Well it does if you take the quote out of context instead of reading the whole sentence and realizing that "rather than instructions" was a requirement as well.
Really though, a high level language which isn't even easier to use is no less a high level language. Just a shitty one;)
Just one anal point here. C IS a high level language. A high level language is any language which uses commands and functions rather than instructions. You must be confusing VERY high level languages with high level languages. Most (but not all) very high level languages are interpreted.
High and very high level languages consist of most languages. Low level languages are short in supply, mostly being limited to assembler and machine code.
Gee, I remember when programs intentionally written to crash the OS were simply considered lame not security exploits?
Or have they been grasping at straws lately trying to come up with linux exploits so they decided to make this sound a bit more grand?
I can write one for Windows, MacOS, Linux, etc etc etc for eternity. Hell on most OS's simply using enough memory will do it.
There are easier ways, how about pressing the power button? or perhaps ctrl+alt+delete. Yup, uber security exploit which takes down the system, allows no code execution or priv escalation, gives absolutely no access to anything the user shouldn't have access to and will result in immediate termination of his account when you do a process audit... just like doing the same thing a million other ways will.
Give them a compiler and they can bring down the system, each time every time, ANY system. But I'd hardly call that an exploit.
That's right, the global technical community. Slashdotters, open source advocates, programmmers abound.
Let's set actual security aside for a minute. And lets set hardware drivers aside for a minute.
How long would it take any child in a high school BASIC class to write a program which can print out selection menus and accept input variables that represent votes. How long to add accurate logging? 30 minutes? an Hour?
Claiming these problems are all accidental might fly with the technically ignorant. But I'd be willing to bet at least 80% of those reading slashdot at this moment could write a program that was more functional without doing anymore debugging than it takes to get it to compile, and do in under an hour. Toss back in the drivers and I'd bet at least 60-70% of us could do it in less than a week, from top to bottom.
I'd also bet with only that level of debugging we'd have it more secure than this is the first time around. And after a month of turning it loose on the open source community have it locked down so tight it would never actually be hack (of course we'd continue finding theoretical holes... there are always theoretically exploitable holes).
The entire effort of commercial voting vendors insults the intelligence of programming everywhere. Diebold yes, but the rest of them as well. For god sakes the php webserver announced last night as simple as it was, was 1000x more complex than the software these guys are claiming they can't get right!!!!
So my friends thats what we have, and we have to let the rest of the world know better. We at least have to try. Go pay a visit to your family, give them a call or what have you. Bring up this subject and explain how trivial and disgusting this is. It's starts there. Let all your friends know. Everyone in the world is supposedly linked by a small association chain, lets prove it.
Don't waste time writting email and letters to bought and paid for congressmen who don't read them and send back cookie cutter responses. Tell the PEOPLE. Get press if you can. Send in letters to editor of the local paper, start with the small ones until it's so public the big ones have to carry it. Forget the government, outrage the PEOPLE.
Now when 200+ million americans are pounding on their doors demanding open source voting software, THEN we'll see how long they throw up red tape.
1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems
(a) Violations Regarding Circumvention of Technological Measures. -- (1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."
The title being 17, in other words, this applies to any technical measure on any copyright work.
Which includes CSS on dvds.
If you read further in that section you'll see the librarian of congress can exempt works, the librarian exempted these and only these (hint to save 30 seconds of your life, dvds under any circumstance are NOT on the list):
"(1) Compilations consisting of lists of Internet locations blocked by commercially marketed filtering software applications that are intended to prevent access to domains, websites or portions of websites, but not including lists of Internet locations blocked by software applications that operate exclusively to protect against damage to a computer or computer network or lists of Internet locations blocked by software applications that operate exclusively to prevent receipt of email.
(2) Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete.
(3) Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.
(4) Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work (including digital text editions made available by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the enabling of the ebook's read-aloud function and that prevent the enabling of screen readers to render the text into a specialized format."
Since you seem to be incapable of looking anything up on your own. The burden is on you to show ME where in the DMCA it says that decrypting (using something other than the licensed algorithm, thus circumventing the technical measure) a dvd for playback on your computer without authorization to do so, is an exception to this.
