I am afraid you have been too lenient on yourself. I am pretty sure you have told innocent lies from time to time, like everyone else. My point is your original question is an unfair question.
Just for your information, I worked many years under a guy named Mitchell Kertzman, former CEO of Sybase. He was one of government's key witnesses against Microsoft in the anti-trust case and his main claim was that Microsoft SQL Server stole technologies from Sybase under the partnership agreement. I don't how true that is because I didn't work at Sybase. But after working with Mr. Kertzman for several years, I know he is one of the biggest liars I have ever met.
The point is don't believe everything you were told. The world is much more complex than you think.
Many computer experts have better things to do everyday than picking which browser to use. Just because you are interested in certain areas, don't assume everyone else does and then disparage them for not sharing your interest. It's not very smart after all.
Dumb, but not everybody is as smart as us.
Just because most other people have better things to do than choosing between two browsers doesn't make them less smart than you.
Wrong. Microsoft lost the Eolas patent lawsuit, and was fined $521 million dollars. In this case, Microsoft brought the technology to the market, not Eolas.
Being unique is not enough for something to be patentable - it also has to be novel in a non-obvious way,
Not true. I worked in the cable TV industry. There is a patent held by now TVGuide which displays TV guide in a grid format, channel on one axis, time on another. This is a granted patent for something very obvious, but as a result, no one else is able to display TV guide on TV screen in such an obvious way. Tivo had to bend backwards to work around this display format.
If a company is not ready to sue Microsoft for stealing their technologies yet, another stratergy is to pitch Microsoft as their number 1 competitor. Mitchell Kertzman, who was one of government's key witnesses against Microsoft in the antitrust case and the biggest liar I ever worked for so far, used such a stratergy when he was the CEO of now almost dead Liberate Technologies. His stratergy worked for a time. He managed to get several hundred million dollars of cash investment into the company by constantly suggesting how Liberate Technologies is going to be the next Microsoft by controlling the app environment on all TV settop boxes and how Microsoft is the number one threat. In the end, the real competitors are cable operators, not Microsoft, which is just another big loser in this industry; Liberate Technologies' books were simply cooked; Mitchell Kertzman walked away with tens of millions of dollars in his own pocket; investors lost big time on his words.
Liar! Anything associated Open Source is good. Anything associated with M$ is bad. The world is black and white. That's what slashdot has taught.
Long-term faith in crisis:-( Wait a minute... IBM's altruistic act will bring balance to the force, I mean world, won't it? I am sure IBM will pay generous severance packages to those employees. The package may even include life-time medical insurance for the whole family. Who knows? There may not be a layoff at all, those people affected will just be reassigned to help the Open Source movement, write software for free. Justification found. Faith restored:-) I am always right as I always know. Now back to coding...
But IBM is the good guy, it supports open source... Or is it just using open source as a marketing tool? Who cares, as long as it gives the open source people some purpose in life...
But slashdot is not a place for business sense. It's all about standing on morale high ground, fighting evil, and saving the human race.
Please don't spoil their fantasy with business sense.
There is no need. The open source community will quickly come up with a more powerful free anti-virus/anti-spam software that will crush Microsoft in this market once and for all.
There will be a lot more people leaving Windows for the stability and look of OSX.
On the contrary, expect OSX to be less stable and more prone to virus attacks.
It takes a long time to tune a complicated software system to be reliable and performant on a particular hardware platform. In this regard, experience is as important, if not more so, than intelligence. I'm afraid the vast majority of Apple's developers are not experienced in x86 development. So it will take a while before the new environment attains stability and performance.
The argument here is not whether Google's service is valuable. There is no doubt it is very valuable. But whether Google as a company is worth more than TimeWarner, which I think not.
Although you hate TimeWarner for some of its practices, you cannot deny that TimeWarner produces a lot more useful products and services, movies, TV programs, cartoons, megazines, broadband access, etc. than Google. Google's value to most of it customers is still mainly a huge indexing service. I am afraid Google's high valuation is still a capitalists' game instead of the true value of the company. Just like AOL bought TimeWarner, but in the end, the combined company is just worth the old TimeWarner.
