I used turbotax every year for several years (yes, I bought my own copy), but I heard about the DRM in the last version and went with H&R Block's software instead (cheaper anyway, and imported my old turbotax files just fine).
It's nice that they seem to realize they made a mistake, but an apology won't get me back as a customer. They tried this once, and have proven simply that they cannot be trusted. That trust (especially for financial software) is important, and it will take a lot more than some lame apology to rebuid that trust.
I've never heard of this organization before, but they are obviously part of the M$ FUD machine, even if they get some funding from other corporations. They have simply repeated the M$ party-line:
Open Source == Communism
Open Source == higher TCO
Mandating Open Source in government eliminates competition
etc.
I seriously doubt they have any sort of real "citizen" support. They are probably getting spill-over from all the corporate money that can't go where it used to because of McCain-Feingold.
Here is the email I sent to them: (you should send one, too. Let these folks know you are on to them)
How much does Microsoft contribute to your organization? I hope it's alot, because you have sold out the citizens of Massachusetts.
September 30th's news release accusing Massachusetts of "waste" because of a policy supporting open source software, is either a demonstration of an embarrassingly naive lobbying group, or purposeful fraud.
The only "studies" showing increased long-term costs from implementation of open source software are Microsoft-sponsored marketing studies using very questionable methods.
Tying Open Source software to communism is an old trick of Microsoft's FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) campaign against Linux and other competitors that cannot be bought or intimidated. All other competition has been bought or crushed by Microsoft, the ONLY confirmed monopolist in the software industry today.
I am disappointed that a group claiming to be a proponent for the US citizen would allow themselves to be associated with this kind of inflammatory and clearly inaccurate statement.
Open Source is good for everyone. It means that the government of Massachusetts will not be locked into using proprietary formats for interaction with citizens, and its residents won't have to spend $4000 for word-processing software just to be able to participate. Instead, they have choice.
The state government will also have choices. They will not be locked into a single, proprietary platform that will become more and more expensive. Remember, monopolies (like Microsoft) set prices wherever they want. They are price setters, and their customers become price takers. Massachusetts government will not have this problem. They can shop around and set their own limits for how much they will spend for software and when.
Membership? I think not. Instead, I will donate to the EFF and any organization that opposes you. You have shown a complete lack of integrity. Tom Schatz should be ashamed of himself. He should just accuse Mitt Romney of being the next Hitler, and push the rhetoric to the next level.
I guess you never send mail to AOL Earthlink, or Mindspring then. Here's Earthlink's response to why they bounce all of the mail from my mailserver:
Hello,
The reason that your mail bounced back is because it appears to have attempted to pass directly from an IP address range believed to be dynamically assigned (such as cable, dialup or ADSL) to the EarthLink/MindSpring network), without first routing through an appropriate (static) SMTP server. This is known as "Direct to MX mailing", and is a technique used by spammers to bypass spam control mechanisms established by ISPs.
To prevent these errors, all you need to do is route your outbound mail through your ISP's provided SMTP server (this is known as "smarthosting"). The following websites will help to explain the technicalities of what is going on and how to alter your settings to correct the situation. They are non-EarthLink resources.
If you need help reconfiguring your email client, you should contact the technical support department for your ISP (if this is happening at home) or company (if you are at work) where the problem is originating.
E.G.: If you are an AOL customer, contact AOL, if mail is bouncing from where you work, contact your IT department there.
Once you route mail through the supplied servers, your mail should deliver normally to the EarthLink network.
If we have incorrectly identified your IP addresses as being dynamically assigned, please write back with the range of IPs assigned to you and we will adjust our filters accordingly.
Regards,
-- Tom TaTom EarthLink/MindSpring/OneMain Systems Administration
AUP Abuse Team abuse@abuse.earthlink.net
http://www.earthlink.net/about/policies/
Actually, they don't need any sort of precidence for this, because they have an actual law. Check out section 15 of the agreement:
GOVERNING LAW.
You and VeriSign agree that these Terms of Use and any disputes hereunder including disputes related to the VeriSign Services shall be governed in all respects by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States of America, excluding its conflict of laws rules.
Virginia passed the UCITA several years ago, before even the minor compromises had been added. They've got an agreement supported by contract law (that is, UCITA contract law).
