good point. It's easier for Microsoft to miss when the original source had the license text removed before handed over to Microsoft and if they had an agreement that all code and licensing were to be handed over to Microsoft.
It does surprise me that Microsoft would hire out for little tools like this. Unless, it's in payment for some other more 'serving' task(s). Like how they hired Mainsoft to create Internet Explorer for UNIX while at the same time they just about quadrupled the cost of licensing their Windows sources needed to do the task. MainSoft had the dough to pay the higher licensing fees but none of the other Win32 on UNIX vendors could afford that expense. Mainsoft survived but all other products which allowed Win32 to compile on UNIX were shut down. It was a great trick to get vendors to port UNIX apps to Win32 and then eliminate the ability of those apps to be updated and run on UNIX.
I wonder who the 3rd party was and why they were hired to do this little tool for Microsoft?
not sure about that but their excuse that it happened was that it was 3rd party code. If that really is the case, where is their process for handling licensing? Did they really have a licensing process in place for the 3rd party contract and one of the coders there subverted any code review process or licensing policies and brought in GPL'ed code? For a company with so much to lose brand-wise and with so much cash as Microsoft has, this would seem extremely careless. If it really was 3rd party code. If we look at the code now, we should see what company really did produce the code right? Or did Microsoft take 100% of the credit for 100% of the code except for the part which was the originally GPL'ed?
'Microsoft voluntarily do the right thing', ha. It probably had to go through 12 committee layers just to make sure it can't be used on any OS other than Windows and must not benefit anyone who does cross platform development. Because of the GPL, they probably had to run it through another 12 committee layers to clean up the code. This took loads more expense and effort than they probably wanted to put into it and you can thank the GPL for that. It's probably one reason why they really really dislike the GPL. Their code review and licensing policies are so bad that stuff like what happened with this tool costs them bucket loads of time, effort, and money and then they have to walk out into public and post their code. I can see Microsoft's executive team spitting every time they here "GPL" as if someone from Dog River said "Wullerton"
I tend to use multiple desktops for this kind of thing so I'm not sure where the advantage is to have different apps sharing the same title bar and window size/area. But it could be a visual association thing which gives this value. Much like how the Compiz cube desktop was what it took to get the point across to MS Windows users of the concept of multiple desktops.
If this has a way of saving the multi window title bar configuration then this is a big win IMO. A feature of OS/2's Workplace shell which was amazingly useful was the feature of a folder where you enabled a "workspace" attribute on that folder. When a folder was a "workspace" then if you had 4 files in that folder open and closed the folder, all those files would be closed too and the next time you opened that workspace folder, those files would be opened and their windows located and sized as they were when closed. Give me something _that_ with this tabbed titlebar and it would be a big step forward in my book.
wow, they were really trying to sell anti-virus software for the PalmOS devices? There's a saying about having a hammer and everything looks like a nail and these anti-virus people sound like they've got the hammer. Windows was the perfect nail because it constantly needed pounding on to fix this or that flaw or breach. But when new products enter the market without the flawed security system of Windows, what's a lonely Windows security company to do? Make stuff up I guess.
one problem with that, do you really know that the anti-virus vendors are blocked from providing anti-virus software for jail broken devices? It looks to me that because their industry was created by having a seriously flawed OS, Microsoft Windows, they think and want other markets and OS vendors to allow them to exist on their platforms. They have no given right to exist outside of the flawed Windows ecosystem no matter how much they whine.
We are likely to start seeing more and more of this kind of whining too. As Windows vendors see their market platform shrinking, they'll be looking else where for places to put their wares only to find out that those platforms don't need their products or services at all or hardly at all. There's a huge sector of the Windows PC market which exists because Windows is flawed and all those products, services, and jobs are getting hit. Finally. What that also means is that users and customers won't be dealing with all the support and junk they've had to put up with over the last 20 years. Devices which just work. What a concept.
