Man, if I was a MS shareholder, I'd be fucking livid. OOXML supporting software won't be available for a long time, and after this move, all the people who care enough about using ISO supported standards are going to be entrenched in ODF. MS shareholders know there will be something which will continue to tie the ODF produced documents to the MS Office application. Consider how they leveraged the open Kerberos spec and found nice ways to use the spec but tie it to Windows. Do you really think Microsoft is willing to level the playing field with one of it's only two monopoly positioned products?
They remembered who their customers were perhaps? Exactly and Microsoft's customers are content providers. It is often thought that PC purchasers are their customers but they are just the pawns since the mid 90s when Microsoft locked in the PC desktop OEMs to Windows. They only a couple of billion a year keeping that lockin and have for a few years now tried to use those pawns to extract revenue from advertisers who rely on content. Microsoft is not yet a content provider so they must satisfy they large content providers.
Tivo still makes most of their money from subscriptions and does not have a monopoly position safety-net to rely on. Therefore, customers keep them in business and the customers are the users. Microsoft plays a different game.
Having said that, you're right - it's no place of Google's to assist in the application of unjust law. so businesses don't have to obey laws outside of the country they're from? Cool, I'm incorporating and gonna start stomping on all those MS OOXML idiots around the world who voted for it.
Like it or not, this is a story about the laws of India and not about Google going anything "evil". See how long the thread lasts if it were about Google not pulling out of India because of this incident. What makes me sick is how many think this is a Google issue and not an Indian human rights issue.
Google is not some god or anything like that, they are a business and must obey the laws of the lands they have business in. Sure some countries laws suck as far as human rights go but is it Googles responsibility to do anything but obey those laws when they operate in that country?
This is a story about India and not Google. Did a Microsoft employee post this story?
Then use the Synaptic Package Manager. I figured well trained computer users knew how to type and if they don't, Sugar on Ubuntu isn't going to help them. BTW, you typed more characters in your response than the instruction/command required to install all those parts. Was that really so difficult?
that foundation's actions has shown that it is designed to promote Microsoft technology. Bletchley Park's website looks like it runs *nix/apache and ruby-rails since sometime after 2004. Without much Microsoft Windows there, why would that foundation support them? Remember, the purpose is to promote and extend Windows everywhere and their contracts with schools and libraries restricting OSS shows this. There is no irony here IMO.
you know, if Bletchley Park was serious about getting funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, they would have put the Microsoft Windows logo on the building. And it really would have helped if they switched their server back to Windows/IIS/ASP instead of *nix/apache/rubyrails.
They must not have wanted Bill's money THAT badly.;-)
They could also have offered to accept a couple of million to replace the website with MS Sliverlight. That would have been more likely to open the coffers of the B&MG foundation. IMO.
Kidding aside, Bletchley Park is an important part of the worlds history and should be preserved.
I've not seen any talk of putting Sugar on Windows and I've been looking. I did see Negroponte say that he thought the activities should not be so tied to Sugar and I read that as he wanted Activities which ran off the default Windows desktop.
Bender said he'd like to see Sugar run on many different OS's and indeed it is in the Ubuntu repositories and can be installed on the latest Ubuntu( v8.04 ) as a different session type/desktop.
And Sugar provides more than just a desktop so all the things like mesh, network UI, Journal, etc are not going away. So sure some at OLPC are still committed to Sugar since it's about 80-90% there and just needs some polish. How long as it taken Microsoft to come up with the latest UI they're pushing? Far longer and with far more developers and $$$ behind it.
So there really isn't a whole lot of doublespeak coming out of OLPC. Negroponte has not clarified what having Windows on the XO means but we all know that Microsoft will not allow Sugar to cover up the Microsoft Windows desktop so IMO, Windows on the XO is just Windows and any Windows based software making the XO just a ruggedized low end Windows laptop. Not the well designed learning machine the XO-Sugar stack provides. But hey, Egypt can probably purchase as long as its got Windows and that means a million or two get ordered and sold.
the Journal may not be perfect in its current form but if you think of how you had school assignments, it plays very well with that. School assignments for primary grade students might last a week at the most be two weeks but for the most part, let's say less than a week. When the teacher starts the assignment in class, students can label it with all the other students so it's easily found later. Now the kids go home and continue working on the assignment and there it is, right near or at the top of the Journal. They just click to open it up where they left off and they can keep doing this until the assignment is complete. Now, it'll peculate down the list as new assignments are created.
