You pick the source you want to read about the story. Perhaps you might stop to think that not all the bad or flippant comments about MS are posted by people simply out to bash MS. Some of them are deserved and well earned comments. I know you're upset about MS. Who isn't? But slow down, breathe, note the Funny mod on the GP post. It was a joke. A pun. A play on words and not a bad one either.
Sometimes the only thing to do when MS comes along, steals tech from OLPC, "borrows" the look and feel of KDE and releases a half ass tech preview of something that will probably end up being as useful as Plays for Sure is to laugh.
Standard disclaimer: All of the above is rampant speculation based on history, current news and other/. posts. I have no idea which , if any, of the above statements are true. (although I suspect they all are).
Actually, "Anonymous Coward" isn't an actual user, it's the default name to anyone posting anonymously. Hence my user name - I take no responsibility for all the other AC posts! Well gee that explains a lot! Thanks AC.
See everyone, not everything Anonymous Coward says is trolling or useless. Stop being so hard on this guy.
Why do people feel they can trust google and apple and not microsoft? They all have the same end goal and they all share the same 'evil' practices in one way or another... Personally, out of innate paranoia, I don't trust any of them or any other big corps for that matter. But I could be the most blindly trusting individual in the world and not miss the writing on the wall about MS. And besides, evil done by another is never an excuse for evil done by yourself. If Apple and/or Google are involved in shady, underhanded, "evil" practices that doesn't suddenly make it OK for MS to do it. And vice versa.
Be nicer when they support mac as well. Maybe they can get ISO to turn it into a standard so we can get an open source implementation as well. I hear MS has a nice, tight relationship with ISO so it's possible.:-)
I pretty much agree with the sentiment of your post. But everything you state applies to regular companies and individuals in the market place; not to convicted monopolies.
If there is a catch, a corruption shoe on the other foot that leads back to some type of cronyism on the part of this minister then that sucks and you're absolutely correct that that's not right either. And hopefully, if discovered, this drops the issue right then and there.
But until I hear otherwise I will take this stance by an EU member at face value and see if the EU has the guts to follow through. They convicted MS. They need to follow through or there isn't less justice; there is no justice.
Add this to the fact that certain shooping-mall already forbid you to wear anything on your head (so you can't hide your face to the camera) Has anyone tried to sue the operators of these malls on grounds of discrimination? People in some faiths must cover at least part of their heads, and people undergoing some kinds of cancer treatment lose their hair and need to cover up the chrome-dome with some sort of cap or hat. I imagine they handle these types of things on a case by case basis with exceptions for the people you describe being the rule.
Not to say that some jerk in some mall won't go power-tripping one day and ask someone to do it but between the majority being quietly overlooked and the few that aren't overlooked probably happen to a lot of people that just decide to comply or leave the mall.
But when/if it comes to what you describe will be an interesting case to follow.
Our employees are hooked on Outlook, journals especially (I loathe them, space eating buggers) so we keep exchange chugging along and a couple of domain controllers.
You should check out Citadel. Open source, does most of the things Exchange does (plus a few things Exchange doesn't do), plus there's an Outlook connector available. I actually have checked this out via their virtual machine appliance.
This looks like the closest to what we need so far. Very promising.
Data migration from one to the other will be our biggest challenge but at the very least there is always export to csv - import/transfrom with perl.
Yeah, I checked it out. They don't tell you much on the site...
Although I'm sure their implementation is a good thing for some bigger companies my IT department is just looking for third party tools to get the job done. We don't get the oppurtunity to do much programming on windows.
On the other hand we have had a lot of success replacing windows in the server room with Debian boxes. Pretty much everything but mail runs on them now and we do get the oppurtunity to write some code on these. Mostly scripts, a smattering of c just because I can't resist some times. We don't use java much.
Our employees are hooked on Outlook, journals especially (I loathe them, space eating buggers) so we keep exchange chugging along and a couple of domain controllers. Everyone except IT uses windows, IT uses linux and virtual machines for supporting windows in the workplace and all OS's that our products are used with (which is pretty much windows2k+/macOSX+/linux kernal 2.4+).
The browser interface is broken on Iceweasel for me. I thought at first that all the pages had for now was a bunch of disclaimers. Turns out this is just the first page of each document. I, for the life of me, could not see a way to go to the next page. The side table of contents doesn't work either.
But every doc is available as a PDF and you can grab whole sections in zip files. I found it interesting that they chose a cross platform format like PDF and didn't try to shove Word Docs at the world or their MDI(?) format, their supposed PDF killer.
Anyway the legalese is vague and scary for now...
Intellectual Property Rights Notice for Protocol Documentation
Copyrights. This protocol documentation is covered by Microsoft copyrights.
