I think the reason such a project has grown to be what it is, is that all those people share the same ideology.
I respectfully disagree. I have no idea of the idealogies of the other people who code the OSS project that submit patches to. Many of them, I don't know what country they are in, or even their gender, much less their idealogy.
We are all in it for our own selfish reasons. Even if that reason is to feel better about life by helping others. (But it could just as easily be to get some credentials to pad the CV for a better job, or to gain political high ground or whatever.)
The one thing we have in common is wanting to commit code to a project without getting directly paid for doing so. That is all. That is enough. And that is waaaaaay cool.
"Once the USA, Japan and Europe had uniform intellectual property laws to protect our corporations and our way of life, everyone else had to play ball or they couldn't trade."
Fortunately, Asia comprising half the worlds population and rather more than its proportional share in manufacturing facilities, declined to play ball. Oh they'd pretend, sign treaties, announce crackdowns and even make some arrests (often allegedly because payment was late) however they resolutely declined to be effective in their enforcement of the annexation interests of foreign corporations. This, of course speeded the end of "The American Century." All innovation being outlawed in the west, the possibility for economic growth largely evaporated. China, ignoring such rubbish had no such problems and continued to grow at unprecedented rates, hiring all who valued innovation, which became known as "The Great Brain Drain of 2015" There was talk that China would buy the US for the additional real estate...
Stealing a plot, infringing copyright. Goodnight hollywood, it's been nice. Yet humans continue to ignore the obvious, even when pointed explicitly by someone with something of a reputation in the field.
"There are only two storylines; a man goes on a journey, a stranger comes to town."
-Anton Chekhov
I'm starting to believe my highschool English Litt teacher when she told me there are disasters in the offing if the powerful are merely trained and not educated.
The article was about X Window Toolkits.. What does X11 have to do with win32 or other systems?
I offer this in the correct spirit, not as flame.
In choosing a Window Toolkit for X Programming, being able to port your app with the minimum of fuss to alternative OSs is a consideration for some programmers. Others want their app to run only on UNIX like OSs and can ignore this entirely. Horses for courses.
Thank you for your post. This is truly awful, I may cry. The only time software development starts with sufficient backing not to suck is when it's purpose is to kill people? Chill Harry, think OSS, think GNU, think Linux, think BSD...
No, I will never, ever be involved with military weapons contractors under any circumstances or I have failed.
What are the chances that this will be ignored elsewhere in the world. Then perhaps challenged in the semi-serious world courtrooms. The US ambassador to the UN would look very silly trying to justify that according to some US law (hence should be globally) some US corporation owns your genetic squence.
I'm imagining the response if the patents belonged to Japanese, German or latterly, say Lybian, Israeli or Ukranian corporations. I just can't imagine the US supporing such a preprosterous stance if that were the case
But then I would have thought a priori that the US wouldn't support that nonsense ever...
In other news, I now have the 'global patents' on the carbon & oxygen atoms, please forward your cheques...
Patent the Human Genome? Prior Art to God/Allah/Buddah/Krishna/(apologies for the remaining omissions) So, say I want to splice some genes with a member of the opposite sex, in a maritial bed, like folk have been doing since the first amoeba spotted another and thought, "Hey! You're one of my kind, what's say we head back to my petri and listen to some Isaac Hayes tunes..." Then I gotta pay some corporate royalties for that? Anyone get the feeling we're about to have a court rule that Pi is equal to 3? Patent the Genome. That has to be the silliest thing I have heard and taken seriously. (Huge fscking statement that one!) (Please not, incredulity reserved for the courts not for 'andrewski' who I am sure is just reporting the news.
Whoa... Wrong button. I used to use fancy functions in M$ Excel. I do not do this anymore. The algorithms used by the statistics functions have been documented as unstable for, oh, about 10 years. M$ has ignored the posts containing correcting code on their own corporate vanity newserver microsoft.public.excel.programming I was doing some fancy calculations for fun, which messed up, having me looking for bugs that weren't in my spreadsheets, but in the MS code - that I couldn't fix. About this point I bought "Rebel Code" by Glyn Moody to see if there was anything going on in the alternative, and it's not too hard to guess what happened next. Many paths to OSS.
