Illegal use of monopoly powers leads to government recovery of money and investment in public good.
Certainly if they are found to have illegaly used their monopoly and to have manipulated prices a number of consumers can use the "no alternative OS" statements to sue to recover "excess costs".
Microsoft should welcome government fines in exchange for immunity from a whole host of individual lawsuits or class action suits.
Doubting it will happen, or is even likely given the lack of any other actions to recover ill-gotten gains, but it sure would be fun to watch.
Doesn't the US have some sort of recovery of money gained through illegal means laws that have been used to seize drug dealers houses, cars, boats? Why don't these laws apply here? Is the illegal use of a monopoly not considered criminal? Who wants to bid for Gate's Mansion when it hits the government auction block?
Back in 1984 I resored an old PDP8. Careful hardware installation of various cards into the backplane. Cables to the console. Playing with the toggle switches. Probing the memory 12bits! of magnetic core!! A 12x12 bit multiply hardware extension.
Paged memory access: are we destined to repeat past mistakes.
Connect the disk drives RT11. Dig out some old 8" floppies. Toggle in a boot loader. The OS loads and runs. OS9 (? I think) it did not accept a date after some time in 197[4-6] (talk about a Y2K problem). Playing HANOI on a VT52 was heaven. Booting off of floppies with pin holes was cool.
The prompt is beautiful.
Sorry for the nostalga. All inaccuracies due to failing memory.
I just wish I had completed my display project using the core memory, some sheets of glass and iron filings.
The story was basically an unfair contest: Journalist: I tried something I was unqualified to do and had a hard time.
To be fair he should also have tried installing Win98, BeOS, Bsd, Os2, Plan 9,... Well at least Win98 on a system running Linux already.
Granted the installation should be easier for the general user but this was not a comparison story.
How many general users install their OS? Was that mentioned?
Did he mention: The computer was supplied with Windows and he never had to install windows?
Did he mention: You can order computers with Linux preinstalled just like winTel boxen?
I would call it a slightly unfair article. Would you consider a story about a fast food employee attempting to repair a car for the first time and finding it hard a fair story?
Require that the source code be released for any API that does not behave exactly as documented.
That should be enough of a kick in the pants the keep the documentation accurate.
The key point being that in lieu of inaccurate documentation the source code is a better, if not as accesible, description of the API. If an API is released as source code its entire source code tree must be released so that all versions of it are available.
This is a nice middle ground between requireing documentation and requireing the code.
The requirement of document or else seems nice enough and does not force the release of the source code. Of course we can rely on Microsoft to make mistakes in just about all of the documentation thus releasing all of the API source code.
For years Microsoft, seller of operating systems, has been stealing application developers by bundling applications into the operating system. This has cut down on the application market.
At this point, for many buisness users, a WinTel box is an application support device required to run the Office Suit application.
Sun by making available a free Office Suit has now effectivly bundled the Office Suit with any hardware. This is supposed to make Windows, Microsoft Office and the Intel plateform they all run on irrelevant and increase the sale of Sun hardware.
Effectively Sun is trying to pull a Microsoft on Microsoft. This should be really interesting to watch. Can you hear Bill Gates roar?
too many stupid people in the world, so little napalm.
Both challenges were pretty stupid attention getting stunts. We know web servers crash when everyone on/. follows a link. What happens if.01% of/. decides to packet flood, DNS spoof and otherwise attack whole segments of the net?
Bad metaphor: They tried to invite the world to come party in a one horse salon at the end of a dirt road.
As linuxppc says on their sight legitimate hack attempts were not possible due to the large packet loss caused by the high traffic.
It stayed up under large traffic, that was good.
Maybe Microsoft can afford the support to keep their network running. Hopefully the whole thing will quietly go away. It was a good load test for both systems. Not a good security test.
I have to wonder what the wording on the prohibition from using computers is.
In the strictist sense he could be banned from using telephones, bank machines, elevators, traffic lights, fridges, central heating, most modern cars....
Any computer chip with a user affected input stream could probably be covered by a not carefully worded clause in the prohibition.
