Your faith in the good intentions of the EU Commission is likewise moronic. It is simply fortunate that our goal (of getting MS to open their protocols) is temporarily aligned with the goal of the Commission (extortion).
I think you are greatly oversimplifying the goals of the EU commission. None of them personally get any of this money you know. They are motivated by a desire to do their job well enough so that they stand a chance of promotion, by a desire to do the right thing, by political motivations to get funding and to bloody the nose of American corporate crime. At a very basic level they are motivated to enforce the law in such a way as to demonstrate that it has authority and power, so that others do not challenge the authority of the courts and the EU, or ignore the laws it enforces.
Now I'm not naive enough to believe that all the EU representatives want only to "do the right thing" and help people by correctly and impartially applying the law. Neither, however, am I willing to anthropomorphize the EU as some sort of greedy, extortionist. The whole point of "rule by law" is that it does not matter so much what the personal motivations of the people involved are, so long as the laws are applied and enforced the result will be relatively impartial and for the good of the people as their law making process provides. And I agree whole-heartedly with anti-trust laws like this. They are necessary and beneficial. The EU is applying the law properly and MS has obviously broken the law. However jaded you might be, this is a case of the system slowly but properly working (so far).
Sure they are following the rules they they set. Really tough to do that...
I think you're a little unclear on the concept of "rule by law." It's not like the people who convicted and are responsible for overseeing MS's punishment had anything to do with passing the laws under which they were convicted. Anthropomorphizing the EU is absurd.
How does the US Law have anything to do with this??
Because the US, the EU, and almost every other country in the world has laws that make what MS did a crime. You can't complain that the EU is unfairly punishing MS by selective application of the law any more than you can complain when they convict someone of murder. Both murder and anti-trust tying are illegal almost everywhere. The EU enforces laws prohibit both offenses both against native residents and foreigners regularly. It is doubly hypocritical to make such a claim when they have been convicted in the US of the same offense.
I don't think my logic is off here. Thats just my point. The fact is you have these politicans making technical decisions that they know nothing about.
This is the logical fallacy of "ad hominem attack."
Media Player was wrong and so is this.
This is a repeat of your "argument by association."
You haven't provided any logical reasons why you think this particular ruling will be ineffective. Stop wasting my time by avoiding the topic. Why do you think this particular punishment will not help in the way I described?
I'm for open standards just as much as the next guy. But arguing that a private company must comply with that belief is wrong.
I'm all for nonviolent resolution of problems, but trying to force convicted murderers to not illegally carrying concealed guns while on parole is just wrong.
What MS has done is against the law. This particular part of the punishment says they will stop breaking the law in this particular way. It isn't about open standards, it is about tying a product from a monopolized market with a product from a non-monopolized market. Ford can make tires and size they want with weird, proprietary ways to attach the rim to the rotor. If, however, they gain a monopoly on cars, they have to document that attachment and allow third parties to interoperate with it. Otherwise, they can just spread their monopoly into new monopolies, thus removing customer choice, competition, innovation, and all the other benefits of the free market. It is the law, and MS broke it, intentionally, under the belief that they would make more money doing so than obeying the law.
In theory, MS can comply with the law in another way, by removing all the secret interaction between their desktop and server completely. Just tear the functionality out of one of the products and they will be in compliance with the law, if not with their signed agreement for how they would stop breaking the law.
MS business practices have been shady to say the least but this is the wrong way to fix that.
They haven't been shady in this case, they have been blatantly illegal as ruled by numerous court systems. Ordering them to stop breaking the law is definitely the way to fix it.
Is this the logic? 1) MS makes a shitty / poor documented product. 2) Everyone buys it 3) Sue MS until they fix it 4) Make some cash in the process.
1) You're right so far. 2) Wrong. MS coerces many people into buying it, by tying it to their desktop system, which is a monopoly and no one can do business without. 3) This isn't a lawsuit. No one is being sued. This is committing a crime, criminal law, not civil. The courts don't sue you for murder. They convict you, as they did MS. 4) Fines are very nearly the only punishment that can be levied against corporations. They could order them broken up into separate companies, but this is a step in the right direction.
You seem to be very misinformed in numerous ways. You should do a little research on this case and on antitrust law (both what it is and why almost every country has it in similar form). MS has not been convicted of making shitty/ poorly documented products. They've been convicted of leveraging their monopoly on desktop OSs to make consumers buy those products, even though they are shitty. The basic purpose of anti-trust law is to stop companies from abusing monopolies in ways that obviously harm consumers and markets.
don't buy any of Microsoft's bullshit but I still don't think this isn't going to help consumers anywhere. A Good example: The EU made Microsoft build a new version of XP without Media Player. I read something like.005% of consumers bought that version. Interesting, people in the EU really give a shit about this.
You have just committed the logical fallacy, "argument by association." Arguing that previous EU punishment was ineffective, thus the one we are discussing must also be ineffective is not a logical argument. I agree the previous punishment was pretty pointless. It looked to me like they make a ruling, set up a way to correct the imbalance, and then that ruling was modified by someone with no clue what the whole thing was about.
This particular requirement, however, is quite different. If MS is forced to comply and publish and adhere to open specifications for interactions between their server and their desktop, it will have a real and positive affect upon the industry. Right now MS servers are slow, less stable than Linux, more expensive than Linux, unable to properly support multiple server tasks, poorly secured, and lacking in many important tools. People still buy them for one main reason, they are the only thing that properly speaks AD and Exchange to interact with Windows desktops.
With open standards for AD and Exchange (among other protocols) many, many server rooms would move away from MS products until MS provided actual value for the cost. MS would have to fix their half-assed shit or actually lose market share in the server space, kind of like a free market, huh? I know the concept of OS's competing on features instead of lock-in seems strange and foreign to many people who buy them but a few of us feel it would actually be beneficial to the market.
With this judgement two things will happen in some combination. Consumers will switch to alternatives or MS will be forced to make a better product. Either way, consumers win.
I'm not usually on Microsoft's side but screw the EU on this one. This is a simple case of extortion. I mean there is no downside to fine a US company. They are fining MSFT just because they can and its somewhat fashionable to do so.
So let me get this straight, you think the EU is fining MS for intentionally breaking the law, after MS was judged guilty of doing the same thing by the US courts, because it is "fashionable?" MS broke and continues to break the law. The EU has a history of going after all sorts of companies both European and foreign for breaking antitrust law. To whine when they apply it to MS, means you probably have bought into some of MS's ridiculous propaganda.