The technique of using cheaper off-peak energy to freeze liquid and then use that liquid for daytime cooling loads is already used in a very few places. Combine that technique with the direct server cooling mentioned in the article and....wait a minute....they are already claiming a 93% cooling cost cut? Either their is huge waste now or they're already expecting to use off-peak energy. But then again, maybe the remaining 7% is still large enough to merit further savings.
Direct cooling makes far more sense than cooling rooms like I keep seeing around now.
I wasn't talking about the Danger Down issue. I was talking about Project Pink and the blog posting describing how Microsoft moved many of the Danger engineers to Project Pink and left the Danger division in support mode.
"The first version used a command line so it probably started in DOS."
I thought I already said it was a command line tool but that does not mean it is DOS based. Even multi-user operating systems VMS, UNIX, etc were and have command line interfaces.
I had to use a UNIX version with the GUI which really sucked compared to many of the command line versions I'd used where someone had put a bunch of customizing scripts as the frontend to the RCS system.
and RCS was around in the 80s so maybe SourceSafe was an attempt to bring something like the UNIX RCS system to DOS.
I don't know if Source Safe was originally DOS based, UNIX based, or both but I do recall seeing the UNIX version of Visual Source Safe variant and it really sucked. The UNIX box GUI was CDE and Motif based but the Visual Source Save GUI was based on Windows 3.x. They made no effort to integrate it into the UNIX desktop as if they were saying, "We are Microsoft, Windows is our product, this is a Windows based product so be happy you have it at all."
FYI, Microsoft produced Visual Source Safe after purchasing One Tree Software. From the wikipedia page, it was a 16 bit commandline app when they purchased the company. It was not client server based but could be used like MS Access with shared network disks. Microsoft bought them in 94 but it wasn't until 2005 that the product became client server based.
correct and it wasn't bought outright. It was a dumb move by Sybase to partner with Microsoft on a 5 year deal which resulted in Microsoft owning some version of Sybase SQL's source code. The rest is history.
IIRC, XENIX was in the 80s and UNIX and mainframe OS's were what businesses used. Small businesses used UNIX based PCs because DOS was not even in the same ball park as UNIX as far as an OS is concerned. It wasn't until the late 80s and early 90s that Microsoft gold plated their monopoly on the desktop OS market so Xenix was hedging their bet.
I hadn't heard that they ported it to x86 only that it was x86 based.
Once Microsoft had their monopoly and knew it, they've used it to protect their position. They do not hedge their bets and instead, they outright purchase companies and products and eliminate the cross platform nature of that product or they terminate the product. There's nothing in Microsoft's long history which shows that this will be any different. Like other things, it'll just take a few years for them to destroy the *nix customer base and products so that the Windows-only product is the only option left. It is how they do business.
written in Java? That's not going to last very long at Microsoft and it'll be ported to.NET. The early ports might work on the.NET step-child called Mono but that'll last only long enough for Microsoft to get all the customers on the.NET version and then the cross platform stuff starts failing. At Microsoft, it is all about running on Windows and if it runs on something else, then it reduces profits from Windows and must be terminated. IMO
this reminds me of when Netscape had 80% market share and it was shown that Microsofts IIS server would process MS Internet Explorer browser requests faster than Netscape Navigator requests. There was something about the IIS server running noop loops.
They don't get the "Evil Empire" label for no good reason. IMO.
darn right and just look at their purchase of Danger and what they did there. They tried to change the technology from what was working to Windows and when that failed, they gutted the division of many of it's developers to work on another project, Pink, which would replace the Danger products. They have always, and continue, to make sure Windows is job #1, #2, #3 etc because their profits have always been based on Windows no matter the market share of any other product.
The only thing interesting here is how they'll kill this and if their customers are resistant enough to oppose the Windowsization of the productline.
good point, I don't know what AMDs profit margins are but if they are 20%, this $1.25B would be worth $6.25B in revenue.
