using Windows as part of his product name, which has been ruled several times to be Microsoft's trademark
By that logic, since MIT created the X-Windows system in 1984: http://www.saao.ac.za/unix/node66.html
Gates cannot hold claim to the word at all, and in fact is violating MIT's rights.
when it comes to the word "Windows" with respect to computer software, most of the market (ie. John Q Citizen) is going to assume that it is a Microsoft product.
OK, sit down. It's time we explained the birds and bees to you: No matter who or what made the software, a Windows user *N*E*V*E*R* buys a piece of software unless it says "Windows" right on the package. At least, after their first few times buying something, taking it home, watching it break, hauling it back to the store, and saying hello to the store's "no refund" non-returnable policy. They learn to read the system requirements, and be sure that it runs on Win 95/98, ME, 2000, etc. Hang out in the software section some time and listen to Joe Windows and his Auntie AOL-user fumble with their decision to purchase, sometime. If "Windows" isn't written on the package, they aren't buying it.
I swear to God, if Bill Gates showed up tomorrow in handcuffs with child molestation charges, they'd be some shlub on/. defending him saying, "The child's parents clicked 'agree' on the EULA and Gates has a perfect right to do market research on the grade-school demographic; what's everybody so upset about?"
What would have been wrong with telling the TRUTH to the original title-holder and offering to buy the name from him? Are you telling me *every* software product "for Windows" on the shelf at Comp USA is violating copyright? I'm picturing a lot of empty aisles, then!
That's gotta be the most intelligent comment I've seen on the subject. Thank you, you said a mouthful. As a fellow Linux fanatic (I prefer "zealot"), I can especially second the last paragraph.
My idea for MS is that it could try to just specialize in *playing* *nice*. Microsoft could save it's butt just by becoming "the universal system" - releasing their doc formats and being more alternative-friendly, but at the same time working hard to be compatible with other's formats and standards as well. How about a Windows system that will happily be installed second, sharing disk space with Linux? A live Windows system that runs from a USB drive? One that even has utilities for working with Mac and Unix and BeOS formats? Bundle at least *one* decent programming language with the OS, gratis? It's things like that that I know would make us all a little more favorable towards it, but they're too tunnel-visioned to do anything but business-by-conquest. God, there'll be a huge sigh of relief when they're gone!
There's also the little matter of the kernel's being open-source. It's available for download to you, me, and SCO lawyers. And quite a few of us have gotten the sources and recompiled our kernel from time to time. Thanks to Linux's "Primordial Soup" model, then hypothetically the version I have with the trivial tweaks I made to it could be called "the 2.7 kernel" if I passed it around and it caught on.
If you're modifying your own source to start with, you *are* your own support. Red Hat/Fedora has always been very conscientious about supplying the source code free for download on their site, right alongside the free iso's. Also about supplying -devel.rpm's. Not to mention other non-compiled language tinkering - are you trying to tell me that there is a single system administrator running Debian who hasn't written their own shell scripts?
I'm going to start my own FUD campaign against Microsoft. They aren't really rich. They're another Enron, cooking the books to make themselves appear successful while they flounder around desperately in their tar pit watching the rest of the world leave them behind in favor of new technology. I love watching them lash out in anger... it means we've won!
the Bible doesn't have to be literally true for us to have faith in God. He believed that those who hinge everything on the absolute truth of every word of Scripture are those who really lacked faith.
I should know better than to wade into religious issues, but I just remembered that, before I renounced the monotheistic patriarchal grace-based faith I was raised in, the subject of this remark was one of those things that bothered me most. I mean, if it's the word of God, isn't it worth getting *RIGHT*? So why write it in metaphors and similes and coded riddles? And if parts of it are not to be taken literally, then how do I *know* which parts are literal? Yes, I'm to be guided by faith, but is that in one of the literal parts of the book?
I just ended up taking the Sermon on the Mount, the Diamond Sutra, and parts of the Doctrine and Covenants and whatnot and took away with me the general idea that I should try to be nice and if everybody's nice to each other, it's a better world. And after I'm dead, whatever B/being/s I happen to find myself under the judgement of, my only defense will have to be, "Sorry, You made me too stupid and the riddles too hard. Do with me whatever You have to do to reaffirm your sense of dominance."