Your nationalism is just moronic. You might as well go hang out with all the rednecks that think Americans should be above the law when visiting other countries.
it's not the monopoly that microsoft is in court for. they are in breach of a ruling that the court made against them - the ruling is because of the abuse of monopoly power but this hearing is about them breaking an agreement they accepted
...sort of. Except this particular agreement basically said, "we'll stop breaking the law." You see, not documenting the API's between their server and desktop is a crime. It is tying, and monopolies are forbidden by law to do that. They are being fined for not stopping their illegal actions, as they agreed they would.
I get the distinct impression that Microsoft being tardy to release the documentation for their protocols isn't purely due to malice - or even not malice at all. I get the impression that things like this simply aren't documented INSIDE of Microsoft, and the original developers of the code have left, and MS staff are now busily trying to document a gigantic mass of source code.
That could be, but it is not any excuse for continuing to break the law. MS made billions breaking the law and when ordered to stop, pleading incompetence isn't going to work. "But officer I don't remember where I put the key to the cupboard I hid the stolen money in" has never worked as a defense for not handing over reparations for a crime. They have billions of dollars. If they don't have adequate documentation in the specified timeframe it is because they haven't put the effort in to create it. They could afford to pay the 100 best coders and documenters in the world 10 million bucks a piece for this 2 month contract work, but they haven't. Well, it is up to them to do the cost/benefit analysis of spending the money to get the work done versus paying the fines. But I don't for a second buy the idea that they can't do it if they want to.
Ok, so if I get this right, if I create an interface to provide interoperability between my programs, and my programs become popular enough that people want to connect to them for reasons I didn't intend (and don't want to have to support), why is it a good business decision to release an API for that interface?
First, MS did not "invent" the interface they copied an existing open standard then intentionally broke it. Second, it is not a "good business decision" but it is required by the law if one of the two products you are talking about is in a market you have monopolized.
It seems like that might shooting myself in the foot if I'm giving it to others who intend (as the linux community does) to supplant me with my own technology. To me, that's like bring a tank to war and then giving the enemy the keys to it.
No it's like bringing a tank to the mall and then arguing when the cops arrest you for breaking the law by crushing other people's cars and driving a vehicle banned on public roads. "But officer, my tank lets me park more easily and closer to the doors! I'm special and rich, I don't have to obey the laws! I did the same thing in Kentucky and after I bribed the governor they let me go!"
Please, if you make up anymore analogies, don't forget to include that you are a monopoly and do a little research on what monopolies can and can't do and why. Bundling and tying are illegal actions for monopolies because they remove all the benefits provided by a capitalist free market. You may be ignorant, but you can bet MS isn't and they decided breaking the law was a good business decision. No sympathy for the devil.
Fines don't matter...MS just work[sic] it into the price of the OS, so the consumer ends up paying for it anyway. So it basically turns into a consumer tax on copies of Windows.
Fines are only one piece of the puzzle. First, where does the fine money go to? Is it used to promote alternatives? Second, the ruling opens MS up to yet another round of lawsuits from all the companies they illegally screwed over. MS will have to get out its checkbook and settle with all of them in civil litigation, thus providing them a competitive redress of the illegal imbalance. This means when Windows prices go up, alternatives' prices can go down. Third, the EU fine can go up as MS willfully fails to comply, eventually getting to the point where the cost they pass on to consumers becomes less bearable than the artificial costs MS has introduced to lock customers into their platform. If Windows costs $1000 a seat a lot of companies are going to be looking at Linux alternatives, even if it means paying coders to write all the missing functionality they need (not that the price is likely to reach that level).
...which technology will cost the least to the consumer, in both media production and consumer-grade hardware seems it's never the superior format that wins, it's the cheapest technology that's 'good enough for most people'.
It isn't that simple. Most people won't buy a next generation DVD drive, they'll buy a device that contains one. Since various large players have their own agendas, the relevant facts are which devices will be most popular due to price and other factors. For example, if Sony only includes blue-ray in PS3s and MS only includes HD-DVD in Xboxes, the relative popularity of these devices may have a big impact on the availability of media in these formats. If Dell decides to ship only one, or if Apple does, it will likely have a large affect as well. If production companies decide to only ship one format (unlikely) that will have an even larger impact.
For normal, home players most companies may ship one of both or neither, but in the end most don't care. They'll include both in one device if need be. It is the other parts of the market, which have higher barriers to entry that will decide if one or the other or both combined will make up the market.
Our planet has been doing just fine with the energy the Sun is sending us for billions of years.
I doubt anyone feels global warming is a threat to the planet. It is, however, a threat to humans and other animals that live on the planet. Over the last 4 billion years the earth has spent as much time in climactic states that none of us would want to live in as it has in states that are what we consider the norm today.
Are there any concerns about a wholesale switch to alternative energy, like wind, hydro, solar? We are taking energy from nature and using it in ways much different than what is was previously used for (heating the earth, keeping the clouds and rivers moving..) Is there a chance we could cause some sort of global change, climate or otherwise?
Radiation from the sun hits the ground warming it. If instead radiation from the sun hits a solar panel, 10% is turned into electricity (the remainder going to waste heat where it did before) and that 10 percent is used to run appliances (turned into mechanical energy which again bleeds off into waste heat eventually) all it does is move the energy around a bit. There is concern we could interfere with an existing energy exchange system, like ocean currents or jetsreams, with unknown results, but I've never seen a proposed energy collection method that would have such an affect. The only thing I've seen created by humans that does pose some risk to upsetting such a system is increased global warming.
Then again, I'm not a big believer in global warming, so I'll just tell myself to "stop worrying, we shouldn't be so conceded[sic] to think that we can affect the planet like that."
It is not conceited to think humans have an effect upon the planet's climate any more than it is conceited to think all the fish in a river died due to pollution from humans. To write off a potential problem this serious on the grounds that humans can't be causing a change that large a change, with no evidence to support that assertion, is very illogical. The best way to determine what is happening, and why, and what can be done is simply to apply the scientific method. The best research I've seen tends to indicate that what is happening is the planet is getting warmer, it is likely being caused or exacerbated by various actions of the human species, and no one really has a good way to stop it. We may all die as a result of this, but I don't think that is likely. Rather, I think a lot of us may die and others may have to change the way they live drastically.
