This is really more of the same arbitrary justice that make software patents a bad idea in the first place
How so? MS paid Fraunhoffer for the patents (as did the rest of the tech industry) which were co-developed by Fraunhoffer, Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T. If Fraunhoffer was not the right authority to license these patents, Alcatel should have sued them for falsely representing themselves as such. That makes sense, and that's the nutshell version of what the Judge ruled.
Their prowess in court only strengthens their position as lord and master.
Your hatred of MS is blinding your objectivity, and even your desire to seek the truth. MS adopted patents as a defensive strategy (see this 1991 memo from Bill Gates http://www.bralyn.net/etext/literature/bill.gates/ challenges-strategy.txt. Even back then he seemed to understand the ramifications of software patents better than anyone else. Also note his referencing of this memo calling out the dangers of software patents: http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/against-software-pat ents.html. The honesty of his stance and clarity of vision is something his critics here should take note of.
What you have to understand is that M$ itself is a patent troll.
What you have to understand is that MS did not (and still does not) have the lobbying power to change the retarded patent system. Don't blame them for playing by the rules and making the best of the hand they are dealt with. The OSS movement has more power because the entire industry is rallying behind it - but MS has an obligation to its shareholders to not become a part of that movement - linux on the desktop threatens to erode MS's core business. It's really that simple..
Almost all of their software has come from predatory acquisitions but the market has dried up because people are no longer willing to risk their money in the business where M$ can crush them. You must have noticed that all of the innovative companies, Google, Wikipedia, Facebook and others are all using gnu/linux and avoiding the desktop in order to make money. M$ has built themselves a patent war-chest to assail those businesses, and has been instrumental in setting up business method and other stupid patents. Others have taken advantage of the situation, but that does not make M$ any less culpable.
You conveniently left Apple of the list of 'innovators'. Apple is extremely innovative, they do not avoid the desktop and they have a patent war-chest. Naturally it was inconvenient for you to mention them. Google has its share of patents as well. It's really rich of you to think that Google will ever donate any of its search-related patents to OSS. They will donate any patents that help erode MS's core business. They will hold on to any patents that help them maintain their core business (search). Are we to hate them for that? Absolutely not -- it's good strategy. But hating MS for the same behavior makes you a hypocrite.
No additional certainty has been added to the market that can benefit anyone. The case is far from settled but it has already cost both companies boatloads of money. Only the largest companies could weather that kind of storm and this will keep investors and small companies out of the business.
Finally some sense. And while this is true, think about a world without patents -- how will any small company prevent an MS/Apple/Google/IBM from using/reverse-engineering/copying/whatever thier work and eroding thier business? I'm not a fan of the current patent system but I don't think getting rid of software patents is the answer. The very purpose of patents is to protect the incentive to innovate. Whether the solution lies in better screening so that fewer 'obvious' things become
Why did parent get modded redundant?? There's good info in his post. It really looks like anything going against the hive-mind gets slapped down on/. these days..
Please keep your geek card - we need more geeks like you.
I too get upset when people drag the gates foundation into these pissing contests. And I can't think of a better person than Bill Gates to do that sort of work. It takes many things to succeed the way MS has. You need good strategy, strong partnerships, and you need to be able to meet your objectives with whatever hand you have. He's proven capable of that time and again. With his mind, tenacity, and money, I think when all is said he will have done more for the good of this world (through the Gates Foundation) than all of/. combined.
Displays have higher resolutions now, and font rendering technologies have improved. Verdana has outlived its usefulness. Courier New is just plain ugly. I want my fixed-pitch text rendered in Monaco. This is a matter of taste/preference -- and to each their own in that respect. I use Verdana a lot (and Tahoma for UI) on a 24" WUXGA -- I've got decent eyesight, and Verdana/Tahoma give me the option of maximizing real estate. I agree about Courier New bieng ugly, but I don't think Monaco is really an improvement (that taste thing again). In fact I think all fixed-width fonts are butt-ugly and only put up with them for coding purposes.
Btw: here's an interview of Tom Rickner (the guy MS contracted to design Verdana, Arial etc.). Has some interesting nuggets of info in it: http://www.will-harris.com/msfont-hint.htm
Copyright violation is not stealing, the supreme court agreed when they asked the RIAA lawyer to stop using the term 'theft' as it was inappropriate confused the issue. I'm not familiar with the legal terms, but I don't think that's really the point.
I strongly agree with all your fair use scenarios -- these should be possible for people to do.
My point was more along these lines:
- Current DRM limits fair-use.
- Current DRM locks-in customers by limiting interoperability.
But at the same time:
- p2p & abundant bandwidth make piracy (copyright violation) ridiculously easy
- relying on 'good faith' is not practical. Pricing models can't fix everything given the above point.
That being the case - we should give up on trying to have DRM abolished altogether. That's a losing battle. And it's an unfair outcome for 'the other side'. They hold all the cards (they create the product) so they're not going to agree to it no matter what. If the RIAA caves in, the MPAA will not.
The battle we should be fighting is for interoperability. We need legislation that prevents DRM from being used for lock-in and prevention of fair use (all the scenarios you mentioned should work). Congress should have stepped in and clubbed all companies responsible for various DRM schemes on the head by now. Starting with regional encoding for DVDs, all the way to FairPlay and PlaysForSure. But they either don't care, or they've been bought. We (consumers) have only two options now, and we need to pursue both of them vigorously. One is class action lawsuits against companies that refuse to ensure interoperability of their DRM schemes. And the second is by voting with our wallets -- refuse to buy anything with DRM encumbrance. And to make it clear that if the DRM scheme in use guaranteed interoperability, we would use it.
