Two quick remarks : - I make a distinction between wild capitalism and what promoted Smith. This may come as a shock to many US citizens, but the US rules are rather far away from Smith's views in my opinion. Wikipedia has some clues about it there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith A quote: "However, it must be remembered that Smith advocated for a Government that was active in sectors other than the economy: he advocated for public education of poor adults; for institutional systems that were not profitable for private industries; for a judiciary; and for a standing army." And he had no clues about the immaterial economy as we know it: free flow of capitals, fiscal paradises were out of his view, and they change quite a thing or two...
>> On both side of the Atlantic has MSFT been declared by judges 1) a monopoly and 2) abusing from its position of power. > I agree, that describes a clear fact. But both of those occurred after the actual offenses in question...
Not for what concern the request for properly documented SMB protocols if I am not mistaken (2004? 2005?).
Thanks for the compliment, which always pleases a non native English writer. And now to your points.
> The problem I see here involves the assumption that the Samba team should have the ability to catch up. Why? because we want it? Because the EU said so? Because we have some BS concept of fairness that absolutely does not apply to a truly capitalistic economy?
There is our difference. The UE concurence authorities is somewhat interrested in fairness, as a mean, but its aim is social efficiency through the market. For a market to provide benefits, competition is needed in order to provide incentives to improve the products and lower their prices. When a few companies dominate a market and use their combined market share to hamper their competitors, this is alreday no free market anymore. Now, MSFT has an even more aggressive aim: they are nearly alone in their primary market (desktop PCs software), and they leverage upon this monopolistic advantage -and the huge benefits flowing from it- to invade other markets and extend the "no-competition-all-the-money-goes-to us" zone. In that case: media players and file servers, but one could easily add messenging and collaborative systems too, or anti-viruses, PDAs, phones, whatever. This is what the EU does not want, rightly in my opinion. What do you understand by "truly capitalistic economy"? That everything is always fine provided it is not done by the public sector? That is not my definition. It fully contradicts all free-market theories and... the law! And this law has mostly been applied until now to EU firms. Now MSFT breaks it, and the bigger the non-complying company the tougher the fines.
> [Samba] I don't see any non-authoritarian reason for Microsoft to make their work easier.
Samba and the others competitors should be able to concentrate on writing efficient code that works with the bulk of the market: Windows PCs. With no less and no more efforts than MSFT had to provide to build an efficient SMTP relay, and with the certainty that any changes in the protocols would be, at the very least, made public soon enough. Once again MSFT fights that. And for iPod example, precisely, things are not what the should. The botched French DADVSI law has at least this right by putting some emphasis on a very sane concept: interoperability, as a mean to strengthen competition. Documenting protocols is a good way to promote interoperability, choice, freedom and, finaly, value for consumers.
> Microsoft needs to make it possible for others to interoperate and compete. That doesn't mean they need to do their competitors' jobs.
Precisely, they do all they can to _prevent_ interoperability and to lure their competitors into coping with their undocumented "improvements" (Kerberos is a good example). And precisely: the EU does not ask for the code, but for documented APIs and protocols. And it will hurt MSFT because there lies a part of their dirty secrets, and a part of their success.
>> Corrupt, the EU? > Yes, corrupt.
Well, have you nothing better to provide than British rant dated from 2003 with nothing to properly substantiate it? Granted, the Eurostat affair was far from glorious, but what were the amount, precisely? Is it worse than in many private companies? I doubt it, so frequent are the contracts awarded to friendly subcontractors, however better other offers are... But you are right in a way: there are far too many lobbyist in Brussels and the governments-dominated EU system is somewhat opaque. Things have improved those last years with more oversight from the European Parliament; let us be optimistic and say that this will continue. A sad thing that we do not hear much constructive proposals from the UK...
> And plenty of private criminal organizations exist to milk the sheep.
One word in excess perhaps: criminal. The sentence is perfect without it too.
> bought-and-paid-for regional protectionisms
Eh? Until now I was under the very strong impression that the Eu
> I can run a mixed Windows and Linux system in either a flat TCP/IP network or a Microsoft style Active Directory. I can even use a Linux box as the DC. How exactly does that not mean "interoperability"?
You can partially run that, but not at full scope. Inter-domains, inter-forests authentication does not work well as far as I know. And Samba 3 is not that easy to implement because the developpers have spent much time guessing what their program was supposed to answer and request to native Ms boxes, instead on concentrating on making an easily used product. This should change with Samba 4. Basically, the UE told MS that competitors should have nothing to guess or reverse-engineer for anything concerning the protocols: those must be properly documented.
> Yeah, because offering a peek at the goddamned source code didn't go far enough, right?
Right: competitors are fed up to guess and decrypt, wether be it C code or packets. It is much more difficult to analyse some hundred thousands lines of code than to implement a properly documented protocol. Especially when the code may change at will and cannot be observed at will and at no cost. And there are intellectual properties issues too... so do not be angry, but the "we show the code" proposal is meaningless.
