I'm no fan of MS, but what else is new? If you don't like it don't use the product. MS's EULAs give MS the right to do whatever they want to with your data, and even if the EULA didn't it gives MS the right to change the EULA to say whatever they want it to say & you can agree or kiss your files goodbye. Isn't stuff like this the real reason why index.dat link files are around? To feed MS data to use? Again, if you don't like it, don't use the stuff. There are ways out.
The list of formats probably points to who is guaranteed to win the contract. The Bushies never met a predatory monopoly they didn't worship. The one.pdf suggests that Adobe may get some tiny part of the contract, like converting 10% of the documentation into pdfs. No doubt MS will whine mightily about that, too.
Hope you didn't want to use anything but IE-7 for RSS under VISTA. Looks to me like Opera, Firefox, and everything else will be legally locked out. Or looked at the other way if you want to enjoy RSS you will have to use IE-7. If MS gets the patent(s) they are not required to license them to anyone for any price --any price whatsoever. That's the minimum. The worst-case scenario is to make it illegal to access RSS with anything but VISTA & IE-7. Of course, such an abomination won't bother the Microsoft-worshipers, will it?
Where's the guy who was asking why people hate MS? link. Case in point. Dave Winer post a question on the "personal blog" of MS's Emerging Business Team asking if MS would promise not to sue him if it gets these patents. As you can see here, there's no response. Silence is golden?
Yes, it is possible. However, there's nothing to stop Oracle, IBM & others from filing amicus curiae, "friend of the court" briefs, and/or suing MS for patent infringement. If MS decides to sue RH for patent infringement, it may end in Global Thermonuclear Patent War. Don't think so? Austria-Hungary was sure Britain and France would not intervene if A-H invaded Serbia. The outcome? World War I, after which Austria-Hungary was dead, while Serbia became Yugoslavia. War is almost always a crap-shoot & never more so than when there's a lot of secret treaties. I could be wrong, but would guess that almost all agreements between companies have non-public clauses.
For the link to the "Sacred Ribbon." I'd heard a lot about it but never had seen a pic that was big enough to decipher. Looks about like every other freakin toolbar I ever saw, only 2-3 times as bloated. Imagine that. Oh well, to each their own...
So, I've always wondered when you print out an Word document or an Excel spreeasheet with music in it, how does it sound when you read it. How 'bout the video quality, resolution...? As a writer and as someone who uses lots of spreadsheets for data anayysis to guide and back up that writing, the point of fluff like videos or music in documents (particularly spreadsheets) completely eludes me.
I loaded a statistical plug-in for OO 2.0 (Calc) for Win32 earlier this year. Stock XP install, no compiler of any kind on the box. Loaded in seconds & a menu entry still persists. Haven't used it lately, as I got permission to load Linux on my old box to use the Gnumeric statistical routines.
They do seem to be more common than we, at at least I, thought. I was surprised to learn earlier this year that an old friend of mine and his colleagues from the Louisiana geological survey had found evidence of a possible impact crater two kilometers across about 52 km northeast of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. See here. That's fairly close & fairly recent, too, as it seems to be Late Pleistocene and possibly as recent as 11 thousand years ago.
Wish I had mod points, you'd go up. My read out on the XP and "XP-Media" EULAs is that MS reserves the right to change the deal any time and in any way they wish, and for any reason, including for the hell of it. User rights? Zero point zero!
Yep, Windows users will take it... because they are told to take it by MS. They will like it, too, no matter how bad it is... because they will be told to like it. Sheep/slaves... take your pick. I find it impossible to care. If they are willing to walk over a cliff because they are told to... that's their business, and not mine.
Interesting, they state on the front page that Kamind Associates is a Microsoft Certified Partner and a Microsoft Small Business Specialist. Wonder what MS would do if Kamind took say... Notepad & rebranded it, as after all, MS gives it away with Windows.... He'd have MS lawyers coming out of the air vents in the roof, and by the time they were finished with him, he'd "walk funny" for the rest of his life.
I wish ballots had "none of the above" which, if it "won", would force new elections with new candidates.