Yep, but you coud argue that a signficant proportion of Unixware revenue is attributable to the features enabled by Linux code, used IN BREACH OF COPYRIGHT. If the GPL were a paid licencing agreement (as in cash money) as is traditional in software, SCO would be sued for the money not paid. The GPL specifically has requirements with regards to code and not money. SO SUE SCO FOR THE CODE. Could Unixware under the GPL? Well who knows what the courts will do, it doesn't seem to have much to do with law so much as public relations...
GPL Code is NOT FREE AS IN BEER! Never was, never will be. It has very real obligations that must be adhered to with respect to additions & modifications to the code that are redistributed. This is not cost in money. It IS a cost in time, intellectual property an all those other intangibles.
That is what I love about the GPL and why I am happy to release code under the GPL.
However we have no more proof that SCO put GPL code into their software than we have proof that there is SCO code in the Linux Kernel. Wait and see... Although it would be nice if IBM, HP, Dell, Red Hat, Suse, Debian, The FSF and others could bring action against SCO executives personally, if they are found to be bringing a completely baseless case.
goto/* Fuck Dijkstra */
is one of my fav's. But I think i saw it in the Linux Kernel first, before copying it just about everywhere I go the chance.
A small thing, (a small mind...)
Alfred Bester - The Demolished Man &/or The Stars My Destination (aka) Tiger, Tiger.
Douglas Adams - If he wrote it, have a read.
John Brunner - Stand on Zanzibar (see the hacking of Shalmanseer)
Roger Zelazny
Ursula Le Guin
Joe Haldeman
Don't be frightened of the History books as well. Great reads.
Code - Charles Petzold
Rebel Code
Hackers
The Mythical Man Month (history?)
And, of course, "Dr Strangehate or how I learned to stop worrying and love Microsoft"
He spotted a bookmark named Linux and asked immediately what was in it, Linux or Gnu software ("Should not that be Gnu/Linux) ? It turns out it was just a list of bookmark related to Free Software (freshmeat, linuxfr, dot.kde.org,...).
GNU's Not Unix. If it were even close, Linux would not be. My distro contains a lot of free, open-source & non-free software for the linux kernel (as opposed to BSD, Solaris, HURD or FUBAR)
Only some of the software for my particular kernel is GNU. I love GNU software. I also love Mozilla, VIM, (gasp) Kylix, Open Office etc. All of those just referenced I used every day.
All compiled for the linux kernel.
Therefore a Linux distribution
GNU/Kylix/Qt/OpenOffice.org/Mozilla/Vim/Linux
RMS - You have to be kidding.
Did you do it as you so often claim "to make the world a better place" or simply so you could be the "Legend" who coded a Unix from scratch?
'Coz it seems like you're really pissed that a whole bunch of non-Gnu hackers achieved what you wanted to do yourself. Seems like a shame.
However, and I mean this absolutely sincerely. Best of luck with the HURD. I hope it turns into a corker of an operating system.
I'm a single atheist white man, 50, reputedly intelligent, with unusual interests in politics, science, music and dance.
I'd like to meet a woman with varied interests, curious about the world, comfortable expressing her likes and dislikes (I hate struggling to guess), delighting in her ability to fascinate a man and in being loved tenderly, who values joy, truth, beauty and justice more than "success"--so we can share bouts of intense, passionately kind awareness of each other, alternating with tolerant warmth while we're absorbed in other aspects of life.
My 19-year-old child, the Free Software Movement, occupies most of my life, leaving no room for more children, but I still have room to love a sweetheart. I spend a lot of my time traveling to give speeches, often to Europe, Asia and Latin America; it would be nice if you were free to travel with me some of the time.
If you are interested, write to rms at stallman dot org and we'll see where it leads.
Probably the wrong place to post his ad, but lets hope it works out for him.
Google do not require capital. The only reasons for an IPO is if the market values their profit cash flows more than Googles owners do, the owners can cash in. The other reason is if they want to cash out of the business.
The Mars confectionary company is extremely profitable, very large and privately owned. IPOs are not neccessary in all circumstances. They are necesary for undercapitalised businesses who's significant returns are a number of years away.
You're google, just keep collecting cash. I somehow doubt they're going to let a bunch of overpaid used car and insurance salesman who call themselves investment bankers (lower case under advice) talk them into anything.
