Over the past few months, I've been looking for an XML based open source system to handle all documents for a Hospital Information System. Several ISVs have suggested to steer clear of ODF as well as OpenOffice.org. Some of the main objections:
1. SUN isn't very forthcoming when it comes to including changes submitted in the main code. 2. The problems of bloat, poor performance, memory utilisation etc. have been inherited from MS Office. 3. The ODF spec is overly long and needlessly complex, to be implemented faithfully.
Maybe the pressure built up has finally yielded, resulting in this fork. Good luck.
The openSUSE project now releases free SUSE downloads - something SUSE had been against. Novell also bought Ximian which I think has a great reputation...
I think Novell, Ximian (Xandros) and other similar companies are approaching Linux from a totally wrong angle - in Mono, Moonlight and Evolution... they are APIng Microsoft's Defective By Design APIs; instead of defining a truly Open platform, Open Protocols and Open Implementations of said protocols.... like Zimbra for instance; which probably explains why Yahoo (another friend of MS bought them over.
This Novell approach will result in mediocre quality implementations of poor products; and only hurt Linux in the long run. The value proposition of Linux is NOT that it can do Windows better... it is that there are much better ways to do things which Windows purportedly aims to achieve.
Even windows isn't working with Windows these days... what with Vista breaking so many apps that worked on all previous versions upto XP SP2. Novell making money from big corporate customers is only a very transient issue... once they figure out that Linux can work as well as Windows on servers and web-based services on Firefox-Linux desktops; they will eventually explore other non-tainted distros as well.
For a hospital where I consult, for instance, we have decided to go in with PACS-One deployed on top of Cent OS, not even RedHat. Other corporates will do likewise, once they understand what benefits Linux can bring them. This is a very transient and pyrrhic victory for Microsoft-Novell, and rightly so.
No, it's still a rendering bug. The occasions that it appears to calculate further using the faulty value is actually when it still triggers the rendering bug.
Is that so? If you actually took the trouble of reading the responses to the conjectures in the blog (yes, conjectures and speculation.. not an official Microsoft statement) you will come across this bit:
David,
You said "Any calculations based off that cell will be accurate too. Hope that helps."
But that's not entirely correct. At least not from what I have seen. If you happen to be rounding your calculations (=ROUND(850*77.1,2)*2), it also rounds it to 100K making that permanent.
So, while it is true that most cases Excel treats the value as correct except for the visual side of it, in others it actually DOES treat it as 100K.
Rob So it appears that this is just not a simple rendering bug. Also, it is unclear why floating point operations in this zone must result in this peculiar bug.. and again, only in Excel 2007, but not earlier versions. Until the whole truth emerges (which is impossible in a closed-source product) this can only be treated as 'random' behaviour in simple arithmetic operations.
actually the Excel bug was a rendering bug, the actual calculated value was correct, to prove this, take the output that is visually wrong in the cell and use in a further calculation. You will the result is correct....
Wrong! It is random, actually. It's right there in the summary of the/. artice:
"Suppose the formula is in A1. =A1+1 returns 100,001, which appears to show the formula is in fact 100,000... =A1*2 returns 131,070, as if A1 had 65,535 (which it should have been). =A1*1 keeps it at 100,000. =A1-1 returns 65,534. =A1/1 is still 100,000. =A1/2 returns 32767.5." So it's just not a simple rendering bug... on random ocassions, it calculates further using the faulty value.
We are a group of Linux kernel developers (over 100 strong) and project managers (over 10) that develop and maintain Linux kernel drivers. We work with the manufacturers of the specific device to specify, develop, submit to the main kernel, and maintain the kernel drivers. We are willing and able to sign NDAs with companies if they wish to keep their specifications closed, as long as we are able to create a proper GPLv2 Linux kernel driver as an end result. So let's say, there's a driver that goes like this:... 1. Read from input buffer 2. Check for DRM 3. Verify if hardware and OS is 'trusted' 4. Transfer to output buffer...
