Yes, you cannot get rid off Comfrey. But some people including me find it very delicious.
Some web sources say Comfrey is dangerous for your liver. And I don't know if it is the pharma mafia or real.
You take comfrey leaves and make a kind of pankake and roast them. It is delicious but I have no idea if I should do. Without the web I would have continued.
I expect the ACTA process to include the 3-strikes again, both for the US and the EU. Trade policy is completely different and shielded against democratic influence.
So let's keep the facts straight. Microsoft is trying to push a Flash-me-too Silverlight and invests. They also invest in other platform implementations via Novell. All customers use Flash.
I installed Silverlight on my Vista PC to view a boring Microsoft developer Website video. No one else uses the software. It is nice that provided Silverlight achieved the necessary market penetration which requires marketing investments of Microsoft, the Linux implementation Moonlight would be just one generation behind.
But more likely is that Microsoft will drop the Silverlight project and then you have open source developers who wasted their time on the moonlight implementation.
guitar hero, is it Free and open source software or does the brain get wired to non-free software? As far as I can see it is proprietary and no free alternative exists.
Do you think that could be dangerous to the mental health of them? It does not feel good... Why would you want to run software connected to your brain where you cannot look at the source?
I wonder if Google would at least release the source of their 3D experiment. What is so great about open source is that development is continued regardless of business interests.
Windows is not the problem, Vista is. And sure the new interface of Office 07 sucks. Desktops will run Mac OS X, Netbooks will run LXDE, phones will run proprietary operating systems based on open source, Linux will continue to be a player on the server. All of these market winners use open source infrastructure while the old giant codes everything on his own and still has no open source strategy.
For Foxpro Microsoft suggested a release of the sources, so customers may continue to get support but that actually didn't happen. Of course they are all pissed to be locked in into a discontinued platform.
For Lively customers the same applies. Google needs to fully release the sources.
I love it when you move the goalposts. First you claim OO is murdering MS. Then you say it's merely taking chunks of revenue. Now you say it's "irrelevant" whether people actually switch or not. Brilliant! You do realize, of course, that you're making a fool of yourself, don't you?
It is actually the same.
OpenOffice is a competitive instrument. It damages the monopoly business of Microsoft and is going to kill their cash cow. For this to happen it is not necessary at this stage that users actually do switch. It is enough that they can threaten the vendor to do it, so lower their dependence. There is a whole economical teaching around it popularised by Thatcher, the theory of 'contestable markets'. In the Thatcherism it was a bogus argument to reduce the powers of antitrusts regulation but of course it is a valid argument. Open Office makes the Microsoft monopoly contestable, so they cannot charge monopoly prices anymore. Look what Microsoft cheap deals Microsoft offers public institutions these days. Everybody knows that the actual switch to another product will be a landslide because of network effects that buffer the switch.
In short contestable market means that the market share of the competitors is not relevant but the potential to gain market share. Many political systems are built on these premises. Certain parties will never actually lead the government but they have the potential to take over which influences the governing party.
As of the obvious creation of new opponents the dilemma for Microsoft is that regardless which markets they enter they face established competitors which they need to outspent to buy market share. Microsoft needs to enter these markets to diversify its business. The Xbox is a perfect example. The entertainment section of Microsoft continues to make a big loss. But of course them entering these markets also damages established competitors who turn anti-Microsoft and build alliances with other business adversaries, even if it is just symbolic. Eclipse e.g. is an example of IBM teaming up with SUN to threaten Microsoft's position in the developer sphere.
It is irrelevant how many customers actually switch to OpenOffice.org. It is enough that they "consider" to switch. Before OO.org 3 Ms-Office was ahead, with Office07 they revamped the user interface which leads to a situation that software pirates prefer earlier versions. If you don't depend on Office anymore prices will go down. OO.org may be a second best choice for many users but it is just a matter of time to surpass the Microsoft product.
As of Firefox it is now the better browser. IE users take the IE because it comes preinstalled and is good enough. IE does not generate any profits for Microsoft.
Executives who can chose a MAC these days, custom applications are dependent on the www browser. You can more easily switch. You don't depend on the platform anymore.
