The constant repetition of this annoys me. I see why people do it, since in the classic disruptive technology battle, the disruptive technology (Linux) overtakes the existing technology (Windows) and Bill Gates cries a lot.
Unfortunately in every aspect *except* price, Linux looks more like a sustaining technology vis-a-vis Windows. Linux is the more secure, more high-end, more niche-like product. In the disruptive technology model, what happens is that *Windows* becomes reliable "enough" and hacker-pleasing "enough" and takes over from Linux.
Now Linux is free...that is true. But that is the only way it is like a disruptive technology. In fact that is not really like disruptive technologies either. They are usually cheaper. Free is strange.
Now Linux is indeed a disruptive technology compared to something else -- Sun. Linux on a PC, compared to Sun on a Sun box, has all the classic hallmarks of disruptive technology, and in fact is doing so.
I ranted more about this last year on
another site. Here's a quote: "To take this to an extreme example, at some future date Windows CE might displace both Windows 2000 and Linux, and the Personal Web Server shipped with Windows might displace both Internet Information Server and Apache. This is highly unlikely, but it illustrates the direction in which disruption happens.".
And don't forget this
profound comment
where I ask the question ""Is the bazaar upmarket from the cathedral?" (read that again).
Trying to sell more books? Of course! You think I post here for my health? So go buy a couple copies already.
I dispute the statement that I am astroturfing however. First of all do you mean on behalf of the book, or of Microsoft. For the book, I am not being sneaky, I just put the site as my homepage (having nothing better to put). For Microsoft, it's true I worked there, but I don't anymore and I'm not posting because of some secret plan to help Microsoft...just interested in truth, justice, and high karma (which is getting dinged by those bogus Flamebait mods).
Driving on Redmond Way around 5:20 pm today, saw a dark green Jetta (I think) with a/. country oval (like the ones in Europe). Was it you?
Yes but between "dirty", "low", "doesn't play well with others" and
"violates antitrust laws and should hand over source code," there is a big gap, I think. Sure when you are a monopoly you have different rules but it doesn't mean your competitors get to design your products for you.
Microsoft implemented the CIFS protocol in Windows NT 4.0, where it is used for network file access in Microsoft Windows NT. Client systems use CIFS to request file and print services from server systems over a network.
...
Desler said that none of the three latest moves were necessary under the proposed settlement--also known as the consent decree--in the antitrust case between Microsoft and the Department of Justice, which requires Microsoft to disclose to third parties any communications protocol implemented in a Windows desktop operating system that is used to interoperate with a Microsoft server operating system.
...
"The CIFS, Kerberos and SISLP announcements are above and beyond the conditions of the consent decree. As such, this is yet another step we are taking to enhance the interoperability of Windows clients with non-Microsoft operating systems," he said.
For crackin' ice. Sometimes I wonder if I was fooled for 10 years and Microsoft really is a lying sack of crap. Let's see, CIFS is used for clients to request file and print services from servers...and the settlement requires Microsoft to disclose any communication protocol implemented in the Windows desktop that is used to talk to a server...and CIFS does not apply and is "beyond the conditions of the consent decree"?!?
I'll assume for now that this spokesman is just an idiot, but if not, this could indicate a very narrow interpretation of the decree on Microsoft's part. That is, if they take "implemented in the Windows desktop" to mean only network client code that is "in the desktop" (as opposed to in the kernel, say)...I figured "in the desktop" just meant "in the client"!
FYI I think Microsoft should release *all* it's source as I
stated
a year ago.
First of all, this kind of disclosure of communications protocols is one of the things addressed in the Justice Dept. agreement, as is mentioned in the article. Now the 9 dissenting states are claiming that there is wiggle room in the agreement. OK fine, clean that up...you don't need to call for full release of IE source code and sales of stripped-down Windows.
More importantly, what exactly is Microsoft so "guilty" of in this situation (I assume Red Hat is bitching about the Kerberos extensions). Read this
article
by Theodore Ts'o, one of the Kerberos developers at MIT. Microsoft changed its Kerberos extension in response to feedback on its initial design. Now it is true that it did not document the extension fully, but if you think about that article, Ts'o is really saying that Microsoft is not doing a good enough job of embracing and extending...because if Microsoft documented its NT PAC, they would have eagerly helped make it a standard.