On another note, I am not exactly sure how I feel about a for profit business using MythTV like this. It is one thing to sell a service/device that takes advantage of a couple Open Source tools just to use as tools but this is basically letting ALL of the software work be done by someone else and then profiting on it. I would hope they would at least donate some proceeds to MythTV.
Actually, I don't have any problem with it at all. It is a self correcting problem. If the developers don't like it, they can stop doing the work. Then this company must either hire people to do the work or do it themselves. In any case, this company will be getting feedback from users and be pressured to make changes to the software including bugfixes and new features. This means they will almost certainly pay either the original developers or in house talent to make those fixes/changes. All this labor is then given back to the MythTV developers. Also, wider adoption of the software generates more interest and gets more people involved. In the long run, they may become like Apache, used by most people and developed by a core of engineers who are paid by important users of the software.
Does[sic] the mythtv people get anything out of this?
Yes, sort of. They get any changes or bugfixes this company makes to the code. Basically, they get free labor. Since MythTV is an open project the license is designed to benefit the users, not the developers (except in that the developers are users, which is why they are developing it).
Bernecker, C., Sanders, P. and Mitrick, R. (1994) Reflected luminance patterns in visual display units. Proceedings of the 1994 Conference of the Illuminating Engineering Society, 481-499.
Actually almost all the usability books I read recommend light grey on black for ease of reading. I've seen discussions of using blue for backgrounds and text as well as long running arguments decrying that for a variety of reasons. A very light grey on black, however, is the accepted standard from my reading.
Properly calibrated display? Something tells me a properly calibrated display won't have much to say about the small print at the bottom of the page.
Interestingly, my monitor is set to the same resolution and I saw it just fine. In fact, I often see text that small for copyright notices and the like. One of the advantages of HTML is it is markup. Just set your browser to display text larger if your eyesight is not up to it.
So it doesn't look like Apple is going out of its way to create a good-looking web page. In fact, if the majority of PC users, as one of my uncle posts mentions, have their gamma set too low, Apple should probably use a color scheme that adapts to this, and looks fine both on correct and incorrect displays.
I don't care what your gamma is set to, unless it is truly awful you should be able to read the text just fine. Apple chose the right colors. They chose the same basic colors I use for editing source and for terminal windows. They chose they same colors I use when I make a Web page with readability as the prime concern. They chose the colors most research suggests is ideal (Sanders and Bernecker, 1990; Bernecker, et al., 1994). What colors would you prefer and why? Can you find some reputable usability test or research demonstrating that it is the ideal color combination for reading online?
There is one consideration. According to some research people with moderately severe to severe astigmatism benefit from direct lighting of text even more so that light text on a black background provides. Some research has shown people with sufficiently obfuscating astigmatism might have problems reading light grey on black text but be able to read black text on a white background on a monitor. Perhaps you should have your vision tested.
My eyes must be really weird, then. Reading white-on-black text for any longer than a minute or so leaves afterimages, and my eyes start to hurt after about fifteen minutes, whereas I can read black on white on a computer screen all day long with no ill effects.
That is very odd. I can't think of a reason why that would be the case. One of the things I find interesting is that programmers usually end up with interfaces that have light text on a black background, even though most of them do not know the reason why this helps. Hopefully, screens that don't emit light are not that far off, so this will not be a problem in another 10 years. In any case we all have our quirks. I'm the only one in my working group that can see the refresh on a CRT set at 70Hz. My threshold seems to be around 75Hz. I end up having to ask everyone near me with CRTs to adjust the rate or catching it from the corner of my eye drives me batty.
I went to the apple site to look at the new powerbook... (excuse me, macbookpro) what did I see? Gray text on a black background! I'm not an old codger by any means, but I can't read that.
Maybe you should adjust the brightness and/or contrast of your monitor. Very light grey text on a black background is the ideal color scheme for monitors. Since the screen is emitting light, even for "black" colored items, it has a tendency to cause eyestrain. Staring at a light for extended periods is just not what our eyes were designed for. The highest contrast of colors is black and white. We're accustomed to black on white due to historical printing technologies, but while it provides the best contrast it also emits the most light and causes the most eyestrain. Reversing the color scheme to be white text on a black background keeps the contrast as high as possible but minimizes the light emission, and hence, minimizes the eyestrain. Darkening the white text to a very light grey helps to soften it a little and further reduce brightness, while only minimally affecting the contrast.
So Apple is using the color scheme that is exactly the ideal, as recommended by numerous independent studies and researchers and as recommended by every design and usability manual I have ever read. This leads me to two conclusions. One, if you're having a problem you probably have your monitor messed up. Two, some people will complain no matter what you do.
Was the Apple user interface group out back having a smoke when this page was being designed?
I doubt it. You'll note the interface tends to a medium to light grey. This provides the ideal contrast compromise with both grey text on black backgrounds (ideal for viewing on monitors and variations of which are the standard for terminal windows and other text interfaces for those of us who have to use them all day) and with black text on a white background, which is the standard printed text view, used by common text editors, word processors, and when viewing anything destined for print.
I can't find anywhere on the site where I can send them a quick email to point out their faux pas, so I have to satisfy myself with ranting here.
Hopefully they won't follow your recommendations, but there is a "contact us" link at the bottom of the page (and all their Web pages), which provides feedback links for the Web site and all the products. The one you want is This one.
Windows on OSX would be like OS/2 all over again. Nobody programmed for native OS/2 because the Windows-only app would actually run on both platforms.
It depends upon the speed hit, capabilities, and other limitations of Windows on OS X apps. For example, unless it is very well done, no one wants to run the Windows version of photoshop on OS X. For games and the like, people would certainly run them, but only if the speed/graphics were fast enough. The other thing Apple can bring to the table that OS/2 lacked is a whole pile of native applications including almost all the basics anyone needs, as well as a really nice, easy dev environment.
Maybe Apple could reverse the trend by throwing together an OSX-on-Windows enviroment. Then developers could target ONLY OSX and still run on both major platforms... Just, the apps would run better on a Mac.:)
Actually the inability of developers to use Xcode and the other Mac development tools and APIs on other platforms is already an issue. The problem with the Windows APIs and for that matter Mac-on-Windows is the lack of functionality in the Windows OS. Without all the core libraries, database, system services, etc. the applications would always be second class.
