Just because they were caught by surprise doesn't mean that they won't adapt.
Microsoft didn't just get caught flat footed here. There is no doubt they got product briefs a year in advance and samples warm from the first batch. That they still have no answer besides XP Home is evidence they got nuthin. They're still screaming nanananaVistaIcan'thearyou. We would have heard of an Alpha by now.
Some of these things run Vista Home - and as I predicted here they don't do it well. Giving their customers this Vista experience is the pinnacle of advertising for Linux. They are consumed by the dumb.
I hope Intel managed to ramp the volume early enough to get a few of these things under my tree. There's no way I'm paying $1000 on ebay for a $400 notebook just because they're scarce.
Uh, you need to stop believing your own b.s. and look at facts. Microsoft sold 9.5 billion dollars in tools over the last 9 months. Visual Studio is by far the most successful, in terms of copies distributed, of all time. I wish I could be such a historical oddity.
Er, no. I do believe there are more copies of GCC out there. Dollar sales yes, but not copies. Oh, and I do believe it was you who misread my post this time.
1) Virtual machines makes portability obsolete.
So wait... VS lets you build your project into a whole VM with no distribution costs or restrictions now? That might be interesting. Which version allows that? That might be worth a try.
WHO CARES ABOUT PORTABILITY WHEN WRITING C++!!!!
Bjarne Stroustroup. Was that a rhetorical question?
I should think that for guys that can write MySQL solving the filesystem problem should be child's play. I can think of several answers that banish these issues permanently. And no, I don't know where Nina is.
The spinning platter problem... No. At the scale of problem we're thinking about here the price difference between SSD and Spinning disks is not that much of an issue.
I thought you were referring to the whole stack - as in, you could write an app and build an innovative new hardware platform that uses it and sell as many as you can without paying any licensing per unit.
Now that I see you're saying that Microsoft's generosity extends only to the compiled libraries and runtimes required for your application to function in a separately licensed Microsoft operating environment.
I don't think you're in the odd category of programmers this article is discussing. I'm also surprised you think this is worth mentioning. I had thought by now software tools that did not offer this were a historical oddity long forgotten.
So... These free and paid for tools - how are their cross platform capabilities? Can you write once and compile for various platforms? Note - by "various platforms" I am not referring to "all the modern versions of Windows."
You can't just take someone's commercial software, extend it and start selling copies either. GPL is no different in this regard. In both cases you have to honor the license terms. The GPL software you can get for free and the terms are very liberal.
Commercial software OTOH is going to have per seat licensing for downstream recipients, no republishing terms, exposure of your books to accounting, no reverse engineering clauses and myriad nondisclosure nightmares.
From this point of view GPL looks like a clean win - a firm foundation of tested technology with far fewer lawyer issues. Just honor the terms and show people how to get the bits you used that belong to others, mmkay? Is that so hard?
You will get what you want. It will just take some time. They're going to flood the consumer electronics market first.
The server gurus will be breaking this stuff down in their labs and building up the boxes you want soon. That's what they do.
No doubt there are engineers at CAD stations around the world right now working out how many of these Atom chips you can fit in a classic 5.25" 1/2 height drive bay.
I was ready to thank you for your link, even though I have a copy of the book and I prefer not to link to copies that violate copyright in my jurisdiction. And then I read this. Please die in a fire, or if that is not possible select the most painful way. It were better if your breed of fanaticism were not reproduced. Thanks.
Windows is largely written in C++. Explains a lot, doesn't it?
C++ is derived from C. I've never seen any C++ code that wasn't 90% standard C.
So what have you proven? That Bjarne Stroustrup at Bell Labs in 1979 had 10% to add to C? Where are the Wonders of Microsoft in this equation? On that day Microsoft was still working on a version of DOS that might have subdirectories someday. They knew barely enough about compilers to get their stuff to run.
More importantly, what have they added of value since? Come on. They're the most powerful software company in the world. It's been almost thirty years. They must have contributed something persistent to the pool of common knowledge, eh? Or maybe not.
The former poster is not confused, because he is hinting this sort of abuse can come from any government, and the story too points to how commercial entities can pressure this sort of thing into our existence. This is why we need to be vigilant and never allow people to forget.
But... we have arms. And if we did not, the most oppressive government on earth cannot abolish the laws of chemistry. It would be foolish to try. Tyrants can be foolish briefly, but I won't worry myself about such transient foolishness. It would cost a patriot only his life to safe his heirs from this nonsense. It's a small price for such a great reward. I refuse to believe there are not a million fellow citizens that would leap to their duty among our 300 millions.
Let me prefix this comment with a personal note of concern for your personal welfare. Your dosage. Check it. If your English is good you have issues requiring immediate medical attention.
