Depends on the nature of the licencing agreement between the PC mfr and MS. Some of the older ones (still in force?) had mfrs paying MS assuming all machines had MS-OSes. Definitely tying _by_ MS in crafting that agreement.
Given that history, both MS & the mfr would have to prove there was no bundling. Quite easily done if theirs always a sales-question asked and invoice line-item. Much more difficult if not. Yes, this is guilty until proven innocent, but that is precisely how the US Sherman and Clayton (antitrust) Acts are crafted, interpreted and enforced.
This comment would be correct except for one very inconvenient fact -- Microsoft has been adjudged a monopolist in the EU (and US but penalties were reduced).
Contrary to popular impression, monopolies are not illegal. But they are restricted by law from doing things (mostly that would preserve or extend the monopoly) that are perfectly legal for other companies.
Tying or "bundling" is one of those illegal things that monopolies must not do. Selling their product as part of another sale. Software, including should be a sales choice ("Do you want Windows with that?") and invoice line-item.
How the boxen are configured and shipped is a separate matter. It would probably not be illegal to ship a machine with MS Windows pre-installed (and even stickered) even though the OS was refused at sales time and no price was paid for it. Quiet about virus! This would not authorize use, although a gift recipient might have an innocent user defense.
I do not know Italian law, but I would not expect an outcome similar to Anglo-American law. AFAIK, they mostly use a "code" approach to the law, the codes dating back to the Romans and being used as generally guiding principles for the judges who have more discretion than common-law courts.
The fundamental problem for MS and the bundling mfrs is that a refund is not the same as a non-sale. It might be a remedy, but the money has been paid, and the negotiating power is reversed.
If, for instance, I boot my new machine from a USB key or CDROM, I might never see any notices of refund. Such a clean boot would be a very reasonable precaution to avoid running MS software and avoid a possible allegation of "use".
I'm not a State of Calif employee, but I would _LOVE_ it for my megacorp employer to take my issued cell phone away. Then I wouldn't have to handle out-of-hours calls! For free (I'm exempt staff). I'd just get a pers cellphone for ~$15/mo.
All this instant connectivity is a race to the bottom. Employer funded competition between employees. Expectations get raised but must inevitably disappoint. There are only a few things that really benefit from instant reactivity, and you already know them.
Curious this is hitting the wires just as the TSA Aiport search furor is fading. Maybe it was delayed. There's not much difference between the two -- in both cases many innocents are being hassled, very specifically to create deterrence through fear, precisely what the US 4th Amend. was written against.
Oddly, the road dragnet will catch more violators than the airports ever will, yet these officials seem more concerned with preserving rights. I guess they know they will have to justify themselves in court, while the TSA has yet to be brought to heel. I think Schneier is trying
In reality, you are right. However, reality has nothing to do with corproate accounting. The Mac division would transfer the PCs to the DC at full MSRP. That way it shows a needed profit.
Step back and look a bit. Assange may be more ape than angel, but he still has rights various
powers are working hard to deny him -- why? It appears they've caved on bail, and eventually the British system grinding slowly and ever-so-carefully will get around to reviewing some substance of the matter. I'm a bit surprised extradition for "material witness"
warrents is included, or to a place without traditional protections
(right of silence). Even more unusual would be extradition for
an offense which is not a crime in the holding country. But hey,
it is their treaty, and the Brits did goofy things when they were after the IRA.
At a higher level, this just indicates the extraordinary influence (coersion? CIA blackmail?) the US wields. Just why would Sweden
(of all places) dance to Hillary's tune? Their politics runs more the opposite. Some feminists might like the broadening and exposure
of sexual misconduct laws, but the more thoughtful might consider this stretch happens on the backs of women who are indisputably abused.
Dubious claims and outright false allegations justify unfortunately
piercing scrutiny of victims and further humiliation.
Britian is similar. First we had the unbelieveable spectacle of
a Labour government supporting the American invasion of Iraq, and
maintaining support after WMD unfound and Tony Blair putting down
three quite representative backbencher revolts. They will grind
it all through very carefully, trying to stay reasonable lest they
suffer the voter backlash that Sweden is almost certain to see.
Astonishing how the US gets people to jump in front of a bus.