No doubt Verisign has bought^H^H^H^H^H convinced a few of our diligent legislators that the law is still needed even though there are now more states with anti-UCITA laws than those that have passed it (still at 2, IIRC).
Now I wonder (obligatory IANAL here), considering that the VA version of UCITA still contained the onerous "self-help" provisions that allowed a vendor to "disable" software remotely for any type of "license dispute", does that mean Verisign could (legally) refuse to respond to any DNS queries AT ALL from anybody they felt threatened by, and just claim that "well... we think they violated our TOS!".
Man... dude! Look, it's not fashionable "ism"-thing that's the impetus for all this, it's them desperate freaks that spent years in some barefoot delusion to accomplish the killing of thousdands of Americans, using the country's own billion-dollar transportation infrastructure to do it.
Drastic steps must be taken to keep this globally significant shift from spiralling out of control.
Food lines in Ohio? Sheesh! We do what's reasonable everywhere to feed the hungry... but we don't cut out other important stuff to do it.
You can argue semantics all you want (although I think it is pretty much beside the point).
Ok, you can call it TCPA-enabling if you want.
Profit-minded entities like IBM, the UnitedLinux consortium, etc. can use this as a wayt to make money from all kinds of GPL software, without violoating the GPL.
I still think you can call it Palladium-enabled, though, because Microsoft has the patent on the servers, so you would either have to access a Palladium product, or a Palladium-licensed product.
You obviously don't understand why IBM is anxious to have this stuff available. They aren't putting all this money into Linux because they are community-minded, it's for profit.
You know what you need to run Linux on a 390? A $40,000 a year peice of software from IBM!
How much do you think they will charge for a Palladium-enabled Linux Binary? Sure, you can have the source code, but your custom compile kernel won't be able to do all this neat whiz-bang stuff, because it doesn't have a trusted signature!!!
If all you folks would just get behind Senator Fritz Hollings and his innovative, consumer-friendly Broadband Promotion program everyone would have cheap broadband access everywhere!... and all the pay-per-view, copy-protected content you could ever want!!!!
You are exactly right. If the sites are outside of your jurisdiction, you get the ISP to help you track down the customers. You may catch some pervs before they get bold enough to victimize some children themselves.
The techniques being used here are just the beginning of the end of the great Internet freedom experiment. And I see no other reason for doing it this way other than to set the precident for forcing ISPs to start filtering. Because no one wants to appear like they support allowing kiddie porn.
Next you start blocking hate groups. Also hard to find opposition. Then more porn, then just anything "objectionable".
The ultimate goal (don't think it's not) is to end up with an internet where every content provided must first be approved, maybe through some sort of licensing scheme. Done slowly enough, it will work.
This is the beginning of the end. It really didn't last very long...
DX is a completely different API. Sure, you can use ".NET Studio" to write DirectX programs, but you won't be putting the.NET (aka COM+ aka MTS) wrappers on it, or compiling it for the CLR. You want a native compile for performance.
Then again, if you are doing a multi-user or online game, you *COULD* use it to create your server-side code. But not on the PC client.
Finally.NET is a set of runtimes, you can't diable it, anything they is compiled with VS.NET will not work if you diabled it, and in the near future of new product releases thats going to be nearly every windows application and game....
Oh, ok. Gee, that's not scary at all.
It's also glaringly (is that a word?) inaccurate. There are very few developers switching to.NET right now, and developing a game for it would be stupid. It's a VM, and so introduces greater overhead. That's why game developers use DirectX (or OpenGL), it gets around some of the operating system overhead....
I did read your post, but I had assumed you used the XP "reload" disk that the PC manufacturers are now sending with new PCs, rather than a shelf version, so my bad there... Still, the point is the same which is that the laptop was built with a specific OS in mind (and it wasn't Linux).
I'm not familiar with the Wacom thing you're talking about, but it brings up a valid issue, which is that there is still not nearly the support for Linux by hardware manufacturers that needs to be there. And that's the biggest "gotcha" for average users. Even if they have a PC that has been loaded up and running Linux (Walmart Lindows or whatever), they are going to have a bad experience when they buy that new whizbang peripheral from BestBuy, and it doesn't work plugged in, and there's no Linux drive on the disk.