If it doesn't grow out of the ground, don't smoke it.
This lets all cigarettes off the list, as very little of their content is actual tobacco. The rest is chemicals, mostly formulated to give you an intense rush and keep you addicted. Try smoking pure tobacco out of a pipe for a week. You'll feel better, and you won't get dizzy with the rush of the first smoke of the morning, it tastes and smells better (non-smokers always compliment the aroma of a pipe; when did that ever happen with a Marlboro?), and, while you'll still have the habit, it won't be as extreme. Natural tobacco doesn't make you feel like a crack addict who's going to snap if you don't get your fix NOW! - it's a kinder, gentler urge which makes it easier to gradually cut down. You can make it through a whole day without and it doesn't drive you crazy.
PS Cigarettes are the only thing I can think of that one can purchase for ingestion that doesn't have any ingredient information at all. Everything else - including gum, medicine, and even things you don't ingest like cleaning products has the components listed in meticulous detail. What do you suppose the big secret is?
With Google, readers could search for other comments more insightful/informative than mine. Then those other comments would get the mod points instead. Who needs all that competition?
No, really, government, Open Source is just fine without your help! Really, government, we've got it taken care of! Down government! Nice government! *looking for big stick*
Terror...a Linux distro done entirely in ADA...goons sneaking DRM into OpenBSD...releases put off twenty-five years only to be killed for lack of funding...ex-FEMA directors needing a job, and being appointed head of the project...the fortunes-o file censored because taxpayers will protest their tax dollars going to dirty limericks...Microsoft manipulating the whole show with campaign contributions in the background...all security features replaced by color-coded virus-threat level...political leaders who can't name three other countries being the provider of my next version of X86config...man pages multiplying 300x in length to make room for the beaurocratic mumbo-jumbo and then getting classified as government secrets...
I'm going to close my web browser and wait twelve hours for this story to scroll off the page and then later I can pretend I never saw it. It was just a bad dream.
And how is that worse than people using "password" for their password because they can't remember it otherwise? Of course, once somebody figured out that "mB4q56xZpPoa7x0Ol11sH" was generated via "password", the jig would be up all over again. But then you could have *different* sites, each with their *own* scheme, and you just bookmark the one *you* use...
"People still use non-random passwords" because random passwords are difficult to remember. So I wrote a shell script that generates the a random password from any string you type in. The same word generates the same string next time. One of these days, somebody should do that as a PHP-script and put it on the web for a public utility.
This gives me ideas:
(1) Download & burn free Linux live CD specialized in forensic/cracking tech.
(2) Hire myself out to the Law as a hard-drive cracking consulant.
(3) Profit!
C'mon, *surely* somebody out there is doing this already?
Hmmmm. This seems to actually be a utility to allow a kind of Window-Maker-doc or KDE-kicker to more primitive OSes than Linux. To port this for Linux wouldn't be hard (note to all: News Flash: OTHER WINDOW MANAGERS EXIST for Linux besides Gnome and KDE), given a simple window model such as provided by the all-portable Tcl/Tk/Wish methods. It also would be nice if the API allowed for more than the small list of limited functions identified in the developer's page (this could be very cool if I could write, say, a small tetris game or a desktop-wallpaper-switcher into it). However, it really seems it might be redundant for Linux, which is practically over-flowing with this sort of plug-in-dock app (between the desktop environment's panels, docks, Firefox extensions, Black/Fluxbox's slit and other custom-made program-launching gizmos).
PS, anybody looking for a convenient way to search your Linux drive and you don't have Beagle: just learn Bash shell scripting and write some custom filters for Linux's locate program. To wit: have it save the locate results to a temp file, grep it for whatever key words, present the findings in a menu, and have it open the proper application to view/edit the content. I did this for a documentation finder I wrote back when I was learning Linux, and got sick of trying to guess whether the docs for a new program I'd downloaded-or-dicovered would be info files, man pages, docbook, a gzipped.pdf in/usr/doc, or a README in it's home directory, etc. It was hairy to set up and I never did get around to gluing a GUI onto the beast (plus it was written with the typical newbie brute-force-and-ignorance), but it still comes in handy for me to this day - it's particularly good to use from a floppy disk when I'm exploring a new distro.
