Yea, that's a strawman. I didn't say it wasn't a security risk. Most features are, to some extent, a security risk. I said it wasn't a security vulnerability. And it isn't.
Btw, does this mean that IE7 should flag all executables named "My Computer.exe"? Or that the Windows desktop should block the display of "My Computer.exe" and possibly all icons that share the same (or a very similar) icon as My Computer? Or that Windows explorer shouldn't hide extensions? Because all of those are security risks of their own. At least one of those, AFAIK, is configurable. Should we shun Windows and/or IE7 for those other risks?
A combination of the default download location in Safari and how the Windows desktop handles executables creates a blended threat in which files may be downloaded to a user's machine without prompting, allowing them to be executed.
Oh, I see. So, the auto-download feature doesn't "properly" tag them like IE7 does, so users might accidentally execute a program without being first informed it was downloaded? Gosh. Sounds less like a security vulnerability than MS blowing smoke.
But, wait:
An attacker could trick users into visiting a specially crafted Web site that could download content to a user's machine and execute the content locally using the same permissions as the logged-on user.
Oh, well now it's sounding more like it'll be downloaded *and* executed automatically. Of course, if that's the case, half the "security vulnerability" is in Window's automatically executing things. If not, MS is simply lying..unless they have proof that Safari is the one causing said automatic execution.
However you spin it, Safari allowing carpet bombing is an annoying feature (much like pop-unders are an annoying feature). But it's not a security vulnerability. Labeling it as such is bullshit.
Does that mean you should use Safari regardless? Personally, I'd say no. Carpet bombing is too annoying of a feature to tolerate. But, then, I'd imagine Windows has too many annoying features for a lot of Mac users. It'd be just as asinine for Apple to issue a security advisory to shun Windows.
Very true. It's just like Scott McClellan. By the time McClellan had taken the office of White House Press Secretary in July 15, 2003, it was pretty clear that not only were the WMD claims false*, it was also clear that the White House Press Secretary, potentially already regardable as the lying mouthpiece of the President**, was especially servicing that position in the Bush administration. In short, the fact that years later he would leave and write a book about it hardly sets him up as the innocent victim that's telling his sad tale.
Oh, and don't think this at all means that Vader should get off the hook in any way.
*For those who actually listened to the news at the time, Hans Blix made it very clear that although Saddam had many times tried to stall and otherwise shield his activities***, there was still very high confidence that Saddam didn't actually have WMDs. Certainly, there was no "slam dunk" evidence of WMDs.
**This is a general accusation. Politicians lie; hence, their PR guy is the head or sub-head (under the Politician themself) liar. The White House Press Secretary is the head, or again sub-head, PR guy of Presidents. Hence, taking over the position amounts to accepting that one is taking the job of liar.
***This was presumed to include things like trying to obtain or make WMDs. There is little contention that Saddam on whether Saddam *wanted* WMDs****. But the fact is, he didn't actually have them. Nor could he readily make them (ie, it wasn't some technicality that left him on the verge of possessing WMDs, ready to make them nearly immediately for use).
****And wanting them and attempting to obtain the materials to make them might very well have been against the treaty signed by Iraq. But, that treaty was signed as apart of the UN. Ie, the UN refusing the use of force against known violations removes any clear impetuous to action*****. In short, the US wanting to declare war unilaterally had the same legal standing as Iraq's venture into Kuwait. The UN, again being pragmatic, is unwilling to invest in a direct armed conflict with the US (in part because the US holds a permanent veto chair) because the risks outweight the gains to the international community. And so, the US is free to employ more rogue behavior than most other countries are capable of without risk of being declared a rogue nation or otherwise be sanctioned. Aka, the strong-armed bully can do as he pleases.******
*****As much as there was an Oil-for-Food scandal, the primary reason that the UN was unwilling to act with force against Iraq primarily had to do with pragmatism. Specifically, given the choice of having to invade and occupy an otherwise contained country and trying to use diplomacy and sanctions to control an otherwise contained country, the latter had the least risks to the international community and potentially the same long-term positive outcomes. If every violation of every possible treaty was turned into war, we'd have already had WW3 by now (consider how many proxy wars that would have been legitimate justification for the USSR and US to nuke each other). Personally, I'd consider that a bad thing.
******And admittedly, the US has engaged in strong-arm tactics in the past (passing arms to anti-communist renegades and otherwise engage in intelligent work to usurp the legitimate power of other nations). But, in the past, the international community happily welcomed the US (and Britains and many other nations) to engage in such activities over (a) nuclear war or (b) having a sole bully would would target them. As horrible as the Cold War was, having a virtual stalemate was preferred in the same way many in the US prefer that Republicans and Democrats are stalemated in Congress and the President, to "limit the damage". But, that's the general mindset when one believes that governments in general can only produce more harm than good in their actions.
Now, feel free to mod be Funny instead of Off-topic; my last off-topic rant was modded too quickly to off-topic for my tastes.
*anyone* trying to make or extend a living off of some sort of government monopoly under some guise that it's a inherent right is an abuse of society*.
...
*Some restrictions may apply. Feel free to come up with clever examples where a government monopoly is an inherent right to a person and appropriate.
Building and repairing roads, licensing drivers, and enforcing traffic laws.
When I called for examples, I was speaking of government monopolies designed to financially enrich people to the exclusion of others. To that end, welfare and corporate subsidies would qualify. Roads and laws are designed to enrich everyone, albeit in a fashion that at times enriches some to the exclusion of others. And certainly, there comes a time when the de facto effects of a law should be accounted for when they fail to match the intended design.
Now, perhaps an argument can be made that copyright holders should be enriched to the exclusion of others, say to promote the arts and sciences. But, I don't buy that argument when studies haven't been done to show that any such law actually helps promote the arts and sciences. Instead, the chant is that artists "deserve" money. That's a statement of entitlement.
And, as I said, other entitlement programs exist. There certainly can be argument for (and against) some entitlements. But roads, licenses, etc don't qualify. Thanks for trying, though.
Breaking the law and then complaining that the punishment is unfair because it leans too heavily in favor of corporate interests is not the right way to go about it.
Um, it's called civil disobedience (well, so long as people are accepting the punishment to prove a point) and rebellion (against absurd laws). How *else* do people find out about or really even take much consideration about laws which, otherwise, might only be applied in a much more conservative and "accpetable" fashion? Those who approve of the relevant laws can always claim "well, it'll only be applied in extreme cases". And the further the "extreme case" turns to the "common case", the more people realize just how much such laws shouldn't be written because the promises will be broken.
This isn't a situation where you need to break the law to make a living or to feed your kids.
By the same token, this isn't a situation where there needs to be a law for artists to make a living or feed the kids. This holds not only because copyright already exists and this is yet another example of an absurd extension to "further protect" what is already legally protected, but it is also the case that aritsts can live and feed their kids without copyright.
Learn to play the piano. Go see a play.
And in this, I wholeheartedly agree. Everyone should be copyright holders, further proving the point that *anyone* trying to make or extend a living off of some sort of government monopoly under some guise that it's a inherent right is an abuse of society*. Besides that, everyone being artists furthers societal development because most people won't go through the effort to try to enforce their copyright when people are merely trying to enjoy it; and that extends to being able to reuse with attribution, again without much fuss from most people. But, then, attribution is pretty much the only part of copyright I like; and attribution is not even a certainty of copyright (copyright is transferable away from the original author or can be obtained through work-for-hire to complete attribute exclusion of the creator(s)).
So, yes, let's all work to turning copyright into a pointless and futile exercise. I try to do my part. In the mean time, I'm just not willing to shun all other, potentially asinine, copyrights+licenses. Perhaps some day I'll have the will to be RMS-like and not compromise.
*Some restrictions may apply. Feel free to come up with clever examples where a government monopoly is an inherent right to a person and appropriate.
Wow, you're not just a little presumptuous. So using Linux is the only way to be "creative, inquisitive and independent minded"?