I thought the 5 year term was a rather short period for this kind of business where it can take that long to bring a new design from drawing board to production. In a way, I hope it doesn't give either Intel nor AMD any fire power against ARM. I'd like to finally see another hardware platform enter the desktop segment first. ie, I'd like to see ARM get a foothold before they really see viable competition. They are doing quite well in the handset segment and are due to enter the netbook segment this fall. Success there will open the door to move up the chain into the laptop segment by this time in 2011 via multi-core systems.
ahem, the marketing of Window 95 was all about how much 'research' Microsoft put into the UI change and they constantly told us about all the focus groups they used. Just like they did for Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista.
And if only the Windows UI was consistent. I loved the OS/2 Workplace Shell because when you interfaced with something which looked like a folder, you knew it was going to have the base classes standard folder settings and the same goes for the rest of the system because it used object inheritance. I've tried to help people who use Windows with broken systems or just getting them through various processes and I'm constantly amazed at how often a UI object doesn't do or let you do what you would think it should. Too many 'special' types of things and what that does is make these newbies afraid of doing something they have not remembered the steps to do. There is not enough consistency in Windows at all to make it user friendly and you don't have to give up flexibility. The Workplace Shell proved that IMO.
yes, it is about time but come on, 18 years after OS/2 v2 shipped and they still suck at making a kick but UI? They should have purchased Stardock Systems in the late 90s and let those guys create desktop UI system for Windows 2000. Instead, they are moving at a snails pace toward who knows what but I doubt it'll be even close to OS X or even the OS/2 Workplace Shell.
The employee must have just got all caught up in the "I'm a PC, and Windows 7 is my idea" campaign. He didn't get the memo telling all Microsoft employees that 'Windows 7 was not the idea of Microsoft employees, we want to blame the public so don't say it is your idea.'
But really, after reading the article, it should be easy to understand that he was talking about having pretty graphics in the UI and OS X is known for that. Not a big deal since Microsoft has been attempting to make Windows look better since v3.x and most all their innovations come from copying others rather poorly.
it's a marketing ploy and probably a network protection requirement for them. A marketing ploy because they come out looking to be cheaper while, as you mentioned, they are not the same. AT&T's ~$70/mon for unlimited(no tethering allowed) phone/data plan compared with Verizon's limited phone/data(5GB) plan for $? base + $30 5GB data.
At least tethering is an option even though it is also limited at a total combined of 10GB.
The optional +$15 for MS Exchange client license isn't required for anyone who doesn't want or need that connectivity.
So it's marketing along with network limiting caps which could be imposed to protect from network clogs some say they've seen on the AT&T network.
That's how I see it and this current press blitz regarding this tethering thing seems odd when it's not even an option on the phone the Droid is marketed against. Some subjectivity getting thrown in or is it marketing by Apple?
when you don't care to hit the 1.0 number, you start low and move slow. In 20 years, when they start getting close to.99, they'll probably start nudging by.001 or even go alphanumeric for an even slower progression to 1.0;-)
But who really cares as long as it works and does a decent job at what it does?
and the British Parliament is fun to watch too. It's a very fat line between being overly protective of the people and being overly protective of business interests and on this side of the pond, business gets the nod from our government.
so now I'm wondering why is this added tethering cost a big deal when the phone/service to beat is the iPhone and they don't have the tethering option? Just last weekend, an iPhone user told me he jailbroke his iPhone and tethers it and IIRC, he already pays around $70/mon to use that phone. And really, $30 for 5 GB( it is Bytes, not bits ) and who would _not_ expect them to charge more for tethering if that really was an option?
Now where's the link to all the 3G carriers who allow tethering and how much they charge? This great ape wants to know.
LOL, but to Microsoft, "the bad stuff" is Linux so in a twisted way she's telling the truth. Remember, Microsoft's idea of "open" is Windows and let's not forget MS Office Open XML( OOXML ).
Slashdot Mirror
good point. It's easier for Microsoft to miss when the original source had the license text removed before handed over to Microsoft and if they had an agreement that all code and licensing were to be handed over to Microsoft.