You are COMPLETELY missing the point. Your laptop came preinstalled with Windows. Surprise, surprise, the custom "XP image" CD that came with it reinstalls fine, and all your hardware works perfectly with Windows XP.
Well, guess what? You can also buy laptops with Linux pre-installed, and you will have the same frustration trying to load Windows XP. I know, I recently helped a friend try it, and we finally gave up. He just wasn't satisfied with using XP on 640 x 480 and 16 colors.
If you really want a satisfying experience installing Linux on a desktop (or laptop), try the lastest version of Mandrake (at least 8.2, but 9.0 RC2 is pretty stable, too). Mandrake now actually does a better job of recognizing hardware than the latest Windoze does.
Same with programs like The Gimp. If your PC is factory installed with Linux, Gimp is probably included, and it will work fine for anyone that can point and click. But do you really think your average end-user is going to jump through all the hoops required to download, install and set up all the stuff they need to run The Gimp on Windows? Do you?
There are some very clear rules that define collective morality, beyond just saying "it depends on your point of view". That kind of thinking only allows you to justify any sort of atrocity that serves your own interests.
In the previous scenario, the (yes, objective) rule to apply is "The end never justifies the means". This simply means that you cannot violate the collective moral code by pointing to a "greater good" that can be ultimately acheived.
The overarching governance of our moral code should be "It is immoral to initiate physical force against any sentient being".
This rule leads to the idea that stealing is OK, as long you don't do it by force. This is, in some respects, correct, but you will then start dealing with "negotiated rules", which are explicit and implicit rules of society or what we consider "deals", "contracts", or codified "laws". There is actually another, lower priority rule regarding the concept of private property that can be stated simply as "I've got mine and you've got yours". Objective moral rules governing ownership start there, and are negotiated freely.
So there may be some implicit moral obligation, well understood in most societies, not to "pirate" software, as it is considered "stealing". These rules are important, because they allow us to enforce the negotiated punishment against the perpetrators, and thier attempts to evade said punishment is viewed as initiation of force against those in our society acting in the role of enforcement officers.
Ok, here is an interesting experiment that should tell you once and for all way the major labels are losing revenue.
Go to a place that sells CDs, not a music store (they may carry minor and local labels, which could skew results). Try Target or Walmart (you would be amazed how much mainstream music Walmart sells).
Check out the end-cap where they display the top sellers. See anything appealing? Those are the discounted ones, so you can find a $12 - $15 "bargain". Come on, those are the TOP SELLING CDs. Can't you see ANYTHING you like.
Ok, fine. Look around down the isle. Now you should find something good. Ok, now you are checking out the $18 stuff. There are a lot of CDs there, just fund the genre you're most interested in. Keep looking, there must be SOMETHING... They've got Rock, and Pop, and Hip-Hop, Country and Gospel (well, Walmart may call it "religious"). Keep looking! No, I don't think there is a "classical" anymore, but look, there is an "Alternative" section!... Now that was stupid! You aren't supposed to ask the Walmart clerk what it's supposed to be an alternative *TO* !!!
Ok, I know there is a lot of crap here. Just keep looking. There are plenty of choices (!) here... there must be something. Look! Right There! The new Dave Matthews band. Oh, you already have that.
Well, look, over there -> There's that old Led Zeppelin album you used to play the crap out of. I know you do, but you should have it on CD now. Oh, already have it on CD, too... Ok, well there must be something here. Um, gosh.
Look, you're just a BAD example, that's all. You just have the WRONG TASTE. You're skewing the results.
It's PIRACY! I'm telling you... that's it! People WANT this stuff, they just STEAL it! That's why we can't sell it! The selection is FINE! The selection is EXCELLENT!!! **PIRACY** is killing us!! It's PIRACY! I'm telling you !!! ARRGGGHHHH!!!!
The news about the M$ accounting scandal already broke a couple of weeks ago. I guess you missed it.
They admitted sheepily that they had been doing some accounting tricks that UNDERSTATED their earnings. This was so that if their earnings dropped below expectations in the future, they could "find" the money, and report steady earnings after all.
Slashdot Mirror
I say don't.
