As the Wall Street Journal itself reported, the SEC has ordered two dozen hedge funds to turn over trading records as part of its investigation into possible short-seller manipulation of six big financial institutions - American International Group, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Washington Mutual, and Merrill Lynch.
The SEC has never in history prosecuted a major case against a short seller, and there is no reason to believe that it is actually going to nail someone now. But it is not difficult to see why the SEC feels that is has no choice but to investigate.
...
Aside from Washington Mutual, Bank of America, Fannie Mae, MBIA, Ambac, and close to 50 smaller financial firms - not to mention a couple hundred non-financial companies - have appeared on the SEC-mandated "threshold" list of companies whose stock has "failed to deliver" in excessive quantities.
That, too, is very good evidence of illegal market manipulation.
...
If a company has weaknesses that can be blown out of proportion with help from the media, and if hedge funds blast the company with phantom stock, then pause, then blast again, then pause, then blast again - over and over - for a couple of months, then the company's share price can soon be in the single digits. - without ever having appeared on the SEC's threshold list.
Unsurprisingly, the data through June shows this blast-pause-blast pattern in the stocks of nearly ever major financial institution that has been wiped off the map, and quite a few that were in death spirals before the SEC temporarily banned short-selling. Very often, huge failures to deliver have occurred in stretches of precisely five days - just long enough to keep a stock off the threshold list.
...
At this point, the SEC finally came to realize what was happening to Lehman. It realized that similar madness had destroyed Bear Stearns. It realized that AIG, Citigroup, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bank of America and fifty other financial companies were getting clobbered in exactly the same fashion.
Clearly, naked short selling posed a real threat to the stability of the financial system. So the SEC issued an emergency order forcing hedge funds to borrow real stock before they sold it. No more saying "Yeah, my cousin Louie has the stock in a drawer somewhere." No more naked short selling.
But your idea is right on: We must make choices that don't involve Microsoft. This is much easier now than people think, in 2008, when we have many better, mature alternatives.
What they need to do is "make MS Office interoperable with standards".
Now do you see? If you want to support a standard, you just go ahead and support it. You don't go paying a lot of soft bribes and stacking committees... The real agenda here is removing ODF as a competitor. The real money to be made, now and forever, is making sure your data is in a Microsoft-controlled format. Why is everyone so slow to catch on to this?
Microsoft only ever had one idea: Be the only option. (Not "Be the best option," or even "Be a good option.") Everything else follows from that. Competition isn't something they are prepared to do. They wouldn't know how. They just need everyone locked in. (Incidentally, this is why quislings like de Icaza are so dangerous and disingenuous, by pretending this is not the case.)
Since it's entirely in our hands what prevails. Vote with your wallet. Never buy another Microsoft license. Campaign at your workplace for open tools. Don't stop until your data is safe again.
They sometimes do that, and are justifiably chastised for it; but usually they don't.
Apple can hardly be compared to Microsoft: they don't have the same 95% monopoly; they have a business model clearly based on innovation and quality rather than forced lock-in; etc.
It's also an anti-trust issue in that these machinations should play very badly before an anti-trust investigator, as should have the OOXML debacle itself. As somebody already on the wrong end of rulings in the US and Europe, Microsoft is acting like a convicted gangster getting drunk and shooting up the bar.
The only way they can stay out of jail is having the best lawyers money can buy and substantial purchased political influence (that may change quickly with a more accountable government in the USA). And nobody likes that kind of dangerous, unstable bully. Sooner or later, their past catches up.
I did not mean "tortured AT the border" - obviously what occurred is he was kidnapped on arrival in the US, and deported by US authorities to Syria (in Arar's case) where he was tortured. Unfortunately his case is far from unique.
It's worth pointing out that the USA and Canada are among jurisdictions where having anonymity might mean the difference between life and death, thanks to the existence of Extraordinary Rendition (for example the cases of Maher Arar, and other Canadian citizens who have been kidnapped and tortured at the US/Canada border) and Guantanamo Bay (where due process is suspended, and several inmates have died).
The GPL does not put restrictions on porting or portability (I just went to re-read it).
But what MS is doing is obviously against the spirit of what free and open source software stands for (surprise, surprise).
To be free as software users and developers, we need Windows out of the ecosystem, or at most, an optional part of it. Microsoft's agenda is explicitly, self-evidently to make Windows a mandatory part of the computing experience.
The freedom to run the program means the freedom for any kind of person or organization to use it on any kind of computer system, for any kind of overall job and purpose, without being required to communicate about it with the developer or any other specific entity.
(emphasis mine)
It is obviously also against the spirit of the GPL, although the letter of the GPL does not require portability. The FAQ does contain the obvious warning against writing software which runs only (is "trapped") on a particular proprietary system.
We non-Americans mock the insane crackers who would make Palin VP, actually elected Bush and Cheney twice - while we had to endure the global destruction, catastrophe and erosion of rights that ensued - Xenophobia? America hate? Or sober commentary on the state of America?
I've met this type on irc as well. Don't sweat it; for them, empty, profanity-laced insult exchanges serve for (a) masculinity proof; (b) intellectual sparring; and/or (c) ego gratification. It's a common cultural antipattern in a certain (unnamed) country.
