If it is (and I think it is), then kdawson, you really need to give this up already. You are fast becoming notorious for posting complete non-stories, especially when the subject is Microsoft.
Major ISP's in the US have told me in meetings that P2P makes up 70-80% of their total traffic. Do you really believe that the majority of this is legal content?
That's not for the ISP to decide.
The immediate question isn't whether the traffic is legal.
The question is whether torrents can be throttled to control costs and reduce their impact on other users.
If the answer to that question is "yes" - as it almost certainly will be if you share a network connection - and have to live to within the bounds of your ISP's terms of service - then it all comes down to this:
"Legitimate" content and "Trusted" sources will get priority. The ISO of your favorite Linux distro is in. The unknown and likely pirated DiVX rip is out. This doesn't have to be BT as you know it. It could be an ISP administered P2P net.
Bandwidth caps and surcharges will have teeth. You either live within these limits or you will be pushed into paying for a higher tier of service.
Why did the mountain come to Mohamed? Why did IBM go shopping for a floppy DOS? A floppy DOS is a weekend project for IBM. They could have made a better PC-DOS than Microsoft ever has, at a lower price for themselves and their customers.
The IBM PC was designed by a small team operating outside the normal corporate schedule and with a mandate to get an affordable product to market quickly. The IBM PC Concept.
The team - quite sensibly - began looking at sub-contractors like Digital Research and Microsoft which had a track record in the infant PC market.
Yhese folks don't need any sophistication. and they need only the most basic options. Adjustable text size would be nice, but otherwise -- no email, no word processing or editing, no printing -- just Internet browsing.
I disagree.
Used imaginatively, the computer can break down the physical isolation of the elderly and disabled. Help them to read, to write, to speak their mind freely. Don't deny them the benefits of e-mail, instant messaging and chat.
Don't deny them a printer. Encourage them to personalize their small - institutionalized -space with letters, photographs, graphics of every kind. Let them fill scrapbooks, albums.
There is so much out there that they would enjoy.
My grandmother loved the sentimental artwork of the Victorians, Coolidge's poker-playing dogs.
If they are lucky, there will be - one - Reading Radio station programmed to their needs and tastes. On the Internet, there may be dozens, hundreds.
Don't ignore the mental and physical challenge of online games and puzzles.
Companies large and small rely on the huge discount that comes from selling OEM versions of Windows on their hardware, but the license terms prevent those vendors from selling PC's with no operating systems installed on them as well as PC's set up to dual boot Windows along with any other operating system
The market for the "naked" PC is essentially that of the purchase order in units of 100 to 1000.
In the home and SOHO markets the OEM system install has been the gold standard in retail for over twenty-five years.
No one but a Geek "Dual Boots" by choice.
Maintaining two operating systems, two program libraries and two skill sets is unfun.
It is essentially an admission that your primary OS doesn't support all the software you need to do your job.
There are enormous economies of scale in building and marketing for the Windows platform.
The $800 Dell Inspiron Vista Premium Laptop will feature a dual core CPU, 2 GB RAM, a 120 GB HDD, and a DVD burner -- tech that simply isn't imaginable at mass market pricing in 1992.
Honestly I think this is a good thing as far as the law is conserned, basicly it makes it so no goverment or private emloyeer in the state is allowed to write into your employment contract that you have to accecpt a possable life time change to your body.
a division of our NPO that provides sheltered employment and community services for the elderly and disabled enforces increasingly strict requirements for medical screening, physical conditioning, vaccination and so on.
it has become essential for the protection of the clients, it has become essential for the protection of the staff.
Checkmate. Google owns the news. Game over for your local paper. I predicted this many years ago.
The game begins for your local paper.
The Niagara Falls Reporter is a free tabloid that efficiently - and hilariously - extinguished the career of the most corrupt and incompetent mayor this border town has known in living memory.
It succeeds by relying on a minimal staff, reporting and opinion with strong local roots - in John Hanchette, for example, it has a founding editor of USA Today,a former editor of the Niagara Gazette and a man with a Pulitzer to his credit and a national reputation as a journalist and teacher.
These students are being taught to use a system that is ultimately not in their own interests.
"Kid Nation" is a fantasy.
Scripted and monitored by adults behind the scenes.
The classroom is a supervised environment precisely because kids don't have the experience or the maturity needed to make the right decisions in an unsupervised environment.
And, of course, a steady supply of advertising and "product placement".
I don't see any hint of of this on Networld's School Web Lockers home page. What I do is a link to to an add-free online demo, using the simplest of text and calendar displays.
We have seen this happen before where Dell shipped FreeDOS systems that actually cost more than with Windows (which means there is definitely malarky going on there).
Mass market retailer sells a gazillion Windows system bundles.