> And the recent shift toward open XML-based formats doesn't amount to nothing short of rolling over on their back and exposing their bellies to the pack?
Is a partial XML implementation worth anything if MS can change it at will? What we need is a documented and stable standard. Ms will not offer that.
> Microsoft abused their position 5-10 years ago [...] it appear they stopped when caught.
What is the year you're living in? 2020? 2040? Do you know that in 2006 they sell many "poison pills" product at great loss to poison competitors? Just look at their PDAs... Wonderfull things, all those Windows Mobile things: they can only work well on Windows (you guess it: undocumented protocols) and with Exchange. And once you offer enough of those to the executives, bingo! here comes Exchange and, with it, Active Directory. Just one example. And those PDAs are sold well under their cost, when they are offered. And then you come to corruption...
> But now? We have the third most corrupt pseudo-government organization in history, the EU, making backroom deals with one another to slowly bleed Microsoft, which represents the most recent of the great American capitalist successes.
Corrupt, the EU? You mean, more than all banana republics, China, Russia, most of Africa and the White House except two of those? You want to be rated "funny" certainly. What is you source? And which "backroom deal"? You mean that the expert choosen and paid by Ms, who has stated that "Ms does not comply", is bought? By whom? Sources? Facts? And you call a monopolistic and repeatedly condemned corporation the "great American capitalist successes". Maybe that explains partially why American capitalism is not widely praised by most people.
I always wonder why Tore Supra is ignored here or in the US Wikipedia.
As far as I can read, it seems rather impressive. Their record for plama duration is... 390s ! More information on the fusion-dedicated French CEA (Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique) site (in English).
But the question is honest: what have achieved the Japanese? Is their plasma self-sustaining? Have they reached break-even point and maintained it during the whole 28.6 seconds?
Anyway, just give a look to the CEA site: from pictures to videos, plenty to discover there.
This statement comes in direct contradiction with what I observed during that period about IE adoption. Beside, Wikipedia states that IE was bundled with W95 SR1 as soon as 1996: certainly this version was shipped with every new PCs, wasn't it, when IE had less than 30% market share?
I rather agree with Wikipedia on this matter. And the DOJ did too, as far as I understand.
French comment. We have mandatory ID card. Anybody is supposed to carry his ID card with him/her from his sixteenth birthday on (or is it the 18th? It is far away for me). Anytime: one has to present it if a police officer asks for it, or be fined. Practically, one is very seldom "controlled" by the cops, unless the look, the place and the behavior let the cops think one may well be hiding something. Face matters, it is a sad fact of life everywhere.
Recent ID cards are somewhat hard to fake for ordinary citizens, so the document has some value. It is regularly asked by bankers and all sort of private firms and administrations when you enter their buildings. And to board planes.
It is requested to vote (ID card or passport only).
Is it usefull to fight crimes? Probably: it makes things more difficult for thieves/thugs/criminals/whatever to hide their identity, so that's one more chance the be caught if they try to get a fake card or if they use one. It is easier for cops to check identities (direct link in the cars to a centralised statewide database).
Are we less free? Frankly, it all depends on the politicians, the police, the corporate practices and, ultimately, it all depends on who we choose to elect, on what treaties and regulations we endorse, or if we let someone seize the power by bypassing the law.
I prefer a transparent and clearcut system to the kind of nearly-random datamining that has been apparently be used in Florida and elsewhere in the US to ban people from voting. Here, either a judgment has been pronouced to ban one from voting, or one is allowed to vote.
If someone comes to me and accepts to provide an IdCard, if his picture on the card looks like him, I will assume I am speaking to the correct person. This seems to me a better protection than to weild a gun, for most day-to-day affairs.
Once again: more than the Law, more than the technical system, what matters for Freedom is who holds power. If bandits are in charge, the means to oppress the people will come naturally. IdCards will just be one of those tools, but the root issue lies with the powerfulls, not with the cards.
Note that, once again, the article is inacurate on one crucial point : <p> <i>Brussels has ordered Microsoft to open up its software code to rivals</i> <p> Wrong. One of the demand is that Microsoft provide usefull and complete documentation about its protocol so that other competitors can implement compatible systems working with the Windows environment. Precisely, MSFT <i>has</i> provided a source code, claiming it was their "ultimate documentation". The experts on the case disagree, and so does the commission; a source code is no documentation. They are still faulty, by wide margins. <p> And there are other demands by the EU, aiming at stopping them from leveraging on the OS to expand their monopoly over other fields (Media player, instant messaging, file servers, messenging systems perhaps, and so on).
I wonder why the Commission did not aim the PDA/Phone markets too. At least I do not know if they did. Last time I requested from MSFT the meaning of Active Sync error codes, to dig into this whole mess while using -surprise !- another editor's PIM software, I received the following -oral- answer: "we lost them, we do not know what all those error numbers mean". Sure... Thanks for your help Bill.
