You make a good point in support of the parent post. You mentioned Hearts as a great game. Well the only reason so many people can put out Hearts, Mahjong, etc. is that these are public domain. Either they were never "protected" in the first place or have slipped into PD becuase they are so old.
Imagine if someone owned a copyright/patent on the rules for chess. We'd have never been able to enjoy all the hundreds, if not thousands of "implentations" that are chess (E.g. classic board, computer chess, online chess, travel chess with little boards and magnetic pieces).
Not to mention that copyright violations are *infringement* not *theft*.
Ethically speaking you can call it whatever you want. I'm not commenting on the ethics at the moment. But, at least in the US, the legal term for copyright violation is infringment. All the media FUD in the world can't change that. Only, in the US anyway, Congress can change that.
Baically Back Office is just a brand for a single-install set of MS Servers. You get a license for a variety of servers but they all run on one machine and they usually come with some sort of master interface for installing and configuring them.
A company I worked for used Back Office (5, I think) for Windows NT 4.0. It came with NT Server 4, SQL Server 7, Exchange 5 and of course the stuff that comes with NT 4 anyway, IIS and it's accompanying FTP and SMTP services.
I haven't used it but I've heard and read a few things about Windows Server 2003 - Small Business Edition. It does the same thing, just updated the name. From what I understand everything about the server can be configured from a web page interface, including users and security.
Overall it's supposed to be a catch all but cheap solution for small businesses. Not a bad idea in theory really but I always steered clear of it as a) I like to use a single server for each service and b) I really don't like running IIS, even on my LAN.
Finally I beleive that Microsoft uses the term Back Office generically to mean any of their server side technologies, whether that's SMS, IIS or Windows Server. Basically if you don't generally roll it out to all your end users, but your end users connect to it and use it's resources then it's considered back office.
Don't get me wrong, I see your point. And I'm all for openness and transparancy. But coming from MS? Excuse me while I search for ulterior motives. I guess what I was getting at in my previous post is that in legal proceedings there are sometimes good reasons to seal things from the public. If the Commission mandates that something be sealed then MS should honor that, from a legal standpoint. Now after reading the article and then some comments on this I believe I had it wrong earlier and that the EU has sealed it's side of things but never mandated that MS seal theirs. So, if that's the case, then MS didn't do anything wrong here and I agree that in the spirit of fairness maybe the EU should open up too.
But, bottom line, MS didn't rush to publish everything they could about the US antitrust suit on their site. You would never even know it was going on if you looked to MS as the only source of information on it. I just can't believe that their motive is anything but an attempt to build up some artificle sense of outrage from MS fans worldwide and make the EU look bad.
Anyway, I'm in the US, not the EU so I admit I am probably spouting off without enough knowledge on the subject. Mistrust of MS at this point goes a long way toward biasing my opinions.
I think what the parent poster is reffering to is the (alleged) hidden APIs in Windows. You know, the ones that give say Word a slight performance edge over Word Perfect...
Sure, we don't need or usually even want to know how the underlying implementation works but if your going to create an API, why two? One for you and your crew and a, um sub-par, one for everyone else? How is that "transparent"?
I don't think that's Microsoft's decision to make. If an EU court and the commission deems a document confidential then it should remain so. There are number of items related to the SCO/IBM litigation that I would love to have a look at but the courts, under advisement from both parties, make these items confidential.
If Microsoft is going to show so little respect for the EU and the Commission then I don't really see how they expect to work with them diplomatically over settling this.
In my work group, we spend staff meetings keeping track of the jargon used by management. It's interesting to track over time.
If you could come up with an off the shelf component that would make it easy for anyone to track these statistics and graph the results we could see a major, industry wide paradigm shift for both bottom liners *and* buzzword spewers.
Yeah well they also started saying "it was never about cvopyright" when Novell put up a pretty solid case that the copyrights belong to them. Sure they now need to prove it in court but in the meantime it casts a heavy shadow of doubt over SCO's claims. So yep, now it's just about contracts. Well now we'll see if, based on contracts, IBM has been singled out here. I'm guessing that Sun, HP and IBM all have similar contracts that go back to the ATT/USL days.