But Bill Gates doesn't need your respect. You are nobody. He is the wealthiest person on earth. I am afraid no matter how much you curse him, the relative positions between the two of you in this world won't change during this lifetime.
Windows OS does not expire either, customers just can't get technical support from Microsoft any more. I seriously doubt Linux community supports very old releases either. Since they don't have many old customers who need legacy system support, it's just not a problem for the Linux community yet.
There is no scientific study to support the claim that open source softwares are patched faster than prioprietary softwares. As many people had pointed out even Firefox developers had kept reported exploits in secret until they found a fix which gave people an impression that it was fixed right after the exploit was announced. Just because a developer has checked in a fix doesn't mean the software is properly patched. Many open source supportors claim open source softwares are patched faster because they only count the time when a fix was checked in by a developer. But in software industry, the fix has to be verfied by the testers to make sure that not only it has fixed the original problem, it doesn't cause new problems in other areas of the product. This unglamorous process is called software testing or QA, something open source developers don't enjoy doing. There are also other boring jobs such as documentation, installation, distribution, and technical support, all of which an integral part of commercial software development. Imagine your parents anxiously waiting for their favorite Firefox developer to check in a fix for the latest exploit, it's just not going to happen on a large scale. In this case you may walk in to fix their machine for free, which means you are actually the technical support, but that would require a geek in very family or village at least, that's not how societies have evolved for the past few thousand years.
Instead, Microsoft should give away their software for free. This way, their accountants would never miss the target because the revenue will always be 0.
they DO make a doller out of every bug, crash and problem...
Which is the main reason for the very existance of businesses based on open source. If there were no bugs, crashes, or problems in open source software, why would any one buy technical support?
Slashdot Mirror
I am afraid you have been too lenient on yourself. I am pretty sure you have told innocent lies from time to time, like everyone else. My point is your original question is an unfair question.
Just for your information, I worked many years under a guy named Mitchell Kertzman, former CEO of Sybase. He was one of government's key witnesses against Microsoft in the anti-trust case and his main claim was that Microsoft SQL Server stole technologies from Sybase under the partnership agreement. I don't how true that is because I didn't work at Sybase. But after working with Mr. Kertzman for several years, I know he is one of the biggest liars I have ever met.
The point is don't believe everything you were told. The world is much more complex than you think.
Name one of your friends you haven't lied to.
Many computer experts have better things to do everyday than picking which browser to use. Just because you are interested in certain areas, don't assume everyone else does and then disparage them for not sharing your interest. It's not very smart after all.
Dumb, but not everybody is as smart as us.
Just because most other people have better things to do than choosing between two browsers doesn't make them less smart than you.
Wrong. Microsoft lost the Eolas patent lawsuit, and was fined $521 million dollars. In this case, Microsoft brought the technology to the market, not Eolas.
Being unique is not enough for something to be patentable - it also has to be novel in a non-obvious way,
Not true. I worked in the cable TV industry. There is a patent held by now TVGuide which displays TV guide in a grid format, channel on one axis, time on another. This is a granted patent for something very obvious, but as a result, no one else is able to display TV guide on TV screen in such an obvious way. Tivo had to bend backwards to work around this display format.
Would it be tolerated in any other industry? Absolutely not,
In the TV industry, cable operators have monopolies over their regional markets and are tolerated.
Check the facts before open your mouth.
It's interesting to see one bunch of arrogant people bashing another bunch of people for arrogancy.
If a company is not ready to sue Microsoft for stealing their technologies yet, another stratergy is to pitch Microsoft as their number 1 competitor. Mitchell Kertzman, who was one of government's key witnesses against Microsoft in the antitrust case and the biggest liar I ever worked for so far, used such a stratergy when he was the CEO of now almost dead Liberate Technologies. His stratergy worked for a time. He managed to get several hundred million dollars of cash investment into the company by constantly suggesting how Liberate Technologies is going to be the next Microsoft by controlling the app environment on all TV settop boxes and how Microsoft is the number one threat. In the end, the real competitors are cable operators, not Microsoft, which is just another big loser in this industry; Liberate Technologies' books were simply cooked; Mitchell Kertzman walked away with tens of millions of dollars in his own pocket; investors lost big time on his words.