The biggest problem right now is iTunes. 3 Billion songs and counting. We/.ers should be ashamed of ourselves for letting that happen. We should know better, and we should be telling everyone we know to shun DRM whether it's iTunes or PlaysForSure.
Not trying to be a troll. But I strongly disagree with the hive-mind about DRM being as hopeless as the comments proclaim.
Frist off, digital piracy isn't that different from brick-and-mortar piracy -- sellers will always try to find ways to prevent theft, and those who want to pirate stuff will always find ways to circumvent the checks. This is human nature and the it'll probably never change.
Second, while we (rightly) think that the RIAA could save itself a lot of effort by revamping its model, that argument doesn't scale to other media. For example, movies. Movies are expensive to make, and don't sell in the same volumes as songs. The RIAA might easily solve its problems by moving to an AllOfMp3-like model, and pricing structure. But the MPAA won't be able to do the same -- charging 10 cents a movie will mean that they need to sell about 150 times the volume to make similar profits. Charging even $4 a movie will be enough incentive for people to go back to bittorrent. So clearly, its a never-ending tug of war, and while we think the RIAA/MPAA should in good faith adjust it's pricing model etc. the MPAA (at least) can't rely on the same good faith from its customers.
But of course, the RIAA and MPAA are not blameless. And neither are Apple and MS and anyone else creating DRM schemes for multimedia formats (in fact, perhaps the Apple and MS folk are more guily than the RIAA/MPAA. Thier real sin is, they are trying to exploit a side-effect of DRM by not openly licensing thier DRM schemes and not making them interoperable/platform-agnostic. They have seen the side-effect of locking in customers by not licensing thier DRM schemes and by using proprietary formats, and they're frothing at the mouth with the possibilities of locking in customers, and getting duplicate revenues from those that do defect.
At one point, I was actually willing to give MS some props for trying to rally the industry around a single DRM scheme (PlaysForSure) and keeping the API for it open. The lack of PlaysForSure on Macs and Linux is a big problem, and using WMA is a bigger problem, but the real sin was when they came out with yet another DRM system for the Zune. (Unless their PlaysForSure contracts made it a necessity by stipulating that MS will never come out with a PlaysForSure device or something like that - I wonder).
And Apples fault is in how they choose to license FairPlay. They seem to have some arbitrary 'coolness factor' that needs to be met before they license FairPlay (which they do license out). For example, it's clear that the Xbox ppl have given iPod integration a lot of importance, and they must surely have approached Apple to license Fairplay so that even protected songs could be streamed to the 360 from a PC/Mac or iPod. The fact that this doesn't work today can only be because Apple did not license FairPlay. A terrible sin, for what would have been a very cool and easy to use feature. They did not think about the benefit to their users first -- they thought about lock-in instead.
This is really what's wrong with DRM today. Companies are having a field day with trying to lock in consumers, and not giving any thought to enabling them to use thier property in as many fair ways as possible. The focus is completely on lock-in, and disabling, rather than enabling, and maintianing an audit trail without hindering.
The solution might come from the market, in time. But for that people need to be very vigilant about shunning DRM schemes until these companies learn thier lesson and start inter-oprating with each other. That doesn't look like its happening anytime soon -- what with iTunes downloads crossing the 3 billion mark the other day. Consumers only have themselves to blame if they endorse DRM in this manner.
The solution might come faster through litigation. Either through class action lawsuits (iTunes customers who want to migrate so a non-apple mp3 player, who get pissed because thier collections are now worthless), or Congress (ve
Vista seems to me to be more of a consumer oriented operating system. It doesn't really have much to add to businesses beyond UAC Actually, I think its quite the opposite (or maybe balanced between the two). Offline image servicing (where you can, in theory, install apps, apply updates to an uninstalled image, so keep that image updated with minimal pain, and just use it to re-image a machine every time you need to configure a new machine) sound like a huge win for Businesses. It can't have been an easy change to make, I think.
Bitlocker, EFS (encrypted file system) also come to mind as being very business-oriented features. I'm sure there's lots more that I just don't know about.
I don't think UAC is a security feature so much as a means to an end. I think third-party developer's habits of creating all apps to require admin access was killing MS from a security perspective. UAC should train people to stop doing that. In any case, I've been using Vista for months now, and after the initial configuration stabilized I didn't ever see the prompt again.
so someone that is too lazy or whatever, to do basic research I think that's the whole point -- that users shouldn't have to do research to discover a deviation of this magnitude from accepted norms. Accepted norms for a phone, that is. Apple was playing ads on the tv forever, telling us that they're about to deliver us the worlds best phone. For him to think about it in the context of a phone is fair. Not everybody does product research before buying stuff, and companies certainly shouldn't be absolved of their obligations because we (geeks) are used to doing it.
Remember -- for every one of us on slashdot that sees an ad or press release and instinctively knows what questions to ask -- there are at least 10 people who have no clue, and just take the ad at face value.
