User: NickFortune

Re:You're confusing protocol and applications.

On: AJAX May Be Considered Harmful

You're confusing the AJAX protocol with a complete AJAX application.

Of course, strictly speaking, AJAX isn't a protocol at all. A protocol is a formally defined set of rules for comminicating between two points endpoints. AJAX is a loose term for a new style of web application that generally uses Asynchronous HTTP, Javascript, And XML. It also generally uses CSS for formatting and may make use of Dynamic HTML. The only protocol in sight is HTTP, and normal web pages use that as well.

Very interesting, seeing has how AJAX has nothing to do with your server-side technology whatsoever.

Excuse me? AJAX is intimately involved with server-side technology.

mmm... in your earlier post you said you were sticking to with Perl and Java based systems rather than AJAX. I think the GP was making the point that there's no reason you can't code AJAX backends in Java or Perl. I think by technology he meant the programming languages used.

Again very interesting, seeing as how AJAX itself has nothing to do with the way users interact with form elements.

Again, you're confusing protocol with applications. We're talking about AJAX applications here, many of which do end up using JavaScript to mess around with UI elements. This often leads to non-standard behavior which confuses users to no end.

Lot's of non-AJAX web apps do the same thing. Dynamic HTML has been around for a while now. And AJAX is still not a protocol.

Between the 9 of us, we have around 95 years of Web development experience. We know what we're doing.

Well, you either don't understand what a protocol is, or you're real fuzzy on the idea of AJAX. Maybe you should put one of the other 8 guys on the line.

Re:Why use a real editor?

On: The Birth of vi

How would you rate John Carmack? I'm pretty sure he uses an IDE for development,

First of all, I think it's important to understand that Emacs pretty much is an IDE in its own right, and I say this as a Vi user. That's why Emacs users say "Emacs is my operating system, and Linux its device driver." Vi users don't have so much built into the editor, but as Larry Wall once pointed out, the entire Unix command line toolset is an IDE in its own right, and you can access it all from inside Vi. So that's point number one: just because someone isn't using a GUI based editor, that doesn't mean they're not using an IDE.

Secondly, I think programmers that cut their teeth on DOS/Windows have a different perspective on things. The basic windows environment is (from a Linux users viewpoint, admittedly) incredibly hostile to performing any sort of programming action. Even the .NET SDKs are lacking in basic command line tools, and in any event the .NET languages seem broken by design in order to make Visual Studio look better value for money. So that the second point: Windows programmers who try the command line have such an awful experience that they acquire a deep seated horror of coding without a mouse and desktop. Sadly, this all to often leads them to assume that anyone still using the command line has vestigial gills and needs to spawn in water in order to reproduce, and that's where the trouble starts... ;)

There's a lot to be said for being comfortable at the raw text file level, but I think you're missing out on a lot of productivity enhancers if you're going to write off all modern tools.

Oh hell, yes! I wouldn't do without the Gimp, for instance, and while I've occasionally found it convenient to draw UML diagrams using ASCII Art, it's far more sensible to use a tool like visio or inkscape.

Re:So let the flame wars begin!

On: The Birth of vi

Cool. Interesting article.

Of course, it would help a lot of we had a bit more breakdown on the test subjects, say by computer experience and familiarity with GUIs. For all we know, the power user segment may have consistently beaten the stopwatch on keyboards, bit overall the mouse wins because they tested more naive users. I'd guess that's what they did, because OS developers put such a high priority on newbie-friendliness

We should also bear in mind that the article discusses multi-application usage in an environment where the hotkeys are acknowledged to be inconsistent and illogical. In fact the author even admits that the keyboard would be faster, except that the user takes as long to remember what the hotkeys are for a given app as it does the mouse user to switch to mouse and back. So for a single application task such as editing, or an environment with sensibly defined hotkeys there's every reason to believe that the conclusions don't hold up

But the most important point is this one:

Not that any of the above True Facts will stop the religious wars. And, in fact, I find myself on the opposite side in at least one instance, namely editing. By using Command X, C, and V, the user can select with one hand and act with the other. Two-handed input. Two-handed input can result in solid productivity gains (Buxton 1986).

I don't know if you intended this link as a rebuttal, but it seems the authority you cite actually agrees with me.

Re:So let the flame wars begin!