The bottom line is if SCO wants to sue people over "methods, concepts and ideas" they better sue themselves first. lxrun comes to mind, not to mention oldSCO's participation in the Open Group and their publishing of Unix specs and standards.
No, no. You see, you've upgraded to version 16 of OXML*. He's still using Version 9. (The Obfuscaetd version number is encoded at position 3 and 4, starting at zero of course).
*OXML - Obfuscated eXtensible Markup Language, the binary encoded version of an open standard!
I am probably one of the biggest Linux Fanboys out there, I am not afraid to admit it. And I love to bash on MS.
But when I get serious and talk "right tool for the right job" I would heartily disagree with your feelings about Access.
I began my career in IT on Access (V. 1.1, Win 3). I've loved it ever since. I write all sorts of automation solutions for our company in Access. We use Great Plains and I've saved the company thousands of dollars by creating little, even somewhat crappy, automation routines in Access instead of buying some bloated module for GP that does way more then we need it to. It's quick, easy and gets the job done.
Access and ODBC let me connect to any database I want. I have our web site scp a snapshot of our MySQL databases to a local test copy of the web site. And I use Access to connect to it and run quick & dirty reports and queries. You like SQL Server but Access is not a substitute for MSSQL, it's a compliment to it. You can connect to SQL using Access. I tend to start my projects first in Access so I can carry it around with me while I develop it. When I feel the project is ready for a first release it is very easy to upload all my tables, data and queries to SQL Server and simply link in the new tables. No need to change my forms, reports or code because the linked tables are named the same, they just reside in a more robust and scalable database now that they are deployed.
Access's interface does take some getting used to and VBA is not a Real(TM) programming language but the beauty of VBA is, if you don't like the Access interface, change it using VBA. When I finish an automation solution that keeps some poor SOB in my company from typing the same data into our systems day in and day out the interface he/she uses is far different then that of standard Access.
Bottom line is, it's all about using the right tool for the job and for the small company I work for Access is the right tool in some very key situations.
P.S. I realize there are 100's, if not 1000's of other solutions that do similar things to what I describe above. My company owned Access and MSSQL so that and my familiarity with Access led to my choice.
Hmmm... I am probably risking some fingers by feeding the troll here but I guess I started it so here goes...
How the hell are you a customer if you refuse to view the ads? Ok, first what are you selling? Just because I don't see your ads does not mean I'm not a customer. Tigerdirect sends me flyers (at home and work) and email all the time that go in the garbage the minute I get them. But guess who I buy 90% of my and my company's computers from? All the Dell, Newegg and IBM popups in the world don't change that and if Tigerdirect stopped sending me ads tomorrow I would still buy my stuff from them...
We're supposed to spend time and money to makes sure that self-important leeches like you can see our content? How am I leech? I turn the ads off on/., but I contribute to discussions, have submitted a few stories and even got a geeky kind of thrill asking Cmdr Taco about features on the site through email. I don't see any notices on the front page saying "please don't turn off our ads!" or notices that my JS is turned off and could I please turn it back on so the site can track me better... Again just because I don't spend time looking at ads does not mean I don't buy things. Ad relevance is getting better but most ads on the net are no better then Tampon commercials during a football game.
Let me clarify that we don't actively block our content from people who can't view the ads. That's great. That's how you're *supposed* to do it.
But to go out of our way so "just_another_sean" who's so frickin l33t that he's got his Firefox adblockers and flash and js disablers installed and is gleefully laughing at his free ride can get the full experience of our sites? What again am I missing? This last statement seems to contradict your earlier statement that you don't actively break anything if people can't see the ads.
My ride is certainly not free, I pay for my connection. I don't know what you pay to put ads on sites but what you are getting from me *is* free. You are placing an ad on a site that I desire to view. I do not desire to view the page so I can see your ad, I want the content in which that ad has been placed. When I connect to a site and your ad is downloaded without my consent you are getting, for free, the bandwidth it takes for me to download your ad.