Your criticisms are unfounded. 64-bit Windows runs 32-bit applications completely transparently for the end user (as you requested). I am running 64-bit Vista Ultimate and Office 2007 (which is a 32-bit application). At no point during the installation of Vista or Office did I have to be concerned with the fact that my OS was 64-bit, or that my application was 32-bits. Same case with any 32-bit programs/utilites I am running on this machine, whether authored by MS or not.
Now as a coder I know that this is not 100% transparent for developers (for example, you will have to deal with the wow6432node in the registry, your system dlls will be stored in syswow64 instead of system32 -- but that's transparent to the end user, who was the focus of your posting.
Further, you're not correct in saying that code-signing is a DRM-issue more than a security issue. Code signing gives you two assurances:
- the code came from the entity you think it came from
- the code was not tampered with en route to you
For signing the code, you seem to be suggesting a situation where MS says "we won't sign your code because we don't like what it does". They do not actually have that control. They are not the ones who sign the code. It's Verisign or another root CA (Certificate Authority) that does that. They do not consult MS to ask them "should we go ahead and sign this code". You pay them and provide the necessary evidence of your identity and they will sign your code.
Dude.. stop fishing.. you clearly don't understand the issues involved.
Code signing is simply a PKI based mechanism to verify that modules have not been tampered with. It's extremely important from a security point of view. I'm not familiar with OS-X but I'll be very surprised if OS-X doesn't have infrastructure for verifying code signing -- does that make it evil in any way? Absolutely not! Even Linux should include infrastructure for maintainging a trusted cert. hierarchy and code signing (if it does not already).
The fee to be paid to Verisign (or some Certificate Authority) is not a barrier to entry. And it certainly isn' a barrier put up by MS.
Sandboxing is about limiting the priviliges and resources a module can access. This, again, is good for security. If a modules digital signature cannot be verified, how do you know if it is trustworthy? You don't even know if this module does what it claims to do (until you attempt to run it - at which point it might be too late to save your butt). Currently, when you download an unsigned binary from the net, IE will warn you and give you an option of running it anyway (it's unwise to do so if you don't have good reason, but you have the option). I don't understand what you're complaining about given this fact.
And if you're claiming that in the future, MS is going to run usigned code in a sandbox by default, I say:
This is a good thing. It doesn't affect performance the way you claim it does. It only enhances security
At least give us a link to this announcement -- i've seen nothing in TFA that states this.
Please stop spreading nonsensical FUD that you don't even understand
What you said makes no sense from a technical or legal standoint
Unsigned code and antitrust lawsuits have no connection. There is no barrier (not even price) to getting your code signed.
Forcing
Forcing unsigned code to run in a sandboxed environment is a huge security boost
Sandboxing does not kill performance the way you described. IE on Vista runs sandboxed. It's slower than Firefx, sure, but it's not a dog
Even if MS forces this policy, its unlikely that it will have a major impact on programs we use everyday. There is absolutely no reason why Adobe/Apple/ cannot get their code signed. It makes things safe for the end-user to know that what they are installing has not been tampered with. And it makes it safe for the OS to know that a module it is loading has not been tampered with. That being the case, only very random/sundry utils you download from the net will run sandboxed (for example, say, md5sum.exe or some random cd-burning utility from download.com). Trusting these blindly isn't wise in the fisrt place. Second, their performance isn't critical and it won't really be affected anyway.
That said, I don't know where you got this little nugget from -- I've not seen any news that confirms this. But you might want to actually suggest it to MS -- it seems like a damn good idea.
I loved the movie, and I loved the book. They both brought a couple of interesting and different perspectives and are awesome works individually or together.
One thing in the book that I never quite understood was where Mercerism fit into the grand scheme of things. But I absolutely loved the conversations where Deckard starts doubting his own humanity and is completely disgusted at the thought that he might be a replicant! And the moral dilemma he goes through as he starts falling for Rachel Rosen..
And then in the movie (the director's cut version) when Roy Baty has the chance to kill Rick Decard (and he himself is about to die) instead he saves Decards life and tells him about the sights he's seen etc. -- and you realize that for all the portrayal of Baty as a dangerous replicant -- all he really wants is to live a complete life. The only reason he killed Eldon Tyrell was because of the way Tyrell had played god in such a cruel manner with the replicants (by bringing them to life, but with such an unbearable limitation).
---
"Tick tock, time to die" -- Roy Baty, just before dying.
I call BS on that link (Joel on Software) -- the author is not an expert on fonts and he flip flops on this topic in blog posts that are less than 24 hours apart.
I also call BS on Apple's so-called 'philosophy' of how fonts should look - that line is came from either their marketing department or their fan base.
The Reason the "preserve the font design" claim is BS:
The claim is, that Apple is attempting to be true to the font's design
Safari renders Georgia/Verdana/Tahoma (everything) with the same fuzziness compared to Window's crisp look
As you can see here and here, Microsoft was responsible for the design of these fonts (they hired the designer to create them for the specific purpose of on-screen readability)
So if Apple is trying to be true to the font's design, how come they don't render these fonts exactly the same way as Windows? Windows rendition should be the reference in this case.
The Reason "its supposed to be closer to what it looks like in print" is BS:
When doing work that is intended for print, you would be using something like photoshop, or pagemaker or any one of the many graphics or desktop publishing softwares out there
S/w intended for this purpose does it's own font rendering - it doesn't rely on the OS for this
At all other times you are using s/w that is intended for the screen first and foremost, and print next (for example, I print less than 0.01% of the web pages I visit, practically never print anything that comprises the menus or other UI elements, print less than 0.001% of my email, docs, code, IM conversations, etc. etc.
