It was IBM that was under heavy scrutiny back in the day when predatory monopolies was considered harmful for a free market. IBM was under hard pressure and didnt dare to act against anybody, tipping toes. As a result they didnt go after Compaq for reverse engineering the bios and essentially let the PC platform free. Because of this multiple manufacturers of computers could build against an open platform and make clones of IBM PC.
Microsoft got in by pure luck and not so little dishonesty. Bill Gates sold an OS he didnt own (QDoS) that wasnt at all ready for use to IBM. Its also believed that Dos did contain a fair amount of CP/M in it. IBM wanted CP/M but a kink in the relationship got them to turn to other places instead.
Microsoft didnt in any way contribute to the success of the PC. It was IBM and US antitrust regulations that made the PC what it is today. It could have been any other of the multitude of good OS out there who got a hold of the PC. I had the pleasure to run CP/M before Dos became more usual and Dos was a horrid piece of crap in comparison.
My point is that Microsoft greatly overestimatis its importance in getting computers out to everyone. It was just a matter of time and any number of OS could have easily replaced Dos without any problems.
All Microsoft has done is to hold computing back by seriously stifling anything thats better by choking and killing things off instead of competing on its products merits.
The US greatly surpass both Communist Soviet and WW2 Germany when it comes to propaganda. If you blindly believe things said by US authorities i have a bridge to sell you cheaply. Havent you asked yourself lately where all the WMD from Iraq is?
China is does terrible things to its people but damn, how many people havent died in Gaza, Afganistan, Iran and Iraq because of direct involvment from the US? Atleast China maims and kills inside its own borders.
I still dont understand what the fuss is about Halo. Its a mindboggling ugly boring game. Just because you and the Xbox 360 fanbois love it do not in any way indicate that other people like it. Myself im so tired of FPS games i would rather eat manure than play one. I have played most of them and they are the same old, just different graphics.
If halo 3 is is all 360 owners strife after they will be a pretty lonely bunch, the rest of us want something new and fresh. Not the same old crap in a new better clownsuit.
Its a search engine. If i search for bananas i want things related to bananas. If else the service is utterly useless for me as a user. I and most other people will totally ignore it. Its very easy to make just another banner ad out of Google Adwords where one out of ten million even reads the ads.
If TFA is right then i think i can sense some wrongness in this. Selling adwords that points to some business or market to their competitors is a bit shady. I always cringe when i search for something Linux and for example Microsoft shows up.
It should never be possible to buy misleding adwords. That takes away any usefullness of the whole adwords thing for the users. Myself i never look at them anymore because i know they are so skewed.
I think google need to think about how people should be able to buy adwords for a long time.
Memory footprint is by large dependant on how many tabs you have open and what those tabs contain. Its mostly the pages you view that craves memory, not the browser in itself.
The only time i have had problems with memory in Firefox is when ive been running many java and flash applications in various tabs but thats something the browser cant solve in any way since its all in the plugins.
The difference be is how well the online apps are managed. Just as a desktop computer can be a heap of crap if used with bad software/hardware an online app can suck just as much. Microsoft should not be seen as some kind of measuring stick considering their longstanding disregard for reliability and stability. If they havent given a crap about stability on the desktop why would they do it for their servers?
I think google is a prime example of just how well online apps can work. If done right they can work much better than their desktop equivalents.
Online apps could drive down operating systems to where they should be, invisible, down there managing hardware and not sitting in the way of the apps and screaming for attention.
If a hacked up Linux 2.4 is used to provide I/O and drivers to vmware then by all means keep the vmware blob but release the hacked up 2.4 kernel. I dont think anyone have been clamoring for the vmware blob.
Not that i think anyone wants the ESX linux kernel. Vmware runs much better on a 2.6 vanilla kernel.
If vmware isnt using Linux for OS tasks like disk, net and other hardware those guys sure can write drivers en masse, and fast.
Vmware runs on a great deal of hardware so its very probable that it uses Linux for anything driver related. How this is accomplished is not interesting, its the fact that Linux is the OS providing theese services to vmware. Who sits ontop has nothing to do with it.
The goal here is ofcourse not to shut down vmware but if they use a heavily modified Linux kernel as their OS for vmware they should obey the license and release the source code to the public. Else, just start writing those thousands of drivers.
Maybe we would have had PCs that WORK fro a change?
And lets not forget OS/2, AmigaOS, BeOS, CP/M, AtariOS, QNX and all the other who would have been able to fill the void with no problems at all. Dos and later Windows was the worst most idiotic OS of them all, id say we would be much better off without them.