IANAL as you would say on your side of the Atlantic, but I agree with the Irish poster that has answered too. Here -France- an appeal is another trial, with other judges, possibly other investigators, and certainly other investigations can be requested by both parties to the case. Most of the time, an appeal is "suspensive" (dunno if the word is right in English): the first rulling is not enforced. In short, the defendant is still considered inocent in the appeal court, until proven guilty a second time. This does not mean that he will not be kept in jail if he/she is considered dangerous, but, precisely, the same does apply for the first trial.
There is more: how does it come that individual's rights have been granted in the US to corporations? Why are those enterprises entitled to benefit from legal dispositions that have been conceived for the people?
This seems to me the basic flaw in this case as in many others.
The French would raise hell if we tried to exercise a US law against a French citizen, and rightfully so. Similarly, French law does not and should not apply to those outside France's borders.
Unfortunately, this is not as simple as that. There are many cases where such geographical separation does not work and where both laws collide, where precedence of one law above the other are/should be enforced: children care in case of divorce between binational couples, heritages, fiscal matters for companies, etc...
This is one case in the grey area of "international law". The right of the sea is in very murky waters too...
FTA: ""[Microsoft] lawyers mentioned the success of the settlement with the Department of Justice at least 15 times during their presentations today."
Well, which success are they speaking about? Has Microsoft monopolistic behaviour changed anyway since this "successfull" rulling has taken place? In some PR speech perhaps.
The DOJ settlement was only successfull for Microsoft, its shareholders, and for nobody else.
Has anybody heard of any positive effects it would have had?
I am not so sure the EU will buy such a weak argument. At least I hope it does not.
1) Ireland gets a lot of tax revenue
2) Ireland does what its told to by MS and others
and 3) the other EU states are deprived of legitimate tax revenues by fiscal dumping. And one wonders why their growth is sooo strong. It's a wonderfull country and people though.
My guess is, that isn't the marketing line Lockheed Martin, Boeing and BAE Systems are going for right now.
These big deals are as much to do with employment as they are, defence.
Some French still remember, reading de Gaulle's memoires, that there were more Brits than GIs landing in Normandy in 1944. And Churchill helped de Gaulle, precisely, when Roosevelt was still pondering what to think about Hitler and scorning the tall man.
What a pity US spook were re-elected twice recently in London and in Italy, and even elected once in Spain. At least the Spaniards sent back Aznar to where it belong.
Ok this is flamebait without proof, but not from an AC, although I love cheese.
Except that mon & dad have tried to set up a common directory to put all of the _important_ stuff they deal with on a PC, so they tried to enact write access for them both in a common directory, which contains all the usefull data. (not possible with gnome on my Debians, offtopic, but umask does not work here with gnome-vfs, and I hate it, sorry). So when the linux-Worm will hit, they'll been done.
Because they had no media to save all their data on one medium (all those pictures, films...), they are not properly backing it up. Incremental backups are impractical. CDRoms last only 2 years or so and then one loses much data... I think this guy is making a pretty interresting point, not based on technical analysis but on a user-behaviour analysis. And the/. crowd is globally very... (hum!) silly in its average response.
And yes, Linux remains far more secure than Windows as a whole. Especially since it is so easy to patch a apt based system, and because a.exe cannot normally be executed immediately as soon as it is written on the disk and double-clicked...
A quick -and probably silly- idea: would it be stupid or impraticle to only allow write access to a directory when there is a clear interraction from the user ? Typically, the "save-as" routine could be the sole routine allowing a program to write anywhere where the user has access, and could be provided by the "system" and not by the application itself (i.e. by Gnome or Kde, not by Firefox). For all other "automatic" write operation, Firefox would only be allowed to write in a subset of the user's space; a kind of sandbox.
For those interrested in these over-debated subject, may I point out to another study, that has been conducted for months with the same methodology? It says the contrary: Firefox still gaining market share, more than 20% market share indeed in Europe.
This distro would be natively configured to run on a USB key, possibly launched from inside Windows or Linux or whatever x86 compatible machine around, and all data would be stored and natively accessed from anywhere through http to mydata.google.com => the user's data is on the network, any PC next door is used for its CPU only through broadband.
The same is true with all nonsense, this does not need to be religious ("need a big car, big TV, best processors, nice ties everyday...").
But I presume the keyword in your sentence is _indoctrinated_.
I for once received a catholic education in Descarte's land. I do not feel indoctrinated nor do I blinly agree with whatever comes out of the Vatican.
Logic and honesty are key to usefull discussions, and one has to try to understand someone else point of view (again, honestly). This requires time, humility and dedication, and few debates allow that, whatever the media, or even between friends. And the world has become very complicated too, and evolves very quickly. On economic matters, who has a global picture? Strange times.
