Good ol' South Park. Bravely beyond the absurd into the completely dada:) If anybody ever _does_ splice swiss cheese with chalk and a beard, please please don't tell me;)
Group 1: Caffiene Group 2: Grease Group 3: Sugar Group 4: Monosodium Glutamate
;)
What a great way to FUD Corel (or kick in nutz)
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How about their committment to the Mac, then? Big hype for Mac Office- meanwhile, they KILL the mac versions of everything ELSE! The encyclopedia? *poof* Games? *buahaha* Corporate messaging? *foosh* You gotta be both a lawyer at heart, and _seriously_ cynical to the point of evil, to guess what they will do, and then they'll do it. I'd guessed they'd hype Mac Office and kill everything else quietly- sure enough, they have, and their Mac line is a lot smaller than it was, and not getting any bigger. Regarding Linux- dunno if they'll release a distribution, but they will eventually release _something_ that will require kernel mods, and that's the thin end of the wedge. If they're being very nice they will _tell_ you their installer is hacking your kernel. They have not always been very nice. Choke on _that_ one, Janet Reno. They have the morals of criminals- never assume you're dealing with a normal business. Look for the knife in the back, even if you're just a _user_.:P
As a tech who's made MacOS 7 _system_ software go from ten megs to _four_ megs just by removing MS extensions, I have to beg to differ. OK, more like shriek "AAAAAAA! ARE YOU CRAZY???" That is the _first_ thing they will require. Expect stuff like new swap mechanisms for IE, or special memory allocating mechanisms in parallel with the normal ones- substitute filesystem handling routines is _very_ likely because MS like to squeeze a bit of extra speed any way they can, no matter how dangerously, and are happy to ignore any API if they can sleaze some extra caching or a quicker write access. The _first_ thing they will require is kernel modules. Come on man, look at the record! MacOS extensions for Office? Substitute _menu_ drawing code, substitute dialog boxes, substitute _TextEdit_ for crying out loud? Look at the Frontpage extensions- replacing the Apache binary for crying out loud? Know what you're dealing with- they _will_ replace anything they can think of. If they didn't, their stuff would be even _slower_ (though it would crash less if they followed the rules). This isn't a hypothetical- they've already done this to the Mac platform. Now, who here says Macs crash like crazy? OK, now who has used a Mac which did _not_ have _any_ Microsoft extensions or code in it? HMMMMM. Final happy note- there have been Microsoft apps which _hacked_ the _system_ file permanently when installed. Currently to my knowledge they do not- but the latest IE ignores the normal tacky-but-controllable Mac style of memory allocation and allocates memory like _mad_ in the _system_ _heap_, not in the app's heap at all. Wheee, _nice_ going guys, let's just dump buggy swatches of memory right in the system heap so if anything goes wrong it's jammed right into the guts of MacOS. Guard pages? What guard pages? *rrrrrr* Yes, it's a lame memory model in the first place, but abusing it that way is tantamount to sabotage and _totally_ makes it impossible to control IE's resources when run. And IE immediately starts slamming pages and data into the system heap, too- more caching, pity it's not being done in an _appropriate_ way... gaaaaah! *fume* Er. Let me start over. *ahem* 'No, Microsoft probably _will_ force extensive kernel patches to be used even though this could seriously risk stability and reliability.:)' uh, how's that? Get the feeling that I'm not just guessing? o_O
Sorry man: no deal. I'm still doing GPL, gonna continue doing GPL, hopefully with ever more useful actual software and handy code bits to share, and the code is available to anyone but those who won't let me (and everyone) into their process. That's more important than regulating market share. In fact that helps regulate market share all by itself- in theory the prize will simply go to whoever has a basic competence and will put in the most work on a thing. This is not bad- hell, if I write, say, a parser to translate the RGB values for MacOS custom appearance colors into hex codes as used in HTML tags (which I have done and it's open source, probably easy to translate into whatever language you like) and a bunch of merry little hamsters in wheels at Microsoft run about adding ways to get the color of everything you could imagine and translate it into everything from HTML to LAB to CMYK, _and_ _publish_, what's wrong with that picture? If they write bad code, fix it. If one of their variations is useful, use it. It really doesn't matter at that stage... YO! Microsoft programmers down there in the woodwork! Start hacking on GPLed projects and share your code as the license absolutely requires! Your masters may be corrupt evil buggers that should be in jail, but _you_ have equal rights with all programmers- there should be no stigma based just on where a programmer works, only on how he or she handles it! JOIN us >:) Hee. It's fun to say 'us' on slashdot. You instantly get flamed from 27 different directions. I don't care. Amnesty, respect for Microsoft programmers! Forget your boss and JOIN us. Pitch in. It matters, and you're the crazed amphetamine-laden no-vacation beavers of the software world, and you know it, too. Stop giving all that energy to Bill, and use that high overstressed voltage for a good cause for a change. JOIN US. *waves shiny pocket watch* youuu are getting sleeepyyyy... you are going to write GPLed open source... join us... *hehehehehe* Yeah! Come on, join us!
I know why ms is doing this. Its to screw up the k
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Since when? No chance. It'll be MS certified closed kernel mods, take it or leave it. Oh, and you have to reinstall the service packs after you do anything to the kernel, or it won't work. Who's going to _make_ them release source against their will? That's not what open source is about anyhow. Doing that is as bad as the Texas guy who's being sued over the contents of his thoughts (as seen recently on Slashdot). "Not only must you turn over your idea to the company, it also has to be released to the public as source!" no no no...
Er... I'm told that if you place the insertion point within a block of text of one size or style in Word, and begin deleting text, and delete past where the style block begins, due to the deletion of the internal marker all the text _after_ your insertion point abruptly changes style. So if you try to delete across a style block, Word flips out and causes big chunks of text following the insertion point to be suddenly formatted differently. I'm also given to understand that this is a _very_ old bug, except that it's still not fixed because this uncontrolled spasm of the formatting is either considered a feature, or people are used to learning that it does that by now. How is this different from 'when you try to edit text it will not work or even make the problem worse'? o_O
MSLinux Office requires Linux Kernel 2000-MS.
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Bingo! This is the big threat. It's absolutely trivial to require special libs. What do you think they do on Macintoshes, for crying out loud? It's install extensions like mad, all over the place. Stuff that's always running. I saw a MacOS 7.1 installation go from TEN! megs of ram to FOUR _just_ by removing all the MS extensions. There was more MS code in RAM than there was Apple code... _this_ is what you can look forward to by trying to integrate Microsoft tech into your Linux. Take it from the battle-scarred and heavily marginalised Mac users, okay? You have no idea how vulnerable you really are. Don't even con yourself that you can play their game and win it. They'll 'win' you. Just say no- find other ways to do things. Chris, who has all-non-MS ways of doing all sorts of things on Macs _and_ linuxPPC...
No kidding- if they do this, they will show some real tactical genius at picking libs to fragment Linux. Perhaps they will pick FSF libs- and _freeze_ the things- you can't upgrade the FSF libs without breaking MSOffice- it could _check_ to see if it should crash if newer libs are present! They _can_ halt development of important shared libraries that way. They can also put in timing loops that gradually make everything slower and slower- at one point somebody analyzed the really slow Mac office and found, not simply P-code, but _busywaits_ in the assembly language. Not fooling- they are totally willing to sabotage their own software that disgustingly in the name of future control of the operating system. Because of that, Mac Office has sometimes been _greatly_ inferior in practice to WinOffice, slow, unresponsive, when in background drags performance of all apps down... people have made benchmarks for machines based on sabotaged applications like this, and it can happen again. They are long range planners in some things- making the best Linux office suite might _not_ be their long range strategic goal. Just a warning...