On: The Birth of vi

why would you learn any of those? At all? Most people today, including most computer people, don't seem to share your belief that it's evil to place your hand on the mouse.

Because they're faster. Just like it's faster to use Control+S to save a document than it is to use the mouse to open the file menu, position the pointer over the save entry and press the button.

Plus you can use vi or emacs in situations where you don't have a GUI available, or on boxes where there isn't much memory to spare, and you'd rather the resources went to GCC than to an X-Server.

Re:user expectation

On: Dark Corners of the OpenXML Standard

To normal non-nerd users and most nerds as well, a document is a jumble of letters.

... and you know, that comment makes perfect sense, if only you assume that this is nothing more than a "open-office-is-better-than-ms-word" dicksize war.

Trouble is, the debate is about open formats not about applications. So it doesn't make the least little bit of difference what the user sees a document as being, because this isn't about interfaces, it's about file formats. And outside of Microsoft if not within, we tend to expect developers working on office suites to have a slightly more sophisticated conception of a document than "a jumble of letters".

Sorry to burst your bubble, dear Holy Priest Of The Most Highest XML.

I think you'll find you missed. Feel free to try again.

OOXML's Origin Is Not The Problem

On: Dark Corners of the OpenXML Standard

ODF is a nice idea in theory, but really, it's a similar situation (OpenOffice.Org internal dataformat jammed into a standard, so designed with OO.o in mind by necessity)

The ODF format must necessarily describe the structure and layout of an office document. There's no need for it to reflect the internal data structures of any specific application, except to the extent that they too describe office documents.

OOXML includes data elements that should be part of internal import routines rather than being enshrined in the document format, and it includes elements that are not specified except by reference to applications for which no public specs exist. This is the problem, not the fact that OOXML is derived from MS Office file formats.

RTF. It may not get press attention, but it's actually a fairly well-documented standard, has been working as an interchange format for years, and yet is designed with enough expandability that it's still useful with the kinds of documents produced today. It's a true de-facto standard.

Well, I was a big fan of RTF at one time. But a few years back I found that documents with any kind of formatting more complex than paragraph+justification+font just wasn't working between MS Office and back. I don't know if this was because the format couldn't cope, or because of faulty implementations. In either case, it led me to give up on RTF.

In any event, to be a replacement, RTF would need to work for spreadsheets and presentations at a minimum - something I don't think there's a lot of support for in the current RTF specification. We'd also lose the benefits of an XML based format, which given the amount of work on the seamless integration of XML documents into databases, web services and other data management applications means losing a lot of functionality.

for those who really want interoperability, RTF is the way to go with today's software

Interoperability is only part of the problem. We also want a spec that can be fully and freely implemented by anyone, which isn't under the control of any single vendor.We want a format to which we can entrust documents, knowing that in twenty years time there will be an application capable of reading them.

an unnecessary dichotomy is drawn between OpenXML and ODF with regard to their design goals - both are repurposed native formats for a single application.

I don't know what you mean by native in this case, but the repurposing of OOXML isn't the problem. It's one of size and obfuscation, and as TFA points out specification by reference to closed formats and the behaviour of extinct proprietary software. These are non trivial problems with OOXML which are not (to the best of knowledge) found in ODF.

There's nothing wrong with ODF. Re-creating it based on the non-XML RTF would be a waste of time and effort.

Re:My own perspective

On: Post-Novell Interview With Jeremy Allison

I think what you're trying to say here is that "radical" and "hysterical" are words with subjective definitions, which I'll concede...at least to a point. ;-)

There's also the point that even if someone is hysterical, if they've contributed to a project, they should get a say in matters concerning that project's future.

My only point was that although I might have no problem whatsoever with "radical" and "hysterical" perspectives being part of the discussion myself, it might damage "our" (like you, used in a broad sense) case with people who we potentially may need to have on side if we want to derail the development of the cryptographic DRM that you've defined.

I can see that, I suppose. The idea of a couple of thousand geeks faxing Senator Bedfellow with the message "ZOMG! STFU!!111 J00 R TEH SUXXOR, D00D" (or words to that effect) is certainly a scary scenario.

On the other hand, I can't see the problem going away any time soon. Maybe we need to learn to work around it. Which presents some interesting problems in and of itself. We can't just set up an organisation to speak for the community: We already have the FSF, the OSI, the EFF, there are spokesmen for distros and for major projects all of whom get to put their oar in - and none of them are accepted by all. It's the "herding cats" problem on a massive scale, and I don't think we can solve it by imposing structure. I think any solution is going to have to be more "bazaar" than "cathedral".

