I understood from an article I read Friday that the suspension was due to advocacy of drug taking; it was the "Bong Hits" that was actionable from the school board's point of view.
Um. Boies prosecuted Microsoft in the anti-trust trial. He didn't get reprimanded in that trial, but there are other trials where he ran afoul of ethics and was called on it.
Absolutely correct. The Justice Department will make a finding about the operations as they relate to current law. (The really interesting bet is whether they will resort to referencing Presidential War Powers to aid the lipsticking of this pig.)
Regarding constitutionality, judges don't investigate that. They ajudicate a dispute between two parties, one of whom is arguing that some activity or law is harming them and is in conflict with another law or the Constitution. The other argues that there was no harm or no conflict, unless you're the Bush Administration, who have been responding to these suits by requesting the cases be dismissed as there may be state secrets at risk if a case proceeds.
Let's add PowerShell to the above list, no doubt a cool implementation (and maybe the catalyst for development of F# [Microsoft's under-development ML]), but why not also put bash on a tools disk and let savvy customers use their experience today (or five years ago when Microsoft noticed that command-line utilities were a feature, not a bug, and power-users were buying OS X and Linux systems when allowed to choose.)
Funny part is, SCO was pathetic because Novell wouldn't give SCO the time of day when McBride was inviting them in on the big score (late 2002). But... this time around, Microsoft and the millions... oh, that's right. Money talks, etc.
This, btw, was Ballmer speaking to predominantly to his customers. He led off by asking who was running Microsoft stuff and who was running Linux as well. Reportedly, a "surprising" number of hands (described as many outside of the quote) went up as well, and Ballmer asks about interoperating problems, some of the audience were having them, and on he goes with Microsoft's solution. While the ip in Linux is a legitimate lede, isn't another take-away that Linux is getting into the datacenter whether or not Microsoft cooperates, i.e., there are problems Linux is solving? And didn't he tell his customers that they are infringing Microsoft's ip if they were using the wrong flavor of Enterprise Linux? And isn't he saying that in order to help solve the interoperating problem, RHEL-using customer of ours, we're going to sell you some vouchers so you can get the other brand, waste time adapting to its differences, have you write off that support subscription to RedHat and make you go get more money for your budget, and that way, after we huddle with Novell, you won't have interoperability problems later (maybe). So, everyone keeps asking the FOSS world -- what's your reaction, what are you going to do. Well, Microsoft customers who also use Enterprise Linux or who are thinking about checking into it, what are you going to do, now that Microsoft has decided that it should you cost you more money to do your job?
Sun lost a patent battle with Kodak over java. Article here. Guessing that for the 92 mill (or an amended agreement and amount) Kodak waived all patent infringement by java users.
The get out the vote legislation was a giveback by the Republican Congress and Administration to Republican supporters, in that it heavily encouraged the adoption of faster, better, more accurate, blah blah blah new electronic voting systems by local election officials. Add federal funds to pay the local costs and voila, another corporate welfare plan. Given its anemic non-common-sensical functionality and easy to crack, er administer, accesibility and one has either the case for yet another government contractor delivering shoddy goods in order to maximize profits or that conspiracy.
Now, the guys who are in power will tell you they want everyone to vote, but how much of their campaign funds are spent to piss independent voters off, encourage them stay home, effectively getting the middle to disenfranchise itself. How much of their legislative agenda is aimed at finding ways to make it more of a nusiance for their opponent's voters to get to the voting booth. Think about picture ID legislation for voting, ostensibly put in law to prevent undocumented worker voter fraud. I would have loved to see the cost benefit analysis on that one.
But IE6 won't be killed. It's going to be around as long as people are using Windows 2000, at least.
I have no point of view about automatic updates and Microsoft vs. Firefox, except, I really suspect that the Mozilla/Firefox api is far more orthogonal to customers' systems and applications than IE. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, if I'm not, it's because Microsoft chose for it to be that way and therefore does have more responsibility for thinking twice before pushing something down the line.