I used turbotax every year for several years (yes, I bought my own copy), but I heard about the DRM in the last version and went with H&R Block's software instead (cheaper anyway, and imported my old turbotax files just fine).
It's nice that they seem to realize they made a mistake, but an apology won't get me back as a customer. They tried this once, and have proven simply that they cannot be trusted. That trust (especially for financial software) is important, and it will take a lot more than some lame apology to rebuid that trust.
I seriously doubt they have any sort of real "citizen" support. They are probably getting spill-over from all the corporate money that can't go where it used to because of McCain-Feingold.
Here is the email I sent to them: (you should send one, too. Let these folks know you are on to them)
Actually, they don't need any sort of precidence for this, because they have an actual law. Check out section 15 of the agreement:
GOVERNING LAW. You and VeriSign agree that these Terms of Use and any disputes hereunder including disputes related to the VeriSign Services shall be governed in all respects by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States of America, excluding its conflict of laws rules.
Virginia passed the UCITA several years ago, before even the minor compromises had been added. They've got an agreement supported by contract law (that is, UCITA contract law). No doubt Verisign has bought^H^H^H^H^H convinced a few of our diligent legislators that the law is still needed even though there are now more states with anti-UCITA laws than those that have passed it (still at 2, IIRC). Now I wonder (obligatory IANAL here), considering that the VA version of UCITA still contained the onerous "self-help" provisions that allowed a vendor to "disable" software remotely for any type of "license dispute", does that mean Verisign could (legally) refuse to respond to any DNS queries AT ALL from anybody they felt threatened by, and just claim that "well... we think they violated our TOS!".
I liked this part:
...and may at any time discontinue your use of the VeriSign Services without any notice to you...
Sounds like an idle threat to me.
Does that mean they'll stop resolving bogus domain names to their site, or will they do that just for me??
So he stole the plot from Sliders? Oh, no, wait. Those were "kromags". Never mind.
Man... dude! Look, it's not fashionable "ism"-thing that's the impetus for all this, it's them desperate freaks that spent years in some barefoot delusion to accomplish the killing of thousdands of Americans, using the country's own billion-dollar transportation infrastructure to do it.
Drastic steps must be taken to keep this globally significant shift from spiralling out of control.
Food lines in Ohio? Sheesh! We do what's reasonable everywhere to feed the hungry... but we don't cut out other important stuff to do it.
You can argue semantics all you want (although I think it is pretty much beside the point).
Ok, you can call it TCPA-enabling if you want.
Profit-minded entities like IBM, the UnitedLinux consortium, etc. can use this as a wayt to make money from all kinds of GPL software, without violoating the GPL.
I still think you can call it Palladium-enabled, though, because Microsoft has the patent on the servers, so you would either have to access a Palladium product, or a Palladium-licensed product.
You obviously don't understand why IBM is anxious to have this stuff available. They aren't putting all this money into Linux because they are community-minded, it's for profit.
You know what you need to run Linux on a 390? A $40,000 a year peice of software from IBM!
How much do you think they will charge for a Palladium-enabled Linux Binary? Sure, you can have the source code, but your custom compile kernel won't be able to do all this neat whiz-bang stuff, because it doesn't have a trusted signature!!!
If all you folks would just get behind Senator Fritz Hollings and his innovative, consumer-friendly Broadband Promotion program everyone would have cheap broadband access everywhere! ... and all the pay-per-view, copy-protected content you could ever want!!!!
The techniques being used here are just the beginning of the end of the great Internet freedom experiment. And I see no other reason for doing it this way other than to set the precident for forcing ISPs to start filtering. Because no one wants to appear like they support allowing kiddie porn.
Next you start blocking hate groups. Also hard to find opposition. Then more porn, then just anything "objectionable".
The ultimate goal (don't think it's not) is to end up with an internet where every content provided must first be approved, maybe through some sort of licensing scheme. Done slowly enough, it will work.
This is the beginning of the end. It really didn't last very long...
Then again, if you are doing a multi-user or online game, you *COULD* use it to create your server-side code. But not on the PC client.
Oh, ok. Gee, that's not scary at all.