I wonder how the civil rights movement dealt with this in the sixties. There seem to be quite a few parallels...

My own reading about Raymond would tend to lead me to believe that the reason why he thinks corporations are so important is possible because (and to some extent this seems to be how some of the BSD people think as well, from what I've read) corporate dollars and corporate adoption both are important for any given software's long-term survival...be it Windows, Linux, FreeBSD or whatever.

I've never understood that, as regards BSD. I mean the BSD didn't get a penny (as far as I know) when MS slurped their TCP/IP stack, and I don't think they've had any real investment based on Apple's forking of BSD for OS/X. I do think that BSD's freely available software helps promote standards, since it makes it easier for vendors to abandon their own in-house solutions and to embrace an emerging standard. But I don't think there's been much in the way of financial encouragement. I think it's another case of goal distraction, where corporate adoption has come to be seen as a goal in its own right, rather than a means to an end

I also tend to actually view Raymond and Stallman as each representing two extreme poles ... I tend to suspect that in this case a healthy perspective exists somewhere in the middle

I quite agree. The trouble with walking the middle ground is that both sides tend to think you're an extremist from the opposing viewpoint, but it's still the only sane place to be.

I can't completely purge myself of the sneaking belief, however hard I try, that what Stallman ... really wants is power over others

Interesting, isn't it? I'd say there's a definite element of Control Freak in his makeup. I sometimes wonder if the Church of St.iGNUtious guys who so lionize and give him so much uncritical reinforcement are doing him any favours in the long term

Still balanced against that are his foresight, his skill in drafting the GPL and the fact that his intentions seem entirely honourable. Based on that I'm inclined to cut him a lot of slack. I just wish he wouldn't be such a tosser about the GNU/Linux thing

Incidentally, thanks for an interesting discussion. The non-trolling approach suits you.

Re:My own perspective

On: Post-Novell Interview With Jeremy Allison

I'm surprised I've had this much of a response to the parent, particularly given that one of said replies is from Mr Allison.

Well, he hadn't replied when I started my response. Obviously Jeremy can speak for himself far better than I can speak up for him :)

I don't like the idea of a scenario developing where anybody who uses open source needs to feel that they are held ideologically over a barrel by its' developers.

I'll just note in passing that the GPL specifically discaims any restrictions on the use of the software. If you distribute then you have to abide by some restrictions, but as a user, you don't have to do or think anything you don't want to.

I know that's not quite your concern, but bear with me a moment.

I have tended to feel, I will be honest, that the "leaders" of the "community" hold an expectation that anybody who uses Linux should adopt their worldview in general and become a fully certified member of "the movement," over and above simple compliance with the GPL.

I don't know that I agree with that. As I see it:

• Richard Stallman: Believes that Free Software is a moral imperative. Seems to think everyone will agree with him if he can only explain it properly.
• Linus Torvalds: Believes in share and share alike. Doesn't much care about the GPL beyond that. More interested in working software than social reform
• Eric Raymond: Values Open Source for the efficiency of the development model. Seems to hold adoption by businesses as the most important goal for FOSS.
• Theo de Raatd: Thinks the GPL imposes too many restrictions. More interested in Freedom than in social reform.

I don't think any of these people insist you adopt their worldview, although all of them will be happy to talk your ear off trying to persuade you to adopt it. Theo will probably swear at you if you argue, and Linus will give up and go do some real work after a while. The most insistent is probably Stallman, and he's the guy who put the "no restrictions on use" clause in the GPL.

On the other hand, it's important to recognise that the Free Software Movement has its fair share of trolls. These are they ones that will say things like "if you don't like the ideology, go back to using Windows". In some cases it's simple ignorance - I think there are a lot of kids, young enough to see every moral issue in black and white and who've learned the rhetoric without stopping to understand the underlying issues. Others I suspect (in my more paranoid moments) are trying to undermine the movement by encouraging it to take a more extreme stance in the hopes of alienating potential supporters.

In either case, the proper response is to suggest the amend the licence to require whatever adherence it is they seem to demand. Failing that, you might find you feel more comfortable with one of the BSDs, where the zealotry seems to be reserved for unco-operative hardware manufacturers and binary blobs.