For all of you who've got ad blockers on and JavaScript and flash turned off, welcome to the beginning of the end.
Oh the delicious irony of seeing this post immediately after a sensible poster mentions graceful degradation.
See, I actually see things differently then you do. I do run with JavaScript disabled for the most part and AdBlock turned on. And you know what? I don't really have that many issues with websites. And if I do run into issues? Well, I really don't care if my browser doesn't work for them.
I think perhaps just because you have "They're not seeing our ads? Well F them then!" attitude towards customers does not a) mean all companies do and more importantly b) not all developers do. Standards are generally designed to implement some backward compatibility. I don't think, despite your gloomy predictions, that this is likely to change anytime soon. The majority of (useful, interesting) sites will continue to keep this in mind in order to take advantage of as many eyeballs as possible.
So I think I'll continue to use ad block, watch all my TV on DVR and skip the commercials, avoid tracking tools, like toolbars that integrate with my browser and in general keep myself as ad free as possible.
Meanwhile you and the rest of the mass marketing industry can try the RIAA route and whine to the government about it. Maybe they'll make my DVR and ad blockers illegal. Then, I guess you win.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly! :-)
What happened to the days when MS, along with Apple, was the hero because they were against the big bad IBM monopoly.
Oh I don't know. Maybe those days ended when Microsoft was forced to settle with the US Dept. Of Justice or risk being guilty of antitrust violations?
You make a good point in support of the parent post. You mentioned Hearts as a great game. Well the only reason so many people can put out Hearts, Mahjong, etc. is that these are public domain. Either they were never "protected" in the first place or have slipped into PD becuase they are so old.
Imagine if someone owned a copyright/patent on the rules for chess. We'd have never been able to enjoy all the hundreds, if not thousands of "implentations" that are chess (E.g. classic board, computer chess, online chess, travel chess with little boards and magnetic pieces).
Not to mention that copyright violations are *infringement* not *theft*.
Ethically speaking you can call it whatever you want. I'm not commenting on the ethics at the moment. But, at least in the US, the legal term for copyright violation is infringment. All the media FUD in the world can't change that. Only, in the US anyway, Congress can change that.
So exactly what is it that makes this solution so grand again?
Not much really. Typical case of MS "innovation"...
Baically Back Office is just a brand for a single-install set of MS Servers. You get a license for a variety of servers but they all run on one machine and they usually come with some sort of master interface for installing and configuring them.
A company I worked for used Back Office (5, I think) for Windows NT 4.0. It came with NT Server 4, SQL Server 7, Exchange 5 and of course the stuff that comes with NT 4 anyway, IIS and it's accompanying FTP and SMTP services.
I haven't used it but I've heard and read a few things about Windows Server 2003 - Small Business Edition. It does the same thing, just updated the name. From what I understand everything about the server can be configured from a web page interface, including users and security.
Overall it's supposed to be a catch all but cheap solution for small businesses. Not a bad idea in theory really but I always steered clear of it as a) I like to use a single server for each service and b) I really don't like running IIS, even on my LAN.
Finally I beleive that Microsoft uses the term Back Office generically to mean any of their server side technologies, whether that's SMS, IIS or Windows Server. Basically if you don't generally roll it out to all your end users, but your end users connect to it and use it's resources then it's considered back office.
Actually, last I checked, it cost *more* to buy a PC from Dell with Linux. I hope that's changed at least.
Don't get me wrong, I see your point. And I'm all for openness and transparancy. But coming from MS? Excuse me while I search for ulterior motives. I guess what I was getting at in my previous post is that in legal proceedings there are sometimes good reasons to seal things from the public. If the Commission mandates that something be sealed then MS should honor that, from a legal standpoint. Now after reading the article and then some comments on this I believe I had it wrong earlier and that the EU has sealed it's side of things but never mandated that MS seal theirs. So, if that's the case, then MS didn't do anything wrong here and I agree that in the spirit of fairness maybe the EU should open up too.
