What do you mean, "the Media companies would have all just jumped ship to Linux"? What does that even mean? That they would release discs that only played on Linux? Please...
Anyway, Linux lacks the secure media data paths technology that's required to implement AACS, the DRM used by HD-DVD and BR discs.
Maybe it's more of a deterrent measure. Like "BEWARE OF DOG" signs when there's really no dog, that are just meant to deter would-be burlars. So maybe the police won't investigate every alarm, but the existence of the alarm cuts down on the offenders.
In any case, there might be a threshold (e.g. N complaints against a particular user, where N = 5, 10, or whatever) that must be reached before an investigation is actually commenced.
"Undoubtedly the reason it was submitted is so that the license will be officially recognized as not achieving OSI compliance. I don't think they should have asked Microsoft at all."
You didn't read the article; nor did I until just now. First, the reasons for OSI not evaluating licenses that aren't formally submitted by the license authors are detailed in the article.
Second, the MS license was NOT submitted so that it would officially be rejected by OSI. In fact, the opposite is the case. It was submitted because the submitter felt that the license is *likely* to achieve OSI compliance.
Third, OSI appears to feel the same way. Quoting from the article:
Asked if he would like to see Microsoft submit its Shared Source licenses for OSI approval, Nelson [OSI's Russ Nelson] questioned whether "the world needs yet another open-source license," but added, "We've all read the licenses, and they're reasonable, succinct and very likely to pass muster, so why not?"
The article also says that MS hasn't closed the door on submitting the licenses themselves. It would behoove them to to so, as it would be good PR when these licenses are approved (which, after reading the article, is more likely than them being rejected).
When the author of a license submits his license to be approved by a body such as OSI, the intent is to get that body to approve the license. Part of the process is that if the body rejects the license, the body informs the author of the reasons so that the author can, if he wishes, make adjustments to the license and resubmit it. This is an interactive process between the author and the license-approving body. At no point in the process does the license-approving body declare to the world, "WE HAVE REJECTED THIS LICENSE!!"; "WE HAVE REJECTED THIS RESUBMITTED VERSION OF THE LICENSE"; "WE HAVE REJECTED THIS RE-RESUBMITTED VERSION OF THE LICENSE"; and so on. Rather, they communicate privately with the author on the problems they have with the license and resubmissions and so-on.
What you wanted to happen was for OSI to, on its own, evaluate an MS license, reject it, and declare, "WE HAVE REJECTED THE MICROSOFT LICENSE", without giving MS any chance to alter the license to address the problems that OSI might have with it.
OSI has featured anti-MS rhetoric on its site. If they had decided to evaluate an MS license without MS submitting it, and publicly rejected the license, then it would have been seen as no more than an anti-MS hit-job. That they didn't do that actually strengthens their credibility, not weaken it.
MS probably told them to drop it because: 1. The OSI website frequently features anti-MS rhetoric (and they do even today). There's no way in hell OSI would do a fair evaluation. So they would "officially" reject MS licenses, which is what the submitter likely wanted.
2. MS doesn't really give a damn what a self-appointed priesthood has to say regarding their license, and don't want to kowtow to them.
Microsoft also invited Opera devs for the same reason that they've invited FF devs (to make sure the browser runs well in Vista, and possibly makes use of some new Vista apis (e.g. Vista's Common RSS api)). Opera accepted the invitation and Opera devs paid their visit to MS last week. http://annevankesteren.nl/2006/08/opera-vista http://my.opera.com/olli/blog/show.dml/417961
Really? You mean they are no longer illegally bundling IE?
No, Microsoft isn't illegally bundling IE. They're bundling IE, but not illegally. That hsi issue already went through the courts and Microsoft is still bundling IE should give you a clue that it's not illegal.
I agree with you on the "It's a retreat into proprietary software". Where is the demand that Google open source their web apps? Maybe the community could enhance the code? Why should Google get a pass when so many demand that others open source their code?
And to make matters "worse", I bet that Google is using GPL code in their web apps. They can do this and keep their own code closed without violating GPL because they "distribute" their app as a web app rather than a local binary. But there's no difference in spirit. Google very well may be using GPL code in apps "released" to the public without disclosing their code, which violates the spirit (if not the letter) of GPL, yet nobody here cares? Is it just because it's "Google", that they get a pass on this?
I like how you guys always talk about competition for Microsoft. "Writely is Google's answer to Microsoft Word" (which is absurd, BTW). But what about OO.o? Writely and Google Spreadsheet are far more an answer to OO.o than MS Office. OO.o users will be more attracted to Google's offerings than MS Office users. Look for Google to eat into OO.o's share. Hell, it might even kill OO.o off altogether.
