In EU councils, ministers with weak mandates at home are placed in a position where they vote on behalf of their country.
That probably comes the closest to being a simple example of what I'm talking about, though. IANE (I am not European), but I do try to keep up, at least some. For some reason I keep bumping into coverage and analysis of the recent German elections, and it just stands out as an example of a large, powerful (if waning) country/economy that seems to have trouble not tripping over itself in the name of diversity, both political and cultural. Yes, Germany's rather a special case, historically, but what a mess! It just makes it harder for their people, through their government, to speak or act in a solid, meaningful way.
Whatever happened to holding the people who exploit vulnerabilities responsible?
That's crazy talk! What are you thinking, man? Next you'll suggest that when I walk down the street with my entire head completely exposed and vulnerable, that somehow the mugger than hits me over the head with a baseball bat may somehow be responsible for the outcome! See how crazy you are?
Or, when I lock my door and leave my house for the day, and a guy comes along with a sledgehammer and just breaks in anyway - I suppose you think that the person with the sledgehammer is somehow responsible for that? Totally twisted, man.
But it does mean that I should be free from some forms of persuasion. i.e. I can't persuade people to join me using a baseball bat. Why should your form of persuasion (financial power) be allowed? Why should some people get a greater voice because they can blugeon people to join them with bribes?
I'm afraid that's not a good analogy. Physically forcing you to do something (say, with a baseball bat) is called assault (plus several other illegal things, depending on the circumstances). Sitting down with another person that thinks the way I do, putting together our money, and buying an advertisement decrying the use of baseball bats (or any other thing we feel like talking about) is not "bludgeoning" anyone. Telling a candidate that I like what she stands for, and that I'm willing to help her pay for her ads, or make sure that she can travel to my state to talk to people who I think will also be glad to meet her or hear her - how is that "budgeoning?"
You're confusing force with persuasion.
persuade: to move by argument, entreaty, or expostulation to a belief, position
In other words - you're getting someone to see your point of view and make it their own. The only force involved there is the "force" of good rhetorical skills, or the "force" of the truth about something. Some people, of course, can't handle the truth, so they vote in ways that are contrary to their interests, or (because this is reality we're dealing with), vote for the person that is the lesser of two unpleasantnesses.
To the extent that being persuasive requires people to actually hear what you have to say, then communication reach is important. Money does help with that, because we are a country with many privately operated forms of communication. But there are countless other forums that also work. Remember Howard Dean and all of those people he talked into being his troopers? Of course, he turned out to be an ass, so some of those people are probably feeling a little sheepish about where they sent their supporting $5, but the point is that he got a lot of communications reach with the support of very small financial support from a lot of people. He just blew it once he had that platform to speak from, but the mechanics were interesting to watch.
intentional or not, i think your definition of "everybody" is dangerously close to only including democrats and republicans
Why would you think that? A campaign finance law that prevents, say, someone backing a Libertarian or Green, from running specific advocacy ads right before an election is just as abusive to those groups as it is to the two traditionally larger parties. Possibly worse, actually.
Gee, a government that tries to come to a solution that pleases everyone who voted and not only those who voted for the biggest party. How evil !
How can we poor Europeans stand it that extremists can't completely take over the government and force their views on everyone without any resistance ?
Who said evil? My point is that it's just a huge waste of time. A system like that doesn't try to please everyone, it just tries to please a small, highly focused group (often very extreme on one view or another) so that the group in question can have the most number (of unified) seats in a parliment - even though "most" might be only 15% or so. That's OK if it allows that small group to strong-arm all of the other, even smaller groups, into doing what they want.
The US system, annoying as it can be, at least gets you elected officials with a much larger representation of the population, more often. No one can suggest that having enough people to control 10 or 20% of the seats in parliment/congress is anything like a mandate from the population. But when you have a situation where an extremist group that can get a fifth or so of the votes actually has a controlling presence in the elected body, then you've got a problem. If getting more like half of the US population to vote for someone makes them an extremist, then you've got an awkward definition of that word.
I would argue that it's important because it's essential for democracy. It allows ideas to be introduced and challenged, accepted or rejected, on a level playing field.