New markets Microsoft enters mean new opponents. They go into web advertisment and meet Google. They go into game consoles and meet the established manufacturers like Nintendo etc etc.
Netscape was a young start-up company without a product. Netscape's AOL later was paid by Microsoft to continue to use the IE engine, a real payoff of gecko investments. And now everyone uses the gecko based Firefox and others like Apple develop the open source Webkit browser. The IE monopoly is gone and the same will happen to more valuable products.
Microsoft never understood the internet. They failed with search and for the same reason will fail with the cloud. They are in desperate need to get new markets. It is true that the cash cows will continue to generate profits but what a company with large growth rates will have to sustain them or the stock market gets nervous.
OpenOffice is a low investment effort for its competitors and eats quite a chunk of their market, the more the market becomes competitive the more Microsoft has to lower its price offers. It is the only party you can expect to lose from these investments.
Netbooks now offer the opportunity to put Microsoft under pressure on the Desktop and offer cheaper deals. Hardware vendors play their games with Microsoft. Same is done by large scale customers which start their Linux pilot for procurement flexibility.
In many other markets the company actually buys market share at the expense of established competitors that fiercely fight back. Everything the do strenghtenes the alliance of competitors and there is simply no alliance partner except software sales and Symantec.
Well, but a Microsoft acquisition would make the company stop operations anyway.
Microsoft is desperate to spent its cash and fight google. Now all competitors know that Microsoft as a business is going to die. Because the main cash cows, Office and Windows are under fierce attack. No one depends on Windows anymore for accessing the cloud and Office will continue to be the cash cow unless competitors or the cloud will take over. For me OO.org is now on the same level. Just a matter of time for Microsoft to collapse. Meanwhile Microsoft burns cash and creates new enemies by dumping money into unprofitable markets, see e.g. the Xbox challenge, see their attempt to position Live search against google, Silverlight is nothing but a Flash me-too etc. etc. Microsoft is in urgent need to diversify its business while the growing alliance of competitors hunts after their cash cows.
The problem are not the document access rules which are very liberal, the problem is that the contract is not disclosed anyway, because the IPR protection clause of course served other objectives. The Italian MEP is an expert in document access rules, so he will surely work to improve things.
1. The institutions shall refuse access to a document where disclosure would undermine the protection of:
(a) the public interest as regards:
- public security,
- defence and military matters,
- international relations,
- the financial, monetary or economic policy of the Community or a Member State;
(b) privacy and the integrity of the individual, in particular in accordance with Community legislation regarding the protection of personal data.
2. The institutions shall refuse access to a document where disclosure would undermine the protection of:
- commercial interests of a natural or legal person, including intellectual property,
- court proceedings and legal advice,
- the purpose of inspections, investigations and audits,
unless there is an overriding public interest in disclosure.
3. Access to a document, drawn up by an institution for internal use or received by an institution, which relates to a matter where the decision has not been taken by the institution, shall be refused if disclosure of the document would seriously undermine the institution's decision-making process, unless there is an overriding public interest in disclosure.
Access to a document containing opinions for internal use as part of deliberations and preliminary consultations within the institution concerned shall be refused even after the decision has been taken if disclosure of the document would seriously undermine the institution's decision-making process, unless there is an overriding public interest in disclosure.
4. As regards third-party documents, the institution shall consult the third party with a view to assessing whether an exception in paragraph 1 or 2 is applicable, unless it is clear that the document shall or shall not be disclosed.
5. A Member State may request the institution not to disclose a document originating from that Member State without its prior agreement.
6. If only parts of the requested document are covered by any of the exceptions, the remaining parts of the document shall be released.
7. The exceptions as laid down in paragraphs 1 to 3 shall only apply for the period during which protection is justified on the basis of the content of the document. The exceptions may apply for a maximum period of 30 years. In the case of documents covered by the exceptions relating to privacy or commercial interests and in the case of sensitive documents, the exceptions may, if necessary, continue to apply after this period.
1. Any citizen of the Union, and any natural or legal person residing or having its registered office in a Member State, shall have a right of access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, subject to the principles and the conditions to be defined in accordance with paragraphs 2 and 3.
2. General principles and limits on grounds of public or private interest governing this right of access to documents shall be determined by the Council, acting in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 251 within two years of the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
3. Each institution referred to above shall elaborate in its own Rules of Procedure specific provisions regarding access to its documents.