I suspect their current strategy is to grow the user base by making it easier to switch, even if that means making it easier to run Windows applications, but I suspect they don't want to make it too easy. This is one of the reasons I doubt they will actually include a built in Windows re-mplementation. Rather, I suspect they might provide virtualization and emulation in a window, in a sandbox type functionality. If they want to be really, really cool, they should include an upgrade setup that sucks your current Windows install including all the applications into a virtual machine that runs subservient to OS X.
...I also believe that Apple will offer in OS X 10.5 the ability to run native Windows XP applications with no copy of XP installed on the machine at all. This will be accomplished not by using compatibility middleware like Wine, but rather by Apple implementing the Windows API directly in OS X 10.5.
First, there is more than one API used in Windows. Second, WINE is an implementation of the Windows APIs. It is entirely possible Apple will reuse a lot of the WINE project and DarWINE in order to allow Windows Apps to run in OS X (hopefully sandboxed), but it is also entirely possible they won't. I rather suspect the latter for a number of reasons. First, Apple doesn't have to do this, there are a half dozen third parties clamoring to offer the same functionality. Second, by making it too easy to run Windows programs within OS X, they can reduce the incentive for developers to write programs to the current APIs. Third, since Windows is slowly strangling OpenGL on their platform and MS owns DirectX, Apple may have difficulty keeping graphics intensive applications behaving well if they go this route. Fourth, Windows APIs do not have all the functionality of OS X APIs and some of the most useful and advantageous features of OS X would be killed.
so now the caveat to freedom of the press is: print what you like, so long as what you print is evidence of a health, safety or welfare hazard affecting all, or a government employee who reveals mismanagement.
How is it that so many people so fundamentally misunderstand the freedom of speech and of the press? Whether a person is a journalist or not makes no difference. You can yell, "Fire!" in a crowded theater, but you'll go to jail for it. You can print that a politician ate babies and you have proof, but you'll go to jail for slander. You can yell at an event that that black guy raped your white sister, but you'll still be convicted of libel and civil courts will hold you liable for damage that results. You can republish a Harry Potter book in its entirety in your magazine, but you'll still pay huge amounts once convicted of copyright violation. You can print what you know are trade secrets, but you'll be convicted of disclosing them and still have to answer and subpoenas the courts send you.
You only have to show those special circumstances if you don't want to be prosecuted for breaking laws. Just because you are a journalist does not mean you have a blank check to violate the law.
I am the person who has the subpoena and the information covered in that subponea. The judge doesn't "permit" me to hand it over, I am compelled to hand it over. It isn't my choice, if I don't obey, I go to jail. The subpoena also covers my personal e-mail as well.
I believe CNet's intended meaning for this sentence was, you were subpoenaed and told to hand over the info, but you might get a lawyer to ask for that subpoena to be revoked, since it may be the state ordering you to break federal communications privacy laws.
That is EXACTLY what Apple is trying to get decided by the lawsuit. Many other people, including print journalists, disagree with you and Apple on this matter. If a "sixpack blogger" (your definition) is not a journalist, at what point does a blogger become a journalist?
Bzzzzt! Wrong.
That is exactly what the reporter who wrote this article would have you believe, but it just isn't true. The truth is federal (and most state) law defines a journalist as anyone writing for an audience and freedom of press applies to basically everyone. The court in fact declined to rule on whether or not they were journalists (according to state law) because it was irrelevant. Journalists and everyone else are equally forbidden by law to reveal what they know or can reasonable be expected to know are trade secrets. It is a crime punishable by up to a year in prison. The cited CA shield law which protects journalists (as defined by CA law) only applies to civil offenses. The whistle-blower statute applies to criminal cases if revealing a health risk, government corruption, or information of vital, overriding public interest. Neither apply.
I do not believe that defining what a "journalist" is, is as easy as you and Apple wish it could be.
Defining who is a journalist according to federal law is easy and yes these bloggers are journalists. Defining it according to state law may be harder, but both are irrelevant to this case.
Wait a second - why would OpenGL performance be crippled (this is a serious question, I didn't know MS was intending to cripple OpenGL at all)?
Vista runs all graphics via DirectX now. This means for a application to use OpenGL they hand the OpenGL calls to the OS, which hands them to DirectX, which hands them to the hardware. Basically add all the bottlenecks of both graphics methodologies together plus some additional overhead. This is their attempt to kill OpenGL entirely including OpenGL support in graphics cards.
How do we know that indexing will be worse than the other vendors pushing it, when we haven't seen and tested the final product(ok, rhetoric)?
So far the demoed feature (from what I've read) does not support plugging in new file formats for indexing. This means a search won't find files that contain the search term in an OpenOffice file, or any other filetype MS does not bother to add themselves.
Why isn't the Windows shell environment usable? The ability to shell script in Win2K3 surpasses any previous version of Windows to date.
According to MS, they planned to add the following features into the new shell environment:
Aliases, job control, command substitution, pipelines, regular expressions, transparent remote execution, command discovery via reflection APIs, object-based properties/methods, many server scripting, pervasive auto-complete.
That has since been "delayed." Note, most of these are features *NIX users take for granted and lacking them makes us cry. Every Windows machine here in engineering has Cygwin installed to perform a few simple tasks that for some reason are impossible or very hard with the normal Windows (DOS) shell environment.
As for the security enhancements, well honestly I find it laughable. The reviewers probably never used Linux or OS X, so they probably aren't used to the limitations of not running as Admin/Root/whatever.
The reviewer compares some of it to OS X, mentioning that OS X does not seem to make you click through seven dialogues to do a basic task. Some of the screenshots show also show some truly wretched UI built around it.
The other big complain from Mr Thurrott? It's taking too long, it's not delivering on promises, blah.
If you haven't noticed, Apple tends to under-promise and over-deliver. Linux is an open process and everyone can actually look and see what state of development features are in. MS on the other hand, tends to intentionally over-promise extravagant features to be released "real soon" in the hopes that people will delay buying from competitors and just use MS offerings. It works too. Obviously all software will have some level of bugs, especially if they announce a deadline and meet it. That does not excuse delivering buggy versions of features years late or not at all.
The suit was filed in Santa Clara county, California. I believe that according to California laws, absent a confidentiality agreement between the secret holder and the journalist, that a journalist has no obligation to keep a trade secret that was provided to him.
According to CA law, as I understand it, it is criminal offense punishable by up to a year in jail to publish information that the reporter knew or should have had a reasonable expectation of knowing, is a trade secret. The report's shield law does not apply to subpoenas for information regarding to a criminal offenses (only civil).