I'll help. You'll find Title 17 of the US Code Here at Cornell. Or you might prefer to look at it at the US Copyright Office. Or Brits might trust Oxford a bit more.
Have a good day.
P.S. I'm sure your fingers will heal and you'll be able to verify or fail to verify whether or not things you read in slashdot comments are true all by yourself next time.
The DMCA is already on the books. It's not a question of will a legislative body do it, they already did it.
The DMCA doesn't make running a different operating system illegal directly. The DMCA makes circumventing technical measures implemented for copy protection illegal... even if your doing so to accomplish a legal end on something which is your own property.
That's in the US, AFAIK there is a DMCA clone going through the process in the EU (if it hasn't already passed) and one has already passed in Australia. I could be mistaken about the status of the bills in Aussie and Euro though... I only care so much since it's already passed here.
Since this DRM will be used to make sure you are using legally licensed software, music, copy of windows, etc it will be illegal to circumvent it to accomplish the perfectly legal end of installing another OS.
The same law makes it illegal in the US to play DVD's under linux. There is no commercial linux dvd player software. People have reverse engineered the technology for the purpose of playing DVD's on linux and written open source software to do it. However thanks to the DMCA it's illegal to download one of these programs in the states to play a DVD you own, on a computer you own, running a legally licensed program and Operating system.
That's the sad thing, the illegitimate uses of these tools (copy protection circumvention) were already illegal under existing legislation (copyright law) worldwide BEFORE the DMCA... the only thing the DMCA did was make the legit ones illegal as well.
After all, there are alot of things software, music, and hollywood industries don't want you to do but copyright law allows you to do currently. This bill means they can implement some technically weak protection which prevents you from doing those things despite copyright law, and the DMCA stops you from doing them.
If you've been a DMCA supporter prior to this. I hope now with a couple practical examples you see that there are some of us who don't like the DMCA and for reasons which have absolutely nothing to do with wanting to pirate music or movies.
Here in the US, the broadcast flag was approved by the FCC (Federal Communication Commision) and will be required in all cable and tv devices. The broadcast flag technology is patented, this alone almost creates a monopoly for those who hold the patent since every tv, vcr, cable box, and dvd player manufacturer will be required to pay them royalties... but you could reverse engineer it and write a "clean room" implementation on your own before.
BUT since this is for copy protection purposes, the DMCA covers it, even if you can figure out how to write a system to support the flag all on your own that doesn't violate the patent, it's illegal to do so now.
They've already said what the truth is in internal documents which the EU published in it's ruling. According to Microsoft, Microsoft stuff has a VERY high TCO compared to it's competitiors (including linux).
But there are still a few problems with your post. The first and biggest being that we have 10yrs to find out. If linux doesn't gain a substantial following before longhorn is running on a substantial number of pc's then all is lost. Not because longhorn will be better than linux, quite the contrary, but rather because of DRM'd bios + longhorn problems spelling the end to linux. Or at least a decade setback while we struggle with figuring out a way to run linux without violating the DMCA.
You see, the problem isn't cracking the DRM... I'm sure it'll be cracked within 48hrs prior to release;) The problem is that doing so will be illegal under the DMCA.
Since you'll no longer have cheap intel boxes running anything other than windows, there goes any hope of the desktop or the low end server market.
If MS hasn't already lost in 10yrs, it won't matter how pissed customers will be. They'll have no other alternatives.
In the case of a non-profit coffee shop, no it would not be a business.
In the case of a non-profit anything it would not be a business. The pattern you should have noticed is that all relevant definitions (unlike the one you chose to post which refers to an individual's business rather than the entity (ie "My personal business." As opposed to "McDonald's is a sucessful business."). However if he employees anyone the coffee shop, then their job would be their business by the definition you've found.
Reply if you feel you need the last word, but I'm finished with this thread. First it's something rather silly to debate about to this length. Second the dictionary says your wrong, take it up with them. And Third, it could be that the everyday usage of this term in other places in the world like Europe could differ from here in the US.
A coffee shop exists for the purpose of making profit like any other business. Refer to starbucks for the ultimate example of this.
They sell you coffee. They don't sell the coffee at cost, they don't even sell the coffee at total cost including overhead. They sell it at cost plus overhead, plus a markup. That's so they can turn a profit. If they are just breaking even, guess what, coffee will cost more next week.