Even allowing for the Mac's heritage with desktop publishing and graphic design -- the average Mac user probably prints less than 20% (less than 1 in 5) of the things she views on the Mac's screen
That being the case, the 80% use-case is blindingly obvious -- Apple knows exactly what to optimize for (or at least they should)
Yet, they do nothing to improve their font rendering and their fan base continues to defend their inexplicable choices (as seen from the posts on this thread on/.)..
Dude!
a company cannot guarantee that a product will have no security bugs This is true and applies to the beta, and even to the final release. But that's the only thing you got right.
In general security bugs _are_ harder to find than other bugs - they're right up there with multithreading related bugs as being the bloody hardest to find (threading/timing related bugs are actually worse because once you find the symptom, you could still be hours/days away from knowing the cause (the bug itself)
This still doesn't change the fact that there are standard attack vectors that must be tried, code audits, best practices that must be followed to avoid coming up with a product that is, basically, insecure
The number of remote execution bugs (4) found within 24 hours (within 8 to be precise) of the announcement indicate strongly that these practices have not been followed. Does this remind you of a certain other company? It should!
Well, that's not entirely true. I have two 120 DPI displays -- one is a 1920x1600 22" desktop monitor and the other is a 1680x1050 15.4" laptop. (both set to default 96dpi fonts). Screen real estate is really important to me -- I want to see as much email/code in a screen possible. The sharp look helps achieve that because it helps render fonts better at small sizes.
I guess more importantly, auto-hinting isn't really distorting the font. It's applying pre-calculated anti-aliasing to it that helps render the font better than what the algorithm would do. So it's a rendering aid plus a performance optimization. The auto-hinting data (stored in the font file) can be adjusted to give the fuzzy look if desired. That's not done because that's not what the font is supposed to look like.
Wow! This thread is the largest exercise in hypocracy I've ever seen. All these posters defending Apple embedding personal data in tracks are the same people who are ready to yell bloody murder when they heard about three days/three plays for the Zune. Have you guys completely lost it??
Think about this. Your personal data is embedded in songs you purchase:
What if your iPod is stolen and music from that is uploaded? You're fried for absolutely no fault of your own
If removing the personal data is as simple as using a IDv3 tag editor or Hex editor as people have claimed -- any pirate would just remove the data before uploading it -- i.e. embedding personal data is pointless. In that case, why expose your legit customers to the risk (from the point above)?
Everything in the first point applies to general security holes as well -- your iPhone/iPod/AppleTV/PC/whatever could be hacked and the next thing you know, you're the RIAA's next target
Now even if you think this isn't the end of the world, you gotta be pretty brainwashed if you don't think that for the consumer, this is a Bad Thing (to some degree or the other)
And then compare that with the way everybody wanted to just rip MS a new one for daring to put the 3 days 3 plays restriction on zune-to-zune song transfers:
Any song you transfer -- MS has no way of knowing where it came from (unless you looneys are ok with them looking up your personal data that iTunes embedded in the track) -- so how can they not DRM protect it without exposing themselves to a big RIAA lawsuit? (for that matter, the RIAA itself must have arm-twisted them into it in the first place)
What's the very worst that could happen from 3 days/3 plays? Consumers might find the limitation inconvenient to the point that they basically never use it. Well -- that still doesn't compromise your personal information in any way -- which is a very tolerable worst case.
Sadly, slashdot (and the world in general) seems to have completely lost it's objectivity.. this post is doomed to be scored 0, never looked at by moderators, thought of as anti-Apple pro-MS trolling, and everybody will continue to believe that DRM is evil incarnate. Unless it's done by Apple.
It's very important to note that this is not the Indian Government issuing some decree to close down net cafes. This is a relatively marginal/local political party from a single state in India (Maharashtra) that is making these demands (or perhaps threats is a better word). Don't equate this with say, the Chinese govt. removing all references to Tienanmen square wherever they can -- that stuff doesn't fly in India. Even this won't for that matter - nobody is going to acquiesce to these stupid demands.
To give you some perspective -- its similar to Bush's loony idea to have intelligent design taught in schools. Except that the Shiv Sena (the political party that is trying to block Orkut) doesn't have anywhere close to the sort of support the Republicans have -- they will never be able to expand (significantly) beyond their one state and are generally a disliked party (there are, of course, exceptions that prove the rule).
Read it, and you will know all you need to about this article.
I'll say it again. TFA is not news. It's just been a dry day for MS-bashing on/. so something stupid had to be posted.
If you read the blog properly you would realize the argument is really simple:
MS makes VS Express available for the masses that do programming as a hobby
MS makes no money off VS Express
Hence MS needs to differentiate between VS Express and other editions (from which they make money)
Prohibiting add-ons is one way of doing that
MS has many (and much bigger/commercial) parters in the VS ecosystem
If MS allows Jamie to break the rules - why should the other partners play by them?
If the other partners stop playing by the rules (and write extensions for VS express) one of the distinguishing points between VS Express and other editions is lost. Result: lost revenue
They asked nicely for over two years and now they're gonna go after the dude for making the add-on available for VS Express
Now you can debate business models, open source paradigms, yada yada but the fact of the matter is, without VS Jamie had nothing to write an extension for. Why can't he play by the rules?