Now, the GPL2 license might allow rewriting the driver minus steps 2 and 3; but since Tivoisation is not illegal, the new kernel could be disabled by the hardware / firmware. It would appear that Novell is assisting unscrupulous hardware vendors to participate in the 'Linux movement' without abiding by the spirit of the GPL.
If WU is a rogue program, your machine is compromised. Wipe and start over.
Unfortunately, following your advice is impossible. The official WU program that is shipped with a Genuine Copy of Windows XP and Vista has been proved to be a Rogue Program by this episode. The only reliable protection appears to be, to disable Windows Update completely, and depend on the antivirus program to do a better job of protecting and securing the system.
Just try to go with me on this and pretend your a system admin of about, oh, say a small-medium company of around 500 users. I was indeed a sysadmin of a company that had just over 500 users, and as I remember, we initially had WSUS setup to do these updates over the network. After chaotic times, we got Symantec's antivirus program; and we disabled Auto Updates completely on every single desktop. Had I continued in that position, I think I'd have been Vice President - Enterprise Antivirus or something similar by now.
You have your brilliant AV that tells the user at every time any process or user (system or otherwise) tells you of updated system files. Well, get ready for the flood, because besides every update you want to push to your users, they call in and hammer your help desk for a week with calls about an alert that their "system files were changed" every patch Tuesday (if you do automatic updates) or every time that you need to push a critical update to the users. These ALWAYS affect system files. Not to mention that there are some system files that are altered every day. What then?
This scenario is purely hypothetical, because the Auto Updates would be disabled, and the patches would be pre-aproved by Symantec, and deployed through THEIR PROGRAM, not Windows Update. I don't recall the name of this program though... it's been a while since I left.
As far as the AV program is concerned, the service (Windows Update) is doing it's job...which in a way, it is. Windows Update has the control to change system files. No big secret there.
I think you have it backwards. The job of Windows Update is (supposedly) to patch the system in order to keep it in a secure, useful state. Which is precisely the definition of an antivirus software too. If Windows Update can reliably patch the OS and keep it secure, there would be no market for any antivirus software.
Therefore, any antivirus program can only trust itself, not even Microsoft.. insofar as updating / modifying files that affect system behaviour is concerned.. for instance dll files, and other 'system' files. This is an elemntary function of any antivirus program, which is why if I log in as 'administrator' and even try to copy a dll file, I get a warning message from the antivirus software.
You seem to think that every time a system file gets updated by whatever process, that should be flagged and prevented. It's not some rogue program that is being run to update the files, it's the WU service that's on every single XP (and other MS OS's) machine out there.
Yes. Every time a system file is updated by any other program than the antivirus program itself, it should be flagged, and the user made aware of this updation. Else the antivirus is broken.
What if the WU service itself is the ROGUE PROGRAM?
1) Most antivirus software can only detect known viruses. They do not detect viral activity, only a numeric signature. Won't detect stealth updates, if that update doesn't match a signature.
Every antivirus software I have seen, has this feature that prompts you when any 'write' or 'update' happens in the system folders. Try copying a dll file and the antivirus s/w throws up a window, asking for confirmation... in many cases, it is rejected outright. The logic is that any update to the system files can only be malicious in nature, since the system was behaving normally prior to these updates. This is totally different from scanning for 'signatures' in exe or com files elsewhere.
2) For the few behavioral antivirus software, my guess is that they're monitoring activity under some user accounts, and that they're not able to monitor activity of the "System" accounts and other special accounts.
Monitoring system accounts and special accounts is the first job of any antivirus software. Viruses, worms and trojans run with full system access, not restricted user access.
Updates are run under the system user process. If you had ever been a Windows admin, you'd know that there are all sorts of ways to hide updates and the like from users
So, does an antivirus program run as a normal user process or system user process? If it is the latter, then how is it that the stealth update managed to escape attention??
And if antivirus s/w firms do not know systems programming, why do they exist at all? Looks like most anti-virus programs have been configured / patched NOT TO REPORT this particular stealth update... I cannot see any other logical explanation for this lapse.
