, we do not need your gene pool in this world, 2) go play in traffic during rush hour.
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The saddest part of all of this is that this mom is just trying to fight back, yet in good-ole-socialism, she will probably lose and and get what ever little money she has taken from her for "damages".
You Canadians and Europeans can say what you want about the USA and "us Americans", however, as an American, I know that I do enjoy freedom of speech, freedom of thought and due process. We can't always say the same for you.
Now go ahead and mod me down because I didn't say "USA sucks" and "Capitalism sucks" in my post.
Please, I want all Americans to stop posting to this thread with American laws. This took place in "Oh Canada". In that cold land of Northern American, they do not enjoy the same freedoms that we do, such as freedom of speech.
I guess this episode should become a lesson in all MBA classes. If your company is small then keep your head low and do good business. Once the company becomes big enough, _then_ you get to do the nasty things.
Oh, and origianlly in 1993, the USPTO rejected the Windows mark:
Umm, Oracle standard edition cost the same as SQL Server standard edition. Oracle lowered the price a while ago. Oracle Enterprise edition costs the same as SQL standard edition, feature-for-feature. However, Oracle offers far more large scale features so you could spend more if you need those features (which most users would not). A 1 processor version of SQL Server Enterprise 2005 costs $24,999.00. You can get a feature-for-feature version of Oracle for that price as well. If you just price out a "maxed-out" Enterprise Oracle, you would probably pay about $40,000 per processor. The features you get with that maxed version exceed SQL Server and actually are not needed by most users. I actually keep telling our Oracle DBA's and our PHB's that we don't need Oracle Enterprise for 99.99% of what we use Oracle for. However, they still buy the Enterprise version of Oracle, just like they keep buying the Enterprise version of SQL Server. I guess they just like to spend company money. The apps we develop would run just as great on the standard versions of Oracle or SQL Server.
It sounds like your just trying to make up stuff. .Net is .Net. The DB layer is abstracted. If you have a DB lib, it all works just as well. MySQL has a great .Net SQL connector. You can even get commercial versions if you want. Notice the nice VS.Net integration in the screen shots? As for PostgreSQL, just do a search on Google and you will find plenty of Open Source as well as commercial .Net providers. Saying SQL Server is "easier" to integrate into .Net is just silly. It makes no sense.
Why would you? SQL Server 2000, was/is a very, very good RDBMS. To me the major flaw is that it is MS-Only. SQL Enterprise Manager was/is a very nice front end. As far as DTS packages go, I guess I have not had the problems you have had. We run tons of DTS packages that trade data between Oracle and SQL Server every night. Many of them are probably starting to kick-off soon. I think the GUI for working with SQL Server is much better then the default for Oracle. However, there are some very powerful tools for Oracle. The apps I have seen our Oracle DBA's run were great.
This seems to be hit or miss. I have been using SQL Server 2005 with Visual Studio 2005 for a while now thanks to MSDN. SQL Server 2005 for me has been either the app didn't need any changes, or the app had .Net compile errors out the wazoo.
Oh, and for those who have always said that Oracle was/is "heavy" and sucked up too much memory? Well, welcome to SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005. I am wondering if MS rewrote Visual Studio 2005 in C# because the startup time sucks and the memory foot-print sucks and the run-time performance sucks. Visual Studio 2005 also changes most everything you are used to with web applications (from VS.Net 2003). You no longer create a new project of type web application, you create/open "web sites". I found this very stupid. To me a project is a project, regardless of the type. I don't want one project type for C# desktop and one for C# web. As for SQL Server 2005, the memory usage is not much different than Oracle. I remember always complaining about how an O
The PHB's of this corp will probably convince the media companies that no copyright material is ever traded since it always stays on the companies servers. However, more technical users will know that if it is playing on their computer, then the bits are going through their computer and probably could be captured and recorded.
I think that was the point of the joke ; )
Didn't the U.S. government pay for the "pipes" already with our TAX DOLLARS? Our tax dollars were used over decades to build up the phone systems infrastructure. Why should we pay for them again. I say the U.S. government should just take the pipes back and grant equal access to them, everyone pays the same for access. Then let companies compete.
I have never tried Skype or the others, I wonder if Brighthouse is introducing latency into VoIP traffic? Has anyone noticed poor VoIP performance here in the USA over cable modem or DSL?
Oracle may be looking to get enterprise clients to switch from MySQL to Oracle. IMO, I wish them the best. However, Oracle would be dumb (as would MS, IBM) to think that they could switch a small to medium site to an expensive DB server costing $1,000's per processor. The (non-)enterprise versions of Oracle and MS SQL Server are not expensive from a medium-large to large company perspective. However, try to get a small to medium sized company to dish out $5,000+ for a DB server and see how fast they look for other options.