Diclaimer: I am rather completely French and not found of Chirac and very dubious about this project.
BUT!
A short an effective answer to your statement <i>It strikes me as basic economic common sense that a trans-european politically-led project has not a snowball's chance in hell in any market competition.</i> is: Airbus, Ariane, and probably a bunch of other less eye-catching projects (trains...).
Shame and non-confidence about ourselves is a nationnal sport here, joyfully encouraged by our US French Bashing contenders.
An interresting figure in my opinion is the prison population rate. Either one considers a high rate as a success "because the criminals are in jail" or as a national failure because the more happy the people the less they tend to go to jail.
In this perspective, just have a look there: The United States has the highest prison population rate in the world, some 686 per 100,000
of the national population, followed by the Cayman Islands (664), Russia (638), Belarus (554),
Kazakhstan (522), Turkmenistan (489), Belize (459), Bahamas (447), Suriname (437) and
Dominica (420).
However, more than three-fifths of countries (62.5%) have rates below 150 per 100,000. (The
United Kingdom's rate of 139 per 100,000 of the national population places it above the midpoint
in the World List; it is now the highest among countries of the European Union.)
Well. I am not positively impressed by the US of A in this case, to say the least. No, I am not impressed by China either. Is capital punishment an attempt to somewhat empty those jails in both cases?
Many government in Europe _would_ support Iran allegedly peaceful nuclear program if they were certain it would produce no weapons. So, the correct sentence is: most government in Europe do not currently support Iran current nuclear program, not at all.
The negociation concentrates on banning uranium enrichment from being done in Iran, because they have just elected a new "God has just talked to me" president and they have repeatldly lied to the IAEA. Not, I am not talking about any US prez here.
France was very eager to sell weapons and equipment to Saddam
As any weapons producer to any oil producer. And until when? As far as we heard, even in the Washington Times, no recent French weapon system was found in Iraq, e.g. nothing had been sold after Iraq War I. Please do not mention this legend about one captured Roland 3 anti-aircraft missile launcher: the sole difference with the Roland 2 lied mainly in the software, it dated back to 1990 and was never produced (remained at prototype...).
France's rigid resistance toward English.
You mean you've found a field where Frogs do not surrender? But you are even wrong. You should work in our big enterprises, look at the ads, to just realise that it's plain wrong. The marketting guys and the big brass are fully converted to the "US-English rules the world" cause. And their propaganda machine fills our brains, with trash TV, boys bands and SUVs.
creating new "official" words for American products with English names, absolutely disgusts us.
Why? Talk of arrogance... I do concede "mél" was the silliest word crafted by the Académie Française, but the Quebecq "courriel" that was adopted since is very good. And it saves us from "mail", which is simply false but widely used for E-mail.
the US absolutely saved France's posterior in both World War I and World War II
Not in WW I, not at all. US help was... helpfull, paid for for most of it, late, minor in terms of military might. It was probably a great morale boost meanwhile, and God knows that matters in times of war.
WW II. Thanks to the British, the US, the Russians. In that order. At least where the brits our ally from the start, even if their numbers in 1939-40 on French soil was well under what they had agreed. The main issue lied in France itself: stupid military doctrine, poor political elite. And the people wanted to avoid to wage another war with Germany, such were the sufferings of WW I. Many thanks anyhow to the GIs, and especially to Eisenhover.
marginally successful when being led by Joan of Arc and Napoleon Bonaparte.
How funny.
its outspoken criticism of the US going to war, as if the UN Security Council had to absolutely approve the war.
The UN was created with much US clout to help avoid wars, mind you. Especially greed driven and imperialistic ones. So, what's the issue? Do you contend the UN inspectors have called Saddam's bluff before the security council? Re-read serious accounts please.
each country is still allowed to act in its own interests
Not by waging wars. No. Definitely no. That's one thing many people around the world despise very much. Are you allowed to seize your neighbour's house with a gun if it is in yout interest? I doubt it.
invade Venezuela for oil
There was a US-sponsored coup there some time ago, remember? It failed.
fight against radical islam
As did Saddam in Iraq?
The US really wished to blackmail Saudi Arabia and threaten Libya
This I can believe. But why not by using personnal relationship with the Saudis? They are excellent as far as we know! And do you not think that Lybia was already scared? Anyway, threatenning Lybia was probably the best achievment of this conflict. It probably could have been done another way. Reagan did it another way. And there are even persistent assertions in the French military saying that US planes indeed flew over France to do it, even if France publicly ruled it out...
everyone honestly thought that Sadaam did indeed have WMD, including the French and the Germans.
Where have you read that except in the US press? Everyone supposed Iraq _could_ possibly have had the idea to set up new programs. Hence the UN inspectors, that steadily came back before the UN security council saying "Saddam does not prove he has no more weapons, but he cooperates better and better, and we have found nothin
The reasons why Chirac and France as a whole opposed Iraq II war was stated clearly and must be understood at the first degree, and not by dubious second guessing : - the UN weapon inspectors had found nothing justifying a second war at the time Bush declared Iraq a clear and current threat. - and to quote - and translate it accurately - Chirac : "this region does not need another war".