My point was, instead of telling people flat out "Our service won't work with Linux" they could augment it to "Our service can work with some configuration with Linux, but you're on your own." After all, I'm the geek who insists on running Linux; I blew off the concept of "support" years ago (didn't find it all that "supportive" in the first place).
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Are they going to post instructions to read it right to left?
By that logic, since MIT created the X-Windows system in 1984: http://www.saao.ac.za/unix/node66.html
Gates cannot hold claim to the word at all, and in fact is violating MIT's rights.
OK, sit down. It's time we explained the birds and bees to you: No matter who or what made the software, a Windows user *N*E*V*E*R* buys a piece of software unless it says "Windows" right on the package. At least, after their first few times buying something, taking it home, watching it break, hauling it back to the store, and saying hello to the store's "no refund" non-returnable policy. They learn to read the system requirements, and be sure that it runs on Win 95/98, ME, 2000, etc. Hang out in the software section some time and listen to Joe Windows and his Auntie AOL-user fumble with their decision to purchase, sometime. If "Windows" isn't written on the package, they aren't buying it.
What would have been wrong with telling the TRUTH to the original title-holder and offering to buy the name from him? Are you telling me *every* software product "for Windows" on the shelf at Comp USA is violating copyright? I'm picturing a lot of empty aisles, then!
Much in the same way Benny, the prison inmate, takes a bitch?
My idea for MS is that it could try to just specialize in *playing* *nice*. Microsoft could save it's butt just by becoming "the universal system" - releasing their doc formats and being more alternative-friendly, but at the same time working hard to be compatible with other's formats and standards as well. How about a Windows system that will happily be installed second, sharing disk space with Linux? A live Windows system that runs from a USB drive? One that even has utilities for working with Mac and Unix and BeOS formats? Bundle at least *one* decent programming language with the OS, gratis? It's things like that that I know would make us all a little more favorable towards it, but they're too tunnel-visioned to do anything but business-by-conquest. God, there'll be a huge sigh of relief when they're gone!
There's also the little matter of the kernel's being open-source. It's available for download to you, me, and SCO lawyers. And quite a few of us have gotten the sources and recompiled our kernel from time to time. Thanks to Linux's "Primordial Soup" model, then hypothetically the version I have with the trivial tweaks I made to it could be called "the 2.7 kernel" if I passed it around and it caught on.
The 2.7 code is tatooed on my ass. It's really fine print, you have to look close!
I'm going to start my own FUD campaign against Microsoft. They aren't really rich. They're another Enron, cooking the books to make themselves appear successful while they flounder around desperately in their tar pit watching the rest of the world leave them behind in favor of new technology. I love watching them lash out in anger... it means we've won!
I should know better than to wade into religious issues, but I just remembered that, before I renounced the monotheistic patriarchal grace-based faith I was raised in, the subject of this remark was one of those things that bothered me most. I mean, if it's the word of God, isn't it worth getting *RIGHT*? So why write it in metaphors and similes and coded riddles? And if parts of it are not to be taken literally, then how do I *know* which parts are literal? Yes, I'm to be guided by faith, but is that in one of the literal parts of the book?
I just ended up taking the Sermon on the Mount, the Diamond Sutra, and parts of the Doctrine and Covenants and whatnot and took away with me the general idea that I should try to be nice and if everybody's nice to each other, it's a better world. And after I'm dead, whatever B/being/s I happen to find myself under the judgement of, my only defense will have to be, "Sorry, You made me too stupid and the riddles too hard. Do with me whatever You have to do to reaffirm your sense of dominance."
The Universe was a core dump from a Lisp machine running a recursive, self-replicatiing operation.