It's also glaringly (is that a word?) inaccurate. There are very few developers switching to
I'm not familiar with the Wacom thing you're talking about, but it brings up a valid issue, which is that there is still not nearly the support for Linux by hardware manufacturers that needs to be there. And that's the biggest "gotcha" for average users. Even if they have a PC that has been loaded up and running Linux (Walmart Lindows or whatever), they are going to have a bad experience when they buy that new whizbang peripheral from BestBuy, and it doesn't work plugged in, and there's no Linux drive on the disk.
Well, guess what? You can also buy laptops with Linux pre-installed, and you will have the same frustration trying to load Windows XP. I know, I recently helped a friend try it, and we finally gave up. He just wasn't satisfied with using XP on 640 x 480 and 16 colors.
If you really want a satisfying experience installing Linux on a desktop (or laptop), try the lastest version of Mandrake (at least 8.2, but 9.0 RC2 is pretty stable, too). Mandrake now actually does a better job of recognizing hardware than the latest Windoze does.
Same with programs like The Gimp. If your PC is factory installed with Linux, Gimp is probably included, and it will work fine for anyone that can point and click. But do you really think your average end-user is going to jump through all the hoops required to download, install and set up all the stuff they need to run The Gimp on Windows? Do you?
In the previous scenario, the (yes, objective) rule to apply is "The end never justifies the means". This simply means that you cannot violate the collective moral code by pointing to a "greater good" that can be ultimately acheived.
The overarching governance of our moral code should be "It is immoral to initiate physical force against any sentient being".
This rule leads to the idea that stealing is OK, as long you don't do it by force. This is, in some respects, correct, but you will then start dealing with "negotiated rules", which are explicit and implicit rules of society or what we consider "deals", "contracts", or codified "laws". There is actually another, lower priority rule regarding the concept of private property that can be stated simply as "I've got mine and you've got yours". Objective moral rules governing ownership start there, and are negotiated freely.
So there may be some implicit moral obligation, well understood in most societies, not to "pirate" software, as it is considered "stealing". These rules are important, because they allow us to enforce the negotiated punishment against the perpetrators, and thier attempts to evade said punishment is viewed as initiation of force against those in our society acting in the role of enforcement officers.
Humanism in a nutshell...
Ok, here is an interesting experiment that should tell you once and for all way the major labels are losing revenue. Go to a place that sells CDs, not a music store (they may carry minor and local labels, which could skew results). Try Target or Walmart (you would be amazed how much mainstream music Walmart sells). Check out the end-cap where they display the top sellers. See anything appealing? Those are the discounted ones, so you can find a $12 - $15 "bargain". Come on, those are the TOP SELLING CDs. Can't you see ANYTHING you like. Ok, fine. Look around down the isle. Now you should find something good. Ok, now you are checking out the $18 stuff. There are a lot of CDs there, just fund the genre you're most interested in. Keep looking, there must be SOMETHING... They've got Rock, and Pop, and Hip-Hop, Country and Gospel (well, Walmart may call it "religious"). Keep looking! No, I don't think there is a "classical" anymore, but look, there is an "Alternative" section! ... Now that was stupid! You aren't supposed to ask the Walmart clerk what it's supposed to be an alternative *TO* !!!
Ok, I know there is a lot of crap here. Just keep looking. There are plenty of choices (!) here... there must be something. Look! Right There! The new Dave Matthews band. Oh, you already have that.
Well, look, over there -> There's that old Led Zeppelin album you used to play the crap out of. I know you do, but you should have it on CD now. Oh, already have it on CD, too... Ok, well there must be something here. Um, gosh.
Look, you're just a BAD example, that's all. You just have the WRONG TASTE. You're skewing the results.
It's PIRACY! I'm telling you... that's it! People WANT this stuff, they just STEAL it! That's why we can't sell it! The selection is FINE! The selection is EXCELLENT!!! **PIRACY** is killing us!! It's PIRACY! I'm telling you !!! ARRGGGHHHH!!!!
The news about the M$ accounting scandal already broke a couple of weeks ago. I guess you missed it.
They admitted sheepily that they had been doing some accounting tricks that UNDERSTATED their earnings. This was so that if their earnings dropped below expectations in the future, they could "find" the money, and report steady earnings after all.