IMO, this is brilliant and leaves all the mess of learning hierarchical file systems to later years when they have mastered the three R's and basic computer skills like clicking, mouse movement, etc.
Sugar and the Journal just need some fine tuning and it'll be as great as it was intended at enabling kids to learn on these devices without the computer interface getting in the way.
or have the "stand-by" system(s) in a sleep mode so they can be ready for the extra load more quickly. This would trigger bringing in/powering on another box which would go into "stand-by" mode if load keeps going up.
it would be silly to have all your boxen running at 5% load because of a dumb load balancing scheme. Energy wasteful to say the least.
from the picture you can still see a green PCB and the circuit traces. I forget what temp PCBs burn at but is sure looks like it's in pretty good shape( the PCB ) so I would guess one of the reasons data was recoverable was that it didn't get too hot.
nothing outside of the Windows OS has been successful and by that I mean been profitable. Only with the writing off $1 billion last year has the XBox division been able to show a $90 million "profit" last quarter. With the billions spent on Xbox development, the billions already lost in the market, and the current growth rate we won't see the Xbox getting into the black in over 10 years if ever.
IMO, the only thing Balmer has been able to do is sustain a monopoly. And he had the balls to call Google a "one trick pony".
there is no "new Microsoft" and they are still applying anti-competitive practices and market controls instead of the 'build a better product' type of competition.
"The open source friendly Microsoft." should have been a clue. It's almost sad it's been mod'ed Insightful.
where previously, they would compare their finely tuned stuff to either old Linux stuff, some IBM mainframe running Linux, untuned or detuned Linux stuff. But now, they don't do any of those nasty kinds of things. They've changed and this is the new Microsoft. The open source friendly Microsoft.
Made me laugh when the guy said he'd contacted Microsoft's PR company about these. As if they care. What they care about is if the deception is working. IMO
FYI, those were statements of facts and not random "bad word about Microsoft" so I don't get how your comment is relevant.
But since you brought it up, I will try a simple explanation for why some people might want to dislike Microsoft and the way they 'do business'.
First of all, they are a marketing company and not a technology company. What that means is that they have done anything they can to "sell" the idea that their stuff is better than others and their product design most often skips quality to get the job of marketing done. For those of who have been in this business for 15-20 years, we have seen some very good ideas start to grow and then get squashed by the stranglehold Microsofts marketing and business practices put on the market.
the second big deal is that pretty much everything they do and say are lies and all about anti-competition. So instead of coming to the table with the best of what customers or developers what, they come in with crapware but spend billions putting out the word that the competition is worthless and of poor quality. And in many cases, they are actually out paying customers to use THEIR stuff in order to eliminate an income from their competitors. That's right, Microsoft pays vendors to use their stuff instead of say Linux and open source.
so stop thinking that people blindly dislike Microsoft because I don't think people just instantly dislike something. Their dislike is earned and in this case, it has been earned by over 20 years of anti-competitive business methods, illegal behavior, and a general lack of playing a competitive game.
Who likes a dictatorship because that is what Microsoft is? Did the market think MS OOXML was the best file format standard? No they didn't but Microsoft came in and gamed the ISO organization and effectively purchased their way into getting MS OOXML as an ISO standard. MS Silverlight, they are out now spending millions to pay customers to use it instead of Adobe Flash or other software. The list is long. So, do you want a dictatorship directing what the software market does? If so then you must just love Microsoft because that is how they have used their marketshare ever since IBM handed them a massive piece of the PC pie by picking MS-DOS for the IBM PC over 20 years ago. IMO
solar hotwater heaters are cheap? From a guy in the business, he said they are about $6,000 after you get the extra water tanks, pumps, electronics, panels, and installation.
Try on-demand hotwater heating first before you consider solar hotwater. It seems to have better payback and still has a very long life. Two people I know have disconnected solar hotwater systems because they failed after the 2nd repair and they are done putting money into them.