Telstra are not loved in Australia. However their Broadband service "Big Pond Advance" has been heavily promoted of late and is taking market share from AOL's dial up service. As are the ADSL providers. Fast is good, by the time you factor in local calls, the difference in cost for many is minimal.
AOL blocks all DSL ISP's and Telstra. "Don't go elsewhere kids, you won't be able to email your mates on AOL anymore the world over."
Where are the watchdogs? Why shouldn't AOL be instructed to lift this rediculous practice or withdraw entirely from Australia.
(It's a great business move if they get away with it... Remember a little company called Microsoft?)
Interesting point.
On an individual level it may be more important for someone to be able to read, hell I'd say it's pre-requisite for the command line, at least;)
This, however makes no difference from a policy perspective. Litteracy in the USA & Europe is not 100%, yet there would be screams of protest if all Comp Sci teaching was banned until 100% litteracy was reached.
There are those in dirt poor countries who are smart and educated. They may lack money.
This 'elite' (for want of a better word, inteligentsia? ) needs to know about whatever technology is going to help their country produce more 'stuff' with the same amount of resources. If that is computers, then great.
Producing more stuff, this means more wealth, which should mean more to go around. More to be taxed and spent on litteracy programs, social security, health and all the other stuff that individuals in poor countries so desperately need.
However, if people cannot learn because they live in a poor country, so lack the materials (computer equipment) that country will always be poor, will always be reliant on handouts from the rich, and on the recent tragic history of most of Afrcia, probably will probably have to deal with civil war & systemic corruption on an ongoing basis.
Are computers the way to go?
Well I guess if you can read, there is a hell of a lot that can be found out on the internet. Knowlege is power.
Another concern is someone who can read, can get on line, but has no education to be able to assess whether or not a page is full of b-s can cause a hell of a lot of trouble. (Anybody else dissappointed that Thabo Mbeki, president of the Republic of South Africa believes HIV does not lead to AIDS because he saw a site somewhere. 8 million people will die in the next ten years in his country. Are they running the biggest, most prominent safe-sex campaign ever? No need, the link between HIV and Aids is not clear.)
Yes, I agree as far as it goes. Using market penetration to eradicate competitors may be capitalism. But it is not always legal. Certainly Andrew Carnegie did it, a superior steel railway production process he claimed "lacked homogineity" (this has no meaning) they lost their customers, went broke, he bought them out and built the US railroad system becomming the richest man in the world. But he'd get done like a dinner for that today, one has to be a little more subtle about it.
Win 3.1 on DrDos = Error, but only because MS programmed "if DrDos is TRUE print error and exit." Legal? Well it is a little more subtle I guess.. If Toll roads were owned by BMW and they decided to charge other makes of cars 10 times the toll, to boost BMW sales, probably not legal. If Pan-Am bought Newark, JFK (& the other one) and then denied all other airlines landing rights, that may not be legal. If the telephone company decides no users of its network can call users of an upstart small co, and removes their customers from the internatilonal phone network. Probably not legal.
'Sunday-School Capitalism' suggests that the way to increase profits, market share etc. Is to offer something better. Higher quality, cheaper, more reliable, more useable or just good feelings associated with the branding and image. Not preventing customers of competitors from functioning by the abuse of market share. Usually the regulation of this is done with refusal to allow a corporate merger or acquisition. This was never an option with our favourite OS monopoly as it was an organic monopoly. Marginal cost of an extra unit of software is trivial. The most expensive piece of software in the world costs about $2 to produce one extra unit. Thus the long term average total cost is declining = natural monopoly. Dos got in there because it was so cheap and so often pirated so rather a lot of people knew how to use it. Building software on the Dos platform suddenly made sense for this reason. More Dos, bigger market. More software on Dos more Dos. Etc Market share established, then imitate a better system. (Mac - easier to use for 'the kids') And then start jacking up the price saying it's better, it's better. Hey XP is now a functional OS, finally.
Free Software is also playing this game rather well, only development costs do not have to be recovered. And with the lovely Debian, install once, upgrade ever after. Cost is your ISP. (But I send them something else because I lurve them.)
Microsoft is scared, at someone using their precise long-term undercutting strategy to attack them. And well they should be. Because they can't compete with with mere financial clout, becuase free software never needs to make any money. (Can for service providers, but never needs to.)