It is a public contract. And public procurement works in the way that the authority says it wants x and suppliers a, b, c show up and offer a price and meet a deadline. There is no point in not seeing the deal of the winner and in particular the specific terms and conditions, the number for the Commission is 30 Million EUR afaik. Quite cheap. Public procurement works like reversed eBay.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, you cannot get rid off Comfrey. But some people including me find it very delicious.
Some web sources say Comfrey is dangerous for your liver. And I don't know if it is the pharma mafia or real.
You take comfrey leaves and make a kind of pankake and roast them. It is delicious but I have no idea if I should do. Without the web I would have continued.
This should be helpful for you:
http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2008/october/tradoc_140836.11.08.pdf
Oh, Europe is about to expand the regime to 95 years
What about Comfrey?
Can you eat Comfrey pancake or shouldn't you?
But you have to consider the ongoing ACTA process which is about the export of European IPR enforcement measures to the US and other nations.
We can get Iceland for free as an EU member state now ;-)
As I wrote above watch the ACTA process where it is going to slip in again. An international trade treaty with the US.
I expect the ACTA process to include the 3-strikes again, both for the US and the EU. Trade policy is completely different and shielded against democratic influence.
I see, no one watches Baseball in my nation and sure the organisers of the event should not make technology choices for their audience...
Exactly, broadcasters used it during the Olympic Games because Microsoft paid for the technology showcase.
But where are the users that would miss Silverlight support on their platform?
So let's keep the facts straight. Microsoft is trying to push a Flash-me-too Silverlight and invests. They also invest in other platform implementations via Novell. All customers use Flash.
I installed Silverlight on my Vista PC to view a boring Microsoft developer Website video. No one else uses the software. It is nice that provided Silverlight achieved the necessary market penetration which requires marketing investments of Microsoft, the Linux implementation Moonlight would be just one generation behind.
But more likely is that Microsoft will drop the Silverlight project and then you have open source developers who wasted their time on the moonlight implementation.
guitar hero, is it Free and open source software or does the brain get wired to non-free software? As far as I can see it is proprietary and no free alternative exists.
Do you think that could be dangerous to the mental health of them? It does not feel good... Why would you want to run software connected to your brain where you cannot look at the source?
I wonder if Google would at least release the source of their 3D experiment. What is so great about open source is that development is continued regardless of business interests.
Windows is not the problem, Vista is. And sure the new interface of Office 07 sucks. Desktops will run Mac OS X, Netbooks will run LXDE, phones will run proprietary operating systems based on open source, Linux will continue to be a player on the server. All of these market winners use open source infrastructure while the old giant codes everything on his own and still has no open source strategy.
For Foxpro Microsoft suggested a release of the sources, so customers may continue to get support but that actually didn't happen. Of course they are all pissed to be locked in into a discontinued platform.
For Lively customers the same applies. Google needs to fully release the sources.
I love it when you move the goalposts. First you claim OO is murdering MS. Then you say it's merely taking chunks of revenue. Now you say it's "irrelevant" whether people actually switch or not. Brilliant! You do realize, of course, that you're making a fool of yourself, don't you?
It is actually the same.
OpenOffice is a competitive instrument. It damages the monopoly business of Microsoft and is going to kill their cash cow. For this to happen it is not necessary at this stage that users actually do switch. It is enough that they can threaten the vendor to do it, so lower their dependence. There is a whole economical teaching around it popularised by Thatcher, the theory of 'contestable markets'. In the Thatcherism it was a bogus argument to reduce the powers of antitrusts regulation but of course it is a valid argument. Open Office makes the Microsoft monopoly contestable, so they cannot charge monopoly prices anymore. Look what Microsoft cheap deals Microsoft offers public institutions these days. Everybody knows that the actual switch to another product will be a landslide because of network effects that buffer the switch.
In short contestable market means that the market share of the competitors is not relevant but the potential to gain market share. Many political systems are built on these premises. Certain parties will never actually lead the government but they have the potential to take over which influences the governing party.