"Freedom of speech" doesn't mean you're free from me speaking louder than you because I'm persuasive enough to get get several other people to join me (pool funds, whatever). The constitution's guarantee of free speech refers to your freedom from interference by the government. That's why the campaign finance laws limiting speech are such a bad idea - they involve the government judging when and how you can express your opinion about something... something that's exactly contrary to the founder's strong words on the subject.
Does it really serve freedom in the larger sense to allow people to act in ways that subvert an essential component of liberal democracy?
How does two people getting together to say something against what you have to say equal subversion? It's exactly the point - it's free association and speech, exactly as guaranteed under the constitution. If you can't manage to get enough people to see your point, and thus attract the same communications horsepower as the people you oppose, then you need to re-examine the merits of your position. Unpopular, minority opinions do get through the larger noise when they are compelling enough. See voting rights and similar issues as examples.
You forgot one little detail about the freedom of speech, that I think is rather important. You should have the right to protest when you want to. that is speaking.. You should not be sent to a "free speech zone" in a razor wire cage a mile from the event you are protesting.. National Security my ass!
So, if I really can't stand something that Hillary Clinton is sqawking about, can I just get up on the stage next to her and protest? No? How about 10 feet from her? Maybe 20 feet? No? But all I want to do is wave around a giant puppet head of her with horns on it and beat my loud drums! It's freedom of speech, and I demand that my puppet head be visible next to her during while she's talking, since it's my freedom of speech, too.
And if I can't have that, I demand the ability to stand in the public street and block traffic. I don't care about people who are trying to drive to where Hillary is going to be, it's my puppet display that should trump all other forms of expression, even if an ambulance carrying your heart-attack-having grandmother is stopped because of me.
What's that? Maybe there should be a permitting process for the use of public space so that Hillary and her supporters can apply for and get use of it for her rantings, and I can use if for my rantings too, when it's my turn? Oh wait - we already have that system, and it works just fine. That doesn't seem to influence the people that want to smash the windows of a Starbucks store to somehow retaliate against The Man for having a permitting process, but there's no satisfying some freedom-minded people, I suppose (unless they get to smash something owned by millions of people's 401k investments).
Yes and no. The winner-takes-all nature of the American political system makes it almost impossible for third parties to get anywhere even if they do have money. Whether that's a feature or a bug is arguable.
It's a feature. Just look at the train wreck that was the last election in Germany to see what a highly fractured representative government turns into. You get people running the show with only 10 or 15% of the vote - they spend all of their time swinging deals with each other and no time actually getting anything done.
it just seems to effect republicans more becuase they are a bit more big business friendly.
But the left side of the spectrum seems to attract plenty of Streisands, Soroses, Speilburgs, Jobses, and the rest. There are plenty of rich democrats/liberals - to say nothing of the big labor unions, most of which have more to spend on influencing campaigns than a given company ever would be able to get into the budget. In fact, those unions exist almost entirely to do things like that (collectively influence other people). Or how about the AARP, or the NEA? Huge, huge organizations with giant warchests. It's amazing that the left is so convinced that limiting speech is only going to hurt Republicans. It hurts everybody.
Now all of Europe's going to be completely overwhelmed with advertisements for political parties they cannot even vote for.
Actually, if you think the porn industry is a driver for technological advances, that's nothing compared to campaigning, at least when it comes to demo/geo-graphics. Have you bumped into any porn/dating-system ads that appear to pretty effectively map your ip address to your locality ("Find someone in Smallville to sleep with tonight!")? I believe that political campaigns will use everything at their disposal to make sure that their banners are being displayed where (and to whom) they think it will make the most sense.
Those gratuitous "Do you think John Kerry was lying?" or "Do you trust George Bush?" banners as seen on Drudge or elsewhere have nothing to do with real campaigns, and are entirely bait to get people to visit some cheesy "survey" site that attempts to purchase your soul for permission-based adware installs and other shenanigans. They just know that "Is global warming real? Vote!" is a tease that many people cannot resist.
Yes, I know that most AOL users will appear to be coming from Virginia, but most broadband users are reasonably easy to pin down in terms of state. Certainly it's pretty easy to tell when a visitor is from Europe, and to just rotate in an ad for a Vespa or something.