The PC got widespred because in the 80s a IBM was forced to let other companies make clones because they was under heavy fire for monopoly accustations.
I think the US had big hopes for selling IP to china. After having outsource pretty much anything that can be outsourced war and IP is pretty much all there is to export from USA. If China leaps ahead of US sience and production its going to be the west who stands there with their pants down and hat in hand.
All this because of extreem shortsighted greed that made everyone outsource their factories instead of making them more effective. It would have been much better in the long run to have sold complete products to china instead.
And i cant think of ONE single puny nice little thing that Microsoft has done for Linux. I can oth think of pretty many things Microsoft has done to kill or stifle Linux. If Microsoft has earnt anything its respect in the sense you dont turn your back against a raving pitbull.
I work pretty much with vmware and it does have its fair share of quirks and bugs. Sometime drivers (on the host side) stops working, hostmachines wont start when stopped/started but after having reset the host instead five times?? That for med suggests that bugs arent absent. Some of theese bugs are probably possible to use for exploits. My strong suspicion is that vmware isnt at all that safe but for now its much easier to break into the Windows machines running as guests directly instead.
In other words, Microsoft realise that an overall hightened security effort will also result in much higher demands on IT security. Especially in governmental situations. If anyone is really serious about security they wont use a system so plagued by virus, trojans and security issues no matter what security rating it has on paper. IRL it just has to be secure and not just in the latest sales material.
I highly suspect Microsoft would be turned down much more often if security gets a higher significance.
Just based on Microsofs actions, like with funding SCO, all the FUD and the enourmous sums laid out on fighting linux adoption all over the world i would suspect they see Linux as a long time threat.
What you should ask yourself is, how would Linux usage look like without Microsofts backhanded tactics against it?
Since the Linux community already is more splitted and diversified than any other community i would say its nearly impossible to split it up any more than it is today. Its also questionable as to what effect it would have thanks to the GPL licensed code. At most it can kill a sales channel like Novell or Linspire. The "product" itself and the development efforts lives on like never before and any company can pick up with very little investment involved.
You talking about the Linux community as a coherent group shows you havent understood it at all. Its extremely diversified as it is which is its strength when under attack. Also, most of the zealots arent developers but mere users. Linux users come from every possible angle and reason for using it. Some even hate the advocates but use it solely for its technical merits. Its a moving target.
If signing an agreement with Microsoft drives a company out of business it wont happen that often after a while. When said distribution falls on the wayside the Linux users picks up another one. It has happened a lot since Linux came to life and isnt much of a deal to the community. Also, while the zealots are fighting like crazed hounds the developers keeps on churning out good code like nothing has happened. Its not the same people mot of the time.
The day the community starts acting like a unity is the day it will be killed, blasted from existence and stomped on by Microsoft. A single coherent target is what they dearly miss right now.
Who cares about Microsoft as long as they just leave Linux alone? Personally i couldnt care less about them nowadays. Its their one-sided battle against linux that makes me irritated.
That could have been said about the Amiga too. It was significantly superior to everything and still died away. There is nothing that bad management cant kill in an instant. After ballmer and Gates who are excellent strategists are gone anything can happen to Microsoft.
The deal with Microsoft is only beneficiary to MS. It also gives credit to the utter FUD that Linux infringes on a lot of Microsoft patents. Ofcourse Microsoft pays you a hefty sum to act like you use their patents. There is no self-goal of having Linux on as many computers as possible. The goal is to have a free open system where single vendors cant use you as a human umbrella stand. Nothing that takes away the freedom and independance is worth a couple of more users.
A long time side-effect of Linux can be that it can force through enough standards so that a new OS can compete on level ground with Microsoft. That would be extremely bad for Microsoft and thats why they are so afraid. Once the lockin dissapears the biggest reason to use Microsofts products also vanish. There is a reason why Microsoft hates standards and its not because they dont work or is hard to implement.
The only winner is Microsoft, they never do anything to be nice.
Most travels are really much shorter than you would think. If you live in outsidea a metropolitan you may commute longer but most people tend to drive short trips mostly around their home. A plug in car wont suit everybody but it will suit a very big market. Because of the nature of the short trips recharging isnt really a problem. You just plug the car in when its parked at home. Standard batteries is not worth the hassle, you just have to stop thinking like if an electricity was gasoline. For longer trips hybrid cars is much better for now and later when fuel-cells gets echonomic they will take over.
About 4x4 driving soccer moms, those could as well just give their kids asbestos for breakfast.
"-Here ya go kid, enjoy the cancer i gave you!"