Exactly what did Microsoft learn? That tying up the competition in litigation will buy you time to further secure your market position? That it is better to work through shell companies instead of getting personally involved, even if the facade was so thin that anyone who was not actively trying to ignore it couldn't? That spending money on offensive litigation needs to be part of the annual budget? I believe they already know all that since they've done much of it for years. What I think they may have gleaned from this is that by using the media to propagate vague property rights threats and keeping this out of the courts, they can keep the larger customers away from GNU/Linux and OSS for a longer time. SCO kept the fear of OSS going for over 5 years and Microsoft, with its Novell IP licensing scam is keeping that threat going. SCO's history and Microsoft will try to do what it can to keep out of court on this.
My hope is that something like the lies they publish in say "Get The Facts" are somehow brought to court and exposed for that they are. That businesses and the public realize Microsoft's threats won't stand up in court and they have the balls to test that. That some Linux-only shop gets enough backing to sue Microsoft for defamation or the like and loss of business for false remarks and advertising.
if he changes his tune now, he just might find himself in court for misrepresentation and lying under oath or a few other things. If he can make sure people believe what he says is what he believes, then he's free to just be called an idiot and escapes with his assets.
But if it comes out that he knew it was a scam then he's in for getting the rug pulled out from not only SCO but from under himself. There are SCO investors who believed the crap he's said over the years and they would want restitution for being scammed. Not to mention the SEC wanting his ass for illegal statements in filings/etc.
A rock can be turned over but if McBride's brain shows any other side, he just might lose much more than his current business. If he walks away from this, he's probably got a job running the Linux Lab at Microsoft and then gets moved into marketing like the rest. He could even go straight into Microsoft marketing exec lineup with all the experience he has at misrepresenting the truth about OSS. IMO;-)
the BSD vs UNIX issue was settled a long long time ago. But McBride isn't smart enough to know that so I just thought I'd put it out there so that he doesn't get any bright ideas. That's all Apple needs is SCO suing Apple customers with what's left of the company. And we don't know if Microsoft won't find some other way to throw more millions to SCO to fund such a scam.
FYI, AT&T sued BSD for infringement a long time ago and it turned out that yes there was a little UNIX code in BSD but there was far far more unattributed/copyrighted BSD code in UNIX. AT&T was sent home with their tails between their legs and BSD was cleared of infringement.
but because SCO went after some deep pocketed businesses( IBM, Novell, etc ) they actually got a fight instead of being handed over millions and millions. Usually this is a bully vs weakling type of fight and the weakling must give in. It takes alot of weaklings to make a business plan work though so there are $ in the eyes when someone gets the bright idea to go for the big guys pockets.
Come to think of it, Lindows wasn't really a big-guy but I guess Microsoft had to stop them one way or another. I'm thinking of this case because it is another case where the outcome wasn't what was expected. ie, Microsoft almost lost their "Windows" trademark and the result was that Lindows became Linspire, Lindows got paid millions, and Lindows got 5 years of licensed software.
At least the Lindows vs MSFT case only took a couple years. Had it taken longer and Lindows/Linspire might have had to settle for much much less. They were not rolling in the doe.
This case has been dragging on for over 6 years and in that time, just little me, I've had small business owners mention licensing issues with regard to using Linux and OSS. The exact reason why I feel Microsoft and Sun helped fund SCO and the reason why Microsoft created their own SCO-ish licensing threats against Linux and OSS.
Unfortunately, Microsoft is learning alot from all this and will most likely stay way clear of filing suit against any of the big companies using or backing Linux and OSS. They know that they get more value from threats and little fear of having those threats exposed as long as they stay out of court. Their game is to use the threats to keep the Linux/OSS market contained and then use their wealth to pay off any large business thinking of being a GNU/Linux/OSS poster child. They have the funds to keep down alot of the uprising and the business customers are the ones willing to take short term payola from Microsoft to keep the current course with running Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Server software.
Where this is not in Microsoft's control is in government and the public sector. They've already had a tough time using the BSA to muscle some school districts into longterm licensing contracts when the Linux K12LTSP group showed the way to Microsoft/BSA independence and low cost computing. Recent financial belt tightening is opening the door further and there's little Microsoft can do but deeply discount their software and they are already showing signs of reduced revenues( (24%) this quarter ) from their big money maker, the Windows OS.
SCO is smart to try to devalue the licenses paid by Microsoft and Sun and if they are able to pull it off and get Novell out of the revenue stream, Novell also knows that Microsoft and Sun will not ask for their money back. After all, both Microsoft and Sun got what they paid for and that was not really a license for UNIX. IMO.