Conspicuous that you left out young. In any case, you're making an obvious false dichotomy and negating improperly (or perhaps simply misundertanding the original sarcasm). In short*, (using Linux -> young, creative, inquisitive, and independent minded) != not (using Window -> not young, creative, inquisitive, and independent minded) == (not using Windows -> young, creative, inquistive, or independet minded). Using OpenBSD or simply not using computers fulfills the "not using Windows", for example.
*Note: I don't believe the GP's argument is true. But, once you start making inconsistent logical transformations, you've created your own argument (and possibly a strawman). And arguing about *that* argument says nothing inherently about the validity of the original argument.
<Insert huge, non-Microsoft company> is a huge company with dozens of divisions, and thousands of teams. Development cycles for a company like this can last years. Don't expect them to adopt some new technology like silverlight on every single public site they posess in a heartbeat.
Moreover, just suggesting that they would re-write an existing portal (that may not even really need SL technology) simply because a new technology came out makes no sense. Programmer time is expensive, so what economic justification do you have spending money to rebuild a portal that is functioning just fine in the first place?
Ie, people should only consider SL technology when it's matured, provides new features they need, and possibly only in new developments. In short, it might be years before SL will actually be used by a significant number of countries, even assuming that SL is the cat's meow.
Btw...
... so what business justification do you have spending money to rebuild a portal that is functioning just fine in the first place?
Three major reasons come to mind. One, by rebuilding huge amounts of code, one has the opportunity to create a better design having had experience with expansion of said code over time (ie, the general point of rewriting being a potential advantage). Two, by writing lots of code in SL for critical functionality, MS gets the opportunity to really test out SL in real-world operations. What better place to real stress-test it? Three, by extensively using SL, MS might be able to convince many other companies that SL is mature and that it provides features that they need.
If MS seems hesitant to eat its own dog food and basically makes the same, rather pesimistic, measurements that hint that SL isn't the second coming compared to Flash, many companies will simply choose to hang with flash even *if* SL is proven to be superior. Why? Because, as you point out, it becomes difficult to make the business case for using SL, especially given the amount of experience people already have with Flash. Now, if MS was interested in having SL be the second-teir competitor to Flash, that'd be no big deal. And perhaps SL is simply a conservative test until SLv2.0 (or whatever they call it), and *then* they'll really push heavily on its usage company wide. But, that just doesn't seems MS's style. Maybe MS is just changing. Or maybe, as you point out, it just takes years to develop all the code necessary, so MS is still busy poised to actually release SL using sites; but, I'm not sure if that quite explains newer sites like for Zune.
"I think part of the problem is that people aren't held accountable on the Web," Brady said. "People say things online they would never say when disagreeing with someone at the dinner table. I think heated debate is fine, but when there are (flame wars), many people won't take part for fear they will be attacked and bashed over the head with the (Internet-equivalent) of a steel pipe."
My experience goes, the reason people don't some things at the dinner table is fear they well be attacked and bashed over the head with the (real-life-equivalent) of a steel pipe. In real life, people can't readily speak their mind at times. Now, perhaps this can be viewed as a good because it keeps descenting views quiet. Me? I'd rather hear the KKK and neo-Nazi members speak. Sure, there's the risk that they'll be able to recruit more members. But, history has shown that desegregation and other *real-world* things are what have life-changing effects on people's opinions on things.
Now, maybe the internet is really so revolutionarily different that there is no history to extrapolate from. But, if that's the case, it still seems the case that the good would intrinsically outweight the bad. Will people's feelings be hurt? Will there be trolls and flamers who are more interested in creating dischord than having actual discussions? Sure. That's the reason for things like moderation, editors, etc. The only thing attaching real-world identification to a username will do is either (a) keep the threat of steel pipes to the head from other users running so high that we're back to the self-censorship that leads nowhere (and open up places the Washington Post to wrongful death suits) or (b) keep the threat of editors and their reign of power so high that some people will stop posting entirely.
In short, being an online editor against a seemingly endless flow of trolls, spam, etc seems impossible. But, instead of trying to revert back to the comfortable and easy, perhaps more consideration should be done on tackling the problem by engaging it the hard way? Ie, hire more editors and stop treating online posting as some quirky, cheap add-on that you can control with a few lowly staff or some magical technological fix.
I consciously wrote should instead of would for a reason. If we keep projecting how people will feel instead of how they should feel, we take towards projecting how they will feel as how they should feel. This, I realize, isn't a logic deduction. But, I believe it a valid observation of human behavior.
J. Edgar Hoover has been rumored to have been a cross-dresser and it basically ruined his image forever.
It's funny you say that because it only proves the point on two fronts. On the one front, by not being open, unfounded rumors can spread and be believed. And at the same time, Hoover wasn't ruined for the unethical and unconstitutional actions he committed, something that ruined many peoples lives and hurt society in general, but instead talk of cross-dressing, which even if it were true wouldn't have any meaningful significance.
rumor[s]... are hard or impossible to stop or curtail... but in the case of stuff you can stop, I think you should. If the person that is the subject of this article is a furry (hypothetically, there's nothing about the story to suggest it, we're just throwing "what if?"s out there) it's one thing if everyone in town knows he's a furry, but it's another thing entirely if no one (outside of people who knew him by his Internet handle) knew it. Might as well keep that a secret, especially since, like the poster said, it would just be rubbing salt in the wounds.
So, we should keep social taboos taboo. That way, people who engage in those taboos have a strong social demand to keep their activity/preference secret. And every time someone makes mention of that taboo and casts derision about it, they'll be pretty sure that they're rubbing the salt in the wounds of the living. Yes, let's keep rubbing the salt in the wound until a few commit suicide. And when the parents wonder why, we'll be sure it keep it secret that figurative little Johnny was gay, and he couldn't take all the mental abuse he was getting.
Me? I'd rather if we stopped turning so much irrelevant stuff into salt. If you're a guy, yea, you probably have a skin mag. If you fear you might die any day, yea, you might well engage in more sex with strangers and sex out of wedlock. But, no, let's all pretend that it didn't happen so the wife or the girlfriend back home doesn't have to face reality. Hell, why not just say he's been sent away on assignment indefinitely, if we're going to intentional lie to avoid reality.
Yes, it would be wonderful if everyone could just accept what other people do but it would in all likelihood just upset the family more. It's like when you go to your grandfather's funeral and they go on and on about the good things he did, like build a treehouse for the local kids or how he taught Sunday School. They don't mention how most people thought he was an overbearing asshole and that he referred to anyone non-white by their corresponding racial slur. In their immediate death, you just focus on the positive aspects of their life.
Why? If I'm dead and I was an asshole, I'd want people to know I was an asshole; if I was alive, people would be more than willing to call me an asshole to others. The glowing crap that comes out of people's mouths to "honor" a person makes me sick. I'm not saying you go out of the way to denigrate a person. But a large part of a eulogy is to sumarize a person's life. If you make every dead person out to be angels, you're just fucking with history in a horrible way. You belittle the people who actually *do* deserve honor. And you pollute the sea of information on what things we really do need to improve upon by marginalizing the failings and the humanity of those you speak about. Is it any wonder that people are so warped in how they act towards others when nearly everyone that could be their role model is
Get rid of anything that might make them think less of the dead, they're already broken up about it as is. I'm sure the last thing this kid's family would want to find out about is his furry porn collection.
While I understand the feelings behind this, trying to hide the truth about someone to spare the family's feelings seems like a disservice to the family and to society in general. Should everyone think less of JFK if he was a furry porn freak? Or should people, possibly grugingly, accept that it was a part of this hypothetical JFK, and that as much as they might personally detest it, it's part of what made hypothetical JFK who he was.
The fact that all the "bad" stuff keeps being whitewashed only furthers the belief that such things *are* "bad" regardless of how common it is--consider the open secret of marijuana and cocaine usage. Do realize, I'm not advocating to like furry porn or to use cocaine. I'm advocating the realization that there are a lot of things people do in their personal life that have very little influence over what they do in their public life. You can condemn a person for what they do in their personal or public life. But, perhaps, the realization that what people do in their personal life really doesn't hurt anyone and only affects them should really give more people pause to be so willing to condemn them purely because it has, in the past, been socially condemnable.