The question is, is he going to try and widen the crack so other people can get through, using the temporary soapbox he gets through this publicity, or is he gonna decide it's because _he_ is some kind of wonderful philosopher, and not do a damn thing to express publically the capacity of the net to bring one person's views or art to the attention of many? But... upon reflection, that isn't even the issue, is it? Much of this would seem different if Katz submitted articles to editors who then could post them or not, and I think some of his excesses would be minimized. He's basically abusing his editor privileges, if you want to put it that way- there's nothing so intrinsically wrong about his articles besides the occasional MS Word garbled quotes, but hell, not even Sengan would post articles just to sell something... much less use the capacity to put Slashdot articles online, to hype his own product. Editors are for guarding objectivity, and Jon Katz has stumbled badly in this regard. He should have let others post the news of his series of appearances- and, for that matter, the news of his book. It is possible that those articles would not have seemed on-topic enough to another editor. But Jon, by virtue of trying to get a Linux box, gained write access, and now that he has it, there is no more about his linux box, and he presents infomercials on his book, and speculations about sexbots. I admit that would sell books and keep his section of Slashdot read, but it would be better if someone else had the decision to post his stuff or not. Hell, I write, and do essays on Linux and open source, and in fact I have written GPLed software, and you don't see _me_ demanding that I must be allowed to have write access to Slashdot. I'm just suggesting that Jon Katz should _not_. He can't wear a book publicist hat and a Slashdot editor hat at the same time. It just doesn't work- it's wrong- one does not _mix_ roles in that way. I trust CmdrTaco's objectivity- hell, I trust Sengan's objectivity a lot more than Jon Katz's, because although Sengan is very opinionated and has even slanted stories, the stories he posted were not _about_ _him_. It's not reasonable to expect Katz to be an objective editor about his own stuff, and indeed he's not. He should be allowed to be an editor on stories he finds that are not _about_ _him_, even sexbots- why not? But others should check out the posts about his book and his writing career and speaking engagements. It's just respectable journalism to not put him in that position- he _cannot_ play that role honorably, because it's not for him to play- except that currently, he's the one who plays it, and it is most inappropriate, and hardly fair to Jon, because he gets criticised ruthlessly for being very excited about very selfish things that he has a perfect right to be excited about...
CmdrTaco is a free agent, and he's entitled to do all he likes for you. I myself have given you some harsh feedback which I've no idea if you listened to it or not- and I was free to do so or withhold such criticism. I can give you input, I can give you validation by writing fan letters, I can argue with other slashdotters over you and increase the size of your threads. What have you done for _us_ lately? This is one-sided. If you're going to be a leech, go away and leave us alone. If you want to be worth our respect, use that Boomer brain and figure out some way to promote US! We don't care about your success- that's _your_ problem. We don't care about your personal goals- you used to talk about overcoming Linux, and we cared about the Linux, not about your process of overcoming. _Everybody_ struggles with new things and has to make an effort. _Everybody_ cares about something or other (even if it's the act of not caring). It's boring. Show us what you can damned well _do_. I realise this is harder than self-aggrandizement but it's all that matters. What, what have you done for us lately? What have you even tried to do? There's no sin in failing to contribute to society. There's no sin in fleeing to a mountain with your dogs and opting out of the many struggles of the present day. People have been doing it since way before the '60s, it was boring then, it was noisy and boring in the '60s and it is boring now. The insult is not in the cowardice of hiding behind the walls of the self and the ego, but in behaving like it's _our_ job to help you further yourself. You, Jon, need to reconsider what you do with your storyposting access to Slashdot. Granted, many stories are silly or just fun, and there's no crime in that- but it is wrong to use such a gift for self-aggrandizement unless you can also throw in something that helps _us_ in the bargain. So you're doing a book tour- great! I told you myself that you should, that it was a hell of an angle to work: I'm a writer, not as successful (enough to know you're not making piles of cash even now, that argument is silly), and you _should_ hit the talk shows. But once you're there, Jon, what will you do? What will you say? In all your talk of self-discovery, where is the slightest detail that will help the world or us or the damned dogs you took with you or anyone but Jon Katz? You need to find an answer for that. And I'll tell you why: in self-aggrandizing terms (we are whimsical animals and self-aggrandizing is natural and good). You need to find an answer because having one will make you more famous. Vain writers full of themselves are boring. If you come off boring and pompous you'll never see the talk shows again. On the other hand- if you can work an angle outside the self, make _it_ famous if you understand me, why then, you come along for the ride! Look at ESR, him and his Jedi costume. Imagine how you'd sell if you were _that_ colorful. Now look again- ESR has an _angle_, it's not just a cult of personality. He has a theme, a cause. What is your cause, Jon? The answer to that will make the difference between fame and obscurity- and it all comes down to the simple question: yes, we've done much for you, but what can you do for us? That's the story, that's the angle, that's what could set you apart from a thousand geriatric hippie writers trawling the dregs of the B list. Ponder this well, grasshopper- last time I spoke to you I said to go on talk shows and that's working- so will this work if you are big enough to do it. Hopefully you can pick up a bit of wry affection from this vicious genX 13er hacker writer speaking to you across what sometimes seems an insurmountable gap. _Work_ this one- I won't say 'look deep into yourself' because what will you find there? Nothing more special than any human who cares. Look outside yourself- look to what you do, and ask yourself, what beyond my feelings, my heart and soul, can I give? Because, Jon, I can tell you from the breakdown lane of the information superhighway and from a spot pulling people out of the gutters of life, that giving the heart and soul just isn't enough. The day ends, and you've done nothing to help anyone- find ways to _try_ and build somebody, something, up, rather than building your heart and soul up to a state of useless radiance and enlightenment. You don't have to succeed, but you do have to try. I've spent a lot of time writing and writing to try and reach you and cast a light on you. That's my privilege- I could not care, which is also my privilege, I could cut you dead instead of trying to understand or counsel. Instead, I choose to try and reach you, in stark contrast to your usual flamer. What have you done for _us_ today?
All the MS people are crazy- they can't face the reality of what's happening, can't acknowledge that their basic corporate ethic is, in fact, against the law. Wouldn't be if they were just little schmucks, it'd just be annoying- but they aren't, are they? They aren't. I just read the c/net article (despite a screwed-up link on their roundup page- use the sidebar link instead) where the MS lawyer insists, 'We will prevail' in an internal memo somebody decided to leak. It's freaking weird when lawyers are that off the beam- guy could get disbarred or something for his trouble, going all the way down the line with these people. I immediately pictured a killer editorial cartoon- the lawyer's talking to his secretary, better yet an MS dictation program! And it shows on the screen 'we will prevail' and the guy's going, no, no! 'we will be put in jail'! Heh. There needs to be jail time for many of these people. If it was good enough for the top levels of the Nixon cabinet it is good enough for Microsoft- it's not like they wouldn't get very high class imprisonment, these are not people who would be thrown in a drunk tank, but locked up they must be. Locked up because they are too crazy to be safe running around in the world- and too sane and convinced of their perfect reasonableness to get off on an insanity defense. It's almost good that they're so far gone- no more conciliation, no more insincerity, now we see the true Microsoft and they are saying, screw you, we've been right all along, we're right now, we own you and the courts and we just win- what's so hard to understand about that? It gives the government lawyers a solid base for proposing remedies, and I for one really think some of these people had better see jail time to knock their bloody blinders off and make them see the reality for a change. That or not let them work in the business again. Let them conquer and dominate yarn, or the pickle industry, or Katz's sexbots- send 'em off to Roger Waters' "Fletcher Memorial Home for incurable tyrants and kings" but get their hands off computing. How much will we put up with? When do we start demanding that the government be a government and assert power over these people?