Economically what AOL have done is impose an externality on users of DSL ISPs to cut AOL costs. Usually this results in legal trouble of one kind or another. But then again, we know this tech area is "special" because so many lawyers and politicians have no clue.
Is this ileagle anti-competitive behavior? In the name of spam you can't email your mother, your friends or whoever, but this problem goes away if you leave your ISP and get an AOL account. Hmmmm.... Maybe being anti-competitive is not their intention, however they do have to be very careful to look as though they are doing the right thing, in addition to actually doing it. Moreover especially since it is so easy to change ISP away from AOL. It would probably take the majority of AOL'ers no more than an hour to accomplish this. (Mercifully an ISP is not an operating system.) AOL customers would frequently have an alternate, web-based free email account with yahoo or whomever. They're going to find it annoying when friends start forwarding the bounced emails to the alternate address with a comment such as, "Your ISP is not offering you quality service." One would imagine some of the other large players in the market who offer DSL, might return the favour, with detailed text in the returned mail as to why. Or even, to take the high road. Inform the AOL customer who sent it, that their mail has been delivered but not to hold their breath for a reply as their ISP is cutting their own costs at the expense of accpetable levels of service.
Posts here seem to suggest that everybody who knows what a keyboard is, can find a Key using nowt but a search engine.
So who benefits from the publicity?
Software pirates? They already knew.
People who don't like Microsoft? Good for a laugh for about half a second, I guess...
Microsoft? More people with experience using their servers? Right now if you're a poor student you're likely to know a thing or two about Linux server configuration, especially since you can do it with a box you bought for $20. Or BSD...
Microsoft again? Hey, a media storm for the ingnorant to support this Pallid Big Brother nonsense? Or is that too cynnical..?
No more security patches for Fully paid up NT licences. Hmmm...
You pays your money, and you takes your choice...
apt-get lacks the option "stuffed" It's a feature.
I don't hate them, the sheer speed at which really useful application can be developped in Excel VBA is a breakthrough. (XL97 is just fine, upgrade? Why?) But then Excel has all those unstable algorithms in their stats functions that everybody has known about for years and years...
I've been given X, Gnome & KDE. Now Give me VBA in OOo, Gnumeric or Kspread, & I'll give you Linux, Undisputed king of the office desktop.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the reason such a project has grown to be what it is, is that all those people share the same ideology.
I respectfully disagree. I have no idea of the idealogies of the other people who code the OSS project that submit patches to. Many of them, I don't know what country they are in, or even their gender, much less their idealogy.
We are all in it for our own selfish reasons. Even if that reason is to feel better about life by helping others. (But it could just as easily be to get some credentials to pad the CV for a better job, or to gain political high ground or whatever.)
The one thing we have in common is wanting to commit code to a project without getting directly paid for doing so. That is all. That is enough.
And that is waaaaaay cool.
"Once the USA, Japan and Europe had uniform intellectual property laws to protect our corporations and our way of life, everyone else had to play ball or they couldn't trade."
Fortunately, Asia comprising half the worlds population and rather more than its proportional share in manufacturing facilities, declined to play ball. Oh they'd pretend, sign treaties, announce crackdowns and even make some arrests (often allegedly because payment was late) however they resolutely declined to be effective in their enforcement of the annexation interests of foreign corporations. This, of course speeded the end of "The American Century." All innovation being outlawed in the west, the possibility for economic growth largely evaporated. China, ignoring such rubbish had no such problems and continued to grow at unprecedented rates, hiring all who valued innovation, which became known as "The Great Brain Drain of 2015" There was talk that China would buy the US for the additional real estate...
Stealing a plot, infringing copyright. Goodnight hollywood, it's been nice.
Yet humans continue to ignore the obvious, even when pointed explicitly by someone with something of a reputation in the field.
"There are only two storylines; a man goes on a journey, a stranger comes to town."
-Anton Chekhov
I'm starting to believe my highschool English Litt teacher when she told me there are disasters in the offing if the powerful are merely trained and not educated.
Sun Microsystems? :)
The article was about X Window Toolkits.. What does X11 have to do with win32 or other systems?
I offer this in the correct spirit, not as flame.
In choosing a Window Toolkit for X Programming, being able to port your app with the minimum of fuss to alternative OSs is a consideration for some programmers. Others want their app to run only on UNIX like OSs and can ignore this entirely. Horses for courses.