The FSF apparently do not want (and have done their best in my perception to erradicate) any distinction between compliance with the GPL in specific legal and moral terms on the one hand, and becoming ideologically beholden to them in any manner they choose to define on the other.

I grant there's a faction that acts like that, and I can see how you might come to see them as dominant - but that doesn't really match my impression of the FSF overall.

I feel that the close to hysterical level of fear of DRM in particular that I have seen online at times genuinely is irrational, unproductive, and disproportionate.

DRM is a particular problem. We're talking about a technology that can be used to produce hardware that will only run software signed by a certain cryptographic key. Depending on who controls that key, the potential fo

Re:My own perspective

On: Post-Novell Interview With Jeremy Allison

I feel he is seriously overestimating his own importance if he thinks his resignation is actually going to matter, or dissuade Novell from continuing in the agreement.

From TFA:

I don't want to give my efforts to a company that is willing to try and trick their way out of their license obligations on my software.

That doesn't sound much like "I think my resignation is very important and will single handedly force Novell to discontinue their agreement". At least not the way I read it. It doesn't sound particularly juvenile, either. The man disagreed with company policy, and was willing to put his money where his mouth is.

I'd call that acting with integrity, personally.

I'm also deeply sick of reading about Bruce Perens displaying the attitude that the entire rest of the planet has to conform with his expectations. Who exactly do you think you are, Bruce? Calling on people to leave a place of employment strongly implies that you consider yourself an authority figure of some type.

I don't know how Bruce thinks of himself (he'll probably tell you if he sees your post) but I think "activist" is a better word than "authority". I mean people over here call for Tony Blair to quit his job all the time. I don't think any of them regard themselves speaking with any particular authority - unless you count the authority that comes from knowing a subject very well - and I think most people would concede that Bruce knows Free Software better than most.

Looking at it another way, I don't always agree with him, but his opinion is usually of interest.

The Linux community does not need to risk damaging itself by attempting to accelerate the process.

I don't think we want to send the message that conspiring to work around the GPL is acceptable behaviour. That's not an attitude we should encourage, IMHO.

The real problem with so many Linux people that I'm seeing is fear...you absolutely reek of it.

You are absolutely right: that does sound needlessly trollish.

Re:It's about time...

On: 2006 - The Year the FSF Reached Out

The typical production budget for a Pixar film is approaching $100 million USD.

Just because one figure is very big, and the other was very small, that doesn't mean the DVDs are not badly overpriced.

But let's talk about Pixar. Let's talk about Cars

Cars had a production budget of $120 million. That's high-end for Pixar, who shot The Incredibles for 90 million, but your average of 100 million works fine for recent Pixar films. Cars took $60 million in its first week of cinematic release. And, apparently, cars was considered something of a flop, by Pixar standards. The film went on to take $244 million US dollars on the domestic market, and another $217 million worldwide.

When Cars was released to DVD, it didn't owe anyone a penny. And this, by Pixar standards, was reportedly a failure, remember.

So the main economic constraints on the DVD price is the cost of pressing, storing and shipping the physical DVDs. That still left DVD sales prices greatly over-inflated, but for a long time this wasn't widely appreciated. Then P2P networks cropped up, and broadband became common enough to make downloading a movie a practical proposition, and at the same time newspapers and magazines starting giving away DVDs free, which gave the consumer a clearer ideal of the production and distribution costs entailed.

And suddenly it's a lot harder to justify that twenty dollar price tag.

Key Words: "Emergent Behaviour"

On: Study Finds Linux 'Ready For Prime-time'

You're halfway there: it's possible to consider a corporate entity as goals and behaviours distinct from the people who form its constituent parts. Think "emergent behaviour".

So, yeah, I don't have any particular axe to grind against Microsoft employees (at least those whose names are not "Gates" or "Ballmer" at any rate. But that doesn't mean the I have to approve of MS policy, its corporate culture, and it most certainly doesn't require me to maintain a neutral attitude towards the corporation.

Given their hostility towards a social movement I hold dear, that would be silly, really.

Re:It's about time...

On: 2006 - The Year the FSF Reached Out

Does the Geek ever stop to think his language brings back memories of the wearisome, sophomoric, political rants and slogans that most of us leave behind when we are out of college?