There's also the mindset of "Jamie is small fry -- MS going after him is just pure sadism". See the point above about the mushrooming effect this can have with other partners. Jamies action has the potential to cause a negative financial impact to MS. Why should they take that risk?
Bottom line: TFA is not really news. It's been a dry day for MS bashing on/. so something stupid had to be posted..
I'm sure microsoft has enough money to buy it. Hell, I fucking HATE microsoft and I'd still sell it to them for a hundred million or so. If they're serious about the brand they'd buy it. Or get their lawyers to cook up some reason why the current owners are infringing on their trademarks or something and sue them out of existence to get the domain.
It shows a real lack of dedication on the part of microsoft. And the moment they follow your suggestion you'll yell bloody murder at the convicted monopolist using strong-arm tactics. Sheesh.
Yes, I totally understand that your post was not biased/anti-Indian. In fact I agreed with most of it. It was the moderation that upset me. Kind of like the last straw after seeing two years of crappy moderation on/.
About the H1 issue itself, I'm on an H1 too - and in a previous job I worked with some 'consultants' with seriously dubious competency. So I agree that the H1 program gets misused. But these consultants were from a very small startup in the Detroit area. The people (vendors rather than consultants) from Infosys (India-based, came to the US on a B visa), and Wipro were leagues ahead of those guys.
Whatever the case might be, it wasn't your post that was the problem -- I'm just sick of crappy moderation, that's all..
Actually that may not be the case. IIRC Software Assurance customers will only be able to install the Enterprise edition as opposed to Home Premium or Ultimate. TFA states that 78% of sales came from the higher valued SKUs. That means less than 22% of the 40 mil. Vista purchases came from the SA program.
Man, I'm tired of slashdot. This used to be a site worth reading a few years ago. The bias I'm complaining about?
Parent's post basically goes:
I am an Indian citizen and I absolutely support this inquiry. The companies mentioned here (WIPRO, Infosys, TCS etc) definitely exploit H1b... And it gets modded informative!! Can someone please point out the information in the post?. The post itself is fine, and contains some anecdotal evidence (the rest of the post) but still it gets modded up -- for towing the line!
Now if you look at the history of parent's posts he's usually been ignored by the mods, or modded "Troll" (for totally non-offensive posts) etc. The reason? Most of his posts seem supportive, or mildly supportive of Microsoft. Of course, you have to be a troll if you support MS.
It's become really clear to me that/. is no longer a forum for intelligent geeks. If you want to participate and have your voice heard here, you have to be:
hardcore anti MS
hardcore anti DRM (even legit uses of it included -- ppl should be free to pirate any shit they want to -- everything should just be based on trust)
hardcore pro Apple
hardcore anti outsourcing, especially if its India/Indians in getting the jobs
Well, you have to admit he's got skills since he pretty much wrote Microsoft's basic compiler. Whatever you might think of basic as a language, it takes an above-average developer to write a compiler. Heck, parsers by themselves can be pretty darn tough to get right..
Slashdot Mirror
This is really more of the same arbitrary justice that make software patents a bad idea in the first place
How so? MS paid Fraunhoffer for the patents (as did the rest of the tech industry) which were co-developed by Fraunhoffer, Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T. If Fraunhoffer was not the right authority to license these patents, Alcatel should have sued them for falsely representing themselves as such. That makes sense, and that's the nutshell version of what the Judge ruled.
Their prowess in court only strengthens their position as lord and master.
Your hatred of MS is blinding your objectivity, and even your desire to seek the truth. MS adopted patents as a defensive strategy (see this 1991 memo from Bill Gates http://www.bralyn.net/etext/literature/bill.gates/ challenges-strategy.txt. Even back then he seemed to understand the ramifications of software patents better than anyone else. Also note his referencing of this memo calling out the dangers of software patents: http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/against-software-pat ents.html. The honesty of his stance and clarity of vision is something his critics here should take note of.
What you have to understand is that M$ itself is a patent troll.
What you have to understand is that MS did not (and still does not) have the lobbying power to change the retarded patent system. Don't blame them for playing by the rules and making the best of the hand they are dealt with. The OSS movement has more power because the entire industry is rallying behind it - but MS has an obligation to its shareholders to not become a part of that movement - linux on the desktop threatens to erode MS's core business. It's really that simple..
Almost all of their software has come from predatory acquisitions but the market has dried up because people are no longer willing to risk their money in the business where M$ can crush them. You must have noticed that all of the innovative companies, Google, Wikipedia, Facebook and others are all using gnu/linux and avoiding the desktop in order to make money. M$ has built themselves a patent war-chest to assail those businesses, and has been instrumental in setting up business method and other stupid patents. Others have taken advantage of the situation, but that does not make M$ any less culpable.
You conveniently left Apple of the list of 'innovators'. Apple is extremely innovative, they do not avoid the desktop and they have a patent war-chest. Naturally it was inconvenient for you to mention them. Google has its share of patents as well. It's really rich of you to think that Google will ever donate any of its search-related patents to OSS. They will donate any patents that help erode MS's core business. They will hold on to any patents that help them maintain their core business (search). Are we to hate them for that? Absolutely not -- it's good strategy. But hating MS for the same behavior makes you a hypocrite.
No additional certainty has been added to the market that can benefit anyone. The case is far from settled but it has already cost both companies boatloads of money. Only the largest companies could weather that kind of storm and this will keep investors and small companies out of the business.