Yes, that's right- GPLed Mac software, there's the source right there;) whether it's great isn't the point (I consider it good work otherwise I wouldn't have released it), the point is, here comes the Mac Truck! There is open source outside of just linux- it's _bigger_ than just linux.
Mind you, when I am up to it I'll be putting out linux apps right alongside the Mac apps, but the source _is_ open, even now. Things are already rolling in places that might surprise some people.
"But a piece of code is closely related to an algorythm (or even an heuristic)" Bingo! A heuristic is not an algorithm or a mathematical truth. Not even slightly... a heuristic is an assumption or method of making decisions or approach to a problem. A heuristic is _style_. A heuristic is _implementation_, not theory. If theory was perfect and everything was mathematics we wouldn't _need_ heuristics, we'd just look up the answer and go on... And _this_ is the type of thing which it makes some kind of sense to have idea patents. It's not pure theory- it's a method, _style_, an angle of attack on a problem which is NOT A UNIQUE APPROACH but which might be so artistic an approach that all other methods seem klugey. _That_ is what patents are for, not to stop everyone from whole fields of endeavor, but to provide a payoff for people who can come up with these brilliant strokes of virtuosity, and it's all style, it's all about style and implementation. Nowhere is it necessary to patent math- or, worse, to patent types of computer program that might be written- if you can patent particular virtuosic implementations that just plain outperform the regular ways of doing things. Heuristics are totally the right angle of attack on the patent problem- maybe I should patent this argument;) 'Argument to resolve the intellectual disputes over patent theory by putting great emphasis on the concept of heuristics as virtuosic implementations of programming style' *hehehe* Seriously... heuristics are the key idea here- read up on expert systems and look into what heuristics are (they ain't simply mathematical formulae, they are _value_ judgements and not just a matter of right and wrong algorithm) and think about that. Heuristics are never truth: they are opinion, and a wise opinion is worth anything.
This guy is almost a canonical example of 'ways in which the patent system isn't necessarily totally out to lunch'. I write GPLed software myself and I find it _very_ hard to assume I _must_ be allowed total freedom to use the work of dozens (?) of programmers over a course of years, _without_ their consent. It seems absurd to me that there can even be an argument- if people have a reason to opt out of open source completely then that must be respected... Contrast this to the pranks of a Microsoft trying to patent 'a URL' or 'a menu item that is context sensitive' or some such nonsense. Can't you _see_ that there are two different things here? It seems absolutely outrageous that anyone would defend just _stealing_ code mindlessly from this admittedly very proprietary company. How can it be right to just rip that, not understand it, not bother to learn it, not be able to maintain it, just _rip_ it and release a knockoff that uses the _engine_ of the proprietary code, unchanged? Doesn't it sound like this is a very complicated set of algorithms to do what's being hinted at, like it's not so much a mathematical truth but a series of design decisions and compromises with years of tailoring to adjust it to where it starts to really click- and _this_ is what's ripped, not some general concept like 'speech recognition', that would be totally fine. There has _got_ to be a distinction here, the amount of fiddly detail in this company's pricey product must be orders of magnitude greater than the rip-off patent abuses like 'method of depicting an illustrated button to activate program code from clicking with a mouse' and such tripe. Doesn't it seem different, isn't it sort of startling to hear that the brave resourceful copying programmer didn't _understand_ what was being copied, or even _try_ to understand it? What's up with that? Is it really okay to not even try to work and innovate and develop stuff, is it that beneficial to leech off of people who are willing to put in the time and resources? Only, in my opinion, if the people putting in the resources are consciously choosing to go some open source route in hopes others will follow their lead... otherwise this is itself a horrible abuse. People must _consent_ to have their ideas shared and copied and proliferated... there are _reasons_ to consent to this, social and pragmatic and personal reasons, but the second you start going terrorist with it, well, how is this different from Microsoft ripping all the Linux code and using whatever they want in proprietary stuff, then having their lawyers stomp on whoever the FSF can afford so that all open source becomes a sick joke and just means 'public domain'? How is this different from stepping all over the boundaries of _proprietary_ coders? You _have_ to respect those boundaries to even hope to get any respect in return. To the anonymous proprietary poster: I hope, someday, some free software alternative grows to rival or approach what you people sell commercially. I hope someone codes this. I'll tell you right now, _I_ am not coding this, or even trying to. Why? I absolutely cannot spare the time or resources to attempt such an undertaking- I'm not that good and if I was I still wouldn't be able to put in the legwork, all by myself, to get together a competitive product... ...and this is, in fact, your point, isn't it? Well, consider it a point well taken.
Also, the menubar swaps to whatever is currently active, and hides/removes the menubar of whatever isn't active. This is actually good in the sense that something like Window Maker is good- it's less cluttered. It's a tradeoff, one that a lot of people like. If you're working in an application you see its menubar, if you have it in the background you don't see its menus anywhere until you focus it again. People actually (this has been tested!) behave as if there is only one menubar that magically contains everything they need! This occurs even when a single app changes menubar contents- if you select, say, an ellipse, and a 'shape' menu changes from Square (editing) to Ellipse (editing), many users will never notice the change and will swear that both Square and Ellipse are ALWAYS PRESENT because, when they _want_ the menu, it's always there. This bears thinking about. It's also antithetical to the MS approach, of making sure everything is in your face as much as possible.
Linux runnig Photoshop, word...
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Windows ID
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"Why would you want to run Photoshop when GIMP can do all that photoshop can?"
This slashdot poster has four various Macs at home (only one is serious, the others are bitty boxes) one of which dualboots linuxppc... but! I do tech support at a computer repair place, and though I am a Mac tech, we totally depend on two Windows boxes. One's out front as a financial records keeper and answering machine, and nothing is ever done to it- the one out back has drives and stuff constantly thrown at it in the course of repair work, and consequently gets reinstalled a lot. Both are connected to the net... It doesn't matter that we can't trust MS. We still have to use it to fix other broken MS stuff: maybe the front box could be a Mac or Linux machine (answering machine software with caller ID anyone? on either platf... wait, you can get 'YoYo' for the Mac. But who's paying?) but the back machine needs to run a Microsoft PC setup just to be able to deal in case somebody brings in a winprinter to be fixed or some such thing... so we're vulnerable. We had better do without, and keep an eye on our windows tech- guy is one of those crotchety griping jovial characters who clearly does not _respect_ the MS license agreements if he thinks he can get away with ignoring him- and he could be putting us in danger by pirating stuff internally. I will have to ask about that, ask whether he's been doing that for anything. Interesting world we live in, no? Wonder if we got sued, would they let us off with a slap on the wrist and a legal contract to get rid of our Mac, never do Mac repair again, never make a Linux box and in general become an exclusively MS shop? As a final note- they must have repeated copies of our information, because W98 hates most hardware, and we've installed it on hardware it hates _many_ times... *install install install* the 'doze guys get real grouchy and aggravated at the way the quality went downhill so much...
not closed yet + new loopholes
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The company said it will alter the way the registration process works in the next maintenance release of Windows 98 What about '95, NT, and existing '98 customers? Moot point: they will alter it by sending the ID _twice_ instead of once. That constitutes altering it.
the company will create a software tool to let customers clear the ID number from the Registry So it's an opt-out. Chances they'll publicize this "tool"? Again, you're thinking small: says they will create it, nowhere does it say they will _distribute_ it, does it?