Anyway, what Microsoft is doing with Kerberos is perfectly legal and allowed by the standard. Sure it might hurt Red Hat -- so what? Red Hat is a competitor of Microsoft!! It's not clear what Red Hat really wants from this case. Would they be happy with anything less than Microsoft going open source, releasing all their intellectual property, and a government guarantee of X% market share for Linux? If so, they are dreaming and I have little sympathy for them.
Here is a quote from the 3rd issue of PC Magazine, June/July 1982 (which also features a review of PC-FORTH by some dude named Eric Raymond)...this is from Paul Allen, Microsoft co-founder:
"It's important to realize that MS-DOS is part of a family of operating systems....Providing the user with a family of operating system capabilities means a clear migration path from MS-DOS to XENIX. That means compatibility for both the terminal end user and the systems programmer.
A standard library for XENIX-86 C will allow compilation of a program on XENIX system and then execution on MS-DOS....XENIX systems will be able to function as network file servers."
So as you can see, Microsoft had big plans for XENIX back then. As it turned out, XENIX's place in the Microsoft family was first taken by OS/2, and then by NT.
I talked to a lawyer about this at one point...she said that the employment contract language was standard boilerplate, it doesn't mean the company is a bad company, and in actuality as long as you did the work on your own time, with your own equipment, it was OK.
HOWEVER if the work you did on your own time was similar to the work you did at your job (i.e. you designed websites for your job and then you design websites on your own time) then they may have a claim. But typically you just need permission from your manager ahead of time ("Can I go hack websites on my own time?" "Yeah sure") to make your work yours again.
When I worked at Microsoft, they explicitly prohibited people from working on open source (this was not in the contract (or at least the one I signed years before), just in an email). The rationale was not to pollute *Microsoft's* code with GPL code that could then result in someone claiming that Microsoft's code needed to be GPLed (i.e. the opposite of what happened in the situation being discussed here).
A former Microsoft architect (Stone) commenting on a former Microsoft program manager (Spolsky)...put 'em together and you still don't have a single line of code!
The author throws out "lines of code" as a strawman measure of productivity, then proceeds to trash it (not too hard since everybody knows nowadays that it is bogus). Then he explains that he really doesn't know how to measure programmer productivity! Woohoo! Slow news day on slashdot??
It is amazing how much lameness people put up with from search engines right now. It's one of those things where people will look back in ten years and be amazed. Think of all the fiddling around you do with search terms to try to find what you want...gak! Search engines need to figure out what a page is actually about -- only then will they be reasonable.
Of course you can find things with search engines now. Google's "trick" of counting links helps a little bit for a particular class of query, which is when you know the name of an organization and you want to find its site...it works well because more people will link to the site as opposed to other sites that discuss it. But as I have written elsewhere, if AltaVista is 99% lame, then maybe Google is only 97% lame...which is three times better, but still terrible if you take a step back.
Now Google is doing a lot of good things outside from its basic search engine, which should be applauded. The caches, saving old Usenet posts, the image and catalog searches, etc. are all good things -- but they don't affect its basic ability to search well.
Further karma ho' expounding can be found
right here.
First of all, I don't like these "soft" RFCs (aside from joke ones) that are not technical.
Second of all, the RFC really has no force given the RFC language. The two key provisions, that companies SHOULD fix holes within 30 days, and that customers SHOULD apply patches in a timely manner, can both be ignored since "SHOULD" in RFC-speak is different from "MUST".
Thirdly, this RFC is a bit too targeted at Microsoft:
1) The Vendor SHOULD ensure that programmers, designers, and testers are knowledgeable about common flaws in the design and implementation of products.
2) Customers SHOULD configure their products and systems in ways that eliminate latent flaws or reduce the impact of latent flaws, including (1) removing default services that are not necessary for the operation of the affected systems, (2) limiting necessary services only to networks or systems that require access, (3) using the minimal amount of access and privileges necessary for proper functioning of the products...
