no, it's exactly the same. Only Microsoft had little motivation to produce the upgrades because you were locked into a long term contract and they weren't required by the contract to produce ANYTHING. Also, SA only included a little support. Good luck calling to request a bug fix just for you. They'll take your $100,000+ but still treat you like a chump.
OSS vendors include support with maintenance for the full term. Often you get access to actual programmers and not sales people. I've worked with vendors that have put out a product patch just for the bug we found on a support call.. it's pretty cool! Even with mighty IBM, I've gotten actual programmers involved in bug issues because I had all my patches applied and troubleshooting steps followed. In that respect Microsoft isn't a "good" supplier unless you spend millions with them. When you deal with good companies, you see how poor Microsoft really is at their core business of making software. They're a "one trick pony" that merely has a lot of money in the bank.
I don't think many companies renewed their deals because they didn't get anything for it. Vista took so long that many of the original Software Assurance licensees got NOTHING the entire time but the regular updates that were free. Now days everybody buys Dells or HPs with the OS installed. Regular rotation of PCs pulls the new OS in fast enough for most businesses. It's not like MS goes thru OS versions every 2 years anymore. Even currently the server licenses are so dramatic in price and hardware that there's no point in buying upgrades anymore, you're better off buying the OS with the hardware and keeping them together.
Microsoft's agreements are also VERY one-sided. While the price is better, they make some pretty terrible demands that no serious business person would accept for a normal commodity. Why it's accepted in IT is unbelievable.
I think they wanted Launchpad as their "money maker" the end product would be Open Source, but they would own the project building system as it represents THEIR work structure. Like how Sourceforge does things only more focused. They've been squeezed by the FSF to open it up.. the FSF even created a non-launchpad based distro GNUsense. Over all, I think they didn't really make as much money as they thought they would being the sole gatekeeper and to leave it competing against the other project tools that are all the way Open Source is silly. Perhaps if they donate the code projects like Debian proper or other independant projects will plug in. Cannonical wants to stop dealing with all the source themselves. They need to move the bugs and requests to the actual program devs so they don't get bogged down. Having the author's version would give them a leg up over companies like Red Hat that rely on maintaining their own packages for everything. I'd expect the Dell deal opened up some cash. Linus may be shopping for a better project tracking system too for the actual Kernel. Nobody in OSS wants to "owe" another company to keep its project alive because it's caused problems in the past.
Launchpad does do something unique, better than others. It combines CVS, groups, collaboration, bug tracking, discussion, and project management in one place. It has a successful distro with a few thousand packages pumping out of it, so it's not a hobby project.
if his allagations are true, it's the home run for wiretap cases.. after all, for courts attorney-client privillage is sacrosanct. Attempting to spy on the LAWYER for a group merely accused of helping terrorists before or while making a decision about their status is the ultimate red-flag to piss of the court.
I would almost believe that this was on purpose just to go for the ultimate piss-off to the court and get away with it setting precedent that would give them carte-blanc access to anybody's communications. It's a gambit that MIGHT get somebody slapped on the wrist by congress... but is a home run if they pull it off. I'd almost expect Cheney behind this for the sheer brass ballz.
the most simple cooberation would be for the person leaked to willingly pull their own records to compare to the secret leaked records. Obviously, no goons have been called in, and it's been a few years, so there's little likelyhood of problems for the person spied upon. I'm sure prosecutors could try to make up charges, but what would they charge with when the taps were illegal in the first place!!!
in your idea of intellectual honesty, the public has already paid hundreds of millions of dollars in "upgrade" taxes and "tax rebates" to help them out. Technically there's no reason to allow any concessions, but the Corporate heads are like little kids begging one more cookie from daddy after mommy told them no more before dinner. And these people are the one that claim US workers are so "underqualified".
but this also put the telcos in the position of competing with CONTENT providers. This is the core of the whole Net Neturality issue. When the telcos had to lease their lines on RAND terms, anybody could connect as a service, and anybody could connect their home to the internet.. the key is that the telco beurocracy could not cut off any service provider or any customer from the network.. and therefore the internet for very long. Without this direct access to high-speed lines, there would be no Google, no Yahoo, no Slashdot. Now that they can charge a "toll" to anybody legally, the whole thing gets nasty quickly with how low they can go.