As for the Microsoft-Novell thing, it sure looks to me like Microsoft is tossing a skunk into the room; time will tell.
As for OS X upgrades, I haven't spent the $130 (it's more because I get the family license) since April 05 and I'm guessing there's another 4 months before Leopard ships, which means I've had two years to save the $130.00. I also think that "Microsoft updates for free" is a classic false economy. I'm also used to the concept that higher quality tools require higher investments for maintenance.
Maybe it's because the United States no longer really considers itself a manufacturing nation, but I think both parties are welcoming to the concept that ideas and culture can be owned like real estate and the experiencing a licensing proposition.
Well, sedding sources.list, update and dist-upgrade are what I did on Friday night (2006-10-27), and the next morning I had a few unavailable package errors, and it went downhill from there. Ultimately I gave up on upgrading and did a clean install to a new drive. I'm sure that one of my problems is my shallow understanding of how to use apt-get, though, in my defense, the Help file instructions didn't delve into what to do when 'apt-get dist-upgrade' almost works. It also seems to me that the iso should have a Repair menu item available at boot, or a System/Administration/Repair option while in Live CD mode, or the "Install" application should check for existing installations and make changes in place. Okay, 'nuff said, moving on, to edgy, day 1.
If you listened closely, one of the "problems" with the Katrina response was that Louisiana wouldn't let Bush & Co federalize the national guard and posse comitatus got in the way of putting the army in. Sort of gives one perspective on the motives, and maybe the sources, of those "rescuers were getting shot at" reports. (According to one news account I heard, it was the allegations of shootings which made Bush realize there was a problem and step up his "efforts", as opposed to all those folks stranded and all the water on the wrong side of the flood walls.)
I live in Hollywood, I'm a Democrat and I'm represented by Henry Waxman. The Honorable Mr. Waxman is not going to make any waves in the copyright realm because: a) his seat is safe and he's got other fish to fry, and b) his fundraisng relies on Hollywood liberals who have, what I would describe as, an unenlightened view about copyrights and the degree to which digital encumbrances have ventured into absurdities. And me voting for a Republican, even if his or her views on copyright are closer to my thinking? Not gonna happen.
Here's hoping your representatives are able to think differently on the issue.
I agree that it has been a political issue: those who had money to make have been lobbying, campaign contributing, and catalyzing alterations to the law to give them more privileges at the expense of the public domain and fair use. But to be honest, it really isn't a "political issue" in the main street sense unless significant numbers of people vote their passions on the issue. I just don't get the sense that copyright is up there, anywhere in the US, with taxes, the war, abortion, corruption, gun control/gun rights, the environment, and did one express the proper amount of outrage at the correct time regarding Rep. Foley's text messages.
Well, if you were kiddie porn dungeon builder who showed us the contract and were answering questions under oath in a deposition, it might be somewhat credible.
Because Goldfarb's fund did invest money in SCO, and because his claim that a Microsoft Mergers/Acquisition person gave him a verbal guarantee for the investment is offered as testimony under oath and under penalty of perjury, I give it some currency. I also wondered at the time what an otherwise, seemingly intelligent fund manager would see, for his clients, as the possible upside towards investing in SCO, and essentially funding its suit with IBM over things SCO didn't own being found in places where it isn't. Some sort of guarantee was posited at the time as explaining the investment, and, voila, there it is in the motion for Partial Summary Judgment.
I thought the dust bowl was a consequence of man's changing the environment. Prairie sod was broken up for cultivation, and when a natural cyclical decline in rainfall occurred, the soil, now exposed and broken up, blew away.
Let's suppose a large component of what's being observed today is natural: does it make sense to not address our activities that accelerate the consequences? Or, do you need a scientific study to empirically show that a stitch in time saves nine?