A dozen system files have been updated as part of this undocumented stealth update... and yet not a single antivirus software reported this. Why?
How do these antivirus programs know for sure that these updates were 'harmless' and 'normal behaviour'.
In light of this revelation, I think corporates must now take action against these antivirus firms for not preventing this breach. Let's see what Microsoft has to say to this 'harmless' update that allows users to 'know and be informed of further updates'. A Media Defender style expose' of internal communications on this issue would be very interesting indeed.
Well, settling it out of court for some large some of money would do that too, and is a lot more likely.
I think this is unlikely, and a cash settlement would be a step backwards for the FSF. Let me use a portion of your own quote:
when you win a small tactical engagement that turns out to be a large strategic victory, you have to consolidate the gains, or the other side will take them back. Let's look at some recent strategic victories for the FSF:
1. Microsoft have publicly dissociated themselves from the GPL3, and reworded their prior contract with Novell. 2. Even under the GPL2, a company that knowingly disrtibutes code in violation of the GPL is liable for penal action.
In the case of Monsoon Multimedia, they initially refused to comply or settle AFTER THE FSF POINTED OUT THE INFRACTION.
So, allowing them to settle NOW, after a case has been filed, would be a retrograde step. Offenders would continue to ignore the GPL and violate with impunity... thinking, they'd later on settle if and when a suit is filed.
In short, if the FSF wants to consolidate their gains and wins; it would be in their interest for this case to proceed in court, the infringer found guilty, and the GPL upheld in a court of law. THEN, AND ONLY THEN, will the FSF / SFLC combine consider taking DIRECT LEGAL action against the BIG FISH, as opposed to the current sabre-rattling in the media.
and case law to be made, as well. Settling this out of court will imply that such violations of the spirit of the GPL are not 'costly' - the FSF would like to create the exact opposite impression, with respect to the unholy MS-Novell agreement.
From a sysadmin point of view, the time spent on Service Packs, Patches and Antivirus (handling issues arising from above software) has to be the most unrewarding, thankless and useless in their careers. ZERO value addition - nothing useful learnt... except to understand how MS has found another way to screw up. ZERO appreciation from management or users... the sysadmins are just doing a job! ZERO information / guidance to complete... everything is learnt in the field - support from MS or Symantec is close to useless.
I guess if we had such items on the paycheck, the beancounters will finally notice what shitty software they are using in their Enterprise.
Something seriously seems to be wrong at Digg. Why rubbish stories get dugg 1000s of times, while this important one has less than 10 diggs after 2 hours, 42 minutes (as I post this) baffles me. I've even posted this on the Digg comments for this page.
Digg is certainly more popular than Slashdot, which probably explains why there's so much more incentive to block such serious bugs in Microsoft products getting highlighted.
WARNING TO MODS: THIS APPEARS TO BE AN ATTEMPT AT ASTROTURFING. THE PARENT POST IS NOT, REPEAT NOT +5 INFORMATIVE. PLEASE READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE, AND MS-EXCEL-MVP HAS ACCEPTED THIS BUG REPORT AS TRUE, AND HE HAS REPORTED IT TO MICROSOFT AS WELL.
Bernard Liengme View profile
More options Sep 23, 5:46 pm
This has now been reported to Microsoft -- Bernard V Liengme Microsoft Excel MVP www.stfx.ca/people/bliengme remove caps from email
Last evening, I met with the IT chief of a large transnational bank, for whom we develop Enterprise code. I asked him about what software platforms are envisaged in the long run, and the process behind evaluation. He said, "Basically we have a Red-Amber-Green colour scheme for software."
Under this scheme, Vista is Red, so is IE7, ActiveX controls, Visual Basic and Visual Basic.Net; I was surprised to learn that Visual Studio as a whole is 'Amber'! SuSE and RedHat Linux are both green, so is PHP, RubyonRails, Eclipse, Websphere etc. Interestingly, he said the IT staff of several banks get together and discuss matters affecting common issues like this.