I check Voicemail, while the machine is booting. Then check email for any hot items. If nothing's on "fire", I print off and check my list for my boxes.. backups ran, servers up, operator messages... Then on to my Change manangement system tracked issues to work on for the day...
because individually possessing those documents is not a crime.. proving that you intended to do something bad with them is. The current rules against child porn are more like outlawing "faces of death" videos because they depict actual people dying. The difference is that the IDEA of the document itself is banned and having the document is treated as "knowledge" of the crime. Outside national security there's no laws quite like it where having the thing is not just illegal (like drugs or weapons) but is a trackable for life sex crime. It's like being blacklisted as a communist in the 1950's because you possessed a copy of the communist manifesto.
but if I had somebody clean my house, I'd be making sure that stuff was picked up. It's not like these drives are encrypted.. I'd bet half the computers are there to have the porn downloading software and the associated spyware and viruses removed.
not really, it's more like the cleaning staff at your office flipping through papers left out on a desk. The tech is there to install drivers, clean up viruses, etc. so that requires access to anyplace they need to go... and how many people have stuff in encrypted folders anyway that would take their computer to Geek Squad?
It's more like downloading Movies and music off the Pirate Bay.
Doing close up shots saved the CGI budget for just a few of the really expensive ones. There's a finite amount of money available, so they used the cover of "gritty" to cover the budget. There's nothing wrong with it, the way it was done looks more like a news camera trying to follow (like how in Battlestar ships bob in and out of frame all the time) In reality of war/news footage the "money shot" you don't always get.. they played the same games here. It wasn't bad, they pulled it off, but I'd be certain it was a director/style fix to a budget problem.
Even the most recent Dell with Ubuntu configures out to within $30 of what a macbook does. The key difference is that Apple doesn't sell low end crap with missing parts.. Dell does. Most of the sub $1000 notebooks all use the 1MB or 2MB 533MHz bus versions of 1.5, 1.6GHz "core 2 duo" chips. Most PCs on the retail shelves are crap T2000's or T5000's if you're lucky. Apple uses only the T7000's across all lines but the mac minis. There's a $100 minimum price difference. When you spec out the Dell "deal" to use matching chips, then add extras like Bluetooth that $699 deal is almost identical in price to the Apple. Making the Apple "cool" factor basically free. Of course the latest Dell does have GMA3100x intel's new graphics that will at least run most games (not well) Where the Macbook should have had those first at the refresh. Apple's going to get burnt fast if they don't get new chips out faster.. you're paying for the top, they have to stay there. Or with the 19x12 laptops...again, should have been last rev.. you don't pay $2700 to be behind the curve even a little.
While most of my OLDER (30+) coworkers don't go to the "bar" as much, they are constantly out and about with somebody... helping with house repairs, ballgames, parents of other kids, getting away from the kids, meeting friends for motorcycle rides, etc.. and often drinks are involved at some point. In my part of town, general opinion is drinking alone is bad... leads to being drunk and depressed too often. Of course, My coworkers are older so they don't "drink to get drunk" like kids do.
Last I checked most of the Oil and natural resources were considerably UNDER the water.
Looking at the "worst" of the maps claims, it seems the international zone is biggest for the US and Russian pieces of the "pie" surrounding the North Pole. Norway, Denmark and Canada have claims already very close to the pole... Because of the Bering Straight, the US-Russian parts are set back considerably in terms of "distance to the pole" from their territory. What Russia is claiming is still on their "side" of the map.. between them and the Pole, this is a tempest in a teapot.
Look at the runaway success of both XBox versions.... you miss that if you LOCK the software so the only way to get it is to buy hardware, then you make much more profit, because people will pay for hardware. Apple does this. Nintendo does this. Note that there's not a good project that plays Xbox 1 games on regular PCs even though they've go 5x the computing power on the SAME architecture... MS took commodity hardware and locked it down for both systems.
on the other hand, hardware development will stall horribly when everybody goes to 5 year cycles for all the cookies. That will instantly knock the "losers" of 2 or 3 contracts to niche players.
Fortunately MS can't actually ship useable business software to save it's life... otherwise, I'd say there's a "B-Box" running PPC with managed.net code waiting to mop up the business market from Dell and HP. It would have 100% office and Exchange.. but not much else. The perfect storm for Microsoft. They want to be Apple, with cool stuff all the time, and big margins for "coolness". But they're stuck "being a monopoly" to all the PC OEMS. I'd think their goal is to switch businesses while keeping the PC OEMS under thumb long enough to knock their legs out. The writing is on the wall and I think even Dell is starting to see that the "PC" market for computers made of interchangable parts is going to Linux real soon. Microsoft already has enough contracts with the chineese to produce XBox outside the normal channels.... that doesn't bode well for companies like Dell or HP.