Slashdot Mirror
I think we mostly agree.
Two quick remarks :
- I make a distinction between wild capitalism and what promoted Smith. This may come as a shock to many US citizens, but the US rules are rather far away from Smith's views in my opinion. Wikipedia has some clues about it there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith
A quote: "However, it must be remembered that Smith advocated for a Government that was active in sectors other than the economy: he advocated for public education of poor adults; for institutional systems that were not profitable for private industries; for a judiciary; and for a standing army."
And he had no clues about the immaterial economy as we know it: free flow of capitals, fiscal paradises were out of his view, and they change quite a thing or two...
>> On both side of the Atlantic has MSFT been declared by judges 1) a monopoly and 2) abusing from its position of power.
> I agree, that describes a clear fact. But both of those occurred after the actual offenses in question...
Not for what concern the request for properly documented SMB protocols if I am not mistaken (2004? 2005?).
Best regards.
Thanks for the compliment, which always pleases a non native English writer. And now to your points.
> The problem I see here involves the assumption that the Samba team should have the ability to catch up. Why? because we want it? Because the EU said so? Because we have some BS concept of fairness that absolutely does not apply to a truly capitalistic economy?
There is our difference. The UE concurence authorities is somewhat interrested in fairness, as a mean, but its aim is social efficiency through the market. For a market to provide benefits, competition is needed in order to provide incentives to improve the products and lower their prices. When a few companies dominate a market and use their combined market share to hamper their competitors, this is alreday no free market anymore. Now, MSFT has an even more aggressive aim: they are nearly alone in their primary market (desktop PCs software), and they leverage upon this monopolistic advantage -and the huge benefits flowing from it- to invade other markets and extend the "no-competition-all-the-money-goes-to us" zone. In that case: media players and file servers, but one could easily add messenging and collaborative systems too, or anti-viruses, PDAs, phones, whatever. This is what the EU does not want, rightly in my opinion.
What do you understand by "truly capitalistic economy"? That everything is always fine provided it is not done by the public sector? That is not my definition. It fully contradicts all free-market theories and... the law! And this law has mostly been applied until now to EU firms. Now MSFT breaks it, and the bigger the non-complying company the tougher the fines.
> [Samba] I don't see any non-authoritarian reason for Microsoft to make their work easier.
Samba and the others competitors should be able to concentrate on writing efficient code that works with the bulk of the market: Windows PCs. With no less and no more efforts than MSFT had to provide to build an efficient SMTP relay, and with the certainty that any changes in the protocols would be, at the very least, made public soon enough. Once again MSFT fights that.
And for iPod example, precisely, things are not what the should. The botched French DADVSI law has at least this right by putting some emphasis on a very sane concept: interoperability, as a mean to strengthen competition. Documenting protocols is a good way to promote interoperability, choice, freedom and, finaly, value for consumers.
> Microsoft needs to make it possible for others to interoperate and compete. That doesn't mean they need to do their competitors' jobs.
Precisely, they do all they can to _prevent_ interoperability and to lure their competitors into coping with their undocumented "improvements" (Kerberos is a good example). And precisely: the EU does not ask for the code, but for documented APIs and protocols. And it will hurt MSFT because there lies a part of their dirty secrets, and a part of their success.
>> Corrupt, the EU?
> Yes, corrupt.
Well, have you nothing better to provide than British rant dated from 2003 with nothing to properly substantiate it? Granted, the Eurostat affair was far from glorious, but what were the amount, precisely? Is it worse than in many private companies? I doubt it, so frequent are the contracts awarded to friendly subcontractors, however better other offers are... But you are right in a way: there are far too many lobbyist in Brussels and the governments-dominated EU system is somewhat opaque. Things have improved those last years with more oversight from the European Parliament; let us be optimistic and say that this will continue. A sad thing that we do not hear much constructive proposals from the UK...
> And plenty of private criminal organizations exist to milk the sheep.
One word in excess perhaps: criminal. The sentence is perfect without it too.
> bought-and-paid-for regional protectionisms
Eh? Until now I was under the very strong impression that the Eu
Hum... Is breaking a treaty such a big deals nowadays? Stuff happens.
Well, well...
> I can run a mixed Windows and Linux system in either a flat TCP/IP network or a Microsoft style Active Directory. I can even use a Linux box as the DC. How exactly does that not mean "interoperability"?
You can partially run that, but not at full scope. Inter-domains, inter-forests authentication does not work well as far as I know. And Samba 3 is not that easy to implement because the developpers have spent much time guessing what their program was supposed to answer and request to native Ms boxes, instead on concentrating on making an easily used product. This should change with Samba 4. Basically, the UE told MS that competitors should have nothing to guess or reverse-engineer for anything concerning the protocols: those must be properly documented.
