Here's the thing to think about here. Spam is KILLING Microsoft, especially with Hotmail. It's literally costing them millions of dollars a year (they've made this quite clear). Microsoft believes that widespread adoption of this standard will help them fight spam.
So now then you have a question to ask yourself:
Which is more important to Microsoft: Stopping spam or winning points against other developers?
If it's the former, then they're on the level.
If it's the latter, then they're going to use the license as an excuse to rape you.
OK, genius: Have you ever looked at a map of Texas? You notice that big gap between Houston and Florida? That's the Gulf of Mexico, an arm of.. the Atlantic Ocean!
I live in Seattle, I know where Huston is in relation to the Atlantic. Do you?
I couldn't resist:)
Actually that's about right. That 150 miles is as the crow files, not as the road drives. There's a 45 minute ferry ride plus wait time to factor in, and many of the roads are 30-40 miles per hour. No interstates between Seattle and the coast.
What, you think that somehow windbg requires you to modify the system to work? Nope, it's just another application, using well documented APIs.
And multiple desktops are available all the time. Heck, you can do it without multiple desktops. Create your window at location -1, -1 and size it to be 1 pixel x 1 pixel - it'll appear off the screen and the only way the user might notice it is if they were at the console and noticed they just lost focus.
I probably shouldn't drag this out, but... Fundimentally you're right, Apple shouldn't be able to do this, but they ARE able to do this.
Also, you can't distribute ANY program you want for the Mac. Where's the documentation of Apple's Dictionary APIs? The APIs exist, Apple's apps take advantage of them. But nobody else can.
Similarly, where's the documentation for how to query the Apple address book? Apple's apps can use it but nobody else's can.
Apple has a long history of carefully picking and choosing which parts of their platform are documented. And if you stray beyond those parts that are documented, Apple has a history of suing people.
IMHO, Apple owes its existance to the high profit margins it receives on its hardware. What I don't understand is why Apple believes that people being able to purchase content from Real somehow threatens their hardware revenues.
It's sort-of the same thing with Microsoft Exchange (going WAY off-topic here). Microsoft doesn't care WHAT client you use to talk to Exchange. It can be Pine, Eudora, Outlook, Entourage, whatever. That's because Microsoft's revenue stream for Exchange is generated by client licenses, not by selling clients. Apple's revenue stream is generated by selling iPods. Having more ways to use the iPod doesn't HURT Apple, and it conceivably could result in more iPod sales. Which would be GOOD for Apple.
Apple makes the OS. It makes the hardware. It makes the music store. It makes the music player.
If you get to choose who plays in the sandbox, it's your sandbox, and for the Macintosh, it's Apple's sandbox. That's why they don't open up their systems.
Much more civil, but making a HUGE assumption. That Apple actually is OK with other people playing in their sandbox.
I'm not as convinced that they're that altruistic. If they could get away with ensureing that only Apple could write applications for the Macintosh, they would.
How many of those alternate servers run the same code as is run on the main servers?
I can't think of any of them - some people have implemented clones of the servers but nobody's servers are of the same quality as the main servers.
If the game servers were open source, then others would be able to put up servers that were just as reliable as the main servers.
There IS a thriving 3rd party mod community for 3rd person shooters, so it's not a question of a lack of imagination on the part of the external community, the issue is that the alternate servers don't have the same level of functionality as the main servers.
The closest example to a game-as-service that I can think of is the MMORPG market.
And none of it is open source. Because if it WAS open source, someone could set up free game servers that use someone elses bandwidth and undercut the profits that the author of the service receives.
It's possible that this might be able to be made to work, assuming that everyone has to pay for the bandwidth consumed (since the cost of bandwidth would eventually force every one of the game servers to start charging), but that's not always true (some schools allow effectively unlimited bandwidth whic undercuts the cost structure).
Actually the IETF has a mechanism in place to deal with patents that cover IETF protocols, what Zienfeld is describing is simply the process at work.
RMS jumped the gun (again) and produced a knee-jerk reaction - Microsoft, by the very fact of it's existance must be bad, thus it must be opposed.
Zienfeld is stating the reality: The IETF has a process for dealing with IPR that conflicts with the IETF's mandates (open protocols) and this issue is being worked through that process.
No controversy, except among those that want to create controversy for the sake of creating controversy.
If you're driven by the price of the computer (and most budget-crunched schools are), Windows PC's are an easy choice.
The reason Mac's were in the schools in the first place was that Apple HEAVILY discounted them to get them into the schools, those days are past unfortunately.
GilesX, have you tried SP2? You should, before you spout off.
You're right, SP2 doesn't have a spyware blocker on it. But it should be a lot harder to get the spyware onto the computer.