Thank you for your post. This is truly awful, I may cry. The only time software development starts with sufficient backing not to suck is when it's purpose is to kill people? Chill Harry, think OSS, think GNU, think Linux, think BSD...
No, I will never, ever be involved with military weapons contractors under any circumstances or I have failed.
In other news, I now have the 'global patents' on the carbon & oxygen atoms, please forward your cheques...
Grokking the Gimp
And it's free to download
Oh how I love this stuff...
All the best!
Patent the Human Genome?
Prior Art to God/Allah/Buddah/Krishna/(apologies for the remaining omissions)
So, say I want to splice some genes with a member of the opposite sex, in a maritial bed, like folk have been doing since the first amoeba spotted another and thought, "Hey! You're one of my kind, what's say we head back to my petri and listen to some Isaac Hayes tunes..." Then I gotta pay some corporate royalties for that?
Anyone get the feeling we're about to have a court rule that Pi is equal to 3?
Patent the Genome. That has to be the silliest thing I have heard and taken seriously. (Huge fscking statement that one!)
(Please not, incredulity reserved for the courts not for 'andrewski' who I am sure is just reporting the news.
Whoa...
Wrong button.
I used to use fancy functions in M$ Excel. I do not do this anymore. The algorithms used by the statistics functions have been documented as unstable for, oh, about 10 years. M$ has ignored the posts containing correcting code on their own corporate vanity newserver
microsoft.public.excel.programming
I was doing some fancy calculations for fun, which messed up, having me looking for bugs that weren't in my spreadsheets, but in the MS code - that I couldn't fix.
About this point I bought "Rebel Code" by Glyn Moody to see if there was anything going on in the alternative, and it's not too hard to guess what happened next. Many paths to OSS.
Gnumeric-1.1.18 A thing of beauty and a joy forever...
Yep, but you coud argue that a signficant proportion of Unixware revenue is attributable to the features enabled by Linux code, used IN BREACH OF COPYRIGHT. If the GPL were a paid licencing agreement (as in cash money) as is traditional in software, SCO would be sued for the money not paid. The GPL specifically has requirements with regards to code and not money. SO SUE SCO FOR THE CODE. Could Unixware under the GPL? Well who knows what the courts will do, it doesn't seem to have much to do with law so much as public relations...
GPL Code is NOT FREE AS IN BEER! Never was, never will be. It has very real obligations that must be adhered to with respect to additions & modifications to the code that are redistributed. This is not cost in money. It IS a cost in time, intellectual property an all those other intangibles.
That is what I love about the GPL and why I am happy to release code under the GPL.
However we have no more proof that SCO put GPL code into their software than we have proof that there is SCO code in the Linux Kernel. Wait and see... Although it would be nice if IBM, HP, Dell, Red Hat, Suse, Debian, The FSF and others could bring action against SCO executives personally, if they are found to be bringing a completely baseless case.
goto /* Fuck Dijkstra */
is one of my fav's. But I think i saw it in the Linux Kernel first, before copying it just about everywhere I go the chance.
A small thing, (a small mind...)
Alfred Bester - The Demolished Man &/or The Stars My Destination (aka) Tiger, Tiger. Douglas Adams - If he wrote it, have a read. John Brunner - Stand on Zanzibar (see the hacking of Shalmanseer) Roger Zelazny Ursula Le Guin Joe Haldeman Don't be frightened of the History books as well. Great reads. Code - Charles Petzold Rebel Code Hackers The Mythical Man Month (history?) And, of course, "Dr Strangehate or how I learned to stop worrying and love Microsoft"
He spotted a bookmark named Linux and asked immediately what was in it, Linux or Gnu software ("Should not that be Gnu/Linux) ? It turns out it was just a list of bookmark related to Free Software (freshmeat, linuxfr, dot.kde.org, ...).
GNU's Not Unix. If it were even close, Linux would not be. My distro contains a lot of free, open-source & non-free software for the linux kernel (as opposed to BSD, Solaris, HURD or FUBAR)
Only some of the software for my particular kernel is GNU. I love GNU software. I also love Mozilla, VIM, (gasp) Kylix, Open Office etc. All of those just referenced I used every day.
All compiled for the linux kernel.