Beyond that, whitewashing like that makes me condemn the military. It has the effect of one-on-one propaganda for the military, regardless of its intent.
Wouldn't UAC be there to prevent that because pop-ups would be annoying each login and actually allowing apps to promote themselves would potentially defeat UAC entirely?
UAC would be there to verify that the person wanted the process to elevate, not necessarily to prevent. I'm not sure what you mean by 'defeat UAC entirely'. If an app needs elevation and the user allows it, then that is how its supposed to work. Thats in no way 'defeating UAC entirely'.
Even in the incredibly lame case of an app starting every time the user logs in and prompting for elevation. Thats a lame scenario, but its not 'defeating UAC entirely', its just using it in a fairly stupid way.
Perhaps I'm not laying out my understanding of the issue well enough. The situation, as I understand it, is this. Please try to read into the spirit of what is said, even if some of the technical details are wrong. I'd be happy to know what the technical details are, but I'd also like to hear a response to whether the underlying intent is right and how it relates to the disccusion at hand. UAC effectively turns an Administrator account into a quasi-Administrator account. A SYSTEM app will monitor when an "Administrator"'s program tries to do Administrator actions. It will then ask for verification before promoting the program to an actual Administrator.
Now, the issue at hand is that when an "Administrator" has a program that runs at login that wants to do Administrator work, there was three choices on Microsoft's part. Choice one would be to verify through a UAC dialog user login programs. Choice two would be to simply automatically promote the programs that request it (possibly with only allow Administrators (not simply "Administators") to modify the HKCU/.../Run key). Choice three would be to automatically deny user login programs that request promotion to Administrator.
Choice one would be incredibly annoying in many circumstances, and Microsoft chose to reject this option. Choice two would defeat UAC*, even if HKCU/.../Run access was restricted. Choice three is apparently the approach Microsoft chose.
The bottom line is that the way that NeoSmart was trying to do things was a pretty terrible way. It goes against all the guidance on the platform, and its poorly thought out.
...
The system tray icon is just a gui element. It should be doing nothing except presenting visual information and interacting with the user. The heavy lifting should be somewhere else.
I don't disagree. And maybe it's a good thing Microsoft has finally pushed towards making developers use better designs. I guess I'm just not entirely sure what Microsoft is striving for with UAC to be able to really agree or disagree with whether NeoSmart has hacked around it.
*UAC seems to be a rather complex beast, especially in intent. Thinking about it a lot, I wonder if the main points of UAC are really to (a) cause most programs to run as non-Admin (regardless of how little that matters for almost all non-malicious apps**); (b) cause the few that do to run as services; and (c) in doing so, reduce the complexity of GUI apps that rely upon (b) to make it harder to expoit (b). The only failing I really see in all of this is that all installers will be basically intrinsically promoted. Admittedly, that leading to some sort of malicious damange could be laid to blame on the user; and that's not surprising because it's impossible to give arrogant and ignorant users all of what they want. It just seems that the UAC as described (short of the one MS employee who has said things to the contrary) is then rather misleading to its intent.
**The only place this would seem to matter is in (a) trying to use permissions as a means of compensating for a design feature of a program that is not prefered and (b) trying to minimize damages in an exploited app. The problem, though, is that an exploited
... corruption is a problem of opportunity, not of character. I blame the... the character flaws that prevent them from correcting the circumstances that enable corruption.
Lots of consistency there. No, it's pretty simple. Corruption is a problem of character. Few people have the character to resist corruption. That's why government and any other place where corruption can exist has to be open (so the corruption can be seen) and accountable (since knowing about the corruption and being unable to do anything about it makes knowing about it mostly pointless). The major problem with the US isn't a question of corruption not being open enough. It's that legislators are rarely held accountable. And a large part of that has to do with (a) impeachment and conviction being so rare while elected, (b) most people forgeting by the time elections roll around and will still vote for the person, (c) most people's willingness to vote in a criminal because they see it better to vote in a criminal on "their" team than to vote in anyone on the "other" team", and (d) once the person *does* eventually get unelected, there being no motivation (and logistically, it can be difficult to wait a few years) to actually put the person on trial.
Almost all the same points for legislators apply to top executives at corporations. It's little wonder they would behave the same way, given that companies don't have to be as open. I certainly don't believe that relying on bettering the character of others will work--at least, not until most people are willing to stand harshly on following through when holding someone accountable for their poor character. So, that leaves trying to improve the openess and the able to hold accountabiliy even when a majority only cares for a short while.
iReboot is a GUI app. There is no desktop session to run under on machine startup, so the app would likely hang.
Out of curiosity, why would it "likely hang"? It sounds like you presume that if iReboot is a GUI app, it must be running its GUI when it begins running and not on-demand on newly created desktop sessions. If it is (or was) doing it on-demand, then how is the program not an application with a GUI that starts on computer start?
But, let's just presume, for the moment, that iReboot is a GUI app but it's run on user login, not system startup. Now, if a user is an Administrator, should the GUI app be able to elevate itself to SYSTEM user? Wouldn't UAC be there to prevent that because pop-ups would be annoying each login and actually allowing apps to promote themselves would potentially defeat UAC entirely? Perhaps *the* blocking of HKCU/.../Run apps to run as SYSTEM is what iReboot is complaining about?
So he created a service that runs with the necessary privileges to do what it needs, which communicates with a non-privileged front-end, and which requires privileges to install.
How is this a "hack"?
Well, here's my understanding of the situation. There's two main registry keys for running programs at startup. HKLM/.../Run is for running system-wide programs. HKCU/.../Run is for running user-specific programs at login. Now, HKLM initiated programs have, by tradition and by general practicality ran as SYSTEM or LOCAL SERVICE (I'm not sure which); practicality boils down to SYSTEM-ran programs being able to drop privilege but there not being a good, trivial way of elevating a Guest program to SYSTEM as needbe. Meanwhile, HKCU initiated programs run as the current user.
Now, having said all that, HKLM's who tree can be (is?) protected by ACLs to limit only Admins and higher users to add keys to the.../Run key. In short, anything in the HKLM/.../Run is only there because an Admin put it there. And that means, there's no inherently obvious reason to prevent HKLM/.../Run programs from being launched under any privilege that an Admin could obtain (specifically, whatever user they were under XP), as it sounds UAC is doing under Vista.
Now, having said that, it sounds like MS's reason might very well have been as you (and others) have suggested, to isolate the privilege code from the non-privilege code. Ie, the idea is to force people to do the right thing when it comes to security design. But, considering how retarded people have been up to this point when it comes to security under Windows, what's to stop someone from just creating a service with the necessary privilege as a generic wrapper to run *any* code as an Admin (think Python running as a service accepting bytecode)?
When it comes down to it, unless the author is interested in security, all the privilege seperation is is a hack. Will it make the system more secure? Probably, just by sheer assumption that most developers are lazy and will shove their current programs into a service and make the UI program a simple on-off switch (and that tends to reduce all vulerabilities into integer overflows). Now, probably all of that is a good thing, regardless of the bitching and moaning. But, it still doesn't change it from it being a hack. It *does*, however, refute the idea that UAC was entirely pointless.
When Babylon 5 came about, JMS didn't say "Ok, so I'm going to rip off Star Trek and put it on a space station." Hell, no. He said "Look, I'm going to borrow a bunch of shit from the best brains in the field, I'm going to mortar those bricks together with a bunch of my own ideas and then I'm going to put something on the screen that nobody's ever seen before outside of a novel." And sure enough, that's just what he did. Firefly was the same way.
Concern Firefly (well, Serenity, specifically), have you ever seen Cowboy Bebop? Oh, and I'm also pretty sure Cowboy Bebop isn't the first "space wild west confined to a solar system". In short, even if Firefly/Serenity *was* an attempt at originality and not just an attempt to clone existing works, I'd have to say it failed.