If they can't get away with raising prices, you can bet the owner or manager or whoever is actually running the show isn't happy about it and will take the first opportunity they see to change it. They might be a smart manager, and looking for the first opportunity that complies with their long term viability and thus increases their lifetime profit... but that's not any less about profit.
Businesses, Foundations, and non-profits are all types of Organization.
Yes, there are many definitions, here are a few from the dictionary.
" a commercial or industrial enterprise and the people who constitute it; "he bought his brother's business"; "a small mom-and-pop business"; "a racially integrated business concern"
" the activity of providing goods and services involving financial and commercial and industrial aspects; "computers are now widely used in business"
" the principal activity in your life that you do to earn money; "he's not in my line of business""
" An organization operated with the objective of making a profit from the sale of goods or services"
" An organization established for generating profit. A commercial organization."
" An organization that operates with the objective of earning a profit. "
" An organization created with the objective of making a profit from the sale of goods or services."
" Includes all activities engaged in or caused to be engaged in with the object of gain, benefit or advantage, direct or indirect. "
That's a good thing, really it's the minimum to do if running a windows network. Unfortunately if that's their extent those restrictions wouldn't mean much if I sat down at one of the workstations.
At Sony they had the most realistic viewpoint of all. While they locked the windows network down all they could, on day one they advised all new hires that they weren't challenging them with security. They admitted there probably people who could crack their security. They said you can but don't, because in the end we will catch you and you'll be fired.
Get rid of IE. True you can't uninstall it, but you can at least use a different default browser.
If your a network administrator and there are certain websites that are needed for work and require IE, that's simple enough to solve.
Install a proxy, set IE to use that proxy and have the proxy only allow those websites to load. Then pre-load IE with those favorites. Finally have every user send each company an email a day bitching about their broken software.
The additional cost of the IE proxy, well simply explain to management that is part of the overhead of using windows and IE. Further explain that website X, X, X, X are security holes and that for now you've got to do the best you can to get around it. When they balk at the security thing, explain that at least weekly for the past couple years there has been a vulnerability in IE which could have given complete access to accounting.
That puts things in perspective. Now you can use Mozilla/Firebird, users can still browse those sites they need for work that are IE only. And the boss is aware that Microsoft = serious security risk, one that would allow someone else to take their money and devalue the company stock.
History is irrelvent in this case. What was is NOT what is.
The change is not good, and I'd have never argued to a statement of past tense.
But his post was in the present tense, and hence yesterday is irrelevant, if what he said isn't true today then his statement in the present tense is not true.
Although most of these ideals were never true, Ford is a good example. Ford had a good PR image, but Henry ford was a good example of man who was all about making money. Right up there with Ben Franklin and most of the others who pioneered in the foundations of the corporate world.
Either I misposted or you misread. you have to take my post in the context of the post I was answering. I didn't intend that as a single statement or unified thought, but two seperate thoughts.
That it's illegal was not intended as the proof that their actions are immoral. While I do believe proof needs to be given for this, I believe enough has already been given by Microsoft themselves.
Practices ranging from price fixing, to false advertising, to suing charities who supply donated computers to children in third world countries like Australia (the fsckin pirates, didn't even have the guts to install the OS's themselves, they left whatever OS was already installed on the computers!). Is there anybody who is actually going to claim Microsoft wears a white hat rather than black?
I don't recall imposing anything on anyone. Just the opposite, I'm being kind enough to post comments that others might read if they so chose.
I'm hardly forcing anyone to read them, or agree with them. I didn't even say that nobody would question it's immoral. I said "surely" nobody would question it's immoral. I'm am in fact sure of it... I don't believe you think their actions are moral either.
The reason for my belief is simple.
1. Believing they should have the freedom to carry out those immoral actions is hardly the same as believing the actions themselves are moral.
2. Liking windows itself and supporting Microsoft under fire, also does not mean you genuinely believe their business actions are moral.
3. Being willing to engage in similar tactics certainly doesn't mean you actually believe the actions are moral, even if that is what you tell others.