"If it is, it's just a bug," Bennett said. "If it is indeed happening, and we have testers working this weekend, we'll absolutely fix that." It's a "bug" that information is included in the documents? "Just" a bug. Also, I deduce that MS testers don't work weekends;)
Bennett promised that Microsoft also will wipe any of those numbers from its internal databases that the company can determine may have been inadvertently collected. "can determine"? "inadvertently"? This is probably sufficient qualification to avoid doing anything. You got it! Since they collected all these numbers on purpose (their war on piracy seems like the most logical explanation for this behavior) clearly no numbers at all need be wiped. None were inadvertent: they meant every one. Maybe it's helping them sue copiers of MS software.
I know this: I'm warning my workplace about this. We'd best not take any chances, and if that means doing without, maybe we'd better do without. It's actually pretty funny- I'm the guy who's been swearing up and down that Intel PIDs are not for individual tracking, but for asserting that the chip is not a Celeron or AMD (I am PIII! 'You may pass'). And suddenly, here MS is, actively doing the very thing Intel was only suspected of trying to set up to do (and far less effectively, to boot). _This_ is what people were flipping out about, and it's bizarre that they originally saw this behavior in a CPU ID which is only good for intentionally limiting compatibility and forcing monopoly of Intel chips in the long run.
Thank you for reading my post so carefully
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Wired on RMS
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Geeeez... I have to speak up here. Did you ever read Steven Levy's great book 'Hackers'? Read about RMS participating with entire groups of people in the MIT computer lab, sharing an unusual intimacy much like people on a shared mission? Read about how the LISP machine wars broke up the computer lab, and the precursor to free software (because nobody had considered there was another way to _be_) got _destroyed_ by the purchase of all the hackers at MIT, who were put under nondisclosure agreements and made to not share code and ideas? Read about how the MIT computer lab, once a place of idea sharing and enthusiasm, was rendered _empty_ and dead? Read about how RMS was driven to _tears_ even years later by the anguish of this loss? Read about how he, singlehandedly, with nothing left for him but vengeance, reverse engineered the work of an entire _team_ of brilliant hackers? And implemented everything in original, novel ways to avoid any risk of IP violation- all by himself matching the work of a _group_ of _brilliant_ programmers formerly of MIT themselves? And finally, as the LISP star passed, sought to find a productive way to contribute to society- but never ever risk the destruction of the community he loved- which he was forced to watch happen once already, due solely to proprietary software forcing hackers to not talk about their work and ideas? I'm sorry, but I'm incredibly offended by this portrayal of RMS as a unfeeling robot. You seem to have no _idea_ who you're talking about, or any notion of what he went through to make him such a zealot. He shared his life in the most deep, committed, almost loverlike way with a group of other hackers- and this was torn from him by the LISP machine fiasco, and he would go around at the time saying his _wife_ had died and showing every evidence of it- only this 'wife' was the community of hackers he remembered! He already has found himself as lonely as can be imagined- over the LISP machine issue, over proprietary software killing the communication and community he loved. How dare you condemn him for a heartlessness that does not apply to him? I'm sorry, this post really bothered me. Please consider the background of the person and his value system and what he has loved passionately in the past before making snap judgements about his personality.
I'm a MacOS/linuxppc user!;) There's nothing _that_ obligatory about the W98/W95/Wforever interface. It always amazes and fascinates me how people put on blinders and make assumptions in very MS-centric ways: maybe it's just easier for me to see since I have never ever owned a Wintel PC! (or had one in the house, or done schoolwork on one, or worked with one in the workplace etc etc) People assume there has to be a taskbar. Why does there have to be a taskbar? To see what programs are open. Well, you could have a little tile or icon that popped out a list of running programs when clicked on (Mac system 8 and under), you could have a little application with lots of info about everything that is running for only when you really need serious process info (top, of course, the Unix version of this type of tool: also MacOSX has top, in a spiffy translation to GUI instead of ascii-art, but keeping all the organisation precisely the same!). Or you could have a scrolling wheel device that looks like those tacky web counters, and you roll it with the mouse or even use one of those scrollwheels (wee, MS tech, ohboy) to see what apps are available- click the app that comes up to raise it... or simply leave the whole thing to the person's memory, rather like a Mac user who never needs to check the apps menu because he or she remembers perfectly well what apps were launched, including ones with no open windows currently showing. That, too, is possible- something will always need to be memorized, even if it is 'duh, button in taskbar mean running proggy'. Now, this little rant was entirely and singlemindedly about process shortcut tools. Imagine all the other windows98 interface details and consider how other ways could exist to do those things. I _do_ hope people are not equating checkboxes and radio buttons with W98: everybody does those, they aren't specifically Windows at all. Some Windowsish features are actually detrimental- for instance, tab-panel interfaces are most often used to not have to think about interface but instead organize UI like you were shoving it into a drawer- tabpanel interfaces tend toward the really arbitrary and annoying, and there's no situation where you _have_ to take several unrelated interface objects and bung them into one UI container to hit the user with the ability to do half a dozen unrelated things under one dialog box. This is just poor design... but I'm beginning to cover other bases, so I'll shut up;)
There are already pages at Microsoft with information about more or less 'transitioning' from MacOS to Win95. So you could expect something like 'at linux.com we can _help_ you transition from linux to windows NT when you outgrow linux! Oh, and here are some ls themes';) Well, maybe not the ls themes, but get the picture? Expect this approach, whether or not it's technically justifiable (it wasn't with the Mac transitioning pages either, and those pages are out there). The argument will be that standardization is only Windows, that you _will_ be involving Windows in your plans, so here is the way to seamlessly transition _from_ linux to all-Windows, here are some tools that can convert pine mailrscs or whatever into Exchange or Outlook Express (note pointed lack of converters going the other way!;) ) and so on. That is what a microsoft linux.com would be.
So sign up for mailing lists at golgotha.org! I doubt we are going to be doing 4 bit graphics, but I can tell you that I for one am trying very hard to avoid the instinctive diving for various cliched easy gamedesign options. It'd be great to have more iconoclastic flakes on board;) I know that I've spoken at times (sometimes raising eyebrows from Golgotha people) about how the stuff I'm trying to bring to the table will also play into '_my_ game ideas'. It sounds like I'm holding out on Golgotha, but the fact is, I have certain goals involving severely noncommercial games. I can't go into too much detail, call 'em hacker games or serious geek games, or check out Robotwar (dunno how many platforms it is, there is a Mac game of this name and there was an Apple II game of the same design). And I don't care if it's totally crazed and nobody will ever want to play it (as some marketroids would quite justifiably claim), I have been germinating ideas for such uncommercial exploits for a long time now, and am moving steadily closer to the reality of writing 'em. Naturally, as soon as I'm technically able to release Linux binaries or to make it possible for better pure-coders to port the stuff I'm playing with, it'll be dedicated Linux games, in a very serious way. Until that time I gotta just soldier on with nothing but determination, but damn- I _so_ sympathize, I _so_ agree with this very bleak view of the creativity gap in the game industry. One thing about it, people are learning how to do lovely graphics- guess you gotta work on one thing at a time- the graphics are just marvellous, one day we'll have entertainment beyond just pretty pictures. Current gaming is very much like _cinematography_ as visual impact is increasingly important.