It's like a tidied up Gumstix. For small computers those guys rule the market right now. All the power of a WinCE or Palm in a tiny little board. They are missing USB hosting and video for the complete package. But they have Bluetooth and robot servo control... kinda makes up for it.
The iPhone is not for business... It's not a business phone, it's a PERSONAL phone. Apple makes PERSONAL computers. Sure, they are used in serious work, but again most of the work people use Apple Computers for is artistic, personalized work in small settings. Apple's target isn't the enterprise (yet?) it is the small business of 1 to 20 people.
iPhone is an extension of the iPod and media business, not the computer business. It's driving feature is that it's an iPod... most business won't sign up for that, Period. Apple is trying to get the Web, music and video features to the PEOPLE, not companies (because they won't use it anyway) The goal of 90% of cell phone at this point is to get companies to buy dozens and lock them their networks. IF you don't have a business network for your smart phone, adding applications, or connecting to email is just a pretty feature, because unless you work for a company that pays, you don't ever get half the features that makes the phones so great.
Apple wants People to have phones.. it's a market 10x bigger than what Windows mobile or Palm have made for themselves with a 5 year head start. Ask yourself, with a 5 year head start, why are "smartphones" still only "Geek" toys? Why aren't they good enough for everybody? Apple is trying to get it's 10% of the market by bringing NEW users into smartphones!! not simply making a phone for the droves of industry pundits and IT managers looking for a new toy. I think a lot of the bad reviews are because Apple is not catering to what the pundits say they should be doing, not passing out previews like candy, not caving to pressure to add every special interest feature under the sun and being ignored makes the big players really upset because their whole business is being "in the loop" and Apple is cutting them out with a vengeance.
It would seem like there's no need for grandfathering in anybody. After all, MS-Novell/linspire/xandros already have protection in the form of GPL2. As long as they keep that version of the code separate tehy can go on indefinitely. When the software is relicensed for a version upgrade, it is a new product with new license terms... they should understand that as these companies are experts at writing such terms for new versions of THEIR software. Expecting it to function in this fashion is no different than how Microsoft changes the license for the new version of Vista and makes you buy a new one instead of your old XP. Or how Microsoft changes the license in small ways for nearly every downloaded patch and expects that license to include the entire product even when you paid for said product years ago.
As a matter of principal there should be no exceptions. If Novell and Co. choose to use the new improved GPL3 versions of software they will have to abide like everybody else. I can't expect to get Suse 10 (with all the extras) for free just because I purchased version 7 3 years ago. Thre's no reason to grandfather any of these deals in. They accept the new terms from the INDIVIDUAL PROJECTS developing software or they fork the GPL2 and get drug down in bug fixing. That said, there are almost enough of them that they could pool their GPL2 work and not use GPL3 and still get product out.
What happens if Schroedinger's Cat is is a box between the earth and this supernova and could be destroyed by the radiation wave?
On a side note for all those young earth creationists out there, perhaps the event that will destroy the world has already happened x thousand light years away at the exact moment of creation and we just haven't figured it out yet!
actually, in this case I'd take that correction, because if you only consider HER political career (and not her husband's) she moved to a fancy district in New York and signed up just in time to be elected Senator with no prior service record. If she was a man we'd throw her to the wolves on that alone.
So yes, a big part of her running is as the first WOMAN president. If not for that distinction, then she's not much better or worse than the other candidates on most issues... and quite a bit of a right wing, flip flopper as well. She definately wouldn't pass for slashdotter consideration as a man. As a Man she wouldn't even be considered for another few terms. I would feel this next election is not the the time to decide if we want a woman president or not. There's too much on the table to let it get muddied with "touchy feely" things like that. At this point she should be looking to take her turn as VP. I think a lot of people really consider her for the job, but she's got to do the time in elected office. Being spouse of the former president is not the same thing (although she still did all that work for no actual pay or credit, so that counts for something)
you make the mistake that the USA is a pure democracy... it's NOT.
the USA is a Republic. The smaller units of governerance elect representatives to the higher levels. This is done to allow greater accountablity for actions of the higer levels, but has been stripped by "democratic" ideals like yours. The original idea is that state governments elected Senators directly. Your governer or legislature could COMMAND your Senators to vote in a specific manner without any party interference... they represented the actual state government, not the people at large. In the same way Represenatives should represent elected units of government.. not "districts". That is the chief cause of our federal govt being so disconnected. Imagine if there was a clear chain of command to the Congress. From your city council voting ward, to the County officers, to the state legislature, to the Governer... to your Representives in Congress. Then you wouldn't write letters to random Congress people hoping they'd respond, you'd notify your local politican and they would pressure the next branch up in the manner their voters pushed for.. in the original system the lower governments even held the power of the VOTE and could even pull people out of office if they didn't vote how the voters told them too!!!