> Yeah, because offering a peek at the goddamned source code didn't go far enough, right?
Right: competitors are fed up to guess and decrypt, wether be it C code or packets. It is much more difficult to analyse some hundred thousands lines of code than to implement a properly documented protocol. Especially when the code may change at will and cannot be observed at will and at no cost. And there are intellectual properties issues too... so do not be angry, but the "we show the code" proposal is meaningless.
> And the recent shift toward open XML-based formats doesn't amount to nothing short of rolling over on their back and exposing their bellies to the pack?
Is a partial XML implementation worth anything if MS can change it at will? What we need is a documented and stable standard. Ms will not offer that.
> Microsoft abused their position 5-10 years ago [...] it appear they stopped when caught.
What is the year you're living in? 2020? 2040? Do you know that in 2006 they sell many "poison pills" product at great loss to poison competitors? Just look at their PDAs... Wonderfull things, all those Windows Mobile things: they can only work well on Windows (you guess it: undocumented protocols) and with Exchange. And once you offer enough of those to the executives, bingo! here comes Exchange and, with it, Active Directory. Just one example. And those PDAs are sold well under their cost, when they are offered. And then you come to corruption...
> But now? We have the third most corrupt pseudo-government organization in history, the EU, making backroom deals with one another to slowly bleed Microsoft, which represents the most recent of the great American capitalist successes.
Corrupt, the EU? You mean, more than all banana republics, China, Russia, most of Africa and the White House except two of those? You want to be rated "funny" certainly. What is you source? And which "backroom deal"? You mean that the expert choosen and paid by Ms, who has stated that "Ms does not comply", is bought? By whom? Sources? Facts?
And you call a monopolistic and repeatedly condemned corporation the "great American capitalist successes". Maybe that explains partially why American capitalism is not widely praised by most people.
As far as I can read, it seems rather impressive. Their record for plama duration is... 390s ! More information on the fusion-dedicated French CEA (Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique) site (in English).
But the question is honest: what have achieved the Japanese? Is their plasma self-sustaining? Have they reached break-even point and maintained it during the whole 28.6 seconds?
Anyway, just give a look to the CEA site: from pictures to videos, plenty to discover there.
This statement comes in direct contradiction with what I observed during that period about IE adoption. Beside, Wikipedia states that IE was bundled with W95 SR1 as soon as 1996: certainly this version was shipped with every new PCs, wasn't it, when IE had less than 30% market share?
I rather agree with Wikipedia on this matter. And the DOJ did too, as far as I understand.
French comment. We have mandatory ID card. Anybody is supposed to carry his ID card with him/her from his sixteenth birthday on (or is it the 18th? It is far away for me). Anytime: one has to present it if a police officer asks for it, or be fined. Practically, one is very seldom "controlled" by the cops, unless the look, the place and the behavior let the cops think one may well be hiding something. Face matters, it is a sad fact of life everywhere.
Recent ID cards are somewhat hard to fake for ordinary citizens, so the document has some value. It is regularly asked by bankers and all sort of private firms and administrations when you enter their buildings. And to board planes.
It is requested to vote (ID card or passport only).
Is it usefull to fight crimes? Probably: it makes things more difficult for thieves/thugs/criminals/whatever to hide their identity, so that's one more chance the be caught if they try to get a fake card or if they use one. It is easier for cops to check identities (direct link in the cars to a centralised statewide database).
Are we less free? Frankly, it all depends on the politicians, the police, the corporate practices and, ultimately, it all depends on who we choose to elect, on what treaties and regulations we endorse, or if we let someone seize the power by bypassing the law.
I prefer a transparent and clearcut system to the kind of nearly-random datamining that has been apparently be used in Florida and elsewhere in the US to ban people from voting. Here, either a judgment has been pronouced to ban one from voting, or one is allowed to vote.
If someone comes to me and accepts to provide an IdCard, if his picture on the card looks like him, I will assume I am speaking to the correct person. This seems to me a better protection than to weild a gun, for most day-to-day affairs.
Once again: more than the Law, more than the technical system, what matters for Freedom is who holds power. If bandits are in charge, the means to oppress the people will come naturally. IdCards will just be one of those tools, but the root issue lies with the powerfulls, not with the cards.
Note that, once again, the article is inacurate on one crucial point :
<p>
<i>Brussels has ordered Microsoft to open up its software code to rivals</i>
<p>
Wrong. One of the demand is that Microsoft provide usefull and complete documentation about its protocol so that other competitors can implement compatible systems working with the Windows environment. Precisely, MSFT <i>has</i> provided a source code, claiming it was their "ultimate documentation". The experts on the case disagree, and so does the commission; a source code is no documentation. They are still faulty, by wide margins.
