If my business depends on an OSS application, and it gets shut down, I can potentially go on about my business as I have the executables and wouldn't have to stop using them until someone came knocking at my door.
Having the source code is one thing (hurrah for OSS!) But even if RIM software was Open Source, you still wouldn't have the infrastructure to deliver the service anyway.
Although I am looking forward to LinNETs, your friendly Open Source/GNU cellular provider. (actually I would love to see this!). The simple fact is that many of the cellular providers will not take the risk of being dragged into this fight should it go against RIM, so they would probably shut the service provision down anyway, should it prove necessary.
What we really need is a modern version of some of those old BBS networks, just based around VOIP and 802.11x technology. That way the software AND the infrastructure would both be free of central control! (Will the judges please pass out winners medals all around?)
Microsoft thus decided to test this premise by installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Pro 9.2, Mandrake 10, Linspire 4.5, Xandros Desktop 3.0, Fedora Core 3, Slackware 10.1, Knoppix 3.7; Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 out-of-the-box on older hardware to see what happened.
I was in a bar with some friends the other night when a drunk started to get aggressive. I stepped forwards, back, left, right, jump, jump AND NOT A SINGLE THING HAPPENED!
Because having an HD-DVD drive has nothing to do with the ability to produce an HD video signal.
Don't forget that the XBox360 will also run games that can generate images at arbitary resolutions, as well as being able to play HD Video files either from the hard drive or across the network from a Windows PC or media centre box. (and that spelling is correct because the language I am writing in is English!:D ) HD is simply a defined combination of resolution and signal frequency etc. that signals should be produced to in order to enable viewing on, for example, an HDTV set.
Who is out of a career at 35, no matter how successful they are?
The majority of athletes and coaches. Think about it, if all athletes went on to be successful coaches, universities would have 1-1 tuition in PE and major clubs would have at least one coach per player.
What are several of the richest men in the world?
Science geeks and nerds.
Of course on the gripping hand, John Madden managed to succesfully cross from PE to computers without ever having a successful sports career:)
The problem is that spelling is completely arbitrary. America obsessed about spelling in post-colonial times and came up with standard dictionaries. Britain didn't care.
Unless of course you count Dr. Johnson's dictionary of 1755 (or 21 years before post-colonial times started).
Microsoft should never have been allowed to bundle a media player into their monopoly desktop without releasing the full specs so ANYONE could create media files that work with it, and others could be free to provide an equivalent player for other desktops. Anything short of that rewards the illegal act of monopoly bundling.
But anybody can, Media player is not just a WMA player, it also plays MP3 and WAV (and a lot of other formats if you care to install the codecs). MP3 streaming has been around for a long time now, competitors are certainly free to stream MP3s down to media player (as I said previously, this is the option I would prefer). Not to mention that WAV is also a common standard that almost everybody should be able to play, no matter what their software platform of choice.
There has been a media player (of sorts) on every version of Windows since 3.0 (and probably before). The question is when exactly did this become an abuse if it has had this functionality available in the OS since before companies such as Real were even formed? Don't Real carry any of the blame for choosing to enter a market where a competitor already existed and then screaming that this competitor was being unfair 6 or 7 years down the line?
So what. We're at the mercy of Microsoft's 'good intentions', which in this case are really a smokescreen to keep WMA off of other platforms that might make for stronger competition down the line.
Microsoft want WMA on other platforms, they currently have lower licensing costs per device/player than, for example, Real (and even MP3). WMA is where MS sees itself making money, certainly not from the sale/provision of player software. As Apple are currently proving, the real money is in the provision of portable players, an area where WMA is very much third in the list of codecs of choice (after MP3 and Apple's AAC).
To my mind, if Microsoft had truly abused it's monopoly, Media player wouldn't be able to play competing formats at all. As it is, the addition of a codec pack (which Real, Apple etc. could certainly produce if they wanted to) allows it to play almost any format of streaming media. Heck, I suspect that if Real or Apple approached Microsoft with a proposal to ship their codecs as part of a standard installation, MS would be more than happy to include it, even if it was only to say "look, Windows plays everything!".