One more thing, McBride should get burned for what he's done to SCO, IBM, Novell, AutoZone, and all others involved. It was a scam of epic proportions and took way too long. IMO.
Slashdot Mirror
then update-rc.d is for you.
BTW, the Sys-V init stuff is getting replaces with something else but can't recall the name. Something "new".
LoB
this guy wants what and why is he not concerned with what others were paid in the production of the product?
Where was his risk in all this and if he's not happy then why did he sign up and take the $100k when it was offered?
I doubt he was offering up even a cup of coffee when GTA was initially under development and now he wants a piece of the pie. Cry baby cry. IMO.
LoB
Trust me, they have something up their sleeves.
LoB
Tivo still makes most of their money from subscriptions and does not have a monopoly position safety-net to rely on. Therefore, customers keep them in business and the customers are the users. Microsoft plays a different game.
LoB
Like it or not, this is a story about the laws of India and not about Google going anything "evil". See how long the thread lasts if it were about Google not pulling out of India because of this incident. What makes me sick is how many think this is a Google issue and not an Indian human rights issue.
LoB
Google is not some god or anything like that, they are a business and must obey the laws of the lands they have business in. Sure some countries laws suck as far as human rights go but is it Googles responsibility to do anything but obey those laws when they operate in that country?
This is a story about India and not Google. Did a Microsoft employee post this story?
LoB
Then use the Synaptic Package Manager. I figured well trained computer users knew how to type and if they don't, Sugar on Ubuntu isn't going to help them. BTW, you typed more characters in your response than the instruction/command required to install all those parts. Was that really so difficult?
LoB
just do this:
/usr/bin/sugar
/usr/bin/Xephyr :1 -ac -screen 800x600 -dpi 72
1) sudo apt-get install sugar sugar-activities xserver-xephyr
2) create xephr-xinitrc file in your home directory with this line in it: exec
3) run this to start it in a windowed xserver:
xinit ~/xephyr-xinitrc --
LoB
It is the best thing for them and you've got to know, just a spoon full of Sugar will make the Windows go down in the most delightful way.
LoB
that foundation's actions has shown that it is designed to promote Microsoft technology. Bletchley Park's website looks like it runs *nix/apache and ruby-rails since sometime after 2004. Without much Microsoft Windows there, why would that foundation support them? Remember, the purpose is to promote and extend Windows everywhere and their contracts with schools and libraries restricting OSS shows this. There is no irony here IMO.
LoB
you know, if Bletchley Park was serious about getting funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, they would have put the Microsoft Windows logo on the building. And it really would have helped if they switched their server back to Windows/IIS/ASP instead of *nix/apache/rubyrails.
;-)
They must not have wanted Bill's money THAT badly.
They could also have offered to accept a couple of million to replace the website with MS Sliverlight. That would have been more likely to open the coffers of the B&MG foundation. IMO.
Kidding aside, Bletchley Park is an important part of the worlds history and should be preserved.
LoB
I've not seen any talk of putting Sugar on Windows and I've been looking. I did see Negroponte say that he thought the activities should not be so tied to Sugar and I read that as he wanted Activities which ran off the default Windows desktop.
Bender said he'd like to see Sugar run on many different OS's and indeed it is in the Ubuntu repositories and can be installed on the latest Ubuntu( v8.04 ) as a different session type/desktop.
And Sugar provides more than just a desktop so all the things like mesh, network UI, Journal, etc are not going away. So sure some at OLPC are still committed to Sugar since it's about 80-90% there and just needs some polish. How long as it taken Microsoft to come up with the latest UI they're pushing? Far longer and with far more developers and $$$ behind it.
So there really isn't a whole lot of doublespeak coming out of OLPC. Negroponte has not clarified what having Windows on the XO means but we all know that Microsoft will not allow Sugar to cover up the Microsoft Windows desktop so IMO, Windows on the XO is just Windows and any Windows based software making the XO just a ruggedized low end Windows laptop. Not the well designed learning machine the XO-Sugar stack provides. But hey, Egypt can probably purchase as long as its got Windows and that means a million or two get ordered and sold.