<p>
And there are other demands by the EU, aiming at stopping them from leveraging on the OS to expand their monopoly over other fields (Media player, instant messaging, file servers, messenging systems perhaps, and so on).
I wonder why the Commission did not aim the PDA/Phone markets too. At least I do not know if they did. Last time I requested from MSFT the meaning of Active Sync error codes, to dig into this whole mess while using -surprise !- another editor's PIM software, I received the following -oral- answer: "we lost them, we do not know what all those error numbers mean". Sure... Thanks for your help Bill.
IANAL as you would say on your side of the Atlantic, but I agree with the Irish poster that has answered too. Here -France- an appeal is another trial, with other judges, possibly other investigators, and certainly other investigations can be requested by both parties to the case. Most of the time, an appeal is "suspensive" (dunno if the word is right in English): the first rulling is not enforced. In short, the defendant is still considered inocent in the appeal court, until proven guilty a second time. This does not mean that he will not be kept in jail if he/she is considered dangerous, but, precisely, the same does apply for the first trial.
This seems to me the basic flaw in this case as in many others.
Unfortunately, this is not as simple as that. There are many cases where such geographical separation does not work and where both laws collide, where precedence of one law above the other are/should be enforced: children care in case of divorce between binational couples, heritages, fiscal matters for companies, etc... This is one case in the grey area of "international law". The right of the sea is in very murky waters too...
Well, which success are they speaking about? Has Microsoft monopolistic behaviour changed anyway since this "successfull" rulling has taken place? In some PR speech perhaps.
The DOJ settlement was only successfull for Microsoft, its shareholders, and for nobody else.
Has anybody heard of any positive effects it would have had?
I am not so sure the EU will buy such a weak argument. At least I hope it does not.
The results are:
1) Ireland gets a lot of tax revenue
2) Ireland does what its told to by MS and others
and 3) the other EU states are deprived of legitimate tax revenues by fiscal dumping. And one wonders why their growth is sooo strong. It's a wonderfull country and people though.
Cheers Eire !
And profit perhaps?
Some French still remember, reading de Gaulle's memoires, that there were more Brits than GIs landing in Normandy in 1944. And Churchill helped de Gaulle, precisely, when Roosevelt was still pondering what to think about Hitler and scorning the tall man.
What a pity US spook were re-elected twice recently in London and in Italy, and even elected once in Spain. At least the Spaniards sent back Aznar to where it belong.
Ok this is flamebait without proof, but not from an AC, although I love cheese.
... on the overall electric consumption.
what is the impact of this transparent look and feel on the electrical grid, on third world waste dumps ?
I wonder.
Except that mon & dad have tried to set up a common directory to put all of the _important_ stuff they deal with on a PC, so they tried to enact write access for them both in a common directory, which contains all the usefull data. (not possible with gnome on my Debians, offtopic, but umask does not work here with gnome-vfs, and I hate it, sorry).
/. crowd is globally very... (hum!) silly in its average response.
.exe cannot normally be executed immediately as soon as it is written on the disk and double-clicked...
So when the linux-Worm will hit, they'll been done.
Because they had no media to save all their data on one medium (all those pictures, films...), they are not properly backing it up. Incremental backups are impractical. CDRoms last only 2 years or so and then one loses much data...
I think this guy is making a pretty interresting point, not based on technical analysis but on a user-behaviour analysis. And the
And yes, Linux remains far more secure than Windows as a whole. Especially since it is so easy to patch a apt based system, and because a
A quick -and probably silly- idea: would it be stupid or impraticle to only allow write access to a directory when there is a clear interraction from the user ? Typically, the "save-as" routine could be the sole routine allowing a program to write anywhere where the user has access, and could be provided by the "system" and not by the application itself (i.e. by Gnome or Kde, not by Firefox). For all other "automatic" write operation, Firefox would only be allowed to write in a subset of the user's space; a kind of sandbox.
By Xiti
Regards.
This distro would be natively configured to run on a USB key, possibly launched from inside Windows or Linux or whatever x86 compatible machine around, and all data would be stored and natively accessed from anywhere through http to mydata.google.com => the user's data is on the network, any PC next door is used for its CPU only through broadband.
Special services offered for SMEs.
Special offers for confidentiality ?
The same is true with all nonsense, this does not need to be religious ("need a big car, big TV, best processors, nice ties everyday...").
But I presume the keyword in your sentence is _indoctrinated_.
I for once received a catholic education in Descarte's land. I do not feel indoctrinated nor do I blinly agree with whatever comes out of the Vatican.
Logic and honesty are key to usefull discussions, and one has to try to understand someone else point of view (again, honestly). This requires time, humility and dedication, and few debates allow that, whatever the media, or even between friends.
And the world has become very complicated too, and evolves very quickly. On economic matters, who has a global picture? Strange times.
Diclaimer: I am rather completely French and not found of Chirac and very dubious about this project.
BUT!