The first thing that SP2 does is to disable activeX by default. When you hit a web site that uses activeX, the infobar pops up saying that there's an activex control on the page, but that's it. No longer do you get the "Do you want to install Gator, the cool new information manager" popup. Just a little notification that says "Someone's trying to install an activeX control on your computer. These can be really dangerous, are you sure you really want to do this?"
The same thing happens if a program tries to auto-download an EXE to your computer. By default it's blocked.
The other thing is that the defaults on all the dialog boxes involving downloading stuff has been turned from "OK" to "Cancel". It's a little thing, but it should make a big difference (nobody EVER reads the dialog boxes, they just hit enter).
SP2 can't stop the people who chose to put spyware on their computer (DivX anyone?), but for the vast majority of sites that try to put it on, it'll help.
Nothing whatsoever stops Dell (or HP, or AlienWare, or Joe's Computers) from shipping Firefox on every PC they sell.
Heck, they could even make it the default browser and hide the IE logo.
They could ship Real Networks player as the default media player too, or iTMS.
They could bundle an IRC program, a CD burning program, whatever. They can add whatever software they want to the system.
They're NOT allowed to REMOVE the Microsoft apps, but they can hide them from the user.
What I don't understand is why they don't want to do this.
The DoJ would come down on Microsoft like a ton of bricks if they had contracts that prevented computer manufacturers from doing that, so it's not that there's some nefarious contract that prevents OEM's from bundling other software, it must be some other reason.
Maybe support costs? I don't know. It might be interesting to ask Dell and find out why they don't offer more software with their computers.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, lets get this straight, once and for all - WinFS IS NOT A NEW FILESYSTEM!
It's a set of technologies that allow you to store metadata in a SQL-like database, and query for that information.
Think of it as content indexing on steroids.
So you winamp album metadata could be put in WinFS and then winamp (or WMP, or Soniq, or iTunes) could build virtual playlists from that metadata.
Or your picture keywords could be put in and you'd be able to search that metadata using a single common API.
It's NOT a new filesystem.
Here's the thing to think about here. Spam is KILLING Microsoft, especially with Hotmail. It's literally costing them millions of dollars a year (they've made this quite clear). Microsoft believes that widespread adoption of this standard will help them fight spam.
So now then you have a question to ask yourself:
Which is more important to Microsoft: Stopping spam or winning points against other developers?
If it's the former, then they're on the level.
If it's the latter, then they're going to use the license as an excuse to rape you.
I live in Seattle, I know where Huston is in relation to the Atlantic. Do you? I couldn't resist :)
Actually that's about right. That 150 miles is as the crow files, not as the road drives. There's a 45 minute ferry ride plus wait time to factor in, and many of the roads are 30-40 miles per hour. No interstates between Seattle and the coast.
Seattle is a 6-8 hour drive from the Pacific Ocean. It's about 150 miles from the coast.
:)
You must made TFA's point, congratulations
If the system blue-screens, it tends to be pretty noticible, which makes it harder for an attacker to hide their tracks.
Btw, there's no UI for this setting, you need to manually turn it on.
What, you think that somehow windbg requires you to modify the system to work? Nope, it's just another application, using well documented APIs.
And multiple desktops are available all the time. Heck, you can do it without multiple desktops. Create your window at location -1, -1 and size it to be 1 pixel x 1 pixel - it'll appear off the screen and the only way the user might notice it is if they were at the console and noticed they just lost focus.
References please?
"I know many people will point out that LDAP could almost certainly handle the job"
Ok, this has been getting to me throughout the commentary, but people keep on making the same mistake.
LDAP is a prototol. It's not a product. Any product that implements RFC2251 is LDAP.
The Active Directory implements LDAP, as does eDirectory and many other directory services.
Which LDAP did you mean?
Also, you can't distribute ANY program you want for the Mac. Where's the documentation of Apple's Dictionary APIs? The APIs exist, Apple's apps take advantage of them. But nobody else can.
Similarly, where's the documentation for how to query the Apple address book? Apple's apps can use it but nobody else's can.
Apple has a long history of carefully picking and choosing which parts of their platform are documented. And if you stray beyond those parts that are documented, Apple has a history of suing people.
IMHO, Apple owes its existance to the high profit margins it receives on its hardware. What I don't understand is why Apple believes that people being able to purchase content from Real somehow threatens their hardware revenues.
It's sort-of the same thing with Microsoft Exchange (going WAY off-topic here). Microsoft doesn't care WHAT client you use to talk to Exchange. It can be Pine, Eudora, Outlook, Entourage, whatever. That's because Microsoft's revenue stream for Exchange is generated by client licenses, not by selling clients. Apple's revenue stream is generated by selling iPods. Having more ways to use the iPod doesn't HURT Apple, and it conceivably could result in more iPod sales. Which would be GOOD for Apple.
Apple makes the OS. It makes the hardware. It makes the music store. It makes the music player.