There is Open Source software that is Free Software and vice versa. The GPL is both a Free Software license and an Open Source license.
The GPL is an instance of a Free Software license and an Open Source license. The GPL is not the only instance of a Free Software license. Bill Gates usage of the GPL is in reference to its Free Software qualities. Hence, referencing the GPL's Open Source nature at best creates need ambiguity over what Open Source means and at worst derides Bill Gates' own statements in support of non-Free Open Source software.
Admittedly, I accidentally skimmed over the GGP's attempt to narrow the conversation to the GPL, so my original statement was misdirected. Never the less, the usage of "Open Source software" instead of "Free Software" seems inappropriate.
Yes, they'll solve all those murders, rapes, assaults, robberies, and other violence by monitoring the backbone.
Now, now. Think of the bright side. Now, every time the FBI brings in a suspect under child pornography charges and there's a strong chance that the internet is the way the FBI figured out the suspect had child porn, the defense attorney can argue "fruit of the poison tree"; I mean, it's not like the FBI is going to confirm or deny who they *are* spying on because that'd undermine "national security". So, not only does this not stop the murders, rapists, and robbers, it provides the reasonable doubt to removing all the evidence in a trial, to let the child pornographers, the wormer writers, and every other cyber criminal go free.
Of course, this just means the FBI will start foregoing all the unwinnable trials and either lock up the people (and everyone else they want) indefinitely or simply execute them--and think how economical it is disbanding the courts and prisons and only having to pay for the bullets and guns. I know I'll be happy for the day when we've finally become just like China and the Soviet Union. We're practically there already.
I think his point was that if you choose Open Source software to modify and base your commercial software on and it is under the GPL, you must also Open Source your commercial software.
And? Software companies make up a marginal amount of the GDP, at least in comparison to the amount spent by non-software companies on software in-house. Even so, non-software companies obviously are the main buyers of software companies' products. The last thing Bill Gates wants to encourage is further in-house development. If that translates into lying about what the GPL means or does, it just makes good business sense. I realy don't think Bill Gates is all that worried about other software companies risking themselves under potentially non-profitable ventures under GPL software*, so it's not like that's the position he's trying to expound upon.
PS - You're speaking about Free Software. Open Source--which includes things like the BSD--can be used to build non-Open Source software. The same isn't true of Free Software.
*Yes, I can see that possibly that could translate into less Windows lock-in. But, Microsoft's strategy has always been to make their own version of competing software, even if its competitor is free (as in beer), and incorporated it into Windows to help maintain lock-in. Free (as in speech) software shouldn't change this equation, unless free (as in speech) software can innovate rapidly enough that Microsoft can't keep up. Even then, that software would have to be in a extraordinary position to have a reasonable chance of removing vendor lock-in. In short, it's possible, but it's just not happening.
The difference in approach between the two camps is:
1. Stick with the status quo (where one tries to guess the convention being used based on context). That is, just accept with the confusion/inaccuracy.
2. Use SI units in the original SI sense (powers of 10) and use new binary prefixes when you really mean it (power of 2). That is, create a convention and adhere to it.
Um, nothing about (2) inherently precludes (1). (1) is about the proper action to do in reading. (2) is about the proper action to do in writing. No amount of (2) will resolve the issue of having to do (1) for all the texts that were written at a time when there was ambiguity. So, (2) is great and all. But, in a practical sense, it'll take decades for (2) to make (1) mostly irrelevant.*
Interesting that in a discussion about standards (and failures thereof) you would argue that a standard meant to reduce confusion is a prank!
It's funny you say that because it *doesn't* reduce confusion for most people. Imagine, if you will, if the group pushing for KB, MB, etc and KiB, MiB, etc to become an ISO standard was HD makers. Then they could simply point to the ISO standard as proof that their "GB" rating wasn't ambiguous. And if flash HDs start taking over, everything being labeled either "GB" or "GiB" will only add to the confusion for most people. That's the sort of confusion MS seems to be pushing for with the whole OOXML thing, when it can be shown that Office 2007's support of OOXML is a different OOXML than the ISO standard OOXML.
The only real difference is, the usurping of kilo and mega by computer folk was done relatively independently without malicious intent**. The fact that it caused ambiguity with SI didn't seem relevant at the time. Of course, by using kilo and mega instead of unique, non-SI names, it's impossible to now remove ambiguity by using two new, unique systems of naming; at least, it's impossible without abandoning the SI scheme, which is unattractive and undersirable.
*I'm not arguing against (2). I'm just pointing out the way you portray the issue as if there were "camps" contending over a point.
**I'm being overly presumptive here, obviously. It's possible that there was a collection of independent malice in usurping the SI naming scheme. And, it's possible that Microsoft's efforts in conflating what Office 2007 supports and what just became an ISO standard was done because they're part of the same project. But, minimally, Microsoft has a lot more control over defining the name of something yet unreleased than a community has the power to undo decades of incorrect/ambiguous usage/naming. This has, obviously, a lot more to do with there being a single source of control and the standard/quasi-implementation yet to be widely adopted or strongly entrenched by a minority over a period of time. So, if there was any malice involved in at least one of the two circumstance, it leans more towards Microsoft being the "at least one".
Things are changing though; but Vista has been as much a change from XP under the hood as 98 - 2000 migration was in my opinion.
You might be right. But, that only leads to the question, "So, why should I migrate to Vista?". In simple terms, it's those lock-in pieces of software that tend to keep people attached to some platform. For Windows 98 (in comparison to Windows 2000), that was DOS games. Switching to Windows 2000 effectively meant giving up 99% of the games "old-timers" had accumulated on the DOS platform. My own personal experience shifted from Windows 98 to Windows 2000 and then to Linux. Windows apps really didn't keep me on Windows 2000, in part because my experience of transition to Windows 2000 taught me to not become so dependent on specific applications. Add to that the very free factor (as in, virtually no worries about violating copyright or having to spit up cash for things) of Linux, and there was little reason to consider migrating from 2000 to XP. Of course, this was especially true given the little reason to migrate from 2000 to XP.
So, yes, perhaps the changes are on the order of 98 to 2000. The real question is, does Microsoft really want to push people into becoming independent enough to choose Linux or Mac OS X or some other system instead of Windows 7? Or do they really believe that Windows 7 will be enough to win loyalty back? Because, I don't see it happening.
I imagine the "waiver" you sign as part of your Blockbuster membership (assuming it's in there) would constitute the "express, written consent" required by the Video Privacy Protection Act.
Which would mean you've signed away your right to sue under that law.
2710. Wrongful disclosure of video tape rental or sale records
(b) Video Tape Rental and Sale Records.
(2) A video tape service provider may disclose personally identifiable information concerning any consumer
(B) to any person with the informed, written consent of the consumer given at the time the disclosure is sought;
-- http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/2710.html
In short, no. Feel free to find text in this law to back up your imagination.
As for the other part of your post, this has nothing to do with technology. It has to do with market positioning and mind share. Microsoft wants to consolidate the online Yahoo! brand, which has a big following, with the MSN brand, which has had mixed results. This consolidation, in Microsoft's mind, will prime them for competition with Google.
Microsoft trying to buy out Yahoo! for "mind share" is like at the early adoption of the automobile, a major horse and buggy owner trying to buy out GM to try to continue to sell their wares. Truthfully, I don't a lot of "brand recognition" really exists. Or, more precisely, I don't think people are so apt to stick with a mediocre product indefinitly based on brand when it comes to free internet services.
Why? Because they're *free* internet services. You can use one or another service, and merely the one you favor/use more becomes the instrinsic leader. Without a lock-in, and there's no real simple way to create a rather permanent lock-in (look at how the instant messanger lock-in went), it's a constant battle. In short, the only way for Microsoft to maintain market share with Yahoo! after buying it will be to have a very hands-off approach. But, that goes very much against the intended plans of *having* the large market share (it's simply how Microsoft has learned to operate).