What about taking a large, diverse group of people, lumping them all together under a capitalised adjective, and then ascribing certain character flaws to this entity in order that you may criticise it? That seems quite wearisome and sophomoric in itself.

That said, if we can detach your critique from geekdom in general, and ascribe to some of the more overtly political FSF elements, then I'd say you had a point. The trouble is that FSF terminology takes its lead from Stallman, and Richard's rhetorical style seems to have crystallised sometime around 1973 or so. I don't suppose there's much fixing it, sadly.

The mainstream politician ignores these issues because these issues will never become mainstream as the Geek defines them. If the FSF wants to be politically effective, it needs to listen more and shout less.

I think the shouting is essential. They could do with a lighter touch on the terminology, perhaps, but it's had to see how people will listen to them if they shut up.

Perhaps there's a sort of goal distraction effect there: if you take the FSF as going mainstream as being more important than Freedom and Software, then I suppose it would make sense for them to shut up and tune their message to fit in better with mainstream politics. It's just that going mainstream isn't the most important aim of the FSF, and nor should it be.

To the home user, rental and subscription services offer added value. That the content is protected against re-distribution through the P2P nets is not the end of the world.

mmm... the trouble is that media giants made their money as distributors. Now that P2P is available as a distribution medium, the only way to maintain the old pricing model is by means of an artificial scarcity. Or to put it another way, the prices charged for DVDs and CDs is a massive rip-off, and that's something joe public will care about. It just needs explaining in the right terms.

Re:This article needs to be changed.

On: Microsoft Laptop Recipient Auctioning Laptop

glad you pointed that out. I might have missed it otherwise.

Re:This article needs to be changed.

On: Microsoft Laptop Recipient Auctioning Laptop

And people learn to hear the truth despite the spin after a fairly quick time

Well, people certainly seem to have made that adjustment in the case of Microsoft. It's got the point that if Steve Ballmer holds a press conference and says "Hey Everybody! The sky is blue!" then I'm comfortable operating on the assumption that someone's painted green with red polka dots, at least until such time as I can get to a window and check.

The free software doesn't yet have such a reputation. Some people may think us hopeless naive, but I've never seen it seriously suggested that we are cynical habitual liars. And for the life of me, I can't see how it would benefit us to gain such a reputation.

Besides which, this isn't a case where if Microsoft tells bigger lies than we do, we don't get to eat for a month. The worst that happens is that the purchaser gets subjected to another does of the Microsoft Experience, and we get another chance to further down the line.

As someone pointed out elsewhere in this thread - this is not a zero sum game.

Re:This article needs to be changed.

On: Microsoft Laptop Recipient Auctioning Laptop

At first, I would give correct estimates.

The guys that gave incorrect estimates got the job.

I can see you're coming from, but I'm not sure your experience generalises well for the Free Software community. For one thing, you describe a situation where lying bore no penalty, and where there was no benefit to telling the truth. I don't think that's the case here. If nothing else, we can be sure that MS will jump all over any FUD we generate, and use it to discredit the community as a whole.

Re:This article needs to be changed.

On: Microsoft Laptop Recipient Auctioning Laptop

I know, it's easy to assume you are being attacked when someone replies on slashdot,

True enough :)

Are you going to send it out with a fully stocked laptop that will perform excellently, or a mediocre/minimum spec laptop that might expose the usable hardware requirements?

Well, if the minimum requirements were honestly written, it wouldn't make any difference. They could still have sent minimum price beige boxes. The ultra slim, ultra-portable Acer Ferrari machines does seem to be overdoing it somewhat.

I maintain that the ethics of reviewing an OS and posting it on a blog... and receiving something in return for it... resides with the blogger.

I'm right with you there to the extent that we shouldn't be telling bloggers what code of ethics should govern their blogging. I'm less keen on the idea that there should be no concept of impropriety for the rest of the world. It seems a bit like saying that the ethics of bribing a policeman resides purely with the officer in question. If there was no penalty for attempting a bribe then people would try it quite routinely, I suspect, which seems bound to increase the number of bribes accepted and the overall level of corruption.

Re:This article needs to be changed.

On: Microsoft Laptop Recipient Auctioning Laptop

I don't argue against sticking to the truth; I merely want to point out that "better" is sometimes a self-delusion when measured subjectively or with moral standards.