4. Not believing in the concept of morality and thus not caring about their actions implies a belief that those actions are not moral (since you don't believe any are) and hence they are immoral.
Personally I suspect most who would claim they don't believe actions like false advertising are immoral (something Microsoft engaged in with their TCO campaign which is still going on, and was proven false by internal MS documents released by the EU in their ruling), really fall into either cat 2 or 3, but that's just my suspicion. Just as saying that I'm sure of something can't more blatantly announce I'm intending to give a firm opinion rather than stating a fact.
Maybe so, maybe so. But ummm the article you pointed to was referring to a non-profit organization. Precisely what does that have to do with a business, which is the opposite of a non-profit?
Or perhaps they are educated enough to know that an over the top installation IS a reinstall.
A reinstall to me is defined as replacing core system files to repair a problem or odd behavior. Yes you rarely have to reinstall ALL of the OS but you reinstall constantly on windows by my definition.
You've missed the point, if you don't have at least one slightly corrupted system file on your system I'd be amazed. If there is not at least one piece of broken registry in there somewhere i'd be in awe.
Because literally 99% of installations that appear to go perfectly break SOMETHING. Break doesn't always mean you can't boot or that things don't APPEAR to be functioning properly.
If you repair your own windows system it's almost guaranteed that you've fixed at least something that didn't make sense. Perhaps by reinstalling an application, or an over the top windows install, or booting from the XP cd and running the repair. Do you think there are magical computer gnomes which cause these things? Nope, it's shitty OS design.
Simply knowing enough to do an over the top installation rather than a reinstall or to repair chunks of the OS rather than reinstall doesn't mean you suffer from bitrot less than anyone else, it just means you use a smaller hammer to fix it.
A fun experiement is to install systemworks and let the norton utils repair the system, the accelerate bitrot quite astonishingly.
Most "legit" applications don't run under a user account on windows either. That's problem number 1. Problem 2 is that permissions aren't really the issue here, they are a workaround. The flaw is in IE, and IE is part of the windows distribution... are part which has intentionally been integrated to the point it cannot be removed if using the explorer shell, and was integrated as such for the sole purpose of ensuring you can't get rid of it.
So yes, as long as Microsoft is aware of the problems with activex, and vbscript (it's the very concepts that are bad, not merely the details of implementation or security holes) and continues to distribute and support it anyway... Microsoft is definately to blame for all spyware, viruses, worms, hacks, etc.
After all over 99% of spyware comes from browsing the web with IE, NOT from downloading shareware/freeware (although it might not feel that way to p2p users who likely blame the p2p software which installs 2 spyware programs for all 400+ on their system).
In terms of the home directory yes, although there is nothing as bloated, nasty, and fragile as the windows registry on a *nix system;)
The flaw is actually in the browser, most spyware comes from browsing the web with internet explorer including the nastiest of it. Freeware and Shareware are responsible for less than 1% of spyware overall.
Now I would never call the browser part of the OS, which is better defined as the kernel. But it is certainly part of the distribution. In the case of windows there is no way to remove IE. Thus it goes full circle and is in fact a windows problem... just not a permissions problem.
"The advantage of competitors is that your competitors do some of the foot-work for you, take some of the risks for you. What you want to do is wait until the copmetitor has made a new product work, then beat their product.
Of course, that's what Microsoft is so good at... "
Umm well yeah, what you want to do is wait for the competitor to make a new product and then beat it.
What Microsoft does is the same, except that instead of beating it, they leverage their monopoly (given by ibm, not earned on their own merit) to push into the masses a competiting ALMOST compatible product that is just different enough as to not cooperate with the competitors whatsoever in ways that make the competitors product appear broken and buggy.
THAT is what Microsoft is good at. I've never known Microsoft actually release a superior product in order to take over a market.
Slashdot Mirror
Well it does if you take the quote out of context instead of reading the whole sentence and realizing that "rather than instructions" was a requirement as well.
;)
Really though, a high level language which isn't even easier to use is no less a high level language. Just a shitty one
Just one anal point here. C IS a high level language. A high level language is any language which uses commands and functions rather than instructions. You must be confusing VERY high level languages with high level languages. Most (but not all) very high level languages are interpreted.
High and very high level languages consist of most languages. Low level languages are short in supply, mostly being limited to assembler and machine code.