I can still remember the days when Real owned the streaming media market. They were in the position of being able to dominate the market in any way they chose. To my mind, they failed because they insisted on charging an inordinate amount for their server/production software and also tried to get people to buy their player by tying the format to it, rather than making the player (or even the format) freely available for anyone to download (i.e. without the built-in adware etc). It wasn't that long ago that I was part of a team deciding on a format for a large-scale streaming media system, Real was thrown out before any competitor was considered purely on the basis of cost. (And no, in the end we didn't choose MS but another "pay for" streaming solution). Even long-time Real users such as the BBC are now considering switching away from the format.
a) MS do NOT have a monopoly in server systems, even though they do on the desktop.
b) They do NOT have a monopoly on on-line music, if anybody does it is probably Apple with iTunes.
c) Media Player is available for free on at least two different platforms, not just on an MS platform.
d) At the moment many/most of the free/competing players (including Real) are capable of playing files and streams in Windows Media format.
It is important to bear in mind that MS was convicted specifically of abusing it's monopoly in the desktop OS market, NOT in the server market, an area where they are far from having a monopoly to abuse.
To my mind, companies such as Real should have exploited the fact that all those WM-enabled desktops are out there by ensuring that their servers on other or more popular platforms could stream media to those players, rather than requiring the user to download a mostly second-rate desktop player to listen to their proprietary format streams. Especially as the real money is online music is on the provision of media rather than the listening to it on the desktop, where most clients are free.
Personally I believe that most users would be happiest with everything being in a cross-platform standard format, such as MP3. Admittedly, I am not an audiophile and other formats may have better sound reproduction, but as far as I am concerned "close enough is good enough" when listening to my music.
Who will get stuck with a 911 service they can't even use! e.g. in the UK it should be 999, or as in most European countries, 112 (the international emergency number).
Has Cringely even read the released information about the XBox 360? It will stream video and audio FROM A PC! How exactly is this competing with PC manufacturers? To get the most out of the system you will need a PC running... wait for it... Windows Media Center! What MS seems to be saying is that the future of the home PC (as far as they are concerned) is tied up with Media Center. The XBox 360 is an extension of a PC system, not a replacement.
There weren't any DOS clones for years after the original PC and DOS combination, all the early clone manufacturers used MS-DOS with their machines (IIRC, I think DR-DOS started as being compatible with MS-DOS 3).
The "won't run unless it's MS-DOS" is unfortunately a myth. The beta (and only the beta) version of Windows (I think it was 95 though, not 3) tested to be sure that it was based on MS-DOS, but the code never made it to the final release and I for one had it running on DR-DOS as a final product without any complicated patches etc. and without Windows complaining once. IIRC, Caldera did try to use it as an argument in their court case until a release version of Windows was installed on a DR-DOS machine in the court room by the MS legal team. The court case was actually about licensing terms for manufacturers etc. and MS abusing their monopoly position.
Apparently he has been doing this for a long time, not just the last few years. He pumps large amounts of it into his charitable foundation and also has other investments/companies than MS that presumably eat up a lot of that.
Microsoft had a lot to do with making PC clones viable though, by maintaining a non-exclusivity clause in their contract with IBM, allowing them to sell the OS they sold to them (PC-DOS) as MS-DOS to other computer manufacturers.
Otherwise, who knows... PC compatibility may never have happened and we could all be sat here typing away on Macs (and yes, I know some people already are!).
Assuming that the server is doing something crucial to the company, you do realise that you have successfully managed to give a 27,000 person company a single point of failure (you) then? Congratulations!
That the EU has the right to demand 5% of GLOBAL revenue, rather than European revenue, especially as the agreement they reached isn't even applicable outside of Europe.
Question for our US cousins, will this 5% be taken out of Microsoft before or after they pay US tazes? And how does it feel to be subsidising European justice?
The "40 services" was phrased in SUSE terms (from their install system), not mine, I am fairly positive that at any one time there is likely to be more than 40 processes running, just down to the way the machine is being used at the moment.
I agree that comparing number of patches is rather haphazard way of "measuring" security, unless of course you are comparing systems with identical software packages installed, in which case I am fairly sure that MS wouldn't have liked having all those "insecure" Apache patches applied against their count:)
No offense, but XP is not a server platform either, Windows 2003 Server is. Comparing Mandrake to XP is EXACTLY what you should be doing.
In passing, I installed a FULL install of SUSE 9.1 the other day on a test bed machine (mainly to check for conflicts with other software), didn't alter any options and STILL had ~40 services running.
Slashdot Mirror
We only managed a quick peek, but the cat is definitely dead. Or asleep. We think.
Does anyone know if the Microsoft Kinect is classified as a "true" 3d camera under these criteria?