Many will ship pre-loaded with $200 OEM MS Office. Many will ship with upgraded wideo and other options.
The plain vanilla FreeDOS PC sells in purchase orders of 100-1000 units. No problem there.
It is servicing the Geek who expects mass market consumer pricing and service on a "naked PC" that has no consumer market that costs you money.
customers are not demanding better interoperability. The concept of interoperability is not all that hard for customers to comprehend. In fact people have always demanded interoperability. But MSFT successfully convinced the customers, interoperability is synonymous with MSFT compatibility. Only when customers demand true interoperability, things will change
when MS is on 90-95% of the world's desktops and OSX 4% and MS Office dominates on both platforms, then - in a coldly preactical sense - MS compatability is what matters. what the user doesn't need, the user doesn't ask for.
Does it surprise you when artistic and production credits for a movie are shared among four hundred people? That a product - any product - needs experts in finance, marketing, and so on?
It always amazes me how the Pope can tell us so much about what is right and wrong in areas where he has no experience. Does he have to worry about taxes? Does he have to make decisions on how to handle his money so he can figure out if he can afford to keep making house payments? He's isolated, doesn't have to deal with most of the issues most people have to deal with, yet he tells Roman Catholics how to handle all those issues.
Of course the Pope is concerned about money.
The Roman Catholic Church has been funding schools, hospitals, charitable institutions and enterprises of every sort for 2,000 years.
In 1952 Mother Teresa opened the first Home for the Dying in space made available by the City of Calcutta. With the help of Indian officials she converted an abandoned Hindu temple into the Kalighat Home for the Dying, a free hospice for the poor. She renamed it Kalighat, the Home of the Pure Heart (Nirmal Hriday). Those brought to the home received medical attention and were afforded the opportunity to die with dignity, according to the rituals of their faith; Muslims were read the Quran, Hindus received water from the Ganges, and Catholics received the Last Rites. "A beautiful death," she said, "is for people who lived like animals to die like angels -- loved and wanted." Mother Teresa soon opened a home for those suffering from Hansen's disease, commonly known as leprosy, and called the hospice Shanti Nagar (City of Peace). The Missionaries of Charity also established several leprosy outreach clinics throughout Calcutta, providing medication, bandages and food. Mother Teresa
The whole discussion is word play. For some people (most people on Slashdot) "operating system" means the kernel only.
I doubt it. Even on Slashdot posts about Linux are rarely posts about the kernel.
OSX and Windows prosper precisely because users are distanced from the kernel. Users aren't interested in the internal structure of an OS, only in how easily they can communicate their intent to an OS.
Microsoft are forced to offer the same price for OEM licenses to all retailers
This is nothing more than a resurrection of the old price-fixing scheme - the "fair trade price" - intended to drive the volume purchaser - the discount retailer - out of the market.
Retailers are forced to offer systems without an OEM license, should the customer ask for it, with the cost reduced in accordance with the price of the license
In other words, retailers should be forced to offer a product that their mass market customers abandoned twenty-five years - thirty years ago - because it appeals only to the technical hobbyist and the IT pro.
No matter that the "naked box" has its own marketing, inventory and support costs. No matter that the OEM Windows box usually ships with popular and profitable OEM installs like Microsoft Office.
Microsoft is banned from charging more for their retail version than the OEM license.
Now THAT would actually cause them to shit themselves.
Nope.
That would cause the geek to shit himself because he knows damn well that pirated Windows is the OS of choice world-wide. The steeply discounted legit installer is another nail in the coffin.
Personally, I think the whole anti-trust thing has been a joke. It has had no teeth and no real effect.
Anti-trust sentiment in the states has always been short-lived.
It was a fairly common thing for an oil lamp or a kitchen stove to blow up in your face. Petroleum at retail prices was expensive. Standard Oil changed all that.
When the cartel was broken, customers didn't flee to the small independents as the reformers expected, they stuck with Rockefeller's regional operating companies - and the old man prospered.
I would be (literally!) very happy to be proven wrong. Do you have an example of another productive, exporting industry in the US?
Agriculture.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 31, 2007 - Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns today announced a record $79 billion forecast in FY 2007 agricultural exports. For fiscal year 2008, USDA forecasts exports to reach $83.5 billion with growth and new sales across all major agricultural product groups. U.S. Agricultural Exports Expected To Reach Record Levels
Because the rover drivers might use the rover to suicide-bomb.... something. That crater over there, maybe?
We have had the unsolved anthrax poisonings. Is it so impossible to imagine an engineer sabotaging a $600 million dollar space project over a grievance that no one else will ever really understand?
I think the statistics you're quoting are not very relevant, because the browser dictates how the computer interacts with a site, not the OS.
