Sorry, by law when the government declares a company a monopoly, the government has the option to put its thumb on the scales of justice to balance out the playing field. That is what it is doing here.
If "It is a legal requirement that pre-installed operating systems remain with a machine for the life of the machine." then am breaking the law if install Linux on top of a machine that once came with Windows? Uh, no. And if I do, I can never sell/donate it? Uh, No.
I could accept that it is a legal requirement that a pre-installed OS not be used on an another machine. Granted. Microsoft seems to be dictating that a machine must have windows for its lifetime:
"If a company or individual donates a machine to your school, it must be donated with the operating system that was installed on the PC."
It should be perfectly legal for me to throw away a machine's Windows software, then donate it naked. In fact, if I want to spread the gospel of Linux, I should be able to donate a machine and deliberately not provide the Windows software. I just can't subsequently use the software myself. Microsoft is misleading donors and recipients.
At a previous employer, we had a home-grown database system (written in IBM mainframe assembler). We were a non-profit company, and perhaps because some of the development was paid for by the government, there was some stipulation that the source code back then had be made available to qualified parties.
Worried that we would lose our intellectual property, the company hired a consultant to determine the best way to obfuscate the code before sharing it. After looking over the code, the consultant noted that we didn't need to do a thing to it to prevent others from understanding it!
Buying VJ++ from Microsoft is like buying life insurance from a mortician. He might be useful to you for awhile, but his long term goal isn't yours.
Since VJ++ is stuck at Java 1.1, people who were once foolish enough to believe there was a future in a Java IDE from a company that despises Java seem to be migrating away from it. There are better products out there now.
What's the use of a nice standard if there is no easy way to get it into the hands of the end user? The problem seems to be in getting the Java 2 platform on an end user machine (without having to cajole them into downloading a 5Mb plug-in). There are swing applets yearning to be free.
Even better would be forcing Microsoft to put OJI into IE. Yeah, that's going to happen.
Slashdot Mirror
Just don't sue his nephew. I have a family to feed.
Sorry, by law when the government declares a company a monopoly, the government has the option to put its thumb on the scales of justice to balance out the playing field. That is what it is doing here.
I could accept that it is a legal requirement that a pre-installed OS not be used on an another machine. Granted. Microsoft seems to be dictating that a machine must have windows for its lifetime: "If a company or individual donates a machine to your school, it must be donated with the operating system that was installed on the PC."
It should be perfectly legal for me to throw away a machine's Windows software, then donate it naked. In fact, if I want to spread the gospel of Linux, I should be able to donate a machine and deliberately not provide the Windows software. I just can't subsequently use the software myself. Microsoft is misleading donors and recipients.
Yes, it is on my resume. (It is a great interview topic.)
At a previous employer, we had a home-grown database system (written in IBM mainframe assembler). We were a non-profit company, and perhaps because some of the development was paid for by the government, there was some stipulation that the source code back then had be made available to qualified parties.
Worried that we would lose our intellectual property, the company hired a consultant to determine the best way to obfuscate the code before sharing it. After looking over the code, the consultant noted that we didn't need to do a thing to it to prevent others from understanding it!
Ken (a 1997 winner of the IOCCC)
Yeah, I need RedHat to install more newsreader apps by default. One per day of week would be nice.
Buying VJ++ from Microsoft is like buying life insurance from a mortician. He might be useful to you for awhile, but his long term goal isn't yours.
Since VJ++ is stuck at Java 1.1, people who were once foolish enough to believe there was a future in a Java IDE from a company that despises Java seem to be migrating away from it. There are better products out there now.
What's the use of a nice standard if there is no easy way to get it into the hands of the end user? The problem seems to be in getting the Java 2 platform on an end user machine (without having to cajole them into downloading a 5Mb plug-in). There are swing applets yearning to be free.
Even better would be forcing Microsoft to put OJI into IE. Yeah, that's going to happen.