Consider the throw a basketball through the hoop from the center-court/far-foul-line to win $10e6. The companies running these contests do not actually expect people to win. The companies take out insurance against anyone actually winning. The ability to complete the requirements is so tough that no one is expected to win. In any case the company pays for the promotion and expects to make it back in improved sales.
Why can't the jet promotion be considered a similar event. Company puts up outrageous prize ($1e6 for Boardwalk and Park Place) and takes a loss if someone actually wins. The whole idea is to offer up a big prize as a promotion. The promotion/commercial is an expensive venture that is expected to more than offset itself in sales.
We don't consider it odd that for $5 for fries and a coke we can win $1e6. Why should it be odd that for $.7e6 we can get $23e6. Pepsi never considered that someone would come up with the cash. That is their stupidity.
Pepsi clearly made the offer. They should not be able to claim that it is unreasonable. It was reasonable of them to consider that no one was going to come up with the points and they would not have to supply the jet. However someone did come up with the points and they should be held to deliver. Stupid Pepsi for not taking out insurance on the actual claiming of the prize.
Pepsi should be allowed to claim it was unreasonable that they expect anyone would actually win and that the actual promised prize is undeliverable due to legal reasons and pay the guy the equivalent in cash. (doesn't pepsi operate in a number of countries where the private ownership of military jets would not be a problem?)
What is needed is a more biological like approach where those computers that become infected die and remove their operating system from the code gene pool.
I am suprised that this approach, of dropping an OS that becomes infected and switching to a new variant that was not infected, was not mentioned in the article. It would certainly be a lot simpler that an all that processing and message passing.
Nice document. I would really like to see some archived comments from whoever read it at the time.
Can anyone go diving into the Sun archive pile and find comments supporting or denegrating the document? Also where are the people who made the comments are today.
It is always neat to find a prediction like this and examine it in light of what has happened.
Re:For those that need to keep up...
on
Linux 2.3.0
·
· Score: 1
Some of this tuning is due to the Mindcraft stuff.
The wait_queue and spinlock changes will help multithreaded servers.
I presume the ex2fs stuff is also targeted at fixing some of the slower operations.
Some of the linux software packagers need to put some cash into testing/benchmarking so kernel and application deficiencies can be detected and fixed before 'competitors' advertise their existence.
Linux seems to exist in a 'make it work' world where the many eyes can report obvious problems. There does not seem to be a 'deep analysis' environment that can provide the feedback required to do major tuning. The Mindcraft tests pointed out problems. The fixes, like the wake-one, were fairly obvious. How long would it have been before this would have been implemented if Mindcraft had not reported its results? The Linux community should thank Mindcraft (and Microsoft) for publishing the results.
Almost nobody bothers to setup and monitor situations like those in the test. If a slow down does occur in a commercial deployment the usual solution is to throw more hardware at the problem. What is needed is for some of the bigger companies moving behind Linux to put some $$$$ into testing so other problem areas in the kernel and applications can be found and solved.
It doesn't have to be craptivX that runs this, right? I can write a windows mail program that enables the PIII serial number during its installation and secretly signs each E-mail you send with the serial number, right? Of course, I'd probably just use the Windows serial number for that but it's nice to have my options open...
Sign the email with the PIII serial number, the Windows serial number, and any software Id codes you can find. Collect as many of these as you can.
Then look for duplicate software id codes from different PIII/windows serial numbers. Use the ethernet number in the windows serial number to look up the IP number. Resolve the IP number back to a service provider. Fill out a warrent for information from the service provider. Retrive home addresses and send out the boys in blue to collect the hard evidince in the form of the computer PIII, ethernet card and hard drive.
It would be easy enough for M$ to hide a macro viris like VB code in the latest patch/OS that would send the email. The rest of the process could be automated right up to emailing the local police a request for a search warrent with all the relevant information attached.
Now if this happens to anyone do you think they could sue M$ for theft of services in running the email marco viris on their personal computer? Whoever has most $ for the lawyers wins.
Slashdot Mirror
Fines, great big investor castrating fines.
Illegal use of monopoly powers leads to government recovery of money and investment in public good.