MS is coming out with another "watered-down" version of MS SQL Server for their 2005 version. I wonder how many concurrent users can connect or what the limitations are. I am sure MS won't allow any old company to just use a watered-down SQL server free of charge. If that is the case, I would just write a connection manager to always use only the max limit of connections and save our company a crap load of cash.
IMO, there is always going to be a nice market for the OSS DB's such as MySQL and PostgreSQL. The price is hard to beat and the features/speed for both is great. IME, the only reason to really use one of the paid-for databases is for some very expensive financial type applications where you want the support/reputation. Otherwise, MySQL/PostgreSQL does the same for less. Now if I could only find a way to convince the PHB's at the fortune 500 where I work of that fact.
What exactly is going to stop any MS Office competitor from just using the MS Office XML format if it is "totally open" as you suggest? Oh, yeah, those damn patents, not to mention that it is not totally open. Please show me _one_ official link from MS that tells me all the specs I need to know to fully read and write MS Office documents with zero patent/license encumbrances, and then I will believe you.
It was really great "innovation" on the part of MS to use XML for exactly what it was designed to do and then get a patent to block others from doing it.
No thanks. I don't need any more corporate MS crap. I doubt this "real" MS software "engineer" is allowed to speak his mind. Plenty have been fired for MS for less than saying that MS is not the "best". How about the poor guy who just posted some pictures of MS getting in some nice new G5 Macs that got fired?Does MS call _all_ of their programmers "engineers"? Do all of those "software engieers" _actually_ have degrees and certifications in engineering? Or are they really just programmers with a nice PR made title? I studied engineering and work as a programmer. I personally cannot stand when I see people who just program computers with _zero_ engineering training get titles of "engineer".You seems to be a shill for MS. However, MS has not, and will not give up their hold on their proprietary MS Office document formats. Please send me a link the day MS officially allows _anyone_ to use their office formats in the way OpenDocument would allow.
While HTML is great for display of content over the web, it really sucks as a format for office documents. No one wants to have to send around multiple files to just display a single document. No want wants to have to zip up all the files of a web page (css, images, javascript) and then give instructions to users on how to extract the files and double-click on index.html. No one wants to worry about print preferences, etc. Have you ever seen how IE prints a page? It puts a URL and and other crap on the page. The last thing I want at the top of each report page is file:///D:/My%20Documents/tmp/foo.html or D:\My Documents\tmp\foo.html. The last thing I want to do is to give instructions to tons of users on how to turn off all the IE print headers/footers.
No thanks. Use the right format for the right job.
I can serialize an object in a program to a file. I can then encrypt that file and stick it in an XML-wrapper. Does that make it open? Nope. Sure, the plain text in an Office 12 doc will be viewable, however the objects will be what are in a proprietary format (and probably patent encumbered to boot). So anything more complicated than a Dear John letter will need to be reverse engineered just like the current .doc format.
Why would MS totally be open to putting their _whole_ doc format in XML where anyone can read/write to it, yet be against an OpenDocument format? The only reasons I can think of is because in the XML-wrapper, MS can still keep things proprietary by just encoding a proprietary blob and dropping it in XML and the fact that MS has a patent on their XML "innovation".
This Spitzer idiot will actually tell people that he "kept their children safe" and believe it or not, there will be tons of other idiots that will think it is true : (
There are a lot of funny things like this in the USA. At 17, I was able to sign up for the US Marine Corps. At 18, I was allowed to enter the US Marine Coprs. I went in in 1991, during that whole Gulf War thingy. The funny thing to me (now at the age of 32) is that I was allowed by the US federal govt. to sign my life over to them to possible fight and die for my country at _only_ 18, yet I was not old enough to buy and drink a beer! I guess uncle Sam really knows what is best for us.
I think enough people have responded to you to answer your post. The Hyatt problem (which was very bad) was not caused by some corporate engineer(s). Those engineers went a few steps further and went for certifications that they agree to abide by. As a result, they get a much higher rate of pay. However, they are also responsible for the overall design. In a situation where an engineer gets a state or federal cert to be a public consultant as an expert, then yes they should be held liable.
If Ford has a car with faulty steering that locks and causes me to be in a very bad accident, should Ford be liable? IMO, yes. Should the engineers be personally liable? IMO, no. It is up to Ford and their management to hire competent employees and competent management to make sure those employees put out a safe product.
Imagine what would happen if people were allowed to sue an individual employee because of a faulty product. The cost of labor for _any_ technical job would go through the roof because those, engineers, developers, machinists, etc would all need to buy personal liability insurance, just like doctors have to. One of the reasons doctors _have_ to charge so much here in the USA is because of insurance costs to protect them against sue-happy lawyers and people. Top surgeons can easily pay $100,000+ a year just for insurance!
People of my "type" got off their @ss and served in the U.S.M.C to protect the freedom of pond scum trash such as you. Please do the world a favor and 1) do not reproduce, we do not need your gene pool in this world, 2) go play in traffic during rush hour.
Sorry for the broken Goliath Birdeater link ;)