I have never seen those problems or atleast never reflected on them. I use my desktop very heavily. For example my gf watch movies on the tv-out while i download with azureus, copy files, install software, write documents and more at the same time. Maybe im not that picky but then again, Windows can annoy the living daylight out of me for its lack of multitasking and scheduling.
I dont think he is dead wrong, just that there are bigger improvements to gain elseware. If you run a high load while playing games you will bump into snags whatever sheduler you have. Most people i know closes all apps before playing a game and not many plays Tremolous on the company webserver.
At one time i was afraid they should take some general purpose OS and cram into cars.
Re:Unresponsiveness and inaction on /.'s part...
on
Microsoft FUD Watch
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· Score: 1
I wouldnt call it a hate-fest by any means. Many of those complaining here on slashdot are *GASP* actually not Linux users. You see the same amount of complaining on almost all over the internet. Calling it a hate-fest is just a way of closing your eyes and holding your ears. I cant imagine where you have been if you dont know atleast some reasons why much of Microsofts conduct can annoy people.
From my point of view Microsoft is attacking Linux and people get pissed when they havent done anything that should warrant an all-out war on them.
Microsoft is the biggest threat to Linux. They give out vague accusations about patents (without anything to back any claims up), screw up standards, badmouth it for all theyve got, spread FUD and bribe Linux vendors into "patent agreements" by giving them silly amounts of money for essentially nothing at all (shouldnt it be the Linux company USING the patents who paid?).
For me atleast Microsoft in itself is the most boring company there is with products i dont care one bit about any longer. Its just the same old with new shiny colors and nothing to work one up about at all, just pure nothingness.
The reason what Microsoft do is interesting for us Linux people is that they are hellbent on killing Linux with no reason at all. There is enough market to coexist without any problems but their (Microsofts) greed has no boundaries. They must have it ALL. I want to know what they are up to, not because of Microsoft but because of Linux.
There is no benefit from hiding information about technology. Take the atom bomb as an example. Once you know its possible to build one you are halfway there. The leap wasnt that somebody succeded in building an atom bomb but rather that someone had a rough idea that it might work.
Any country hellbent on making a missale can do so over a small period of years. They know its possible and building the knowledge up isnt that hard. Often the basic information (fuels, materials etc) are very well documented, all you need is to work out the kinks IRL.
Sadly things like this hurts the US most since their engineers wont learn from previous mistakes and endavours. They have to relearn things over and over from person to person.
Slashdot Mirror
It was IBM that was under heavy scrutiny back in the day when predatory monopolies was considered harmful for a free market. IBM was under hard pressure and didnt dare to act against anybody, tipping toes. As a result they didnt go after Compaq for reverse engineering the bios and essentially let the PC platform free. Because of this multiple manufacturers of computers could build against an open platform and make clones of IBM PC. Microsoft got in by pure luck and not so little dishonesty. Bill Gates sold an OS he didnt own (QDoS) that wasnt at all ready for use to IBM. Its also believed that Dos did contain a fair amount of CP/M in it. IBM wanted CP/M but a kink in the relationship got them to turn to other places instead. Microsoft didnt in any way contribute to the success of the PC. It was IBM and US antitrust regulations that made the PC what it is today. It could have been any other of the multitude of good OS out there who got a hold of the PC. I had the pleasure to run CP/M before Dos became more usual and Dos was a horrid piece of crap in comparison. My point is that Microsoft greatly overestimatis its importance in getting computers out to everyone. It was just a matter of time and any number of OS could have easily replaced Dos without any problems. All Microsoft has done is to hold computing back by seriously stifling anything thats better by choking and killing things off instead of competing on its products merits.
The US greatly surpass both Communist Soviet and WW2 Germany when it comes to propaganda. If you blindly believe things said by US authorities i have a bridge to sell you cheaply. Havent you asked yourself lately where all the WMD from Iraq is? China is does terrible things to its people but damn, how many people havent died in Gaza, Afganistan, Iran and Iraq because of direct involvment from the US? Atleast China maims and kills inside its own borders.
I still dont understand what the fuss is about Halo. Its a mindboggling ugly boring game. Just because you and the Xbox 360 fanbois love it do not in any way indicate that other people like it. Myself im so tired of FPS games i would rather eat manure than play one. I have played most of them and they are the same old, just different graphics. If halo 3 is is all 360 owners strife after they will be a pretty lonely bunch, the rest of us want something new and fresh. Not the same old crap in a new better clownsuit.
Its a search engine. If i search for bananas i want things related to bananas. If else the service is utterly useless for me as a user. I and most other people will totally ignore it. Its very easy to make just another banner ad out of Google Adwords where one out of ten million even reads the ads.