Proof more Wikileaks are needed.
The TSA searches are causing greater loss of life [time] than terrorists ever could. Each year, about 800 million people have to arrive one hour earlier at the airport to wait in lines and now suffer increased humiliation and/or irradiation.
Human beings only live for 700,000 hours. The TSA is wasting over 1000 lifetimes each year.
The 9/11 exploit -- using aircraft as incendiary missiles -- was a once-off with 10x+ lethality and much greater psychological impact. That hole was only available because all previous hijackings had been ransomable. After, no plane would be turned over although it might crash as pilots struggled.
I am in favor of reasonable precautions. But the costs of all measures needs to be weighed. Including the oft neglected user costs (see corporate IT). But our politicians (populace?) cares far more for what looks good rather than what works. This must end, lest such short sightedness hobble us.
The TSA searches are causing greater loss of useable lifetime than terrorists ever could. Each year, about 800 million people have to arrive one hour earlier at the airport to wait in lines and now suffer increased humiliation. Human beings only live for 700,000 hours. The TSA is wasting over 1000 lifetimes each year.
One problem with hairtriggers is false positives. I fully expect the aggrieved Korean hackers to take full retaliation against the rich-and-powerful (RAP) in their society.
How about simple blind spew of trigger packets/seqs with spoofed IPsrc (set to easily guessable RAP home/biz addrs)? Botnet optional. Social DoS. After a few dozen of these, the ISPs might get a clue. Or maybe not, I think a a metric clue-by-four is somewhat larger.
Personally, I like the Adjustable keyboard . Ball adjustment locks in place. Standard QWERTY, no thumb keys (no big transition to flat QWERTY). Possibly membrane, but I don't mind even though I've used Model "M"s for decades.
For me, the big deal is reducing wrist angle. I adjust kbd up as high as possible to make my wrists more vertical, and somewhat apart to keep arm-middle-finger phalanges in line. This kbd goes much higher than most others.
Perhaps ignorance is bliss -- it sure seems so for the Judiciary. Every browser I know (except lynx and links) has encryption software to handle https:/// links. Most banks and reputable business require it.
Perhaps this is judicially considered "security software", but how can it be reliably distinguished from the forbidden "encryption software"? This seems unconstitutionally vague.
Once upon a time, before many readers here were born, most computers were bootless. Memory (RAM) was non-volatile "core" -- little magnetized iron donuts in a grid of wires. Discrete semiconductors (transistors -- TTL) were far to expensive and used only for registers. Power cycling would wipe the registers and cause a restart. But woe betide you if core got corrupted. Then it had to be rebuilt, a relatively long process almost certainly involving lots of tape and toggling (entering bits with switches).
There is no technical reason bootless could not be implemented today, with the OS in flash and appropriate pagemapping to RAM for r/w pages.
However, one of the main reasons for rebooting is to clear out OS corruption (some OSes and configs are more succeptible than others) and this functionality would need to be added back.
HP's Board may be pretend to be aggrieved, but there is little they can do. California basically bans non-compete clauses. Some lawyers will get rich, and it will all be settled out of sight.
It would be more convincing if HP weren't such d@mned hypocrits: they complain of corporate secret leakage, yet they hired in Carly Fiorio as CEO from Lucent to get networking going and Mark Furd himself from NCR. Both "closer" in market terms to HP than Oracle is.
I think the HP Bored is just unhappy Mark bounced back quickly and very vexed the market agrees with him (Oracle's stock when up, HP down). Arrogant SOBs. I'd be embarrassed to work for them. Or buy their products.
A very good point. The real question is what means of enforcement are available for unsavory legislative vote agreements. "Campaign contributors" and other legislators have on-going relationships and can inflict reputational damage with others.
What lever does an aggressive litigant have? Only the suit. They cannot enforce any secret settlment, so have to keep the suit alive as a threat. However, legislators are more devious than that -- they can work with others (vote swapping) against their own vote.
But that may not even be necessary if she has the least modicum of courage -- just wear a wire. The first hint of vote-buying and those guys go to the bighouse for a long time. No settlement privilige for felonies. She'd have full backing of Congress, the FBI & USSS.