Regardless of any other terms that are contained in the terms of use for the
Microsoft website that hosts this documentation, you may make copies of it in
order to develop implementations of the protocols, and may distribute portions
of it in your implementations of the protocols or your documentation as
necessary to properly document the implementation. This permission also
applies to any documents that are referenced in the protocol documentation.
No Trade Secrets. Microsoft does not claim any trade secret rights in this
documentation.
* Patents. Microsoft has patents that may cover your implementations of the
protocols. Neither this notice nor Microsoft's delivery of the documentation
grants any licenses under those or any other Microsoft patents. However, the
protocols may be covered by Microsoftâ(TM)s Open Specification Promise (available
here: http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp). If you would prefer a written
license, or if the protocols are not covered by the OSP, patent licenses are
available by contacting protocol@microsoft.com.
Trademarks. The names of companies and products contained in this
documentation may be covered by trademarks or similar intellectual property
rights. This notice does not grant any licenses under those rights.
Reservation of Rights. All other rights are reserved, and this notice does not
grant any rights other than specifically described above, whether by
implication, estoppel, or otherwise. * emphaisis mine
I have to admit I'm tempted to be interested in the Exchange stuff. The company I work for uses it. As with most MS products it's not, um, horrible, when it's working but it's a PITA to troubleshoot problems. The MAPI Tool for looking at the "innards" is horrible. Maybe this documentation will at least spawn some better third party management tools that I can convince my employer to buy.
For now most pages (all?) are prefaced with:
[This topic is preliminary documentation and is subject to change in future documentation releases.] I haven't had a chance to search out legalese to answer the summary's question on open source friendlyness.
I figure a "hope-for-the-best-expect-the-worst" attitude is the best way to approach this one...
But these changes are too much and since the system doesn't revert back to a safer format, they are extremely disruptive. Since when is reading/. anything but disruptive? It certainly disrupts my work day a lot...
...and I hope that someday the open source community will all collectively read "Don't Make Me Think" or some other good text on usability and take the lessons to heart. Someone did. They're called Canonical.
And the day that *all* Linux distros decide to do this is when Linux will have lost it's appeal to its core users.
IT people mean "It works so well it is invisible" Money people mean "It doesn't have to work, but all the cogs have to be visible" I don't know about "money people" but to me transparancy means I can see what's inside. It is the opposite of "invisible, it just works". That's "black box". A black box does something, hopefully it does it well, but you don't get to see how or what it is doing. A transparent system allows you to flip switches, ramp up debugging or throw edge, test cases at it in an intuitive way so you can "see" what is going on. If a system is transparent then it is much eaiser, even for laymen, to troubleshoot and identify problems.
I tend to think this is what Ballmer meant but as others have said I see this as so much marketing speak. Frankly I will beleive that Microsoft will operate in a transparent manner when I see it. ( pun intended:-)
But my point is that it won't because DD makes exact duplicates. If their is DRM in a file DD will faithfully reproduce it.
I love to burn a CD to an image using dd. It's fast, easy and doesn't require any other software. But it doesn't work with protected game CDs. It generally fails when it hits the "dead" spots or the deliberately corrupted spots. Or whatever it is people do to muck up a CD in order to "protect" it. dd is not CloneCD and if using dd works to copy something then the creator of the original probably intended for it to be copyable*.
* intended to be copyable as opposed intended to be copied. There are sensible developers/vendors in the world that still rely on copyright law to protect their interests as opposed to some weird form of copy protection.
I've been using something like this for awhile, its called "dd" (run as root for extra goodness). Yes, DD which, as it's name suggests, makes an exact duplicate of whatever it is copying, including whatever DRM is in the file.
And while there are a lot of tools for stripping DRM available Jon is saying he wants to bring it to the masses. To quote (paraphrase?) "I want your parents to be able to do it".
It's not about hacking DRM because it should all be free, it's not about mass distribution of "pirated" (Arhh!) material, it's about making the exercising of fair use rights by consumers as easy as it was with VHS/Cassettes/CDROM (the real CDROM, the one that is allowed to use the logo).
No OS does 100% of what you want though unless you only want to play games, or only want to email or only want to use Photoshop or only need to administer remote servers... etc.
I've bought several computers over the years and even though they keep getting cheaper they still seem expensive to me. As their prices go down my expenses go up so I am just keeping pace by using computers that see at least 5 years before I start looking around for a new one.
Right now Vista doesn't do it for me because I don't have a computer that runs it. OSX doesn't do it for me because I don't want to run their software on my hardware if they don't want me to. And I'm not sure it would anyway. Linux does it for me because it runs on my hardware, well. Not Damn Small Linux, not some floppy install from hell, Ubuntu or Etch, I like them both. Modern, graphics for when I need them, a powerful shell, office apps, web apps, etc. I don't need Photoshop and anyone who says OO.org takes an hour is talking about their experience with StarOffice in the 90's.