...and knowing the British, the phrase they missed out of the original article was "of the 3% who bothered to answer our questions ...."
If my business depends on an OSS application, and it gets shut down, I can potentially go on about my business as I have the executables and wouldn't have to stop using them until someone came knocking at my door.
Having the source code is one thing (hurrah for OSS!) But even if RIM software was Open Source, you still wouldn't have the infrastructure to deliver the service anyway.
Although I am looking forward to LinNETs, your friendly Open Source/GNU cellular provider. (actually I would love to see this!). The simple fact is that many of the cellular providers will not take the risk of being dragged into this fight should it go against RIM, so they would probably shut the service provision down anyway, should it prove necessary. What we really need is a modern version of some of those old BBS networks, just based around VOIP and 802.11x technology. That way the software AND the infrastructure would both be free of central control! (Will the judges please pass out winners medals all around?)
So you missed the bit that said:
Microsoft thus decided to test this premise by installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Pro 9.2, Mandrake 10, Linspire 4.5, Xandros Desktop 3.0, Fedora Core 3, Slackware 10.1, Knoppix 3.7; Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 out-of-the-box on older hardware to see what happened.I was in a bar with some friends the other night when a drunk started to get aggressive. I stepped forwards, back, left, right, jump, jump AND NOT A SINGLE THING HAPPENED!
Because having an HD-DVD drive has nothing to do with the ability to produce an HD video signal.
:D ) HD is simply a defined combination of resolution and signal frequency etc. that signals should be produced to in order to enable viewing on, for example, an HDTV set.
Don't forget that the XBox360 will also run games that can generate images at arbitary resolutions, as well as being able to play HD Video files either from the hard drive or across the network from a Windows PC or media centre box. (and that spelling is correct because the language I am writing in is English!
Who is out of a career at 35, no matter how successful they are?
:)
The majority of athletes and coaches. Think about it, if all athletes went on to be successful coaches, universities would have 1-1 tuition in PE and major clubs would have at least one coach per player.
What are several of the richest men in the world?
Science geeks and nerds.
Of course on the gripping hand, John Madden managed to succesfully cross from PE to computers without ever having a successful sports career
Unless of course you count Dr. Johnson's dictionary of 1755 (or 21 years before post-colonial times started).
It's just a calculator with a really cool design.
Microsoft should never have been allowed to bundle a media player into their monopoly desktop without releasing the full specs so ANYONE could create media files that work with it, and others could be free to provide an equivalent player for other desktops. Anything short of that rewards the illegal act of monopoly bundling.
But anybody can, Media player is not just a WMA player, it also plays MP3 and WAV (and a lot of other formats if you care to install the codecs). MP3 streaming has been around for a long time now, competitors are certainly free to stream MP3s down to media player (as I said previously, this is the option I would prefer). Not to mention that WAV is also a common standard that almost everybody should be able to play, no matter what their software platform of choice.
There has been a media player (of sorts) on every version of Windows since 3.0 (and probably before). The question is when exactly did this become an abuse if it has had this functionality available in the OS since before companies such as Real were even formed? Don't Real carry any of the blame for choosing to enter a market where a competitor already existed and then screaming that this competitor was being unfair 6 or 7 years down the line?
So what. We're at the mercy of Microsoft's 'good intentions', which in this case are really a smokescreen to keep WMA off of other platforms that might make for stronger competition down the line.
Microsoft want WMA on other platforms, they currently have lower licensing costs per device/player than, for example, Real (and even MP3). WMA is where MS sees itself making money, certainly not from the sale/provision of player software. As Apple are currently proving, the real money is in the provision of portable players, an area where WMA is very much third in the list of codecs of choice (after MP3 and Apple's AAC).
To my mind, if Microsoft had truly abused it's monopoly, Media player wouldn't be able to play competing formats at all. As it is, the addition of a codec pack (which Real, Apple etc. could certainly produce if they wanted to) allows it to play almost any format of streaming media. Heck, I suspect that if Real or Apple approached Microsoft with a proposal to ship their codecs as part of a standard installation, MS would be more than happy to include it, even if it was only to say "look, Windows plays everything!".