Be it Linux or BSD or SunOS or BeOS or OS/2 or Macs or nothing at all - ANYTHING BUT MICROSOFT!!!
This lets all cigarettes off the list, as very little of their content is actual tobacco. The rest is chemicals, mostly formulated to give you an intense rush and keep you addicted. Try smoking pure tobacco out of a pipe for a week. You'll feel better, and you won't get dizzy with the rush of the first smoke of the morning, it tastes and smells better (non-smokers always compliment the aroma of a pipe; when did that ever happen with a Marlboro?), and, while you'll still have the habit, it won't be as extreme. Natural tobacco doesn't make you feel like a crack addict who's going to snap if you don't get your fix NOW! - it's a kinder, gentler urge which makes it easier to gradually cut down. You can make it through a whole day without and it doesn't drive you crazy.
PS Cigarettes are the only thing I can think of that one can purchase for ingestion that doesn't have any ingredient information at all. Everything else - including gum, medicine, and even things you don't ingest like cleaning products has the components listed in meticulous detail. What do you suppose the big secret is?
With Google, readers could search for other comments more insightful/informative than mine. Then those other comments would get the mod points instead. Who needs all that competition?
Terror...a Linux distro done entirely in ADA...goons sneaking DRM into OpenBSD...releases put off twenty-five years only to be killed for lack of funding...ex-FEMA directors needing a job, and being appointed head of the project...the fortunes-o file censored because taxpayers will protest their tax dollars going to dirty limericks...Microsoft manipulating the whole show with campaign contributions in the background...all security features replaced by color-coded virus-threat level...political leaders who can't name three other countries being the provider of my next version of X86config...man pages multiplying 300x in length to make room for the beaurocratic mumbo-jumbo and then getting classified as government secrets...
I'm going to close my web browser and wait twelve hours for this story to scroll off the page and then later I can pretend I never saw it. It was just a bad dream.
Why couldn't we release the CO2 in space? I know there's some science reason why not, but I just wanted to know what it is.
No, actually, you're just jealous because I get all my software FREE.
And how is that worse than people using "password" for their password because they can't remember it otherwise? Of course, once somebody figured out that "mB4q56xZpPoa7x0Ol11sH" was generated via "password", the jig would be up all over again. But then you could have *different* sites, each with their *own* scheme, and you just bookmark the one *you* use...
I hope you at least have that saved to a file you can cut and paste from, so you don't have to keep retyping it.
*vamping* Microsoft goin' down! Down, down, down! Microsoft goin' down! Down, down, down!
*vamping* Microsoft goin' down! Down, down, down! Microsoft goin' down! Down, down, down!
"People still use non-random passwords" because random passwords are difficult to remember. So I wrote a shell script that generates the a random password from any string you type in. The same word generates the same string next time. One of these days, somebody should do that as a PHP-script and put it on the web for a public utility.
This gives me ideas:
(1) Download & burn free Linux live CD specialized in forensic/cracking tech.
(2) Hire myself out to the Law as a hard-drive cracking consulant.
(3) Profit!
C'mon, *surely* somebody out there is doing this already?
PS, anybody looking for a convenient way to search your Linux drive and you don't have Beagle: just learn Bash shell scripting and write some custom filters for Linux's locate program. To wit: have it save the locate results to a temp file, grep it for whatever key words, present the findings in a menu, and have it open the proper application to view/edit the content. I did this for a documentation finder I wrote back when I was learning Linux, and got sick of trying to guess whether the docs for a new program I'd downloaded-or-dicovered would be info files, man pages, docbook, a gzipped .pdf in /usr/doc, or a README in it's home directory, etc. It was hairy to set up and I never did get around to gluing a GUI onto the beast (plus it was written with the typical newbie brute-force-and-ignorance), but it still comes in handy for me to this day - it's particularly good to use from a floppy disk when I'm exploring a new distro.
My point was, instead of telling people flat out "Our service won't work with Linux" they could augment it to "Our service can work with some configuration with Linux, but you're on your own." After all, I'm the geek who insists on running Linux; I blew off the concept of "support" years ago (didn't find it all that "supportive" in the first place).