There are 5 broad categories of wrongdoing: lie, cheat, steal, hurt, kill. All wrongs fall into one or more of these categories.
Now, you say that the scenarios described by the GP aren't stealing. I think that, in spirit at least, they are, but let's say you're right. Maybe those things aren't "stealing" technically, but they certainly are "cheating". And, I hate to break it to you, but "cheating" is just as bad as "stealing".
The point is, guys that are sympathetic to piracy have been going around saying, "It's *only* copyright infringement, not 'stealing', so it's not that bad". That's essentially what you guys have been saying. But most people wouldn't condone sneaking into theaters, sneaking into subways. Such activity is considered "bad", no matter which of the broad categories of wrong (lie, cheat, steal, kill) they fall under.
Now, let me address your statement "theft or stealing implies that the aggrieved party does NO LONGER have the item you took away" and tell you why I consider sneaking into theaters, copying CDs, et al to be "stealing". First, it could be argued that the item "stolen", under your definition, is the ability for the seller (theater, subway, CD producer) to sell the item/service to you under the scenario that you have not previously used the service or copied the item. In the scenario of "sneaking into a theater", once you've done that, your incentive to buy a ticket legally in the future diminishes greatly. You've stolen the ability of the theater to sell you a ticket under the scenario that you've not seen the movie before, which is the scenario underwhich you have the highest incentive to buy a ticket.
Second, "steal" is a colloquial term that applies to many things, not just "taking items that the aggrieved party no longer posesses". If Company A hacks into rival Company B's computers and to obtain Company B's business plans, R&D data, etc, then it's considered "stealing" even though Company B still has the "stolen" info. A plagiarist can be accused of "stealing" words ("This author stole entire paragraphs from my dissertation"). There are many other examples I can list, but you get the picture. Hell, many slashdot posts are about Microsoft "stealing" ideas from Apple. LOL
"Nice thing about this is Apple will probably lower the price of the 30GB iPod to $250 just to stick it to MS."
Your statement reminds me of the Sprint commercial.
Executive:With Sprint's "Fair and Flexible Plan", nobody can tell me what to do. I can call who and whenever I want. It's my little way of "sticking it to The Man".
Peon:But you are "The Man".
Executive:I know.
Peon:So you're sticking it to yourself...?
Executive:Maybe
My point is, in the portable music player market, Apple is "The Man", and if they lower prices to "stick it to MS", they'll really be sticking it to themselves, as they'll be taking a hit in profits to beat an upstart that would like nothing better than to get Apple into a price war. MS can take revenue hits on secondary products without batting an eye (see Xbox), but Apple can't afford to take revenue hits on its bread-and-butter product.
Just for your information, Microsoft does pay dividends (and a good thing to, since the stock price has been flat for years, so there's no way to make money based on increasing stock price).
WTF does this have to do with "litigation against Microsoft"? The Windows Media specs have been available for anyone to implement (Flip4Mac implements WMV for Macs). If anything, this shows that the "litigation" is pointless, as it had nothing to do with Real releasing open source code implmenting WM codecs.
The sad thing is that while the WM specs have been available, the OSS community didn't bother to create open source codecs on their own, choosing to use illegal methods to play WM on Linux (mplayer requires downloading Windows dlls, illegally) while waiting for a commercial company (i.e. Real) to do the work creating OS WM codecs, that the OSS community themselves should've been creating.
You talk of "litigation" against "monopolists" while excusing the illegal activity in your own OSS community (using Windows dlls illegally) and excusing the laziness of your own OSS community (not creating OS WM codecs before Real did).
The fact is that/. embarrassed itself last week by posting a year-old story by Thurott on IE7 beta 1's CSS compliance. That slashdot has refused to apologize for or even admit to this error in judgment speaks volumes regarding slashdot's credibility (lack thereof) regarding MS stories. But then, what do you expect from a site that uses childish Borg-Gates and Cracked-Windows icons for MS and Windows stories (while all other topics have editorial-free icons and/or the official logos of the companies involved)?
Here's an interesting and educational video on the improvements IE7 has made over IE6 wrt CSS support: IE7's CSS support
If you're talking about older examples, I'll take LISP over those, thanks.:-)
And what about SmallTalk (the language and environment)? Wasn't that the first widely deployed "object oriented" language/environment? That would make it pretty significant.
Improv? Brings to mind the saying, "If a tree falls and nobody hears it, did it make a sound?"