Therefore a Linux distribution
GNU/Kylix/Qt/OpenOffice.org/Mozilla/Vim/Linux
RMS - You have to be kidding.
Did you do it as you so often claim "to make the world a better place" or simply so you could be the "Legend" who coded a Unix from scratch?
'Coz it seems like you're really pissed that a whole bunch of non-Gnu hackers achieved what you wanted to do yourself. Seems like a shame.
However, and I mean this absolutely sincerely. Best of luck with the HURD. I hope it turns into a corker of an operating system.
from http://www.stallman.org
I'm a single atheist white man, 50, reputedly intelligent, with unusual interests in politics, science, music and dance. I'd like to meet a woman with varied interests, curious about the world, comfortable expressing her likes and dislikes (I hate struggling to guess), delighting in her ability to fascinate a man and in being loved tenderly, who values joy, truth, beauty and justice more than "success"--so we can share bouts of intense, passionately kind awareness of each other, alternating with tolerant warmth while we're absorbed in other aspects of life. My 19-year-old child, the Free Software Movement, occupies most of my life, leaving no room for more children, but I still have room to love a sweetheart. I spend a lot of my time traveling to give speeches, often to Europe, Asia and Latin America; it would be nice if you were free to travel with me some of the time.
If you are interested, write to rms at stallman dot org and we'll see where it leads.
Probably the wrong place to post his ad, but lets hope it works out for him.
Google do not require capital.
The only reasons for an IPO is if the market values their profit cash flows more than Googles owners do, the owners can cash in.
The other reason is if they want to cash out of the business.
The Mars confectionary company is extremely profitable, very large and privately owned. IPOs are not neccessary in all circumstances. They are necesary for undercapitalised businesses who's significant returns are a number of years away.
You're google, just keep collecting cash. I somehow doubt they're going to let a bunch of overpaid used car and insurance salesman who call themselves investment bankers (lower case under advice) talk them into anything.
Telstra are not loved in Australia.
However their Broadband service "Big Pond Advance" has been heavily promoted of late and is taking market share from AOL's dial up service. As are the ADSL providers. Fast is good, by the time you factor in local calls, the difference in cost for many is minimal.
AOL blocks all DSL ISP's and Telstra.
"Don't go elsewhere kids, you won't be able to email your mates on AOL anymore the world over."
Where are the watchdogs? Why shouldn't AOL be instructed to lift this rediculous practice or withdraw entirely from Australia.
(It's a great business move if they get away with it... Remember a little company called Microsoft?)
Did SCO just release all of their intellectual property under the GPL?
Interesting point. On an individual level it may be more important for someone to be able to read, hell I'd say it's pre-requisite for the command line, at least ;)
This, however makes no difference from a policy perspective. Litteracy in the USA & Europe is not 100%, yet there would be screams of protest if all Comp Sci teaching was banned until 100% litteracy was reached.
There are those in dirt poor countries who are smart and educated. They may lack money.
This 'elite' (for want of a better word, inteligentsia? ) needs to know about whatever technology is going to help their country produce more 'stuff' with the same amount of resources. If that is computers, then great.
Producing more stuff, this means more wealth, which should mean more to go around. More to be taxed and spent on litteracy programs, social security, health and all the other stuff that individuals in poor countries so desperately need.
However, if people cannot learn because they live in a poor country, so lack the materials (computer equipment) that country will always be poor, will always be reliant on handouts from the rich, and on the recent tragic history of most of Afrcia, probably will probably have to deal with civil war & systemic corruption on an ongoing basis.
Are computers the way to go?
Well I guess if you can read, there is a hell of a lot that can be found out on the internet. Knowlege is power.
Another concern is someone who can read, can get on line, but has no education to be able to assess whether or not a page is full of b-s can cause a hell of a lot of trouble. (Anybody else dissappointed that Thabo Mbeki, president of the Republic of South Africa believes HIV does not lead to AIDS because he saw a site somewhere. 8 million people will die in the next ten years in his country. Are they running the biggest, most prominent safe-sex campaign ever? No need, the link between HIV and Aids is not clear.)
Yes, I agree as far as it goes.
Using market penetration to eradicate competitors may be capitalism. But it is not always legal. Certainly Andrew Carnegie did it, a superior steel railway production process he claimed "lacked homogineity" (this has no meaning) they lost their customers, went broke, he bought them out and built the US railroad system becomming the richest man in the world. But he'd get done like a dinner for that today, one has to be a little more subtle about it.