Or, in short, either Yahoo! will be killed by Microsoft through their connivings..or their buying Yahoo! will be a financial waste (I think they'd like the constant revenue stream, but without any realistic hope of getting it near the levels of MS Windows or MS Office profit, I think they'd consider it an abortive deal (a la AOL and Time Warner)).
PS - It's the mind share of MS (and technology has a lot to do with it, not because open source is necessarily superior but because of the unwillingness of MS to take the ready tool for the job (because "it's not made by Microsoft", a control obsession)) because that has to change to be poised to compete against Google. Simply buying the mind share of Yahoo! will poison it against Yahoo! (which would be great for MS if Yahoo! was a separate company at that time), leading even *more* people to Google.
what else would you call it when after ten years of competition, their brightest idea is to try to buy out the competition, not with money earned by fighting the competition, but by using their main cash cow as their own means to compete?
I'd call that business as usual in this industry.
Example: YouTube wasn't bought with money Google made off of Google Video. Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo all do this all the time.
True. How much was YouTube bought for again? "So GOOG has bought YouTube for $1.65 billion, thats oodles for a company thats making less than $20 million in revenues." -- Some random blog quickly googled. Sounds to me GOOG was pretty deseperate to own the king video site.
Now, Microsoft wants to buy out Yahoo!, which itself is a conglomerate of YouTube-like purchases (well, not entirely to that sort of ratio) at a measly 162% of the stock price? Either Microsoft is incredibly cunning to realize how worthless Yahoo! and its purchases were (although that rather knocks the whole point of buying Yahoo!), or they're trying to shock stockholders into believing that Yahoo! is really that worthless to Microsoft and that they should take such "generous" money as quickly as they can for the "looming recession" (or whatever other fear message they can drive home).
However you put it, Microsoft's offer to buy Yahoo! is insulting. Put another way, I don't think Microsoft really has the resources to legitimately--for ever worth that word has--buy out Yahoo!.
Um, the fact that the locals and even Bill Gates have gone out of their way to go to the vendor to buy water belittles the idea that the vendor is going out of business. No, "Bill Gates" is screaming, "What are you, crazy?! If you don't sell me water at 62% mark-up, then you're doomed! Doooomed!!". That's just fear mongering. It has nothing to do with the actuality of the vendor's ability to remain in business.
In any case, the analogy is obviously far from perfect. But, it's crazy for the #3 competitor to go to the #2 competitor and expect #2 to so willing accept a buyout, regardless of the amount of money offered. The sheer fact that the company is still #3, even when they have the money to buy #2, greatly implies that company #3 knows dick about the industry and any buyout will just fuck over company #2. Now, perhaps investors will say "gosh, I'd rather cash out now than wait for #2 to grow the industry (or eat up the rest of #3's spot)". Now, *that* might well kill Yahoo!. But one can only hope that most investors are not so short-sighted. If they are, Yahoo! was doomed from the start. Or, was that the point?
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Yea, that's a strawman. I didn't say it wasn't a security risk. Most features are, to some extent, a security risk. I said it wasn't a security vulnerability. And it isn't.
Btw, does this mean that IE7 should flag all executables named "My Computer.exe"? Or that the Windows desktop should block the display of "My Computer.exe" and possibly all icons that share the same (or a very similar) icon as My Computer? Or that Windows explorer shouldn't hide extensions? Because all of those are security risks of their own. At least one of those, AFAIK, is configurable. Should we shun Windows and/or IE7 for those other risks?
Well, let's see:
Oh, I see. So, the auto-download feature doesn't "properly" tag them like IE7 does, so users might accidentally execute a program without being first informed it was downloaded? Gosh. Sounds less like a security vulnerability than MS blowing smoke.
But, wait:
Oh, well now it's sounding more like it'll be downloaded *and* executed automatically. Of course, if that's the case, half the "security vulnerability" is in Window's automatically executing things. If not, MS is simply lying..unless they have proof that Safari is the one causing said automatic execution.
However you spin it, Safari allowing carpet bombing is an annoying feature (much like pop-unders are an annoying feature). But it's not a security vulnerability. Labeling it as such is bullshit.
Does that mean you should use Safari regardless? Personally, I'd say no. Carpet bombing is too annoying of a feature to tolerate. But, then, I'd imagine Windows has too many annoying features for a lot of Mac users. It'd be just as asinine for Apple to issue a security advisory to shun Windows.
Very true. It's just like Scott McClellan. By the time McClellan had taken the office of White House Press Secretary in July 15, 2003, it was pretty clear that not only were the WMD claims false*, it was also clear that the White House Press Secretary, potentially already regardable as the lying mouthpiece of the President**, was especially servicing that position in the Bush administration. In short, the fact that years later he would leave and write a book about it hardly sets him up as the innocent victim that's telling his sad tale.
Oh, and don't think this at all means that Vader should get off the hook in any way.
*For those who actually listened to the news at the time, Hans Blix made it very clear that although Saddam had many times tried to stall and otherwise shield his activities***, there was still very high confidence that Saddam didn't actually have WMDs. Certainly, there was no "slam dunk" evidence of WMDs.
**This is a general accusation. Politicians lie; hence, their PR guy is the head or sub-head (under the Politician themself) liar. The White House Press Secretary is the head, or again sub-head, PR guy of Presidents. Hence, taking over the position amounts to accepting that one is taking the job of liar.
***This was presumed to include things like trying to obtain or make WMDs. There is little contention that Saddam on whether Saddam *wanted* WMDs****. But the fact is, he didn't actually have them. Nor could he readily make them (ie, it wasn't some technicality that left him on the verge of possessing WMDs, ready to make them nearly immediately for use).
****And wanting them and attempting to obtain the materials to make them might very well have been against the treaty signed by Iraq. But, that treaty was signed as apart of the UN. Ie, the UN refusing the use of force against known violations removes any clear impetuous to action*****. In short, the US wanting to declare war unilaterally had the same legal standing as Iraq's venture into Kuwait. The UN, again being pragmatic, is unwilling to invest in a direct armed conflict with the US (in part because the US holds a permanent veto chair) because the risks outweight the gains to the international community. And so, the US is free to employ more rogue behavior than most other countries are capable of without risk of being declared a rogue nation or otherwise be sanctioned. Aka, the strong-armed bully can do as he pleases.******
*****As much as there was an Oil-for-Food scandal, the primary reason that the UN was unwilling to act with force against Iraq primarily had to do with pragmatism. Specifically, given the choice of having to invade and occupy an otherwise contained country and trying to use diplomacy and sanctions to control an otherwise contained country, the latter had the least risks to the international community and potentially the same long-term positive outcomes. If every violation of every possible treaty was turned into war, we'd have already had WW3 by now (consider how many proxy wars that would have been legitimate justification for the USSR and US to nuke each other). Personally, I'd consider that a bad thing.
******And admittedly, the US has engaged in strong-arm tactics in the past (passing arms to anti-communist renegades and otherwise engage in intelligent work to usurp the legitimate power of other nations). But, in the past, the international community happily welcomed the US (and Britains and many other nations) to engage in such activities over (a) nuclear war or (b) having a sole bully would would target them. As horrible as the Cold War was, having a virtual stalemate was preferred in the same way many in the US prefer that Republicans and Democrats are stalemated in Congress and the President, to "limit the damage". But, that's the general mindset when one believes that governments in general can only produce more harm than good in their actions.
Now, feel free to mod be Funny instead of Off-topic; my last off-topic rant was modded too quickly to off-topic for my tastes.
When I called for examples, I was speaking of government monopolies designed to financially enrich people to the exclusion of others. To that end, welfare and corporate subsidies would qualify. Roads and laws are designed to enrich everyone, albeit in a fashion that at times enriches some to the exclusion of others. And certainly, there comes a time when the de facto effects of a law should be accounted for when they fail to match the intended design.