Despite how innovative Improv may have been (according to it's advocates), hardly anyone used it, and no spreadsheets followed its "innovations". It's a blip in spreadsheet history, and in no way should be in a list of "Greatest" 15 pieces of software.
(I assume that "Greatest" means "most historically significant" as opposed to "best", "most innovative", "most elegant", etc.)
Oh please... When slashdot starts using the actual Microsoft logo for Microsoft topics and the actual Windows logo for Windodws topics (rather than the Gates-Borge and Cracked Window icons), then I'll believe that slashdot gives MS a fair shake. MS and Windows topics are the only topics for which slashdot uses derogatory icons (or icons with editorial spin of any kind), and as long as that's the case, slashdot has no credibility regarding MS stories, and slashdot open proclaims that fact by using those immature icons.
That's an amusing comment, but on a serious note, if someone does "hack" this in some nefarious way, then that'll be an example of the homebrew community cutting off its nose to spite its face, as it'll be a sign that they can't be trusted, and companies will be reluctant to do this stuff in the future. It would look very bad if, after years of begging MS to allow homebrew games, the moment they do, someone hacks the system.
...allow me [Matt Lee, a Microsoft Xbox dev] to share a related story. A little over a year ago, one of the people in my group modded an Xbox, installed Avalaunch, and put all sorts of Xbox mod scene apps on the box, like XBMC, RSS readers, etc, along with some "backup" games.:rolleyes: He brought this box along to a meeting with Bill Gates. Bill saw a demo of this, was quite impressed, and asked something along the lines of "How can we engage this community?" - instead of saying something like "How can we squash this?" It's long been on the back of everyone's minds in the Xbox group - how can we get students and hobbyists involved without disrupting the console business model? The good news is that it's still on the radar, we'll see what happens in the future.
It wouldn't have been difficult to add Spotlight and Dashboard to OSX Panther rather than making those features exclusive to OSX Tiger, yet Slashdotters praised Apple's decision to the high-heavens.
Besides that obvious double standard, I like how slashdotters gleefully mocked MS for removing features from Vista and/or backporting features to XP, thus lowering incentive to upgrade to Vista, and at the same time bitch at MS for keeping a new feature exclusive to Vista. (Not the consistency has ever been a halmark of slashdotters to begin with.)
When I clicked this thread and its article, I thought there'd be some new info, but the article is three weeks old. Why does slashdot accept lame stories like this (this one is lame because it's so old), and reject legit ones?
A DEVELOPERS conference, with a 5-10 minute segment focused on bashing MS? Comments about all MS can do is "copy Apple and Google"? Snide remarks agains MS throughout the keynote? Why is that kind of stuff at a DEVELOPERS conference? You don't hear crap like that at MS dev conferences.
Slashdot Mirror
Oops. After re-reading the GP's post, I see that my sarcasm detector was faulty. [face_blush] :p
What do you mean, "the Media companies would have all just jumped ship to Linux"? What does that even mean? That they would release discs that only played on Linux? Please...
Anyway, Linux lacks the secure media data paths technology that's required to implement AACS, the DRM used by HD-DVD and BR discs.
Maybe it's more of a deterrent measure. Like "BEWARE OF DOG" signs when there's really no dog, that are just meant to deter would-be burlars. So maybe the police won't investigate every alarm, but the existence of the alarm cuts down on the offenders.
In any case, there might be a threshold (e.g. N complaints against a particular user, where N = 5, 10, or whatever) that must be reached before an investigation is actually commenced.
You didn't read the article; nor did I until just now.
First, the reasons for OSI not evaluating licenses that aren't formally submitted by the license authors are detailed in the article.
Second, the MS license was NOT submitted so that it would officially be rejected by OSI. In fact, the opposite is the case. It was submitted because the submitter felt that the license is *likely* to achieve OSI compliance.
Third, OSI appears to feel the same way. Quoting from the article:
The article also says that MS hasn't closed the door on submitting the licenses themselves. It would behoove them to to so, as it would be good PR when these licenses are approved (which, after reading the article, is more likely than them being rejected).
When the author of a license submits his license to be approved by a body such as OSI, the intent is to get that body to approve the license. Part of the process is that if the body rejects the license, the body informs the author of the reasons so that the author can, if he wishes, make adjustments to the license and resubmit it. This is an interactive process between the author and the license-approving body. At no point in the process does the license-approving body declare to the world, "WE HAVE REJECTED THIS LICENSE!!"; "WE HAVE REJECTED THIS RESUBMITTED VERSION OF THE LICENSE"; "WE HAVE REJECTED THIS RE-RESUBMITTED VERSION OF THE LICENSE"; and so on. Rather, they communicate privately with the author on the problems they have with the license and resubmissions and so-on.