But guess what, I do also use XP. Age of Empires II is a favorite of my son and playing over the LAN with him is about the most fun I ever have with a computer... (he's ten).
So, I use one OS to get work done and one to play. And I do it because my primary job is monitoring Linux servers, writing scripts for said servers and basically I need something stable and flexible. All the Firefox, Cygwin, WinSCP, Putty, Open Office, etc in the world doesn't make me feel as productive on Windows as I do on Linux.
Is one better then the other? IMHO, yes. Does that mean sh*t to the next guy? No, choose what works for you. And if it stops working because MS or Apple changed the rules again and you either need to upgrade or do without? Thin about switching to Linux. IN the beginning you'll at least save some cash and in the end you may find you have all the tools you need after all.
All I know is that it certainly seems attract lots of bloodthirsty lunatics who use their religion as an excuse to live up to their murderous nature. Actually that sounds like most religion to me... But I say that without having read most of their holy books.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks. Excuse me if I remain unconvinced.
And you know because.... ? Please, enlighten us.
When MS threatened a unfriendly buyout of Yahoo! is what I'm referring to as Yahoo! Games.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&output=googleabout&btnG=Search+our+site&q=yahoo%20buyout%20microsoft
You pick the source you want to read about the story. Perhaps you might stop to think that not all the bad or flippant comments about MS are posted by people simply out to bash MS. Some of them are deserved and well earned comments. I know you're upset about MS. Who isn't? But slow down, breathe, note the Funny mod on the GP post. It was a joke. A pun. A play on words and not a bad one either.
Sometimes the only thing to do when MS comes along, steals tech from OLPC, "borrows" the look and feel of KDE and releases a half ass tech preview of something that will probably end up being as useful as Plays for Sure is to laugh.
Standard disclaimer: All of the above is rampant speculation based on history, current news and other
Where is the ??? entry and isn't the list supposed to be vertical, not horizontal?
See everyone, not everything Anonymous Coward says is trolling or useless. Stop being so hard on this guy.
And for the first people fired for "uploading" their porn collection to their workstations at their jobs. Prepared. Can't wait!
I pretty much agree with the sentiment of your post. But everything you state applies to regular companies and individuals in the market place; not to convicted monopolies.
If there is a catch, a corruption shoe on the other foot that leads back to some type of cronyism on the part of this minister then that sucks and you're absolutely correct that that's not right either. And hopefully, if discovered, this drops the issue right then and there.
But until I hear otherwise I will take this stance by an EU member at face value and see if the EU has the guts to follow through. They convicted MS. They need to follow through or there isn't less justice; there is no justice.
Not to say that some jerk in some mall won't go power-tripping one day and ask someone to do it but between the majority being quietly overlooked and the few that aren't overlooked probably happen to a lot of people that just decide to comply or leave the mall.
But when/if it comes to what you describe will be an interesting case to follow.
This looks like the closest to what we need so far. Very promising.
Data migration from one to the other will be our biggest challenge but at the
very least there is always export to csv - import/transfrom with perl.
Yeah, I checked it out. They don't tell you much on the site...
Although I'm sure their implementation is a good thing for some bigger companies
my IT department is just looking for third party tools to get the job done. We
don't get the oppurtunity to do much programming on windows.
On the other hand we have had a lot of success replacing windows in the server
room with Debian boxes. Pretty much everything but mail runs on them now and we
do get the oppurtunity to write some code on these. Mostly scripts, a smattering
of c just because I can't resist some times. We don't use java much.
Our employees are hooked on Outlook, journals especially (I loathe them, space
eating buggers) so we keep exchange chugging along and a couple of domain
controllers. Everyone except IT uses windows, IT uses linux and virtual machines
for supporting windows in the workplace and all OS's that our products are used
with (which is pretty much windows2k+/macOSX+/linux kernal 2.4+).
the pages had for now was a bunch of disclaimers. Turns out this is just the
first page of each document. I, for the life of me, could not see a way to go to
the next page. The side table of contents doesn't work either.
But every doc is available as a PDF and you can grab whole sections in zip files.
I found it interesting that they chose a cross platform format like PDF and
didn't try to shove Word Docs at the world or their MDI(?) format, their supposed
PDF killer.
Anyway the legalese is vague and scary for now... Intellectual Property Rights Notice for Protocol Documentation
Copyrights. This protocol documentation is covered by Microsoft copyrights.
Regardless of any other terms that are contained in the terms of use for the
Microsoft website that hosts this documentation, you may make copies of it in
order to develop implementations of the protocols, and may distribute portions
of it in your implementations of the protocols or your documentation as
necessary to properly document the implementation. This permission also
applies to any documents that are referenced in the protocol documentation.
No Trade Secrets. Microsoft does not claim any trade secret rights in this
documentation.