Certainly if they are found to have illegaly used their monopoly and to have manipulated prices a number of consumers can use the "no alternative OS" statements to sue to recover "excess costs".
Microsoft should welcome government fines in exchange for immunity from a whole host of individual lawsuits or class action suits.
Doubting it will happen, or is even likely given the lack of any other actions to recover ill-gotten gains, but it sure would be fun to watch.
Doesn't the US have some sort of recovery of money gained through illegal means laws that have been used to seize drug dealers houses, cars, boats? Why don't these laws apply here? Is the illegal use of a monopoly not considered criminal? Who wants to bid for Gate's Mansion when it hits the government auction block?
The prompt is beautiful.
Back in 1984 I resored an old PDP8. Careful hardware installation of various cards into the backplane. Cables to the console. Playing with the toggle switches. Probing the memory 12bits! of magnetic core!! A 12x12 bit multiply hardware extension.
Paged memory access: are we destined to repeat past mistakes.
Connect the disk drives RT11. Dig out some old 8" floppies. Toggle in a boot loader. The OS loads and runs. OS9 (? I think) it did not accept a date after some time in 197[4-6] (talk about a Y2K problem). Playing HANOI on a VT52 was heaven. Booting off of floppies with pin holes was cool.
The prompt is beautiful.
Sorry for the nostalga. All inaccuracies due to failing memory.
I just wish I had completed my display project using the core memory, some sheets of glass and iron filings.
The story was basically an unfair contest:
... Well at least Win98 on a system running Linux already.
Journalist: I tried something I was unqualified to do and had a hard time.
To be fair he should also have tried installing
Win98, BeOS, Bsd, Os2, Plan 9,
Granted the installation should be easier for the general user but this was not a comparison story.
How many general users install their OS? Was that mentioned?
Did he mention: The computer was supplied with Windows and he never had to install windows?
Did he mention: You can order computers with Linux preinstalled just like winTel boxen?
I would call it a slightly unfair article.
Would you consider a story about a fast food employee attempting to repair a car for the first time and finding it hard a fair story?
Simply put penalties on every inaccuracy.
Require that the source code be released for any API that does not behave exactly as documented.
That should be enough of a kick in the pants the keep the documentation accurate.
The key point being that in lieu of inaccurate documentation the source code is a better, if not as accesible, description of the API. If an API is released as source code its entire source code tree must be released so that all versions of it are available.
This is a nice middle ground between requireing documentation and requireing the code.
The requirement of document or else seems nice enough and does not force the release of the
source code. Of course we can rely on Microsoft to make mistakes in just about all of the documentation thus releasing all of the API source code.
For years Microsoft, seller of operating systems, has been stealing application developers by bundling applications into the operating system. This has cut down on the application market.
At this point, for many buisness users, a WinTel box is an application support device required to run the Office Suit application.
Sun by making available a free Office Suit has now effectivly bundled the Office Suit with any hardware. This is supposed to make Windows, Microsoft Office and the Intel plateform they all run on irrelevant and increase the sale of Sun hardware.
Effectively Sun is trying to pull a Microsoft on Microsoft. This should be really interesting to watch. Can you hear Bill Gates roar?
too many stupid people in the world,
/. follows a link. What happens if .01% of /. decides to packet flood, DNS spoof and otherwise attack whole segments of the net?
so little napalm.
Both challenges were pretty stupid attention getting stunts. We know web servers crash when everyone on
Bad metaphor:
They tried to invite the world to come party in a one horse salon at the end of a dirt road.
As linuxppc says on their sight legitimate hack attempts were not possible due to the large packet loss caused by the high traffic.
It stayed up under large traffic, that was good.
Maybe Microsoft can afford the support to keep their network running. Hopefully the whole thing will quietly go away. It was a good load test for both systems. Not a good security test.
I have to wonder what the wording on the prohibition from using computers is.
....
In the strictist sense he could be banned from using telephones, bank machines, elevators, traffic lights, fridges, central heating, most modern cars
Any computer chip with a user affected input stream could probably be covered by a not carefully worded clause in the prohibition.
Curel and unusual punishment in the modern world.