Hang On. I was watching and listening and I thought "Huh?" when I heard "One small step for man." I think I figured out that "a" was missing a few moments later. Now where my recollection may be faulty is that I remember no added beat between for and man, and I don't remember Armstrong's delivery being all drawly and nonchalant. In fact, I remember Armstrong speaking deliberately as he knew the world was watching and the words to be recorded. I also thought that the pause between "man" and "one giant leap..." was longer than it should have been, as though he were playing back what he had just said and realizing it didn't sound quite right. Maybe you doubt the 37 years later recollections of a then 12 year old, and maybe 21st century computers and analysis of the audio tape (didn't we learn the other week that the video tape has disappeared) show me to be wrong, but please don't suggest I was brainwashed by Uncle Walter on this one.
That's a point. To me, string theory seems to be a mathematical model and may be assessed on a purely abstract basis by looking at the mathematics, so it has that advantage over intelligent design. But when one is trying to test and observe a phenomenon in a realm where the observation changes the result, then that certainly provides a challenge to the classic scientific method, in a similar fashion to the way "Everything I say is a lie," pulls the legs out of the proposition that there's a logical system which can decide every statement as either true or false. The string model is relatively new, and I don't think the idea of designing experiments to test it and allow it to mature into theory status has been abandoned yet.
Look for DrScheme or Lisp in a Box, whether you want the Scheme or Common LISP flavor, respectively. DrScheme has Scheme tutorials among its help resources. I think Practical Common LISP (APress) is a good book for introducing LISP among those in print, and fortunately, I picked up Paul Graham's LISP books at the time they were current (and I was then looking to understand AutoLISP [once I was young]). Graham's texts are not for beginners, but once you get a sense of how Common LISP works, they provide perspectives that Practical Common LISP don't. I've been seeing used and out of print classic texts on LISP from the 90s showing up at the computing book store in Hollywood (CA); though once I see them, I grab them. "The Little Schemer" is also very illuminating about recursive thinking and bottom up problem solving; though it is written from a Scheme perspective, the approaches apply to LISP.
I also use KDevelop (multi-language) and the parentheses seem manageable. My experience suggest that getting lost in the parentheses is a sign to refactor.
I think it's there in your disclaimer. Think about the command line. Deprecated publicly and buried three clicks and a typing of "cmd" because Microsoft figured no one would ever want to use it any more. OS X comes out, Linux continues to grow and someone in Redmond realizes that a useful command line and a good shell would be a sales feature. Do they do the sensible thing (like Apple) and put in bash and tcsh? Nope. They go and write a new shell, albeit with potentially more power, and expect, when it's officially rolled out in the next server version, that people learn a new syntax and a new way to write scripts and to rewrite any working good scripts that had been debugged in order to run in PowerShell. So the administrator with 10 years of *nix administration experience is arguably behind when compared to the gui-clicking Microsoft administrator.
Date Microsoft? Such the wrong metaphor. One dates someone because one has a good time and expects to have a good time again, and not to make money. (Honi soit qui mal y pense.) So I propose another useless metaphor: you are running a farm, would you put Microsoft in the stable? It does useful things, but it's expensive, occasionally fussy, won't wear certain harnesses, requires attentive care, and costs time and money as you need to keep the stable clean.
Operating system market share is irrelevant. This is Hollywood and the media. If two people partner, one of the parties is giving money to the other. I think Microsoft is buying their alliances.
First of all: prototype framework? Is now really the time to put out the press release? Granted, they've advanced past the conceptualized foundation stage, but it sounds to me like there's more work.
Second, and maybe I'm exposing my ignorance, but aren't these "read junk and output clean" programs variations on Turing's Halting Problem and inherently faulty or potential DOS vectors?
This may be another chorus of the op-had-to-add-something-blues, but I understood that the WMF problem was that the spec allowed for a call-back to any helper program. How can any filter protect against design flaws?