If TFA is right then i think i can sense some wrongness in this. Selling adwords that points to some business or market to their competitors is a bit shady. I always cringe when i search for something Linux and for example Microsoft shows up. It should never be possible to buy misleding adwords. That takes away any usefullness of the whole adwords thing for the users. Myself i never look at them anymore because i know they are so skewed. I think google need to think about how people should be able to buy adwords for a long time.
Memory footprint is by large dependant on how many tabs you have open and what those tabs contain. Its mostly the pages you view that craves memory, not the browser in itself.
The only time i have had problems with memory in Firefox is when ive been running many java and flash applications in various tabs but thats something the browser cant solve in any way since its all in the plugins.
The difference be is how well the online apps are managed. Just as a desktop computer can be a heap of crap if used with bad software/hardware an online app can suck just as much. Microsoft should not be seen as some kind of measuring stick considering their longstanding disregard for reliability and stability. If they havent given a crap about stability on the desktop why would they do it for their servers? I think google is a prime example of just how well online apps can work. If done right they can work much better than their desktop equivalents. Online apps could drive down operating systems to where they should be, invisible, down there managing hardware and not sitting in the way of the apps and screaming for attention.
If a hacked up Linux 2.4 is used to provide I/O and drivers to vmware then by all means keep the vmware blob but release the hacked up 2.4 kernel. I dont think anyone have been clamoring for the vmware blob. Not that i think anyone wants the ESX linux kernel. Vmware runs much better on a 2.6 vanilla kernel.
One question: Does the Console OS in any way provide for hardware initialization and driver access?
If vmware isnt using Linux for OS tasks like disk, net and other hardware those guys sure can write drivers en masse, and fast. Vmware runs on a great deal of hardware so its very probable that it uses Linux for anything driver related. How this is accomplished is not interesting, its the fact that Linux is the OS providing theese services to vmware. Who sits ontop has nothing to do with it. The goal here is ofcourse not to shut down vmware but if they use a heavily modified Linux kernel as their OS for vmware they should obey the license and release the source code to the public. Else, just start writing those thousands of drivers.
Maybe we would have had PCs that WORK fro a change? And lets not forget OS/2, AmigaOS, BeOS, CP/M, AtariOS, QNX and all the other who would have been able to fill the void with no problems at all. Dos and later Windows was the worst most idiotic OS of them all, id say we would be much better off without them. The PC got widespred because in the 80s a IBM was forced to let other companies make clones because they was under heavy fire for monopoly accustations.
I think the US had big hopes for selling IP to china. After having outsource pretty much anything that can be outsourced war and IP is pretty much all there is to export from USA. If China leaps ahead of US sience and production its going to be the west who stands there with their pants down and hat in hand. All this because of extreem shortsighted greed that made everyone outsource their factories instead of making them more effective. It would have been much better in the long run to have sold complete products to china instead.
And i cant think of ONE single puny nice little thing that Microsoft has done for Linux. I can oth think of pretty many things Microsoft has done to kill or stifle Linux. If Microsoft has earnt anything its respect in the sense you dont turn your back against a raving pitbull.
I work pretty much with vmware and it does have its fair share of quirks and bugs. Sometime drivers (on the host side) stops working, hostmachines wont start when stopped/started but after having reset the host instead five times?? That for med suggests that bugs arent absent. Some of theese bugs are probably possible to use for exploits. My strong suspicion is that vmware isnt at all that safe but for now its much easier to break into the Windows machines running as guests directly instead.
In other words, Microsoft realise that an overall hightened security effort will also result in much higher demands on IT security. Especially in governmental situations. If anyone is really serious about security they wont use a system so plagued by virus, trojans and security issues no matter what security rating it has on paper. IRL it just has to be secure and not just in the latest sales material. I highly suspect Microsoft would be turned down much more often if security gets a higher significance.
Just based on Microsofs actions, like with funding SCO, all the FUD and the enourmous sums laid out on fighting linux adoption all over the world i would suspect they see Linux as a long time threat. What you should ask yourself is, how would Linux usage look like without Microsofts backhanded tactics against it?