Communism works in intimate settings but doesn't work in wide practice. It's been tried numerous times in various ways and noone has found a way to make it work. Even the best intentioned communist societies succumb to oligarchy and personality tyranny in short periods of time. The common man is too easily swayed for communism to work well. Bread and circuses.
Pure Capitalism also doesn't work in practice, but it takes much longer for the failures to be apparent. Ultimately those with capital discover their best result is to enslave (in practice if not in name) those without capital to preserve their comfortable positions.
Pure democracy was also tried - in Germany in 1933. They only had one election though. It didn't end well. Quite a mess getting quit of that one.
A noble experiment involving a mix of federal democracy and capitalism is under way in North America. It's only been 230 years. That's not as old as a good house in most of Europe. A good oak tree is older by far. It's not going well. Apparently vox populi is not the voice of reason. I'm participating in it and the consensus among my friends is "a pox on all their houses." We're engaged in a cyclic divestment of our national wealth to airlines, banks, mortgage banks, auto manufacturers, oil companies, insurance companies, doctors, lawyers, oil nations, China and the aged. That list may expand based on groups supporting this year's presidential election. Apparently it costs half a billion dollars to be elected president of the US. Bill Gates? Where are you when we need you most? This is pocket change for you. You've retired from Microsoft. Get in the real game.
But we have a constitutional right to bear arms, so if it gets too bad... well, you know. We'll fix it. Those founding fathers were brilliant.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of media.
History is important too. Learn it. A station wagon crossing the Canadian border full of 1TB drives has more than 1^32Bps. You could fit every album ever made in the glove compartment, and every movie ever published by Hollywood in a box on the passenger seat. Bollywood could fill the passenger seats and there would be plenty of room left in the cargo area for all of the PrOn there is. It might be a bit tight for the PrOn, but that's not a bad thing;-)
I chose this post because it's about to go beyond the limit for replying, and in it you've had a few too many Sangrias or whatever.
Perhaps you're just another geek trying to get by in this mixed up technology world. If so, I'll see you again here and that's fine.
If it happens however, that you're an astroturfer it would be helpful if you warned your coworkers about expressing good care as you bid them farewell, because you're on your way out. This account is going to get special attention until it's abandoned.
There is no such thing as practical communism, it's a theoretical model with no real-life application due to human nature. The chinese state is a semi-feudal society
And... an economic theory with no practical applications is... what?
I'm grasping for a definition that is not [null]. Throw me a bone here.
Yes you have heroicly transcended the awesome responsibility that was placed upon your shoulders. Obviously you need a pat on the back, you self-important twit.
Thanks. It's the external validation that keeps me going.
If it weren't for slashdot I'd be ranting anti-OOXML nonsense on FARK.COM and that would not go well.
I have to wonder if you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds: a document that (and we're speculating even here, but I'll give it to you for the moment) can maybe only be opened correctly with Office is equivalent to (for example) certifying a standard for nuclear plant safety that could kill millions of people.
I'm not trying to be inflammatory, but seriously, listen to yourself for a minute.
You are confusing communism in theory with communism in practice. It's a common error and your reeducation team will be around presently to correct the error.
Other than for embedded devices, C is pretty much dead -- and even a lot of that work is in C++ today.
Question for the class: what languages are C++ compilers, Windows and Linux written in? Since we're talking about OOXML and ODF, what language is Microsoft's own ODF to OOXML translator
written in? That may be a.cpp file, but the vast majority of that code is C.
You've declued yourself. I'm sorry. Do you want to try again, perhaps on topic this time? You're killing your Karma dude.
It was, but it's even more important that people realise the problem is Microsoft, not ISO.
I agree with you in every way. You got the message out - your post is highly moderated and right below mine. I recommend people reading this review what you've said.
When you're going for the first comment you have maybe thirty seconds on slashdot when it's slow. That's not time enough to nuance stuff. You have to strike while the iron is hot and get in the best blow you can. Too much subtlety and it's lost. Too much "blame Microsoft" and it's downmodded too fast for people to see it. I did the best I could.
Yes, ISO is now badly damaged, and that's a tragedy all of it's own, because ISO was a body of great value to the whole world. Now the world needs to be looking at clipping the wings of the predator that did the damage, not at sinking the boot into a crippled ISO.
We need an international standards organization. Do we need this one? I don't know. My opinion will depend on if they fix this, and what processes they put in place to prevent a recurrence. Is my opinion important? Only as much as it is insightful and informative and only to the extent I get my message out, which is why it was important to me to get my comment in first. As others here have noted this is not ISO's first offense - just the most onerous one. This is the telling one. If they will not fix this they are beyond saving. It is not impossible to "fork" ISO.