We, of course, as users, have a different concept of safe than others, including Microsoft and many governments. I saw another poster quote the article as suggesting an unsafe web site gets rewritten for presentation. With the build-up to XP, Microsoft was touting intelligent links which would enable Windows/IE to insert sponsored links on unlinked content. There was some worry that this would be used to hijack ads and replace them with ones where Microsoft got the money. With this new approach, one can see the extor, er, advertising revenue possibilities. Much like AOL e-mail and "spammers" a little payment and we'll make sure our user-base can see your page.
What about the political arena, would Microsoft make a deal with a government, in order to gain market share in a controlled economy, which allows that government to adapt these tools to ensure that the browser does not propagate any unsafe ideas, content, or interpretation of events? Maybe it won't be Microsoft's "choice" as legislation is passed which requires this technology on all browsers within the jurisidction and further requires that the api and upload mechanism be in the hands of a governmental agency, for the sake of discussion let's call it the Ministry of Truth.
Haven't used ASP.NET. I've been doing some small apps and web apps on non-Microsoft platforms in a platform agnostic way; call me crazy.
I do think you miss a point. If ASP, or JSP for that matter, had been all that why would there be PHP and MySQL and Ruby solutions? I think my question circles back to "right tool for the job" territory, which I accept as an appropriate comment whenever someone flames someone else for choosing a Microsoft tool.
Wasn't there a problem a few years ago about people who were running mySql on Windows servers with poor configurations; if WAMP doesn't really happen why was it a problem? I know Microsoft basically grooves everything so it works pretty well if you license the entire tool stack and, the fact is, a significant number of their customers mix in tools that are functional, well-understood, well-known, and not Microsoft-originated and generally to avoid licensing costs. Microsoft's response: la la la, we can't hear you and you don't exist. It's their choice, but to my ears, this drowns out the "we want to interoperate" market-speak and I think it's tone-deaf and short-sighted, but I don't own shares so, hey.
Slashdot Mirror
I understood from an article I read Friday that the suspension was due to advocacy of drug taking; it was the "Bong Hits" that was actionable from the school board's point of view.
Um. Boies prosecuted Microsoft in the anti-trust trial. He didn't get reprimanded in that trial, but there are other trials where he ran afoul of ethics and was called on it.
Absolutely correct. The Justice Department will make a finding about the operations as they relate to current law. (The really interesting bet is whether they will resort to referencing Presidential War Powers to aid the lipsticking of this pig.)
Regarding constitutionality, judges don't investigate that. They ajudicate a dispute between two parties, one of whom is arguing that some activity or law is harming them and is in conflict with another law or the Constitution. The other argues that there was no harm or no conflict, unless you're the Bush Administration, who have been responding to these suits by requesting the cases be dismissed as there may be state secrets at risk if a case proceeds.
Let's add PowerShell to the above list, no doubt a cool implementation (and maybe the catalyst for development of F# [Microsoft's under-development ML]), but why not also put bash on a tools disk and let savvy customers use their experience today (or five years ago when Microsoft noticed that command-line utilities were a feature, not a bug, and power-users were buying OS X and Linux systems when allowed to choose.)
Funny part is, SCO was pathetic because Novell wouldn't give SCO the time of day when McBride was inviting them in on the big score (late 2002). But... this time around, Microsoft and the millions... oh, that's right. Money talks, etc.
This, btw, was Ballmer speaking to predominantly to his customers. He led off by asking who was running Microsoft stuff and who was running Linux as well. Reportedly, a "surprising" number of hands (described as many outside of the quote) went up as well, and Ballmer asks about interoperating problems, some of the audience were having them, and on he goes with Microsoft's solution. While the ip in Linux is a legitimate lede, isn't another take-away that Linux is getting into the datacenter whether or not Microsoft cooperates, i.e., there are problems Linux is solving? And didn't he tell his customers that they are infringing Microsoft's ip if they were using the wrong flavor of Enterprise Linux? And isn't he saying that in order to help solve the interoperating problem, RHEL-using customer of ours, we're going to sell you some vouchers so you can get the other brand, waste time adapting to its differences, have you write off that support subscription to RedHat and make you go get more money for your budget, and that way, after we huddle with Novell, you won't have interoperability problems later (maybe). So, everyone keeps asking the FOSS world -- what's your reaction, what are you going to do. Well, Microsoft customers who also use Enterprise Linux or who are thinking about checking into it, what are you going to do, now that Microsoft has decided that it should you cost you more money to do your job?