Win 3.1 on DrDos = Error, but only because MS programmed
"if DrDos is TRUE print error and exit."
Legal? Well it is a little more subtle I guess..
If Toll roads were owned by BMW and they decided to charge other makes of cars 10 times the toll, to boost BMW sales, probably not legal.
If Pan-Am bought Newark, JFK (& the other one) and then denied all other airlines landing rights, that may not be legal.
If the telephone company decides no users of its network can call users of an upstart small co, and removes their customers from the internatilonal phone network. Probably not legal.
'Sunday-School Capitalism' suggests that the way to increase profits, market share etc. Is to offer something better. Higher quality, cheaper, more reliable, more useable or just good feelings associated with the branding and image. Not preventing customers of competitors from functioning by the abuse of market share.
Usually the regulation of this is done with refusal to allow a corporate merger or acquisition. This was never an option with our favourite OS monopoly as it was an organic monopoly.
Marginal cost of an extra unit of software is trivial. The most expensive piece of software in the world costs about $2 to produce one extra unit. Thus the long term average total cost is declining = natural monopoly.
Dos got in there because it was so cheap and so often pirated so rather a lot of people knew how to use it. Building software on the Dos platform suddenly made sense for this reason. More Dos, bigger market. More software on Dos more Dos. Etc
Market share established, then imitate a better system. (Mac - easier to use for 'the kids')
And then start jacking up the price saying it's better, it's better. Hey XP is now a functional OS, finally.
Free Software is also playing this game rather well, only development costs do not have to be recovered. And with the lovely Debian, install once, upgrade ever after. Cost is your ISP. (But I send them something else because I lurve them.)
Microsoft is scared, at someone using their precise long-term undercutting strategy to attack them. And well they should be. Because they can't compete with with mere financial clout, becuase free software never needs to make any money. (Can for service providers, but never needs to.)
Economically what AOL have done is impose an externality on users of DSL ISPs to cut AOL costs.
Usually this results in legal trouble of one kind or another. But then again, we know this tech area is "special" because so many lawyers and politicians have no clue.
Is this ileagle anti-competitive behavior?
In the name of spam you can't email your mother, your friends or whoever, but this problem goes away if you leave your ISP and get an AOL account.
Hmmmm....
Maybe being anti-competitive is not their intention, however they do have to be very careful to look as though they are doing the right thing, in addition to actually doing it. Moreover especially since it is so easy to change ISP away from AOL. It would probably take the majority of AOL'ers no more than an hour to accomplish this. (Mercifully an ISP is not an operating system.)
AOL customers would frequently have an alternate, web-based free email account with yahoo or whomever. They're going to find it annoying when friends start forwarding the bounced emails to the alternate address with a comment such as, "Your ISP is not offering you quality service."
One would imagine some of the other large players in the market who offer DSL, might return the favour, with detailed text in the returned mail as to why. Or even, to take the high road. Inform the AOL customer who sent it, that their mail has been delivered but not to hold their breath for a reply as their ISP is cutting their own costs at the expense of accpetable levels of service.
Posts here seem to suggest that everybody who knows what a keyboard is, can find a Key using nowt but a search engine. So who benefits from the publicity?
Software pirates? They already knew.
People who don't like Microsoft? Good for a laugh for about half a second, I guess...
Microsoft? More people with experience using their servers? Right now if you're a poor student you're likely to know a thing or two about Linux server configuration, especially since you can do it with a box you bought for $20. Or BSD...
Microsoft again? Hey, a media storm for the ingnorant to support this Pallid Big Brother nonsense? Or is that too cynnical..?
No more security patches for Fully paid up NT licences. Hmmm...
You pays your money, and you takes your choice...
apt-get lacks the option "stuffed" It's a feature.
I don't hate them, the sheer speed at which really useful application can be developped in Excel VBA is a breakthrough. (XL97 is just fine, upgrade? Why?) But then Excel has all those unstable algorithms in their stats functions that everybody has known about for years and years...
I've been given X, Gnome & KDE. Now Give me VBA in OOo, Gnumeric or Kspread, & I'll give you Linux, Undisputed king of the office desktop.