Amen. I've been saying the same thing for years, & would add that if "None of the Above" wins the losers should be barred from running for anything for 10 years. Radical centrist, here: strong defense, balanced budget, & Uncle Sammy should keep his nose out of everyone's personal life. [OT:love spell-check in ffx 2.0]
Refresh my memory. I'm trying to recall any time whem MS took responsibility for any flaw in any of their products, and I'm drawing a blank. Problems have always been blamed on 3rd party hardware, software, hackers, or users. MS has always presented itself as being perfect, no flaws or faults.
Better Microsoft then RIAA.
And when it comes to a bidding war, how do you propose to personally outbid the RIAA or the MPAA? Or, for that matter, any corporate or governmental entity which is willing to pay MS to spy on and/or control aspects of your system? I mean the ones MS is not going to control absolutely?
MS may not be a monopoly in your view or the view of many. MS's problem is that it qualifies as a monopoly based on the legal definition of a monopoly. Being a monopoly is not illegal, but monopolies are not allowed to engage in certain practices. The last case brought against MS resulted in the finding that it is a predatory monopoly. Being a predatory monopoly is illegal. See Wikipedia entries for Monopoly, Sherman Anti-trust Act, and Clayton Anti-trust Act.
You know why people use Microsoft Windows? Because they like it. It's stable, friendly, and well supported from both the vendor and third-party software point of view. It has awesome support for a huge variety of hardware devices and it's very easy to use.
And that's your opinion. I find it unstable, hostile to the very concept of freedom, and after using the alternatives for about four years now, hard to use. (Why doesn't Windows get some really good package management?:-P). I also have lots of software choices on Linux and FreeBSD, that I don't have on MS. My hardware has been supported as well as Windows-if not better (at least By Debian & derivatives like Mepis and Ubuntu).
Of course, you know what they say about opinions, "Opinions are like like assholes, we all have one, and some smell better than others."
Why do you assume that this investor is telling the truth and MS is lying? Is it just because you have a negative view of MS?
Most people assume MS is lying because they have a long and storied history of lying.
People lie all the time when that kind of money is on the line.
Given that, who has more money on the line with everthing the do/say/plan/release than MS? Because this can, in theory, get them back on the hotseat with the anti-trust settlement overseers (Fat chance-no matter how guilty they might be found to be!), it is even more in their interest to lie--assuming, of course, that you are correct about lying when money is on the line. Have a nice day.
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You are just plain right. Best comment yet.
I'm no fan of MS, but what else is new? If you don't like it don't use the product. MS's EULAs give MS the right to do whatever they want to with your data, and even if the EULA didn't it gives MS the right to change the EULA to say whatever they want it to say & you can agree or kiss your files goodbye. Isn't stuff like this the real reason why index.dat link files are around? To feed MS data to use? Again, if you don't like it, don't use the stuff. There are ways out.
Parent is modded off-topic? In what way?
.pdf suggests that Adobe may get some tiny part of the contract, like converting 10% of the documentation into pdfs. No doubt MS will whine mightily about that, too.
The list of formats probably points to who is guaranteed to win the contract. The Bushies never met a predatory monopoly they didn't worship. The one
Well said. If I had mod points now, up you'd go.
What rant? I must've missed it.
Hope you didn't want to use anything but IE-7 for RSS under VISTA. Looks to me like Opera, Firefox, and everything else will be legally locked out. Or looked at the other way if you want to enjoy RSS you will have to use IE-7. If MS gets the patent(s) they are not required to license them to anyone for any price --any price whatsoever. That's the minimum. The worst-case scenario is to make it illegal to access RSS with anything but VISTA & IE-7. Of course, such an abomination won't bother the Microsoft-worshipers, will it?
Where's the guy who was asking why people hate MS? link. Case in point. Dave Winer post a question on the "personal blog" of MS's Emerging Business Team asking if MS would promise not to sue him if it gets these patents. As you can see here, there's no response. Silence is golden?
Novell also pays MS $40 million a year over the 5 years of the deal: $348M - (5 * $40M) = $148M, Novell net gain. Or so it seems.