So I guess it's the OEMs who are FORCED TO OFFER XP and XP-compatible hardware, drivers and support to their biggest customers. This isn't some gift of charity from His Billness or the new acting Chair-man from Microsoft. Nobody sane would like to willingly downgrade to Vista - simple as that.
No, users won't avoid using Vista because of performance or DRM issues, because Vista comes/will come preinstalled with their shiny new computer that, being faster than their old computer, will mask the relative lack of performance Vista has compared to XP.
Oh! So that means the userbase of Windows Vista consists entirely of stupids? I would imagine that atleast 20% of all PC users have some knowledge about Operating Systems, hardware, standards etc. Quite a sizable no. in fact - and I cannot imagine they will be easily brainwashed like you describe above.
I take strong exception to your statement that Microsoft could be lying and I think you should withdraw that remark immediately... or at least cross out the word "could"...
You mean: Microsoft could be speaking the truth, much like the crooks at Media Defender? Very unlikely, given the surreptious Updates that did not get noticed by anti-virus packages.
A bug with audio + network speeds (which, btw, Microsoft has admitted is a bug they're working on fixing) has nothing to do with spreading FUD as fact about Vista DRM tech.
This is not an ordinary bug, as in wrong implmentation in code / hardware of a technically sound architecture. The network stack in Vista uses 40% CPU time for simple file transfers - up from 15% in XP and 9% in Linux. This proves that the design deision to rewrite the BSD-stack was a flawed approach, and not a BUG
Secondly, it is not necessary to probe the audio hardware and software 30 times a second, as is done in Vista. That overload on system resources is again not a bug, it is DEFECTIVE BY DESIGN .
Unless Microsoft can demonstrate superior performance with Vista on identical hardware, users will conclude that DRM is such a burden on resources, and avoid using Vista as long as they practically can. This isn't FUD, it's FACT.
Slashdot Mirror
Over the past few months, I've been looking for an XML based open source system to handle all documents for a Hospital Information System. Several ISVs have suggested to steer clear of ODF as well as OpenOffice.org. Some of the main objections:
1. SUN isn't very forthcoming when it comes to including changes submitted in the main code.
2. The problems of bloat, poor performance, memory utilisation etc. have been inherited from MS Office.
3. The ODF spec is overly long and needlessly complex, to be implemented faithfully.
Maybe the pressure built up has finally yielded, resulting in this fork. Good luck.
"throwing chairs" in Finnish?
.. you know, Bummer.
Not just Finnish... it's the same in any language.
It begins like Balls and ends like
The openSUSE project now releases free SUSE downloads - something SUSE had been against. Novell also bought Ximian which I think has a great reputation ...
I think Novell, Ximian (Xandros) and other similar companies are approaching Linux from a totally wrong angle - in Mono, Moonlight and Evolution... they are APIng Microsoft's Defective By Design APIs; instead of defining a truly Open platform, Open Protocols and Open Implementations of said protocols.... like Zimbra for instance; which probably explains why Yahoo (another friend of MS bought them over.
This Novell approach will result in mediocre quality implementations of poor products; and only hurt Linux in the long run. The value proposition of Linux is NOT that it can do Windows better... it is that there are much better ways to do things which Windows purportedly aims to achieve.
Even windows isn't working with Windows these days... what with Vista breaking so many apps that worked on all previous versions upto XP SP2. Novell making money from big corporate customers is only a very transient issue... once they figure out that Linux can work as well as Windows on servers and web-based services on Firefox-Linux desktops; they will eventually explore other non-tainted distros as well.
For a hospital where I consult, for instance, we have decided to go in with PACS-One deployed on top of Cent OS, not even RedHat. Other corporates will do likewise, once they understand what benefits Linux can bring them. This is a very transient and pyrrhic victory for Microsoft-Novell, and rightly so.