Flamebait? What? I presented basic, factual information and person experience - without any spin, or argument. So... it's a Patented Slashdot Flamebait-Mod-As-Troll! Excellent.
Why is it wrong for them to profit from selling a system that works for people? One of the regular claims from the Mac people is that they've chosen an OS that doesn't have vulnerabilities. Isn't Apple profiting from selling a package that doesn't need Symantec and McAfee et al to even exist?
Your proposal (an operating mode that doesn't allow users to execute anything an-approved) already exists, and corporate users of MS products use it every day. Of course it can be annoying if you're a power user, but plenty of power users get caught by malware even when they think they're being very careful. To sum up: your suggestion has already been implemented. Further, the profiting you're complaining about is also being enjoyed by Apple, Red Hat, and anyone else that puts together something well-rounded (security-wise) for end users to just... use.
Point of clarification: for roughly a year now, perhaps longer, PayPal has allowed you to set up a checkout/payment loop that does NOT require the buyer to create a PayPal account - they just fill in the CC info and go. They CAN start a PayPal account if they want, but they don't have to. I've found it to be pretty non-intrusive when I've seen it used. No, it's not as smooth as integrating proper merchant account processing, but for many small businesses, it's just fine, and their customers know who they're dealing with.
theres going to be a damaged or sunken ship on one side or the other
OK then, better it's the opposing force's sinking attack sub than a cruiser, destroyer, hospital ship, or aircraft carrier of ours. Not just because of the value I place on our crews, but because the odds are that the attack sub is going to be a much smaller vessel.
What has escaped you completely is the concept of buying a copy of an O.S. and doing what you want with it. You know, the idea that it's actually YOUR copy when it's on your computer?
I'll run however many VM's I darn well please; and MS can go to hades if they think I owe them anything more.
You've got the words SUCKER written all over you; and you're too clueless to even see it.
You do understand what a license is, right? We're not debating the philosophical appropriateness of licensing, we're talking about agreements that people enter into. In this case, we're talking about a change from one licensing model to another. It's a good change. As for being a "sucker," well... if I'm helping a large business with their IT needs, and they've chosen to license MS products, they're in a position where they could be liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines if they'd been following your advice. Get a grip.
At this point, I'm wondering why someone even bothered to ask this question. The answer seems to me to be obvious.
Probably because at least a few people are aware that all of that content you enjoy "getting right to" actually costs people to produce and make available to you. Much of that cost is recouped through advertising. Thanks for doing your part to make it even more expensive to provide we content to you.
It totally pisses me off that the Internet has turned into another marketing tool. Anybody else remember that is was created to share information?
Really? So when you go to the same destinations, and use the same resources that were there back when the 'net was just being used by academics, the DOD, and scientists... you're seeing nothing but marketing now? Or is it possible that you're now using the internet to access things that wouldn't be there, over network infrastructure that wouldn't be there, if it weren't for commercial entities producing/providing them? If you're still using it like you were 15 years ago, I'll bet you're not seeing any marketing to speak of. Otherwise, I'll say you're at the least disengenuos, and probably a hypocrite for enjoying the output of entities that seek a way to recoup their costs and earn a living. Don't like it? Only use the government and institution-funded resources you remember so fondly. And don't forget to go back to dial-up!
Well, sure. But what should they do? Write home to the Chinese sub commander's Mom and make sure that he gets in Big Trouble for supporting an invasion of Taiwan (or whatever scenario would have a bad guy shooting fish at one of our boats)?
First, the mess from sinking an attack sub wouldn't be as bad a big naval surface vessel going down (especially a carrier - holy moley!). Second, it's (very rationally) not going to be the US Navy's policy to worry about the ecological damage that would come from disabling an attacking sub... especially since that sub just demonstrated a willingness to poke a hole in our of our ships. Letting him go (by not wiping him out) just means he's going to keep trying until he succeeds.