The law that does provide protection from prosecution or subpoena in the case of a criminal offense is the California whistle-blower law, but due to the nature of the material published, it does not apply.
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Your faith in the good intentions of the EU Commission is likewise moronic. It is simply fortunate that our goal (of getting MS to open their protocols) is temporarily aligned with the goal of the Commission (extortion).
I think you are greatly oversimplifying the goals of the EU commission. None of them personally get any of this money you know. They are motivated by a desire to do their job well enough so that they stand a chance of promotion, by a desire to do the right thing, by political motivations to get funding and to bloody the nose of American corporate crime. At a very basic level they are motivated to enforce the law in such a way as to demonstrate that it has authority and power, so that others do not challenge the authority of the courts and the EU, or ignore the laws it enforces.
Now I'm not naive enough to believe that all the EU representatives want only to "do the right thing" and help people by correctly and impartially applying the law. Neither, however, am I willing to anthropomorphize the EU as some sort of greedy, extortionist. The whole point of "rule by law" is that it does not matter so much what the personal motivations of the people involved are, so long as the laws are applied and enforced the result will be relatively impartial and for the good of the people as their law making process provides. And I agree whole-heartedly with anti-trust laws like this. They are necessary and beneficial. The EU is applying the law properly and MS has obviously broken the law. However jaded you might be, this is a case of the system slowly but properly working (so far).
Sure they are following the rules they they set. Really tough to do that...
I think you're a little unclear on the concept of "rule by law." It's not like the people who convicted and are responsible for overseeing MS's punishment had anything to do with passing the laws under which they were convicted. Anthropomorphizing the EU is absurd.
How does the US Law have anything to do with this??
Because the US, the EU, and almost every other country in the world has laws that make what MS did a crime. You can't complain that the EU is unfairly punishing MS by selective application of the law any more than you can complain when they convict someone of murder. Both murder and anti-trust tying are illegal almost everywhere. The EU enforces laws prohibit both offenses both against native residents and foreigners regularly. It is doubly hypocritical to make such a claim when they have been convicted in the US of the same offense.
I don't think my logic is off here. Thats just my point. The fact is you have these politicans making technical decisions that they know nothing about.
This is the logical fallacy of "ad hominem attack."
Media Player was wrong and so is this.
This is a repeat of your "argument by association."
You haven't provided any logical reasons why you think this particular ruling will be ineffective. Stop wasting my time by avoiding the topic. Why do you think this particular punishment will not help in the way I described?
I'm for open standards just as much as the next guy. But arguing that a private company must comply with that belief is wrong.
I'm all for nonviolent resolution of problems, but trying to force convicted murderers to not illegally carrying concealed guns while on parole is just wrong.
What MS has done is against the law. This particular part of the punishment says they will stop breaking the law in this particular way. It isn't about open standards, it is about tying a product from a monopolized market with a product from a non-monopolized market. Ford can make tires and size they want with weird, proprietary ways to attach the rim to the rotor. If, however, they gain a monopoly on cars, they have to document that attachment and allow third parties to interoperate with it. Otherwise, they can just spread their monopoly into new monopolies, thus removing customer choice, competition, innovation, and all the other benefits of the free market. It is the law, and MS broke it, intentionally, under the belief that they would make more money doing so than obeying the law.
In theory, MS can comply with the law in another way, by removing all the secret interaction between their desktop and server completely. Just tear the functionality out of one of the products and they will be in compliance with the law, if not with their signed agreement for how they would stop breaking the law.
MS business practices have been shady to say the least but this is the wrong way to fix that.
They haven't been shady in this case, they have been blatantly illegal as ruled by numerous court systems. Ordering them to stop breaking the law is definitely the way to fix it.
Is this the logic? 1) MS makes a shitty / poor documented product. 2) Everyone buys it 3) Sue MS until they fix it 4) Make some cash in the process.
1) You're right so far. 2) Wrong. MS coerces many people into buying it, by tying it to their desktop system, which is a monopoly and no one can do business without. 3) This isn't a lawsuit. No one is being sued. This is committing a crime, criminal law, not civil. The courts don't sue you for murder. They convict you, as they did MS. 4) Fines are very nearly the only punishment that can be levied against corporations. They could order them broken up into separate companies, but this is a step in the right direction.
You seem to be very misinformed in numerous ways. You should do a little research on this case and on antitrust law (both what it is and why almost every country has it in similar form). MS has not been convicted of making shitty/ poorly documented products. They've been convicted of leveraging their monopoly on desktop OSs to make consumers buy those products, even though they are shitty. The basic purpose of anti-trust law is to stop companies from abusing monopolies in ways that obviously harm consumers and markets.
don't buy any of Microsoft's bullshit but I still don't think this isn't going to help consumers anywhere. A Good example: The EU made Microsoft build a new version of XP without Media Player. I read something like .005% of consumers bought that version. Interesting, people in the EU really give a shit about this.
You have just committed the logical fallacy, "argument by association." Arguing that previous EU punishment was ineffective, thus the one we are discussing must also be ineffective is not a logical argument. I agree the previous punishment was pretty pointless. It looked to me like they make a ruling, set up a way to correct the imbalance, and then that ruling was modified by someone with no clue what the whole thing was about.
This particular requirement, however, is quite different. If MS is forced to comply and publish and adhere to open specifications for interactions between their server and their desktop, it will have a real and positive affect upon the industry. Right now MS servers are slow, less stable than Linux, more expensive than Linux, unable to properly support multiple server tasks, poorly secured, and lacking in many important tools. People still buy them for one main reason, they are the only thing that properly speaks AD and Exchange to interact with Windows desktops.
With open standards for AD and Exchange (among other protocols) many, many server rooms would move away from MS products until MS provided actual value for the cost. MS would have to fix their half-assed shit or actually lose market share in the server space, kind of like a free market, huh? I know the concept of OS's competing on features instead of lock-in seems strange and foreign to many people who buy them but a few of us feel it would actually be beneficial to the market.
With this judgement two things will happen in some combination. Consumers will switch to alternatives or MS will be forced to make a better product. Either way, consumers win.
I'm not usually on Microsoft's side but screw the EU on this one. This is a simple case of extortion. I mean there is no downside to fine a US company. They are fining MSFT just because they can and its somewhat fashionable to do so.