Is that so? If you actually took the trouble of reading the responses to the conjectures in the blog (yes, conjectures and speculation.. not an official Microsoft statement) you will come across this bit: David,
You said "Any calculations based off that cell will be accurate too. Hope that helps."
But that's not entirely correct. At least not from what I have seen. If you happen to be rounding your calculations (=ROUND(850*77.1,2)*2), it also rounds it to 100K making that permanent.
So, while it is true that most cases Excel treats the value as correct except for the visual side of it, in others it actually DOES treat it as 100K.
Rob So it appears that this is just not a simple rendering bug. Also, it is unclear why floating point operations in this zone must result in this peculiar bug.. and again, only in Excel 2007, but not earlier versions. Until the whole truth emerges (which is impossible in a closed-source product) this can only be treated as 'random' behaviour in simple arithmetic operations.
Wrong! It is random, actually. It's right there in the summary of the
They've been using that technique to identify and fix bugs in Windows... even incorporated that into Excel 2007 multiplication recently.
Takes a fool to know another, perhaps?
1. Read from input buffer
2. Check for DRM
3. Verify if hardware and OS is 'trusted'
4. Transfer to output buffer
Now, the GPL2 license might allow rewriting the driver minus steps 2 and 3; but since Tivoisation is not illegal, the new kernel could be disabled by the hardware / firmware. It would appear that Novell is assisting unscrupulous hardware vendors to participate in the 'Linux movement' without abiding by the spirit of the GPL.
If WU is a rogue program, your machine is compromised. Wipe and start over.
Unfortunately, following your advice is impossible. The official WU program that is shipped with a Genuine Copy of Windows XP and Vista has been proved to be a Rogue Program by this episode. The only reliable protection appears to be, to disable Windows Update completely, and depend on the antivirus program to do a better job of protecting and securing the system.
Just try to go with me on this and pretend your a system admin of about, oh, say a small-medium company of around 500 users.
I was indeed a sysadmin of a company that had just over 500 users, and as I remember, we initially had WSUS setup to do these updates over the network. After chaotic times, we got Symantec's antivirus program; and we disabled Auto Updates completely on every single desktop. Had I continued in that position, I think I'd have been Vice President - Enterprise Antivirus or something similar by now.
You have your brilliant AV that tells the user at every time any process or user (system or otherwise) tells you of updated system files. Well, get ready for the flood, because besides every update you want to push to your users, they call in and hammer your help desk for a week with calls about an alert that their "system files were changed" every patch Tuesday (if you do automatic updates) or every time that you need to push a critical update to the users. These ALWAYS affect system files. Not to mention that there are some system files that are altered every day. What then?
This scenario is purely hypothetical, because the Auto Updates would be disabled, and the patches would be pre-aproved by Symantec, and deployed through THEIR PROGRAM, not Windows Update. I don't recall the name of this program though... it's been a while since I left.
As far as the AV program is concerned, the service (Windows Update) is doing it's job...which in a way, it is. Windows Update has the control to change system files. No big secret there.
I think you have it backwards. The job of Windows Update is (supposedly) to patch the system in order to keep it in a secure, useful state. Which is precisely the definition of an antivirus software too. If Windows Update can reliably patch the OS and keep it secure, there would be no market for any antivirus software.
Therefore, any antivirus program can only trust itself, not even Microsoft.. insofar as updating / modifying files that affect system behaviour is concerned.. for instance dll files, and other 'system' files. This is an elemntary function of any antivirus program, which is why if I log in as 'administrator' and even try to copy a dll file, I get a warning message from the antivirus software.
You seem to think that every time a system file gets updated by whatever process, that should be flagged and prevented. It's not some rogue program that is being run to update the files, it's the WU service that's on every single XP (and other MS OS's) machine out there.
Yes. Every time a system file is updated by any other program than the antivirus program itself, it should be flagged, and the user made aware of this updation. Else the antivirus is broken.
What if the WU service itself is the ROGUE PROGRAM?