Remember: the real value to the defensive weapon in question is its ability to remind potential adversaries (North Koreans, in hamster-powered WWII-style subs?) that it's just pointless to pick such a fight, and to not even bother. There's deterrent value in a good defense, too. Nobody sensible wants to sink anything, but we do have to take into account the possibility of either Kim Jong Il being, well, himself... or even somebody like Al Queda trying to one-up their earlier successful attack on the USS Cole. Most of our deterrent weapons weren't built with suicide attacks in mind, so someone who's willing to suicidally drive a boat up near a refueling US vessel and drop a fish in the water - knowing they'll be shredded two minutes later - still leaves us with needing to stop the torpedo, possibly in only seconds.
Should they be able to make a profit? Sure. But should they be allowed to screw you? No
All you have to do is not buy their stuff. Then all you have to do is convince other people that Linux is easier to use, works on more hardware with less fuss, does everything they want, etc. No problem, right? Or, just convince everyone that Oracle is cheaper, or maybe DB2. And once you've used your calm, persuasive explanations to steer people away from Windows and over to a easier, plug-and-play no-compiling, no fuss *nix desktop - problem solved. And you don't have to talk about what companies are "allowed" to charge. Because if you want to talk about what companies are "allowed" to charge, why not look at the cost of Apple's OS vs. XP? Apple charges more. Should they be "allowed" to do that?
You're clueless. For people running VMware and other virtualizations with certain server apps, this will make MS's products less expensive to license. RTFA. "Anti-customer?" Well, since you've got the whole point of this move of their's exactly, precisely backwards, it makes sense you'd think that, I guess. Being exactly, completely wrong probably has you seeing much of the world incorrectly. MS isn't committing suicide with this, they're being smart, doing their customers right, making it easier for the consulting army to make good (and cheaper) recommendations. Read before you spout off next time.
It's based on the perceived value of the purchase. Let's say a company needs to do a lot of SQL stuff. They could just set up a bunch of single or dual processor boxes, pay X to license separete instances of SQL for each, for a total of X*Bunch. Or, they could buy a big bad killer 16-way machine and outperform the lot of them (er, depending on what you're doing), and thus not need to buy so much of the server software. Lost revenue for the publisher... although, depending on the product, it's exactly that hyper-serious big-dollar enterprise corporate user that they spent the majority of the R&D fine tuning for. Sure, the average department throws up a SQL server to do some simple storage/queries... but by the time someone's putting a $50,000 machine to work in what's obviously a seriously mission critical role for a very large operation, well, it can't screw up. And more to the point, MS is on the hook for a certain amount of support under such circumstances (those very large purchases rarely happen without direct MS sales/tech involvement before, during, and after the transaction). Your average cube-jockey support person is not equipped to deal with the network, the storage, the business environment, or the pressure that usually goes hand in hand with the use of, say, a 16-processor enterprise db box (and the cluster it's probably in). That is an example of why it costs more money.
And you know what? Microsoft is not stupid. If Oracle or DB2 wasn't priced the same way, they wouldn't do it. But there's a reason that super-duper heavy duty products/implementations are expensive - it's not just "because they can."
Except in this case you get both.. ( even the summary stated this ).
Sure, but when you do get both, what you don't get is a giant ship sinking, spilling fuel oil or nuclear waste, weapons (er, and potentially thousands of lives) into the ocean. An economical, strategic, tactical, and ecological bargain.
If you really are the problem, then a rational manager would act to correct that (by making you less problematic, or by making you go away). If what you mean is that management would take your message out of context and assume you're a whiner or the source of the problem being discussed, then that just comes down to poor rhetorical/communications skills.
I guess I'm asking what, exactly, a CEO should be doing instead of reading employee email?
Spending hundreds of hours with accounting and legal teams dealing with mergers and acquisitions. Spending hundreds of hours making sure the right regional/departmental people are plugged into the right management jobs. Spending hundreds of hours being a face to investors (including institutional investors that can end up owning large portions of the company, and impact the stock price dramatically if they get the wrong idea about where the company's headed). That sort of thing. Doesn't mean there's no value is reading (wisely written/sent) employee e-mail, but thre are other duties - some of which actually are important to the future (and current) health of a thriving/growing company.
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Thanks for the very succinct clarification.
