I'd be worried about the 'wiggle room' in this one, when it comes to something like a VM.
A company with an 'embrace and extend' philosophy could easily be 100% compatible, then push that to 110% so it does more than compatible, it does things the original can't! How can you complain about a company improving the original?
It was done once, and Sun would be fools to let it happen again.
Here's a lesson for Microsoft IE (and others?) in the future: Be consistent and follow the rules, they're there for a reason. Don't assume that the user wants something, do as your told and keep it simple.
Try using a '\' in a url, and IE will automagically assume that you mean a '/' - making broken links generally put out by their broken tools work in their broken browser.
Well, I guess that is some kind of consistency, eh?
The same MS advisory page recommends (way down at the bottom for those that don't bother to RTFA):
Read E-mail Messages in Plain Text. ...
By reading e-mail in plain text, you can see the full URL of any hyperlink and examine the address that Internet Explorer will use. The following are some of the characters that may appear in a URL that could lead to a spoofed Web site:
* %00
* %01
* @
Gee, ya think that HTML email is a bad idea..? I wonder how many people even realize that this "IE advisory" applies to Outlook and their email as well?
My point is that fixing these perceived areas of "Linux inferiority" would make it even harder for Microsoft to create the next version of a biased report. If Open Source is smart, they will exploit these biased marketing reports to set future development priorities and fill any perceived gaps in functionality, ease-of-use, and TCO.
Whoah there, be careful. One of the things that you don't want to have happen is to let your competitor play the fiddle that you're dancing to. That's letting them control your actions, and possibly let them divert you to something useless.
The real trick here is to make sure that Linux-related development aimed at making it more competitive addresses real concerns, not just the ones that Microsoft's marketing department decides to trot out as the latest useless thing to pick a fight about.
This is going to be interesting. Microsoft is doing everything it can to hobble OSS projects from interacting with their systems (note the explicit anti-GPL clause in the SMB documentation licenses) and yet they're using OSS tools to try to draw people onto their platform.
It's dirty fighting - they're taking every advantage afforded by the very kind of freedom they're actively trying to stamp out.
That's one of the unfortunate costs of freedom - some will use it against you. The OSS community is an open book, theirs is a very closely guarded hand of cards..
Here's the million dollar question: Is there anything that the OSS community can do to compete with this kind of underhandedness?
Let me guess, since this is specific to launching "windows apps" the parts of the world that isn't "windows" doesn't really care.
Oh wait, isn't this going to put a notoriously nasty HTML-esque interface in front of even *more* apps? The limitations of HTML were one of the many reasons that boatlaods of "web apps" haven't come out of nowhere like (almost) everyone wanted.
I did something like this a dozen years ago for a CAD program - was seriously happy stuff. In that environment, it was excellent to have the common operations mapped to simple gestures that could be done anywhere on the screen.
In the world of a clumsy third button on the mouse, it's a little stickier. Handy goodies, is about time someone cooked up the same ideas in a more 'portable' form.
Who knows? You think they're going to stand up and admit they got hacked into? One of the virtues about the Open Source community is that things like this are never secret - people using apt-get can be aware of the situation and make an *informed* choice about how to procceed.
I doubt you'll get the same courtesy from Microsoft.
One of the things that's interesting to me is how much Microsoft generates that never gets used. I'll believe that they're using 'open formats' when that's the default file format for saving Microsoft Office documents. As it stands, they could make it an import/export option, and relegate it to the level of CSV for spreadsheets.
Sure, it's there, but it's little more than a checkbox they can trumpet..
... rewrite this with "Pakistan" replaced with "Bismarck, North Dakota" and see how it reads. I wonder how much the domestic laws can do to prevent this kind of hijacking of data on US soil? True, trying that kind of blackmail can get you in a nasty legal mess, but if the MPAA/etc can reach overseas to snatch a kid that had the balls enough to stand up for his participation in a project they didn't like, how far can the vastly better-funded medical industry reach into other countries..?
Or is this the kind of thing that doesn't matter as much as whether the MPAA gets paid?
"We believe the evidence will ultimately show that there was no infringement of any kind, and that the accused feature in our browser technology was developed by our own engineers based on pre-existing Microsoft technology," a Microsoft spokesperson said in early August when a federal court jury delivered its verdict.
Welcome to what happens when you open Pandora's Box. What the lawyer/spokesperson/talking head missed here is that it *doesn't matter* if you built the system inside of a dark room sealed in a nuke-proof underground bunker - if someone else already has a patent on it, they own the idea. There is no "but *we* built this version!" cry that works, when someone 'patents software' they are essentially forbidding you to think or create without their permission.
Copyright prevents you from lifting their code and claiming it as your own. Patents prevent you from building your own ideas if they happen to overlap someone else's.
OK, so it's an Xbox made by a different company - although it sounds like they're doing the impossible and writing even more draconian licensing terms than even MS..
Bah! Screw daylight. The Zone in which good things happen (for me, at least) is one in which just about any marked input to the senses is reduced - the room is warm enough to be comfortable sitting still, no bright light to distract the eyes and ambient tunes to cover rude neighbors or people in the hall. My penchant for darker inside offices (no glass) earned me the title Caveman in at least one past position.
The key here is four walls and a door. I've heard the lame excuse that 'an open environment promotes communication' - what you end up with is being pinned like a bug under glaring lights listening to the dork in the next cube yack at his wife eternally. Sure you can communicate until you're sick of each other, but nobody can concentrate on code..
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I'd be worried about the 'wiggle room' in this one, when it comes to something like a VM.
A company with an 'embrace and extend' philosophy could easily be 100% compatible, then push that to 110% so it does more than compatible, it does things the original can't! How can you complain about a company improving the original?