You are asking religious people to stop praying everyday.
Liar! Anything associated Open Source is good. Anything associated with M$ is bad. The world is black and white. That's what slashdot has taught.
:-( Wait a minute... IBM's altruistic act will bring balance to the force, I mean world, won't it? I am sure IBM will pay generous severance packages to those employees. The package may even include life-time medical insurance for the whole family. Who knows? There may not be a layoff at all, those people affected will just be reassigned to help the Open Source movement, write software for free. Justification found. Faith restored :-) I am always right as I always know. Now back to coding...
Long-term faith in crisis
But IBM is the good guy, it supports open source... Or is it just using open source as a marketing tool? Who cares, as long as it gives the open source people some purpose in life...
And those are such silly, stupid goals to have, eh?
They are not stupid, just unrealistic, sometimes even dangerous. The communists used to have that goal, and they have wreaked havoc in the world.
But slashdot is not a place for business sense. It's all about standing on morale high ground, fighting evil, and saving the human race.
Please don't spoil their fantasy with business sense.
There is no need. The open source community will quickly come up with a more powerful free anti-virus/anti-spam software that will crush Microsoft in this market once and for all.
There will be a lot more people leaving Windows for the stability and look of OSX.
On the contrary, expect OSX to be less stable and more prone to virus attacks.
It takes a long time to tune a complicated software system to be reliable and performant on a particular hardware platform. In this regard, experience is as important, if not more so, than intelligence. I'm afraid the vast majority of Apple's developers are not experienced in x86 development. So it will take a while before the new environment attains stability and performance.
The argument here is not whether Google's service is valuable. There is no doubt it is very valuable. But whether Google as a company is worth more than TimeWarner, which I think not.
Although you hate TimeWarner for some of its practices, you cannot deny that TimeWarner produces a lot more useful products and services, movies, TV programs, cartoons, megazines, broadband access, etc. than Google. Google's value to most of it customers is still mainly a huge indexing service. I am afraid Google's high valuation is still a capitalists' game instead of the true value of the company. Just like AOL bought TimeWarner, but in the end, the combined company is just worth the old TimeWarner.
But Bill Gates doesn't need your respect. You are nobody. He is the wealthiest person on earth. I am afraid no matter how much you curse him, the relative positions between the two of you in this world won't change during this lifetime.
Windows OS does not expire either, customers just can't get technical support from Microsoft any more. I seriously doubt Linux community supports very old releases either. Since they don't have many old customers who need legacy system support, it's just not a problem for the Linux community yet.
There is no scientific study to support the claim that open source softwares are patched faster than prioprietary softwares. As many people had pointed out even Firefox developers had kept reported exploits in secret until they found a fix which gave people an impression that it was fixed right after the exploit was announced. Just because a developer has checked in a fix doesn't mean the software is properly patched. Many open source supportors claim open source softwares are patched faster because they only count the time when a fix was checked in by a developer. But in software industry, the fix has to be verfied by the testers to make sure that not only it has fixed the original problem, it doesn't cause new problems in other areas of the product. This unglamorous process is called software testing or QA, something open source developers don't enjoy doing. There are also other boring jobs such as documentation, installation, distribution, and technical support, all of which an integral part of commercial software development. Imagine your parents anxiously waiting for their favorite Firefox developer to check in a fix for the latest exploit, it's just not going to happen on a large scale. In this case you may walk in to fix their machine for free, which means you are actually the technical support, but that would require a geek in very family or village at least, that's not how societies have evolved for the past few thousand years.
The computer using experience for most is: email, web surfing (this includes shopping on eBay) and gaming.
Where did you pull that statistics out? From your brain? Don't speak for the majority of people just from your own limited experience.
Any space traveller who has lost a package with parachute attached please come to Mars Lost & Found.
Instead, Microsoft should give away their software for free. This way, their accountants would never miss the target because the revenue will always be 0.
they DO make a doller out of every bug, crash and problem...
Which is the main reason for the very existance of businesses based on open source. If there were no bugs, crashes, or problems in open source software, why would any one buy technical support?