W3Schools also publishes stats on display resolution, color depth and so on.
The web developer can't ignore the platform. If you are streaming media to a high-performance Vista Premium PC you need to know what its user expects in terms of sound and video.
A new OS or fork that fails to gain more than 4% of the user base in 9 months could only be considered a success in Redmond.
4% in nine months looks a hell of a lot better than the ten years it took Linux and the twenty-three years it took the Mac to reach and hold the same market share.
We have already been through a Christmas and back to school sale
Vista missed its Fall 06 target.
OS upgrade vouchers for a warmed-over XP box do not have the same appeal to the upgrade-conscious buyer as an OEM install on a DX10 system with all the bells and whistles.
Microsoft will have a new product out this fall in Windows Home Server.
Release a brand new OS and a brand new Office suit and then see no difference to your bottom line.
MIcrosoft saw a record $51 billion in revenues in its last fiscal year.
Slashdot Mirror
I thought Twitter owned that franchise.
When did the ISPs become common carriers?
Cable Internet Service Not Common Carrier
That's not for the ISP to decide.
The immediate question isn't whether the traffic is legal.
The question is whether torrents can be throttled to control costs and reduce their impact on other users.
If the answer to that question is "yes" - as it almost certainly will be if you share a network connection - and have to live to within the bounds of your ISP's terms of service - then it all comes down to this:
"Legitimate" content and "Trusted" sources will get priority. The ISO of your favorite Linux distro is in. The unknown and likely pirated DiVX rip is out. This doesn't have to be BT as you know it. It could be an ISP administered P2P net.
Bandwidth caps and surcharges will have teeth. You either live within these limits or you will be pushed into paying for a higher tier of service.
Please explain to me why a pilot as experienced as Fossett does not file a flight plan - does not carry a beacon.
In 1975, IBM's 5100 "Suitcase" PC sold for $9-$20,000.
The IBM PC was designed by a small team operating outside the normal corporate schedule and with a mandate to get an affordable product to market quickly. The IBM PC Concept.
The team - quite sensibly - began looking at sub-contractors like Digital Research and Microsoft which had a track record in the infant PC market.
I disagree.
Used imaginatively, the computer can break down the physical isolation of the elderly and disabled. Help them to read, to write, to speak their mind freely. Don't deny them the benefits of e-mail, instant messaging and chat.
Don't deny them a printer. Encourage them to personalize their small - institutionalized -space with letters, photographs, graphics of every kind. Let them fill scrapbooks, albums.
There is so much out there that they would enjoy.
My grandmother loved the sentimental artwork of the Victorians, Coolidge's poker-playing dogs.
If they are lucky, there will be - one - Reading Radio station programmed to their needs and tastes. On the Internet, there may be dozens, hundreds.
Don't ignore the mental and physical challenge of online games and puzzles.
The market for the "naked" PC is essentially that of the purchase order in units of 100 to 1000.
In the home and SOHO markets the OEM system install has been the gold standard in retail for over twenty-five years.
No one but a Geek "Dual Boots" by choice.
Maintaining two operating systems, two program libraries and two skill sets is unfun.
It is essentially an admission that your primary OS doesn't support all the software you need to do your job.
The suggested retail price for Windows 3.1 in 1992 was $149.95
Microsoft Announces Worldwide Availability of Windows 3.1
Vista Home Basic Full Version is $183 at Amazon.com and $139 at Royal Discount Technologies
Windows is approaching one billion users on the desktop - one Windows PC for every 6.5 people on the planet. Microsoft Antitrust Settlement Is a Success!
There are enormous economies of scale in building and marketing for the Windows platform.
The $800 Dell Inspiron Vista Premium Laptop will feature a dual core CPU, 2 GB RAM, a 120 GB HDD, and a DVD burner -- tech that simply isn't imaginable at mass market pricing in 1992.
a division of our NPO that provides sheltered employment and community services for the elderly and disabled enforces increasingly strict requirements for medical screening, physical conditioning, vaccination and so on. it has become essential for the protection of the clients, it has become essential for the protection of the staff.
The game begins for your local paper.
The Niagara Falls Reporter is a free tabloid that efficiently - and hilariously - extinguished the career of the most corrupt and incompetent mayor this border town has known in living memory.
It succeeds by relying on a minimal staff, reporting and opinion with strong local roots - in John Hanchette, for example, it has a founding editor of USA Today,a former editor of the Niagara Gazette and a man with a Pulitzer to his credit and a national reputation as a journalist and teacher.
"Kid Nation" is a fantasy.
Scripted and monitored by adults behind the scenes.
The classroom is a supervised environment precisely because kids don't have the experience or the maturity needed to make the right decisions in an unsupervised environment.