What you wanted to happen was for OSI to, on its own, evaluate an MS license, reject it, and declare, "WE HAVE REJECTED THE MICROSOFT LICENSE", without giving MS any chance to alter the license to address the problems that OSI might have with it.
OSI has featured anti-MS rhetoric on its site. If they had decided to evaluate an MS license without MS submitting it, and publicly rejected the license, then it would have been seen as no more than an anti-MS hit-job. That they didn't do that actually strengthens their credibility, not weaken it.
MS probably told them to drop it because:
1. The OSI website frequently features anti-MS rhetoric (and they do even today). There's no way in hell OSI would do a fair evaluation. So they would "officially" reject MS licenses, which is what the submitter likely wanted.
2. MS doesn't really give a damn what a self-appointed priesthood has to say regarding their license, and don't want to kowtow to them.
Microsoft also invited Opera devs for the same reason that they've invited FF devs (to make sure the browser runs well in Vista, and possibly makes use of some new Vista apis (e.g. Vista's Common RSS api)). Opera accepted the invitation and Opera devs paid their visit to MS last week.
;-)
http://annevankesteren.nl/2006/08/opera-vista
http://my.opera.com/olli/blog/show.dml/417961
The Opera devs returned unharmed.
Really? You mean they are no longer illegally bundling IE?
No, Microsoft isn't illegally bundling IE. They're bundling IE, but not illegally. That hsi issue already went through the courts and Microsoft is still bundling IE should give you a clue that it's not illegal.
"Google use Microsoft's technology to answer Microsoft's product"
;-)
Of course, the same could be said for any Windows app that competes with a Microsoft app.
I agree with you on the "It's a retreat into proprietary software". Where is the demand that Google open source their web apps? Maybe the community could enhance the code? Why should Google get a pass when so many demand that others open source their code?
And to make matters "worse", I bet that Google is using GPL code in their web apps. They can do this and keep their own code closed without violating GPL because they "distribute" their app as a web app rather than a local binary. But there's no difference in spirit. Google very well may be using GPL code in apps "released" to the public without disclosing their code, which violates the spirit (if not the letter) of GPL, yet nobody here cares? Is it just because it's "Google", that they get a pass on this?
I like how you guys always talk about competition for Microsoft. "Writely is Google's answer to Microsoft Word" (which is absurd, BTW). But what about OO.o? Writely and Google Spreadsheet are far more an answer to OO.o than MS Office. OO.o users will be more attracted to Google's offerings than MS Office users. Look for Google to eat into OO.o's share. Hell, it might even kill OO.o off altogether.
There are 5 broad categories of wrongdoing: lie, cheat, steal, hurt, kill. All wrongs fall into one or more of these categories.
Now, you say that the scenarios described by the GP aren't stealing. I think that, in spirit at least, they are, but let's say you're right. Maybe those things aren't "stealing" technically, but they certainly are "cheating". And, I hate to break it to you, but "cheating" is just as bad as "stealing".
The point is, guys that are sympathetic to piracy have been going around saying, "It's *only* copyright infringement, not 'stealing', so it's not that bad". That's essentially what you guys have been saying. But most people wouldn't condone sneaking into theaters, sneaking into subways. Such activity is considered "bad", no matter which of the broad categories of wrong (lie, cheat, steal, kill) they fall under.
Now, let me address your statement "theft or stealing implies that the aggrieved party does NO LONGER have the item you took away" and tell you why I consider sneaking into theaters, copying CDs, et al to be "stealing".
First, it could be argued that the item "stolen", under your definition, is the ability for the seller (theater, subway, CD producer) to sell the item/service to you under the scenario that you have not previously used the service or copied the item. In the scenario of "sneaking into a theater", once you've done that, your incentive to buy a ticket legally in the future diminishes greatly. You've stolen the ability of the theater to sell you a ticket under the scenario that you've not seen the movie before, which is the scenario underwhich you have the highest incentive to buy a ticket.
Second, "steal" is a colloquial term that applies to many things, not just "taking items that the aggrieved party no longer posesses". If Company A hacks into rival Company B's computers and to obtain Company B's business plans, R&D data, etc, then it's considered "stealing" even though Company B still has the "stolen" info. A plagiarist can be accused of "stealing" words ("This author stole entire paragraphs from my dissertation"). There are many other examples I can list, but you get the picture. Hell, many slashdot posts are about Microsoft "stealing" ideas from Apple. LOL
Your statement reminds me of the Sprint commercial.