* Patents. Microsoft has patents that may cover your implementations of the
protocols. Neither this notice nor Microsoft's delivery of the documentation
grants any licenses under those or any other Microsoft patents. However, the
protocols may be covered by Microsoftâ(TM)s Open Specification Promise (available
here: http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp). If you would prefer a written
license, or if the protocols are not covered by the OSP, patent licenses are
available by contacting protocol@microsoft.com.
Trademarks. The names of companies and products contained in this
documentation may be covered by trademarks or similar intellectual property
rights. This notice does not grant any licenses under those rights.
Reservation of Rights. All other rights are reserved, and this notice does not
grant any rights other than specifically described above, whether by
implication, estoppel, or otherwise. * emphaisis mine
I have to admit I'm tempted to be interested in the Exchange stuff. The
company I work for uses it. As with most MS products it's not, um, horrible,
when it's working but it's a PITA to troubleshoot problems. The MAPI Tool for
looking at the "innards" is horrible. Maybe this documentation will at least
spawn some better third party management tools that I can convince my employer
to buy.
For now most pages (all?) are prefaced with: [This topic is preliminary documentation and is subject to change in future documentation releases.] I haven't had a chance to search out legalese to answer the summary's question on open source friendlyness.
I figure a "hope-for-the-best-expect-the-worst" attitude is the best way to approach this one...
It's OK, but dashes are so 1987.
...and I hope that someday the open source community will all collectively read "Don't Make Me Think" or some other good text on usability and take the lessons to heart. Someone did. They're called Canonical.And the day that *all* Linux distros decide to do this is when Linux will have lost it's appeal to its core users.
Money people mean "It doesn't have to work, but all the cogs have to be visible" I don't know about "money people" but to me transparancy means I can see what's inside. It is the opposite of "invisible,
it just works". That's "black box". A black box does something, hopefully it does it well, but you don't get to see how
or what it is doing. A transparent system allows you to flip switches, ramp up debugging or throw edge, test cases at
it in an intuitive way so you can "see" what is going on. If a system is transparent then it is much eaiser, even for
laymen, to troubleshoot and identify problems.
I tend to think this is what Ballmer meant but as others have said I see this as so much marketing speak. Frankly I will
beleive that Microsoft will operate in a transparent manner when I see it. ( pun intended
But my point is that it won't because DD makes exact duplicates. If their is DRM in a file DD will faithfully reproduce it.
I love to burn a CD to an image using dd. It's fast, easy and doesn't require any other software. But it doesn't work with protected game CDs. It generally fails when it hits the "dead" spots or the deliberately corrupted spots. Or whatever it is people do to muck up a CD in order to "protect" it. dd is not CloneCD and if using dd works to copy something then the creator of the original probably intended for it to be copyable*.
* intended to be copyable as opposed intended to be copied. There are sensible developers/vendors in the world that still rely on copyright law to protect their interests as opposed to some weird form of copy protection.
And while there are a lot of tools for stripping DRM available Jon is saying he wants to bring it to the masses. To quote (paraphrase?) "I want your parents to be able to do it".
It's not about hacking DRM because it should all be free, it's not about mass distribution of "pirated" (Arhh!) material, it's about making the exercising of fair use rights by consumers as easy as it was with VHS/Cassettes/CDROM (the real CDROM, the one that is allowed to use the logo).
No OS does 100% of what you want though unless you only want to play games, or only want to email or only want to use Photoshop or only need to administer remote servers... etc.
I've bought several computers over the years and even though they keep getting cheaper they still seem expensive to me. As their prices go down my expenses go up so I am just keeping pace by using computers that see at least 5 years before I start looking around for a new one.
Right now Vista doesn't do it for me because I don't have a computer that runs it. OSX doesn't do it for me because I don't want to run their software on my hardware if they don't want me to. And I'm not sure it would anyway. Linux does it for me because it runs on my hardware, well. Not Damn Small Linux, not some floppy install from hell, Ubuntu or Etch, I like them both. Modern, graphics for when I need them, a powerful shell, office apps, web apps, etc. I don't need Photoshop and anyone who says OO.org takes an hour is talking about their experience with StarOffice in the 90's.
But guess what, I do also use XP. Age of Empires II is a favorite of my son and playing over the LAN with him is about the most fun I ever have with a computer... (he's ten).
So, I use one OS to get work done and one to play. And I do it because my primary job is monitoring Linux servers, writing scripts for said servers and basically I need something stable and flexible. All the Firefox, Cygwin, WinSCP, Putty, Open Office, etc in the world doesn't make me feel as productive on Windows as I do on Linux.
Is one better then the other? IMHO, yes. Does that mean sh*t to the next guy? No, choose what works for you. And if it stops working because MS or Apple changed the rules again and you either need to upgrade or do without? Thin about switching to Linux. IN the beginning you'll at least save some cash and in the end you may find you have all the tools you need after all.