As of the obvious creation of new opponents the dilemma for Microsoft is that regardless which markets they enter they face established competitors which they need to outspent to buy market share. Microsoft needs to enter these markets to diversify its business. The Xbox is a perfect example. The entertainment section of Microsoft continues to make a big loss. But of course them entering these markets also damages established competitors who turn anti-Microsoft and build alliances with other business adversaries, even if it is just symbolic. Eclipse e.g. is an example of IBM teaming up with SUN to threaten Microsoft's position in the developer sphere.
It is irrelevant how many customers actually switch to OpenOffice.org. It is enough that they "consider" to switch. Before OO.org 3 Ms-Office was ahead, with Office07 they revamped the user interface which leads to a situation that software pirates prefer earlier versions. If you don't depend on Office anymore prices will go down. OO.org may be a second best choice for many users but it is just a matter of time to surpass the Microsoft product.
As of Firefox it is now the better browser. IE users take the IE because it comes preinstalled and is good enough. IE does not generate any profits for Microsoft.
Executives who can chose a MAC these days, custom applications are dependent on the www browser. You can more easily switch. You don't depend on the platform anymore.
New markets Microsoft enters mean new opponents. They go into web advertisment and meet Google. They go into game consoles and meet the established manufacturers like Nintendo etc etc.
Netscape was a young start-up company without a product. Netscape's AOL later was paid by Microsoft to continue to use the IE engine, a real payoff of gecko investments. And now everyone uses the gecko based Firefox and others like Apple develop the open source Webkit browser. The IE monopoly is gone and the same will happen to more valuable products.
Microsoft never understood the internet. They failed with search and for the same reason will fail with the cloud. They are in desperate need to get new markets. It is true that the cash cows will continue to generate profits but what a company with large growth rates will have to sustain them or the stock market gets nervous.
OpenOffice is a low investment effort for its competitors and eats quite a chunk of their market, the more the market becomes competitive the more Microsoft has to lower its price offers. It is the only party you can expect to lose from these investments.
Netbooks now offer the opportunity to put Microsoft under pressure on the Desktop and offer cheaper deals. Hardware vendors play their games with Microsoft. Same is done by large scale customers which start their Linux pilot for procurement flexibility.
In many other markets the company actually buys market share at the expense of established competitors that fiercely fight back. Everything the do strenghtenes the alliance of competitors and there is simply no alliance partner except software sales and Symantec.
Well, but a Microsoft acquisition would make the company stop operations anyway.
Microsoft is desperate to spent its cash and fight google. Now all competitors know that Microsoft as a business is going to die. Because the main cash cows, Office and Windows are under fierce attack. No one depends on Windows anymore for accessing the cloud and Office will continue to be the cash cow unless competitors or the cloud will take over. For me OO.org is now on the same level. Just a matter of time for Microsoft to collapse. Meanwhile Microsoft burns cash and creates new enemies by dumping money into unprofitable markets, see e.g. the Xbox challenge, see their attempt to position Live search against google, Silverlight is nothing but a Flash me-too etc. etc. Microsoft is in urgent need to diversify its business while the growing alliance of competitors hunts after their cash cows.
The way forward for the easy Linux Desktop is LXDE, not the idiosyncratic gnome with all the components and Mono dependencies. http://www.lxde.org/
I don't trust Novell, look what they did to OpenOffice, they forked it and Microsoft pays their project.
But what really is a no-go: The collaborate with a communist party. How bad is that?
Well, it is "as expected".
The problem are not the document access rules which are very liberal, the problem is that the contract is not disclosed anyway, because the IPR protection clause of course served other objectives. The Italian MEP is an expert in document access rules, so he will surely work to improve things.
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32001R1049:EN:HTML
Article 4:
the right of governments to decide what they make public and not
No, it is not.
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32001R1049:EN:HTML
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:12002E255:EN:HTML
Another branch.
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32001R1049:EN:HTML
Article 255
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:12002E255:EN:HTML
Same in the EU:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32001R1049:EN:HTML
It is a public contract. And public procurement works in the way that the authority says it wants x and suppliers a, b, c show up and offer a price and meet a deadline. There is no point in not seeing the deal of the winner and in particular the specific terms and conditions, the number for the Commission is 30 Million EUR afaik. Quite cheap. Public procurement works like reversed eBay.