On slashdot I am fond of saying "this is a tool". Well, standards are tools too. If we don't trust this manufacturer of this class of tool we will need to find one or make one if we are to continue about the business of creating interdependent global stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
Just because they were caught by surprise doesn't mean that they won't adapt.
Microsoft didn't just get caught flat footed here. There is no doubt they got product briefs a year in advance and samples warm from the first batch. That they still have no answer besides XP Home is evidence they got nuthin. They're still screaming nanananaVistaIcan'thearyou. We would have heard of an Alpha by now.
Some of these things run Vista Home - and as I predicted here they don't do it well. Giving their customers this Vista experience is the pinnacle of advertising for Linux. They are consumed by the dumb.
I hope Intel managed to ramp the volume early enough to get a few of these things under my tree. There's no way I'm paying $1000 on ebay for a $400 notebook just because they're scarce.
Er, no. I do believe there are more copies of GCC out there. Dollar sales yes, but not copies. Oh, and I do believe it was you who misread my post this time.
So wait... VS lets you build your project into a whole VM with no distribution costs or restrictions now? That might be interesting. Which version allows that? That might be worth a try.
Bjarne Stroustroup. Was that a rhetorical question?
I should think that for guys that can write MySQL solving the filesystem problem should be child's play. I can think of several answers that banish these issues permanently. And no, I don't know where Nina is.
The spinning platter problem... No. At the scale of problem we're thinking about here the price difference between SSD and Spinning disks is not that much of an issue.
I thought you were referring to the whole stack - as in, you could write an app and build an innovative new hardware platform that uses it and sell as many as you can without paying any licensing per unit.
Now that I see you're saying that Microsoft's generosity extends only to the compiled libraries and runtimes required for your application to function in a separately licensed Microsoft operating environment.
I don't think you're in the odd category of programmers this article is discussing. I'm also surprised you think this is worth mentioning. I had thought by now software tools that did not offer this were a historical oddity long forgotten.
So... These free and paid for tools - how are their cross platform capabilities? Can you write once and compile for various platforms? Note - by "various platforms" I am not referring to "all the modern versions of Windows."
You can't just take someone's commercial software, extend it and start selling copies either. GPL is no different in this regard. In both cases you have to honor the license terms. The GPL software you can get for free and the terms are very liberal.
Commercial software OTOH is going to have per seat licensing for downstream recipients, no republishing terms, exposure of your books to accounting, no reverse engineering clauses and myriad nondisclosure nightmares.
From this point of view GPL looks like a clean win - a firm foundation of tested technology with far fewer lawyer issues. Just honor the terms and show people how to get the bits you used that belong to others, mmkay? Is that so hard?
Patience, friend.
You will get what you want. It will just take some time. They're going to flood the consumer electronics market first.
The server gurus will be breaking this stuff down in their labs and building up the boxes you want soon. That's what they do.
No doubt there are engineers at CAD stations around the world right now working out how many of these Atom chips you can fit in a classic 5.25" 1/2 height drive bay.
I was ready to thank you for your link, even though I have a copy of the book and I prefer not to link to copies that violate copyright in my jurisdiction. And then I read this. Please die in a fire, or if that is not possible select the most painful way. It were better if your breed of fanaticism were not reproduced. Thanks.
C++ is derived from C. I've never seen any C++ code that wasn't 90% standard C.
So what have you proven? That Bjarne Stroustrup at Bell Labs in 1979 had 10% to add to C? Where are the Wonders of Microsoft in this equation? On that day Microsoft was still working on a version of DOS that might have subdirectories someday. They knew barely enough about compilers to get their stuff to run.
More importantly, what have they added of value since? Come on. They're the most powerful software company in the world. It's been almost thirty years. They must have contributed something persistent to the pool of common knowledge, eh? Or maybe not.
But... we have arms. And if we did not, the most oppressive government on earth cannot abolish the laws of chemistry. It would be foolish to try. Tyrants can be foolish briefly, but I won't worry myself about such transient foolishness. It would cost a patriot only his life to safe his heirs from this nonsense. It's a small price for such a great reward. I refuse to believe there are not a million fellow citizens that would leap to their duty among our 300 millions.
Let me prefix this comment with a personal note of concern for your personal welfare. Your dosage. Check it. If your English is good you have issues requiring immediate medical attention.
Communism works in intimate settings but doesn't work in wide practice. It's been tried numerous times in various ways and noone has found a way to make it work. Even the best intentioned communist societies succumb to oligarchy and personality tyranny in short periods of time. The common man is too easily swayed for communism to work well. Bread and circuses.
Pure Capitalism also doesn't work in practice, but it takes much longer for the failures to be apparent. Ultimately those with capital discover their best result is to enslave (in practice if not in name) those without capital to preserve their comfortable positions.