1) Most antivirus software can only detect known viruses. They do not detect viral activity, only a numeric signature. Won't detect stealth updates, if that update doesn't match a signature.
Every antivirus software I have seen, has this feature that prompts you when any 'write' or 'update' happens in the system folders. Try copying a dll file and the antivirus s/w throws up a window, asking for confirmation... in many cases, it is rejected outright. The logic is that any update to the system files can only be malicious in nature, since the system was behaving normally prior to these updates. This is totally different from scanning for 'signatures' in exe or com files elsewhere.
2) For the few behavioral antivirus software, my guess is that they're monitoring activity under some user accounts, and that they're not able to monitor activity of the "System" accounts and other special accounts.
Monitoring system accounts and special accounts is the first job of any antivirus software. Viruses, worms and trojans run with full system access, not restricted user access.
Updates are run under the system user process. If you had ever been a Windows admin, you'd know that there are all sorts of ways to hide updates and the like from users
So, does an antivirus program run as a normal user process or system user process? If it is the latter, then how is it that the stealth update managed to escape attention??
And if antivirus s/w firms do not know systems programming, why do they exist at all? Looks like most anti-virus programs have been configured / patched NOT TO REPORT this particular stealth update... I cannot see any other logical explanation for this lapse.
A dozen system files have been updated as part of this undocumented stealth update... and yet not a single antivirus software reported this. Why?
How do these antivirus programs know for sure that these updates were 'harmless' and 'normal behaviour'.
In light of this revelation, I think corporates must now take action against these antivirus firms for not preventing this breach. Let's see what Microsoft has to say to this 'harmless' update that allows users to 'know and be informed of further updates'. A Media Defender style expose' of internal communications on this issue would be very interesting indeed.
I think this is unlikely, and a cash settlement would be a step backwards for the FSF. Let me use a portion of your own quote: when you win a small tactical engagement that turns out to be a large strategic victory, you have to consolidate the gains, or the other side will take them back. Let's look at some recent strategic victories for the FSF:
1. Microsoft have publicly dissociated themselves from the GPL3, and reworded their prior contract with Novell.
2. Even under the GPL2, a company that knowingly disrtibutes code in violation of the GPL is liable for penal action.
In the case of Monsoon Multimedia, they initially refused to comply or settle AFTER THE FSF POINTED OUT THE INFRACTION.
So, allowing them to settle NOW, after a case has been filed, would be a retrograde step. Offenders would continue to ignore the GPL and violate with impunity... thinking, they'd later on settle if and when a suit is filed.
In short, if the FSF wants to consolidate their gains and wins; it would be in their interest for this case to proceed in court, the infringer found guilty, and the GPL upheld in a court of law. THEN, AND ONLY THEN, will the FSF / SFLC combine consider taking DIRECT LEGAL action against the BIG FISH, as opposed to the current sabre-rattling in the media.
My 2 cents, and IANAL.
and case law to be made, as well. Settling this out of court will imply that such violations of the spirit of the GPL are not 'costly' - the FSF would like to create the exact opposite impression, with respect to the unholy MS-Novell agreement.
From a sysadmin point of view, the time spent on Service Packs, Patches and Antivirus (handling issues arising from above software) has to be the most unrewarding, thankless and useless in their careers. ... the sysadmins are just doing a job!
ZERO value addition - nothing useful learnt... except to understand how MS has found another way to screw up.
ZERO appreciation from management or users
ZERO information / guidance to complete... everything is learnt in the field - support from MS or Symantec is close to useless.
I guess if we had such items on the paycheck, the beancounters will finally notice what shitty software they are using in their Enterprise.
Something seriously seems to be wrong at Digg. Why rubbish stories get dugg 1000s of times, while this important one has less than 10 diggs after 2 hours, 42 minutes (as I post this) baffles me. I've even posted this on the Digg comments for this page.
Digg is certainly more popular than Slashdot, which probably explains why there's so much more incentive to block such serious bugs in Microsoft products getting highlighted.
This is very very fishy indeed.