So let me get this straight, you think the EU is fining MS for intentionally breaking the law, after MS was judged guilty of doing the same thing by the US courts, because it is "fashionable?" MS broke and continues to break the law. The EU has a history of going after all sorts of companies both European and foreign for breaking antitrust law. To whine when they apply it to MS, means you probably have bought into some of MS's ridiculous propaganda.
Your nationalism is just moronic. You might as well go hang out with all the rednecks that think Americans should be above the law when visiting other countries.
it's not the monopoly that microsoft is in court for. they are in breach of a ruling that the court made against them - the ruling is because of the abuse of monopoly power but this hearing is about them breaking an agreement they accepted
...sort of. Except this particular agreement basically said, "we'll stop breaking the law." You see, not documenting the API's between their server and desktop is a crime. It is tying, and monopolies are forbidden by law to do that. They are being fined for not stopping their illegal actions, as they agreed they would.
I get the distinct impression that Microsoft being tardy to release the documentation for their protocols isn't purely due to malice - or even not malice at all. I get the impression that things like this simply aren't documented INSIDE of Microsoft, and the original developers of the code have left, and MS staff are now busily trying to document a gigantic mass of source code.
That could be, but it is not any excuse for continuing to break the law. MS made billions breaking the law and when ordered to stop, pleading incompetence isn't going to work. "But officer I don't remember where I put the key to the cupboard I hid the stolen money in" has never worked as a defense for not handing over reparations for a crime. They have billions of dollars. If they don't have adequate documentation in the specified timeframe it is because they haven't put the effort in to create it. They could afford to pay the 100 best coders and documenters in the world 10 million bucks a piece for this 2 month contract work, but they haven't. Well, it is up to them to do the cost/benefit analysis of spending the money to get the work done versus paying the fines. But I don't for a second buy the idea that they can't do it if they want to.
Ok, so if I get this right, if I create an interface to provide interoperability between my programs, and my programs become popular enough that people want to connect to them for reasons I didn't intend (and don't want to have to support), why is it a good business decision to release an API for that interface?
First, MS did not "invent" the interface they copied an existing open standard then intentionally broke it. Second, it is not a "good business decision" but it is required by the law if one of the two products you are talking about is in a market you have monopolized.
It seems like that might shooting myself in the foot if I'm giving it to others who intend (as the linux community does) to supplant me with my own technology. To me, that's like bring a tank to war and then giving the enemy the keys to it.
No it's like bringing a tank to the mall and then arguing when the cops arrest you for breaking the law by crushing other people's cars and driving a vehicle banned on public roads. "But officer, my tank lets me park more easily and closer to the doors! I'm special and rich, I don't have to obey the laws! I did the same thing in Kentucky and after I bribed the governor they let me go!"
Please, if you make up anymore analogies, don't forget to include that you are a monopoly and do a little research on what monopolies can and can't do and why. Bundling and tying are illegal actions for monopolies because they remove all the benefits provided by a capitalist free market. You may be ignorant, but you can bet MS isn't and they decided breaking the law was a good business decision. No sympathy for the devil.
Fines don't matter...MS just work[sic] it into the price of the OS, so the consumer ends up paying for it anyway. So it basically turns into a consumer tax on copies of Windows.
Fines are only one piece of the puzzle. First, where does the fine money go to? Is it used to promote alternatives? Second, the ruling opens MS up to yet another round of lawsuits from all the companies they illegally screwed over. MS will have to get out its checkbook and settle with all of them in civil litigation, thus providing them a competitive redress of the illegal imbalance. This means when Windows prices go up, alternatives' prices can go down. Third, the EU fine can go up as MS willfully fails to comply, eventually getting to the point where the cost they pass on to consumers becomes less bearable than the artificial costs MS has introduced to lock customers into their platform. If Windows costs $1000 a seat a lot of companies are going to be looking at Linux alternatives, even if it means paying coders to write all the missing functionality they need (not that the price is likely to reach that level).
It isn't that simple. Most people won't buy a next generation DVD drive, they'll buy a device that contains one. Since various large players have their own agendas, the relevant facts are which devices will be most popular due to price and other factors. For example, if Sony only includes blue-ray in PS3s and MS only includes HD-DVD in Xboxes, the relative popularity of these devices may have a big impact on the availability of media in these formats. If Dell decides to ship only one, or if Apple does, it will likely have a large affect as well. If production companies decide to only ship one format (unlikely) that will have an even larger impact.
For normal, home players most companies may ship one of both or neither, but in the end most don't care. They'll include both in one device if need be. It is the other parts of the market, which have higher barriers to entry that will decide if one or the other or both combined will make up the market.
Our planet has been doing just fine with the energy the Sun is sending us for billions of years.
I doubt anyone feels global warming is a threat to the planet. It is, however, a threat to humans and other animals that live on the planet. Over the last 4 billion years the earth has spent as much time in climactic states that none of us would want to live in as it has in states that are what we consider the norm today.
Are there any concerns about a wholesale switch to alternative energy, like wind, hydro, solar? We are taking energy from nature and using it in ways much different than what is was previously used for (heating the earth, keeping the clouds and rivers moving..) Is there a chance we could cause some sort of global change, climate or otherwise?
Radiation from the sun hits the ground warming it. If instead radiation from the sun hits a solar panel, 10% is turned into electricity (the remainder going to waste heat where it did before) and that 10 percent is used to run appliances (turned into mechanical energy which again bleeds off into waste heat eventually) all it does is move the energy around a bit. There is concern we could interfere with an existing energy exchange system, like ocean currents or jetsreams, with unknown results, but I've never seen a proposed energy collection method that would have such an affect. The only thing I've seen created by humans that does pose some risk to upsetting such a system is increased global warming.
Then again, I'm not a big believer in global warming, so I'll just tell myself to "stop worrying, we shouldn't be so conceded[sic] to think that we can affect the planet like that."
It is not conceited to think humans have an effect upon the planet's climate any more than it is conceited to think all the fish in a river died due to pollution from humans. To write off a potential problem this serious on the grounds that humans can't be causing a change that large a change, with no evidence to support that assertion, is very illogical. The best way to determine what is happening, and why, and what can be done is simply to apply the scientific method. The best research I've seen tends to indicate that what is happening is the planet is getting warmer, it is likely being caused or exacerbated by various actions of the human species, and no one really has a good way to stop it. We may all die as a result of this, but I don't think that is likely. Rather, I think a lot of us may die and others may have to change the way they live drastically.
Ummmm....not really. If it doesn't support CableCard....MOVE ON...
Yeah, because their market (in New Zealand) is sure demanding CableCard support... right?