OK, in a slightly less comical vein, the first thing toddlers need to learn is cause & effect. Just moving a mouse pointer on a screen of fish is a good start.
Stay away from MS-Windoze, it is not predictable enough (except a BSoD will happen):)
No, they don't! The "police" have no special powers other than exactly what statutes give them under special circumstances (arrest, crime in progress, etc). Since I do not know of any statute granting GPS powers, the only way the police can do this legally is because everyone can.
This is an important distinction between the American & British (&other systems): In the US, the government derives its' powers by delegation from The People. If The People do not have a power, they cannot delegate it. Under the UK (&other) systems, the Sovereign holds all powers which S/He graciously grants to the people, starting with Magna Carta. The Sovereign still holds other power unavailable to individuals.
Nastiness is usually a sign of guilt: "It is human nature to hate those we have wronged [sic]" Tacitus.
If the corp is nasty, it will attract further nasties and have to cope with the results. The nice people leave.
If a nice corp has to fire someone for gross malfeasance and such yet cannot charge them, then perhaps send in a trusted senior specialist to check things out quietly. A big investigative purge will just tell everyone there you don't trust them. Then why should they trust you? Thieves have the best locks. Lots of moves in this chessgame.
Losers blame others or "the System". Winners improve themselves.
If the RIAA wants change, they could change their business model from milking an old back-catalog and do more to discover and develop new talent. When "British|American Idol" discovers more talent than the RIAA's combined A&R depts, they've slipped below Art Linkletter's "Tiny Talent Time".
Uhm... er... just why does the RIAA think it can write laws? Merely because they've had success in the past influencing legislation does not mean they have a right to such influence continuing.
Most people do not know it, but the United States has traditionally exerted strong controls over what may leave the country. Starting with prohibiting exports of long pine logs useable for masts and spars for the superweapons of 1790.
The laws are very complex, you can get a start here.
US law is exactly as many complain: very intrusive, overreaching and extraterritorial. It can be a violation to allow people (even US citizens) born in different places to even _see_ certain technologies [deemed export]. It can be a violation for people who have zero connection with the US sitting in other countries (Nokia in Finland) to export technology to third countries [Iran] if that technology has US origin.
If you do not like it, write your congresscritters. The diplomats have tried, believe me. The real problem with such onerous laws is selective, politically motivated enforcement. Beyond prior restraint and perverse incentives, this empowers and corrupts public officials.
One thing irks me about human psychology -- we assume that others are like ourselves. That many elements of our native culture are common to other cultures. Wrong! There are obvious differences, and these derive from and generate less obvious differences.
So we have the spectacle of euros, limeys and yanks each telling the others "you're doing it wrong!"
I've worked in Germany. I think they could loosen up a bit. So do they, but for a variety of reasons (inflexible jobmarket) cannot. If workplace privacy helps _them_, why not?
Just because workplace privacy would instantaneously be abused in the US, UK and Oz does not mean the net effect would be negative in Germany.
Slashdot Mirror
Still works with text-mode browsers. Important for me, since I seldom browse with graphics, often by choice.
Given that history, both MS & the mfr would have to prove there was no bundling. Quite easily done if theirs always a sales-question asked and invoice line-item. Much more difficult if not. Yes, this is guilty until proven innocent, but that is precisely how the US Sherman and Clayton (antitrust) Acts are crafted, interpreted and enforced.
Contrary to popular impression, monopolies are not illegal. But they are restricted by law from doing things (mostly that would preserve or extend the monopoly) that are perfectly legal for other companies.
Tying or "bundling" is one of those illegal things that monopolies must not do. Selling their product as part of another sale. Software, including should be a sales choice ("Do you want Windows with that?") and invoice line-item.
How the boxen are configured and shipped is a separate matter. It would probably not be illegal to ship a machine with MS Windows pre-installed (and even stickered) even though the OS was refused at sales time and no price was paid for it. Quiet about virus! This would not authorize use, although a gift recipient might have an innocent user defense.
I do not know Italian law, but I would not expect an outcome similar to Anglo-American law. AFAIK, they mostly use a "code" approach to the law, the codes dating back to the Romans and being used as generally guiding principles for the judges who have more discretion than common-law courts.