Slashdot Mirror
Good ol' South Park. Bravely beyond the absurd into the completely dada :) ;)
If anybody ever _does_ splice swiss cheese with chalk and a beard, please please don't tell me
Group 1: Caffiene
Group 2: Grease
Group 3: Sugar
Group 4: Monosodium Glutamate
;)
How about their committment to the Mac, then? :P
Big hype for Mac Office- meanwhile, they KILL the mac versions of everything ELSE! The encyclopedia? *poof* Games? *buahaha* Corporate messaging? *foosh*
You gotta be both a lawyer at heart, and _seriously_ cynical to the point of evil, to guess what they will do, and then they'll do it. I'd guessed they'd hype Mac Office and kill everything else quietly- sure enough, they have, and their Mac line is a lot smaller than it was, and not getting any bigger. Regarding Linux- dunno if they'll release a distribution, but they will eventually release _something_ that will require kernel mods, and that's the thin end of the wedge. If they're being very nice they will _tell_ you their installer is hacking your kernel. They have not always been very nice. Choke on _that_ one, Janet Reno. They have the morals of criminals- never assume you're dealing with a normal business. Look for the knife in the back, even if you're just a _user_.
As a tech who's made MacOS 7 _system_ software go from ten megs to _four_ megs just by removing MS extensions, I have to beg to differ. OK, more like shriek "AAAAAAA! ARE YOU CRAZY???" :)'
That is the _first_ thing they will require. Expect stuff like new swap mechanisms for IE, or special memory allocating mechanisms in parallel with the normal ones- substitute filesystem handling routines is _very_ likely because MS like to squeeze a bit of extra speed any way they can, no matter how dangerously, and are happy to ignore any API if they can sleaze some extra caching or a quicker write access.
The _first_ thing they will require is kernel modules. Come on man, look at the record! MacOS extensions for Office? Substitute _menu_ drawing code, substitute dialog boxes, substitute _TextEdit_ for crying out loud? Look at the Frontpage extensions- replacing the Apache binary for crying out loud?
Know what you're dealing with- they _will_ replace anything they can think of. If they didn't, their stuff would be even _slower_ (though it would crash less if they followed the rules). This isn't a hypothetical- they've already done this to the Mac platform. Now, who here says Macs crash like crazy? OK, now who has used a Mac which did _not_ have _any_ Microsoft extensions or code in it? HMMMMM.
Final happy note- there have been Microsoft apps which _hacked_ the _system_ file permanently when installed. Currently to my knowledge they do not- but the latest IE ignores the normal tacky-but-controllable Mac style of memory allocation and allocates memory like _mad_ in the _system_ _heap_, not in the app's heap at all. Wheee, _nice_ going guys, let's just dump buggy swatches of memory right in the system heap so if anything goes wrong it's jammed right into the guts of MacOS. Guard pages? What guard pages? *rrrrrr*
Yes, it's a lame memory model in the first place, but abusing it that way is tantamount to sabotage and _totally_ makes it impossible to control IE's resources when run. And IE immediately starts slamming pages and data into the system heap, too- more caching, pity it's not being done in an _appropriate_ way... gaaaaah! *fume*
Er.
Let me start over. *ahem*
'No, Microsoft probably _will_ force extensive kernel patches to be used even though this could seriously risk stability and reliability.
uh, how's that? Get the feeling that I'm not just guessing? o_O
Sorry man: no deal. I'm still doing GPL, gonna continue doing GPL, hopefully with ever more useful actual software and handy code bits to share, and the code is available to anyone but those who won't let me (and everyone) into their process.
That's more important than regulating market share. In fact that helps regulate market share all by itself- in theory the prize will simply go to whoever has a basic competence and will put in the most work on a thing. This is not bad- hell, if I write, say, a parser to translate the RGB values for MacOS custom appearance colors into hex codes as used in HTML tags (which I have done and it's open source, probably easy to translate into whatever language you like) and a bunch of merry little hamsters in wheels at Microsoft run about adding ways to get the color of everything you could imagine and translate it into everything from HTML to LAB to CMYK, _and_ _publish_, what's wrong with that picture? If they write bad code, fix it. If one of their variations is useful, use it. It really doesn't matter at that stage...
YO! Microsoft programmers down there in the woodwork! Start hacking on GPLed projects and share your code as the license absolutely requires! Your masters may be corrupt evil buggers that should be in jail, but _you_ have equal rights with all programmers- there should be no stigma based just on where a programmer works, only on how he or she handles it! JOIN us >:)
Hee. It's fun to say 'us' on slashdot. You instantly get flamed from 27 different directions. I don't care. Amnesty, respect for Microsoft programmers! Forget your boss and JOIN us. Pitch in. It matters, and you're the crazed amphetamine-laden no-vacation beavers of the software world, and you know it, too. Stop giving all that energy to Bill, and use that high overstressed voltage for a good cause for a change. JOIN US. *waves shiny pocket watch* youuu are getting sleeepyyyy... you are going to write GPLed open source... join us...
*hehehehehe*
Yeah! Come on, join us!
Since when? No chance. It'll be MS certified closed kernel mods, take it or leave it. Oh, and you have to reinstall the service packs after you do anything to the kernel, or it won't work.
Who's going to _make_ them release source against their will? That's not what open source is about anyhow. Doing that is as bad as the Texas guy who's being sued over the contents of his thoughts (as seen recently on Slashdot). "Not only must you turn over your idea to the company, it also has to be released to the public as source!" no no no...
Er... I'm told that if you place the insertion point within a block of text of one size or style in Word, and begin deleting text, and delete past where the style block begins, due to the deletion of the internal marker all the text _after_ your insertion point abruptly changes style. So if you try to delete across a style block, Word flips out and causes big chunks of text following the insertion point to be suddenly formatted differently. I'm also given to understand that this is a _very_ old bug, except that it's still not fixed because this uncontrolled spasm of the formatting is either considered a feature, or people are used to learning that it does that by now.
How is this different from 'when you try to edit text it will not work or even make the problem worse'? o_O
Bingo! This is the big threat. It's absolutely trivial to require special libs. What do you think they do on Macintoshes, for crying out loud? It's install extensions like mad, all over the place. Stuff that's always running. I saw a MacOS 7.1 installation go from TEN! megs of ram to FOUR _just_ by removing all the MS extensions. There was more MS code in RAM than there was Apple code... _this_ is what you can look forward to by trying to integrate Microsoft tech into your Linux. Take it from the battle-scarred and heavily marginalised Mac users, okay? You have no idea how vulnerable you really are. Don't even con yourself that you can play their game and win it. They'll 'win' you. Just say no- find other ways to do things.
Chris, who has all-non-MS ways of doing all sorts of things on Macs _and_ linuxPPC...
No kidding- if they do this, they will show some real tactical genius at picking libs to fragment Linux. Perhaps they will pick FSF libs- and _freeze_ the things- you can't upgrade the FSF libs without breaking MSOffice- it could _check_ to see if it should crash if newer libs are present! They _can_ halt development of important shared libraries that way.
They can also put in timing loops that gradually make everything slower and slower- at one point somebody analyzed the really slow Mac office and found, not simply P-code, but _busywaits_ in the assembly language. Not fooling- they are totally willing to sabotage their own software that disgustingly in the name of future control of the operating system. Because of that, Mac Office has sometimes been _greatly_ inferior in practice to WinOffice, slow, unresponsive, when in background drags performance of all apps down... people have made benchmarks for machines based on sabotaged applications like this, and it can happen again. They are long range planners in some things- making the best Linux office suite might _not_ be their long range strategic goal. Just a warning...