Gee, I remember when programs intentionally written to crash the OS were simply considered lame not security exploits?
Or have they been grasping at straws lately trying to come up with linux exploits so they decided to make this sound a bit more grand?
I can write one for Windows, MacOS, Linux, etc etc etc for eternity. Hell on most OS's simply using enough memory will do it.
There are easier ways, how about pressing the power button? or perhaps ctrl+alt+delete. Yup, uber security exploit which takes down the system, allows no code execution or priv escalation, gives absolutely no access to anything the user shouldn't have access to and will result in immediate termination of his account when you do a process audit... just like doing the same thing a million other ways will.
Give them a compiler and they can bring down the system, each time every time, ANY system. But I'd hardly call that an exploit.
That's right, the global technical community. Slashdotters, open source advocates, programmmers abound.
Let's set actual security aside for a minute. And lets set hardware drivers aside for a minute.
How long would it take any child in a high school BASIC class to write a program which can print out selection menus and accept input variables that represent votes. How long to add accurate logging? 30 minutes? an Hour?
Claiming these problems are all accidental might fly with the technically ignorant. But I'd be willing to bet at least 80% of those reading slashdot at this moment could write a program that was more functional without doing anymore debugging than it takes to get it to compile, and do in under an hour. Toss back in the drivers and I'd bet at least 60-70% of us could do it in less than a week, from top to bottom.
I'd also bet with only that level of debugging we'd have it more secure than this is the first time around. And after a month of turning it loose on the open source community have it locked down so tight it would never actually be hack (of course we'd continue finding theoretical holes... there are always theoretically exploitable holes).
The entire effort of commercial voting vendors insults the intelligence of programming everywhere. Diebold yes, but the rest of them as well. For god sakes the php webserver announced last night as simple as it was, was 1000x more complex than the software these guys are claiming they can't get right!!!!
So my friends thats what we have, and we have to let the rest of the world know better. We at least have to try. Go pay a visit to your family, give them a call or what have you. Bring up this subject and explain how trivial and disgusting this is. It's starts there. Let all your friends know. Everyone in the world is supposedly linked by a small association chain, lets prove it.
Don't waste time writting email and letters to bought and paid for congressmen who don't read them and send back cookie cutter responses. Tell the PEOPLE. Get press if you can. Send in letters to editor of the local paper, start with the small ones until it's so public the big ones have to carry it. Forget the government, outrage the PEOPLE.
Now when 200+ million americans are pounding on their doors demanding open source voting software, THEN we'll see how long they throw up red tape.
"TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 12 > Sec. 1201.
1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems
(a) Violations Regarding Circumvention of Technological Measures. -- (1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."
The title being 17, in other words, this applies to any technical measure on any copyright work.
Which includes CSS on dvds.
If you read further in that section you'll see the librarian of congress can exempt works, the librarian exempted these and only these (hint to save 30 seconds of your life, dvds under any circumstance are NOT on the list):
"(1) Compilations consisting of lists of Internet locations blocked by commercially marketed filtering software applications that are intended to prevent access to domains, websites or portions of websites, but not including lists of Internet locations blocked by software applications that operate exclusively to protect against damage to a computer or computer network or lists of Internet locations blocked by software applications that operate exclusively to prevent receipt of email.
(2) Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete.
(3) Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.
(4) Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work (including digital text editions made available by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the enabling of the ebook's read-aloud function and that prevent the enabling of screen readers to render the text into a specialized format."
Since you seem to be incapable of looking anything up on your own. The burden is on you to show ME where in the DMCA it says that decrypting (using something other than the licensed algorithm, thus circumventing the technical measure) a dvd for playback on your computer without authorization to do so, is an exception to this.
I'll help. You'll find Title 17 of the US Code Here at Cornell. Or you might prefer to look at it at the US Copyright Office. Or Brits might trust Oxford a bit more.
Have a good day.
P.S. I'm sure your fingers will heal and you'll be able to verify or fail to verify whether or not things you read in slashdot comments are true all by yourself next time.
Just because the packages exist doesn't make using them legal. They are perfectly legal everywhere but the states.
The DMCA is already on the books. It's not a question of will a legislative body do it, they already did it.