It's always tough to buck groupthink, anywhere. Welcome to the community - individual dichotomy.
Sun lost a patent battle with Kodak over java. Article here. Guessing that for the 92 mill (or an amended agreement and amount) Kodak waived all patent infringement by java users.
The get out the vote legislation was a giveback by the Republican Congress and Administration to Republican supporters, in that it heavily encouraged the adoption of faster, better, more accurate, blah blah blah new electronic voting systems by local election officials. Add federal funds to pay the local costs and voila, another corporate welfare plan. Given its anemic non-common-sensical functionality and easy to crack, er administer, accesibility and one has either the case for yet another government contractor delivering shoddy goods in order to maximize profits or that conspiracy.
Now, the guys who are in power will tell you they want everyone to vote, but how much of their campaign funds are spent to piss independent voters off, encourage them stay home, effectively getting the middle to disenfranchise itself. How much of their legislative agenda is aimed at finding ways to make it more of a nusiance for their opponent's voters to get to the voting booth. Think about picture ID legislation for voting, ostensibly put in law to prevent undocumented worker voter fraud. I would have loved to see the cost benefit analysis on that one.
But IE6 won't be killed. It's going to be around as long as people are using Windows 2000, at least.
I have no point of view about automatic updates and Microsoft vs. Firefox, except, I really suspect that the Mozilla/Firefox api is far more orthogonal to customers' systems and applications than IE. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, if I'm not, it's because Microsoft chose for it to be that way and therefore does have more responsibility for thinking twice before pushing something down the line.
As for the Microsoft-Novell thing, it sure looks to me like Microsoft is tossing a skunk into the room; time will tell.
As for OS X upgrades, I haven't spent the $130 (it's more because I get the family license) since April 05 and I'm guessing there's another 4 months before Leopard ships, which means I've had two years to save the $130.00. I also think that "Microsoft updates for free" is a classic false economy. I'm also used to the concept that higher quality tools require higher investments for maintenance.
Maybe it's because the United States no longer really considers itself a manufacturing nation, but I think both parties are welcoming to the concept that ideas and culture can be owned like real estate and the experiencing a licensing proposition.
Well, sedding sources.list, update and dist-upgrade are what I did on Friday night (2006-10-27), and the next morning I had a few unavailable package errors, and it went downhill from there. Ultimately I gave up on upgrading and did a clean install to a new drive. I'm sure that one of my problems is my shallow understanding of how to use apt-get, though, in my defense, the Help file instructions didn't delve into what to do when 'apt-get dist-upgrade' almost works. It also seems to me that the iso should have a Repair menu item available at boot, or a System/Administration/Repair option while in Live CD mode, or the "Install" application should check for existing installations and make changes in place. Okay, 'nuff said, moving on, to edgy, day 1.
If you listened closely, one of the "problems" with the Katrina response was that Louisiana wouldn't let Bush & Co federalize the national guard and posse comitatus got in the way of putting the army in. Sort of gives one perspective on the motives, and maybe the sources, of those "rescuers were getting shot at" reports. (According to one news account I heard, it was the allegations of shootings which made Bush realize there was a problem and step up his "efforts", as opposed to all those folks stranded and all the water on the wrong side of the flood walls.)
Does the *AA get to use the public service announcements without compensating the writers?