It does surprise me that Microsoft would hire out for little tools like this. Unless, it's in payment for some other more 'serving' task(s). Like how they hired Mainsoft to create Internet Explorer for UNIX while at the same time they just about quadrupled the cost of licensing their Windows sources needed to do the task. MainSoft had the dough to pay the higher licensing fees but none of the other Win32 on UNIX vendors could afford that expense. Mainsoft survived but all other products which allowed Win32 to compile on UNIX were shut down. It was a great trick to get vendors to port UNIX apps to Win32 and then eliminate the ability of those apps to be updated and run on UNIX.
I wonder who the 3rd party was and why they were hired to do this little tool for Microsoft?
LoB
not sure about that but their excuse that it happened was that it was 3rd party code. If that really is the case, where is their process for handling licensing? Did they really have a licensing process in place for the 3rd party contract and one of the coders there subverted any code review process or licensing policies and brought in GPL'ed code? For a company with so much to lose brand-wise and with so much cash as Microsoft has, this would seem extremely careless. If it really was 3rd party code. If we look at the code now, we should see what company really did produce the code right? Or did Microsoft take 100% of the credit for 100% of the code except for the part which was the originally GPL'ed?
LoB
mod this funny people, I LOL'ed on this one.
'Microsoft voluntarily do the right thing', ha. It probably had to go through 12 committee layers just to make sure it can't be used on any OS other than Windows and must not benefit anyone who does cross platform development. Because of the GPL, they probably had to run it through another 12 committee layers to clean up the code. This took loads more expense and effort than they probably wanted to put into it and you can thank the GPL for that. It's probably one reason why they really really dislike the GPL. Their code review and licensing policies are so bad that stuff like what happened with this tool costs them bucket loads of time, effort, and money and then they have to walk out into public and post their code. I can see Microsoft's executive team spitting every time they here "GPL" as if someone from Dog River said "Wullerton"
LoB
I tend to use multiple desktops for this kind of thing so I'm not sure where the advantage is to have different apps sharing the same title bar and window size/area. But it could be a visual association thing which gives this value. Much like how the Compiz cube desktop was what it took to get the point across to MS Windows users of the concept of multiple desktops.
If this has a way of saving the multi window title bar configuration then this is a big win IMO. A feature of OS/2's Workplace shell which was amazingly useful was the feature of a folder where you enabled a "workspace" attribute on that folder. When a folder was a "workspace" then if you had 4 files in that folder open and closed the folder, all those files would be closed too and the next time you opened that workspace folder, those files would be opened and their windows located and sized as they were when closed. Give me something _that_ with this tabbed titlebar and it would be a big step forward in my book.
LoB
wow, they were really trying to sell anti-virus software for the PalmOS devices? There's a saying about having a hammer and everything looks like a nail and these anti-virus people sound like they've got the hammer. Windows was the perfect nail because it constantly needed pounding on to fix this or that flaw or breach. But when new products enter the market without the flawed security system of Windows, what's a lonely Windows security company to do? Make stuff up I guess.
LoB
one problem with that, do you really know that the anti-virus vendors are blocked from providing anti-virus software for jail broken devices? It looks to me that because their industry was created by having a seriously flawed OS, Microsoft Windows, they think and want other markets and OS vendors to allow them to exist on their platforms. They have no given right to exist outside of the flawed Windows ecosystem no matter how much they whine.
We are likely to start seeing more and more of this kind of whining too. As Windows vendors see their market platform shrinking, they'll be looking else where for places to put their wares only to find out that those platforms don't need their products or services at all or hardly at all. There's a huge sector of the Windows PC market which exists because Windows is flawed and all those products, services, and jobs are getting hit. Finally. What that also means is that users and customers won't be dealing with all the support and junk they've had to put up with over the last 20 years. Devices which just work. What a concept.
LoB
and Microsoft can pay more people to use it and gain another 10%, but that won't make it any better.