The question is, is he going to try and widen the crack so other people can get through, using the temporary soapbox he gets through this publicity, or is he gonna decide it's because _he_ is some kind of wonderful philosopher, and not do a damn thing to express publically the capacity of the net to bring one person's views or art to the attention of many?
But... upon reflection, that isn't even the issue, is it? Much of this would seem different if Katz submitted articles to editors who then could post them or not, and I think some of his excesses would be minimized. He's basically abusing his editor privileges, if you want to put it that way- there's nothing so intrinsically wrong about his articles besides the occasional MS Word garbled quotes, but hell, not even Sengan would post articles just to sell something... much less use the capacity to put Slashdot articles online, to hype his own product. Editors are for guarding objectivity, and Jon Katz has stumbled badly in this regard. He should have let others post the news of his series of appearances- and, for that matter, the news of his book.
It is possible that those articles would not have seemed on-topic enough to another editor. But Jon, by virtue of trying to get a Linux box, gained write access, and now that he has it, there is no more about his linux box, and he presents infomercials on his book, and speculations about sexbots.
I admit that would sell books and keep his section of Slashdot read, but it would be better if someone else had the decision to post his stuff or not.
Hell, I write, and do essays on Linux and open source, and in fact I have written GPLed software, and you don't see _me_ demanding that I must be allowed to have write access to Slashdot. I'm just suggesting that Jon Katz should _not_. He can't wear a book publicist hat and a Slashdot editor hat at the same time. It just doesn't work- it's wrong- one does not _mix_ roles in that way. I trust CmdrTaco's objectivity- hell, I trust Sengan's objectivity a lot more than Jon Katz's, because although Sengan is very opinionated and has even slanted stories, the stories he posted were not _about_ _him_.
It's not reasonable to expect Katz to be an objective editor about his own stuff, and indeed he's not. He should be allowed to be an editor on stories he finds that are not _about_ _him_, even sexbots- why not? But others should check out the posts about his book and his writing career and speaking engagements. It's just respectable journalism to not put him in that position- he _cannot_ play that role honorably, because it's not for him to play- except that currently, he's the one who plays it, and it is most inappropriate, and hardly fair to Jon, because he gets criticised ruthlessly for being very excited about very selfish things that he has a perfect right to be excited about...
Bitched at Katz, and signed my name to it ;) and you?
QED.
CmdrTaco is a free agent, and he's entitled to do all he likes for you. I myself have given you some harsh feedback which I've no idea if you listened to it or not- and I was free to do so or withhold such criticism. I can give you input, I can give you validation by writing fan letters, I can argue with other slashdotters over you and increase the size of your threads.
What have you done for _us_ lately?
This is one-sided. If you're going to be a leech, go away and leave us alone. If you want to be worth our respect, use that Boomer brain and figure out some way to promote US! We don't care about your success- that's _your_ problem. We don't care about your personal goals- you used to talk about overcoming Linux, and we cared about the Linux, not about your process of overcoming. _Everybody_ struggles with new things and has to make an effort. _Everybody_ cares about something or other (even if it's the act of not caring). It's boring.
Show us what you can damned well _do_. I realise this is harder than self-aggrandizement but it's all that matters.
What, what have you done for us lately? What have you even tried to do? There's no sin in failing to contribute to society. There's no sin in fleeing to a mountain with your dogs and opting out of the many struggles of the present day. People have been doing it since way before the '60s, it was boring then, it was noisy and boring in the '60s and it is boring now. The insult is not in the cowardice of hiding behind the walls of the self and the ego, but in behaving like it's _our_ job to help you further yourself.
You, Jon, need to reconsider what you do with your storyposting access to Slashdot. Granted, many stories are silly or just fun, and there's no crime in that- but it is wrong to use such a gift for self-aggrandizement unless you can also throw in something that helps _us_ in the bargain. So you're doing a book tour- great! I told you myself that you should, that it was a hell of an angle to work: I'm a writer, not as successful (enough to know you're not making piles of cash even now, that argument is silly), and you _should_ hit the talk shows. But once you're there, Jon, what will you do? What will you say? In all your talk of self-discovery, where is the slightest detail that will help the world or us or the damned dogs you took with you or anyone but Jon Katz? You need to find an answer for that.
And I'll tell you why: in self-aggrandizing terms (we are whimsical animals and self-aggrandizing is natural and good). You need to find an answer because having one will make you more famous. Vain writers full of themselves are boring. If you come off boring and pompous you'll never see the talk shows again. On the other hand- if you can work an angle outside the self, make _it_ famous if you understand me, why then, you come along for the ride! Look at ESR, him and his Jedi costume. Imagine how you'd sell if you were _that_ colorful. Now look again- ESR has an _angle_, it's not just a cult of personality. He has a theme, a cause. What is your cause, Jon? The answer to that will make the difference between fame and obscurity- and it all comes down to the simple question: yes, we've done much for you, but what can you do for us? That's the story, that's the angle, that's what could set you apart from a thousand geriatric hippie writers trawling the dregs of the B list. Ponder this well, grasshopper- last time I spoke to you I said to go on talk shows and that's working- so will this work if you are big enough to do it. Hopefully you can pick up a bit of wry affection from this vicious genX 13er hacker writer speaking to you across what sometimes seems an insurmountable gap. _Work_ this one- I won't say 'look deep into yourself' because what will you find there? Nothing more special than any human who cares. Look outside yourself- look to what you do, and ask yourself, what beyond my feelings, my heart and soul, can I give?
Because, Jon, I can tell you from the breakdown lane of the information superhighway and from a spot pulling people out of the gutters of life, that giving the heart and soul just isn't enough. The day ends, and you've done nothing to help anyone- find ways to _try_ and build somebody, something, up, rather than building your heart and soul up to a state of useless radiance and enlightenment. You don't have to succeed, but you do have to try.
I've spent a lot of time writing and writing to try and reach you and cast a light on you. That's my privilege- I could not care, which is also my privilege, I could cut you dead instead of trying to understand or counsel. Instead, I choose to try and reach you, in stark contrast to your usual flamer.
What have you done for _us_ today?
All the MS people are crazy- they can't face the reality of what's happening, can't acknowledge that their basic corporate ethic is, in fact, against the law. Wouldn't be if they were just little schmucks, it'd just be annoying- but they aren't, are they? They aren't.
I just read the c/net article (despite a screwed-up link on their roundup page- use the sidebar link instead) where the MS lawyer insists, 'We will prevail' in an internal memo somebody decided to leak. It's freaking weird when lawyers are that off the beam- guy could get disbarred or something for his trouble, going all the way down the line with these people. I immediately pictured a killer editorial cartoon- the lawyer's talking to his secretary, better yet an MS dictation program! And it shows on the screen 'we will prevail' and the guy's going, no, no! 'we will be put in jail'!
Heh.
There needs to be jail time for many of these people. If it was good enough for the top levels of the Nixon cabinet it is good enough for Microsoft- it's not like they wouldn't get very high class imprisonment, these are not people who would be thrown in a drunk tank, but locked up they must be.
Locked up because they are too crazy to be safe running around in the world- and too sane and convinced of their perfect reasonableness to get off on an insanity defense.
It's almost good that they're so far gone- no more conciliation, no more insincerity, now we see the true Microsoft and they are saying, screw you, we've been right all along, we're right now, we own you and the courts and we just win- what's so hard to understand about that?