This is too "ripped from today's Microsoft headlines". This stuff about removing default services is bogus. Something like UPNP in Windows (designed to makes things easy for novice users) is useful only if it is turned on by default. Anyway what does "not necessary for the operation of the affected systems" mean. You can run Linux without a GUI...so if an exploit is found in KDE or Gnome will someone jump up and say, "You enable the GUI by default and it wasn't necessary and you violated the RFC"? The solution to flaws in UPNP to not ship with them, not to disable everything in the box.
Fourth, what the heck is this supposed to mean:
7) The Customer SHOULD give preference to products whose Vendors follow responsible disclosure practices.
Can we please keep the social engineering out of the RFC -- this is an absurd requirement to put in there. Why not just say "Customers SHOULD give preference to open source software because we think it's k3wL"?
"Replacing its antiquated file system with modern database technology should also mean a more reliable Windows that's less likely to break and easier to fix when it does, said analysts and software developers familiar with the company's plans.
In the process, the plan could boost Microsoft's high-profile.Net Web services plan and pave the way to enter new markets for document management and portal software, while simultaneously dealing a blow to competitors."
OK I know FAT is antiquated, but NTFS is modern. In fact I recall it was announced at some point 3-4 years ago that OFS wasn't necessary because all the relevant features were being merged into NTFS? Maybe that was an internal announcement, one of the annual "we are finally merging our data stores" emails the top Microsoft brass would send out to the troops.
Anyway I don't see why this would make Windows less likely to break or easier to fix, or what it has to do with.NET...why does that kind of marketing fluff have to be included in a pretty reasonable article (and the sidebar is very nice)?
Maybe 500 was an exaggeration (given that the printing press was about that old)...but there are certainly 300 year-old books that are fine (not having been vacuum-sealed) and 100 year-old books are not even that unusual.
The article (or that part of it) reminds me of the people who claimed that newspapers were going to fall apart and they all needed to be microfilmed and stored that way...now the newspapers that were dumped are in such great shape that The Sharper Image is selling them for $30 a pop, and the microfilms are deteroriating, that is the ones that were made legible to begin with.
Copying bytes may be easy but every time I switch computers I have to worry about moving stuff and where is it stored, then there is 20-year-old stuff on 5 1/4" floppies...meanwhile my books from childhood are all doing great. Even the cheap-o dot-matrix printouts from my BBS days in 1983 are perfectly preserved, which is more than I can say for any data I had from back then.
Think of the Library of Congress who want to be able to store data forever. Let's think just 50 years from now. Even if they had the appropriate hardware, do you think they would have a copy of Microsoft Word 2000 handy? MS sure as hell won't be for sale and won't be supported. Would it run on any of the hardware available in 2052?
1) Google sucks. All search engines suck right now. Altavista may suck 99% and Google may only suck 97%, but they are all terrible, and will remain so until they can actually start to understand what a page is about. The author may bag on AI, and it it bad now, but it's the only hope for workable search engines in the future.
2) What is this absolute crapola about how bytes are more reliable than allegedly "fragile" books? Does this tubesteak realize that there are 500 year old books that are completely legible, while 15-year-old electronic data is unreadable? Yeesh. The only bright spot is that this guy's ravings are in electronic form, so future generations won't have to worry about them.
First Sun sued to require Microsoft to remove Java from Windows, now they are suing to require Microsoft to put it back in?
Hmmf. The AOL lawsuit is going to result in Microsoft putting Netscape's management on trial to show that they caused Navigator to tank...and this trial is going to result in Microsoft putting Sun's management on trial to show that they caused Java to go astray.
Forget the XFL...NBC should sell tickets to the software industry.
This is how he described it while speaking to the Windows 2000 team at a group meeting (2-3 years ago):
1) They made the first tape (I have the impression he was in Washington at the trial and the tape was being made back in Redmond, but I could be wrong). It turned out they had switched machines in the middle, which was evident because of some difference in the desktop.
2) They made a second tape, and amazingly managed to botch that one also...once again they had switched machines. Allchin said the people involved felt terrible about it (no word on if they were out on the street the next day).