Now, perhaps an argument can be made that copyright holders should be enriched to the exclusion of others, say to promote the arts and sciences. But, I don't buy that argument when studies haven't been done to show that any such law actually helps promote the arts and sciences. Instead, the chant is that artists "deserve" money. That's a statement of entitlement.
And, as I said, other entitlement programs exist. There certainly can be argument for (and against) some entitlements. But roads, licenses, etc don't qualify. Thanks for trying, though.
Um, it's called civil disobedience (well, so long as people are accepting the punishment to prove a point) and rebellion (against absurd laws). How *else* do people find out about or really even take much consideration about laws which, otherwise, might only be applied in a much more conservative and "accpetable" fashion? Those who approve of the relevant laws can always claim "well, it'll only be applied in extreme cases". And the further the "extreme case" turns to the "common case", the more people realize just how much such laws shouldn't be written because the promises will be broken.
By the same token, this isn't a situation where there needs to be a law for artists to make a living or feed the kids. This holds not only because copyright already exists and this is yet another example of an absurd extension to "further protect" what is already legally protected, but it is also the case that aritsts can live and feed their kids without copyright.
And in this, I wholeheartedly agree. Everyone should be copyright holders, further proving the point that *anyone* trying to make or extend a living off of some sort of government monopoly under some guise that it's a inherent right is an abuse of society*. Besides that, everyone being artists furthers societal development because most people won't go through the effort to try to enforce their copyright when people are merely trying to enjoy it; and that extends to being able to reuse with attribution, again without much fuss from most people. But, then, attribution is pretty much the only part of copyright I like; and attribution is not even a certainty of copyright (copyright is transferable away from the original author or can be obtained through work-for-hire to complete attribute exclusion of the creator(s)).
So, yes, let's all work to turning copyright into a pointless and futile exercise. I try to do my part. In the mean time, I'm just not willing to shun all other, potentially asinine, copyrights+licenses. Perhaps some day I'll have the will to be RMS-like and not compromise.
*Some restrictions may apply. Feel free to come up with clever examples where a government monopoly is an inherent right to a person and appropriate.
Conspicuous that you left out young. In any case, you're making an obvious false dichotomy and negating improperly (or perhaps simply misundertanding the original sarcasm). In short*, (using Linux -> young, creative, inquisitive, and independent minded) != not (using Window -> not young, creative, inquisitive, and independent minded) == (not using Windows -> young, creative, inquistive, or independet minded). Using OpenBSD or simply not using computers fulfills the "not using Windows", for example.
*Note: I don't believe the GP's argument is true. But, once you start making inconsistent logical transformations, you've created your own argument (and possibly a strawman). And arguing about *that* argument says nothing inherently about the validity of the original argument.
<Insert huge, non-Microsoft company> is a huge company with dozens of divisions, and thousands of teams. Development cycles for a company like this can last years. Don't expect them to adopt some new technology like silverlight on every single public site they posess in a heartbeat.
Moreover, just suggesting that they would re-write an existing portal (that may not even really need SL technology) simply because a new technology came out makes no sense. Programmer time is expensive, so what economic justification do you have spending money to rebuild a portal that is functioning just fine in the first place?
Ie, people should only consider SL technology when it's matured, provides new features they need, and possibly only in new developments. In short, it might be years before SL will actually be used by a significant number of countries, even assuming that SL is the cat's meow.
Btw...
Three major reasons come to mind. One, by rebuilding huge amounts of code, one has the opportunity to create a better design having had experience with expansion of said code over time (ie, the general point of rewriting being a potential advantage). Two, by writing lots of code in SL for critical functionality, MS gets the opportunity to really test out SL in real-world operations. What better place to real stress-test it? Three, by extensively using SL, MS might be able to convince many other companies that SL is mature and that it provides features that they need.
If MS seems hesitant to eat its own dog food and basically makes the same, rather pesimistic, measurements that hint that SL isn't the second coming compared to Flash, many companies will simply choose to hang with flash even *if* SL is proven to be superior. Why? Because, as you point out, it becomes difficult to make the business case for using SL, especially given the amount of experience people already have with Flash. Now, if MS was interested in having SL be the second-teir competitor to Flash, that'd be no big deal. And perhaps SL is simply a conservative test until SLv2.0 (or whatever they call it), and *then* they'll really push heavily on its usage company wide. But, that just doesn't seems MS's style. Maybe MS is just changing. Or maybe, as you point out, it just takes years to develop all the code necessary, so MS is still busy poised to actually release SL using sites; but, I'm not sure if that quite explains newer sites like for Zune.
My experience goes, the reason people don't some things at the dinner table is fear they well be attacked and bashed over the head with the (real-life-equivalent) of a steel pipe. In real life, people can't readily speak their mind at times. Now, perhaps this can be viewed as a good because it keeps descenting views quiet. Me? I'd rather hear the KKK and neo-Nazi members speak. Sure, there's the risk that they'll be able to recruit more members. But, history has shown that desegregation and other *real-world* things are what have life-changing effects on people's opinions on things.
Now, maybe the internet is really so revolutionarily different that there is no history to extrapolate from. But, if that's the case, it still seems the case that the good would intrinsically outweight the bad. Will people's feelings be hurt? Will there be trolls and flamers who are more interested in creating dischord than having actual discussions? Sure. That's the reason for things like moderation, editors, etc. The only thing attaching real-world identification to a username will do is either (a) keep the threat of steel pipes to the head from other users running so high that we're back to the self-censorship that leads nowhere (and open up places the Washington Post to wrongful death suits) or (b) keep the threat of editors and their reign of power so high that some people will stop posting entirely.
In short, being an online editor against a seemingly endless flow of trolls, spam, etc seems impossible. But, instead of trying to revert back to the comfortable and easy, perhaps more consideration should be done on tackling the problem by engaging it the hard way? Ie, hire more editors and stop treating online posting as some quirky, cheap add-on that you can control with a few lowly staff or some magical technological fix.
I consciously wrote should instead of would for a reason. If we keep projecting how people will feel instead of how they should feel, we take towards projecting how they will feel as how they should feel. This, I realize, isn't a logic deduction. But, I believe it a valid observation of human behavior.
It's funny you say that because it only proves the point on two fronts. On the one front, by not being open, unfounded rumors can spread and be believed. And at the same time, Hoover wasn't ruined for the unethical and unconstitutional actions he committed, something that ruined many peoples lives and hurt society in general, but instead talk of cross-dressing, which even if it were true wouldn't have any meaningful significance.
So, we should keep social taboos taboo. That way, people who engage in those taboos have a strong social demand to keep their activity/preference secret. And every time someone makes mention of that taboo and casts derision about it, they'll be pretty sure that they're rubbing the salt in the wounds of the living. Yes, let's keep rubbing the salt in the wound until a few commit suicide. And when the parents wonder why, we'll be sure it keep it secret that figurative little Johnny was gay, and he couldn't take all the mental abuse he was getting.
Me? I'd rather if we stopped turning so much irrelevant stuff into salt. If you're a guy, yea, you probably have a skin mag. If you fear you might die any day, yea, you might well engage in more sex with strangers and sex out of wedlock. But, no, let's all pretend that it didn't happen so the wife or the girlfriend back home doesn't have to face reality. Hell, why not just say he's been sent away on assignment indefinitely, if we're going to intentional lie to avoid reality.
Why? If I'm dead and I was an asshole, I'd want people to know I was an asshole; if I was alive, people would be more than willing to call me an asshole to others. The glowing crap that comes out of people's mouths to "honor" a person makes me sick. I'm not saying you go out of the way to denigrate a person. But a large part of a eulogy is to sumarize a person's life. If you make every dead person out to be angels, you're just fucking with history in a horrible way. You belittle the people who actually *do* deserve honor. And you pollute the sea of information on what things we really do need to improve upon by marginalizing the failings and the humanity of those you speak about. Is it any wonder that people are so warped in how they act towards others when nearly everyone that could be their role model is
While I understand the feelings behind this, trying to hide the truth about someone to spare the family's feelings seems like a disservice to the family and to society in general. Should everyone think less of JFK if he was a furry porn freak? Or should people, possibly grugingly, accept that it was a part of this hypothetical JFK, and that as much as they might personally detest it, it's part of what made hypothetical JFK who he was.