The DMCA doesn't make running a different operating system illegal directly. The DMCA makes circumventing technical measures implemented for copy protection illegal... even if your doing so to accomplish a legal end on something which is your own property.
That's in the US, AFAIK there is a DMCA clone going through the process in the EU (if it hasn't already passed) and one has already passed in Australia. I could be mistaken about the status of the bills in Aussie and Euro though... I only care so much since it's already passed here.
Since this DRM will be used to make sure you are using legally licensed software, music, copy of windows, etc it will be illegal to circumvent it to accomplish the perfectly legal end of installing another OS.
The same law makes it illegal in the US to play DVD's under linux. There is no commercial linux dvd player software. People have reverse engineered the technology for the purpose of playing DVD's on linux and written open source software to do it. However thanks to the DMCA it's illegal to download one of these programs in the states to play a DVD you own, on a computer you own, running a legally licensed program and Operating system.
That's the sad thing, the illegitimate uses of these tools (copy protection circumvention) were already illegal under existing legislation (copyright law) worldwide BEFORE the DMCA... the only thing the DMCA did was make the legit ones illegal as well.
After all, there are alot of things software, music, and hollywood industries don't want you to do but copyright law allows you to do currently. This bill means they can implement some technically weak protection which prevents you from doing those things despite copyright law, and the DMCA stops you from doing them.
If you've been a DMCA supporter prior to this. I hope now with a couple practical examples you see that there are some of us who don't like the DMCA and for reasons which have absolutely nothing to do with wanting to pirate music or movies.
Here in the US, the broadcast flag was approved by the FCC (Federal Communication Commision) and will be required in all cable and tv devices. The broadcast flag technology is patented, this alone almost creates a monopoly for those who hold the patent since every tv, vcr, cable box, and dvd player manufacturer will be required to pay them royalties... but you could reverse engineer it and write a "clean room" implementation on your own before.
BUT since this is for copy protection purposes, the DMCA covers it, even if you can figure out how to write a system to support the flag all on your own that doesn't violate the patent, it's illegal to do so now.
They've already said what the truth is in internal documents which the EU published in it's ruling. According to Microsoft, Microsoft stuff has a VERY high TCO compared to it's competitiors (including linux).
;) The problem is that doing so will be illegal under the DMCA.
But there are still a few problems with your post. The first and biggest being that we have 10yrs to find out. If linux doesn't gain a substantial following before longhorn is running on a substantial number of pc's then all is lost. Not because longhorn will be better than linux, quite the contrary, but rather because of DRM'd bios + longhorn problems spelling the end to linux. Or at least a decade setback while we struggle with figuring out a way to run linux without violating the DMCA.
You see, the problem isn't cracking the DRM... I'm sure it'll be cracked within 48hrs prior to release
Since you'll no longer have cheap intel boxes running anything other than windows, there goes any hope of the desktop or the low end server market.
If MS hasn't already lost in 10yrs, it won't matter how pissed customers will be. They'll have no other alternatives.
In the case of a non-profit coffee shop, no it would not be a business.
In the case of a non-profit anything it would not be a business. The pattern you should have noticed is that all relevant definitions (unlike the one you chose to post which refers to an individual's business rather than the entity (ie "My personal business." As opposed to "McDonald's is a sucessful business."). However if he employees anyone the coffee shop, then their job would be their business by the definition you've found.
Reply if you feel you need the last word, but I'm finished with this thread. First it's something rather silly to debate about to this length. Second the dictionary says your wrong, take it up with them. And Third, it could be that the everyday usage of this term in other places in the world like Europe could differ from here in the US.
A coffee shop exists for the purpose of making profit like any other business. Refer to starbucks for the ultimate example of this.
They sell you coffee. They don't sell the coffee at cost, they don't even sell the coffee at total cost including overhead. They sell it at cost plus overhead, plus a markup. That's so they can turn a profit. If they are just breaking even, guess what, coffee will cost more next week.
If they can't get away with raising prices, you can bet the owner or manager or whoever is actually running the show isn't happy about it and will take the first opportunity they see to change it. They might be a smart manager, and looking for the first opportunity that complies with their long term viability and thus increases their lifetime profit... but that's not any less about profit.