Fair enough. Personally, I'm not entirely happy with ethical relativism personally, if only because it seems so often abused to justify patently anti-social actions performed out of naked self interest and greed.

Still, we don't need Absolute Morality for this to work, either. I think there's a broad ethical consensus; one that says that telling the truth is a good thing, and that lying is bad, and that people or groups that tend to tell the truth are "better" than those who routinely lie and deceive. It's perhaps an old fashioned use of the term, but I don't think there's any ambiguity of meaning involved.

Re:This article needs to be changed.

On: Microsoft Laptop Recipient Auctioning Laptop

We're not selling anything. We don't need to lie. We just need to write good software.

Re:This article needs to be changed.

On: Microsoft Laptop Recipient Auctioning Laptop

I haven't made up my mind on the issue, but keep in mind that Microsoft has beaten opponents "better than they are" over and over and over again, mainly through judicious application of bribes, FUD, and monopoly market power.

Well, obviously I think the moral argument is reason enough. But if we look at it from a purely pragmatic viewpoint: we don't have the bribe money or the market monopoly power to compete with them. So that only leaves us with FUD. And the trouble with FUD is that it comes apart under close examination.

If I was with Microsoft, I'd wake up each morning praying that the Community would launch a major FUD offensive. Because the moment they did, I'd pick it apart and dissect each and every one of the lies, and then spam the story around all of MS pet columnists and bloggers. And they way I'd spin it would be that the free software community talks big, but if we really had software that was any good, we wouldn't need to lie about it. And that, IMHO, would be the end of our credibility in the enterprise market. Overnight we'd stop being a social movement with a product as good as better than the professionals had to offer, and in the eyes of corporate America we'd be back to a bunch of smelly hippies and spotty teenagers who can't spell Microsoft without the use of a dollar sign.

Purely my personal opinion, but that's how I'd play it if I were in MS's corporate shoes.

I hope you're right in point #2. But I'm not at all certain, and this wouldn't be the first time Microsoft beat out someone with a superior reputation, superior product, and superior starting position.

We don't have a superior starting position though; we came from behind with no budget, no userbase, and with software that was in many respects inferior. Now we have a range of windows managers that are as good or better than Microsoft offer and competitive software packages for just about every endeavour under the sun. And we've done this without lies, or FUD, or even marketing.

Why mess with a winning formula?

Re:This article needs to be changed.

On: Microsoft Laptop Recipient Auctioning Laptop

Define "better"

Used in this case in the sense of moral and ethical superiority.

Anyone can define better so as to be on top by it's definition.

Possibly. But what I'm doing here is explaining the sense in which I was using the word in order to clarify my position.

B&W imagery serves a purpose of exaggerating differences, and symbolising them.

I'm not remarking on the extremity, but rather the false dichotomy: This wasn't so much "black and white" as "green and square".

MS is not a person, and you cannot say it's wealthy.

Oh, do behave. Microsoft is a corporation, and I believe the adjective wealthy is adequately defined over the domain of corporations. It's got what? 400 billion in the bank? It's certainly difficult to think of it as impoverished.

Oh, and if Free Software is not a business, then it also doesn't compete with MS, and all this is not relevant, right?

Three points there:

• Free software is indeed not a business.
• That does not however mean it doesn't compete with Microsoft. It does however mean we have no obligation to follow ethically dubious practices in the name of shareholder value or whatever today's euphemism may be.
• All what is not relevant to what, exactly?

My point was that the free software community is best served by sticking to the truth. I can't see how our relationship to Microsoft alters this in any way.

Re:This article needs to be changed.

On: Microsoft Laptop Recipient Auctioning Laptop

This entire 'scandal' is a lie. Let's ding Microsoft when they really deserve it.

Well, the basic facts don't seem to be under dispute.

• Microsoft did send laptops to the bloggers in question (and possibly more that have chose to keep schtumm about it). They don't seem to dispute this.
• Microsoft did say that the laptops did not need to be returned.
• Some of the bloggers felt this was being overly generous and mentioned it on their blogs
• Apparently, Microsoft then send some emails "clarifying" their intention.

So there's no lying there, unless MS have recently denied the bloggers' claims about the initial letter.

Somehow the story of "Is Microsoft trying to sway popular bloggers into writing favorable reviews in return for laptops?" has turned into "Microsoft bribing bloggers with laptops" and now "Microsoft is backpedaling and TELLING bloggers to send the laptops back."