LoB
the Journal may not be perfect in its current form but if you think of how you had school assignments, it plays very well with that. School assignments for primary grade students might last a week at the most be two weeks but for the most part, let's say less than a week. When the teacher starts the assignment in class, students can label it with all the other students so it's easily found later. Now the kids go home and continue working on the assignment and there it is, right near or at the top of the Journal. They just click to open it up where they left off and they can keep doing this until the assignment is complete. Now, it'll peculate down the list as new assignments are created.
IMO, this is brilliant and leaves all the mess of learning hierarchical file systems to later years when they have mastered the three R's and basic computer skills like clicking, mouse movement, etc.
Sugar and the Journal just need some fine tuning and it'll be as great as it was intended at enabling kids to learn on these devices without the computer interface getting in the way.
LoB
or have the "stand-by" system(s) in a sleep mode so they can be ready for the extra load more quickly. This would trigger bringing in/powering on another box which would go into "stand-by" mode if load keeps going up.
it would be silly to have all your boxen running at 5% load because of a dumb load balancing scheme. Energy wasteful to say the least.
LoB
from the picture you can still see a green PCB and the circuit traces. I forget what temp PCBs burn at but is sure looks like it's in pretty good shape( the PCB ) so I would guess one of the reasons data was recoverable was that it didn't get too hot.
Good story though.
LoB
nothing outside of the Windows OS has been successful and by that I mean been profitable. Only with the writing off $1 billion last year has the XBox division been able to show a $90 million "profit" last quarter. With the billions spent on Xbox development, the billions already lost in the market, and the current growth rate we won't see the Xbox getting into the black in over 10 years if ever.
IMO, the only thing Balmer has been able to do is sustain a monopoly. And he had the balls to call Google a "one trick pony".
LoB
there is no "new Microsoft" and they are still applying anti-competitive practices and market controls instead of the 'build a better product' type of competition.
"The open source friendly Microsoft." should have been a clue. It's almost sad it's been mod'ed Insightful.
LoB
where previously, they would compare their finely tuned stuff to either old Linux stuff, some IBM mainframe running Linux, untuned or detuned Linux stuff. But now, they don't do any of those nasty kinds of things. They've changed and this is the new Microsoft. The open source friendly Microsoft.
Made me laugh when the guy said he'd contacted Microsoft's PR company about these. As if they care. What they care about is if the deception is working. IMO
LoB
So convection circulation is used( no motors )?
FYI, most people can't even use a screw drivers... but DIY is great when you can do it.
LoB
FYI, those were statements of facts and not random "bad word about Microsoft" so I don't get how your comment is relevant.
But since you brought it up, I will try a simple explanation for why some people might want to dislike Microsoft and the way they 'do business'.
First of all, they are a marketing company and not a technology company. What that means is that they have done anything they can to "sell" the idea that their stuff is better than others and their product design most often skips quality to get the job of marketing done. For those of who have been in this business for 15-20 years, we have seen some very good ideas start to grow and then get squashed by the stranglehold Microsofts marketing and business practices put on the market.
the second big deal is that pretty much everything they do and say are lies and all about anti-competition. So instead of coming to the table with the best of what customers or developers what, they come in with crapware but spend billions putting out the word that the competition is worthless and of poor quality. And in many cases, they are actually out paying customers to use THEIR stuff in order to eliminate an income from their competitors. That's right, Microsoft pays vendors to use their stuff instead of say Linux and open source.
so stop thinking that people blindly dislike Microsoft because I don't think people just instantly dislike something. Their dislike is earned and in this case, it has been earned by over 20 years of anti-competitive business methods, illegal behavior, and a general lack of playing a competitive game.
Who likes a dictatorship because that is what Microsoft is? Did the market think MS OOXML was the best file format standard? No they didn't but Microsoft came in and gamed the ISO organization and effectively purchased their way into getting MS OOXML as an ISO standard. MS Silverlight, they are out now spending millions to pay customers to use it instead of Adobe Flash or other software. The list is long. So, do you want a dictatorship directing what the software market does? If so then you must just love Microsoft because that is how they have used their marketshare ever since IBM handed them a massive piece of the PC pie by picking MS-DOS for the IBM PC over 20 years ago. IMO
LoB
solar hotwater heaters are cheap? From a guy in the business, he said they are about $6,000 after you get the extra water tanks, pumps, electronics, panels, and installation.