I can still remember the days when Real owned the streaming media market. They were in the position of being able to dominate the market in any way they chose. To my mind, they failed because they insisted on charging an inordinate amount for their server/production software and also tried to get people to buy their player by tying the format to it, rather than making the player (or even the format) freely available for anyone to download (i.e. without the built-in adware etc). It wasn't that long ago that I was part of a team deciding on a format for a large-scale streaming media system, Real was thrown out before any competitor was considered purely on the basis of cost. (And no, in the end we didn't choose MS but another "pay for" streaming solution). Even long-time Real users such as the BBC are now considering switching away from the format.
Apart from the facts that:
a) MS do NOT have a monopoly in server systems, even though they do on the desktop.
b) They do NOT have a monopoly on on-line music, if anybody does it is probably Apple with iTunes.
c) Media Player is available for free on at least two different platforms, not just on an MS platform.
d) At the moment many/most of the free/competing players (including Real) are capable of playing files and streams in Windows Media format.
It is important to bear in mind that MS was convicted specifically of abusing it's monopoly in the desktop OS market, NOT in the server market, an area where they are far from having a monopoly to abuse.
To my mind, companies such as Real should have exploited the fact that all those WM-enabled desktops are out there by ensuring that their servers on other or more popular platforms could stream media to those players, rather than requiring the user to download a mostly second-rate desktop player to listen to their proprietary format streams. Especially as the real money is online music is on the provision of media rather than the listening to it on the desktop, where most clients are free.
Personally I believe that most users would be happiest with everything being in a cross-platform standard format, such as MP3. Admittedly, I am not an audiophile and other formats may have better sound reproduction, but as far as I am concerned "close enough is good enough" when listening to my music.
Who will get stuck with a 911 service they can't even use! e.g. in the UK it should be 999, or as in most European countries, 112 (the international emergency number).
Has Cringely even read the released information about the XBox 360? It will stream video and audio FROM A PC! How exactly is this competing with PC manufacturers? To get the most out of the system you will need a PC running ... wait for it ... Windows Media Center! What MS seems to be saying is that the future of the home PC (as far as they are concerned) is tied up with Media Center. The XBox 360 is an extension of a PC system, not a replacement.
There weren't any DOS clones for years after the original PC and DOS combination, all the early clone manufacturers used MS-DOS with their machines (IIRC, I think DR-DOS started as being compatible with MS-DOS 3).
The "won't run unless it's MS-DOS" is unfortunately a myth. The beta (and only the beta) version of Windows (I think it was 95 though, not 3) tested to be sure that it was based on MS-DOS, but the code never made it to the final release and I for one had it running on DR-DOS as a final product without any complicated patches etc. and without Windows complaining once. IIRC, Caldera did try to use it as an argument in their court case until a release version of Windows was installed on a DR-DOS machine in the court room by the MS legal team. The court case was actually about licensing terms for manufacturers etc. and MS abusing their monopoly position.
Apparently he has been doing this for a long time, not just the last few years. He pumps large amounts of it into his charitable foundation and also has other investments/companies than MS that presumably eat up a lot of that.
Microsoft had a lot to do with making PC clones viable though, by maintaining a non-exclusivity clause in their contract with IBM, allowing them to sell the OS they sold to them (PC-DOS) as MS-DOS to other computer manufacturers.
... PC compatibility may never have happened and we could all be sat here typing away on Macs (and yes, I know some people already are!).
Otherwise, who knows
... to use the international emergency number of 112 rather than 911?
Assuming that the server is doing something crucial to the company, you do realise that you have successfully managed to give a 27,000 person company a single point of failure (you) then? Congratulations!
Question for our US cousins, will this 5% be taken out of Microsoft before or after they pay US tazes? And how does it feel to be subsidising European justice?
Err, Commodore Pet, Late 70s
The "40 services" was phrased in SUSE terms (from their install system), not mine, I am fairly positive that at any one time there is likely to be more than 40 processes running, just down to the way the machine is being used at the moment.
:)
I agree that comparing number of patches is rather haphazard way of "measuring" security, unless of course you are comparing systems with identical software packages installed, in which case I am fairly sure that MS wouldn't have liked having all those "insecure" Apache patches applied against their count
No offense, but XP is not a server platform either, Windows 2003 Server is. Comparing Mandrake to XP is EXACTLY what you should be doing. In passing, I installed a FULL install of SUSE 9.1 the other day on a test bed machine (mainly to check for conflicts with other software), didn't alter any options and STILL had ~40 services running.
I am writing a paper on big software companies. Anybody have an opinion about Microsoft?
Not having a dig, but it is a touch ironic that whilst explaining how straight forward everything is, you used two acronyms :)