The fact that all the "bad" stuff keeps being whitewashed only furthers the belief that such things *are* "bad" regardless of how common it is--consider the open secret of marijuana and cocaine usage. Do realize, I'm not advocating to like furry porn or to use cocaine. I'm advocating the realization that there are a lot of things people do in their personal life that have very little influence over what they do in their public life. You can condemn a person for what they do in their personal or public life. But, perhaps, the realization that what people do in their personal life really doesn't hurt anyone and only affects them should really give more people pause to be so willing to condemn them purely because it has, in the past, been socially condemnable.
Beyond that, whitewashing like that makes me condemn the military. It has the effect of one-on-one propaganda for the military, regardless of its intent.
Perhaps I'm not laying out my understanding of the issue well enough. The situation, as I understand it, is this. Please try to read into the spirit of what is said, even if some of the technical details are wrong. I'd be happy to know what the technical details are, but I'd also like to hear a response to whether the underlying intent is right and how it relates to the disccusion at hand. UAC effectively turns an Administrator account into a quasi-Administrator account. A SYSTEM app will monitor when an "Administrator"'s program tries to do Administrator actions. It will then ask for verification before promoting the program to an actual Administrator.
Now, the issue at hand is that when an "Administrator" has a program that runs at login that wants to do Administrator work, there was three choices on Microsoft's part. Choice one would be to verify through a UAC dialog user login programs. Choice two would be to simply automatically promote the programs that request it (possibly with only allow Administrators (not simply "Administators") to modify the HKCU/.../Run key). Choice three would be to automatically deny user login programs that request promotion to Administrator.
Choice one would be incredibly annoying in many circumstances, and Microsoft chose to reject this option. Choice two would defeat UAC*, even if HKCU/.../Run access was restricted. Choice three is apparently the approach Microsoft chose.
I don't disagree. And maybe it's a good thing Microsoft has finally pushed towards making developers use better designs. I guess I'm just not entirely sure what Microsoft is striving for with UAC to be able to really agree or disagree with whether NeoSmart has hacked around it.
*UAC seems to be a rather complex beast, especially in intent. Thinking about it a lot, I wonder if the main points of UAC are really to (a) cause most programs to run as non-Admin (regardless of how little that matters for almost all non-malicious apps**); (b) cause the few that do to run as services; and (c) in doing so, reduce the complexity of GUI apps that rely upon (b) to make it harder to expoit (b). The only failing I really see in all of this is that all installers will be basically intrinsically promoted. Admittedly, that leading to some sort of malicious damange could be laid to blame on the user; and that's not surprising because it's impossible to give arrogant and ignorant users all of what they want. It just seems that the UAC as described (short of the one MS employee who has said things to the contrary) is then rather misleading to its intent.
**The only place this would seem to matter is in (a) trying to use permissions as a means of compensating for a design feature of a program that is not prefered and (b) trying to minimize damages in an exploited app. The problem, though, is that an exploited
Lots of consistency there. No, it's pretty simple. Corruption is a problem of character. Few people have the character to resist corruption. That's why government and any other place where corruption can exist has to be open (so the corruption can be seen) and accountable (since knowing about the corruption and being unable to do anything about it makes knowing about it mostly pointless). The major problem with the US isn't a question of corruption not being open enough. It's that legislators are rarely held accountable. And a large part of that has to do with (a) impeachment and conviction being so rare while elected, (b) most people forgeting by the time elections roll around and will still vote for the person, (c) most people's willingness to vote in a criminal because they see it better to vote in a criminal on "their" team than to vote in anyone on the "other" team", and (d) once the person *does* eventually get unelected, there being no motivation (and logistically, it can be difficult to wait a few years) to actually put the person on trial.
Almost all the same points for legislators apply to top executives at corporations. It's little wonder they would behave the same way, given that companies don't have to be as open. I certainly don't believe that relying on bettering the character of others will work--at least, not until most people are willing to stand harshly on following through when holding someone accountable for their poor character. So, that leaves trying to improve the openess and the able to hold accountabiliy even when a majority only cares for a short while.
Out of curiosity, why would it "likely hang"? It sounds like you presume that if iReboot is a GUI app, it must be running its GUI when it begins running and not on-demand on newly created desktop sessions. If it is (or was) doing it on-demand, then how is the program not an application with a GUI that starts on computer start?
But, let's just presume, for the moment, that iReboot is a GUI app but it's run on user login, not system startup. Now, if a user is an Administrator, should the GUI app be able to elevate itself to SYSTEM user? Wouldn't UAC be there to prevent that because pop-ups would be annoying each login and actually allowing apps to promote themselves would potentially defeat UAC entirely? Perhaps *the* blocking of HKCU/.../Run apps to run as SYSTEM is what iReboot is complaining about?
Well, here's my understanding of the situation. There's two main registry keys for running programs at startup. HKLM/.../Run is for running system-wide programs. HKCU/.../Run is for running user-specific programs at login. Now, HKLM initiated programs have, by tradition and by general practicality ran as SYSTEM or LOCAL SERVICE (I'm not sure which); practicality boils down to SYSTEM-ran programs being able to drop privilege but there not being a good, trivial way of elevating a Guest program to SYSTEM as needbe. Meanwhile, HKCU initiated programs run as the current user.
Now, having said all that, HKLM's who tree can be (is?) protected by ACLs to limit only Admins and higher users to add keys to the .../Run key. In short, anything in the HKLM/.../Run is only there because an Admin put it there. And that means, there's no inherently obvious reason to prevent HKLM/.../Run programs from being launched under any privilege that an Admin could obtain (specifically, whatever user they were under XP), as it sounds UAC is doing under Vista.
Now, having said that, it sounds like MS's reason might very well have been as you (and others) have suggested, to isolate the privilege code from the non-privilege code. Ie, the idea is to force people to do the right thing when it comes to security design. But, considering how retarded people have been up to this point when it comes to security under Windows, what's to stop someone from just creating a service with the necessary privilege as a generic wrapper to run *any* code as an Admin (think Python running as a service accepting bytecode)?
When it comes down to it, unless the author is interested in security, all the privilege seperation is is a hack. Will it make the system more secure? Probably, just by sheer assumption that most developers are lazy and will shove their current programs into a service and make the UI program a simple on-off switch (and that tends to reduce all vulerabilities into integer overflows). Now, probably all of that is a good thing, regardless of the bitching and moaning. But, it still doesn't change it from it being a hack. It *does*, however, refute the idea that UAC was entirely pointless.
Concern Firefly (well, Serenity, specifically), have you ever seen Cowboy Bebop? Oh, and I'm also pretty sure Cowboy Bebop isn't the first "space wild west confined to a solar system". In short, even if Firefly/Serenity *was* an attempt at originality and not just an attempt to clone existing works, I'd have to say it failed.
The GPL is an instance of a Free Software license and an Open Source license. The GPL is not the only instance of a Free Software license. Bill Gates usage of the GPL is in reference to its Free Software qualities. Hence, referencing the GPL's Open Source nature at best creates need ambiguity over what Open Source means and at worst derides Bill Gates' own statements in support of non-Free Open Source software.
Admittedly, I accidentally skimmed over the GGP's attempt to narrow the conversation to the GPL, so my original statement was misdirected. Never the less, the usage of "Open Source software" instead of "Free Software" seems inappropriate.
Now, now. Think of the bright side. Now, every time the FBI brings in a suspect under child pornography charges and there's a strong chance that the internet is the way the FBI figured out the suspect had child porn, the defense attorney can argue "fruit of the poison tree"; I mean, it's not like the FBI is going to confirm or deny who they *are* spying on because that'd undermine "national security". So, not only does this not stop the murders, rapists, and robbers, it provides the reasonable doubt to removing all the evidence in a trial, to let the child pornographers, the wormer writers, and every other cyber criminal go free.