ECF is an integrated Jabber (XMPP)-based protocol that allows collaborative work. Introduction here."Real-time communication and collaboration features for teams using Eclipse such as peer-to-peer file sharing, remote opening of Eclipse views, screen capture sharing, and real-time shared editing."
Other Jabber products you might find useful are Coccinella with whiteboarding, etc.
"The EFF has filed an amicus curiae, asserting that the plaintiffs are a bunch of idiots who have no clue how the web works and can't be trusted with ordering a latte let alone managing their own brand."
Slashdot Mirror
Wikipedia isn't destroying anything... Wikis don't defraud - people do.
As this Incident archive shows in excruciating detail. Scroll down 20% of the page for the Securities fraud angle.
Mantanmoreland
RTF markup always struck me as TeX-inspired.
But your idea is right on: We must make choices that don't involve Microsoft. This is much easier now than people think, in 2008, when we have many better, mature alternatives.
What they need to do is "make MS Office interoperable with standards".
Now do you see? If you want to support a standard, you just go ahead and support it. You don't go paying a lot of soft bribes and stacking committees... The real agenda here is removing ODF as a competitor. The real money to be made, now and forever, is making sure your data is in a Microsoft-controlled format. Why is everyone so slow to catch on to this?
Microsoft only ever had one idea: Be the only option. (Not "Be the best option," or even "Be a good option.") Everything else follows from that. Competition isn't something they are prepared to do. They wouldn't know how. They just need everyone locked in. (Incidentally, this is why quislings like de Icaza are so dangerous and disingenuous, by pretending this is not the case.)
Since it's entirely in our hands what prevails. Vote with your wallet. Never buy another Microsoft license. Campaign at your workplace for open tools. Don't stop until your data is safe again.
invents their own and/or adds DRM
They sometimes do that, and are justifiably chastised for it; but usually they don't.
Apple can hardly be compared to Microsoft: they don't have the same 95% monopoly; they have a business model clearly based on innovation and quality rather than forced lock-in; etc.
It's also an anti-trust issue in that these machinations should play very badly before an anti-trust investigator, as should have the OOXML debacle itself. As somebody already on the wrong end of rulings in the US and Europe, Microsoft is acting like a convicted gangster getting drunk and shooting up the bar.
The only way they can stay out of jail is having the best lawyers money can buy and substantial purchased political influence (that may change quickly with a more accountable government in the USA). And nobody likes that kind of dangerous, unstable bully. Sooner or later, their past catches up.
How about ENFORCING anti-trust law!
(bada-bing)
The DoJ couldn't get a proper remedy. I have faith that the EU will.
Failing that, the public will eventually recognise Microsoft for the destructive, self interested criminals they are, and will shut them down.
I did not mean "tortured AT the border" - obviously what occurred is he was kidnapped on arrival in the US, and deported by US authorities to Syria (in Arar's case) where he was tortured. Unfortunately his case is far from unique.
It's worth pointing out that the USA and Canada are among jurisdictions where having anonymity might mean the difference between life and death, thanks to the existence of Extraordinary Rendition (for example the cases of Maher Arar, and other Canadian citizens who have been kidnapped and tortured at the US/Canada border) and Guantanamo Bay (where due process is suspended, and several inmates have died).
The GPL does not put restrictions on porting or portability (I just went to re-read it).
But what MS is doing is obviously against the spirit of what free and open source software stands for (surprise, surprise).
To be free as software users and developers, we need Windows out of the ecosystem, or at most, an optional part of it. Microsoft's agenda is explicitly, self-evidently to make Windows a mandatory part of the computing experience.
It is against the FSF definition of free software:
(emphasis mine)
It is obviously also against the spirit of the GPL, although the letter of the GPL does not require portability. The FAQ does contain the obvious warning against writing software which runs only (is "trapped") on a particular proprietary system.
He's just a dangerously stupid, uncivilised and corrupt figurehead (per Occam's Razor.)
That would be THIS NEWS.
You don't get, uh, Google News down there?
Let's stop cutting down the Amazon already, shall we?
We non-Americans mock the insane crackers who would make Palin VP, actually elected Bush and Cheney twice - while we had to endure the global destruction, catastrophe and erosion of rights that ensued - Xenophobia? America hate? Or sober commentary on the state of America?
My son, the war criminal.
I've met this type on irc as well. Don't sweat it; for them, empty, profanity-laced insult exchanges serve for (a) masculinity proof; (b) intellectual sparring; and/or (c) ego gratification. It's a common cultural antipattern in a certain (unnamed) country.
I've used Trac a lot for distributed projects - the integration is very nice.
This guy seemed to want real time colloboration, though, which is why I referenced Eclipse Communication Framework in other post, rather than a wiki.
ECF is an integrated Jabber (XMPP)-based protocol that allows collaborative work. Introduction here. "Real-time communication and collaboration features for teams using Eclipse such as peer-to-peer file sharing, remote opening of Eclipse views, screen capture sharing, and real-time shared editing."
Other Jabber products you might find useful are Coccinella with whiteboarding, etc.
Nice work on Boston, champ.
I don't see much future for Microsoft.
"The EFF has filed an amicus curiae, asserting that the plaintiffs are a bunch of idiots who have no clue how the web works and can't be trusted with ordering a latte let alone managing their own brand."