Fair comment about the use of the word "telling". That's how I got into this discussion - defending the proposition that the Community is better served by the truth. I'm not sure I see a distinction between "trying to sway with laptops" and "bribing with laptops" though.

Facts are, they are looking for some cheap marketing, giving away a handful of laptops to some popular bloggers to give a review of Vista with no-strings-attached.

They gave some very swish, very expensive laptops away. They could have shipped minimum spec beige boxes, and we probably wouldn't be having this discussion.

The bloggers ethically should disclose the laptop with the review, although some won't, but that's more of a problem with trusting bloggers and not a problem with Microsoft.

Why try and spin this as a problem with blogger ethics? A number of the bloggers did disclose the gift/loan/whatever of the laptop. That's how the story broke.

Microsoft didn't TELL anyone to do anything, they merely asked them not to keep the laptop afterwards because of the absurd "bribing" news.

Is the bribe aspect of the story really so absurd? I think the interesting question that arises from this is "what level of generosity is appropriate in such circumstances?"

This is just a case where Microsoft can't win because you guys are too busy trying to ding them because the ends justifies the means, right?

Given that I'm the chap saying how we shouldn't stoop to mischaracterising Microsoft's clarification, I'm not entirely sure how I got to be one of the guys trying to ding them, and I'm quite specifically saying that the end does not justify the means. So I don't know where you're coming from with that one.

On the other hand, if Microsoft are finding people reluctant to give them the benefit of the doubt, I will humbly submit they have only themselves to blame. Maybe if they'd lied less in the past, we might be more inclined to believe them now.

Re:This article needs to be changed.

On: Microsoft Laptop Recipient Auctioning Laptop

Unfortunately that tends to be "We are going to lose, but don't know it" speak. I wonder how many politicians have been elected on the platform of "We don't have to lie because we are better" great...and you also aren't elected so your policy of not lying really means about squat because the guy who is telling all the lies is the 'decider'.

You know, I think that the fact that strategy can work in politics says more about how badly broken western electoral systems are than it does about the viability of the strategy.

Re:This article needs to be changed.

On: Microsoft Laptop Recipient Auctioning Laptop

Define "better":

Used in this case in the sense of moral and ethical superiority.

Under real-world rules, though, we suck. Heavily.

You speak for yourself, mate.

That's why we chatter on Slashdot, and they drink Dom Perignon.

Given how precise you are about definitions, it's interesting that you're casting these as polar activities - as if no Linux user ever opened a bottle of Champers. It's not like no Microsoft shill was ever found astroturfing on Slashdot for that matter.

More to the point, I think that's a popular misconception. Microsoft started this game in a position of overwhelming dominance. Free Software continues to eat away at their market share. The fact the Microsoft remains wealthy doesn't mean Microsoft are winning - they're just taking a long time to lose.

Re:This article needs to be changed.

On: Microsoft Laptop Recipient Auctioning Laptop

I was unaware there was a war being waged.

I didn't actually use the word "war" and I'm not sure what you intend it to mean. Still, SCO's lawsuit has been quite nakedly hostile to Linux and to the Free Software Movement in general, so I'm reasonably comfortable with the notion that there is an ongoing conflict. And given the money trail from SCO back to Microsoft (Baystar, and MS initial oversized licence fee to name but two) I'm satisfied that Microsoft are the aggressors.

I wouldn't criticise you for declining to join in the defence action, but to suggest there is no conflict seems utterly absurd.

I use Linux and Windows and have for many years (Slackware 1), but I could care less about your "war" I only care about what works.

Splendid! Then, since you don't care so much, there's no need for you to go getting your knickers in such a bunch, is there?

Re:This article needs to be changed.

On: Microsoft Laptop Recipient Auctioning Laptop

"I hate MS as much as anyone, but there's no need to make stuff up."

Why not? Ballmer makes shit up all the time, so does gates, so does every other CEO if every other corporation, so does president, vice president and every politician known to mankind.

Why not?

• Because we're better than they are.
• Because we don't need to lie to win this fight
• Because lying devalues our credibility, and the truth is our best weapon.
• Because telling the truth and writing better software seems to be working
• Because Microsoft has better liars than we have, and can pay for more mouths to shout the lies. To fight them on their own terms would be suicidal.

But mainly, because we're better than they are. And that should be reason enough.