Open standards don't mean anything if Apple doesn't share the spotlight!!!! After all, there's this little browser called Konquerer... If Apple is bragging about openness where is the parent project of Safari!!! It's still out there being used. And what about Firefox or Opera? There's people holding the open web torch a lot longer than Apple. For them not to show a good cross section of broswers puts it back to a PC-versus-Mac thing. And developers will still blow it off.
I'd believe them! After all, if Microsoft is claiming somebody is trying to gain an illegal monopoly, they must be right.. after all, they've been king of the hill for the last 15 years in that department!!!!
Slashdot Mirror
no, it's exactly the same. Only Microsoft had little motivation to produce the upgrades because you were locked into a long term contract and they weren't required by the contract to produce ANYTHING. Also, SA only included a little support. Good luck calling to request a bug fix just for you. They'll take your $100,000+ but still treat you like a chump.
OSS vendors include support with maintenance for the full term. Often you get access to actual programmers and not sales people. I've worked with vendors that have put out a product patch just for the bug we found on a support call.. it's pretty cool! Even with mighty IBM, I've gotten actual programmers involved in bug issues because I had all my patches applied and troubleshooting steps followed. In that respect Microsoft isn't a "good" supplier unless you spend millions with them. When you deal with good companies, you see how poor Microsoft really is at their core business of making software. They're a "one trick pony" that merely has a lot of money in the bank.
I don't think many companies renewed their deals because they didn't get anything for it. Vista took so long that many of the original Software Assurance licensees got NOTHING the entire time but the regular updates that were free. Now days everybody buys Dells or HPs with the OS installed. Regular rotation of PCs pulls the new OS in fast enough for most businesses. It's not like MS goes thru OS versions every 2 years anymore. Even currently the server licenses are so dramatic in price and hardware that there's no point in buying upgrades anymore, you're better off buying the OS with the hardware and keeping them together. Microsoft's agreements are also VERY one-sided. While the price is better, they make some pretty terrible demands that no serious business person would accept for a normal commodity. Why it's accepted in IT is unbelievable.
I think they wanted Launchpad as their "money maker" the end product would be Open Source, but they would own the project building system as it represents THEIR work structure. Like how Sourceforge does things only more focused. They've been squeezed by the FSF to open it up.. the FSF even created a non-launchpad based distro GNUsense. Over all, I think they didn't really make as much money as they thought they would being the sole gatekeeper and to leave it competing against the other project tools that are all the way Open Source is silly. Perhaps if they donate the code projects like Debian proper or other independant projects will plug in. Cannonical wants to stop dealing with all the source themselves. They need to move the bugs and requests to the actual program devs so they don't get bogged down. Having the author's version would give them a leg up over companies like Red Hat that rely on maintaining their own packages for everything. I'd expect the Dell deal opened up some cash. Linus may be shopping for a better project tracking system too for the actual Kernel. Nobody in OSS wants to "owe" another company to keep its project alive because it's caused problems in the past.
Launchpad does do something unique, better than others. It combines CVS, groups, collaboration, bug tracking, discussion, and project management in one place. It has a successful distro with a few thousand packages pumping out of it, so it's not a hobby project.
if his allagations are true, it's the home run for wiretap cases.. after all, for courts attorney-client privillage is sacrosanct. Attempting to spy on the LAWYER for a group merely accused of helping terrorists before or while making a decision about their status is the ultimate red-flag to piss of the court.
I would almost believe that this was on purpose just to go for the ultimate piss-off to the court and get away with it setting precedent that would give them carte-blanc access to anybody's communications. It's a gambit that MIGHT get somebody slapped on the wrist by congress... but is a home run if they pull it off. I'd almost expect Cheney behind this for the sheer brass ballz.
the most simple cooberation would be for the person leaked to willingly pull their own records to compare to the secret leaked records. Obviously, no goons have been called in, and it's been a few years, so there's little likelyhood of problems for the person spied upon. I'm sure prosecutors could try to make up charges, but what would they charge with when the taps were illegal in the first place!!!