Businesses, Foundations, and non-profits are all types of Organization.
Yes, there are many definitions, here are a few from the dictionary.
" a commercial or industrial enterprise and the people who constitute it; "he bought his brother's business"; "a small mom-and-pop business"; "a racially integrated business concern"
" the activity of providing goods and services involving financial and commercial and industrial aspects; "computers are now widely used in business"
" the principal activity in your life that you do to earn money; "he's not in my line of business""
" An organization operated with the objective of making a profit from the sale of goods or services"
" An organization established for generating profit. A commercial organization."
" An organization that operates with the objective of earning a profit. "
" An organization created with the objective of making a profit from the sale of goods or services."
" Includes all activities engaged in or caused to be engaged in with the object of gain, benefit or advantage, direct or indirect. "
" the offering of a service or product for money"
Are we starting to see a pattern here?
That's a good thing, really it's the minimum to do if running a windows network. Unfortunately if that's their extent those restrictions wouldn't mean much if I sat down at one of the workstations.
At Sony they had the most realistic viewpoint of all. While they locked the windows network down all they could, on day one they advised all new hires that they weren't challenging them with security. They admitted there probably people who could crack their security. They said you can but don't, because in the end we will catch you and you'll be fired.
Get rid of IE. True you can't uninstall it, but you can at least use a different default browser.
If your a network administrator and there are certain websites that are needed for work and require IE, that's simple enough to solve.
Install a proxy, set IE to use that proxy and have the proxy only allow those websites to load. Then pre-load IE with those favorites. Finally have every user send each company an email a day bitching about their broken software.
The additional cost of the IE proxy, well simply explain to management that is part of the overhead of using windows and IE. Further explain that website X, X, X, X are security holes and that for now you've got to do the best you can to get around it. When they balk at the security thing, explain that at least weekly for the past couple years there has been a vulnerability in IE which could have given complete access to accounting.
That puts things in perspective. Now you can use Mozilla/Firebird, users can still browse those sites they need for work that are IE only. And the boss is aware that Microsoft = serious security risk, one that would allow someone else to take their money and devalue the company stock.
Your missing the last step, there is no such thing as a business that makes a profit to stay in business.
There are however businesses which make a profit to increase and stay in business so they can make more profit.
It's simply another strategy to achieve the ultimate goal of making more profit.
History is irrelvent in this case. What was is NOT what is.
The change is not good, and I'd have never argued to a statement of past tense.
But his post was in the present tense, and hence yesterday is irrelevant, if what he said isn't true today then his statement in the present tense is not true.
Although most of these ideals were never true, Ford is a good example. Ford had a good PR image, but Henry ford was a good example of man who was all about making money. Right up there with Ben Franklin and most of the others who pioneered in the foundations of the corporate world.
Either I misposted or you misread. you have to take my post in the context of the post I was answering. I didn't intend that as a single statement or unified thought, but two seperate thoughts.
That it's illegal was not intended as the proof that their actions are immoral. While I do believe proof needs to be given for this, I believe enough has already been given by Microsoft themselves.
Practices ranging from price fixing, to false advertising, to suing charities who supply donated computers to children in third world countries like Australia (the fsckin pirates, didn't even have the guts to install the OS's themselves, they left whatever OS was already installed on the computers!). Is there anybody who is actually going to claim Microsoft wears a white hat rather than black?
I don't recall imposing anything on anyone. Just the opposite, I'm being kind enough to post comments that others might read if they so chose.
I'm hardly forcing anyone to read them, or agree with them. I didn't even say that nobody would question it's immoral. I said "surely" nobody would question it's immoral. I'm am in fact sure of it... I don't believe you think their actions are moral either.
The reason for my belief is simple.
1. Believing they should have the freedom to carry out those immoral actions is hardly the same as believing the actions themselves are moral.
2. Liking windows itself and supporting Microsoft under fire, also does not mean you genuinely believe their business actions are moral.
3. Being willing to engage in similar tactics certainly doesn't mean you actually believe the actions are moral, even if that is what you tell others.
4. Not believing in the concept of morality and thus not caring about their actions implies a belief that those actions are not moral (since you don't believe any are) and hence they are immoral.