Try on-demand hotwater heating first before you consider solar hotwater. It seems to have better payback and still has a very long life. Two people I know have disconnected solar hotwater systems because they failed after the 2nd repair and they are done putting money into them.
LoB
My hope is that something like the lies they publish in say "Get The Facts" are somehow brought to court and exposed for that they are. That businesses and the public realize Microsoft's threats won't stand up in court and they have the balls to test that. That some Linux-only shop gets enough backing to sue Microsoft for defamation or the like and loss of business for false remarks and advertising.
LoB
if he changes his tune now, he just might find himself in court for misrepresentation and lying under oath or a few other things. If he can make sure people believe what he says is what he believes, then he's free to just be called an idiot and escapes with his assets.
;-)
But if it comes out that he knew it was a scam then he's in for getting the rug pulled out from not only SCO but from under himself. There are SCO investors who believed the crap he's said over the years and they would want restitution for being scammed. Not to mention the SEC wanting his ass for illegal statements in filings/etc.
A rock can be turned over but if McBride's brain shows any other side, he just might lose much more than his current business. If he walks away from this, he's probably got a job running the Linux Lab at Microsoft and then gets moved into marketing like the rest. He could even go straight into Microsoft marketing exec lineup with all the experience he has at misrepresenting the truth about OSS. IMO
LoB
the BSD vs UNIX issue was settled a long long time ago. But McBride isn't smart enough to know that so I just thought I'd put it out there so that he doesn't get any bright ideas. That's all Apple needs is SCO suing Apple customers with what's left of the company. And we don't know if Microsoft won't find some other way to throw more millions to SCO to fund such a scam.
FYI, AT&T sued BSD for infringement a long time ago and it turned out that yes there was a little UNIX code in BSD but there was far far more unattributed/copyrighted BSD code in UNIX. AT&T was sent home with their tails between their legs and BSD was cleared of infringement.
LoB
but because SCO went after some deep pocketed businesses( IBM, Novell, etc ) they actually got a fight instead of being handed over millions and millions. Usually this is a bully vs weakling type of fight and the weakling must give in. It takes alot of weaklings to make a business plan work though so there are $ in the eyes when someone gets the bright idea to go for the big guys pockets.
Come to think of it, Lindows wasn't really a big-guy but I guess Microsoft had to stop them one way or another. I'm thinking of this case because it is another case where the outcome wasn't what was expected. ie, Microsoft almost lost their "Windows" trademark and the result was that Lindows became Linspire, Lindows got paid millions, and Lindows got 5 years of licensed software.
At least the Lindows vs MSFT case only took a couple years. Had it taken longer and Lindows/Linspire might have had to settle for much much less. They were not rolling in the doe.
This case has been dragging on for over 6 years and in that time, just little me, I've had small business owners mention licensing issues with regard to using Linux and OSS. The exact reason why I feel Microsoft and Sun helped fund SCO and the reason why Microsoft created their own SCO-ish licensing threats against Linux and OSS.
Unfortunately, Microsoft is learning alot from all this and will most likely stay way clear of filing suit against any of the big companies using or backing Linux and OSS. They know that they get more value from threats and little fear of having those threats exposed as long as they stay out of court. Their game is to use the threats to keep the Linux/OSS market contained and then use their wealth to pay off any large business thinking of being a GNU/Linux/OSS poster child. They have the funds to keep down alot of the uprising and the business customers are the ones willing to take short term payola from Microsoft to keep the current course with running Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Server software.
Where this is not in Microsoft's control is in government and the public sector. They've already had a tough time using the BSA to muscle some school districts into longterm licensing contracts when the Linux K12LTSP group showed the way to Microsoft/BSA independence and low cost computing. Recent financial belt tightening is opening the door further and there's little Microsoft can do but deeply discount their software and they are already showing signs of reduced revenues( (24%) this quarter ) from their big money maker, the Windows OS.
SCO is smart to try to devalue the licenses paid by Microsoft and Sun and if they are able to pull it off and get Novell out of the revenue stream, Novell also knows that Microsoft and Sun will not ask for their money back. After all, both Microsoft and Sun got what they paid for and that was not really a license for UNIX. IMO.
One more thing, McBride should get burned for what he's done to SCO, IBM, Novell, AutoZone, and all others involved. It was a scam of epic proportions and took way too long. IMO.
LoB