3) They did the demonstration live, in Washington, with Allchin at the keyboard, with the judge, Felten and his grad students watching like hawks, and the claim Microsoft was making *was* verified.
Now that point #3 is just from Allchin's mouth, I have no independent verification, but if it is true (and I have no reason to doubt it), then despite the botched tapes, which hurt Microsoft's credibility, the point they were trying to make was valid.
The headline "Allchin Admits MSFT Violated the Law" is misleading/biased/troll/whatever. He only admitted that Microsoft was found to have violated the law. For legal purposes that is an irrelevant distinction once the verdict is in, but for slashdot purposes it is being sensationalist.
"he admits that the demonstration in court which showed this crippling was in fact rigged"
Gee does he? I must have missed where in the article he actually said that.
Plus the big claim that Allchin is admitting some big thing is overblown (admittedly the linked-to article makes the same mistake). If you wade through Allchin's
250+ page deposition, the exchange is (p. 27):
Q. Well, you understand, do you not, that Microsoft was found to have done certain things that violated the law?
A. Yes.
This is just a statement of fact...Microsoft was indeed found guilty. It doesn't imply he thinks Microsoft *should* have been found guilty.
In an interview in the very first issue of PC Magazine, February-March 1982 (a copy of which I am looking at right now), he said (p. 21-22):
In five years the cost of computation will really be effectively decreased. We'll be able to put on somebody's desk, for an incredibly low cost, a processor with far more capability than you could ever take advantage of. Hardware in effect will become a lot less interesting. The total job will be in the software, and we'll be able to write big fat programs. We can let them run somewhat inefficiently because there will be so much horsepower that just sits there.
This makes is unlikely he ever thought 640K would be enough...but he also said, in the same interview (p. 18-19):
16-bits is extremely important, and it is not because of speed...the main reason for the 16-bit micro being advantageous is its increased address space...The logical address space limit...is for all practical purposes gone away. The chip is designed to address a megabyte."
So he did seem to indicate that one megabyte address space was basically limitless.
Microsoft has had 3 releases of its mainstream OS to pound IE as far into the core as it wants to (disclaimer: although I worked on Windows, including Windows XP briefly, I have no internal knowledge of IE code integration).
To me this particular issue seems silly, since with software you can make almost anything depend on anything else. The question asked should be the more abstract one, "Should Microsoft be able to bundle a browser with its operating system" -- even if it was a completely separate app.
After all Microsoft is now bundling a media player and an IM client and who knows what-all else with its operating systems, none of which it makes any pretense are an integral part of the OS.
The embedded work involves splitting Windows into various "components" (thousands I think) and then creating a list of dependencies so you know what has to be included if you want a system with a network stack, or that can run user-mode apps, or whatever. A component is one file, or a group of binaries that are for practical purposes indivisible.
Now presumably if what Microsoft says is true, the states will discover that having a version of Windows with a GUI in it creates a dependency on including the IE code also. Since the main target for embedded Windows is systems that don't have a traditional display, thus optimizing how finely you can split out the GUI components is not a priority, I would assume that the whole GUI code is one big blob component with IE, GDI, etc, etc. all lumped together. Thus the states may be disappointed (although asking for the embedded code was a clever idea!).
1) Anyone who thinks this will result in John Q. Programmer seeing the source is dreaming. Sure some will argue that the states can't evaluate the code and it needs public review....but the judge will never go for that (after all the states asked to review it, thus implying they were technically able to). Legal cases have all kinds of levels of who can see what, what is public, what is seen by the jury (if there is one, which there isn't), what the lawyers have to tell each other, etc. Not everything piece of information related to a case is released to the public.
2) I predict this whole thing will result in a stalemate. Without an independent technical expert (which the judge said there was no time to find), the result will just be a standoff, with the states claiming that they have found a way to remove IE and Microsoft saying No, you don't understand the code. From the timeline (hearing on March 11) they only have 3 weeks to get the code and understand it -- good luck!