I live in Hollywood, I'm a Democrat and I'm represented by Henry Waxman. The Honorable Mr. Waxman is not going to make any waves in the copyright realm because: a) his seat is safe and he's got other fish to fry, and b) his fundraisng relies on Hollywood liberals who have, what I would describe as, an unenlightened view about copyrights and the degree to which digital encumbrances have ventured into absurdities. And me voting for a Republican, even if his or her views on copyright are closer to my thinking? Not gonna happen.
Here's hoping your representatives are able to think differently on the issue.
I agree that it has been a political issue: those who had money to make have been lobbying, campaign contributing, and catalyzing alterations to the law to give them more privileges at the expense of the public domain and fair use. But to be honest, it really isn't a "political issue" in the main street sense unless significant numbers of people vote their passions on the issue. I just don't get the sense that copyright is up there, anywhere in the US, with taxes, the war, abortion, corruption, gun control/gun rights, the environment, and did one express the proper amount of outrage at the correct time regarding Rep. Foley's text messages.
Well, if you were kiddie porn dungeon builder who showed us the contract and were answering questions under oath in a deposition, it might be somewhat credible.
Because Goldfarb's fund did invest money in SCO, and because his claim that a Microsoft Mergers/Acquisition person gave him a verbal guarantee for the investment is offered as testimony under oath and under penalty of perjury, I give it some currency. I also wondered at the time what an otherwise, seemingly intelligent fund manager would see, for his clients, as the possible upside towards investing in SCO, and essentially funding its suit with IBM over things SCO didn't own being found in places where it isn't. Some sort of guarantee was posited at the time as explaining the investment, and, voila, there it is in the motion for Partial Summary Judgment.
I thought the dust bowl was a consequence of man's changing the environment. Prairie sod was broken up for cultivation, and when a natural cyclical decline in rainfall occurred, the soil, now exposed and broken up, blew away.
Let's suppose a large component of what's being observed today is natural: does it make sense to not address our activities that accelerate the consequences? Or, do you need a scientific study to empirically show that a stitch in time saves nine?
Hang On. I was watching and listening and I thought "Huh?" when I heard "One small step for man." I think I figured out that "a" was missing a few moments later. Now where my recollection may be faulty is that I remember no added beat between for and man, and I don't remember Armstrong's delivery being all drawly and nonchalant. In fact, I remember Armstrong speaking deliberately as he knew the world was watching and the words to be recorded. I also thought that the pause between "man" and "one giant leap..." was longer than it should have been, as though he were playing back what he had just said and realizing it didn't sound quite right. Maybe you doubt the 37 years later recollections of a then 12 year old, and maybe 21st century computers and analysis of the audio tape (didn't we learn the other week that the video tape has disappeared) show me to be wrong, but please don't suggest I was brainwashed by Uncle Walter on this one.
That's a point. To me, string theory seems to be a mathematical model and may be assessed on a purely abstract basis by looking at the mathematics, so it has that advantage over intelligent design. But when one is trying to test and observe a phenomenon in a realm where the observation changes the result, then that certainly provides a challenge to the classic scientific method, in a similar fashion to the way "Everything I say is a lie," pulls the legs out of the proposition that there's a logical system which can decide every statement as either true or false. The string model is relatively new, and I don't think the idea of designing experiments to test it and allow it to mature into theory status has been abandoned yet.
I wonder if the product placement pitches went nowhere, and so a neutral party was chosen.
Look for DrScheme or Lisp in a Box, whether you want the Scheme or Common LISP flavor, respectively. DrScheme has Scheme tutorials among its help resources. I think Practical Common LISP (APress) is a good book for introducing LISP among those in print, and fortunately, I picked up Paul Graham's LISP books at the time they were current (and I was then looking to understand AutoLISP [once I was young]). Graham's texts are not for beginners, but once you get a sense of how Common LISP works, they provide perspectives that Practical Common LISP don't. I've been seeing used and out of print classic texts on LISP from the 90s showing up at the computing book store in Hollywood (CA); though once I see them, I grab them. "The Little Schemer" is also very illuminating about recursive thinking and bottom up problem solving; though it is written from a Scheme perspective, the approaches apply to LISP.