A short an effective answer to your statement <i>It strikes me as basic economic common sense that a trans-european politically-led project has not a snowball's chance in hell in any market competition.</i> is: Airbus, Ariane, and probably a bunch of other less eye-catching projects (trains...).
Shame and non-confidence about ourselves is a nationnal sport here, joyfully encouraged by our US French Bashing contenders.
In this perspective, just have a look there:
The United States has the highest prison population rate in the world, some 686 per 100,000 of the national population, followed by the Cayman Islands (664), Russia (638), Belarus (554), Kazakhstan (522), Turkmenistan (489), Belize (459), Bahamas (447), Suriname (437) and Dominica (420).
However, more than three-fifths of countries (62.5%) have rates below 150 per 100,000. (The United Kingdom's rate of 139 per 100,000 of the national population places it above the midpoint in the World List; it is now the highest among countries of the European Union.)
Well. I am not positively impressed by the US of A in this case, to say the least. No, I am not impressed by China either. Is capital punishment an attempt to somewhat empty those jails in both cases?
Many government in Europe _would_ support Iran allegedly peaceful nuclear program if they were certain it would produce no weapons. So, the correct sentence is: most government in Europe do not currently support Iran current nuclear program, not at all.
The negociation concentrates on banning uranium enrichment from being done in Iran, because they have just elected a new "God has just talked to me" president and they have repeatldly lied to the IAEA. Not, I am not talking about any US prez here.
France was very eager to sell weapons and equipment to Saddam
As any weapons producer to any oil producer. And until when? As far as we heard, even in the Washington Times, no recent French weapon system was found in Iraq, e.g. nothing had been sold after Iraq War I. Please do not mention this legend about one captured Roland 3 anti-aircraft missile launcher: the sole difference with the Roland 2 lied mainly in the software, it dated back to 1990 and was never produced (remained at prototype...).
France's rigid resistance toward English.
You mean you've found a field where Frogs do not surrender? But you are even wrong. You should work in our big enterprises, look at the ads, to just realise that it's plain wrong. The marketting guys and the big brass are fully converted to the "US-English rules the world" cause. And their propaganda machine fills our brains, with trash TV, boys bands and SUVs.
creating new "official" words for American products with English names, absolutely disgusts us.
Why? Talk of arrogance... I do concede "mél" was the silliest word crafted by the Académie Française, but the Quebecq "courriel" that was adopted since is very good. And it saves us from "mail", which is simply false but widely used for E-mail.
the US absolutely saved France's posterior in both World War I and World War II
Not in WW I, not at all. US help was... helpfull, paid for for most of it, late, minor in terms of military might. It was probably a great morale boost meanwhile, and God knows that matters in times of war.
WW II. Thanks to the British, the US, the Russians. In that order. At least where the brits our ally from the start, even if their numbers in 1939-40 on French soil was well under what they had agreed. The main issue lied in France itself: stupid military doctrine, poor political elite. And the people wanted to avoid to wage another war with Germany, such were the sufferings of WW I. Many thanks anyhow to the GIs, and especially to Eisenhover.
marginally successful when being led by Joan of Arc and Napoleon Bonaparte.
How funny.
its outspoken criticism of the US going to war, as if the UN Security Council had to absolutely approve the war.
The UN was created with much US clout to help avoid wars, mind you. Especially greed driven and imperialistic ones. So, what's the issue? Do you contend the UN inspectors have called Saddam's bluff before the security council? Re-read serious accounts please.
each country is still allowed to act in its own interests
Not by waging wars. No. Definitely no. That's one thing many people around the world despise very much. Are you allowed to seize your neighbour's house with a gun if it is in yout interest? I doubt it.
invade Venezuela for oil
There was a US-sponsored coup there some time ago, remember? It failed.
fight against radical islam
As did Saddam in Iraq?
The US really wished to blackmail Saudi Arabia and threaten Libya
This I can believe. But why not by using personnal relationship with the Saudis? They are excellent as far as we know! And do you not think that Lybia was already scared? Anyway, threatenning Lybia was probably the best achievment of this conflict. It probably could have been done another way. Reagan did it another way. And there are even persistent assertions in the French military saying that US planes indeed flew over France to do it, even if France publicly ruled it out...
everyone honestly thought that Sadaam did indeed have WMD, including the French and the Germans.
Where have you read that except in the US press? Everyone supposed Iraq _could_ possibly have had the idea to set up new programs. Hence the UN inspectors, that steadily came back before the UN security council saying "Saddam does not prove he has no more weapons, but he cooperates better and better, and we have found nothin
The reasons why Chirac and France as a whole opposed Iraq II war was stated clearly and must be understood at the first degree, and not by dubious second guessing :
- the UN weapon inspectors had found nothing justifying a second war at the time Bush declared Iraq a clear and current threat.
- and to quote - and translate it accurately - Chirac : "this region does not need another war".
He, we, were goddam _right_.