Pure democracy was also tried - in Germany in 1933. They only had one election though. It didn't end well. Quite a mess getting quit of that one.
A noble experiment involving a mix of federal democracy and capitalism is under way in North America. It's only been 230 years. That's not as old as a good house in most of Europe. A good oak tree is older by far. It's not going well. Apparently vox populi is not the voice of reason. I'm participating in it and the consensus among my friends is "a pox on all their houses." We're engaged in a cyclic divestment of our national wealth to airlines, banks, mortgage banks, auto manufacturers, oil companies, insurance companies, doctors, lawyers, oil nations, China and the aged. That list may expand based on groups supporting this year's presidential election. Apparently it costs half a billion dollars to be elected president of the US. Bill Gates? Where are you when we need you most? This is pocket change for you. You've retired from Microsoft. Get in the real game.
But we have a constitutional right to bear arms, so if it gets too bad... well, you know. We'll fix it. Those founding fathers were brilliant.
A friend and I were discussing the other day what we would be willing to pay for Google if there were no Internet.
$25. A month. This was a consensus opinion for the group.
MSN search? Not so much.
Perhaps that's because you know more about .NET than about Java. Or Grapefruit.
Your anecdote does not a trend make. Your pushing it as a cause for people to make decisions on is. Twit.
And each adds its bit to the main, both the big and the small.
You are so going to to regret this.
This is an ancient IT adage.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of media.
History is important too. Learn it. A station wagon crossing the Canadian border full of 1TB drives has more than 1^32Bps. You could fit every album ever made in the glove compartment, and every movie ever published by Hollywood in a box on the passenger seat. Bollywood could fill the passenger seats and there would be plenty of room left in the cargo area for all of the PrOn there is. It might be a bit tight for the PrOn, but that's not a bad thing ;-)
Why, yes. The whole Masonic answer thing was just coincidental.
I could not explain my family life otherwise.
It just doesn't scale up.
I chose this post because it's about to go beyond the limit for replying, and in it you've had a few too many Sangrias or whatever.
Perhaps you're just another geek trying to get by in this mixed up technology world. If so, I'll see you again here and that's fine.
If it happens however, that you're an astroturfer it would be helpful if you warned your coworkers about expressing good care as you bid them farewell, because you're on your way out. This account is going to get special attention until it's abandoned.
And... an economic theory with no practical applications is ... what?
I'm grasping for a definition that is not [null]. Throw me a bone here.
Thanks. It's the external validation that keeps me going.
If it weren't for slashdot I'd be ranting anti-OOXML nonsense on FARK.COM and that would not go well.
Oh, FSM preserve us!
You're not referring to one of the Windows ONLY worms that crashed multiple nuclear plants are you? You have to be some anti-Microsoft troll to be bringing that (2003) ancient history up again.
Dude, if you're a Microsoft astroturfer you should make sure you pick up your personal effects on the way out today.
You are confusing communism in theory with communism in practice. It's a common error and your reeducation team will be around presently to correct the error.
I just finished rereading this book. Interesting that it's not entered the public domain yet in the US, even though it was written sixty years ago.
Your post deserved better than this moderation. The all-seeing eye of Big Brother is a tyranny to be avoided. Next time cite the author though, ok?
Thanks for sharing. People need to know. This is the real damage that a perception of bias in ISO can cause.
Question for the class: what languages are C++ compilers, Windows and Linux written in? Since we're talking about OOXML and ODF, what language is Microsoft's own ODF to OOXML translator written in? That may be a .cpp file, but the vast majority of that code is C.
You've declued yourself. I'm sorry. Do you want to try again, perhaps on topic this time? You're killing your Karma dude.
I agree with you in every way. You got the message out - your post is highly moderated and right below mine. I recommend people reading this review what you've said.
When you're going for the first comment you have maybe thirty seconds on slashdot when it's slow. That's not time enough to nuance stuff. You have to strike while the iron is hot and get in the best blow you can. Too much subtlety and it's lost. Too much "blame Microsoft" and it's downmodded too fast for people to see it. I did the best I could.
We need an international standards organization. Do we need this one? I don't know. My opinion will depend on if they fix this, and what processes they put in place to prevent a recurrence. Is my opinion important? Only as much as it is insightful and informative and only to the extent I get my message out, which is why it was important to me to get my comment in first. As others here have noted this is not ISO's first offense - just the most onerous one. This is the telling one. If they will not fix this they are beyond saving. It is not impossible to "fork" ISO.
On slashdot I am fond of saying "this is a tool". Well, standards are tools too. If we don't trust this manufacturer of this class of tool we will need to find one or make one if we are to continue about the business of creating interdependent global stuff.