In EU councils, ministers with weak mandates at home are placed in a position where they vote on behalf of their country.
That probably comes the closest to being a simple example of what I'm talking about, though. IANE (I am not European), but I do try to keep up, at least some. For some reason I keep bumping into coverage and analysis of the recent German elections, and it just stands out as an example of a large, powerful (if waning) country/economy that seems to have trouble not tripping over itself in the name of diversity, both political and cultural. Yes, Germany's rather a special case, historically, but what a mess! It just makes it harder for their people, through their government, to speak or act in a solid, meaningful way.
Whatever happened to holding the people who exploit vulnerabilities responsible?
That's crazy talk! What are you thinking, man? Next you'll suggest that when I walk down the street with my entire head completely exposed and vulnerable, that somehow the mugger than hits me over the head with a baseball bat may somehow be responsible for the outcome! See how crazy you are?
Or, when I lock my door and leave my house for the day, and a guy comes along with a sledgehammer and just breaks in anyway - I suppose you think that the person with the sledgehammer is somehow responsible for that? Totally twisted, man.
But it does mean that I should be free from some forms of persuasion. i.e. I can't persuade people to join me using a baseball bat. Why should your form of persuasion (financial power) be allowed? Why should some people get a greater voice because they can blugeon people to join them with bribes?
I'm afraid that's not a good analogy. Physically forcing you to do something (say, with a baseball bat) is called assault (plus several other illegal things, depending on the circumstances). Sitting down with another person that thinks the way I do, putting together our money, and buying an advertisement decrying the use of baseball bats (or any other thing we feel like talking about) is not "bludgeoning" anyone. Telling a candidate that I like what she stands for, and that I'm willing to help her pay for her ads, or make sure that she can travel to my state to talk to people who I think will also be glad to meet her or hear her - how is that "budgeoning?"
You're confusing force with persuasion.
persuade: to move by argument, entreaty, or expostulation to a belief, position
In other words - you're getting someone to see your point of view and make it their own. The only force involved there is the "force" of good rhetorical skills, or the "force" of the truth about something. Some people, of course, can't handle the truth, so they vote in ways that are contrary to their interests, or (because this is reality we're dealing with), vote for the person that is the lesser of two unpleasantnesses.
To the extent that being persuasive requires people to actually hear what you have to say, then communication reach is important. Money does help with that, because we are a country with many privately operated forms of communication. But there are countless other forums that also work. Remember Howard Dean and all of those people he talked into being his troopers? Of course, he turned out to be an ass, so some of those people are probably feeling a little sheepish about where they sent their supporting $5, but the point is that he got a lot of communications reach with the support of very small financial support from a lot of people. He just blew it once he had that platform to speak from, but the mechanics were interesting to watch.
intentional or not, i think your definition of "everybody" is dangerously close to only including democrats and republicans
Why would you think that? A campaign finance law that prevents, say, someone backing a Libertarian or Green, from running specific advocacy ads right before an election is just as abusive to those groups as it is to the two traditionally larger parties. Possibly worse, actually.
Gee, a government that tries to come to a solution that pleases everyone who voted and not only those who voted for the biggest party. How evil ! How can we poor Europeans stand it that extremists can't completely take over the government and force their views on everyone without any resistance ?
Who said evil? My point is that it's just a huge waste of time. A system like that doesn't try to please everyone, it just tries to please a small, highly focused group (often very extreme on one view or another) so that the group in question can have the most number (of unified) seats in a parliment - even though "most" might be only 15% or so. That's OK if it allows that small group to strong-arm all of the other, even smaller groups, into doing what they want.
The US system, annoying as it can be, at least gets you elected officials with a much larger representation of the population, more often. No one can suggest that having enough people to control 10 or 20% of the seats in parliment/congress is anything like a mandate from the population. But when you have a situation where an extremist group that can get a fifth or so of the votes actually has a controlling presence in the elected body, then you've got a problem. If getting more like half of the US population to vote for someone makes them an extremist, then you've got an awkward definition of that word.
I would argue that it's important because it's essential for democracy. It allows ideas to be introduced and challenged, accepted or rejected, on a level playing field.