LoB
The technique of using cheaper off-peak energy to freeze liquid and then use that liquid for daytime cooling loads is already used in a very few places. Combine that technique with the direct server cooling mentioned in the article and....wait a minute....they are already claiming a 93% cooling cost cut? Either their is huge waste now or they're already expecting to use off-peak energy. But then again, maybe the remaining 7% is still large enough to merit further savings.
Direct cooling makes far more sense than cooling rooms like I keep seeing around now.
LoB
I wasn't talking about the Danger Down issue. I was talking about Project Pink and the blog posting describing how Microsoft moved many of the Danger engineers to Project Pink and left the Danger division in support mode.
LoB
"The first version used a command line so it probably started in DOS."
I thought I already said it was a command line tool but that does not mean it is DOS based. Even multi-user operating systems VMS, UNIX, etc were and have command line interfaces.
I had to use a UNIX version with the GUI which really sucked compared to many of the command line versions I'd used where someone had put a bunch of customizing scripts as the frontend to the RCS system.
and RCS was around in the 80s so maybe SourceSafe was an attempt to bring something like the UNIX RCS system to DOS.
LoB
I don't know if Source Safe was originally DOS based, UNIX based, or both but I do recall seeing the UNIX version of Visual Source Safe variant and it really sucked. The UNIX box GUI was CDE and Motif based but the Visual Source Save GUI was based on Windows 3.x. They made no effort to integrate it into the UNIX desktop as if they were saying, "We are Microsoft, Windows is our product, this is a Windows based product so be happy you have it at all."
FYI, Microsoft produced Visual Source Safe after purchasing One Tree Software. From the wikipedia page, it was a 16 bit commandline app when they purchased the company. It was not client server based but could be used like MS Access with shared network disks. Microsoft bought them in 94 but it wasn't until 2005 that the product became client server based.
LoB
correct and it wasn't bought outright. It was a dumb move by Sybase to partner with Microsoft on a 5 year deal which resulted in Microsoft owning some version of Sybase SQL's source code. The rest is history.
LoB
IIRC, XENIX was in the 80s and UNIX and mainframe OS's were what businesses used. Small businesses used UNIX based PCs because DOS was not even in the same ball park as UNIX as far as an OS is concerned. It wasn't until the late 80s and early 90s that Microsoft gold plated their monopoly on the desktop OS market so Xenix was hedging their bet.
I hadn't heard that they ported it to x86 only that it was x86 based.
Once Microsoft had their monopoly and knew it, they've used it to protect their position. They do not hedge their bets and instead, they outright purchase companies and products and eliminate the cross platform nature of that product or they terminate the product. There's nothing in Microsoft's long history which shows that this will be any different. Like other things, it'll just take a few years for them to destroy the *nix customer base and products so that the Windows-only product is the only option left. It is how they do business.
LoB
written in Java? That's not going to last very long at Microsoft and it'll be ported to .NET. The early ports might work on the .NET step-child called Mono but that'll last only long enough for Microsoft to get all the customers on the .NET version and then the cross platform stuff starts failing. At Microsoft, it is all about running on Windows and if it runs on something else, then it reduces profits from Windows and must be terminated. IMO
LoB
this reminds me of when Netscape had 80% market share and it was shown that Microsofts IIS server would process MS Internet Explorer browser requests faster than Netscape Navigator requests. There was something about the IIS server running noop loops.
They don't get the "Evil Empire" label for no good reason. IMO.
LoB
darn right and just look at their purchase of Danger and what they did there. They tried to change the technology from what was working to Windows and when that failed, they gutted the division of many of it's developers to work on another project, Pink, which would replace the Danger products. They have always, and continue, to make sure Windows is job #1, #2, #3 etc because their profits have always been based on Windows no matter the market share of any other product.
The only thing interesting here is how they'll kill this and if their customers are resistant enough to oppose the Windowsization of the productline.
LoB
that was too funny and especially when she goes off and says; look, I'm doing a bunch of stuff and it's still working.
LoB
good point, I don't know what AMDs profit margins are but if they are 20%, this $1.25B would be worth $6.25B in revenue.