Of course, this just means the FBI will start foregoing all the unwinnable trials and either lock up the people (and everyone else they want) indefinitely or simply execute them--and think how economical it is disbanding the courts and prisons and only having to pay for the bullets and guns. I know I'll be happy for the day when we've finally become just like China and the Soviet Union. We're practically there already.
And? Software companies make up a marginal amount of the GDP, at least in comparison to the amount spent by non-software companies on software in-house. Even so, non-software companies obviously are the main buyers of software companies' products. The last thing Bill Gates wants to encourage is further in-house development. If that translates into lying about what the GPL means or does, it just makes good business sense. I realy don't think Bill Gates is all that worried about other software companies risking themselves under potentially non-profitable ventures under GPL software*, so it's not like that's the position he's trying to expound upon.
PS - You're speaking about Free Software. Open Source--which includes things like the BSD--can be used to build non-Open Source software. The same isn't true of Free Software.
*Yes, I can see that possibly that could translate into less Windows lock-in. But, Microsoft's strategy has always been to make their own version of competing software, even if its competitor is free (as in beer), and incorporated it into Windows to help maintain lock-in. Free (as in speech) software shouldn't change this equation, unless free (as in speech) software can innovate rapidly enough that Microsoft can't keep up. Even then, that software would have to be in a extraordinary position to have a reasonable chance of removing vendor lock-in. In short, it's possible, but it's just not happening.
Um, nothing about (2) inherently precludes (1). (1) is about the proper action to do in reading. (2) is about the proper action to do in writing. No amount of (2) will resolve the issue of having to do (1) for all the texts that were written at a time when there was ambiguity. So, (2) is great and all. But, in a practical sense, it'll take decades for (2) to make (1) mostly irrelevant.*
It's funny you say that because it *doesn't* reduce confusion for most people. Imagine, if you will, if the group pushing for KB, MB, etc and KiB, MiB, etc to become an ISO standard was HD makers. Then they could simply point to the ISO standard as proof that their "GB" rating wasn't ambiguous. And if flash HDs start taking over, everything being labeled either "GB" or "GiB" will only add to the confusion for most people. That's the sort of confusion MS seems to be pushing for with the whole OOXML thing, when it can be shown that Office 2007's support of OOXML is a different OOXML than the ISO standard OOXML.
The only real difference is, the usurping of kilo and mega by computer folk was done relatively independently without malicious intent**. The fact that it caused ambiguity with SI didn't seem relevant at the time. Of course, by using kilo and mega instead of unique, non-SI names, it's impossible to now remove ambiguity by using two new, unique systems of naming; at least, it's impossible without abandoning the SI scheme, which is unattractive and undersirable.
*I'm not arguing against (2). I'm just pointing out the way you portray the issue as if there were "camps" contending over a point.
**I'm being overly presumptive here, obviously. It's possible that there was a collection of independent malice in usurping the SI naming scheme. And, it's possible that Microsoft's efforts in conflating what Office 2007 supports and what just became an ISO standard was done because they're part of the same project. But, minimally, Microsoft has a lot more control over defining the name of something yet unreleased than a community has the power to undo decades of incorrect/ambiguous usage/naming. This has, obviously, a lot more to do with there being a single source of control and the standard/quasi-implementation yet to be widely adopted or strongly entrenched by a minority over a period of time. So, if there was any malice involved in at least one of the two circumstance, it leans more towards Microsoft being the "at least one".
So, is Microsoft the Eternal Sword or Origin?
You might be right. But, that only leads to the question, "So, why should I migrate to Vista?". In simple terms, it's those lock-in pieces of software that tend to keep people attached to some platform. For Windows 98 (in comparison to Windows 2000), that was DOS games. Switching to Windows 2000 effectively meant giving up 99% of the games "old-timers" had accumulated on the DOS platform. My own personal experience shifted from Windows 98 to Windows 2000 and then to Linux. Windows apps really didn't keep me on Windows 2000, in part because my experience of transition to Windows 2000 taught me to not become so dependent on specific applications. Add to that the very free factor (as in, virtually no worries about violating copyright or having to spit up cash for things) of Linux, and there was little reason to consider migrating from 2000 to XP. Of course, this was especially true given the little reason to migrate from 2000 to XP.
So, yes, perhaps the changes are on the order of 98 to 2000. The real question is, does Microsoft really want to push people into becoming independent enough to choose Linux or Mac OS X or some other system instead of Windows 7? Or do they really believe that Windows 7 will be enough to win loyalty back? Because, I don't see it happening.
In short, no. Feel free to find text in this law to back up your imagination.
Microsoft trying to buy out Yahoo! for "mind share" is like at the early adoption of the automobile, a major horse and buggy owner trying to buy out GM to try to continue to sell their wares. Truthfully, I don't a lot of "brand recognition" really exists. Or, more precisely, I don't think people are so apt to stick with a mediocre product indefinitly based on brand when it comes to free internet services.
Why? Because they're *free* internet services. You can use one or another service, and merely the one you favor/use more becomes the instrinsic leader. Without a lock-in, and there's no real simple way to create a rather permanent lock-in (look at how the instant messanger lock-in went), it's a constant battle. In short, the only way for Microsoft to maintain market share with Yahoo! after buying it will be to have a very hands-off approach. But, that goes very much against the intended plans of *having* the large market share (it's simply how Microsoft has learned to operate).
Or, in short, either Yahoo! will be killed by Microsoft through their connivings..or their buying Yahoo! will be a financial waste (I think they'd like the constant revenue stream, but without any realistic hope of getting it near the levels of MS Windows or MS Office profit, I think they'd consider it an abortive deal (a la AOL and Time Warner)).
PS - It's the mind share of MS (and technology has a lot to do with it, not because open source is necessarily superior but because of the unwillingness of MS to take the ready tool for the job (because "it's not made by Microsoft", a control obsession)) because that has to change to be poised to compete against Google. Simply buying the mind share of Yahoo! will poison it against Yahoo! (which would be great for MS if Yahoo! was a separate company at that time), leading even *more* people to Google.
True. How much was YouTube bought for again? "So GOOG has bought YouTube for $1.65 billion, thats oodles for a company thats making less than $20 million in revenues." -- Some random blog quickly googled. Sounds to me GOOG was pretty deseperate to own the king video site.
Now, Microsoft wants to buy out Yahoo!, which itself is a conglomerate of YouTube-like purchases (well, not entirely to that sort of ratio) at a measly 162% of the stock price? Either Microsoft is incredibly cunning to realize how worthless Yahoo! and its purchases were (although that rather knocks the whole point of buying Yahoo!), or they're trying to shock stockholders into believing that Yahoo! is really that worthless to Microsoft and that they should take such "generous" money as quickly as they can for the "looming recession" (or whatever other fear message they can drive home).
However you put it, Microsoft's offer to buy Yahoo! is insulting. Put another way, I don't think Microsoft really has the resources to legitimately--for ever worth that word has--buy out Yahoo!.
Um, the fact that the locals and even Bill Gates have gone out of their way to go to the vendor to buy water belittles the idea that the vendor is going out of business. No, "Bill Gates" is screaming, "What are you, crazy?! If you don't sell me water at 62% mark-up, then you're doomed! Doooomed!!". That's just fear mongering. It has nothing to do with the actuality of the vendor's ability to remain in business.
In any case, the analogy is obviously far from perfect. But, it's crazy for the #3 competitor to go to the #2 competitor and expect #2 to so willing accept a buyout, regardless of the amount of money offered. The sheer fact that the company is still #3, even when they have the money to buy #2, greatly implies that company #3 knows dick about the industry and any buyout will just fuck over company #2. Now, perhaps investors will say "gosh, I'd rather cash out now than wait for #2 to grow the industry (or eat up the rest of #3's spot)". Now, *that* might well kill Yahoo!. But one can only hope that most investors are not so short-sighted. If they are, Yahoo! was doomed from the start. Or, was that the point?