My point is, in the portable music player market, Apple is "The Man", and if they lower prices to "stick it to MS", they'll really be sticking it to themselves, as they'll be taking a hit in profits to beat an upstart that would like nothing better than to get Apple into a price war. MS can take revenue hits on secondary products without batting an eye (see Xbox), but Apple can't afford to take revenue hits on its bread-and-butter product.
Just for your information, Microsoft does pay dividends (and a good thing to, since the stock price has been flat for years, so there's no way to make money based on increasing stock price).
WTF does this have to do with "litigation against Microsoft"?
The Windows Media specs have been available for anyone to implement (Flip4Mac implements WMV for Macs). If anything, this shows that the "litigation" is pointless, as it had nothing to do with Real releasing open source code implmenting WM codecs.
The sad thing is that while the WM specs have been available, the OSS community didn't bother to create open source codecs on their own, choosing to use illegal methods to play WM on Linux (mplayer requires downloading Windows dlls, illegally) while waiting for a commercial company (i.e. Real) to do the work creating OS WM codecs, that the OSS community themselves should've been creating.
You talk of "litigation" against "monopolists" while excusing the illegal activity in your own OSS community (using Windows dlls illegally) and excusing the laziness of your own OSS community (not creating OS WM codecs before Real did).
The fact is that /. embarrassed itself last week by posting a year-old story by Thurott on IE7 beta 1's CSS compliance. That slashdot has refused to apologize for or even admit to this error in judgment speaks volumes regarding slashdot's credibility (lack thereof) regarding MS stories. But then, what do you expect from a site that uses childish Borg-Gates and Cracked-Windows icons for MS and Windows stories (while all other topics have editorial-free icons and/or the official logos of the companies involved)?
Here's an interesting and educational video on the improvements IE7 has made over IE6 wrt CSS support:
IE7's CSS support
If you're talking about older examples, I'll take LISP over those, thanks. :-)
And what about SmallTalk (the language and environment)? Wasn't that the first widely deployed "object oriented" language/environment? That would make it pretty significant.
Improv?
Brings to mind the saying, "If a tree falls and nobody hears it, did it make a sound?"
Despite how innovative Improv may have been (according to it's advocates), hardly anyone used it, and no spreadsheets followed its "innovations". It's a blip in spreadsheet history, and in no way should be in a list of "Greatest" 15 pieces of software.
(I assume that "Greatest" means "most historically significant" as opposed to "best", "most innovative", "most elegant", etc.)
Oh please...
When slashdot starts using the actual Microsoft logo for Microsoft topics and the actual Windows logo for Windodws topics (rather than the Gates-Borge and Cracked Window icons), then I'll believe that slashdot gives MS a fair shake. MS and Windows topics are the only topics for which slashdot uses derogatory icons (or icons with editorial spin of any kind), and as long as that's the case, slashdot has no credibility regarding MS stories, and slashdot open proclaims that fact by using those immature icons.
That's an amusing comment, but on a serious note, if someone does "hack" this in some nefarious way, then that'll be an example of the homebrew community cutting off its nose to spite its face, as it'll be a sign that they can't be trusted, and companies will be reluctant to do this stuff in the future. It would look very bad if, after years of begging MS to allow homebrew games, the moment they do, someone hacks the system.
http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2006/6
Looks like Microsoft is indeed persuing this.
It wouldn't have been difficult to add Spotlight and Dashboard to OSX Panther rather than making those features exclusive to OSX Tiger, yet Slashdotters praised Apple's decision to the high-heavens.
Besides that obvious double standard, I like how slashdotters gleefully mocked MS for removing features from Vista and/or backporting features to XP, thus lowering incentive to upgrade to Vista, and at the same time bitch at MS for keeping a new feature exclusive to Vista. (Not the consistency has ever been a halmark of slashdotters to begin with.)
When I clicked this thread and its article, I thought there'd be some new info, but the article is three weeks old. Why does slashdot accept lame stories like this (this one is lame because it's so old), and reject legit ones?
A DEVELOPERS conference, with a 5-10 minute segment focused on bashing MS? Comments about all MS can do is "copy Apple and Google"? Snide remarks agains MS throughout the keynote? Why is that kind of stuff at a DEVELOPERS conference? You don't hear crap like that at MS dev conferences.
Yep.
The most obvious recent example of Apple's lies is the ad where Apple suggests that Japanese digital cameras only work on Macs. Give me a break.