"Freedom of speech" doesn't mean you're free from me speaking louder than you because I'm persuasive enough to get get several other people to join me (pool funds, whatever). The constitution's guarantee of free speech refers to your freedom from interference by the government. That's why the campaign finance laws limiting speech are such a bad idea - they involve the government judging when and how you can express your opinion about something... something that's exactly contrary to the founder's strong words on the subject.
Does it really serve freedom in the larger sense to allow people to act in ways that subvert an essential component of liberal democracy?
How does two people getting together to say something against what you have to say equal subversion? It's exactly the point - it's free association and speech, exactly as guaranteed under the constitution. If you can't manage to get enough people to see your point, and thus attract the same communications horsepower as the people you oppose, then you need to re-examine the merits of your position. Unpopular, minority opinions do get through the larger noise when they are compelling enough. See voting rights and similar issues as examples.
You forgot one little detail about the freedom of speech, that I think is rather important. You should have the right to protest when you want to. that is speaking.. You should not be sent to a "free speech zone" in a razor wire cage a mile from the event you are protesting.. National Security my ass!
So, if I really can't stand something that Hillary Clinton is sqawking about, can I just get up on the stage next to her and protest? No? How about 10 feet from her? Maybe 20 feet? No? But all I want to do is wave around a giant puppet head of her with horns on it and beat my loud drums! It's freedom of speech, and I demand that my puppet head be visible next to her during while she's talking, since it's my freedom of speech, too.
And if I can't have that, I demand the ability to stand in the public street and block traffic. I don't care about people who are trying to drive to where Hillary is going to be, it's my puppet display that should trump all other forms of expression, even if an ambulance carrying your heart-attack-having grandmother is stopped because of me.
What's that? Maybe there should be a permitting process for the use of public space so that Hillary and her supporters can apply for and get use of it for her rantings, and I can use if for my rantings too, when it's my turn? Oh wait - we already have that system, and it works just fine. That doesn't seem to influence the people that want to smash the windows of a Starbucks store to somehow retaliate against The Man for having a permitting process, but there's no satisfying some freedom-minded people, I suppose (unless they get to smash something owned by millions of people's 401k investments).
Yes and no. The winner-takes-all nature of the American political system makes it almost impossible for third parties to get anywhere even if they do have money. Whether that's a feature or a bug is arguable.
It's a feature. Just look at the train wreck that was the last election in Germany to see what a highly fractured representative government turns into. You get people running the show with only 10 or 15% of the vote - they spend all of their time swinging deals with each other and no time actually getting anything done.
it just seems to effect republicans more becuase they are a bit more big business friendly.
But the left side of the spectrum seems to attract plenty of Streisands, Soroses, Speilburgs, Jobses, and the rest. There are plenty of rich democrats/liberals - to say nothing of the big labor unions, most of which have more to spend on influencing campaigns than a given company ever would be able to get into the budget. In fact, those unions exist almost entirely to do things like that (collectively influence other people). Or how about the AARP, or the NEA? Huge, huge organizations with giant warchests. It's amazing that the left is so convinced that limiting speech is only going to hurt Republicans. It hurts everybody.
Now all of Europe's going to be completely overwhelmed with advertisements for political parties they cannot even vote for.
Actually, if you think the porn industry is a driver for technological advances, that's nothing compared to campaigning, at least when it comes to demo/geo-graphics. Have you bumped into any porn/dating-system ads that appear to pretty effectively map your ip address to your locality ("Find someone in Smallville to sleep with tonight!")? I believe that political campaigns will use everything at their disposal to make sure that their banners are being displayed where (and to whom) they think it will make the most sense.
Those gratuitous "Do you think John Kerry was lying?" or "Do you trust George Bush?" banners as seen on Drudge or elsewhere have nothing to do with real campaigns, and are entirely bait to get people to visit some cheesy "survey" site that attempts to purchase your soul for permission-based adware installs and other shenanigans. They just know that "Is global warming real? Vote!" is a tease that many people cannot resist.
Yes, I know that most AOL users will appear to be coming from Virginia, but most broadband users are reasonably easy to pin down in terms of state. Certainly it's pretty easy to tell when a visitor is from Europe, and to just rotate in an ad for a Vespa or something.