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately in every aspect *except* price, Linux looks more like a sustaining technology vis-a-vis Windows. Linux is the more secure, more high-end, more niche-like product. In the disruptive technology model, what happens is that *Windows* becomes reliable "enough" and hacker-pleasing "enough" and takes over from Linux.
Now Linux is free...that is true. But that is the only way it is like a disruptive technology. In fact that is not really like disruptive technologies either. They are usually cheaper. Free is strange.
Now Linux is indeed a disruptive technology compared to something else -- Sun. Linux on a PC, compared to Sun on a Sun box, has all the classic hallmarks of disruptive technology, and in fact is doing so.
I ranted more about this last year on another site. Here's a quote: "To take this to an extreme example, at some future date Windows CE might displace both Windows 2000 and Linux, and the Personal Web Server shipped with Windows might displace both Internet Information Server and Apache. This is highly unlikely, but it illustrates the direction in which disruption happens.".
And don't forget this profound comment where I ask the question ""Is the bazaar upmarket from the cathedral?" (read that again).
- adam
I dispute the statement that I am astroturfing however. First of all do you mean on behalf of the book, or of Microsoft. For the book, I am not being sneaky, I just put the site as my homepage (having nothing better to put). For Microsoft, it's true I worked there, but I don't anymore and I'm not posting because of some secret plan to help Microsoft...just interested in truth, justice, and high karma (which is getting dinged by those bogus Flamebait mods).
Driving on Redmond Way around 5:20 pm today, saw a dark green Jetta (I think) with a /. country oval (like the ones in Europe). Was it you?
- adam
- adam
Microsoft implemented the CIFS protocol in Windows NT 4.0, where it is used for network file access in Microsoft Windows NT. Client systems use CIFS to request file and print services from server systems over a network.
...
...
Desler said that none of the three latest moves were necessary under the proposed settlement--also known as the consent decree--in the antitrust case between Microsoft and the Department of Justice, which requires Microsoft to disclose to third parties any communications protocol implemented in a Windows desktop operating system that is used to interoperate with a Microsoft server operating system.
"The CIFS, Kerberos and SISLP announcements are above and beyond the conditions of the consent decree. As such, this is yet another step we are taking to enhance the interoperability of Windows clients with non-Microsoft operating systems," he said.
For crackin' ice. Sometimes I wonder if I was fooled for 10 years and Microsoft really is a lying sack of crap. Let's see, CIFS is used for clients to request file and print services from servers...and the settlement requires Microsoft to disclose any communication protocol implemented in the Windows desktop that is used to talk to a server...and CIFS does not apply and is "beyond the conditions of the consent decree"?!?
I'll assume for now that this spokesman is just an idiot, but if not, this could indicate a very narrow interpretation of the decree on Microsoft's part. That is, if they take "implemented in the Windows desktop" to mean only network client code that is "in the desktop" (as opposed to in the kernel, say)...I figured "in the desktop" just meant "in the client"!
FYI I think Microsoft should release *all* it's source as I stated a year ago.
- adam
More importantly, what exactly is Microsoft so "guilty" of in this situation (I assume Red Hat is bitching about the Kerberos extensions). Read this article by Theodore Ts'o, one of the Kerberos developers at MIT. Microsoft changed its Kerberos extension in response to feedback on its initial design. Now it is true that it did not document the extension fully, but if you think about that article, Ts'o is really saying that Microsoft is not doing a good enough job of embracing and extending...because if Microsoft documented its NT PAC, they would have eagerly helped make it a standard.
Anyway, what Microsoft is doing with Kerberos is perfectly legal and allowed by the standard. Sure it might hurt Red Hat -- so what? Red Hat is a competitor of Microsoft!! It's not clear what Red Hat really wants from this case. Would they be happy with anything less than Microsoft going open source, releasing all their intellectual property, and a government guarantee of X% market share for Linux? If so, they are dreaming and I have little sympathy for them.
- adam
"It's important to realize that MS-DOS is part of a family of operating systems....Providing the user with a family of operating system capabilities means a clear migration path from MS-DOS to XENIX. That means compatibility for both the terminal end user and the systems programmer.
A standard library for XENIX-86 C will allow compilation of a program on XENIX system and then execution on MS-DOS....XENIX systems will be able to function as network file servers."