The fundamental problem for MS and the bundling mfrs is that a refund is not the same as a non-sale. It might be a remedy, but the money has been paid, and the negotiating power is reversed.
If, for instance, I boot my new machine from a USB key or CDROM, I might never see any notices of refund. Such a clean boot would be a very reasonable precaution to avoid running MS software and avoid a possible allegation of "use".
I'm not a State of Calif employee, but I would _LOVE_ it for my megacorp employer to take my issued cell phone away. Then I wouldn't have to handle out-of-hours calls! For free (I'm exempt staff). I'd just get a pers cellphone for ~$15/mo.
All this instant connectivity is a race to the bottom. Employer funded competition between employees. Expectations get raised but must inevitably disappoint. There are only a few things that really benefit from instant reactivity, and you already know them.
Curious this is hitting the wires just as the TSA Aiport search furor is fading. Maybe it was delayed. There's not much difference between the two -- in both cases many innocents are being hassled, very specifically to create deterrence through fear, precisely what the US 4th Amend. was written against.
Oddly, the road dragnet will catch more violators than the airports ever will, yet these officials seem more concerned with preserving rights. I guess they know they will have to justify themselves in court, while the TSA has yet to be brought to heel. I think Schneier is trying
In reality, you are right. However, reality has nothing to do with corproate accounting. The Mac division would transfer the PCs to the DC at full MSRP. That way it shows a needed profit.
The high cost is easy to explain -- they're going to fill it with Apple Macs rather than normal 1U servers. 10x cost -- after all, they _ARE_ Apple :)
At a higher level, this just indicates the extraordinary influence (coersion? CIA blackmail?) the US wields. Just why would Sweden (of all places) dance to Hillary's tune? Their politics runs more the opposite. Some feminists might like the broadening and exposure of sexual misconduct laws, but the more thoughtful might consider this stretch happens on the backs of women who are indisputably abused. Dubious claims and outright false allegations justify unfortunately piercing scrutiny of victims and further humiliation.
Britian is similar. First we had the unbelieveable spectacle of a Labour government supporting the American invasion of Iraq, and maintaining support after WMD unfound and Tony Blair putting down three quite representative backbencher revolts. They will grind it all through very carefully, trying to stay reasonable lest they suffer the voter backlash that Sweden is almost certain to see.
Astonishing how the US gets people to jump in front of a bus. Proof more Wikileaks are needed.
The TSA searches are causing greater loss of life [time] than terrorists ever could. Each year, about 800 million people have to arrive one hour earlier at the airport to wait in lines and now suffer increased humiliation and/or irradiation.
Human beings only live for 700,000 hours. The TSA is wasting over 1000 lifetimes each year.
I am in favor of reasonable precautions. But the costs of all measures needs to be weighed. Including the oft neglected user costs (see corporate IT). But our politicians (populace?) cares far more for what looks good rather than what works. This must end, lest such short sightedness hobble us.
The TSA searches are causing greater loss of useable lifetime than terrorists ever could. Each year, about 800 million people have to arrive one hour earlier at the airport to wait in lines and now suffer increased humiliation. Human beings only live for 700,000 hours. The TSA is wasting over 1000 lifetimes each year.
How about simple blind spew of trigger packets/seqs with spoofed IPsrc (set to easily guessable RAP home/biz addrs)? Botnet optional. Social DoS. After a few dozen of these, the ISPs might get a clue. Or maybe not, I think a a metric clue-by-four is somewhat larger.
Personally, I like the Adjustable keyboard . Ball adjustment locks in place. Standard QWERTY, no thumb keys (no big transition to flat QWERTY). Possibly membrane, but I don't mind even though I've used Model "M"s for decades.
For me, the big deal is reducing wrist angle. I adjust kbd up as high as possible to make my wrists more vertical, and somewhat apart to keep arm-middle-finger phalanges in line. This kbd goes much higher than most others.
Perhaps this is judicially considered "security software", but how can it be reliably distinguished from the forbidden "encryption software"? This seems unconstitutionally vague.
There is no technical reason bootless could not be implemented today, with the OS in flash and appropriate pagemapping to RAM for r/w pages.
However, one of the main reasons for rebooting is to clear out OS corruption (some OSes and configs are more succeptible than others) and this functionality would need to be added back.