I don't see any hint of of this on Networld's School Web Lockers home page. What I do is a link to to an add-free online demo, using the simplest of text and calendar displays.
Which means at any given moment you will offer a half dozen or so systems for sale with an absolute minimum of options in hardware and software.
Mass market retailer sells a gazillion Windows system bundles.
Many will ship pre-loaded with $200 OEM MS Office. Many will ship with upgraded wideo and other options.
The plain vanilla FreeDOS PC sells in purchase orders of 100-1000 units. No problem there.
It is servicing the Geek who expects mass market consumer pricing and service on a "naked PC" that has no consumer market that costs you money.
when MS is on 90-95% of the world's desktops and OSX 4% and MS Office dominates on both platforms, then - in a coldly preactical sense - MS compatability is what matters. what the user doesn't need, the user doesn't ask for.
Does it surprise you when artistic and production credits for a movie are shared among four hundred people? That a product - any product - needs experts in finance, marketing, and so on?
Of course the Pope is concerned about money.
The Roman Catholic Church has been funding schools, hospitals, charitable institutions and enterprises of every sort for 2,000 years.
In 1952 Mother Teresa opened the first Home for the Dying in space made available by the City of Calcutta. With the help of Indian officials she converted an abandoned Hindu temple into the Kalighat Home for the Dying, a free hospice for the poor. She renamed it Kalighat, the Home of the Pure Heart (Nirmal Hriday). Those brought to the home received medical attention and were afforded the opportunity to die with dignity, according to the rituals of their faith; Muslims were read the Quran, Hindus received water from the Ganges, and Catholics received the Last Rites. "A beautiful death," she said, "is for people who lived like animals to die like angels -- loved and wanted." Mother Teresa soon opened a home for those suffering from Hansen's disease, commonly known as leprosy, and called the hospice Shanti Nagar (City of Peace). The Missionaries of Charity also established several leprosy outreach clinics throughout Calcutta, providing medication, bandages and food. Mother Teresa
I doubt it. Even on Slashdot posts about Linux are rarely posts about the kernel.
OSX and Windows prosper precisely because users are distanced from the kernel. Users aren't interested in the internal structure of an OS, only in how easily they can communicate their intent to an OS.
This is nothing more than a resurrection of the old price-fixing scheme - the "fair trade price" - intended to drive the volume purchaser - the discount retailer - out of the market.
Retailers are forced to offer systems without an OEM license, should the customer ask for it, with the cost reduced in accordance with the price of the license
In other words, retailers should be forced to offer a product that their mass market customers abandoned twenty-five years - thirty years ago - because it appeals only to the technical hobbyist and the IT pro.
No matter that the "naked box" has its own marketing, inventory and support costs. No matter that the OEM Windows box usually ships with popular and profitable OEM installs like Microsoft Office.
Microsoft is banned from charging more for their retail version than the OEM license.
Now THAT would actually cause them to shit themselves.
Nope.
That would cause the geek to shit himself because he knows damn well that pirated Windows is the OS of choice world-wide. The steeply discounted legit installer is another nail in the coffin.
US agriculture is also supporting a domestic population of 300 million.
Anti-trust sentiment in the states has always been short-lived.
It was a fairly common thing for an oil lamp or a kitchen stove to blow up in your face. Petroleum at retail prices was expensive. Standard Oil changed all that.
When the cartel was broken, customers didn't flee to the small independents as the reformers expected, they stuck with Rockefeller's regional operating companies - and the old man prospered.
Agriculture.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 31, 2007 - Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns today announced a record $79 billion forecast in FY 2007 agricultural exports. For fiscal year 2008, USDA forecasts exports to reach $83.5 billion with growth and new sales across all major agricultural product groups. U.S. Agricultural Exports Expected To Reach Record Levels
We have had the unsolved anthrax poisonings. Is it so impossible to imagine an engineer sabotaging a $600 million dollar space project over a grievance that no one else will ever really understand?
W3Schools also publishes stats on display resolution, color depth and so on.
The web developer can't ignore the platform. If you are streaming media to a high-performance Vista Premium PC you need to know what its user expects in terms of sound and video.
4% in nine months looks a hell of a lot better than the ten years it took Linux and the twenty-three years it took the Mac to reach and hold the same market share.
We have already been through a Christmas and back to school sale
Vista missed its Fall 06 target.
OS upgrade vouchers for a warmed-over XP box do not have the same appeal to the upgrade-conscious buyer as an OEM install on a DX10 system with all the bells and whistles.
Microsoft will have a new product out this fall in Windows Home Server.
Release a brand new OS and a brand new Office suit and then see no difference to your bottom line.
MIcrosoft saw a record $51 billion in revenues in its last fiscal year.