Finally some sense. And while this is true, think about a world without patents -- how will any small company prevent an MS/Apple/Google/IBM from using/reverse-engineering/copying/whatever thier work and eroding thier business? I'm not a fan of the current patent system but I don't think getting rid of software patents is the answer. The very purpose of patents is to protect the incentive to innovate. Whether the solution lies in better screening so that fewer 'obvious' things become
Why did parent get modded redundant?? There's good info in his post. It really looks like anything going against the hive-mind gets slapped down on /. these days..
Please keep your geek card - we need more geeks like you.
I too get upset when people drag the gates foundation into these pissing contests. And I can't think of a better person than Bill Gates to do that sort of work. It takes many things to succeed the way MS has. You need good strategy, strong partnerships, and you need to be able to meet your objectives with whatever hand you have. He's proven capable of that time and again. With his mind, tenacity, and money, I think when all is said he will have done more for the good of this world (through the Gates Foundation) than all of /. combined.
The speech he gave at Harvard (http://www.gatesfoundation.org/MediaCenter/Speech es/Co-ChairSpeeches/BillgSpeeches/BGSpeechHarvard- 070607.htm) gave me more hope than I have gotten from any political leader ever. If people in govt. had that kind of clarity of vision, and spoke thier minds like that, the world would really be a better place.
Btw: here's an interview of Tom Rickner (the guy MS contracted to design Verdana, Arial etc.). Has some interesting nuggets of info in it:
http://www.will-harris.com/msfont-hint.htm
I strongly agree with all your fair use scenarios -- these should be possible for people to do.
My point was more along these lines:
- Current DRM limits fair-use.
- Current DRM locks-in customers by limiting interoperability.
But at the same time:
- p2p & abundant bandwidth make piracy (copyright violation) ridiculously easy
- relying on 'good faith' is not practical. Pricing models can't fix everything given the above point.
That being the case - we should give up on trying to have DRM abolished altogether. That's a losing battle. And it's an unfair outcome for 'the other side'. They hold all the cards (they create the product) so they're not going to agree to it no matter what. If the RIAA caves in, the MPAA will not.
The battle we should be fighting is for interoperability. We need legislation that prevents DRM from being used for lock-in and prevention of fair use (all the scenarios you mentioned should work). Congress should have stepped in and clubbed all companies responsible for various DRM schemes on the head by now. Starting with regional encoding for DVDs, all the way to FairPlay and PlaysForSure. But they either don't care, or they've been bought. We (consumers) have only two options now, and we need to pursue both of them vigorously. One is class action lawsuits against companies that refuse to ensure interoperability of their DRM schemes. And the second is by voting with our wallets -- refuse to buy anything with DRM encumbrance. And to make it clear that if the DRM scheme in use guaranteed interoperability, we would use it.
The biggest problem right now is iTunes. 3 Billion songs and counting. We
Not trying to be a troll. But I strongly disagree with the hive-mind about DRM being as hopeless as the comments proclaim.
Frist off, digital piracy isn't that different from brick-and-mortar piracy -- sellers will always try to find ways to prevent theft, and those who want to pirate stuff will always find ways to circumvent the checks. This is human nature and the it'll probably never change.
Second, while we (rightly) think that the RIAA could save itself a lot of effort by revamping its model, that argument doesn't scale to other media. For example, movies. Movies are expensive to make, and don't sell in the same volumes as songs. The RIAA might easily solve its problems by moving to an AllOfMp3-like model, and pricing structure. But the MPAA won't be able to do the same -- charging 10 cents a movie will mean that they need to sell about 150 times the volume to make similar profits. Charging even $4 a movie will be enough incentive for people to go back to bittorrent. So clearly, its a never-ending tug of war, and while we think the RIAA/MPAA should in good faith adjust it's pricing model etc. the MPAA (at least) can't rely on the same good faith from its customers.
But of course, the RIAA and MPAA are not blameless. And neither are Apple and MS and anyone else creating DRM schemes for multimedia formats (in fact, perhaps the Apple and MS folk are more guily than the RIAA/MPAA. Thier real sin is, they are trying to exploit a side-effect of DRM by not openly licensing thier DRM schemes and not making them interoperable/platform-agnostic. They have seen the side-effect of locking in customers by not licensing thier DRM schemes and by using proprietary formats, and they're frothing at the mouth with the possibilities of locking in customers, and getting duplicate revenues from those that do defect.
At one point, I was actually willing to give MS some props for trying to rally the industry around a single DRM scheme (PlaysForSure) and keeping the API for it open. The lack of PlaysForSure on Macs and Linux is a big problem, and using WMA is a bigger problem, but the real sin was when they came out with yet another DRM system for the Zune. (Unless their PlaysForSure contracts made it a necessity by stipulating that MS will never come out with a PlaysForSure device or something like that - I wonder).
And Apples fault is in how they choose to license FairPlay. They seem to have some arbitrary 'coolness factor' that needs to be met before they license FairPlay (which they do license out). For example, it's clear that the Xbox ppl have given iPod integration a lot of importance, and they must surely have approached Apple to license Fairplay so that even protected songs could be streamed to the 360 from a PC/Mac or iPod. The fact that this doesn't work today can only be because Apple did not license FairPlay. A terrible sin, for what would have been a very cool and easy to use feature. They did not think about the benefit to their users first -- they thought about lock-in instead.