On another note, I am not exactly sure how I feel about a for profit business using MythTV like this. It is one thing to sell a service/device that takes advantage of a couple Open Source tools just to use as tools but this is basically letting ALL of the software work be done by someone else and then profiting on it. I would hope they would at least donate some proceeds to MythTV.
Actually, I don't have any problem with it at all. It is a self correcting problem. If the developers don't like it, they can stop doing the work. Then this company must either hire people to do the work or do it themselves. In any case, this company will be getting feedback from users and be pressured to make changes to the software including bugfixes and new features. This means they will almost certainly pay either the original developers or in house talent to make those fixes/changes. All this labor is then given back to the MythTV developers. Also, wider adoption of the software generates more interest and gets more people involved. In the long run, they may become like Apache, used by most people and developed by a core of engineers who are paid by important users of the software.
Does[sic] the mythtv people get anything out of this?
Yes, sort of. They get any changes or bugfixes this company makes to the code. Basically, they get free labor. Since MythTV is an open project the license is designed to benefit the users, not the developers (except in that the developers are users, which is why they are developing it).
Here is a good one:
Bernecker, C., Sanders, P. and Mitrick, R. (1994) Reflected luminance patterns in visual display units. Proceedings of the 1994 Conference of the Illuminating Engineering Society, 481-499.
Actually almost all the usability books I read recommend light grey on black for ease of reading. I've seen discussions of using blue for backgrounds and text as well as long running arguments decrying that for a variety of reasons. A very light grey on black, however, is the accepted standard from my reading.
Properly calibrated display? Something tells me a properly calibrated display won't have much to say about the small print at the bottom of the page.
Interestingly, my monitor is set to the same resolution and I saw it just fine. In fact, I often see text that small for copyright notices and the like. One of the advantages of HTML is it is markup. Just set your browser to display text larger if your eyesight is not up to it.
So it doesn't look like Apple is going out of its way to create a good-looking web page. In fact, if the majority of PC users, as one of my uncle posts mentions, have their gamma set too low, Apple should probably use a color scheme that adapts to this, and looks fine both on correct and incorrect displays.
I don't care what your gamma is set to, unless it is truly awful you should be able to read the text just fine. Apple chose the right colors. They chose the same basic colors I use for editing source and for terminal windows. They chose they same colors I use when I make a Web page with readability as the prime concern. They chose the colors most research suggests is ideal (Sanders and Bernecker, 1990; Bernecker, et al., 1994). What colors would you prefer and why? Can you find some reputable usability test or research demonstrating that it is the ideal color combination for reading online?
There is one consideration. According to some research people with moderately severe to severe astigmatism benefit from direct lighting of text even more so that light text on a black background provides. Some research has shown people with sufficiently obfuscating astigmatism might have problems reading light grey on black text but be able to read black text on a white background on a monitor. Perhaps you should have your vision tested.
My eyes must be really weird, then. Reading white-on-black text for any longer than a minute or so leaves afterimages, and my eyes start to hurt after about fifteen minutes, whereas I can read black on white on a computer screen all day long with no ill effects.
That is very odd. I can't think of a reason why that would be the case. One of the things I find interesting is that programmers usually end up with interfaces that have light text on a black background, even though most of them do not know the reason why this helps. Hopefully, screens that don't emit light are not that far off, so this will not be a problem in another 10 years. In any case we all have our quirks. I'm the only one in my working group that can see the refresh on a CRT set at 70Hz. My threshold seems to be around 75Hz. I end up having to ask everyone near me with CRTs to adjust the rate or catching it from the corner of my eye drives me batty.
I went to the apple site to look at the new powerbook... (excuse me, macbookpro) what did I see? Gray text on a black background! I'm not an old codger by any means, but I can't read that.
Maybe you should adjust the brightness and/or contrast of your monitor. Very light grey text on a black background is the ideal color scheme for monitors. Since the screen is emitting light, even for "black" colored items, it has a tendency to cause eyestrain. Staring at a light for extended periods is just not what our eyes were designed for. The highest contrast of colors is black and white. We're accustomed to black on white due to historical printing technologies, but while it provides the best contrast it also emits the most light and causes the most eyestrain. Reversing the color scheme to be white text on a black background keeps the contrast as high as possible but minimizes the light emission, and hence, minimizes the eyestrain. Darkening the white text to a very light grey helps to soften it a little and further reduce brightness, while only minimally affecting the contrast.
So Apple is using the color scheme that is exactly the ideal, as recommended by numerous independent studies and researchers and as recommended by every design and usability manual I have ever read. This leads me to two conclusions. One, if you're having a problem you probably have your monitor messed up. Two, some people will complain no matter what you do.
Was the Apple user interface group out back having a smoke when this page was being designed?
I doubt it. You'll note the interface tends to a medium to light grey. This provides the ideal contrast compromise with both grey text on black backgrounds (ideal for viewing on monitors and variations of which are the standard for terminal windows and other text interfaces for those of us who have to use them all day) and with black text on a white background, which is the standard printed text view, used by common text editors, word processors, and when viewing anything destined for print.
I can't find anywhere on the site where I can send them a quick email to point out their faux pas, so I have to satisfy myself with ranting here.
Hopefully they won't follow your recommendations, but there is a "contact us" link at the bottom of the page (and all their Web pages), which provides feedback links for the Web site and all the products. The one you want is This one.
Windows on OSX would be like OS/2 all over again. Nobody programmed for native OS/2 because the Windows-only app would actually run on both platforms.
It depends upon the speed hit, capabilities, and other limitations of Windows on OS X apps. For example, unless it is very well done, no one wants to run the Windows version of photoshop on OS X. For games and the like, people would certainly run them, but only if the speed/graphics were fast enough. The other thing Apple can bring to the table that OS/2 lacked is a whole pile of native applications including almost all the basics anyone needs, as well as a really nice, easy dev environment.
Maybe Apple could reverse the trend by throwing together an OSX-on-Windows enviroment. Then developers could target ONLY OSX and still run on both major platforms... Just, the apps would run better on a Mac. :)
Actually the inability of developers to use Xcode and the other Mac development tools and APIs on other platforms is already an issue. The problem with the Windows APIs and for that matter Mac-on-Windows is the lack of functionality in the Windows OS. Without all the core libraries, database, system services, etc. the applications would always be second class.