So as you can see, Microsoft had big plans for XENIX back then. As it turned out, XENIX's place in the Microsoft family was first taken by OS/2, and then by NT.
- adam
HOWEVER if the work you did on your own time was similar to the work you did at your job (i.e. you designed websites for your job and then you design websites on your own time) then they may have a claim. But typically you just need permission from your manager ahead of time ("Can I go hack websites on my own time?" "Yeah sure") to make your work yours again.
When I worked at Microsoft, they explicitly prohibited people from working on open source (this was not in the contract (or at least the one I signed years before), just in an email). The rationale was not to pollute *Microsoft's* code with GPL code that could then result in someone claiming that Microsoft's code needed to be GPLed (i.e. the opposite of what happened in the situation being discussed here).
- adam
They even have an ISP up in Nunavut...in fact Wired had an article about net access up there in the permafrost.
- adam
The Baggage Factor.
- former Microsoft programmer
- adam
- adam
Of course you can find things with search engines now. Google's "trick" of counting links helps a little bit for a particular class of query, which is when you know the name of an organization and you want to find its site...it works well because more people will link to the site as opposed to other sites that discuss it. But as I have written elsewhere, if AltaVista is 99% lame, then maybe Google is only 97% lame...which is three times better, but still terrible if you take a step back.
Now Google is doing a lot of good things outside from its basic search engine, which should be applauded. The caches, saving old Usenet posts, the image and catalog searches, etc. are all good things -- but they don't affect its basic ability to search well.
Further karma ho' expounding can be found right here.
- adam
Second of all, the RFC really has no force given the RFC language. The two key provisions, that companies SHOULD fix holes within 30 days, and that customers SHOULD apply patches in a timely manner, can both be ignored since "SHOULD" in RFC-speak is different from "MUST".
Thirdly, this RFC is a bit too targeted at Microsoft:
1) The Vendor SHOULD ensure that programmers, designers, and testers are knowledgeable about common flaws in the design and implementation of products.
2) Customers SHOULD configure their products and systems in ways that eliminate latent flaws or reduce the impact of latent flaws, including (1) removing default services that are not necessary for the operation of the affected systems, (2) limiting necessary services only to networks or systems that require access, (3) using the minimal amount of access and privileges necessary for proper functioning of the products...
This is too "ripped from today's Microsoft headlines". This stuff about removing default services is bogus. Something like UPNP in Windows (designed to makes things easy for novice users) is useful only if it is turned on by default. Anyway what does "not necessary for the operation of the affected systems" mean. You can run Linux without a GUI...so if an exploit is found in KDE or Gnome will someone jump up and say, "You enable the GUI by default and it wasn't necessary and you violated the RFC"? The solution to flaws in UPNP to not ship with them, not to disable everything in the box.
Fourth, what the heck is this supposed to mean:
7) The Customer SHOULD give preference to products whose Vendors follow responsible disclosure practices.
Can we please keep the social engineering out of the RFC -- this is an absurd requirement to put in there. Why not just say "Customers SHOULD give preference to open source software because we think it's k3wL"?
- adam
In the process, the plan could boost Microsoft's high-profile .Net Web services plan and pave the way to enter new markets for document management and portal software, while simultaneously dealing a blow to competitors."
OK I know FAT is antiquated, but NTFS is modern. In fact I recall it was announced at some point 3-4 years ago that OFS wasn't necessary because all the relevant features were being merged into NTFS? Maybe that was an internal announcement, one of the annual "we are finally merging our data stores" emails the top Microsoft brass would send out to the troops.
Anyway I don't see why this would make Windows less likely to break or easier to fix, or what it has to do with .NET...why does that kind of marketing fluff have to be included in a pretty reasonable article (and the sidebar is very nice)?
- adam
The article (or that part of it) reminds me of the people who claimed that newspapers were going to fall apart and they all needed to be microfilmed and stored that way...now the newspapers that were dumped are in such great shape that The Sharper Image is selling them for $30 a pop, and the microfilms are deteroriating, that is the ones that were made legible to begin with.