Consider the throw a basketball through the hoop from the center-court/far-foul-line to win $10e6. The companies running these contests do not actually expect people to win. The companies take out insurance against anyone actually winning. The ability to complete the requirements is so tough that no one is expected to win. In any case the company pays for the promotion and expects to make it back in improved sales.
Why can't the jet promotion be considered a similar event. Company puts up outrageous prize ($1e6 for Boardwalk and Park Place) and takes a loss if someone actually wins. The whole idea is to offer up a big prize as a promotion. The promotion/commercial is an expensive venture that is expected to more than offset itself in sales.
We don't consider it odd that for $5 for fries and a coke we can win $1e6. Why should it be odd that for $.7e6 we can get $23e6. Pepsi never considered that someone would come up with the cash. That is their stupidity.
Pepsi clearly made the offer. They should not be able to claim that it is unreasonable. It was reasonable of them to consider that no one was going to come up with the points and they would not have to supply the jet. However someone did come up with the points and they should be held to deliver. Stupid Pepsi for not taking out insurance on the actual claiming of the prize.
Pepsi should be allowed to claim it was unreasonable that they expect anyone would actually win and that the actual promised prize is undeliverable due to legal reasons and pay the guy the equivalent in cash. (doesn't pepsi operate in a number of countries where the private ownership of military jets would not be a problem?)
What is needed is a more biological like approach where those computers that become infected die and remove their operating system from the code gene pool.
I am suprised that this approach, of dropping an OS that becomes infected and switching to a new variant that was not infected, was not mentioned in the article. It would certainly be a lot simpler that an all that processing and message passing.
This should have been invalidated by prior art in the 1960's when paper tape and punched card rhythm machines were all the rage.
Nice document. I would really like to see some archived comments from whoever read it at the time.
Can anyone go diving into the Sun archive pile and find comments supporting or denegrating the document? Also where are the people who made the comments are today.
It is always neat to find a prediction like this and examine it in light of what has happened.
Some of this tuning is due to the Mindcraft stuff.
The wait_queue and spinlock changes will help multithreaded servers.
I presume the ex2fs stuff is also targeted at fixing some of the slower operations.
Some of the linux software packagers need to put some cash into testing/benchmarking so kernel and application deficiencies can be detected and fixed before 'competitors' advertise their existence.
Linux seems to exist in a 'make it work' world where the many eyes can report obvious problems. There does not seem to be a 'deep analysis' environment that can provide the feedback required to do major tuning. The Mindcraft tests pointed out problems. The fixes, like the wake-one, were fairly obvious. How long would it have been before this would have been implemented if Mindcraft had
not reported its results? The Linux community should thank Mindcraft (and Microsoft) for publishing the results.
Almost nobody bothers to setup and monitor situations like those in the test. If a slow down does occur in a commercial deployment the usual solution is to throw more hardware at the problem. What is needed is for some of the bigger companies moving behind Linux to put some $$$$ into testing so other problem areas in the kernel and applications can be found and solved.
It doesn't have to be craptivX that runs this, right? I can write a windows mail program that enables the PIII serial number during its installation and secretly signs each E-mail you send with the serial number, right? Of course, I'd probably just use the Windows serial number for that but it's nice to have my options open...
Sign the email with the PIII serial number, the Windows serial number, and any software Id codes you can find. Collect as many of these as you can.
Then look for duplicate software id codes from different PIII/windows serial numbers. Use the ethernet number in the windows serial number to look up the IP number. Resolve the IP number back to a service provider. Fill out a warrent for information from the service provider. Retrive home addresses and send out the boys in blue to collect the hard evidince in the form of the computer PIII, ethernet card and hard drive.
It would be easy enough for M$ to hide a macro viris like VB code in the latest patch/OS that would send the email. The rest of the process could be automated right up to emailing the local police a request for a search warrent with all the relevant information attached.
Now if this happens to anyone do you think they could sue M$ for theft of services in running the email marco viris on their personal computer? Whoever has most $ for the lawyers wins.
Is anyone keeping track of the OS and httpd of sites that are /.'ed to death. It might make a nice addition to the report on the /. effect.