in your idea of intellectual honesty, the public has already paid hundreds of millions of dollars in "upgrade" taxes and "tax rebates" to help them out. Technically there's no reason to allow any concessions, but the Corporate heads are like little kids begging one more cookie from daddy after mommy told them no more before dinner. And these people are the one that claim US workers are so "underqualified".
but this also put the telcos in the position of competing with CONTENT providers. This is the core of the whole Net Neturality issue. When the telcos had to lease their lines on RAND terms, anybody could connect as a service, and anybody could connect their home to the internet.. the key is that the telco beurocracy could not cut off any service provider or any customer from the network.. and therefore the internet for very long. Without this direct access to high-speed lines, there would be no Google, no Yahoo, no Slashdot. Now that they can charge a "toll" to anybody legally, the whole thing gets nasty quickly with how low they can go.
I check Voicemail, while the machine is booting. Then check email for any hot items. If nothing's on "fire", I print off and check my list for my boxes.. backups ran, servers up, operator messages... Then on to my Change manangement system tracked issues to work on for the day...
because individually possessing those documents is not a crime.. proving that you intended to do something bad with them is. The current rules against child porn are more like outlawing "faces of death" videos because they depict actual people dying. The difference is that the IDEA of the document itself is banned and having the document is treated as "knowledge" of the crime. Outside national security there's no laws quite like it where having the thing is not just illegal (like drugs or weapons) but is a trackable for life sex crime. It's like being blacklisted as a communist in the 1950's because you possessed a copy of the communist manifesto.
but if I had somebody clean my house, I'd be making sure that stuff was picked up. It's not like these drives are encrypted.. I'd bet half the computers are there to have the porn downloading software and the associated spyware and viruses removed.
It's more like downloading Movies and music off the Pirate Bay.
Doing close up shots saved the CGI budget for just a few of the really expensive ones. There's a finite amount of money available, so they used the cover of "gritty" to cover the budget. There's nothing wrong with it, the way it was done looks more like a news camera trying to follow (like how in Battlestar ships bob in and out of frame all the time) In reality of war/news footage the "money shot" you don't always get.. they played the same games here. It wasn't bad, they pulled it off, but I'd be certain it was a director/style fix to a budget problem.
Even the most recent Dell with Ubuntu configures out to within $30 of what a macbook does. The key difference is that Apple doesn't sell low end crap with missing parts.. Dell does. Most of the sub $1000 notebooks all use the 1MB or 2MB 533MHz bus versions of 1.5, 1.6GHz "core 2 duo" chips. Most PCs on the retail shelves are crap T2000's or T5000's if you're lucky. Apple uses only the T7000's across all lines but the mac minis. There's a $100 minimum price difference. When you spec out the Dell "deal" to use matching chips, then add extras like Bluetooth that $699 deal is almost identical in price to the Apple. Making the Apple "cool" factor basically free. Of course the latest Dell does have GMA3100x intel's new graphics that will at least run most games (not well) Where the Macbook should have had those first at the refresh. Apple's going to get burnt fast if they don't get new chips out faster.. you're paying for the top, they have to stay there. Or with the 19x12 laptops...again, should have been last rev.. you don't pay $2700 to be behind the curve even a little.
While most of my OLDER (30+) coworkers don't go to the "bar" as much, they are constantly out and about with somebody... helping with house repairs, ballgames, parents of other kids, getting away from the kids, meeting friends for motorcycle rides, etc.. and often drinks are involved at some point. In my part of town, general opinion is drinking alone is bad... leads to being drunk and depressed too often. Of course, My coworkers are older so they don't "drink to get drunk" like kids do.
Looking at the "worst" of the maps claims, it seems the international zone is biggest for the US and Russian pieces of the "pie" surrounding the North Pole. Norway, Denmark and Canada have claims already very close to the pole... Because of the Bering Straight, the US-Russian parts are set back considerably in terms of "distance to the pole" from their territory. What Russia is claiming is still on their "side" of the map.. between them and the Pole, this is a tempest in a teapot.
on the other hand, hardware development will stall horribly when everybody goes to 5 year cycles for all the cookies. That will instantly knock the "losers" of 2 or 3 contracts to niche players.
Fortunately MS can't actually ship useable business software to save it's life... otherwise, I'd say there's a "B-Box" running PPC with managed .net code waiting to mop up the business market from Dell and HP. It would have 100% office and Exchange.. but not much else. The perfect storm for Microsoft. They want to be Apple, with cool stuff all the time, and big margins for "coolness". But they're stuck "being a monopoly" to all the PC OEMS. I'd think their goal is to switch businesses while keeping the PC OEMS under thumb long enough to knock their legs out. The writing is on the wall and I think even Dell is starting to see that the "PC" market for computers made of interchangable parts is going to Linux real soon. Microsoft already has enough contracts with the chineese to produce XBox outside the normal channels.... that doesn't bode well for companies like Dell or HP.