Yes, it is possible. However, there's nothing to stop Oracle, IBM & others from filing amicus curiae, "friend of the court" briefs, and/or suing MS for patent infringement. If MS decides to sue RH for patent infringement, it may end in Global Thermonuclear Patent War. Don't think so? Austria-Hungary was sure Britain and France would not intervene if A-H invaded Serbia. The outcome? World War I, after which Austria-Hungary was dead, while Serbia became Yugoslavia. War is almost always a crap-shoot & never more so than when there's a lot of secret treaties. I could be wrong, but would guess that almost all agreements between companies have non-public clauses.
For the link to the "Sacred Ribbon." I'd heard a lot about it but never had seen a pic that was big enough to decipher. Looks about like every other freakin toolbar I ever saw, only 2-3 times as bloated. Imagine that. Oh well, to each their own...
MS's agreement with Novell hasa clause which allows MS to cancel their agreement at any time and for any reason.
And even if it didn't, given MS's history, why would anyone expect MS to honor any agreement?
I loaded a statistical plug-in for OO 2.0 (Calc) for Win32 earlier this year. Stock XP install, no compiler of any kind on the box. Loaded in seconds & a menu entry still persists. Haven't used it lately, as I got permission to load Linux on my old box to use the Gnumeric statistical routines.
Brilliant. Good laugh. Actually, Windows CDs do make fair coasters, thanks to the "genuine holograms".
They do seem to be more common than we, at at least I, thought. I was surprised to learn earlier this year that an old friend of mine and his colleagues from the Louisiana geological survey had found evidence of a possible impact crater two kilometers across about 52 km northeast of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. See here. That's fairly close & fairly recent, too, as it seems to be Late Pleistocene and possibly as recent as 11 thousand years ago.
Wish I had mod points, you'd go up. My read out on the XP and "XP-Media" EULAs is that MS reserves the right to change the deal any time and in any way they wish, and for any reason, including for the hell of it. User rights? Zero point zero!
Yep, Windows users will take it ... because they are told to take it by MS. They will like it, too, no matter how bad it is ... because they will be told to like it. Sheep/slaves ... take your pick. I find it impossible to care. If they are willing to walk over a cliff because they are told to ... that's their business, and not mine.
Interesting, they state on the front page that Kamind Associates is a Microsoft Certified Partner and a Microsoft Small Business Specialist. Wonder what MS would do if Kamind took say ... Notepad & rebranded it, as after all, MS gives it away with Windows.... He'd have MS lawyers coming out of the air vents in the roof, and by the time they were finished with him, he'd "walk funny" for the rest of his life.
Well put! Followed to its logical conclusion, the results are absurd.
Hey mods, mod parent up.
Amen. I've been saying the same thing for years, & would add that if "None of the Above" wins the losers should be barred from running for anything for 10 years. Radical centrist, here: strong defense, balanced budget, & Uncle Sammy should keep his nose out of everyone's personal life. [OT:love spell-check in ffx 2.0]
Refresh my memory. I'm trying to recall any time whem MS took responsibility for any flaw in any of their products, and I'm drawing a blank. Problems have always been blamed on 3rd party hardware, software, hackers, or users. MS has always presented itself as being perfect, no flaws or faults.
And when it comes to a bidding war, how do you propose to personally outbid the RIAA or the MPAA? Or, for that matter, any corporate or governmental entity which is willing to pay MS to spy on and/or control aspects of your system? I mean the ones MS is not going to control absolutely?
And that's your opinion. I find it unstable, hostile to the very concept of freedom, and after using the alternatives for about four years now, hard to use. (Why doesn't Windows get some really good package management?
Of course, you know what they say about opinions, "Opinions are like like assholes, we all have one, and some smell better than others."
Most people assume MS is lying because they have a long and storied history of lying.
Given that, who has more money on the line with everthing the do/say/plan/release than MS? Because this can, in theory, get them back on the hotseat with the anti-trust settlement overseers (Fat chance-no matter how guilty they might be found to be!), it is even more in their interest to lie--assuming, of course, that you are correct about lying when money is on the line. Have a nice day.