Flamebait? What? I presented basic, factual information and person experience - without any spin, or argument. So... it's a Patented Slashdot Flamebait-Mod-As-Troll! Excellent.
Outstanding use of the Troll mod as a feeble form of uninformed argument! Classic slashdot - a Troll mod that is itself a Troll mod.
Why is it wrong for them to profit from selling a system that works for people? One of the regular claims from the Mac people is that they've chosen an OS that doesn't have vulnerabilities. Isn't Apple profiting from selling a package that doesn't need Symantec and McAfee et al to even exist?
Your proposal (an operating mode that doesn't allow users to execute anything an-approved) already exists, and corporate users of MS products use it every day. Of course it can be annoying if you're a power user, but plenty of power users get caught by malware even when they think they're being very careful. To sum up: your suggestion has already been implemented. Further, the profiting you're complaining about is also being enjoyed by Apple, Red Hat, and anyone else that puts together something well-rounded (security-wise) for end users to just... use.
Point of clarification: for roughly a year now, perhaps longer, PayPal has allowed you to set up a checkout/payment loop that does NOT require the buyer to create a PayPal account - they just fill in the CC info and go. They CAN start a PayPal account if they want, but they don't have to. I've found it to be pretty non-intrusive when I've seen it used. No, it's not as smooth as integrating proper merchant account processing, but for many small businesses, it's just fine, and their customers know who they're dealing with.
theres going to be a damaged or sunken ship on one side or the other
OK then, better it's the opposing force's sinking attack sub than a cruiser, destroyer, hospital ship, or aircraft carrier of ours. Not just because of the value I place on our crews, but because the odds are that the attack sub is going to be a much smaller vessel.
What has escaped you completely is the concept of buying a copy of an O.S. and doing what you want with it. You know, the idea that it's actually YOUR copy when it's on your computer?
I'll run however many VM's I darn well please; and MS can go to hades if they think I owe them anything more.
You've got the words SUCKER written all over you; and you're too clueless to even see it.
You do understand what a license is, right? We're not debating the philosophical appropriateness of licensing, we're talking about agreements that people enter into. In this case, we're talking about a change from one licensing model to another. It's a good change. As for being a "sucker," well... if I'm helping a large business with their IT needs, and they've chosen to license MS products, they're in a position where they could be liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines if they'd been following your advice. Get a grip.
At this point, I'm wondering why someone even bothered to ask this question. The answer seems to me to be obvious.
Probably because at least a few people are aware that all of that content you enjoy "getting right to" actually costs people to produce and make available to you. Much of that cost is recouped through advertising. Thanks for doing your part to make it even more expensive to provide we content to you.
It totally pisses me off that the Internet has turned into another marketing tool. Anybody else remember that is was created to share information?
Really? So when you go to the same destinations, and use the same resources that were there back when the 'net was just being used by academics, the DOD, and scientists... you're seeing nothing but marketing now? Or is it possible that you're now using the internet to access things that wouldn't be there, over network infrastructure that wouldn't be there, if it weren't for commercial entities producing/providing them? If you're still using it like you were 15 years ago, I'll bet you're not seeing any marketing to speak of. Otherwise, I'll say you're at the least disengenuos, and probably a hypocrite for enjoying the output of entities that seek a way to recoup their costs and earn a living. Don't like it? Only use the government and institution-funded resources you remember so fondly. And don't forget to go back to dial-up!
Well, sure. But what should they do? Write home to the Chinese sub commander's Mom and make sure that he gets in Big Trouble for supporting an invasion of Taiwan (or whatever scenario would have a bad guy shooting fish at one of our boats)?
First, the mess from sinking an attack sub wouldn't be as bad a big naval surface vessel going down (especially a carrier - holy moley!). Second, it's (very rationally) not going to be the US Navy's policy to worry about the ecological damage that would come from disabling an attacking sub... especially since that sub just demonstrated a willingness to poke a hole in our of our ships. Letting him go (by not wiping him out) just means he's going to keep trying until he succeeds.