It gives the government lawyers a solid base for proposing remedies, and I for one really think some of these people had better see jail time to knock their bloody blinders off and make them see the reality for a change. That or not let them work in the business again. Let them conquer and dominate yarn, or the pickle industry, or Katz's sexbots- send 'em off to Roger Waters' "Fletcher Memorial Home for incurable tyrants and kings" but get their hands off computing. How much will we put up with? When do we start demanding that the government be a government and assert power over these people?
Mac Truck
;) whether it's great isn't the point (I consider it good work otherwise I wouldn't have released it), the point is, here comes the Mac Truck! There is open source outside of just linux- it's _bigger_ than just linux.
;)
Another Mac Truck
Still Another Mac Truck
Yes, that's right- GPLed Mac software, there's the source right there
Mind you, when I am up to it I'll be putting out linux apps right alongside the Mac apps, but the source _is_ open, even now. Things are already rolling in places that might surprise some people.
All Hail the Mac Truck!
"But a piece of code is closely related to an algorythm (or even an heuristic)" ;) 'Argument to resolve the intellectual disputes over patent theory by putting great emphasis on the concept of heuristics as virtuosic implementations of programming style' *hehehe*
Bingo!
A heuristic is not an algorithm or a mathematical truth. Not even slightly... a heuristic is an assumption or method of making decisions or approach to a problem. A heuristic is _style_. A heuristic is _implementation_, not theory. If theory was perfect and everything was mathematics we wouldn't _need_ heuristics, we'd just look up the answer and go on...
And _this_ is the type of thing which it makes some kind of sense to have idea patents. It's not pure theory- it's a method, _style_, an angle of attack on a problem which is NOT A UNIQUE APPROACH but which might be so artistic an approach that all other methods seem klugey. _That_ is what patents are for, not to stop everyone from whole fields of endeavor, but to provide a payoff for people who can come up with these brilliant strokes of virtuosity, and it's all style, it's all about style and implementation. Nowhere is it necessary to patent math- or, worse, to patent types of computer program that might be written- if you can patent particular virtuosic implementations that just plain outperform the regular ways of doing things.
Heuristics are totally the right angle of attack on the patent problem- maybe I should patent this argument
Seriously... heuristics are the key idea here- read up on expert systems and look into what heuristics are (they ain't simply mathematical formulae, they are _value_ judgements and not just a matter of right and wrong algorithm) and think about that. Heuristics are never truth: they are opinion, and a wise opinion is worth anything.
This guy is almost a canonical example of 'ways in which the patent system isn't necessarily totally out to lunch'.
I write GPLed software myself and I find it _very_ hard to assume I _must_ be allowed total freedom to use the work of dozens (?) of programmers over a course of years, _without_ their consent. It seems absurd to me that there can even be an argument- if people have a reason to opt out of open source completely then that must be respected...
Contrast this to the pranks of a Microsoft trying to patent 'a URL' or 'a menu item that is context sensitive' or some such nonsense. Can't you _see_ that there are two different things here? It seems absolutely outrageous that anyone would defend just _stealing_ code mindlessly from this admittedly very proprietary company. How can it be right to just rip that, not understand it, not bother to learn it, not be able to maintain it, just _rip_ it and release a knockoff that uses the _engine_ of the proprietary code, unchanged? Doesn't it sound like this is a very complicated set of algorithms to do what's being hinted at, like it's not so much a mathematical truth but a series of design decisions and compromises with years of tailoring to adjust it to where it starts to really click- and _this_ is what's ripped, not some general concept like 'speech recognition', that would be totally fine.
There has _got_ to be a distinction here, the amount of fiddly detail in this company's pricey product must be orders of magnitude greater than the rip-off patent abuses like 'method of depicting an illustrated button to activate program code from clicking with a mouse' and such tripe. Doesn't it seem different, isn't it sort of startling to hear that the brave resourceful copying programmer didn't _understand_ what was being copied, or even _try_ to understand it? What's up with that? Is it really okay to not even try to work and innovate and develop stuff, is it that beneficial to leech off of people who are willing to put in the time and resources?
Only, in my opinion, if the people putting in the resources are consciously choosing to go some open source route in hopes others will follow their lead... otherwise this is itself a horrible abuse. People must _consent_ to have their ideas shared and copied and proliferated... there are _reasons_ to consent to this, social and pragmatic and personal reasons, but the second you start going terrorist with it, well, how is this different from Microsoft ripping all the Linux code and using whatever they want in proprietary stuff, then having their lawyers stomp on whoever the FSF can afford so that all open source becomes a sick joke and just means 'public domain'?
How is this different from stepping all over the boundaries of _proprietary_ coders? You _have_ to respect those boundaries to even hope to get any respect in return.
To the anonymous proprietary poster: I hope, someday, some free software alternative grows to rival or approach what you people sell commercially. I hope someone codes this. I'll tell you right now, _I_ am not coding this, or even trying to. Why? I absolutely cannot spare the time or resources to attempt such an undertaking- I'm not that good and if I was I still wouldn't be able to put in the legwork, all by myself, to get together a competitive product...
...and this is, in fact, your point, isn't it? Well, consider it a point well taken.
Also, the menubar swaps to whatever is currently active, and hides/removes the menubar of whatever isn't active. This is actually good in the sense that something like Window Maker is good- it's less cluttered. It's a tradeoff, one that a lot of people like. If you're working in an application you see its menubar, if you have it in the background you don't see its menus anywhere until you focus it again. People actually (this has been tested!) behave as if there is only one menubar that magically contains everything they need! This occurs even when a single app changes menubar contents- if you select, say, an ellipse, and a 'shape' menu changes from Square (editing) to Ellipse (editing), many users will never notice the change and will swear that both Square and Ellipse are ALWAYS PRESENT because, when they _want_ the menu, it's always there. This bears thinking about. It's also antithetical to the MS approach, of making sure everything is in your face as much as possible.
"Why would you want to run Photoshop when GIMP can do all that photoshop can?"
;)
Bollocks
This slashdot poster has four various Macs at home (only one is serious, the others are bitty boxes) one of which dualboots linuxppc... but!
I do tech support at a computer repair place, and though I am a Mac tech, we totally depend on two Windows boxes. One's out front as a financial records keeper and answering machine, and nothing is ever done to it- the one out back has drives and stuff constantly thrown at it in the course of repair work, and consequently gets reinstalled a lot. Both are connected to the net...
It doesn't matter that we can't trust MS. We still have to use it to fix other broken MS stuff: maybe the front box could be a Mac or Linux machine (answering machine software with caller ID anyone? on either platf... wait, you can get 'YoYo' for the Mac. But who's paying?) but the back machine needs to run a Microsoft PC setup just to be able to deal in case somebody brings in a winprinter to be fixed or some such thing... so we're vulnerable.
We had better do without, and keep an eye on our windows tech- guy is one of those crotchety griping jovial characters who clearly does not _respect_ the MS license agreements if he thinks he can get away with ignoring him- and he could be putting us in danger by pirating stuff internally. I will have to ask about that, ask whether he's been doing that for anything.
Interesting world we live in, no? Wonder if we got sued, would they let us off with a slap on the wrist and a legal contract to get rid of our Mac, never do Mac repair again, never make a Linux box and in general become an exclusively MS shop?
As a final note- they must have repeated copies of our information, because W98 hates most hardware, and we've installed it on hardware it hates _many_ times... *install install install* the 'doze guys get real grouchy and aggravated at the way the quality went downhill so much...
The company said it will alter the way the registration process works in the next maintenance release of Windows 98
;)
What about '95, NT, and existing '98 customers?