It's like a tidied up Gumstix. For small computers those guys rule the market right now. All the power of a WinCE or Palm in a tiny little board. They are missing USB hosting and video for the complete package. But they have Bluetooth and robot servo control... kinda makes up for it.
iPhone is an extension of the iPod and media business, not the computer business. It's driving feature is that it's an iPod... most business won't sign up for that, Period. Apple is trying to get the Web, music and video features to the PEOPLE, not companies (because they won't use it anyway) The goal of 90% of cell phone at this point is to get companies to buy dozens and lock them their networks. IF you don't have a business network for your smart phone, adding applications, or connecting to email is just a pretty feature, because unless you work for a company that pays, you don't ever get half the features that makes the phones so great.
Apple wants People to have phones.. it's a market 10x bigger than what Windows mobile or Palm have made for themselves with a 5 year head start. Ask yourself, with a 5 year head start, why are "smartphones" still only "Geek" toys? Why aren't they good enough for everybody? Apple is trying to get it's 10% of the market by bringing NEW users into smartphones!! not simply making a phone for the droves of industry pundits and IT managers looking for a new toy. I think a lot of the bad reviews are because Apple is not catering to what the pundits say they should be doing, not passing out previews like candy, not caving to pressure to add every special interest feature under the sun and being ignored makes the big players really upset because their whole business is being "in the loop" and Apple is cutting them out with a vengeance.
As a matter of principal there should be no exceptions. If Novell and Co. choose to use the new improved GPL3 versions of software they will have to abide like everybody else. I can't expect to get Suse 10 (with all the extras) for free just because I purchased version 7 3 years ago. Thre's no reason to grandfather any of these deals in. They accept the new terms from the INDIVIDUAL PROJECTS developing software or they fork the GPL2 and get drug down in bug fixing. That said, there are almost enough of them that they could pool their GPL2 work and not use GPL3 and still get product out.
On a side note for all those young earth creationists out there, perhaps the event that will destroy the world has already happened x thousand light years away at the exact moment of creation and we just haven't figured it out yet!
So yes, a big part of her running is as the first WOMAN president. If not for that distinction, then she's not much better or worse than the other candidates on most issues... and quite a bit of a right wing, flip flopper as well. She definately wouldn't pass for slashdotter consideration as a man. As a Man she wouldn't even be considered for another few terms. I would feel this next election is not the the time to decide if we want a woman president or not. There's too much on the table to let it get muddied with "touchy feely" things like that. At this point she should be looking to take her turn as VP. I think a lot of people really consider her for the job, but she's got to do the time in elected office. Being spouse of the former president is not the same thing (although she still did all that work for no actual pay or credit, so that counts for something)
you make the mistake that the USA is a pure democracy... it's NOT. the USA is a Republic. The smaller units of governerance elect representatives to the higher levels. This is done to allow greater accountablity for actions of the higer levels, but has been stripped by "democratic" ideals like yours. The original idea is that state governments elected Senators directly. Your governer or legislature could COMMAND your Senators to vote in a specific manner without any party interference... they represented the actual state government, not the people at large. In the same way Represenatives should represent elected units of government.. not "districts". That is the chief cause of our federal govt being so disconnected. Imagine if there was a clear chain of command to the Congress. From your city council voting ward, to the County officers, to the state legislature, to the Governer... to your Representives in Congress. Then you wouldn't write letters to random Congress people hoping they'd respond, you'd notify your local politican and they would pressure the next branch up in the manner their voters pushed for.. in the original system the lower governments even held the power of the VOTE and could even pull people out of office if they didn't vote how the voters told them too!!!
Open standards don't mean anything if Apple doesn't share the spotlight!!!! After all, there's this little browser called Konquerer... If Apple is bragging about openness where is the parent project of Safari!!! It's still out there being used. And what about Firefox or Opera? There's people holding the open web torch a lot longer than Apple. For them not to show a good cross section of broswers puts it back to a PC-versus-Mac thing. And developers will still blow it off.
I'd believe them! After all, if Microsoft is claiming somebody is trying to gain an illegal monopoly, they must be right.. after all, they've been king of the hill for the last 15 years in that department!!!!