I also use KDevelop (multi-language) and the parentheses seem manageable. My experience suggest that getting lost in the parentheses is a sign to refactor.
I think it's there in your disclaimer. Think about the command line. Deprecated publicly and buried three clicks and a typing of "cmd" because Microsoft figured no one would ever want to use it any more. OS X comes out, Linux continues to grow and someone in Redmond realizes that a useful command line and a good shell would be a sales feature. Do they do the sensible thing (like Apple) and put in bash and tcsh? Nope. They go and write a new shell, albeit with potentially more power, and expect, when it's officially rolled out in the next server version, that people learn a new syntax and a new way to write scripts and to rewrite any working good scripts that had been debugged in order to run in PowerShell. So the administrator with 10 years of *nix administration experience is arguably behind when compared to the gui-clicking Microsoft administrator.
Date Microsoft? Such the wrong metaphor. One dates someone because one has a good time and expects to have a good time again, and not to make money. (Honi soit qui mal y pense.) So I propose another useless metaphor: you are running a farm, would you put Microsoft in the stable? It does useful things, but it's expensive, occasionally fussy, won't wear certain harnesses, requires attentive care, and costs time and money as you need to keep the stable clean.
Operating system market share is irrelevant. This is Hollywood and the media. If two people partner, one of the parties is giving money to the other. I think Microsoft is buying their alliances.
First of all: prototype framework? Is now really the time to put out the press release? Granted, they've advanced past the conceptualized foundation stage, but it sounds to me like there's more work.
Second, and maybe I'm exposing my ignorance, but aren't these "read junk and output clean" programs variations on Turing's Halting Problem and inherently faulty or potential DOS vectors?
This may be another chorus of the op-had-to-add-something-blues, but I understood that the WMF problem was that the spec allowed for a call-back to any helper program. How can any filter protect against design flaws?
We, of course, as users, have a different concept of safe than others, including Microsoft and many governments. I saw another poster quote the article as suggesting an unsafe web site gets rewritten for presentation. With the build-up to XP, Microsoft was touting intelligent links which would enable Windows/IE to insert sponsored links on unlinked content. There was some worry that this would be used to hijack ads and replace them with ones where Microsoft got the money. With this new approach, one can see the extor, er, advertising revenue possibilities. Much like AOL e-mail and "spammers" a little payment and we'll make sure our user-base can see your page.
What about the political arena, would Microsoft make a deal with a government, in order to gain market share in a controlled economy, which allows that government to adapt these tools to ensure that the browser does not propagate any unsafe ideas, content, or interpretation of events? Maybe it won't be Microsoft's "choice" as legislation is passed which requires this technology on all browsers within the jurisidction and further requires that the api and upload mechanism be in the hands of a governmental agency, for the sake of discussion let's call it the Ministry of Truth.
Haven't used ASP.NET. I've been doing some small apps and web apps on non-Microsoft platforms in a platform agnostic way; call me crazy.
I do think you miss a point. If ASP, or JSP for that matter, had been all that why would there be PHP and MySQL and Ruby solutions? I think my question circles back to "right tool for the job" territory, which I accept as an appropriate comment whenever someone flames someone else for choosing a Microsoft tool.
Wasn't there a problem a few years ago about people who were running mySql on Windows servers with poor configurations; if WAMP doesn't really happen why was it a problem? I know Microsoft basically grooves everything so it works pretty well if you license the entire tool stack and, the fact is, a significant number of their customers mix in tools that are functional, well-understood, well-known, and not Microsoft-originated and generally to avoid licensing costs. Microsoft's response: la la la, we can't hear you and you don't exist. It's their choice, but to my ears, this drowns out the "we want to interoperate" market-speak and I think it's tone-deaf and short-sighted, but I don't own shares so, hey.