Since the Linux community already is more splitted and diversified than any other community i would say its nearly impossible to split it up any more than it is today. Its also questionable as to what effect it would have thanks to the GPL licensed code. At most it can kill a sales channel like Novell or Linspire. The "product" itself and the development efforts lives on like never before and any company can pick up with very little investment involved. You talking about the Linux community as a coherent group shows you havent understood it at all. Its extremely diversified as it is which is its strength when under attack. Also, most of the zealots arent developers but mere users. Linux users come from every possible angle and reason for using it. Some even hate the advocates but use it solely for its technical merits. Its a moving target. If signing an agreement with Microsoft drives a company out of business it wont happen that often after a while. When said distribution falls on the wayside the Linux users picks up another one. It has happened a lot since Linux came to life and isnt much of a deal to the community. Also, while the zealots are fighting like crazed hounds the developers keeps on churning out good code like nothing has happened. Its not the same people mot of the time. The day the community starts acting like a unity is the day it will be killed, blasted from existence and stomped on by Microsoft. A single coherent target is what they dearly miss right now. Who cares about Microsoft as long as they just leave Linux alone? Personally i couldnt care less about them nowadays. Its their one-sided battle against linux that makes me irritated.
That could have been said about the Amiga too. It was significantly superior to everything and still died away. There is nothing that bad management cant kill in an instant. After ballmer and Gates who are excellent strategists are gone anything can happen to Microsoft.
The deal with Microsoft is only beneficiary to MS. It also gives credit to the utter FUD that Linux infringes on a lot of Microsoft patents. Ofcourse Microsoft pays you a hefty sum to act like you use their patents. There is no self-goal of having Linux on as many computers as possible. The goal is to have a free open system where single vendors cant use you as a human umbrella stand. Nothing that takes away the freedom and independance is worth a couple of more users.
A long time side-effect of Linux can be that it can force through enough standards so that a new OS can compete on level ground with Microsoft. That would be extremely bad for Microsoft and thats why they are so afraid. Once the lockin dissapears the biggest reason to use Microsofts products also vanish. There is a reason why Microsoft hates standards and its not because they dont work or is hard to implement.
The only winner is Microsoft, they never do anything to be nice.
Most travels are really much shorter than you would think. If you live in outsidea a metropolitan you may commute longer but most people tend to drive short trips mostly around their home. A plug in car wont suit everybody but it will suit a very big market. Because of the nature of the short trips recharging isnt really a problem. You just plug the car in when its parked at home. Standard batteries is not worth the hassle, you just have to stop thinking like if an electricity was gasoline. For longer trips hybrid cars is much better for now and later when fuel-cells gets echonomic they will take over.
About 4x4 driving soccer moms, those could as well just give their kids asbestos for breakfast. "-Here ya go kid, enjoy the cancer i gave you!"
Theese news made my day!
I have never seen those problems or atleast never reflected on them. I use my desktop very heavily. For example my gf watch movies on the tv-out while i download with azureus, copy files, install software, write documents and more at the same time. Maybe im not that picky but then again, Windows can annoy the living daylight out of me for its lack of multitasking and scheduling. I dont think he is dead wrong, just that there are bigger improvements to gain elseware. If you run a high load while playing games you will bump into snags whatever sheduler you have. Most people i know closes all apps before playing a game and not many plays Tremolous on the company webserver.
At one time i was afraid they should take some general purpose OS and cram into cars.
I wouldnt call it a hate-fest by any means. Many of those complaining here on slashdot are *GASP* actually not Linux users. You see the same amount of complaining on almost all over the internet. Calling it a hate-fest is just a way of closing your eyes and holding your ears. I cant imagine where you have been if you dont know atleast some reasons why much of Microsofts conduct can annoy people.
From my point of view Microsoft is attacking Linux and people get pissed when they havent done anything that should warrant an all-out war on them.
Microsoft is the biggest threat to Linux. They give out vague accusations about patents (without anything to back any claims up), screw up standards, badmouth it for all theyve got, spread FUD and bribe Linux vendors into "patent agreements" by giving them silly amounts of money for essentially nothing at all (shouldnt it be the Linux company USING the patents who paid?).
For me atleast Microsoft in itself is the most boring company there is with products i dont care one bit about any longer. Its just the same old with new shiny colors and nothing to work one up about at all, just pure nothingness.
The reason what Microsoft do is interesting for us Linux people is that they are hellbent on killing Linux with no reason at all. There is enough market to coexist without any problems but their (Microsofts) greed has no boundaries. They must have it ALL. I want to know what they are up to, not because of Microsoft but because of Linux.
There is no benefit from hiding information about technology. Take the atom bomb as an example. Once you know its possible to build one you are halfway there. The leap wasnt that somebody succeded in building an atom bomb but rather that someone had a rough idea that it might work. Any country hellbent on making a missale can do so over a small period of years. They know its possible and building the knowledge up isnt that hard. Often the basic information (fuels, materials etc) are very well documented, all you need is to work out the kinks IRL. Sadly things like this hurts the US most since their engineers wont learn from previous mistakes and endavours. They have to relearn things over and over from person to person.