Copying bytes may be easy but every time I switch computers I have to worry about moving stuff and where is it stored, then there is 20-year-old stuff on 5 1/4" floppies...meanwhile my books from childhood are all doing great. Even the cheap-o dot-matrix printouts from my BBS days in 1983 are perfectly preserved, which is more than I can say for any data I had from back then.
- adam
Exactly...that's why we need open data formats for everyone.
- adam
2) What is this absolute crapola about how bytes are more reliable than allegedly "fragile" books? Does this tubesteak realize that there are 500 year old books that are completely legible, while 15-year-old electronic data is unreadable? Yeesh. The only bright spot is that this guy's ravings are in electronic form, so future generations won't have to worry about them.
- adam
Hmmf. The AOL lawsuit is going to result in Microsoft putting Netscape's management on trial to show that they caused Navigator to tank...and this trial is going to result in Microsoft putting Sun's management on trial to show that they caused Java to go astray.
Forget the XFL...NBC should sell tickets to the software industry.
- adam
1) They made the first tape (I have the impression he was in Washington at the trial and the tape was being made back in Redmond, but I could be wrong). It turned out they had switched machines in the middle, which was evident because of some difference in the desktop.
2) They made a second tape, and amazingly managed to botch that one also...once again they had switched machines. Allchin said the people involved felt terrible about it (no word on if they were out on the street the next day).
3) They did the demonstration live, in Washington, with Allchin at the keyboard, with the judge, Felten and his grad students watching like hawks, and the claim Microsoft was making *was* verified.
Now that point #3 is just from Allchin's mouth, I have no independent verification, but if it is true (and I have no reason to doubt it), then despite the botched tapes, which hurt Microsoft's credibility, the point they were trying to make was valid.
- adam
- adam
Gee does he? I must have missed where in the article he actually said that.
Plus the big claim that Allchin is admitting some big thing is overblown (admittedly the linked-to article makes the same mistake). If you wade through Allchin's 250+ page deposition, the exchange is (p. 27):
Q. Well, you understand, do you not, that Microsoft was found to have done certain things that violated the law?
A. Yes.
This is just a statement of fact...Microsoft was indeed found guilty. It doesn't imply he thinks Microsoft *should* have been found guilty.
- adam
In five years the cost of computation will really be effectively decreased. We'll be able to put on somebody's desk, for an incredibly low cost, a processor with far more capability than you could ever take advantage of. Hardware in effect will become a lot less interesting. The total job will be in the software, and we'll be able to write big fat programs. We can let them run somewhat inefficiently because there will be so much horsepower that just sits there.
This makes is unlikely he ever thought 640K would be enough...but he also said, in the same interview (p. 18-19):
16-bits is extremely important, and it is not because of speed...the main reason for the 16-bit micro being advantageous is its increased address space...The logical address space limit...is for all practical purposes gone away. The chip is designed to address a megabyte."
So he did seem to indicate that one megabyte address space was basically limitless.
- adam
To me this particular issue seems silly, since with software you can make almost anything depend on anything else. The question asked should be the more abstract one, "Should Microsoft be able to bundle a browser with its operating system" -- even if it was a completely separate app.
After all Microsoft is now bundling a media player and an IM client and who knows what-all else with its operating systems, none of which it makes any pretense are an integral part of the OS.
- adam
Now presumably if what Microsoft says is true, the states will discover that having a version of Windows with a GUI in it creates a dependency on including the IE code also. Since the main target for embedded Windows is systems that don't have a traditional display, thus optimizing how finely you can split out the GUI components is not a priority, I would assume that the whole GUI code is one big blob component with IE, GDI, etc, etc. all lumped together. Thus the states may be disappointed (although asking for the embedded code was a clever idea!).
If not, <insert Twilight Zone music here>
- adam
2) I predict this whole thing will result in a stalemate. Without an independent technical expert (which the judge said there was no time to find), the result will just be a standoff, with the states claiming that they have found a way to remove IE and Microsoft saying No, you don't understand the code. From the timeline (hearing on March 11) they only have 3 weeks to get the code and understand it -- good luck!
- adam