It was done once, and Sun would be fools to let it happen again.
Here's a lesson for Microsoft IE (and others?) in the future: Be consistent and follow the rules, they're there for a reason. Don't assume that the user wants something, do as your told and keep it simple.
Try using a '\' in a url, and IE will automagically assume that you mean a '/' - making broken links generally put out by their broken tools work in their broken browser.
Well, I guess that is some kind of consistency, eh?
The same MS advisory page recommends (way down at the bottom for those that don't bother to RTFA):
...
Read E-mail Messages in Plain Text.
By reading e-mail in plain text, you can see the full URL of any hyperlink and examine the address that Internet Explorer will use. The following are some of the characters that may appear in a URL that could lead to a spoofed Web site:
* %00
* %01
* @
Gee, ya think that HTML email is a bad idea..? I wonder how many people even realize that this "IE advisory" applies to Outlook and their email as well?
Nice way to bury that one, guys..
My point is that fixing these perceived areas of "Linux inferiority" would make it even harder for Microsoft to create the next version of a biased report. If Open Source is smart, they will exploit these biased marketing reports to set future development priorities and fill any perceived gaps in functionality, ease-of-use, and TCO.
Whoah there, be careful. One of the things that you don't want to have happen is to let your competitor play the fiddle that you're dancing to. That's letting them control your actions, and possibly let them divert you to something useless.
The real trick here is to make sure that Linux-related development aimed at making it more competitive addresses real concerns, not just the ones that Microsoft's marketing department decides to trot out as the latest useless thing to pick a fight about.
The "smart consumers" don't get mad, they get more passive.
And this, more than anything else, scares me pale about my beloved industry...
.. Yup, rock solid set of balls on those boys.
Especially since this can get you jail time in other countries, perhaps..?
This is going to be interesting. Microsoft is doing everything it can to hobble OSS projects from interacting with their systems (note the explicit anti-GPL clause in the SMB documentation licenses) and yet they're using OSS tools to try to draw people onto their platform.
It's dirty fighting - they're taking every advantage afforded by the very kind of freedom they're actively trying to stamp out.
That's one of the unfortunate costs of freedom - some will use it against you. The OSS community is an open book, theirs is a very closely guarded hand of cards..
Here's the million dollar question: Is there anything that the OSS community can do to compete with this kind of underhandedness?
Three words: Bring it on.
Yawn.
Let me guess, since this is specific to launching "windows apps" the parts of the world that isn't "windows" doesn't really care.
Oh wait, isn't this going to put a notoriously nasty HTML-esque interface in front of even *more* apps? The limitations of HTML were one of the many reasons that boatlaods of "web apps" haven't come out of nowhere like (almost) everyone wanted.
Indeed. Move along.
I did something like this a dozen years ago for a CAD program - was seriously happy stuff. In that environment, it was excellent to have the common operations mapped to simple gestures that could be done anywhere on the screen.
In the world of a clumsy third button on the mouse, it's a little stickier. Handy goodies, is about time someone cooked up the same ideas in a more 'portable' form.
Who knows? You think they're going to stand up and admit they got hacked into? One of the virtues about the Open Source community is that things like this are never secret - people using apt-get can be aware of the situation and make an *informed* choice about how to procceed.
I doubt you'll get the same courtesy from Microsoft.
One of the things that's interesting to me is how much Microsoft generates that never gets used. I'll believe that they're using 'open formats' when that's the default file format for saving Microsoft Office documents.
As it stands, they could make it an import/export option, and relegate it to the level of CSV for spreadsheets.
Sure, it's there, but it's little more than a checkbox they can trumpet..
... rewrite this with "Pakistan" replaced with "Bismarck, North Dakota" and see how it reads. I wonder how much the domestic laws can do to prevent this kind of hijacking of data on US soil?
True, trying that kind of blackmail can get you in a nasty legal mess, but if the MPAA/etc can reach overseas to snatch a kid that had the balls enough to stand up for his participation in a project they didn't like, how far can the vastly better-funded medical industry reach into other countries..?
Or is this the kind of thing that doesn't matter as much as whether the MPAA gets paid?
From the article:
"We believe the evidence will ultimately show that there was no infringement of any kind, and that the accused feature in our browser technology was developed by our own engineers based on pre-existing Microsoft technology," a Microsoft spokesperson said in early August when a federal court jury delivered its verdict.
Welcome to what happens when you open Pandora's Box. What the lawyer/spokesperson/talking head missed here is that it *doesn't matter* if you built the system inside of a dark room sealed in a nuke-proof underground bunker - if someone else already has a patent on it, they own the idea. There is no "but *we* built this version!" cry that works, when someone 'patents software' they are essentially forbidding you to think or create without their permission.
Copyright prevents you from lifting their code and claiming it as your own.
Patents prevent you from building your own ideas if they happen to overlap someone else's.
OK, so it's an Xbox made by a different company - although it sounds like they're doing the impossible and writing even more draconian licensing terms than even MS..
Bah! Screw daylight. The Zone in which good things happen (for me, at least) is one in which just about any marked input to the senses is reduced - the room is warm enough to be comfortable sitting still, no bright light to distract the eyes and ambient tunes to cover rude neighbors or people in the hall. My penchant for darker inside offices (no glass) earned me the title Caveman in at least one past position.
The key here is four walls and a door. I've heard the lame excuse that 'an open environment promotes communication' - what you end up with is being pinned like a bug under glaring lights listening to the dork in the next cube yack at his wife eternally. Sure you can communicate until you're sick of each other, but nobody can concentrate on code..