This is really what's wrong with DRM today. Companies are having a field day with trying to lock in consumers, and not giving any thought to enabling them to use thier property in as many fair ways as possible. The focus is completely on lock-in, and disabling, rather than enabling, and maintianing an audit trail without hindering.
The solution might come from the market, in time. But for that people need to be very vigilant about shunning DRM schemes until these companies learn thier lesson and start inter-oprating with each other. That doesn't look like its happening anytime soon -- what with iTunes downloads crossing the 3 billion mark the other day. Consumers only have themselves to blame if they endorse DRM in this manner.
The solution might come faster through litigation. Either through class action lawsuits (iTunes customers who want to migrate so a non-apple mp3 player, who get pissed because thier collections are now worthless), or Congress (ve
Bitlocker, EFS (encrypted file system) also come to mind as being very business-oriented features. I'm sure there's lots more that I just don't know about.
I don't think UAC is a security feature so much as a means to an end. I think third-party developer's habits of creating all apps to require admin access was killing MS from a security perspective. UAC should train people to stop doing that. In any case, I've been using Vista for months now, and after the initial configuration stabilized I didn't ever see the prompt again.
Remember -- for every one of us on slashdot that sees an ad or press release and instinctively knows what questions to ask -- there are at least 10 people who have no clue, and just take the ad at face value.
Much much worse - what if I'm trying to use my ipod with a linux computer? This is like a DRM infection all over again..
Friend,
Your criticisms are unfounded. 64-bit Windows runs 32-bit applications completely transparently for the end user (as you requested). I am running 64-bit Vista Ultimate and Office 2007 (which is a 32-bit application). At no point during the installation of Vista or Office did I have to be concerned with the fact that my OS was 64-bit, or that my application was 32-bits. Same case with any 32-bit programs/utilites I am running on this machine, whether authored by MS or not.
Now as a coder I know that this is not 100% transparent for developers (for example, you will have to deal with the wow6432node in the registry, your system dlls will be stored in syswow64 instead of system32 -- but that's transparent to the end user, who was the focus of your posting.
Further, you're not correct in saying that code-signing is a DRM-issue more than a security issue. Code signing gives you two assurances:
- the code came from the entity you think it came from
- the code was not tampered with en route to you
For signing the code, you seem to be suggesting a situation where MS says "we won't sign your code because we don't like what it does". They do not actually have that control. They are not the ones who sign the code. It's Verisign or another root CA (Certificate Authority) that does that. They do not consult MS to ask them "should we go ahead and sign this code". You pay them and provide the necessary evidence of your identity and they will sign your code.
Code signing is simply a PKI based mechanism to verify that modules have not been tampered with. It's extremely important from a security point of view. I'm not familiar with OS-X but I'll be very surprised if OS-X doesn't have infrastructure for verifying code signing -- does that make it evil in any way? Absolutely not! Even Linux should include infrastructure for maintainging a trusted cert. hierarchy and code signing (if it does not already).
The fee to be paid to Verisign (or some Certificate Authority) is not a barrier to entry. And it certainly isn' a barrier put up by MS.
Sandboxing is about limiting the priviliges and resources a module can access. This, again, is good for security. If a modules digital signature cannot be verified, how do you know if it is trustworthy? You don't even know if this module does what it claims to do (until you attempt to run it - at which point it might be too late to save your butt). Currently, when you download an unsigned binary from the net, IE will warn you and give you an option of running it anyway (it's unwise to do so if you don't have good reason, but you have the option). I don't understand what you're complaining about given this fact.
And if you're claiming that in the future, MS is going to run usigned code in a sandbox by default, I say:
- Unsigned code and antitrust lawsuits have no connection. There is no barrier (not even price) to getting your code signed.
- Forcing unsigned code to run in a sandboxed environment is a huge security boost
- Sandboxing does not kill performance the way you described. IE on Vista runs sandboxed. It's slower than Firefx, sure, but it's not a dog
- Even if MS forces this policy, its unlikely that it will have a major impact on programs we use everyday. There is absolutely no reason why Adobe/Apple/ cannot get their code signed. It makes things safe for the end-user to know that what they are installing has not been tampered with. And it makes it safe for the OS to know that a module it is loading has not been tampered with. That being the case, only very random/sundry utils you download from the net will run sandboxed (for example, say, md5sum.exe or some random cd-burning utility from download.com). Trusting these blindly isn't wise in the fisrt place. Second, their performance isn't critical and it won't really be affected anyway.
That said, I don't know where you got this little nugget from -- I've not seen any news that confirms this. But you might want to actually suggest it to MS -- it seems like a damn good idea.Forcing
I loved the movie, and I loved the book. They both brought a couple of interesting and different perspectives and are awesome works individually or together.
One thing in the book that I never quite understood was where Mercerism fit into the grand scheme of things. But I absolutely loved the conversations where Deckard starts doubting his own humanity and is completely disgusted at the thought that he might be a replicant! And the moral dilemma he goes through as he starts falling for Rachel Rosen..
And then in the movie (the director's cut version) when Roy Baty has the chance to kill Rick Decard (and he himself is about to die) instead he saves Decards life and tells him about the sights he's seen etc. -- and you realize that for all the portrayal of Baty as a dangerous replicant -- all he really wants is to live a complete life. The only reason he killed Eldon Tyrell was because of the way Tyrell had played god in such a cruel manner with the replicants (by bringing them to life, but with such an unbearable limitation).