I suspect their current strategy is to grow the user base by making it easier to switch, even if that means making it easier to run Windows applications, but I suspect they don't want to make it too easy. This is one of the reasons I doubt they will actually include a built in Windows re-mplementation. Rather, I suspect they might provide virtualization and emulation in a window, in a sandbox type functionality. If they want to be really, really cool, they should include an upgrade setup that sucks your current Windows install including all the applications into a virtual machine that runs subservient to OS X.
First, there is more than one API used in Windows. Second, WINE is an implementation of the Windows APIs. It is entirely possible Apple will reuse a lot of the WINE project and DarWINE in order to allow Windows Apps to run in OS X (hopefully sandboxed), but it is also entirely possible they won't. I rather suspect the latter for a number of reasons. First, Apple doesn't have to do this, there are a half dozen third parties clamoring to offer the same functionality. Second, by making it too easy to run Windows programs within OS X, they can reduce the incentive for developers to write programs to the current APIs. Third, since Windows is slowly strangling OpenGL on their platform and MS owns DirectX, Apple may have difficulty keeping graphics intensive applications behaving well if they go this route. Fourth, Windows APIs do not have all the functionality of OS X APIs and some of the most useful and advantageous features of OS X would be killed.
Only time will tell for sure.
so now the caveat to freedom of the press is: print what you like, so long as what you print is evidence of a health, safety or welfare hazard affecting all, or a government employee who reveals mismanagement.
How is it that so many people so fundamentally misunderstand the freedom of speech and of the press? Whether a person is a journalist or not makes no difference. You can yell, "Fire!" in a crowded theater, but you'll go to jail for it. You can print that a politician ate babies and you have proof, but you'll go to jail for slander. You can yell at an event that that black guy raped your white sister, but you'll still be convicted of libel and civil courts will hold you liable for damage that results. You can republish a Harry Potter book in its entirety in your magazine, but you'll still pay huge amounts once convicted of copyright violation. You can print what you know are trade secrets, but you'll be convicted of disclosing them and still have to answer and subpoenas the courts send you.
You only have to show those special circumstances if you don't want to be prosecuted for breaking laws. Just because you are a journalist does not mean you have a blank check to violate the law.
I am the person who has the subpoena and the information covered in that subponea. The judge doesn't "permit" me to hand it over, I am compelled to hand it over. It isn't my choice, if I don't obey, I go to jail. The subpoena also covers my personal e-mail as well.
I believe CNet's intended meaning for this sentence was, you were subpoenaed and told to hand over the info, but you might get a lawyer to ask for that subpoena to be revoked, since it may be the state ordering you to break federal communications privacy laws.
That is EXACTLY what Apple is trying to get decided by the lawsuit. Many other people, including print journalists, disagree with you and Apple on this matter. If a "sixpack blogger" (your definition) is not a journalist, at what point does a blogger become a journalist?
Bzzzzt! Wrong.
That is exactly what the reporter who wrote this article would have you believe, but it just isn't true. The truth is federal (and most state) law defines a journalist as anyone writing for an audience and freedom of press applies to basically everyone. The court in fact declined to rule on whether or not they were journalists (according to state law) because it was irrelevant. Journalists and everyone else are equally forbidden by law to reveal what they know or can reasonable be expected to know are trade secrets. It is a crime punishable by up to a year in prison. The cited CA shield law which protects journalists (as defined by CA law) only applies to civil offenses. The whistle-blower statute applies to criminal cases if revealing a health risk, government corruption, or information of vital, overriding public interest. Neither apply.
I do not believe that defining what a "journalist" is, is as easy as you and Apple wish it could be.
Defining who is a journalist according to federal law is easy and yes these bloggers are journalists. Defining it according to state law may be harder, but both are irrelevant to this case.
Wait a second - why would OpenGL performance be crippled (this is a serious question, I didn't know MS was intending to cripple OpenGL at all)?
Vista runs all graphics via DirectX now. This means for a application to use OpenGL they hand the OpenGL calls to the OS, which hands them to DirectX, which hands them to the hardware. Basically add all the bottlenecks of both graphics methodologies together plus some additional overhead. This is their attempt to kill OpenGL entirely including OpenGL support in graphics cards.
How do we know that indexing will be worse than the other vendors pushing it, when we haven't seen and tested the final product(ok, rhetoric)?
So far the demoed feature (from what I've read) does not support plugging in new file formats for indexing. This means a search won't find files that contain the search term in an OpenOffice file, or any other filetype MS does not bother to add themselves.
Why isn't the Windows shell environment usable? The ability to shell script in Win2K3 surpasses any previous version of Windows to date.
According to MS, they planned to add the following features into the new shell environment:
Aliases, job control, command substitution, pipelines, regular expressions, transparent remote execution, command discovery via reflection APIs, object-based properties/methods, many server scripting, pervasive auto-complete.
That has since been "delayed." Note, most of these are features *NIX users take for granted and lacking them makes us cry. Every Windows machine here in engineering has Cygwin installed to perform a few simple tasks that for some reason are impossible or very hard with the normal Windows (DOS) shell environment.
As for the security enhancements, well honestly I find it laughable. The reviewers probably never used Linux or OS X, so they probably aren't used to the limitations of not running as Admin/Root/whatever.
The reviewer compares some of it to OS X, mentioning that OS X does not seem to make you click through seven dialogues to do a basic task. Some of the screenshots show also show some truly wretched UI built around it.
The other big complain from Mr Thurrott? It's taking too long, it's not delivering on promises, blah.
If you haven't noticed, Apple tends to under-promise and over-deliver. Linux is an open process and everyone can actually look and see what state of development features are in. MS on the other hand, tends to intentionally over-promise extravagant features to be released "real soon" in the hopes that people will delay buying from competitors and just use MS offerings. It works too. Obviously all software will have some level of bugs, especially if they announce a deadline and meet it. That does not excuse delivering buggy versions of features years late or not at all.
The suit was filed in Santa Clara county, California. I believe that according to California laws, absent a confidentiality agreement between the secret holder and the journalist, that a journalist has no obligation to keep a trade secret that was provided to him.
According to CA law, as I understand it, it is criminal offense punishable by up to a year in jail to publish information that the reporter knew or should have had a reasonable expectation of knowing, is a trade secret. The report's shield law does not apply to subpoenas for information regarding to a criminal offenses (only civil).
The law that does provide protection from prosecution or subpoena in the case of a criminal offense is the California whistle-blower law, but due to the nature of the material published, it does not apply.