But, bottom line, MS didn't rush to publish everything they could about the US antitrust suit on their site. You would never even know it was going on if you looked to MS as the only source of information on it. I just can't believe that their motive is anything but an attempt to build up some artificle sense of outrage from MS fans worldwide and make the EU look bad.
Anyway, I'm in the US, not the EU so I admit I am probably spouting off without enough knowledge on the subject. Mistrust of MS at this point goes a long way toward biasing my opinions.
I think what the parent poster is reffering to is the (alleged) hidden APIs in Windows. You know, the ones that give say Word a slight performance edge over Word Perfect...
Sure, we don't need or usually even want to know how the underlying implementation works but if your going to create an API, why two? One for you and your crew and a, um sub-par, one for everyone else? How is that "transparent"?
I don't think that's Microsoft's decision to make. If an EU court and the commission deems a document confidential then it should remain so. There are number of items related to the SCO/IBM litigation that I would love to have a look at but the courts, under advisement from both parties, make these items confidential.
If Microsoft is going to show so little respect for the EU and the Commission then I don't really see how they expect to work with them diplomatically over settling this.
I think you meant to leave this comment in this article.
Aww.... What did he do, steal your girlfriend?
Yep she just won't put down the damn iPod.
F&*^ing Jobs. I'm gonna bury that guy!
In my work group, we spend staff meetings keeping track of the jargon used by management. It's interesting to track over time.
If you could come up with an off the shelf component that would make it easy for anyone to track these statistics and graph the results we could see a major, industry wide paradigm shift for both bottom liners *and* buzzword spewers.
Thank you, I just remembered what my favorite Python sketch is!
Yeah well they also started saying "it was never about cvopyright" when Novell put up a pretty solid case that the copyrights belong to them. Sure they now need to prove it in court but in the meantime it casts a heavy shadow of doubt over SCO's claims. So yep, now it's just about contracts. Well now we'll see if, based on contracts, IBM has been singled out here. I'm guessing that Sun, HP and IBM all have similar contracts that go back to the ATT/USL days.
The bottom line is if SCO wants to sue people over "methods, concepts and ideas" they better sue themselves first. lxrun comes to mind, not to mention oldSCO's participation in the Open Group and their publishing of Unix specs and standards.
Wouldn't it be cheaper to spend a few grand and pay Bruce Willis to kill Gates and Ballmer?
If they really want to get the job done right they better call in Chuck Norris. Darl needs a good round house to the face!
No, no. You see, you've upgraded to version 16 of OXML*. He's still using Version 9. (The Obfuscaetd version number is encoded at position 3 and 4, starting at zero of course).
*OXML - Obfuscated eXtensible Markup Language, the binary encoded version of an open standard!
Kokomo.. didn't the Eagles sing something about that.. or was that somewhere in hawaii?
It was the Beach Boys.
Ha, if the EU wants decent specs and someone who understands how SMB actually works they better look to someone else besides MS.
OK, OK, I responded while suffering from a serious caffeine defficiancy...
I think the most telling part of your post is that you list HTML, SQL and FLASH as programming languages.
I am probably one of the biggest Linux Fanboys out there, I am not afraid to admit it. And I love to bash on MS.
But when I get serious and talk "right tool for the right job" I would heartily disagree with your feelings about Access.
I began my career in IT on Access (V. 1.1, Win 3). I've loved it ever since. I write all sorts of automation solutions for our company in Access. We use Great Plains and I've saved the company thousands of dollars by creating little, even somewhat crappy, automation routines in Access instead of buying some bloated module for GP that does way more then we need it to. It's quick, easy and gets the job done.
Access and ODBC let me connect to any database I want. I have our web site scp a snapshot of our MySQL databases to a local test copy of the web site. And I use Access to connect to it and run quick & dirty reports and queries. You like SQL Server but Access is not a substitute for MSSQL, it's a compliment to it. You can connect to SQL using Access. I tend to start my projects first in Access so I can carry it around with me while I develop it. When I feel the project is ready for a first release it is very easy to upload all my tables, data and queries to SQL Server and simply link in the new tables. No need to change my forms, reports or code because the linked tables are named the same, they just reside in a more robust and scalable database now that they are deployed.