Remember: the real value to the defensive weapon in question is its ability to remind potential adversaries (North Koreans, in hamster-powered WWII-style subs?) that it's just pointless to pick such a fight, and to not even bother. There's deterrent value in a good defense, too. Nobody sensible wants to sink anything, but we do have to take into account the possibility of either Kim Jong Il being, well, himself... or even somebody like Al Queda trying to one-up their earlier successful attack on the USS Cole. Most of our deterrent weapons weren't built with suicide attacks in mind, so someone who's willing to suicidally drive a boat up near a refueling US vessel and drop a fish in the water - knowing they'll be shredded two minutes later - still leaves us with needing to stop the torpedo, possibly in only seconds.
Should they be able to make a profit? Sure. But should they be allowed to screw you? No
All you have to do is not buy their stuff. Then all you have to do is convince other people that Linux is easier to use, works on more hardware with less fuss, does everything they want, etc. No problem, right? Or, just convince everyone that Oracle is cheaper, or maybe DB2. And once you've used your calm, persuasive explanations to steer people away from Windows and over to a easier, plug-and-play no-compiling, no fuss *nix desktop - problem solved. And you don't have to talk about what companies are "allowed" to charge. Because if you want to talk about what companies are "allowed" to charge, why not look at the cost of Apple's OS vs. XP? Apple charges more. Should they be "allowed" to do that?
You're clueless. For people running VMware and other virtualizations with certain server apps, this will make MS's products less expensive to license. RTFA. "Anti-customer?" Well, since you've got the whole point of this move of their's exactly, precisely backwards, it makes sense you'd think that, I guess. Being exactly, completely wrong probably has you seeing much of the world incorrectly. MS isn't committing suicide with this, they're being smart, doing their customers right, making it easier for the consulting army to make good (and cheaper) recommendations. Read before you spout off next time.
It's based on the perceived value of the purchase. Let's say a company needs to do a lot of SQL stuff. They could just set up a bunch of single or dual processor boxes, pay X to license separete instances of SQL for each, for a total of X*Bunch. Or, they could buy a big bad killer 16-way machine and outperform the lot of them (er, depending on what you're doing), and thus not need to buy so much of the server software. Lost revenue for the publisher... although, depending on the product, it's exactly that hyper-serious big-dollar enterprise corporate user that they spent the majority of the R&D fine tuning for. Sure, the average department throws up a SQL server to do some simple storage/queries... but by the time someone's putting a $50,000 machine to work in what's obviously a seriously mission critical role for a very large operation, well, it can't screw up. And more to the point, MS is on the hook for a certain amount of support under such circumstances (those very large purchases rarely happen without direct MS sales/tech involvement before, during, and after the transaction). Your average cube-jockey support person is not equipped to deal with the network, the storage, the business environment, or the pressure that usually goes hand in hand with the use of, say, a 16-processor enterprise db box (and the cluster it's probably in). That is an example of why it costs more money.
And you know what? Microsoft is not stupid. If Oracle or DB2 wasn't priced the same way, they wouldn't do it. But there's a reason that super-duper heavy duty products/implementations are expensive - it's not just "because they can."
Except in this case you get both.. ( even the summary stated this ).
Sure, but when you do get both, what you don't get is a giant ship sinking, spilling fuel oil or nuclear waste, weapons (er, and potentially thousands of lives) into the ocean. An economical, strategic, tactical, and ecological bargain.
If you really are the problem, then a rational manager would act to correct that (by making you less problematic, or by making you go away). If what you mean is that management would take your message out of context and assume you're a whiner or the source of the problem being discussed, then that just comes down to poor rhetorical/communications skills.
I guess I'm asking what, exactly, a CEO should be doing instead of reading employee email?
Spending hundreds of hours with accounting and legal teams dealing with mergers and acquisitions. Spending hundreds of hours making sure the right regional/departmental people are plugged into the right management jobs. Spending hundreds of hours being a face to investors (including institutional investors that can end up owning large portions of the company, and impact the stock price dramatically if they get the wrong idea about where the company's headed). That sort of thing. Doesn't mean there's no value is reading (wisely written/sent) employee e-mail, but thre are other duties - some of which actually are important to the future (and current) health of a thriving/growing company.