---
"Tick tock, time to die" -- Roy Baty, just before dying.
I call BS on that link (Joel on Software) -- the author is not an expert on fonts and he flip flops on this topic in blog posts that are less than 24 hours apart.
I also call BS on Apple's so-called 'philosophy' of how fonts should look - that line is came from either their marketing department or their fan base.
The Reason the "preserve the font design" claim is BS:
The Reason "its supposed to be closer to what it looks like in print" is BS:
Yet, they do nothing to improve their font rendering and their fan base continues to defend their inexplicable choices (as seen from the posts on this thread on /.)..
Well, that's not entirely true. I have two 120 DPI displays -- one is a 1920x1600 22" desktop monitor and the other is a 1680x1050 15.4" laptop. (both set to default 96dpi fonts). Screen real estate is really important to me -- I want to see as much email/code in a screen possible. The sharp look helps achieve that because it helps render fonts better at small sizes.
I guess more importantly, auto-hinting isn't really distorting the font. It's applying pre-calculated anti-aliasing to it that helps render the font better than what the algorithm would do. So it's a rendering aid plus a performance optimization. The auto-hinting data (stored in the font file) can be adjusted to give the fuzzy look if desired. That's not done because that's not what the font is supposed to look like.
Think about this. Your personal data is embedded in songs you purchase:
Now even if you think this isn't the end of the world, you gotta be pretty brainwashed if you don't think that for the consumer, this is a Bad Thing (to some degree or the other)
And then compare that with the way everybody wanted to just rip MS a new one for daring to put the 3 days 3 plays restriction on zune-to-zune song transfers:
Sadly, slashdot (and the world in general) seems to have completely lost it's objectivity.. this post is doomed to be scored 0, never looked at by moderators, thought of as anti-Apple pro-MS trolling, and everybody will continue to believe that DRM is evil incarnate. Unless it's done by Apple.
It's very important to note that this is not the Indian Government issuing some decree to close down net cafes. This is a relatively marginal/local political party from a single state in India (Maharashtra) that is making these demands (or perhaps threats is a better word). Don't equate this with say, the Chinese govt. removing all references to Tienanmen square wherever they can -- that stuff doesn't fly in India. Even this won't for that matter - nobody is going to acquiesce to these stupid demands. To give you some perspective -- its similar to Bush's loony idea to have intelligent design taught in schools. Except that the Shiv Sena (the political party that is trying to block Orkut) doesn't have anywhere close to the sort of support the Republicans have -- they will never be able to expand (significantly) beyond their one state and are generally a disliked party (there are, of course, exceptions that prove the rule).
Read it, and you will know all you need to about this article. I'll say it again. TFA is not news. It's just been a dry day for MS-bashing on /. so something stupid had to be posted.
Now you can debate business models, open source paradigms, yada yada but the fact of the matter is, without VS Jamie had nothing to write an extension for. Why can't he play by the rules?
There's also the mindset of "Jamie is small fry -- MS going after him is just pure sadism". See the point above about the mushrooming effect this can have with other partners. Jamies action has the potential to cause a negative financial impact to MS. Why should they take that risk?
Bottom line: TFA is not really news. It's been a dry day for MS bashing on
It shows a real lack of dedication on the part of microsoft. And the moment they follow your suggestion you'll yell bloody murder at the convicted monopolist using strong-arm tactics. Sheesh.
Yes, I totally understand that your post was not biased/anti-Indian. In fact I agreed with most of it. It was the moderation that upset me. Kind of like the last straw after seeing two years of crappy moderation on /.
About the H1 issue itself, I'm on an H1 too - and in a previous job I worked with some 'consultants' with seriously dubious competency. So I agree that the H1 program gets misused. But these consultants were from a very small startup in the Detroit area. The people (vendors rather than consultants) from Infosys (India-based, came to the US on a B visa), and Wipro were leagues ahead of those guys.
Whatever the case might be, it wasn't your post that was the problem -- I'm just sick of crappy moderation, that's all..
Actually that may not be the case. IIRC Software Assurance customers will only be able to install the Enterprise edition as opposed to Home Premium or Ultimate. TFA states that 78% of sales came from the higher valued SKUs. That means less than 22% of the 40 mil. Vista purchases came from the SA program.
Parent's post basically goes: I am an Indian citizen and I absolutely support this inquiry. The companies mentioned here (WIPRO, Infosys, TCS etc) definitely exploit H1b... And it gets modded informative!! Can someone please point out the information in the post?. The post itself is fine, and contains some anecdotal evidence (the rest of the post) but still it gets modded up -- for towing the line!
Now if you look at the history of parent's posts he's usually been ignored by the mods, or modded "Troll" (for totally non-offensive posts) etc. The reason? Most of his posts seem supportive, or mildly supportive of Microsoft. Of course, you have to be a troll if you support MS.
It's become really clear to me that
- hardcore anti MS
- hardcore anti DRM (even legit uses of it included -- ppl should be free to pirate any shit they want to -- everything should just be based on trust)
- hardcore pro Apple
- hardcore anti outsourcing, especially if its India/Indians in getting the jobs
- etc..
Screw you guys, I'm going home..Well, you have to admit he's got skills since he pretty much wrote Microsoft's basic compiler. Whatever you might think of basic as a language, it takes an above-average developer to write a compiler. Heck, parsers by themselves can be pretty darn tough to get right..