Moot point: they will alter it by sending the ID _twice_ instead of once. That constitutes altering it.
the company will create a software tool to let customers clear the ID number from the Registry
So it's an opt-out. Chances they'll publicize this "tool"?
Again, you're thinking small: says they will create it, nowhere does it say they will _distribute_ it, does it?
"If it is, it's just a bug," Bennett said. "If it is indeed happening, and we have testers working this weekend, we'll absolutely fix that."
It's a "bug" that information is included in the documents?
"Just" a bug. Also, I deduce that MS testers don't work weekends
Bennett promised that Microsoft also will wipe any of those numbers from its internal databases that the company can determine may have been inadvertently collected.
"can determine"? "inadvertently"? This is probably sufficient qualification to avoid doing anything.
You got it! Since they collected all these numbers on purpose (their war on piracy seems like the most logical explanation for this behavior) clearly no numbers at all need be wiped. None were inadvertent: they meant every one. Maybe it's helping them sue copiers of MS software.
I know this: I'm warning my workplace about this. We'd best not take any chances, and if that means doing without, maybe we'd better do without. It's actually pretty funny- I'm the guy who's been swearing up and down that Intel PIDs are not for individual tracking, but for asserting that the chip is not a Celeron or AMD (I am PIII! 'You may pass'). And suddenly, here MS is, actively doing the very thing Intel was only suspected of trying to set up to do (and far less effectively, to boot).
_This_ is what people were flipping out about, and it's bizarre that they originally saw this behavior in a CPU ID which is only good for intentionally limiting compatibility and forcing monopoly of Intel chips in the long run.
Geeeez... I have to speak up here. Did you ever read Steven Levy's great book 'Hackers'?
Read about RMS participating with entire groups of people in the MIT computer lab, sharing an unusual intimacy much like people on a shared mission?
Read about how the LISP machine wars broke up the computer lab, and the precursor to free software (because nobody had considered there was another way to _be_) got _destroyed_ by the purchase of all the hackers at MIT, who were put under nondisclosure agreements and made to not share code and ideas?
Read about how the MIT computer lab, once a place of idea sharing and enthusiasm, was rendered _empty_ and dead?
Read about how RMS was driven to _tears_ even years later by the anguish of this loss?
Read about how he, singlehandedly, with nothing left for him but vengeance, reverse engineered the work of an entire _team_ of brilliant hackers? And implemented everything in original, novel ways to avoid any risk of IP violation- all by himself matching the work of a _group_ of _brilliant_ programmers formerly of MIT themselves?
And finally, as the LISP star passed, sought to find a productive way to contribute to society- but never ever risk the destruction of the community he loved- which he was forced to watch happen once already, due solely to proprietary software forcing hackers to not talk about their work and ideas?
I'm sorry, but I'm incredibly offended by this portrayal of RMS as a unfeeling robot. You seem to have no _idea_ who you're talking about, or any notion of what he went through to make him such a zealot. He shared his life in the most deep, committed, almost loverlike way with a group of other hackers- and this was torn from him by the LISP machine fiasco, and he would go around at the time saying his _wife_ had died and showing every evidence of it- only this 'wife' was the community of hackers he remembered!
He already has found himself as lonely as can be imagined- over the LISP machine issue, over proprietary software killing the communication and community he loved. How dare you condemn him for a heartlessness that does not apply to him?
I'm sorry, this post really bothered me. Please consider the background of the person and his value system and what he has loved passionately in the past before making snap judgements about his personality.
I'm a MacOS/linuxppc user! ;) ;)
There's nothing _that_ obligatory about the W98/W95/Wforever interface. It always amazes and fascinates me how people put on blinders and make assumptions in very MS-centric ways: maybe it's just easier for me to see since I have never ever owned a Wintel PC! (or had one in the house, or done schoolwork on one, or worked with one in the workplace etc etc)
People assume there has to be a taskbar. Why does there have to be a taskbar? To see what programs are open. Well, you could have a little tile or icon that popped out a list of running programs when clicked on (Mac system 8 and under), you could have a little application with lots of info about everything that is running for only when you really need serious process info (top, of course, the Unix version of this type of tool: also MacOSX has top, in a spiffy translation to GUI instead of ascii-art, but keeping all the organisation precisely the same!). Or you could have a scrolling wheel device that looks like those tacky web counters, and you roll it with the mouse or even use one of those scrollwheels (wee, MS tech, ohboy) to see what apps are available- click the app that comes up to raise it... or simply leave the whole thing to the person's memory, rather like a Mac user who never needs to check the apps menu because he or she remembers perfectly well what apps were launched, including ones with no open windows currently showing. That, too, is possible- something will always need to be memorized, even if it is 'duh, button in taskbar mean running proggy'.
Now, this little rant was entirely and singlemindedly about process shortcut tools. Imagine all the other windows98 interface details and consider how other ways could exist to do those things. I _do_ hope people are not equating checkboxes and radio buttons with W98: everybody does those, they aren't specifically Windows at all. Some Windowsish features are actually detrimental- for instance, tab-panel interfaces are most often used to not have to think about interface but instead organize UI like you were shoving it into a drawer- tabpanel interfaces tend toward the really arbitrary and annoying, and there's no situation where you _have_ to take several unrelated interface objects and bung them into one UI container to hit the user with the ability to do half a dozen unrelated things under one dialog box. This is just poor design... but I'm beginning to cover other bases, so I'll shut up
There are already pages at Microsoft with information about more or less 'transitioning' from MacOS to Win95. So you could expect something like 'at linux.com we can _help_ you transition from linux to windows NT when you outgrow linux! Oh, and here are some ls themes' ;) ;) ) and so on.
Well, maybe not the ls themes, but get the picture? Expect this approach, whether or not it's technically justifiable (it wasn't with the Mac transitioning pages either, and those pages are out there). The argument will be that standardization is only Windows, that you _will_ be involving Windows in your plans, so here is the way to seamlessly transition _from_ linux to all-Windows, here are some tools that can convert pine mailrscs or whatever into Exchange or Outlook Express (note pointed lack of converters going the other way!
That is what a microsoft linux.com would be.
So sign up for mailing lists at golgotha.org! I doubt we are going to be doing 4 bit graphics, but I can tell you that I for one am trying very hard to avoid the instinctive diving for various cliched easy gamedesign options. It'd be great to have more iconoclastic flakes on board ;)
I know that I've spoken at times (sometimes raising eyebrows from Golgotha people) about how the stuff I'm trying to bring to the table will also play into '_my_ game ideas'. It sounds like I'm holding out on Golgotha, but the fact is, I have certain goals involving severely noncommercial games. I can't go into too much detail, call 'em hacker games or serious geek games, or check out Robotwar (dunno how many platforms it is, there is a Mac game of this name and there was an Apple II game of the same design). And I don't care if it's totally crazed and nobody will ever want to play it (as some marketroids would quite justifiably claim), I have been germinating ideas for such uncommercial exploits for a long time now, and am moving steadily closer to the reality of writing 'em.
Naturally, as soon as I'm technically able to release Linux binaries or to make it possible for better pure-coders to port the stuff I'm playing with, it'll be dedicated Linux games, in a very serious way. Until that time I gotta just soldier on with nothing but determination, but damn- I _so_ sympathize, I _so_ agree with this very bleak view of the creativity gap in the game industry. One thing about it, people are learning how to do lovely graphics- guess you gotta work on one thing at a time- the graphics are just marvellous, one day we'll have entertainment beyond just pretty pictures. Current gaming is very much like _cinematography_ as visual impact is increasingly important.