WARNING TO MODS: THIS APPEARS TO BE AN ATTEMPT AT ASTROTURFING. THE PARENT POST IS NOT, REPEAT NOT +5 INFORMATIVE. PLEASE READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE, AND MS-EXCEL-MVP HAS ACCEPTED THIS BUG REPORT AS TRUE, AND HE HAS REPORTED IT TO MICROSOFT AS WELL. Bernard Liengme View profile
More options Sep 23, 5:46 pm
This has now been reported to Microsoft
--
Bernard V Liengme
Microsoft Excel MVP
www.stfx.ca/people/bliengme
remove caps from email
"Molham Serry" wrote in message
They will be disabling multiplication in all future versions of Excel.
No, no, no... remember this is effectively Office Vista.. so the fix will be, like:
You are trying to multiply 2 numbers and the answer is 65535. This is a very dangerous multiplication frequently used in viruses... Cancel / Allow?
Last evening, I met with the IT chief of a large transnational bank, for whom we develop Enterprise code. I asked him about what software platforms are envisaged in the long run, and the process behind evaluation. He said, "Basically we have a Red-Amber-Green colour scheme for software."
.Net; I was surprised to learn that Visual Studio as a whole is 'Amber'! SuSE and RedHat Linux are both green, so is PHP, RubyonRails, Eclipse, Websphere etc. Interestingly, he said the IT staff of several banks get together and discuss matters affecting common issues like this.
Under this scheme, Vista is Red, so is IE7, ActiveX controls, Visual Basic and Visual Basic
So I guess it's the OEMs who are FORCED TO OFFER XP and XP-compatible hardware, drivers and support to their biggest customers. This isn't some gift of charity from His Billness or the new acting Chair-man from Microsoft. Nobody sane would like to willingly downgrade to Vista - simple as that.
I just tried this scenario on Google: "Google got in bed with DHS"
:-)
More than 650,000 offsprings apparently!
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&client=opera&rls=en&hs=CCy&q=google+got+in+bed+with+DHS&btnG=Search
And about 510,000 of the offspring seem to be terrorists!!
"Google got in bed with DHS terrorists"
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&client=opera&rls=en&hs=MYd&q=google+got+in+bed+with+DHS+terrorists&btnG=Search
70% chance for the offspring to be a terrorist, if Google Research(TM) is to be believed
No, users won't avoid using Vista because of performance or DRM issues, because Vista comes/will come preinstalled with their shiny new computer that, being faster than their old computer, will mask the relative lack of performance Vista has compared to XP.
Oh! So that means the userbase of Windows Vista consists entirely of stupids? I would imagine that atleast 20% of all PC users have some knowledge about Operating Systems, hardware, standards etc. Quite a sizable no. in fact - and I cannot imagine they will be easily brainwashed like you describe above.
I take strong exception to your statement that Microsoft could be lying and I think you should withdraw that remark immediately... or at least cross out the word "could"...
You mean: Microsoft could be speaking the truth, much like the crooks at Media Defender? Very unlikely, given the surreptious Updates that did not get noticed by anti-virus packages.
I'd posted on this a few days back:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=299847&cid=20634945
A bug with audio + network speeds (which, btw, Microsoft has admitted is a bug they're working on fixing) has nothing to do with spreading FUD as fact about Vista DRM tech.
This is not an ordinary bug, as in wrong implmentation in code / hardware of a technically sound architecture. The network stack in Vista uses 40% CPU time for simple file transfers - up from 15% in XP and 9% in Linux. This proves that the design deision to rewrite the BSD-stack was a flawed approach, and not a BUG
Secondly, it is not necessary to probe the audio hardware and software 30 times a second, as is done in Vista. That overload on system resources is again not a bug, it is DEFECTIVE BY DESIGN .
Unless Microsoft can demonstrate superior performance with Vista on identical hardware, users will conclude that DRM is such a burden on resources, and avoid using Vista as long as they practically can. This isn't FUD, it's FACT.