Access's interface does take some getting used to and VBA is not a Real(TM) programming language but the beauty of VBA is, if you don't like the Access interface, change it using VBA. When I finish an automation solution that keeps some poor SOB in my company from typing the same data into our systems day in and day out the interface he/she uses is far different then that of standard Access.
Bottom line is, it's all about using the right tool for the job and for the small company I work for Access is the right tool in some very key situations.
P.S. I realize there are 100's, if not 1000's of other solutions that do similar things to what I describe above. My company owned Access and MSSQL so that and my familiarity with Access led to my choice.
That's funny that you mention that. As I read this line:
:-)
The survey also showed that 34 percent of online men were surfing for fun on an average day in December...
my brain immediately substitued the word fun with porn.
Hmmm... I am probably risking some fingers by feeding the troll here but I guess I started it so here goes...
/., but I contribute to discussions, have submitted a few stories and even got a geeky kind of thrill asking Cmdr Taco about features on the site through email. I don't see any notices on the front page saying "please don't turn off our ads!" or notices that my JS is turned off and could I please turn it back on so the site can track me better... Again just because I don't spend time looking at ads does not mean I don't buy things. Ad relevance is getting better but most ads on the net are no better then Tampon commercials during a football game.
:-)
How the hell are you a customer if you refuse to view the ads?
Ok, first what are you selling? Just because I don't see your ads does not mean I'm not a customer. Tigerdirect sends me flyers (at home and work) and email all the time that go in the garbage the minute I get them. But guess who I buy 90% of my and my company's computers from? All the Dell, Newegg and IBM popups in the world don't change that and if Tigerdirect stopped sending me ads tomorrow I would still buy my stuff from them...
We're supposed to spend time and money to makes sure that self-important leeches like you can see our content?
How am I leech? I turn the ads off on
Let me clarify that we don't actively block our content from people who can't view the ads.
That's great. That's how you're *supposed* to do it.
But to go out of our way so "just_another_sean" who's so frickin l33t that he's got his Firefox adblockers and flash and js disablers installed and is gleefully laughing at his free ride can get the full experience of our sites?
What again am I missing? This last statement seems to contradict your earlier statement that you don't actively break anything if people can't see the ads.
My ride is certainly not free, I pay for my connection. I don't know what you pay to put ads on sites but what you are getting from me *is* free. You are placing an ad on a site that I desire to view. I do not desire to view the page so I can see your ad, I want the content in which that ad has been placed. When I connect to a site and your ad is downloaded without my consent you are getting, for free, the bandwidth it takes for me to download your ad.
But hey, thanks for noticing how 1337 I am...
For all of you who've got ad blockers on and JavaScript and flash turned off, welcome to the beginning of the end.
Oh the delicious irony of seeing this post immediately after a sensible poster mentions graceful degradation.
See, I actually see things differently then you do. I do run with JavaScript disabled for the most part and AdBlock turned on. And you know what? I don't really have that many issues with websites. And if I do run into issues? Well, I really don't care if my browser doesn't work for them.
I think perhaps just because you have "They're not seeing our ads? Well F them then!" attitude towards customers does not a) mean all companies do and more importantly b) not all developers do. Standards are generally designed to implement some backward compatibility. I don't think, despite your gloomy predictions, that this is likely to change anytime soon. The majority of (useful, interesting) sites will continue to keep this in mind in order to take advantage of as many eyeballs as possible.
So I think I'll continue to use ad block, watch all my TV on DVR and skip the commercials, avoid tracking tools, like toolbars that integrate with my browser and in general keep myself as ad free as possible.
Meanwhile you and the rest of the mass marketing industry can try the RIAA route and whine to the government about it. Maybe they'll make my DVR and ad blockers illegal. Then, I guess you win.