I thought the 5 year term was a rather short period for this kind of business where it can take that long to bring a new design from drawing board to production. In a way, I hope it doesn't give either Intel nor AMD any fire power against ARM. I'd like to finally see another hardware platform enter the desktop segment first. ie, I'd like to see ARM get a foothold before they really see viable competition. They are doing quite well in the handset segment and are due to enter the netbook segment this fall. Success there will open the door to move up the chain into the laptop segment by this time in 2011 via multi-core systems.
LoB
ahem, the marketing of Window 95 was all about how much 'research' Microsoft put into the UI change and they constantly told us about all the focus groups they used. Just like they did for Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista.
And if only the Windows UI was consistent. I loved the OS/2 Workplace Shell because when you interfaced with something which looked like a folder, you knew it was going to have the base classes standard folder settings and the same goes for the rest of the system because it used object inheritance. I've tried to help people who use Windows with broken systems or just getting them through various processes and I'm constantly amazed at how often a UI object doesn't do or let you do what you would think it should. Too many 'special' types of things and what that does is make these newbies afraid of doing something they have not remembered the steps to do. There is not enough consistency in Windows at all to make it user friendly and you don't have to give up flexibility. The Workplace Shell proved that IMO.
yes, it is about time but come on, 18 years after OS/2 v2 shipped and they still suck at making a kick but UI? They should have purchased Stardock Systems in the late 90s and let those guys create desktop UI system for Windows 2000. Instead, they are moving at a snails pace toward who knows what but I doubt it'll be even close to OS X or even the OS/2 Workplace Shell.
LoB
The employee must have just got all caught up in the "I'm a PC, and Windows 7 is my idea" campaign.
He didn't get the memo telling all Microsoft employees that 'Windows 7 was not the idea of Microsoft employees, we want to blame the public so don't say it is your idea.'
But really, after reading the article, it should be easy to understand that he was talking about having pretty graphics in the UI and OS X is known for that. Not a big deal since Microsoft has been attempting to make Windows look better since v3.x and most all their innovations come from copying others rather poorly.
LoB
it's a marketing ploy and probably a network protection requirement for them. A marketing ploy because they come out looking to be cheaper while, as you mentioned, they are not the same. AT&T's ~$70/mon for unlimited(no tethering allowed) phone/data plan compared with Verizon's limited phone/data(5GB) plan for $? base + $30 5GB data.
At least tethering is an option even though it is also limited at a total combined of 10GB.
The optional +$15 for MS Exchange client license isn't required for anyone who doesn't want or need that connectivity.
So it's marketing along with network limiting caps which could be imposed to protect from network clogs some say they've seen on the AT&T network.
That's how I see it and this current press blitz regarding this tethering thing seems odd when it's not even an option on the phone the Droid is marketed against. Some subjectivity getting thrown in or is it marketing by Apple?
LoB
when you don't care to hit the 1.0 number, you start low and move slow. In 20 years, when they start getting close to .99, they'll probably start nudging by .001 or even go alphanumeric for an even slower progression to 1.0 ;-)
But who really cares as long as it works and does a decent job at what it does?
LoB
and the British Parliament is fun to watch too. It's a very fat line between being overly protective of the people and being overly protective of business interests and on this side of the pond, business gets the nod from our government.
I gotta get my butt over there one of these days.
LoB
so now I'm wondering why is this added tethering cost a big deal when the phone/service to beat is the iPhone and they don't have the tethering option? Just last weekend, an iPhone user told me he jailbroke his iPhone and tethers it and IIRC, he already pays around $70/mon to use that phone. And really, $30 for 5 GB( it is Bytes, not bits ) and who would _not_ expect them to charge more for tethering if that really was an option?
Now where's the link to all the 3G carriers who allow tethering and how much they charge? This great ape wants to know.
LoB
LOL, but to Microsoft, "the bad stuff" is Linux so in a twisted way she's telling the truth. Remember, Microsoft's idea of "open" is Windows and let's not forget MS Office Open XML( OOXML ).
LoB