HP's Board may be pretend to be aggrieved, but there is little they can do. California basically bans non-compete clauses. Some lawyers will get rich, and it will all be settled out of sight.
It would be more convincing if HP weren't such d@mned hypocrits: they complain of corporate secret leakage, yet they hired in Carly Fiorio as CEO from Lucent to get networking going and Mark Furd himself from NCR. Both "closer" in market terms to HP than Oracle is.
I think the HP Bored is just unhappy Mark bounced back quickly and very vexed the market agrees with him (Oracle's stock when up, HP down). Arrogant SOBs. I'd be embarrassed to work for them. Or buy their products.
A very good point. The real question is what means of enforcement are available for unsavory legislative vote agreements. "Campaign contributors" and other legislators have on-going relationships and can inflict reputational damage with others.
What lever does an aggressive litigant have? Only the suit. They cannot enforce any secret settlment, so have to keep the suit alive as a threat. However, legislators are more devious than that -- they can work with others (vote swapping) against their own vote.
But that may not even be necessary if she has the least modicum of courage -- just wear a wire. The first hint of vote-buying and those guys go to the bighouse for a long time. No settlement privilige for felonies. She'd have full backing of Congress, the FBI & USSS.
OK, in a slightly less comical vein, the first thing toddlers need to learn is cause & effect. Just moving a mouse pointer on a screen of fish is a good start.
Stay away from MS-Windoze, it is not predictable enough (except a BSoD will happen) :)
No, they don't! The "police" have no special powers other than exactly what statutes give them under special circumstances (arrest, crime in progress, etc). Since I do not know of any statute granting GPS powers, the only way the police can do this legally is because everyone can.
This is an important distinction between the American & British (&other systems): In the US, the government derives its' powers by delegation from The People. If The People do not have a power, they cannot delegate it. Under the UK (&other) systems, the Sovereign holds all powers which S/He graciously grants to the people,
starting with Magna Carta. The Sovereign still holds other power unavailable to individuals.
Nastiness is usually a sign of guilt: "It is human nature to hate those we have wronged [sic]" Tacitus.
If the corp is nasty, it will attract further nasties and have to cope with the results. The nice people leave.
If a nice corp has to fire someone for gross malfeasance and such yet cannot charge them, then perhaps send in a trusted senior specialist to check things out quietly. A big investigative purge will just tell everyone there you don't trust them. Then why should they trust you? Thieves have the best locks. Lots of moves in this chessgame.
If the RIAA wants change, they could change their business model from milking an old back-catalog and do more to discover and develop new talent. When "British|American Idol" discovers more talent than the RIAA's combined A&R depts, they've slipped below Art Linkletter's "Tiny Talent Time".
Phail, and not worth any life-preserver.
Uhm ... er ... just why does the RIAA think it can write laws? Merely because they've had success in the past influencing legislation does not mean they have a right to such influence continuing.
Most people do not know it, but the United States has traditionally exerted strong controls over what may leave the country. Starting with prohibiting exports of long pine logs useable for masts and spars for the superweapons of 1790.
The laws are very complex, you can get a start here.
US law is exactly as many complain: very intrusive, overreaching and extraterritorial. It can be a violation to allow people (even US citizens) born in different places to even _see_ certain technologies [deemed export]. It can be a violation for people who have zero connection with the US sitting in other countries (Nokia in Finland) to export technology to third countries [Iran] if that technology has US origin.
If you do not like it, write your congresscritters. The diplomats have tried, believe me. The real problem with such onerous laws is selective, politically motivated enforcement. Beyond prior restraint and perverse incentives, this empowers and corrupts public officials.
One thing irks me about human psychology -- we assume that others are like ourselves. That many elements of our native culture are common to other cultures. Wrong! There are obvious differences, and these derive from and generate less obvious differences.
So we have the spectacle of euros, limeys and yanks each telling the others "you're doing it wrong!"
I've worked in Germany. I think they could loosen up a bit. So do they, but for a variety of reasons (inflexible jobmarket) cannot. If workplace privacy helps _them_, why not?
Just because workplace privacy would instantaneously be abused in the US, UK and Oz does not mean the net effect would be negative in Germany.