If you get to choose who plays in the sandbox, it's your sandbox, and for the Macintosh, it's Apple's sandbox. That's why they don't open up their systems.
If you don't like it, buy a PC.
Vendor lock is good for Apple.
Much more civil, but making a HUGE assumption. That Apple actually is OK with other people playing in their sandbox.
I'm not as convinced that they're that altruistic. If they could get away with ensureing that only Apple could write applications for the Macintosh, they would.
How many of those alternate servers run the same code as is run on the main servers?
I can't think of any of them - some people have implemented clones of the servers but nobody's servers are of the same quality as the main servers.
If the game servers were open source, then others would be able to put up servers that were just as reliable as the main servers.
There IS a thriving 3rd party mod community for 3rd person shooters, so it's not a question of a lack of imagination on the part of the external community, the issue is that the alternate servers don't have the same level of functionality as the main servers.
The closest example to a game-as-service that I can think of is the MMORPG market.
And none of it is open source. Because if it WAS open source, someone could set up free game servers that use someone elses bandwidth and undercut the profits that the author of the service receives.
It's possible that this might be able to be made to work, assuming that everyone has to pay for the bandwidth consumed (since the cost of bandwidth would eventually force every one of the game servers to start charging), but that's not always true (some schools allow effectively unlimited bandwidth whic undercuts the cost structure).
Actually that's not quite the case: The title of a book is copyrighted, not trademarked, as is Isaac Asimov's name.
If I publish the auto-translated japanese porn with a cover of "I, Robot by Isaac Asimov" I'm violating copyright, not trademark law.
RTFP.
Read the post please - the first sentence of the article in question explicitly mentions a "computer program".
So a television program isn't a program for the purposes of that article.
Actually the IETF has a mechanism in place to deal with patents that cover IETF protocols, what Zienfeld is describing is simply the process at work.
RMS jumped the gun (again) and produced a knee-jerk reaction - Microsoft, by the very fact of it's existance must be bad, thus it must be opposed.
Zienfeld is stating the reality: The IETF has a process for dealing with IPR that conflicts with the IETF's mandates (open protocols) and this issue is being worked through that process.
No controversy, except among those that want to create controversy for the sake of creating controversy.
Mod Parent Up. Straight from the horses mouth.
But it doesn't matter if over the long run the Macs are cheaper. If the initial cost is cheaper, then the schools won't buy them.
And windows computers are cheaper than Mac's.
If you're driven by the price of the computer (and most budget-crunched schools are), Windows PC's are an easy choice.
The reason Mac's were in the schools in the first place was that Apple HEAVILY discounted them to get them into the schools, those days are past unfortunately.
You've never bought a Ford Taurus, have you.
:)
Have fun replacing the audio system in that puppy
Right now, the Microsoft bug's a concept, not a bug.
So you're saying that it's ok for Microsoft to wait two years to fix it?
I didn't think so.
Do you have references to this? Or are you just guessing?
Somewhere I thought that Microsoft had announced that they WEREN'T going to be doing an RC3 for SP2.
GilesX, have you tried SP2? You should, before you spout off.
You're right, SP2 doesn't have a spyware blocker on it. But it should be a lot harder to get the spyware onto the computer.
The first thing that SP2 does is to disable activeX by default. When you hit a web site that uses activeX, the infobar pops up saying that there's an activex control on the page, but that's it. No longer do you get the "Do you want to install Gator, the cool new information manager" popup. Just a little notification that says "Someone's trying to install an activeX control on your computer. These can be really dangerous, are you sure you really want to do this?"
The same thing happens if a program tries to auto-download an EXE to your computer. By default it's blocked.
The other thing is that the defaults on all the dialog boxes involving downloading stuff has been turned from "OK" to "Cancel". It's a little thing, but it should make a big difference (nobody EVER reads the dialog boxes, they just hit enter).
SP2 can't stop the people who chose to put spyware on their computer (DivX anyone?), but for the vast majority of sites that try to put it on, it'll help.
Nothing whatsoever stops Dell (or HP, or AlienWare, or Joe's Computers) from shipping Firefox on every PC they sell.
Heck, they could even make it the default browser and hide the IE logo.
They could ship Real Networks player as the default media player too, or iTMS.
They could bundle an IRC program, a CD burning program, whatever. They can add whatever software they want to the system.
They're NOT allowed to REMOVE the Microsoft apps, but they can hide them from the user.
What I don't understand is why they don't want to do this.
The DoJ would come down on Microsoft like a ton of bricks if they had contracts that prevented computer manufacturers from doing that, so it's not that there's some nefarious contract that prevents OEM's from bundling other software, it must be some other reason.
Maybe support costs? I don't know. It might be interesting to ask Dell and find out why they don't offer more software with their computers.