Personally I suspect most who would claim they don't believe actions like false advertising are immoral (something Microsoft engaged in with their TCO campaign which is still going on, and was proven false by internal MS documents released by the EU in their ruling), really fall into either cat 2 or 3, but that's just my suspicion. Just as saying that I'm sure of something can't more blatantly announce I'm intending to give a firm opinion rather than stating a fact.
"You need to watch those absolutes, John"
Maybe so, maybe so. But ummm the article you pointed to was referring to a non-profit organization. Precisely what does that have to do with a business, which is the opposite of a non-profit?
Or perhaps they are educated enough to know that an over the top installation IS a reinstall.
A reinstall to me is defined as replacing core system files to repair a problem or odd behavior. Yes you rarely have to reinstall ALL of the OS but you reinstall constantly on windows by my definition.
You've missed the point, if you don't have at least one slightly corrupted system file on your system I'd be amazed. If there is not at least one piece of broken registry in there somewhere i'd be in awe.
Because literally 99% of installations that appear to go perfectly break SOMETHING. Break doesn't always mean you can't boot or that things don't APPEAR to be functioning properly.
If you repair your own windows system it's almost guaranteed that you've fixed at least something that didn't make sense. Perhaps by reinstalling an application, or an over the top windows install, or booting from the XP cd and running the repair. Do you think there are magical computer gnomes which cause these things? Nope, it's shitty OS design.
Simply knowing enough to do an over the top installation rather than a reinstall or to repair chunks of the OS rather than reinstall doesn't mean you suffer from bitrot less than anyone else, it just means you use a smaller hammer to fix it.
A fun experiement is to install systemworks and let the norton utils repair the system, the accelerate bitrot quite astonishingly.
Of course he's not, that would be ridiculous!!!
You don't judge software based on the looks of the companies employees. You judge it based on the mascots!
It's Linux Penguin Tux, vs BSD Daemon, vs the MSN butterfly guy.
Most "legit" applications don't run under a user account on windows either. That's problem number 1. Problem 2 is that permissions aren't really the issue here, they are a workaround. The flaw is in IE, and IE is part of the windows distribution... are part which has intentionally been integrated to the point it cannot be removed if using the explorer shell, and was integrated as such for the sole purpose of ensuring you can't get rid of it.
So yes, as long as Microsoft is aware of the problems with activex, and vbscript (it's the very concepts that are bad, not merely the details of implementation or security holes) and continues to distribute and support it anyway... Microsoft is definately to blame for all spyware, viruses, worms, hacks, etc.
After all over 99% of spyware comes from browsing the web with IE, NOT from downloading shareware/freeware (although it might not feel that way to p2p users who likely blame the p2p software which installs 2 spyware programs for all 400+ on their system).
In terms of the home directory yes, although there is nothing as bloated, nasty, and fragile as the windows registry on a *nix system ;)
The flaw is actually in the browser, most spyware comes from browsing the web with internet explorer including the nastiest of it. Freeware and Shareware are responsible for less than 1% of spyware overall.
Now I would never call the browser part of the OS, which is better defined as the kernel. But it is certainly part of the distribution. In the case of windows there is no way to remove IE. Thus it goes full circle and is in fact a windows problem... just not a permissions problem.
"The advantage of competitors is that your competitors do some of the foot-work for you, take some of the risks for you. What you want to do is wait until the copmetitor has made a new product work, then beat their product.
Of course, that's what Microsoft is so good at... "
Umm well yeah, what you want to do is wait for the competitor to make a new product and then beat it.
What Microsoft does is the same, except that instead of beating it, they leverage their monopoly (given by ibm, not earned on their own merit) to push into the masses a competiting ALMOST compatible product that is just different enough as to not cooperate with the competitors whatsoever in ways that make the competitors product appear broken and buggy.
THAT is what Microsoft is good at. I've never known Microsoft actually release a superior product in order to take over a market.
You've got it backwards jack. Business exists to make profit. Their other stated goals are merely how they go about making profit.
Ford's goal is to make affordable cars so they can sell them in larger numbers, thus cutting out competition and making more money.
Since when does the marketing literature (ie stated goals) have much to do with reality?